In this study, high-pressure metamorphic rocks from the island of Syros (Greece) that are interpreted as parts of subducted oceanic crust, equilibrated at about 1.5-2.0 GPa and 500 °C were analysed. A first group of samples (Group 1) includes rocks that preserved the parageneses formed at the pressure peak of metamorphism, while a second group of samples (Group 2) represents metamorphic reaction zones formed at the contacts between contrasting lithologies. Additional to bulk-rock analyses, in-situ analyses of Li, Be and B abundances and B isotope ratios were performed using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). A new method was developed for B analysis at low concentrations using SIMS, which enables a reduction of boron contamination to levels close to or even below the detection limit of 2 ng/g. Group-1 samples contribute information on the impact of dehydration of oceanic crust on whole-rock abundances of different trace elements. The abundances of Li and Be do not correlate with H2O contents and are in the same range as in fresh and altered oceanic crust, suggesting that most of the Li and Be is not released with hydrous fluids. In contrast, B concentrations and B/Be ratios are correlated to the H2O contents of the rocks. Group-2 samples provide information on the effects of metasomatism of rocks during exhumation. Li and Be show high abundances in many samples, suggesting an enrichment during metasomatism. The enrichment of B is controlled by the occurrence of tourmaline. Tur-bearing samples display very high B/Be ratios, while Tur-free samples show low B concentrations and B/Be ratios. These results demonstrate that Li is probably a good tool for tracing metasomatic enrichment processes, while B is enriched only in the case of tourmaline formation. The SIMS study resulted in sets of inter-mineral partition coefficients for Li, Be and B for 15 different minerals, derived on the basis of in-situ analyses of coexisting phases in natural rock samples. These sets provide information on the behaviour of the light elements in different lithologies within subducting slabs, and they are essential for modelling of trace-element and isotope fractionation during subduction and dehydration of oceanic crust. In addition, the hosts of Li, Be and B were quantified with respect to the whole rock budgets. Modelling of trace element release from progressively dehydrating rocks was performed for Li, Be and B, which show contrasting behaviour during fluid/rock interaction processes. In principle, the presented model offers the possibility of a quantification of trace-element release from the slab in any lithology along any reasonable P-T path. Tourmaline grains of two metasedimentary and one metabasic rock were analysed in-situ for their chemical and B isotopic compositions. The ?11B values of prograde and peak metamorphic tourmaline range from -1.6 to +2.8 ‰ and are significantly higher than values reported in the literature for high-pressure meta-sedimentary tourmaline, demonstrating that a clear distinction between altered oceanic crust and oceanic sediments is not possible on the basis of B isotopes. Samples investigated in this study display heterogeneous sedimentary sources of tourmaline detrital grains with ?11B between -10.7 ‰ and +3.6 ‰ in a single sample. High-pressure blocks enclosed on the island of Syros are rimmed by blackwalls containing abundant tourmaline, with an unusually high ?11B values, exceeding +18 ‰ in all investigated samples, reaching a unique value of +28.4 ‰ in one sample. Blackwalls formed during exhumation of the rocks at a depth of 20-25 km. Estimated P-T conditions are ~ 0.6-0.75 GPa and 400-430 °C. They were produced by the influx of external hydrous fluids that probably originated in the subsequently subducting slab. The exceptionally high ?11B values are explained by interaction of the tourmaline-forming fluids with material composing the exhumation channel. The calculated model demonstrates that fluids are rapidly modified in both trace-element and isotopic composition during their migration through the material overlying the subducting slab. The formation of tourmaline at the contact between mafic or felsic high-pressure blocks and ultramafic matrix may also occur on the slab-mantle interface during subduction. If this is the case, the formation of blackwall tourmaline has a significant impact on the geochemical cycle of B in subduction zones, as it is fixing heavy B in large quantities in the slab within a highly stable mineral. Trace elements are only selectively incorporated into the blackwall tourmaline. The light elements Li and Be, the HFSE, the REE, Y and the LILE all show very low concentrations. First row transition metals and Sr, Pb and Ga are incorporated into dravite, demonstrating abundances in the same order as in the respective whole rocks, and in paragenetic rock-forming minerals. Hence, tourmaline is not strongly fractionating these elements in any way.


New lessons, challenges, and debates have emerged from the subprime crisis in the United States. While the macroeconomic orientation is not new and has always been among the classic toolkits of central banks for ensuring financial stability, the current explicit articulation and specification of such a tool as a global standard is new. The objective of this study is to review and analyze the steps taken by the central banks and monetary authorities of select Asian countries to strengthen their prudential regulations, mainly the macro-prudential component of such regulations.


Neurogenic heterotopic ossification (NHO) is the formation of pathological bone tissue in the soft tissues around joints after neurological injury, where ossification is not observed normally. This condition, frequently seen in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), can cause complications such as severe limitation of motion, difficulty in daily living activities, nerve compression and pressure ulcers. NHO etiopathogenesis was reviewed with current literature, to enlighten the research studies planned on treatment and the precautions to prevent it. Etiology of NHO is not completely revealed in patients with SCI and TBI, however humoral, neural, immunological and local factors probably play a role in the pathophysiology. In patients with SCI, complete lesion, immobilization, exercise, microtrauma and proprioceptive alterations may possibly take a role in NHO development. The most important risk factors for patients with TBI are: spasticity, prolongation of coma state more than 2 weeks, immobilization, fractures of long bones, limitation of range of motion, infection, and development of autonomic disregulation. However, it is not known which of the factors affect the severity and the long-term outcomes of the disease. Considering the etiopathogenesis of NHO, it is concluded that more comprehensive studies are needed to detect and prevent the risk factors before it develops, to determine the type of therapeutic exercises and the suitable timing of exercises. Turk J Phys Med Rehab 2010;56:81-7.


Nature reserve planning models to maximize species protection are typically formulated for a single period using certain data. In practice, however, parcels must be acquired over time. The status of a parcel may change due to conversion to alternate land use. Populations of species to be protected may change, as well. A two-stage stochastic program that maximizes expected species protection with annual budget constraints is proposed where parcels available for set aside have associated probabilities of being available for acquisition and species coverage. Runs on hypothetical data show that solutions differ from the single period model and depend strongly on the probability of acquisition in future periods.


BACKGROUND
It is imperative to have effective programs to improve or maintain the health of aged people.

AIM
To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention based on a multidimensional program in Senior centers in Chile five months after its implementation, in the domains of physical and mental health, functionality and quality of life in aged people.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Sixty participants older than 60 years completed a multidimensional program for one month that included interventions of guided physical exercises, in addition to educational and social activities. They were evaluated at baseline and one and five months after the intervention.

RESULTS
After the first and fifth months, significant improvements were observed in the five times sit to stand test (5TSTS) and gait speed (WST), in addition, significant improvements were observed in literacy measured by the Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Spanish-speaking Adults (SAHLSA). At the fifth month, slight improvements were observed in the Yesavage and short Falls efficacy scales, Barthel index, Unipodal Station and EuroQol five-dimensional quality of life tests.

CONCLUSIONS
A multidimensional program for aged people lasting one month, improved the physical health dimension and literacy by the fifth month of evaluation.


M athematicians occasionally worry about the misuse of their subject. G. H. Hardy famously wrote about mathematics used for war in his autobiography, A Mathematician's Apology (and solidified his reputation as a foe of applied mathematics in doing so). More recently, groups of mathematicians tried to organize a boycott of the Star Wars project on the grounds that it was an abuse of mathematics. And even more recently some fretted about the role of mathematics in the financial meltdown. But the most common misuse of mathematics is simpler, more pervasive, and (alas) more insidious: mathematics employed as a rhetorical weapon—an intellectual credential to convince the public that an idea or a process is "objective" and hence better than other competing ideas or processes. This is mathematical intimidation. It is especially persuasive because so many people are awed by mathematics and yet do not understand it—a dangerous combination. The latest instance of the phenomenon is valued-added modeling (VAM), used to interpret test data. Value-added modeling pops up everywhere today, from newspapers to television to political campaigns. VAM is heavily promoted with unbridled and uncritical enthusiasm by the press, by politicians, and even by (some) educational experts, and it is touted as the modern, "scientific" way to measure educational success in everything from charter schools to individual teachers. Yet most of those promoting value-added modeling are ill-equipped to judge either its effectiveness or its limitations. Some of those who are equipped make extravagant claims without much detail, reassuring us that someone has checked into our concerns and we shouldn't worry. Value-added modeling is promoted because it has the right pedigree—because it is based on "sophisticated mathematics". As a consequence, mathematics that ought to be used to illuminate ends up being used to intimidate. When that happens, mathematicians have a responsibility to speak out.


As the United States northern neighbor, Canada serves as a NATO ally and a strategic partner with Washington through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Canadian forces have fought honorably and bravely in concert with American forces in many wars. Canada's Government, however, has been less consistent in promoting a credible vision of Canadian national security policy and geopolitical interests in its defense white papers. These documents have often contained idealistic rhetoric about adhering to a rules-based international order and defending freedom. In reality, Canadian governments of varying political parties have consistently failed to provide the sustained funding and coherent national security strategy to make Ottawa an effective partner with the U.S. and the NATO alliance in addressing historical and emerging national security threats. This article examines Canadian defense white papers for several decades and recommends ways Canada can ensure its defense policy planning can have greater credibility in the national security policymaking corridors of its allies and with potential adversaries.


This article investigates strategic communication in the context of the wider adoption of "campaign" approaches to public diplomacy at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The three case studies are the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, the marriage of HRH Prince William to Kate Middleton, and Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Ireland. The analytical framework seeks to situate strategic communication theory within a political–economic environment pervaded by a dependence on the media and its institutions for sociopolitical knowledge. Therefore, while affirming the growth and influence of strategic communication as a social phenomenon, this article questions how processes of mediatization impact strategic communication, its organization and practices. The case studies reveal characteristic techniques such as managing mediated spaces for meetings and discussion; shaping the salience of target groups, stakeholders, and participants; an emphasis on values and norms that may be tailored efficiently to different circumstances; and, a strong focus on achieving strategic consistency across diverse messages and messengers. The results will be of interest to researchers and students interested in better understanding how organizations utilize complementary communicative techniques to shape knowledge and steer experiences of political events in ways supportive of their overarching goals.


Family and Children's Services of Monterey County Department of Social Services is an agency that serves families in the Monterey County who have an open case. In the Family Reunification Unit they work on reunifying families back together. Youth in the foster care system are uninformed about their dependency case. Unlike parents, they do not receive a class that teaches them all about their case. Some of the reasons for this is that social workers have very large caseloads, People/Youth have lack of knowledge of court systems and CASA has a long waiting list. The consequences of not informing youth with deep knowledge about their cases are that they will have misconceptions about their case, they may develop depression and anxiety, and they begin to lack the trust in others. A survey was created for foster children age ten and older in order to figure out what areas they are confused about. The data was analyzed to see what topics can be used to create a curriculum for them. As a result, foster youth that were surveyed were confused about many different aspects of their case. A class should be implemented in order to address the misconceptions that foster youth have about their dependency case. The class should be taught by an MSW intern or a social worker.


Diabetes and cancer are major health problems because of their high incidences worldwide. A growing body of epidemiological evidence indicats a molecular link between diabetes and breast cancer. Patients with diabetes mellitus have an increased likelihood of developing various types of cancers including breast cancer through the formation of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) which lead to cellular and bio-molecular dysfunction. However, the effects of AGEs have been poorly investigated on breast cancer cells. This current study examined for the first time the biological effects of various concentrations of BSA-derived AGEs on the invasive and hormone–independent breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 and on non- invasive hormone-dependent human breast cancer cell line MCF-7.
Bovine serum albumin was glycated-using methylglyoxal for three days. Crosslinked AGEs were assessed using sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by Coomassie blue staining. Different assays including cell proliferation, migration and invasion through the MatrigelTM with assessment of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity by using Zymogaraphy were performed to investigate the effect of different concentrations of BSA-AGE on both cell lines in vitro. Furthermore, signalling pathways were investigated by Western blotting and using kinexusTM phspho-protein microarray. The expression of the main receptor for AGEs (RAGE) involved on the MDA-MB231 and MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines was assessed by Western blotting and Calibur Flow Cytometer System.
The results of this study demonstrated that BSA-AGEs increased MDA-MB-cell, proliferation, migration and invasion through the MatrigelTM associated with an enhancement of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 activities, in a dose-dependent manner, up-regulated the expression of the receptor for AGEs (RAGE) and of the key signalling protein, phospho-extracellular-signal regulated kinase (p-ERK)-1/2. In addition, the blockade of BSA-AGE/RAGE interactions using anti-neutralizing RAGE antibody reduced the expression of p-ERK1/2. Furthermore, in BSA-AGE-treated cells, phospho-protein micro-array analysis revealed the main enhancement of the over-phosphorylation of (ERK1/2), (p70S6K1), (STAT)-3 and (MAPK) p38, involved in cell survival, cell growth cell cycle and protein synthesis. In contrast, MCF-7 showed stimulatory effects of BSA-AGEs, on cell proliferation and migration, as compared to non-modified BSA. However, BSA-AGEs did not change the weak invasive capacity of MCF-7 cells to cross a reconstituted basement membrane. In addition, BSA-AGEs induced over-phosphorylation of RAGE in MCF-7 cells. The investigation of signalling pathways suggests that BSA-AGEs might contribute to breast cancer development through activation of MAPK pathway and activation of CREB1 transcription factor in MCF-7 cells. Throughout the study, the non-modified BSA had a negligible effect. In conclusion, BSA-AGEs might contribute to breast cancer development and progression of breast cancer. In addition, the up-regulation of RAGE and key phosphor-protein signalling expression induced by BSA-AGEs might be a promising target for therapy to prevent the development of breast cancer in diabetic patients.


Discussing in personal and cultural terms the values of reading, and examining what may be lost as society turns towards CD-ROM, hypertext and audio books, the critic Sven Birkerts, whose essays and reviews have appeared in "The New York Times Book Review", "The Atlantic" and "Harper's", offers a defence of the place of reading and the printed word in the face of rapid technological advances. He argues that we are living in a state of intellectual emergency - an emergency caused by our willingness to embrace new technologies at the expense of the printed word. As we rush to get on-line, as we make the transition from book to screen, we are turning against some of the core premises of humanization. The printed page and the circuit-driven information technologies are not related - for Birkerts they represent fundamentally opposed forces, and in their inevitable confrontation our deepest values will be tested.


What are the origins of direct democracy in Switzerland? How does the Swiss judiciary function? What are the principles of Swiss civil, contract and administrative law? What is the role of public service broadcasting in the political decision making process? What are the leading cases in tax law? What forms of euthanasia are legal in Switzerland? In this introduction 13 legal scholars of the University of Zürich Law Faculty try to answer these questions and give the reader an overview of Swiss public, private and criminal law. As the first comprehensive introduction to Swiss law in English, it is addressed to both lawyers from abroad and incoming students.


Cardiac safety was compared in patients receiving moxifloxacin and other antimicrobials in a large patient population from Phase II–IV randomized active-controlled clinical trials. Moxifloxacin 400 mg once-daily monotherapy was administered orally (PO) or sequentially (intravenous/oral, IV/PO). Across 64 trials, 21,298 patients received PO therapy (10,613 moxifloxacin, 10,685 comparators) while 6846 received sequential IV/PO therapy (3431 moxifloxacin, 3415 comparators). Treatment-emergent cardiac adverse event (AE) rates were similar for moxifloxacin and comparators in PO (6.6% vs 5.8%) and IV/PO (11.0% vs 12.0%) trials. Treatment-emergent cardiac adverse drug reactions were rare in PO (moxifloxacin 3.2% vs comparators 2.4%) and IV/PO (moxifloxacin 1.4% vs comparators 1.5%) patients. There were five (<0.02%) treatment-emergent drug-related deaths due to cardiac events out of 28,144 patients; one PO patient died treated with comparators, one patient died treated with IV/PO moxifloxacin, and three patients died after treatment with IV/PO comparators. Only one case of treatment-related non-fatal torsade de pointes occurred in the comparator arm. Incidence rates of cardiac AEs remained low in populations at elevated risk of cardiac events predisposed to QTc prolongation (i.e. community-acquired pneumonia patients admitted to the intensive care unit and/or mechanical ventilation, patients with documented prolongation of baseline QTc interval, women, and patients ≥ 65 years old). There was no evidence of unexpected cardiac events. After moxifloxacin treatment, an expected small prolongation in QTcB and QTcF was found. This analysis of numerous clinical trials shows the favorable cardiac safety profile of moxifloxacin, when used appropriately and according to its label, versus other antibiotics.


A combination of electrochemical, spectroscopic, computational, and kinetic studies has been used to elucidate the key mechanistic aspects of the previously reported enantioselective iminium ion trapping of photochemically generated carbon-centered radicals. The process, which provides a direct way to forge quaternary stereocenters with high fidelity, relies on the interplay of two distinct catalytic cycles: the aminocatalytic electron-relay system, which triggers the stereoselective radical trap upon iminium ion formation, and the photoredox cycle, which generates radicals under mild conditions. Critical to reaction development was the use of a chiral amine catalyst, bearing a redox-active carbazole unit, which could rapidly reduce the highly reactive and unstable intermediate generated upon radical interception. The carbazole unit, however, is also involved in another step of the electron-relay mechanism: the transiently generated carbazole radical cation acts as an oxidant to return the photocatalyst into the original state. By means of kinetic and spectroscopic studies, we have identified the last redox event as being the turnover-limiting step of the overall process. This mechanistic framework is corroborated by the linear correlation between the reaction rate and the reduction potential of the carbazole unit tethered to the aminocatalyst. The redox properties of the carbazole unit can thus be rationally tuned to improve catalytic activity. This knowledge may open a path for the mechanistically driven design of the next generation of electron-relay catalysts.


We are, like other things, physico-chemical systems; we live, like other animals, bodily lives dependent on bodily needs and functions; but we exist as human beings on the edge between nature and art, reality and its denial. (1) 1. ECOPHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Voicing a view that has become common among environmentalists, Arran Gare argues in a recent essay that 'philosophical anthropology is central to ethics and politics' and that a genuine philosophical anthropology 'can orient people in their struggle for the liberty to avert a global ecological catastrophe.' (2) The ecosocialist Joel Kovel has argued that 'the notion of human nature is necessary for any in-depth appreciation of the ecological crisis, and its lack is a sign of the crisis itself.' (3) Ecoliteracy educator David Orr states that '[w]hatever a sustainable society may be, it must be built on the most realistic view of the human condition possible.' (4) Other radical ecophilosophers as diverse as Arne Naess, Murray Bookchin, and Val Plumwood have consistently held that new views of human nature are vital to reinforcing the ecologically-informed conception, perception, and evaluation of nature that is called for in environmentalism. (5) This is only a small sample of the many authors who suggest that a renewed, critical reflection on human being, or philosophical anthropology, is called for not only in order to motivate an effective ecological ethics and politics, but also to combat reductivist and dualist approaches to human being. The challenge today is to combine the anti-essentialist critical resources of post-Kantian constructivism with a naturalist's appreciation of biophysical reality. (6) What follows is an initial attempt to adequately characterize the problem and to suggest directions for a solution. Many thinkers concerned with this problem today consider themselves 'naturalists.' We should begin, then, by asking what kind of naturalism best motivates ecological consciousness. 2. 'CONSERVATIVE' AND 'PROGRESSIVE' NATURALISMS Val Plumwood has spoken of disentangling 'the liberatory roles of the concept of nature from the anti-liberatory ones,' thereby distinguishing 'progressive naturalisms' from 'conservative naturalisms.' (7) In the words of another ecofeminist, conservative naturalisms 'try to expand the domain of what is accepted as biological or natural and therefore inalterable, at the expense of what might otherwise be thought of as social and therefore subject to human alteration. Conversely, it is an emancipatory step to try to expand the realm of what convention holds to be social at the expense of what it defines as biological, precisely to open up possibilities for the transformation of existing social relationships.' (8) This is an important and indispensable insight, and is shared by many purveyors of anti-essentialist, critical post-Kantian social theory. But in it the problematic dualism between culture and nature lying at its foundation remains intact. The boundary between the fixed and the malleable may shift but the terms remain stable. This prevents us from sufficiently appreciating the complexity of the human condition so long as critical thinkers, in the process of combating conservative naturalisms, do not reflect on the persistence and influence of this dualism in all its forms. The problem for the nonreductivist, critical ecophilosopher is not only to find the right conception of the continuity of human being with 'nature' (however understood), but also to articulate a conception of the unique place of the human in nature. One interpretation of the nature/ culture dualism is to consider it to be an ontological question of the identity of humans with nature or of their difference from it. The question then is: which kind of ontology allows us to best characterize the kind of continuity and difference of the human within nature for the purposes of motivating political ecology? …


The work discussed in this thesis deals with the generation, control and modulation of optical interactions in two-dimensional materials, specifically in unpatterned, subwavelength graphene multilayers, using the process of Coherent Perfect Absorption (CPA). It aims to address the problem of inefficient light-matter coupling at the nanoscale by studying new geometries for enabling total absorption in 50% absorbing graphene films. Total optical absorption is demonstrated and a ∼ 80% modulation of the absorption and scattering is achieved by controlling the relative phases of the interacting optical beams. Degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) in graphene multilayers leads to the generation of optical phase conjugation and negative refraction. These nonlinear responses are generated with a conversion efficiency of 5 x 10−5, and using the CPA arrangement their amplitudes are modulated with a modulation contrast of ∼ 100%. It is shown that the two-dimensionality of graphene gives rise to a 'phase-dependent' nonlinearity, which differs significantly from that in bulk materials. The optical nonlinearity in graphene is seen to be controlled by the relative phases of the interacting optical fields in a manner such that the nonlinear polarisation itself can be switched on or off. The phase-dependent nonlinearity of the two-dimensional medium is then explored in three alternative geometries. The first one uses only two input beams, and a light-with-light modulation of the nonlinear signals is observed with a contrast of 90%. The second geometry involves a single beam interacting with the sample, wherein, nonlinear signals are generated in a self-pumping mode, due to reflection from a mirror placed very close to the graphene sample. The last configuration also uses a mirror in order to require only a single light beam and leads to the observation of a 'negative reflection' signal. Finally, a nonlinear imaging technique 'phase-contrast imaging' is performed using a traditional DFWM configuration with three input optical fields. A phase-object applied on one of the pump beams is transformed into an intensity object in the resulting negative refraction. A few basic phase objects are imaged on the negatively refracted beam and are reported in this work, offering a possible application for the advantages offered by two-dimensional optical nonlinearities.


Biosynthetic enzyme complexes selectively catalyze challenging chemical transformations, including alkane functionalization (e.g., halogenation of threonine, Thr, by non-heme iron SyrB2). However, the role of complex formation in enabling reactivity and guiding selectivity is poorly understood, owing to the challenges associated with obtaining detailed structural information of the dynamically associating protein complexes. Combining over 10 ms of classical molecular dynamics of SyrB2 and the acyl carrier protein SyrB1 with large-scale QM/MM simulation, we investigate the substrate–protein and protein–protein dynamics that give rise to experimentally observed substrate positioning and reactivity trends. We confirm the presence of a hypothesized substrate-delivery channel in SyrB2 through free energy simulations that show channel opening with a low free energy barrier. We identify stabilizing interactions at the SyrB2/SyrB1 interface that are compatible with phosphopantatheine (PPant) delivery of substrate to SyrB2. By sampling metal–substrate distances observed in experimental spectroscopy of native SyrB2/SyrB1-PPant-S-Thr and non-native substrates, we characterize essential protein–substrate interactions that are responsible for substrate positioning, and thus, reactivity. We observe the hydroxyl sidechain and terminal amine of the native Thr substrate to form cooperative hydrogen bonds with a single N123 residue in SyrB2. In comparison, non-native substrates that lack the hydroxyl interact more flexibly with the protein and therefore can orient closer to the Fe center, explaining their preferential hydroxylation and higher turnover frequencies.


NiO-based resistive-switching memory (RRAM) is attracting a growing research interest for high-density non-volatile storage applications. One of the most difficult challenges for RRAM-based high-density memories is the high current necessary for the reset operation (Ireset), which limits the possibilities of scaling for the select diode in the cross-bar memory array. This work addresses the scalability of the reset current Ireset in NiO-based RRAM by limiting the set current through an integrated series MOSFET. Ireset is shown to be controllable down to below 10 µA. The consequences of these findings for the select diode in the cross-bar array structure are finally discussed.


This paper presents a formal framework for compositional reasoning about secure systems. A key insight is to view a trusted system in terms of the interfaces that the various components expose: larger trusted components are built by combining interface calls in known ways; the adversary is confined to the interfaces it has access to, but may combine interface calls without restriction. Compositional reasoning for such systems is based on an extension of rely-guarantee reasoning for system correctness [1, 2] to a setting that involves an adversary whose exact program is not known. At a technical level, the paper presents an expressive concurrent programming language with recursive functions for modeling interfaces and a logic of programs in which compositional reasoning principles are formalized and proved sound with respect to trace semantics. The methods are applied to representative examples of web-based systems and network protocols.


A BSTRACT Background The average risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection after percutaneous exposure to HIV-infected blood is 0.3 percent, but the factors that influence this risk are not well understood. Methods We conducted a case–control study of health care workers with occupational, percutaneous exposure to HIV-infected blood. The case patients were those who became seropositive after exposure to HIV, as reported by national surveillance systems in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The controls were health care workers in a prospective surveillance project who were exposed to HIV but did not seroconvert. Results Logistic-regression analysis based on 33 case patients and 665 controls showed that significant risk factors for seroconversion were deep injury (odds ratio 15; 95 percent confidence interval, 6.0 to 41), injury with a device that was visibly contaminated with the source patient's blood (odds ratio 6.2; 95 percent confidence interval, 2.2 to 21), a procedure involving a needle placed in the source patient's artery or vein (odds ratio 4.3; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.7 to 12), and exposure to a source patient who died of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome within two months afterward (odds ratio 5.6; 95 percent confidence interval, 2.0 to 16). The case patients were significantly less likely than the controls to have taken zidovudine after the exposure (odds ratio 0.19; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.06 to 0.52). Conclusions The risk of HIV infection after percutaneous exposure increases with a larger volume of blood and, probably, a higher titer of HIV in the source patient's blood. Postexposure prophylaxis with zidovudine appears to be protective. (N Engl J Med 1997;337:1485-90.)


After successfully finishing the design of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) Enclosure early in 2012, AEC IDOM, in close collaboration with the ATST Project Office, has successfully fabricated the enclosure's main components (structure, mechanisms, controls, and cladding), assembled them in the factory, and performed the factory acceptance tests. The factory assembly and testing of the enclosure has allowed the team to verify the correct integration and performance of structures, mechanisms, and controls. Furthermore, the assembly and verification procedures to be used for the enclosure re-assembly at the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory Site have been tested and refined in order to reduce risk during the enclosure site construction, an overall project critical path activity. The Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), recently renamed as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will be the largest solar telescope in the world, with unprecedented abilities to view details of the sun. Using adaptive optics technology, DKIST will be able to provide the sharpest views ever taken of the solar surface, which will allow scientists to learn even more about the Sun and solar-terrestrial interactions. The DKIST Enclosure is unique in that it positions the optical system's first aperture stop and tracks the sun's motion with millimeter-level accuracy, protecting observatory components from excess insolation. Its azimuth and altitude systems are driven by mechanisms especially designed to perform smooth operations at tracking speeds.


Understanding the structure-dynamics-function relationship is a fundamental motivation for studying how proteins fold. Over the past several decades, significant progress has been made in elucidating the folding energy landscapes and dynamics of soluble, globular proteins. In contrast, the folding kinetics and mechanisms of membrane proteins are much less studied and understood, due in part to the fact that they reside in the heterogeneous and complex membrane environment. To provide new mechanistic insights into membrane protein folding, herein we studied the folding kinetics of the influenza hemagglutinin fusion peptide (HAfp), which folds into a representative helix-turn-helix structure in model membranes. Our stopped-flow fluorescence and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) kinetics, obtained at different peptide-to-lipid ratios, support a parallel mechanism for membrane-peptide binding, wherein folding can occur either before or after membrane binding, but prior to membrane insertion. Thus, this result underscores the importance of the water-membrane interfacial region in mediating the process of folding, at least for short peptides. In turn, the association of the peptide to the interfacial region could induce local and global structural changes in the membrane. To help better characterize peptide-induced membrane structural changes as well as how cell penetrating peptides translocate across membranes, the second portion of this thesis was devoted to method development. Using two antimicrobial peptides and a cell penetrating peptide as examples, we showed that diffusion measurements via fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), can be used to `image' peptide-induced lipid domain formation in model membranes and to elucidate the mechanism of peptide translocation. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics First Advisor Feng Gai


Range imagery provided by time-of-flight (TOF) cameras has been shown to be useful to facilitate robot navigation in several applications. Visual navigation for autonomous pipeline inspection robots is a special case of such a task, where the cramped operating environment influences the range measurements in a detrimental way. Inherent in the imaging system are also several defects that will lead to a smearing of range measurements. This paper sketches an approach for using TOF cameras as a visual navigation aid in pipelines, and addresses the challenges concerning the inherent defects in the imaging system and the impact of the operating environment. New results on our previously proposed strategy for detecting and tracking possible landmarks and obstacles in pipelines are presented. We consider an explicit model for correcting lens distortions, and use this to explain why the cylindrical pipe is perceived as a cone. A simplified model, which implicitly handles the combined effects of the environment and the camera on the measured ranges by adjusting for the conical shape, is used to map the robot's environment into an along-axis-view relative to the pipe, which facilitates obstacle traversal. Experiments using a model pipeline and a prototype camera rig are presented.


Geocoding – the process of finding position based on descriptive data such as address or postal code - is considered as one of the most commonly used spatial analyses. Many online map providers such as Google Maps, Bing Maps and Yahoo Maps present geocoding as one of their basic capabilities. Despite the diversity of geocoding services, users usually face some limitations when they use available online geocoding services. In existing geocoding services, proximity and nearness concept is not modelled appropriately as well as these services search address only by address matching based on descriptive data. In addition there are also some limitations in display searching results. Resolving these limitations can enhance efficiency of the existing geocoding services. This paper proposes the idea of integrating fuzzy technique with geocoding process to resolve these limitations. In order to implement the proposed method, a web-based system is designed. In proposed method, nearness to places is defined by fuzzy membership functions and multiple fuzzy distance maps are created. Then these fuzzy distance maps are integrated using fuzzy overlay technique for obtain the results. Proposed methods provides different capabilities for users such as ability to search multi-part addresses, searching places based on their location, non-point representation of results as well as displaying search results based on their priority.


Heteroatom-doped carbonaceous materials derived from polymers are emerging as a new class of promising supercapacitor electrodes. These electrodes have both electrical double layer capacitance (from carbon matrices) and pseudo-capacitance (from hetero-atoms). Balancing the electrical double layer capacitance and pseudo-capacitance is a key to achieve large capacitance at ultrafast current densities. Here we investigate the influence of pyrolysis temperature on capacitive performance of hetero-atom (oxygen and nitrogen) doped carbons derived from polypyrrole nanowire arrays. Structural and electrochemical characterization reveal that the concentration of hetero-atoms as well as the ratio of electrical double layer capacitance and pseudo-capacitance can be tuned by varying the pyrolysis temperature. In fact the hetero-atom doped carbon sample obtained at a relatively lower pyrolysis temperature (500 °C) exhibits the optimal capacitive performance. It yields an outstanding areal capacitance of 324 mF cm-2 at 1 mA cm-2 (141 F firstname.lastname@example.com A g-1), and more importantly, retains an areal capacitance of 184.7 mF cm-2 (80.3 F email@example.com A g-1) at an ultrahigh current density of 100 mA cm-2. An asymmetric supercapacitor consisting of hetero-atom doped carbon as an anode delivers a maximum volumetric energy density of 1.7 mW h cm-3 at a volumetric power density of 0.014 W cm-3, which is among the best values reported for asymmetric supercapacitors.


This work proposes a novel method to estimate the Line-of-Sight Time-of-Flights (LOS-TOFs) in a broadband acoustic local positioning system (ALPS) with strong multipath interference. The proposed method is based on the Matching Pursuit channel estimation algorithm that provides a low complexity approximation to the Maximum Likelihood solution for sparse channels. A multichannel version of this algorithm has been implemented to estimate a minimum of three coefficients in the channel responses of a particular ALPS, composed of four beacons that perform the simultaneous emission of BPSK modulated 255-bit Kasami codes. A statistical analysis of performance has been carried out by using a set of test signals synthetically generated to simulate different positions and reflection coefficients of the environment. The results of this analysis show the enhanced capability of the proposed method to estimate the LOS-TOFs under strong multipath interference, with respect to that of a classical system based on correlation + thresholding.


Birds are widely distributed, highly diversified, and exhibit behavior and social organizations equal in complexity to mammals, yet they are generally more conspicuous and approachable in natural environments. These attributes make birds excellent subjects in many areas of biological research. The topics in which studies on birds have figured prominently include the mechanisms of species formation, the regulation of the distribution and abundance of animals, the effects of the environment on behavior and physiology, the biological and evolutionary significance of variations in social organizations, the encoding of information in animal communication, the sensory basis for migration and navigation, the effects of hormones on nerve cells and behavior, the ontogeny of brain and behavior, and the structure and function of the vertebrate brain. The outstanding record of avian research suggests that birds will continue to provide important models for developing and testing new ideas in various fields of biology.


I. THE PROBLEM Recidivism is not the full half of the glass. As defined by Black's Law Dictionary, recidivism is the tendency of a convicted criminal to relapse into a habit of criminal activity or behavior.1 However unlikely it is that any criminal enjoys being punished repeatedly for a string of offenses, the ugly truth is that prisoners are more likely to reenter the system than not.2 Statistics show that an alarming amount of criminals repeat their bad behavior after an initial crime.3 In a study based on a large group of prisoners released in 1994, 673% of those prisoners were arrested for another crime within three years of release.4 Often recidivism occurs with an offender who was first convicted as a juvenile. Many studies have shown that one who commits an offense as a juvenile is more likely to commit another offense as an adult.5 This raises the question: what can be done after a juvenile commits his or her first offense to prevent that juvenile from committing another crime later in life? Although there is no one-word solution to this complex problem, there is one intriguing prospect: teaching that juvenile to read. Illiteracy and crime go hand in hand. It is startling to learn that 85% of all juveniles who come into contact with the juvenile justice system are functionally illiterate.6 The Department of Justice has reported that the "link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure."7 Not coincidentally, over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.8 Furthermore, records collected from penal institutions indicate that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% chance for those who receive no such help.9 These statistics can no longer be ignored. Once a juvenile is detained or receives punishment for a crime, it should be of utmost importance to require that the juvenile learn to read. A recent study estimated that, by 2018, 63% of the new job openings created in this country will require workers to have had some form of postsecondary education or training.10 As a result, researchers forecasting the future job market state that "dropouts, high school graduates, and people with some college but no degree are on the down escalator of social mobility, falling out of the middle-income class and into the lower three deciles of family income."" This dim forecast for those with minimal education means that illiterate juveniles, after entering the justice system for the first time, must learn to read and complete their education to have a chance at leading successful lives as adults. II. OVERVIEW OF THIS NOTE Decreasing illiteracy rates among juvenile delinquents is the key to reducing recidivism rates in the United States. This note will focus primarily on the crucial time period from the point at which a juvenile is put into detention until release, when the government has direct control over that offender and the ability to change his or her path. Incorporating reading interventions into a juvenile's detention and rehabilitation plan will give the delinquent a sense of capability and confidence, which will aid the juvenile in finding a job and staying out of trouble after being released. Given the current economic situation, government funding is scarce for educational programs for juvenile delinquents. However, we must ensure that programs to fight illiteracy are kept in place. Reading programs are essential to an illiterate juvenile's rehabilitation process, and they will lend themselves to a safer society in the long run. These programs need supplies and staffing to be effective and run properly. Members of local communities around the nation should be encouraged to volunteer time and resources to juvenile detention centers to ensure that reading programs for the illiterate are not simply surviving, but thriving. III. …


From introduction: This report is based on investigations carried on by the Geological Survey (U. S. Department of the Interior) under the auspices of the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation (U. S. Department of State) and the Foreign Economic Administration. The function of the last two agencies is presently carried on by the International Cooperation Administration. Roberts is responsible for the text of this report and for the compilation of the geologic map. He was in Central America from January to April 1942 under a program of scientific and technical cooperation with the American Republics sponsored by the Department of State, and mapped manganese deposits in Costa Rica and manganese and antimony deposits in Honduras.


Objective: To evaluate and compare the efficacy of using conjunctival autograft and non-bare sclera mitomycin C (MMC) techniques as two treatment options for primary pterygium. Patients and Methods: Retrospective comparative study included 55 eyes in 55 patients with primary pterygium. 30 eyes of 30 patients (group 1) underwent pterygium excision followed by conjunctival autograft. 25 eyes of 25 patients (group 2) underwent pterygium removal followed by intraoperative application of 0.02% MMC for 2 minutes with conjunctival preservation (non-bare sclera technique). Both groups were compared in terms of surgery time, pterygium size, cosmetic effect, pterygium recurrence and complications. Results: Mean pterygium size was (3.1 ± 0.64 mm and 2.6 ± 0.94 mm) in group 1 and 2, respectively (p =0.1). Mean surgery time was significantly shorter in MMC group (26.4 ± 6.39 min) as compared  to conjunctival autograft group (47.9 ± 11.7 min) (P < 0.0001).  Pterygium recurrence was not seen in any of the patients. Mean follow up time was (14.8 ± 6 and 17.2 ± 9.6 months) in group 1 and 2, respectively (p = 0.4). Conclusion: Both conjunctival graft and non-bare sclera MMC techniques are comparable as regard of pterygium recurrence. MMC technique has significantly shorter surgery time, better cosmoses and lower incidence of complications. Preserving the conjunctiva should be considered when the patient has a history of glaucoma or there is insufficient conjunctiva.


This study explores the perceptions of four visual art teacher educators of what constitutes good visual art teaching in a Malaysian higher education setting. The aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of the characteristic features of good visual art teaching in a higher education setting. The study explores the beliefs, values, and life shaping factors that underpin and inform the teaching practice of these visual art teacher educators.
What constitutes good visual teaching in higher education has intrigued and challenged those concerned with this sector for many decades and is subject to on-going inquiry and debate. Perspectives of what constitutes good visual art teaching practices are shaped by individual, social and cultural factors, including those pathways taken through visual art education and training. Consequently there is little consensus about what good visual art teaching really looks like. Whilst the characteristic features of good teaching in higher education have been the subject of recent inquiry, the literature concerning good visual art teaching in higher education is limited. This study aims to address this gap.
This study adopts a qualitative case study approach and draws on the principles and practices of narrative inquiry. In this study, four visual art teacher educators who have different backgrounds and areas of specialisation from the Art Department of the 'University of Education Malaysia' were interviewed and observed. Each visual art teacher educator participated in a series of three interviews in order to interrogate their beliefs, values and experiences, and access their accounts of good visual art teaching. Observations of each visual art teacher educator's teaching served to triangulate the data generated through interview. In order to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon, 12 student teachers consisting of six pre-service and six in-service final year student teachers from the same department were interviewed using individual and group interview.
Narrative analysis and analysis of narrative techniques were employed in the examination of the data. From this analysis four narrative accounts of these visual art teacher educators' perception of good visual art teaching in a higher education setting were developed.
Findings suggest that teaching is shaped by prior experiences as learners in school, community, and tertiary settings, and understandings of the professional teaching situation. For these participants the personal and professional are connected in their lives. This connection is illustrated through the distinctive ways that each visual art teacher educator approaches their teaching and the different beliefs and values they hold. For those participants whose education and/or current practice is studio-based, mastery of art skills and knowledge is of primary importance in good visual art teaching. For these participants good visual art teaching is a specialised area which requires specific knowledge and skills. For those participants whose education and/or current practice is theory based, good visual art teaching is not only about mastery of art skills and knowledge but also involves mastery of pedagogical content knowledge and practical knowledge. Despite these apparent differences in beliefs and practices, concern for pedagogical content knowledge is a feature of the work of all four participants. For all visual art teacher educator participants, lifelong learning through self-reflection, inquiry, peer reviewing, involvement in on-going professional development and continuing education is a hallmark of good visual art teaching. In addition all visual art teacher educator participants view good visual art teaching as a relational activity.
This study provides us with insights into the complexity of good visual art teaching from the perspective of the visual art teacher educator. This study has developed ways to listen to visual art teacher educators' voices and to hear them in their own terms, to observe them, to enter their realities, and to see the world from their perspectives. This is deemed as important because in the Malaysian experience, more often than not, visual art teacher educators' teaching practice and their lives have been largely unexamined and taken for granted. The worldviews, stories, and teaching practices we enact are cultural constructions that have become part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Through this study an understanding of the beliefs, values and life-shaping factors that underpin and inform these visual art teacher educators' teaching practices provides us with new understandings of their work in Malaysian teacher education.


This thesis proposes a solution approach to the operating room scheduling problem (ORSP) with two types of demand for surgery: known elective demand and uncertain emergency demand. The ORSP consists of scheduling elective surgeries to an operating room and a time period, while minimizing costs. The uncertainty regarding emergency patient arrivals and the capacity constraints of the pre-op and post-op facilities are taken into account. The problem is modeled using multi-stage stochastic programming, and the dynamics of the emergency patient arrival process are shown using a scenario tree structure. Two types of recourse decisions are allowed in each stage; a scheduled elective patient may be postponed one time period (type 1), or the operating room can be changed for the elective patient within the same time period (type 2). In addition, the emergency patients arriving must be allocated rooms in each stage. The model is implemented in XpressMP. Two heuristics are applied to the model: fix and relax and an improvement algorithm. The computational study shows that including the uncertainty by using the multi-stage model presented is beneficial for problems represented by up to 8 scenarios. The model performs the best when only allowing recourse decisions of type 1. For the test instances used, including the pre-op and post-op capacity constraints seem to be of a small value.


This paper asks how to study migrants' relationship with the legal system upon arrival in the host country? Concentrating on the issues of plurality, it articulates different ways of explaining migrants' legal adaptations to the new legal environment. To clarify the fragmented debates I organise the approaches around the relative importance of the main analytical perspectives: legal assimilation, legal pluralism and legal consciousness/culture. I critically examine the assimilationist approach and demonstrate how the alternative perspectives are both an advance and a critique of it. The paper concludes that for studying migrants' legal adaptations the relevant question between legal pluralism and legal consciousness/culture approaches should not be one of 'either/or' but 'how much' or 'to what extent', depending on the populations under scrutiny. They both contribute to new ways in which 'law' is conceptualised that have implications for the study of legal orders as a whole.


OBJECTIVES
To determine which factors are predictive of physical and mental health one year after a first measurement of health status in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients.

METHODS
The Physical Component Summary (PCS) score and the Mental Component Summary (MCS) score of the SF-36 were used as the main outcome measures in patients enrolled in the European ALS Health Profile Study (ALS-HPS). Correlation and stepwise regression procedures were used to determine the relationship between patients' physical and mental health status at follow-up with baseline measures.

RESULTS
A total of 1118 patients were recruited into the ALS-HPS, of which 918 (82.11%) returned fully or partially completed baseline and follow-up surveys. PCS scores declined over time. No significant changes were reported for the MCS scores over time for patients with ALS. Baseline scores were found to be significant predictors of patients' health status over time.

CONCLUSIONS
Overall, patients' physical health status at the time of recruitment was the major predictor of the physical health status at both first and second follow-up time assessments. The same relationship was found between baseline and follow-up mental health status. The study also confirms the appropriateness of the use of the SF-36 in ALS patients.


This study examines labour ward culture on two British labour wards, in terms of mother-baby contact and breastfeeding, which has not been empirically researched since 1985 (Garforth & Garcia 1989). 'Aims': to investigate the organisational culture; examine mothers' beliefs and experiences; and midwives' knowledge, beliefs and practices. 'Objectives': To compare organisational cultures; identify if midwifery practice is evidence based and factors which facilitate or detract from it; identify mothers' preferences, beliefs and levels of satisfaction. 'Study Design': Ethnography with case study and diagnostic analysis also utilised. Methods: observation and interviews: purposive sample of mothers (n = 50) and midwives (n = 51); interviews with Heads of Midwifery (n = 2); focus groups with midwives (n = 3); and documentary analysis. 'Results': Despite Trust strategies and Heads of Midwifery support for evidence-based practice, clinical guidelines and midwifery beliefs about mother-baby contact and early breastfeed were not usually congruent. Mother-baby contact after birth is usually interrupted for completion of tasks and some babies have multiple contact episodes, which has not been previously described in the literature. Completion of routine tasks for transfer of mothers and babies to postnatal ward takes precedence, because of organisational demands and insufficient resources. However, most mothers expressed feeling satisfied with contact achieved and support for breastfeeding. 'Conclusion': Findings of the study have contributed new insights and knowledge of labour ward culture. It is not conducive to uninterrupted mother-baby contact and is not evidence-based. 'Recommendations': The development of a learning culture and clinical leadership to promote evidence-based practice and woman-centred care is recommended. The unique period after birth should not be disturbed, to prioritise routine tasks.


Affective response may dominate users' reactions to the synthesized tactile sensations that are proliferating in today's handheld and gaming devices, yet it is largely unmeasured, modeled or characterized. A better understanding of user perception will aid the design of tactile behavior that engages touch, with an experience that satisfies rather than intrudes. We measured 30 subjects' affective response to vibrations varying in rhythm and frequency, then examined how differences in demographic, everyday use of touch, and tactile processing abilities contribute to variations in affective response. To this end, we developed five affective and sensory rating scales and two tactile performance tasks, and also employed a published `Need for Touch' (NFT) questionnaire. Subjects' ratings, aggregated, showed significant correlations among the five scales and significant effect of the signal content (rhythm and frequency). Ratings varied considerably among subjects, but this variation did not coincide with demographic, NFT score or tactile task performance. The linkages found among the rating scales confirm this as a promising approach. The next step towards a comprehensive picture of individuals' patterns of affective response to tactile sensations entails pruning, integration and redundancy reduction of these scales, then their formal validation.


Stereo vision and LIDAR continue to dominate standoff 3D measurement techniques in photogrammetry although the two techniques are normally used in competition. Stereo matching algorithms generate dense 3D data, but perform poorly on low-texture image features. LIDAR measurements are accurate, but imaging requires scanning and produces sparse point clouds. Clearly the two techniques are complementary, but recent attempts to improve stereo matching performance on low-texture surfaces using data fusion have focused on the use of time-of-flight cameras, with comparatively little work involving LIDAR. A low-level data fusion method is shown, involving a scanning LIDAR system and a stereo camera pair. By directly imaging the LIDAR laser spot during a scan, unique stereo correspondences are obtained. These correspondences are used to seed a regiongrowing stereo matcher until the whole image is matched. The iterative nature of the acquisition process minimises the number of LIDAR points needed. This method also enables simple calibration of stereo cameras without the need for targets and trivial coregistration between the stereo and LIDAR point clouds. Examples of this data fusion technique are provided for a variety of scenes.


According to Gibrat's Law of Proportionate Effect, the growth rate of a given firm is independent of its size at the beginning of the examined period. This paper investigates whether Gibrat's Law holds for new entrants in a given industry: that is for new small firms in the early stage of their life cycle. The main finding is that in some (but not in all) selected industries in Italian manufacturing Gibrat's Law fails to hold in the years immediately following start-up, when smaller firms have to rush in order to achieve a size large enough to enhance their likelihood of survival. Conversely, in subsequent years the patterns of growth of smaller firms do not differ significantly from those of larger ones, and the Law is therefore confirmed.


Subsistence is one of the factors that determined the presence or migration of prehistoric human populations. At the same time, humans were largely responsible for the dissemination of important crop plants such as maize (Zea mays). Maize is the major domesticated species in the New World, with thousands of landraces that were shaped by environment and human culture. Genetic analyses of archaeological and indigenous maize samples were used to verify the occurrence in South America of at least two major introductory waves of distinct races of maize from its center of origin in Mexico. The first occurred around 5000 years ago and spread primarily through the Andean region. The second one, 2000 years ago, spread through the lowlands of South America. These two distributions may reflect cultural isolation between the regions. In terms of subsistence, the present study found that the maize used by indigenous Brazilian populations, including those in Amazonia, is genetically closer to samples from Mexico than to samples from the Andes. This applies to both the contemporary and the archaeological samples indicating that the inhabitants of Brazil, including those from Amazonia, had a stronger relationship with populations from Central America and northern South America than from the Andean region. An exception can be seen in the region of northern Chile through Paraguay to southern Brazil, where the mixture of the three genetic groups indicates possible cultural contact between highland and lowland peoples. Additionally, the greatest diversity in maize was observed in samples from Roraima state, in northern Amazonia, and this may reflect the fact that human populations of the region had intense contact with different cultural groups, including the Andean groups. 60 Freitas and Bustamante: Amazonian Maize Published by Digital Commons @ Trinity, 2013


Doello Jurado was, together with Florentino and Carlos Ameghino, Eduardo l. Holmberg and Angel Gallardo, part of the last generation of naturalists that characterized the natural sciences in Argentina, mainly in the late 19th century. since young, he was interested in the history of the development of the natural sciences in our country. Angel Gallardo, his master, designed him traveler naturalist of the national museum of natural History and in this way he started his studies on the marine invertebrates of our continental platform. Afterwards he was Director of the national museum of natural History, at that time in Peru 208 and in two years' time started the construction of the new building, presently in parque Centenario. He was professor of paleontology in the Faculty of exact and natural sciences of the university of Buenos Aires, and he incremented the collections travelling to different regions of the country. He bought several collections of fossils to the famous Krantz geological warehouse of Bonn and to the Geological Institutes of Bonn, Munich and Brunswick and provided plaster casts of Cenozoic fossil mammals from the Buenos Aires natural History museum. Doello Jurado was co-founder of the Argentine society of natural sciences, the Del Plata ornithological society and the journals Physis and El Hornero. He was also member of the national Academy of exact and natural sciences of Buenos Aires and the national Academy of sciences in Cordoba.


Tumor vaccines have been an attractive concept in the immunotherapy of cancer based on the central role of tumor-associated antigens in allowing the immune system to recognize cancer cells and the large variety of platforms in which to present such antigens to the immune system. Early clinical studies of vaccines, however, were largely disappointing. Recent evidence that cancer-mediated T cell suppression may prevent T cell activation is leading to renewed interest in vaccine development. The use of T cell checkpoint inhibitors alone has revolutionized the contemporary treatment of human cancer, and has suggested that the emergence of neoantigens may be an important biomarker of therapeutic response. Thus, the possibility of using more personalized vaccines targeting relevant neoantigens alone and in combination with T cell checkpoint blockade is a new area of active clinical investigation. In this review we will discuss the central role of antigens in tumor immunotherapy, describe how vaccines may be developed in the context of modern genomic profiling of tumor cells and provide a forward looking perspective on how tumor vaccines may be incorporated into the current landscape of cancer therapy.


1. The tensile strength of the flight-muscle tendons, the distances through which they move and the wingbeat frequency set a maximum of 48 W on the power which could conceivably be transmitted to the pigeon9s wings. 2. A minimum of 9·1 W is required to account for observed climbing performance. 3. The safety factor on tension of the muscle insertions cannot exceed 5·2 and is probably substantially less than this. 4. The maximum possible average specific power over one complete cycle is 0·58 W/g.wt. for the pectoralis and 0·28 W/g.wt. for the supracoracoideus. The maximum possible peak specific power during shortening is 0·86 W/g.wt. for both muscles. The minimum average specific power for the flight muscles as a whole is 0·10 W/g.wt. (from rate of climb measurements). 5. These figures do not imply any unusual mechanical properties in the muscles, as compared to other vertebrate muscles. 6. The coracoid can bear a compressive load of over 40 kg. wt., which appears to be about 3·7 times as much as could ever be applied to it in life. 7. The greatest bending moment (about the centre of rotation of the head of the humerus) which the pectoralis could apply to the humerus is 10·2 kg. wt. cm. The supracoracoideus could apply a maximum of 0·88 kg. wt. cm. 8. The tensile strength of supracoracoideus tendon is about 250 kg. wt./cm. 2 . The compressive strength of coracoid bone is about 1140 kg. wt./cm. 2 .


Based on an extensive review of the literature on women farmers in Africa, this paper explores the potential reasons why women farmers have not adopted improved maize technologies and discusses the implications for agricultural research. Women farmers are often constrained by their lack of access to labor, land, and inputs. In addition, women may prefer different outputs than men. Finally, the dynamics of household decision-making affects technology adoption; roles and responsibilities within the household are often renegotiated when new technologies are adopted, and women may be reluctant to provide labor if they do not receive some of the benefits. Each section of this paper includes a number of questions that may provide insights into the gender roles and dynamics in a particular community. Three general conclusions can be drawn from the available literature. First, there is enormous complexity and heterogeneity among African households. Second, there is no simple way to summarize gender roles within African households and communities. Third, gender roles and responsibilities are dynamic; in particular, they change with new economic circumstances. An extensive annotated bibliography on gender issues and the adoption of maize technologies in Africa follows the review of studies.


A recent event that occurred in a South Carolina classroom illustrates why there should be concern about assigning law enforcement officers to work in public schools. In October of 2015, a teacher called a law enforcement officer into a classroom to handle a student behavior problem. A female student was using a cell phone in violation of school rules. Other students in the classroom captured what happened next by video. The videos show that when the student refused to exit the classroom, the officer grabbed her by the neck, flipped her and her desk to the floor, and then forcibly dragged her across the classroom to restrain and arrest her. This event was not an isolated incident of a law enforcement officer, sometimes referred to as a school resource officer ("SRO"), mishandling a student discipline problem. Indeed, evidence of law enforcement officers mishandling student disciplinary problems abound. These incidents alone should give us pause. However, this Essay presents below a simple cost benefit analysis of SRO programs that I hope will be used by policymakers, school officials, parents, and members of our community to evaluate whether law enforcement officers belong in schools at all.


BACKGROUND
The goal was to review the visual and anatomical outcome of scleral buckling for primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment at a tertiary eye care center in Nigeria between January 1994 and December 2000.

MATERIAL/METHODS
This was a retrospective, descriptive case series of all eyes that had undergone scleral buckling over a 7-year study period. Data collected from the case notes included duration of symptoms, visual acuity at presentation and 3 and 6 months post-op, clinical presentation of the detachments, risk factors for retinal detachment, the surgical procedure done, anatomical outcome at discharge and at 3 and 6 months post-op, and intra-op and post-op complications.

RESULTS
Ninety-eight eyes of 98 patients underwent scleral buckling for primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment during the study period. The mean age was 42 years. The male-to-female ratio was 3.7:1. The mean duration of symptoms was 29.7 weeks. Seventy-six eyes (77.6%) had subtotal to total retinal detachment, with 91 (92.9%) eyes having macular detachment. The surgical technique was cryotherapy, sub-retinal fluid drainage, and explant. At 3 months post-op, 40/54 (74.1%) eyes had successful anatomical outcome. Only 52% (21/40) of these eyes had the best corrected visual acuity of 6/60 or better at 3 months post-op.

CONCLUSIONS
In Nigeria, and possibly many developing countries, efforts should be made towards early diagnosis and treatment of retinal detachments with adequate expertise and facilities.


Evolutionary and paleoecological studies suggest that fires are natural in the Mediterranean basin. However, the important increase in the number of fires and area burned during the 20th century has created the perception that fires are disasters. In the present paper, we review to what extent fires are generating ecological disasters in the Mediterranean basin, in view of current fire regimes and the long-term human pressure on the landscapes. Specifically, we review studies on post-fire plant regeneration and soil losses. The review suggests that although many Mediterranean ecosystems are highly resilient to fire (shrublands and oak forest), some are fire-sensitive (e.g. pine woodlands). Observed erosion rates are, in some cases, relatively high, especially in high fire severity conditions. The sensitive ecosystems (in the sense of showing strong post-fire vegetation changes and soil losses) are mostly of human origin (e.g. extensive pine plantations in old fields). Thus, although many Mediterranean basin plants have traits to cope with fire, a large number of the ecosystems currently found in this region are strongly altered, and may suffer disasters. Post-fire disasters are not the rule, but they may be important under conditions of previous human disturbances.


Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is used to obtain images showing the vascular system. To detect stenosis, which is narrowing of for example blood vessels, maximum intensity projection (MIP) is typically used. This technique often fails to demonstrate the stenosis if the projection angle is not suitably chosen. To improve identification of this region a color-coding algorithm could be helpful. The color should be carefully chosen depending on the vessel diameter. In this thesis a segmentation to produce a binary 3d-volume is made, followed by a distance transform to approximate the Euclidean distance from the centerline of the vessel to the background. The distance is used to calculate the smallest diameter of the vessel and that value is mapped to a color. This way the color information regarding the diameter would be the same from all the projection angles. Color-coded MIPs, where the color represents the maximum distance, are also implemented. The MIP will result in images with contradictory information depending on the angle choice. Looking in one angle you would see the actual stenosis and looking in another you would see a color representing the abnormal diameter.


Every area of science and engineering today has to process voluminous data sets. Using exact, or even approximate, algorithms to solve intractable problems in critical areas, such as computational biology, takes time that is exponential in some of the underlying parameters. Parallel computing addresses this issue and has become affordable with the advent of multicore architectures. However, programming multicore machines is much more difficult due to oddities existing in the architectures. Offering insights into different facets of this area, Multicore Computing: Algorithms, Architectures, and Applications focuses on the architectures, algorithms, and applications of multicore computing. It will help readers understand the intricacies of these architectures and prepare them to design efficient multicore algorithms. Contributors at the forefront of the field cover the memory hierarchy for multicore and manycore processors, the caching strategy Flexible Set Balancing, the main features of the latest SPARC architecture specification, the Cilk and Cilk++ programming languages, the numerical software library Parallel Linear Algebra Software for Multicore Architectures (PLASMA), and the exact multipattern string matching algorithm of Aho-Corasick. They also describe the architecture and programming model of the NVIDIA Tesla GPU, discuss scheduling directed acyclic graphs onto multi/manycore processors, and evaluate design trade-offs among Intel and AMD multicore processors, IBM Cell Broadband Engine, and NVIDIA GPUs. In addition, the book explains how to design algorithms for the Cell Broadband Engine and how to use the backprojection algorithm for generating images from synthetic aperture radar data.


Although the term is still rarely used in the United States, in recent years "green growth" has become part of the lexicon of global environmental policy. Unfortunately, although it is frequently cited as a public policy goal, green growth has remained vague and ill-defined, leading to conflicting interpretations and confusion over the distinction between green growth and related concepts like sustainable development. This paper seeks to clarify the meaning of green growth as a distinct concept, defining a "green growth frontier" of policies that dominate along both environmental and economic dimensions. The green growth agenda can be understood as moving societies toward that frontier of cost-effective and environmentally effective policies. Because movements toward this frontier generate gains along multiple dimensions, they should be less controversial and may allow for some progress toward economic and environmental goals even in contexts where broader political consensus over environmental policies is difficult to form.


America's legal consciousness was high during the era that saw the imprisonment of abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, the execution of slave revolutionary Nat Turner, and the hangings of John Brown and his Harpers Ferry co-conspirators. Jeannine Marie DeLombard examines how debates over slavery in the three decades before the Civil War employed legal language to "try" the case for slavery in the court of public opinion via popular print media. Discussing autobiographies by Frederick Douglass, a scandal narrative about Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist speech by Henry David Thoreau, sentimental fiction by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and a proslavery novel by William MacCreary Burwell, DeLombard argues that American literature of the era cannot be fully understood without an appreciation for the slavery debate in the courts and in print. Combining legal, literary, and book history approaches, "Slavery on Trial" provides a refreshing alternative to the official perspectives offered by the nation's founding documents, legal treatises, statutes, and judicial decisions. DeLombard invites us to view the intersection of slavery and law as so many antebellum Americans did - through the lens of popular print culture.


INTRODUCTION Breathing through chemical smoke has been described as "drowning on dry land." (1) When one imagines chemical weapons, one often imagines that indelible image of Doughboys choking in trenches through a fog of yellow mustard gas. Though World War I did not see the first use of chemical weapons, it did produce the first large-scale industrialized chemical warfare. The effects of this kind of warfare live on in the conventions and taboos associated with chemical weapons. In 1993, the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (Chemical Weapons Convention, or CWC) was signed and later ratified by the U.S. and 187 other states. (2) The history of the legal regime surrounding chemical weapons (CW) reflects the long-term trend of banning weapons systems and technologies that are considered inhumane or undesirable. However, these legal regimes often have difficulty keeping up with the pace of technology and sometimes restrict the use of potentially more humanitarian weapons systems. One such example is the development of non-lethal weapons (NLW). (3) The CWC provides some leeway in this regard by allowing for the use of one type of non-lethal chemical weapons, Riot Control Agents (RCAs), in law enforcement. The debate over RCAs mirrors in large part the debate over weapons conventions generally. Some military officials have advocated getting rid of weapons conventions in favor of internal reviews. (4) The most prominent example of this view can be found in the writing of General John Alexander, former Commander of the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD). He argues that these conventions are fundamentally flawed because they focus on the technology rather than undesired results. (5) Advocates of the weapons conventions counter that so-called NLW are not so non-lethal. (6) They further contend that non-lethal chemical weapons, including RCAs, are dangerous to use on the battlefield because they are "threshold weapon[s]," which may lead to faster escalation to more lethal chemical weapons. (7) This note will analyze how the CWC affects how the U.S. may use RCAs in a war zone and compares the result to that from a more basic review guided by the principles of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)--a review grounded in the methods, rather than the means of warfare. I apply these rules to hypotheticals drawn from real world examples, and argue that the most significant differences between the means-based CWC approach and the methods-based LOAC approach are in the weapons available for use against combatants, not the impact on civilians. Nevertheless, I do not advocate withdrawal of the U.S. from the CWC regime because history suggests that using chemical NLW on the battlefield may make war no more humane than before. However, the example of RCAs within the means-based CWC regime demonstrates the limitations and the unintended consequences of an arms control regime focused on the "means" of warfare. A more basic LOAC approach that focuses on the methods of warfare, rather than the means, may better balance the humanitarian interests than flat weapons bans. Thus, I conclude that the U.S. should consider pursuing (1) new treaties to focus and elaborate on the rules governing methods of warfare rather than the means and (2) stronger internal reviews of new weapons systems around the world. By using widely-accepted standards, the international humanitarian system may prove better able to adapt to ever-changing technological realities. I. THE HISTORY OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS AND RCAS Chemical weapons have, for at least the last century, been viewed as a dishonorable and offensive kind of weapon. (8) However, chemical weapons of some sort have been part of warfare as far back as Thucydides, when "the Peloponnesians ... tried to reduce the town of Plataea with sulphur fumes in the fifth century BC." (9) The first international agreement aimed at restricting their use took place at the Hague Conference of 1899, where certain attendees agreed "to abstain from the use of projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gas. …


Aim of Study: To suggest the use of the symptom of atypical hair growth (SAHG) in the spine zone for early diagnosing both dysplastic scolioses (DS) and congenital scolioses (CS). Since 1989 we have revealed a visual sign in 1028 of 3110 patients with scoliosisof the spine: thehair growth occurs as a centre-converging spiral looking like a snail shell, similar to the hair growth in theparietal zone. SAHG is roentgennegative. Before radiography making the tip of metal injection needle should be positioned in the centre ofthe hair twisting. The middle oftwisting for CS is in the projection of lateral semivertebrae with additional ribs, fused vertebrae,butterfly-shaped vertebrae. SAHG for DS conforms to the apex of scoliotic arch. In SAHG projection unilateral aplasia, hypoplasia or hyperplasia of ribs, that of transverse, spinous, articular processes can be determined, as well as the radiological changes characteristic of the vertebrae of scoliotic deformity apex. It is advisable to use SAHG in the spine zone for DS and CS early detection and timely treatment.


Citral, 3,7-dimethyl-2,6-octadien-1-al, a key component of the lemon-scented essential oils extracted from several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis), verbena (Verbena officinalis) is used as a food additive and as a fragrance in cosmetics. In this study, we investigated the anti-cancer potential of citral and its mode of action. Concentrations of 44.5 muM, comparable to the concentration of citral in a cup of tea prepared from 1 g of lemon grass, induced apoptosis in several hematopoietic cancer cell lines. Apoptosis was accompanied by DNA fragmentation and caspase-3 catalytic activity induction. Citral activity (22.25 microM) was compared to a reference compound like staurosporine (0.7 microM), in respect to DNA fragmentation and caspase-3 enzymatic activity. The apoptotic effect of citral depended on the alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehyde group.


The development of fusion energy will require materials resilient to harsh bombardment by energetic plasma. Linear plasma devices are widely used to examine such materials by simulating power loads and particle fluxes, which are envisaged for the future reactor grade plasma devices. To correctly simulate these conditions, the plasma in the simulator should be running continuously and have high enough density, 1019m-3 or higher. A good candidate to produce such a plasma is a helicon plasma source. This paper reviews a helicon plasma source, which is under development in collaboration between the Budker Institute and Forshungzentrum Juelich, in perspective of its application at the JULE-PSI device.


This paper, on the one hand, goes a step closer to demonstrate the causality of social capital on economic performance. On the other hand, we confirm a continued role of social capital effects on economic performance in this paper by using a much larger sample, spanning three decades and increasing the scope of countries. This paper is unique in the sense that it contributes to revisiting questions of economic performance, social capital and institutions with a clearly better and updated dataset from the last 28 years building upon existing empirical evidence. We employ a longitudinal analysis (pooled unbalanced multiple cross-section datasets) with fixed effects in this study. Our sample includes both the World Values Survey and European Values Study dating back to the 1980s. Our results are twofold: Firstly, to confirm that trust has a significant positive effect on growth. And more importantly, they have a significant effect on growth for at least 5 years (for growth at 5, 7 and 10 years following a period of trust measure). Secondly, associational activities – another measure in the overarching definitions of social capital, along with institutions, inequality, and education are consistently significant determinants of trust.


Inositol phosphates are important intracellular second messengers in eukaryotic cells. In particular, higher-order inositol polyphosphates regulate a range of biological processes, from chromatin remodeling to calcium signaling. Huang et al. (see the Perspective by Irvine) now report that inositol (1,3,4,5)-tetrakisphosphate (IP4) plays an unexpected role in T cells by modifying a well-established protein recruitment pathway. Soluble IP4 in the cell was found to lock onto plekstrin homology domains that regulate the recruitment of signaling proteins to the cell membrane for activation during T cell development. Y. H. Huang, J. A. Grasis, A. T. Miller, R. Xu, S. Soonthornvacharin, A. H. Andreotti, C. D. Tsoukas, M. P. Cooke, K. Sauer, Positive regulation of Itk PH domain function by soluble IP4. Science 316, 886-889 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. Irvine, The art of the soluble. Science 316, 845-846 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


Domain-specific modeling is increasingly adopted by the software development industry. While textual domain-specific languages (DSLs) already have a wide impact, graphical DSLs still need to live up to their full potential. Textual DSLs are usually generated from a grammar or other short textual notations; their development is often cost-efficient. In this paper, we describe an approach to similarly create graphical DSLs from textual notations. The paper describes an approach to generate a graphical node and edge online editor, using a set of carefully designed textual DSLs to fully describe graphical DSLs. Combined with an adequate metamodel, these textual definitions represent the input for a generator that produces a graphical Editor for the web with features such as collaboration, online storage and being always available. The entire project is made available as open source under the name Zeta. This paper focuses on the overall approach and the description of the textual DSLs that can be used to develop graphical modeling languages and editors.


Our culture has elevated science to divine status. Even though the culture contradicts itself in believing in only relative truth, it routinely elevates scientific truth to absolute truth. There is a better approach to understanding the natural realm and science, than what is currently understood in the secular world. This paper will show that the secular view of the natural realm is inadequate. It will develop a biblical view and foundation for science. An understanding of Dispensationalism will be instructive. Ten points help demonstrate that the Sovereign Lord of the Bible has introduced different dispensations in His relationship with mankind in history and affected changes in the natural realm, sometimes radical changes. This will show that God is sovereign not only over history, but also over the entire natural realm. This has vast implications for scientific investigations.


With more legislation being enforced to achieve a reduction in road transport CO2 emissions, automotive companies are having to research and develop technologies that deliver greener driving . Whilst emissions from passenger vehicles have dropped over recent years, there has been an increase in emissions from light commercial vehicles (LCVs). The nature of LCV delivery work is a routine of ingress/egress of the vehicle, changing from a standing to a seated posture repetitively throughout the day. One research focus is packaging occupants in to a smaller vehicle space, in order to reduce the amount of vehicle emissions over its lifecycle. For LCVs, benefits from space saving technology could be an increase in overall loading space (with the same vehicle length) or a reduction in the overall length/weight of the vehicle. Furthermore, an elevated seat posture could reduce the strain on drivers during ingress/egress, as it is closer than that of a conventional seat to a standing posture. Whilst space saving technology has obvious benefits, current driving conventions and standards are not inclusive of new and novel seated postures when packaging a driver in to a vehicle.

The fundamental purpose of a vehicle driver s seat is to be comfortable and safe for the occupant and to facilitate driving. It has been shown that a seat needs both good static and dynamic factors to contribute to overall seat comfort. Additionally, comfortable body angles have been identified and ratified by studies investigating comfortable driving postures; however, this knowledge only applies to conventional driving postures. For an elevated posture , defined as having the driver s knee point below the hip point, there is little research or guidance.

The overall aim of this thesis is to identify the ergonomic requirements of a wide anthropometric range of drivers in an elevated driving posture for LCVs, which was investigated using a series of laboratory based experiments. An iterative fitting trial was designed to identify key seat parameters for static comfort in an elevated posture seat. The results showed that in comparison with a conventional seat: Seat base length was preferred to be shorter (380mm compared with 460mm); Seat base width was preferred to be wider (560mm compared with 480mm); Backrest height was preferred to be longer (690mm compared with 650mm). These findings provided a basis for a seat design specification for an elevated posture concept seat, which was tested in two subsequent laboratory studies. A long-term discomfort evaluation was conducted, using a driving simulator and a motion platform replicating real road vibration. Discomfort scores were collected at 10-minute intervals (50-minutes overall) using a body map and rating scale combination. The results indicated that in comparison with the conventional posture, the elevated posture performed as well, or better (significantly lower discomfort for right shoulder and lower back; p<0.05, two-tailed), in terms of long-term discomfort. Furthermore, the onset of discomfort (i.e. the time taken for localised discomfort ratings to be significantly higher than the baseline ratings reported before the trial) occurred after as little as 10 minutes (conventional posture) and 20 minutes (elevated posture) respectively. A lateral stability evaluation was conducted using low-frequency lateral motion on a motion platform (platform left and right rolls of 14.5°). Stability scores were reported after each sequence of rolls, comparing scores on a newly developed lateral stability scale between three seats: Conventional posture seat; Elevated posture concept seat (EPS1); Elevated posture concept seat with modifications aimed at improving stability (EPS2). Participants reported being more unstable in EPS1, compared with the conventional posture seat (p<0.05, Wilcoxon). However, the EPS2 seat performed equally to the conventional posture seat.

These findings suggest that the elevated posture seat developed in this research is a feasible and comfortable alternative to a conventional posture seat. Furthermore, the final elevated seating positions showed that real space saving can be achieved in this posture thus allowing for more compact and lighter vehicles and potentially reducing strain on drivers during ingress/egress.


Traditionally, Remote Laboratories have been focused on specific solutions for specific problems. We can find a wide range of Remote Laboratories in the literature [1], assisting very different types of subjects (electronics, robotics, optics, fluids mechanics...), but commonly bound to a restricted set of requirements. Because of this, little attention has been paid on working on a scalable, maintainable, secure, open architecture that addresses the requirements of a wide set of experiments, and that could be open enough to support or adapt itself to new experiments. In this paper, we describe several aspects that might be taken into account when designing a Remote Laboratory architecture, resulted from the iterative development of our Remote Laboratory.


The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce the first volume in an annual series, The World Trade Forum. The Forum's members include scholars, lawyers, and government and business practitioners working in the area of international trade, law, and policy. They meet annually and discuss integration issues in international economic relations, focusing on a new theme each year.The central topic of the first World Trade Forum is state trading. To what extent has trade liberalization, as we have experienced it over the last fifty years, affected property ownership? Contributors to the 1998 World Trade Forum explore this question, examining both state practice and the regulatory framework. Their discussions are divided into three parts: Part 1 looks at the World Trade Organization's legal framework for state trading enterprises, taking on such issues as monopolies and state enterprises, the WTO Antidumping Agreement and the economies in transition, and relationship of state trading and the Government Purchasing Act. Part 2 deals with regional experiences in state trading (for the EC, United States, Canada, Japan, China, and Russia). Part 3 examines conceptual issues such as auctions as a trade policy instrument and rule-making alternatives for entities with exclusive rights. The conclusion synthesizes the foregoing chapters in discussing the reach of modern international trade law.Contributors are Frederick Abbott, Ichiro Araki, Christian Bach, Jacques H. J. Bourgeois, Thomas Cottier, William J. Davey, Vladimir Dbrentsov, Toni Haniotis, Bernard M. Hoekman, Gary Horlick, Henrik Horn, Robert Howse, Patrick Low, Will Martin, Mitsuo Matsushita, Petros Mavroidis, Aaditya Mattoo, Patrick Messerlin, Constantine Michalopoulos, Kristin Heim Mowry, Stilpon Nestor, Damien Neven, N. David Palmeter, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, Andre Sapir, Diane P. Wood, and Werner Zdouc.Petros Mavroidis is Professor of Law, University of Neuchatel. Thomas Cottier is Professor of Law, Institute of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern Law School."