Background: Humans in modern societies are exposed to substantially elevated levels of electromagnetic field (EMF) emissions with different frequencies. The neurobiological effects of EMF have been the subject of debate and intensive research over the past few decades. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of EMF on visual learning and anatomical dimensions of the hippocampus and the prefrontal area (PFA) in male Rhesus monkeys. Materials and Methods: In this study, four rhesus monkeys of Macaca mulatta species were irradiated by 0.7 microtesla ELF-EMF either at 5 or 30 Hz, 4 h a day, for 30 days. Alterations in visual learning and memory were assessed before and after irradiation phase by using a box designed for challenging animals for gaining rewards. Furthermore, the monkeys' brains were scanned by MRI technique one week before and one week after irradiation. The monkeys were anesthetized by intramuscular injection of ketamine hydrochloride (10–20 mg/kg) and xylazine (0.2–0.4 mg/kg), and scanned with a 3-Tesla Magnetom, in axial, sagittal, and coronal planes using T2 weighted protocol with a slice thickness of 3 mm. The anatomical changes of hippocampus and the prefrontal area (PFA) were measured by volumetric study. Results: Electromagnetic field exposure at a frequency of 30 Hz reduced the number of correct responses in the learning process and delayed memory formation in the two tested monkeys. Meanwhile, ELF-EMF at 5 Hz had no effect on the visual learning and memory changes. No anatomical changes were observed in the prefrontal area and the hippocampus at both frequencies. Conclusion: ELF-EMF irradiation at 30 Hz adversely affected visual learning and memory, probably through factors other than changes in brain structure and anatomy.


This paper explores the interaction of monetary policy and climate change as they jointly influence macroeconomic outcomes, connecting policy and outcomes in each realm to the implications of the other. It also explores the nature of the macroeconomic model that would be required to explore the links between monetary policy and climate policy. The paper has four parts. First, it reviews the relevant macroeconomic outcomes of emissions mitigation policy and climatic disruption, exploring how negative supply shocks can affect central banks' ability to forecast and manage inflation. Second, the paper reviews basic approaches to monetary policy, including inflation and output targeting, and other responsibilities that may fall to central bankers. Third, we bring together the two sets of issues to consider the appropriate monetary framework in a carbon-constrained and climatically disrupted world and to highlight the climate policy frameworks that can make monetary policies more efficient and effective. We then summarize the nature of the macroeconomic modelling framework that is needed to better analyse climate and monetary policy interactions. We conclude that policy responses to climate change can have important implications for monetary policy and vice versa and that, in light of the urgency of ambitious climate action, these policy spheres should be brought together more explicitly and more appropriate macroeconomic modelling frameworks developed.


Online sentence processing in children is still an emerging field. This crosslinguistic study examined the on-line sentence processing in a grammaticality judgment experiment. In each language (French, Portuguese) three age groups of children (6–7 year-olds, 8–9 year-olds and 10–11 year-olds) and a group of adults were asked to detect grammatical violations as quickly as possible. Three factors were studied: the violation position (early vs. late in the sentence), the violation span (intraphrasal vs. interphrasal), and the violation type (agreement vs. word-order). The main developmental results were as follows. Not surprisingly, children of both languages were always slower than adults at detecting grammatical violations. No matter how old they were or which language they spoke, subjects were faster at judging sentences with violations that occurred later and the effect was especially strong in the younger groups. As predicted, intraphrasal violations were more rapidly detected than interphrasal ones in French, but Portuguese subjects presented the opposite pattern. This paradoxical result seems linked to the low perceptibility of phonological violations in oral sentence processing. Finally, agreement violations were more rapidly detected than word-order ones at every age in French, whereas, such differences did not reach significance in Portuguese. Crosslinguistic comparisons between these two romance languages are discussed in the light of cue validity and cue cost interactions during online sentence processing.


The theory of induced innovation says that technological innovations which economize on relatively scarce inputs will be invented and adopted. Hayami and Ruttan have hypothesized that this model also holds for institutional innovations. Williamson suggests that economic organization, such as vertical integration, is the result of transaction cost minimization. Coase discusses the transaction costs of negotiation versus the court system to solve externality problems. These various threads of the literature are brought to bear on the issue of innovations over time in relation to the National Native Title Tribunal. Mining companies have developed guidelines for negotiation with Aboriginal claimants. In Western Australia, regional agreements have been created which have the potential to greatly reduce transaction costs compared to negotiations between individual claimants and other agents such as mining companies. In addition to the reductions in transaction costs from a negotiated settlement rather than litigation, there are other advantages of negotiation, whether bilateral or regional. These include improved "quality" of settlements, improved relations between the negotiating parties, and more timely resolution.


The cellular mechanisms by which excess exposure to the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate can produce neuronal injury are unknown. More than a decade ago it was hypothesized that glutamate neurotoxicity (GNT) is a direct consequence of excessive neuronal excitation ("excitotoxicity" hypothesis); more recently, it has been hypothesized that a Ca influx triggered by glutamate exposure might mediate GNT (Ca hypothesis). A basic test to discriminate between these hypotheses would be to determine the dependence of GNT on the extracellular ionic environment. The excitotoxicity hypothesis predicts that GNT should depend critically on the presence of extracellular Na, since that ion appears to mediate glutamate neuroexcitation in the CNS; the Ca hypothesis predicts that GNT should depend critically on the presence of extracellular Ca. The focus of the present experiments was to determine the effects of several alterations in the extracellular ionic environment upon the serial morphologic changes that occur after mouse neocortical neurons in cell culture receive toxic exposure to glutamate. The results suggest that GNT in cortical neurons can be separated into 2 components distinguishable on the basis of differences in time course and ionic dependence. The first component, marked by neuronal swelling, occurs early, is dependent on extracellular Na and Cl, can be mimicked by high K, and is thus possibly "excitotoxic." The second component, marked by gradual neuronal disintegration, occurs late, is dependent on extracellular Ca, can be mimicked by A23187, and is thus possibly mediated by a transmembrane influx of Ca. While either component alone is ultimately capable of producing irreversible neuronal injury, the Ca-dependent mechanism predominates at lower exposures to glutamate. Glutamate exposure likely leads to a Ca influx both through glutamate-activated cation channels and through voltage- dependent Ca channels activated by membrane depolarization. Addition of 20 mM Mg, however, did not substantially block GNT; this finding, together with the observation that GNT is largely preserved in sodium- free solution, supports the notion that the activation of voltage- dependent Ca channels may not be required for lethal Ca entry. The possibility that N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors may play a dominant role in mediating glutamate-induced lethal Ca influx is discussed.


Objective In neonatal resuscitation, the use of a sustained inflation (SI) may facilitate lung aeration. Previous studies comparing different resuscitation devices have shown that one model of self-inflating bag (SIB) could not deliver an SI. We aimed to compare the delivery of an SI using four SIBs with that of a T-piece. Study design In intubated preterm lambs, we compared four models of SIB fitted with a positive end expiratory pressure (PEEP) valve to a T-piece using a gas flow of 8 L/min. Four operators aimed to deliver three SIs of 20 cm H2O for 30 s. The study was repeated with the PEEP valve removed and again with no flow. We measured duration of SI, average inflation pressure (IP) and analysed the shape of the pressure curves. Results 204 combinations were analysed. Mean (SD) duration of SI was Ambu 6(2)s, Laerdal 14(8)s, Parker Healthcare 5(1)s, Mayo Healthcare 33(2)s and T-piece 33(1)s. Mean (SD) average IP was Ambu 17(3)cm H2O, Laerdal 17(3)cm H2O, Parker Healthcare 12(5)cm H2O, Mayo Healthcare 21(2)cm H2O and T-piece 20(0)cm H2O. Duration of SI and average IP was significantly different between SIBs (all p<0.001). The findings were substantially unchanged when PEEP valve and flow were removed (all p>0.05). Only the Mayo system delivered SIs with duration and average IP not significantly different from the T-piece (p>0.05). Conclusions The performance of the four SIBs tested varied considerably. Some are able to deliver an SI even in the absence of gas flow. This may be useful in a resource-limited setting with no gas supply.


Sustaining the Borderlands in the Age of NAFTA provides the only book-length study of the impact on residents of the US-Mexico border of NAFTA's Environmental and Labor Side Accords, which required each state to enforce labor and environmental regulations. Through field research in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, anthropologist Suzanne Simon tests the premise that the side accords would encourage Mexican grassroots democratization. The effectiveness of the side accords was tied to transparency and accountability, and practically bound to opportunities for Mexican border populations to participate in the side accord petitioning and civil society input mechanisms. Simon conducted sixteen months of fieldwork with both a group of environmental activists and a group of those fighting for labor justice in Mexico. Both of these groups became enmeshed in the types of cross-border advocacy networks and coalition building efforts that are typical of the NAFTA era. Although the key to the side accords' anticipated success lay in their ostensibly generous encouragement of a participatory politics and sustainable development opportunities,Sustaining the Borderlands reveals that the Mexican border populations for which they were largely created are effectively excluded from participating due to the ongoing online, territorial, class, and cultural barriers that shape the borderlands. Rather than experiencing the side accords and their companion institutions as transparent and accessible, residents experienced them as opaque and indecipherable. Simon concludes that the side accords have failed to deliver on their promise of bringing democracy to Mexico because practical mechanisms that would ensure their effective implementation were never put in place. NAFTA took effect at a time when Mexico was undergoing a democratic transition. The treaty was supposed to encourage this transition and improve environmental and labor conditions on the US-Mexico border. This book demonstrates that, twenty years later, the promises of NAFTA have not come to pass.


In this article, I argue that, in Ephesians 4:1-16, the author underscores spiritual maturity as the bridge between the new identity of the Christian (Eph. 1-3) and the moral code of the Christian life commensurate with the new identity (Eph. 4:17-6:20). 1  I interpret Ephesians 4:13 to obtain the meaning of maturity. I critique the most notable interpretations and views in relation to Ephesians 4:13, after which, by way of structural analysis of Ephesians 4:13, I delineate the meaning of maturity and determine that, from its essence, maturity is essential for the Christian. This article provides the modern church an alternative way to view the theme and structure of Ephesians and an interpretation of Ephesians 4:13-16. New Testament scholars as well as church leaders, decision-makers in church work, generally, and Christian education planners will find this article quite engaging.


This article examines the extent to which ESL learners studying in Canada acquire Canadianisms. Two instruments were used to assess the effect of posited variables on this acquisition: a lexical survey administered to 103 ESL learners in Kingston, Ontario; and a questionnaire about resources, teaching methods, and attitudes administered to their instructors. Results indicate that ESL learners' knowledge of Canadianisms is limited. No correlation exists between the time learners have spent in Canada and their knowledge of Canadianisms. The more relevant a Canadianism is to their life, the more likely ESL learners in Canada are to acquire it. Level of English proficiency does correlate positively with the acquisition of Canadianisms, but the variables of learners' L1 background and classroom English training are not shown to be significant. Two additional findings of this study deserve further attention. First, ESL instructors' attitudes toward teaching Canadianisms vary widely. Second, lexical
items specific to a particular variety of a language - for example, the Canadian English vocabulary sampled in this study - may make manifest the assumptions and knowledge tacitly shared in a cultural group.


The radically new homeland security, military, and legal strategies developed by the United States in the months following the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are given comprehensive treatment in this book by a former senior Pentagon official, combat veteran, and criminal prosecutor. Stephen Duncan draws on a lifetime of military and legal experience to examine the many questions relating to the role of the armed forces in homeland security, including elements of constitutional and criminal law, foreign policy, tradition and custom, federal-state and inter-agency relations, and politics, as well as military strategy and operations. Among the diverse subjects the author discusses are military tribunals and the International Criminal Court, the statue governing the use of military personnel in law enforcement, defense transformation, the constitutional power of the president, and the reorganization of the government to meet the terrorist threat. Duncan also discusses the strategy and tactics used in Afghanistan and Iraq and critically evaluates the nation's political leadership before and after the 9/11 attacks. His book gives readers access to a wealth of information essential to an understanding of the full picture and at the same time puts them in the midst of policy debates to grasp the immediacy of the situation. This important and absorbing historical narrative will attract general readers as well as those with experience in national security issues, politics, and the law.


Recirculating rice dryers are suitable for a large amount of loading capacity. It generally comprises two parts, the tempering section, a drying section, and the grains are dried intermittently until the final moisture content of the grains can be achieved. Wet grains are initially dried for about 11 minutes within the drying section of the dryer. The grains then are conveyed to the tempering section, stored for about 40 to 50 minutes. At every passes, about less than 2% (wb). The moisture content can be removed from the grains. The number of passes required to accomplish a drying process in a recirculation dryer depends on the initial moisture content and the amount of rough rice to be dried. The drying and tempering duration can be adjusted through a mechanical valve. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of recirculating dryers equipped with pneumatic conveyors instead of bucket elevators to reduce electricity cost and heated using a proper blend between kerosene and jatropha oil. Several experimental runs were conducted under a constant drying temperature of 60℃ and were controlled by adjusting the fuel consumption rate. The experimental results showed that the drying efficiency was in the range of 22.2% to 31.1%, the specific energy consumption was between 3,475-4,785 MJ/kg H2O evaporated, fuel consumption at 0.95 to 1.15 liters/hr, and the drying rate was 0.9% per day. Using 465 kg of rough rice, the entire drying operation required 10 hours of drying time with 74.3% of head yield. The mathematical model used in this study also had indicated close agreement with experimental data. which has a value of 8.5 to 10, 7 MJ/kg H2O vapor and drying efficiency between 22.22-31.10%. Electric energy consumption is 0.90 watts/kg of the product while using a bucket elevator 1.35 watts/kg.


The paper evaluates the effectiveness of learning for speeding up the solution of constraint satisfaction problems. It extends previous work (Dechter 1990) by introducing a new and powerful variant of learning and by presenting an extensive empirical study on much larger and more difficult problem instances. Our results show that learning can speed up backjumping when using either a fixed or dynamic variable ordering. However, the improvement with a dynamic variable ordering is not as great, and for some classes of problems learning is helpful only when a limit is placed on the size of new constraints learned.


Using the GPU to accelerate ray tracing may seem like a natural choice due to the highly parallel nature of the problem. However, determining the most versatile GPU data structure for scene storage and traversal is a challenge. In this paper, we introduce a new method for quick intersection of triangular meshes on the GPU. The method uses a threaded bounding volume hierarchy built from a geometry image, which can be efficiently traversed and constructed entirely on the GPU. This acceleration scheme is highly competitive with other GPU ray tracing methods, while allowing for both dynamic geometry and an efficient level of detail scheme at no extra cost.


In recent years operators of public transport bus services in Third World cities have increased their operation of dual services. As well as ordinary stage-carriage services, specialized services (providing, for example, more speed and comfort) are operated mainly on high demand corridors or to middle-income residential areas. The report describes the operational characteristics of specialized bus services in two Indian cities, Hyderabad and Delhi, and in Bangkok, Thailand. In addition, socio-economic characteristics and trip details of passengers are examined and an assessment made of the extent to which the services meet the objectives expected of them. It is possible that dual services, such as those described, may become the normal operating system of the future in most Third World cities. A basic and inexpensive ordinary service can be operated for low income users and a more expensive service operated for middle income users who can better afford the cost of higher quality.


Purpose—the focus of this article is to explore difficulties that are encountered by students during the first term at university. It is well known that students can have various problems in learning English and make mistakes in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The native language of a learner affects learning and using English. Speaking and e-listening are the skills that are more common on an everyday basis than reading and writing. Moreover, these skills are more difficult to master. English vocabulary presents another problem for language learners. Albeit, at the university level students study English for Specific Purposes (ESP), in other words, the foreign language for their future profession, and they might face particular difficulties in their studies of ESP. Design/methodology/approach—the research paper adopts the qualitative research approach. The questionnaire on learner perceptions of difficulties in e-learning was administered to students of three different specializations. Students' self-assessments of achievements or failures were analysed. Findings. The results indicated that perceptions of difficulties to adapting to university studies depended on their chosen specialization. The findings show that undergraduates of all three investigated specializations encounter the same difficulties, but to a different degree. In other words, there are no significantly specific difficulties due to the complexity of the professional vocabulary that students must learn. The ratings of Psychology, Social Work and Public Policy and Management students reveal higher mean values and wider range of Standard Deviations than reported by other researchers (Berman, Cheng, 2001). The results obtained imply that Lithuanian learners are more positive than their foreign counterparts. Computations of Pearson's correlations coefficients demonstrate that there are some good correlational relationships within each specialization. Research limitations. A limited number of respondents might raise a question of the reliability of the findings and require a further study into the issue. The respondents in this research were students of three different specializations, namely, Psychology (68), Social Work (26) and Public Policy and Management (52), who study ESP at the Faculty of Social Policy at Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania. Practical implications. The respondents were asked to indicate the degree of difficulty they had with the ESP language skills on the Likert's scale ranging from "very difficult" (1) to "very easy" (5). The analysis of the responses by a means of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software suggests that despite the limited number of the respondents, the results may be extended beyond the studied samples. Originality/Value. The value of this study encompasses the statistical processing of the responses, which should prove whether the findings are reliable or not. Research type: research paper.


Medications or lifestyle changes to prevent or improve hypertension often press considerable efforts on patients suffering from mild hypertension. Beverages including Umezu polyphenols (UP), polyphenols in Japanese plums, may help them to control their blood pressure. Healthy medical students, workers, and community dwellers who had some concerns about their blood pressure were randomized in a doubleblind manner into UP ingesting and placebo groups. The first two samples (medical students and workers) were placed in a preliminary study, and based on the results from that study, and the dose of UP for the community dwellers was determined. All three groups were followed for 5 weeks, and blood pressure, as well as biochemical markers related to hypertension and atherosclerosis and self-perceived quality-of-life outcomes, was monitored during that period. Group × time interactions on blood pressure changes were examined. For the community dwellers, blood pressure changes did not significantly differ between the UP ingesting and placebo groups. And although studies of students and workers showed subtle differences in blood pressure among the UP and placebo groups, a dose-dependent effect of UP on decreasing blood pressure could not be confirmed. On the other hand, anti-oxidative effects of UP were confirmed especially among male drinkers who were community dwellers. For the community dwellers, self-perceived physical health significantly improved in those who ingested UP. In conclusion, UP might prevent oxidation. A longer monitoring period as well as a higher dose of UP might enable us to confirm effects of UP against hypertension.


John C. Carey, MD, MPH, is Professor and formerly Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, Department of Pediatrics, at the University of Utah. Throughout his career, Dr. Carey has been interested in birth defect syndromes and the care of children with these conditions. Dr. Carey graduated from Villanova University in 1968 with an A.B. and obtained his MD from Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1972. He trained in pediatrics, and genetics and dysmorphology as a resident and fellow at the University of California San Francisco, 1972–1979.


There is a body of research that emphasises the role that peers can have in either fuelling or preventing bullying behaviour. Bystanders typically reinforce bullying by joining in or passively watching (O'Connell, Pepler and Craig 1999). Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner 1979) states that within a social group individuals are motivated to maintain a positive social identity and do so by adhering to group norms. Therefore, if bullying is normative within a group pupils are more likely to join in or passively watch (Duffy and Nesdale 2008; Gini 2006). This study evaluates the effectiveness of 'Defeat Bullying' (NSPCC 2007), a five week whole class anti-bullying curriculum. The overall aim of the curriculum was to create an anti-bullying group norm within the class. A pre-test, post-test non-equivalent groups quasi experimental design was employed, with an eight week follow up. Pupils aged 9-10 (year 5) from three schools in a predominately rural Local Authority (LA) in Yorkshire participated in the study (n = 69). School 1 received the intervention, School 2 received the intervention plus parental involvement and School 3 was the control group. Pupils' reported levels of bullying, attitudes towards bullying and knowledge of how to intervene in bullying situations were measured. Questionnaires regarding the pupils' difficult and prosocial behaviour were completed by the teachers. The impact of parental involvement on the effectiveness of the intervention was also explored. 'Defeat Bullying' (NSPCC 2007) did not have a statistically significant effect on any of the factors measured, which suggests there was no overall effect on the group norms regarding bullying. Furthermore, there was no statistically significant difference between School 1 and School 2 who received the intervention plus parental involvement. Possible reasons for the non significant results and the implications of this are discussed. The likelihood of changing group norms through the delivery of an anti-bullying curriculum is considered. The study raises questions in terms of whether or not parental involvement is important in anti-bullying interventions and if so what type of parental involvement is the most effective.


Timing requirements such as constraints on response time are key characteristics of real-time systems and violations of these requirements might cause a total failure, particularly in hard real-time systems. Runtime monitoring of the system properties is of great importance to check the system status and mitigate such failures. Thus, a runtime control to preserve the system properties could improve the robustness of the system with respect to timing violations. Common control approaches may require a precise analytical model of the system which is difficult to be provided at design time. Reinforcement learning is a promising technique to provide adaptive model-free control when the environment is stochastic, and the control problem could be formulated as a Markov Decision Process. In this paper, we propose an adaptive runtime control using reinforcement learning for real-time programs based on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), to meet the response time requirements. We demonstrate through multiple experiments that our approach could control the response time efficiently to satisfy the timing requirements.


Ear advantages in dichotic listening are generally held to reflect greater involvement of the hemisphere contralateral to the preferred ear. Rationales for this view rely on the assumption that, when information arriving at the two ears is treated as a single complex signal, an advantage to a component of this signal based on ear of input will not interact with an advantage based on some other attribute, such as frequency. This assumption is shown, for the case of dichotically presented melodies, to be unjustified. Dichotic tone pairs that are presented in a sequential context are more accurately perceived and localized when the higher tone is to the right and the lower to the left, than when the higher tone is to the left and the lower to the right. This anisotropy can, in principle, give rise to patterns of ear advantage which may tend in either direction, depending on factors such as type of material presented, level of difficulty, task requirement, and category of listener. Since its basis is unknown, ear advantages resulting from this anisotropy cannot be assumed to reflect greater involvement of either hemisphere in processing the information.


The technique of Object Oriented Analysis (OOA) has emerged only in the last decade. Although the technique of OOA is still new, its popularity has been increasing and it has already entered the mainstream of object oriented system development. This thesis makes a summary of four OOA methods and investigates the behaviors of all methods under different criteria. Through comparing the four methods, differences between methods are shown and analysts can select the appropriate one to meet his/her requirements.


The book Beginnings, Middles, & Ends by Ogden W. Rogers provides a 100 story reflective understanding of social work. The book is divided into the three major sections; the powerful and mysterious beginnings; the hard work and confusion of the middles; and the sadness and surprise of the endings. Dr. Kindle suggests that the text must be mixed with the readers' own insights and experiences to form meaning. He recommends this book without reservation while claiming it is an exceptional model of reflective social work practice which will leave the reader committed to deeper levels of self-reflection in their practice.


Forest carbon is accurately quantified by observing individual tree positions and heights. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for individual tree detection using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data in the Chollipo arboretum, South Korea. The proposed algorithm does not need to specify a proper window size for operation, taking advantage over the mostly used local maxima (LM) filtering for forest analysis. Four hundred twenty-nine treetops were detected and the average height and standard errors were 12.74 ± 0.24 m. Reference data were collected from two sources for verifying accuracy: field survey and visual interpretation. Overall, the result was overestimated but showed relatively high accuracy. The field survey detected 87% of the trees with a coefficient of determination (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.77 and 1.57 m, respectively. The accuracy index (AI), which examines the correspondence between LiDAR detected and visually interpreted trees, was 91%. The average tree height error between on-site and LiDAR derived data was -1.42 ± 0.64 m and between visually interpreted and LiDAR derived data was -0.84 ± 0.10 m. This study emphasized the choice of algorithm and its parameters depending on forest conditions may influence the individual tree detection result. By comparing our work against previous studies, we found the tree location and height identification accuracy could be improved if different algorithms were used for different types of forests, as well as the LiDAR point density with each algorithm. This study suggests that more accurate individual tree detection could be obtained with different applications based on forest conditions.


PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The painful shoulder is a well-recognized clinical entity in throwers although the pathogenic mechanisms involved are still debated. In 1991 Walch then Jobe developed the concept of posterosuperior impingement to explain lesions observed arthroscopically. This impingement between the deep aspect of the supraspinatus tendon and the glenoid occurs during loaded arm movements. The purpose of this work was to study the different types of lesions observed arthroscopically and to analyse outcome after arthroscopic debridement.

MATERIAL AND METHOD
Our series included 75 thrower athletes who had shoulder pain for loaded arm movements. Pain was situated in the dominant shoulder in all cases. Clinically, the Jobe manipulation provoked pain in 52 patents, expression of a supraspinous disorder. After failure of conservative treatment, the patients underwent arthroscopy for assessment and debridement. At the time of arthroscopy, the patients had suffered pain for two years (mean 22.3 months). All 75 patients were seen for clinical and radiological assessment at least two years after arthroscopy.

RESULTS
Among the 75 arthroscopies, there were 67 (89%) partial tears involving the deep aspect of the cuff, associated in 90% of the cases with a labral lesion. Tears involved the supraspinatus in 40 cases, the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus in 24 and the infraspinatus alone in three. Eight patients were free of tendon lesions at arthroscopy. There were no full thickness tears. The labrum had a meniscal (45%) or non-meniscal aspect (55%) and appeared normal (18%), fringed (38%) or fissured (52%). The very large majority of the labral fissures were found behind the biceps insertion. Fissures of the labrum were found in front of the biceps insertion in only three cases (slap lesion). Arthroscopy demonstrated glenoid damage (soft cartilage, fissure, abrasion, wear). The humeral head also exhibited lesions of the cartilage facing the insertion of the infraspinatus. At last follow-up (minimum > 2 years), eight patients were very satisfied, 22 were satisfied and 45 were disappointed. Twelve patients had resumed their sports activities at their former level with loaded arm movement and one patient had interrupted all sports activities. At last follow-up, 22 patient had undergone another surgical procedure: 20 derotation osteotomies of the humerus, one anterior stabilization, one acromioplasty.

DISCUSSION
The notion of posterosuperior impingement is increasingly recognized as the cause of pain in thrower athletes. Loaded arm movements produce a physiological contact between the posteriorsuperior edge of the glenoid cavity and the deep aspect of the rotator cuff. Injury results from repeated loaded arm movements in throwers. In our series, all the patients had at least one lesion, either involving the cuff or the labrum. According to the Snyder classification, 80% of the supraspinatus lesions were grade 1 or grade 2. We did not have any full thickness tears. All patients with a normal cuff were found to have a lesion of the posterosuperior labrum. At arthroscopy, dynamic assessment evidenced an impingement between the supraspinatus (or the infraspinatus) and the labrum or the bony edge of the glenoid cavity. Only three patients had a labral lesion anterior to the biceps insertion that could be considered a type 1 or 2 slap lesion. Unlike earlier reports by others, we had disappointing results after debridement: 60% of the patients were disappointed after the procedure and only 40% were satisfied (22 patients) or very satisfied (8 patients). Patient satisfaction depended greatly on the level of sports activity attained after arthroscopy, the eight very satisfied patients had resumed their former level. None of the professional athletes or those competing at the international level were very satisfied with arthroscopic debridement. There was an inverse relationship between level of competition and patient satisfaction after debridement.


The thesis develops a new approach to the central themes of algebraic coding theory. The focus here is the newly introduced concept of a partial-inverse polynomial in a quotient ring F [x]/m(x). In particular, the decoding of Reed-Solomon codes can be attributed to the computation of a partial-inverse polynomial. The problem of practical computation of a partial-inverse polynomial is closely related to the problem of shift-register synthesis, which is based on the well-known Berlekamp-Massey algorithm. A major result of this work is a (new) algorithm for computing a partial-inverse polynomial. The new algorithm is very similar to the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm, but it is applicable generally, e.g., to extended Reed-Solomon codes and polynomial remainder codes. The algorithm can also be easily transformed into the so-called Euclidean algorithm, and thus provides a new derivation of the later. For decoding Reed-Solomon codes, the algorithm can be directly applied to the classical key equation; however, mathematically natural is the application to a new key equation that applies in particular to generalizations of Reed-Solomon codes. Two new interpolation are also presented to accompany this new key equation. Another focus of this work is the polynomial remainder codes, a natural generalization of Reed-Solomon codes. The theory of such codes is carefully constructed as in earlier work. In particular, varying degrees of remainders are allowed, resulting in two different definitions of the distance between two codewords. The decoding of these codes leads directly to the mentioned new key equation. A focus of the recent algebraic coding theory is the decoding of errors beyond half the minimum distance. A mainline of such algorithms is based on generalization of the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm on several parallel sequences. In this work, a corresponding generalization of the


Here we report the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of polycyclic aromatic azomethine ylides with nitriles to produce highly fused imidazole derivatives, that is, tribenzo[b,g,ij]imidazo[2,1,5-de]quinolizine. The advantages of this transformation are the broad substrate scope and the good functional group compatibility. The subsequent palladium-catalyzed intramolecular cyclization provides an efficient approach to further π-extended imidazoles, that is, 14b1,15-diazadibenzo[fg,ij]cyclopenta[rst]pentaphene.


1. Tundra swans forage on below-ground pondweed tubers that are heterogeneously distributed in space. The swans have no visual cues to delineate patches. It was tested whether swans employ an area-restricted search tactic. Theory predicts that swans should alternate between an intensive (low-speed, sinuous) search mode in high tuber density areas and an extensive (high-speed, directed) search mode between these areas. 2. A quantitative analysis of movement paths recorded over short time frames (15 min) revealed that the sequential step lengths were strongly autocorrelated. After partitioning the data in low-speed paths and high-speed paths, this autocorrelation was very much reduced. 3. Movement paths with low speed were non-directional and could well be described as random walks. In contrast, high-speed paths were directed forward, and were better described as correlated (i.e. directional) random walks. 4. Movement paths recorded over longer time frames (1-4 h) provided empirical evidence that an alternation of low-speed, sinuous and high-speed, directed searches occurred. 5. There was a spatial autocorrelation in tuber biomass density, being significantly positively correlated until c. 10 m distance. The scale of the food clump size and step length of high-speed paths matched, suggesting that they were causally linked. 6. Computer simulations confirmed that swans using the observed search tactic achieved a higher energy gain than swans using only an intensive search mode, provided that the tuber biomass density occurred in clumps. They also achieved a higher gain than swans that alternated between intensive and extensive search mode, but always moved in a random direction.


doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2016v14iss3art5 Anthropogenic climate change amounts to a rapidly approaching, "new" stressor in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta system. In response to California's extreme natural hydroclimatic variability, complex water-management systems have been developed, even as the Delta's natural ecosystems have been largely devastated. Climate change is projected to challenge these management and ecological systems in different ways that are characterized by different levels of uncertainty. For example, there is high certainty that climate will warm by about 2°C more (than late-20th-century averages) by mid-century and about 4°C by end of century, if greenhouse-gas emissions continue their current rates of acceleration. Future precipitation changes are much less certain, with as many climate models projecting wetter conditions as drier. However, the same projections agree that precipitation will be more intense when storms do arrive, even as more dry days will separate storms. Warmer temperatures will likely enhance evaporative demands and raise water temperatures. Consequently, climate change is projected to yield both more extreme flood risks and greater drought risks. Sea level rise (SLR) during the 20th century was about 22 cm, and is projected to increase by at least 3-fold this century. SLR together with land subsidence threatens the Delta with greater vulnerabilities to inundation and salinity intrusion. Effects on the Delta ecosystem that are traceable to warming include SLR, reduced snowpack, earlier snowmelt and larger storm-driven streamflows, warmer and longer summers, warmer summer water temperatures, and water-quality changes. These changes and their uncertainties will challenge the operations of water projects and uses throughout the Delta's watershed and delivery areas. Although the effects of of climate change on Delta ecosystems may be profound, the end results are difficult to predict, except that native species will fare worse than invaders. Successful preparation for the coming changes will require greater integration of monitoring, modeling, and decision making across time, variables, and space than has been historically normal.


In this paper, we study the resource allocation problem in the downlink of an OFDMA system. Taking into account the constraint that each user can be assigned only one modulation and coding scheme (MCS), our goal is to maximize the system utility, which can be either the sum rate of users or certain fairness metric. The joint subcarrier, rate, and power allocation problem is formulated, and a straightforward suboptimal algorithm is proposed to solve this problem efficiently. Through computer simulation, our proposed algorithm is verified to be better in performance compared to the existing ones.


"Teach Yourself to Think" is the classic work of intelligent self-empowerment from world-renowned writer and philosopher Edward de Bono. Our happiness and success depend on clear thinking. But too many of us are compromised by confusion, trying to do too much at once, and not knowing what to do next. In "Teach Yourself to Think", Edward de Bono shows that good thinking depends on a simple five-stage process that anyone can learn if they try. It will enable you to assess your goals, sort available information, identify the available choices, make a decision and, finally, turn thought into action. This book offers brilliant advice for anyone who needs to be able to respond to and deal with a vast range of situations at work and in life quickly, efficiently and intelligently. "An inspiring man with brilliant ideas. De Bono never ceases to amaze with his clarity of thought". (Richard Branson). Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Dr de Bono has written more than 60 books, in 40 languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind. Dr de Bono's titles include classic bestsellers such as "Six Thinking Hats", "Lateral Thinking", "I Am Right You Are Wrong", "Teach Yourself How To Think", "Teach Your Child How To Think", and "Simplicity".


Based on surface area, South Africa is currently ranked the eighth in planting genetically modified (GM) crops in the world. Bt maize (MON810) has been grown to control lepidopterous stem borers in South Africa since its first release during 1998. The first report of resistance of the African maize stem borer, Busseola fusca (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and poor compliance to refuge requirements that could have contributed to resistance development prompted this study which was done in the main maize production area of South Africa. Objectives were to evaluate farmer's perceptions of the regulatory aspects guiding the planting of Bt maize and refugia and how it was applied between 1998 and 2010. This study involved 105 commercial farmers covering 87 778 ha of maize throughout the main maize production region on the Highveld of South Africa. A questionnaire survey was conducted and addressed signing of technical agreements upon purchasing GM seed, refuge compliance, pest management practices, perceived benefits and risks relating to Bt maize. Compliance with refugia requirements was low especially during the initial 5–7 years after release. An alarmingly high number of farmers applied insecticides as preventative sprays on Bt maize and refugia irrespective of stem borer infestation levels. A large proportion of farmers reported significant borer infestation levels on Bt maize and between 5% and 93% farmers in all districts applied insecticides to Bt maize to limit borer damage, indicating that the occurrence of resistance is more wide‐spread in the country than previously thought. This study shows irresponsible management of GM crop technology by farmers, chemical and seed companies. Concerns and perceptions of farmers in South Africa seem to differ from those in Europe. South African farmers perceived little, if any, negative impact on non‐target organisms and remain positive about the technology in spite of resistance development. Other studies indicated that European farmers were concerned about these aspects. A shared concern, however, was consumer acceptance of GM maize and marketability on the export market.


Machine learning techniques are becoming an important tool for studying animal vocal communication. The goat ( Capra hircus ) is a very social species, in which vocal communication and recognition are important. We tested the reliability of a Multi-Layer Perceptron (feed-forward Artificial Neural Network, ANN) to automate the process of classification of calls according to individual identity, group membership and maturation in this species. Vocalisations were obtained from 10 half-sibling (same father but different mothers) goat kids, belonging to 3 distinct social groups. We recorded 157 contact calls emitted during first week, and 164 additional calls recorded from the same individuals at 5 weeks. For each call, we measured 27 spectral and temporal acoustic parameters using a custom built program in Praat software. For each classification task we built stratified 10-fold cross-validated neural networks. The input nodes corresponded to the acoustic parameters measured on each signal. ANNs were trained with the error back-propagation algorithm. The number of hidden units was set to the number of attributes + classes. Each model was trained for 350 epochs (learning rate 0.2; momentum 0.2). To estimate a reliable error for the models, we repeated 10-fold cross-validation iterations 10 times and calculated the average predictive performance. The accuracy was 71.13 ± 1.16% for vocal individuality, 79.59 ± 0.75% for social group and 91.37 ± 0.76% for age of the vocalising animal. Our results demonstrate that ANNs are a powerful tool for studying vocal cues to individuality, group membership and maturation in contact calls. The performances we achieved were higher than those obtained for the same classification tasks using classical statistical methods such as Discriminant Function Analysis. Further studies, investigating the reliability of these algorithms for the realtime classification of contact calls and comparing ANNs with other machine learning techniques are important to develop technology to remotely monitor the vocalisations of


The Romanian Digitalization Authority is currently proposing a new vision in the public sector through the digital transformation component. It's a vision of the business environment. It is estimated that the benefits of digital transformation, such as efficiency, transparency, and simplicity, could lead to much higher process productivity. The vision that ADR will develop in its work is based on the awareness of the need for new technologies by the leaders of public institutions, the continuous adaptation to the requirements of citizens, quality, secure and fast online public services. However, the question arises whether this vision also considers the perspective of sustainable development in Romania in terms of sustainable development indicators. To be able to answer this question, we used as a research method the documentary analysis doubled by an analysis of the indicators of the sustainable development of Romania for the last five years. The review of the specialized literature gave us the chance to identify the particularities of the digitalization of public administration from other countries and to highlight the specific characteristics of Romania. A comparative analysis of sustainable development indicators will be the subject of our further research.


Modern trade agreements no longer emphasize basic trade liberalization but instead focus on international policy coordination in a much broader sense. In this review we introduce the emerging literature on the political economy of such deep integration agreements. We organize our discussion around three main points. First, the political conflict surrounding trade agreements is moving beyond the classic antagonism of exporter interests who gain from trade and import-competing interests who lose from trade. Second, there is a more intense popular backlash against deep integration agreements than there was against shallow integration agreements. Finally, the welfare economics of trade agreements has become more complex, in the sense that the goal of achieving freer trade is no longer sufficient as a guide to evaluating the efficiency of international agreements.


Inositol trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) are central to the neuronal response to endoplasmic reticulum stress. Calcium plays key roles in neuronal signaling; One source of calcium is the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), dysfunction of which has been associated with neurological disorders. Two groups explore how neurons respond to ER stress. Narayanan et al. found that depletion of intracellular calcium stores triggered a reduction in neuronal excitability that was specifically localized to the somatic region in mouse hippocampal slice preparations, which they propose may represent a neuroprotective response to cell stress (see Schmidt and Ehrlich). In a related article, Higo et al. found that ER stress caused altered calcium signaling in neurons by impairing the activity of ER-resident calcium-release channels—the inositol trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs)—and that reduced abundance of the IP3R1 enhanced neuronal cell death in response to ER stress. Narayanan et al. used an ER calcium pump inhibitor to deplete intracellular calcium stores and recorded electrophysiological properties of neurons in hippocampal slices. They found that depletion of the stores caused a prolonged reduction in neuronal excitability that was detected in the perisomatic region but not in the dendrites. The electrophysiological changes suggested an increase in h current, a nonselective cationic current, and the reduction in neuronal excitability was blocked by the addition of an inhibitor of the h channel. Unexpectedly, the reduction in neuronal excitability was greater at depolarized voltages, which is not typical of the known properties of the h current. With a 3D, multicompartmental neuronal model, the authors performed simulations that suggested that an increase in functional somatic h channels, along with a depolarizing shift in their gating properties, could explain the reduced perisomatic excitability; these predictions were verified experimentally with the slice preparations. The reduction in excitability was blocked by a calcium chelator, indicating that it required increased intracellular calcium. Inhibition of voltage-gated calcium channels did not block the reduction in excitability, but it did require IP3Rs and store-operated calcium channels, because it was blocked by selective antagonists of either of these channels. Inhibition of protein kinase A also prevented the reduction in excitability, suggesting that activation of the store-operated calcium response and release of ER calcium triggered a pathway involving PKA, a known modulator of h current. The authors propose that intrinsic reduction in neuronal activity would serve as a protective mechanism in response to pathological conditions that cause store depletion. Higo et al. examined the role of IP3R1 in neuronal response to ER stress. They induced ER stress with the glycosylation inhibitor tunicamycin, the reducing agent dithiothreitol (DTT), or the ER calcium pump inhibitor thapsigargin. Injection of mice with tunicamycin caused an increase in pyknotic (apoptotic) Purkinje neurons in the brains of IP3R1+/– mice relative to the brains of wild-type mice, and in cultured HeLa cells knockdown of IP3R1 caused an increase in apoptotic cells in response to any of the three ER stressors. Calcium imaging studies with a neuroblastoma cell line (N1E-115) and primary cultured neurons showed that DTT or tunicamycin caused a reduction in IP3R1 activity. Multiple experimental paradigms indicated that the ER chaperone GRP78 interacted with the intralumenal domain of IP3R1 (in cell lines, primary cultured neurons, and brain) and that it competed with another ER protein, ERp44, for binding to IP3R1. In a mouse model of Huntington's disease, a neurodegenerative disease, coimmunoprecipitation experiments showed that the interaction between IP3R1 and GRP78 was reduced in various regions of the brain. With experiments in cultured HeLa, COS-7, and N1E-115 cells, the authors showed that knockdown of GRP78 compromised IP3R1 activity but did not inhibit IP3R2 or IP3R3. Cross-linking and gel filtration experiments indicated that GRP78 promoted the assembly of tetrameric receptors, which is required for activity, and experiments with tunicamycin or thapsigargin showed that ER stress reduced the amount of tetrameric IP3R1. Thus, ER stress appears to compromise calcium signaling by IP3R1s by reducing the interaction with the ER chaperone GRP78 that is needed for proper subunit assembly of the channel. Together, these two studies suggest that ER calcium signaling plays key roles in the neuronal response to ER stress. R. Narayanan, K. J. Dougherty, D. Johnston, Calcium store depletion induces persistent perisomatic increases in the functional density of h channels in hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Neuron 68, 921–935 (2010). [Online Journal] T. Higo, K. Hamada, C. Hisatsune, N. Nukina, T. Hashikawa, M. Hattori, T. Nakamura, K. Mikoshiba, Mechanism of ER stress-induced brain damage by IP3 receptor. Neuron 68, 865–878 (2010). [Online Journal] S. Schmidt, B. E. Ehrlich, Unloading intracellular calcium stores reveals regionally specific functions. Neuron 68, 806–808 (2010). [Online Journal]


The study proposes econometric tests for examining whether the theoretical divergences between the space of «capabilities» and that of the «utility» have, in practice, some importance. Based on the household survey of Burkina Faso carried out by 1994-95, the empiricalanalysis arrives at three conclusions. Firstly, a measure of poverty based on the monetaryexpenditures has, to a certain extent, the capacity to capture important dimensions of thewellbeing suggested by the approach of the rights, in particular, access to adapted educationaland health levels, and to adequate conditions of housing and sanitary environment. Secondly, thestudy shows the opportunity of a micro-multidimensionalmeasure of the deprivation of certainrights as an approximation of monetary poverty. On the one hand, the approach of the rightssuggests a proximity of situations between the configuration of the non-monetary poverty,apprehended by the micro-multidimensional index, and the profile of monetary poverty. On theother hand, the binary Probit, Tobit and ordered Probit estimates show that the role of theattributes related to housing, sanitary environment and instruction is essential in theexplanation, not only of the ratio and the monetary poverty gap, but also of the classificationof the households according to the per capita expenditures. However, taking into considerationof the nutrition leads to more contrasted conclusions. Thirdly, the empirical tests tend,nevertheless, to support the idea – and the theoretical argumentation – that the coexistence oftwo «spaces» introduces essential additional information in terms of evaluation of poverty andpromotion of human development. Three principal effects explain this conclusion: (i) an effectof level – the sensibility of the access to capabilities is related to the level of householdexpenditures ; (ii) an effect of structure – the relation between the standard of living of thehouseholds and the access to the capabilities is complicated by the heterogeneity of the ruraland urban sectors, and the social institutions; (iii) an effect of eviction – for example, therelative non-access of girls to education or to an adequate nutrition grows with the per capitadepenses, especially in the rural sector. Consequently, if the increasing availability of themonetary resources of the households are a major determinant of human development, theapproaches of the capabilities and utility are more complementary than opposed, and it would beprobably economically and socially ineffective to want to completely substitute one for theother.(Full text in French)


This study aimed at moving beyond previous research on couple therapy efficacy by examining moment-by-moment proximal couple and therapist interactions as well as final treatment outcomes and their reciprocal association. Seven hundred four episodes of dyadic coping within 56 early therapy sessions, taken from 28 married couples in treatment, were intensively analyzed and processed using a mixed-methods software (T-LAB). Results showed that negative dyadic coping was self-perpetuating, and therapists tended to passively observe the negative couple interaction; on the contrary, positive dyadic coping appeared to require a therapist's intervention to be maintained, and successful interventions mainly included information gathering as well as interpreting. Couples who dropped out of treatment were not actively engaged from the outset of therapy, and they used more negative dyadic coping, whereas couples who successfully completed treatment showed more positive dyadic coping very early in therapy. Results highlight the role of therapist action and control as critical to establishing rapport and credibility in couple therapy and suggest that dyadic coping patterns early in therapy may contribute to variable treatment response.


Financial markets respond to information virtually instantaneously. Each new piece of information influences the prices of assets and their correlations with each other, and as the system rapidly changes, so too do correlation forecasts. This fast-evolving environment presents econometricians with the challenge of forecasting dynamic correlations, which are essential inputs to risk measurement, portfolio allocation, derivative pricing, and many other critical financial activities. In Anticipating Correlations, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Engle introduces an important new method for estimating correlations for large systems of assets: Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC).

 Engle demonstrates the role of correlations in financial decision making, and addresses the economic underpinnings and theoretical properties of correlations and their relation to other measures of dependence. He compares DCC with other correlation estimators such as historical correlation, exponential smoothing, and multivariate GARCH, and he presents a range of important applications of DCC. Engle presents the asymmetric model and illustrates it using a multicountry equity and bond return model. He introduces the new FACTOR DCC model that blends factor models with the DCC to produce a model with the best features of both, and illustrates it using an array of U.S. large-cap equities. Engle shows how overinvestment in collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, lies at the heart of the subprime mortgage crisis--and how the correlation models in this book could have foreseen the risks. A technical chapter of econometric results also is included.

 Based on the Econometric Institute Lectures at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Anticipating Correlations puts powerful new forecasting tools into the hands of researchers, financial analysts, risk managers, derivative quants, and graduate students.


CXC chemokine receptor 3 (CXCR3) is the receptor for the IFN-gamma-inducible C-X-C chemokines MIG/CXCL9, IP-10/CXCL10, and I-TAC/CXCL11. CXCR3 is expressed on activated immune cells and proliferating endothelial cells. The role of CXCR3 in fibroproliferation has not been investigated. We examined the role of CXCR3 in pulmonary injury and repair in vivo. CXCR3-deficient mice demonstrated increased mortality with progressive interstitial fibrosis relative to WT mice. Increased fibrosis occurred without increased inflammatory cell recruitment. CXCR3 deficiency resulted in both a reduced early burst of IFN-gamma production and decreased expression of CXCL10 after lung injury. We identified a relative deficiency in lung NK cells in the unchallenged CXCR3-deficient lung and demonstrated production of IFN-gamma by WT lung NK cells in vivo following lung injury. The fibrotic phenotype in the CXCR3-deficient mice was significantly reversed following administration of exogenous IFN-gamma or restoration of endogenous IFN-gamma production by adoptive transfer of WT lymph node and spleen cells. Finally, pretreatment of WT mice with IFN-gamma-neutralizing Ab's enhanced fibrosis following lung injury. These data demonstrate a nonredundant role for CXCR3 in limiting tissue fibroproliferation and suggest that this effect may be mediated, in part, by the innate production of IFN-gamma following lung injury.


ANALYSIS OF STABILIZED ADOBE IN RURAL EAST AFRICA Grace Ying Yu Chen This project seeks to assist people in rural East Africa by proposing sustainable building methods which implement affordable and durable adobe bricks for construction. Adobe, one of the oldest sustainable building materials in the world, is strong when dry but lacks structural integrity when exposed to moisture. Chemical additives such as cement and lime are added into the adobe mix to protect the brick against moisture decomposition. Once the chemicals are added and the mix is formed into a brick, a stabilized adobe brick is formed. Cement, a stabilizer, is locally available in East Africa, but is generally unaffordable for families in rural areas. Lime is also locally available and costs about half the price of cement. This project investigates reducing the amount of cement to produce an economical and stabilized brick. The tested brick mixes, measured by volume, were • 10% cement • 5% cement • 5% cement+5% lime • 7% lime with sand • 7% lime with clay only • 10% lime with sand After testing these bricks by water jet, submersion, modulus of rupture, and compression, the 5% cement+5% lime mix and the 7% lime with clay mix proved to be viable options for economical and durable bricks. Analysis of Stabilized Adobe in Rural East Africa v The second half of this project contains summaries of research related to stabilized adobe and other soil building methods. A literature search shows that lime mixed with soil containing small particles rich in calcium carbonate and quartz produces proper cementation in the mix called carbonation.


Computer source code is the lifeblood of the Internet. It is also the brick and mortar of cyberspace. As such, it has been argued that the degree of control that a government can wield over code can be a powerful tool for controlling new technologies. With the advent and proliferation in the Internet of social networking media and platforms for the publication and sharing of user-generated content, the ability of individuals across the world to communicate with each other has reached truly revolutionary dimensions.The influence of Facebook in the popular revolutions of the Arab Spring has been well documented. The use of YouTube in the 2008 US Presidential campaign has also left its indelible mark in the political landscape. New platforms have allowed millions of individuals to unleash their artistic and creative potentials. Tools like Google Earth have expanded the ability of entire populations to learn about their surroundings, the world at large, and their places in it. The combination of smartphones and Twitter has created new tactics for protests and redefined the way in which individuals assemble to petition their government for a redress of grievances.The time has come to reconsider the issue of whether computer source code is "speech" for First Amendment purposes, and how the government can regulate it in a manner consistent with First Amendment values. This article proposes a three-step framework for analyzing questions of First Amendment coverage consistent with Supreme Court doctrine. In applying this framework to computer source code, this article also explores the relation between the different values that have been ascribed to the First Amendment, discusses some insights regarding the speech-conduct distinction, and considers the extent of First Amendment coverage in general.


Several Total Variation (TV) regularization methods have recently been proposed to address denoising under mixed Gaussian and impulse noise. While achieving high-quality denoising results, these new methods are based on complicated cost functionals that are difficult to optimize, which negatively affects their computational performance. In this paper we propose a simple cost functional consisting of a TV regularization term and ℓ2 and ℓ1 data fidelity terms, for Gaussian and impulse noise respectively, with local regularization parameters selected by an impulse noise detector. The computational performance of the proposed algorithm greatly exceeds that of the state of the art algorithms within the TV framework, and its reconstruction quality performance is competitive for high noise levels, for both grayscale and vector-valued images.


With the publication of her first book of criticism, "Against Interpretation," in 1966, Susan Sontag placed herself at the forefront of an era of cultural and political transformation. What is important now, she wrote, is to recover our senses . . . . In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art. She would remain a catalyzing presence, whether writing about camp sensibility, the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais, her experiences as a traveler to Hanoi at the height of the Vietnam War, the aesthetics of science-fiction and pornography, or a range of modern thinkers from Simone Weil to E. M. Cioran. She opened dazzling new perspectives on any subject she addressed, whether the nature of photography or cultural attitudes toward illness. This volume, edited by Sontag s son David Rieff, presents the full texts of four essential books: "Against Interpretation," "Styles of Radical Will" (1969), "On Photography" (1977), and "Illness as Metaphor" (1978). Also here as a special feature are six previously uncollected essays including studies of William S. Burroughs and the painter Francis Bacon and a series of reflections on beauty, aging, and the emerging feminist movement."


Ionce had a patient do what I said. I said, "Quit smoking." And he did. OK, maybe this has happened more than once. But wouldn't it be nice if it happened more often? If our patients would just follow our advice to quit smoking, exercise, eat better, and take their darn medicine, they would be so much healthier and our jobs would be so much easier. Once there was a mythical time, before the age of consumerism, when patients did what their doctors said. They didn't ask questions, and they took their medicine. Of course, back then physicians smoked along with their patients and didn't advise twothirds of their patients to exercise and lose weight. We are trained to be the experts – the oracles with the answers. Yet we've been told our responsibility doesn't end there. It isn't enough to have the answers. We also need to know how to deliver the message. So now we deliver written instructions at a sixthgrade reading level, hand out clinical summaries, and give longer verbal instructions. But despite our good intentions, people still keep getting fatter, smoking, drinking to excess, and not taking the medications we advised them to take. Enter motivational interviewing. This proven approach to getting folks to change behavior has been around for more than 30 years, but only in the last few years has it gained traction in primary care. FPM introduced the topic in 2011, and we bring it up again in this issue with an article by Kathleen Reims, MD, FAAFP, and Denise Ernst, PhD, called "Using Motivational Interviewing to Promote Healthy Weight" (see page 32). Around seven years ago I read a wonderful book called Motivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change Behavior. I was so enthralled that I told my partners about it, declaring that this should be required reading for every primary care physician. The approach resonated with me, and yet seven years later I still often fail to fully utilize it when I should. Why? Well, it does take more time. It's not that I don't attempt to spend quality time with my patients, but there are just so many things that need to be accomplished in a visit these days. But time likely isn't the major barrier. Many aspects of motivational interviewing can be included in a visit with only a small increase in time. I believe a larger barrier is my own sense of identity as a physician. Motivational interviewing consists of interesting sounding techniques like OARS, SMART goals, AskTell-Ask, change talk, and scaling questions, but more importantly, it requires an entirely different perspective on the nature of the physician's role. As a practitioner of motivational interviewing, your goal isn't to heal, but to help. It isn't to solve your patients' problems, but to help them solve their own problems. This is a tough mental shift from the more comfortable expert-teacher role. It goes against our natural tendency to just want to fix things. When I think about the challenges of implementing motivational interviewing in our daily workflow, I imagine Bones, that can-do family physician of "Star Trek" fame, saying to Captain Kirk, "Damn it, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a self-help guru." I'd really like to be a healer in the broadest sense and help my patients overcome unhealthy lifestyle choices, so I'm not about to give up on motivational interviewing. I guess I'll just keep practicing and trying harder to incorporate a motivational interviewing perspective into my patient encounters. Maybe eventually I can become both a healer and a self-help guru. As a practitioner of motivational interviewing, your goal isn't to heal, but to help. It isn't to solve your patients' problems, but to help them solve their own problems.


The world of work has undergone significant change since the days when nation-states first began addressing the issue of worker well-being. Early legal responses (such as worker compensation laws and health and safety regulations) focused on the physical environmental hazards to which workers were subjected, e.g. unsafe machinery or exposure to toxic chemicals. The transformation in the nature of work to a service-oriented economy has led many to rethink the types of hazards to which workers are exposed. Recent research has focused on the psychological and social environment in the workplace and how that may contribute to undermining worker health. This article considers the ways in which European countries and the United States are responding to this newly recognized threat to worker health.


Significant systematic biases in the moisture fields within the tropical Pacific trade wind regions are found in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3/CMIP5) against profile and total column water vapor (TotWV) estimates from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder and TotWV from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager. Positive moisture biases occur in conjunction with significant biases of eastward low‐level moisture convergence north of the South Pacific Convergence Zone and south of the Intertropical Convergence Zone—the V‐shaped regions. The excessive moisture there is associated with overestimates of reflected upward shortwave (RSUT), underestimates of outgoing longwave radiation (RLUT) at the top of atmosphere (TOA), and underestimates of downward shortwave flux at the surface (RSDS) compared to Clouds and the Earth's Energy System, Energy Balance and Filled data. We characterize the impacts of falling snow and its radiation interaction, which are not included in most CMIP5 models, on the moisture fields using the National Center for Atmospheric Research‐coupled global climate model (GCM). A number of differences in the model simulation without snow‐radiation interactions are consistent with biases in the CMIP5 simulations. These include effective low‐level eastward/southeastward wind and surface wind stress anomalies, and an increase in TotWV, vertical profile of moisture, and cloud amounts in the V‐shaped region. The anomalous water vapor and cloud amount might be associated with the model increase of RSUT and decrease of RLUT at TOA and decreased RSDS in clear and all sky in these regions. These findings hint at the importance of water vapor‐radiation interactions in the CMIPS/CMIP5 model simulations that exclude the radiative effect of snow.


A kinetic investigation into the enolisation mechanism and enol contents of simple carboxylic acids, esters and amides has been undertaken. Measurement of the enolisation rate constants for malonic acid, ethylhydrogenmalonate and 2- carboxyacetamide were obtained. The halogenation reactions were carried out under conditions where the rate determining step was the enolisation and the reactions were zero order in halogen. The measurements were carried out using u.v./visible spectrophotometry. Results obtained for malonic acid and ethylhydrogenmalonate support the idea of an intramolecular acid catalysed mechanism involving a hydrogen bonded six membered transition state. The enolisation mechanisms were investigated in a number of buffer solutions and were found to be catalysed by general bases. Catalytic coefficients for the following bases were calculated, HO(_2)CCH(_2)CO(_2)-, EtO(_2)CCH(_2)CO(_2)-,ClCH(_2)CO(_2)-, and H(_2)O. Deuterium exchange reactions were monitored using (^1)H N.M.R. and enolisation rate constants for cyano-containing esters and amides were calculated. The results show that the enolisation of amides occurs via an acid catalysed process whereas the enolisation of carboxylic acids and esters proceeds by an intramolecular acid catalysed or a general base catalysed mechanism. Enol contents for simple carboxylic acid derivatives were determined from their reactions with halogens under conditions where the reaction of the halogen with the enol is rate limiting and the reaction is found to be first order in the halogen. It was demonstrated that chlorine, bromine and iodine react with carboxylic ester enols at or very close to the diffusion controlled limit (ca 5x10(^9) 1 mol(^-1) sec(^-1)). The enol contents measured were found to be greater than expected, with the enol content of malonic acid very similar to that of acetone. An estimate of the acidity of carboxylic acid enols has shown them to be strong acids with pK(_a) values in the region 2-5.


On the 19th of July, 2008, a group of young disabled visitors (wheelchair users) were expelled from the Troyan Monastery in Bulgaria by the hegumen of the monastery with the stipulation that 'obviously you pay for others' sins, since you are like this'. Two years later the Bulgarian Commission for the Protection against Discrimination found the hegumen guilty of harassment on the basis of disability. In this paper I analyse the Commission's decision from a phenomenological perspective. I draw on Heidegger's existential phenomenology and also on concepts borrowed from the domain of Science and Technology Studies. I explore the existential-ontological patterns that are implicitly at work in the event as recounted in the Commission's decision. Thus, a spatio-temporal distribution of human beings according to a rigid interiority/exteriority logic is identified. This spatio-temporal pattern is informed by an understanding of space that prioritizes proximity, and by an understanding of time that prioritizes permanence. The interiority/exteriority division, on its behalf, is sustained by a highly contested 'boundary-work', in which different non-human entities are recruited as mediators.

Keywords: disability, discrimination, phenomenology, boundary-work, science and technology Studies


Many bird species do not make their own nests; therefore, selection of existing sites that provide adequate microclimates is critical. This is particularly true for owls in north temperate climates that often nest early in the year when inclement weather is common. Spotted owls use three main types of nest structures, each of which are structurally distinct and may provide varying levels of protection to the eggs or young. We tested the hypothesis that spotted owl nest configuration influences nest microclimate using both experimental and observational data. We used a wind tunnel to estimate the convective heat transfer coefficient (hc) of eggs in 25 potential nest configurations that mimicked 2 nest types (top-cavity and platform nests), at 3 different wind speeds. We then used the estimates of hc in a biophysical heat transfer model to estimate how long it would take unattended eggs to cool from incubation temperature (∼36°C) to physiological zero temperature (PZT; ∼26°C) under natural environmental conditions. Our results indicated that the structural configuration of nests influences the cooling time of the eggs inside those nests, and hence, influences the nest microclimate. Estimates of time to PZT ranged from 10.6 minutes to 33.3 minutes. Nest configurations that were most similar to platform nests always had the fastest egg cooling times, suggesting that platform nests were the least protective of those nests we tested. Our field data coupled with our experimental results suggested that nest choice is important for the reproductive success of owls during years of inclement weather or in regions characterized by inclement weather during the nesting season.


Some scholars have argued that the only way to resolve the Euro crisis would be to further deepen the integration process by institutionalising a European welfare state. This article examines whether a Europeanised welfare system would be supported by citizens of three member states of the EU. The authors argue that the legitimacy of a harmonisation of national welfare regimes would be established if a majority of citizens supported a Europeanised social policy. Using survey data from Germany, Poland and Spain, descriptive findings show that indeed a majority supports the idea of Europeanisation of social policy. Further, multivariate analyses show that those respondents who reject Europeanisation of social policy cannot be characterised to any significant extent in terms of socio-economic factors, and are only slightly more likely to be associated with cultural factors. The cleavages that structure people's attitudes are thus relatively weak. The authors conclude that the potential for political mobilisation against Europeanisation of social policy in the three countries under investigation is rather low.


This paper presents a novel statistical and discrete cosine transform (DCT) based image-coding scheme. The proposed coding scheme divides the input image into a number of non-overlapping pixel blocks. The coefficients in each block are then decorrelated into their spatial frequencies using a discrete cosine transform. Coefficients with the same spatial frequency at different blocks are put together to generate a number of matrices, where each matrix contains coefficients of a particular spatial frequency. The matrix containing DC coefficients is losslessly coded to preserve visually important information. Matrices, which consist of high frequency coefficients, are coded using a novel statistically based coding algorithm developed in this paper. Perceptual weights are used to regulate the threshold value required in the coding process of the high frequency matrices.

The proposed coding scheme and JPEG were applied to Lena, Elaine and House, three test images, and results show that the proposed coding scheme outperforms JPEG subjectively and objectively at low compression ratios. Results also indicate that the decoded images using the proposed codec have superior subjective quality at high compression ratios while JPEG suffers from blocking artifacts at high compression ratios.


The disintegrin and metalloproteinase Adam10 has been implicated in the regulation of key signaling pathways that determine skin morphogenesis and homeostasis. To address the in vivo relevance of Adam10 in the epidermis, we have selectively disrupted Adam10 during skin morphogenesis and in adult skin. K14-Cre driven epidermal Adam10 deletion leads to perinatal lethality, barrier impairment and absence of sebaceous glands. A reduction of spinous layers, not associated with differences in either proliferation or apoptosis, indicates that loss of Adam10 triggers a premature differentiation of spinous keratinocytes. The few surviving K14-Adam10-deleted mice and mice in which Adam10 was deleted postnatally showed loss of hair, malformed vibrissae, epidermal hyperproliferation, cyst formation, thymic atrophy and upregulation of the cytokine thymic stromal lymphopoetin (TSLP), thus indicating non cell-autonomous multi-organ disease resulting from a compromised barrier. Together, these phenotypes closely resemble skin specific Notch pathway loss-of-function phenotypes. Notch processing is indeed strongly reduced resulting in decreased levels of Notch intracellular domain fragment and functional Notch signaling. The data identify Adam10 as the major Site-2 processing enzyme for Notch in the epidermis in vivo, and thus as a central regulator of skin development and maintenance.


Industrial contributions constitute as much as 20% of the 700 000 m3 .d−1 of sewage discharged to the Saronikos gulf through the sewerage system which serves the Greater Athens area. The main industrial discharges originate from food, textile, pulp and paper, chemical, tanning and metal processing and electrical industries. In the majority of the cases the pretreatment is inadequate and the existing emission standards are violated. This results in increased concentrations of toxic metals in the sewage. The impact of these toxic discharges on the marine environment and the sewage treatment works have been investigated. Increased concentrations in the water column and the sediments have been reported but there are no indications of accumulation of toxic metals in the body of benthic organisms. The impact on the imminent operation of the treatment works for the sewage of Athens, have been investigated with the aid of pilot and bench scale studies. The results did not indicate a serious inhibition of the sensitive digestion and nitrification processes. However due to the high concentrations of the heavy metals, with average values approaching threshold values, it is important that appropriate action is taken to control industrial discharges through a revised and rational regulatory framework.


The 'Procurement Quality Function' is an element of the Body of Knowledge of Quality Engineering, as defined by the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC). This paper describes the Procurement Quality function which has been installed as an integral part of the Quality Engineering group of the Technical and Management Support Services (T&MSS) contractor to the United States Department of Energy (DOE) Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project. Each of the elements of the T&MSS Procurement Quality Engineering (PQE) system is discussed along with the measurements obtained. With the installation and development of the PQE system we have attained more meaningful evaluation of supplier capability, reduction of procurement document review reject ratios from 31% to less than 2% per quarter, more effective measurement and control of supplier performance, and the ability to enter into a meaningful teaming effort with T&MSS suppliers.


For centuries, legal theorists and political philosophers have unsuccessfully sought a unified theory of judging able to account for the diverse, and oftentimes conflicting, responsibilities judges possess. How do we reconcile the call of judicial independence — a function of a judge's obligation to uphold the rule of law — with that of judicial responsiveness — the obligation that, as a branch of government in a democratic polity, judges must ensure that the law not derogate too far from the will of the people? This paper reveals how the law governing fiduciary relationships sheds new light on this age-old quandary, and therefore, on the very nature of the judicial office itself. In so doing, the paper first explores the routinely overlooked, yet deeply embedded historical provenance of our judges-as-fiduciaries framework in American political thought and in the framing of the U.S. Constitution. It then explains why a fiduciary theory of judging offers important insight into what it means to be a judge in a democracy, while providing practical guidance in resolving a range of controversial and hotly contested legal issues surrounding judicial performance, such as judicial ethics at the Supreme Court, campaign contributions in state judicial elections, and the role of public opinion in constitutional interpretation.


This dissertation is, first and foremost, an account of John Dahlgren's long and often controversial naval career. Beginning with his appointment to the navy in 1826, it details his climb from obscurity to the relati'-̂ fame and recognition that he enjoyed by the end of his life: first as the noted designer of the distinctive, bottle-shaped Dahlgren gun, which was the navy's primary cannon during the Civil War, and, second, as one of only a few officers to attain the rank of admiral during the Civil War. Dahlgren's career, both as an ordnance specialist and as a line officer, demonstrates how many officers scrambled up the military ladder. Using whatever means they could, including developing and utilizing political connections as well as conducting personal public relations campaigns, success often had little to do with true professional merit. Dahlgren's Civil War career is also extremely important. His involvement with the Union's military campaign against Charleston reveals the absolute obsession that the North, especially the Union navy, had with trying to destroy this city. Additionally, Dahlgren's war career shows the Navy Department in an entirely different light than the one in which it is usually seen. Compared to the War Department, the Navy Department has generally been viewed as being relatively flawless during the war, and its few failings have been portrayed as innocent and well meaning mistakes. The circumstances surrounding Dahlgren's appointment to, and subsequent command of, the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron shows that this was not the case, as Dahlgren was primarily a pawn in both the Navy Department's and the Lincoln administration's battles against their Congressional enemies. This dissertation is also the story of Dahlgren the man. It details the private side of his obsessive quest for personal glory and analyzes the ways in which he struggled to reconcile his insatiable ambition with the realities of his career. While he enjoyed the outward trappings of success, a reputation as a brilliant ordnance expert and the highest rank in the navy, Dahlgren died a bitter and disappointed man. Because he never experienced victory in battle, which was the ultimate measure of greatness for a naval hero, Dahlgren's lifelong quest for glory was never completely fulfilled.


Heavy metal pollution all around the world has become a major environmental concern and the bioremediation of polluted environments is an increasingly popular strategy due to both its efficiency and safety. In this study, a bacterial strain resistant to heavy metal was isolated from metal contaminated sites. Strain MKH2 was removed Pb (II) with 95.06%. This isolate was also resistant to zinc, copper, nickel and cadmium. The results of morphological and physiological characteristics showed that MKH2 was belonging to Citrobacter sp. Moreover, 16S rRNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis indicated that MKH2 was similar to Citrobacter freundii with 99% homology. Investigation to determine if the gene resistance to heavy metal is located exclusively on a plasmid, curing was achieved. The results suggested that the resistance to heavy metal in the MKH2 is possibly conferred chromosomally. The isolated heavy metal resistant bacterium could be useful for the bioremediation of heavy metal contaminated sites.


The sorptive potential of sunflower stem, a cheap agricultural waste abundantly available, has been exploited for Cr(III), Cd(II), Sb(III) and Hg(II) ions. The sorption of each toxic metal onto sunflower stem is optimized with respect to the nature of electrolytes (buffers of pH 1-10, acids and deionized water), amount of sorbent and sorbate, equilibration time between the two phases at fixed temperature. The sorption of metal ions onto the sorbent surface is monitored using radiotracer and batch technique as a function of a parameter keeping the rest constant in order to accumulate maximum amount of sorbate onto sunflower stem. The sorption data of Cr(III), Cd(II), Sb(III) and Hg (II) ions have been subjected to Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Redushkevich (D-R) isotherms. The sorption of each metal ion has followed all three models. The sorption capacity, intensity and energy of each sorbate have been estimated using regression analysis. The values of correlation coefficient I³ of such analyses are close to unity. The sorption mean free energy evaluated from D-R isotherm ranges between 8.66-10.33 kJ mol-1. The kinetic data have been applied to Lagergren, Reichenberg and Morris Weber equations. The linear follow up of the sorption of Cr(III), Sb(III) and Hg (II) to Lagergren equation indicates first order sorption whereas the Reichenberg equation reflects the effectiveness of the diffusion of trace metal ions within sorbent particles. The linear follow up of kinetic data of the sorption of Cr(III) ions to the Morris-Weber equation indicates the partial intraparticle diffusion of Cr(III) ions. The variation of sorption as a function of temperature was carried out for all four sorbates. The thermodynamic coefficients I"H, I"S and I"G have been evaluated using regression analysis. The negative values of I"G for all metal ions studied indicate spontaneous nature and feasibility of the sorption. The negative values of I"H for Cr(III) and Hg (II) ions show exothermic, while the positive values of I"H of Cd(II) and Sb(III) ions represent the endothermic nature of the sorption respectively. The influence of common anions, cations and complexing agents on the sorption of sorbates has also been investigated. Bisulphate, Fe(III), molybdate, citrate, Fe(II) and Y(III) ions suppress the sorption of Cr(III) ions significantly. Fe(III). EDTA, Pb(II) and thiosulphate ions reduce the sorption of Cd(II) ions drastically, whereas, tartrate , dichromate, Ca(II) and Sn(II) impede sorption of Cd (II) ions. The sorption of Hg (II) ions is enhanced in the presence of ascorbate, Sr(II) and Y(III), whereas it is suppressed in the presence of disuphite, iodide, Cd(II), bisuphite and thiocyanate. Bismuthate, Sn(lI) and Fe (III) increase the sorption of Sb(III) ions whereas molybdate, chromate, iodate, sulphate, fluoride and thiocyanate reduce the same. The sorption of other elements from different groups of periodic table and oxidation states have been investigated under optimised conditions selected for each sorbate. This selectivity study indicates that Cr(III), Eu(III) and Tb(III) can be separated from I(I) and Tc(VII); Hg (II) and Tc(VII) ions from I(I) and Cs(I); Cd(II) and Eu(IIIl) ions from Cs (I) and Sb(III), Eu(III) and Sc(III) can be separated from Se(IV), Cs(I) and As(III) using sunflower stem column. The sorption potential of sunflower stem for the ions Cr(III), Cd(II), Sb(III) and Hg (II) have been evaluated and compared with other biosorbents in the relevant sections of result discussions. Its sorptive behaviour is better or comparable with other biosorbents. Based on the chemical composition of sunflower stem and functional groups present in the sorbent matrix, a possible mechanism of biosorption of ions of Cr(III), Cd(II), Sb(III) and Hg(II) ions onto the sunflower stem has been suggested. This cheaper and novel sorbent has potential applications in water decontamination, industrial water treatment and in pollution abatement, in analytical and environmental chemistry


is a lot of evidence for the phenomenon describing the spread of emotion from one person to another, called emotional contagion. Although there is a large body of research on this topic, research containing evidence for factors that moderate the process of emotional contagion, is limited and inconclusive. Furthermore most of these studies are done in a dyadic lab-setting and consequently little is known about emotional contagion in groups. This paper presents, for the first time, a dynamic computational model of contagion in groups of agents based on factors that moderate contagion. These factors are strictly based on experimental evidence in the psychological literature. In this paper we first present our review of the psychological literature. We then present our computational model as well as a pilot study investigating several group contagion cases showing the flexibility and potential of this strategy.


The main question of this thesis is whether incumbency affiliation and political competition have an effect on social spending decisions of the local governments in Turkey, especially through strategic allocation of sub-national resources. The findings provide partial support for strategic fiscal choices of social spending at the local level, especially for metropolitan municipalities that hold partisan ties with national incumbents. While mayors that have partisan ties with national incumbents tend to increase spending on social assistance services in their stronghold provinces, they tend to spend more on health services in face of political competition. Moreover, electoral analysis examines the effect of particularistic social spending decisions on the vote share of political parties at the elections. The spending on health services as well as spending on social assistance increases the vote shares of political parties that hold mayors' position at the national elections.