To better predict how ocean acidification will affect coral reefs, it is important to understand how biogeochemical cycles on reefs alter carbonate chemistry over various temporal and spatial scales. This study quantifies the contribution of shallow porewater exchange (as quantified from advective chamber incubations) and fresh groundwater discharge (as traced by 222 Rn) to total alkalinity (TA) dynamics on a fringing coral reef lagoon along the southern Pacific island of Rarotonga over a tidal and diel cycle. Benthic alkalinity fluxes were affected by the advective circulation of water through permeable sediments, with net daily flux rates of carbonate alkalinity ranging from −1.55 to 7.76 mmol m −2 d −1 , depending on the advection rate. Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) was a source of TA to the lagoon, with the highest flux rates measured at low tide, and an average daily TA flux of 1080 mmol m −2 d −1 at the sampling site. Both sources of TA were important on a reef-wide basis, although SGD acted solely as a delivery mechanism of TA to the lagoon, while porewater advection was either a sink or source of TA dependent on the time of day. This study describes overlooked sources of TA to coral reef ecosystems that can potentially alter water column carbonate chemistry. We suggest that porewater and groundwater fluxes of TA should be taken into account in ocean acidification models in order to properly address changing carbonate chemistry within coral reef ecosystems.


Accurate computational representations of highly deformable surfaces are indispensable in the fields of computer animation, medical simulation, computer vision, digital modeling, and computational physics. The focus of this dissertation is on the animation of physics-based phenomena with highly detailed deformable surfaces represented by triangle meshes.
We first present results from an algorithm that generates continuum mechanics animations with intricate surface features. This method combines a finite element method with a tetrahedral mesh generator and a high resolution surface mesh, and it is orders of magnitude more efficient than previous approaches. Next, we present an efficient solution for the challenging problem of computing topological changes in detailed dynamic surface meshes. We then introduce a new physics-inspired surface tracking algorithm that is capable of preserving arbitrarily thin features and reproducing realistic fine-scale topological changes like Rayleigh-Plateau instabilities. This physics-inspired surface tracking technique also opens the door for a unique coupling between surficial finite element methods and volumetric finite difference methods, in order to simulate liquid surface tension phenomena more efficiently than any previous method. Due to its dramatic increase in computational resolution and efficiency, this method yielded the first computer simulations of a fully developed crown splash with droplet pinch off.


The aim of this study was to investigate the alterations in lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzyme defences in the blood of patients with malignant breast tumour and benign breast disease. Forty patients with malignant breast tumour, 20 patients with benign breast disease and also 20 healthy control subjects were recruited for the study. Malondialdehyde levels in plasma and erythrocytes, and the activities of erythrocyte CuZn‐superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase and glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase were measured. Malondialdehyde levels were higher in patients with both benign breast disease and malignant breast tumour compared with control subjects. The activities of all antioxidant enzymes were higher in patients with malignant breast tumour, while only glutathione peroxidase and CuZn‐superoxide dismutase activities were higher in patients with benign breast disease. Except for glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase, the antioxidant enzymes studied correlated positively with the malondialdehyde levels in patients with malignant breast tumour. On the other hand, only glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase activity was increased by the level of malignancy. The activity increases in erythrocyte antioxidant enzymes may be a compensatory upregulation in response to increased oxidative stress especially in patients with malignant breast tumour. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The article examines the processes involved in dismantling the Septizonium and transporting its building materials, peperino stones, to one of several sites – in this case the lavatore del Termine. References to other materials and sites such as the casa dei mendicanti are only made to support the main thesis that this was a case of rational, economical and utilitarian re-use. The main sources used were the conto misura et stima of Domenico Fontana and the transportation libretto of Giovan Pietro. The article focuses on the dismantling process itself, the time and materials it required, the working process, economic effort and interim storage. Transportation aspects are examined in terms of volumetric masses for transportation, mobility and destination routes in the incipient Sistine street system.


A general protocol to prepare surface molecularly imprinted polymer core-shell superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles (Fe3O4@MIP SPNPs), using a surface-mediated RAFT polymerization approach, is described. Cholesterol-imprinted Fe3O4@MIP SPNPs were obtained by oleic acid-stabilized Fe3O4 nanoparticles with a trithiocarbonate agent and subsequently by polymerizing thin molecularly imprinted layers composed of dimethylacrylamide and N,N'-methylene(bis)acrylamide units. The surface-mediated RAFT polymerization approach allows the synthesis of ∼20 nm hybrid composite particles with a ∼6 nm MIP shell, exhibiting superparamagnetic properties (saturation magnetization = 35.4 emu g(-1)) and specific molecular recognition of cholesterol. The Fe3O4@MIP SPNPs show the capability of rapid enriching and separating cholesterol (∼3.1% in weight) and are renewable and cyclically exploited due to their monodispersive and superparamagnetic features. Moreover, under optimal conditions, the Fe3O4@MIP SPNP recoveries of spiked human serum, milk, yolk and beef were 91.6%, 93.6%, 92.4% and 91.2%, respectively. Finally, the method of molecular imprinting on superparamagnetic particles can be extended to a wide range of applications for cell sorting, biomolecule enrichment and separation, and drug delivery.


Maritime security has received increased attention by the EU during the last decade. This has resulted not only in policy documents but also in actions taken in the EU's internal and external relations. Central cases, like EUNAVFOR Atalanta, have been given substantial attention by researchers who are divided in their interpretation of what guides or motivates the EU in this emerging policy space. Some see it as a sign of a more power and materially interest-driven EU, while others see it as a sign of the EU as humanitarian actor. None of these interpretations have however put it in relation with EU policy on maritime security. This essay takes its theoretical base in security governance theory and applies a constructivist approach to the ideational base that constitutes the frame for acting. By conducting a qualitative text analysis of EU maritime policy and comparing this with two central cases, EUNAVFOR Atalanta and CRIMGO in the Gulf of Guinea, the essay researches how the EU perceives itself in global maritime security and what norms guide its actions. The essay concludes that the EU frames itself as an actor in its external relations based on the values of international law and UN principles which pursues economic interests in maritime security but does not to any larger extent promote humanitarian rights. Furthermore it is becoming more independent and capable due to its more state-like positioning in international relations. The essays findings support security governance and constructivist theory about the formation of EU identity and norms.


Author(s): Mathew, Paul; Wallace, Nancy; Alschuler, Elena; Kolstad, Leonard | Abstract: Commercial mortgages currently do not fully account for energy factors in underwriting and valuation, particularly as it relates to the impact of energy costs and volatility on an owner's net operating income. As a consequence, energy efficiency is not properly valued and energy risks are not properly assessed and mitigated. Commercial mortgages are a large lever and could be a significant channel for scaling energy efficiency investments. A pilot analysis of loans with different mortgage contract structures and locations showed that when energy cost volatility was included in mortgage valuation, a 20% reduction in energy use resulted in a 1.3% average increase in mortgage value. This suggests that the explicit inclusion of energy use and volatility in mortgage valuation can send a strong price signal that financially rewards and values energy efficiency in commercial properties. This paper presents findings from a scoping study addressing energy factors in commercial mortgages. First, we present a review of current practices as it relates to incorporating energy factors into commercial mortgage underwriting and valuation. Next, we detail the impacts of energy factors on property values, net operating income and mortgage valuation. Building operational practices alone can result in energy use variations from -17% to 87%. Finally, we present a set of proposed interventions to properly address energy factors in commercial mortgages, based on extensive discussions with stakeholders including mortgage originators, underwriters, building owners and regulators.


Background: Few interventions have proven effective in reducing the overuse of antibiotics for acute respiratory infections. We evaluated the effect of DECISION+2, a shared decision-making training program, on the percentage of patients who decided to take antibiotics after consultation with a physician or resident. Methods: We performed a randomized trial, clustered at the level of family practice teaching unit, with 2 study arms: DECISION+2 and control. The DECISION+2 training program included a 2-hour online tutorial followed by a 2-hour interactive seminar about shared decision-making. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who decided to use antibiotics immediately after consultation. We also recorded patients' perception that shared decision-making had occurred. Two weeks after the initial consultation, we assessed patients' adherence to the decision, repeat consultation, decisional regret and quality of life. Results: We compared outcomes among 181 patients who consulted 77 physicians in 5 family practice teaching units in the DECISION+2 group, and 178 patients who consulted 72 physicians in 4 family practice teaching units in the control group. The percentage of patients who decided to use antibiotics after consultation was 52.2% in the control group and 27.2% in the DECISION+2 group (absolute difference 25.0%, adjusted relative risk 0.48, 95% confidence interval 0.34–0.68). DECISION+2 was associated with patients taking a more active role in decision-making (Z = 3.9, p < 0.001). Patient outcomes 2 weeks after consultation were similar in both groups. Interpretation: The shared decision-making program DECISION+2 enhanced patient participation in decision-making and led to fewer patients deciding to use antibiotics for acute respiratory infections. This reduction did not have a negative effect on patient outcomes 2 weeks after consultation. ClinicalTrials.gov trial register no. NCT01116076.


4-Fluoro-9-anthracenecarboxylic acid ( 4F-9AC ) is a thermally reversible (T-type) photomechanical molecular crystal. The photomechanical response is driven by a [4 + 4] photodimerization reaction, while the photodimer dissociation determines the reset time. In this paper, both the chemical kinetics of dimer dissociation (using a microscopic fl uorescence-recovery-after-photobleaching experiment) and mechanical reset dynamics (by imaging bending microneedles) for single 4F-9AC crystals are measured. The dissociation kinetics depend strongly on the initial concentration of photodimer, slowing down and becoming nonexponential at high dimer concentrations. This dose-dependent behavior is also observed in the mechanical response of bending microneedles. A new feature in the photomechanical behavior is identi fi ed: the ability of a very weak control beam to suppress dimer dissociation after large initial dimer conversions. This phenomenon provides a way to optically control the mechanical response of this photomechanical crystal. To gain physical insight into the origin of the nonexponential recovery curves, the experimental results are analyzed in terms of a standard fi rst-order kinetic model and a nonlinear Finke – Watzky (FW) model. The FW model can qualitatively reproduce the transition from exponential to sigmoidal recovery with larger initial conversions, but neither model can reproduce the suppression of the recovery in the presence of a weak holding beam. These results highlight the need for more sophisticated theories to describe cooperative phenomena in solid-state crystalline reactions, as well as demonstrating how this behavior could lead to new properties and/or improved performance in photomechanical materials.


In a school, principal has major contribution to lead better education. It could be assumed that a principal is the center of school policy in order to improve educational quality. Dealing with preceding explanation, a principal officially should conduct an environmental analysis in improving educational analysis. This paper presents the result of a study about environmental analysis conducted by principal of SD N 01 Koto Tangah. Data were obtained through interview, observation and documentation. The respondents were principal, school committee, teachers, and students' parents. This paper revealed that there principal as the top leader of the school has done environmental analysis professionally. Principal involved school committee and society in shaping school vision, mission and school policy. There are two environments namely external and internal. Both of them have been analyzed by principal in order to improve educational quality particularly at SD N 01 Koto Tangah.


Here we assess the temperature dependence of the metabolic rates (gross primary production (GPP), community respiration (CR), and the ratio GPP/CR) of oceanic plankton communities. We compile data from 133 stations of the Malaspina 2010 Expedition, distributed among the subtropical and tropical Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. We used the in vitro technique to measured metabolic rates during 24 h incubations at three different sampled depths: surface, 20%, and 1% of the photosynthetically active radiation measured at surface. We also measured the % of ultraviolet B radiation (UVB) penetrating at surface waters. GPP and CR rates increased with warming, albeit different responses were observed for each sampled depth. The overall GPP/CR ratio declined with warming. Higher activation energies (Ea) were derived for both processes (GPPChla = 0.97; CRChla = 1.26; CRHPA = 0.95 eV) compared to those previously reported. The Indian Ocean showed the highest Ea (GPPChla = 1.70; CRChla = 1.48; CRHPA = 0.57 eV), while the Atlantic Ocean showed the lowest (GPPChla = 0.86; CRChla = 0.77; CRHPA = −0.13 eV). We believe that the difference between previous assessments and the ones presented here can be explained by the overrepresentation of Atlantic communities in the previous data sets. We found that UVB radiation also affects the temperature dependence of surface GPP, which decreased rather than increased under high levels of UVB. Ocean warming, which causes stratification and oligotrophication of the subtropical and tropical oceans, may lead to reduced surface GPP as a result of increased penetration of UVB radiation.


Purpose. The aim of this review was to evaluate the evidence on the effectiveness of oral chlorhexidine in the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in critically ill adult mechanically ventilated patients in intensive care units (ICUs).
Methodology. An extensive literature search of studies published in English was undertaken between June 2010 and June 2011. Electronic databases searched were the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health (CINAHL) and MEDLINE. Reference lists of articles, textbooks and conference summaries were examined and hand searching was performed. Literature searches were done using the following Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms: ventilator-associated pneumonia, VAP, chlorhexidine, hospital-acquired pneumonia, nosocomial infections, mechanically ventilated patients, intensive care, mouthwash, mouth care, oral care, oral hygiene and dental care.
Selection criteria. Two reviewers selected the studies independently. Eight randomised controlled trials investigating the efficacy of oral chlorhexidine versus power tooth brushing, Listerine, placebos, bicarbonate isotonic serum rinse and normal saline in the prevention of VAP in adult mechanically ventilated, critically ill patients in ICUs met the inclusion criteria.
Data collection and analysis. All relevant data were entered into Review Manager (version 5.1) for analyses. The effect measure of choice was the risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for dichotomous data using the random effects (Mantel-Haenszel) model (p-value 0.05). Heterogeneity was assessed using the Cochrane Q statistic and I².
Results. Eight randomised controlled trials met the inclusion criteria for this review. There was a 36% higher chance of VAP in the control group compared with the chlorexidine group (RR 0.64, 95% CI 0.44 - 0.91). The variation between the included studies was very small (χ²=0.24).
Conclusion. Treatment with chlorhexidine decreased the risk of VAP by 36%. The use of 2% chlorhexidine may be most effective in reducing the incidence of VAP. There was no evidence of an effect of chlorhexidine on mortality.


The utility of wearable activity monitors can provide a better guide to increase adherence to the recommended physical activity levels for health improvement. However, the extent of participants' ability to comply with the physical activity prescription using a newly developed, intensity-focused value, real-time cadence, remains unclear. PURPOSE: To examine the participants' ability to comply with a given physical activity prescription focusing on intensity (i.e., real-time cadence). METHODS: Thirty-six healthy adult individuals (age 18-65 yrs; 18 female) participated in the study. During a 2-min over-ground walking trial, participants were prescribed to walk at any cadences (steps/min; an indicative of intensity of ambulatory activities) faster than 120 (i.e., equivalent to a brisk walking) using either one of the following devices in a counter-balanced order: (1) Garmin Forerunner 235 (GM) and (2) Polar M430 (PL), (3) Garmin Foot Pot (FP) and (4) Polar Stride Sensor (SS). Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the % of participants who complied accordingly with the given physical activity prescription as well as the means of cadence performed in each trial. Pearson correlation was conducted to determine the relationship between a criterion (i.e., hand count) and the measures from each device. RESULTS: In general, greater than 90% of the participants (91.7%, 97.2%, 100%, and 97.2% for the device (1) through (4), respectively) were able to maintain walking intensity at the prescribed level using real-time cadence. Mean cadences performed in the protocol were barely above the prescribed intensity, 120 steps/min (i.e., approximately 123 steps/min). The correlations showed strong relationships between the criterion and the measures of the monitors (p <.001). GM and PL sometimes showed a value of zero (0), indicating no detection of steps, during the protocol (from 4 and 11 participants, respectively). CONCLUSION: The results suggest the potential to use the activity monitors providing real-time cadence for physical activity prescription and clarify the participants' capability to manipulate the values of real-time cadence to maintain the targeted intensity of physical activity. A highly aimed intensity prescription rather than minimum requirement might help individuals ensure the compliance with targeted intensity.


Government commitments and market transitions lay the foundation for an effort to save the forest and reduce carbon emission. Brazil has two major opportunities to end the clearing of its Amazon forest and to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions substantially. The first is its formal announcement within United Nations climate treaty negotiations in 2008 of an Amazon deforestation reduction target, which prompted Norway to commit $1 billion if it sustains progress toward this target (1). The second is a widespread marketplace transition within the beef and soy industries, the main drivers of deforestation, to exclude Amazon deforesters from their supply chains (2) [supplementary online material (SOM), section (§) 4]. According to our analysis, these recent developments finally make feasible the end of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which could result in a 2 to 5% reduction in global carbon emissions. The $7 to $18 billion beyond Brazil's current budget outlays that may be needed to stop the clearing [a range intermediate to previous cost estimates (3, 4)] could be provided by the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) mechanism for compensating deforestation reduction that is under negotiation within the UN climate treaty (5), or by payments for tropical forest carbon credits under a U.S. cap-and-trade system (6).


Background Undernutrition and anaemia remains to be a major public health problem in many developing countries, where they mostly affect children. Intestinal parasitic infections are known to affect both growth and haemoglobin levels. Much has been reported on the impact of geohelminths on anaemia and undernutrition, leaving that of Schistosoma mansoni not well studied. Therefore this study intended to determine the association between S.mansoni infections, anaemia and undernutrition among schoolchildren in Rorya district, Northwestern Tanzania. Methodology A cross-sectional study was carried among schoolchildren in two onshore villages namely Busanga and Kibuyi in Rorya district. Single stool specimens were collected from 513 randomly selected schoolchildren and processed for microscopic examination using the Kato-Katz method. Nutritional status was determined by anthropometry. Blood samples were also collected and examined for malaria parasites and haemoglobin levels using the Giemsa stain and HaemoCue methods, respectively. A pretested questionnaire was used to collect socio-demographic data and associated factors. Results The prevalence of S. mansoni infection and malaria was 84.02% and 9.16%, respectively. Other parasites found were Ascaris lumbricoides (1.36%) and Hookworm (1.36%). The prevalence of stunting and wasting was 38.21% and 14.42%, respectively. The prevalence of anaemia was 29.43%, whereby 0.58% had severe anaemia. S. mansoni infection was not found to be associated with undernutrition or anaemia (p>0.05). The risk of stunting and wasting increased with increasing age (p<0.001). Anaemia was associated with age, sex and village of residence (p<0.05). Conclusions S.mansoni, undernutrition and anaemia are highly prevalent in the study area. The observed rates of undernutrition and anaemia were seen not to be associated with S.mansoni infection suggesting possibly being a result of poor dietary nutrients. This study suggests that policy makers should consider Rorya district for inclusion into national schistosomiasis control and school feeding programmes.


This report examines how cities can manage the transition to shared mobility services. It expands on two earlier studies that looked at the citywide impact of replacing private cars with shared services, but did not address the question of implementation. Based again on mobility data for the city of Lisbon, Portugal, this report assesses issues around the scaling up of shared mobility services to the whole of the Metropolitan area and of their stepwise introduction. It also analyses the impacts of these services on the use of existing high-capacity public transport and on access to jobs, schools or health facilities across the whole study area, and explores how shared mobility can improve accessibility for users with impairments.The work for this report was carried out in the context of a project initiated and funded by the International Transport Forum's Corporate Partnership Board (CPB). CPB projects are designed to enrich policy discussion with a business perspective. Led by the ITF, work is carried out in a collaborative fashion in working groups consisting of CPB member companies, external experts and ITF staff.


A basic introduction to pyrrolizidine and indolizidine alkaloids has been described along with a selection of recent syntheses of the said compounds.Cycloalkene synthesis by intramolecular Wittig reaction has been reviewed and we describe the utility of this strategy in the formation of nitrogen-bridgehead bicycles which can then be used in alkaloid synthesis. Our initial studies on the viability of this strategy in the synthesis of fused pyrrolidone systems employed a Wittig reaction between 5-acetylpyrrolidin-2-one and vinylphosphonium salts. A comparison was made between three different vinylphosphonium salts but in each case the bicycle formed was present as a mixture with the Wittig by-product triphenylphosphine oxide. Various solutions to this problem were investigated including modification of the bicycle and also the formation of a water soluble vinylphosphonium salt. The difficulties encountered led us to the use of a vinylphosphine oxide which resulted in the formation of 5,6,7,7a-tetrahydro-1-methyl-2-phenylthio-3H-pyrrolizin-5-one in good yields. Desulphurisation gave 5,6,7,7a-tetrahydro-1-methyl-3H-pyrrolizin-5-one which has previously been converted into (+/-)-supinidine. Thus our method constitutes a formal total synthesis of (+/-)-supinidine.Attempts at the preparation of analogues of 5-acetylpyrrolidin-2-one were unsuccessful but were in their preliminary stages at the close of the work.Reaction of 5-acetylpyrrolidin-2-one with cyclopropylphosphonium salts were attempted without success but it is felt that the use of cyclopropylphosphine oxides would solve this problem. Attempts at performing an intramolecular Wittig reaction on the imide carbonyl of succinimide using both cyclopropylphosphonium salts and butadienylphosphonium salts were unsuccessful but our investigations gave an insight into the cause of the failure forcing conditions need to be employed to effect the cyclisation.


The technosphere, the interlinked set of communication, transportation, bureaucratic and other systems that act to metabolize fossil fuels and other energy resources, is considered to be an emerging global paradigm, with similarities to the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The technosphere is of global extent, exhibits large-scale appropriation of mass and energy resources, shows a tendency to co-opt for its own use information produced by the environment, and is autonomous. Unlike the older paradigms, the technosphere has not yet evolved the ability to recycle its own waste stream. Unless or until it does so, its status as a paradigm remains provisional. Humans are 'parts' of the technosphere – subcomponents essential for system function. Viewed from the inside by its human parts, the technosphere is perceived as a derived and controlled construct. Viewed from outside as a geological phenomenon, the technosphere appears as a quasi-autonomous system whose dynamics constrains the behaviour of its human parts. A geological perspective on technology suggests why strategies to limit environmental damage that consider only the needs of people are likely to fail without parallel consideration of the requirements of technology, especially its need for an abundant supply


Large predatory fish that alter the behaviour of smaller species may affect visual estimates of abundance by making organisms more or less difficult to observe and quantify. To evaluate the non-consumptive influence of large predators on rocky reef fishes observed with Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV), we tested the hypothesis that fish assemblages monitored when large (ca 1.5 m) piscivorous sharks, Mustelus antarcticus, were present differ from those observed when sharks were absent. We did this in two ways using recordings from rocky reefs in Batemans Marine Park, NSW, Australia. First, we examined 6 min of each 30 min tape; 3 min when sharks were present and 3 min when they were absent, in a paired sample design from 17 sites. Second, we compared fish assemblages for complete tapes (30 min) at sites with sharks present compared to sites where they were absent. The diversity and total abundance of fishes was consistently lower in the presence of sharks; we detected significant assemblage-wide change (PERMANOVA, P < 0.05). Importantly, the diversity and total abundance of fishes for complete tapes (30 min) decreased in the presence of sharks by 18 % and 36 %, respectively, underscoring the likelihood that sharks influence observed fish assemblages. Individual species responses were variable and while the abundance of many fish species decreased in response to sharks, others increased 6-fold. Overall, these results highlight the need to consider systematic differences in the abundance of large predators to avoid biases when testing hypotheses about fish assemblages using non-destructive visual methodologies.


Part exposition and part presentation of new results, this monograph deals with that area of mathematics which has both combinatorial group theory and mathematical logic in common. Its main topics are the word problem for groups, the conjugacy problem for groups, and the isomorphism problem for groups. The presentation depends on previous results of J. L. Britton, which, with other factual background, are treated in detail.


UK and US data suggest that consumption seasonality is both stochastic and characterised by permanent changes, that is there are seasonal unit roots in consumption. This paper explains the changes in the seasonal pattern of UK consumption and in doing so offers new insights into the much studied business cycle characteristics of consumption. We find that changes in consumption seasonality have zero or negative correlation with changes in the income seasonal, an observation which casts doubt on liquidity constraints as an important determinant of consumption fluctuations. Neither is consumption seasonality driven by precautionary saving, rates of return or climatic variables. Instead, seasonality in consumption is induced by the utility function, with the evidence ruling out seasonal habits or periodic effects. The evidence is consistent with seasonality changing due to preference shocks which we interpret, based on econometric evidence and a historical survey, as changes in customs. While these changes are slow moving they generate substantial variation in seasonal fluctuations in the post-war period, with Christmas consumption gaining in importance. Our results suggest that seasonal fluctuations may differ significantly from business cycle fluctuations and suggest that preference shifts should be considered as a possible source of non-seasonal fluctuations in consumption.


Cathepsins are cysteine proteases that degrade proteins in the lysosome, and some cathepsins assist with the processing of antigens for the immune system. Asagiri et al. (see the Perspective by Krieg and Lipford) uncover a further but distinct immunological role for another cathepsin, cathepsin K, which is known to be involved in osteoclast function in the bone. Cathepsin K is expressed in immunological dendritic cells and is needed for the complete induction of the inflammatory T helper 17 cells. In animal models for two autoimmune conditions, pathology was ameliorated by cathepsin K deficiency because of its unexpected involvement in signaling through the innate immune receptor TLR9. Cathepsin K is already a target for some antirheumatic drugs, so its emergence as regulator of the immune response may further bolster efforts to target this pathway. M. Asagiri, T. Hirai, T. Kunigami, S. Kamano, H.-J. Gober, K. Okamoto, K. Nishikawa, E. Latz, D. T. Golenbock, K. Aoki, K. Ohya, Y. Imai, Y. Morishita, K. Miyazono, S. Kato, P. Saftig, H. Takayanagi, Cathepsin K-dependent Toll-like receptor 9 signaling revealed in experimental arthritis. Science 319, 624-627 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. M. Krieg, G. B. Lipford, The Toll of cathepsin K deficiency. Science 319, 576-577 (2008). [Summary] [Full Text]


The 1D quantum confinement of photogenerated excitons in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) can amplify the detection of molecular adsorption to where single-molecule discrimination is realizable, even from within living cells and tissues. Toward this aim, we present a type 1 collagen film, similar to those used as 3D cell scaffolds for tissue engineering, containing embedded SWNT capable of reporting single-molecule adsorption of quenching molecules. We utilize hidden Markov modeling to link single-molecule adsorption events to rate constants for H2O2, H+, and Fe(CN)6(3-). Among the three kinds of reactant molecules studied, H2O2 has the highest quenching equilibrium constant of 1.59 at 20 microM, whereas H+ is so insensitive that a similar equilibrium constant is achieved only with a concentration of 0.1 M (pH 1). The results were self-consistent because reverse (unquenching) rate constants (600 micros(-1) for H2O2, 1130 micros(-1) for H+ and 4000 micros(-1) for Fe(CN)6(3-)) were observed to be concentration-independent and the forward (quenching) rate constants varied monotonically with concentration. The quenching rate constants also increased with an increase in the redox potential of the quencher, indicating that electron transfer increases the adsorption equilibrium constant on the nanotube surface and, hence, the dwell time of the quencher. These developments provide the material, analytical, and mechanistic groundwork for SWNT to function as single-molecule stochastic biosensors.


This paper focuses on the question of how new (social) media work as tools of political messages' distribution within converged media systems. Using a case study of the adisucks Facebook protest organized in Polish social media in March 2011, the author demonstrates how the internet may work as a space of symbolic and participatory engagement in the collaborative creation and dissemination of grassroots political messages. The analysis is framed by a theoretical consideration of recent transformations in political communication patterns caused by changes within the sphere of civic engagement and the transformations of 21-century digital media. The author discusses: narrative or mythical and performative levels of users' contribution to the protest profile and considers possible changes in the status of modern online activism by recalling the concept of "communicative capitalism".


This paper examines the young heroine's ambivalent relationship with books in Doris Lessing's coming-of-age novel Martha Quest. Martha, a young British girl growing up in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the wake of World War II, is a voracious young reader who reads extensively in order to make sense of the world in which she is living. Sometimes the books she reads lead her to think critically and challenge the canonical authorities and patriarchal society; however, at times her reading experience is also unsettling and frustrating because the books she reads are mostly produced within a biased system she intends to go beyond. The paper analyzes how Martha relies on books to reshape her national identity and personal life, and how she deals with the discrepancy between the world represented in books and reality in terms of Benedict Anderson's concept of an 'imagined community'. Furthermore, this paper also discusses how Martha's portrait as a bewildered reader of realist literature mirrors Lessing's own ambiguous relationship with her realist narratives.


The enamel knot, a transient epithelial structure, appears at the onset of mammalian tooth shape development. Until now, the morphological, cellular and molecular events leading to the formation and disappearance of the enamel knot have not been described. Here we report that the cessation of cell proliferation in the enamel knot in mouse molar teeth is linked with the expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21. We show that p21 expression is induced by bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP-4) in isolated dental epithelia. As Bmp-4 is expressed only in the underlying dental mesenchyme at the onset of the enamel knot formation, these results support the role of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors as inducible cell differentiation factors in epithelial-mesenchymal interactions. Furthermore, we show that the expression of p21 in the enamel knot is followed by Bmp-4 expression, and subsequently by apoptosis of the differentiated enamel knot cells. Three-dimensional reconstructions of serial sections after in situ hybridization and Tunel-staining indicated an exact codistribution of Bmp-4 transcripts and apoptotic cells. Apoptosis was stimulated by BMP-4 in isolated dental epithelia, but only in one third of the explants. We conclude that Bmp-4 may be involved both in the induction of the epithelial enamel knot, as a mesenchymal inducer of epithelial cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, and later in the termination of the enamel knot signaling functions by participating in the regulation of programmed cell death. These results show that the life history of the enamel knot is intimately linked to the initiation of tooth shape development and support the role of the enamel knot as an embryonic signaling center.


Machine foundations are dynamically loaded structures whose response depends on a number of parameters such as strength, stiffness, mass, damping, soil–structure interaction and fatigue. Performance-based designs and evaluation procedures are gaining popularity particularly with respect to structures that have been built using codal provisions existing a few decades back. Enhancement of knowledge has led to various changes. But, machine foundations that have been designed and constructed in the past are seldom checked for their suitability using the present day knowledge. Some parameters that have been omitted or inadequately considered lead to malfunctioning of machine foundations. A four stage forensic engineering procedure is proposed for rehabilitation of these foundations. The stages involved are discussed taking three case study examples handled by the authors. It is felt extremely important that such investigations are documented and discussed by experts is engineering profession so that they can be used widely by practicing engineers.


In this manuscript of the habilitation \`a diriger des recherches (HDR), the author presents some of his work over the last ten years. The main topic of this thesis is cosmic shear, the distortion of images of distant galaxies due to weak gravitational lensing by the large-scale structure in the Universe. Cosmic shear has become a powerful probe into the nature of dark matter and the origin of the current accelerated expansion of the Universe. Over the last years, cosmic shear has evolved into a reliable and robust cosmological probe, providing measurements of the expansion history of the Universe and the growth of its structure.
I review the principles of weak gravitational lensing and show how cosmic shear is interpreted in a cosmological context. Then I give an overview of weak-lensing measurements, and present observational results from the Canada-France Hawai'i Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS), as well as the implications for cosmology. I conclude with an outlook on the various future surveys and missions, for which cosmic shear is one of the main science drivers, and discuss promising new weak cosmological lensing techniques for future observations.


Data from four experimental research projects are presented which have in common that unexpected results caused a change in direction of the research. A plant growth accelerator caused the appearance of white black bean aphids, a synthetic pyrethroid suspected of enhancing aphid reproduction proved to enhance plant
growth, a chance conversation with a colleague initiated a search for fungal DNA in aphids, and the accidental
invasion of aphid cultures by a parasitoid reversed the aphid population ranking of two Brussels sprout cultivars. This last result led to a whole series of studies on the plant odour preferences of emerging parasitoids which in turn revealed the unexpected phenomenon that chemical cues to the maternal host plant are left with the eggs at oviposition. It is pointed out that, too often, researchers fail to follow up unexpected results because they resist accepting flaws in their hypotheses; also that current application criteria for research funding make it hard to accommodate unexpected findings.


BACKGROUND
MYD88(L265P) and CXCR4(WHIM) mutations are highly prevalent in Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. MYD88(L265P) triggers tumor-cell growth through Bruton's tyrosine kinase, a target of ibrutinib. CXCR4(WHIM) mutations confer in vitro resistance to ibrutinib.

METHODS
We performed a prospective study of ibrutinib in 63 symptomatic patients with Waldenström's macroglobulinemia who had received at least one previous treatment, and we investigated the effect of MYD88 and CXCR4 mutations on outcomes. Ibrutinib at a daily dose of 420 mg was administered orally until disease progression or the development of unacceptable toxic effects.

RESULTS
After the patients received ibrutinib, median serum IgM levels decreased from 3520 mg per deciliter to 880 mg per deciliter, median hemoglobin levels increased from 10.5 g per deciliter to 13.8 g per deciliter, and bone marrow involvement decreased from 60% to 25% (P<0.01 for all comparisons). The median time to at least a minor response was 4 weeks. The overall response rate was 90.5%, and the major response rate was 73.0%; these rates were highest among patients with MYD88(L265P)CXCR4(WT) (with WT indicating wild-type) (100% overall response rate and 91.2% major response rate), followed by patients with MYD88(L265P)CXCR4(WHIM) (85.7% and 61.9%, respectively) and patients with MYD88(WT)CXCR4(WT) (71.4% and 28.6%). The estimated 2-year progression-free and overall survival rates among all patients were 69.1% and 95.2%, respectively. Treatment-related toxic effects of grade 2 or higher included neutropenia (in 22% of the patients) and thrombocytopenia (in 14%), which were more common in heavily pretreated patients; postprocedural bleeding (in 3%); epistaxis associated with the use of fish-oil supplements (in 3%); and atrial fibrillation associated with a history of arrhythmia (5%).

CONCLUSIONS
Ibrutinib was highly active, associated with durable responses, and safe in pretreated patients with Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. MYD88 and CXCR4 mutation status affected responses to this drug. (Funded by Pharmacyclics and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01614821.).


Mode localization is investigated in a weakly mechanically coupled system. The system comprises of two doubly clamped microbeams mechanically linked with a coupling beam close to the anchors. The phenomenon is explored among the first three vibration modes pairs, each consisting of an in-phase and out-of-phase mode. A distributed-parameter model accounting for the two mechanically coupled resonators, the coupling beam, and their geometric and electric nonlinearities are derived using the extended Hamilton's principle. A reduced-order model is then derived from the Lagrangian of the equations. An eigenvalue analysis is performed under different side electrode bias scenarios. The voltage bias impact on the natural frequencies of the pairs of modes is investigated. Veering among the various modes is observed and studied as varying the bias conditions. It is demonstrated that the veering zones can be greatly affected, tuned, and shifted by the biasing voltages. Finally, forced vibration analysis is performed. It is observed that the choice of the resonator to be excited, perturbed, and its response to be monitored is very important to fully understand and utilize the localization phenomenon for practical applications. Further, it is observed that very weak coupling is required to activate mode localization in higher-order modes. The reported selective localization and activation and deactivation of higher-order modes can be potentially useful for various applications, such as parallel mechanical computing, and for ultra-sensitive in high-frequency environments.


This paper begins with a learning theory of instruction. It describes how Meaningful Reception Learning can be used to teach in classification of items. Meaningful Reception Learning is a learning theory of instruction proposed by Ausubel who believed that learners can learn best when the new material being taught can be anchored into existing cognitive information in the learners. He also proposed the use of advance organizers as representations of the facts of the lesson. The principles of Meaningful Reception Learning; derivative subsumption, correlative subsumption, combinatorial subsumption and superordinate learning are used in the classification of items. The items classified in this paper are fabrics. The classification is divided into man- made fabrics and naturally occurring fabrics. The hypothetical learners in this paper are undergraduate students but the principles can be modified to fit a different audience.


The macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a key proinflammatory mediator. Two functional polymorphisms have been identified in the promoter region of the MIF gene. We attempted to clarify the associations of these polymorphisms with the development of gastric cancer. The study was performed in 229 patients with gastric cancer and 428 subjects with no evidence of gastric malignancies on the upper gastro-duodenal endoscopy. The severity of histological chronic gastritis was classified according to the updated Sydney system. Overall, the 5-CATT carriers had a reduced risk of developing gastric cancer (OR, 0.67; 96% CI, 0.48-0.93; p=0.015), especially the diffuse type cancer. In subjects >60 years, the adjusted risk for gastric cancer among individuals who were -173C carriers was 1.71 (range, 1.03-2.84; p=0.038) compared to the G/G homozygous genotype. The number of 7-CATT alleles was also positively correlated with the development of intestinal type gastric cancer (adjusted OR, 1.70; 95% CI, 1.02-2.58; p=0.043). In subjects <60 years, the 7/7-CATT homozygous genotype was linked with a risk for the progression of atrophic gastritis (adjusted OR, 8.74; 95% CI, 1.31-58.6; p=0.026). In addition, the number of 7-CATT alleles was significantly correlated with the activity and inflammation scores (p=0.010 and 0.030, respectively). Our results suggested that functional promoter polymorphisms of the MIF gene are associated with the progression of gastric mucosal inflammation and the development of mucosal atrophy at an early stage in life and these genotypes may increase the risk for the subsequent development of gastric cancer, especially the intestinal type, in older subjects.


Previous studies have shown that nitric oxide synthase (NOS), the enzyme that catalyzes the formation of nitric oxide (NO), is expressed in skeletal muscle. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that NO can modulate glucose metabolism in slow- and fast-twitch skeletal muscles. Calcium-dependent NOS was detected in skeletal muscle, and the enzyme activity was greater in fast-type extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles than in slow-type soleus muscles. Both the neuronal-type (nNOS) and endothelial-type (eNOS) enzymes are expressed in resting skeletal muscles. However, nNOS protein was only detected in EDL muscles, whereas eNOS protein contents were comparable in soleus and EDL muscles. NOS expression in muscle cryosections (diaphorase histochemistry) was located in vascular endothelium and in muscle fibers, and the staining was greater in type lib than in type I and Ha fibers. The macrophage-type inducible NOS (iNOS) was not detected in resting muscle, but endotoxin treatment induced its expression, concomitant with elevated NO production. iNOS induction was associated with impaired insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in isolated rat muscles. In vitro, NOS blockade with specific inhibitors did not affect basal or insulin-stimulated glucose transport in EDL or soleus muscles. In contrast, the NO donors GEA 5024 and sodium nitro-prusside induced dose-dependent inhibition (up to 50%) of maximal insulin-stimulated glucose transport in both muscles with minor effects on basal uptake values. GEA 5024 also blunted insulin-stimulated glucose transport and amino acid uptake in cultured L6 muscle cells without affecting insulin binding to its receptor. On the other hand, the permeable cGMP analogue dibutyryl cGMP did not affect muscle glucose transport. These results strongly suggest that NO modulates insulin action in both slow- and fast-type skeletal muscles. This novel autocrine action of NO in muscle appears to be mediated by cGMP-independent pathways.


Constant potential methods (CPMs) enable computationally efficient simulations of the solid-liquid interface at conducting electrodes in molecular dynamics. They have been successfully used, for example, to realistically model the behavior of ionic liquids or water-in-salt electrolytes in supercapacitors and batteries. CPMs model conductive electrodes by updating charges of individual electrode atoms according to the applied electric potential and the (time-dependent) local electrolyte structure. Here, we present a feature-rich CPM implementation, called ELECTRODE, for the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator, which includes a constrained charge method and a thermo-potentiostat. The ELECTRODE package also contains a finite-field approach, multiple corrections for nonperiodic boundary conditions of the particle-particle particle-mesh solver, and a Thomas-Fermi model for using nonideal metals as electrodes. We demonstrate the capabilities of this implementation for a parallel-plate electrical double-layer capacitor, for which we have investigated the charging times with the different implemented methods and found an interesting relationship between water and ionic dipole relaxations. To prove the validity of the one-dimensional correction for the long-range electrostatics, we estimated the vacuum capacitance of two coaxial carbon nanotubes and compared it to structureless cylinders, for which an analytical expression exists. In summary, the ELECTRODE package enables efficient electrochemical simulations using state-of-the-art methods, allowing one to simulate even heterogeneous electrodes. Moreover, it allows unveiling more rigorously how electrode curvature affects the capacitance with the one-dimensional correction.


This paper incorporates conditional heteroskedasticity properties in the long-memory model and applies the model on squared returns of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the United States equity markets to capture the volatility of the stock return. The conditional first- and second-order moments are provided. The CLS, FGLS, and QML are discussed and 2SQML estimator is proposed employing a nonstationary mean function. The simulation study suggests that the proposed 2SQML estimator performs better than the other three estimators. Both in simulation and empirical studies, we find that the proposed model FIMACH outperforms FIGARCH in terms of eliminating serial correlations.


Cellulases represent a major group of the industrially significant enzyme. The present study deals with cost effective production of cellulase (CMCase and FPase) using isolated Aspergillus niger with the employment of a horticultural waste banana peel (BP). Optimization of environmental and nutritional parameters has been done by the classical one factor at a time method (OFAT) followed by chemical characterization of banana peel by EDX and visualization of the topology of banana peel after fermentation by SEM. By applying OFAT methodology for optimization of physical and nutritional parameters, the CMCase and FPase activity is found to increase about 5.21 and 1.97 fold for (111.05 U/gds and 9.45 U/gds) CMCase and FPase, respectively compared to the control (21.3 and 4.8 U/gds for CMCase and FPase, respectively). EDX analysis shows that the banana peel contain high amount of carbon and that is the reason why no additional carbon supply is essential for the growth of the isolated fungi. SEM micrograph illustrates asymmetrical and micro porous morphology of BP and uniform growth of the fungi on the surface of the peel after fermentation.


The dramatic rise and even more dramatic fall in U.S. house prices over the last several years has engendered much research to try to determine whether these events represent a house price "bubble," where prices rose above their fundamental values and then collapsed. A key focus of this research is the behavior of rent-price ratios, which typically combine data on tenant rents and owner-occupied house prices to proxy the earnings yield on owner-occupied housing, much like an earnings-price ratio for a stock. Studies have found little correlation between movements in these ratios and their typical fundamental determinants (e.g., Campbell et al. 2007), leading many experts to conclude that houses were, indeed, overvalued (e.g. Case and Shiller 2004).


We propose a new design for highly concurrent Internet services, which we call the staged event-driven architecture (SEDA). SEDA is intended to support massive concurrency demands and simplify the construction of well-conditioned services. In SEDA, applications consist of a network of event-driven stages connected by explicit queues. This architecture allows services to be well-conditioned to load, preventing resources from being overcommitted when demand exceeds service capacity. SEDA makes use of a set of dynamic resource controllers to keep stages within their operating regime despite large fluctuations in load. We describe several control mechanisms for automatic tuning and load conditioning, including thread pool sizing, event batching, and adaptive load shedding. We present the SEDA design and an implementation of an Internet services platform based on this architecture. We evaluate the use of SEDA through two applications: a high-performance HTTP server and a packet router for the Gnutella peer-to-peer file sharing network. These results show that SEDA applications exhibit higher performance than traditional service designs, and are robust to huge variations in load.


The genetic architecture of complex traits underlying physiology and disease in most organisms remains elusive. We still know little about the number of genes that underlie these traits, the magnitude of their effects, or the extent to which they interact. Chromosome substitution strains (CSSs) enable statistically powerful studies based on testing engineered inbred strains that have single, unique, and nonoverlapping genetic differences, thereby providing measures of phenotypic effects that are attributable to individual chromosomes. Here, we report a study of phenotypic effects and gene interactions for 90 blood, bone, and metabolic traits in a mouse CSS panel and 54 traits in a rat CSS panel. Two key observations emerge about the genetic architecture of these traits. First, the traits tend to be highly polygenic: across the genome, many individual chromosome substitutions each had significant phenotypic effects and, within each of the chromosomes studied, multiple distinct loci were found. Second, strong epistasis was found among the individual chromosomes. Specifically, individual chromosome substitutions often conferred surprisingly large effects (often a substantial fraction of the entire phenotypic difference between the parental strains), with the result that the sum of these individual effects often dramatically exceeded the difference between the parental strains. We suggest that strong, pervasive epistasis may reflect the presence of several phenotypically-buffered physiological states. These results have implications for identification of complex trait genes, developmental and physiological studies of phenotypic variation, and opportunities to engineer phenotypic outcomes in complex biological systems.


This study was designed to determine the effect of prenatal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure on the postnatal metabolic response to an LPS challenge in beef heifers. Pregnant, crossbred cows ( = 50) were assigned to a prenatal immune stimulation (PIS; = 25; administered 0.1 µg/kg BW LPS subcutaneously 233 ± 15d of gestation) or saline treatment group (Control; = 25). Birth and weaning BW of calves were collected. There was not (> 0.05) a treatment × gender interaction for birth weight or 205-d adjusted weaning BW. Treatment did not affect (> 0.05) birth BW, but steers and heifers of PIS cows had greater ( < 0.02) 205-d adjusted weaning BW than offspring from Control cows. From the 2 prenatal treatment groups, heifer calves ( = 12 PIS, 11 Control) were identified at weaning (238 ± 15 d of age) to subsequently receive an LPS challenge. On d 0, heifers were fitted with indwelling jugular catheters and were moved into individual pens. On d 1, heifers (fed at 0600 h) were challenged i.v. with LPS (0.5 µg/kg BW) at 0 h (1000 h). Blood samples were collected at 30-min intervals from -2 to 8 h and again at 24 h relative to the LPS challenge. There was a treatment × time interaction ( < 0.01) for cortisol; PIS heifers had greater cortisol from 4 to 6.5 h post-LPS challenge ( < 0.001). There was a treatment × time interaction ( = 0.04) for serum glucose such that glucose was greater ( = 0.01) in PIS than Control heifers at 0.5 h, but was greater in Control than PIS heifers at 2, 4.5, and 7 h post-LPS challenge. This resulted in overall time ( < 0.01) and treatment ( < 0.01) effects such that Control heifers had greater glucose concentrations than PIS heifers. There was a tendency ( = 0.10) for a treatment × time interaction for serum NEFA, such that NEFA was greater in Control than PIS heifers at -2, -1.5, and 7 h relative to the LPS challenge ( ≤ 0.02). Also, there were time ( < 0.01) and treatment effects ( < 0.01) for NEFA with Control heifers having greater NEFA than PIS heifers. Serum BUN was affected by a treatment × time interaction ( < 0.01). Concentrations of BUN were greater in PIS heifers from -1.5 to -1 h, 1 to 2 h, at 4 h, and from 5 to 24 h relative to the LPS challenge. These results demonstrate postnatal growth and the metabolic responses of weaned beef calves can be significantly altered with a single exposure to LPS in utero.


The Raghavan petition to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concerns a sudden acceleration (SA) incident experienced by the petitioner's wife in a 2009 Lexus ES350 automobile. As she drove slowly into a parking space, the engine roared. When she braked, there was no response and the vehicle accelerated onto to a sidewalk into some bushes, hit a fence, and then stopped. The petitioner cites two other similar SA crashes where the electronic data recorder (EDR) results showed no pedal sensor voltage signals during most of the 4-5 s before impact. It would be reasonable to argue that the absence of accelerator pedal signals ruled out the possibility that the driver had been startled into flooring the accelerator pedal by mistake and holding it there, as required by the pedal error hypothesis and as presented in the NHTSA SA Report (1989). In the Raghavan denial of petition, NHTSA claims that drivers may have been making unrecorded accelerator pedal applications between EDR data points and that this proves that they were still making pedal errors. This ingenious counter hypothesis seems to require that the driver is startled into stomping on the accelerator pedal at 1-s intervals-each stomp being followed by a full pedal release-precisely timed to avoid detection by the EDR. This would require considerable right foot timing skills, muscular control, and dexterity on the part of an allegedly panic-stricken driver. This case study shows that NHTSA, in the process of denying Dr. Raghavan's petition, has done a volte-face and expediently abandoned the pedal error hypothesis, thereby undermining the claim in the 1989 SA Report that: for SAI in which there is no evidence of throttle sticking or cruise-control malfunction, the inescapable conclusion is that these definitely involve the driver pressing the accelerator instead of or in addition to the brake.


Prior works on improving speech quality with visual input typically study each type of auditory distortion separately (e.g., separation, inpainting, video-to-speech) and present tailored algorithms. This paper proposes to unify these subjects and study Generalized Speech Regeneration, where the goal is not to reconstruct the exact reference clean signal, but to focus on improving certain aspects of speech while not necessarily preserving the rest such as voice. In particular, this paper concerns intelligibility, quality, and video synchronization. We cast the problem as audio-visual speech resynthesis, which is composed of two steps: pseudo audio-visual speech recognition (P-AVSR) and pseudo text-to-speech synthesis (P-TTS). P-AVSR and P-TTS are connected by discrete units derived from a self-supervised speech model. Moreover, we utilize self-supervised audio-visual speech model to initialize P-AVSR. The proposed model is coined ReVISE. ReVISE is the first high-quality model for in-the-wild video-to-speech synthesis and achieves superior performance on all LRS3 audio-visual regeneration tasks with a single model. To demonstrates its applicability in the real world, ReVISE is also evaluated on EasyCom, an audio-visual benchmark collected under challenging acoustic conditions with only 1.6 hours of training data. Similarly, ReVISE greatly suppresses noise and improves quality. Project page: https://wnhsu.github.io/ReVISE/.


The recently published NICE clinical guideline on diagnosis and initial management of stroke and transient ischaemic attack (TIA) is a landmark publication for all clinicians involved in stroke care in the UK.1 The guideline is important, since, along with the National Stroke Strategy2 and the recent NICE approval for alteplase for acute stroke,3 it sends another clear signal about the importance of stroke, the world's most important cause of adult disability and third largest killer. This change in climate started in 2005, when the National Audit Office published a report drawing attention to the enormous cost of stroke to the community and the NHS.4 More people in the UK suffer stroke or TIA each year than myocardial infarction, yet stroke has for many years been badly neglected and underfunded in comparison with ischaemic heart disease. Moreover, the Audit Office estimated that the direct care cost to the NHS was £2.8 billion per year, more than the cost of treating coronary heart disease. The response of the government was to task the Department of Health to develop the National Stroke Strategy, published last year under the guidance of Professor Roger Boyle, National Director for both Heart Disease and Stroke.2 Heart Disease and Stroke commonly overlap, and both require an emergency response with a view to salvaging ischaemic tissue, so the link in the Department of Health was logical. However, the approach to acute stroke in UK has been inappropriately pedestrian compared with the approach to coronary ischaemia. Recent advances in our understanding and approach to acute stroke and TIA mandated a radical change in this approach. The NICE guideline provides much of the detail of what is required.

The guideline gives a comprehensive and considered summary of the available evidence on the diagnosis and early management …


For 35 years the Chicago Fed has brought together practitioners and researchers to successfully address some of the toughest problems facing the financial services industry— through its annual Bank Structure Conference. The key to the conference's success has been the Chicago Fed's strategy of creating venues for business practitioners, policymakers, and academics to interact. The conference's success stems from the value unlocked when representatives from these groups come together to focus on issues concerning the banking industry.


Detection of plasma cells (PC) by flow cytometry is a problem because B lymphocytes gradually lose specific B-cell markers and surface-bound immunoglobulins during the differentiation pathway. In 1994 a monoclonal antibody (moAb), named B-B4 (CD138) and able to specifically mark PC among haemopoietic cells, was described (Wijdenes et al, 1994). CD138 recognizes syndecan-1, a heparan sulphate proteoglycan expressed on myeloma cells but not on other haemopoietic cells, has been suggested to play a role in the pathobiology of myeloma (Dhodapkar et al, 1998). We describe our experience in using CD138 by flow cytometry to detect PC in the preand post-CD34-positive selection leukaphereses products of 27 patients affected by multiple myeloma. All patients underwent peripheral blood stem cell harvesting after high-dose cyclophosphamide (7 or 4 g/m) þG-CSF at a median time of 2 months (range 1–6) after the end of first-line chemotherapy. A median of two apheresis per patient (range one to four) collected a median of 11 × 10/kg CD34 cells (range 7–25). For each patient a median of 8·8 × 10/kg CD34 cells (range 5–16) were positively selected with an avidin-biotin immunoaffinity device (Ceprate, CellPro) and a final median of 5 × 10/kg CD34 cells (range 2–10) was obtained. The median yield of the selection procedure was 58% (range 21–93%) and the median percentage of CD34 positivity in the final product was 80 (45–92). To evaluate PC contamination, the method described by Van Zaanen et al (1995) was used, with some modifications. Samples of 1 × 10 cells were first treated with FACS lysing solution, washed twice and incubated with CD138 (Immunotech, Marseille, France) alternatively coupled with CD38 and intracellular kappa and lambda light chains in 100 ml of a PBS saponine solution (0·02%) for 15 min in separate samples. Cells were washed twice and analysed with a FACScalibur cytofluorometer (Becton Dickinson, Calif.). At least 100 CD138/38 events were acquired and the intracellular light chain Ig pattern of CD138 cells was subsequently analysed; only PC having the same isotype of PC at the diagnosis in each patient were considered. Preselection samples contained a median percentage of 0·25 (range 0·003–1·6) PC, i.e. a median of 0·83 × 10/kg of PC (range 0·009–7·8), whereas in the post-selection products a median percentage of 0·1 (0·004–0·93), which corresponded to a median of 0·008 × 10/kg PC (range 0·0008–0·049) was detected. 16/27 patients had already been autotransplanted with a median of 2·8 × 10/kg CD34 positively selected cells (range 1·4–5); the median number of PC reinfused was 0·0032 × 10/kg (range 0·0008–0·03). After transplantation the median time to 1·0 × 10/l neutrophils was 12 d and was 13 d to 20 × 10/l platelets. A bone marrow biopsy performed 3 months after transplantation did not detect monoclonal PC in 12/16 (80%) patients. Gertz et al (1997) recently reported a borderline relationship between the absolute number of PC in the unmanipulated stem cell harvest and the relapse-free survival in 33 patients with myeloma. CD34-positive selection procedures are widely used to purge leukaphereses of patients affected by myeloma, since contaminating PCs can be a potential source of relapse. The method we used again demonstrated PC contamination in leukaphereses and the effectiveness of positive selection in decreasing the tumour load. Flow-cytometry enables analysis of large numbers of cells; the wide availability and the good reliability of this technique in quantifying small cell populations can contribute to acquiring more data about PC contaminating the stem cells harvests and to define the possible relationship between the quantity of PC reinfused and the clinical outcome in patients with multiple myeloma.


David Hume's sympathetic principle applies to physical equals. In his account, we sympathize with those like us. By contrast, Adam Smith's sympathetic principle induces equality. We consider Hume's "other rational species" problem to see whether Smith's wider sympathetic principle would alter Hume's conclusion that "superior" beings will enslave "inferior" beings. We show that Smith introduces the notion of "generosity," which functions as if it were Hume's justice even when there is no possibility of contract.


Most of the Male Karpaty Mts, which form a geographical connecting link between the Eastern Alps and Western Carpathians, consists of an Early Paleozoic low-grade metamorphic complex intruded by Lower Carboniferous granitoid plutons. Metamorphic recrystallization connected with granite emplacement led to the formation of a crystalline complex metamorphosed under greenschist to amphibolite facies conditions. Major and trace element contents of metabasalts and clastic metasedimentary rocks have been studied in this crystalline complex. Distribution of relatively immobile trace elements (REE, HFSE) was unaffected by metamorphism and reflects original magmatic or sedimentary compositions. Two geochemical types of metabasalts have been indentified in relation to their geological position: (1) metabasalts occurring in association with metagabbros, metadolerites and small amounts of black shales and metacherts are of N-MORB type and (2) small metabasalt bodies in clastic metasedimentary rocks with sporadic carbonates are close to E-MORB/OIT or CT in composition. The clastic sedimentary rocks are represented by alternating metapsammitic rocks with variable ad- mixture of pelitic component and organic matter together with a smaller amount of metapelitic rocks and black shales. Relatively uniform major and trace element distribution in the clastic metasedimentary rocks indicates uniformity of the composition and source area of protolith. The protolith of the metasedimentary rocks were close to greywackes from the ensialic back-arc basin depositional setting, with a source comprising mostly a mixture of acid and intermediate magmatic rocks in the upper continental crust. A new lithostratigraphical division of the Early Paleozoic complex of the Male Karpaty Mts is proposed. We define here two groups: (1) the Pernek Group - a metamorphosed incomplete (dismembered) ophiolite sequence representing a relic of the upper part of the oceanic crust Pre-Lower Carboniferous in age and (2) the Pezinok Group composed of clastic metasedimentary rocks with a small amount of metacarbonates and metabasalts with E-MORB/OIT or CT signature Silurian—Devonian in age which represents a part of the rift basin fill probably inboard of an ensialic island arc. Both groups came into contact during strong shortening and nappe formation processes in the Pre- Early Carboniferous (Late Devonian?) time.


The United States regularly removes unaccompanied immigrant children and returns them to their countries of origin, with numbers rising rapidly in recent years. The United States has moral and legal obligations to this group of children. Rooted in deep moral underpinnings, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires the government to establish policies and procedures to effectuate the safe repatriation of unaccompanied children. However, now more than a decade later, the U.S. government has failed to delineate its practices promoting safe return and, in addition to a general lack of transparency, the scant information available suggests that the United States is not compliant with its duties. This Article evaluates U.S. law and policy governing the repatriation of unaccompanied children, examines whether known policies and procedures comport with applicable law, explores the stark realities and uncertain fates facing children returned to Guatemala, and offers recommendations to bring current practice into conformity with domestic law and social mores.


The Calendar Case (liyu 曆獄) is well known to historians of Chinese astronomy and to historians of the Jesuit mission to China; during the last sixty years, it has attracted increasing attention from both groups. The Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666) was in charge of the affairs of the Astronomical Bureau (Qintianjian 欽天監) from 1644, when Beijing fell to the Manchus. In 1664, under the rule of the four regents who governed in the name of the young Kangxi emperor (b. 1654, r. 1662-1722), Schall was impeached and tried, following accusations made by Yang Guangxian 楊光先 (1597-1669), a literatus who held no official position. Four years later, the emperor had the verdict reversed and appointed another Jesuit, Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688), as official astronomer. The present article provides a review of the secondary literature on this affair, showing how the narratives and analyses given by different authors reflect not only their personal research agendas, but also the wider evolution of historiography in both fields, from missiology to a China-centred history of Christianity in China, and from positivism to multifaceted narratives of controversies in the history of science.


Remote cardiac telemetry was developed to allow home ECG monitoring of patients with suspected cardiac arrhythmias. It was first introduced by the American biophysicist Norman J. Holter (1914–1983) in the 1940s. The original Holter monitor was a 75-lb backpack with a reel-to-reel FM tape recorder, analog patient interface electronics, and large batteries.1,2 It could record a single ECG lead for several hours and provided the first opportunity to record and analyze ambulatory ECG data outside a standard hospital or outpatient care setting. The clinical need to monitor outpatients has resulted in advances in technology that now allow us to monitor heart rhythms remotely through a wide variety of devices, including ambulatory external monitors, implantable event recorders, pacemakers, and cardioverter-defibrillators.

The rapid expansion of ambulatory monitoring technologies affords the clinician the obvious diagnostic advantage of more comprehensive and real-time data. It also presents the challenge of creating systems to handle and pay for this increased information and the potential liability associated with a continuous data stream. This review focuses on the available technology and factors that guide the choice of monitor.

Traditionally, ambulatory monitoring has been used to determine the cause of palpitations and syncope and, to a lesser degree, to identify ventricular ectopy or nonsustained ventricular tachycardia in patients at potential risk for sudden cardiac death.3 Atrial fibrillation (AF) has become an increasingly important indication for ambulatory monitoring, predominantly as a tool to monitor the efficacy and safety of pharmacological and nonpharmacological therapies.4,5 It is also used to identify asymptomatic AF as a potential source of cryptogenic stroke.6,7

Several devices are currently available to remotely assess cardiac rhythm abnormalities in ambulatory patients (Table 1). Devices can record cardiac rhythm continuously or intermittently and can be worn externally or implanted subcutaneously. …


Cryopreserved boar sperm is not used extensively for artificial insemination, owing to the poor fertility rates of the sperm after freezing and thawing. The sperm membrane is damaged as the cells are cooled from body temperature to 5°C (cold shock), as well as during the freeze-thaw process. Increasing the cholesterol content of boar sperm membranes could help them survive cryopreservation, similar to sperm from other species that are cold shock sensitive. The aim of this study was to determine the optimal cholesterol-loaded cyclodextrin (CLC) concentration to use for boar sperm cryopreservation, and the influence of CLCs on the cryosurvival of sperm from boars classified as good or poor freezers. Treating boar sperm with 1 mg of CLC/120 × 10(6) sperm slightly improved (p < 0.05) the percentage of viable sperm after freezing-thawing. On the other hand, sperm, from both good and poor freezers, responded similarly to CLC treatment. Nevertheless, additional studies will be needed to study the effect of this treatment on other parameters of sperm quality.


Ivanova, T. N., E. M. Gyurova and H. Y. Daskalov, 2017. Case study of staphylococcal enterotoxin poisoning after consumption of ready-to-eat roasted chicken products, Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 23 (1): 159–164 Staphylococcus aureus is a food-borne pathogen, capable to produce several enterotoxins (SEs) that cause intoxication with varying intensity in humans after ingestion of contaminated food. The present paper reports the results of an outbreak, provoked by Coagulase Positive Staphylococci (CPS) and enterotoxins in ready-to-eat chicken products, occurred in city of Yambol (Bulgaria) in January 2015. An old woman and a child were hospitalized after consumption of ready-to-eat roasted chicken legs. A total of 5 samples were examined and one of them was found to contain high level of CPS. The level of Staphylococcus aureus contamination in the positive sample was 6.92 log CFU/g, which was a signifi cant reason to suspect the production of toxin. The sample with high level of contamination was analyzed according to the European Screening Method v5 using mini VIDAS SET2. The results showed presence of staphylococcal enterotoxin (TV 1.16), which was the cause for the ensuing food intoxication. EURL for coagulase positive staphylococci confi rmed presence of SEA at a level of 0.033 ng/g applying quantitative indirect sandwich-type ELISA. Two CPS isolates were confi rmed as S. aureus by a species-specifi c 23S rRNA targeted PCR test. Both isolates carried the sea gene only.


Our inherited image of Nicolo Paganini as a "demonic" violinist - a Gothic
figure exemplifying Romanticism and epitomizing instrumental virtuosity -
has never been analyzed in depth. What really made him "demonic"?
According to the most popular legend, Paganini, like Faust, made a pact
with Satan to acquire magical powers - enabling him to create effects on the
violin beyond the reach of anyone else. Others thought he was possessed by
the devil and coaxed the violin to produce what they took to be the devil's
music. Still others, encouraged by the spectacle of him literally "lashing" the
violin with his bow, considered him "demonic" in the Gothic sense of being
corrupt and perverted, a licentious criminal in the tradition of the Marquis
de Sade and Byron's hero-villains. Faust, magician, Satan, sadistic villain:
the faces of Paganini were interrelated but not equivalent.


The present study examined the effects of neonatal (postnatal days 3 and 5) acute immune system activation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on adolescent and adult anxiety behaviours. The major findings suggest that neonatal LPS does not have general long-lasting effects on adolescent anxiety and locomotor behaviours. Rather, early endotoxin treatment has highly specific effects on certain anxiety behaviours that vary depending on the development period. Moreover, neonatal LPS does not seem to influence adult voluntary and non-voluntary locomotor activity or anhedonia, independent of, or in response to, an adult immune challenge. Finally, sex differences were observed in various responses in adulthood, independent of neonatal drug treatment. The findings of this study provide a better understanding of adolescent and adult behavioural outcomes in response to endotoxin, and suggest that early exposure to pathogens may not be a significant risk factor in the general development of later anxiety disorders.


To culture preimplantation embryos in vitro, water-jacketed CO2 incubators are used widely for maintaining an optimal culture environment in terms of gas phase, temperature and humidity. We investigated the possibility of mouse embryo culture in a plastic bag kept at 37°C. Zygotes derived from in vitro fertilization or collected from naturally mated B6D2F1 female mice were put in a drop of medium on a plastic culture dish and then placed in a commercially available plastic bag. When these were placed in an oven under air at 37°C for 96 h, the rate of blastocyst development and the cell numbers of embryos decreased. However, when the concentration of O2 was reduced to 5% using a deoxidizing agent and a small oxygen meter, most zygotes developed into blastocysts. These blastocysts were judged normal according to their cell number, Oct3/4 and Cdx2 gene expression levels, the apoptosis rate and the potential for full-term development after embryo transfer to pseudopregnant recipients. Furthermore, using this system, normal offspring were obtained simply by keeping the bag on a warming plate. This culture method was applied successfully to both hybrid and inbred strains. In addition, because the developing embryos could be observed through the transparent wall of the bag, it was possible to capture time-lapse images of live embryos until the blastocyst stage without needing an expensive microscope-based incubation chamber. These results suggest that mouse zygotes are more resilient to their environment than generally believed. This method might prove useful in economical culture systems or for the international shipment of embryos.


SUMMARY As a preliminary to the use of bumble bee colonies in greenhouse pollination in Turkey, research was initiated on the relevant characteristics of the native bumble bee Bombus terrestris dalmatinus. The same methodology was used that has been successful in the rearing of B. t. terrestris colonies. Queens were collected in four coastal localities (Bodrum, Antalya, Alata and Adana) and characterized by the different dates of the young queen's emergence from diapause. This emergence varied from the end of November to February. Despite the variation in collecting dates, the patterns of development of the colonies produced were similar, indicating that, in this respect, no ecotypes existed. As in B. t. terrestris, the relative timing of the switch point, i.e. when mainly haploid eggs are laid by the queen, is the determining factor for the number of workers and the investment sex ratio of the B. t. dalmatinus colonies. The colonies of these two subspecies develop according to the same principles. The colonies from all four regions had, on average, a male-biased investment sex ratio (0.21, queen fraction), which is a common feature for bumble bees. On the basis of the number of workers produced (c. 150 workers), the colonies from these four Turkish areas are very well suited for pollination purposes.


The revision of diagnostic requirements for mood disorders in the forthcoming International Classification of Diseases-11 (ICD-11) classification was governed by the same principles that applied to the rest of the draft. Precedence was given to clinical utility and universal applicability of the classification. Other guiding principles included ensuring scientific validity of the revision and harmonizing it with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5. These fundamentals led to considerable reorganization, restructuring, and expansion of the contents of the revision including the section on mood disorders. The mood disorders section now follows a much simpler format than the ICD-10 and is expected to be easier to use. Its simplicity, notwithstanding descriptions of individual diagnostic categories in the revision are more elaborate and precise and in consonance with the current state of knowledge regarding the different mood disorders included in the section. The draft guidelines are undergoing comprehensive field testing on a very large scale across many countries including a majority from the developing world. Results up to now have been encouraging in terms of user acceptability, clinical utility, and global and cross-cultural relevance. However, one has to await the results of further testing and actual use of the final version of the ICD-11 by all stakeholders to determine if the revision indeed meets the high standards it has set for itself.


Culture and art are emerging as main components in the creative economy to enhance the competitiveness of urban centres in the global market by nurturing cultural or artistic industries. A range of research exists which investigates the role of artists and art museums in the process of urban regeneration in Northern American and Western European countries. Yet research into the geography of art galleries acting as an intermediary between art works and cultural consumers remain rare. Empirical research on gentrification and urban regeneration and their connection with spaces for cultural consumption in Asian cities is even less common. The aim of this paper is to show the rise and decline of art galleries in Seoul and the way that this reflects urban development process, historically specific conditions and the characteristics of artists' communities. The background of the locational agglomeration of art galleries is examined in connection with the human ecology of artists, art business and its implication for the global market. The location of art galleries in Seoul seems to be affected by commercial art business and public policy, rather than by artists communities embedded in local areas. The location dynamics of art gallery clusters in Seoul is examined in the context of rent increases, changes of consumers' taste and fluctuating market cycles.


The accounting curriculum is designed to provide students with the knowledge and the skills necessary for employment and growth in the accounting profession. Using the 'language of business,' accountants assemble and analyze, process, and communicate esse


This paper tests the effects of the level and length of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on unemployment durations. The paper particularly studies individual behavior during the weeks just prior to when benefits lapse. Higher UI benefits are found to have a strong negative effect on the probability of leaving unemployment. However, the probability of leaving unemployment rises dramatically just prior to when benefits lapse. When the length of benefits is extended, the probability of a spell ending is also very high in the week benefits were previously expected to lapse. Individual data are used with accurate information on spell durations, and the level and length of benefits. Semiparametric estimation techniques are used and compared to alternative approaches. The semiparametric approach yields more plausible estimates and provides useful diagnostics.


The remains of between six and eight ichthyosaur embryos, still situated within a fragment of the rib-cage of the parent animal, are described. Each is represented by a string of vertebral centra, some with associated ribs. Other skeletal elements, including possible skull material, are represented only by isolated bones, none identifiable with certainty. The small limestone boulder in which the ichthyosaur specimens are preserved was collected from the beach at Sandsend, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, and derives from the Whitby Mudstone Formation (Hildoceras bifrons Ammonite Biozone) of the Toarcian Stage of the Lower Jurassic. The specimen cannot be identified beyond Ichthyosauria indet. However, it represents the geologically-youngest occurrence of ichthyosaur embryos thus far recorded from the UK and the first such occurrence to be reported from Yorkshire.


Wave diffraction due to a rectangular domain of finite depth and width containing two fluids of constant but different densities connected to two channels of constant but different depths is considered. The implied scattering problem is modeled subject to the usual assumptions of linearized waterwave theory. The analysis is restricted to monochromatic plane progressive surface waves normally incident on the inhomogeneous domain. This results in a linear two-dimensional boundary-value problem for the velocity-potential. The scattering problem is formulated in terms of complementary variational integrals of Schwinger's type; symmetry relations between the complex amplitudes of the scattered potential are developed; and numerical calculations for the complex reflection and transmission coefficients are presented for a range of the physical variables. The analysis shows that sediment pockets can exhibit resonant behavior due to the combined effects of density stratification and pocket geometry. This offers a plausible explanation for offshore pipeline migration during storms.


In Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court held that an antitrust complaint alleging that major telecommunication providers engaged in parallel conduct unfavorable to competition could not survive a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, even though the complaint expressly alleged a conspiracy. The Court insisted that a complaint contain 'enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,' and concluded that a conspiracy, while 'conceivable' was not 'plausible.' In addition, the Court retired the famous language from Conley v. Gibson that 'a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.' Scholarly reaction to Twombly has been largely critical, complaining that the Court imposed a heightened specificity standard of pleading and that plaintiffs will lack the evidence to plead these specifics prior to discovery. Some suggested that Twombly's requirement of plausibility should be understood as an aspect of substantive antitrust law, thereby limiting the impact of the decision largely to antitrust cases. Others suggested that Twombly should be limited to large, complex, sprawling cases, given the Court's evident concern with the cost of discovery in such cases. These hopes of limiting Twombly were dashed by the Supreme Court's decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which held that the Twombly framework applies to all civil actions. Faced with the failure of the attempt to limit Twombly, some have called for a legislative restoration of Conley v. Gibson. This article takes a different tack. Rather than decrying Twombly as a radical departure and seeking to overturn it, this article instead emphasizes Twombly's connection to prior law and suggests ways in which it can be tamed. First, the plausibility standard of Twombly can be understood as equivalent to the traditional insistence that a factual inference be reasonable. Second, the Twombly framework can be treated as an invitation to present information and argument designed to dislodge a judge's baseline assumptions about what is natural. Third, and despite widespread assumption to the contrary, discovery can proceed during the pendency of a Twombly motion. This paper also suggests that the traditional practice of pleading 'on information and belief' be retired, and connects a tamed Twombly to broader trends toward managerial and discretionary judging.


The occurrence of diatoms (both marine and freshwater) in sediments beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is suggestive of past ice‐sheet collapse. However, it is not the only model explaining such occurrences. We propose another mechanism for introducing diatoms beneath ice sheets by considering the fate of a diatom placed (by eolian processes) on top of an ice sheet. Mathematical modeling indicates that the route the diatom will take through the ice sheet is dictated by the basal melting rate. If no basal melting takes place, flowlines will crop out at the ice‐sheet margin. However, if basal melting is as low as 0.01 m/yr the trajectories of all Howlines except for those nearest the margin will intersect the bed, with those diatoms deposited near the dome reaching the bed about halfway down the Howband. Larger values of basal melting lead to the diatoms reaching the bed even faster and closer to the point of origin. In light of these results, the presence of diatoms in sediments beneath the WAIS does not lead to a unique solution; it is not necessary to invoke past ice‐sheet collapse to account for their presence.


Bitmap indexes are widely used in both scientific and commercial databases. They bring fast read performance for specific types of queries, such as equality and selective range queries. A major drawback of bitmap indexes, however, is that supporting updates is particularly costly. Bitmap indexes are kept compressed to minimize storage footprint; as a result, updating a bitmap index requires the expensive step of decoding and then encoding a bitvector. Today, more and more applications need support for both reads and writes, blurring the boundaries between analytical processing and transaction processing. This requires new system designs and access methods that support general updates and, at the same time, offer competitive read performance. In this paper, we propose scalable in-memory Updatable Bitmap indexing (UpBit), which offers efficient updates, without hurting read performance. UpBit relies on two design points. First, in addition to the main bitvector for each domain value, UpBit maintains an update bitvector, to keep track of updated values. Effectively, every update can now be directed to a highly-compressible, easy-to-update bitvector. While update bitvectors double the amount of uncompressed data, they are sparse, and as a result their compressed size is small. Second, we introduce fence pointers in all update bitvectors which allow for efficient retrieval of a value at an arbitrary position. Using both synthetic and real-life data, we demonstrate that UpBit significantly outperforms state-of-the-art bitmap indexes for workloads that contain both reads and writes. In particular, compared to update-optimized bitmap index designs UpBit is 15-29x faster in terms of update time and 2.7x faster in terms of read performance. In addition, compared to read-optimized bitmap index designs UpBit achieves efficient and scalable updates (51-115x lower update latency), while allowing for comparable read performance, having up to 8% overhead.


Despite advancements in treating ruptured cerebral aneurysms, an aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is still a grave cerebrovascular disease associated with a high rate of morbidity and mortality. Based on the literature published to date, worldwide academic and governmental committees have developed clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) to propose standards for disease management in order to achieve the best treatment outcomes for aSAHs. In 2013, the Korean Society of Cerebrovascular Surgeons issued a Korean version of the CPGs for aSAHs. The group researched all articles and major foreign CPGs published in English until December 2015 using several search engines. Based on these articles, levels of evidence and grades of recommendations were determined by our society as well as by other related Quality Control Committees from neurointervention, neurology and rehabilitation medicine. The Korean version of the CPGs for aSAHs includes risk factors, diagnosis, initial management, medical and surgical management to prevent rebleeding, management of delayed cerebral ischemia and vasospasm, treatment of hydrocephalus, treatment of medical complications and early rehabilitation. The CPGs are not the absolute standard but are the present reference as the evidence is still incomplete, each environment of clinical practice is different, and there is a high probability of variation in the current recommendations. The CPGs will be useful in the fields of clinical practice and research.


The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of entrepreneurial characteristics of members of technical and engineering companies and agricultural advisory services on their willingness toward entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship development plays an important role in job creation process which can eventually lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals in agriculture. In Iran, a kind of rural advisory services named technical engineering companies and agricultural advisory services are legally accountable for agricultural extension and rural development issues. A survey methodology was utilized to collect data by using a questionnaire interview. The Target population of the study were all agricultural advisory personnel (N=50) currently working in Hamedan and Malayer townships. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between age, gender, educational level, and work experience of participants with their entrepreneurial tendency. However, self-confidence, work courage, teamwork spirit, motivation and creativity, competitiveness, self-help, law abiding character, risk-taking and job interest significantly affected the entrepreneurial tendency of participants.