OBJECTIVE
To evaluate effects of apheresis on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and compare those MSCs with MSCs obtained from adipose tissue or bone marrow (BM).

SAMPLE POPULATION
Samples obtained from 6 adult horses.

PROCEDURES
Samples of blood from a peripheral vein, adipose tissue, and BM aspirate were obtained from each horse. Samples were processed via apheresis of blood and techniques reported elsewhere for adipose tissue and BM. Cultures were maintained until adherence and subsequently were subjected to differentiation protocols to evaluate adipogenic, osteoblastogenic, and chondrogenic potential.

RESULTS
Apheresis product had a significantly higher mononuclear percentage, higher platelet count, and lower RBC count, compared with values for peripheral blood. No cell adherence to the tissue culture plates was detected for the apheresis product. Adherence was detected for 6 of 6 adipose-derived and 4 of 6 BM-derived samples. Variations in efficiency were detected for differentiation of adipose- and BM-derived cells into adipocytes, chondrocytes, and osteoblasts.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Apheresis was able to concentrate mononuclear cells and reduce RBC contamination. However, the apheresis product was unable to adhere to the tissue culture plates. In matched horses, adipose- and BM-derived MSCs were capable of producing lipids, glycosaminoglycan, and mineral. The BM was vastly superior to adipose tissue as a source of MSCs with osteoblastogenic potential in matched horses. Additional studies will be necessary to optimize apheresis techniques for horses before peripheral blood can be considered a suitable source for multipotential cells for use in cell-based treatments.


This white paper, directed to the Stars and Stellar Evolution panel, has three objectives: 1) to provide the Astro2010 Decadal Survey with a vista into the goals of the nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics community; 2) to alert the astronomical community of joint opportunities for discoveries at the interface between nuclear physics and astronomy; and 3) to delineate efforts in nuclear physics and describe the observational and theoretical advances in astrophysics necessary to make progress towards answering the following questions in the Nuclear Science 2007 Long Range Plan: 1) What is the origin and distribution of the elements? 2) What are the nuclear reactions that power stars and stellar explosions? 3) What is the nature of dense matter? The scope of this white paper concerns the specific area of"low energy"nuclear astrophysics. We define this as the area of overlap between astrophysics and the study of nuclear structure and reactions. Of the questions listed above, two -- What is the origin of the elements? and What is the nature of dense matter? -- were specifically listed in the National Academies Study,"Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos".


South Africa has had its fair share of fortunes and misfortunes since the inaugural democratic dispensation. What characterised the Mandela era (1994-1999) has been referred to as the reconciliation era wherein business bought into the much-vaunted social contract. However, this period did not bring in the much needed trust; the Mbeki era (1999-2008) came to be known as the African renaissance era with emphasis on transformation of the racially skewed structure of ownership and management within the corporate sector and the introduction of the black economic empowerment mantra, unfortunately, the Zuma era (2009 - 2014) cannot be characterised as yet since there is no clear vision relating to economic outlook, this include the highly contested National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) by some in the alliance and, what should characterise this administration's relations with business. This could be attributed to the conflicted coalition that ensured Zuma's ascendency to power, the resurgence of the nationalization debate, frequent cabinet reshuffles and now of late, the crippling labour unrests within the mining sector. These occurrences resulted in some form of discomfort among the business fraternity and, the downgrading of South Africa's credit worthiness by the international rating agencies.
The intention of this paper is to look into state-business relations over the period of the African National Congress' (ANC) rule of a democratic South Africa, the challenges experienced and; how these relations are sought to be harmonised by various partners. In conclusion, some suggestions will be advanced for the both parties to consider in creating a favourable climate for constructive engagement.


The current study investigated the clinical effectiveness of three adhesives and the use of retention form in Class V resin composite restorations of the non-carious cervical lesion (NCCL) over a two-year period. One-hundred and fifty NCCLs in 39 patients were restored with resin composites according to six experimental protocols combining the presence or absence of retention form and three adhesives: ScotchBond Multi-Purpose (MP, 3M ESPE), an experimental adhesive (EX, Vericom) and Adper Prompt (AP, 3M ESPE). All restorations were evaluated at baseline, 6, 12 and 24 months. Modified United States Public Health Service (USPHS) criteria were used to evaluate the restorations. MP was found to have significantly superior marginal adaptation than AP in cumulative logistic regression analysis (odds ratio, 2.12; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-4.31; p = 0.0397). In analysis using the Pearson's Chi-square or Fisher's Exact Test to compare the clinical performance of restorations with and without retention form, EX with retention form showed a significantly higher retention rate at two years than that without retention form (p = 0.0089). Restorations with retention form also showed significantly less marginal discoloration than those without retention form in all three adhesives (p = 0.0336).


The use of credit scoring - the quantitative and statistical techniques to assess the credit risks involved in lending to consumers - has been one of the most successful if unsung applications of mathematics in business for the last fifty years. Now with lenders changing their objectives from minimising defaults to maximising profits, the saturation of the consumer credit market allowing borrowers to be more discriminating in their choice of which loans, mortgages and credit cards to use, and the Basel Accord banking regulations raising the profile of credit scoring within banks there are a number of challenges that require new models that use credit scores as inputs and extensions of the ideas in credit scoring. This book reviews the current methodology and measures used in credit scoring and then looks at the models that can be used to address these new challenges. The first chapter describes what a credit score is and how a scorecard is built which gives credit scores and models how the score is used in the lending decision. The second chapter describes the different ways the quality of a scorecard can be measured and points out how some of these measure the discrimination of the score, some the probability prediction of the score, and some the categorical predictions that are made using the score. The remaining three chapters address how to use risk and response scoring to model the new problems in consumer lending. Chapter three looks at models that assist in deciding how to vary the loan terms made to different potential borrowers depending on their individual characteristics. Risk based pricing is the most common approach being introduced. Chapter four describes how one can use Markov chains and survival analysis to model the dynamics of a borrower's repayment and ordering behaviour . These models allow one to make decisions that maximise the profitability of the borrower to the lender and can be considered as part of a customer relationship management strategy. The last chapter looks at how the new banking regulations in the Basel Accord apply to consumer lending. It develops models that show how they will change the operating decisions used in consumer lending and how their need for stress testing requires the development of new models to assess the credit risk of portfolios of consumer loans rather than a models of the credit risks of individual loans.


Hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) plants are widely used as green manures. They fix nitrogen (N) and provide a fraction of the fixed N to other crops when they decompose. Thus, green manuring with legumes is considered as an alternative to chemical N fertilizer application. However, N-rich plant residue is also a potential source for nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas. On one hand, rice husk biochar is widely used as a soil conditioner in Japan and has been reported as a tool to reduce N2O emissions. The interaction between biochar and N rich composting materials on N2O emission has not been studied well. We conducted a soil core incubation experiment under high soil moisture (~100% WFPS) to investigate the N2O emissions from two soils, i.e., an Andosol and a Fluvisol after application (0.8 kg m) of N labelled (0.49 atom %) hairy vetch. Additionally, the experiment contains a biochar treatment. The N2O emissions and inorganic-N in soils were monitored for 1.5 month. Generally, the use of biochar suppressed soil NH4-N concentrations in the Andosol whereas the effect of biochar on NH4-N was not significant in the Fluvisol. Biochar application did not influence the cumulative N2O emissions but increased the contribution of hairy vetch-N to the cumulative N2O emissions, according to the analyses of N2O-N. Our study suggests that rice husk biochar is not a good option to mitigate N2O emissions during the decomposition of surface applied hairy vetch, although this study was performed under a laboratory condition without plants. However, the trends of the inorganic-N concentration changes following the addition of hairy vetch and biochar were markedly different between the two soil types. Thus, factors behind the differences need to be further studied.


In the era of lightweight cryptography, designing cryptographically good and power efficient 4x4 S-boxes is a challenging problem. While the optimal cryptographic properties are easy to determine, verifying the power efficiency of an Sbox is non-trivial. The conventional approach of determining the power consumption using commercially available CAD-tools is highly time consuming, which becomes formidable while dealing with a large pool of S-boxes. This mandates development of an automation that should quickly characterize the power efficiency from the Boolean function representation of an Sbox. In this paper, we present a supervised machine learning assisted automated framework to resolve the problem for 4x4 S-boxes, which turns out to be 14 times faster than traditional approach. The key idea is to extrapolate the knowledge of literal counts, AND-OR-NOT gate counts in SOP form of the underlying Boolean functions to predict the dynamic power efficiency. The experimental results and performance of our novel technique depicts its superiority with high efficiency and low time overhead. We demonstrate effectiveness of our framework by reporting a set of power efficient optimal S-boxes from a large set of S-boxes. We also develop a deterministic model using results obtained from supervised learning to predict the dynamic power of an S-box that can be used in an evolutionary algorithm to generate cryptographically strong and low power S-boxes.


Entirely self-taught and hailing from rural Idaho, artist James Castle produced an astonishing and prolific body of work with a remarkable visual and conceptual range. Born profoundly deaf in 1899, Castle's work was initially discovered in the 1950s and 1960s, and has since been exhibited widely by major museums including a travelling retrospective organized in 2008 by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His favorite medium and method of working was developed as a child, when Castle began creating ink by mixing stove soot with saliva and applying it with sharpened sticks and cotton to such found materials as product packaging and discarded paper. While Castle is sometimes referred to as a folk, vernacular or outsider artist, there is a profound sophistication in his work. Visually and artistically he was remarkably literate, deploying perspective, foreshortening, graphic elements, volume and weight, light and shadow in his work. His use of negative space, investigations of deconstructed forms, and the development of an abstract art based on geometric patterning and formal reduction, all place him well beyond the outsider artist realm. "James Castle: Show and Store", an in-depth survey of James Castles work, will open at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid in May 2011. Lavishly illustrated with more than 200 full-colour reproductions, "James Castle: Show and Store" examines Castle's drawings, colour-wash works, cardboard and paper constructions, and word, sign and symbol works.


Many experts have argued that in outbreak situations—especially in the poor, messy places where cholera often strikes—existing vaccines are too expensive, not effective enough, and too impractical to roll out; they might even make matters worse, some fear, because they distract health workers from treating patients or improving water and sanitation, the cornerstones of cholera control. But now, the tide appears to have turned. This week, a technical working group at the World Health Organization is set to publish a report advocating for the creation of a global stockpile of cholera vaccines that would be rushed to countries when an outbreak begins.


We consider the discrete surface growth process with relaxation to the minimum [F. Family, J. Phys. A 19, L441 (1986)] as a possible synchronization mechanism on scale-free networks, characterized by a degree distribution P(k) approximately k;{-lambda} , where k is the degree of a node and lambda its broadness, and compare it with the usually applied Edward-Wilkinson process (EW) [S. F. Edwards and D. R. Wilkinson, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 381, 17 (1982)]. In spite of both processes belonging to the same universality class for Euclidean lattices, in this work we demonstrate that for scale-free networks with exponents lambda<3 the scaling behavior of the roughness in the saturation cannot be explained by the EW process. Moreover, we show that for these ubiquitous cases the Edward-Wilkinson process enhances spontaneously the synchronization when the system size is increased. This nonphysical result is mainly due to finite size effects due to the underlying network. Contrarily, the discrete surface growth process does not present this flaw and is applicable for every lambda .


Semantic word spaces have been very useful but cannot express the meaning of longer phrases in a principled way. Further progress towards understanding compositionality in tasks such as sentiment detection requires richer supervised training and evaluation resources and more powerful models of composition. To remedy this, we introduce a Sentiment Treebank. It includes fine grained sentiment labels for 215,154 phrases in the parse trees of 11,855 sentences and presents new challenges for sentiment compositionality. To address them, we introduce the Recursive Neural Tensor Network. When trained on the new treebank, this model outperforms all previous methods on several metrics. It pushes the state of the art in single sentence positive/negative classification from 80% up to 85.4%. The accuracy of predicting fine-grained sentiment labels for all phrases reaches 80.7%, an improvement of 9.7% over bag of features baselines. Lastly, it is the only model that can accurately capture the effects of negation and its scope at various tree levels for both positive and negative phrases.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate racial/ethnic differences in pancreatic triglyceride (TG) levels and their relationship to β-cell dysfunction in humans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied black, Hispanic, and white adults who completed three research visits: screening and an oral glucose tolerance test; frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance tests for evaluation of β-cell function and insulin resistance; and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy for evaluation of pancreatic and hepatic TG levels. RESULTS Pancreatic TG levels were higher in Hispanics and whites than in blacks (P = 0.006). Hepatic TG levels were highest in Hispanics (P = 0.004). Compensatory insulin secretion and disposition index were higher in blacks (P = 0.003 and P = 0.024, respectively). Insulin sensitivity was comparable between Hispanics and blacks and was lower than in whites (P = 0.005). In blacks, compensatory insulin secretion increased steeply with small increments in pancreatic TG levels (R2 = 0.45, slope = 247). In whites, the range of pancreatic TG levels was higher, and the slope was less steep than in blacks (R2 = 0.27, slope = 27). In Hispanics, pancreatic TG levels were similar to those of whites, but compensatory insulin secretion was described by a combination of pancreatic and hepatic TG levels and visceral fat mass ( R2 = 0.32). CONCLUSIONS In a multiethnic sample of adults with mild obesity and without diabetes, we found striking ethnic differences in the levels of pancreatic TGs and in the relationship between pancreatic TGs and β-cell dysfunction. Our data implicate pancreatic TG content measured by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy as a noninvasive novel biomarker for pancreatic β-cell dysfunction, especially in the Hispanic population.


Synchrotron radiation analysis was used to investigate the metal content of tree rings collected from paper birch, Betula papyrifera Marsh, on transects downwind from two metal smelters (nickel and copper). Individual trees reflected changes in ring metal content with time, which may be presumed to represent changes in local metal bioavailability. However, between-tree variations were large and no statistically significant differences in metal content as a function of time were found within or between sites. Although concentrations of both total and exchangeable copper and nickel in the soil increased with proximity to the respective smelter, this pattern was reflected only in the nickel content of rings near the nickel smelter; copper content did not vary with distance from either smelter. The sites did differ with respect to lead, manganese and zinc content of the rings, which may be related to pH. In conclusion, the variability between trees at each site suggests that dendroanalysis is a poor method for evaluating metal exposure at a large (site) scale. Tree ring metal content may be used to evaluate the metal uptake by individual trees but metal mobility in the stem makes it difficult to establish a reliable chronology.


The effect of L-deprenyl (selegiline) on the excitatory synaptic transmission was characterized in the CA1 neurons of rat hippocampal slices by using a intracellular recording technique. Superfusion of L-deprenyl (0.1-10 microM) reversibly decreased the EPSP, which was evoked by orthodromic stimulation of the Schaffer collateral-commissural afferent pathway in a concentration-dependent manner. The sensitivity of postsynaptic neurons to the glutamate receptor agonists, alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionic acid or N-methyl-D-aspartate, was not affected by L-deprenyl (1 microM) pretreatment. In addition, L-deprenyl (1 microM) clearly increased the magnitude of paired-pulse facilitation regardless of the interstimulus intervals of 20 to 300 msec used. The ability of L-deprenyl to decrease the EPSP amplitude was not observed in the dopamine-depleted rats. Pargyline and 4-phenylpyridine, the monoamine oxidase type B inhibitors, mimicked the depressant effect of L-deprenyl on the EPSP. Moreover, the reduction of L-deprenyl (1 microM) on the EPSP amplitude was specifically antagonized by sulpiride (0.01-0.1 microM), a selective dopamine D2 receptor antagonist. However, the dopamine D1 receptor antagonist, SKF-83566 (1-10 microM), did not significantly affect L-deprenyl's action. These results indicate that the monoamine oxidase type B inhibitory ability leading to an increase of the dopaminergic tonus in the hippocampus is involved in the L-deprenyl-induced depression of excitatory synaptic transmission in the CA1 region of the rat hippocampus. Moreover, application of L-deprenyl (1 and 10 microM) also reversibly suppressed the epileptiform activity evoked by picrotoxin.


Human reasoning often involves explanation. In everyday affairs, people reason to hypotheses based on the explanatory power these hypotheses afford; I might, for example, surmise that my toddler has been playing in my office because I judge that this hypothesis delivers a good explanation of the disarranged state of the books on my shelves. But such explanatory reasoning also has relevance far beyond the commonplace. Indeed, explanatory reasoning plays an important role in such varied fields as the sciences, philosophy, theology, medicine, forensics, and law.This dissertation provides an extended study into the logic of explanatory reasoning via two general questions. First, I approach the question of what exactly we have in mind when we make judgments pertaining to the explanatory power that a hypothesis has over some evidence. This question is important to this study because these are the sorts of judgments that we constantly rely on when we use explanations to reason about the world. Ultimately, I introduce and defend an explication of the concept of explanatory power in the form of a probabilistic measure. This formal explication allows us to articulate precisely some of the various ways in which we might reason explanatorily.The second question this dissertation examines is whether explanatory reasoning constitutes an epistemically respectable means of gaining knowledge. I defend the following ideas: The probability theory can be used to describe the logic of explanatory reasoning, the normative standard to which such reasoning attains. Explanatory judgments, on the other hand, constitute heuristics that allow us to approximate reasoning in accordance with this logical standard while staying within our human bounds. The most well known model of explanatory reasoning, Inference to the Best Explanation, describes a cogent, nondeductive inference form. And reasoning by Inference to the Best Explanation approximates reasoning directly via the probability theory in the real world. Finally, I respond to some possible objections to my work, and then to some more general, classic criticisms of Inference to the Best Explanation. In the end, this dissertation puts forward a clearer articulation and novel defense of explanatory reasoning.


Among Vietnam's unique folklore treasures, festivals are the most typical cultural area. A festival, which attracts a great deal of interest in social life, is an integrated form of activities including spiritual and material aspects, religious beliefs, arts and culture, the sacred and everyday life, and so on. Out of more than 9000 festivals in Vietnam, about 7000 traditional festivals are widely scattered across the country. Studying changes in the spiritual life of Vietnamese people through traditional festivals contributes to building spiritual life and building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity. In order to ensure the effective organization and management of festivals, promote the cultural identity and diversity of national festivals, a scientific and comprehensive survey is needed, clarifying origins, characteristics, values, scale, and financial sources for organizing festivals; identifying viewpoints, criteria and classification methods on traditional festivals and modern festivals in our country, chaired by a specialized agency for scientific research. On the basis of the survey findings, the state authorities study and consider which types of festivals need planning, management decentralization, and elaboration of management regulations, mechanisms and policies consistent with the characteristics of traditional festivals and modern festivals.


Salient object detection provides an alternative solution to various image semantic understanding tasks such as object recognition, adaptive compression and image retrieval. Recently, low-rank matrix recovery (LR) theory has been introduced into saliency detection, and achieves impressed results. However, the existing LR-based models neglect the underlying structure of images, and inevitably degrade the associated performance. In this paper, we propose a Low-rank and Structured sparse Matrix Decomposition (LSMD) model for salient object detection. In the model, a tree-structured sparsity-inducing norm regularization is firstly introduced to provide a hierarchical description of the image structure to ensure the completeness of the extracted salient object. The similarity of saliency values within the salient object is then guaranteed by the $\ell _\infty$-norm. Finally, high-level priors are integrated to guide the matrix decomposition and enhance the saliency detection. Experimental results on the largest public benchmark database show that our model outperforms existing LR-based approaches and other state-of-the-art methods, which verifies the effectiveness and robustness of the structure cues in our model.


Observations of debris disks allow for the study of planetary systems, even where planets have not been detected. However, debris disks are often only characterized by unresolved infrared excesses that resemble featureless blackbodies, and the location of the emitting dust is uncertain due to a degeneracy with the dust grain properties. Here, we characterize the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph spectra of 22 debris disks exhibiting 10 μm silicate emission features. Such features arise from small warm dust grains, and their presence can significantly constrain the orbital location of the emitting debris. We find that these features can be explained by the presence of an additional dust component in the terrestrial zones of the planetary systems, i.e., an exozodiacal belt. Aside from possessing exozodiacal dust, these debris disks are not particularly unique; their minimum grain sizes are consistent with the blowout sizes of their systems, and their brightnesses are comparable to those of featureless warm debris disks. These disks are in systems of a range of ages, though the older systems with features are found only around A-type stars. The features in young systems may be signatures of terrestrial planet formation. Analyzing the spectra of unresolved debris disks with emission features may be one of the simplest and most accessible ways to study the terrestrial regions of planetary systems.


A new scheduling method, where probability values can be assigned to activity durations, is proposed in this thesis. Probabilistic Scheduling Method (PSM) accepts activity durations tagged with probability or confidence intervals.

Tests were carried out using examples of 3,7, and 9 activities to evaluate PSM's practical capability. The comparisons of PSM to Critical Path Method (CPM), Performance Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), and Monte Carlo application to PERT (MC PERT) conclude that PSM results in similar most probable duration estimation. Further tests were implemented to evaluate PSM's capability to project schedule revision on an ongoing project. A microsoft Excel application was used to organize tests data and calculations.

PSM computations are more industry friendly. They allow for a range of duration associated with a range of probabilites. PSM provides flexibility and simplicity, and also dependency information that will benefit its user in decision making


Existing justice theory explains why fair procedures motivate employees to adopt cooperative goals, but it fails to explain how employees strive toward these goals. We study self-regulatory abilities that underlie goal striving, abilities that should thus affect employees' display of cooperative behavior in response to procedural justice. Building on action control theory, we argue that employees who display effective self-regulatory strategies (action-oriented employees) display relatively strong cooperative behavioral responses to fair procedures. A multisource field study and a laboratory experiment support this prediction. A subsequent experiment addresses the process underlying this effect by explicitly showing that action orientation facilitates attainment of the cooperative goals that people adopt in response to fair procedures, thus facilitating the display of actual cooperative behavior. This goal striving approach better integrates research on the relationship between procedural justice and employee cooperation in the self-regulation and the work motivation literature. It also offers organizations a new perspective on making procedural justice effective in stimulating employee cooperation by suggesting factors that help employees reach their adopted goals.


Introduction Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a clonal plasma cell neoplasm characterized by end organ damage or derangement of highly specific biomarkers. The incidence of MM in the United States (U.S.) is estimated to be 30,280 new cases per year, accounting for approximately 1 percent of all cancers and 12,590 deaths per year.(1) The median age of diagnosis of MM has been reported as 66 years in the literature.(2) The incidence of MM is two to three times higher in black individuals than in whites, but the biological etiology of the observed higher incidence is undetermined. Blacks constitute 20% of the population affected by MM despite accounting for 13% of the U.S. population.(3,4) This disparity is also observed in the precursor condition, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). Here we analyze the racial makeup of the pivotal trials submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in support of MM indications with comparisons to the U.S. MM population. Methods We reviewed internal databases for NDA and BLA submissions to the FDA9s Division of Hematology Products between 2003 and 2017. The pivotal trials supporting each application were reviewed for baseline demographic data, including age, race, and country. The clinical reviews, prescribing information, and clinical study reports were also reviewed. Intention-to-treat populations were examined. Analysis was conducted only on pivotal trials that included race data. Results We found 21 original or supplemental NDAs or BLAs submitted between 2003 and 2017 in support of MM indications. The applications included 23 pivotal trials that were relied upon to support approval. Of these, 20 included race data. The median ages in each pivotal study ranged from 58 to 73 years, with a median age across trials of 64 years. The range of enrollment of black subjects in the pivotal trials was 0.5% to 19.9% of the trial population. The median percentage of blacks enrolled across the trials was 4.5%. The figure below shows the proportion of black subjects enrolled by trial. The enrollment of U.S. subjects in pivotal trials varied widely, with a median of 9.3% across trials. No chronologic trend was evident in U.S. enrollment, but U.S. participation was higher for new molecular entity (NME) pivotal trials as compared with supplemental applications. We found an association between U.S. enrollment and racial representation in clinical trials. In trials that had low U.S. enrollment, the median proportion of blacks enrolled was 1.8%, whereas in trials that had high U.S. enrollment, the median was 10.5%. Discussion In trials submitted in support of MM indications, the median percentage of blacks enrolled was 4.5%. SEER data from 2014 suggest that blacks represent 20% of the MM population. Based on these findings, enrollment of black subjects in pivotal trials submitted for U.S. regulatory approval is not representative of the population affected by MM. Even in trials that had high U.S. enrollment, black subject enrollment was not representative of the population affected by this disease. Underrepresentation of black patients in pivotal trials could be due to a number of factors, including access to care, and referral patterns to study enrollment sites. Meaningful differences may exist in MM disease biology, presentation, and response to treatment in blacks compared to whites.(5) Higher enrollment of black subjects in clinical trials would have multiple benefits. First, underserved populations would have improved access to novel therapies. Second, pivotal trials would be more representative of the U.S. population, which is a consideration within the regulatory benefit-risk framework. Finally, the additional data would provide further understanding of the MM disease biology in black patients, and potentially identify molecular subtypes that could be targeted by established or novel drugs. References: 1. Siegel, R, et al., Cancer statistics, 2017. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2017; 67: 7-30 2. Kyle, R., et al., Review of 1027 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Mayo Clin Proc. 2003; 78(1): 21 3. SEER database 2014 Estimated United States Cancer Prevalence Counts on January 1, 2014. By Race/Ethnicity, Table 18.21. 4. Rastogi, S., et al., The Black Population: 2010. US Census Department. 5. Waxman, A., et al., Racial disparities in incidence and outcome in multiple myeloma: a population-based study. 2010; 116 (25): 5501-6 Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Social media are often discussed in terms of online novelties. However, especially within the broader field of political communication, the uses of such services, as Twitter, at the hands of political actors such as politicians and the parties to which they belong, have become something of a fixture of research in recent years. Although the study of political Twitter use has provided a series of insightful case studies, often focused on one single election or country, this article presents a comparative study looking at Twitter use at the hands of political actors during two Norwegian elections, 2011 and 2013. We are interested in what overarching tendencies can be discerned from these uses—specifically, if differing usages can be found between the two elections, suggesting developments pertaining to the normalization and equalization hypotheses respectively. This is examined by focusing on two main analytical areas: The level and type of activity undertaken by those up for election, and the repercussions that this activity appears to have in terms of popularity on the studied platform. In short, the results suggest that although Twitter largely remains an "elite" medium in the Norwegian context, smaller political and other actors are making use of the platform at hand to higher degrees than their more well-known peers. Tendencies of both hypotheses are traced in the data, and although the findings could signal an opening for "outsiders" in this regard, the sheer amount of traffic driving the tweets sent by high-end politicians suggest otherwise.


Background: E-learning is increasingly becoming a preference in higher education institutions worldwide; this is intended to assist educational institutions in achieving objectives to meet the proportion of individuals with their educational opportunities. Nevertheless, instructors and students frequently have concerns with their capacity to succeed in E-learning environments. Objectives: This study aimed to presents common eLearning challenges in regard to e-learning courses structure and its relations to various factors, for instance; students' autonomy, prior knowledge and experience, studentsstudents dialogue, and studentsinstructor dialogue, and proposes solutions to these challenges based on the transactional distance theory. Moreover, this study presents evidence from Abuhassna et al. / Contemporary Educational Technology, 2022, 14(1), ep338 2 / 23 Malaysian higher institutions based on theoretical models for e-learning course structure and its relations to the factors mentioned above. Methods: Data have been collected from 680 university learners all over Malaysia. Data were then examined using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modelling employing Smart PLS 3.0 software. Results and conclusion: Research findings indicated that e-learning course structure was affected by all dimensions of overall path analysis findings: student autonomy, students background, student-instructor dialogue, and student-student dialogue. However, the e-learning course structure showed insignificant with students' prior experience. Implications: Implications for universities are discussed accordingly. Such findings provide vital support to the integrative association among collaborative control (CC) and transactional distance theory (TDT) regarding e-learning environments experience, which might support universities administrators in the higher education industry to implement, plan and evaluate online learning platforms applications in their institutions.


To enhance the bondability of polyetheretherketone (PEEK), surface treatment
techniques of plasma and corona discharge have been evaluated. The results have
shown that these two methods are effective and practical. The treated materials not
only reach their highest possible joint strength, but also show very promising joint
durability. In addition, the various environments, e. g. atmosphere, heat, water, and
solvent, have little effects on the enhanced bondability of the treated materials.
By using Contact Angle Measurement, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray
Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Time of Flight Secondaty Ion Mass
Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) to characterise the PEEK surfaces before and after
treatment, it was established that the lack of active chemical groups, which if present
can form strong interatomic and intermolecular forces across the adhesive/PEEK
interface, is the main cause for the poor bondability of the untreated PEEK. Both
plasma and corona discharge treatment introduce such active functional groups, for
instance, hydroxyl, carboxylic acid, amine and etc., onto the surface of PEEK film and
so greatly enhance the intrinsic adhesion at the interface between treated PEEK
surfaces and epoxy adhesive, as confirmed by the TOF-SIMS interfacial analysis.
It is deduced that low molecular weight molecules (LMWM) are formed on treated
surfaces, which contain high concentration of oxygen and/or nitrogen, and can be
removed by solvent washing. The removal of LMWM will drastically reduce the
wettability of the treated surfaces, but does not impair the enhanced bondability.
It has been found that both plasma and corona discharge treated surfaces are in a
thermodynamically unstable state. When exposed to the atmosphere, the treated
surfaces tend to lose their improved wettability and decrease their surface polarity.
Increasing temperature can not only accelerate these processes but also change the
surface chemical structures of the treated materials back to that of the untreated films
to some extent, as revealed by the TOF-SIMS analysis. Water immersion, on the
contrary, tend to reverse the above processes.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of response bias and target gender on detecting deception.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: a stereotype condition (bogus training group), a tell-signs condition (empirically tested cues), and a control condition. Participants were required to decide whether eight targets were lying or telling the truth, based upon the information they had been given. Accuracy was measured via a correct or incorrect response to the stimuli. The data were then analyzed using a 2×2×3 mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine whether any main or interactional effects were present.

Findings

Results revealed training condition had no significant effect on accuracy, nor was there a within-subject effect of gender. However, there was a significant main effect of accuracy in detecting truth or lies, and a significant interaction between target gender and detecting truth or lies.

Research limitations/implications

Future research should seek a larger sample of participants with a more extensive training aspect developed into the study, as the brief training offered here may not be fully reflective of the extent and intensity of training which could be offered to professionals.

Originality/value

Within the criminal justice system, the need for increased accuracy in detecting deception is of critical importance; not only to detect whether a guilty individual is being deceitful, but also whether someone is making a false confession, both to improve community safety by detaining the correct perpetrator for the crime but also to maintain public trust in the justice system. The present research provides a fresh insight into the importance of training effects in detecting deception.


One of the fundamental cognitive abilities of humans is to quickly resolve uncertainty by generating hypotheses and testing them via active trials. Encountering a novel phenomenon accompanied by ambiguous cause-effect relationships, humans make hypotheses against data, conduct inferences from observation, test their theory via experimentation, and correct the proposition if inconsistency arises. These iterative processes persist until the underlying mechanism becomes clear. In this work, we devise the IVRE (pronounced as"ivory") environment for evaluating artificial agents' reasoning ability under uncertainty. IVRE is an interactive environment featuring rich scenarios centered around Blicket detection. Agents in IVRE are placed into environments with various ambiguous action-effect pairs and asked to determine each object's role. They are encouraged to propose effective and efficient experiments to validate their hypotheses based on observations and actively gather new information. The game ends when all uncertainties are resolved or the maximum number of trials is consumed. By evaluating modern artificial agents in IVRE, we notice a clear failure of today's learning methods compared to humans. Such inefficacy in interactive reasoning ability under uncertainty calls for future research in building human-like intelligence.


An editorial published by the Wall Street Journal on March 11, 2011, argues that the government's case for an individual mandate is faulty. The authors argue the hidden tax on people with health insurance is greatly overstated. Their support is a study by John Holahan and Jack Hadley, Covering the Uninsured How Much Would It Cost? Holahan and Hadley, disagree with the authors' interpretation of their research, however. They contend the individual mandate will reduce government payments for uncompensated care, which will translate into lower taxes paid by people with private insurance, even if their insurance premiums don't decrease.


Abstract The sequencing of the entire mitochondrial DNA belonging to haplogroup U2d reveals that this clade is defined by four coding-region mutations at positions 1700, 4025, 11893, and 14926. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that western Eurasian haplogroup U2d appears to be a sister clade with the Indo-Pakistani haplogroup U2c. Results of a phylogeographic analysis of published population data on the distribution of haplogroup U2d indicate that the presence of such mtDNA lineages in Europe may be mostly a consequence of medieval migrations of nomadic tribes from the Caucasus and eastern Europe to central Europe.


Abstract The West Sudetes (NE margin of the Bohemian Massif) consist of a complex mosaic of several tectonometamorphic units juxtaposed during the Variscan orogeny. The polyphase Variscan tectonothermal development of the West Sudetes was determined by 40Ar/39Ar ages of single grains and mineral concentrates. Late Famennian (359 Ma) mica ages from the high-grade Góry Sowie Block suggest continuous uplift after a Late Devonian high temperature-low pressure (HT-LP) event contemporaneous with the end of subduction-related high pressure-low temperature (HP-LT) metamorphism in the East Krkonoše Complex. Mid-Late Devonian high pressure events in the Krkonoše-Jizera Terrane and Orlica-Śnieżnik Dome are followed by coeval high temperature events between 345 and 335 Ma (Viséan). The latter are interpreted as consequence of uplift, and decompression during overthrusting of both complexes on their forelands. Subsequent small- to large-scale shear movements dated at around 325–320 Ma (early Namurian) affected the Orlica-Śnieżnik Dome, Krkonoše-Jizera Terrane, including the Intra-Sudetic Fault, and also the eastern Lusatian Granitoid Complex. They were accompanied by contemporaneous emplacement of the Krkonoše-Jizera pluton. The upper limit of the tectonometamorphic and magmatic activity is dated at 314–312 Ma (Namurian/Westphalian boundary). The final juxtaposition of the diversified tectonometamorphic units, which constitute the West Sudetes, took place in early Namurian times.


Production rates from oil fields decrease over time due to various factors, so it is necessary to use methods that to some extent compensate for the reduction in oil and gas production rates. Gas overflow is one of the artificial overflow methods that is used with the aim of rehabilitating and increasing the optimal flow of oil wells. In this method, high pressure gas is injected at a certain point inside the fluid column in the well, thereby reducing the average density and subsequent pressure on the bottom of the well, and thus reactivating the well. In optimizing the operation, increasing the production and benefiting from the maximum operation of the well and its facilities are considered. In this project, two-phase current was model using a mechanistic model and parameters such as pressure profile, temperature, phase fractions and phase velocities are calculated. Then, with the help of node analysis, the natural production of the well is simulated and the need to use the method is investigated. When the reservoir energy (reservoir pressure) is not high enough for continuous production from the well, the artificial overflow method is used in oil production. Gas overflow method is one of the artificial overflow methods that is used to increase oil production from wells. In this method, high pressure gas is injected into the well to make the fluid column lighter and increase the reservoir pressure to produce oil.


Freshwater resources are critical features of the landscape and are threatened by many phenomena (e.g., eutrophication, invasive species, climate change, acid rain). The importance of fresh waters requires that scientists continually improve their tactics and technologies for broader understanding. Increasing use of automated sensors to collect environmental data creates a need for training of environmental scientists. In this paper, we present case studies based on a doctoral training program. For each case study presented, the goals and overall recommendations for adaptation to other programs are discussed. Case studies were selected based on recommendations of external evaluators of the program, the perceived value of the particular case study to the overall program, and the desire to provide case studies that were illustrative of the primary objectives of the project. We conclude that training of scientists in this area requires a consideration of the technology behind the sensors, proper usage of this technology, the technology development process, data management, and technology transfer. In addition to sensor-specific attributes of our program, we also have gained insight into the process of professional development for graduate students and how students can work across disciplines and universities. Our key suggestion for achieving inter-disciplinary training is to give students a common problem to tackle and the tools to do so. To ensure that these efforts are successful, identification of a group leader and provision of an opportunity for bonds and relationships to develop is vital.


Abstract. We compare eight pollen records reflecting climatic and environmental change from northern and southern sites in the tropical Andes. Our analysis focuses on the last 30 000 years, with particular emphasis on the Pleistocene to Holocene transition. We explore ecological grouping and downcore ordination results as two approaches for extracting environmental variability from pollen records. We also use the records of aquatic and shoreline vegetation as markers for lake level fluctuations and moisture availability. Our analysis focuses on the signature of millennial-scale climate variability in the tropical Andes, in particular Heinrich stadials (HS) and Greenland interstadials (GI). The pollen records show an overall warming trend during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, but the onset of post-glacial warming differs in timing among records. We identify rapid responses of the tropical vegetation to millennial-scale climate variability. The signatures of HS and the Younger Dryas are generally recorded as downslope upper forest line (UFL) migrations in our transect, and are likely linked to air temperature cooling. The GI1 signal is overall comparable between northern and southern records and indicates upslope UFL migrations and warming in the tropical Andes. Our marker for lake level changes indicated a north-to-south difference that could be related to moisture availability. The air temperature signature recorded by the Andean vegetation was consistent with millennial-scale cryosphere and sea surface temperature changes but suggests a potential difference between the magnitude of temperature change in the ocean and the atmosphere. We also show that arboreal pollen percentage (AP %) and detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) scores are two complementary approaches to extract environmental variability from pollen records.


Abstract. Characterizing typical meteorological conditions associated with extreme pollution events helps to better understand the role of local meteorology in governing the transport and distribution of pollutants in the atmosphere. The knowledge of their co-variability could further help to evaluate and constrain chemistry transport models. Hence, in this study, we investigate the statistical linkages between extreme nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollution events and meteorology over Scandinavia using observational and reanalysis data. It is observed that the south-westerly winds dominated during extreme events, accounting for 50–65 % of the total events depending on the season, while the second largest annual occurrence was from south-easterly winds, accounting for 17 % of total events. The specific humidity anomalies showed an influx of warmer and moisture-laden air masses over Scandinavia in the free troposphere. Two distinct modes in the persistency of circulation patterns are observed. The first mode lasts for 1–2 days, dominated by south-easterly winds that prevailed during 78 % of total extreme events in that mode, while the second mode lasted for 3–5 days, dominated by south-westerly winds that prevailed during 86 % of the events. The combined analysis of circulation patterns, their persistency, and associated changes in humidity and clouds suggests that NO2 extreme events over Scandinavia occur mainly due to long-range transport from the southern latitudes.


Student satisfaction and the transformation of teaching delivery methods are important themes in UK higher education, particularly with the advent of premium fees and a more rigorous student market. Nowhere are these themes more pressing than in political science teaching in British universities. Furthermore the advent of new social media in recent times has provided an opportunity to democratise learning in some respects – although there remains the challenge of opening up new forms of learning without undermining the essential relationship between teachers and learners. The paper argues that political science in general, and those courses that concern themselves with the practice of democracy and voting behaviour in particular, ought to be in the forefront of innovative and participatory approaches to learning and teaching. This paper uses a case study of Technology Enhanced Learning from the UK. Students on the final year undergraduate course Elections and Voters at the University of Manchester have been encouraged to use twitter as an interactive learning tool for the past three years.


A phenomenological study is made of several aspects of the standard model (and beyond) in the context of collider physics. These calculations are performed in the framework of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) and the standard Elec-troweak theory in an attempt to understand the underlying gauge theory more fully. In chapter 2, a precision QCD and electroweak calculation is performed to predict the high transverse-momentum distribution of the intermediate vector bosons produced in pṕ collisions. Calculated cross-sections are compared with data from the CERN collider and predictions are made for the Tevatron, LHC and SSC. Theoretical uncertainties, due to scale and structure function ambiguities, are estimated. In chapter 3, the equivalent photon approximation (or EPA) is studied at high energies to determine the accuracy of the approximation. An exact calculation of the process e + q → e + q + γ is performed and compared with an approximate calculation of the process γ+q → γ+q , where the initial-state photon is produced (using the EPA) from an initial-state electron. The test is carried out for the cases where the final-state electron are tagged and untagged. At high energies, the approximation is accurate to within 10%. In chapter 4, deep inelastic Compton scattering is investigated at energies of the HERA ep collider. A study of the production rate is made to determine the feasibility of measurement at HERA and it is clear that for pT < 50 GeV/c the cross-section will be measurable. In addition, studies are made to determine the efficiency of this process as a probe of the proton structure functions. The cross-section is only weakly dependent on the structure functions. In chapter 5, the production of charged Higgs scalars is considered at hadron colliders. The fully inclusive cross-section for charged Higgs scalars is calculated and compared with the associated W boson cross-section. The generic process g+b →b+t + t, which may proceed through an intermediate charged Higgs (or W) or through QCD processes, is studied and the Higgs cross-sections are compared with the W and QCD cross-sections.


This study aims to establish the extent to which metacognitive training plays a part in Singapore
primary students' word problem solving in a computer environment. The study involved 142 Singapore 11 to 12-year-old students from two primary schools.

The study adopts a two-phase design, combining a quasi-experimental design and a case study design. For the quasi-experimental design, analysis of students' mathematical achievement test data is used to investigate the relationship between metacognitive training, students' level of mathematical achievement and their mathematical word problem solving performance. For the case study design, analysis of the think aloud protocol data during word problem solving of eight pairs of students is used to explore the role of metacognition in mathematical word problem solving in a computer environment. In addition, student questionnaire and teacher interview data provide descriptive accounts of students' metacognitive knowledge during mathematical word problem solving.

The findings from the analysis of mathematical achievement test and think aloud protocol data reveal that metacognitive training results in improvement in mathematical word problem solving performance, and that lower achievers appear to show the full benefit from metacognitive training only after a period of time. The findings of the think aloud protocol data also reveal that i) generating metacognitive behaviours, and knowing when and how to use them during word problem solving are important determinants for successful word problem solving, and ii) students have distinctive progressions of word problem solving activity which can be represented by five
types of cognitive-metacognitive word problem solving models. These progressions of word problem solving activity seem to relate to students' success in word problem solving. It is also proposed that there is a relationship between affect, students' ability to develop metacognitive
awareness, and word problem solving. In addition, effective pair collaboration is influenced by students' mathematical beliefs, and how students are paired according to their metacognitive knowledge.

The educational and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed, particularly in relation to the Singaporean context.


With China emerging as a new frontier of global IT outsourcing, many Chinese IT service suppliers are actively expanding in three major markets: Asia, especially Japan, the West, especially the United States, and the Chinese domestic market. Compared to multinational suppliers and established Indian suppliers, Chinese IT service firms are at a relatively early, but rapidly growing stage, which offers a unique opportunity to explore an understudied topic in the information systems literature: internationalization strategies of IT service suppliers from emerging economies. Through a three-part qualitative case study of 13 China-based IT service firms, including almost all of the Chinese suppliers recognized globally, this study elaborates the internationalization behavior and decision rationale of these suppliers. The findings show that these major Chinese suppliers include both firms that incrementally internationalize and firms that are "born global." For both types of firms, the entry and growth in different markets is a highly dynamic activity combining a strategically planned, resource-seeking process and a flexible, opportunistic bricolage process based on existing operation capabilities and client relationships. The suppliers dynamically oscillate between these processes to exploit and create opportunities while expanding in multiple markets.


Nigeria's Niger Delta, which produces the oil and gas that have made the country the twelfth largest oil producer in the world, has suffered from environmental degradation caused by oil and gas exploration involving the use of technologies that are very often applied without consideration for the health and well-being of the entire ecosphere. This paper argues that the ideas of the eco-philosopher, Thomas Berry, on technological transformation can be helpful in mitigating such damage in the Niger Delta. The paper concludes that oil technology is not essentially undesirable, but can actually be used to positively transform the Niger Delta. The paper contributes to efforts at promoting ecological conservation. Key Words Thomas Berry, Technology, Oil, Niger Delta, environment, philosophy


Background: Blueberry stems, a by-product of blueberry leaf tea production, are typically discarded. We evaluated the effects of hot-water extracts of rabbiteye blueberry (Vaccinium virgatum Aiton; RB species) leaves and stems on hepatic lipid levels in rats consuming a high-sucrose diet.Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into groups that received a control high-sucrose diet alone or supplementation with 2.0% blueberry leaf extract or 0.5% or 2.0% blueberry stem extract. Blood and hepatic lipid levels, hepatic lipogenic enzyme activity, and hepatic quercetin metabolites were evaluated after 28 days of ad libitum consumption.Results: Supplementation with the extracts did not affect body weight gain, food intake, liver and white adipose tissue weights, or serum lipid levels. Hepatic triglyceride and total cholesterol levels were reduced in the groups that received 2.0% supplementation of either extract. Hepatic malic enzyme activity was also reduced in those groups. Quercetin and its glycosides, the major polyphenols identified in the extracts, accumulated in the liver as quercetin aglycone and quercetin metabolites. Conclusion: We demonstrated how daily consumption of blueberry leaf and stem extracts can decrease hepatic lipid levels, potentially downregulating malic enzyme activity. These effects were intensive in leaf extracts. The active compounds existed in both extracts may be quercetin and its glycosides. Therefore, blueberry stems and leaves may be an attractive candidate novel functional food.Keywords: Blueberry leaf; blueberry stem; quercetin; hepatic lipid; rat; functional food


Volcanic plumes become electrically charged, often producing spectacular displays of lightning. Previous research has focused on understanding volcanic lightning, primarily the large electric fields produced by charging of ash particles. Here we report on the previously overlooked phenomenon of volcanic plume electrification in the absence of detectable ash. We present the first in situ vertical profile measurements of charge, thermodynamic, and microphysical properties inside predominantly gaseous plumes directly above an erupting volcano. Our measurements demonstrate that substantial charge (at least ±8,000 pC/m3) is present in gaseous volcanic clouds without detectable ash. We suggest that plume charging may be enhanced by the emission of radon gas from the volcano, which causes ionization. This presents a hitherto unrecognized, but likely to be common, mechanism for charge generation in volcanic plumes, which is expected to modulate plume characteristics and lifetime. This process is currently neglected in recognized mechanisms of volcanic plume electrification.


Bifurcation branches through complex domain have been applied to locate all solutions of the most nonlinear problems in chemical engineering. When we use homotopy continuation method in real space, depend on initial guess only some of roots are traced by homotopy path. However, there are some turning points which converted to branching points using complex variables. Other roots are reached when we bifurcate from these points into the complex space. Some examples are presented to show how it can be done in solving nonlinear sets of equations, especially in phase equilibrium and stability problems which contain the most nonlinearity in process simulations.


Miscible displacement techniques were used for the simultaneous study of nonequilibrium sorption and degradation of atrazine (2-chloro-4-etbylamino-6-isopropylamine-s-triazine), simazine (2-chloro-4,6-bis(ethylamino)-s-triazine), and cyanazine (2-(4-chloro-6-ethylamino)-s-triazine-2-ylamino-2-proprionitrile) on two central New York soils. A bicontinuum model, which considers sorption in two domains and includes a description of first-order degradation, was applied to describe experimentally determined breakthrough curves. Values of the equilibrium sorption constant, K, and first-order degradation rate constant, µ, were independently measured using batch and mass-balance techniques. Values of the sorption rate coefficient (fitted with a bicontinuum model) were inversely correlated with K, and were dependent on concentration and velocity. Estimates of the rate of atrazine degradation were on the same order, but slower when measured with miscible displacement vs. batch incubation techniques. The techniques presented in this study provide an opportunity to better quantify sorption and degradation parameters that are required in environmental fate models. Contribution no. 2661 of the College of Resource Development, Univ. of Rhode Island, with support from Rhode Island Agric. Exp. Stn.


This review discusses frontier topics in economic geography as they relate to firms and agglomeration economies. We focus on areas where empirical research is scarce but possible. We first outline a conceptual framework for city formation that allows us to contemplate what empiricists might study when using firm-level data to compare the functioning of cities and industries with each other. We then examine a second model of the internal structure of a cluster to examine possibilities with firmlevel data for better exposing the internal operations of clusters. An overwhelming theme of our review is the vast scope for enhancements of our picture of agglomeration with the new data that are emerging. JEL: J2, J6, L1, L2, L6, O1, O3, R1, R3


: Medication-related Osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a serious but low prevalence disease in which the surgical margins of bone resection are clinically determinated by the surgeon based on subjetive parameters. Because of this, fluorescence-guided bone resection has been proposed. The objetive of this study is to describe the current knowledge of fluorescence-guided bone resection in patients with MRONJ. Scoping Review was carried out, searching the databases of PubMed, ScienceDirect and Web of Science, using the boolean operator AND and OR. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Of 66 articles, 13 were selected that met the eligibility criteriaThe technique of fluorescence with tetracyclines (FT) and autofluorescence (AF) is used, describing a success of 85 to 100 % and 77.3 to 100 % in 1 to 12.9 and 4 to 13.1 months respectively. There was 100 % Clinical-Histopathological correlation for vital and necrotic bone tissue. Fluorescence-guided bone resection is able to clinically discriminate between vital and necrotic bone tissue, allowing the delimitation of surgical margins based on objective and reproducible parameters. In addition, it allows to standardize the surgical procedure.


The present study is an attempt to examine the role of information literacy as a prerequisite for the effective application of ICT. Qualitative content analysis was used as the methodology to answer the main question of the study. The findings and results show that there is a need to have fundamental changes in missions and functions of Universities and institutes of higher education. Since one of the basic missions of Universities is to produce knowledge and lay the groundwork for knowledge environments, awareness of and access to the latest scientific findings in areas of science and technology is necessary. ICT has paved the way of this process. But what is essential is to enable the users of higher education easier access to ICT based environment. This way the audience of higher education can use the information in such environments in an effective, efficient, and creative way. This will be impossible unless we consider the role and status of information literacy as a necessity and basic issue for the application of ICT in higher education.


The design and the characteristics of a single-phase linear induction motor producing reciprocating motion is described. Its magnetic circuit has been designed to ensure that the force does not decline rapidly with the amplitude of oscillation of the plunger. Although excited by a sinusoidally time varying voltage source, the device, when it is in operation, is always in the transient state. Hence the analytical tool developed for its design and analysis is based on axisymmetric, transient, time-stepping, nonlinear, eddy current, finite elements which includes rotor motion. The moving plunger tube is moved in predetermined, discrete spatial increments in variable time steps which are determined by the solution of the transient electromechanical equations describing its motion.


Background Prolonged febrile seizures constitute an initial precipitating injury (IPI) commonly associated with refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (RMTLE). In order to investigate IPI influence on the transcriptional phenotype underlying RMTLE we comparatively analyzed the transcriptomic signatures of CA3 explants surgically obtained from RMTLE patients with (FS) or without (NFS) febrile seizure history. Texture analyses on MRI images of dentate gyrus were conducted in a subset of surgically removed sclerotic hippocampi for identifying IPI-associated histo-radiological alterations. Methodology/Principal Findings DNA microarray analysis revealed that CA3 global gene expression differed significantly between FS and NFS subgroups. An integrative functional genomics methodology was used for characterizing the relations between GO biological processes themes and constructing transcriptional interaction networks defining the FS and NFS transcriptomic signatures and its major gene-gene links (hubs). Co-expression network analysis showed that: i) CA3 transcriptomic profiles differ according to the IPI; ii) FS distinctive hubs are mostly linked to glutamatergic signalization while NFS hubs predominantly involve GABAergic pathways and neurotransmission modulation. Both networks have relevant hubs related to nervous system development, what is consistent with cell genesis activity in the hippocampus of RMTLE patients. Moreover, two candidate genes for therapeutic targeting came out from this analysis: SSTR1, a relevant common hub in febrile and afebrile transcriptomes, and CHRM3, due to its putative role in epilepsy susceptibility development. MRI texture analysis allowed an overall accuracy of 90% for pixels correctly classified as belonging to FS or NFS groups. Histological examination revealed that granule cell loss was significantly higher in FS hippocampi. Conclusions/Significance CA3 transcriptional signatures and dentate gyrus morphology fairly correlate with IPI in RMTLE, indicating that FS-RMTLE represents a distinct phenotype. These findings may shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying refractory epilepsy phenotypes and contribute to the discovery of novel specific drug targets for therapeutic interventions.


International agreements to protect the environment usually have the form of promises between countries to reduce pollution on a reciprocal base. Such a solution can be Pareto-efficient if transboundary pollution is reciprocal and, on top of that, negotiators reveal truly the preferences of their governments for environmental quality and the national costs of pollution control.

However, there are conditions under which the outcomes in terms of welfare gains can be improved by making payments between countries a part of the deal. The paper discusses the following categories:

(1) International money payment in exchange for additional pollution control abroad and simultaneous reduction of control effort at home as a complement to existing international agreements: Joint Implementation.

(2) Money transfers as an instrument to make an agreement on transboundary pollution feasible: control of unidirectional pollution and (ambitious) proportional reciprocal reduction of emissions belong to this class.

(3) International care. A country cares about the environment, or about the standard of living in another country. At first sight such considerations of international care seem to offer an argument for international subsidies. However, it will be shown that this is not necessarily so, since care considerations are already reflected in the 'rates of exchange' of the agreement to reduce emissions reciprocally.


Optical wireless communication (OWC) refers to transmission in unguided propagation media through the use of optical carriers, i.e., visible, infrared (IR), and ultraviolet (UV) bands. In this survey, we focus on outdoor terrestrial OWC links which operate in near IR band. These are widely referred to as free space optical (FSO) communication in the literature. FSO systems are used for high rate communication between two fixed points over distances up to several kilometers. In comparison to radio-frequency (RF) counterparts, FSO links have a very high optical bandwidth available, allowing much higher data rates. They are appealing for a wide range of applications such as metropolitan area network (MAN) extension, local area network (LAN)-to-LAN connectivity, fiber back-up, backhaul for wireless cellular networks, disaster recovery, high definition TV and medical image/video transmission, wireless video surveillance/monitoring, and quantum key distribution among others. Despite the major advantages of FSO technology and variety of its application areas, its widespread use has been hampered by its rather disappointing link reliability particularly in long ranges due to atmospheric turbulence-induced fading and sensitivity to weather conditions. In the last five years or so, there has been a surge of interest in FSO research to address these major technical challenges. Several innovative physical layer concepts, originally introduced in the context of RF systems, such as multiple-input multiple-output communication, cooperative diversity, and adaptive transmission have been recently explored for the design of next generation FSO systems. In this paper, we present an up-to-date survey on FSO communication systems. The first part describes FSO channel models and transmitter/receiver structures. In the second part, we provide details on information theoretical limits of FSO channels and algorithmic-level system design research activities to approach these limits. Specific topics include advances in modulation, channel coding, spatial/cooperative diversity techniques, adaptive transmission, and hybrid RF/FSO systems.


In this note, we present ten recommendations to stimulate the uptake of eHUBs based on psychological concepts. These recommendations are translated into specific actions that cities can undertake to promote the uptake of eHUBs under car owners. In general, according to behaviour change principles1, citizens will start using the eHUBs (1) if they feel they are capable of using them, (2) if the physical and social environment is structured in such a way that they have the opportunity to use the eHUBs and (3) if they are motivated to use the HUB. The recommendations in this short note address either the capabilities, the opportunities or the motivation of citizens to use the HUBs.


The mechanisms of invasion and metastasis are poorly understood. Our previous studies demonstrated that cancer cell invasion may result from reorganization of membrane molecules, thereby initiating signaling pathways. To increase our understanding on how cancer cells govern metastases we studied the established LNCaP prostate cancer progression model. Herein we show that the bone metastatic derivative cell line, C4-2B, displays changes in adhesion to collagen type I and invasion into collagen type I. Moreover, we found that these changes were concomitant with activation of the FAK/src/paxillin/Rac/JNK signaling pathway and increased activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs)-2 and -9. Inhibition of src and JNK resulted in inhibition of adhesion and invasion, and deactivation of the signaling molecules in the identified pathway as well as reduced activity of MMPs. Additionally, we found a pivotal role for the integrin alpha2 subunit since lateral redistribution and clustering were responsible for activation of the downstream signaling and function blocking of the integrin alpha2 subunit resulted in poor adhesion and inhibition of invasion. In conclusion, our results suggest that invasion of prostate cancer cells can be ascribed to reorganization and clustering of integrin alpha2 subunits, resulting in activation of associated FAK/src/paxillin/Rac/JNK, leading to increased activity of MMPs and thus invasion.


So far, numerous influential studies have been made in reference to the phenomenon of 'good governance' in formal and legal, and economic terms or in terms of political science. The purpose of this paper is to present an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to integrate legal, economic and political sciences to analyse especially the legal and economic contexts of the indicated concept. The task of the article is to show the co-dependency and interactions between 'good governance' and the school of law and economy, especially within the phenomenon of supranational institutionalisation whose foundations still include the realisation of the principles of 'good governance'. Despite the legal and economic themes, the indicated areas also formulate a defined scope of politics that is worth seeing through the prism of the apparatus of political science. The extremely economic approach demands focus on the processes of maximising profits/minimising resour-ces; however, one must not ignore the element of classic politics that refers to disputes about various attitudes and values. The hypothesis of the article is the following statement: the decomposition of the liberal model of law and global economy translates into the phenomenon of the economic downturn of supranational structures, which leads to more primitive forms of domination and subordi-nation in place of current practices whose purpose is to implement the regulations of 'good governance'.


This article is an analysis of the related cases R v Gao and R v Hurring tried in the New Zealand District Court. These criminal proceedings arose out of an error of Westpac bank that attracted worldwide attention, namely the granting of an overdraft facility of $10 million when only $100,000 had been requested. The defendants were charged and convicted for their respective actions following that error, including drawing on the facility and spending or transferring the resulting funds. The principal charges against each were those of theft from Westpac pursuant to s 219 of the Crimes Act 1961. It is the thesis of this article that such theft charges were not available against either defendant. The article then proceeds to consider a range of alternative possible offences on the facts. It concludes that, at least in relation to Gao, charges of being an absconding debtor, or a party to defrauding creditors, might have been more appropriate, carrying lesser maximum sentences. The near fortuity that it was Gao's company that applied for the overdraft may also have made theft from one's own company a possibility against Gao (under s 220 of the 1961 Act), but that too would have involved very different charges from those brought.


Modifying a digital sketch may require multiple selections before a particular editing tool can be applied. Especially on large interactive surfaces, such interactions can be fatiguing. Accordingly, we propose a method, called Suggero, to facilitate the selection process of digital ink. Suggero identifies groups of perceptually related drawing objects. These "perceptual groups" are used to suggest possible extensions in response to a person's initial selection. Two studies were conducted. First, a background study investigated participant's expectations of such a selection assistance tool. Then, an empirical study compared the effectiveness of Suggero with an existing manual technique. The results revealed that Suggero required fewer pen interactions and less pen movement, suggesting that Suggero minimizes fatigue during digital sketching.


Shear wall is commonly employed as a principal element to resist lateral loads due to wind or earthquake forces. An accurate mathematical model for shear wall structure needs to consider the effect of all components in the system i.e. shear wall, foundation, and subsoil. In addition to the necessity for accurate modelling of shear wall-foundation-soil system, the model must be proficient to capture the structural response of the shear wall building-foundation-soil and it should also be computationally efficient. Furthermore, since shear wall is a key structural element which plays a major role to ensure stability of the shear building system under lateral loads, it is essential to consider the inelastic response of the shear wall buildings.
With the tremendous advancement in computer technology several finite element software's are commercially available to researchers and engineers. However, this would not serve the objectives of the research investigator. In this study, new elements have been developed, modified constitutive law has been proposed, new computational algorithm has been utilised. Furthermore, this investigation focuses on the development of effective and suitable modelling of reinforced concrete shear walls. The modelling includes physical and constitutive modelling.
(a)
Physical modelling
Most suitable elements had been adopted and some new elements have been developed for physical modelling of shear wall structural systems. The elements used for the purpose of mathematical discretisation of the shear wall structural system are:
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Modified optimal triangle (MOPT) element with drilling degree of freedom to represent the superstructure and foundation. This element was developed in this study.
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Interface element to represent the interfacial characteristics between the foundation represented by MOPT element with three degree of freedom per node (top continuum) and bottom continuum i.e. soil media idealised as plane stress /plane strain problem with two degree of freedom per node. This element was developed to incorporate slip and separation at the interface.
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Super elements are groups of elements which are used to represent different substructures domain.
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Nine node shell element has been used to represent the superstructure-foundation. This element is multi-layer in nature to simulate the R/C structures.
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Coupled finite and infinite elements were used to model the near and far field in the soil media. These elements were employed when the modelling of soil structure interaction is in mind.All the above elements have been formulated based on continuum mechanics principle.
(b)
Constitutive modelling
The following constitutive law for different materials are used in the problem of shear wall building-foundation-soil system.
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Concrete; nonlinearities arising due to crushing, cracking and plastic yielding of concrete in one or two directions have been considered.
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Steel; the steel reinforcement is assumed to be in a uni-axial stress state and is modelled as a bilinear material with strain hardening
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Soil; to account for the nonlinear behaviour of the soil media, the nonlinear elastic model has been used
Based on the above physical and material modelling two finite element codes have been developed during the course of this study:
(i)
Two dimensional finite element analysis of shear wall (2DASW)
The modified optimal triangle element, super element, interface element and the nonlinear elastic model with different numerical techniques are included in its elements technology library in this FE code.
(ii)
Three dimensional finite element analysis of shear wall (3DASW)
The 3DASW finite element codes deals with constitutive nonlinearities due to concrete and steel. The multilayer shell and beam elements are available in the element library of this finite element program.Both above finite element codes are equipped with pre, post processing and animation graphic facilities. The codes have been written using FORTRAN language and they are working under FORTRAN-95 Power Station.
Accuracy and efficiency of the finite element codes has been achieved by analysing several benchmark examples available in literature. The finite element discretisation of different numerical examples used for the verification purpose and also computational efficiency indicate that, the finite element mesh with coarse mesh and wide range of element aspect ratio using MOPT produced good results. The results show accuracy and fast rate-convergence of super element and MOPT.
An attempt has been made to highlight the computational efficiency of the developed 2DASW finite element codes by analysing actual shear wall buildings i.e. with and without opening. Results in terms of displacements and stresses are compared with those of commercial packages such as SAP-2000 and STAAD-PRO. It was observed that the contour of stress distribution, calculated by STAAD-PRO, SAP 2000 and the present study show that FE code using the present MOPT element is comparable in predicting stress distribution in the shear wall, but the MOPT element display more precise stress at the connecting beams.
Moreover, the stress distribution evaluated by the developed FE code based on MOPT element formulation with coarse FE mesh, agrees well with the stress distributions given by the commercial packages where fine mesh was used. This comparison further proves the computational efficiency of the proposed formulation of the MOPT element.The validation of the 3DASW finite element has been made by analyzing a series of reinforced concrete (RC) structures studied by earlier researchers experimentally or analytically. The response of the RC structures in terms load–deflection curve, cracking pattern and prediction of ultimate load have been compared. It was found that the results predicted by 3DASW compared reasonably well with those reported in the literature.
An extensive study has been carried out with respect to two dimensional analysis of shear wall-foundation-soil system subjected to vertical and lateral loading. It was observed that the displacement predicted by both linear and nonlinear interactive analyses showed remarkable differences in the values of displacement and stress distribution in the shear wall. This can be attributed to stress dependant nature of the tangent modulus. The computed displacement and stresses in nonlinear interactive analysis are further increased when compared to the linear interactive analyses. The effect of the shear wall building –foundation –soil interaction cannot be overlooked.
The application of the 3DASW has been further enhanced by carrying out the inelastic analysis of the shear wall building. It was observed that;
(i)
Cracking patterns were initiated at the tension side at base of the wall and then spread across width and height of the wall.
(ii)
The cracking of concrete has significant influence on redistribution of normal stress σy. That is narrowing the zone of compression stress and transfer higher stress to un-cracked zone and reinforcement bars.
(iii)
Predefined target displacement is very helpful in proper prediction of load deflection curves.


Dust aerosols can suppress rainfall by increasing the number of cloud condensation nuclei in warm clouds and affecting the surface radiation budget and boundary layer instability. The extent to which atmospheric dust may affect precipitation yields and the hydrologic cycle in semiarid regions remains poorly understood. We investigate the relationship between dust aerosols and rainfall in the West African Sahel where the dust‐rainfall feedback has been speculated to contribute to sustained droughts. We find that the amount of dust loadings is negatively correlated with rainfall values, suggesting that dust entrained in the atmosphere can significantly inhibit rainfall in this region.


TO THE EDITOR: The editorial by Sanjaya Saxena, M.D. (1), in the March 2007 issue of the Journal, implicates that there is enough research-based evidence to justify that compulsive hoarding constitutes a discrete entity, apart from obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) as such, to be placed separately in the future DSM-V classification system. The important article by Jack Samuels, Ph.D., et al. (2), also published in the March 2007 issue of the Journal, contains several results that cast doubts on this conclusion. First, all but six of the hoarding individuals in the cohort assessed by Dr. Samuels et al. (2) had additional obsessions and compulsions, especially symmetry and somatic obsessions, as well as repeating, counting, and ordering compulsions (3), indicating substantial symptom overlap with other perhaps intuitively more "typical" OCD symptom dimensions. We therefore do not agree with the authors that many of the hoarders do not have other OCD symptoms. Second, as also mentioned by Samuels et al. (2), hoarding in itself seems to be heterogeneous. In our opinion, the "hoarding" criterion of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, characterized by thrift, differs from the three core symptoms of clinically significant compulsive hoarding. Moreover, within groups of patients with significant compulsive hoarding, we observe clinical heterogeneity. Furthermore, hoarding can arise as a secondary condition from other disorders, such as schizophrenia, dementia, and Prader-Willi syndrome. Third, the linkage study conducted by Samuels et al. (2) was done so on the presence of any hoarding symptom in a potentially heterogeneous group of hoarding individuals instead of a group with clinically significant compulsive hoarding. We therefore feel that their results do not add evidence with respect to the hypothesis that compulsive hoarding is an etiologically discrete phenotype from OCD. In addition, Samuels et al. (2) noted that they found linkage peaks at a chromosome different from that reported in a previous linkage study on hoarding. Replication of these findings is needed before we can conclude that there is a special susceptibility locus for hoarding. In summary, the points mentioned in the article by Samuels et al. (2) suggest that evidence for hoarding as a distinctive syndrome is not very sound, since hoarding seems both phenomenologically and genetically heterogeneous, possibly with subtypes related and subtypes unrelated to OCD. Therefore, much more research on hoarding is needed before implications for a new diagnostic classification can be made.


Food security research with resettled refugees in the United States and other Global North countries has found alarmingly high rates of food insecurity, up to 85% of surveyed households. This is well above the current US average of 12.7%. However, the most common survey tool used to measure food security status in the US, the US Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM), has not been sufficiently validated for resettled refugee populations, leading to the risk that the HFSSM may actually be underestimating the prevalence of food insecurity among resettled refugees in the US. Though research has attempted to establish validity of the HFSSM for resettled refugees through statistical associations with other risk factors for food insecurity, no efforts have been made to first explore and establish the content validity of the HFSSM for measuring food security among resettled refugees. Content validity is an essential component of construct validity. It first requires a qualitative theoretical foundation for demonstrating the relationships of the test contents to the underlying construct (ie food security) that the test intends to measure. Our research explores these theoretical relationships through a qualitative grounded study of food insecurity and food management experiences described by resettled refugees living in Vermont. Dr. Linda Berlin and I conducted 5 semi-structured focus groups in the summer and fall of 2015 with Bhutanese (2 groups), Somali Bantu (1 group), and Iraqi (2 groups) resettled refugees. During the focus groups, we inquired about food management practices under typical circumstances and under circumstances of limited household resources, as well as difficulties participants have faced in these processes. Additionally, I conducted 18 semi-structured interviews and 1 focus group in the same time frame with service providers who have worked with resettled refugees in capacities primarily related to food, health, and household resources. These interviews provided additional data about context, household food management practices among clients, and triangulating data for the focus groups. A Grounded Theory analysis of the focus group data yielded 5 major emergent themes: 1) Past food insecurity experiences of resettled refugee participants exerted significant influence on the subjective perception of current food insecurity. 2) Barriers other than just financial resources restricted participants' food security, especially for recently resettled refugees. 3) Preferred foods differed significantly between generations within households. 4) Common elements of quality and quantity included in the definition and measurement of food security did not translate into the languages or experiences of food insecurity among participants. 5) Strategic and adaptive food management practices prevailed among participants, highlighting the temporality and ambiguity of food security concepts. These themes present potential problems of content validity for every HFSSM question. They also reveal the importance of food security concepts that are not covered by the HFSSM, including elements of nutritional adequacy of food, food safety, social acceptability of food and of means of acquiring food, short and long term certainty of food access, and food utilization. I conclude by discussing implications of our findings for service providers and local governments in Vermont who seek to better serve resettled refugee and other New American populations.


Motion capture technology is recognised as a standard tool in the computer animation pipeline. It provides detailed movement for animators; however, it also introduces problems and brings concerns for creating realistic and
convincing motion for character animation. In this thesis, the post-processing techniques are investigated that result in realistic motion generation. Anumber of techniques are introduced that are able to improve the quality of generated motion from motion capture data, especially when integrating motion transitions from different motion clips.
The presented motion data reconstruction technique is able to build convincing realistic transitions from existing motion database, and overcome the inconsistencies introduced by traditional motion blending techniques. It also provides a method for animators to re-use motion data
more efficiently. Along with the development of motion data transition reconstruction, the motion capture data mapping technique was investigated for skeletal movement estimation. The per-frame based method provides animators with a real-time and accurate solution for a key post-processing technique. Although motion capture systems capture physically-based motion for character animation, no physical information is included in the motion capture data file. Using the knowledge of biomechanics and robotics, the
relevant information for the captured performer are able to be abstracted and a mathematical-physical model are able to be constructed; such information is then applied for physics-based motion data correction whenever the motion data is edited.


The significant changes in the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of human resources in rural Macedonia can be explained by the continued trend of emigration from villages to urban areas and abroad. The intensity of emigration has altered the demographic structure and reproductive base of the rural population, along with the income of rural households. The rural and agricultural labour market faces a mismatch with respect to the unfavourable age, education and spatial distribution of the total labour force. A reduction in the participation of women in the agricultural labour force is a new feature. The overall transformation is apparent in the income structure of rural households. An increase in the share of households with mixed income sources notably stems from households that receive remittances and foreign currency funds from family members abroad. The demographic revitalisation of rural areas depends on economic revitalisation, with a more rational use of the labour force and human resources, as well as a restructuring of agricultural production and agricultural holdings. In addition, improvements are necessary in the functioning of market institutions to better meet the needs of smaller farmers and the rural economy.


CONTEXT
There was no clear evidence for the association between oral bisphosphonates or raloxifene and venous thromboembolism (VTE). There might also be ethnic differences in VTE risk.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to compare the incidence and risk of VTEs for different classes of osteoporosis drugs in the Taiwanese osteoporotic fracture population.

DESIGN
This was a retrospective cohort study from 2003 to 2007, with up to 6 years follow-up.

SETTING
Enrollees were participants in Taiwan National Health Insurance.

PATIENTS
PATIENTS older than 50 years who had vertebral or hip fractures and were new to osteoporosis therapy were recruited.

INTERVENTION
PATIENTS were classified into the alendronate, calcitonin, or raloxifene group according to exposure after follow-up.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
The primary outcome of our study was all incident VTEs, including deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. Cox proportional hazard models were used to compare the relative VTE risk among alendronate, raloxifene, and calcitonin groups under an on-treatment scenario.

RESULTS
There were 25 443, 9642, and 31 900 patients in the alendronate, raloxifene, and calcitonin groups, and the mean age was 74.5 years (SD, 9.6). The incidence of VTE in the alendronate, raloxifene, and calcitonin groups was 11.2, 8.5, and 18.8 per 10 000 person-years. Results from Cox analyses showed that alendronate or raloxifene recipients did not have a higher risk for VTE than calcitonin recipients (adjusted hazard ratio for alendronate, 0.84; 95% confidence interval, 0.47-1.51; adjusted hazard ratio for raloxifene, 0.64; 95% confidence interval, 0.33-1.28).

CONCLUSION
This retrospective analysis found that the incidence of VTE in Taiwanese patients with osteoporosis was low, and the risk of VTE was similar across alendronate, raloxifene, and calcitonin recipients in patients with osteoporotic fractures who were new to osteoporosis therapy.


Two large east-west—elongate, fault-bounded troughs were sites of intense rhyolitic to andesitic volcanism and coeval faulting in the central part of the Great Basin during Oligocene and early Miocene time. The orientation and age of these volcano-tectonic features fit within a regional pattern of south-southwest migration of calc-alkalic volcanism that lasted from 42 to 18 m.y. ago. The troughs and many smaller calderas predate crustal extension from Basin and Range faulting, which began subsequent to the migration of calc-alkalic activity in middle Miocene time.


The objective of this text is to describe the three categories that the Drug Policy Program at the Center for Teaching and Research in Economics (CIDE-PPD) database comprises, their limitations, and their main features. Additionally, we explain what we believe to be the source of the database we originally received and analyze its accuracy by comparing it with public records. We describe the validation and codification processes the database was subjected to, as well as the main biases and limitations the database may have. Additionally, we offer a preliminary analysis of the type of research that the CIDE-PPD Database can support. This analysis is not only relevant to those interested in studying the "war on drugs" in Mexico but also to those studying conflict in other countries involved in illegal drug production and trafficking, as well as countries experiencing conflicts related to organized crime.