PURPOSE
The implementation of supplementary prescribing by pharmacists within primary care trusts (PCTs) and secondary care trusts (SCTs) in England was studied.

METHODS
A survey was developed and sent to pharmacists in PCTs and SCTs in England who would oversee the implementation of supplementary prescribing by pharmacists.

RESULTS
The response rate was 68% for both surveys. The majority of SCTs and PCTs intended to implement supplementary prescribing by pharmacists by the end of 2005 (57% and 56%, respectively). The majority of SCT respondents did not believe that it would be more difficult to recruit designated medical practitioners to supervise supplementary prescribing training for pharmacists as opposed to nurses (67%, n = 43), whereas the largest group of PCT pharmacists believed it would be (47%, n = 86). Within secondary care, the clinical areas in which pharmacists were intending to work as supplementary prescribers were those where they already had established roles. Within primary care, the main clinical areas for pharmacists were influenced by those areas in the new General Medical Services contract Quality and Outcomes Framework for general practitioners.

CONCLUSION
A survey investigating the implementation of supplementary prescribing by pharmacists in England found that there were significantly more barriers to its establishment within primary care than secondary care settings. Within primary care, supplementary prescribing is being implemented to develop new services. Within secondary care, the supplementary prescribing model is more often used to legitimize services already being provided.


Background and purpose of study: Amniotic fluid volume varies according to different stages of fetal growth and its different requirements. Disrupted amniotic fluid volume is associated with an increased risk for the fetus. The present research aims to investigate the effect of cutoff point amniotic fluid index on pregnancy prognosis at the third trimester of pregnancy in Shariati hospital of Bandar Abbas. Materials and methods: In the present analytical, cross-sectional research, AFI ≤ 5 cm was considered as oligohydramnios; AFI 5.1-8 was taken as the cut-off point; AFI Eƒ 8.1-24 was regarded as normal; AFI Eƒ 24 was considered as polyhydramnios. The data were analyzed via SPSS version 16.0 using Chi-squared test, Fisher's test, Mann-Whitney U-test and Spearman's correlation coefficient. P-value was set at ≤ .05 for the significance of data. Findings: Subjects with cut-off point AFI (5.1-8) were 38 (40.4%); those with normal AFI (8.1-24) were 56 (59.6%). The mean score of AFI was 8.85±9.54cm. The mean age of mother participants was 28.01±6.07 yrs. The mean length of pregnancy was 2.04±37 weeks. The mean gravity score was 1.46±2.4. The mean Apgar score 5 minutes after birth was 1.17±8.52. Quantitative variables were compared between the research groups but showed no statistically significant difference (pEƒ.05). Correlation of AFI and the target qualitative variables was assessed and the only significant correlation showed to be between gender and AFI (CI 95%=1.217-6.860, OR=2.88, P=.015). Conclusion: When AFI was at the cut-off point, fetal and infantile consequences were not significantly different from when AFI was normal. The risk level was low and AFI was higher among female than male feta.


Public investments and policies under Pakistan's new Framework for Economic Growth are expected to lead to substantial gains in productivity, especially in the industrial and service sectors of Pakistan's economy. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model simulations using a new 2008 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Pakistan show that achieving high productivity growth targets broadly consistent with the Framework for Economic Growth would imply a 9.3 percent per year gain in average household income (compared to trend growth in household incomes of 5.8 percent). Accelerating agricultural growth as well, however, would result in even greater overall economic growth with an additional 2.6 percent gain in average household income. Moreover, with accelerated agriculture growth, real incomes of poor household groups rise substantially, by an additional 2.9 to 4.5 percent, as food-deficit urban poor and poor rural non-farm households benefit from lower real food prices, and agricultural growth spurs rural non-farm output and incomes.


Synchrotrons can provide very intense and focused X-ray beams, which can be used to study the structure of matter down to the atomic scale. In many experiments, the quality of the results depends strongly on detector performance; in particular, experiments studying dynamics of samples require fast, sensitive X-ray detectors. "LAMBDA" is a photon-counting hybrid pixel detector system for experiments at synchrotrons, based on the Medipix3 readout chip. Its main features are a combination of comparatively small pixel size (55 μm), high readout speed at up to 2000 frames per second with no time gap between images, a large tileable module design, and compatibility with high-Z sensors for efficient detection of higher X-ray energies. A large LAMBDA system for hard X-ray detection has been built using Cr-compensated GaAs as a sensor material. The system is composed of 6 GaAs tiles, each of 768 by 512 pixels, giving a system with approximately 2 megapixels and an area of 8.5 by 8.5 cm2. While the sensor uniformity of GaAs is not as high as that of silicon, its behaviour is stable over time, and it is possible to correct nonuniformities effectively by postprocessing of images. By using multiple 10 Gigabit Ethernet data links, the system can be read out at the full speed of 2000 frames per second. The system has been used in hard X-ray diffraction experiments studying the structure of samples under extreme pressure in diamond anvil cells. These experiments can provide insight into geological processes. Thanks to the combination of high speed readout, large area and high sensitivity to hard X-rays, it is possible to obtain previously unattainable information in these experiments about atomic-scale structure on a millisecond timescale during rapid changes of pressure or temperature.


The theory required for description of the effect of the temperature rise that is due to self-induced heating on second-harmonic generation is developed and applied to the biaxial molecular crystal (-)2-α-(methylbenzylamino)-5-nitropyridine (MBANP). It is shown that for the range of parameters considered there is an optimum input power of the fundamental beam for highest second-harmonic conversion efficiency. A maximum efficiency of 61% was calculated for the optimum input power of 19.6 kW with a beam radius of 0.25 mm and an interaction length of 1.6 cm.


STUDY OBJECTIVE--To test the relationship between social class and preventive health behaviour in a British national sample and identify which set of more specific socioeconomic factors best "explained" any observed relationship(s). DESIGN--Secondary analysis from a national cross sectional survey of the health attitudes and health behaviour of men and women aged 18 years and over living in private households in England, Scotland, and Wales. A selection of addresses was made randomly from the electoral register using a three stage design, and then one individual in each household was sampled. A total of 12,254 addresses yielded interviews with 9003 individuals, a response rate of 73.5%. Compared with the census population, the single and divorced/separated are slightly under-represented but otherwise sources of bias are small. PARTICIPANTS--The subset selected was 1671 women and 1026 men aged between 20-45 years with at least one child under 17 living at home. MAIN RESULTS--Social class was strongly associated with the health practices index (HPI, used as a measure of health behaviour) both for women and men (p < 0.001). The set of factors identified for both sexes as having an impact on this relationship were education, tenure, residential overcrowding index, and salience of lifestyle. In addition, their partner's employment status and household income were relevant for women only. These groups of factors did not totally explain the observed relationship but the proportion of variance in HPI attributable to social class was considerably reduced. CONCLUSIONS--Descriptions of the association between social class and health behaviour(s) are of little use to those wishing to mount more effective interventions in health promotion. Multivariable analysis can indicate which specific factors account for much of the social class effect on health behaviour and thereby assist better understanding and targeting of resources.


Background and Aim: Dental caries in children caused by repeatable consumption of sweet product especially at night, that itself mostly depend on economic and cultural background of the society and family. One of the most common diseases of human being is dental caries, which are caused by many factors, such as microorganisms, dieting, passing time, and the host itself. Among the microorganisms Streptococci mutants play the major role in causing dental caries. The aim of this research was to investigate the role of Streptococci mutants in dental caries between two groups of children sensitive and resistance to caries. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional research, in which 120 children(60 susceptible and 60 resistance) aged between 3 to 5 referred to Tehran University dental school were selected randomly. The selection criteria for the sensitive and resistance dental caries were dmfs > 5 and dmfs < 10 respectively. None of the groups had used any drug or fluoride products before sampling. Saliva of both groups were collected, and transferred to the specific culture media(Mitis Salivarious Agar). After incubation at 37 C colonies of S.mutans were counted. Results: There was a significant difference between the number of colony counting(cfu/ml) with age and consumption of repeated sugar product, while there was no significant difference between(cfu/ml) sex, oral hygiene, and nutrition period during infancy. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the consumption of sugar product in childhood results in dental carries.


Melt-water ponds on sea ice in the Northeast Water Polynya (77-82°N, 1-18°W) were mapped using a Line Scan Camera (LSC) mounted on a helicopter. Passive microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) were employed to analyse the temporal trend of radiances of shorefast ice for 1993 and sea ice during sixteen flights of the LSC (June-July). A simple, linear algorithm tailored to accomodate the summer ice regime, was developed. The LSC measurements of ice (50.9±12.5%), water and melt-water pond fractions compared very well with the SSM/I derived mean ice concentrations (50.9±12.8%). The comparison resulted in a correlation coefficient of 0.953. Combining the LSC melt-water pond fraction data with other data available from the literature provided the basis to construct a second degree polynomial function of a melt-water empirical model to correct the under estimation of SSM/I derived sea ice concentration due to the effect of melt-water ponds.


The long bone microstructure of four pachypleurosaurid taxa from Monte San Giorgio (Switzerland/Italy) was studied. Pachypleurosaurids are secondarily aquatic reptiles that lived during the Middle Triassic in varying marine environments of the Tethys. All four pachypleurosaurids show high compactness values in their long bones based on a thick cortex and a calcified cartilaginous core, which remains in the medullary region throughout the ontogeny. Parts or even the entire embryonic bone layer composed of a mixture of wovenfibered bone tissue and parallel-fibered bone tissue is preserved in both pachypleurosaurid genera. The rest of the cortex consists of lamellar-zonal bone tissue type. Differences in the microstructure of the bones between the pachypleurosaurids are reflected in the occurrence of remodelling processes, which, if present, affect the innermost growth marks of the cortex or the calcified cartilaginous core. Further variation is present in the spacing pattern of the growth cycles, as well as in the degree of vascularisation of the lamellar-zonal bone tissue type. Our data on the microstructure of the long bones support previous studies on morphology and facies distribution, which indicated different habitats and adaptation to a secondary aquatic lifestyle for each pachypleurosaurid taxon. Life history data furthermore reflect different longevities and ages at sexual maturity. The bone histological data of the stratigraphically youngest and oldest pachypleurosaurid species might indicate possible climate-dependant reproductive seasons similar to Recent lacertilian squamates.


This working paper assesses the effectiveness of the implementation of pharmaceutical policies undertaken by two regional organisations - UNASUR and the EU - under the universal access to medicines framework generated by the WHO, by looking at the conditions of willingness, acceptance and capacity of these regional organisations. Results show that engagement in international forums is encouraging positive outcomes in the formulation of regional pharmaceutical policies for improving access to medicines based on the globally-accepted frameworks. Moreover, regional organisations have turned out to be the most effective space for the promotion and implementation of such national pharmaceutical policies, as these are prone to be accepted with less opposition in each nation when a regional organisation backs them up.


Many research studies have focused on utilizing gasoline in modern compression ignition engines to reduce emissions and improve efficiency. Collectively, this combustion mode has become kn+own as gasoline compression ignition (GCI). One of the biggest challenges with GCI operation is maintaining control over the combustion process through the fuel injection strategy, such that the engine can be controlled on a cycle-by-cycle basis. Research studies have investigated a wide variety of GCI injection strategies (i.e., fuel stratification levels) to maintain control over the heat release rate while achieving low-temperature combustion (LTC). This work shows that at loads relevant to light-duty engines, partial fuel stratification (PFS) with gasoline provides very little controllability over the timing of combustion. On the contrary, heavy fuel stratification (HFS) provides very linear and pronounced control over the timing of combustion. However, the HFS strategy has challenges achieving LTC operation due to the air handling burdens associated with the high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates that are required to reduce NOx emissions to near zero levels. In this work, a wide variety of gasoline fuel reactivities (octane numbers ranging from <40 to 87) were investigated to understand the engine performance and emissions of HFS-GCI operation on a multi-cylinder light-duty engine. The results indicate that over an EGR sweep at 4 bar brake mean effective pressure (BMEP), the gasoline fuels can achieve LTC operation with ultra-low NOx and soot emissions, while conventional diesel combustion (CDC) is unable to simultaneously achieve low NOx and soot. At 10 bar BMEP, all the gasoline fuels were compared to diesel, but using mixing controlled combustion and not LTC.


Abstract The regional distribution, mineralogy, petrology and chemistry of the detrital and authigenic clay minerals associated with the Permo-Triassic strata (excluding the Rotliegend: see Ziegler, 2006; this volume), of the onshore and offshore regions of the British Isles are reviewed within their stratigraphical framework. The origin of these clay minerals is discussed in relation to current hypotheses on the developments of the Mg-rich clay mineral assemblages associated with the evaporitic red-bed Germanic facies of Europe and North Africa. Composite clay mineral successions are described for seven regions of the British Isles - the Western Approaches Trough; SW England; South Midlands; Central Midlands; the Cheshire Basin; NE Yorkshire; and the Central North Sea. The detrital clay mineral assemblages of the Early Permian strata are variable, consisting of mica, smectite, smectite-mica, kaolin and chlorite, whereas those of the Late Permian and the Trias are dominated by mica, usually in association with minor Fe-rich chlorite. The detrital mica consists of a mixture of penecontemporaneous ferric mica, probably of pedogenic origin, and recycled Pre-Permian mica. In the youngest Triassic strata (Rhaetian), the detrital clay assemblages may contain appreciable amounts of poorly defined collapsible minerals (irregular mixed-layer smectite-mica-vermiculite) and kaolin, giving them a Jurassic aspect. There are two types of authigenic clay mineral assemblages. Kaolin may occur as a late-stage diagenetic mineral where the original Permo-Triassic porewaters of the sediment have been replaced by meteoritic waters. A suite of early-stage diagenetic clay minerals, many of them Mg-rich, are linked to the evaporitic red-bed facies - these include sepiolite, palygorskite, smectite, irregular mixed- layer smectite-mica and smectite-chlorite, corrensite, chlorite and glauconite (sensu lato). The sandstones and mudstones of the onshore regions of the British Isles display little or no difference in their detrital and authigenic clay mineral assemblages. In contrast, the sandstones of the offshore regions (North Sea) show major differences with the presence of extensive chloritic cements containing Mg-rich and Al-rich chlorite, irregular mixed-layer serpentine-chlorite, and mica.


Face recognition is a K class problem. where K is the number of known individuals; and support vector machines (SVMs) are a binary classification method. By reformulating the face recognition problem and reinterpreting the output of the SVM classifier. we developed a SVM -based face recognition algorithm. The face recognition problem is formulated as a problem in difference space. which models dissimilarities between two facial images. In difference space we formulate face recognition as a two class problem. The classes are: dissimilarities between faces of the same person. and dissimilarities between faces of different people. By modifying the interpretation of the decision surface generated by SVM. we generated a similarity metric between faces that is learned from examples of differences between faces. The SVM-based algorithm is compared with a principal component analysis (PCA) based algorithm on a difficult set of images from the FERET database. Performance was measured for both verification and identification scenarios. The identification performance for SVM is 77-78% versus 54% for PCA. For verification. the equal error rate is 7% for SVM and 13% for PCA.


If it is the case that mobile devices, with their specific social and technological structures and attendant cultural practices, have become an integral part of everyday life, then the educational field has to react. But how and who? Fact is that mobile devices have reached and become fully integrated in everyday life, worldwide and across social milieus. This development is «ubiquitous» (e.g. Haythornthwaite, 2008, Beale 2007, Nyiri 2002) and is accompanied by an increase in individualisation enabled and necessitated by a variety of mobile devices characterised by media convergence. Education must ask questions about the impact of these irreversible trends on the personal development of young people and about its role in mediating them as well as about their impact on individual agency of young people in the context of emerging socio-cultural structures (see Stald 2007).


The present study investigates the functions of gestures in preschoolers' descriptions of activities. Specifically, utilizing McNeill's growth point theory (1992), I examine how gestures contribute to the creation of contrast from the immediate context in the spoken discourse of children. When preschool children describe an activity consisting of multiple actions, like playing on a slide, they often begin with the central action (e.g., sliding-down) instead of with the beginning of the activity sequence (e.g., climbing-up). This study indicates that, in descriptions of activities, gestures may be among the cues the speaker uses for forming a next idea or for repairing the temporal order of the activities described. Gestures may function for the speaker as visual feedback and contribute to the process of utterance formation and provide an index for assessing language development.


In this article we test the effects of national attachments (patriotism and chauvinism) and perception of threat on citizens' willingness to concede citizenship rights to immigrants in France, Germany (West and East), the USA and Israel. Our findings show that despite marked differences in countries' migration policies and conceptions of nationhood, no significant differences were found in attitudes towards the allocation of citizenship rights to immigrants. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that contrary to our expectations, 1) the effects of both chauvinism and patriotism on willingness to grant citizenship rights to immigrants were rather low in Germany and Israel — the two ethno-national states, and strongest in France and the USA — which stand for republican and multicultural models of incorporation, respectively; 2) the effects of threat on exclusion of immigrants from citizenship rights was weaker in Israel (ethnic democracy) but stronger in the liberal democratic countries. In the conclusion, we suggest possible explanations for these rather intriguing and paradoxical findings.


The local laws of electromagnetism are derived from the optimization of the global mechanical power exchanged throughout the electrical network. Two kinds of devices are identified: (i) those dedicated to power conversion; and their (ii) couplings involved in transmission lines, distribution busways, cablings and connections. While the finite element method appears to be the natural design tool in the former, the so-called PEEC method is the more suitable in the latter. Its recent improvements are reviewed within the low-frequency framework including (i) back emf of ferromagnetic materials (shielding); (ii) optimization methods to reduce Joule losses or flux density levels; and (iii) integration into a CAE package


This paper analyzes the case study of an interdisciplinary course in Energy Economy that was developed at the Energy Engineering Graduate Program at Baskent University. The course integrated several unique pedagogical features to satisfy the aim of developing a working knowledge in energy economy with an energy systems perspective. The novel aspects of the course thematically led to a capstone research project where 5 teams of 17 course participants analyzed their prioritized solutions towards improving the energy self-sufficiency of the campus based on the practice of energy economy. The results of the teams' solutions towards a net-zero energy/exergy campus included electric buses for city-campus transport, poly-generation for the new Arts Center, LED/OLED lighting for campus lighting, dynamo driven/piezoelectric sports center, biofuels from the university-owned dairy products farm, and an energy efficient technology incubation center. This unique course with participatory learning is compared with others before concluding that the case study is a useful international example for energy economy.


Maleic Acid-Succinic Acid-Propane 1,2-diol Copolyester (MSPC) is a biodegradable copolyester synthesized from maleic acid and succinic acid in different mole combinations with 1 mole of propane 1,2-diol following Dean-stark apparatus using p-toluene sulphonic acid (Approximately 0.4% of the total weight) as catalyst and o-xylene as the reaction medium at temperature 140 °C for about 5 hours. MSPC was administered intraperitoneally to albino rats at a dose of 300 g rat-1day-1 for 21 consecutive days in order to assessing the toxic effect of MSPC. The studies included the gross observation such as changes in body weight, haematological profiles, biochemical parameter of blood and histopathology of liver, kidney, heart, lungs and spleen of control group, and experimental group of rats. The changes in body weight, haematological and biochemical parameters are statistically insignificant after administration of MSPC when compared to that of control group, and experimental group of rats. No abnormalities were found in the histopathology of the liver, kidney, heart, lung and spleen in the experimental group of rats when compared with control group of rats. This study preliminary infers that Maleic Acid-Succinic AcidPropane 1, 2-diol Copolyester (MSPC) is a safer biodegradable copolyester expected to be usable as an enteric coating materials or other purposes where biodegradable polymers be needed to use safely.


The evaluation of long-term care (LTC) systems carried out in Work Package 7 of the ANCIEN project shows which performance criteria are important and – based on the available information – how European countries score on those criteria. This paper summarises the results and discusses the policy implications. An overall evaluation was carried out for four representative countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland. Of the four countries, the Dutch system has the highest scores on quality of life of LTC users, quality of care and equity of the LTC system, and it performs the second-best after Poland in terms of the total burden of care (consisting of the financial burden and the burden of informal caregiving). The German system has somewhat lower scores than the Dutch on all four dimensions. The Polish system excels in having a low total burden of care, but it scores the lowest on quality of care and equity. The Spanish system has few extreme scores. Some important lessons are the following. The performance of a LTC system is a complex concept where many dimensions have to be included. Specifically, the impact of informal caregiving on the caregivers and on society should not be forgotten. The role of the state in funding and organising LTC versus individual responsibilities is one of the most important differences among countries. Choices concerning private funding and the role of informal care have a large effect not only on the public expenditures but also on the fairness of the system. International research into the relative preferences for the different performance criteria could produce a sound basis for the weights used in the overall evaluation.


The application of digital games for training medical professionals is on the rise. So‐called 'serious' games form training tools that provide a challenging simulated environment, ideal for future surgical training. Ultimately, serious games are directed at reducing medical error and subsequent healthcare costs. The aim was to review current serious games for training medical professionals and to evaluate the validity testing of such games.


The quality of cool-season turfgrasses frequently declines during periods of high temperature stress. Simple tests are needed to rapidly identify heat tolerant germplasm for incorporation into breeding programs. Facilitative screening tests have been devised, however, in the few studies that have been performed only immature and greenhouse or growth chamber-grown plants have been evaluated. To be of practical value, results of screening tests, employing plants grown under artificial conditions, should correlate closely with results of tests involving field grown plants. The objective of this research was to evaluate the heat tolerance of several cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) grown in the field under four different regimes of N fertilization (0, 98,148, or 196 kg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹) in a Typic Hapludults, fine silty, mixed mesic soil for comparison with published results in which greenhouse and growth chamber-grown material was used. On six sampling dates, plants representing all cultivar and N combinations were exposed to 42, 44, and 46 °C by immersion in a water bath. Heat tolerance of the cultivars was compared using the mean percent recovery weight for the three temperatures. The Kentucky bluegrass cvs. Sydsport, Vantage, and Pennstar were more heat tolerant than the perennial ryegrass cvs. Pennfine, Citation, and Caravelle. When data were averaged over 2 years, it was shown that Sydsport was significantly more heat tolerant than all other genera and cultivars tested. Pennfine had higher recovery weights than the other two ryegrasses on four of six sampling dates. When data were averaged, however, no significant heat tolerance differences among the ryegrasses were discerned. The results from the screening of field grown material followed the same trends as published results using greenhouse or growth chamber-grown samples. This investigation therefore provides strong evidence that laboratory screening tests may be used to identify accurately and rapidly heat tolerant cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass and possibly perennial ryegrass. The overall heat tolerance of the cultivars on each sampling date correlated with the amount of precipitation (r=−0.91) and the average high temperature (r=0.93) for the period just prior to and during sampling. The moderate N fertility regimes imposed had little effect on the heat tolerance of the grasses.


Background: TAR DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43) is naturally located in the nucleus and has been identified as the major component of cytoplasmic ubiquitinated inclusions in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We have reported that TDP-43 and phosphorylated Smad2 (pSmad2), an intracellular mediator protein of transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) signaling, are co-localized within cytoplasmic inclusions in the anterior horn cells of sporadic ALS patients. Objective: To investigate the possible pathophysiological linkage between pathologic cytoplasmic inclusions containing TDP-43 and TGFβ/Smad signaling. Methods: We replicated cytoplasmic aggregates of TDP-43 in HEK293T cells by transfecting the cells with a nuclear localization signal deletion mutant of TDP-43 and inhibiting proteasome activity, and assessed the effect of TGFβ/Smad signaling on the cytoplasmic aggregate formation. Results: The aggregates contained ubiquitinated, phosphorylated, and fragmented TDP-43, consistent with the essential features of the human pathology. Moreover, the aggregates were co-localized with pSmad2 under continuous TGFβ stimulation. Overexpression of Smad2 reduced the amount of cytoplasmic aggregates in HEK293T cells, and TGFβ stimulation augmented this reduction effect in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion: Activation of the TGFβ/Smad signaling system is protective against aggregate formation of cytoplasmically mislocalized TDP-43 and may be a potential therapeutic approach to delay progression of ALS.


The outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria provides the cell with an effective permeability barrier against external noxious agents, including antibiotics, but is itself a target for antibacterial agents such as polycations and chelators. Both groups of agents weaken the molecular interactions of the lipopolysaccharide constituent of the outer membrane. Various polycations are able, at least under certain conditions, to bind to the anionic sites of lipopolysaccharide. Many of these disorganize and cross the outer membrane and render it permeable to drugs which permeate the intact membrane very poorly. These polycations include polymyxins and their derivatives, protamine, polymers of basic amino acids, compound 48/80, insect cecropins, reptilian magainins, various cationic leukocyte peptides (defensins, bactenecins, bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein, and others), aminoglycosides, and many more. However, the cationic character is not the sole determinant required for the permeabilizing activity, and therefore some of the agents are much more effective permeabilizers than others. They are useful tools in studies in which the poor permeability of the outer membrane poses problems. Some of them undoubtedly have a role as natural antibiotic substances, and they or their derivatives might have some potential as pharmaceutical agents in antibacterial therapy as well. Also, chelators (such as EDTA, nitrilotriacetic acid, and sodium hexametaphosphate), which disintegrate the outer membrane by removing Mg2+ and Ca2+, are effective and valuable permeabilizers.


This paper is about facilities management, which is a business function that consists of people, organisations, and infrastructure, with the primary aim of maximising productivity while at the same time minimising operational costs. In the study, there are four main objectives used as an effective strategy for getting a detailed understanding of the research topic. The first objective seeks to investigate how facilities management influences organisational development over time. The aim of the second objective, on the other hand, is to understand the numerous roles that facilities management plays in an organisation. On the contrarily, the third objective is very different from the rest, as it focuses on understanding the barriers that limit the full integration of the concept. The fourth and last objective seeks to understand the key drivers behind the use of facilities management in organisations and how these drivers influence the concept.
The paper starts by introducing the background of the subject matter and highlights that facilities management is not a new concept in the management tasks of an organisation. The study appreciates the fact that the concept was introduced in 1980 in the USA, and later spread to the UK and other parts of the world, where it significantly grew in use. The paper emphasises that despite the fact that the concept plays an essential role in organisational management; the notion is not yet documented in most countries. In understanding its background study, researchers affirm that the concept has surpassed its traditional use in the construction sector, and is currently gaining popularity in other areas such as the service industry.
In the second chapter, the paper reviews past studies on the subject matter and indicates that there exists a lot of confusion as far as the evolution of facilities management is concerned. Various scholars question the existence of the discipline, although others argue that the concept originated because of the increased need for an organised management practice. In its review, the study aims at establishing the essential aspects that are required in optimising full internalisation of the concept so as to allow full development process to take place. The literature on facilities management holds that the study plays more than optimising costs (as it was traditionally used), but rather achieves efficiency
objectives and sustainability management. The paper discusses at length on the different generations of the concept and states that the fourth generation indicates the most recent evolution. The study maintains that all the core functions of the practice are geared to the realisation of organisational efficiency.
The benefits associated with the use of facilities management from past research studies include its support in the decision-making process and strategic planning, enhancement of organisational efficiency and significant reduction of operational costs. The study further indicates that strategic management is an important aspect of facilities management, which involves the analysis, formulation, execution and evaluation of action plans. Strategic management helps realise optimality in the use of organisational resources, enhances staff experience in dealing with various issues and accommodates innovation in corporate management. A shared understanding that is established from the literature review is that facility managers need to understand effectively the problems that hinder the full integration of facilities management concept and devise effective strategies on how to solve the issue. Technological innovation is considered as a key driver of facilities management, as it responds to meet the changing demands of the market in the most efficient way.
In the third chapter, the paper appreciates the methodology used for collecting data for the above study and cites its key rationale. Survey is the key approach used for collecting data, as it is considered as the best when dealing with qualitative data. The study utilises both secondary and primary sources of data. A total of 80 respondents were decisively chosen from the UK and the USA, who met the set qualifications as required by the research so as to achieve reliable findings. Although not all responses were received from the target population, it is imperative to appreciate that quality data was obtained from the study, which was strategically analysed for the purpose of drawing a conclusion. The study concluded on a note that various issues influence the practice of FM in our global setting, and if well understood, more effective management would be realised in our organisations.


To find the linkage among the surface adsorption, colloidal stability and combined toxicity of graphene oxide (GO) and divalent heavy metal cations (denoted as Me(II)), the adsorption affinity of GO and bacteria towards Me(II) (i.e., Cd2+, Co2+ and Zn2+), the destabilizing ability of Me(II) on GO, and the combined effects of GO and Me(II) on the survival of Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria were investigated. The results show that the destabilizing ability of Me(II) is consistent with their adsorption affinity with GO, which is positively correlated with the ionic radius of Me(II) and negatively correlated with the hydration shell thickness of Me(II). Moreover, the adsorption affinity of bacteria towards Me(II) is negatively correlated with the toxicity of Me(II). Reasons causing the decreased joint toxicity of GO and Me(II) are (1) GO decreases the amount of free Me(II) ions by adsorption; (2) Me(II) change the size and edge sharpness of GO by complexation; (3) GO competes with Me(II) for the membrane receptor binding sites; (4) GO–Me(II) complexes cannot be assimilated by bacteria; (5) Me(II) change the surface properties of GO and bacteria, consequently affecting their interactions. These findings are important for the assessment of the ecological risk of GO after it was used as a heavy metal ion carrier.


Whilst the early stages of e-government focused on e-enabling customer-facing services, the latter stages of e-government is focused towards transformational change in public sector agencies. However, public sector agencies are struggling to successfully achieve the transformational stage of e-government due to various strategic, organisational and technical challenges. To realise the transformational stage of e-government, local authorities will need radical changes in core processes across organisational boundaries, in a manner that has not been seen before in the public sector. In particular, the bitter lessons that were learnt by many private sector organisations during the business process reengineering (BPR) era should provide a stern reminder of the challenging and complex nature of transformational change efforts. This paper seeks to explore the key strategic, organisational and technology challenges that local government will face when implementing the transformational stage of e-government in UK local councils and contributes a conceptual frame of reference for transformational stage e-government.


The Arctic may seem remote, but the unprecedented environmental changes occurring there have important consequences for global society. Of all Arctic system components, changes in permafrost (perennially frozen ground) are one of the least documented. Permafrost is degrading as a result of climate warming, and evidence is mounting that changing permafrost will have significant impacts within and outside the region. This review asks: What are key structural and functional properties of ecosystems that interact with changing permafrost, and how do these ecosystem changes affect local and global society? Here, we look beyond the classic definition of permafrost to include a broadened focus on the composition of frozen ground, including the ice and the soil organic carbon content, and how it is changing. This ecological perspective of permafrost serves to identify areas of both vulnerability and resilience as climate, ecological disturbance regimes, and the human footprint all continue to change in this sensitive and critical region of Earth.


Despite of numerous publications in sunflower genetic transformation, there is no efficient or reproducible protocol with low number of escapes. The latter would indicate that the selection method is not effective. In this work we used Km as selective agent, Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 strain and a vector with the nptII gene under the nos promoter and uidA gene under 35S promoter. The response of agroinfected ( A) and control ( C) explants during the in vitro culture was studied and in both cases in presence or absence of Km in order to assign a differential morphologic response between transformed and non-transformed plants. The characteristics analyzed were: height, colour/aspect of the plantlets, in vitro rooting and in vitro bud-flower development. Selection was applied from the third regeneration media. Among the A plantlets two were capable of rooting, being positive by PCR, whereas the C were unable to root in presence of Km. One of them gave 6 seeds and in these plants, it was determined the presence of the transgene by PCR and GUS staining. This work shows that in Km selection, colour/aspect of shoots is not useful as selection criteria whereas rooting is an effective selection method in which no escapes were obtained.


The thesis re-examines and re-configures the category of Bad Painting. By selecting a disparate group of Bad Painters, explored in the form of small case studies, the research creates an imaginary, timeless peer group that crosses over the genre. This imagined group includes Martin Kippenberger, Philip Guston, Rene Magritte, – especially of the Periode vache – Lee Lozano, Sandy Guy, and Andreas Schulze. The thesis proposes a new model for understanding Bad Painting in relation to both networked painting (as advocated by David Joselit in his "Painting Beside Itself") and new materialisms. The resonances of the latter are reflected back through Bad Painting in terms of what the thesis describes as "Soft Object Painting". By supplying an idiosyncratic contextual framework, these case studies enabled the production of a body of Bad Paintings made over several years at Goldsmiths. These works borrowed strategies, tactics, attitudes and styles from multiple approaches. Many things entered the practice as a result, including: the outsourcing of painting labour in Chinese workshops as a form of networked production influenced by the networked production of Lee Lozano and the theories of David Joselit; overpainting commissioned paintings; colliding styles and themes in unexpected combinations, such as the juxtaposition of illustrational techniques with the conservative brushwork of painterly abstraction, in the manner of Ivon Hitchens or Howard Hodgkin; use of found images that refer to other areas and histories of cultural production. Through both the practice and the written element, the research proposes to update the genre of Bad Painting. This is largely done by associating the two ideas of "painting as network" and "soft object painting" with the notion of "flattened ontologies". The research attempts to forge a fresh pathway for Bad Painting, allowing for the continuation of a slippery, de-centred, timeless and rhizomatically structured genre.


Abstract A new species of the butterflyfish genus Prognathodes is described from specimens collected at a depth of 55–61 m off Pearl and Hermes Atoll, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. This species has been observed by mixed-gas divers and from submersibles at depths ranging from 45–187 m throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago, with shallower sightings in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and deeper in the Main Hawaiian Islands. It is similar to Prognathodes guezei (Maugé and Bauchot 1976) from the western Indian Ocean, and at least one other undescribed species of Prognathodes from Palau, differing from these species in the number of soft dorsal-fin rays, size of head, and body depth. There are also differences in the life color, and a substantial genetic difference from the Palauan species (d » .08 in mtDNA cytochrome oxidase I).


Knowledge of gas dispersion and mass exchange between the bubble and the emulsion phases is essential for a correct prediction of the performance of fluidized beds, particularly when catalytic reactions take place. Test cases of single rising bubble and a bubbling fluidized bed operated with a jet without a chemical reaction were studied in order to obtain fundamental insights in the prevailing mass transfer phenomena. Numerical simulations were carried out to predict the dispersion of tracer gas using a two-fluid model based on Kinetic Theory of Granular Flow (KTGF). The simulations of a single-bubble rising through an incipiently fluidized bed revealed that the assumptions often made in phenomenological models in the derivation of correlations for the mass transfer coefficient, mainly that the bubble diameter remains constant and that the tracer concentration is uniform in the bubble, are not valid. The predicted bubble-to-emulsion phase mass transfer coefficient showed good agreement with the estimated values from the literature correlations assuming additive convection-diffusion transport for different bubble sizes and different particle sizes, indicating the importance of the convective distribution even for relatively small particles. Experiments were carried out to measure the steady state concentration profiles of a tracer gas in a pseudo two-dimensional bubbling fluidized bed operated with a jet. The simulated steady state concentration profiles of the tracer gas agreed well the experimental measurements. The radial convection of the gas is significantly influenced by the bubble 'throughflow' and therefore depends upon the particle and bubble size. The experimental comparison of theoretical results was extended to study the influence of the jet velocity and the particle diameter on the radial dispersion of the tracer gas in the bed.


Since the 2012 IAEA-FEC Conference, FTU operations have been largely devoted to runaway electrons generation and control, to the exploitation of the 140 GHz electron cyclotron (EC) system and to liquid metal limiter elements. Experiments on runaway electrons have shown that the measured threshold electric field for their generation is larger than predicted by collisional theory and can be justified considering synchrotron radiation losses. A new runaway electrons control algorithm was developed and tested in presence of a runaway current plateau, allowing to minimize the interactions with plasma facing components and safely shut down the discharges. The experimental sessions with 140 GHz EC system have been mainly devoted to experiments on real-time control of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities using the new EC launcher with fast steering capability. Experiments with central EC injection have shown the onset of 3/2 and 2/1 tearing modes, while EC assisted breakdown experiments have been focused on ITER start-up issues, exploring the polarization conversion at reflection from inner wall and the capability to assure plasma start-up even in presence of a large stray magnetic field. A new actively cooled lithium limiter has been installed and tested. The lithium limiter was inserted in the scrape-off layer, without any damage to the limiter surface. First elongated FTU plasmas with EC additional heating were obtained with the new cooled limiter. Density peaking and controlled MHD activity driven by neon injection were investigated at different plasma parameters. A full real-time algorithm for disruption prediction, based on MHD activity signals from Mirnov coils, was developed exploiting a large database of disruptions. Reciprocating Langmuir probes were used to measure the heat flux e-folding length in the scrape-off layer, with the plasma kept to lay on thea internal limiter to resemble the ITER start-up phase. New diagnostics were successfully installed and tested, as a diamond probe to detect Cherenkov radiation produced by fast electrons and a gamma camera for runaway electrons studies. Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy measurements were performed under vacuum and with toroidal magnetic field, so demonstrating their capability to provide useful information on the surface elemental composition and fuel retention in present and future tokamaks, such as ITER.


Pitch Increases from Left to Right on Piano keyboards. When pianists press keys on a keyboard to hear two successive octave-ambiguous tones spanning a tritone (half-octave interval), they tend to report hearing the tritone go in the direction consistent with their key presses (Repp & Knoblich, 2009). This finding has been interpreted as an effect of action on perceptual judgment. Using a modified design, the present study separated the effect of the action itself from that of the visual stimuli that prompt the action. Twelve expert pianists reported their perception of octave-ambiguous three-note melodies ending with tritones in two conditions: In the active condition, they saw a notated melody and played it on a keyboard to hear it, while in the passive condition they viewed the notation while the melody was played to them. Participants tended to report hearing the tritone as it appeared in the notation, but action had no additional effect. We discuss whether the "action direction effect" described by Repp and Knoblich may have been caused by the visual action prompts, not by the action itself.


This study evaluated the effects of gamma-radiation on the antigenic properties of beta-lactoglobulin in cow's milk. Liquid and lyophilized samples of cow's milk and whey were irradiated with gamma-cells (60Co) at dose levels of 3, 5, and 10 kGy, at room temperature in the presence of air. Effects of treatment on proteins were monitored by Lowry's method, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Radiation did not affect the molecular-weight distributions of proteins, but it did reduce their solubility. Furthermore, results showed that irradiation at 10 kGy increased the recognition of milk and whey powders by anti-beta-lactoglobulin (beta-Lg) rabbit immunoglobulin G, with the other samples remaining antigenically stable. These results indicate that gamma-rays do not reduce cow's milk beta-lactoglobulin antigenicity.


Borch, A., & Rantala, V. (2015). Addiction: A highly successful, essentially contested concept.  The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4 (1), 1-4. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.200 Within two or three decades an increasing use of the concept of addiction has been observed in the media, in expert discourses, in popular culture, and in everyday talk. The concept does not only cover traditional substance use but also a growing range of behaviors like gambling, internet use, sex, eating, work, and shopping. One important reason behind the concept's "use value" lies most likely in the fact that it can be adapted to so many different situations of contemporary life. The concept also integrates everyday talk with medical and scientific discourse (Room, Hellman, & Stenius, this issue; Valverde, 1998). The scientific sector is supposed to produce the most reliable, transparent, objective, and impersonal knowledge (Warshal, 2010), and as such the concept holds the credibility label of being "made by science."


Medical education is complex, highly regulated, and expensive. Why would a university open a medical program? Yet, from 1990 to 2010 medical schools in Chilean universities increased in number from 6 to 28. This growth took place as overall enrolments also expanded four-fold nationally in all fields of higher education, and medical students multiplied by three in the same period. But this expansion of medical education cannot be explained solely on the basis of greater access to higher education and increased demand. An increase in supply was also needed. Why did new medical schools emerge in Chilean universities? Only to create more slots for future MDs? Through the interview-based study reported in this article, we seek to recover the rationale for the creation of medical schools in Chile in the last two decades, and interpret the results according to two theoretical perspectives: the new institutionalism in organizations, and signalling theory. In the recollections of the protagonists of these processes we find evidence both of a quest for academic legitimacy and the intention to provide signals to the market, and a rationale for how these two purposes support one another, as the main benefit foreseen by the promoters of the new medical schools was the improvement of the academic reputation of the university, which in turn would serve to strengthen its competitive position vis a vis other universities.


This paper asks whether supertasters possess the criteria for ideal critics that David Hume outlines in his essay "Of the Standard of Taste." This might seem like a straightforward question, but there is a paradox involving supertasters: They possess more tastebuds than normal tasters, making it reasonable to assume they fulfill the requirements for Humean ideal critics with respect to taste. However, because they have more tastebuds, supertasters find certain foods bitter that normal tasters do not and thus negatively evaluate them. This might indicate that supertasters actually make poor candidates for being Humean ideal critics with respect to taste. This paradox is resolved by concluding that supertasters do, in fact, make good candidates for being Humean ideal critics provided that they obtain a special sort of gustatory education. This resolution depends upon the separation of personal and critical taste and the assumption that critical taste is educable, an assumption that will be discussed in this paper. This separation threatens common-sense conceptions of the critic.


-Employing an effective learning process is a critical topic in designing a fuzzy neural network, especially when expert knowledge is not available. This paper presents a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based learning approach for a specific type of fuzzy neural network. The proposed learning approach consists of three stages. In the first stage the membership functions of both input and output variables are initialized by determining their centers and widths using a self-organizing algorithm. The second stage employs the proposed GA based learning algorithm to identify the fuzzy rules while the final stage tunes the derived structure and parameters using a back-propagation learning algorithm. The capabilities of the proposed GAbased learning approach are evaluated using a well-examined benchmark example and its effectiveness is analyzed by means of a comparative study with other approaches. The usefulness of the proposed GA-based learning approach is also illustrated in a practical case study where it is used to predict the performance of road traffic control actions. Results from the benchmarking exercise and case study effectively demonstrate the ability of the proposed three stages learning approach to identify relevant fuzzy rules from a training data set with a higher prediction accuracy than alternative approaches.


We introduce a protocol for schema evolution in a globally distributed database management system with shared data, stateless servers, and no global membership. Our protocol is asynchronous--it allows different servers in the database system to transition to a new schema at different times--and online--all servers can access and update all data during a schema change. We provide a formal model for determining the correctness of schema changes under these conditions, and we demonstrate that many common schema changes can cause anomalies and database corruption. We avoid these problems by replacing corruption-causing schema changes with a sequence of schema changes that is guaranteed to avoid corrupting the database so long as all servers are no more than one schema version behind at any time. Finally, we discuss a practical implementation of our protocol in F1, the database management system that stores data for Google AdWords.


Although emerging economies as a group performed well during the global recession, weathering the recession better than advanced economies, there were sharp differences among them and across regions. The emerging economies of Asia had the most favorable outcomes, surviving the ravages of the global financial crisis with relatively modest declines in growth rates in most cases. China and India maintained strong growth during the crisis and played an important role in facilitating global economic recovery. In this informative volume, the second in a series on emerging markets, editors Masahiro Kawai and Eswar Prasad and the contributors analyze the major domestic macroeconomic and financial policy issues that could limit the growth potential of Asian emerging markets, such as rising inflation and surging capital inflows, with the accompanying risks of asset and credit market bubbles and of rapid currency appreciation. The book examines strategies to promote financial stability, including reforms for financial market development and macroprudential supervision and regulation.


A study was made on low- and high-tannin sericea lespedeza [Lespedeza cuneata (Dumont) G. Don] to obtain information, using grazing steers, on the relationship of tannin and digestible dry matter (DDM), digestibility of crude protein, daily dry-matter intake, and daily DDM intake. Tannin, crude protein, DDM, digestibility of crude protein, daily dry-matter intake, daily DDM intake, and fecal crude protein were determined. Crude protein percentage was the same for the two forages and remained relatively high throughout three grazing periods frmn May through mid-September. However, crude protein and dry matter of low-tannin sericea were more highly digested than that in high-tannin sericea.


For the modern reader the logion 'The eye is the lamp of the body' is puzzling. While most scholars concur that it has something to do with greed and envy, they often fail to explain this correlation between inner attitudes and the physical eye. In this article I argue that the meaning of this passage can only be understood when read according to the ancient understanding of vision. It is important to interpret the genitive in the phrase Ὁ λύχνος τοῦ σώματός ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμός as the ancient hearer or reader would have done.


This thesis deals with the topic of head and neck cancer (HNC) follow-up from a health economics perspective. Despite recent advances in treating primary HNC, the long-term prognosis of these patients is still poor due to a high risk of cancer recurrence. Until now, there is no agreement about the best way of monitoring patients after the end of therapies. Moreover, patients' preferences for alternative surveillance schemes are unknown. A multicentre randomized controlled trial comparing two follow-up strategies of different intensity is currently ongoing in Italy. This thesis aims at filling some of the literature "gaps" around HNC surveillance, using Italy as a case study. The first chapter introduces the topic. The second chapter is a systematic literature review and critical appraisal of economic evaluation studies of post-treatment follow-up programs in any cancer type. The third chapter is a systematic literature review and quality appraisal of studies reporting original health state utility values in HNC, with a focus on articles addressing the post-treatment phase. The fourth chapter maps the EuroQol 5-Dimension 5-Level (EQ-5D-5L) utility values from two cancer-specific measures developed by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) by using a variety of regression techniques (linear, Tobit, mixture models) and several EQ-5D-5L country tariff sets; the developed functions are useful to inform future economic evaluations in HNC. The fifth chapter presents an exploratory model-based economic evaluation of the two follow-up strategies under investigation in the trial, where an intensive program of radiological assessments is compared to a symptom-driven surveillance; the cost analysis is conducted from a regional healthcare system perspective in Italy. Lastly, the sixth chapter presents a discrete choice experiment using best-worst scaling to elicit patients' preferences during follow-up at the National Cancer Institute (Milan, Italy).


The embedded laminated glass connection belongs to the group of the most widely used ways of the glass components connecting. As it becomes common to use glass as a material for load-bearing elements, the connection must be able to bear stresses arising during the lifetime period. To find out the load capacity of the connection under different loads, experiments have to be performed. Within the ongoing research at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague, two series of experiments of the embedded laminated glass connection have been performed. There were two sets of identical samples. Both sets included several combinations of glass panes and types of foils. The first series of tests was focused on the characteristics of this type of connection under the short-term tensile loads. The second one was dealing with the characteristics under the short-term eccentric shear loads. Due to using the identical samples for both series of tests, it was possible to compare the obtained results. The experiments show that the tensile load capacity of the connection is much higher than its eccentric shear load capacity. It also reveals reaching the tensile resistance limit of the weakened glass pane as a dominant mode of failure. However, further research consisting of numerical modelling and additional experiments is in progress.


The multiple ways in which propositional content can be expressed is often referred to as the paraphrase problem. This phenomenon creates challenges for such applications as information retrieval, information extraction, text summarization, and machine translation: Natural language understanding needs to recognize what remains constant across paraphrases, while natural language generation needs the ability to express content in various ways.
Frame semantics is a theory of language understanding that addresses the paraphrase problem by providing slot-and-filler templates to represent frequently occurring, structured experiences. This dissertation introduces SemFrame, a system that induces semantic frames automatically from lexical resources (WordNet and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English [LDOCE]). Prior to SemFrame, semantic frames had been developed only by hand.
In SemFrame, frames are first identified by enumerating groups of verb senses that evoke a common frame. This is done by combining evidence about pairs of semantically related verbs, based on LDOCE's subject field codes, words used in LDOCE definitions and WordNet glosses, WordNet's array of semantic relationships, etc. Pairs are gathered into larger groupings, deemed to correspond to semantic frames. Nouns associated with the verbs evoking a frame are then analyzed against WordNet's semantic network to identify nodes corresponding to frame slots.
SemFrame is evaluated in two ways: (1) Compared against the handcrafted FrameNet, SemFrame achieves its best recall-precision balance with 83.2% recall (based on SemFrame's coverage of FrameNet frames) and 73.8% precision (based on SemFrame verbs' semantic relatedness to other frame-evoking verbs). A WordNet-hierarchy-based lower bound achieves 52.8% recall and 46.6% precision. (2) A frame-semantic-enhanced version of Hearst's TextTiling algorithm, applied to detecting boundaries between consecutive documents, improves upon the non-enhanced TextTiling algorithm at statistically significant levels. (Previous enhancement of the text segmentation algorithm with thesaural relationships had degraded performance.)


The upregulation of nitric oxide (NO) by inflammatory cytokines and mediators in central and peripheral airway sites can be monitored easily in exhaled air. It is now possible to estimate the predominant site of increased fraction of exhaled NO (FeNO) and its potential pathologic and physiologic role in various pulmonary diseases. In asthma, increased FeNO reflects eosinophilic-mediated inflammatory pathways moderately well in central and/or peripheral airway sites and implies increased inhaled and systemic corticosteroid responsiveness. Recently, five randomized controlled algorithm asthma trials reported only equivocal benefits of adding measurements of FeNO to usual clinical guideline management including spirometry; however, significant design issues may exist. Overall, FeNO measurement at a single expiratory flow rate of 50 mL/s may be an important adjunct for diagnosis and management in selected cases of asthma. This may supplement standard clinical asthma care guidelines, including spirometry, providing a noninvasive window into predominantly large-airway-presumed eosinophilic inflammation. In COPD, large/central airway maximal NO flux and peripheral/small airway/alveolar NO concentration may be normal and the role of FeNO monitoring is less clear and therefore less established than in asthma. Furthermore, concurrent smoking reduces FeNO. Monitoring FeNO in pulmonary hypertension and cystic fibrosis has opened up a window to the role NO may play in their pathogenesis and possible clinical benefits in the management of these diseases.


This introductory textbook provides a thorough guide to the management of food and beverage outlets, from their day-to-day running through to the wider concerns of the hospitality industry. It explores the broad range of subject areas that encompass the food and beverage market and its five main sectors – fast food and popular catering, hotels and quality restaurants and functional, industrial, and welfare catering. New to this edition are:

Case studies covering the latest industry developments within a wide range of businesses from the UK, the USA and worldwide to help you understand how these ideas work in practice
Coverage of contemporary environmental concerns, such as sourcing, sustainability and responsible farming. Issues of how to maintain financial control of a business, handling staff and how to market your operation before discussing ways in which you can deliver quality to the customer
It looks at some of the trends affecting the food and beverage industry covering consumers, the environment, ethical concerns as well as developments in technology

Updated companion website including case studies, multiple choice questions, PowerPoint slides, revision notes, true or false questions, short answer questions at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780080966700/

It is illustrated in full colour and contains end-of-chapter summaries and revision questions to test the readers' knowledge as they progress. Written by authors with many years of industry practice and teaching experience, this book is the ideal guide to the subject for hospitality students and industry practitioners alike.


Electrons that flow like a fluid Electrons inside a conductor are often described as flowing in response to an electric field. This flow rarely resembles anything like the familiar flow of water through a pipe, but three groups describe counterexamples (see the Perspective by Zaanen). Moll et al. found that the viscosity of the electron fluid in thin wires of PdCoO2 had a major effect on the flow, much like what happens in regular fluids. Bandurin et al. found evidence in graphene of electron whirlpools similar to those formed by viscous fluid flowing through a small opening. Finally, Crossno et al. observed a huge increase of thermal transport in graphene, a signature of so-called Dirac fluids. Science, this issue p. 1061, 1055, 1058; see also p. 1026 Proximity transport measurements find evidence of whirlpools of graphene's viscous electronic fluid. [Also see Perspective by Zaanen] Graphene hosts a unique electron system in which electron-phonon scattering is extremely weak but electron-electron collisions are sufficiently frequent to provide local equilibrium above the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Under these conditions, electrons can behave as a viscous liquid and exhibit hydrodynamic phenomena similar to classical liquids. Here we report strong evidence for this transport regime. We found that doped graphene exhibits an anomalous (negative) voltage drop near current-injection contacts, which is attributed to the formation of submicrometer-size whirlpools in the electron flow. The viscosity of graphene's electron liquid is found to be ~0.1 square meters per second, an order of magnitude higher than that of honey, in agreement with many-body theory. Our work demonstrates the possibility of studying electron hydrodynamics using high-quality graphene.


The invasive soilborne plant pathogen Phytophthora cinnamomi Rands is a major threatening process in the South-west Botanical Province of Western Australia, an internationally recognised biodiversity hotspot. Comparatively recent introduction of P. cinnamomi into native plant communities of the South-west Botanical Province of Western Australia since the early 1900s has caused great irreversible damage and altered successional change to a wide range of unique, diverse and mainly susceptible plant communities. The cost of P. cinnamomi infestation to community values is illustrated by examination of direct (mortality curves, changes in vegetation cover) and indirect impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, the proportion of Threatened Ecological Communities infested, Declared Rare Flora either directly or indirectly threatened by infestation and estimates of the proportion of the native flora of the South-west Botanical Province susceptible to the pathogen. While direct impacts of P. cinnamomi have been poorly documented in the South-west Botanical Province, even less attention has been given to indirect impact where destruction of the habitat by the pathogen affects taxa not directly affected by infection. Current poor understanding and quantification of indirect impacts of P. cinnamomi through habitat destruction results in an underestimation of the true impact of the pathogen on the flora of the South-west Botanical Province. Considerable variation of susceptibility to P. cinnamomi among and within families of threatened flora and responses of taxa within the genus Lambertia show how classification within family and genus are poor predictors of species susceptibility. Within apparently susceptible plant species, individuals are resistant to P. cinnamomi infection. Intra-specific variation in susceptibility can be utilised in the long-term management of threatened flora populations and needs to be a high research priority. Current control strategies for conservation of flora threatened by P. cinnamomi integrate hygiene and ex situ conservation with disease control using fungicide. Application of the fungicide phosphite has proven effective in slowing progress of P. cinnamomi in infested, threatened communities. However, variation in plant species responses to phosphite application is a major factor influencing effective control of P. cinnamomi in native communities. A greater understanding of the mechanisms of action of phosphite in plant species showing different responses to the fungicide may provide options for prescription modification to increase phosphite effectiveness in a range of plant species. The range of responses to P. cinnamomi infection and phosphite application described for Lambertia taxa suggests that the genus would make an ideal model system to elucidate the mechanisms of resistance to P. cinnamomi and the effectiveness of phosphite against the pathogen.


Cells that ensheath blood vessels promote exit of the developing T lymphocytes from the thymus. A critical step during the development of the immune system is the egress of developing T lymphocytes, or thymocytes, from the thymus to peripheral organs, where they can defend against infectious microorganisms. Egress requires detection of the lipid mediator, sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P), by thymocytes, but whether S1P detection is sufficient for egress, the source of S1P, and the location where T lymphocytes exit the thymus are unknown. Zachariah and Cyster found that selective expression of a transgene for the S1P receptor-1 in mouse thymocytes was sufficient for thymocyte egress. Thymocyte egress occurred at corticomedullary junctions via blood vessels rather than via lymphatics. Pericytes, neural crest–derived cells that ensheath blood vessels, provided the S1P for exiting thymocytes M. A. Zachariah, J. G. Cyster, Neural crest–derived pericytes promote egress of mature thymocytes at the corticomedullary junction. Science 328, 1129–1135 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We propose to generate novel animations from a set of elementary examples of video-based surface motion capture, under user-specified constraints. 4D surface capture animation is motivated by the increasing demand from media production for highly realistic 3D content. To this aim, data driven strategies that consider video-based information can produce animation with real shapes, kinematics and appearances. Our animations rely on the combination and the interpolation of textured 3D mesh data, which requires examining two aspects: (1) Shape geometry and (2) appearance. First, we propose an animation synthesis structure for the shape geometry, the Essential graph, that outperforms standard Motion graphs in optimality with respect to quantitative criteria, and we extend optimized interpolated transition algorithms to mesh data. Second, we propose a compact view-independent representation for the shape appearance. This representation encodes subject appearance changes due to viewpoint and illumination, and due to inaccuracies in geometric modelling independently. Besides providing compact representations, such decompositions allow for additional applications such as interpolation for animation.


The key finding of this review is that a greater focus on externalities, preferably quantified in monetary terms, will help Australia to gain maximum social and environmental benefit from the portfolio of electricity generating technologies it will use for meeting emission reduction targets. This Academy study addresses the external social and environmental costs – the externalities – that accompany all electricity generating technologies. As reviewed here, these are costs not accounted for in the market price of electricity arising from impacts on, for example, climate, human health, crops, structures and biodiversity. Until identified, and then if possible quantified in monetary terms, they remain hidden, playing a limited role in technology selection. The main rationale for this study is that the Australian Government, like others in the industrialised world, has adopted climate change policies such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) for constraining carbon dioxide (CO2) and other emissions. Reduction targets call for a new portfolio of low-emission electricity generating technologies. The Academy believes that to meet these targets the focus must be on technology. Its recent study Energy Technology for Climate Change: Accelerating the Technology Response looked at technical, commercial and investment issues for various technology scenarios. Around $250 billion will be needed to bring the new technologies into production by 2050. There will also be heavy development costs. While the power generation technologies of the future will inevitably have lower external impacts relating to CO2 emissions, there will be other externalities. With adequate understanding of those externalities, policy and investment decisions relating to electricity generation can take into account all social costs and benefits. That is the ultimate purpose of this kind of review. Related identifier: ISBN 978-1-921388-05-7


Faced with the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, the real impact of the disease on children and adolescents and the behavior of the disease in this population are questioned. This study aims to assess the clinical characteristics of children and adolescents with SARS-CoV-2 infection and the effectiveness of the measures adopted at the institution.This is a prospective study carried out from 11/04/2020 to 19/06/2020. Investigated 346 patients between zero and eighteen years old, with analysis of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 confirmed by RT-PCR, obtained from a nasopharynx and oropharynx swab, attended at a highly complex public pediatric hospital in the city of São Paulo.Protocols for clinical management and treatment of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection were adopted during the assistance and implementation of a preoperative screening protocol. They were evaluated according to sex, age, epidemiology, presence of comorbidities, clinical manifestations, therapy used, need for hospitalization in the ward and ICU, use of mechanical ventilation (MV) and evolution.66 confirmed patients with COVID 19 were identified. Median age was 7 years old, with the male gender predominant (2:1). 27 patients (40.9%) had contact with symptomatic respiratory individuals, comorbidity occurred in 50 cases (75.8%). Main clinical manifestations were: fever, 37 patients (56.1%); cough, 23 (34.8%); respiratory distress in 10 (15.2%) and gastrointestinal symptoms in 24 (36.4%). 38 patients (57.6%) received antibiotics and 13 (19.7%) received corticotherapy. 37 patients (56.1%) required hospitalization, eight (19.5%) in the ICU and six (75%) requiring MV. One death occurred and others with good evolution.This study corroborates the perception that the pediatric patient has a more benign manifestation, even in the presence of comorbidities, requiring the screening of surgical patients. The protocol adopted by the institution proved to be effective, with no contamination being observed among patients or between patients and collaborators.


Prevailing petrogenetic models for Precambrian high-MgO melts such as komatiites invoke crystallization from nearly anhydrous melts (≪0.5% H 2 O) generated by partial melting of mantle peridotite at temperatures of (≤ 1900 °C and pressures of (18 GPa. However, ultramafic cumulate and gabbro zones of komatiitic and other high-MgO units in Precambrian greenstone belts contain vesicles and minor to major amounts (≤ 25%) of igneous amphibole. The textures (oikocrysts, rims on intercumulate pyroxene, and mineral inclusions within orthocumulate olivine) and the water-rich compositions (1.00%–2.50% H 2 O) of igneous amphiboles from the Archean Abitibi belt indicate crystallization in situ from significantly hydrous melts while the melt fraction was still as high as 40%–50%. Comparisons to experimental phase equilibria suggest that the residual melts from which the amphiboles crystallized contained 3%–4% H 2 O, and adjustments for fractional crystallization suggest that the initial melts may have contained as much as 2% H 2 O. H 2 O contents of this magnitude would require substantial revision of the nearly anhydrous models for Precambrian high-MgO melts, possibly permitting generation at lower temperatures and pressures, lowering their densities and viscosities, increasing their eruptibility, and enhancing the formation of spinifex textures.


The winding insulation system is the main component of power transformers. If there is any failure in winding insulation will have a crucial impact of the energy system operation. Insulation failure is the predominant part of faults and highest risk for all types of transformer failures. Most of the winding insulation failure is primly due to partial discharge. Partial discharge identification is an important diagnostic tool for the reliable operation of transformers. In this paper, regression analysis is proposed for locating the source of partial discharge. Experimental studies are performed on layer and interleaved winding to prove the feasibility of the method.


It is easy to imagine how positive psychology (the science of human flourishing) applies to people who are already doing well and wish to do better. It is less obvious how to apply positive psychology in negative contexts: Can positive psychology concepts and strategies help people flourish in the face of mental illness, trauma, and loss? The current investigation presents findings from three randomized trials of interventions informed by positive and clinical psychology, which aim to help people survive and thrive in the face of highly challenging circumstances: depression, mixed traumatic and adverse events, and bereavement. Chapter 1 summarizes the findings of a randomized controlled trial evaluating a smartphone-based/web-based application (app) that integrates clinical and positive psychology strategies with game mechanics in order to alleviate depression symptoms. Results indicated that the app reduced symptoms of depression (in comparison to a waiting list control) and that there were no significant differences between two versions of the app. Chapter 2 summarizes the findings of a randomized controlled trial evaluating an online writingbased intervention aimed at fostering posttraumatic growth (PTG) after adverse events. This intervention, called prospective writing, prompts participants to seek new doors opening in their lives in the wake of loss and trauma. Results indicated that prospective writing fostered PTG for people with recent and long-ago trauma/loss, and mediation analyses suggested that attending to new possibilities was indeed the mechanism for this change. Chapter 3 describes the creation and initial testing of a group-format psychosocial intervention aimed at fostering PTG. Acceptability and feasibility analyses of the data (from an ongoing randomized trial) indicated that bereaved adult participants found this intervention helpful, engaging, inoffensive, and not overly upsetting; that they appreciated diverse intervention modules; and that they would recommend the intervention to other bereaved people. Collectively, these findings underscore the usefulness of positive psychology in negative contexts and suggest further research into intervention strategies that can help suffering people to not only survive but also thrive in the wake of adversity. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Psychology First Advisor Martin E. Seligman


This paper applies a pragmatic approach to King Lear's questions. To this end the communicative function of different types of
 questions is worked out first. In a second step Lear's questions are correlated to the dramatic development of the play. In terms
 of dramatic text construction, the two questions from the opening of the play – "Which of you shall we say doth love us most"
 (1.1.51) – and from the play's final act – "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all?"
 (5.3.305–6) – epitomise the complete change of the tragic hero from a more than self-assured person and instigator of his tragic
 downfall to a human being whose beliefs are shattered.


ABSTRACT Universities are facing a crisis of relevance. While there are multiple reasons for this to be happening, one that deserves particular attention is the extent to which academic scholars do not see it as their role to engage in public and political discourse. However, increased engagement is unavoidable in an emerging educational context where the calibre of public discourse has become so degraded and social media is changing the nature of science and scientific discourse within society. Further, there is a demographic shift in play, where young scholars are seeking more impact from their work than their more senior colleagues. In this article, I begin the process of articulating what we know and what we don't know about the evolving role of the engaged scholar by breaking the conversation into two parts. First, why should academic scholars engage in public and political discourse? Second, how can we structure a set of ground rules that could form what might be considered a handbook for public engagement? In the end, this article is about a reexamination of how we practice our craft, to what purpose and to which audiences.


Connectivist learning is interaction-centered learning. A framework describing interaction and cognitive engagement in connectivist learning was constructed using logical reasoning techniques. The framework and analysis was designed to help researchers and learning designers understand and adapt the characteristics and principles of interaction in connectivist learning contexts. In this study empirical evidence to support and further develop this framework is presented. This study analyzed 6 weeks of data harvested from the daily newsletter, Twitter, and a Facebook group in a well-known cMOOC led by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. These text transcripts were analyzed using a deductive approach of qualitative content analysis. This study revealed the main activity patterns of participants as they engage in four levels of interaction (operation interaction, wayfinding interaction, sensemaking interaction, and innovation interaction) during the MOOC. Generally the framework serves as a conceptual model to understand and to analyze the interaction in this cMOOC, although some implied interaction is hard to recognize and categorize. The relationship of the four levels of interaction and the role of each element in the framework were explored with the intent of offering the framework as a conceptual and analytic tool to guide both researchers and practitioners in designing and studying connectivist learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]


Femtocells are designed to co-exist alongside macrocells, providing spatial frequency re-use, higher spectrum efficiency and data rates. However, interference between two networks is imminent; therefore, ways to manage it must be employed to efficiently avoid problems such as coverage holes. In this chapter, we employ cognitive radio enabled femtocells (CFs) and propose a novel scheduling algorithm to address the problem of cross and co-tier interference in a two-tier network system. Macrocell user equipments (MUEs) usually transmit with varying traffic loads and at times it is highly likely for their assigned resource blocks (RBs) being empty. Based on the interweave concept of spectrum assignment, CFs in our proposed scheme assign the RBs of MUEs with a low-data traffic load and low-interference temperature to its FUEs, thereby mitigating cross-tier interference, whereas co-tier interference is mitigated by resolving the contention for the same RBs by employment of matching policy among the coordinating CFs. System-level simulations are performed to investigate the performance of proposed scheme and results obtained are compared with best channel quality indicator and proportional fair schemes both in no fading and fading conditions. It is found that our proposed scheduling scheme outperforms compared schemes in no fading conditions; however, it provides competitive results when fading conditions are considered. The concept of matching policy successfully mitigates the effect of co-tier interference in collocated femtocells by providing improved signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, throughput and spectral efficiency results, thereby proving the effectiveness of scheme.


In Minimal Words in a Minimal Syntax the author combines a detailed description of the morphological structure of words in Swedish with a daring new approach to theoretical morphology, based on the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995) (as developed for syntactic structure). The X-bar theoretic approach to word structure of the Principles and Parameters framework is replaced by a rule free approach incorporating only Merge and Move as structure building devices. The author argues that stems have no word class features, which are provided inflectional affixes (including theme vowels etc.). Inflectional and derivational affixes differ only in the external syntactic requirement that inflectional affixes are associated with features that require checking in the functional domain. An important analysis of compounding is included, where binding elements are analyzed as a result of structural antisymmetry requirements a la Kayne (1994). Old chestnuts of morphological theory, such as the notion "head of a word" and the nature and structure of the lexicon, are succinctly discussed in the light of the theoretical proposals advanced here. On the empirical side, there are two lengthy chapters involving the semantic characterization of prefixes and suffixes in Swedish, explaining their distribution in terms of "types of Aktionsarten" imposed by the affix on its host.


Adding a new dimension to the history of mentalites and the study of popular culture, Thomas Brennan reinterprets the culture of the laboring classes in old-regime Paris through the rituals of public drinking in neighborhood taverns. He challenges the conventional depiction of lower-class debauchery and offers a reassessment of popular sociability. Using the records of the Parisian police, he lets the common people describe their own behavior and beliefs. Their testimony places the tavern at the center of working men's social existence.Central to the study is the clash of elite and popular culture as it was articulated in the different attitudes to taverns. The elites saw in taverns the indiscipline and exuberance that they condemned in popular culture. Popular testimony presented public drinking in very different terms. The elaborate rituals surrounding public drinking, its prevalence in popular sociability and recreation, all point to the importance of drink as a medium of social exchange rather than a drugged escape from misery, and to the tavern as a focal point for men's communities. Professor Brennan has elucidated the logic of both elite and popular systems of meaning and found new dignity and coherence in the culture and values of the populace.Originally published in 1988.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


We study the behavior of five proteins at the air-water and oil-water interfaces by all-atom molecular dynamics. The proteins are found to get distorted when pinned to the interface. This behavior is consistent with the phenomenological way of introducing the interfaces in a coarse-grained model through a force that depends on the hydropathy indices of the residues. Proteins couple to the oil-water interface stronger than to the air-water one. They diffuse slower at the oil-water interface but do not depin from it, whereas depinning events are observed at the other interface. The reduction of the disulfide bonds slows the diffusion down.


I have long maintained that in the unfolding of exciting lines of research, seldom can one plan how to achieve a cooperative program. "Planned science," more often than not, is forced science and not particularly productive. Far more significant is the role of serendipity in defining an exciting and innovative line of research, i.e., a truly stimulating cooperation. Fundamental advances simply cannot be planned for; one has to flow with the current. Thus it was that serendipity brought together the research group in Experimental Embryology of Prof. dr. J.A.M. van den Biggelaar at the University of Utrecht, and my own group in Systematics and Zoogeography at the University of Amsterdam. Several years ago I had received a grant proposal to review from the Dutch science research council (NWO). The proposed project intended to examine patterns of early development in the gastropod Patella in a large scale, evolutionary context. I found the project an exciting one and gave it my highest endorsement. Furthermore, so taken was I by the proposal that I made contact with its author. Prof. van den Biggelaar. I had long entertained the idea that a combination of an evolutionarily inclined group in embryology with embryologically sensitive systematists could achieve great things. I revealed myself to Jo van den Biggelaar as one of his reviewers and proposed that we meet.


Some recent epidemiologic studies have suggested that chlorinated phenoxy acid herbicides are human carcinogens. The mortality experience in a cohort of 1,926 men who had sprayed 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) during 1955-1971 has been followed prospectively from 1972 to 1980. The total phenoxy acid exposure was generally rather low because the duration of work had mostly been less than two months. In 1972-1976 mortality from all natural causes in the cohort was only 54% of the expected value (based on age-specific rates for the general population), and in the succeeding 4-a period 81% of the expected value. In the assessment of cancer, mortality allowance was made for 10- and 15-a periods of latency between the first exposure and the start of the recording of vital status during the follow-up. No increase in cancer mortality was detected, and the distribution of cancer types was unremarkable. No cases of death from lymphomas or soft tissue sarcomas were found. The study results must, however, be viewed with great caution owing to the small size of the cohort, the low past exposure, and the brief follow-up period.


Abstract. The spatial dimensions of water management heavily rely on accurate hydrological estimates in the landscape. This has exactly been the focus of the Predictions in Ungauged Basins (PUB) initiative of the IAHS. The initiative has significantly advanced the science by furthering process understanding and estimation methods, and by synthesising the knowledge across processes, places and scales. Ongoing research on PUB is increasingly treating water management as an intrinsic part of the hydrological cycle and is developing processes understanding and methods to account for the feedbacks between humans and water in the landscape.


Gender scholars have argued that legal reforms against violence position women as victims in need of state help. Using data collected from 22 months of participant observation with survivors of domestic violence in India, I urge academics to re-theorize the relationship between legal reforms and women's citizenship during an era of neoliberal governance. Burdened with administrative tasks, Indian law enforcement personnel manage new rights claims by displacing regulatory duties onto survivors and caseworkers. Women who have access to women's organizations are able to take advantage of these changes and "save" themselves and other women from violence. This article shows how neoliberal governmentality, when combined with women's organizing, has the potential to restructure women's relationship to the state.


Ideology is an integral component in the reproduction of power. Integral to this central tenet of statecraft is the regulation of identity and proscribed methods of social engagement—positive portrayals of "good citizenry" and delegitimized representations of those challenging hegemony. Through an Althusserian and linguistic analysis, positioning the X-Men movie franchise as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), one can examine the lives of mutants portrayed in the text as indicative of preferred methods of statelegitimized sociopolitical interaction. This metaphorical and textual analysis is used to discuss the lived realities of queer persons resisting hegemony, and is located in the bodies and performances of those who resist assimilation and homonormativity and who challenge reformist LGBT organizations seeking rights for non-heterosexuals through further entanglement with the state. I explore the world of mutants and queers with the following question in mind: How can one utilize a queerly theoretical analytical lens while maintaining a discernable distance from reformism, homonormativity, and assimilationist reductionism? Both the fictional world of the X-Men and the lived queer reality reflect the state's efforts to dictate the borders of citizenry, the expression of grievance, and the performance of deviance, difference and stigma. Whereas the mutant narrative reflects statist ideals of a neoliberal, "politically correct" politics of integration, this agenda conceals an insidious denial of queer identity through the coerced conformity of "deviant" bodies. This discourse will be discussed through a variety of locales, including the performativity of gender and sexuality, the narrative of racial deviance, and the discussion of "passing."