Kashan is one of a number of ancient city regions on the margins of Iran's arid central plateau. The region has a well-defined territorial socio-economic pattern in which an urban upper class has in the past maintained its control over the illiterate mass of the people in the city and its satellite villages through the ownership of land and water rights, carpet-weaving contracts and credit. In recent years, however, Land Reform and the co-operative movement have altered the economic and political balance between town and country, while the growth of a modern textile industry has radically altered urban industrial structure. Rural response to change, through migration or agricultural development, has been governed by an inheritance of land and potential water resources which varies much between upland and lowland. A multivariate analysis of one hundred Iranian cities is described: the occupational, housing and demographic structures of the cities are shown to be related to their location and to their relations, through migration, with their hinterlands. The need for study of cities with under one hundred thousand population is stressed since size directly affects urban growth. In the present case, though commerce and industry in Kashan City are growing rapidly the pace of regional urbanization has been relatively slow. Within Kashan City the grafting of new suburbs onto the old pre-industrial quarters is the latest manifestation of an already established social order, but a detailed areal study reveals that the statistical dividing line in population and housing between the suburbs and the old town, and between urban and rural areas is hard to distinguish. The operation of central-place principles in the provision of goods and services in the region and in the land use and land value surfaces of the city is described.


BACKGROUND
Frailty is often associated with multimorbidity and disability.

OBJECTIVES
We investigated heterogeneity in the frail older population by characterizing five subpopulations according to quantitative biological markers, multimorbidity and disability, and examined their association with mortality and nursing home admission.

DESIGN
Observational study.

PARTICIPANTS
Participants (n=4,414) were from the population-based Age Gene/Environment Susceptibility Reykjavik Study.

MEASUREMENTS
Frailty was defined by ≥ 3 of five characteristics: weight loss, weakness, reduced energy levels, slowness and physical inactivity. Multimorbidity was assessed using a simple disease count, based on 13 prevalent conditions. Disability was assessed by five activities of daily living; participants who had difficulty with one or more tasks were considered disabled. Differences among frail subpopulations were based on the co-presence of multimorbidity and disability. Differences among the following subpopulations were examined: 1) Non-frail (reference group); 2) Frail only; 3) Frail with disability; 4) Frailty with multimorbidity; 5) Frail with disability and multimorbidity.

RESULTS
Frailty was present in 10.7% (n=473). Frailty was associated with increased risk for mortality (OR 1.40; 95% CI 1.15-1.69) and nursing home admission (OR 1.50; 95% CI 1.16-1.93); risks differed by subpopulations. Compared to the non-frail, the frail only group had poorer cognition and increased inflammation levels but did not have increased risk for mortality (OR 1.40; 95% CI 0.84-2.33) or nursing home admission (OR 1.01; 95% CI 0.46-2.21). Compared to the non-frail, the other frail subpopulations had significantly poorer cognition, increased inflammation levels, more white matter lesions, higher levels of calcium, glucose and red cell distribution width and increased risk for mortality and nursing home admission.

CONCLUSIONS
The adverse health risks associated with frailty in the general older adult population may primarily be driven by increased disease burden and disability.


A number of montane herbs in northern Utah typically form flower buds beneath the snow cover and flower either through it or immediately after its recession. Two of these species, one naturally occurring, Claytonia lanceolata, and one cultivated bulb, Galanthus nivalis, were investigated for their response to this stress environment. Snow depth patterns, chlorophyll content of tissues, and plants grown in light-tight boxes, suggest that light passing through the snow to reach plants growing underneath is not critically involved in the timing of their developmental cycles or in their ability to endure this low temperature environment. Ability to endure stress seems to be closely related in a number of ways to activity at the plant membranes. Plants were protected from low temperature damage by application of cytokinin or calcium, both of which probably acted at the membrane. Potassium calcium antagonisms were reflected in the internal distribution of the ions under natural stress conditions; and plants that differentiated at the meristem while growing through the snow accumulated calcium at the tip during this growth.


In this paper we present the results of our research
of E. coli cells and cellular components,
DNA and protein thioredoxin, using highly resolved sub-Terahertz (THz) vibrational
spectroscopy. In this combined research, the results from experimental spectroscopy
are analyzed via molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of vibrational modes and absorption spectra from E. coli cells and constituents in the sub-THz
range. Simplified models of DNA macromolecules with a short sequencing have been
constructed for several E. coli strains
with the goal to predict their absorption spectra. The similarity between spectral
characteristics of E. coli cells and
cellular components observed in experiments helps us to better understand the mechanism of material interaction with THz radiation and to add genetic information
to the characteristic signatures from biological objects. Modeling results supported
by experimental characterization using a spectroscopic sensor prototype developed
and built by Vibratess confirm that an optical, label and reagent free technique
can be used to examine, detect, and identify bacterial cells with high accuracy
and selectivity to the level of strains.


With the fast development of the multi-media technology and network information technology, people have stepped into an age called "MicroAge" with things like microblog, micro film, micro novel, WeChat (micro letter) and many other micro productions. These productions, as tools in new media on the Internet, have had huge and far-reaching impact on the young. The advent of new media provides us a brand new way of the application of college ideological and political education. Under the influence of new media, college ideological and political education faculty has gradually changed their traditional concepts of education, and begins to build a new educational base for college students as well as to create a healthy, civilized and fast campus culture with the education and guidance function of new media. In this paper, we analyze the functions, problems and challenges that new media has in respect of its application in college ideological and political education, and bring up some effective suggestions to its existing problems as well.


Rapid expansion of cropping is occurring in Cambodia outside of the areas traditionally used for lowland rice. Soils and landscapes in these areas are poorly described at present, hampering efforts to develop sustainable soils management and crop production systems. In the present project, soils and landscapes in Tram Kak district Takeo province were investigated by a semi-detailed soil survey. A soil-landscape map was developed for the district in which 9 units were recognised. The main soil-landscape units in order of their likely capability for non-rice crops were: Prey Khmer, Prateah Lang, and Bakan Soil groups. Most of the occurrence of the deep sands of the Prey Khmer Soil group was in close proximity to the quartzite ridge on the western border of Tramkak with smaller occurrences in the southeast of the district overlying a sandstone rise, and in the north of the district as reworked alluvial sediments from a small river. Deep sandy soils belonging to Prey Khmer Soil group, which occupied about 34 % of the district, were low in most plant available nutrients and acidic with Al saturation up to 80 %. However, not all the profiles had excessive levels of exchangeable Al. In total, the Prateah Lang Soil group occupies about 60 % of Tram Kak district including both clay and loamy sub-soil phases, although the distribution of each phase was not defined. The clay sub-soil phase was strongly acid in the sub-soil whereas two out of three profiles of the loamy sub-soil phase were strongly alkaline in the sub-soil. However, all Prateah Lang soils had extremely low exchangeable K, and low levels of N, P, S and micronutrients Cu, Zn and B. By contrast extractable Mn levels were high in the surface layers of most Prateah Lang profiles. For the production of crops such as maize, mung bean, soybean and peanut, both farmers' assessment and the yield of field trials showed lower productivity on the Prateah Lang soils, presumably due to waterlogging and low water storage constraints compared to Prey Khmer soils.


Magnetocaloric cooling is currently a prospering field of scientific investigations. Especially in the last decades a significant increase in research activities took place, mainly with the aim to find a competitive substitution for conventional cooling techniques – primarily with a special focus to vapor compression cycles. At least from a theoretical standpoint magnetocaloric cooling has the potential to exceed efficiencies of conventional cycles. However, there are still a number of challenges that need to be overcome. This paper is intended to give a basic overview on the status quo of magnetocaloric cooling near room temperature with respect to household refrigeration. Basic data regarding materials and magnet field generation are discussed. The most powerful demonstrators so far published in literature are analyzed and compared to performance requirements for standard household refrigerating appliances. Several comparisons are carried out to emphasize the crucial points that will be decisive on whether magnetocaloric is a future option for household refrigeration or not.


The Configuration Management (CM) is a very important area of concentration in software development and maintenance processes. Quality parameters for Configuration Management Tools' architectural designs require rigorous identification and measurement. Two methods for quantitative assessment of quality parameters of the software architectures are proposed. These methods are based upon modularization properties, like, cohesion type, coupling type, module complexity, module size and others. Looking at the problems with the studied tools, like, low flexibility, interoperability, etc., and recent requirements for the CM tools, a new architectural model has been proposed[1]. All the three models are assessed on quality parameters applying both the methods with an objective to validate the superiority of the proposed model.


This essay analyzes critically the idea of knowledge spillovers, especially as it enters the New Growth Theory. The conventional theory of spillovers, we argue, suffers from a thin and misleading account of the nature of productive knowledge. In this model, firms undersupply R&D, which impedes economic growth and calls for research subsidies. We argue, by contrast, that a more subtle picture of the creation of knowledge, and the presence of network externalities (including true Marshallian external economies), tend to reverse the predictions of neoclassical theory: spillovers may actually lead to increases in the production of new knowledge.


Focus on movement data has increased as a consequence of the larger availability of such data due to current GPS, GSM, RFID, and sensors techniques. In parallel, interest in movement has shifted from raw movement data analysis to more application-oriented ways of analyzing segments of movement suitable for the specific purposes of the application. This trend has promoted semantically rich trajectories, rather than raw movement, as the core object of interest in mobility studies. This survey provides the definitions of the basic concepts about mobility data, an analysis of the issues in mobility data management, and a survey of the approaches and techniques for: (i) constructing trajectories from movement tracks, (ii) enriching trajectories with semantic information to enable the desired interpretations of movements, and (iii) using data mining to analyze semantic trajectories and extract knowledge about their characteristics, in particular the behavioral patterns of the moving objects. Last but not least, the article surveys the new privacy issues that arise due to the semantic aspects of trajectories.


The Rapid Care Analysis (RCA) was designed to be a user-friendly assessment tool that development practitioners could learn through distance training sessions. The purpose of the RCA is to assess who in a community carries out unpaid care, so that where care work is heavy and unequal it can be recognized, reduced and redistributed, and so carers can be represented in decision making. Since 2013 the WE-Care programme team has run dozens of online and in-person training sessions for development mangers and facilitators. These modules have been refined and reviewed to help practitioners understand and use the RCA. The modules include two presentations: Training for Managers and Training for Facilitators, as well as accompanying exercises and worksheets. Training for Managers (TFM) clarifies why and when managers use an assessment of care provision, and helps managers understand how to plan and implement the RCA. Training for Facilitators (TFF) ensures that facilitators are equipped to conduct the focus group exercises of the RCA. The exercises and worksheets provide a toolkit to accompany the training sessions. They include notes for the trainers conducting the TFM and TFF, templates for feedback and documentation, and exercises for participants.


The intention of this paper is not to build quantum metaphysics but to justify the possibility of a second game through interpreting the ideas, concepts and visions from actual physics with ideas and visions borrowed from physics of the Orient. We are aware that quantum metaphysics is far from Abhinavagupta's metaphysics. After Culianu we introduce both visions in a deforming grid to build a new ideational universe. This ideational universe is a transmodern construction, which tends to become topical in the context of transdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity prevalence. Characterization of thinking as theory and determination of knowledge as a theoretical approach takes place in a inwardly beginning of the technical interpretation of thinking. There is an attempt to keep a sense of reason independently towards action. Philosophy is always in the critical situation to justify its existence to science. The safest way to do this is by self-establishing itself as science. But this effort represents the sacrifice of the essence of knowledge: "in the technical interpretation of thinking, the being as self element of thinking is sacrificed (Hidegger, 1988:314)". To look positively to philosophy as a dodge of science from metaphysics proves not only destructive to philosophy but also harmful to science. Absolute objectivity claims are increasingly refuted by the development of the cognitive approach. Not only social and human sciences require subjectivity as a dimension of objective knowledge, but physics itself considered the hard part of science reaches to formulate indeterminacy (uncertainty) principles. A new perspective that might be required in the philosophy of science is to look at it as to a semiotics of cognitive act.


Reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), which enable dynamic and flexible node-to-node connection via wavelength paths, are key components in metro ring network nodes. A data-granularity-flexible ROADM node that combines a wavelength-tunable filter, and an optical packet ADM (PADM) has been proposed and demonstrated. In this paper, the first field trial of the data-granularity-flexible ROADM network with wavelength- and packet-selective switch is demonstrated using a novel concurrent generation technique of address-reconfigurable optical-code (OC) labels and payload data. Bit error rates (BERs) of less than 10/sup -12/ for all 16-wavelength channels are obtained over 90 km of transmission at 10 Gb/s.


We consider a scheduling problem for a two-hop queueing network where the queues have randomly varying connectivity. Customers arrive at the source queue and are later routed to multiple relay queues. A relay queue can be served only if it is in connected state, and the state changes randomly over time. The source queue and relay queues are served in a time-sharing manner; that is, only one customer can be served at any instant. We propose Join the Shortest Queue-Longest Connected Queue (JSQ-LCQ) policy as follows: (1) if there exist nonempty relay queues in connected state, serve the longest queue among them; (2) if there are no relay queues to serve, route a customer from the source queue to the shortest relay queue. For symmetric systems in which the connectivity has symmetric statistics across the relay queues, we show that JSQ-LCQ is strongly optimal, that is, minimizes the delay in the stochastic ordering sense. We use stochastic coupling and show that the systems under coupling exist in two distinct phases, due to dynamic interactions among source and relay queues. By careful construction of coupling in both phases, we establish the stochastic dominance in delay between JSQ-LCQ and any arbitrary policy.


As the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders increases, schools must ensure that general and special educators are prepared to teach these students effectively and to respond to their behavioral issues. Although both general and special educators are likely to encounter students with autism in their classrooms, most teacher education programs provide very little training in evidence-based practices for effectively teaching students with autism (Morrier, Hess, & Heflin, 2011; National Research Council, 2001). So, it's not surprising that teachers rarely employ evidence-based instructional strategies with such students (Hess, Morrier, Hefl in, & Ivey, 2008). The unique challenges presented by children with autism can quickly overwhelm unprepared teachers. Educators need direction on how to understand and address the behavioral problems and social communication needs of children with autism, and they require practical techniques that they can use throughout their school day. Determine the why of the child's behavior "Inappropriate" social interaction is often considered the central, defining feature of autism, since these challenges continue despite intellectual or language capacity. The socialization issues that children with autism experience often manifest in problem behaviors. Perceived as "acting out"--physical aggression, defiance, self-injury, tantrums, and disruption--these behaviors often reflect children's responses to challenges in the classroom. Perceived uncertainty and lack of order can be frightening to children with autism. They're frustrated by their inability to successfully interact with peers or successfully make their thoughts and needs known to others (Hart & Whalon, 2011). Students with autism will often communicate their wants and needs through their behavior, which means that many of the "inappropriate" behaviors exhibited by these students serve a specific purpose for them. Equally critical, teachers must understand that such problem behaviors are unlikely to decrease unless the teacher intervenes, especially once the behaviors become an established feature of the child's behavioral repertoire. Educators must keep in mind that, if they want to change a student's behavior, they must change something that they're doing. Conducting a functional behavioral assessment (FBA) may help determine why a student is misbehaving and also reveal which classroom factors encourage or discourage the behavior (Conroy et al., 2007). The goal is to evaluate the purpose or function of a student's behavior so the teacher can develop proper interventions to address individual student needs. Typically, a team collaborates on doing an FBA and gathers information about the student's problem behavior, the contexts in which it occurs, and the events that reliably precede and follow the behavior. Although the FBA process is multifaceted, the basic components include: * Gathering descriptive information about the behavior and environmental events surrounding it, such as when, where, with whom, and with what the child is most likely to exhibit the behavior, defining the behavior in measurable terms; * Formulating hypotheses or best guesses regarding the function of the child's behavior; * Designing interventions that teach socially appropriate, alternative skills to replace the problem behavior; and * Collecting data and analyzing whether behavioral change is occurring. If the student's behavior improves after a reasonable amount of time following the intervention, then the team can conclude that the hypothesis was likely valid, and the intervention appropriate. But, if the team determines that the behavioral issue has not been effectively resolved in a timely manner, the team can revisit how well the behavior was defined, the accuracy of intervention implementation, and/or consider other possible hypotheses and strategies for intervention. …


The paper reviews the arrangements for meeting additional post-crisis demand for international liquidity. It distinguishes between reserve creation and reserve pooling as a basis for multilateral liquidity facilities; reserve pooling arrangements carry the risk that, in a general crisis, all the members will want to draw at the same time. We analyse the recently agreed enlargement of the International Monetary Fund from this perspective, and conclude that the IMF will carry much more liquidity risk after its enlargement than it has done in the past.


We have investigated the dynamical behavior of various passively mode-locked solid-state lasers by measuring how a modulation of the pump power affects the output power. We show theoretically and experimentally how the damping of the relaxation oscillations is reduced and finally becomes zero when the pump power is reduced so that the threshold for Q-switched mode locking is approached. For the first time to our knowledge, this method provides important information on the stability of mode locking above the Q-switched mode-locking threshold. It is applicable to lasers that are mode locked with slow-saturable absorbers. The results helped to explain the cause of unexpectedly low Q-switching thresholds in two cases. Also we obtain some useful spectroscopic information.


In this research work, brown algae, Padina tetrastromatica, collected from Bushehr coasts in Persian Gulf, was extracted by non-polar and polar solvents to the isolation of terpenoid compounds. For isolation of various terpenoids, n-hexane and chloroform/ethyl acetate (1:1) were used as extraction solvents, after removal of the solvents, the gas chromatography/mass spectrum spectra of the fraction were obtained. Identification of organic constituents was made by comparison of their mass spectra and retention indices with those given in the literature and authentic samples. n-hexane fraction is consisted from alpha-humulene, decane, 2-methyl-phenol, tetradecanoic acid, and hexadecanoic acid, and chloroform-ethyl acetate fraction is consisted from pentadecane, hexadecane, 2,6,10,14-tetramethyl-hexadecane, 2,6,11-trimethyl-dodecane, 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, and diisooctyl ester.


The efficacy of drug delivery and other nanomedicine-related therapies largely relies on the ability of nanoparticles to reach the target organ. However, when nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream, their surface is instantly modified upon interaction with blood components, principally with proteins. It is well known that a dynamic and multi-layered protein structure is formed spontaneously on the nanoparticle upon contact with physiological media, which has been termed protein corona. Although several determinant factors involved in protein corona formation have been identified from in vitro studies, specific relationships between the nanomaterial synthetic identity and its ensuing biological identity under realistic in vivo conditions remain elusive. We present here a detailed study of in vivo protein corona formation after blood circulation of anisotropic gold nanoparticles (nanorods and nanostars). Plasmonic gold nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes were coated with polyethyleneglycol, intravenously administered in CD-1 mice and subsequently recovered. The results from gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry analysis revealed the formation of complex protein coronas, as early as 10 minutes post-injection. The total amount of protein adsorbed onto the particle surface and the protein corona composition were found to be affected by both the particle size and shape.


The ice‐cover season and subsequent spring thaw are thought to be of particular importance for the biogeochemical cycle of northern lakes and wetlands. Yet the magnitude of their methane emissions during an entire cold season is uncertain due to scarce measurements. While wetlands are known to be the highest natural emitters of methane, emissions from northern lakes are an uncertain component of terrestrial carbon budgets. To evaluate the importance of methane emissions from a subarctic lake during winter and spring, surface methane fluxes were recorded with the eddy covariance method in a subarctic fen‐type wetland and in an adjacent shallow lake, from freezeup to complete ice out. The fen was a steady emitter of methane throughout winter. While no detectable flux was observed from the ice‐covered lake surface during winter, it was the largest methane source of the landscape in spring, with a cumulative release 1.7‐fold higher than at the fen, accounting for 53% of annual lake emissions. The high temporal resolution of the measurements allowed making a direct link between breakdown of the temperature stratification after ice breakup and the highest release of methane from the lake surface. A sediment upwelling at the end of the thaw season likely contributed to these emissions. We suggest that, unlike wetlands, shallow seasonally ice‐covered lakes can have their highest methane emission potential in the cold season, likely dominating the spring methane release of subarctic landscapes with high lake coverage.


We aimed to investigate the association between self-reported sleep duration and sleep timing midpoint with all- and site-specific cancer incidence in Alberta's Tomorrow Project (ATP) cohort. Methods: The analysis for sleep duration included 46,300 Albertans aged 35–65 years at baseline from the ATP cohort recruited from 2001–2015. Sleep timing midpoint (wake-time – ½ sleep duration) was assessed in a subset of ATP participants (n = 19,820). Cancer incidence was determined through record linkage with the Alberta Cancer Registry in December 2016. Cox proportional hazard regression models evaluated the effects of sleep duration and sleep timing midpoint categories on all- and site-specific (breast, colorectal, lung, prostate, endometrial and hematologic) cancer incidence. Models were adjusted for age, sex (non sex-specific cancers), highest level of education, total household income, marital status, alcohol intake, smoking status, body mass index, family history of cancer, presence of at least one medical condition/co-morbidity, menopausal status (female cancers only) and sleep duration (sleep timing midpoint analysis only). Results: By 2016, there were 3,034 incident cases of cancer in this cohort. A statistical trend was noted for an increased risk of all cancers in participants reporting > 9 hours of sleep/night compared to 7–9 hours of sleep/night (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.98–1.36; P = 0.08). Reporting > 9 hours of sleep/night compared to 7–9 hours of sleep/night was also associated with an increased incidence of endometrial cancer (HR = 2.09, 95% CI: 1.16–3.76; P = 0.01). A later sleep timing midpoint (>4:08 AM) versus an intermediate sleep timing midpoint (3:47 AM–4:08 AM) was associated with an increased risk of all (HR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.03–1.37; P = 0.02) and breast (HR = 1.64, 95% CI: 1.18–2.26; P = 0.003) cancer incidence. Conclusions: These novel findings provide evidence regarding the important role of sleep in cancer etiology. Interventions that put emphasis on proper sleep hygiene for cancer prevention are needed.


We report on the dielectric permittivities in 1 kHz to 4 MHz frequency region of the ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) material CB500 having a TGBA phase. Molecular and collective relaxation processes have been studied in bulk and in confined environment. In the bulk sample, a Goldstone mode (GM) and a molecular mode were observed in the SmC* phase and the softmode (SM) was observed in the TGBA phase. The Goldstone mode was also present in the FLC sample confined in 0.2 μm Anopore membranes. The relaxation frequency of this mode was shifted to the higher-frequency region in comparison to that observed in the bulk sample. In the Anopore confined FLC sample, another relaxation process (AP) was observed, which possibly arises due to some collective movement of the molecules attached to the cavity walls. The relaxation frequency of this process is almost independent of temperature and this process is only observed in the SmC* phase. Copyright World Scientific 2004


The automotive community introduced Ethernet as a packet-switched point-to-point network. Possible fields of application are telematics, advanced driving assistance and a backbone. Currently, CAN, FlexRay and MOST are used to interconnect these applications. With Ethernet the bandwidth is rising but the networking requirements are still the same as for existing field buses. Consumer Ethernet does not provide a wakeup mechanism that is sufficient for automotive systems. As a solution, this paper introduces a novel DPSK based physical-layer mechanism which uses digital signals to identify partial networks and has an overall wakeup latency of less than 5 ms which is a reduction of 75 % for a five-hop network to the current state-of-the-art technology for automotive point-to-point networks.


ABSTRACT The prevalence of obesity among US citizens has grown rapidly over the last few decades, especially among low-income individuals. This has led to questions about the effectiveness of nutritional assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Previous results on the effect of SNAP participation on obesity are mixed. These findings are however based on the assumption that participation status can be accurately observed, despite significant misclassification errors reported in the literature. Using propensity score matching, we conclude that there seems to be a positive effect of SNAP participation on obesity rates for female participants and no such effect for males, a result that is consistent with several previous studies. However, an extensive sensitivity analysis reveals that the positive effect for females is sensitive to misclassification errors and to the conditional independence assumption. Thus analogous findings should also be used with caution unless examined under the prism of classification errors and of other assumptions used for the identification of causal parameters.


In 2001, Boneh, Lynn, and Shacham presented a pairing-based signature scheme known as the BLS signature scheme. In 2003, Boneh, Gentry, Lynn, and Shacham presented the first aggregate signature scheme called the BGLS aggregate signature scheme. The BGLS scheme allows for N users with N signatures to combine their signatures into a single signature. The size of the resulting signature is independent of N . The BGLS signature scheme enjoys roughly the same level of security as the BLS scheme. In 2005, Waters presented a pairing-based signature scheme which does not assume the existence of random oracles. In 2007, Lu, Ostrovsky, Sahai, Shacham, and Waters presented the LOSSW aggregate signature scheme which does not assume the existence of random oracles. The BLS, BGLS, Waters, and LOSSW authors each chose to work with a restricted class of pairings. In each scheme, it is clear that the scheme extend to arbitrary pairings. We present the schemes in their full generality, explore variations of the schemes, and discuss optimizations that can be made when using specific pairings. Each of the schemes we discuss is secure assuming that the computational DiffieHellman (CDH) assumption holds. We improve on the security reduction for a variation of the BGLS signature scheme which allows for some restrictions of the BGLS signature scheme can be dropped and provides a stronger guarantee of security. We show that the BGLS scheme can be modified to reduce public-key size in presence of a certifying authority, when a certain type of pairing is used. We show that patient-free bit-compression can be applied to each of the scheme with a few modifications.


This article calculates the dimensions of the crater that triggered the series of events leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The diameter of a crater due to an asteroid traveling at escape velocity was calculated to be 71.2 km. An incoming velocity estimate of 54.2 kms -1 was made and the crater depth is estimated to be 4.00 km using Newton's projectile penetration depth approximation.


A passive Q-switched Yb-doped microstructure fiber (MF) laser is demonstrated using a GaAs wafer as the saturable absorber. A pulse duration as short as 80 ns was obtained with the maximum repetition rate of 830 Hz. The maximum average output power is 5.8 W at 1080 nm wavelength.


The standard framework for using a convolutional neural network (CNN) for face verification is to compare the feature vectors taken from the penultimate network layer of a CNN trained to classify the identity of an input face using a softmax loss over identities. Feature vectors are typically compared using the simple L2 distance. We demonstrate that the L2 distance is not the best distance to use in this scenario, and propose the hyperplane similarity as a more appropriate similarity function that is derived from the soft-max loss function used to train the network. We demonstrate that hyperplane similarity improves verification results especially for low false acceptance rates which are usually the most important operating regimes for real applications. We also propose a fast algorithm for finding the separating hyperplanes needed to compute hyperplane similarity.


Problem The Mt. Moriah and South 18th Street Seventh-day Adventist Churches, located in Coffeyville and Independence, Kansas, had not experienced membership growth in the ten years of 1987-1997. These two churches were part of a three-church district, which also included a church 145 miles away in Springfield, MO. That church was active in developing outreach and evangelistic strategies whereas the Kansas churches were not. The two Kansas churches were headed toward closing due to stagnation. Unless revitalization and consistent leadership training took place, a turnaround would never happen for these two small churches. Method This project explored the Coffeyville and Independence churches' lack of evangelistic strategies, conducted a survey of the two communities' felt needs, and applied 31 contemporary evangelistic methods as the antidote for the problems of these churches. This study also took into account the churches' demographics and their cultural, religious, and economic conditions. In order to develop these methods, this project used the examples set forth by the New Testament model of disciple making, the examples set forth by the Rabbi-discipleship experience, and the mandate of the Great Commission. This mandate taught that once a believer was baptized he/she must be instructed in all that Christ taught. His teachings included the manner in which disciples should do disciple making. The "pastor and teacher" of the biblical model was to help church members develop and use their talents and spiritual gifts to be new-disciplemakers. This was the method followed. Results Upon implementation of the 31 evangelistic methods and strategies, the churches' membership increased over six years (1997-2003) from 4 to 95 persons. Based on this large increase, the project was successful. The two Seventh-day Adventist churches also had a remarkable impact on their communities. Solutions The outcome of the methods used to revitalize the two Kansas churches demonstrated the power of Christ's methods and the New Testament principles of church building and maintenance. The members of the project churches perceived a tendency of the Conference to focus on larger churches while ignoring the challenges of their small churches. There is reason to believe that the "small church decline syndrome" of many Adventist churches in North America is a result of not implementing strategies for continually helping small churches develop and grow. Critical to this challenge in all churches of every size, is the need for a greater emphasis on Christ's expectation that each disciple/member will become a disciple maker. Challenges often represent opportunities. A great opportunity in the Adventist church is to focus on how each member can be active in disciple making. The development of systematic approaches for pastors to help members use their talents for disciple making may be the single most important solution to empowering churches of every size. Learning to better follow Christ's approaches is the solution to many problems.


The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting or Multilateral Instrument (MLI) has been described as "an historical turning point in the area of international taxation" which introduces a third layer of tax rules for the taxation of cross-border transactions in addition to domestic tax law and bilateral tax treaties. Of the many provisions of the MLI, the most important are the preamble text in Article 6(1) and the so-called principal purpose test (PPT) in Article 7(1), both of which have been adopted by all signatories to the MLI in order to satisfy the OECD's minimum standard on tax treaty abuse under BEPS Action 6. This two-part article considers the structure and potential application of the PPT in the context of pre-BEPS responses to perceived tax treaty abuses, the OECD's work on BEPS Action 6, and other provisions of the MLI including the preamble text in Article 6(1). The first part, in the previous issue of the Journal, reviewed pre-BEPS responses to perceived tax treaty abuses, providing necessary background and context for understanding BEPS Action 6, the MLI and the PPT. The second part, in this issue of the Journal, examines the PPT in light of this background and in the context of BEPS Action 6 and other provisions of the MLI, considering its relationship to other anti-avoidance doctrines, principles and rules, the various elements that comprise its basic structure, the kinds of transactions or arrangements to which it may be expected to apply, and the consequences of its application.


We present optimal estimates of tropospheric H2O and D derived from radiances measured by the instrument IASI (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer) flown on EUMETSAT's polar orbiter METOP. We document that the IASI spectra allow for retrieving H2O profiles between the surface and the upper troposphere as well as middle tro- pospheric D values. A theoretical error estimation suggests a precision for H2O of better than 35 % in the lower tro- posphere and of better than 15 % in the middle and upper troposphere, respectively, whereby surface emissivity and atmospheric temperature uncertainties are the leading error sources. For the middle tropospheric D values we estimate a precision of 15-20 ‰ with the measurement noise being the dominating error source. The accuracy of the IASI products is estimated to about 20-10 % and 10 ‰ for lower to upper tropospheric H2O and middle tropospheric D, respectively. It is limited by systematic uncertainties in the applied spec- troscopic parameters and the a priori atmospheric tempera- ture profiles. We compare our IASI products to a large num- ber of near coincident radiosonde in-situ and ground-based FTS (Fourier Transform Spectrometer) remote sensing mea- surements. The bias and the scatter between the different H2O and D data sets are consistent with the combined theo- retical uncertainties of the involved measurement techniques.


Existing language models such as n-grams for software code often fail to capture a long context where dependent code elements scatter far apart. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to build a language model for software code to address this particular issue. Our language model, partly inspired by human memory, is built upon the powerful deep learning-based Long Short Term Memory architecture that is capable of learning long-term dependencies which occur frequently in software code. Results from our intrinsic evaluation on a corpus of Java projects have demonstrated the effectiveness of our language model. This work contributes to realizing our vision for DeepSoft, an end-to-end, generic deep learning-based framework for modeling software and its development process.


A yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative and aerobic bacterial strain, designated AT1026(T), was isolated from a terrestrial sample from the Antarctic. Results of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that the Antarctic isolate belonged to the genus Flavobacterium, with the highest sequence similarity to Flavobacterium tegetincola (96.4 %). Cells were non-motile, non-gliding and psychrotolerant, with optimum and maximum temperatures of about 20 and 25 degrees C. Flexirubins were absent. The major isoprenoid quinone (MK-6), predominant cellular fatty acids (iso-C(15 : 1) G, iso-C(15 : 0) and a mixture of C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH) and DNA G+C content (38 mol%) of the Antarctic isolate were consistent with those of the genus Flavobacterium. In contrast, several phenotypic characters can be used to differentiate this isolate from other flavobacteria. The polyphasic data presented in this study indicated that this isolate should be classified as a novel species in the genus Flavobacterium. The name Flavobacterium antarcticum sp. nov. is therefore proposed for the Antarctic isolate; the type strain is AT1026(T) (=IMSNU 14042(T)=KCTC 12222(T)=JCM 12383(T)).


The Finance-Growth Nexus is a classical source of debate among economists. This contribution offers regional evidence on this issue in order to see if it can meet the data within a 140 years old economic union -- Italy -, in the ideal context for its main competitor - New Economic Geography - and in order to avoid pooling between developed and developing countries. The results for this application support the view that finance leads growth, reject its possible endogeneity and shows its robustness even in presence of spatial unobserved heterogeneity by using both cross-section and panel data estimators.


An adaptive inverse control algorithm is proposed for shock testing an arbitrary specimen using an electrodynamic actuator. The purpose is to ascertain whether the specimen can survive and continue to function under severe shock conditions. The main difficulty in shock control is that the specimen dynamics vary significantly and a control algorithm is required that adapts to the characteristics of a new specimen. The control algorithm used is the adaptive inverse control method which approximates an inverse model of the loaded shaker with a finite impulse response adaptive filter, such that the reference input is reproduced at the shaker output. The standard filtered-x least mean square control structure used in the adaptive inverse control algorithm is modified to a block-processing structure, with the frequency-domain adaptive filter as the adaptation algorithm. Practical results show that the filtered-x frequency-domain adaptive filter control algorithm allows convergence of the shaker output to the assigned reference shock pulse.


A new numerical technique is presented that allows the tracking of any chemical element from any source in a simulated foodweb, for instance assessing the proportion of these sources (river loadings, sea entrances, point sources) in the algal diet for the limiting nutrient. An application is shown for nitrogen in an Ulva bloom occurring in a shallow embayment connected with a strongly tidally stirred ecosystem with various sources of inorganic nitrogen, the Bay of Brest, Brittany, France. In a first step, a biogeochemical three‐dimensional model was developed to simulate growth and erosion—transport—deposition of free‐floating ulvae; this model was able to converge on a realistic distribution of Ulva deposits after a few months, even though it was initialized with a strongly unrealistic distribution of settled ulvae. In a second step, and unfortunately for recovery plans, the tracking technique, applied in this model to all the nitrogen sources entering the bay, revealed that the small, nitrate‐polluted rivers flowing directly into the eutrophicated area had a negligible effect, whereas more distant but stronger sources, a big river and a big urban sewage plant, even after dilution, accounted for about 50% and 20%, respectively, of the algal nitrogen content during summer. Despite its high N flux, open ocean contributes only 15% to Ulva growth. The suppression of only one of the main nitrogen sources would not significantly decrease the Ulva bloom, because of the high nitrogen surplus present in the site. The remaining sources would still saturate the needs of the maximum Ulva biomass the site is able to produce. The tracking technique, however, shows that the N turnover in Ulva is only 4 months. Thus, improvements would occur within a year following large N reductions.


Muslim women all over the world have been mostly viewed as secondary and/or complementary in the structure of Muslim societies. In order to challenge and transform these un-Islamic views, women needed to retake their principal role and reinterpret the primary source of Islam, the Qur'an. In doing so during the past two decades, some American Muslim women, including myself, are transforming the conventional understanding of Islam in the hope to implement a fundamental aspect of the social justice contract between Muslims and Islam. Indeed, Muslim women are challenging the unwarranted authority, the hijacked Islamic authority by Muslim men, and moving toward accomplishing the comprehensive human rights for themselves.


Non-technical skills
(NTS) are cognitive and interpersonal skills that are relevant to task
completion such as situation awareness, decision-making, teamwork, and
leadership. NTS in clinical environments, such as surgery, have been identified
to contribute to patient safety and team performance, which in turn affects
clinical outcomes. Assessment tools of these skills in surgery exist; however,
current evaluations are limited in that they require trained raters, are
subjective, are time-intensive, and are checklist-based. Therefore, there is a
need for objective measurement of NTS that addresses the limitations of the
rating-based techniques. The purpose of this Ph.D. dissertation work is to
identify physiological and behavioral metrics that measure NTS objectively and
investigate the application of objective metrics to measure intraoperative NTS
of surgeons. Through a scoping review of engineering, behavioral science, and
medical literature, behavioral and physiological metrics that quantified NTS
constructs of surgeons were identified. The synthesized literature was used to
build a framework integrating objective metrics to NTS constructs. To develop
an objective model of surgeons' NTS, subjective and objective behavioral data
of surgeons were collected in the operating room and prediction models were created.
Results found that objective metrics such as communication, speech, and
proximity features can be used to predict subjective NTS. Furthermore,
objective task features (e.g., time and number of incidents during an operation)
has the potential to also model subjective NTS, and these task features can be
predicted by the behavioral metrics; thus, triangulation is obtained with the
three NTS metrics: subjective score, objective behavioral metrics, and task
performance metrics. The relationship between the two objective metrics shows the
possibility of achieving a fully objective model of surgeons' NTS. The
consolidation of current objective measurement techniques can provide a
foundation in further understanding NTS beyond assessments based on observed
behaviors, and the developed models can be expanded and implemented for real-time
NTS assessment of clinical teams to improve patient care.


A plethora of recent studies in foreign language learning pivots around the interplay among individual difference factors, such as attitudes, motivation, anxiety, and emotional state, Although many studies deemed motivational variables as predictors of L2 proficiency, there is a dearth of research on the interface among these variables as the causes of L2 use among Iranian university students. In this study, willingness to communicate in second language (WTC in L2) is explored in association with a number of motivational factors: Ideal L2 self, attitudes to learning English, and L2 anxiety. This study seeks to study these factors in a single framework in the light of Dornyei's model of L2 motivation. Our study was based on a sample of 180 Iranian EFL university students.  Structural equation modeling (SEM) was selected for data analysis. The results demonstrated that ideal L2 self and attitudes to English learning were positive and significant predictors of WTC. In contrast, it was found that L2 anxiety negatively and significantly predicted WTC. A cross- comparison of the findings revealed that among these three predictors (ideal L2 self, L2 attitudes, and L2 anxiety), L2 anxiety had the highest role in WTC. The results demonstrated the positive and significant impact of L2 attitudes on ideal L2 self and the negative association between L2 attitudes and L2 anxiety. The present study also explored the association between the four subscales of WTC (WTC in reading, writing, listening, and speaking) and the three motivational variables which led to mixed results.


Investors pay a premium for the shares of well-governed companies in Thailand, as they do for the shares of such companies in other emerging markets (see 'A premium for good governance," on page 20). In our study of the 100 largest companies that are listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), we found examples of both very good and very poor corporate-governance practices. Those companies with the best overall corporate-governance performance had average market valuations that were 45 percent higher than the average for companies in the bottom quartile (Exhibit 1). Our research (1) suggests that companies with poor governance scores could boost their market valuations by improving their performance on any of the following dimensions (Exhibit 2). * Board oversight: Thai companies, averaging 74 out of a possible 100 points, scored highest on measures of the responsibilities and structure of boards. Nearly all of these companies have a board audit committee; on three-quarters of the boards, nonexecutive directors constitute a majority; and 22 percent of the boards have independent chairs. Still, there is room for improvement, since few nonexecutive directors are truly independent most have other ties to the companies or their dominant shareholders. Furthermore, few companies have board committees that oversee executive compensation, and only 12 percent include stock options in their compensation packages for top management. Well-designed stock option programs could help align the interests of shareholders and management. * Shareholder rights: Thai companies scored an average of 49 out of 100 points on shareholder rights. The vast majority of the companies treat all shareholders equally in such matters as share purchases and dividends and hold open annual meetings that the corporate chair attends. Yet few companies seek shareholder approval for the compensation of directors, and only 10 percent haven't implemented antitakeover defenses (controlling shareholders serve on the boards of most of the companies). Reinforcing the "market for corporate control" by reducing antitakeover defenses would help put greater pressure on companies to act in the best interests of all shareholders. * Treatment of minority shareholders: Thai companies, averaging 43 out of 100 points, have a greater opportunity to improve the treatment of minority shareholders. Only 5 percent of these companies provide enough information to enable minority shareholders to cast informed votes, for example. Although all of the companies we surveyed permit proxy voting by shareholders, only one-third supply enough information for them to give informed instructions to their proxies. In 90 percent of Thai companies, minority shareholders have no way of influencing the composition of the board (for instance, through cumulative voting (2) or a board seat dedicated to their interests) and depend entirely on the goodwill of controlling shareholders. * Transparency and disclosure: Thai companies, scoring an average of just 35 out of 100 points, perform worst on reporting practices. Although most of the companies have separate audit units and disclose operating risks, few report the remuneration of directors or their shareholdings. Only one-third of listed companies use means other than annual reports (such as quarterly reports and World Wide Web sites) to communicate with investors, while just 10 percent hold analyst briefings or press conferences. These shortcomings are disproportionately harmful to minority shareholders, since the controlling ones can get information from managers and directors. The Thai government has taken significant steps to improve corporate governance in the country. However, government and regulatory authorities could further raise corporate-governance standards in several ways--for example, by setting tougher requirements for the disclosure of the remuneration and shareholdings of directors, by giving shareholders the right to approve the compensation of management and the directors, and by providing for better notification of annual meetings and proxy-voting procedures. …


What is metal studies? How can we define and characterize it? How has it emerged as a body of academic enquiry? What are its dominant disciplinary strands, theoretical concepts and preferred methodologies? Which studies have claimed most attention, defined the goals of scholarship, typical research strategies and values? How has the claim for the legitimacy or symbolic value of metal scholarship been achieved (if it has): over time and through gradual acceptance or through conflict and contestation? How can this process of formation, or strategy of legitimation, be mapped, examined and interrogated and which methods of historical, institutional and cultural analysis are best suited to this task? Working with the most complete bibliography to date of published research on heavy metal, music and culture (the MSBD), this article employs Foucault's archaeological "method" to examine the institutional, cultural and political contexts and conflicts that inform the genealogy of this scholarship. Such analysis reveals a formative, largely negative account of heavy metal to be found in the "sociology of rock"; a large volume of psychology work, examining heavy metal music preference as an indicator of youth risk, deviance and delinquency; sociological work on youth and deviancy critical of the values of this research and its links to social policy and politics; culminating in the work of Weinstein and Walser, who advocate a perspective sympathetic to the values of heavy metal fans themselves. Following Bourdieu, I interpret such symbolic strategies as claims for expertise within the academic field that are high or low in symbolic capital to the extent they can attain disciplinary autonomy. I then go on to examine the most recent strands of research, within cultural studies and ethnomusicology, concerned with the global metal music diaspora, and consider to what extent such work is constitutive of a coherent subfield of metal studies that can be distinguished from earlier work and what the implications of this might be.


This paper examines the contribution of different segments of the maquiladora industry to the development of industrial skills in Mexico. Using data collected through interviews at 30 maquiladoras and with 59 line and technical workers, the relationship among process technology, Japanese manufacturing techniques, and human resource practices is explored. The results suggest that large maquiladoras that utilize technologically-intensive process technology and that do some manufacturing do not have significantly more attractive human resource programs than large assembly maquiladoras that use relatively simple process technology. The primary conclusion from this study is that the growth of skills development activity in the maquiladoras is best explained by the rapid growth of the transportation equipment industry over the last 15 years and not to growth of technologically-intensive forms of production.


The Terra mission will help quantify aerosol radiative forcing of climate by providing innovative measurements of the aerosol daily spatial distribution and identifying dust, smoke and regional pollution. MODIS aerosol information is being validated and supplemented by measurements bv the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) of 100 global ground-based instruments. AERONET measures the aerosol spectral optical thickness and the total precipitable water vapor every 15 minutes throughout the day. These aerosol measurements should be very important as input to models that calculate radiative forcing and predict climate change.


The phenomenon of expansion in concretes which have been exposed to elevated temperatures during curing and subsequently to moisture is discussed; in particular, the relationship of this expansion to the formation of ettringite after initial curing (delayed ettringite formation). Evidence is also presented for the possible implication of the C-S-H gel in the expansion process. The avoidance of this type of expansion in field concrete is also discussed. The data show that expansion occurs only when the concrete temperature during hydration exceeds 65°C and that the proportion of cements that expand under laboratory testing conditions increases as the temperature of exposure increases. Tests on limited numbers of cements have indicated that some factors in the cement that appear to influence the tendency of the concrete to expand after elevated temperature curing (such as, alkalis content, fineness, SO3), but there is no general relationship between these factors and the degree of expansion valid across the range of commercial cements. This means that the selection of a cement within certain limits will not guarantee the avoidance of expansion if the concrete is exposed to a high enough temperature during curing.


As a leading Canadian IP firm with extensive experience in all aspects of intellectual property, Bereskin & Parr's professionals frequently comment on leading trends and news. Our firm has become renowned in Canada and internationally for our work and specialized expertise, which makes us one of the most experienced intellectual property boutiques in Canada. For media requests or to schedule an interview with any of our legal experts, please contact: Neil Sharma.


I discuss the properties of the central charges c and a for higher-derivative and higher-spin theories (spin 2 included). Ordinary gravity does not admit a straightforward identification of c and a in the trace anomaly, because it is not conformal. On the other hand, higher-derivative theories can be conformal, but have negative c and a. A third possibility is to consider higher-spin conformal field theories. They are not unitary, but have a variety of interesting properties. Bosonic conformal tensors have a positive-definite action, equal to the square of a field strength, and a higher-derivative gauge invariance. There exists a conserved spin-2 current (not the canonical stress tensor) defining positive central charges c and a. I calculate the values of c and a and study the operator-product structure. Higher-spin conformal spinors have no gauge invariance, admit a standard definition of c and a and can be coupled to Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields in a renormalizable way. At the quantum level, they contribute to the one-loop beta function with the same sign as ordinary matter, admit a conformal window and non-trivial interacting fixed points. There are composite operators of high spin and low dimension, which violate the Ferrara-Gatto-Grillo theorem. Finally, other theories, such as conformal antisymmetric tensors, exhibit more severe internal problems. This research is motivated by the idea that fundamental quantum field theories should be renormalization-group (RG) interpolations between ultraviolet and infrared conformal fixed points, and quantum irreversibility should be a general principle of nature.


The article is concerned with the influence of the gender factor on creating the image of a political leader. The 2008 US vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joseph Biden has been chosen as research material. The scientific value of the article consists in a thorough study of the peculiarities of the politicians' use of linguistic means and their interpretation in terms of creating a positive image by males and females. The author considers the structure of an image and its components including a few communicative self-presentation microroles, which are thought to be traditional for American political discourse. Besides, the paper analyses the tactics used by the politicians in course of their speech and the images created focusing mainly on the logical and emotional components of the vice-presidential candidates' addresses. The author arrives at the conclusion that the speech of both candidates corresponds to gender expectations regarding male and female speech behavior. In particular, the female candidate places a greater emphasis on the topic of family and her language is more emotionally expressive whereas the male candidate tends to highlight logic and accuracy and uses a more emotionally neutral speaking style.


The 2021 SIGIR workshop on eCommerce is hosting the Coveo Data Challenge for"In-session prediction for purchase intent and recommendations". The challenge addresses the growing need for reliable predictions within the boundaries of a shopping session, as customer intentions can be different depending on the occasion. The need for efficient procedures for personalization is even clearer if we consider the e-commerce landscape more broadly: outside of giant digital retailers, the constraints of the problem are stricter, due to smaller user bases and the realization that most users are not frequently returning customers. We release a new session-based dataset including more than 30M fine-grained browsing events (product detail, add, purchase), enriched by linguistic behavior (queries made by shoppers, with items clicked and items not clicked after the query) and catalog meta-data (images, text, pricing information). On this dataset, we ask participants to showcase innovative solutions for two open problems: a recommendation task (where a model is shown some events at the start of a session, and it is asked to predict future product interactions); an intent prediction task, where a model is shown a session containing an add-to-cart event, and it is asked to predict whether the item will be bought before the end of the session.


An optimization problem of minimizing the output load of a junction model with multiple input and output channels is solved by the replica method. Simulation results show that for the case of extensive connectivity, the replica solution obtained by assuming a vanishing solution space is satisfactory. However, for the case of intensive connectivity, the degeneracy of the solution space causes the simulation results to deviate from the replica solution of vanishing volume.


This study investigates whether vowel insertion in English consonant clusters produced by Japanese ESL (English-as-a-second-language) learners is due to misarticulation or misinterpretation.  Intermediate level Japanese ESL learners read aloud 24 written real and nonsense English words, then, to mimic auditory words produced by a native English speaker.  The results showed that the participants inserted a vowel in consonant clusters notably less frequently in the mimicking task than in the reading task, suggesting that the participants can perceive and produce consonant clusters.  The participants were also asked to divide each stimulus word into syllables, and they often clearly pronounced extra vowels: e.g. 'ba-d o -min-ton' for 'badminton.'  I conclude that vowel insertion is not because of their inability to articulate consonant clusters, but their misinterpretation that there is a vowel where there is actually not.  When they mimicked a native English speaker's production, they phonetically deleted such vowels, which existed in the first place, while there was still a vowel at their phonological underlying representation or in their mind.


We present the first measurement of the angle phi(3) of the unitarity triangle using a model-independent Dalitz plot analysis of B-+/- -> DK +/-, D -> K-S(0)pi(+)pi(-) ecays. The method uses, as input, measurements of the strong phase of the D -> K-S(0)pi(+)pi(-) amplitude from the CLEO Collaboration. The result is based on the full data set of 772 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected by the Belle experiment at the Gamma(4S) resonance. We obtain phi(3) = (77.3(-14.9)(+15.1) +/- 4.1 +/- 4.3)degrees and the suppressed amplitude ratio r(B) = 0.145 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.010 +/- 0.011. Here the first error is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic uncertainty, and the third is the error due to the precision of the strong-phase parameters obtained by CLEO.


Penang, 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton is a loner. Half English, half Chinese and feeling neither, he discovers a sense of belonging in an unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip shows his new friend around his adored island of Penang, and in return Endo trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. The enigmatic Endo is bound by disciplines of his own and when the Japanese invade Malaya, threatening to destroy Philip's family and everything he loves, he realises that his trusted sensei - to whom he owes absolute loyalty - has been harbouring a devastating secret. Philip must risk everything in an attempt to save those he has placed in mortal danger and discover who and what he really is. With masterful and gorgeous narrative, replete with exotic and captivating images, sounds and aromas - of rain swept beaches, magical mountain temples, pungent spice warehouses, opulent colonial ballrooms and fetid and forbidding rainforests - Tan Twan Eng weaves a haunting and unforgettable story of betrayal, barbaric cruelty, steadfast courage and enduring love.


In this paper we present a performance analysis of the European lightning location system EUCLID for cloud-to ground flashes/strokes in terms of location accuracy (LA), detection efficiency (DE) and peak current estimation. The performance analysis is based on ground truth data from direct lightning current measurements at the Gaisberg Tower (GBT) and data from E-field and video recordings. The E-field and video recordings were collected in three different regions in Europe, namely in Austria, Belgium and France. The analysis shows a significant improvement of the LA of the EUCLID network over the past 7 years. Currently, the median LA is in the range of 100 m in the center of the network and better than 500 m within the majority of the network. The observed DE in Austria and Belgium is similar, yet a slightly lower DE is determined in a particular region in France, due to malfunctioning of a relevant lightning location sensor during the time of observation. The overall accuracy of the lightning location system (LLS) peak current estimation for subsequent strokes is reasonable keeping in mind that the LLS-estimated peak currents are determined from the radiated electromagnetic fields, assuming a constant return stroke speed. The results presented in this paper can be used to estimate the performance of the EUCLID network related to cloud-toground flashes/strokes for regions with similar sensor baselines and sensor technology.


It has been reported that the resonance and antiresonance frequencies of composite Terfenol materials decrease with increasing bias field. Such behaviour implies a negative DE effect and is opposite to that of bulk Terfenol. In this paper we present measurements of EH and EB (and the magnetomechanical coupling coefficient k) for a range of epoxy bonded composites with different particle sizes and volume fractions. The results indicate that the elastic modulii have a variation with bias field which is complex and dependent on both of these compositional variables. The compression bonded samples were produced using Terfenol powder particles in the size rnages (106-150, 150-210, 210-300, 300-500 and 500-710 mm) each in three concentrations (of nominal volume fractions 55, 62 and 70%). EH and EB were determined from the resonance and antiresonance frequencies, respectively, which were obtained from the free-frequency dependence of the electrical impedance of a 50 turn coil around the sample. The measurements show that EH and EB increase with increasing volume fraction in agreement with model predictions. The bias field dependence of the moduli is, however, complex and shows an initial decrease followed by an increase, as the field is increased, with the minima occurring at lower bias fields for increasing volume fractions. The optimum coupling coefficient k is about 0.25 for all samples and shows only a weak dependence on particle size and volume fraction. In contrast, the bias field dependence of k differs widely for samples with different composition parameters. The low value of k in these materials is discussed and is attributed principally to the low elastic modulus.


An Extraordinary Threat Requiring Special Measures'
One of the most notable aspects of the 'war on terror' post 9/11 has been the shift from a wholly criminal justice response under the Terrorism Act 2000 to the creation of a parallel preventive system running in tandem with the continuing criminal justice one, a system that does not rely on the commission of criminal offences or on adherence to ordinary criminal justice safeguards. Clearly, it is not only in respect of preventive measures that international human rights norms may be downgraded – that is the case in respect of normal criminal justice measures too, but it is in respect of preventive measures that the tension with the rights tends to be at its most severe. The use of such extraordinary measures has been justified by Tony Blair on the basis that 'the struggle' against terrorism is 'a new type of war', demanding a 'different attitude to our own interests'.1 The threat of suicide bombing was not a hallmark of previous terrorist conflict; it has been presented, and appears to be publicly perceived, as something peculiarly sinister and more threatening than past forms of terrorist activity,2 perhaps because the would-be bomber has put him or herself outside the realm of rationality and deterrence. The argument then – which Colm O'Cinneide has dubbed the 'siren song of dreadful necessity'3 – is, paradoxically, that due to the extreme nature of the threat to civilised values, there is a greater need than in the past to abandon human rights standards. This article's concern is with such abandonment in relation to the preventive strategy represented by the use of control orders.

The Preventive Strategy
The preventive strategy4 adopted in response to the idea of an extreme threat relies on targeting possible terrorist suspects – persons who may in future commit terrorist acts, …


This thesis addresses the problem of treaty shopping in investment treaty law. It seeks to illustrate how the problem stems from, and can in part be resolved by, the concept and definition of corporate nationality. It explores whether, and if so how and what, limits ought to be placed on the manipulation of nationality for the purpose of gaining investment treaty protection, to enable a principled basis to utilise nationality to prescribe the extent of rights and obligations in investment treaties. The importance of nationality requirements in investment treaties cannot be overstated—the definition of "investor" in any treaty defines which entities are entitled to substantive protections contained in the treaty for the benefit of states and investors alike. Entities making an investment need to know whether, and if so how, they can structure their investment to achieve protection of applicable investment treaties. Investors who have suffered damage need to know whether they are entitled to make a claim. States need to appreciate the extent of their potential obligations.  Many investment treaties define qualifying investors in a broad way that includes any entity incorporated in a contracting state. Putative investors, including those from third states, or nationals of the host state of the investment, seek to come within the relevant definition, often by insertion of an intermediary company incorporated in the desired home state into the ownership chain of the investment.  This thesis challenges the view that fulfilment of formalities set out in an investment treaty is sufficient to qualify as an investor where there is no substance behind the corporate form. To some degree, states and investment treaty tribunals have tried to abrogate treaty shopping by manipulation of corporate nationality by reference to the international law concept of genuine connection with the claimant's state of incorporation, or by way of imposition of criteria for nationality based on the nationality of the corporate entity's controller or proof of substantial business activity in its state of incorporation. The majority of investment treaty tribunals, however, have eschewed efforts to imply a substantive test or check on the attribution of nationality beyond literal fulfillment of nationality criteria.  This thesis promotes a purposive approach that requires fulfillment of express treaty criteria for nationality, but also subjects the claimant to a substantive economic reality check in which the inquiry is to determine the reason for existence of the corporate claimant in relation to the relevant investment. Such an approach is required by an interpretative methodology that gives equal weight to the four tenets of art 31(1) of the Vienna Convention: ordinary meaning, good faith, context and object and purpose. If a corporate entity exists primarily to procure treaty rights, then it is not a bona fide investor consistent with the object and purpose of investment treaty jurisdictional provisions, even if it complies with the ordinary meaning of the express formal nationality criteria. If, however, it meets any express criteria and has a genuine ulterior commercial reason to exist in the ownership structure of the investment, then it qualifies as an investor entitled to the protection of an investment treaty.  The approach promoted by this thesis is derived from the treaty shopping antidote crafted by municipal courts assessing the bona fides of corporate applicants for tax relief under double tax treaties. In addition, the thesis analyses municipal law regarding piercing the corporate veil, the law of diplomatic protection, and analogous jurisdictional concepts in investment treaty law including the application of the principle of abuse of right, and identifies that underlying all these areas of inquiry is the central question of the purpose, or commercial reason to exist, of the relevant corporate entity. Finally, this thesis demonstrates how a substantive approach can be applied in a principled and reasonably certain way.  The use of corporate structures by foreign investors to procure rights under favourable investment treaties (treaty shopping) threatens to undermine the legitimacy of international investment treaty arbitration. Simon Foote QC's research illustrates how the problem stems from the concept and interpretation of corporate nationality criteria at international law. It promotes a new way to distinguish bona fide foreign investors by looking to the commercial purpose of corporate entities in relation to the relevant investment. It illustrates how that approach derives from analogous concepts in international and municipal law and how it can be implemented by states and investment treaty tribunals.


A novel online system for quantifying product distributions of ethanol oxidation in direct ethanol fuel cells was developed. This system was shown to have many advantages over previously reported methodologies such as: ease of operation, quick response time, economical, and real time analysis. This system consisted of a non-dispersive infrared CO₂ detector coupled with a flow-through conductivity detector for CO₂ and acetic acid measurements, respectively. The third ethanol oxidation product, acetaldehyde, was shown to be accurately calculated using a Faradaic charge balance. -- The effects of fuel and product crossover were closely examined. It was shown that the use of oxygen at the cathode can lead to an overestimation of ethanol oxidation products, mainly acetic acid, due to ethanol crossing through the membrane and reacting chemically with oxygen at the cathode. Furthermore, it was shown that significant amounts of acetaldehyde produced during ethanol oxidation were lost due to crossover, leading to an underestimation of its yield. To obtain more accurate product distributions, the fuel cell was operated using N₂/H₂ gas at the cathode (which eliminated the chemically oxidized ethanol reaction). To further improve the accuracy of product yields, a "crossover mode" approach to operating a fuel cell was examined. It was found that this method increased selectivity towards complete oxidation (carbon dioxide) by reducing poisoning of the electrode. -- A kinetic and mechanistic study on the ethanol oxidation reaction was also carried out using an electrode stripping technique. It was found that applying a potential in the range where CO is oxidized, followed by allowing the cell to return to open circuit and then re-applying the potential led to significant increases in CO₂ yields. It was found that the CO₂ yield was dependent on the length of the pulse applied, the shorter the pulsing interval, the higher the yield. This suggests that the majority of the CO₂ produced was attributed to the oxidation of CO adsorbates. The time interval between pulses was also examined. It was found that the CO₂ yield was independent of the resting time, suggesting a rapid dissociation of ethanol on the electrode, which supports previous Iiterature findings. -- A Pt-RuSnO₂/C anode catalyst was developed and tested in our system. This catalyst was found to increase both the performance and the selectivity towards CO₂ in comparison to a Pt electrode, which is rarely reported in the literature.


Abstract Xiphinema japonicum n. sp., isolated in Ningbo, China, from the rhizosphere of Podocarpus macrophyllus (Thunb.) imported from Japan is described. The new species belongs to Xiphinema non-americanum group 7 and is characterized by medium body length (3.0–3.7 mm), total stylet length 190–201 μm, vulva located anteriorly (V = 30.5%–35.3%), two equally developed female genital branches without uterine differentiation (no Z or pseudo-Z organ and/or spines in the uteri), short tail, convex-conoid with subdigitate peg in terminus, and absence of males. The species has four juvenile developmental stages (J1 was not found). The polytomous identification codes of the new species are (codes in parentheses are exceptions) A4-B4-C4-D5(4)-E2(3)-F3(4)-G2(3)-H2-I3-J4-K?-L1. Morphologically, the new species is mainly characterized by combination of the codes C4 and E2(3), making the species unique and different from other species in the genus. It is most similar to the North American species Xiphinema bakeri, herein considered as its cryptic species by the nature of high morphological similarity, but with significant differences in DNA sequences in nearly full length 18S, ITS1, 28S D2/D3, and cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 sequences. The second morphologically close species is Xiphinema setariae from which the new species could be separated based on morphological and molecular characters. Morphological comparisons with phylogenetically related species are also discussed.


CONTEXT
The role and dose of oral vitamin D supplementation in nonvertebral fracture prevention have not been well established.

OBJECTIVE
To estimate the effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation in preventing hip and nonvertebral fractures in older persons.

DATA SOURCES
A systematic review of English and non-English articles using MEDLINE and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (1960-2005), and EMBASE (1991-2005). Additional studies were identified by contacting clinical experts and searching bibliographies and abstracts presented at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (1995-2004). Search terms included randomized controlled trial (RCT), controlled clinical trial, random allocation, double-blind method, cholecalciferol, ergocalciferol, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, fractures, humans, elderly, falls, and bone density.

STUDY SELECTION
Only double-blind RCTs of oral vitamin D supplementation (cholecalciferol, ergocalciferol) with or without calcium supplementation vs calcium supplementation or placebo in older persons (> or =60 years) that examined hip or nonvertebral fractures were included.

DATA EXTRACTION
Independent extraction of articles by 2 authors using predefined data fields, including study quality indicators.

DATA SYNTHESIS
All pooled analyses were based on random-effects models. Five RCTs for hip fracture (n = 9294) and 7 RCTs for nonvertebral fracture risk (n = 9820) met our inclusion criteria. All trials used cholecalciferol. Heterogeneity among studies for both hip and nonvertebral fracture prevention was observed, which disappeared after pooling RCTs with low-dose (400 IU/d) and higher-dose vitamin D (700-800 IU/d), separately. A vitamin D dose of 700 to 800 IU/d reduced the relative risk (RR) of hip fracture by 26% (3 RCTs with 5572 persons; pooled RR, 0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-0.88) and any nonvertebral fracture by 23% (5 RCTs with 6098 persons; pooled RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.68-0.87) vs calcium or placebo. No significant benefit was observed for RCTs with 400 IU/d vitamin D (2 RCTs with 3722 persons; pooled RR for hip fracture, 1.15; 95% CI, 0.88-1.50; and pooled RR for any nonvertebral fracture, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.86-1.24).

CONCLUSIONS
Oral vitamin D supplementation between 700 to 800 IU/d appears to reduce the risk of hip and any nonvertebral fractures in ambulatory or institutionalized elderly persons. An oral vitamin D dose of 400 IU/d is not sufficient for fracture prevention.


A newly developed real time spectral birefringence technique was implemented to follow the coupled relationships between birefringence, true stress and true strain behavior of varying crosslink density natural rubber vulcanizates at room temperature. It was shown that the stress optical law is valid even at early stages of crystallization during stretching and there exists a critical birefringence beyond which the metastable near perfect oriented and highly distorted crystalline regions form and upon retraction this crystalline order disappears at the same critical birefringence level. These crystalline regions exhibit nematic order with significant axial registry distortions at early stages of the formation. They are suggested to form at or near the juncture points of the chemical network formed by crosslinks, and physical network by chain entanglements where the orientability of the chains is the most efficient.


DETERMINANTS OF RURAL POVERTY IN ZAMBIA; A HOUSEHOLD L E V E L ANALYSIS USING EXPENDITURE AS PROXY OF WELLBEING. Poverty remains an issue in third world countries. Zambia still lists among the poorest nations in the world. Government has continued to prepare poverty reduction strategy papers, and formulated several policies in the fifth national development plan of 2006 with the aim of poverty reduction, yet there still remains a challenge of effectively reducing the risen level of rural poverty. This research was aimed at providing more information on the factors related to rural poverty in Zambia. The objectives of this research were to establish the level of living standards that rural population were facing, and to identify those factors strongly associated with rural poverty in Zambia, as well as give recommendafions for solution. The study used the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey rural household level data collected in 2004 to examine probable determinants of poverty status, employing a loglinear multi-regression model. Developing such a regression is motivated by considering a household production process that takes human capital endowments and constraints faced by a household and use them to produce well-being, proxied by expenditures. The study found that the human capital variables Age of head. Sex of head are not significant determinants of expenditures, (p values of 0.275 and 0.753 respectively). Dependency ratio, Adult equivalence and household size are also not significant determinants of expenditures, (p values of 0.345, 0.505 and 0.47 respecfively). Ownership of selected household assets Oxen, Plough, Tractor, Hummer-mill and Radio tested not significant, (p values of 0.518, 0.685, 0.376, 0.673 and 0.959 respectively). Only distance to hospital, input market and schools, as well as education of household head and title to land tested significantly as determinants of expenditure, (p values of 0.031, 0.002 and 0.02 respectively). Geographical location of household, also significantly affected household total expenditure, according to province. It has been recommended that programmes that cover problems associated with isolation are critical, especially that the government of Zambia does not use the policy of pan territorial pricing. There is also pressing need for programmes that discourage households from withdrawing children from school. Programmes designed to provide off-farm income generation activities or services should be linked closely to agriculture. Further research should be done to investigate the regional factors that explain differences in expenditure patterns depending on the province of a rural household. Tionge Simbeye University of Zambia, 2009. Supervisor Mrs. R Lubinda.


Arcangelo Corelli. 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6/1-12. Edited by Richard Platt. New Urtext Edition. London: Ernst Eulenburg Ltd., c1997. [Pref. in Eng., Gen, Fr., p. v-xxxvii; textual notes, p. xxxviii-xlvi; facsim. reprod, of 1714 title page, p. xlviii; score, 287 p. ISMN M-2002-1891-6; ISBN 3-7957-6726-1; Edition Eulenburg no. 1826-37; EE 6882. £18.] What value is it still possible to add to a scholarly edition of Arcangelo Corelli's venerable and venerated Concerti grossi, op. 6, first issued in a modern edition in 1891 by Joseph Joachim and Friedrich Chrysander (Les oeuvres de Arcangelo Corelli, vols. 4-5 [London: Augener; reprint, 1952, 1965, etc.]; and as Complete Concerti grossi [New York: Dover, 1988]) and published as the fourth volume of the Corelli Gesamtausgabe in 1978 (ed. Rudolf Bossard [Cologne: Arno VoIk])? As far as the score is concerned, there is little enough to do, since there exists a clearly identified editio princeps, brought out in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger in 1714, which is so accurate in textual terms as to prompt a claim (only slightly exaggerated) that it is error-free. The one extant source that does not go back, directly or indirectly, to this edition consists of drafts of two movements in the composer's hand preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preusischer Kulturbesitz (Mus. Ms. autogr. A. Corelli 1). These are the Corrente of the tenth concerto and the optional Pastorale concluding the eighth concerto, "fatto per Ia notte di Natale." The prime justification for a new edition, leaving aside purely commercial factors, has to be the quality of the information provided on the circumstances of composition of these classic works and possibly also on their reception history and matters of performance practice. In the year preceding the copyright date (1997) of this Eulenburg edition, there appeared a seminal article by the Dutch scholar Rudolf Rasch, the leading modern authority on the Roger-Le Cene publishing firm, which clarified once and for all the sequence of events attending the publication of Corelli's concertos ("Corelli's Contract: Notes on the Publication History of the Concerti Grossi . . . Opera Sesta [1714]," Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muuekgeschiedenis 46 [1996]: 83-136). On 21 April 1712, the ailing composer entered into a contract with Roger whereby, in return for supplying the concertos, he or his heirs would receive 150 complimentary copies of the edition. The reasoning behind this payment in kind was that in Rome and indeed in the whole of Italy, where Roger's editions did not ordinarily circulate, the composer would be able to market the edition himself and gain an ample reward by doing so. Corelli penned a dedication to the elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm, which is dated 3 December 1712 (Rasch suggests that, in view of Corelli's poor health, the dedication was ghostwritten by his patron, Cardinal Ottoboni). By the time that the engraving of the edition was complete in the fall of 1714, Corelli had been dead for a year. In his will he had stipulated that his manuscripts and opus 6 should become the property of Matteo Fornari, a leading Roman violinist who had been his steadfast colleague in trios and concertos for several years. Fornari accordingly became the recipient of the complimentary copies. But before sending a bound example of the edition to the elector or selling the remainder locally, Fornari suppressed Corelli's original letter of dedication (which Roger, however, continued to use) and substituted one signed by himself, dated 20 November 1714, which he modeled in graphic respects on the engraved dedication of Corelli's opus 5 (1700). Rasch surmises that Fornari's main purpose in doing this was to emphasize his own role (in reality, very minor) in bringing the project to fruition and thus to increase the likelihood of receiving a gratuity from the elector. Rasch's findings lay to rest the earlier widespread suspicion that the 1712 dedication was a later forgery designed to validate the authenticity of this posthumous opus. …


Youre on the go all the time maybe for business, maybe because its a byproduct of your busy lifestyle. But either way, your life would be easier if you had Internet access wherever you are. Well, when it comes to the Internet, you CAN take it with you! You just need the right stuff, and Mobile Internet For Dummies tells you what that is, how to find it, and how to use it. This easy-to-follow guide is packed with tips on choosing the best mobile device, software, and service provider for your needs, but thats not all. Youll see how to use your mobile Web browser, find made-for-mobile content (and create your own) and much more. Mobile Internet For Dummies explains how the Mobile Internet differs from the garden-variety Internet, and shows you how to: Find your mobile phone browser Use the Mobile Internet to surf, shop, blog, watch movies, and more on the go Send and receive e-mail from your mobile device Locate other mobile applications Watch TV on your mobile phone Manage your kids access to the Mobile Internet Secure and name a mobile Internet site and acquire mobile Web development tools Build your own made-for-mobile Web site Use your Mobile Internet site to promote your business and generate revenue With the help of Mobile Internet For Dummies, youll be able to stay connected wherever you happen to be, and maybe even make it pay off with a bit of income.


Objective: To explore the effects of endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis in thyroid injury of rats caused by excessive fluoride intake. Methods: All 40 Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups, control group, low fluoride group, medium fluoride group and high fluoride group. The rats in control group were fed with tap water (fluoride concentration=0.344 mg/L) and the experimental rats were fed with the water contaminated fluoride with the dose of 5, 10 and 20 mg/L. 10 rats (female: male=1∶1) in each group were sacrificed after 8 months of exposure through drinking water. The contents of urine fluoride were detected by fluorine ion selective electrode method. Morphology of thyroid was observed through light microscope and apoptosis in thyroid were detected by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay. The mRNA and protein expressions of glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78) and C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) were analyzed by RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry respectively, and results were compared among groups. Results: The contents of urine fluoride in all fluoride treated groups were separately (4.74±1.88), (7.70±2.82) and (10.50±2.92) mg/L, which were gradually higher than that of control group (2.23±0.54) mg/L (P<0.05). Morphological changes were found in thyroid tissues of fluoride treated groups, thyroid follicular hyperplasia or even no cavity cell clusters were observed. Apoptosis in thyroid were notably increased in fluoride treated groups. The mRNA expression levels of GRP78 in all fluoride treated groups were separately 1.30±0.42, 1.39±0.29 and 1.50±0.27, which were significantly higher than that of control group (0.93±0.24) (P<0.05). And the mRNA expression levels of CHOP in medium and high fluoride groups were separately 1.17±0.29 and 1.30±0.26, which were significantly higher than that of control group (0.91±0.20) (P<0.05). The protein expression levels of GRP78 and CHOP in medium and high fluoride groups were respectively 29.68±4.04, 29.90±3.74 and 4.05±1.62, 4.44±1.81, which were significantly higher than those in the control group (separately 23.80±6.36, 2.27±0.89) (P<0.05). Conclusion: Excessive-fluoride intake can induce thyroid injury, and endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis might be involved in the injury.


Key disparities between the timing and methods of assessment in animal stroke studies and clinical trial may be part of the reason for the failure to translate promising findings. This study investigates the development of ischemic damage after thread occlusion MCAo in the rat, using histological and behavioural outcomes. Using the adhesive removal test we investigate the longevity of behavioural deficit after ischemic stroke in rats, and examine the practicality of using such measures as the primary outcome for future studies. Ischemic stroke was induced in 132 Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats which were assessed for behavioural and histological deficits at 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, 28 days, 12 and 24 weeks (n>11 per timepoint). The basic behavioural score confirmed induction of stroke, with deficits specific to stroke animals. Within 7 days, these deficits resolved in 50% of animals. The adhesive removal test revealed contralateral neglect for up to 6 months following stroke. Sample size calculations to facilitate the use of this test as the primary experimental outcome resulted in cohort sizes much larger than are the norm for experimental studies. Histological damage progressed from a necrotic infarct to a hypercellular area that cleared to leave a fluid filled cavity. Whilst absolute volume of damage changed over time, when corrected for changes in hemispheric volume, an equivalent area of damage was lost at all timepoints. Using behavioural measures at chronic timepoints presents significant challenges to the basic science community in terms of the large number of animals required and the practicalities associated with this. Multicentre preclinical randomised controlled trials as advocated by the MultiPART consortium may be the only practical way to deal with this issue.


Serial analysis of gene expression was used to profile transcript levels in Arabidopsis roots and assess their responses to 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) exposure. SAGE libraries representing control and TNT-exposed seedling root transcripts were constructed, and each was sequenced to a depth of roughly 32,000 tags. More than 19,000 unique tags were identified overall. The second most highly induced tag (27-fold increase) represented a glutathione S-transferase. Cytochrome P450 enzymes, as well as an ABC transporter and a probable nitroreductase, were highly induced by TNT exposure. Analyses also revealed an oxidative stress response upon TNT exposure. Although some increases were anticipated in light of current models for xenobiotic metabolism in plants, evidence for unsuspected conjugation pathways was also noted. Identifying transcriptome-level responses to TNT exposure will better define the metabolic pathways plants use to detoxify this xenobiotic compound, which should help improve phytoremediation strategies directed at TNT and other nitroaromatic compounds.