A hypothetical 2-D numerical model of a clayey-sandy soil profile had been developed by using Geo-Slope software to analyze the water flow (SEEP/W) and phosphate movement (CTRAN/W) through the sub-surface region of the soil. Results showed that streamlines and equipotential lines are normal to each other and vectors displaying the velocity of the flow direction have the average flow rate of 1.2067 x 10 -5 ft 3 /sec/ft (0.000342 LPS). The AdvectionDispersion Analysis revealed that the adsorption of phosphate on the soil particles is linearly related to the concentration which was represented as contours with different colors. The phosphate concentration after 365 days was 0.93 gm/ft 3 at the toe point of the drain. The overall average velocity for the selected nodal points at head, middle and tail sections were 0.2262, 0.3997, and 0.6834 ft/day, respectively. Only the nodal points present at the tail section reached the free exit drain in between 300-365 days with an average velocity of 0.6855 ft/day. The particles present at the head and middle sections of the land were moving slowly as compared to the tail section. However, results may vary for the other types and texture of soils.


The present study was conducted with twenty bread wheat genotypes at the experimental field of Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh, during the period from November 2008 to March 2009 to assess the relationship and selection index among yield and important yield attributing characters. Days to maturity, grains per spike, 100-grain weight and harvest index showed significant and positive correlation with grain yield per plant. Path coefficient analysis suggested that grains per spike followed by 100-grain weight and effective tillers per plant contributed maximum to grain yield positively and directly. Thus, selection based on these characters might be effective for improving grain yield. Selection indices were constructed through the discriminate functions using eight characters. From the results, the highest relative efficiency was observed with the selection index based on three characters; plant height and grains per spike and grain yield per plant. The present investigation indicates that the index selection based on these three characters might be more effective and efficient for selecting high yielding wheat genotypes.


Introduction The multicentre, pragmatic, randomised controlled Acuflash study evaluated the effect of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) acupuncture on postmenopausal vasomotor symptoms and health-related quality of life. It concluded that use of acupuncture in addition to self-care can contribute to a clinically relevant reduction of hot flushes and increased health-related quality of life. This article reports on the TCM syndrome diagnoses and acupuncture points used and their relation to the treatment response, and on treatment reactions and adverse events. Methods The acupuncture group (n = 134) received 10 acupuncture treatment sessions and advice on self-care; the control group (n = 133) received advice on self-care only. The study acupuncturists met the current membership criteria of the Norwegian Acupuncture Society, and had at least 3 years' experience of practising TCM acupuncture. They were free to diagnose and select acupuncture points for each participant, after initial discussion. Results Fifty per cent of the participants in the acupuncture group were diagnosed with Kidney Yin Xu as their primary TCM syndrome diagnosis. No statistically significant differences were demonstrated between the syndrome groups regarding the distribution of responders and non-responders, nor regarding the change in health-related quality of life scores. A core of common acupuncture points (SP6, HT6, KI7, KI6, CV4, LU7, LI4, and LR3) were used in all the syndromes, and in addition multiple idiosyncratic points. Core point selection and frequency of use did not differ between responders and non-responders. No serious adverse events were reported. Conclusion Factors other than the TCM syndrome diagnoses and the point selection may be of importance regarding the outcome of the treatment.


As the last volume in the series sponsored by the SSRC Committee on Comparative Politics, this book reflects--as does the preceding volume--the Committee's decision to devote renewed attention to the original state building experiences of the West, after having studied political development in the newer countries of the Third World. The contributors attempt to discern patterns of historical change in the different sequences of crises that affect all states in their development. Following an introductory and theoretical statement by Raymond Grew, each chapter focuses on a different country or area. Each of these essays applies and evaluates the Committee's concept of crises of development, i.e., crises of identity, legitimacy, participation, penetration, and distribution. The distinguished historians and political scientists who contribute to the volume are: Keith Thomas (on the United Kingdom), Aristide R. Zolberg (on Belgium), Folke Dovring (on Scandinavia), J. Rogers Hollingsworth (on the United States), Stanley G. Payne (on Spain and Portugal), David D. Bien (on France), Raymond Grew (on France and Italy), John R. Gillis (on Germany), Walter M. Pintner (on Russia), and Roman Szporluk (on Poland), with Lucian W. Pye providing the Preface.Originally published in 1979.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


Plants have been in use in traditional medicine since antiquity, and many active metabolic products with biological significance are obtained from them. Recently, pharmaceutical industries have developed great interest in utilizing these products as an alternative to the chemically synthesized drugs. This is due to the discovery of important new medicines from the plants, because of studies on how people of different background use plants as cure and treatment for many diseases, and side effects of the synthesized drugs. Banana, an eatable fruit produced by some herba-ceous flowering plants of the genus Musa , is one of the valuable fruits with proven pharmacological potentials. Bananas are spread almost all over the world. Different chemical constituents like apigenin glycosides, myricetin-3-O-rutinoside, kaemp-ferol-3-O-rutinoside, dopamine, and serotonin have been reported in different parts and varieties of banana. The presence of carbohydrate, proteins as well as flavonoids, makes bananas useful in both nutrition and therapeutics. Pharmacologically, bananas have been shown to possess antiulcer, antimicrobial, and antioxidant activities. This chapter discusses the essential information on banana, including its varieties, distribution, pharmacological actions, and its relevance in pharmaceutical industries. This will be beneficial for researchers to further harness the robustness of this fruit in controlling many diseases and modification of drugs.


Aims:Research on second-generation antipsychotic drugs (SGAs) has experienced great development in last decades.We did a bibliometric study on the scientific publications on SGAs in Japan.Methods: With theEMBASEandMEDLINEdatabases, we chose papers published from Japan with SGA descriptors. Price's law and Bradford's law has been used as bibliometric indicators for quantitating production and dispersion, respectively, of published papers on SGAs. We also calculated the participation index of different countries, and correlated those bibliometric data with some social and health data from Japan (such as totalper capitaexpenditure on health and gross domestic expenditure on research and development). Results: A sum of 669 original documents were published from Japan from 1982 to 2011. Those results fulfilled Price's law, with scientific production on SGAs showing exponential growth (correlation coefficientr= 0.9261, as against anr= 0.8709 after linear adjustment). The most studied SGAs in Japan wererisperidone (n= 192), aripiprazole (n= 109), and olanzapine (n= 106). Division of documents into Bradford zones yielded a nucleus occupied exclusively by theProgress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry(49 articles). Those publications were in 157 different journals. Seven of the first 10 frequently used journals had an impact factor of being greater than 3. Conclusions: The SGA publications in Japan have been through exponential growth over the studied period, without evidence of reaching a saturation point.


This paper considers online convex optimization (OCO) with stochastic constraints, which generalizes Zinkevich's OCO over a known simple fixed set by introducing multiple stochastic functional constraints that are i.i.d. generated at each round and are disclosed to the decision maker only after the decision is made. This formulation arises naturally when decisions are restricted by stochastic environments or deterministic environments with noisy observations. It also includes many important problems as special cases, such as OCO with long term constraints, stochastic constrained convex optimization, and deterministic constrained convex optimization. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new algorithm that achieves $O(\sqrt{T})$ expected regret and constraint violations and $O(\sqrt{T}\log(T))$ high probability regret and constraint violations. Experiments on a real-world data center scheduling problem further verify the performance of the new algorithm.


INELASTIC ANALYSIS OF SEISMIC LOADING OF PRECAST CONCRETE CLADDING USING COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE SOFTWARE by Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi Two nonlinear pushover analyses and three displacement-controlled time history analyses of two precast concrete panel assemblies were completed. The analytical software used was SAP2000 (version 15.0.0). The precast concrete panel modeled was a three-dimensional single panel connected to a one-story, one-bay, concrete-reinforced structural frame with four flexing rods and two bearing connections. The results showed that static analysis is suitable to predict only dynamic analysis with a long input period of vibrations (low acceleration vibrations). As the period of input vibration neared the fundamental period of vibration of the precast concrete panel, the maximum value of forces developed in connections increased. The amplification ratio for both models decreased as the period of the input vibrations varied from 100 to 0.32 s, and the amount of time that each flexing rod experienced a local maximum of force changed for the periods of input vibrations of 100, 1, and 0.32 s.


Presacral vertebrae of a new Diplodocidae from the Late Jurassic AmoreiraPorto Novo Formation of Lourinhã, Portugal are described and figured. Dinheirosaurus lourinhanensis gen. et sp. is diagnosed by well developed accessory articulations derived from the hyposphene, exposed in lateral view; and by the smaller dorsoventral length of the lower section of the neural arch. It is considered that the organization of the dorsal neural arch of Dinheirosaurus is more derived than in Diplodocus, except in the dorsoventral development of the lower portion of it, which is higher (more derived) in the latter. Possibly the isolated geography of Portugal in the Late Jurassic gave rise to the distinct characters of this new genus.


Software configuration management deals with control of the evolution of complex computer systems. The ability to handle changes, corrections and extensions is decisive for the outcome of a software project. Automated processes for handling these elements are therefore a crucial part of software development. This thesis focuses on build and release management, in the context of developing a control system for the world's biggest particle accelerator. Build and release cover topics such as build support, versioning, dependency management and release management. The main part of the work has consisted of extending an in-house solution supporting the development process of accelerator control software at CERN. The main focus of this report is on the practical work done in this context. Based on a literature survey and examining of available tools, this thesis presents the state of the art concerning build and release management before elaborating on the practical work. Based on the experience gained from the work of this thesis, I conclude with a discussion of whether or not it is beneficiary to stick with in-house solution, or if switching to an external tool could prove better for the development process implemented.


We review studies claiming that fish feel pain and find deficiencies in the methods used for pain identification, particularly for distinguishing unconscious detection of injurious stimuli (nociception) from conscious pain. Results were also frequently misinterpreted and not replicable, so claims that fish feel pain remain unsubstantiated. Comparable problems exist in studies of invertebrates. In contrast, an extensive literature involving surgeries with fishes shows normal feeding and activity immediately or soon after surgery. C fiber nociceptors, the most prevalent type in mammals and responsible for excruciating pain in humans, are rare in teleosts and absent in elasmobranchs studied to date. A-delta nociceptors, not yet found in elasmobranchs, but relatively common in teleosts, likely serve rapid, less noxious injury signaling, triggering escape and avoidance responses. Clearly, fishes have survived well without the full range of nociception typical of humans or other mammals, a circumstance according well with the absence of the specialized cortical regions necessary for pain in humans. We evaluate recent claims for consciousness in fishes, but find these claims lack adequate supporting evidence, neurological feasibility, or the likelihood that consciousness would be adaptive. Even if fishes were conscious, it is unwarranted to assume that they possess a human-like capacity for pain. Overall, the behavioral and neurobiological evidence reviewed shows fish responses to nociceptive stimuli are limited and fishes are unlikely to experience pain.


Datatype-generic programming increases program reliability by reducing code duplication and enhancing reusability and modularity. Several generic programming libraries for Haskell have been developed in the past few years. These libraries have been compared in detail with respect to expressiveness, extensibility, typing issues, etc., but performance comparisons have been brief, limited, and preliminary. It is widely believed that generic programs run slower than hand-written code. In this paper we present an extensive benchmark suite for generic functions and analyze the potential for automatic code optimization at compilation time. Our benchmark confirms that generic programs, when compiled with the standard optimization flags of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC), are substantially slower than their hand-written counterparts. However, we also find that more advanced optimization capabilities of GHC can be used to further optimize generic functions, sometimes achieving the same efficiency as hand-written code.


Homogenization of periodic functionals, whose integrands possess possibly multi-well structure, is treated in terms of Young measures. More precisely, we characterize the Γ -limit of sequences of such functionals in the set of Young measures, extending the relaxation theorem of Kinderlherer and Pedregal. We also make precise the relationship between our homogenized density and the classical one.


Knowledge of the distribution and relative abundance of odontocete cetaceans is important for helping to understand and potentially mitigate impacts of anthropogenic activities. We present small-boat survey and sighting data from 13 y (2000 through 2012) of field studies around the main Hawaiian Islands. We surveyed 84,758 km of trackline, with effort ranging from 3 to 11 y off each of the four different island areas. We had 2,018 sightings of odontocetes representing all 18 species known to exist in Hawai'i. Analyses indicated that sighting rates varied with depth for most species, with some found at their highest rates in shallow (< 1,000 m) water (e.g., common bottlenose and spinner dolphins), some in slope (500 to 2,500 m) water (e.g., dwarf sperm whales and short-finned pilot whales), and some in very deep (> 3,000 m) water (e.g., sperm whales, striped dolphins, Risso's dolphins, and roughtoothed dolphins). Most species (14 of 18) were recorded in all oceanographic seasons. Restricting effort data by depth indicates that in depths > 3,000 m, the most commonly encountered species are rough-toothed dolphins, pantropical spotted dolphins, striped dolphins, and sperm whales. In depths < 2,000 m, the most commonly sighted species were short-finned pilot whales, pantropical spotted dolphins, common bottlenose dolphins, and rough-toothed dolphins. Sighting rates for some species varied among islands, apparently unrelated to differences in effort in different areas. Off Kaua'i and Ni'ihau rough-toothed dolphins were seen more often than expected (25.9% of sightings) based on sighting rates of this species elsewhere in the islands, while pantropical spotted dolphins (3.9% of sightings) and short-finned pilot whales (6.5% of sightings) were seen less often than expected given that they are among the most common species off the other island areas. Such patterns are relevant to interpreting results of acoustic and aerial survey methods in which species identifications are inferred from classification methods or limited by brief sighting opportunities, respectively.


Abstract Inversion of seismic data relies on several "metaparameters" such as wavelet, correlation length, signal-to-noise ratio, and low frequency, which are given a priori status and have a strong influence on inversion results. Stochastic inversions provide a set of realizations of elastic parameters assuming a Gaussian distribution of the uncertainty of the prior model and of the data for a given set of metaparameters. By ignoring the possible variability of the metaparameters, the distribution of realizations provided by the stochastic inversions reveals only a limited amount of the true uncertainty of the posterior model. In a simple 1D example, the metaparameter has a key influence on the results. Uncertainty on several metaparameters can be estimated. In a real data example, changing the metaparameters can obtain a much larger diversity of the results than those provided by a stochastic inversion for a single set of parameters. Handling the uncertainty on all different parameters not only would be...


How was the English text of the Treaty of Waitangi understood by the British in 1840? That is the question addressed by historian and lawyer Ned Fletcher, in this extensive work. With one exception, the Treaty sheets signed by rangatira and British officials were in te reo Māori. The Māori text, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was a translation by the missionary Henry Williams of a draft in English provided by William Hobson, the Consul sent by the British government to negotiate with Māori. Despite considerable scholarly attention to the Treaty, the English text has been little studied. In part, this is because the original English draft exists only in fragments in the archive; it has long been regarded as lost or 'unknowable', and in any event superseded by the authoritative Māori text. Now, through careful archival research, Fletcher has been able to set out the continuing relevance of the English text. The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi emphasises that the original drafting of the Treaty by British officials in 1840 cannot be separated from the wider circumstances of that time. This context encompasses the history of British dealings with indigenous peoples throughout the Empire and the currents of thought in the mid-nineteenth century, a period of rapid change in society and knowledge. It also includes the backgrounds and motivations of those primarily responsible for framing the Treaty: British Resident James Busby, Consul and future Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson, and Colonial Office official James Stephen. Through groundbreaking scholarship, Fletcher concludes that the Māori and English texts of the Treaty reconcile, and that those who framed the English text intended Māori to have continuing rights to self-government (rangatiratanga) and ownership of their lands. This original understanding of the Treaty, however, was then lost in the face of powerful forces in the British Empire post-1840, as hostility towards indigenous peoples grew alongside increased intolerance of plural systems of government. The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi enriches our understanding of the original purpose and vision of Te Titiri o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi and its foundational role in Aotearoa New Zealand.


The murine epididymis has 10 distinct segments which provide opportunity to identify compartmentalized cell physiological mechanisms underlying sperm maturation. However, despite the essential role of the epididymis in reproduction, remarkably little is known about segment-specific functions of this organ. Here, we investigate the dramatic segmental localization of the ganglioside GM1, a glycosphingolipid already known to play key roles in sperm capacitation and acrosome exocytosis (AE). Frozen tissue sections of epididymides from adult mice were treated with the binding subunit of cholera toxin conjugated to AlexaFluor 488 to label GM1. We report that GM1-enriched vesicles were found exclusively in principal and clear cells of segment 2. These vesicles were also restricted to the lumen of segment 2 and did not appear to flow with the sperm into segment 3, within the limits of detection by confocal microscopy. Interestingly, this segment-specific presence was altered in several azoospermic mouse models and in wildtype mice after efferent duct ligation (EDL). These findings indicate that a lumicrine factor, itself dependent on spermatogenesis, controls this segmental differentiation. RNA sequencing results confirmed global de-differentiation of the proximal epididymal segments in response to EDL. Additionally, GM1 localization on the surface of the sperm head increased as sperm transit through segment 2 and have contact with the GM1-enriched vesicles. This is the first report of segment-specific vesicles and their role in enriching sperm with GM1, a glycosphingolipid known to be critical for sperm function, providing key insights into the segment-specific physiology and function of the epididymis.


Break elements were developed to efficiently and accurately capture progressive failures of components and connections with temperature dependent properties for use in finite-element models of structures. These elements were used to model bolted and welded connections and shear connectors between concrete slab and floor framing used in the development of the finite-element modeling of the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) investigation of the collapse initiation. Break elements account for geometric effects such as gaps, sliding off of seated connections, and temperature-dependent failure modes such as bolt shear, tear-out, block shear, and weld failure. The break elements were incorporated into the finite-element models of the structural components, subsystems, and global models of the WTC buildings. Validation of the models developed using break elements was achieved through comparison of the results obtained with detailed finite-element models. The models developed using break elements were able to capture the temperature-dependent response of components and connections with only a few degrees of freedom.


Unethical behavior by "ordinary" people poses significant societal and personal challenges. We present a novel framework centered on the role of self-serving justification to build upon and advance the rapidly expanding research on intentional unethical behavior of people who value their morality highly. We propose that self-serving justifications emerging before and after people engage in intentional ethical violations mitigate the threat to the moral self, enabling them to do wrong while feeling moral. Pre-violation justifications lessen the anticipated threat to the moral self by redefining questionable behaviors as excusable. Post-violation justifications alleviate the experienced threat to the moral self through compensations that balance or lessen violations. We highlight the psychological mechanisms that prompt people to do wrong and feel moral, and suggest future research directions regarding the temporal dimension of self-serving justifications of ethical misconduct.


Advocacy is a crucial activity for achieving the goals of VISION 2020: The Right to Sight. Progress towards the elimination of avoidable blindness depends on political will and on making available more human and financial resources. In order for this to happen, advocacy is necessary: it can influence the policies and practices of key decision makers, particularly governments, the Word Health Organization (WHO), and development and funding bodies. The passing of two resolutions in support of VISION 2020 at the World Health Assembly meetings of 2003 and 2006 was a good start. These resolutions call on member states to prepare national VISION 2020 plans and to mobilise resources for their implementation. They also require WHO itself to provide support to these member states. These resolutions were the result of extensive advocacy and lobbying by many members and partners of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), led by IAPB's Eastern Mediterranean Region team. However, the resolutions are only the start of the process. In the long run, if VISION 2020 is to succeed, it must be given higher priority and be supported by more funding. The challenge now is for national and international leaders in eye health to persuade WHO and national governments to turn these fine words and sentiments into action. This can only be achieved through carefully planned, coordinated, and sustained advocacy, aimed both at WHO and at national governments. Advocacy is needed at international level to ensure that eye health is included in WHO's action plans for the different WHO regions, e.g. Africa or Southeast Asia. These regions determine their own priorities in consultation with the member states in their region. In order to ensure that WHO gives additional support to VISION 2020 in a particular region, it is important that governments press for this support at WHO regional meetings. IAPB regional coordinators should direct their advocacy efforts towards the leaders of those countries best placed to play this role (i.e. those who have the most influence in that region). On a national level, advocacy is needed to ensure that the prevention of visual impairment is included in the country cooperation strategy document (CCS). This document is drawn up by WHO for each country in which it operates. It reflects the medium-term vision of WHO for its cooperation with a specific country and defines a strategic framework for achieving this vision. If the elimination of avoidable blindness is not in this document, it is unlikely to be included in the country's 'joint programme', the plan that attaches a budget to the priorities identified in the CCS. Although the CCS is drawn up in collaboration with each country's government, the process is led by the country WHO representative. Advocacy should target the country WHO representative, as well as the national government concerned, as the latter can put pressure on the WHO representative to include the elimination of avoidable blindness in the CCS. The timing and processes of the document's preparation should be taken into account. Similarly, poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) represent a good opportunity for advocacy at national level. PRSPs form the first step in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (see article on page 62). They are prepared and updated every three years by many countries, a process which involves the government itself as well as external development partners, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In some countries, the inclusion of blindness prevention in a PRSP could be a realistic advocacy objective. To have maximum impact, national advocacy activities should be closely coordinated among relevant individuals and organisations. Such coordination should be the responsibility of national VISION 2020 committees, who should develop advocacy strategies with specific and clear objectives and action plans. The support of leading international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and IAPB coordinators will be important in this process. While there are plenty of challenges, there is also plenty of encouragement to be derived from advocacy successes to date, which have resulted in higher priority being accorded to blindness prevention and in the allocation of increased resources. The example of Pakistan is described on page 65, but similar success has been achieved in other countries, India and Australia being notable examples. It is worth noting that, both in India and in Australia, the VISION 2020 national bodies are very active, have a clear advocacy agenda, and enjoy strong support from the NGO community. This is the model which needs to be replicated. Richard Porter Deputy Director, IAPB, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK.


Many environmental policy decisions have vital scientific dimensions; they cannot effectively achieve societal goals unless the best available scientific information is accurately gathered and appropriately taken into account. In recent years growing numbers of critics have complained about the misuse or non-use of scientific information in environmental regulation and natural resource management. In this article, through close examination of several recent controversies, I show that shortcomings in the effective use of science can usefully be separated into two categories: problems of scientific integrity and problems of political integrity. Scientific integrity requires that data be gathered, interpreted, and expressed in ways that accord with the relevant norms of scientific practice, the most important of which for this purpose are objectivity and skepticism. Political integrity requires that decisions about what action to take in light of the available scientific information be consistent with relevant legal mandates, and that judgments about where the boundaries of those mandates fall and what action to take within those boundaries be revealed. Scientific and political integrity are linked in three important respects: both require the recognition and observance of role boundaries and limitations; both impose limitations on the role of personal biases and desires; and shortfalls or even perceived shortfalls in one can increase pressures to ignore the other. They are distinct, however, in the identities of the actors responsible for them, and in the nature of the measures that might be taken to ensure them. Political integrity can be addressed through increased oversight of the executive branch, including a variety of measures designed to enhance the role of career employees relative to political appointees in regulatory decisionmaking. Scientific integrity is more difficult to address through regulatory measures. It is best encouraged through increasing awareness of the boundaries of scientific and political judgments and reducing incentives for those acting in the professional role of scientists to overstep those boundaries.


Recent research has emphasized the importance of global value chains (GVCs) in inter-country linkages and international production fragmentation. Several initiatives have attempted to construct multi-country input-output tables (MIOTs) to analyze these trends. However, heterogeneity in export and domestic activities among firms within the same industry may cause biases in analyses that rely on MIOTs. This paper has two main objectives. First, we use matched employer-employee data for Japan to split output in each industry in Japan's manufacturing sector in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) table into output for export or domestic sale. Second, using our split ICIO table, we compute trade in value added (TiVA) indicators to examine the participation of Japanese manufacturing plants in GVCs and compare our results with the OECD-WTO TiVA indicators. Our estimates suggest that Japan's forward participation in GVCs is lower than in the original OECD-WTO TiVA indicators when we take plant heterogeneity within industries into account. We infer that this result is due to higher cross-border production fragmentation as well as the large presence of multinational companies and intra-industry trade in the manufacturing sector.


An interference-resilient 60 kb/s-10 Mb/s body channel transceiver using the human body as a signal transmission medium is designed for multimedia and medical data transaction in body-area network. The body antenna effect which interferes with signals in the human body channel is examined. The body-induced interferences degrade the SIR of the signal to -22 dB in the worst case. In order to overcome the body antenna effect, a 4-channel adaptive frequency hopping scheme using the 30-120 MHz band is introduced to the body channel transceiver. A direct-switching modulator using dual frequency synthesizers and a DLL-based demodulator are proposed for 10 Mb/s FSK and the 4.2 mus hopping time. The transceiver fabricated with 0.18 mum CMOS withstands -28 dB SIR and its operating distance is over 1.8 m with - 25 dB SIR. Its energy consumption is 0.37 nJ/b with -65 dBm sensitivity.


Although activity schedules are often presented to learners in book form, this format may be cumbersome and socially stigmatizing to a child with autism. Conversely, presenting an activity schedule on an iPod touch may provide a more socially acceptable format, in that it would be more discreet and allow for easy portability, especially if supports, such as prompts and an adult's presence, are eventually removed. The present study investigated whether an iPod touch could be used to effectively teach activity schedule following involving independent leisure activities to four children with autism. Manual prompts, progressive time-delay procedures, and reinforcement were also used. Prompts were faded using a progressive time-delay procedure, and experimenter proximity to the participants was faded until she was no longer present. A multiple-probe-across-participants design was used. Prior to intervention, none of the participants followed the schedule and they rarely engaged in on-task behavior. Following intervention, all participants learned to independently follow leisure activity schedules presented on the iPod touch and increased their on-task behavior. In addition, these skills generalized to novel settings and novel schedules, and maintained over time. Social validity measures suggested that the participants preferred to follow activity schedules using the iPod touch. Community members also rated the use of the device as more typical of age-related peers and more socially acceptable in the community. The implications of incorporating technology to increase independence in children with autism are discussed.


We present the results of photometric CCD observations of the magnetic cataclysmic variable V405 Aurigae (RX J0558.0+5353 = 1RXS J055800.7+535358) obtained using different instruments. We analysed variability of the spin period of the white dwarf in the V405 Aur (RX J0558.0+5353) system using our observations and previously published maxima timings. The spin period of the system in 2010-2012 is $P=545.4558163(94)$s. As we have gaps in observational data, we present 2 hypotheses of the spin period variability of this system - a cubic ephemeris which may be interpreted by a precession of the magnetic white dwarf or a periodic change with a period of 6.2 years and semi-amplitude of $17.2\pm1.8$ sec. The periodic variations may be interpreted by a light-time effect caused by a low-mass star ($M_3\ge0.09M_\odot$). In this case, the system belongs to a rare class of cataclysmic variables with a third body.


Characterizing it as a "mythic discourse," Jean Baudrillard proceeds, in this brilliant essay, to dismantle the powerful, seductive figure of Michel Foucault. In a torrent of haikus, which can now be seen as classically Baudrillardian, he swirls Foucault's concepts of repression, sexuality, production, consumption, and history around in an intense, and often comical, reversal of forces. Exceeding the boundaries of literary or philosophical critique, Baudrillard writes from beyond the horizon of political thought and in a space of phantasmic speculation, finally "using" Foucault's terminologies and public significance to launch his own form of occult, philosophical clarity. In the second half of the book, Baurillard meets his match in an interview with Sylvere Lotringer, who teases Baudrillard with his own ideas, in turn making commentaries on subjects as diverse as panic, ecstasy, and May '68.


Nanofluids are metallic or nonmetallic, nanometer-sized particles dispersed in liquid. They can be used in various fields to increase heat transfer rates, as the thermal conductivity of nanofluids can be increased significantly. Nanofluids may be used as a good alternative coolant in spray cooling applications. This study conducted experiments to compare spray characteristics, such as droplet diameters and velocities, between water and alumina nanofluid sprays. The mass ratio of alumina nanoparticles was varied from 0.2 to 0.5 weight percentages (wt.%) and the spray injection pressure was varied between 0.2 and 0.3 MPa. The local distributions of droplet sizes and velocities along the spray axial and radial directions were measured by a laser doppler instrument. Generally, the spray characteristics of nanofluid sprays is significantly different from that of water sprays. The average droplet diameters of the fluids tested increased in an approximately linear manner with the increase in the mass ratio of nanoparticles up to 0.4 wt.%, whereas the average droplet velocities decreased. In the case of the nanofluid spray of 0.5 wt.%, the increase in droplet diameters and the decrease in droplet velocities were much more marked, departing from the linear relationship. This unusual behavior could also be observed in the local distributions of droplet diameters and velocities along the axial and radial directions. Further research studies are required to reveal how the addition of nanoparticles affects the atomization mechanism of nanofluids. The difference in the spray characteristics of nanofluid sprays from that of water sprays should be taken into consideration when the cooling effectiveness of nanofluids and water in spray cooling is compared.


The Wars of the Bushes is a fascinating study of the United States' foreign policy and the military engagements waged during the two Bush presidencies. Historian Stephen Tanner deftly argues that the current president's foreign policy is seriously at odds with the first President Bush's successful recipe of broad-based global alliances, clear-cut political goals, and quick, decisive wars. Tanner's study begins with an examination of George H. W. Bush's career. Bush's own wartime experiences, coupled with his knowledge of the world beyond America's shores, resulted in a foreign policy that achieved its military objectives while defining the United States as the globe's only post-Cold War superpower. His success enabled him to assemble a truly international force in response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. In comparison, President George W. Bush's legacy will be his controversial policy of pre-emptive war and his misuse of American might to force its will on reluctant allies. Instead of focusing on the war on terror, Bush diverted American forces into a war in Iraq, one instigated for dubious motives and which now threatens to consume both American lives and money without any obvious benefit. Through a highly readable narrative, Tanner sheds light on how America has arrived at this stage in its history. More importantly, he points to the direction America must take in the future- a step towards the past, when the father set an example that the son has refused to follow. Stephen Tanner is the author of five books, including the recent and well-received Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban.


Diversity in education systems, and broader political and economic conditions, are commonly credited with international variation in inequality of educational opportunity (IEO). Comparing East and West Germany before reunification allows us to investigate whether vastly different political, economic and educational systems led to differences in IEO. Post-reunification, East Germany adopted the West's systems and experienced an economic recession. IEO had been smaller in East than in West Germany but was on an upward trajectory before reunification. After 1990, IEO in East Germany converged to the West German level as a result of decreased IEO in the West and increasing levels in the East. Post-reunification convergence suggests differences in political context and education policy are crucial for IEO.


*Summary Software quality is a complex concept containing a large number of quality criteria. These quality criteria are usually interactive where preference outcome of one criterion over another criterion is always influenced by the remaining criteria. However, to avoid complexity researchers always tend to construct independent criteria which causing some bias effect in evaluation. This paper presents a method to investigate and identify the relationships of quality criteria in the development of web-based applications (WBA). Experienced-based approach and an online survey were conducted to gather the intended relationships. The results have shown that there exist relationships and interaction between the quality attributes. These relationships will be used later on in the aggregation procedure for the evaluation of the WBA.


food and income from their agricultural activities. This paper uses the three pillars of Technology Justice (access, local innovation, and sustainable use of technologies) to assess the range of agricultural development pathways available. Agroecology emerges as the strongest pathway for leaving no one behind and meeting the triple challenge of productivity, sustainability and poverty eradication, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. This policy briefing presents existing evidence and research in agroecology alongside case studies of successful initiatives with scalable potential, particularly where market systems are at the core of development practices. Considering the barriers to scaling up agroecology, the paper recommends that development actors work together to identify incentives to enable systemic change, through facilitating market systems and private-sector engagement in agroecological production and value chains. Technology Justice Policy Briefing 3


With the growing integration of smartphones into our daily lives, and their increased ease of use, mobile games have become highly popular across all demographics. People listen to music, play games or read the news while in transit or bridging gap times. While mobile gaming is gaining popularity, mobile expression of creativity is still in its early stages. We present here a new type of mobile app -- fluidic games -- and illustrate our iterative approach to their design. This new type of app seamlessly integrates exploration of the design space into the actual user experience of playing the game, and aims to enrich the user experience. To better illustrate the game domain and our approach, we discuss one specific fluidic game, which is available as a commercial product. We also briefly discuss open challenges such as player support and how generative techniques can aid the exploration of the game space further.


"The Story of the Apple" reveals the solution to a long-standing puzzle. Where did the apple come from, and why is the familiar large, sweet, cultivated apple so different from all other wild apple species with their bitter, cherry-sized fruits? This book will fascinate gardeners who wish to know more about the origin and natural history of the plants that they grow in their yards or orchards, researchers and students in botany and horticulture who want the evidence from DNA, geology, anthropology, archaeology, zoology, and Classical history, and anyone with an interest in diet, well-being, and the benevolent effects of plants on the emergence of humankind.


VVC is a regional Australian middle school with an established one-laptop-per-student program (1:1). 8 years ago as a science teacher at VVC, I was part of the science education crisis (Tytler, 2007a), struggling to understand why 1:1 wasn't working as a bandaid for my teaching problems. Many students at VVC are 'students at educational risk' (SAER), and nearly 30% are Indigenous Australians. Non-mainstream students present a challenge to traditional science teachers whom the literature profiles as lecture-philic characters keen to produce future scientists (Aikenhead, 2010; Bryce, 2010). I wanted to understand the pedagogical manifestations occurring in VVC science, and examine the underbelly of our 1:1 program.

Within this context, the study examines cultural intersections between elements of the learning environment. The methodology utilises the work of Angelides (2001) and Tripp (1993) who analyse school culture through critical incidents. Grounded in naturalistic inquiry and interpretivism, my role was to document the lived experiences of students and teachers, and interpret them with the emic lens of a teacher-researcher. Data collection occurred across two years, including students' first and last science lessons with laptops. My participants were three science teachers and their two classes, with forty-three students contributing to observation and interview data.

The study reveals that although VVC may be the most established public whole-school 1:1 in Australia, at the time of fieldwork, its science teachers and students were not successfully participating in the transformative practices that 1:1 is believed to afford (Weston & Bane, 2010). At VVC, 1:1 cloaks the traditional science classroom in high-tech bling. During the study period, VVC science aligned to the where-not-how model of middle schooling, and glitches in the laptop program contributed to negative perceptions of, and experiences with, computers in science. Teachers struggled to engage their learners, bolting laptops onto existing traditional science pedagogy. Attempts at student-centred learning proved difficult to manage because of barriers related to the cohort, technical issues, digital literacies, and teacher pedagogy.

This research provides a case study of the science education crisis in a 1:1 middle school context. Key recommendations are that the school must create conditions for collaborative reform in science, including minimising barriers that contribute to negative experiences. Science teachers must embrace the 'science for all' philosophy that underpins contemporary science education, using innovative pedagogies and digital tools to engage 'at-risk' Millennials, while also supporting the development of digital literacies and learner dispositions suited to a ubiquitous computing environment. To do this, science teachers require professional learning to challenge and transform their beliefs about the teaching and learning of science.


Abstract: Neoproterozoic basaltic magmatism in the Dalradian Supergroup of Scotland and Ireland was associated with the break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent. Magmas were erupted in rift-related basins along a strike length of at least 700 km and during a time period of c. 80 Ma. New major and trace element analyses of metabasalts from several formations are presented to trace the variations in magma compositions in time and space. The primary magmas resulted from variable degrees of mixing of melts derived from mantle sources similar to those of normal and enriched mid-ocean ridge basalts; some younger lavas also show evidence of contamination with continental crust. In contrast to speculations about magmatism elsewhere in Rodinia, the evidence here suggests that there was no involvement of a mantle plume in basalt generation. For example, the Scottish promontory of Laurentia drifted rapidly southwards through c. 25° over the duration of the magmatism, with no evidence of significant elevation above sea level, as might be expected from involvement of a plume. Generation of the primary magmas might have taken place predominantly through decompression melting in depleted upper mantle containing enriched streaks and blobs. Both the Dalradian lithostratigraphy and the metabasaltic compositions are consistent with extreme lithospheric stretching and possibly rupture during the earliest phase of magmatism, whereas generation of later magmatism appears to have been associated with major fault systems, possibly on a foundering continental margin. Supplementary material: Chemical analyses of Dalradian metavolcanic rocks (major elements recalculated to 100%, anhydrous) are available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18468.


The role of mechanical forces in
the fate and function of adherent cells has been revealed to be a pivotal
factor in understanding cell biology. Cells require certain physical cues to be
present in their microenvironment or the cell will begin apoptosis. Mechanical
signals from the environment are interpreted at the cellular level and
biochemical responses are made due to the information from outside the cell, this
process is known as mechanotransduction. Misinterpretation of physical cues has
been indicated in many disease states, including heart disease and asthma. When
a cell is bound to the ECM, proteins such as integrins are engaged at static
and stable adhesion sites. These tight and static anchoring points found at the
ECM exist in stark contrast to the dynamic conditions seen at intercellular
junctions. Intercellular junctions, such as gap and adherens junctions, are
formed between cells to act as a mechanism to relay information and exchange
material. Due to the important role intercellular junctions play in processes
of wound healing, epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cancer metastasis
developing more sophisticated levels of understanding of these mechanisms would
provide valuable insight.

Complex biological processes,
including immune cell signaling and cellular ECM adhesions, have been
effectively replicated in model systems. These model systems have included the
use of solid supported lipid bilayers and polymeric hydrogels that display cell
adhesion molecules. Studies of cellular mechanotransduction at ECM adhesion
sites has also been completed with covalently functionalized polymeric
substrates of adjustable elasticity. However, developing model systems that
allow the accurate reproduction of properties seen at intercellular junctions,
while also allowing the investigation of cellular mechanosensitivity has proven
to be a difficult task. Previous work has shown that polymer-tethered lipid
bilayers (PTLBs) are a viable material to allow the replication of the dynamics
and adhesion seen at intercellular junctions. Although efforts have been made
to produce PTLBs with different mechanical properties, there is currently not a
material with sufficient tunable elastic properties for the study of cellular
mechanotransduction.

To establish a system that allows
the study of stiffness effects across a biologically relevant range (~0.50 – 40
kPa) while maintaining the dynamic properties seen at cell-to-cell junctions,
polymer gel-tethered bilayers (PGTBs) were developed. A fabrication strategy
was established to allow the incorporation of a hydrogel support with easily
tunable stiffness and a tethered lipid bilayer coating, which produced a
powerful platform to study the effects of stiffness at intercellular junctions.
Careful attention was given to maintain the beneficial properties of membrane
diffusion, and it was shown that on different linking architectures lipid
bilayers could be established and diffusion was preserved. Microscopy-based FCS
and FRAP methodology were utilized to measure lipid diffusion in these systems,
while confocal microscopy was used to analyze cell spreading and adhesion.
Three distinct architectures to link the lipid membrane to the underlying
polyacrylamide hydrogel were pursued in this work, a non-covalent
biotin-streptavidin system, a covalently linked design with fibronectin, and a
direct covalent linkage utilizing crosslinker chemistry. In this work, it was
shown that cells were able to spread and adhere on these substrates, with cell
adhesion zones visualized under plated cells that demonstrate the capability of
the cell to rearrange the presented linkers, while maintaining a stable
material. Also confirmed is the tunability of the polymer hydrogel across a
wide range of stiffness, this was shown by quantitative changes in cell
spreading area in response to polymer properties.


During the past two decades, the ozone layer has developed a "hole" each winter and spring above the Antarctic continent. Also in cold Arctic winters substantial stratospheric ozone depletion has been measured, although less than in the Antarctic stratosphere.
In the Arctic winter stratosphere, the amount of ozone depletion varies interannually and within one winter, depending on polar vortex stability and temperature. The simulation of transport and chemical conversion of ozone and related species requires a three-dimensional (3D) chemistry transport model (CTM), because of the non-symmetric behaviour of the Arctic polar vortex. This thesis reports on several studies of the Arctic winter stratosphere carried out with such a CTM, using off-line meteorological fields.
In Chapter II, chlorine activation and ozone depletion in the Arctic winter stratosphere of 1996-1997 are modelled with the newly developed stratospheric version of our CTM. Comparisons have been made with total O3 columns and ClO concentrations observed by satellites, and with ozone loss rates derived from observations during February and March 1997. ClO concentrations and ozone depletion are somewhat underestimated by the model. Key model parameters have been varied to explain this underestimation. Next to temperature, the formation mechanism of solid and/or liquid PSC particles constitutes the main model uncertainty. The representation of tracer transport is a third uncertain parameter, influencing both ozone and inorganic chlorine.
In Chapter III, we have used the CTM with different horizontal resolutions to evaluate this stratospheric transport by simulating the long-lived tracers HF and CH4 during the Arctic winter of 1999/2000. Outside the vortex the model results agree well with the observations, but inside, the model underestimates the observed vertical gradient in HF and CH4. Too strong mixing through the vortex edge could be a cause for these model discrepancies, e.g. associated with the calculated mass fluxes. As later studies point out, the use of a reduced grid around the poles also plays an important role.
Another conclusion of this chapter is that a global 6ox9o resolution is too coarse to represent the polar vortex, whereas the 3ox2o and 1ox1o resolutions yield similar results, also when a 6ox9o resolution is applied in the tropical region.
Chapter II showed that the treatment of PSC particles in global models can have a large effect on calculated ozone depletion as well. In Chapter IV a new algorithm is implemented in the CTM, which describes PSCs more realistically by mimicking the growth and sedimentation of nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles. Simulations were performed for three separate 10-day periods during the 1999-2000 Arctic winter. By implementing this new routine the calculated denitrification increased, which would lead to more modelled ozone depletion.
Overall, this thesis has led to an improved model representation of the processes leading to ozone depletion in the Arctic stratosphere. Integrating these results in a full chemistry transport model and further analysis of the past cold winters in the Arctic winter stratosphere will help increase our understanding and predictive capability of Arctic stratospheric ozone.


Research Findings: It is clear that disasters negatively affect both adults and children. Yet there is little research examining the mechanisms whereby some people are negatively affected by disasters whereas others are resilient to these negative effects. Family functioning and child characteristics might be factors that influence the impact of disasters on young children. We tested this premise in a sample of 118 children living in an area affected by a Category 3 hurricane, with 47 of these children participating before and after the hurricane. Results indicated that disaster experiences and emotion regulation are predictors of adjustment following natural disasters. Findings also suggested that the effects of disaster experiences on children's adjustment are sometimes indirect through their impact on parental depression and parent hostility. Practice or Policy: These findings indicate that working to minimize the likelihood of parent–child separations during disasters could reduce the negative effects of disasters on children. In addition, promoting better emotional regulatory abilities in young children may help them to be more resilient when experiencing natural disasters, and providing parents with the support they need to more effectively parent may also decrease the likelihood that children will experience adjustment difficulties following disasters.


Three premises of ductile deformation in the middle and lower crust are widely accepted: (1) rocks flow with power-law viscous rheology, (2) localization in ductile shear zones involves strain softening, and (3) fluid flows into and is channelized within ductile shear zones. Ductile (viscous) shear zones should therefore initially develop along planes of maximum shear stress, strain soften, and rotate as material planes into the field of progressive extension. However, the mean stress or pressure within a weak, elongate viscous band being stretched is higher than the surrounding matrix, and this is difficult to reconcile with premise (3). In contrast, Mohr-Coulomb brittle faults always have lower pressure within the fault zone. Flow of fluid and melt into high-temperature shear zones therefore implies that "ductile" shear zones are not perfectly viscous but have a pressure-dependent viscoplastic rheology. The continued pressure dependence may reflect significant microcracking on the grain scale even when localized deformation does not produce larger-scale discrete fractures.


The purpose of this study was to determine whether a cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate-dependent process can be involved in the regulation of vascular smooth muscle alpha 1-adrenergic receptor responsiveness. Experiments were performed in cultured rabbit aortic smooth muscle cells which were characterized previously according to alpha-adrenergic receptor-binding characteristics and receptor-coupled norepinephrine-stimulated 45Ca++ efflux. The addition of dibutyryl-cyclic adenosine monophosphate to the cell culture medium for 24 hours resulted in a concentration-related decrease in maximal [3H]prazosin-binding capacity (41 +/- 4% decrease with 1 mM dibutyryl-cyclic adenosine monophosphate) without an effect on [3H]prazosin-binding affinity. Prostaglandin E1 (10 microM) and forskolin (10 microM) caused similar decreases in maximal [3H]prazosin-binding capacity, whereas butyrate (1 mM) and dibutyryl-guanosine-3',5' cyclic-monophosphate (1 mM) had no effect. Dibutyryl-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (1 mM) caused significant potentiation of the decrease in [3H]prazosin-binding caused by a submaximal (10 nM) but not a maximal (10 microM) concentration of norepinephrine, suggesting that cyclic adenosine monophosphate may act at a distal step in common with norepinephrine to reduce alpha-adrenergic receptor number. Despite the approximately 41% reduction in alpha-adrenergic receptor number following 24-hour incubation of cells with dibutyryl-cyclic adenosine monophosphate, maximal norepinephrine-stimulated 45Ca++ efflux was not reduced, consistent with the markedly nonlinear relationship between alpha-adrenergic receptor occupancy and maximal norepinephrine-stimulated 45Ca++ efflux in this cell system. These data provide evidence for a novel mechanism by which hormones or drugs which increase cyclic adenosine monophosphate levels can modulate alpha-adrenergic responsiveness in vascular smooth muscle.


Abstract Enumerations represented as bijections between the natural numbers and elements of some given type have recently garnered interest in property-based testing because of their efficiency and flexibility. There are, however, many ways of defining these bijections, some of which are better than others. This paper offers a new property of enumeration combinators called fairness that identifies enumeration combinators that are better suited to property-based testing. Intuitively, the result of a fair combinator indexes into its argument enumerations equally when constructing its result. For example, extracting the nth element from our enumeration of three-tuples indexes about $\sqrt[3]{n}$ elements into each of its components instead of, say, indexing $\sqrt[2]{n}$ into one and $\sqrt[4]{n}$ into the other two, as you would if a three-tuple were built out of nested pairs. Similarly, extracting the nth element from our enumeration of a three-way union returns an element that is $\frac{n}{3}$ into one of the argument enumerators. The paper presents a semantics of enumeration combinators, a theory of fairness, proofs establishing fairness of our new combinators and that some combinations of fair combinators are not fair. We also report on an evaluation of fairness for the purpose of finding bugs in programming-language models. We show that fair enumeration combinators have complementary strengths to an existing, well-tuned ad hoc random generator (better on short time scales and worse on long time scales) and that using unfair combinators is worse across the board.


Warming making bigger CO2 swings The combined effects of climate change and vegetation dynamics at high northern latitudes have amplified the seasonal variation of atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the past half century. Forkel et al. combined observations and models to show that climate warming has caused the photosynthetic uptake of carbon to increase faster than its respiratory release from the terrestrial biosphere. This has increased the difference from summer to winter, as well as the latitudinal gradient. Because of the physiological limitations to carbon uptake by terrestrial vegetation, this negative feedback to warming in the boreal north and Arctic cannot continue indefinitely. Science, this issue p. 696 Climate warming has affected the yearly variation of carbon dioxide in the high north. Atmospheric monitoring of high northern latitudes (above 40°N) has shown an enhanced seasonal cycle of carbon dioxide (CO2) since the 1960s, but the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. The much stronger increase in high latitudes relative to low ones suggests that northern ecosystems are experiencing large changes in vegetation and carbon cycle dynamics. We found that the latitudinal gradient of the increasing CO2 amplitude is mainly driven by positive trends in photosynthetic carbon uptake caused by recent climate change and mediated by changing vegetation cover in northern ecosystems. Our results underscore the importance of climate–vegetation–carbon cycle feedbacks at high latitudes; moreover, they indicate that in recent decades, photosynthetic carbon uptake has reacted much more strongly to warming than have carbon release processes.


The present chapter describes the microbial diversity of faecal microbiomes of pack ani‐ mals. The sequencing data generated through ion semiconductor sequencing technology were analysed using EBI metagenomics and MG‐RAST server tools. Bacteria were the major domain in all the pack animals. At the phylogenetic level, Firmicutes was the major phylum. Clostridiales was the major order. Ruminococcus flavefaciens was the major species in camel, whereas the top‐most species existing in Equidae family was Streptococcus equinus. Among the 28 major functional categories, protein metabolism functionality was dominant in pack animals. The genes associated with protein processing and modification as well as for protein folding are higher in mules and in camel they are lowest. Central carbohydrate metabolism was the major functional group under carbohydrate metabolism in pack ani‐ mals. Variation in the amino acids and its derivatives was seen in pack animals. Genes asso‐ ciated with proline and 4‐hydroxy prolines were present in Equidae family only. Clustering using ward with Bray‐Curtis distance matrix for the functional categories showed that don‐ key and mule are most closely related and clustered with the horse metagenome.


The human motor system exhibits remarkable adaptability, enabling us to maintain high levels of performance despite ever-changing requirements. There are many potential sources of error during movement to which the motor system may need to adapt: the properties of our bodies or tools may vary over time, either at a dynamic or a kinematic level; our senses may become miscalibrated over time and mislead us as to the state of our bodies or the true location of an intended goal; the relationship between sensory stimuli and movement goals may change. Despite these many varied ways in which our movements may be disturbed, existing models of human motor adaptation have tended to assume just a single adaptive component. In this thesis, I argue that the motor system maintains multiple components of adaptation, corresponding to the multiple potential sources of error to which we are exposed. I outline some of the shortcomings of existing adaptation models in scenarious where multiple kinds of disturbances may be present in particular examining how different distal learning problems associated with different classes of disturbance can affect adaptation within alternative cerebellar-based learning architectures and outline the computational challenges associated with extending these existing models. Focusing on the specific problem in which the potential disturbances are miscalibrations of vision and proprioception and changes in arm dynamics during reaching, a unified model of sensory and motor adaptation is derived based on the principle of Bayesian estimation of the disturbances given noisy observations. This model is able to account parsimoniously for previously reported patterns of sensory and motor adaptation during exposure to shifted visual feedback. However the model additionally makes the novel and surprising prediction that adaptation to a force field will also result in sensory adaptation. These predictions are confirmed experimentally. The success of the model strongly supports the idea that the motor system maintains multiple components of adaptation, which it updates according to the principles of Bayesian estimation.


Editorial by Goldbeck-Wood Education and debate pp 633, 636

There has never been a brighter prospect for medical research to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and management of disease. Furthermore, advances in information technology have provided unprecedented opportunities to bring stimulating and innovative teaching to medical education. However, despite the excitement of combining research and teaching with clinical practice, academic medicine is not widely viewed as an attractive career. Indeed, recruitment into clinical academic medicine has been so patchy that it is often impossible for medical schools to find suitable candidates to fill senior positions. More worrying still is a growing perception among our brightest young doctors that forging a career in academic medicine is simply not worth the enormous effort that seems to be required. Hard data on developing careers in academic medicine are frustratingly sparse, but we are all familiar with the power of adverse perception. Indeed, morale is so low in some disciplines that enthusiastic role models have all but disappeared.

Why should we bother about recruitment into academic medicine? Simply because clinical academics are vital for health care. Clinical academics play a key role in evolving and maintaining best practice through health services research, clinical trials, and teaching and training. Furthermore, even the best available health care currently fails to address a dauntingly large and stubborn burden of chronic ill health and untimely death. The public expect continued improvement, and this can only be achieved by investigating the causes of disease through scientific research, the major activity of many clinical academics. Because of this need to improve health care, I have no hesitation in arguing that clinical academic medicine must be research led. Young doctors with an interest in research should be encouraged that there has never been a greater chance to make a difference—to take …


TUBULO II is a climbing inspection robot with for inner inspection of boiler tubes. Its locomotion principle is the inchworm type. The adhesion is realized with Magnetic Switchable Device [1]. The inner is able to operate within a tube of inner bore diameter of 25 mm or 1 inch. The robot is modular. The robot and locomotion principle are robust and withstand the harsh environment of corroded boiler tubes. The construction is resistant to water and ferromagnetic particles that separate from the wall. The robot achieves a mean speed of 18 cm/min.


Background The impact that pollutants have on whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) is a question that remains largely unexplored. Whale sharks (WSs) are known to aggregate seasonally in different areas in the Gulf of California. Although this species is protected in Mexico since 2001, habitats for most of these aggregations are not protected. Out of the 7 localities were they aggregate, 3 are protected whereas the other 4 need to have some protection. Urban and touristic developments are major threats to their habitats because they lead to mangrove and estuary damage, both being important areas for their food resources. Moreover, due to poor fishery regulations, whale sharks often die as by-catch in fishing nets. The growth of tourism in the area of La Paz and Los Cabos represents an increase in maritime traffic and, thereby an increase in the number of collisions of WSs with boats. Finally, the increasing human activity in WS grounds is the cause of chemical pollution from urban waste waters, vessels, agriculture and solid waste (it is common to see WSs feeding while surrounded by marine litter). Approach In this work, we perform the first ecotoxicological investigation, using skin biopsy, of whale sharks sampled in the Gulf of California. In order to evaluate the potential impact of anthropogenic activities on this species, 13 skin biopsy samples were collected in January 2014 from 12 males and 1 female whale shark in La Paz Bay. PCBs (twenty-one ortho PCB congeners), DDTs (six o,p'- and p,p'- DDE, DDD and DDT isomers), PBDEs (fourteen congeners from tri- to deca-substituted) and HCB were analyzed on freeze-dried blubber biopsy samples by GC-qMS. Biomarker responses (cytochrome P450 1A, CYP1A1) were detected, using western-blotting (WB) techniques, in integument biopsies (skin tissue samples) of this vulnerable (IUCN) species. Semi-quantitative analysis was performed for each WB using Quantity One software (Bio-Rad, 1-D Analysis Software). Results The average abundance pattern for the target contaminants was PCBs >DDTs > PBDEs >HCB. Mean concentration values (and ranges) of 8.42 (0.720–41.40) ng/g w.w. were found for PCBs, 1.31 (0.20–6.36) ng/g w.w. for DDTs, 0.294 (0.02–1.14) ng/g w.w. for PBDEs and finally 0.192 (0.01–0.66) for HCB. The detected values are lower than in other planktivorous shark species (e.g. basking shark) in other areas (e.g. Mediterranean Sea). Cytochrome P450 1A (CYP1A1) was also detected for the first time, using western-blotting techniques, in the skin samples of this species. The potential impact of microplastic (plastic fragments smaller than 5 mm) and related contaminants (such as plastic additives) has also been explored in this large filter feeding species. Preliminary data on the average density of microplastics in the superficial zooplankton/microplastic samples collected from the Sea of Cortez (La Paz Bay) showed that the values ranged from 0.00 items/m3 to 0.14 items/m3; furthermore, concentrations of mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP), used as a tracer of plastic additives, ranged from 13.08 ng/g to 13.69 ng/g. Conclusions Further ecotoxicological investigation on whale shark skin biopsies will be carried out in order to support the idea of the usefulness of non-lethal approaches in the worldwide ecotoxicological risk assessment of this vulnerable species.


The study of NIP theories has received much attention from model theorists in the last decade, fuelled by applications to o-minimal structures and valued fields. This book, the first to be written on NIP theories, is an introduction to the subject that will appeal to anyone interested in model theory: graduate students and researchers in the field, as well as those in nearby areas such as combinatorics and algebraic geometry. Without dwelling on any one particular topic, it covers all of the basic notions and gives the reader the tools needed to pursue research in this area. An effort has been made in each chapter to give a concise and elegant path to the main results and to stress the most useful ideas. Particular emphasis is put on honest definitions, handling of indiscernible sequences and measures. The relevant material from other fields of mathematics is made accessible to the logician.


The cephalopods of the wider Caribbean region (western central Atlantic) were examined in terms of distribution and ecological importance. In all, 4190 preserved cephalopod specimens were identified and catalogued to produce regional maps of cephalopod distribution within the wider Caribbean. Regional species richness was examined with respect to Rapoport's rule (RR) and to determine possible cephalopod hotspots in the region. Rarefaction curves were used to normalize the samples of various size collected throughout the wider Caribbean. Cephalopods of the wider Caribbean within latitudinal bands from 8 to 308N do not support RR because they exhibit increasing species richness with increasing latitude. Eight subareas were chosen to compare species richness. Regionally, species richness appears to be patchy, with cephalopods concentrated more off the eastern Florida coast. There is a need for increased sampling throughout the wider Caribbean. Areas were lacking in samples, especially the central and southeastern parts of the region. There is a need to explore the systematics, life histories, and distribution patterns for this group of organisms in future.


A search for the Standard Model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair, tt̄H, is presented. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of pp collision data at √ s = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2016. The search targets the H → bb̄ decay mode. The selected events contain either one or two electrons or muons from the top-quark decays, and are then categorized according to the number of jets and how likely these are to contain b-hadrons. Multivariate techniques are used to discriminate between signal and background events, the latter being dominated by tt̄ + jets production. For a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV, the ratio of the measured tt̄H signal cross-section to the Standard Model expectation is found to be μ = 0.84+0.64 −0.61. A value of μ greater than 2.0 is excluded at 95% confidence level while the expected upper limit is μ < 1.2 in the absence of a tt̄H signal.


The article summarizes the arguments within the scientific discussion about the search of alternative sources of research universities funding in the absence of sufficient support from the government. The main objective of the research is to define the possibility of using the endowment as a fundraising tool to attract alternative sources of funding for research universities in Ukraine. The relevance of solving this scientific issue lies in the fact that modern research universities are independent entities, which according to the Bologna Declaration assume the entire load on the future of the state and have to do it at the highest professional level. This can be ensured through a combination of traditional and modern sources of funding. The world experience of successful implementation of the endowment has been presented. The level of knowledge intensity of GDP, which is one of the key indicators that reflects the level of quality of higher education, has been analyzed. The endowment as one of the most effective fundraising tools is poorly developed in Ukraine. This fact has prompted us to research the main provisions of this phenomenon and to define the conditions for its implementation in Ukrainian research-based institutions of higher education by means of the strategic analysis. The conducted SWOT analysis has made it possible to systematize problem areas of the domestic market of educational services in the direction of creating and using the endowment and predicting possible strategies for its development. Since the Research Universities are considered to be the core of creation of intellectual and innovative products and the crucial mover of scientific and technological progress in the country and in the world, they have been chosen as the research object.  Keywords: fundraising, endowment, Research University, market of educational services, investment, alternative sources of funding


Methyl mercury is a potent neurotoxin that causes developmental delays in young and unborn children and has been linked to neurological and cardiovascular degeneration in adults. Methyl mercury is the basis of a state-sponsored fish advisory to limit consumption of local fish in North Carolina. This study employed methods and analytic constructs from the behavioral and social sciences to assess the determinants of subsistence fishing and to promote informed fish consumption among culturally distinct and lower income subsistence fishers in southeastern North Carolina. Formative research revealed that Native American and African American were more likely than Latino residents to know of the fish advisory, and to practice procurement and preparation strategies that are mistakenly believed to render locally caught fish safe for consumption. Fish advisories were developed for each community to promote informed fish consumption intentions among residents who consume local fish. The interventions were successful in increasing knowledge and healthy intentions among most residents. Adherence to some safe fish consumption practices were constrained by cultural and economic factors. These results demonstrate the utility of multidisciplinary approaches for assessing and reducing human exposure to methyl mercury through subsistence fish consumption.


Background: An irreversible renal function impairment is called chronic renal failure (CRF) which finally leads to the "end-stage renal disease" (ESRD) and requires renal replacement therapies. The aim of this study is to evaluate the incidence, prevalence of epidemiological indicators (age, sex), and causes of chronic renal failure in children in Mashhad (one of the big cities of Iran). Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted on patients' records over a seven-year period (2008-2014) in Doctor Sheikh Children's Hospital of Mashhad. The inclusion criteria were all children under 20 years old diagnosed with ESRD, with a GFR less than 15 ml/min/1.73 m2 who were referred to the hospital during the study period. Patients' information, such as age, gender, onset of dialysis, causes of constructing renal failure, and positive or negative antigen of hepatitis B was extracted from their records. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software. Results: A total of 326 patients were studied, of which, 56.4% were male. 45.1% were from 7 to 18 years. 56.4% of patients were on hemodialysis and others were on peritoneal dialysis. The most common cause of chronic renal failure in the study was respectively reflux nephropathy (32.9%), nephrotic syndrome (8.9%), neurogenic bladder (5.5%), stones (2.5%), glomerulopathy (2.1%) and cystinosis (1.5%) and (20.9%) had unknown cause. During the 7-year period of study considering the treatment outcomes, 69.3% of patients needed to continue the dialysis; 10.4% underwent transplantation; 10.4% unfortunately died despite of treatment and 1.5% were cured. Conclusions: It is hoped that considering the clinical symptoms of children with chronic renal failure and the diagnosis of the cause, we can reduce complications of the disease with a quick diagnosis and treatment, as well as appropriate follow-up.


Deep model-based Reinforcement Learning (RL) has the potential to substantially improve the sample-efficiency of deep RL. While various challenges have long held it back, a number of papers have recently come out reporting success with deep model-based methods. This is a great development, but the lack of a consistent metric to evaluate such methods makes it difficult to compare various approaches. For example, the common single-task sample-efficiency metric conflates improvements due to model-based learning with various other aspects, such as representation learning, making it difficult to assess true progress on model-based RL. To address this, we introduce an experimental setup to evaluate model-based behavior of RL methods, inspired by work from neuroscience on detecting model-based behavior in humans and animals. Our metric based on this setup, the Local Change Adaptation (LoCA) regret, measures how quickly an RL method adapts to a local change in the environment. Our metric can identify model-based behavior, even if the method uses a poor representation and provides insight in how close a method's behavior is from optimal model-based behavior. We use our setup to evaluate the model-based behavior of MuZero on a variation of the classic Mountain Car task.


Develop Your Presentation Skills offers step-by-step realistic advice to improve your confidence, prepare effectively and nail that presentation.Going beyond just handling nerves and presenting PowerPoint slides, Develop Your Presentation Skills provides you with a practical toolkit for developing a belting presentation and improving your confidence along the way. It includes practical help with unpicking the original brief, understanding just what the audience wants, facing your performance demons and constructing compelling content that will keep your audience rapt with attention. Complete with anecdotes and expert input to help you avoid disaster, this new edition also includes two brand new chapters, which help you to deliver a presentation 'stripped bare' and to use new media to engage with your audience. Develop Your Presentation Skills will help you find your voice and use it with style; to inform, to persuade, to impress.The creating success series of books...With over one million copies sold, the hugely popular Creating Success series covers a wide variety of topics and is written by an expert team of internationally best-selling authors and business experts. This indispensable business skills collection is packed with new features, practical content and inspiring guidance for readers across all stages of their careers.


Rapidly increasing demand and depleting reserves of crude oil have pushed scientific community to work towards finding alternatives of the fossil fuels. Lignocellulosics based 2G ethanol is being looked as a sustainable eco-friendly alternative of the crude oil to be utilized in transportation sector. Despite decade-ful of research on developing 2G biorefineries, pretreatment of LCB still remains one of the major bottlenecks. There are several physical and chemical pretreatment methods in practice since years but high process cost, production of fermentation inhibitors and toxic waste generation are some of the major concerns associated with them. Biological pretreatment is a good alternative in this direction which offers a greener and cleaner pathway to get rid of recalcitrant lignin fraction that obstructs the access of cellulolytic enzymes to target sites present in LCB. Although biological pretreatment strategies are being explored from past couple of decades but development of an economically viable and efficient technique is still under research. The recent developments in this field have indicated towards formulation of bacterial co-cultures, fungal co-cultures and bacteria-fungi co-cultures to attain efficient bioconversion of lignocellulosic biomass into ethanol.Through this article, an effort is made to review various biological pretreatment strategies in practice with main emphasis on the enzyme and microorganisms involved, regulation of ligninolytic enzymes, and process parameters affecting the success of the strategy adopted.


Scanning Probe Microscopy and Oxidation of Silicon at Breakdown Voltages By Thabo Gcwabaza The growing importance of Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) as a tool for nanofabrication is opening many avenues in lithography nano-science. One type of Scanning Probe Lithography involves electrochemistry at the tip/substrate interface. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) with conductive tips and substrates was used in our study to both pattern and image those patterns on silicon substrates. Our long-term objective is to design and fabricate micron-scale patterns of nanometer sized spots on silicon chips that can serve as attachment sites for DNA based nano-arrays. In order to fabricate such substrates a study of the underlying electrochemistry was required. A most promising approach to preparing patterned silicon chips was introduced by the work of Dagata et al., using AFM to locally oxidize silicon surfaces and create controllable nanometer scale features. This thesis reports the determination of the influence of voltage and holding time on oxide growth for three different surfaces, native oxide layers, hydrogenterminated silicon surfaces, and silicon surfaces functionalized with ultrathin organic films. Both line and dot patterns were generated at several selected voltages and exposure times. In order to evaluate current efficiency, current was measured during line production. Oxide growth correlates with voltage until it reaches a saturation potential. This saturation appears to be associated with the onset of alternative conduction processes.


The relationships among the audit committee independence, nonfinancial performance and financial performance are quite complicated. They are not simply bivariate correlations. Rather, there may be mediating effects or moderating influences on these casual associations. Nonetheless, previous research has not investigated these complicated relationships. This paper seeks to examine the mediating impact of nonfinancial performance on the association between the audit committee independence and financial performance. Further, it also explores the moderating role of the audit committee independence in the influence of nonfinancial performance on financial performance. The findings imply that nonfinancial performance interferes with the effect of the audit committee independence on financial performance, in which it lessens this effect. The empirical results also suggest that the audit committee independence plays the moderating role in the relationship between nonfinancial performance and financial performance, in which the independence of the audit committee is positively related to this relationship.


Low serum concentrations of micronutrients, intestinal abnormalities, and an inflammatory state have been associated with HIV progression. These may be ameliorated by micronutrients, N-acetyl cysteine, probiotics, and prebiotics. This review aims to integrate the evidence from clinical trials of these interventions on the progression of HIV. Vitamin B, C, E, and folic acid have been shown to delay the progression of HIV. Supplementation with selenium, N-acetyl cysteine, probiotics, and prebiotics has considerable potential, but the evidence needs to be further substantiated. Vitamin A, iron, and zinc have been associated with adverse effects and caution is warranted for their use.


The long-term habitability of a planet is often assumed to be controlled by its ability to cycle carbon between the solid planetary interior and atmosphere. This process allows the planet to respond to external forcings (i.e., changes in insolation, changes in volcanic outgassing rates, etc.) and regulate its surface temperature through negative feedbacks on atmospheric CO2 involved in silicate weathering. Continental weathering and seafloor weathering rates have different, non-linear dependencies on pCO2 and will respond differently to changes in external forcings. Because waterworlds (planets with only seafloor weathering) have a weaker pCO2 dependence than continental worlds (such as modern Earth), we find that waterworlds are better at resisting changes in surface temperature resulting from perturbations in insolation than their continental counterparts, and may be more habitable in this respect.


The legacy of long-term mining activities in Wanshan mercury (Hg) mining area (WMMA), Guizhou, China including a series of environmental issues related to Hg pollution. The spatial distribution of gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0) concentrations in ambient air were monitored using a mobile RA-915 Zeeman Mercury Analyzer during daytime and night time in May 2010. The data imply that calcines and mine wastes piles located at Dashuixi and on-going artisanal Hg mining activities at Supeng were major sources of atmospheric mercury in WMMA. For a full year (May 2010 to May 2011), sampling of precipitation and throughfall were conducted on a weekly basis at three sites (Shenchong, Dashuixi, and Supeng) within WMMA. Hg in deposition was characterized by analysis of total Hg (THg) and dissolved Hg (DHg) concentrations. The corresponding data exhibit a high degree of variability, both temporarily and spatially. The volume-weighted mean THg concentrations in precipitation and throughfall samples were 502.6 ng l −1 and 977.8 ng l −1 at Shenchong, 814.1 ng l −1and 3392.1 ng l −1 at Dashuixi, 7490.1 ng l −1and 9641.5 ng l −1 at Supeng, respectively. THg was enhanced in throughfall compared to wet deposition samples by up to a factor of 7. The annual wet Hg deposition fluxes were 29.1, 68.8 and 593.1 μg m −2 yr−1 at Shenchong, Dashuixi and Supeng, respectively, while the annual dry Hg deposition fluxes were estimated to be 378.9, 2613.6 and 6178 μg m −2 yr−1 at these sites, respectively. Dry deposition played a dominant role in total atmospheric Hg deposition in WMMA since the dry deposition fluxes were 10.4–37.9 times higher than the wet deposition fluxes during the whole sample period. Our data showed that air deposition was still an important pathway of Hg contamination to the local environment in WMMA.


Two South African theologians, Ben du Toit and Anton van Niekerk, recently published books in which they argued that postmodern believers can no longer subscribe to the doctrines of original sin and the virgin birth. According to them both these doctrines reflect a pre-modern world-view which should be regarded as outdated. However, they would not like to take leave of the grand narrative of Christianity. There are some fundamental flaws in the reasoning of both scholars. The doctrine of the virgin birth is intertwined with the doctrine of original sin, and both are important to the orthodox doctrine of salvation. As it is not viable or consistent to tamper with some of the orthodox doctrines and try to keep the rest intact, we are left with two options, either to discard the whole system and start afresh, or to try and keep the whole package intact. However, biblical research since the Enlightenment has ruled out the second option. The paper argues in support of this case and attempts to offer a different way forward for Christians living in the twenty-first century than the one offered by Du Toit and Van Niekerk.


Vast majority of wireless appliances used in household, industry and medical field share the ISM frequency band. These devices need to coexist and thus are challenged to tolerate their mutual interference. One way of dealing with this is by using frequency hopping; where the device changes its radio channel periodically. Consequently, communications will not suffer from the same interference each time; instead, it should be fairer and more stable. This thesis investigates the aforementioned problem in the field of low power wireless sensor networks and Internet of Things where Contiki OS is used. We introduce a low-power pseudo-random frequency-hopping MAC protocol which is specifically characterized as a duty cycled asynchronous sender-initiated LPL style protocol. We illustrate two flavors of the protocol; one that does not use any dedicated channel and another which allows dedicated broadcast channels that can implement frequency-hopping as well. We implement the protocol in C for real hardware and extensively test and evaluate it in a simulated environment which runs Contiki. It proved to work with Contiki's IPv6 stack running RPL (the standardized routing protocol for low power and lossy wireless networks). We compare the performance of the implemented protocol to the singlechannel ContikiMAC with varying levels of interference. Results show a reduction down to 56% less radio-on time (1.50% vs. 3.4%) and 85% less latency (306 ms vs. 2050 ms) in the presence of noise, while keeping a good basecost in noise-free environments with 1.29% radio duty cycle when using 9 channels with no dedicated broadcast channels (vs. 0.80% for single channel) and 252 ms average latency(vs. 235 ms). Moreover, the results show that the multichannel protocol performance metrics converge to almost the same values regardless of the noise level. Therefore, it is recommended as a good alternative to single channel ContikiMAC in realworld deployments where noise presence is anticipated.


Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed has traditionally been read as an attempt to harmonize reason and revelation. Another, more recent interpretation takes the contradiction between philosophy and religion to be irreconcilable, and concludes that the Guide prescribes religion for the masses and philosophy for the elite. Moving beyond these familiar debates, Josef Stern argues that the perplexity addressed in this famously enigmatic work is not the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem but the tension between human matter and form, between the body and the intellect. Maimonides' philosophical tradition takes the perfect life to be intellectual: pure, undivided contemplation of all possible truths, from physics and cosmology to metaphysics and God. According to the Guide, this ideal cannot be realized by humans. Their embodied minds cannot achieve scientific knowledge of metaphysics, and their bodily impulses interfere with exclusive contemplation. Closely analyzing the arguments in the Guide and its original use of the parable as a medium of philosophical writing, Stern articulates Maimonides' skepticism about human knowledge of metaphysics and his heterodox interpretations of scriptural and rabbinic parables. Stern shows how, in order to accommodate the conflicting demands of the intellect and the body, Maimonides creates a repertoire of spiritual exercises, reconceiving the Mosaic commandments as training for the life of the embodied mind. By focusing on the philosophical notions of matter and form, and the interplay between its literary form and subject matter, Stern succeeds in developing a unified, novel interpretation of the Guide.


Developed as a branch of the women's health movement, the breast cancer movement enjoyed a peak of visibility in the 1990s. Within it, women turned from patients into (im)patients, from docile bodies into subjects of their own stories. Feminist theater at the time found a way to participate in the debate about health, and plays about "female" illness like My Left Breast, The Waiting Room, or Buying a Brassiere brought to the foreground the gendered discourse of cancer. The first part of this paper focuses on 1990s autoperformances about breast cancer, with Linda Park-Fuller's A Clean Breast of It (1993) as a case study. Moving into the twenty-first century, the second half proves the existence of a thematic continuum from autoperformance to the experimental drive of plays like Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House (2004). This work contributes to the debate opened by Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris in their volume Feminist Futures?, which examines the need for feminist theater in the new millennium. Even in the postmodern context, gender-conscious drama continues to be necessary and a valid tool for consciousness raising about issues of inequality, including biopower in medical discourse.


The Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial was designed to study a low-fat diet, a nutritional approach to prevention of chronic diseases that was considered promising. The negative findings from the trial were both unexpected and disappointing to nutrition authorities. The authors' public responses to the findings articulated an unwillingness to believe the finding that a low-fat diet did not prevent breast or colon cancer or heart disease. The negative results should stimulate work on alternate hypotheses, and reconsideration of the long-standing proscription against dietary fat.