"An important [book] on a crucial topic. . . . As educative as it is healing. . . . does justice to the hundreds of African and diaspora physicians who bore the white man's burden."--A. G. Adebayo, Kennesaw State College "A carefully researched study which illuminates crucial topics in the history of colonial Africa, the African diaspora, and the history of medicine, this important book will interest scholars from many fields."--K. David Patterson, University of North Carolina, Charlotte This history of West African medicine, seen through the biographies of African practitioners, documents the struggles of the medical profession in Africa to achieve autonomy and self-definition. The practice of African medicine is ancient--the source, in fact, of a great deal of Western medical knowledge from the Middle Ages onward. Until the close of the 19th century, African and West Indian physicians were able to work freely to protect the health of Africans and Europeans alike in West Africa. In 1901, however, when colonialism--and pseudoscientific racism--was in full force, British administrative action brought about an era of restrictions and segregation, a time of "closed shop," as British middle-class policy makers described it in the 1950s. Even African physicians trained in the United States and the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries were unwelcome in their countries of origin upon their return home. This book discusses the role of African doctors in colonial state and society, the emergence of Africa's modern medical service, and the contribution of African physicians to an understanding of African diseases and their treatment. It also deals with traditional African medicine, beginning in Egypt 3,000 years ago. Historians and social scientists specializing in West African history, and African historians in general--especially those interested in medicine--will find the book essential. Adell Patton, Jr., is associate professor of history at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. An Africanist born in Arkansas, he is the author of book chapters and of articles in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, the Journal of Negro History, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and other journals.


This collection represents the thirty-year intellectual trajectory of one of today's leading historians of gender and labor in the United States. The seventeen essays included in Alice Kessler-Harris's Gendering Labor History are divided into 4 sections, narrating the evolution and refinement of her central project: to show gender's fundamental importance to the shaping of U.S. history and working-class culture. The first section considers women and organized labor; the second pushes this analysis towards a gendered labor history as the essays consider the gendering of male as well as female workers and how gender operates with and within the social category of class. Subsequent sections broaden this framework to examine U.S. social policy as a whole, the question of economic citizenship, and wage labor from a global perspective. While each essay represents an important intervention in American historiography in itself, the collection taken as a whole reveals Kessler-Harris as someone who has always pushed the field of American history to greater levels of inclusion and analysis, and who continues to do so today.


The Lemmermann Foundation offers scholarships to masters and doctoral students in the classical studies and humanities. Fields of study include but are not limited to Archaeology, History, History of Art, Italian, Latin, Musicology, Philosophy, and Philology. Applicants must provide evidence for their need to study and carry out research in Rome. Topic of research must be related to Rome or the Roman culture from the Pre-Roman period to the present day.


The effects of soil drenches with systemic fungicides on viability of clavicipitaceous anamorphic endophytes, non-choke inducing endosymbiotic fungi of the genus Neotyphodium that systemically infect grasses, were tested in endophyte-infected seedlings of Hordeum brevisubulatum subsp. violaceum, Lolium perenne and Festuca arundinacea germplasm. None of the endophytes of these grasses were sensitive to benomyl at 3-5 ppt. The endophyte of H. brevisubulatum was sensitive only to propiconazole. The viability of the F. arundinacea endophyte (N, coenophialum) was reduced, but not completed eliminated by prochloraz, imazalil and propiconazole in the 2-3 ppt range. Aerated-steam seed treatments at 60 C for 5 min were effective in reducing viability of the perennial ryegrass endophyte (N. lolii) by 83%, although some reduction in seed germination and negative growth effects were observed. A novel disease-control method, supercritical fluid carbon dioxide extraction (SFE-Cod, for the elimination of Neotyphodium-endophytes in grass seeds is reported here for the first time. The endophyte N. lolii was completely controlled in seeds of L. perenne cv. Ellett by extracting the seeds at 400 atmospheres for 10 or 20 min. Only minor reductions in seed germination resulted from the SFE-CO, seed-extraction treatment and no appreciable effects on growth of seedlings or mature plants were observed. Several potential applications of these disease-control technologies for seedborne fungal pathogens are discussed.


Based on the clonal evolution theory of cancer formation, a single cell within a tissue gains a cancer-driving mutation and thus a growth advantage. From this expanded cellular mass, another cell gains a new mutation allowing this newly mutated cell to gain new competitive advantage and to expand in number (thus clonal expansion). Another clone then emerges. Eventually all required mutations are gained, and a cancer forms. Consequently, while a primary lesion may harbor divergent subclones, all the subclones within the primary cancer as well as all metastatic growths in secondary organs share at least the very first oncogenic mutation that initiates the primary cancer. However, by tracking genetically marked mammary epithelial cells that suffered the initiating oncogenic mutation—and their neighboring mammary cells that did not-in several mouse models of human breast cancer, we found that genetically unrelated mammary epithelial cells can be colluded by neighboring mutated cells to disseminate, and that they can even undergo de novo tumorigenic transformation and form distant metastases. Therefore, clonally unrelated epithelial cells may contribute to cancer progression and to the heterogeneity of the systemic disease. The non-linear cancer spread has important implications in cancer prevention, treatment, and therapeutic resistance.


Online course has created many success stories since its inceptions. It has opened opportunities for learners, instructors, universities, companies, and other organizations to fulfill their needs in education and even creates new needs which previously are unthinkable possible. Online course providers have central roles in bridging and fulfilling the needs of these many parties. This paper modelled online course services based on identification of the needs for online course in a form of activity flow diagrams. The model also includes the context diagram of stakeholders involved and the entity relationship diagram. Primary service components of major online course providers and activities involved in each service are identified. Based on these service components, a comparison of services offered by major online course providers is given. The needs of services that are least or not yet satisfied from online course providers are also identified to show that there are still opportunities to enhance the current services.


This paper investigates how to utilize different forms of human interaction to safely train autonomous systems in realtime by learning from both human demonstrations and interventions. We implement two components of the Cycle-of Learning for Autonomous Systems, which is our framework for combining multiple modalities of human interaction. The current effort employs human demonstrations to teach a desired behavior via imitation learning, then leverages intervention data to correct for undesired behaviors produced by the imitation learner to teach novel tasks to an autonomous agent safely, after only minutes of training. We demonstrate this method in an autonomous perching task using a quadrotor with continuous roll, pitch, yaw, and throttle commands and imagery captured from a downward-facing camera in a high-fidelity simulated environment. Our method improves task completion performance for the same amount of human interaction when compared to learning from demonstrations alone, while also requiring on average 32% less data to achieve that performance. This provides evidence that combining multiple modes of human interaction can increase both the training speed and overall performance of policies for autonomous systems.


Background: Psoriasis is a heterogeneous disease with several clinical manifestations; the symptoms are characterized by redness, scaliness and thickness of the skin. There are several treatment options available for psoriasis and patients with moderate to severe psoriasis generally need systemic agents. In 2004 biologics were introduced for patients with moderate to severe psoriasis in Sweden.Methods: The Swedish Health Care Registers and the Swedish registry for systemic treatment of psoriasis PsoReg, were used to; estimate the incidence of psoriasis cases in the Swedish specialist care, to examine the treatment allocation and important factors related to the initiation of especially biologic treatment.Results: On average 9000 new psoriasis patients entered specialist care in Sweden each year under study, corresponding to an incidence of 98 patients per 100,000 person-years. In the treatment allocation analysis of the incident psoriasis cases in the Swedish specialist care Patients living in a Metropolitan Area and with a University degree were more likely to initiate a biologic treatment. By analysing biologic-naive patients enrolled in PsoReg, PASI (the physician's assessment of the psoriasis severity) and Psoriasis Arthropathy were shown to be two important factors associated with the initiation of biologic treatment while sex was not. Furthermore, it was also shown that the decision to initiate biological treatment was more strongly associated with PASI than with DLQI (the patients' assessment of the disease impact Quality of Life).Conclusion: These studies indicate that there are inequalities in the assignments of systemic psoriasis treatments (especially in biologic treatment). Since the allocation of treatments should not depend on sex, education or residency in a Metropolitan Area but rather the need of care, it is important that future studies continue analysing possible factors that could influence the initiation of treatment in clinical practice.


The aim of this investigation was to measure the
intelligibility of educated Nigerian speakers of English to
British listeners and to analyse the main causes of intelligibility
failure. The test material consisted of the following:
I- Connected Speech, II - Reading Passage, III -
Phonemes, IVA - Stress, IVB - Intonation. The speech of 24
Nigerian first-year university students - 12 Yoruba and 12
Hausa speakers - was recorded. An RP speaker was also recorded.
The-recordings were played to 240 British listeners, each
Nigerian speaker being assessed by 10 British listeners.
A scoring system was devised for the tests of
Connected Speech. The intelligibility scores ranged from
92.7% to 29.9%, with a mean score of 64.4%. The RP speaker's
score (based on all 240 listeners) was 99.4%. Listeners'
impressionistic judgements of the speakers' intelligibility
correlated closely with the scores obtained on Test I. The
most intelligible Nigerian speaker was 93% as efficient as
the RP speaker, the mean Nigerian speaker was 65% as efficient,
and the least intelligible Nigerian speaker 30% as efficient
as the RP speaker.
Test I- Connected Speech - was taken as the criterion
of fundamental importance in assessing intelligibility.
The other tests were regarded as subsidiary. - It was found
that Connected Speech was significantly correlated with Reading
and Stress, but not with the tests of Phonemes and
Intonation. Partial correlation analyses showed that stress
is the major component of all aspects of intelligibility.
The errors leading to intelligibility failure were
categorised into four groupings: - rhythmic/stress, segmental,
phonotactic, lexical/syntactic. Rhythmic/stress errors
(38.2% for all speakers) were the major cause of intelligibility
failure. This was closely followed by segmental errors (33.0%).
Phonotactic errors (20.00) were of lesser importance, while
lexical/syntactic errors (8.8%) were of minor importance.
Details of the actual phonetic errors are summarised in
Chapters 11-13. The study concludes with some observations
on the testing and teaching of oral English in the light of
these findings.


Flexibility in course scheduling is an integral part of institutional strategies used to increase student engagement and success, yet little research exists that examines scheduling as a key factor that determines students' experiences and educational outcomes. This study explored the undergraduate sport science students and their teachers at Jimma University, Ethiopia, regarding their experiences in semester-based and block scheduling formats as well as their reflections and perspectives on the effectiveness of these scheduling formats for teaching and learning. For this, the study used an exploratory mixed-methods design consisting of individual interviews with six teachers and focus group interviews with undergraduate sports sciences student sample (n = 40), and institutional archives of the sampled students' cumulative grade point averages (GPAs). The study findings indicate divergent views regarding their perceptions and mixed experiences with the semester-based and block scheduled courses. Irrespective of these, the majority of participants reported that teachers' missing scheduled classes, tending not to teach the full time of the class session, continual lecturing, and scarcity of instructional resources are the major challenges surrounding the implementation of both semester-based and block teaching. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research, implementation, and intervention design.


Erythromycin-resistant derivatives of the pheromone-responsive plasmid pIP964 from Enterococcus faecalis were constructed to study its host range. This was done by inserting the integrative vector pAT112 and the related replicon pTCR1 harboring oriR of the broad host range plasmid pAM beta 1 into the hemolysin-bacteriocin operon of pIP964, to give pTCR2 and pTCR3, respectively. Plasmid pTCR2 was transferred by filter matings from E. faecalis to Enterococcus faecium and Listeria monocytogenes at frequencies of 2 x 10(-7) and 5 x 10(-7) per donor, respectively, in the apparent absence of pheromone induction and cellular aggregation. In these hosts, pTCR2 remained intact as a self-replicating element and maintained its transfer capabilities. Plasmid pTCR3, but not pTCR2, was transferred at similar frequencies from E. faecalis to Lactococcus lactis and Streptococcus agalactiae. Thus, the transfer system of pIP964 possesses a broader host-range than its replication system.


The article addresses diversity work as a specific form of management work that involves complex micro-political strategies of resistance. Diversity work stems from an activist agenda that has been adopted by mainstream management practice, especially new public sector management. But in being adopted, it has been critiqued for also being co-opted, and as a result de-radicalized. The article seeks to examine this critique. First, we examine the politics of diversity, discussing critiques of diversity work from political theory and referencing femocrats, an earlier movement affecting women in management. Secondly, we recognize that the ambivalence of diversity work can be understood in terms of co-optation and resistance. Here our central contribution is to understand these two processes in a much more nuanced way, drawing on our own and other organizational studies of diversity work in practice. We locate this more nuanced analysis of diversity work in the emergent context of new public sector management. We draw attention to three micro-practices that help to exhibit a complex understanding of co-optation and resistance: (a) discursive resources, (b) embodied resources and (c) management technologies as resources. Finally, we conclude by outlining the article's contribution: extending Meyerson and Scully's notion of the tempered radical in four key ways. We do this by emphasizing the importance of the specificities of occupational resources of resistance, arguing that resources of resistance move beyond the discursive, emphasizing the gendered, classed and racialized variegated nature of insider/outsider dynamics and finally, stressing that co-optation and resistance are temporal, dynamic, intermingled processes in diversity work.


It has become nearly a commonplace to say that the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts is a court of "incrementalism." The 2008 Term, however, featured several opinions decisions that showcase the procedural extremism of the current conservative majority. In a series of sharply divided decisions, the Court re-shaped the law that governs the workplace - or more specifically the law that governs whether and how employees will be permitted access to the courts to litigate workplace disputes. At least as important as the Court's changes to the substantive legal standards are the procedural hurdles the five justices in the majority were willing to sidestep or ignore to reach their desired outcomes. In Gross v. FBL Financial Services and 14 Penn Plaza v. Pyett, the Court ignored - and essentially overruled - long-settled precedent. In Ricci v. DeStefano, the Court took upon itself the role of fact-finder, resolving disputed facts in the underlying record as it applied a newly-minted legal standard to the case. And in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, the Court completed what was essentially a revision of the pleading rules, articulating a standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 that imposes particular burdens on plaintiffs - like those in employment discrimination disputes - whose claims include an element of intent. Together, these four opinions demonstrate that the Court's current reputation for incrementalism - at least in this important area of civil rights - is unwarranted.


The severe shortage of black chartered accountants (CAs) in South Africa highlights the need for equity in the development of future accountants. However, despite the transformation initiatives that had already been introduced by then, at the end of 2001, black CAs were still grossly underrepresented in the membership of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). Furthermore, black trainee accountants still experienced cultural and social alienation, hostility and mistrust in their ability, resulting in their not reaching their full potential. This article investigates the progress made in transforming the accountancy profession in South Africa since 2001. It surveyed the obstacles black trainee accountants still encounter, using a questionnaire that took into account issues identified from the literature reviewed. A number of recommendations are made on the basis of the findings. The results show that black accountants are still a minority in the accountancy profession. Black trainees currently believe that they receive very good training; however, they also believe it is more difficult to be a black trainee than a white trainee. Different cultural backgrounds, a lack in social skills and race‐based perceptions were identified as the key obstacles they currently encounter.


Cline and Williamson update their estimates of fundamental equilibrium exchange rates (FEERs) for leading advanced and emerging-market economies. This policy brief is a sequel to Policy Brief 08-7, published last July, and is based on the latest developments in the world economy. The authors, refining their methodology from last year, estimate a set of current account targets for 34 countries. On the basis of these estimates, they calculate the bilateral exchange rates against the dollar needed to meet these targets, using Cline's symmetric matrix inversion method (SMIM) first presented in Working Paper 08-6. The authors find significant changes in calculated FEERs from their estimates last year. These changes are due in part to the world financial crisis, which created a significant safe-haven effect for the dollar and led to sharp declines in oil prices. As a result of these developments, the dollar has returned to significant overvaluation of about 17 percent: Every currency examined needs to appreciate against the dollar. While some imbalances with Europe have reemerged since last year, the major imbalance remains vis-a-vis certain Asian currencies, particularly the Chinese renminbi, which needs to rise by about 20 percent on a trade-weighted average basis and by about 40 percent against the dollar. Finally, the authors compare their 2009 FEERs estimates with their estimates from last year in order to assess the accuracy and validity of FEERs estimation.


In Indonesia, Acacia mangium plantations exceed 1.6 Mha contributing approximately 3.5% of the country's GDP. The viability of these plantations is increasingly threatened by fungal pathogens, insect pests, squirrels, monkeys, elephants and wind damage. Studies indicate that the problem is growing and in some areas, fungal pathogens such as Ganoderma and Ceratocystis species have contributed up to 50% tree mortality by the fourth rotation. Multiple statistical procedures were employed to examine the influence of soil and topographical properties on tree survival (trees ha−1), wood production (m3 ha−1), and mortality associated with Ganoderma root rot, Ceratocystis wilt and by wind. Soil family level was found to be a good indicator of tree mortality. Plots with fine-loamy Typic Kandiudult soils had the highest tree survival and mortality associated with species of Ganoderma and Ceratocystis, but had the lowest incidence of mortality by wind. The degree of association between soil and topographic variables with tree survival, wood production and the cause of mortality were poor and inconsistent. Tree survival was slightly higher on upslope areas away from valley bottoms, and drier mid-slopes, ridges and hilltops, and very low pH (<3.3) soils. Wood production was also slightly higher in drier, elevated locations, away from valley bottoms. Mortality by wind was slightly higher in moist, poorly drained, low-lying valley bottoms and topographically flat areas. Our ability to further pinpoint the influence of topography and soil attributes on wood production and cause of mortality was greatly compromised by the lack of site-specific soil data, and potential misclassification of the cause of mortality. This study could not reliably or consistently relate tree survival, wood production or the cause of mortality to any one, or combination of, soil and topographic variables.


Human eyes not only serve the function of enabling us "to see" something, but also perform the vital role of allowing us "to show" our gaze for non-verbal communication, such as through establishing eye contact and joint attention. The eyes of service robots should therefore also perform both of these functions. Moreover, they should be friendly in appearance so that humans may feel comfortable with the robots. Therefore we maintain that it is important to consider gaze communication capability and friendliness in designing the appearance of robot eyes. In this paper, we propose a new robot face with rear-projected eyes for changing their appearance while simultaneously realizing the sight function by incorporating stereo cameras. Additionally, we examine which shape of robot eyes is most suitable for gaze reading and gives the friendliest impression, through experiments where we altered the shape and iris size of robot eyes.


When smooth muscle of Mytilus is treated with relatively weak solutions of sodium cyanide, a transitory hyperpolarization or no change in polarization precedes final depolarization. Thresholds for thermal, chemical, and electrical stimulation are all decreased during this period. Strength-duration curves indicate a reversible decrease in threshold of about 50 percent during this period.


The coverage of cervical cancer screening in South Africa is inadequate, with an estimated 8.8-million unscreened women who are mainly serviced by the public health sector in lower-resourced areas. Alternative screening options need to be considered. Every step in the screening process needs to be critically evaluated to design a practical programme without a bottleneck, to deliver maximum benefit with limited available resources. Patient self-sampling has been identified as an acceptable method of specimen collection for many women. Patient selfsampling, combined with high-risk human papillomavirus-based testing, has the potential to increase cervical cancer screening coverage, especially in areas where screening is inadequate. Peer reviewed. (Submitted: 2013-11-08. Accepted: 2013-11-28.) © SASGO South Afr J Gynaecol Oncol 2013;5(2):S5-S9


The paper presents a statistical analysis of neural network (NN) inversion of Hammerstein systems. The system model is composed of a memoryless non linearity g(.) followed by a linear filter H. The inverse system is a nonlinear Wiener system consisting of an adaptive filter Q followed by a memoryless perceptron. The adaptive filter Q aims at inverting the linear part of the system (adaptive deconvolution). The perceptron aims at inverting the memoryless function (adaptive function inversion). The adaptive system is trained using the backpropagation algorithm (BP). The paper proposes recursions for the mean weight behavior during the learning process. The expression of the mean squared error (MSE) is given as function of the Hammerstein system parameters, the adaptive filter coefficients and the NN weights. The paper is supported with illustrations and computer simulations which show good agreement with theoretical analysis.


Infectious diseases are one of the major causes of economic losses in poultry industries. In many instances, there are no specific signs that are associated with a particular disease. Besides clinical signs and findings from post mortem examinations, diagnostic tools based on serological and molecular detections are used to confirm the causative agents. However, the identification of causative agents and the detection of specific antibody responses in relation to a clinical problem are complicated due to the concurrent infections and improper use of vaccines. Currently, the poultry industry is threatened by more virulent viruses of endemic diseases or by exotic and emerging diseases that can cause major economic losses to this sector. The emergence and re-emergence of avian influenza virus (AIV), particularly the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, the presence of endemic low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H9N2 in poultry flock and recently the detection of the novel H7H9 and H10N8 in certain regions in China posed threats to the poultry industry and public health sector. Infection with HPAI such as H5N1 is easy to diagnose. However, the real challenge is to confront H7N9, H9N2, H10N8 and other LPAI which act in concert with other factors such as management, environment, nutrition and concurrent infections which possess a continuous threat to the entire poultry production system. The repeated outbreaks of diseases caused by variant strains of infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), velogenic Newcastle disease viruses (NDV) and more virulent viruses of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV) and Marek's disease virus (MDV) in well managed poultry flocks have prompted the need to evaluate the underlying factors contributing to the failure of vaccinations to provide protection against clinical infections and transmission of disease. In the field, vaccination failure is a complex event involving various factors associated with vaccine strains and vaccination program, the virulence of field pathogens and the host immune competence. In many situations, immunosuppressive agents, primarily the MDV, IBDV and chicken anemia virus play an important role in increasing the susceptibility of chickens to opportunistic infections and/or suppressing effective vaccine induced responses. Vaccination is the most cost-effective method available in preventing economic losses and increasing the lifespan of animals. Undoubtedly, diagnostic tools, vaccines and vaccination equipment have improved over the years through the use of innovative technology. However, vaccine is not evolution-proof and it may enhance virus evolution especially in the absence of sterilizing immunity allowing wild type viruses to be transmitted through vaccinated chickens.Despite advancements in genetic engineered tools, conventional laboratory diagnosis using serological tests and conventional vaccines are used extensively in health and disease management of poultry. Nearly all poultry vaccines are conventional vaccines which consist of live-attenuated and killed vaccines that have generally worked well. However, avian pathogens continue to change and develop ways to evade the immunity induced by the current vaccines. In addition, as the poultry industry become more intensive, accurate, economical and practical laboratory diagnostic tools are important for the effective control of disease outbreaks. The advancements in the use of molecular detection method using real-time PCR approach, highly automated instruments for antibody detection and development of rapid on site assays for virus antigen detection may have significant impact in the field of disease prevention and control. In the area of vaccinology, most of the advances in the development of recombinant vaccines against poultry diseases are based on the development of recombinant viral vectored, DNA plasmid and reverse genetic vaccines. However, it is anticipated that more recombinant based vaccines will be used in the field in the near future. In addition, the advancement on "omic" technology are paving novel approaches for the development of new generation adjuvants and vaccines as well as breeding for disease resistance based on our improving knowledge of the chicken immunogenomic response to disease. However, the development and delivery of new or improved poultry diagnostics, vaccines and pharmaceutical which fulfill the industry, regulatory and public acceptance is a challenging process. Although the majority of poultry viruses are pathogenic to chickens, some of them especially NDV has the potential to act as a live saver in humans due to its unique properties as viral vectored vaccine against other infectious diseases and selective oncolytic properties on human cancer cells. The continuous encouraging results of NDV oncolytic virotherapy in human clinical trials will facilitate the approval of NDV as ancillary therapy of human cancer in the near future. Innovative research on the use of NDV as human vaccines and therapeutics should be explored via multi-disciplinary approach by various expert groups. In conclusion, as the poultry industry is expanding and the globalization of poultry and poultry by products, much is needed to improve the control and prevention of diseases. The emerging and emerging of diseases especially transboundary diseases can impact socioeconomic of a country and global food security. The strengthening our scientific and technical capacity, especially through innovative technology and strategy, will help to meet the current challenges and ever changing needs of the nation and the world.


ABSTRACT The capsule from Bacteroides, a common gut symbiont, has long been a model system for studying the molecular mechanisms of host-symbiont interactions. The Bacteroides capsule is thought to consist of an array of phase-variable polysaccharides that give rise to subpopulations with distinct cell surface structures. Here, we report the serendipitous discovery of a previously unknown surface structure in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron: a surface layer composed of a protein of unknown function, BT1927. BT1927, which is expressed in a phase-variable manner by ~1:1,000 cells in a wild-type culture, forms a hexagonally tessellated surface layer. The BT1927-expressing subpopulation is profoundly resistant to complement-mediated killing, due in part to the BT1927-mediated blockade of C3b deposition. Our results show that the Bacteroides surface structure is capable of a far greater degree of structural variation than previously known, and they suggest that structural variation within a Bacteroides species is important for productive gut colonization. IMPORTANCE Many bacterial species elaborate a capsule, a structure that resides outside the cell wall and mediates microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions. Species of Bacteroides, the most abundant genus in the human gut, produce a capsule that consists of an array of polysaccharides, some of which are known to mediate interactions with the host immune system. Here, we report the discovery of a previously unknown surface structure in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. We show that this protein-based structure is expressed by a subset of cells in a population and protects Bacteroides from killing by complement, a component of the innate immune system. This novel surface layer protein is conserved across many species of the genus Bacteroides, suggesting an important role in colonization and host immune modulation. Many bacterial species elaborate a capsule, a structure that resides outside the cell wall and mediates microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions. Species of Bacteroides, the most abundant genus in the human gut, produce a capsule that consists of an array of polysaccharides, some of which are known to mediate interactions with the host immune system. Here, we report the discovery of a previously unknown surface structure in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron. We show that this protein-based structure is expressed by a subset of cells in a population and protects Bacteroides from killing by complement, a component of the innate immune system. This novel surface layer protein is conserved across many species of the genus Bacteroides, suggesting an important role in colonization and host immune modulation.


We consider the leader selection problem in which a system of networked agents, subject to stochastic disturbances, uses a decentralized coordinated feedback law to track an unknown external signal, and only a limited number of agents, known as leaders, can measure the signal directly. The optimal leader selection minimizes the total system error by minimizing the steady-state variance about the external signal, equivalent to an H2 norm of the linear stochastic network dynamics. Efficient greedy algorithms have been proposed in the literature for similar optimal leader selection problems. In contrast, we seek systematic solutions. We prove that the single optimal leader is the node in the network graph with maximal information centrality. In the case of two leaders, we prove that the optimal pair maximizes a joint centrality, which depends on the information centrality of each leader and how well the pair covers the graph. We apply these results to solve explicitly for the optimal single leader and the optimal pair of leaders in special classes of network graphs. To generalize we compute joint centrality for m leaders.


The work presents the results of the studies of the effect of the temperature on the microstructure of ausferritic nodular cast iron. The ausferrite in the matrix was obtained by way of a specific combination of molybdenum and copper. The cast iron underwent annealing at the temperatures of 520, 550 and 580°C. The work presents the effect of the annealing temperature on the fraction of austenite in the cast iron matrix. The annealed and non-annealed cast iron hardness is given. The work also proves that an increase in the temperature up to 580°C causes a drop in the cast iron hardness.


In an endeavor to examine how optical excitation of C60 and PCBM contribute to the photogeneration of charge carriers in organic solar cells, we investigated stationary photogeneration in single-layer C60 and PCBM films over a broad spectrum as a function of the electric field. We find that intrinsic photogeneration starts at a photon energy of about 2.25 eV, i.e., about 0.4 eV above the first singlet excited state. It originates from charge transfer type states that can autoionize before relaxing to the lower-energy singlet S1 state, in the spirit of Onsager's 1938 theory. We analyze the internal quantum efficiency as a function of electric field and photon energy to determine (1) the Coulombic binding and separation of the electron–hole pairs, (2) the value of the electrical gap, and (3) which fraction of photoexcitations can fully separate at a given photon energy. The latter depends on the coupling between the photogenerated charge transfer states and the eventual charge transporting states. It is by ...


Background The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) axes play an important role in the stress responses of children with critical illness admitted to a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU). While lower levels of plasma cortisol during admission for meningococcal disease have been associated with higher mortality, it is not known whether critical illness affects the subsequent regulation of these stress response-mediating mechanisms, and whether any dysregulation is related to psychological sequelae. Aims The present investigation aims to assess whether HPA and SAM axis function, as measured by salivary cortisol and α-amylase (sAA)—two non-invasive markers of the activation of the HPA and SAM axis, respectively—is altered 3 to 6 months following critical illness and PICU admission. Methods The study is part of a prospective study of neuropsychological function in children following admission to PICU. Salivary cortisol and sAA levels of children aged 5 to 16 admitted to PICUs were documented 3–6 months following discharge, and compared as a whole group and as disorder subgroups (ie, meningoencephalitis, sepsis, and non-septic illness) with those of age and gender matched healthy controls. Salivary samples were collected at time of awaking, 30 min and 12 h after awaking, on two consecutive weekdays. Results Recruitment of participants is currently ongoing. Preliminary data from 19 children (10 males, 9 females) admitted to PICU (mean age: 10.53 years; SD 3.69) has been analysed and compared with data from 14 healthy controls (10 males, 4 females; mean age 11.93, SD 2.84). No differences between the whole PICU group and healthy controls were found on awaking or 30 min cortisol levels nor on any of the sAA measures, but there was a trend for lower evening cortisol in the PICU participants (p=.058). The comparison between PICU subgroups and healthy controls showed statistically significant lower evening cortisol levels in the non-septic illness subgroup (n=7) only (p=0.007). Conclusion Our preliminary findings suggest anomalies in cortisol regulation following admission to PICU. These findings need confirmation in a larger sample and their relevance for neurocognitive and emotional function require clarification.


Professors Hanoch Dagan and Avihay Dorfman's article Just Relationships is a fundamental reinterpretation of the moral ideals of large swaths of private law. Its significance, however, may go beyond even that broad ambition. In this Response, I suggest that Just Relationships is also an exemplar — perhaps par excellence — of an emergent form of critical discourse, which may itself foreshadow a paradigm shift in contemporary critical legal scholarship. That new form of scholarship might usefully be dubbed "the new legal criticism." The label serves partly as an echo of the "New Criticism" movement that emerged in literary criticism in the middle of the twentieth-century, which, in methodological ways, the new legal criticism very much resembles. But primarily, the label "new legal criticism" suggests that this ascendant group of legal scholars articulates a different point of departure for critical thinking about law — particularly for critical thinking about private law — from that which most immediately preceded it in twentieth century legal thought: the critical legal studies movement.
Part I describes new legal criticism and compares it with the critical legal scholarship movements of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Part II further expands my claim that Just Relationships is a good exemplar of the new legal criticism by looking at the roles played by relational justice in Dagan and Dorfman's explication of their jurisprudential claims. Part III looks at the limits of new legal criticism, again as exemplified by Just Relationships. I will explore whether the reliance of the new legal criticism on law itself in the development of the idea of justice limits its potency as a form of criticism by comparing the authors' discussion of discrimination in housing with a subject they do not address, at-will employment. Finally, the conclusion explores possible avenues of further exploration within the authors' chosen field — private law, largely understood — and within the parameters set by the new legal criticism's premises.


This study examines the relationship between different types of conversational interaction and SLA. Long's (1996) updated version of the interactionist hypothesis claims that implicit negative feedback, which can be obtained through negotiated interaction, facilitates SLA. Similar claims for the benefits of negotiation have been made by Pica (1994) and Gass (1997). Some support for the interaction hypothesis has been provided by studies that have explored the effects of interaction on production (Gass & Varonis, 1994), on lexical acquisition (Ellis, Tanaka, & Yamazaki, 1994), on the short-term outcomes of pushed output (see Swain, 1995), and for specific interactional features such as recasts (Long, Inagaki, & Ortega, 1998; Mackey & Philp, 1998). However, other studies have not found effects for interaction on grammatical development (Loschky, 1994). The central question addressed by the current study was: Can conversational interaction facilitate second language development? The study employed a pretest-posttest design. Adult ESL learners (N = 34) of varying L1 backgrounds were divided into four experimental groups and one control group. They took part in task-based interaction. Research questions focused on the developmental outcomes of taking part in various types of interaction. Active participation in interaction and the developmental level of the learner were considered. Results of this study support claims concerning a link between interaction and grammatical development and highlight the importance of active participation in the interaction.


Beginning with remarks on the complementary functions of basic research and interpretive scholarship, the first part of the essay focuses on varying concepts of Bach images, discusses authentic and unauthentic Bach portraits as well as images of the composer's personality, and criticizes the often insufficient regard for basic research. The second part of the article deals with the development of Bach's self-image on the basis of documentary evidence and its interpretation. It suggests that the composer himself contributed significantly during his lifetime to the shape of the emerging ""genius"" image that emerges during the second half of the 18th century and that constitutes the foundation of the icon of ""the man from whom all musical wisdom proceeded"" (Haydn).


Active disassembly (AD) is an emerging field of research in design for disassembly that enables a cost-effective nondestructive separation of product components. It is based on using active joints and fasteners that enables the self-disassembly of products without any direct contact between the product and the operator, where these joints and fasteners must be inserted in the product during its design and manufacturing phases. Generally, active joints and fasteners are made of smart materials such as shape memory alloys (SMAs), that can generate the necessary disassembly forces required to separate the different components of the product. Most of the exerted effort in this field of research was focused on separating products requiring small disassembly forces either in the electronic or automotive sectors. All these active disassembly applications were based on using shape memory alloy snap fits, clips, or wires that are characterized by their ability to generate small forces with large displacements. As, up to the authors knowledge, none of the exerted efforts were concerned with investigating the possibility of using the large disassembly forces that could be generated using shape memory alloy actuators in large force active disassembly applications. Consequently, the presented research aims to examine the possibility of applying active disassembly with products requiring large disassembly forces, having tapered surfaces and large mechanical structure. By presenting two case studies to validate the possibility of using active disassembly with large force applications, in addition to investigating the capability of using shape memory alloy actuators assembled either concentric or eccentric with the product structure.


The international community has donated nearly one trillion dollars during the last four decades to reconstruct postconflict countries and prevent the outbreak of more civil war. Yet reconstruction has eluded many of these countries, and 1.8 million people have been killed in reignited conflict. Where did the money go? This book documents how some leaders do bring about remarkable reconstruction of their countries using foreign aid, but many other post-conflict leaders fail to do so. Offering a global argument that is the first of its kind, Desha Girod explains that postconflict leaders are more likely to invest aid in reconstruction when they are desperate for income and thus depend on aid that comes with reconstruction strings attached. Leaders are desperate for income when they lack access to rents from natural resources or to aid from donors with strategic interests in the country. Using data on civil wars that ended between 1970 and 2009 and evidence both from countries that succeeded and from countries that failed at postconflict reconstruction, Girod carefully examines the argument from different perspectives and finds support for it. The findings are important for theory and policy because they explain why only some leaders have the political will to meet donor goals in the wake of civil war. The findings also shed light on state-building processes and on the political economy of postconflict countries. Paradoxically, donors are most likely to achieve reconstruction goals in countries where they have the least at stake. Available in OSO:


Now , a leader of Northwestern University's prestigious analytics program presents a fully-integrated treatment of both the business and academic elements of marketing applications in predictive analytics. Writing for both managers and students, Thomas W. Miller explains essential concepts, principles, and theory in the context of real-world applications. Building on Miller's pioneering program, Marketing Data Science thoroughly addresses segmentation, target marketing, brand and product positioning, new product development, choice modeling, recommender systems, pricing research, retail site selection, demand estimation, sales forecasting, customer retention, and lifetime value analysis. Starting where Miller's widely-praised Modeling Techniques in Predictive Analytics left off, he integrates crucial information and insights that were previously segregated in texts on web analytics, network science, information technology, and programming. Coverage includes: The role of analytics in delivering effective messages on the web Understanding the web by understanding its hidden structures Being recognized on the web and watching your own competitors Visualizing networks and understanding communities within them Measuring sentiment and making recommendations Leveraging key data science methods: databases/data preparation, classical/Bayesian statistics, regression/classification, machine learning, and text analytics Six complete case studies address exceptionally relevant issues such as: separating legitimate email from spam; identifying legally-relevant information for lawsuit discovery; gleaning insights from anonymous web surfing data, and more. This text's extensive set of web and network problems draw on rich public-domain data sources; many are accompanied by solutions in Python and/or R. Marketing Data Science will be an invaluable resource for all students, faculty, and professional marketers who want to use business analytics to improve marketing performance.


This article examines the performance of portfolios formed using analyst revisions to earnings forecasts. The extensiveness of revisions significantly affects stock prices, and the post-revision drift lasts for several months. The effect is stronger for earnings forecast downgrades than for upgrades. Portfolios that also use price momentum or market-to-book information are no better than portfolios formed using earnings revision momentum alone. The results are consistent with the idea that return momentum may be due, in part, to earnings revision momentum. Portfolio managers can use earnings revision momentum to form higher-return portfolios, especially when shorts, put purchases, or call sales are allowed.


Rats learned to press a lever for intravenous injections of amphetamine or apomorphine. They also learned to avoid the taste of saccharin which was associated with experimenter-administered amphetamine or with self-administered apomorphine. Thus these, and presumably other, self-administered drugs serve as compound pharmacological stimuli, having both positively reinforcing and aversive properties.


This article criticizes the "cardinal rule" of statutory construction known as the avoidance canon - that statutes must be interpreted to avoid raising serious constitutional questions - as failing to respect the proper constitutional roles of both Congress and the Executive. It argues that the avoidance canon in practice cannot be grounded in legislative supremacy, which is the common justification for it offered by the Supreme Court, because it assumes without foundation that Congress would always prefer not to come close to the constitutional line in enacting statutes. Instead, the avoidance canon creates pressure for courts to adopt statutory meanings that do not fairly reflect the legislative bargains struck in Congress. The article continues by arguing that the avoidance canon also impinges on the role of the Executive by disregarding its best judgment as to statutory meaning, arrived in the course of discharging the constitutional function of executing the law, because that judgment might be unconstitutional. Of course, if a statute passed by Congress, or a statutory interpretation proffered by the Executive, is actually - as opposed to possibly - unconstitutional, a court should not hesitate to say so in the course of deciding a case. On the whole, however, the article concludes that the separation of powers would be better served by the Supreme Court's recognizing that there is as much danger of judicial usurpation from avoiding constitutional questions as deciding them.


This paper proposes a methodology for constructing a Financial Conditions Indicator (FCI) based on factor analysis and the approaches of Brave and Butters (2011) and Aramonte et al. (2013). A selected set of variables is used and their information content aggregated into a single index that summarizes the overall financial conditions of the economy. The approach is further employed to forecast economic activity. An empirical exercise for Brazil is provided to illustrate the methodology, in which a reduced-form equation is employed to point forecast the growth rate of the Brazilian economy. In addition, a quantile regression technique is used to construct density forecasts and generate probability density functions of future economic activity. Finally, a risk analysis is conducted within this set-up in order to compute conditional probabilities of the growth rate of the economy to be above/below a given scenario, which might be useful for both academics and policymakers' concerns.


The ubiquitous use of mobile devices, sensors, and the linkage between them open up opportunities for new applications using near real-time data processing and analytics. Demands on information systems are high: huge amounts of data have to be processed and results have to be delivered in near real-time. These needs are tackled by the field of Data Stream Management. Processing data streams differs in many ways from static data set processing as much of the data cannot be stored persistently. Likewise, development methods for data stream-based applications have to be specifically adapted. Process modeling has proved to increase the quality of information systems, but there exists no model specifically for data stream applications. Furthermore, the production of high quality applications requires means for a structured, iterative evaluation of the application and its outcomes. Particularly, applications fed by unreliable data sources, such as sensors, are prone to quality losses and errors. Hence, measurement, monitoring, and optionally the correction of data quality problems must take a crucial part in the development and evaluation of data stream applications. Data quality management needs to be domain and application independent and smoothly integrated into a data stream management system. These requirements have not been met satisfactorily so far. We counter the aforementioned issues by three main contributions. First, we propose a process model specifically tailored to the design, implementation, and, in particular, for the evaluation of data stream applications. To this end, we contribute a thorough analysis of data stream management principles and technologies. We also analyze existing process models in information management and discuss their suitability to data stream applications. Second, we propose evaluation methodologies embedded into the process model. Along these methodologies we design and implement a flexible evaluation framework for data stream applications. Finally, we propose a methodology and framework for data quality management for data stream applications. We first analyze quality dimensions and metrics relevant to data stream applications. We elicitate existing data quality management methodologies and present a methodology for data stream-based applications. As a major contribution we implement a flexible, domain and application independent data quality management framework for relational data stream management systems based on the proposed methodology. The process model and frameworks have been developed and empirically validated and evaluated in the context of two domains, namely Connected Intelligent Transportation Systems and Mobile Health. Algorithmic solutions for particular problems in the target domains have been devised and applied. Iterative evaluations using the proposed frameworks led to crucial optimizations of the application results. A Systematic Evaluation Approach for Data Stream-based Applications


Citizens' willingness to participate in politics is contingent on not only factual political knowledge but their subjective perceptions of competence. We argue that media exposure influences such subjective perceptions as being knowledgeable and capable of judging political issues. More specifically, we assume that incomprehensible news items impair people's perceived political competence, while comprehensible news items strengthen citizens' perceived knowledge and power of judgment without necessarily contributing to political learning. An online experiment reveals that cognitive style moderates the assumed relationship. Participants with a high need for cognition (NFC) feel more competent when confronted with a comprehensible news item; for participants with a low NFC, reading a less comprehensible news item resulted in a more pronounced sense of competence.


BACKGROUND
exercise can reduce osteoporotic fracture risk by strengthening bone or reducing fall risk. Falls prevention exercise programmes can reduce fall incidence, and also include strengthening exercises suggested to load bone, but there is little information as to whether these programmes influence bone mineral density (BMD) and strength.

OBJECTIVE
to evaluate the skeletal effects of home (Otago Exercise Programme, OEP) and group (Falls Exercise Management, FaME) falls prevention exercise programmes relative to usual care in older people.

METHODS
men and women aged over 65 years were recruited through primary care. They were randomised by practice to OEP, FaME or usual care. BMD, bone mineral content (BMC) and structural properties were measured in Nottingham site participants before and after the 24-week intervention.

RESULTS
participants were 319 men and women, aged mean(SD) 72(5) years. Ninety-two percentage of participants completed the trial. The OEP group completed 58(43) min/week of home exercise, while the FaME group completed 39(16) and 30(24) min/week of group and home exercise, respectively. Femoral neck BMD changes did not differ between treatment arms: mean (95% CI) effect sizes in OEP and FaME relative to usual care arm were -0.003(-0.011,0.005) and -0.002(-0.010,0.005) g cm(-2), respectively; P = 0.44 and 0.53. There were no significant changes in BMD or BMC at other skeletal sites, or in structural parameters.

CONCLUSIONS
falls prevention exercise programmes did not influence BMD in older people. To increase bone strength, programmes may require exercise that exerts higher strains on bone or longer duration.


The Business Bankruptcy Project is a five-year empirical study of about 3,200 business cases originally filed in Chapter 7, Chapter 11 and Chapter 13 in 23 judicial districts during 1994. This first report focuses on financial and demographic data, creating a statistical profile of the businesses in bankruptcy. The data reported in this paper include assets, debts, solvency, corporate or individual debtor type, classification of industries, number of employees, and reasons for filing; the data are reported in the aggregate, by chapter of filing, and by district. These data are used to test a number of hypotheses about the operation of the business bankruptcy system. The report also reveals anomalies in the system, such as certain large debtor companies that file no bankruptcy schedules at all. The sample is marked by its diversity, which includes a large number of small businesses and a small number of large businesses. Among the business debtors are a surprising number of natural persons in Chapter 11, a procedure designed around a corporate template. Across all three chapters there is substantial overlap of consumer and business debt, with many business debtors reporting a combination of business and personal reasons as triggers for their bankruptcy filings. Financially, the sample as a whole is solvent, with more than 25% of Chapter 11 business debtors claiming balance-sheet solvency. The social impact of bankruptcy is emphasized by its effect on employees. Although many of businesses are small by most measures, extrapolation from the reported data suggest that as many as 2 million employees a year find their employers going into bankruptcy. Real estate companies are prominent in Chapter 11, and more than half of them claim to be solvent.


Lausberg's Handbook of Literary Rhetoric, here made available for the first time in English, received high critical acclaim on its first publication in 1963. It is a monumental work of extraordinary erudition, organisation and comprehensiveness, and enjoys unrivalled authority in its formal description of rhetorical techniques. The present edition is a translation of the second edition of 1973, which was reprinted in 1990. The Handbook has for many years been a standard reference work for all engaged in the study of literature and rhetoric. This translation will ensure its accessibility to a new generation of students of rhetoric.


In this research, results of the investigation of the sliding friction and wear of yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystalline (Y-TZP) and Y-TZP-Al2O3 samples preliminarily subjected to low-temperature degradation are reported. The investigation was carried out using a pin-on-disk tribometer with simultaneous recording of acoustic emission (AE) and vibration acceleration. The sliding wear process was found to be determined by dynamic direct and inverse Y-TZP transformations detected by monoclinic and tetragonal X-ray diffraction peak ratios. The AE signals generated under direct and inverse transformations can be used to characterize wear and friction mechanisms as well as direct and inversed sliding-induced phase transformations. The AE signal energy grows with the friction coefficient and the inverse transformation degree. Reduction of the AE signal energy indicates establishing the mild wear stage caused by effective stress-induced direct martensitic transformation. The AE signal median frequency increases in the case of lower friction. Numerical studies of wear subsurface fracture under conditions of stress-induced martensitic transformation were used to elucidate the role played by the phase transformation in Y-TZP and Y-TZP-Al2O3. Martensitic transformation in Y-TZP was described with use of the non-associated dilatant plasticity model. Simulation results particularly show that increase in the value of dilatancy coefficient from 0 to 0.2 is accompanied by 25%−30% reduce in characteristic length and penetration depth of sliding-induced subsurface cracks. As shown the AE may be an effective tool for in-situ monitoring the subsurface wear of materials experiencing both direct and inverse transformations.


The vast majority of research output is grey; white (peer reviewed scholarly publications) forms a minor proportion. Historically, grey material was generated and used within an organisation. However, in recent years some researchrelevant grey material is being made openly available. Among grey outputs, research datasets are the largest proportion by volume and increasingly these are being made openly available. It is necessary for users of grey material to have some indication of reliability (quality, context, availability) so that they can judge whether the grey material is appropriate to their requirements. Rich metadata provides a mechanism for such evaluation. CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) provides such a rich metadata environment. Furthermore, CERIF allows generation of discovery level metadata (such as DC (Dublin Core), DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary), CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network) for simple retrieval or browsing and provides navigation to more detailed and specific metadata about the grey object. CERIF provides a bridge over research datasets and open government data. CERIF thus forms the lowest common level of metadata across grey (and white) objects. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of euroCRIS.


Background: Interface dermatitis (IFD)/lichenoid tissue reactions are among the most frequently presenting disorders in dermatology, which in common have a constellation of histopathological features but varied clinical presentation. Aim: Clinicopathologic correlation and determination of histomorphologic changes associated with various lichenoid IFD of the skin. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study with purposive sampling of patients reporting to the outpatient department of dermatology, venerology, and leprosy of our hospital from January 2017 to July 2018. Skin biopsies of 150 patients of either sex diagnosed provisionally as one of the lichenoid IFD on clinical grounds were studied. Clinicohistopathologic correlation was done. Results: We encountered 58 cases of classic lichen planus, seven variants of lichen planus (hypertrophic lichen planus, ashy dermatosis, lichen planus pigmentosus, actinic lichen planus, lichen planopilaris, lichen nitidus, and lichen striatus), and 16 cases of lichenoid eruptions. About 82.6% of the cases were concordant histopathologically. The peak incidence was in 20–40 years of age with an equal predilection for males and females. A majority of the lesions were multiple, pruritic, papules, and plaques involving the limbs. Histopathologically, the most consistent findings were basal cell vacuolar degeneration followed by melanin incontinence. Conclusion: Lichenoid IFDs are exclusive clinicopathological entities with several variants. Subtle features noted on histopathology help in differentiating these lesions. Understanding and interpreting these subtle changes aids in better clinical management of the patient.


The birth of the African Capacity Building Foundation on February 9, 1991, was the culmination of intense efforts and groundbreaking commitment to capacity building in Africa by Africa Governors of the World Bank, the Bank itself and the cofounding Institutions ‐ the African Development Bank and the United Nations Development Program, as well as numerous other individuals. The successes chalked by ACBF towards attainment of its objectives have vindicated those who held the view that establishing an indigenous African institution, with focus on and commitment to the course of Africa's development was the right course of action at the time. Twenty years on, ACBF has supported nearly 250 projects and programs in 44 African countries and committed more than US$400 million to build capacity on the continent. Projects and programs supported by the Foundation have drawn synergy with and complemented countless other activities of various development institutions operating on the Continent. ACBF's support has been crucial in the building of development capacity in Africa, whether in ministries of finance and economic planning or central banks. For many among us who dedicated to this initiative and worked towards its realization, we remain humbled by the opportunity to witness the twentieth anniversary of ACBF.


Rainfall variability is a major challenge to sustainable grazing management in northern Australia, with management often complicated further by large, spatially-heterogeneous paddocks. This paper presents the latest grazing research and associated bio-economic modelling from northern Australia and assesses the extent to which current recommendations to manage for these issues are supported. Overall, stocking around the safe long-term carrying capacity will maintain land condition and maximise long-term profitability. However, stocking rates should be varied in a risk-averse manner as pasture availability varies between years. Periodic wet-season spelling is also essential to maintain pasture condition and allow recovery of overgrazed areas. Uneven grazing distributions can be partially managed through fencing, providing additional water-points and in some cases patch-burning, although the economics of infrastructure development are extremely context-dependent. Overall, complex multi-paddock grazing systems do not appear justified in northern Australia. Provided the key management principles outlined above are applied in an active, adaptive manner, acceptable economic and environmental outcomes will be achieved irrespective of the grazing system applied.


Abstract Waterfowl managers in Minnesota and other states are concerned that increased kill rates associated with the use of spinning-wing decoys (SWDs) may negatively affect local breeding populations of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). Accordingly, we conducted 219 experimental hunts to evaluate hunting vulnerability of mallards to SWDs during the 2002 duck season in Minnesota. During each hunt, we tested 2 SWD treatments: 1) SWDs turned OFF (control), and 2) SWDs turned ON (experimental) during alternate 15-minute sampling periods that were separated by 5-minute buffer periods. We found that mallard flocks (≥1 duck) were 2.91 times more likely to respond (i.e., approach within 40 m of hunters), and sizes of responding mallard flocks were 1.25 times larger, on average, when SWDs were turned ON than OFF. Mallards killed/hour/hunter/hunt averaged 4.71 times higher (P<0.001) when SWDs were turned ON than OFF. More hatch-year (HY) and after-hatch-year (AHY) mallards were killed when SWDs were turned ON than OFF; however, AHYs were relatively less likely than were HYs to be killed with SWDs turned ON. We found no evidence that SWDs reduced crippling or allowed hunters to harvest relatively more drakes than hens. Using a worst-case scenario model, we predicted that if 47% and 79% of Minnesota hunters had used SWDs in 2000 and 2002, respectively, Minnesota mallard harvests would have increased by a factor of 2. However, increasing use of SWDs by northern hunters may result in a partial redistribution of annual mallard harvests if naïve ducks are harvested upon initial exposures to SWDs, and those ducks that survive become habituated to SWDs, as suggested by our results. Our study was confined to a single hunting season in Minnesota and thus did not assess whether vulnerability of mallards to hunters using SWDs varied among years or geographically. A multi-year, flyway-wide study is needed to make stronger and more rigorous inferences regarding potential changes in harvest distribution and annual harvest rates of mallards due to increasing use of SWDs by hunters in North America.


The Guarantee Clause of the Constitution promises that "[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government . . . ." The Supreme Court has long held this Clause to be nonjusticiable, and as a result, many see the Clause as purely vestigial. But nonjusticiable does not mean toothless, and this view fails to recognize the Clause's grant of power to Congress. The Guarantee Clause provides Congress with the authority to ensure that each state's internal governance meets a minimum standard of republicanism. The Framers included this promise because they feared that some forms of government, such as monarchy, were incompatible with republicanism, which they understood as representative self-government. Nonrepublican government in one state, they believed, might have deleterious or even dangerous effects on other states, and protection against nonrepublican government was thus essential for long-lasting and healthy interstate and federal–state relationships. Today, the Framers' fears appear prescient as a number of states engage in tactics like extreme partisan gerrymandering, which entrenches one party in power; lame-duck legislation, which reallocates power to undermine an incoming administration; and targeted burdens on voting. These tactics parallel the types of democratic erosion that scholars have observed internationally and historically. Moreover, the potential negative effects of these antidemocratic tactics from one state to another, and from one state to the nation as a whole, are substantial and threaten to undermine many of the benefits of federalism. Fortunately, the Guarantee Clause allows—indeed, requires— Congress to address these antidemocratic state-level practices.


"The Nude Female Figure" is a compilation of hundreds of classic poses of the female nude. These full colour photographs are grouped into the various traditional positions you would find in any classic positions: standing, seated, kneeling, crouching, reclining, bending, as well as posts in motion and a special section that focuses on hands and feet, both parts of the body that present a special challenge to the artist. The models in the book represent a wide range of figure types, from the shapely and slender to the more mature and Rubenesque, as well as a variety of ethnic types. Just about every artist without access to a figure drawing studio will have use for this invaluable work of reference.


We present theorems that can be used for improved efficiency in the calculation of conservation functions for cellular automata. We report results obtained from implementations of algorithms based on these theorems that show conservation laws for 1-D cellular automata of higher order than any previously known. We introduce the notion of trivial and core conservation functions to distinguish truly new conservation functions from simple extensions of lower-order ones. We then present the complete list of conservation functions up to order 16 for the 256 elementary 1-d binary cellular automata. These include CAs that were not previously known to have nontrivial conservation functions.


Data-intensive applications in commercial cloud and scientific computing demand ultra-high-speed end-to-end data access capability between data storage and computing locations. Meanwhile, advancements in hardware and systems continuously change the landscape of data centers' core capabilities, i.e., computing, networking, and storage. The two trends expose new research and development challenges and opportunities to bring the bare-metal capacity of state-of-the-art hardware to the rising needs for high performance by applications. This dissertation focuses on designing and implementing scalable end-to-end data transfer solutions and storage I/O systems over ultra-high-speed networks. Particularly, we present a scalable memory-centric software framework for high-speed data transfer. At the data plane level, we introduce the hardware remote direct memory access (RDMA) of HPC to ensure zero-copy along the entire data path and to eliminate the overhead of copying data between the layers of traditional network I/O stack. At the storage layer, we present the importance of data locality and implement a data-affinity-aware caching mechanism in the storage servers with non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA). At the control plane, we divide an end-to-end data path into pipelined stages, each of which uses an asynchronous processing model to efficiently perform resource-aware task scheduling and optimization. We applied this framework area to our reference systems design which consists of a front-end RDMA-based data transfer protocol for moving data within or across data centers over high-speed connectivity, and a backend NUMA-aware caching for accessing storage area networks efficiently. We rigorously tested the software implementation and demonstrated its viability in enabling various data-intensive applications that constantly move bulk data over high-speed enterprise and data-center networks.


The aim of this paper is to investigate, within a Bootstrap panel causality approach, the interactions among foreign direct investment (FDI), international trade and financial development in BRICS-T countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China South Africa and Turkey). While the effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth is well documented, the consequences of FDI on financial development have not received as much attention. Previous studies have recognized that FDI is a crucial source of financing especially for emerging economies, though the benefit of FDI to recipient country is ambiguous. Furthermore, the number of previous studies examining the causal linkage between international trade and financial development is also limited. Besides, examining the associations among these factors, this study also investigates the joint effect of FDI and international trade on financial development in these countries. Empirical findings from a bootstrap panel causality approach indicate that FDI induce financial development in Brazil, Russia, and China. In addition, international trade promotes financial market development in Brazil, Russia and South Africa. Empirical findings also indicate that financial development stimulates international trade in Brazil, India and Turkey. Finally, it is found in this study that not only international trade stimulates FDI, but also FDI induce international trade in India and Turkey.


Barrier islands commonly occur in coastal plain and deltaic settings, and a variety of behavioral and stratigraphic models exist. In this paper, a 90 km long barrier island system in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland is identified for the first time. Uniquely among barrier islands, the system rests directly on a planar bedrock (gneiss) surface (a strandflat). This bedrock surface has a profound influence on the morphology of the barrier island chain, and exerts the dominant influence on barrier island form and evolution during transgression. Topographical irregularities on the bedrock surface control both plan and profile morphology of the barrier islands. Under sea-level rise, by barrier migration, sediment is redistributed onshore and alongshore in a strongly three-dimensional manner, determined by topographic variability in the bedrock. The barrier islands represent an endpoint in transgressive barrier island geomorphology that is controlled by the bedrock surface: they are at the upper end of the recognized tidal amplitude for barrier islands; the offshore wave regime is very high-energy; they lack a shoreface; and neither ravinement surface nor transgressive sand sheet are developed. Sediment supply is dominated by offshore-derived skeletal carbonate.


Purpose - In this paper, the authors aim to test the assertion that options act as a substitute for short sales by allowing investors an alternative way to act on bearish sentiment. An empirical test of this assertion requires a researcher to observe both types of firm – those that weren't short sale constrained, as well as those that were. The authors examine the ability of options to alleviate the short sales constraint directly – in an environment where the constraint is likely to differ across firms in a systematic fashion, namely the market for American Depository Receipts (ADRs). Design/methodology/approach - The authors examine 190 option introductions on ADRs over the period of 1982 to 2006. The question of how ADRs are chosen for options listing, and whether those criteria differ from those found using purely domestic options, is addressed using logistic regressions. The authors use the event study methods of Brown and Warner to examine the price effect of the listing. They use OLS regression to identify determinants of the cumulative abnormal return upon option listing. Independent variables are those indicated by existing literature that examines option listing on domestic securities. Findings - In an environment where the effective short sale constraint varies across firms, the authors find support for the contention that US option listings reduce the effect of the short sales constraint, providing relief for investors who have negative sentiment about the stock and are subject to a short sale constraint. However, it does not appear that option listing entities seek out companies for which short sale constraints are stronger. Originality/value - The authors' hypotheses are similar to those of Mayhew and Mihov and of Danielson and Sorescu, but the authors assert that the ADR market is a more robust environment in which to test the hypotheses. This is due to the potentially large variation in the effective short sale constraints that results from the differences in their underlying home market legal and regulatory environments. In addition to relative short interest and the change in relative short interest, this environment allows the authors to use indicator variables to directly test the ability of options to substitute for short sales.


There is debate among learning theorists regarding the mechanisms underlying human associative learning. Some researchers argue a single-process drives human associative learning, a propositional model guided by higher-order reasoning. Other researchers argue for a dual-process model, in which two independent processes drive human associative learning, one propositional and sensitive to stimulus prediction, the other automatic and sensitive to stimulus pairing. The current study intended to collect evidence supporting either the single-process model or dual-process model. We tested if the single-process model made either correct or incorrect predictions in the Perruchet paradigm. The Perruchet paradigm induces a state of uncertainty regarding stimulus prediction, dissociating participants' expectancy of an unconditioned stimulus (US) and physiological/ behavioral response to a conditioned stimulus (CS), which results in unexplainable predictions in the context of the single-process model. The adapted Perruchet paradigm for the current study predicted an opposite linear pattern between expectancy of the US and skin conductance response (SCR) to the CS as a function of sequential stimulus pairing. The results generally supported this hypothesis, expanding the Perruchet effect to a visual stimulus paradigm and to a phasic SCR analytic procedure previously unexamined in this experimental context.


The purpose of this study was to determine how the management strategies used by producers on sheep and goat farms in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont could affect the fecal egg counts of the parasite called Haemonchus contortus in their animals. Surveys about management practices and fecal samples from the juvenile and adult populations were collected during the months of June, July, and August in the summer of 2015. Next, the samples were analyzed and fecal egg counts were determined using the McMaster method and a fluorescence-based H. contortus speciation technique. The fecal egg counts and survey answers were compiled and Analysis of Variance tests were used to determine significance between groups. The results of this study suggest that particular management practices are more effective than others at controlling the proliferation of H. contortus on farms. Specifically, the use of chemical dewormers rather than natural dewormers led to lower fecal egg counts (P=0.078). In addition, farms with larger numbers of animals tended to have lower fecal egg counts (P=0.091). Other factors, such as the use of FAMACHA scores for the replacement of animals or the geographic locations of the farms did not prove to have a significant effect (P=0.75 and 0.97, respectively). The results of this study can be used to teach producers about realistic ways to control H. contortus in their flocks and lead to healthier, more productive populations.


A series of unsaturated column experiments was conducted to evaluate light nonaqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) removal during surfactant solution infiltration. Surfactant‐LNAPL phase behavior tests were conducted to optimize the remedial solutions. Packed sand and site sediment columns were first processed to establish representative LNAPL smear zones under unsaturated conditions. Infiltration of low‐concentration surfactant was then applied in a stepwise flush mode, with 0.33 column pore volume (PV) of solution in each flush. The influence of infiltrated surfactant solution volume and pH on LNAPL removal was assessed. A LNAPL bank was observed at the front of the first surfactant infiltration in each column, indicating that a very low surfactant concentration is needed to reduce the LNAPL‐water interfacial tension sufficiently to mobilize trapped LNAPL under unsaturated conditions. More LNAPL was recovered as additional steps of surfactant infiltration were applied. Up to 99% LNAPL was removed after six infiltration steps, with approximately 2.0 PV of total surfactant solution application, suggesting surfactant infiltration may be an effective method for vadose zone LNAPL remediation. The influence of pH tested in this study (3.99∼10.85) was insignificant because the buffering capacity of the sediment kept the pH in the column higher than the zero point charge (pHzp) of the sediment and therefore surfactant sorption was negligible.


Guided by a self-categorisation and social-identity framework of identity entrepreneurship (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), and social representations theory of history (Liu & Hilton, 2005), this paper examines how the Hindu nationalist movement of India defines Hindu nationhood by embedding it in an essentialising historical narrative. The heart of the paper consists of a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of the ideological manifestos of the Hindu nationalist movement in India, "Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?" (1928) and "We, or Our Nationhood Defined" (1939), written by two of its founding leaders – Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, respectively. The texts constitute authoritative attempts to define Hindu nationhood that continue to guide the Hindu nationalist movement today. The derived themes and sub-themes indicate that the definition of Hindu nationhood largely was embedded in a narrative about its historical origins and trajectory, but also its future. More specifically, a 'golden age' was invoked to define the origins of Hindu nationhood, whereas a dark age in its historical trajectory was invoked to identify peoples considered to be enemies of Hindu nationhood, and thereby to legitimise their exclusion. Through its selective account of past events and its efforts to utilise this as a cohesive mobilising factor, the emergence and rise of the Hindu nationalist movement elucidate lessons that further our understanding of the rise of right-wing movements around the world today.


The results of the dialect surveys of Great Britain have been published in the form of hundreds of single and collected maps, but so far there has been no actual handbook to the charted material. The Index to Dialect Maps of Great Britain , containing a full introduction, an alphabetical word-list and a comprehensive bibliography, fills this gap. As a compendious directory to mapped words it provides not only a lexical compass in a cartographic jungle, but serves as a guide to the major dialect surveys (Survey of English Dialects, Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects, Linguistic Survey of Scotland) and the numerous publications they have spawned. All atlases as well as the maps in the many individual studies and scattered articles are fully documented. Each of the over 2000 lexical entries identifies the original survey by questionnaire number and gives a detailed list of all the references to printed maps in which these words and phrases are contained. The present volume will prove an indispensable guide for all researchers in the field of dialectology and linguistic variation, enabling its users to gain quick access to the various sources of maps. In this way the Index — while still a simple work of reference — may also furnish the materials for more thorough studies of map-making and its implications.


Background Becoming a mother is one of the most important life changing events that a woman experience. The birth of very-low-birth-weight preterm infants imposes many challenges for the mothers. There is insufficient information regarding the mothers' experiences on the process of becoming a mother when their preterm infants are in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). The aim of this study was to investigate the barriers of parenting in mothers with a very low- birth- weight preterm infant, and their coping strategies. Materials and Methods This study was carried out in a major neonatal care center in Urmia located in North West of Iran based on qualitative approach and by focusing on content analysis. Eighteen mothers were observed and interviewed while their infants were in NICU. The interviews were recorded and printed out. The data were analyzed according to Graneheim and Lund man. MAXQDA2007 was applied to manage the data. Results The participants' experience indicated that they experienced barriers in becoming a mother, so they use some strategies to cope with this situation. Merging the "barriers of parenting" and "applied strategies" resulted in extracting a category which was called "establishment of communication". Each category included subcategories. Conclusion It seems that there is an urgent need for healthcare professionals to be sensitive to the need of mothers regarding mothering process with consideration to culture as a bridge to facilitate the new role as a mother.


Agricultural best management practices (BMPs) can help reduce nutrient and sediment concentrations and loads leaving farm fields, which in turn can reduce negative impacts on downstream aquatic systems. For nearly three decades, significant federal investment in technical and financial assistance has been provided to implement farm BMPs. Of the conservation programs, only a few attempt to estimate the amount of nutrient and sediment reduction resulting from cost-shared practices, let alone potential positive effect on local or regional water quality. The current study provides a review of the scientific literature to determine nutrient reduction efficiency percentages for BMPs in row-crop agriculture within the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV), an area with high delivery of both nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to the Gulf of Mexico. The review consisted of multiple agricultural and biological database searches, a BMP effectiveness tool, and outreach to scientists. Only 18 articles (9 BMPs) provided BMP efficiencies that met specific criteria of (a) row-crop agriculture, (b) clay/silt loam soils, (c) slopes of 0% to 5%, and (d) occurrence within the LMAV. Best management practices included tillage management, wetlands, winter rice field management, subsurface drainage, and vegetated drainage ditches. The majority of the nine key BMPs for the LMAV provided significant nutrient reductions ranging from 15% to 100%. For seven BMPs that had total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) reduction efficiencies, the range was between 17% and 76%. Given the limited availability of BMP efficiency estimates within this physiographic region, these estimates should be used with caution. Significant resources should be committed to conducting replicable studies in the LMAV to provide the most reliable estimates possible of BMP effectiveness under a wide-range of realistic cropping, hydrological, and weather conditions in order to inform program and policy development and analysis.


Recent experiments reveal the high-wave-number form of the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations in turbulent flow. It is precisely this high-wave-number portion of the temperature spectrum that strongly affects optical propagation in the atmosphere. An accurate model of the spectra of advected quantities, such as temperature, has been developed and is applied here to optical propagation. An outstanding feature of the model and the observed temperature spectrum is a "bump" at high wave numbers. The accurate model of the temperature spectrum is used to compute the temperature structure function, the variance of log intensity as a function of Fresnel-zone size, the covariance function of log amplitude, the structure function of phase, as well as the phase coherence length. These results are compared with the predictions of Tatarskii's spectrum. The bump in the temperature spectrum produces a corresponding bump in the temperature structure function, the variance of log intensity, and the structure function of phase. The accurate model is also used to determine the shape of the structure function of aerosol concentration fluctuations; it is found that this structure function varies as the logarithm of the separation distance for small separations.


This article assesses the prospects for advancing to a green economy at Rio Plus 20 through the perspective of international political economy writings on economic transformations and regime governance. In order to achieve robust investment in revolutionary new technologies a clear international political project is required that provides a common purpose, clear regulatory and legal rules, and formal organisational efforts for resource mobilisation, compensation of losers, and enforcement. It concludes with an appraisal of efforts underway to create the political foundation for a green economy, suggesting the creation of a new international organization for green technology innovation, and assigning the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to environmental science assessment.


A depot formulation containing a bioresorbable, controlled-release, calcium sulphate-based paste of the nonsteroidal antiandrogen 2-hydroxyflutamide (2-HOF) with potential antineoplastic activity. Upon injection into the tumor site in the prostate, 2-hydroxyflutamide depot slowly releases 2-HOF, which competitively binds to androgen receptors (ARs), blocking the binding of dihydrotestosterone (DHT). This may inhibit androgen-dependent DNA and protein synthesis, resulting in tumor cell growth arrest and decreased cellular proliferation. In addition, 2-HOF inhibits nuclear uptake of androgen in androgen-responsive tissues.


Conversational exchanges have unique properties that have a great potential for language acquisition such as the motivation to communicate, information about language meanings and structures, and the construction of new ways of expression. Results from the literature and from new data analyses show that conversational exchanges have both immediate and long-term effects. Two properties are considered here to have particularly great learning potential. One is the facilitated access to unities of meaning underlying the successive transformations in utterance shapes, cognitively analogous to the discovery of physical and logico-mathematical invariances under the transformations of shape and configuration. The other is the co-construction of sequences that foreshadow behaviors still beyond the individual child's present capacities.


Over the course of the last decade, talent management has attracted a great deal of attention in the academic literature. Even though the field has evolved, much scepticism continues to surround it, and many questions are still to be answered that may bridge existing gaps between science and practice. This article offers an alternative perspective on talent identification transparency, the practice of informing employees of their talent pool membership. In line with the social exchange perspective, we propose that even though the reactions of those employees who are identified as talent and informed of their talent pool membership seem to be positive, the negative reactions of employees who are either identified as talent and informed of their talent pool membership, and whose expectations are not as well met, or employees who are not identified as talent (which is arguably the majority of the employee population in most companies) may outweigh the positive. This article adds value to the existing research on talent management, promotes a dialogue, and encourages new directions in theoretical and empirical research within the field. We believe that a heightened understanding of 'the dark side' of talent identification transparency may help organisational decision makers in better executing their strategic talent initiatives.


The use and variety of drugs administered to children as inhaled aerosols is increasing, but little is known about how much drug reaches the lung and how it is distributed there in different age groups. In this article the reasons for measuring aerosol deposition in children are discussed and the potential methods for doing this described. Of the methods available, only the use of radiolabelled aerosols gives accurate information on total lung deposition and distribution. The potential risk of the radiation exposure required for these measurements varies with the age of the child but seems to be small. Properly designed studies are expected to clarify the factors affecting lung deposition in children and identify methods of inhalation associated with efficient and predictable delivery of the drug. Measurements of radioaerosol deposition may therefore be justified in children when this information is expected to lead to improvements in the effectiveness or safety of their treatment.


This study was undertaken in 2016 to analyze the production and utilization of maize in Nepal. Sixty maize growers from Kavre and Lamjung districts were selected using purposive, cluster and simple random sampling techniques. Similarly, six feed industries and five maize experts from Chitwan district were also interviewed. Study shows 56% of the total areas were used for maize production and 50% of the maize areas were covered by hybrid maize. There was no practice of contract maize production. The results revealed that 60%, 25% and 3% of the grain were used for animal feed, food and seed respectively in hill districts. Whereas the remaining amount of the maize (12%) was sold to the different buyers. The proportion of maize feed supply to different animals in the study area was varying. Result shows that at least 1.5 million tons of maize is required only to the feed industries affiliated with national feed industry association in Nepal. Similarly, out of total maize used in feed production, 87% of the maize was imported from India each year by feed industries. Analysis shows negative correlation between scale of feed production and use of domestic maize due to unavailability of required quantity of maize in time. The major pre-condition of feed industries for maize buying was moisture content which must be equal or less than 14%. Very little or no inert materials and physical injury, free from fungal attack and bigger size were also the criteria for maize buying. However, some of the feed industries were also thinking about protein and amino acid contents. Result shows 13% and 8.5% increasing demand of poultry feed and animal feed, respectively over the last five year in Nepal.  Most likely, maize is known as a means of food security in Nepal, however, in the context of changing utilization patterns at the farm level and also tremendous increasing demand of maize at the industry level suggest to give more focus on development and dissemination of maize varieties that can contribute to the feed security issues as well.