This article proposes a comprehensive system for choice of law that is designed to enhance social wealth by focusing on individual rather than governmental interests. To the extent practicable, parties should be able to choose their governing law. In the absence of an explicit agreement, courts should apply rules that facilitate party choice or that select the law the parties likely would have contracted for -- that is, the law of the state with the comparative regulatory advantage. The system relies on clear rules that enable the parties to determine, at low cost and ex ante, what law applies to given conduct, and therefore to choose the applicable law by altering their conduct. State regulatory concerns are accounted for through explicit state legislation on choice of law rather than ad hoc judicial determination of the states' interests. The article shows how this system might be implemented through jurisdictional competition.


Ethics is a cornerstone of dental research, and, for that matter, any research. Authorship in scientific research is an important issue which requires considerable discussion and debate. The pressure to publish is well-established in the university community. Faculty member's performance and promotion are judged by the number of published articles in academic or scholarly journals. Most of the dental schools or universities in India do not have an ethics committee. Ethical issues like informed consent and ethics committee clearance are being taken for granted. That is, these words are mentioned in the manuscript or research paper, without the actual consent or clearance being given. The authors submit that these infringements may be made knowingly and/or unknowingly. The misconduct in research and publication not only affects other authors, but reviewers and editors, as well. However, the worst sufferer is the patient.


[Extract] Seagrasses are specialised marine flowering plants that grow in the nearshore environment of most of the world's continents. Most are entirely marine although some species (such as Enhalus acoroides) cannot reproduce unless emergent at low tide. Surviving in a range of conditions; from upper esturine to marine, there are relatively few species globally (about 60) and these are grouped into just 13 Genera and 5 Families.

Seagrasses support food webs by virtue of their physical structure and primary production and are breeding grounds and nurseries for important crustacean, finfish and shellfish populations. Providing food for green sea turtles, nearly 100 fish species, waterfowl and for the marine mammal the dugong; which is on the IUCN red list as vulnerable to extinction (IUCN 2000); seagrasses are also the basis of a detrital food chain. Theses plants filter nutrients and contaminants from the water, stabilise sediments and act as dampeners to wave action. Seagrasses rank with coral refs and mangroves as productive coastal habitats and strong linkages among these habitats make the loss of seagrasses a contributing factor in the degredation of the world's oceans.

There is now a broad understanding of the range of species and seagrasses habitats around the world (Green and Short 2003) although shallow sub-tidal and intertidal species distributions are better recorded than seagrasses in water greater the 10 m below Mean Sea Level (MSL). Surveying deeper water seagrass is time consuming and expensive. Further areas of deepwater seagrass are likely to be located (Lee Long et al. 1996a). It is important to document seagrass species diversity and distribution and the contribution seagrass species and seagrass meadows make to broader ecosystem services. This information is essential in order to identify those areas requiring conservation measures.

Destruction loss of seagrasses has been reported from most parts of the world (Short and Wyllie-Echeverria 1996; Larkum et al. 2006), often from natural causes (den Hartog 1987) or storms (Poiner et al. 1989). However, destruction commonly has resulted from human activities, e.g. as a consequence of eutrophication, or land reclamation and changes in land use (Cambridge and McComb 1984; Coles et al. 2003b). Increases in dredging, development of the shoreline, damage associated with over expoitation of coastal resources, and recreational boating activities along with nutrient and sediment loading has dramatically reduced seagrass distribution in some parts of the world (Short and Wyllie-Echeverria 1996).

Anthropogenic impacts on seagrass meadows continue to destroy or degrade coastal ecosystems and decrease seagrass functions and values, including their contribution to fisheries (Walker et al. 1989; Green and Short 2003). Efforts are being made toward rehabilitation of seagrass habitat in some parts of the world through transplantation, improvement of water quality, restrictions on boating activity, fishing and aquaculture, and protection of existing habitats through law and environment policy.

A number of general parameters determine whether seagrass will occur along any coastline. These include the biophysical parameters that regulate the physiological activity of seagrasses (such as temperature, salinity, waves, currents, depth, substrate, day length, light, nutrients, water currents, wave action, epiphytes and diseases), the availability of propagules and anthrpogenic inputs that inhibit available plant resources (such nutrient and sediment loading). Combinations of these parameters will permit, encourage or eliminate seagrass from a specific location.

The depth range of seagrass is likely to be controlled at its deepest edge by the availability of light for photosynthesis. At the shallow edge exposure (with associated high temperatures and drying at low tide), wave action and associated turbidity and low salinity from fresh water inflow determine seagrass species survival. Seagrasses survive in the inter-tidal zone especially in sites sheltered from wave action or where there is entrapment of water at low tide, (e.g. reef platforms and tide pools), protecting the seagrasses from expossure.

Regular reporting on the distribution, status and ecosystem role of seagrasses at a global scale is now possible with electronic communication and dedicated monitoring programs such as Seagrass-Watch and SeagrassNet. This information is available for use by coastal zone management to aid planning and development decisions.


![Graphic][1]

Few clinical tests have had such a meteoric rise in popularity as the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Originally developed in the early 1970s by a group of psychiatrists with the aim of "serial testing of the cognitive mental state in patients on a neurogeriatric ward", only a few decades later it has become the most widely used tool for cognitive assessment in a wide range of neurological diseases. As such, it was introduced to the readers of Practical Neurology by Ridha and Rossor.1 However, as the authors point out in their article, the MMSE has several serious limitations (table 1), such as its over-reliance on verbal cognitive function at the expense of non-dominant hemisphere skills and executive functions. In fact, the MMSE is based almost entirely on verbal assessment of memory and attention. It is insensitive to frontal-executive dysfunction and visuospatial deficits. The assessment of memory and language is very superficial. Moreover, it does not provide qualitative information about the patient's cognitive profile and hence cannot be used to differentiate between different diseases.

View this table:

 Table 1
Mental functions not (or not sufficiently) examined by the Mini-Mental State Examination

In some patient groups, such as Parkinson's disease and related disorders, the MMSE as the only method of cognitive assessment might not only be inappropriate, but even misleading; a normal MMSE is likely to lead to the false assumption of preserved cognitive status while in fact the patient might have severe frontal-dysexecutive or visuospatial symptoms.

The limitations of the MMSE are hardly surprising, given the fact that it was created at a time when the routine brain imaging technique was pneumencephalography and CT had not yet entered clinical practice. It was based on a concept of dementia as a unitary syndrome of "a global deterioration of intellect", irrespective of the underlying brain pathology. In …

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Background: The standard treatment for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients with advanced disease is carboplatin-paclitaxel combination therapy following initial debulking surgery, yet there is wide inter-patient variation in clinical response. We sought to identify pharmacogenomic markers related to carboplatin-paclitaxel therapy. Methods: The lymphoblastoid cell lines, derived from 74 invasive EOC patients seen at the Mayo Clinic, were treated with increasing concentrations of carboplatin and/or paclitaxel and assessed for in vitro drug response using MTT viability and caspase3/7 apoptosis assays. Drug response phenotypes IC50 (effective dose at which 50% of cells are viable) and EC50 (dose resulting in 50% induction of caspase 3/7 activity) were estimated for each patient to paclitaxel and carboplatin (alone and in combination). For each of the six drug response phenotypes, a genome-wide association study was conducted. Results: Statistical analysis found paclitaxel in vitro drug response phenotypes to be moderately associated with time to EOC recurrence (p = 0.008 IC50; p = 0.058 EC50). Although no pharmacogenomic associations were significant at p < 5 × 10−8, seven genomic loci were associated with drug response at p < 10−6, including at 4q21.21 for carboplatin, 4p16.1 and 5q23.2 for paclitaxel, and 3q24, 10q, 1q44, and 13q21 for combination therapy. Nearby genes of interest include FRAS1, MGC32805, SNCAIP, SLC9A9, TIAL1, ZNF731P, and PCDH20. Conclusions: These results suggest the existence of genetic loci associated with response to platinum-taxane therapies. Further research is needed to understand the mechanism by which these loci may impact EOC clinical response to this commonly used regimen.


A diode-pumped Nd:YLF laser has been acousto-optically mode locked at a 2-GHz repetition rate, giving pulse widths of 7 psec with an average power of 135 mW at a wavelength of 1.047 microm. The 2-GHz pulse rate corresponds to a free-space cavity length of 7.5 cm, while the laser's actual cavity length is approximately 6.6 cm. The mode locker consists of a sapphire substrate with a lithium niobate transducer, giving 0.5% loss modulation per watt. Stable mode-locked pulses were achieved for loss modulations of 1% or greater.


This exploratory, psycho-social study examined young people's reflections on their experiences of engaging with a youth offending service (YOS). There is a paucity of research that explores this. Five participants were recruited from a YOS in the UK. Free association techniques were used; five participants were interviewed using the Grid Elaboration Method, four were interviewed again using the Free-Association Narrative Interview. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis, a psycho-social lens was then applied and 'scenic understandings' composed for each participant.

The thematic analysis illuminated four themes: transformative relationship with YOT worker: identity transformation: engaging: then's presence in now. Themes and 'scenic understandings' were drawn upon in discussion of links to literature, navigated as: trust in relationships; past and present, developing an identity distanced from a past self, engagement in personalised intervention, the function and structure of YOS, YOS engagement; a window of opportunity, developing a psycho-social understanding of what participants talked about. Strengths of the study lie in the psycho-social approach and free association method of data collection, enabling rich descriptions and interpretations that considered the interrelatedness of psychological and social experiences. Potential implications for practice were highlighted; 1. consideration of what participants talked about by professionals working in YOS and with similar populations, 2. consideration of the development of the EP role, such as providing supervisory support to reflect on the psycho-social needs of young people engaging with YOS, 3. maintenance and development of the focus of YOS procedures such as emphasising the importance of building meaningful relationships and providing structure for young people engaging with YOS. Recommendations for future research are; 1. undertaking similar studies with young people having difficulty with engagement, 2. investigating both young people's and their YOT worker's experiences of working together to develop understanding of the intersubjective nature of the engagement process.


Fasciola hepatica is responsible for substantial economic losses and animal welfare issues within the agricultural sector worldwide. The increasing incidence of fasciolosis, coupled with the emergence of flukicide resistance, makes vaccination an attractive alternative control strategy. Hidden antigens extracted from the gut of blood feeding parasites have proven to be excellent vaccine candidates against haematophagous parasites, most notably Haemonchus contortus and Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus. Here, as a first step towards a prototype liverfluke vaccine an attempt to identify hidden gut antigens in F. hepatica was made. Proteomic analysis on extracts of adult F. hepatica was used to identify molecules exclusively found within the membrane-bound fraction including four proteases; cathepsin B2, legumain-2, a putative lysosomal pro-x-carboxypeptidase precursor and a saposin-like protein. Histological sections of adult F. hepatica were screened with a panel of 21 lectins to identify those with an affinity for glycoproteins on the parasite's gut and to inform subsequent lectin affinity chromatography. Seven lectins showed affinity for the gut region, with peanut (PNA) and jacalin (JAC) lectins binding to glycoproteins on either the gastrodermal cells or gut lamellae, respectively. PNA and JAC were then used to purify glycoproteins from the crude S3 extract by affinity chromatography. The resultant fractions were separated by SDS-PAGE and the protein profiles analysed by mass spectrometry. The enriched lectin-binding fractions shared a number of proteins but one of note that was exclusively identified in the PNA-binding fraction was a cathepsin D-like aspartyl protease, which had not previously been studied in F. hepatica. The proteolytic activities of three somatic extracts of adult F. hepatica were therefore investigated. The ability of the respective fractions to digest haemoglobin, a potential food source, was measured in the presence/absence of class-specific enzyme inhibitors. These analyses confirmed the presence of cathepsin D-like aspartyl protease activity capable of digesting haemoglobin optimally at pH 2 - 2.5. Further characterisation of the cathepsin D-like aspartyl (FhCatD) protease revealed it to be highly conserved within trematodes, to be localized to the gastrodermis of immature (10 day) and adult fluke, and to be more highly expressed, at the RNA level, in the Newly Excysted Juveniles (NEJ) than adult stages. Western blot analysis of native somatic extracts, enriched lectin-binding fractions and recombinant FhCatD using antisera from naturally infected sheep, showed some recognition of the recombinant FhCatD but did not provide clear evidence that the cathepsin D is strongly antigenic during natural infection.


In this paper we bring together several lines of cross-linguistic research to demonstrate the role of prototypicality in young children's acquisition of the transitive construction. Much research has shown that young children are slow to form abstract constructions because they fail to see the more general applicability of syntactic markers such as word order and case marking. Here we attempt to explain this fact by investigating the nature of the language children do and do not hear, specifically, the reliability and availability of the linguistic cues they are exposed to. We suggest that constructions redundantly marked with multiple cues could have a special status as a nucleus around which the prototype forms—which makes it dif-ficult for them to isolate the functional significance of each cue. The impli-cations of this view for language acquisition are discussed within a usage-based framework.


Background Lower limb injuries are prevalent in sports involving running, hopping and jumping. Musculoskeletal lower limb stiffness is a modifiable mechanical property that may be related to injury risk in athletes. Design Systematic Review. Objective Examine the relationship between musculoskeletal stiffness and lower limb injury in athletes. Methods Literature searching was undertaken on 3 electronic databases (MEDLINE/SPORTDiscus/google scholar) up to September 2013. All prospective and case-control studies evaluating lower limb MSK stiffness and injury in athletes were included. Two researchers independently extracted outcome data and assessed the quality of included studies using a modified Downs and Black index. Effect sizes were calculated using RevMan software (version 5.2). Results 11 studies (6 prospective and 5 case controlled) were identified, comprising a total of 474 participants (378 M, 96 F) with a mean age range of 13–39 years. The majority of studies (9 out of 11) were undertaken on international or elite athletes. Quality index scores ranged from 13 to 16 (max 19). Athletes with a history of unilateral lower limb injury displayed less stiffness when compared to their un-injured contralateral sides. Pooled data from three case control studies also found tendon stiffness was significantly lower in athletes with tendinopathy compared to un-injured matched controls (SMD 0.70, 95% CI 0.07–1.48). Data from prospective studies could not be pooled due to clinical heterogeneity. There was a clear trend that athletes with bilateral differences in leg stiffness or higher mean leg stiffness were more likely to develop a non-contact lower limb injury. Conclusions Case controlled studies show a clear relationship between musculoskeletal stiffness and athletic injury. Prospective research provides further evidence that musculoskeletal stiffness may have an important causal role; however this may be implicated by previous injury.


Why has the United States, with its long-standing Liberal tradition, come to embrace the illiberal policies it has in recent years? The conventional wisdom is that al-Qaida's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent war on terrorism have made America less Liberal. The logic of this argument is straightforward: interstate war has historically undermined domestic liberties, and the war on terrorism is causing the United States to follow this well-worn path. This explanation confronts a puzzle, however: illiberal U.S. policiesincluding the pursuit of global hegemony, launching of a preventive war, imposition of restrictions on civil liberties in the name of national security, and support for torture under certain circumstancesmanifested themselves even before the September 11 terrorist attacks and were embraced across the political spectrum. Indeed, it is precisely American Liberalism that makes the United States so illiberal today. Under certain circumstances, Liberalism itself impels Americans to spread their values around the world and leads them to see the war on terrorism as a particularly deadly type of conflict that can be won only by employing illiberal tactics.


Evidence of an association between use of illicit substances and aggressive behavior is pervasive. But the precise causal mechanisms by which aggression is influenced by intoxicants are still not well understood. Research on intoxication and aggression often has overlooked the nonviolent behavior of most substance users, controlled use of substances, and the evidence from other cultures of a weak or nonexistent relation between substance use and aggression. There is only limited evidence that ingestion of substances is a direct, pharmacological cause of aggression. The temporal order of substance use and aggression does not indicate a causal role for intoxicants. Research on the nexus between substance use and aggression consistently has found a complex relation, mediated by the type of substance and its psychoactive effects, personality factors and the expected effects of substances, situational factors in the immediate settings where substances are used, and sociocultural factors that channel the arousal effects of substances into behaviors that may include aggression. Contemporary explanations of the intoxication-aggression relation offer only limited explanatory power in view of the occurrence of controlled use of substances, the mutability of cultural norms, and cross-cultural differences.


Employing the most recent parametrization of the baryon-baryon interaction of the Nijmegen group, we investigate, in the framework of the Brueckner--Bethe--Goldstone many-body theory at zero temperature, the influence of neutrino trapping on the composition, equation of state, and structure of neutron stars, relevant to describe the physical conditions of a neutron star immediately after birth (protoneutron star). We find that the presence of neutrinos changes significantly the composition of matter delaying the appearance of hyperons and making the equation of state stiffer. We explore the consequences of neutrino trapping on the early evolution of a neutron star and on the nature of the final compact remnant left by the supernova explosion.


This Paper 1 introduces a tentative Formalism, which is detailed in a separate Paper 2, and tested there on two cases studies of Time dilation. Paper 2 titles: Practical application of the composite Modeling Units, and an exercise on emulating the mathematics of Time dilation in a relative velocity or gravity situation. We touch exclusively at the way we describe the physical Objects in human terms, whilst the true Objects, as well as true Time and true Space, remain unchanged. The particular Formalism we propose is geometrically-blind, so it needs to work in parallel with regular human Observing-Modeling of the Objects. A good question is why we should complement our regular geometric picture of the Objects, and also think of them as our Formalism does. The possible advantages are: a much intuitive and practical handling of the human Nonlocal; a plain reading of human Objects and of their Relationships in terms of elementary Logics; a common Modeling frame for the formal light-like, and for the Closed and Local Massive-like Objects we have in the Model. We may also gain some independent hints on the human Observing-Modeling in general. The Geometry of our own body qualifies Closed and Local, so it is much similar to the one of regular Objects we want to Model. As a matter of fact, our body makes a concrete Observing-device, thus we qualify as a very particular case of Observer-Modeler of the physical World. We want to conserve such a concrete and well-established human position with regards to the Objects, but we want also to generalize it. Thus we attempt extending our naive Geometric perceiving of the World, and see where it leads. Section 1 focuses on Geometry, and proposes a logically-inverted Geometry B as a natural complement of our regular Point-based Geometry A. Then we explore the idea of a composite Model Object made of both a Local and a Nonlocal part. We base on a double Point-Of-View, which reflects formally our new A-and-B Geometry. Section 2 investigates the Point-Of-Views, as a second key element on which we base any human Observing-Modeling of Objects. We propose a pragmatic Absolutism-Relativism classification of the Model Parameters. This depends plainly on where we Modelers want to set the Point-Of-View, and basically makes a practical tool for reproducing the objectivity of an Object, and the objectivity of the Observation. Section 3 checks the implications, and handles pragmatically the human conceptualizations of Time and of Space. The scope is very small-minded, and we declare openly not to know what those items are. Instead, we formalize a Model Time-like and a Model Space-like to start working practically with our Objects. This requires introducing a human notion of Time which is discontinuous, and thus very particular to our Nongeometric Modeling of Objects. Section 4 anticipates the two kinds of composite elementary Objects that we can formalize based on the components above. They are made of a geometric-like body A-B, which includes a Logic A-B and a special Time-like function on board. We specify our Objects as being concrete and to conserve as usual. We can however explore the effects of the Logic, so we get a flexible Modeling Unit, which can take different configurations, and emulate different kinds of Objects. The full Procedure appears in Paper 2. Below we simply suggest a possible handy visualizing of our composite A-B Objects. We also provide a few practical indications on how they work and behave formally in the Model. The whole refers to the well-knows Point-Mass scheme. Operatively, we build an equivalent which is Nongeometric and contains two-Slabs A-B, where A emulates the solid core of a regular Object. Then we set our two key-standards, which are the elementary Model Objects of the kind of Proto1 or Proto2. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */
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Using a high‐resolution (40 × 40 km) chemical transport model coupled with the Regional Emission inventory in Asia (REAS), we simulated surface ozone concentrations ([O3]) and evaluated O3‐induced wheat production loss in China and India for the years 2000 and 2020 using dose–response functions based on AOT40 (accumulated [O3] above 40 ppb) and PODY (phytotoxic O3 dose, accumulated stomatal flux of O3 above a threshold of Y nmol m−2 s−1). Two O3 dose metrics (90 days AOT40 and POD6) were derived from European experiments, and the other two (75 days AOT40 and POD12) were adapted from Asian studies. Relative yield loss (RYL) of wheat in 2000 was estimated to be 6.4–14.9% for China and 8.2–22.3% for India. POD6 predicted greater RYL, especially for the warm regions of India, whereas the 90 days AOT40 gave the lowest estimates. For the future projection, all the O3 dose metrics gave comparable estimates of an increase in RYL from 2000 to 2020 in the range 8.1–9.4% and 5.4–7.7% for China and India, respectively. The lower projected increase in RYL for India may be due to conservative estimation of the emission increase in 2020. Sensitivity tests of the model showed that the PODY‐based estimates of RYL are highly sensitive to perturbations in the meteorological inputs, but that the estimated increase in RYL from 2000 to 2020 is much more robust. The projected increase in wheat production loss in China and India in the near future is substantially larger than the uncertainties in the estimation and indicates an urgent need for curbing the rapid increase in surface [O3] in these regions.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze the cortical representations of auditory regularities and the relation between these representations and speech-in-noise (SIN) abilities and to compare two groups of participants with different SIN abilities on these cortical measures.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In total, 22 participants aged 20-40 years with normal hearing and without noise exposure, brain stem level-processing issues, neurological/psychiatric issues, or related medication were presented with three different stimuli resembling auditory regularities appearing after random sounds as well as a random series of sounds. Participants received a total of 480 stimuli in passive and active phases each (in which they actively detected regularities). Evoked responses were recorded via 20-channel standard electroencephalography (EEG) cap.

RESULTS
The groups were not significantly different in terms of evoked potential parameters. A significant negative correlation was observed between amplitudes of responses evoked by decreasing the frequency regularity in the active phase and SIN scores. Response parameters were significantly different between the stimuli. Active phase latencies were shorter and amplitudes were higher than passive phase ones, except for two stimuli.

CONCLUSION
Cortical representations of decreasing frequency regularity are promising for revealing the link between SIN and representations of regularity detection. This paradigm is suggested to applicable to individuals with clinical-level SIN problems [hearing aid (HA) and cochlear implant (CI) users, normal-hearing individuals, children with learning problems, children with dyslexia, and others] to reveal which process of SIN mechanism is defective; this is a complicated process with many sub-mechanisms. These results may be utilized in designing CI and HA algorithms (for more robust representations of auditory regularities) and rehabilitation programs.


BACKGROUND
In the absence of the existing acute coronary syndrome (ACS) guidelines directing the clinical practice implementation of emergency department (ED) screening and diagnosis, there is variable screening and diagnostic clinical practice across ED facilities. This practice diversity may be warranted. Understanding the variability may identify opportunities for more consistent practice.

METHODS
This is a cross-sectional clinical practice epidemiology study with the ED as the unit of analysis characterizing variability in the ACS evaluation across 62 diverse EDs. We explored three domains of screening and diagnostic practice: 1) variability in criteria used by EDs to identify patients for an early electrocardiogram (ECG) to diagnose ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), 2) nonuniform troponin biomarker and formalized pre-troponin risk stratification use for the diagnosis of non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), and 3) variation in the use of noninvasive testing (NIVT) to identify obstructive coronary artery disease or detect inducible ischemia.

RESULTS
We found that 85% of EDs utilize a formal triage protocol to screen patients for an early ECG to diagnose STEMI. Of these, 17% use chest pain as the sole criteria. For the diagnosis of NSTEMI, 58% use intervals ≥4 hours for a second troponin and 34% routinely risk stratify before troponin testing. For the diagnosis of noninfarction ischemia, the median percentage of patients who have NIVT performed during their ED visit is 5%. The median percentage of patients referred for NIVT in hospital (observation or admission) is 61%. Coronary CT angiography is used in 66% of EDs. Exercise treadmill testing is the most frequently reported first-line NIVT (42%).

CONCLUSION
Our results suggest highly variable ACS screening and clinical practice.


The structure of farms is associated with family characteristics and to sale strategy, for a given expectation of income generation and risk exposure. To understand this association, seven cases of settled families were studied in a land reform settlement in Araraquara-SP, Brazil, a region dominated by sugarcane and citrus plantations. The indicators were total aggregated value, the aggregated value per worker, family structure and dynamics and farm-work organization. The cases comprised two farms integrated with agroindustry (sugarcane and chicken, milk and chicken), three vegetable producers (selling in wholesale, semi-wholesale and farmers' market), a family that produced exclusively for household consumption and a family without economic production. Families associated with agroindustry had the highest aggregated values, but had to make greater investments, which increased risk exposure. The world financial crisis of 2008 broke the agroindustries and both integrated properties. Vegetable producers had lower aggregated values than farms integrated with agroindustry, but their investments needs were accordingly lower. The choice for vegetable sale route was associated with family composition and with technologic and market knowledge present in the family.


The problem of classification of high-resolution remotely sensed images from urban areas is addressed. This work proposed a new method based on fuzzy system to recognise different areas in a remote sensing image. Previous studies have shown the interest of exploiting the local geometrical information of each pixel to improve the classification. This is performed using the Derivative Morphological Profile (DMP) obtained with a granulometric approach, using opening and closing operators respectively. In this paper, I present an interpretation of the DMP and then explain the fuzzy method which is pixel wise, in which histogram of grey scale image is used to determine which type of membership function has to be used.


In July 2018, the Government of Israel tightened restrictions on goods and materials entering and leaving Gaza, noting that the measures were in response to Hamas sending incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. All goods were banned from exiting and many vital materials banned from entering. These restrictions further tighten the blockade – in place for 12 years – which severely limits or prevents the entry and exit of materials to Gaza. Over half the population of Gaza lives under the poverty line, and one million Palestinians in Gaza don't have enough food to feed their families. This joint agency briefing calls for: An immediate end to the blockade and opening crossings into and out of Gaza All parties to refrain from using civilians in Gaza as leverage for political gain The UN and the international community to support the lifting of restrictions and a long-term strategy for economic development in Gaza.


Introduction. Part I: Pre-Calculus Review. Chapter 1: Getting Down the Basics: Algebra and Geometry. Chapter 2: Funky Functions and Tricky Trig. Part II: Limits and Continuity. Chapter 3: A Graph Is Worth a Thousand Words: Limits and Continuity. Chapter 4: Nitty-Gritty Limit Problems. Part III: Differentiation. Chapter 5: Getting the Big Picture: Differentiation Basics. Chapter 6: Rules, Rules, Rules:The Differentiation Handbook. Chapter 7: Analyzing Those Shapely Curves with the Derivative. Chapter 8: Using Differentiation to Solve Practical Problems. Part IV: Integration and Infinite Series. Chapter 9: Getting into Integration. Chapter 10: Integration: Reverse Differentiation. Chapter 11: Integration Rules for Calculus Connoisseurs. Chapter 12: Who Needs Freud? Using the Integral to Solve Your Problems. Chapter 13: Infinite Series: Welcome to the Outer Limits. Part V: The Part of Tens. Chapter 14: Ten Things about Limits, Continuity, and Infinite Series. Chapter 15: Ten Things You Better Remember about Differentiation. Chapter 16: Ten Things to Remember about Integration If You Know What's Good for You. Index.


Stimuli-responsive responsive polymers are an interesting class of materials with many (potential) applications. Their common feature is that a chemical or physical stimulus (e.g., the presence of a chemical substance or an electromagnetic field) leads to large and reversible changes of properties. First, an overview on materials structures, switching principles and resulting functions will be given. An example from own work for a sensor system which is based on the swelling pressure of a responsive hydrogel will also be presented.
Thereafter, the focus will be on polymeric membranes where stimuli-responsive hydrogel layers or volume structures change the membrane surface properties or barrier structure [1]. Of interest for porous barriers is the interplay between pore size of the base material and extent of thickness or volume change, i.e., a typical response of hydrogels which are sensitive to changes of temperature, pH, the presence of certain ions or molecules, etc. This behavior can be used to reversibly change the barrier properties of a porous membrane; resulting functions are gated membranes, or ultrafiltration membranes with tunable pore size. The responsive behavior can, however, also be used to improve the cleaning efficiency of membranes; this relies on the reversible change in swelling / mobility of intrinsically low-fouling, "protective" functional hydrogel layers on the membrane surface.
We have systematically investigated such systems based on track-etched capillary pore membranes with base pore diameters between 10 μm down to 30 nm, in combination with various surface-initiated grafting or pore-filling techniques (e.g., [1-3]). We will present examples for temperature-responsive ultrafiltration membranes with efficiently switchable permeabilities and size-selectivities based on the well-known poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) as grafted layer or pore-filling hydrogel. We will also demonstrate that such membranes can be made responsive to "remote control" by an external electromagnetic field by using co-immobilized superparamagnetic nanoparticles as local heaters within the pores. Molecular imprinting during in situ polymerization of PNIPAAm-based hydrogels in combination with pore-filling can be used to tailor membranes where the permeability is modulated by the presence of certain molecules, e.g., specific proteins. Beyond such studies with model base membranes, examples for the functionalization of industrially established polymeric base materials toward switchable separation membranes will also be discussed (cf., e.g., [4,5]).


Tears of the Achilles tendon in professional athletes are an infrequent yet devastating injury. Historical studies have demonstrated not only a poor rate of return to competitive play but have also noted significant declines in performance for those able to return. While classic treatment of these injuries in the competitive athlete has been an open, locked suture repair, this article reports on a consecutive series of professional football athletes who underwent mini-open repair. All athletes returned to professional football, with seven out of nine (78%) returning to National Football League (NFL) competition. Average return to play was 273 days (8.9 months), with one athlete returning at 166 days (5.4 months). There have been no reruptures and no sural nerve or wound healing complications. Although limited in number currently, mini-open repair in NFL athletes has allowed successful return to competitive play with no reruptures and a trend toward faster return to play compared with historical open repair outcomes.


Infective endocarditis (IE) is an infectious microbial disease of the heart valvular endothelium. The characteristic lesion consists of the presence of vegetations that can settle in the valvular veils, tendon cords or mural endocardium. Hospital mortality in patients with severe sepsis or septic shock has been between 20 and 50%, a . fact probably underestimated and overshadowed by a late referral to the intensive care unit, even though clear criteria for entry into the unit have been established for patients with this situation. The objective of this study was to know the characteristics, evolution and prognosis of patients with infective endocarditis who required treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.


What makes a great judge? How are reputations forged? Why do some reputations endure, while others crumble? And how can we know whether a reputation is fairly deserved? In this ambitious book, Richard Posner confronts these questions in the case of Benjamin Cardozo. The result is both a revealing portrait of one of the most influential legal minds of our century and a model for a new kind of study--a balanced, objective, critical assessment of a judicial career. "The present compact and unflaggingly interesting volume . . . is a full-bodied scholarly biography. . . .It is illuminating in itself, and will serve as a significant contribution."--Paul A. Freund, "New York Times Book Review"


Based on data from a cross section of U.S. metro areas, we show that public employment correlates negatively with business cycle volatility, hinting at a stabilizing effect of public employment, while public wages correlate weakly and positively with business cycle volatility, hinting at a destabilizing effect of public wages. To explain these relationships, we set up a search and matching model that contains a government sector and a role for government spending in product markets. This latter mechanism affects how the outside option behaves, and this mechanism can help a search and matching model to generate wage-reducing and stabilizing effects of public employment. Without this mechanism, a search and matching model cannot generate these effects.


Combining field collected and remotely sensed (RS) data represents one of the most promising approaches for an extensive and up-to-date ecosystem assessment. We investigated the potential of the so called spectral variability hypothesis (SVH) in linking field-collected and remote-sensed data in Mediterranean coastal dunes and explored if spectral diversity provides reliable information to monitor floristic diversity, as well as the consistency of such information in altered ecosystems due to plant invasions. We analyzed alpha diversity and beta diversity, integrating floristic field and Remote-Sensing PlanetScope data in the Tyrrhenian coast (Central Italy). We explored the relationship among alpha field diversity (species richness, Shannon index, inverse Simpson index) and spectral variability (distance from the spectral centroid index) through linear regressions. For beta diversity, we implemented a distance decay model (DDM) relating field pairwise (Jaccard similarities index, Bray–Curtis similarities index) and spectral pairwise (Euclidean distance) measures. We observed a positive relationship between alpha diversity and spectral heterogeneity with richness reporting the higher R score. As for DDM, we found a significant relationship between Bray–Curtis floristic similarity and Euclidean spectral distance. We provided a first assessment of the relationship between floristic and spectral RS diversity in Mediterranean coastal dune habitats (i.e., natural or invaded). SVH provided evidence about the potential of RS for estimating diversity in complex and dynamic landscapes.


This paper is primarily concerned with the existence of direct limits in certain classes of Boolean algebras. The concepts of inverse and direct limits are defined relative to a class 2ί of abstract algebras. It is assumed that the algebras in 5ί are of the same type. It is found that classes which are closed under such con-structions as the formation of homomorphic images, subalgebras, free products and free unions do admit direct and inverse limits. In fact, the existence of direct limits is closely related to the existence of free products and dually, the existence of inverse limits is related to the existence of free unions. Also there is a relationship between the existence of inverse limits and direct limits.


Increases in the level of renewable energy production, spurred by climate change mitigation goals and regulatory programs such as state renewable energy portfolio standards, and in the level of fossil fuels extraction spurred by technological developments allowing access to previously unavailable natural gas supplies, have created a need for new energy transmission facilities. The new supplies are often located far from centers of high energy demand, requiring transportation over long distances. Some of the routes chosen for the new electric transmission lines and natural gas pipelines have already come into conflict with the environmental protections provided by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA). Other, similar conflicts are sure to follow. This article explores the clash between the policies that support increased production of and access to renewable energy and unconventional natural gas supplies and the preservationist impulse reflected in the WSRA. The parameters of this clash are difficult to discern, given the frustrating, obtuse, and rarely construed provisions of the Act that constrain federal assistance to and approval of energy-related facilities. This article identifies unresolved questions concerning the proper interpretation of these provisions and suggests how they should be resolved. Using the WSRA's application to energy transmission facilities as an example of traditional conflicts between energy and environmental policies, it suggests an approach to accommodation. That approach involves avoidance, mitigation, and careful creation of exemptions from WSRA constraints that promise to serve energy policy goals and contribute to climate change mitigation, while retaining key protections for the nation's most treasured river habitats.


Cumulative evidence indicates that the release of spinal prostaglandins (PGs) is increased in hyperalgesia and persistent pain states following peripheral inflammation or injury, events that are associated with repetitive C-fiber stimulation. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), given intrathecally (i.t), inhibited PG release and attenuated persistent pain and hyperalgesia, approximately 500- 1000 more potently when compared with systemic administration suggesting a central site of action. Cyclooxygenase (COX), the enzyme for PG synthesis, is present in the spinal dorsal horn where the nociceptive C-fibers terminate. Furthermore, i.t. PGE₂ induces hyperalgesia and allodynia in conscious mice. All these observations support the hypothesis that PGs are involved in C-fiber mediated spinal sensitization processes underlying hyperalgesia and allodynia. Tactile stimulation (Aβ-fiber input) induces prominent, well-defined allodynia after i.t. bicuculline (BIC) in the rat. However, the mechanism of allodynia is unclear. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the low threshold mechanoreceptive (Aβ) primary afferent fibers activate a similar prostanoid-sensitizing mechanism in the rat spinal cord in allodynia. Male Sprague Dawley rats (325-400g) were anaesthetized with halothane and maintained with urethane for the continuous monitoring of blood pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR) and cortical electroencephalogram (EEG). A laminectomy was performed to expose the dorsal surface of the spinal cord. Unilateral application of bicuculline (0.1 µg in 0.1 µl) to the L5 or L6 spinal segment induced a highly localized allodynia (e.g., one or two digits) on the ipsilateral hind paw. Thus, hair deflection (HD) (brushing the hair with a cotton-tipped applicator) in the presence, but not absence of bicuculline, evoked an increase in MAP and HR, abrupt motor responses (MR) (e.g., withdrawal of the hind leg, kicking, and/or scratching) on the affected side, and desynchrony of the EEG. Bicuculline-allodynia was dose-dependent, yielding ED50 values (95% Cl) of 0.055 mg (0.035-0.085) for MAP; 0.075 mg (0.048-0.118) for HR and 0.097 mg (0.078-0.122) for MR. Allodynia was sustained for up to 2 h with repeated bicuculline doses without any detectable change in the location or area of peripheral sensitization. Pretreatment with either the EP-receptor antagonist, SC-51322, the cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 selective inhibitor, NS-398, or the NMDA-receptor antagonist, AP-7, inhibited bicuculline-allodynia in a dose-dependent manner. Innocuous tactile stimulation in the presence of i.t. PGE₂ induced nociceptive-like behavioural responses (allodynia) in conscious rats. These allodynic responses were attenuated by SC-51322, or AP-7. Bicuculline, given i.t. 5 min before PGE₂, enhanced PGE₂-induced allodynia and shifted the PGE₂ dose-response curve to the left. The spontaneous behavioural response after i.t. PGE₂ was also enhanced by bicuculline, but to a much less extent. The present results demonstrate: a) the utility of topical drug delivery for inducing highly localized and sustained allodynia in the lightly-anaesthetized rat; b) that PGs, synthesized by constitutive COX-2 in the spinal cord in response to NMDA-dependent afferent input, contribute to the abnormal processing of tactile input via spinal EP-receptors; c) i.t PGE₂ induces allodynia in conscious rats which is mediated by EP and NMDA receptors, and is potentiated by pretreatment with i.t. bicuculline. These results suggest that low threshold afferent input acquires access to a PG-sensitizing process during bicuculline-disinhibition in the rat.


Increasing of body weight has been one of the important economic factors in the poultry industry. Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I is a polypeptide that serves to regulate muscle development and body growth. Moreover, IGF-I is related to feed efficiency. However, there are few studies regarding the regulatory roles of chicken IGF-I/-II compared with that of mammals. Especially, the Korean Native Ogol Chicken (KNOC) has a lean body growth and its body weight is generally lighter than the broiler chicken. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate associations among serum IGF-I/-II concentration, feed efficiency, and body growth in KNOC. The body weight and feed intake of KNOC were recorded from 20 to 36 weeks at 2 weeks intervals, and blood was taken every 2 weeks. Serum IGF-I/-II were measured by RIA. Chickens were divided into two groups, high and low serum IGF-I concentration. Generally, feed efficiency and growth performance (body weight and weight gain) in the high serum IGF-I group were higher than those of the low group during the experimental period. In particular, the body weight of the IGF-I high group were significantly different from those of the IGF-I low group at 34 and 36 weeks, respectively (p<0.05). Moreover, body weight, weight gain, and feed efficiency had a significant correlation with serum IGF-I at several weeks (p<0.05 and p<0.01). These results show that IGF-I plays an important role in body growth and suggests a possibility that serum IGF-I could be used as a selection marker for body growth in KNOC. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 4 : 532-537)


We consider the bandit problem of selecting K out of N arms at each time step. The joint reward can be a non-linear function of the rewards of the selected individual arms. The direct use of a multi-armed bandit algorithm requires choosing among all possible combinations, making the action space large. To simplify the problem, existing works on combinatorial bandits typically assume feedback as a linear function of individual rewards. In this paper, we prove the lower bound for top-K subset selection with bandit feedback with possibly correlated rewards. We present a novel algorithm for the combinatorial setting without using individual arm feedback or requiring linearity of the reward function. Additionally, our algorithm works on correlated rewards of individual arms. Our algorithm, aDaptive Accept RejecT (DART), sequentially finds good arms and eliminates bad arms based on confidence bounds. DART is computationally efficient and uses storage linear in N. Further, DART achieves a regret bound of Õ(K√KNT) for a time horizon T, which matches the lower bound in bandit feedback up to a factor of √log 2NT. When applied to the problem of cross-selling optimization and maximizing the mean of individual rewards, the performance of the proposed algorithm surpasses that of state-of-the-art algorithms. We also show that DART significantly outperforms existing methods for both linear and non-linear joint reward environments.


Early Pliocene cheilostome bryozoans are preserved in a glacigenic diamictite at Cascade Cliffs, James Ross Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula. Several different marine bryozoan genera were incorporated into the diamictite during Pliocene ice ad- vance(s). Bryozoan zooid-size Mean Annual Range of Temperature (zs-MART) analysis provides estimates of seasonality which sug- gest that mean annual marine temperatures for the James Ross Island region varied by at least 4.3°C and possibly by as much as 10.3°C during the Early Pliocene. This represents much greater seasonality for the northern Weddell Sea than seen at the present day (MART ca 2°C). A cluster of zs-MART values between 6.6°C and 7.7°C from four colonies of the bryozoan Dakariella are considered to represent the most reliable range of seasonality estimates. Although we cannot determine absolute sea temperatures, increased seasonality signals an overall warmer climate for the Weddell Sea region at the time that the bryozoans were living.


Purpose: Deregulated MYC drives oncogenesis in many tissues yet direct pharmacologic inhibition has proven difficult. MYC coordinately regulates polyamine homeostasis as these essential cations support MYC functions, and drugs that antagonize polyamine sufficiency have synthetic-lethal interactions with MYC. Neuroblastoma is a lethal tumor in which the MYC homologue MYCN, and ODC1, the rate-limiting enzyme in polyamine synthesis, are frequently deregulated so we tested optimized polyamine depletion regimens for activity against neuroblastoma. Experimental Design: We used complementary transgenic and xenograft-bearing neuroblastoma models to assess polyamine antagonists. We investigated difluoromethylornithine (DFMO; an inhibitor of Odc, the rate-limiting enzyme in polyamine synthesis), SAM486 (an inhibitor of Amd1, the second rate-limiting enzyme), and celecoxib (an inducer of Sat1 and polyamine catabolism) in both the preemptive setting and in the treatment of established tumors. In vitro assays were performed to identify mechanisms of activity. Results: An optimized polyamine antagonist regimen using DFMO and SAM486 to inhibit both rate-limiting enzymes in polyamine synthesis potently blocked neuroblastoma initiation in transgenic mice, underscoring the requirement for polyamines in MYC-driven oncogenesis. Furthermore, the combination of DFMO with celecoxib was found to be highly active, alone, and combined with numerous chemotherapy regimens, in regressing established tumors in both models, including tumors harboring highest risk genetic lesions such as MYCN amplification, ALK mutation, and TP53 mutation with multidrug resistance. Conclusions: Given the broad preclinical activity demonstrated by polyamine antagonist regimens across diverse in vivo models, clinical investigation of such approaches in neuroblastoma and potentially other MYC-driven tumors is warranted. Clin Cancer Res; 22(17); 4391–404. ©2016 AACR.


Palm wine is a milky white effervescence fluid or sap obtained from palm tree ( Elaeis guineensis ), and is widely consumed among the various ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. The effect of bolus ingestion of 600ml, palm wine was undertaken so as to determine its ocular dynamics in healthy volunteers. Results showed that bolus ingestion of palm wine produced effects on general body physiology in which the functions of the eye were affected. Results further showed that the NPC decreased from 10.5cm to 8.5cm (19.1% fall), the AA changed from 8.0D to 9.0D or 12.5% rise, while the distant lateral phoria changed from ortho position to two (2) esoposition or 30% increase, and the mean phoria moved from 6exo to 4exo or 33.3% decrease. Furthermore, the IOP dropped from an initial value of 17.5mmHg to 13.5mmHg (22.9%) fall at the end of the study. The pupil diameter demonstrated slight miosis which was still within normal range. Results also showed that the VA at near remained unchanged while the distant VA increased by 9.9% and the AC/A ratio decreased from an initial value of 3.75 to a final value of 2.75 or 26.7% fall. We conclude that a single clear binocular vision is dependent on the perfect coordination of the convergence and accommodative mechanisms and any slight change in the balance as induced by palm wine intake will disrupt the equilibrium effect on visual functions hence the accompanying diplopia, blurred vision or vision impairment. Keywords : Biology Elaeis guineensis, human vision ocular.


In several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson, Alzheimer's, Huntington, and prion diseases, the deposition of aggregated misfolded proteins is believed to be responsible for the neurotoxicity that characterizes these diseases. Prion protein (PrP), the protein responsible of prion diseases, has been deeply studied for the peculiar feature of its misfolded oligomers that are able to propagate within affected brains, inducing the conversion of the natively folded PrP into the pathological conformation. In this review, we summarize the available experimental evidence concerning the relationship between aggregation status of misfolded PrP and neuronal death in the course of prion diseases. In particular, we describe the main findings resulting from the use of different synthetic (mainly PrP106-126) and recombinant PrP-derived peptides, as far as mechanisms of aggregation and amyloid formation, and how these different spatial conformations can affect neuronal death. In particular, most data support the involvement of non-fibrillar oligomers rather than actual amyloid fibers as the determinant of neuronal death.


The dynamics and complexities of climate-soil-vegetation relations in the Kruger National Park are poorly known. Although primary production and composition of the grass layer are very important components of the Park's ecosystem, equally little is known about the determinants of these parameters. A better understanding of these processes and relations will be of value to the management of this Park, as well as providing a better insight into these complex dynamics. A study was consequently undertaken covering a 14-year period to identify the most important determinants of above-ground grass production and composition. At the core of the study is the soil water balance. The use of evapotranspiration data in a study of this nature is however not absolutely essential, provided a variety of rainfall parameters are used, though it has the important advantage of providing a much more detailed and more complete insight into the relations of the grass sward with its environment. Stepwise and tree regression procedures were used to identify the important factors. It is concluded that rainfall in its various forms is the primary determinant of grass production, standing crop, and composition, the latter either as perennials or Decreasers. Secondary determinants, in varying degrees of importance, are the thickness and base status of the A horizon, distance to permanent drinking water, and competition by woody plants. Herbivore utilization is insignificant or at most, plays a relatively minor role. Herbivores appear to exert a negative influence on Decreaser abundance only when soil moisture stress exceeds a threshold level. When this is exceeded, relatively low herbivore densities are apparently sufficient to reduce Decreaser abundance. The definitions of Decreasers and Increasers consequently require revision to take into account the overriding influence of environmental factors, particularly those of soil moisture stress. The calibration of the disc pasture meter was re-evaluated. The relation between mean disc height and standing crop is non-linear. Up to a mean disc pasture meter height of 260 mm, the correlation between this parameter and above-ground standing crop is very strong (r = 0.95; P<0.0005). Beyond this height, the correlation is very poor (r2 = 0.09; P<0.0005), apparently being strongly influenced by the structure of the grass plant, with tall grasses, or grasses with highly lignified culms resulting in a weaker correlation.


Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most frequent of all cardiac arrhythmias and it is associated with an increased risk of stroke, systemic embolism and heart failure. Patients with AF have a twofold increased risk of death and fivefold increased risk of stroke compared with those without AF. In patients with heart failure (HF), AF ablation improves left ventricular (LV) function over short- and long-term follow-ups, especially compared with medical treatment. Furthermore, AF ablation in HF patients relates to a significant improvement in quality of life, functional class and exercise tolerance, possibly related to the improvement in LV function and hemodynamic status of the patients. Finally, data showed that restoration of sinus rhythm in this setting of patients reduced the incidence of stroke and death. In this review, we reported all the major data regarding atrial fibrillation therapy in patients with heart failure.


It is oftentimes difficult for students to transfer and use prior knowledge in one subject into another class. In the middle school setting, the math concepts that are needed to conduct many science labs are a challenge for students to complete, or students find it difficult to make connections through the problem solving component in a science activity. This study was implemented with a sixth grade class that has math and science as a block of time with the same teacher, (math 50 minutes and then science 50 minutes), and none of the students had individual education plans. The major focus of this study wanted to determine if using an integration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) principles develops a deeper understanding of scaling and proportional reasoning by using interactive computer and online simulations (three lessons online for part of a unit called "Scale City"). This study also wanted to determine whether students would gain self confidence in both solving math problems as well as being more comfortable using simulations. Student attitude and confidence surveys were given pre and post treatment. At the beginning and end of each of the lessons, students completed a pre-and post-assessment. During days of the lesson where students used the interactive computer or online simulations, a brief end-of-the class feedback/reflection form was used to analyze possible fluctuations in confidence level using simulations and interactives as well as problem solving confidence levels. Data was triangulated and analyzed to determine results.


When people talk about the history of hockey in Montreal they often limit the discussion to the Montreal Canadiens. But what about the Montreal Maroons? The Maroons were the very first tenants of the Montreal Forum and rivalled the Canadiens for most of the 1920s and 1930s. The team drew most of its fans from the anglophone neighbourhoods of Montreal and English-speaking communities throughout Quebec. During the Maroons' short but colourful existence, the team won two Stanley Cups and took part in some of the NHL's most historic moments. The titanic battles between the Maroons and the Canadiens were classic struggles between two proud teams. The games were also duels between rival superstars - the Canadiens with Howie Morenz and Aurel Joliat, and the Maroons with Nels Stewart, Hooley Smith, and Babe Siebert. The matches were often wild affairs with fights on the ice and in the stands, but those who were there remembered them as the most thrilling hockey games they ever saw. This is the story of a team that had a major impact on the early days of the National Hockey League. It is also a look back at the glorious era in the history of hockey in Montreal.


This body of work developes investigations into 'contemporising' the subject of landscape, concentrating on urbanisation and industrialisation of the rural, without sentimentalising that juxtaposition: concrete bridges, buildings and roadways cut and enclose the vista. In this research I am defining a contemporary practice capable of addressing landscape as its subject. Another strand of this project draws upon notions of the sublime. These works fix the most transient conditions of the landscape, the 'elements' themselves, in representation. By photographing particularly in mist and fog, I have been producing documents of that which is intangible; the landscape itself, the supposed 'site' of the work, is rendered unknowable, an absent subject. Contemplation of the impenetrability of the object of representation and of the traditional illusionistic space of the picture plane allows for consideration, through a supposedly 'representational' medium, of the most abstract aspect of the sublime. In its most literal appearance, the work explores the 'weakest' sense of the sublime as explored by Burke. However, the erasure of the landscape, or the isolation of elements within it by wreaths of fog, produces a more generalised Kantian 'dread and melancholy'. By interweaving a broad historical range of stylistic, aesthetic and theoretical approaches to landscape, the project lays out the basis for a new critical landscape photography within the context of my own work. As a strategy for further exploring the context of this research, my photographs were exhibited alongside key 18th - 20th century landscape paintings. I secured the loan of major works by Corot, Jacob Van Ruisdael and Lowry from the National Gallery and The Lowry Museum. This body of work is a further investigation of the subjects explored during a period of AHRC funded research (2008/09) and this exhibition will include works from that series, which were produced as part of the AHRC research project: Reconsidering Landscape in Contemporary Photography. The works exhibited as part of this exhibition were: 'Over, and On and Up II', (2012) 122 cm x 152 cm, 'Poised on the Threshold of my Hearing' (2010) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Withdrawing Veils of Sound II' (2010) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'The Dream II' (2009) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'The Mound I' (2009) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'The Mound II' (2009) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'Front Screen' (2009) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Side Screen I' (2009) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Side Screen II' (2009) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Dead Pool' (2008) 122 cm x 152 cm, 'Veil XV' (2008) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'Veil I' (2006) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'Veil IV' (2006) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'The Lough I' (2006) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'The Lough IV' (2006) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'The Lough V' (2006) 80 cm x 100 cm, 'Flooded Tree (after Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot)' (2006) 40 cm x 50 cm, 'Broken Tree (after Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot)' (2003) 40 cm x 50 cm, 'Fragment of Landscape in Afternoon Light I' (2003) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Fragment of Landscape in Afternoon Light II' (2003) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Riverbank: Closing Landscape' (2003) 15 cm x 12 cm, 'Pool Surrounded by Trees' (2002) 65 cm x 40 cm, 'Forest Entrance (after Jacob Van Ruisdael)' (2002) 40 cm x 50 cm. Colour lightjet photographic prints. Edition of three.


Subject: questions of nano-modification of polyvinylchloride (PVC) composites filled with wood flour (WF) are considered. The wood-filled polyvinylchloride composites developed to date possess high operational parameters but have a significant technological disadvantage (high viscosity of melts), which limits their processing and use. To increase the compatibility of polyvinylchloride and wood flour, experimental studies were conducted on the use of small doses of carbon nanotubes as effective binding agents. Research objectives: investigation of the structure and properties of highly filled nano-modified polyvinylchloride composites. Materials and methods: basic wood-filled polyvinylchloride composites are considered for production of molding profiles, in which single-walled carbon nanotubes in various dispersion media were used as modifiers. We used standard physical and mechanical methods for polymer material properties estimation, as well as a set of methods for analyzing the structure of materials, in particular optical and electronic microscopy. Results: the ranges of optimal concentrations of carbon nanotubes in the composites are determined experimentally, depending on the degree of filling with the wood flour, type and nature of carbon nanotube carrier medium, as well as the method of mixing the components in the process of molding the products by the developed prescriptions. Conclusions: experiments have confirmed technical effectiveness of using nanotubes as additives that enhance the adhesion interaction at the boundary of the polymer with the wood flour. The obtained functional dependencies can be the basis for practical realization of production of molding profiles by extrusion method. grateful for providing for of samples'


The recently developed H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10 video compression standard achieves better video compression efficiency than previous video compression standards at the expense of increased computational complexity and power consumption. Multiple reference frame (MRF) Motion Estimation (ME) is the most computationally intensive and power consuming part of H.264 video encoders. Therefore, in this thesis, we designed and implemented a reconfigurable baseline H.264 video encoder hardware for real-time portable applications in which the number of reference frames used for MRF ME can be configured based on the application requirements in order to trade-off video coding efficiency and power consumption. The proposed H.264 video encoder hardware is based on an existing low cost H.264 intra frame coder hardware and it includes new reconfigurable MRF ME, mode decision and motion compensation hardware. We first proposed a low complexity H.264 MRF ME algorithm and a low energy adaptive hardware for its real-time implementation. The proposed MRF ME algorithm reduces the computational complexity of MRF ME by using a dynamically determined number of reference frames for each Macroblock and early termination. The proposed MRF ME hardware architecture is implemented in Verilog HDL and mapped to a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA. The FPGA implementation is verified with post place & route simulations. The proposed H.264 MRF ME hardware has 29-72% less energy consumption on this FPGA than an H.264 MRF ME hardware using 5 reference frames for all MBs with a negligible PSNR loss. We then designed the H.264 video encoder hardware and implemented it in Verilog HDL. The proposed video encoder hardware is mapped to a Xilinx Virtex 6 FPGA and verified with post place & route simulations. The bitstream generated by the proposed video encoder hardware for an input frame is successfully decoded by H.264 Joint Model reference software decoder and the decoded frame is displayed using a YUV Player tool for visual verification. The FPGA implementation of the proposed H.264 video encoder hardware works at 135 MHz, it can code 55 CIF (352x288) frames per second, and its power consumption ranges between 115mW and 235mW depending on the number of reference frames used for MRF ME.


[Abstract]: Contemporary university academics are subject to a large number of competing pressures, including role confusion, work intensification and work casualisation. Many of these pressures can be traced to a crisis of identity for universities in the early 21st century, as they seek to steer a path between the conflicting demands of state and market (Danaher, Gale & Erben, 2000).
This identity crisis for universities increasingly promotes an equivalent crisis for university academics. Some academics hearken back to an imagined 'golden age' of collegiality and autonomy, and bemoan the perceived attacks on their individual rights and their collective power. Others have embraced wholeheartedly the commodification of knowledge, positioning their courses and themselves as 'cutting edge' and superior to the wares of their peers/competitors. In a context where universities are required to achieve 'more with less', and to diversify their funding sources, the working identities and lives of academics will likely never be the same again in this struggle between "the liberal tradition" of, and "the business case" for, education (Bailey, 1999) in the university sector.
The authors of this paper endure – and grapple to engage with – this struggle in their work as academic managers. The first author is Chef de Division of the Instituto Tecnological in the Faculty of Engineering at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela's oldest university. The Instituto's primary role is to broker services for external clients and thereby to generate income for the Faculty and the institution. The second author is Head of the Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development Centre in the Division of Teaching and Learning Services at Central Queensland University, an Australian regional university. The Centre's mission is to analyse policies, conduct projects and publish research relating to the institution's teaching and learning activities, with an explicit focus on disseminating and promoting educational innovations.
The authors deploy the concept of social entrepreneurship (Campbell, 1998) to interrogate their different and shared experiences and perspectives as they negotiate the multiple and often conflicting influences and demands in their respective institutions. Social entrepreneurs are concerned to highlight the civic obligations of being entrepreneurial, and thereby to render their actions responsive and responsible to their communities. While the concept is useful in highlighting many of the tensions involved in the authors' work, it is less effective in suggesting strategies for a wholesale transformation of the forces creating those tensions. University academic managers may indeed strive to be socially responsible, but the entrepreneurial imperatives are difficult to resist.
References
Bailey, D. (1999). Mainstreaming equal opportunities policies in the Open University: Questions of discourse. Open Learning, 14(1), 9-16.
Campbell, S. (1998). Social entrepreneurship: How to develop new social purpose business ventures. Health Care Strategic Management, 17-20.
Danaher, P. A., Gale, T. C., & Erben, T. (2000). The teacher educator as (re)negotiated professional: Critical incidents in steering between state and market in Australia. Journal of Education for Teaching, 26(1), 55-71.


Electricity distribution often exhibits economies of scale. In Norway, a number of smaller distribution system operators exist and thus there is potential to restructure the industry, possibly through mergers. However, the revenue cap regulatory model in Norway does not incentivize firms to merge as merging leads to a stricter revenue cap for the merged company. Thus the regulator compensates the firms in order to create such incentives. The amount of compensation is based on the potential gains of the merger estimated using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) based frontier approach introduced by Bogetoft and Wang (Journal of Productivity Analysis, 23, 145–171, 2005). DEA is however only one of many possible frontier estimators that can be used in estimation. Furthermore, the returns to scale assumption, the operating environment of firms and the presence of stochastic noise and outlier observations are all known to affect to the estimation of production technology. In this paper we explore how varying assumption under two alternate frontier estimators shape the distribution of merger gains within the Norwegian distribution industry. Our results reveal that the restructuring policies of the industry may be significantly altered depending how potential gains from the mergers are estimated.


The aim of this study is to obtain data based on an experimental procedure and check the effectiveness of some antibacterial agents against pathogenic bacteria. In the present experiment, two different nanoparticles (Cadmium Telluride Quantum dots with Lanthanides: Gadolinium and Terbium) were used to check their antibacterial properties on Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The Cadmium Telluride Quantum dots without the Lanthanides, Gadolinium nitrate and Terbium nitrate were also tested on those bacteria as control. In the present experiment, the following methods were employed: disc-diffusion test, the determination of the growth properties of the bacteria and comparison of absorbance after treatment with antimicrobial agent. From the results it has been found that the tested Cadmium Telluride Quantum dots with Lanthanides (Gadolinium and Terbium) have good antimicrobial effects. Additionally, GdQDs show stronger antibacterial effect than Tb QD and other tested compounds.


[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] William Christenberry, William Eggleston, and Walker Evans have defined southern photography just as profoundly as Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and C. Vann Woodward shaped southern literature and history. Both groups are bound by their deep love for the American South and by their admiration for one another's work--an admiration that I share. Walker Evans first introduced me to Bill Christenberry's work in 1973, shortly after he and Bill had traveled together to Hale County, Alabama. I met Bill not long after that trip, and we have been close friends ever since. Our understanding of sense of place and how it shapes southerners is significantly deepened by Bill Christenberry's vision for his work. His desire to "possess" dog-trot houses, country stores, and churches in Hale County first led him to photograph, then build miniature sculptures of these buildings. Once completed, he placed each building on a base of red clay soil that he brought from Alabama. While these buildings evoke pastoral memories of the rural South, Christenberry is not afraid to challenge romantic notions about his home region, as he strives to "Ideal] with what I see as both the beautiful aspects of where I'm from and also ... the ugly or dark aspects." Calling his Ku Klux Klan series "the most difficult to express," he summons the terror of Klan violence in tableaus that reveal "a strange and secret brutality." Bill Christenberry is nurtured by his Hale County roots and has drawn on them throughout his teaching career at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., where he has worked since 1968. Just as William Faulkner created the mythic Yoknapatawpha County to frame his literary legacy, Christenberry draws on his own "little postage stamp of native soil" in Hale County as inspiration for his photography, painting, and sculpture. This interview was recorded and filmed during the summer of 1983 at Bill Christenberry's studio in Washington, D.C., as part of my film Painting in the South. The film accompanied an exhibit, "Painting in the South: 1564-1980," organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. William Christenberry, in his own words ... My interest in photography comes out of a background in painting. As a student at the University of Alabama in the mid to late 1950s, I began to look around West Central Alabama (the part of Alabama that I'm from) and see things that I wanted to try to paint, but I didn't know how to go about it. Santa Claus had brought me and my sister a small Brownie camera in the late 1940s, and I just loaded it with color film and went out to that Alabama landscape and began to photograph what caught my eye, especially rural architecture and graveyards in the country. Back in the studio, those little color snapshots were references for paintings that were quite expressionistic--a lot of gesture and rich surface quality, but with subject matter. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I first met Bill Eggleston in 1962, when I moved to Memphis. I think his interest in photography increased my interest in photography, because I continued to make those little snapshots for a number of years. As I said, they were references for paintings. I never thought of them as art or as serious photographs until later, when I met Walker Evans in New York and he asked to see some of the little snapshots. But that didn't change the way I looked at things or what I looked at. Then, when I moved to Washington, D.C. in 1968, Waiter Hopps [Director of the Corcoran Gallery, 1967-72] encouraged me to begin exhibiting the little snapshots. Photography for me is a wonderful means of expression, but it is not the only thing that I try to do as an artist. It's just part of it, along with drawing and sculpture, and although this does not include painting since at least 1968, I don't doubt that someday I might like to try painting again. …


A twisting patterning process is developed to fabricate spring-like 3D stretchable metallic conductors on elastic threads. This process follows steps of thread twisting, catalyst spraying and electrochemical deposition of metal to prepare a thick metallic spiral coiled on a thread surface. The prepared spiral conductor is highly stretchable with a pure metal conductivity (5.76 μΩ cm using a combinative metal layer of gold, copper and nickel), a low resistance (about 0.1 Ω per centimeter) and an extremely high resistance stability when stretching (<3% resistance fluctuation at the strain lower than 100%), so it is quite appropriate to connect electronic components in stretchable devices. Double parallel metallic spirals can be prepared on a single thread, so the input and output of current can be achieved using one thread. Multi-spiral patterns with different spiral styles can also be prepared on a single thread to form a specific circuit bonded with functional components, and the whole device is obtained in a thread form. In addition, the inductance of the spring-like conductor shows an increase while stretching and a decrease while bending, indicating potential applications on tension and bending detection.


ABET recently revised their published list of program specific criteria. Beginning from the 2019-2020 cycle, all computing programs, including information systems, must meet the new criteria to receive ABET accreditation. This paper describes the procedure followed by the Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS) Department at the American University of Kuwait (AUK) in aligning the information systems (IS) program with the new ABET-CAC criteria. The paper illustrates all the steps taken by the department from the initial preparation, measurements, and assessments of students' outcomes to the continuous improvement and closing the loop processes. This paper aims at sharing the methods and experiences of the CSIS Department at AUK, which may be beneficial for other institutions seeking ABET accreditation of their information systems programs.


Unwelcome Dominance Stratospheric ozone is depleted by many different chemicals; most prominently, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) responsible for causing the Antarctic ozone hole. Nitrous oxide is also an ozone-depleting substance that has natural sources in addition to anthropogenic ones. Moreover, unlike CFCs, its use and emission are not regulated by the Montreal Protocol, which has helped to reverse the rate of growth of the ozone hole. Surprisingly, Ravishankara et al. (p. 123, published online 27 August; see the Perspective by Wuebbles) now show that nitrous oxide is the single greatest ozone-depleting substance that, if its emissions are not controlled, is expected to remain the dominant ozone-depleting substance throughout the 21st century. Reducing nitrous oxide emissions would thus enhance the rate of recovery of the ozone hole and reduce the anthropogenic forcing of climate. Nitrous oxide causes more stratospheric ozone destruction than any other ozone-depleting substance. By comparing the ozone depletion potential–weighted anthropogenic emissions of N2O with those of other ozone-depleting substances, we show that N2O emission currently is the single most important ozone-depleting emission and is expected to remain the largest throughout the 21st century. N2O is unregulated by the Montreal Protocol. Limiting future N2O emissions would enhance the recovery of the ozone layer from its depleted state and would also reduce the anthropogenic forcing of the climate system, representing a win-win for both ozone and climate.


The economic crisis in Greece, that became an acute reality in 2010, revealed the preexisting cultural crisis in the country and created the need to redefine the Greek identity. This practice-based research explores this particular need through the conditions of immigration to European metropolises, repatriation from abroad and internal migration to Greek islands that are incited by the crisis, and are part of the many consequences of the crisis. The aim is to create a photographic narrative on the subject with an approach embedded within it that emphasises the need to recreate both Greek identity and Greek photography, as the latter was never incorporated into a Greek cultural context but rather developed as an imitation of European and North-American photographic trends. The project draws upon original visual and academic research to construct a photographic narrative. The process of image making works as a methodological tool that uses morphological, aesthetic, and narrative elements from the genres of subjective documentary and landscape photography and develops in parallel with the theoretical research on the areas of (i) displacement and exile, (ii) Greek culture and aesthetics and (iii) Greek landscape photography. To achieve a photographic approach that can be described as Greek, three basic methods are used; (i) the reappropriation of the myth of Odysseus as a representational and symbolic structure of the voyage of contemporary Greek migrants towards their own Ithacas, (ii) the appliance of the Neohellenic principle of entopia in image making as a code of symbolism, and (iii) the use of symbolic Greek landscape images to re-create/restore a collective memory. The project uses the mythological ten-year journey on the sea of Odysseus towards his home and redirects it to represent the migratory flows of Greek neo-migrants. The story is seen from the perspective of Odysseus, who becomes the narrator that experiences displacement and tries to define his/her identity in relation to the borders of each place he/she resides. The narrative, that is presented as four books in a slipcase, consists of two main types of images, colour landscapes and black-and-white instant images. The first explore the concept of the border and build the inner landscape of the narrator, based on theoretical research on displacement and exile and the code of symbolism inspired by Neohellenism. The latter refer to archive images and use representations of the Greek landscape to explore cultural memory. In this thesis, the final outcome is analysed in a Greek cultural context and it is argued that just as the redefinition of Greek identity is possible by redefining the traditional values of Greek culture, the search for the new Greek photographic identity can be achieved by studying the principles of Greek culture and applying them info photography.


The first purpose for this themed issue was to identify innovations in teacher education that emphasize the methods used to assess the impact of those innovations in teacher education. A second purpose was to integrate practitioner applications with research-based results. With the publication of this themed issue of Teacher Education Quarterly, we hope that readers will celebrate the rich variety of innovative teacher education practices and the methodologies to document the impact of the innovations and concomitantly be inspired to conduct more comprehensive studies. We are proud to present the summer 2005 issue of Teacher Education Quarterly. Organized in three sections (Conceptual Frameworks for Assessing Innovation, Program Level Assessments of Innovation, and Course and Professor Assessments of Innovation), the articles in this issue offer what we believe to be cutting edge examples of innovations in teacher education as well as methods to study the impact of those innovations. The authors contributing to this issue have engaged in scholarly inquiry that allows others to replicate their discoveries. In Section I of this issue, Conceptual Frameworks for Assessing Innovation, Ida Malian and Ann Nevin describe various definitions and taxonomies of innovation and their implications for teacher education. Gene Hall and colleagues then provide a comprehensive framework for using evidence-based assessment for the purpose of improving teaching and learning in teacher education programs. The authors include a brief historical review of the changes in expectations for quality in teacher education as well as a description of the challenges in finding good measures for assessing impact on the learning of participants in teacher education programs. They advocate anchoring the assessment of innovation in the assessment of changes in the k-12 pupils who are taught by teacher education candidates. Paul Sindelar and colleagues add the voices of special education researchers, showing how four current studies can yield insights about methods to assess innovations. They provide important insights of what has been learned to date in a study that focuses on defining the quality of beginning teachers who implement literacy instruction; a procedure to assess the range and variability of alternative routes to certification; a method to identify differences between alternatively and traditionally trained special educators; and a process to study cost effectiveness of teacher preparation options. Section II, Program Level Assessments of Innovation, begins with Annela Teemant's description of an innovative approach to comprehensively assess a distance learning delivery process of a bilingual certification program that is contextualized within socio-cultural theory and practice. The multi-layered assessment procedures allow her to trace the impact of the teacher education program on the knowledge, skills and dispositions of the participants in partnership with local school district course facilitators. She provides enticing evidence of changes in classroom practices for teaching children learning English as a second language Pia Wong and Ronald Glass assess a professional development school approach for preparing teachers for urban schools serving low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Their comprehensive assessment framework includes methods to track (a) changes in achievement of k-12 learners, (b) changes in the knowledge and skills of the teacher candidates as well as follow-up of graduates, and (c) changes in the university programs as well as content and procedures utilized by university faculty to prepare teacher educators. Service-learning has been promoted in recent legislation as an important outcome for high school graduation. Similar demands have also been made for university students. Silva Karayan and Paul Gathercoal tackle the difficult challenge of developing and utilizing a college-wide system to assess the impact of service-learning not only on the teacher education candidates but also on the k-12 pupils or other clients involved in the service-learning projects. …


Why is wealth so concentrated in the United States? In this paper, I investigate the role of return heterogeneity as a source of wealth inequality. Using household-level data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (1989-2019), I provide new empirical evidence on returns to wealth in the United States, and find that wealthier households earn, on average, higher returns: moving from the 20th to the 99th percentile of the wealth distribution raises the average yearly return from 3.6% to 8.3%. To understand how these return differences shape the distribution of wealth, I introduce realistic return heterogeneity in a partial equilibrium model of household saving behavior. This exercise suggests that considering both earnings and return heterogeneity can fully account for the top 10% wealth share observed in the data (76%), which cannot be explained by earnings differences alone.


The thesis work presented evaluated the potential for use of disabled herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) as gene delivery vectors for neural precursor cells and studied the effects of delivered recombinant factors on the de novo development of dopaminergic neurons from neural precursor cells. Highly and less disabled HSV-1 has been studied with respect to gene delivery efficiency and effects on cellular integrity in primary neural progenitor cells, neural stem cells grown as neurospheres, and in endogenous neural stem cell niches in the adult rat. Data from autografts of virally transduced neurospheres into the striatum of rats were also presented. The characteristics of virally transduced neural precursor cells were compared to other viral vector systems reported in literature. With respect to the study of differentiation factors, work has concentrated on fibroblast growth factor 8b (FGF8b). This has demonstrated that FGF8b is a mitogen for neural precursor cells in vitro. The study showed that neural stem cells isolated from different regions of the developing brain can be expanded in FGF8b alone and retain their stem cell characteristics, e.g. the capacity of self-renewal and multipotentiality. Growth curves and dose responses of neural precursor cells expanded in FGF8b further confirmed these findings. The study also showed survival effects of FGF8b on dopaminergic neurons derived from mesencephalic precursor cells. Further the effects of FGF8b on proliferation and differentiation of endogenous stem cells were also investigated. Finally, the thesis work involved the construction and generation of highly and less disabled viruses expressing FGF8b, sonic hedgehog, basic fibroblast growth factor, and the transcription factor nurr1. Expression and bioactivity of the various constructs was confirmed. The effects of these factors on dopamine neuron development were then studied in vitro using neural progenitors and neural precursor cells for which gene delivery had been optimized in the first part of this thesis.


The importance of breastfeeding in low-income and middle-income countries is well recognised, but less consensus exists about its importance in high-income countries. In low-income and middle-income countries, only 37% of children younger than 6 months of age are exclusively breastfed. With few exceptions, breastfeeding duration is shorter in high-income countries than in those that are resource-poor. Our meta-analyses indicate protection against child infections and malocclusion, increases in intelligence, and probable reductions in overweight and diabetes. We did not fi nd associations with allergic disorders such as asthma or with blood pressure or cholesterol, and we noted an increase in tooth decay with longer periods of breastfeeding. For nursing women, breastfeeding gave protection against breast cancer and it improved birth spacing, and it might also protect against ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes. The scaling up of breastfeeding to a near universal level could prevent 823 000 annual deaths in children younger than 5 years and 20 000 annual deaths from breast cancer. Recent epidemiological and biological fi ndings from during the past decade expand on the known benefi ts of breastfeeding for women and children, whether they are rich or poor.


The ever-increasing trend to greater mobility has brought about a situation in which considerations of sustainable development might call for restrictions on the continued growth of the global mobility of people and goods. The transport sector is not the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but accounts for a constant part in them and heavily depends on non-renewable fossil fuel. The prevalence of road transport in the sector's emissions makes it a priority in this necessary effort to move away from a carbon-intensive mobility. This study gives an overview of the options for progressing towards a low-carbon road transport. The solutions include necessary technological advances, and behavioural and organizational changes without which the benefits from these advances would be reduced. Economic instruments and public policies are needed to provide a vital support to this transition. In this regard, although emission abatements in the sector are generally considered to be costly, setting a price to CO2 emissions can prove an efficient way of adjusting relative prices according to comparative environmental benefits, thus favouring lower-carbon solutions. The options already experimented and the most credible ways forward give a glimpse of mobility's future, and food for thought to make it even better.


We introduce Parseval networks, a form of deep neural networks in which the Lipschitz constant of linear, convolutional and aggregation layers is constrained to be smaller than 1. Parseval networks are empirically and theoretically motivated by an analysis of the robustness of the predictions made by deep neural networks when their input is subject to an adversarial perturbation. The most important feature of Parseval networks is to maintain weight matrices of linear and convolutional layers to be (approximately) Parseval tight frames, which are extensions of orthogonal matrices to non-square matrices. We describe how these constraints can be maintained efficiently during SGD. We show that Parseval networks match the state-of-the-art in terms of accuracy on CIFAR-10/100 and Street View House Numbers (SVHN) while being more robust than their vanilla counterpart against adversarial examples. Incidentally, Parseval networks also tend to train faster and make a better usage of the full capacity of the networks.


Abstract The determination of the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of clays by exchange with the cationic copper complexes [Cu(en)2]2+ and [Cu(trien)]2+ is revisited. The procedures reported by Bergaya & Vayer (1997) and Meier & Kahr (1999) are modified slightly. The concentration of the copper complexes in the equilibrium solutions is measured by spectral photometry. Correct CEC values of the [Cu(en)2]2+ exchange are only obtained when a buffer ('tris', tris (hydroxymethyl) aminomethane, pH = 8) is added to the equilibrium solution after separation of the clay, because the molar extinction coefficient of this complex depends on the pH of the solution. A standard procedure is recommended as a reference method. In most cases, tris addition is not needed for the determination with [Cu(trien)]2+ cations. Nevertheless, tris addition is recommended in the standard procedure. Determination of CEC for 40 samples (kaolins, 'common clays', bentonites, montmorillonites and beidellite) shows a good agreement between measurements using [Cu(en)2]2+ and [Cu(trien)]2+ cations and with results by the ammonium acetate method.