Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a known inherited hemoglobin disorder featured by the presence of sickle shaped erythrocytes in the blood. It can cause cerebrovascular accident (CVA) in adults and children and is responsible for the majority of the strokes in children. Repeated blood transfusion are often required in an attempt to dilute blood thus reducing the risk of vaso-occlusion and stroke in this patients. We report a case of a 13 months old boy, known patient of sickle cell disease with some special signs and symptoms.


Retroviruses are a family of membrane-enveloped RNA viruses that can retrotranscribe
and integrate their genome in the host cell chromatin. During the active
production of virions the structural polyprotein Gag assembles together with the
genomic RNA to form immature particles, which bud out from the host cell. After
budding the Gag protein undergoes proteolytic maturation and is cleaved into MA,
CA, NC, p6 and two spacer peptides, SP1 and SP2. This leads to dramatic changes in
the core morphology and the gain of infectivity. The immature retro-virions are
known to have Gag organized into a round, incomplete hexameric lattice with a
spacing of ~7.5nm. The core of mature virions is organized into a mixture of
hexamers and pentamers which are organized along a lattice with a spacing of
~9.6nm. The shape of the core in the mature virions is genus-dependent, but can be
cylindrical, conical or round.
During my PhD I have studied the immature Gag assembly across four retroviral
genera in order to understand the structural requirements for the assembly of the
immature retroviral lattice, and to shed more light on the principles of HIV-1
maturation.
The major conclusions of my studies are the following: The CA region of Gag is the
most structurally conserved across genera. The presence of a domain upstream of CA
is not critical for the assembly although it stabilizes the lattice. In order to maintain an
immature lattice is important to have a Gag multimerization domain downstream of
CA. The region between CA and NC, which is highly variable, is not critical for the
assembly but it can stabilise the lattice and therefore affect the structural changes that
occur during the maturation.
The maturation in retroviruses is an extremely fast process. In order to investigate the
structural changes occurring during the maturation in HIV-1 I analysed the products
of partial Gag maturation, which were obtained through selective mutations of the
cleavage sites in Gag. This confirmed that the order in which Gag cleavages occur is
important for a correct processing. The immature Gag lattice is destabilized only if
both sides of the CA-SP1 region are cleaved. Furthermore, it showed that the
condensation of the RNP has an effect on the core morphology in the mature virion.


This paper presents a high-performance Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) architecture over binary field, based on the Montgomery scalar multiplication algorithm. The word-serial finite field arithmetic unit (AU) is proposed with the optimized operation scheduling and bit-parallel modular reduction. With a dedicated squarer, the 163-bit point scalar multiplication with coordinate conversion can be done in 20.9µs by the design of one AU, and can be further improved to 11.1µs by the one of three AUs, both using 0.13µm CMOS technology. The comparison with other ECC designs justifies the effectiveness of the proposed architecture in terms of performance and area-time efficiency.


A novel fabrication method has been developed for the preparation of a periodic array of nanoparticle clusters (NPCs) using a sublimable liquid crystal (LC) material. The defect structures of the LC film provide the specific topographical confinement to trap nanoparticles (NPs) and assemble the NPs to generate NPCs during thermal annealing. This system shows a simple regulation of the size of NPCs by varying the concentration of the NP-suspension. Additionally, an illumination system using quantum dots (QDs) is fabricated using the manipulation method reported here.


The pecten oculi is a highly vascularized and pigmented organ that overlies the optic disc and projects into the vitreous body in the avian eye. First reported over 300 years ago, its function(s) remains a puzzle to ornithologists, ophthalmologists and anatomists. Morphometric study of this unique organ was undertaken in birds exhibiting apparently different visual acuities, namely two species of diurnal birds (the ground-dwelling domestic fowl Gallus gallus var. domesticus and a highly active predator bird, the black kite (Milvus migrans) and a nocturnal bird (the spotted-eagle owl Bubo bubo africanus). The volume of the owl's eye was 4.8 and 2.2 times larger than that of the fowl and the kite, respectively. However, the pecten of the fowl consisted of more pleats (16–18) compared to the kite (12–13) and the owl (5–6). The volume of the pecten of the kite was 1.4 and 2.7 times larger than that of the fowl and the owl, respectively (P < 0.05). Similarly, the surface area of the pecten of the kite was 2.6 and 4 times larger than that of the fowl and owl, respectively (P < 0.05). The volume density of blood vessels (lumen and wall) in the pecten of the kite, fowl and owl comprised 67.7%, 66.9% and 62.6%, respectively, the pigmented tissue constituting the rest. Both the volume density and the volume of the blood in the pecten were higher in the diurnal birds (kite, fowl) than the owl (P < 0.05). The surface area of the capillary luminal surface was 1.7 and 5.3 times higher in the kite than in the fowl and the owl, respectively (P < 0.05). These results suggest that the functional morphology of the pecten correlates with the life-style of the bird and with functional need, and lends further support to the nutritive role of the pecten.


The focus of this note lies on the numerical analysis of models
describing the propagation of a single crack in a linearly elastic
material.
The
evolution of the crack is modeled
as a rate-independent process based on the
Griffith criterion. We follow two different approaches for setting up
mathematically well defined models: the global energetic approach and
an approach based on a viscous regularization.

We prove the convergence of solutions of fully discretized models
 (i.e. with respect to time and space) and
 derive
 relations between the discretization parameters (mesh size,
 time step size, viscosity parameter, crack
 increment) which guarantee the convergence of the schemes.
Further, convergence rates are provided for the
 approximation of energy release
rates by certain discrete energy release rates.
Thereby we discuss both, models with self-contact conditions
on the crack faces
as well as models with pure Neumann conditions on the crack faces.
The convergence proofs rely on regularity estimates for the
elastic fields close to the crack tip and local and global finite
element error estimates. Finally the theoretical results are
illustrated with some numerical calculations.


This paper presents a new approach to modelling flash floods in dryland catchments by integrating remote sensing and digital elevation model (DEM) data in a geographical information system (GIS). The spectral reflectance of channels affected by recent flash floods exhibit a marked increase, due to the deposition of fine sediments in these channels as the flood recedes. This allows the parts of a catchment that have been affected by a recent flood event to be discriminated from unaffected parts, using a time series of Landsat images. Using images of the Wadi Hudain catchment in southern Egypt, the hillslope areas contributing flow were inferred for different flood events. The SRTM3 DEM was used to derive flow direction, flow length, active channel cross‐sectional areas and slope. The Manning Equation was used to estimate the channel flow velocities, and hence the time‐area zones of the catchment. A channel reach that was active during a 1985 runoff event, that does not receive any tributary flow, was used to estimate a transmission loss rate of 7·5 mm h−1, given the maximum peak discharge estimate. Runoff patterns resulting from different flood events are quite variable; however the southern part of the catchment appears to have experienced more floods during the period of study (1984–2000), perhaps because the bedrock hillslopes in this area are more effective at runoff production than other parts of the catchment which are underlain by unconsolidated Quaternary sands and gravels. Due to high transmission loss, runoff generated within the upper reaches is rarely delivered to the alluvial fan and Shalateen city situated at the catchment outlet. The synthetic GIS‐based time area zones, on their own, cannot be relied on to model the hydrographs reliably; physical parameters, such as rainfall intensity, distribution, and transmission loss, must also be considered. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Countries without natural resources or foreign aid can grow just if they do serious economic liberalization. Liberal reforms are first followed by a post-reform recession, and afterwards with growth, provided they create a well business environment, compared to alternatives. Economies growing because of liberalization just exceptionally undertake further reforms in order to enlarge gains - is the main finding of this study. On the one side, reforms are costly, and after having paid once, people prefer to extract gains, instead to invest again. On the other side, reforms create seeds of their own destruction, by crating environment for a new wave of rent seeking. Other reasons for why countries do not liberalize again, after doing one move, are country-groups specific. After a brief introduction (I), the data indicating degree of liberalization and growth rates throughout the world in the period 1970-2002 are presented (II). The scope of analysis is restricted to some four groups of countries (developed, recently developed from the Far East, transition and Latin American countries), and it is found that - beyond general reason - reform processes merely depend on just a few factors, like previous development, democracy, the rule of law, the conditions in tradable and non-tradable sectors, and the ruling team.(III) Final chapter is about concluding remarks (IV).


Research on the use of mobile technology in developing countries often highlights how they serve as strategies to bridge the digital divide and foster economic development. However, mobile technology appropriation in the Global South is not limited to these cases, as evidenced by Brazil's well-established media arts community, which has embraced mobiles as interfaces for art making since the early 2000s. Based on fourteen in-depth interviews with mobile communication researchers and media artists in Brazil between 2011 and 2013, this article investigates the creative appropriation of mobile technologies in the production of hybrid spaces. Our results reveal that these creative appropriations, namely mobile art and locative art, can be described through four main nodes of articulation: motivations, creative processes, sponsorship, and promotion. The experimental nature of these projects invites us to look at the Brazilian media art scene as a materialization of a circuit of innovative mobile culture and as an indication that investigations about technological appropriation in the Global South must be expanded to include motifs other than the already-known utilitarian purposes.


Temperature has dramatic evolutionary fitness consequences and is therefore a major factor determining the geographic distribution and abundance of ectotherms. However, the role that age might have on insect thermal tolerance is often overlooked in studies of behaviour, ecology, physiology and evolutionary biology. Here, we review the evidence for ontogenetic and ageing effects on traits of high‐ and low‐temperature tolerance in insects and show that these effects are typically pronounced for most taxa in which data are available. We therefore argue that basal thermal tolerance and acclimation responses (i.e. phenotypic plasticity) are strongly influenced by age and/or ontogeny and may confound studies of temperature responses if unaccounted for. We outline three alternative hypotheses which can be distinguished to propose why development affects thermal tolerance in insects. At present no studies have been undertaken to directly address these options. The implications of these age‐related changes in thermal biology are discussed and, most significantly, suggest that the temperature tolerance of insects should be defined within the age‐demographics of a particular population or species. Although we conclude that age is a source of variation that should be carefully controlled for in thermal biology, we also suggest that it can be used as a valuable tool for testing evolutionary theories of ageing and the cellular and genetic basis of thermal tolerance.


Sunstein's essay is particularly welcome because marketing as a science and as a field of management practice is facing an increased level of criticism at the same time as the general population becomes aware of the role it plays in business, beyond the traditional sales and distribution functions. We feel it is critical for the field of marketing to clarify its position with regard to some practices. However, Sunstein argues that manipulation is rather generalized in society (and in particular in marketing), although with many "shades.†Instead, we take the position that it is imperative to define more clearly the concept of manipulation so that it cannot be confounded with the more neutral concept of social influence. Therefore, we propose to use a different definition that eliminates a number of shades of manipulation. We also propose to amend somewhat the definition of the marketing concept and of marketing management to prevent practices that society would not consider appropriate.


Courts in the United States today address the constitutional permissibility of personal jurisdiction by discussing two sub-types, "specific jurisdiction" and "general jurisdiction." "Specific jurisdiction" may exist "in a suit arising out of or related to the defendant's contacts with the forum." "General jurisdiction" may exist "in a suit not arising out of or related to the defendant's contacts with the forum." Over the past few years, courts have begun to address whether maintenance of a business oriented web site that is accessible to and used by residents of a state can be a sufficient anchor for the constitutional assertion of general jurisdiction in that state. At the level of the United States Courts of Appeal, a split of authority is developing. The D.C. Circuit in Gorman v. Ameritrade Holding Corp and the Ninth Circuit in Gator.com Corp. v. L.L. Bean, Inc., have held that the answer is yes, with Gator.com labeling L.L. Bean's web site a "virtual store." The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Tenth, and Federal Circuits, all after relatively short discussions, have held that the answer is no, at least on the facts before them. This article argues that the Gorman and Gator.com were improvident and wrongly decided, that general jurisdiction over virtual stores is inconsistent with any principled development of the law of general jurisdiction. The article will conclude with a call for the courts of appeals to abandon the concept of general jurisdiction over virtual stores or for the Supreme Court to take up the issue and provide some much-needed guidance on the constitutional limitations of general jurisdiction.


The purpose of the title of this piece is to suggest that behind the bland exterior of the average medieval Chinese poem (at least in English translation) there may lurk processes of composition entirely unsuspected by the modern reader, aspects of the Tang poem that might repay greater study. This approach, namely meditation as a method of creative inspiration, was far from universal in the poetry of the Tang period, since it seems to have arisen within specific historical circumstances, and though references to it remained and were handed down to later ages in widely read works, it is at present unclear how actively it was practised in later times. However, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that an interest in poetic imagery remained strong in East Asia, raising the possibility that it was this aspect of poetic practice there caught the attention of English language poets in the United Kingdom at the start of the twentieth century as they cast about for new models to replace the poetry of Victorian times. The hope is that drawing attention to this approach to poetic inspiration in this essay may serve as a challenge to the current lack of interest in Chinese poetry translation in the United Kingdom.


Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of oral nattokinase (NK) in the reduction of common carotid artery intimal medial thickness (CCA-IMT) and carotid artery plaque size and in lowering blood lipids, and to explore the underlying mechanism of actions of NK and its potential clinical use. Methods: All enrolled patients were from the Out-Patient Clinic of the Department of TCM at the 3(rd) Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Using randomised picking method, all patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups, NK and Statin (ST) group. NK Group-patients were given NK at a daily dose of 6 000 FU and ST Group-patients were treated with statin (simvastatin 20 mg) daily. The treatment course was 26 weeks. CCA-IMT, carotid plaque size and blood lipid profile of the patients were measured before and after treatment. Results: A total of 82 patients were enrolled in the study and 76 patients (NK 39, ST 37) completed the study. Following the treatments for 26 weeks, there was a significant reduction in CCA-IMT and carotid plaque size in both groups compared with the baseline before treatment. The carotid plaque size and CCA-IMT reduced from(0.25±0.12)cm(2) to (0.16±0.10)cm(2) and from (1.13±0.12)mm to (1.01±0.11)mm, repectively. The reduction in the NK group was significantly profound (P<0.01, 36.6% reduction in plaque size in NK group versus 11.5% change in ST group). Both treatments reduced total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglyceride (TG). While the reduction in both groups was shown to be statistically significant (P<0.01), the reduction of TC, LDL-C and TG in ST group was significantly greater (P<0.05). In addition, NK significantly increased the level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (P<0.05), in contrast, HDL-C in the ST group did not change. The lipid lowering effect observed in the NK group was not correlated to the reduction of CCA-IMT and carotid artery plaque size (r=0.35, P=0.09). Conclusions: Our findings from this pioneer clinical study suggests that daily NK supplementation is an effective way to manage the progression of atherosclerosis and potentially may be a better alternative to statins which are commonly used to reduce atherosclerosis and further to prevent cardiovascular attack and stroke in patients. The mechanism underlying the reduction of carotid atherosclerosis by NK may be independent from its lipid-lowering effect, which is different from that of statins.


Transport mode information is essential for understanding people's movement behavior and travel demand estimation. Current approaches extract travel information once the travel is complete. Such approaches are limited in terms of generating just-in-time information for a number of mobility based applications, e.g., real time mode specific patronage estimation. In order to detect the transport modalities from GPS trajectories, various machine learning approaches have already been explored. However, the majority of them produce only a single conclusion from a given set of evidences, ignoring the uncertainty of any mode classification. Also, the existing machine learning approaches fall short in explaining their reasoning scheme. In contrast, a fuzzy expert system can explain its reasoning scheme in a human readable format along with a provision of inferring different outcome possibilities, but lacks the adaptivity and learning ability of machine learning. In this paper, a novel hybrid knowledge driven framework is developed by integrating a fuzzy logic and a neural network to complement each other's limitations. Thus the aim of this paper is to automate the tuning process in order to generate an intelligent hybrid model that can perform effectively in near-real time mode detection using GPS trajectory. Tests demonstrate that a hybrid knowledge driven model works better than a purely knowledge driven model and at per the machine learning models in the context of transport mode detection.


What did the arrival of cinema do for photography? How did the moving image change our relation to the still image? Why have cinema and photography been so drawn to each other? Close-ups, freeze frames and the countless portrayals of photographers on screen are signs of cinema's enduring attraction to the still image. Photo-stories, sequences and staged tableaux speak of the deep influence of cinema on photography. "Photography and Cinema" considers the importance of the still image for filmmakers such as the Lumiere brothers, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, Mark Lewis, Agnes Varda, Peter Weir, Christopher Nolan and many others. In parallel, it looks at the cinematic in the work of photographers and artists that include Germaine Krull, William Klein, John Baldessari, Jeff Wall, Victor Burgin and Cindy Sherman. From film stills and flipbooks to slide shows and digital imaging, hybrid visual forms have established an ambiguous realm between motion and stillness. David Campany assembles a missing history in which photography and cinema have been each other's muse and inspiration for over a century.


What are the roles of time and time pressures in design and performance of agile processes for software development? How do we plan our rapid development activities given the constraints of due dates? What does it mean to be on 'internet time'? Agile methods are meant to be fast-paced, but are they fast in an effective way? How do time-pressures influence the productivity of a project team and how do they impact the motivations of developers? This paper considers the time issues in agile approaches to managing software projects and posits research propositions to guide further study of this area.


Three major arteries normally originate from the aortic arch. Variations of the aortic arch branches are observed in some cases. Rare variation of the aortic arch branches is originated from the retroesophageal right subclavian (RRS) artery as the last branch of the aortic arch. Variation of artery is possibly associated with the variation of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. This research provides an in vivo report of retroesophageal right subclavian artery during examination of the cervical vessels using magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). It is very important to consider the variation of the right subclavian artery during head and neck surgery. Non-invasive techniques such as MRA of cervical arteries can be used in order to examine them. A B S T R A C T Article info:


Policies targeting individual companies for economic development incentives, such as tax holidays and abatements, are generally seen as inefficient, economically costly, and distortionary. Despite this evidence, politicians still choose to use these policies to claim credit for attracting investment. Thus, while fiscal incentives are economically inefficient, they pose an effective pandering strategy for politicians. Using original surveys of voters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as data on incentive use by politicians in the US, Vietnam and Russia, this book provides compelling evidence for the use of fiscal incentives for political gain and shows how such pandering appears to be associated with growing economic inequality. As national and subnational governments surrender valuable tax revenue to attract businesses in the vain hope of long-term economic growth, they are left with fiscal shortfalls that have been filled through regressive sales taxes, police fines and penalties, and cuts to public education.


Kaesolev Eesti hilisstalinismiaegset džassi kasitlev artikkel vaidab, et dualistlik mudel avalik/privaatne on ebapiisav džassi kui kultuurilise praktika moistmiseks noukogude uhiskonnas ning vaatleb kultuuri toimivana kolmes sotsiaalses ruumis – avalikus, mitteformaalses avalikus ja privaatses. Avalikus riigipoolse kontrolli all olevas sfaaris eksisteeris džassikultuur avalikus meedias ja riiklike džassorkestrite tegevuses. Mitteformaalses avalikus kultuuriruumis tegutsesid džassmuusika huvilistest koosnevad amatoororkestrid. Koige privaatsemana, avalikkuse eest suhteliselt varjatud kujul arenes džassikultuur fanaatikutest sopruskondade seas, kes muusikat kuulasid ja selle ule teoretiseerisid; samuti oli privaatne muusikaliste oskuste omandamine mitteformaalse oppimise kaudu. The article aims to discuss the significance of jazz culture in Estonia during the late Stalinist era. In order to explicate the functioning of jazz as a cultural practice, the private/public division is employed while it is suggested that employing a ternary typology in which culture is seen as functioning in the public, the informal public and the private cultural spaces are best suited for conducting the analysis. The division makes it possible to: (1) show how jazz as a cultural practice functioned in Soviet sociocultural space; (2) to approach jazz culture as a whole, simultaneously creating a differentiation between different forms of jazz as a cultural practice; (3) to determine to which extent Soviet power succeeded in the regulation/ideologisation of jazz culture; and (4) to avoid a dualistic mode of thought that would oppose the private and the public. Jazz culture existed in two forms in the state-controlled public sphere. One of them comprised the discourse of public media and the other consisted of state jazz orchestras. The discourse of public media is discussed on the basis of the articles that were published on the topic of jazz in the cultural weekly Sirp ja Vasar (Hammer and Sickle). It is in the journalistic discourse that the dynamics of the anti-jazz activities of the state authorities of the late Stalinist era appear as the most obvious; jazz gradually disappeared from the public scene as the political climate changed. In journalistic coverage, jazz was primarily turned into a tool of the ideological battle with the West that was led by pro-Soviet rhetoric and stayed separate from the actual music scene. There were two state jazz orchestras during the period observed – the Jazz Orchestra of the Estonian State Philharmonic and the Jazz Orchestra of the Estonian Radio, and these functioned as part of the Soviet system of regulated and controlled cultural activities. The orchestras followed an all-Union pattern of institutionalisation according to which professional orchestras would be affiliated with local concert organisations and radio broadcasters. The sphere of activities of the orchestras was limited by their institutional affiliation. While the jazz orchestra of the philharmonic was a collective that mostly offered entertainment on all-Union concert tours, the Jazz Orchestra of the Radio was broadcast live twice a day in the 1940s. The orchestra reform that reflected the change in the ideological paradigm influenced the activities of both orchestras, bringing along changes in their names, repertoires and rosters. The amateur orchestras active in the informal public sphere belonged to a cultural scene that was relatively less strictly regulated  in comparison with the public sphere. The activities of amateur orchestras were institutionalised as well – generally, they would be affiliated with an institution and were thus guaranteed space for rehearsals, some of the musical instruments and professional leadership. The orchestras were obliged to perform on state holidays and at events arranged by the host institution. Still, amateur collectives had a considerably greater freedom as concerned the organisation of their activities in the field of music. An important mode of activities was playing on dance nights; the moonlighting or haltura performances, as playing at dances was colloquially called by the musicians, constituted an important source of additional income for them. The activities of amateur orchestras were less strongly influenced by the changes related to the anti-jazz campaign of the late-1940s. Although obligatory ballroom dances were included, also "forbidden" pieces stayed in the repertoire; neither were saxophones excluded from among the orchestras' instruments. Inventiveness, ritualization, humour and an ability to manoeuvre around in order to enact their musical goals were of vital importance in the daily lives of the musicians. The example of the collective named Swing Club can illustrate the activities of musicians in the private sphere – among a circle of friends who were musicians and jazz fanatics. In a society that was anything but supportive of jazz, a microenvironment was built up in order to gain new knowledge and hone the existing skills in which discussions of music took place and musical experiments were made. Under the circumstances of Soviet scarcity, Estonian musicians had no access to records and radio and were the primary source of music. It was with the help of the radio that information was obtained about the latest trends in music and new repertoire was acquired. The main method of learning music was imitation, which is a typical mode of learning in the practice of jazz. On the one hand, the ternary division of the private and the public enables us to see how jazz could exist in the Soviet sociocultural space; on the other hand, it makes it possible to approach jazz culture as a whole and speak of its different forms of manifestation. The journalistic discourse that traditionally should function as a reflection of and on the jazz scene rather turned into a mirror of the political situation under late Stalinism. Jazz became a tool in the battle against America and capitalism. As musical culture, jazz mostly appeared in two forms; as entertainment-oriented concert music and dance music. Considering the traditionally practical and theory-avoidant nature of both jazz as well as jazz musicians, Estonian jazz was exceptional due to the intellectualisation of the music in theoretical discussions. As an evidence of this tendency, the almanac of the Swing Club is a unique document that also deserves attention in a broader context of jazz history in general.  Late Stalinism can be considered politically the most intolerant period in Estonian jazz history, when disappearance was immanent for the whole of jazz culture. Yet this did not happen, as also shown in the present article. Although jazz had been virtually obliterated from the state-controlled public sphere by 1950, it still survived on the more private, less controlled cultural scenes. The thoughts of Ustus Agur expressed in an interview concerning the activities of the Swing Club in the late 1940s and early 1950s can serve as proof of this: We were rehearsing underground in the very sense of the word. As luck would have it, the control was not strict and we never had to cross paths with the officials. The director of the Sakala House of Culture, Fred Raudberg, supported our activities. Although he was a communist and aware of what we were doing, he protected us and helped us to keep our activities in secret. And he was honest. He was red on the outside and white on the inside – 'a radish' as we would say in those times. The situation in which jazz had disappeared from the public scene, yet lived on in private spaces can be referred to as a Soviet paradox. Aleksei Yurchak speaks of Soviet life as a paradoxical simultaneous existence of positive and negative values (Yurchak 2006: 10). In the case of jazz, we can figuratively speak of its simultaneous existence and non-existence – although jazz was forbidden, it could not be silenced.


From "effective multilateralism" in the European Security Strategy to a "rules-based international order" in the Global Strategy, the EU has been at the forefront of supporting global governance. Yet global governance is increasingly under pressure and pundits are now regularly talking about the post-liberal order. How does the EU implement the Global Strategy with its focus on a rules-based international order against the background of Trump's "America First", the BRICS challenging the status quo, and Brexit undermining the Union's international standing? Unfortunately the EU is currently too much a bystander as the edifice of global governance is coming down.


Protein calorie malnutrition (PCM) is one of the most serious public health problems in the developing world, including Sudan. This condition was investigated through studies which examined three main areas: prevalence and seasonal variation, influencing demographic factors and impact on brain function with use of electroencephalogram (EEG) assessment before and after clinical and nutritional interventions.

All 466 children admitted to the Khartoum Teaching Hospital and Ibn Oaf Children Emergency Hospital during July to September 2009 (the wet season) and during February to April 2010 (the dry season) were eligible for the study on the prevalence, seasonal variation and demographic factors influencing which influence the incidence of PCM. Questionnaires were employed to collect pertinent demographic, nutritional and anthropometric data.

The impact of PCM on brain function were examined through a case-control study of 48 children admitted to the Ibn oaf Children Hospital in Khartoum between July 2011 to July 2012 (16 underweight, 16 with kwashiorkor, and 16 with marasmus), The data obtained were compared with those of 12 healthy and well-nourished children. EEGs, clinical and neuropsychological assessment were performed on admission and at two time points after discharge (week 4 and 12).

The overall prevalence of PCM was 1.15%, and the distribution of marasmus, kwashiorkor and marasmic kwashiorkor 67.0, 23.0 and 10.0% respectively. Analysis of the 24-hour dietary recall revealed that the protein (p= 0.001), fat (p= 0.020), carbohydrates (p= 0.005) and energy (p=0.0028) consumption were statistically significantly lower than the recommended daily allowances. The coefficient of interaction between seasons and cofactors indicated that the wet season influenced significantly (p<0.0001) the incidence of PCM when the length of residence, paternal education, and sugar consumption were taken into consideration individually. In terms of demographic factors, mothers who delivered their first baby before they were 18 years old, mothers with a BMI of less than 18.5 Kg /m2 , a birth interval of less than 2 years, children aged 6-11 months (for marasmus), children aged 12-23 months (for kwashiorkor), children whose mid-upper arm circumference was less than 12.5cm and the number of children in a family were all highly associated with the incidence of PCM (p<0.001).

Neuro-cognitive investigation of the children showed that 70.8% had abnormal EEG patterns and 50-70% neuropsychological abnormalities. However, after four weeks treatment, 84.4% of the protein calorie malnourished children exhibited normal EEG patterns.

In conclusion, this study has revealed a high prevalence of PCM in Sudanese children with more cases during the wet season than the dry season. In addition, it has identified a number of predisposing demographic factors which must be addressed in order to help reduce the prevalence the disorder. Clinical and nutritional treatment of the children improved considerably clinical, neuropsychological and EEG outcomes. A more promising strategy to improve PCM outcomes may be to tackle the major risk factors for PCM: seasonality and demographic factors. It is envisaged that earlier intervention with the treatments would be beneficial. Future programmes should investigate the long-term impact of PCM on cognitive function including school performance.

This study has generated important information about the prevalence of protein calorie malnutrition and pre-disposing socio-economic factors. Nevertheless it has some limitations. The main limitations are: first, there is potential recall bias among respondents answering questions relating to household food consumption, and events happening in the past, such as the child's history of illness and breastfeeding patterns immediately after birth and then after. Second, information on some important confounding variables such as infection was not collected which could cause problems in interpreting the results. Third, the non-truly statement of the subjects regarding income which may cause bias was another limitation. Lastly, Lack of an address system limited follow-up with some patients.

Overall, the findings have important implications for research policy and programme efforts towards improved growth monitoring and designing of interventions to mitigate protein calorie malnutrition and its determinants.


Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is a rare disease characterized by accumulation of material in the alveoli of the lungs. It is generally diagnosed in middle-aged men. The most common complaints are cough and dyspnea. Characteristic radiological findings of PAP include nodular infiltration with a tendency to merge and ground glass density, septal thickening and resemblance to paving stone. Typical findings include periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) stain positive materials in the alveolar proteinosis, milky appearance of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), interstitial opacities, thickened interlobular septa, and patchy central or peripheral ground-glass opacities in the lung parenchyma in the chest CT. The most effective proved treatment is whole lung lavage. The aim of the treatment in PAP cases is to restore the alveolar gas exchange by removing excess surfactant accumulated in the alveoli.


Managers should have thorough knowledge about the management tasks and also more commitment toward their activities in order to be successful, understanding such factors have great value for promoting the organizational goals.  The main purpose of the present paper is to examine the relationship of awareness of managers regarding their management tasks with self-efficacy in sport managers of Isfahan city. The research method is correlative-descriptive and the statistical sample is 91 individuals between 120 senior sport managers of Isfahan that were selected based on Cohen and Cochran formula through random sampling method. The data were gathered via research based questionnaires about awareness toward management tasks and Sherer self-efficacy questionnaire (1982). The reliability of these two questionnaires was confirmed according to Cronbach's Alpha 0.74 and 0.78, respectively, after defining the face and content validity by the expertise. The obtained information was analyzed based on descriptive and inferential statistical methods, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Levene Test, Pearson correlation tests and one-variable t-test. The significance level for testing the hypothesis was considered as P≤0/05. The study of the findings showed an average level of awareness toward the management tasks and high level of self-efficacy in sport managers and a significant relationship between awareness of management tasks with self-efficacy.


Recommender systems based on collaborative filtering predict user preferences for products or services by learning past user-item relationships. A predominant approach to collaborative filtering is neighborhood based ("k-nearest neighbors"), where a user-item preference rating is interpolated from ratings of similar items and/or users. We enhance the neighborhood-based approach leading to substantial improvement of prediction accuracy, without a meaningful increase in running time. First, we remove certain so-called "global effects" from the data to make the ratings more comparable, thereby improving interpolation accuracy. Second, we show how to simultaneously derive interpolation weights for all nearest neighbors, unlike previous approaches where each weight is computed separately. By globally solving a suitable optimization problem, this simultaneous interpolation accounts for the many interactions between neighbors leading to improved accuracy. Our method is very fast in practice, generating a prediction in about 0.2 milliseconds. Importantly, it does not require training many parameters or a lengthy preprocessing, making it very practical for large scale applications. Finally, we show how to apply these methods to the perceivably much slower user-oriented approach. To this end, we suggest a novel scheme for low dimensional embedding of the users. We evaluate these methods on the netflix dataset, where they deliver significantly better results than the commercial netflix cinematch recommender system.


Chitin, a linear polymer of N-acetylglucosamine, is an essential structural component of fungal, nematode and insect pathogens but is not found in human physiology. Chitinases, which hydrolyze this polymer, play a key role in life cycle of these pathogens and associated pathogenesis. Consequently chitinase inhibitors have generated a lot of interest given their potential as insectides, fungicides and antimalarials. Herein, approaches are reported to the synthesis of some non-sugar based chitinase inhibitors: the cyclic pentapeptide natural products argifin, banyasin A and diketopiperazines related to the natural product CI-4. In order to improve the efficiency of production of argifin and facilitate SAR on analogues of the natural product, a revised synthesis of argifin has been developed. The synthesis of argifin was carried out by a combination of solid-phase and solution chemistry. The assembly of the linear peptide was carried out by SPPS and the cyclisation was performed in solution. The protecting groups chosen for the Asp and Arg residues were removable by hydrogenolysis, as this allowed aspartimide formation under acidic conditions to be avoided. Only one HPLC purification was required at the final step; argifin was isolated in 19% yield, compared to 18% yield for the first synthesis by Dixon et al. Banyasin A contains the same essential Arg(MC)-MePhe dipeptide motif as argifin and so it is of considerable interest as a potential Family 18 chitinase inhibitor. The synthesis of Amoa (3-amino-2-methyl-5E-octenoic acid) a rare amino-acid present in banyasin A was investigated. An advanced intermediate for the synthesis of Amoa was successfully obtained via chiral pool chemistry in an 8 step sequence from L-Asp. This involved preparation of a selectively protected β-methyl-substituted Asp derivative, which was then homologated to the β-amino-acid via Arndt-Eistert chemistry to give (3R,4R)-3-(((benzyloxy)carbonyl)amino)-4-methyl-5-oxo-5-allyloxypentanoic acid in 27% yield for the final step. The cyclic dipeptide CI-4, cyclo (L-Arg-D-Pro) is a weak inhibitor (IC50 = 1.2 mM) of Family 18 chitinases, however its binding efficiency index (BEI) is comparable to more potent inhibitors such as argifin. Some analogues of CI-4 show promising activity against a typical bacterial type Family 18 chitinase, SmChiB1 from Serratia marcescens. The cyclic dipeptide should therefore be a useful starting point for the development of more effective and selective inhibitors of this enzyme class. A series of cyclo (Xaa-Pro)-based dipeptides were synthesized, with different Xaa such as L/D-Pro, Gly, L-Ser, L/D-Arg, D-His, D-Phe, with yields ranging from 12 to 84%. Preliminary biological data confirm that cyclo(D-Xaa-D-Pro) may be a novel template for the development of new drug-like inhibitors of Family 18 chitinases.


This chapter discusses how the sleep of older people is linked to issues of autonomy and active ageing. For older people living in the community, this chapter demonstrates how the strategic use of napping is related to the goal of active ageing, discusses the reluctance of older people to take prescribed sleeping medication, and examines how care-giving can adversely affect the sleep of older people. For older people living in care homes, care home routines, staffing levels at night and night-time monitoring by staff can compromise the sleep of care home residents, which has implications for their daytime functioning. This chapter argues that poor sleep is often ignored by both the medical profession and by the general public, yet is fundamental in terms of optimising health and well-being in later life, and enabling older people to achieve independent and active lives.


Trade Policy Reforms and Development, comprises 11 essays offering new contributions on the following topics: globalisation and political economy of trade; trade, labour standards and economic crisis; the changing role of the WTO; competition policy and the WTO; choice of formulas for market access negotiations; regionalism and bilateralism in ASEAN; ANZUS free trade agreement; new criteria for optimum currency areas; trade policy and poverty in Asia; impact of agricultural trade reforms on poverty; and recent behaviour of US imports.


Objective: This in vitro study aimed to determine and compare the dimensional accuracy of open and closed-tray impression techniques for implant-supported prosthesis. Material and Methods: On a edentulous master model, four external hexagonal implants were parallelly installed and associated with four multi unit coping transfers and four multi unit rotational caps. A master superstructure was constructed and splinted all implants (control group). Five customized trays were constructed to perform ten open (n=5) and closed-tray (n=5) impressions. The obtained models were submitted to the dimensional analysis on three points in the center of the labial face of each implant (A, B, C, and D) with the aid of  Stereoscopic Magnifying Glass with x60 magnification. The vertical misfit between the metallic structure and the implant analogues was measured on each point. The obtained results were submitted to  Dixon's normality test and  Kruskal-Wallis test for independent samples (p < 0,05) with the aid of Bioestat 5.0 software. Results: The means and standard deviation were: open tray technique – 24.6474 ± 14.8883 µm; closed-tray technique – 26.2257 ± 9.7421 µm; and control group 22.445 ± 7.7106 µm. Conclusion: The accuracy of open and closed-tray impression techniques showed no statistically significant differences and both techniques were effective for implant transfer.


Though his image is tarnished today by unrepentant anti-Semitism, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was better known in the nineteenth century for his provocative musical eroticism. In this illuminating study of the composer and his works, Laurence Dreyfus shows how Wagner's obsession with sexuality prefigured the composition of operas such as "Tannhauser", "Die Walkure", "Tristan und Isolde", and "Parsifal". Daring to represent erotic stimulation, passionate ecstasy, and the torment of sexual desire, Wagner sparked intense reactions from figures like Baudelaire, Clara Schumann, Nietzsche, and Nordau, whose verbal tributes and censures disclose what was transmitted when music represented sex. Wagner himself saw the cultivation of an erotic high style as central to his art, especially after devising an anti-philosophical response to Schopenhauer's 'metaphysics of sexual love'. A reluctant eroticist, Wagner masked his personal compulsion to cross-dress in pink satin and drench himself in rose perfumes while simultaneously incorporating his silk fetish and love of floral scents into his librettos. His affection for dominant females and surprising regard for homosexual love likewise enable some striking portraits in his operas. In the end, Wagner's achievement was to have fashioned an oeuvre which explored his sexual yearnings as much as it conveyed - as never before - how music could act on erotic impulse.


ABSTRACT The observed greening of Arctic vegetation and the expansion of shrubs in the last few decades probably have profound implications for the tundra ecosystem, including feedbacks to climate. Uncertainty surrounding this vegetation shift and its implications calls for monitoring of vegetation structural parameters, such as fractional cover of shrubs. In this study, CANAPI, a semi-automated image interpretation algorithm that identifies and traces crowns by locating its crescent-shaped sunlit portion, was evaluated for its ability to derive structural data for tall (> 0.5 m) shrubs in the Arctic. CANAPI estimates of shrub canopy parameters were obtained from high-resolution imagery at 26 sites (250 m x 250 m each) by adjusting the algorithm's parameters and filter settings for each site, such that the number of crowns delineated by CANAPI roughly matched those observed in the high-resolution imagery. The CANAPI estimates were then compared with field measurements to evaluate the algorithm's performance. CANAPI successfully retrieved fractional cover (R2 = 0.83, P < 0.001), mean crown radius (R2 = 0.81, P < 0.001), and total number of shrubs (R2 = 0.54, P < 0.001). CANAPI performed best in sparse vegetation where shrub canopies were distinct, while it tended to underestimate shrub cover where shrubs were clustered. The CANAPI algorithm and the regression equations presented here can be used in Arctic tundra environments to derive vegetation parameters from any sub-meter panchromatic imagery.


In every month on the first working Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its preliminary estimates of the total non-farm business payroll employment and the change in total employment from the prior month. These estimates are produced using the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey which is an on-going national probability sample survey of all non-farm establishments in the United States. The preliminary estimates are revised a number of times to incorporate late reporting in the CES sample and the most recent benchmark population information. In this paper, we develop a statistical method which has the potential to minimize the amount of revision between the preliminary estimates and the second revision of the estimates. Based on the historical data, we first build an appropriate model which links these two estimates and then use this relationship to predict the second revision from the knowledge of the preliminary estimates for the current month. The preliminary results obtained from our study are encouraging.


Abstract A thorium-based fuel cycle for light water reactors will reduce the plutonium generation rate and enhance the proliferation resistance of the spent fuel. However, priming the thorium cycle with 235U is necessary, and the 235U fraction in the uranium must be limited to below 20% to minimize proliferation concerns. Thus, a once-through thorium-uranium dioxide (ThO2-UO2) fuel cycle of no less than 25% uranium becomes necessary for normal pressurized water reactor (PWR) operating cycle lengths. Spatial separation of the uranium and thorium parts of the fuel can improve the achievable burnup of the thorium-uranium fuel designs through more effective breeding of 233U from the 232Th. Focus is on microheterogeneous fuel designs for PWRs, where the spatial separation of the uranium and thorium is on the order of a few millimetres to a few centimetres, including duplex pellet, axially microheterogeneous fuel, and a checkerboard of uranium and thorium pins. A special effort was made to understand the underlying reactor physics mechanisms responsible for enhancing the achievable burnup at spatial separation of the two fuels. The neutron spectral shift was identified as the primary reason for the enhancement of burnup capabilities. Mutual resonance shielding of uranium and thorium is also a factor; however, it is small in magnitude. It is shown that the microheterogeneous fuel can achieve higher burnups, by up to 15%, than the reference all-uranium fuel. However, denaturing of the 233U in the thorium portion of the fuel with small amounts of uranium significantly impairs this enhancement. The denaturing is also necessary to meet conventional PWR thermal limits by improving the power share of the thorium region at the beginning of fuel irradiation. Meeting thermal-hydraulic design requirements by some of the microheterogeneous fuels while still meeting or exceeding the burnup of the all-uranium case is shown to be potentially feasible. However, the large power imbalance between the uranium and thorium regions creates several design challenges, such as higher fission gas release and cladding temperature gradients. A reduction of plutonium generation by a factor of 3 in comparison with all-uranium PWR fuel using the same initial 235U content was estimated. In contrast to homogeneously mixed U-Th fuel, microheterogeneous fuel has a potential for economic performance comparable to the all-UO2 fuel provided that the microheterogeneous fuel incremental manufacturing costs are negligibly small.


Topological containment is an important substructure relation in graph theory. A graph G is said to topologically contain another pattern graph H if a graph isomorphic to H can be obtained from G by performing a series of deletions and contractions, where contractions are limited to edges with at least one endvertex of degree 2. It is also said that G contains a subdivision of H. Determining whether some input graph G topologically contains a particular fixed pattern graph is a widely examined problem with many applications. One of the most important is Kuratowski's well known theorem characterizing planarity, which tells us that a graph is non-planar if and only if it topologically contains at least one of the graphs K 5 and K 3,3 . The problem of topological containment has been shown by Robertson and Seymour to be polynomial-time solvable for any fixed pattern graph H. However, practical characterizations and algorithms have only been developed for a few small pattern graphs, among these being the wheels with four and five spokes. This thesis looks at topological containment of wheels with six and seven spokes. The main results are two theorems: one that characterizes graphs with no subdivisions of W 6 , and one that gives a characterization (up to bounded size pieces) of graphs with no subdivisions of W 7 . These theorems form the basis for good characterizations and efficient algorithms for topological containment of W 6 and W 7 . A result is also given strengthening the previous characterization of graphs with no W 5 -subdivisions. We find new types of separating sets such that dividing a graph G along such a separating set will not alter the existence or otherwise of a W k -subdivision in G (where k = 6 or 7, depending on which of the main theorems forbids the separating set). Similarly, we find new local reductions such that performing such a reduction on G will not alter the existence or otherwise of a W k -subdivision in G (where k = 6 or 7, again). These separating sets and reductions are used in the two main theorems. The length and difficulty of the proofs of these theorems increase greatly as the size of the pattern graph increases. Proving a result for the wheel with six spokes requires extensive case analysis on many small graphs, and even more analysis is needed for the wheel with seven spokes. A computer program was written to automate the generation and testing of some of the graphs that arise as cases in these proofs. The main algorithm used in this program may be useful in a more general context, for developing other characterizations relating to topological containment.


The opening mechanism and nature of the basement underlying the North Makassar Straits has been debated for almost thirty years. Two leading opening mechanisms are: tectonic escape through major strike-slip extension and back-arc rifting due to subduction rollback. The basement has been debated as continental or oceanic. This study presents hard data of the North Makassar Straits' basement penetrated by two exploration wells: Rangkong-1 (ExxonMobil Surumana, 2009) and Kaluku-1 (ConocoPhillips Kuma, 2011). The basement's analyses include: petrography, X-ray diffraction, biostratigraphy, petrochemistry, magnetic susceptibility, multi-isotope geochronology, and organic geochemistry. Oils discovered by Kaluku-1 well in Eocene section provides further information based on analyses of bulk properties, carbon isotope, and various biomarkers. These hard data, never published anywhere before, are the basis for this study. The new data constraint that the basement of the Makassar Straits is Gondwanan Paternoster-West Sulawesi microcontinent, thinned due to rifting from the Early/Middle Eocene to Early Miocene time as response to back-arc rifting related to subduction roll back in SE Sundaland. The Eocene rifted grabens and horsts were the sites for shallow lacustrine sources, sandstone reservoirs, and traps. Kaluku oil discovery show the active petroleum system in West Sulawesi Offshore. Based on Kaluku discovery, further exploration should target the area to the east of Kaluku until transition zone with Onshore Sulawesi. Here the source rocks are considered to be thicker, better quality, earlier maturation hence generating more oils. The sandstone reservoirs will also be thicker. Syn-rift play may also be significant here, but existing seismic data preclude the evaluation. New 2D high resolution or 3D seismic data are required for better evaluation. Dry wells drilled here by various operators from 2009-2012 did not condemn the area since none of these wells targeted the Eocene section on rifted structures that actually should be.


More than 8.5 million people live in the urban area of Bogota and more than 1.4 million vehicles are taking the road every day. Air pollution is becoming more and more of a problem. Today, air pollution related respiratory diseases are the main cause of death in young children in Bogota and more than 6000 people die prematurely every year in Colombia from cardiopulmonary diseases or lung cancer related to air pollution. The creation of a spatially and temporally distributed emission inventory with a relatively high resolution for mobile and stationary sources (i.e. traffic and industries), the subject of this thesis, is part of a bigger project aiming at the development of air quality and meteorological modeling tools for the Secretaria Distrital de Ambiente, Bogota's environmental agency. Five pollutants – carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – are taken into account for the mobile sources, only four of them – CO, SO2, NOx and PM – for the industrial sources. The sources are classified in different categories and their emission factors determined before the calculated emissions are distributed. For the mobile sources, the emissions were calculated and distributed using the EMISENS model developed jointly at the University of Strasbourg, France, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. A first attempt was made using the program and some rough input parameters. The obtained results and the uncertainty analysis included in the EMISENS model then allowed for a precise focusing of the efforts that needed to be made to improve the results for the second application of the model. Concerning the stationary sources, the distribution in time was based on operational information obtained from a field survey conducted by Universidad de los Andes and the distribution in space on the street addresses of the manufacturing plant. All this information was then represented graphically in ArcGIS®, enabling the visual analysis of the results. This study confirms an already known fact: the road traffic is responsible in most cases for more than 90% of the emissions and all abatement strategies should focus on these sources to be effective. The obtained quantities are close to the values given in previous studies and the distribution in space and time showed in the first comparisons good correlations with measured immission data.


ABSTRACT The literature on interprofessional education (IPE) in allied health has historically been atheoretical and dominated by interventionist approaches using survey-based methods. Little is known about the social and contextual factors underpinning university-based interprofessional socialisation across allied health degrees. Using Holland et al.'s theory of 'identities as practice' and in-depth interview data from 19 students, we analyse first year Australian allied health students' experiences of university-based IPE. Doing so unlocks a reimagination of IPE as both a top-down and bottom-up process of ongoing professional self-discovery mediated by university contexts and health curricula. This contradicts the preliminary sociological theorisation that has been employed in understanding IPE thus far, depicting professional socialisation as inculcation. Furthermore, findings highlight the importance of student and context characteristics beyond profession to understanding variations in allied health students' experiences of IPE. These characteristics include friendships, age, distance from campus and curriculum design. Thus, this article demonstrates the merits of shifting the gaze within studies of IPE to incorporate interactionist conceptualisations of the overt and 'hidden curricula'. It demonstrates the benefits of qualitative analysis to advancing the social and health care change agendas underpinning IPE.


ABSTRACT The southwest Washington coastline has experienced extremely high rates of progradation during the late Holocene. Subsurface stratigraphy, preserved because of progradation and interpreted using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), has previously been used successfully to document coastal response to prehistoric storm and earthquake events. New GPR data collected at Ocean Shores, Washington, suggest that the historic stratigraphy of the coastal barrier in this area represents a higher resolution record of coastal behavior than previously thought. GPR records for this location at 200 MHz reveal a series of gently sloping, seaward-dipping reflections with slopes similar to the modern beach and spacings on the order of 20-45 cm. Field evidence and model results suggest that thin (1-10 cm), possibly magnetite-rich, heavy-mineral lags or low-porosity layers left by winter storms and separated by thick (20-40 cm) summer progradational sequences are responsible for generating the GPR reflections. These results indicate that a record of annual progradation is preserved in the subsurface of the prograding barrier and can be quantified using GPR. Such records of annual coastal behavior, where available, will be invaluable in understanding past coastal response to climatic and tectonic forcing.


During the period 1580-1645, the Merchant Taylors
Company, one of the twelve major livery companies of
London, assumed a central place in the social, financial,
and political affairs of the capital. The archives of
the Company, more varied and extensive than is often
assumed, have allowed a detailed study of the nature and
organisation of one of early modern London's major social
organisations. That organisation embraced two highly
distinct and autonomous bodies. The livery was
closely-knit, select and oligarchic in its government,
dominated by an elite of leading citizens and merchants
devoted to the affairs of the livery company. The
yeomanry was an organisation of immense social and
industrial importance, responsible for the regulation and
representation of a high proportion of all of London's
freemen. Its parallel government was dominated by
members of the handicraft, and investigation into the
yeomanry's role and the attitudes of the livery governors
allows critical reappraisal of the phenomenon known as
the 'decline of the guilds', and an assessment of the
role of the livery companies in promoting social
stability in later Elizabethan and Early Stuart London.
The sixty-six years to 1645 represent a period of
increasing corporate wealth, membership and influence,
and the detailed examination of Company government and
structure, coupled with a portrait of the livery company
leadership from 1630, facilitates a reappraisal of
political and religious developments in the capital. The
Merchant Taylors Company is shown to be closely-tied to
the royal government and in particular to William Laud, a
pattern of loyalties which survived the municipal
revolution of 1642 and the outbreak of Civil War in
England.


In this paper the reliability of parallel structural systems is studied in order to begin to understand and quantify the system factors influencing the overload capacity and the redundancy of realistic statically indeterminate structures. Redundancy is defined as the conditional probability of system failure given first failure of any member (it is an inverse measure). In contrast to previous studies of ideal parallel systems, the present study considers unbalanced parallel systems. In an unbalanced system, the ratio of mean member force to mean capacity is different for different members in the intact and in the damaged states of the structure. For a structure that is perfectly balanced in the mean the system effects, inducing redundancy and overload capacity beyond the first member failure, are strictly due to the randomness and uncertainties of the governing variables, i.e., they are probabilistic in origin. In contrast, for a more realistic unbalanced structure, the system effects inducing redundancy are both deterministic and probabilistic in origin. In this study the effect of various parameters, like number of members, postfailure member capacity, excess design capacity, etc., is investigated. Simple approximation is developed for estimation of the probability of failure of complex unbalanced systems. A Reduced Space Monte Carlo Simulation approach has been used for reliability analyses. This proved to be a very efficient technique for the present study.


This study demonstrates the application of aeromagnetic surveys for locating late 1800s-era oil and gas wells in Hillman State Park. The study area in southwestern Pennsylvania offered several unique challenges to locating legacy wells. Location records for many of Pennsylvania's legacy wells do not exist. Those that do exist are often incomplete and inaccurate, and old wells were commonly abandoned without effective plugging. Now, unplugged legacy wells may serve as vertical migration pathways for fluids and gas associated with modern oil and gas operations. Wells in Hillman State Park were abandoned in the early 1900s, leaving little evidence of a well site. However, the steel well casing commonly remained at the site. Between 1940 and 1960, 50% of the land area at Hillman State Park was surface mined for coal. The removal of coal overburden also removed the upper well casings in surface-mined areas to the depth of the coal. The wells were then buried under mine spoil during regrading operations. Today, much of Hillman State Park is covered in trees and dense vegetation, and locating wells with ground-level searches is difficult, time consuming, and often futile. The airborne magnetic survey used in this study identified well locations, including buried wells in mined areas, based on the unique magnetic signature of vertical, steel well casing. The results of the aeromagnetic survey were combined with aerial photography, historic maps, and high-resolution topographic data in a geographic information system to refine well locations prior to verification with a ground search.


Despite having a vast number of forces arrayed against it – the United States-led coalition, Putin's Moscow, Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, Kurdish Peshmerga and the regimes in Baghdad and Damascus – Islamic State (IS) has expanded into other areas. Despite losing territory in Iraq and Syria, IS is growing in the Far East, the Caucasus and Africa. Reasons for the resilience displayed on the part of the jihadis are encouraging polarisation between groups and then benefiting from this process. Its diverse funding sources from oil sales to the trafficking of antiquities and narcotics have allowed IS to build a war chest in excess of US$ 2 billion. With these funds, IS has deployed soft power – digging sewage systems and providing stipends to families – to earn the loyalty of its 'citizens'. IS has also displayed superior military strategy combining conventional military doctrine with asymmetric warfare. As IS are confronted with superior conventional forces in their heartland, however, they embrace more asymmetric warfare.


ABSTRACT
 The growth of traditional crops could be a primary resource for adapting to climate change and strengthening agrosystems' resilience. However, these crops tend to be replaced by non-traditional crops with higher productivity, higher market values, and higher short-term income. In this context, smallholders face trade-offs between maximizing short-term income and ensuring resilience to face likely future climate adversities. The economic assessment of such trade-offs has been commonly neglected in the literature. Most studies are conducted using agronomic or anthropological frameworks to recognize the value of traditional agriculture to increase adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability. This study fills this gap by assessing economic and agronomic trade-offs between traditional and non-traditional crops triggered by climate-induced changes in water availability. We also simulate the effectiveness of a water policy. Our results suggest that farmers growing traditional crops may get lower profits, but their portfolio is more resilient to climate change, whereas the water policy proves to be an effective adaptation strategy to climate change. However, the policy implementation could hinder the development of traditional crops. Based on our results, we suggest implementing smart agricultural policies to balance economic, cultural, and adaptation goals.


British photographer Edmund Clark has spent more than a decade exploring the unseen processes, experiences and sites of contemporary conflict, with particular focus on the so-called War on Terror.

The Mountains of Majeed is a reflection on the end of 'Operation Enduring Freedom' in Afghanistan through photography, found imagery and Taliban poetry. Based at Bagram Airfield, the largest American base in Afghanistan, and formerly home to 40,000, Edmund Clark examines the experience of the vast majority of military personnel and contractors who have serviced Enduring Freedom without ever leaving the base. Clark distills their war down to a concise series of photographs of the two views they have of Afghanistan: what they experience of the country over the walls or through the wire of their bases, and what they see through pictorial representations within these enclaves of high technology and occupation.

At Bagram Airfield, the view, both outside and inside, is dominated by the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Set against their looming presence, Clark's images from his time spent embedded with the U.S. military, expose the dystopian relationship between the man-made landscape of Bagram and the country beyond its walls. Evoking an intangible awareness of the mountains beyond, and the unseen insurgents hiding within them, Clark's quiet and contemplative images portray an alternative narrative to the one ordinarily presented by the media.

Echoes of the surrounding landscape resonate in Clark's photographs of spaces within the walls of the base, finding visual rhymes in the craters formed by construction work, peaks of refuse-strewn razor wire and the precisely ordered vistas of military tents. Inside the buildings, the landscape is simulated by murals and artworks, representing another view of Afghanistan. On the walls of a dining facility, a series of paintings signed by an artist named 'Majeed' portray idealized scenes of mountain passes and lakes, in which Clark questions the influence of Western ideas of romantic or naive painting. Reflecting on the significance of the paintings' location on an American base, Clark says: "How many tens of thousands of pairs of western eyes have registered the pastoral peace of these mountainscapes? Has anyone considered what they say of the country they are playing a part in occupying?"

In this exhibition, Majeed's paintings have been reproduced as a series of picture postcards. Likening them to mementos for souvenir hunters of an idealized touristic landscape, Clark's appropriation of the paintings offers a powerful reminder that the mountains remain out of Western reach. Clark says: "There is distance between these mountains. Vistas of tranquillity fabricated by hand from canvas, wood and paint. Images from an enclave captured in high resolution by the latest digital technology. Two cultures divided by landscape and time. Ever present mountains forever beyond boots confined for a duration, within walls of occupation, on a ground of gravel and tarmac. And there is convergence. Both are mountains of the imagination. Both are representations of enduring freedom; and in both the mountains belong to Majeed."

The Victory Column of Enduring Freedom is a monument to the notion of victory in the war in Afghanistan. It is a reference to Emperor Trajan's column in the forum in Rome which records his campaigns in Dacia, modern-day Romania, through relief sculpture scenes spiralling up the column. The form of the spiralled column has been re-used and reinterpreted through history as an icon of victory, perhaps most notably for the victory column of Napoleon's Grand Armee in Place Vendome, Paris, made from captured Russian and Austrian cannons.

Razor wire and aggregate are materials commonly used for the perimeter security and surface imprint of enclaves of occupation in the War on Terror.

This show coincides with Edmund Clark's first solo museum exhibition in the United States at ICP Museum, New York. Edmund Clark: The Day the Music Died provides a timely and thoughtful exploration of the measures taken by states to protect its citizens from the threat of international terrorism, and the far-reaching effects of such methods of control including issues of security, secrecy, legality, and ethics. It brings together over 100 images, film, official documents, and ephemera exploring the hidden experiences and spaces of control and incarceration in the so-called global war on terror. The exhibition is on view from Jan 26, 2018 – May 06, 2018, www.icp.org.


The APOS (Advanced Power Subassemblies project addresses the devices (MMIC or discrete) used in the solid state power amplifiers (SSPA) that drive the transmit active antenna. These are key devices and their electrical and thermal performances have a major impact on both the satellite and the ground terminals. GaAs-based heterostructure bipolar transistor, due to their superior power/linearity performance, could be one of these enabling devices. This aspect will be addressed within the frame of this project through three main objectives :
1)To analyse the reliability of UMS HBT technology and demonstrate it meets the
requirements of the commercial satellite markets.
2)To improve the power and thermal performances of HBT by developing a power flip-
chip assembly technology using thermal bumps in the active area of the power device.
3)To benchmark the developed power HBT technology by using the power MMIC in a suitable active antenna module.
 This project consortium is formed by Alcatel Space, that will co-ordinate the project, United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS), Thomson-CSF, Institute for Material Research at Limburg University Centrum (1MO-LUC), DESTIN and Institut d'Electronique et de Microelectronique du Nord (1EMN).


Dissemination and education of local natural resource issues is an ongoing priority for Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Environmental Agencies. However, with an ever-increasing amount of information competing for our time and attention, getting the message across is increasingly difficult. This project is an investigation of whether new emerging technology, such as touch tables, can help adults gain a better understanding of the nature of natural resource issues.
The hypothesis investigated was that a tangible multi-touch table interface encouraged understanding of natural resource issues using map-based constructivist learning tasks. The natural resource issue of Preparing for bushfire was chosen to test this hypothesis. It addressed key problems such as the low inclination by residents to prepare for bushfire. The system design and content evolved from participatory involvement of three bushfire community groups.
The table interface displayed local real world map information including online aerial photographs, property boundaries, building locations, elevation, fire history, and building defensive zones. The table interface system was designed for adults to complete short map-based interactive bushfire problem solving tasks using purpose-designed model objects: such as a house, chainsaw and a rake. The models worked seamlessly on the touch table providing immediate real-time feedback. The rake and chainsaw models operated similarly to their real-world counterparts. The chainsaw operated with short cutting movements, while the rake operated with sweeping motions, which allowed adults to physically play with scenarios in order to view the effects of real world natural resource interactions. The tangible table interface system was compared with the closest existing traditionally equivalent method using a within subjects exercise of 64 adult participants from the general public in situ at the local library and museum.
After using the Preparing for bushfire table interface all of the participants improved upon their pre-test scores indicating they learnt from the experience (F(1)=13.01,p<0.001). Comparative evaluation showed that the participants had a significantly greater learning gain from using the tangible table than the traditional method (F(1)=13.01,p<0.001). Furthermore, follow-up questions showed that 100% of participants believed they learnt about Preparing for bushfire by using the table interface, and 70% felt motivated to undertake preparations for bushfire.
The original contribution to knowledge includes design rules for adult user preferences of topic choice, constructivist task design, interface object design, and object to surface operational functionality. These design rules were the guidelines behind the interface design that validated the hypothesis. Adult members of the general public improved their understanding of preparing for bushfire (the selected natural resource issue) by using a purpose designed tangible multi-touch table with custom physical models for constructivist learning tasks (p<0.001).
Further research should attempt to apply this method to expand the key messages presented for Preparing for bushfire, or evaluate this method for other natural resource issues.


Objective To demonstrate that mutations in the phosphatidylglycerol remodelling enzyme SERAC1 can cause juvenile-onset complicated hereditary spastic paraplegia (cHSP) clusters, thus adding SERAC1 to the increasing number of complex lipid cHSP genes. Methods Combined genomic and functional validation studies (whole-exome sequencing, mRNA, cDNA and protein), biomarker investigations (3-methyl-glutaconic acid, filipin staining and phosphatidylglycerols PG34:1/PG36:1), and clinical and imaging phenotyping were performed in six affected subjects from two different branches of a large consanguineous family. Results 5 of 6 affected subjects shared cHSP as a common disease phenotype. Three subjects presented with juvenile-onset oligosystemic cHSP, still able to walk several miles at age >10–20 years. This benign phenotypic cluster and disease progression is strikingly divergent to the severe infantile phenotype of all SERAC1 cases reported so far. Two family members showed a more multisystemic juvenile-onset cHSP, indicating an intermediate phenotype between the benign oligosystemic cHSP and the classic infantile SERAC1 cluster. The homozygous splice mutation led to loss of the full-length SERAC1 protein and impaired phosphatidylglycerol PG34:1/PG36:1 remodelling. These phosphatidylglycerol changes, however, were milder than in classic infantile-onset SERAC1 cases, which might partially explain the milder SERAC1 phenotype. Conclusions Our findings add SERAC1 to the increasing list of complex lipid cHSP genes. At the same time they redefine the phenotypic spectrum of SERAC1 deficiency. It is associated not only with the severe infantile-onset 'Methylglutaconic aciduria, Deafness, Encephalopathy, Leigh-like' syndrome (MEGDEL syndrome), but also with oligosystemic juvenile-onset cHSP as part of the now unfolding SERAC1 deficiency spectrum.


The impact of somatic hypermutation on the lambda light chain repertoire of individual IgM+ peripheral B cells in the absence (nonproductive rearrangements) and presence (productive rearrangements) of selective influences was analyzed. In the 27 mutated nonproductive VlambdaJlambda, rearrangements obtained from individual peripheral B cells, a significantly greater mutational frequency was observed in the complementarity-determining region (CDR) in comparison to the framework region (FR), whereas the mutational frequencies in both the CDR and FR of the 100 mutated productive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements were significantly greater. R mutations were introduced comparably in CDR and FR of nonproductive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements, but were significantly decreased in FR of productive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements. The majority of codons defined as hot spots for R mutations were within CDR in both the nonproductive and productive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements. Targeting of mutations to RGYW/WRCY motifs was observed such that 38% of all mutations in the nonproductive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements were within RGYW/WRCY motifs. Mutations in RGYW/WRCY motifs were positively selected and accounted for >50% of all mutations in the mutated productive VlambdaJlambda rearrangements. These data indicate that targeting of the mutational machinery and selection of mutations in these targeted motifs play major roles in influencing nucleotide changes in VlambdaJlambda rearrangements.


The North-West of Russia is a region, where most of the Russian forest products export to Europe is originated. There are also several publications and papers which have indicated that illegal logging and the export of this illegally harvested wood are a major problem in this particular region. In an attempt to stimulate the domestic processing industry as well as reducing the amount of illegally harvested wood, Russia have decided to implement export taxes on round wood.
The purpose of this thesis was to examine if Russia's proposed export taxes on round wood would decrease the amount of illegally harvested wood in this region.
The method elected for this study was a literature study. The method of export taxes as a means to stop illegal operations in the forest sector has been conducted before, and the results from these countries have been analyzed and used to predict a likely outcome for the amount of illegally harvested wood due to this trade restriction.
The results from other countries show that export taxes have not reduced the illegal logging in a significant way. What we have seen in other countries is that the deforestation rate has gone down and at best we can assume that illegal operations are a part of this deforestation, and thus would be reduced in a small amount. There are however no evidence that supports that fact. Given the purpose of Russia's export taxes, which is to stimulate the domestic wood processing industry as well as decreasing the amount of illegally harvested wood I have reached the conclusion that the export taxes will not affect the amount of illegally harvested wood in North-West Russia. Instead, the illegally harvested wood will support the growing needs of the increased domestic processing.


The endometrium must be at least 9 mm thick to provide a site for proper fetal implantation and also maintains the growing baby in the later stages of gestation. If, due to any reason, this lining becomes not adequate, it becomes impossible for the blastocyst to get implanted to the uterus. It is vital for practitioners to be aware of this issue, so this study aimed to explore the effect of Plavix (75 mg) compared with aspirin (75mg) on improving the endometrial thickness in women with thin endometrium. Prospective observational study Setting: Ain Shams Maternity Hospital and Al-Azhar University hospital (New Damietta). Patients: 500 women with thin endometrium (< 8 ml) were divided randomly into two equal arms of 250 women in each one. Intervention: Group I administered Plavix while group II received Aspirin. Endometrial pattern and thickness, uterine artery resistance and pulsatility indices, dominant follicles, and pregnancy rates of the two groups were measured. Participants' ages ranged from 20 to 35. There was a significant effect of the two drugs in improving the endometrial thickness and pattern (trilaminar) when compared with the previous untreated cycles but there was no significant difference between Plavix and Aspirin effects as regards these parameters. Also, there was no difference between the two groups as regards uterine artery PI and RI, mean diameter of dominant follicle and pregnancy rates. Low dose aspirin and Plavix had no significant difference in increasing endometrial thickness, PI, RI of uterine artery or increasing pregnancy rates when compared to each other.


The availability of digital models of real 3D objects is becoming more and more important in many different applications (e-commerce, virtual visits etc). Very often the objects to be represented cannot be modeled by means of the classical 3D modeling tools because of the geometrical complexity or color texture. In these cases, devices for the automatic acquisition of the shape and the color of the objects (3D scanners or range scanners) have to be used. The scanner presented in this work, a Shape from silhouette scanner, is very cheap (it is based on the use of a simple digital camera and a turntable) and easy to use. While maintaining the camera on a tripod and the object on the turntable, the user acquires images with different rotation angles of the table. The fusion of all the acquired views enables the production of a digital 3D representation of the object.Existing Shape from silhouette scanners operate in an indirect way. They subdivide the object definition space in a regular 3D grid and verify that a voxel belongs to the object by verifying that its 2D projection falls inside the silhouette of the corresponding image. Our scanner adopts a direct method: by using a new 3D representation scheme and algorithm, the Marching Intersections data structure, we can directly intersect all the 3D volumes obtained by the silhouettes extracted from the images.


Abstract The contours of regionalism in a wider Europe are shaped by two dominant actors, the European Union (EU) and Russia, which often have divergent visions of the regional landscapes in a vast area constituting their common neighbourhood. The EU can be characterised as the promoter of normative regionalism, while Russia generates different forms of civilisational regionalism. Russia's emphasis on the civilisational underpinnings of its regional integration model paves the way for two different strategies: one based on liberal imitation and replication of EU experiences in order to strengthen Russia's position in the global neoliberal economy, and another grounded in illiberal contestation of the normative premises of the EU with the purpose of devising an ideologised alternative to the liberal West.


We present the first experimental results of reflectance Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) performed with a fast-gated single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) coupled to a time-correlated single-photon counting system. The Mellin-Laplace transform was employed to process time-resolved data. We compare the performances of the SPAD operated in the gated mode vs. the non-gated mode for the detection and localization of an absorbing inclusion deeply embedded in a turbid medium for 5 and 15 mm interfiber distances. We demonstrate that, for a given acquisition time, the gated mode enables the detection and better localization of deeper absorbing inclusions than the non-gated mode. These results obtained on phantoms demonstrate the efficacy of time-resolved DOT at small interfiber distances. By achieving depth sensitivity with limited acquisition times, the gated mode increases the relevance of reflectance DOT at small interfiber distance for clinical applications.


Wavefunction spillover in a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well (MQW) was investigated by varying its well width. A numerical simulation of the solution to the Schrodinger equation for a finite potential well under the effective mass approximation showed that the wavefunctions are significantly spilled out for narrow quantum wells (≤50A). Photoluminescence (PL) and photoreflectance (PR) measurements were then performed on 50A and 90A quantum wells to investigate experimental manifestation of wavefunction spillover. It was found that wavefunction spillover manifests in the PR line shape.


Ankylosing spondylitis is a highly heritable, common rheumatic condition, primarily affecting the axial skeleton. The association with HLA-B27 has been demonstrated worldwide, and evidence for a role of HLA-B27 in disease comes from linkage and association studies in humans, and transgenic animal models. However, twin studies indicate that HLA-B27 contributes only 16% of the total genetic risk for disease. Furthermore, there is compelling evidence that non-B27 genes, both within and outwith the major histocompatability complex, are involved in disease aetiology. In this post-genomic era we have the tools to help elicit the genetic basis of disease. This review describes methods for genetic investigation of ankylosing spondylitis, and summarises the status of current research in this exciting area.


Levy Yeyati and Sturzenegger (2001, 2003, 2005) proposed an exchange rate regime classification based on cluster analysis to group countries according to the relative volatility of exchange rates and reserves, thereby shifting the focus from a de jure to de facto approach in the empirical analysis of exchange rate policy. This note extends the classification through 2014 and broadens the country sample, increasing the number of classified country-year observations from 3335 to 5616. Based on this extension, the note documents the main stylized facts in the 2000s, including the behavior of exchange rate policy around the global financial crisis, and the prevalence of floating regimes.


There is a growing realisation that pre-disaster planning is an effective approach to building the resilience of nations to adverse events. There is mounting evidence that little has been done in terms of pre-disaster planning, not only in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but also throughout much of the Islamic world. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, there are staggering economic developments, largely based on oil and gas revenues post World War 2, which substantially change the livelihoods, and therefore the vulnerability, of local populations. In the case of UAE, this was a move from a nomadic Bedouin pastoral culture to one of living in modern urban areas. Secondly, cities in the UAE have developed to a point where they are now global cities. City growth and development is being driven by the massive growth in immigration of foreign nationals and international businesses. In the UAE, there are seven foreign nationals for every UAE citizen. These developments have substantially changed the risk profile of the UAE. Many of the risk management strategies practiced when the UAE was mainly a nomadic society are no longer appropriate. Similarly, immigrants will bring with them different kinds risk management strategies, depending on their place of origin. Though the UAE is multi-cultural, Islam is an important part of the culture of the Emirates. The research investigates the role of Islam in disaster risk reduction.

The research used a mixed methods approach for date collection. Secondary research developed the overview of the UAE vulnerability. Primary research had two parts. The first was data collection from groups of male and female community members and stakeholders in each Emirate to provide a comparative analysis of risk perception and response. The second comprised key stakeholder interviews and a focus group who had broad for disaster risk reduction.

This research presents the first hazard history of UAE. A vulnerability viewpoint is used to evaluate the hazard history and findings are presented in the paradigm of natural hazards research. An evaluation of UAE's institutionalisation of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies in the context of its international obligations, e.g. the Hyogo Framework, is undertaken. Central to the argument about the difficulties of implementing DRR is the role of Islamic culture.

The research offers the results of fieldwork that explore experience of disaster and emergency at personal, community and institutional level. It offers observations, from personal experience, of the difficulty of delivering interventions in traditional Arab architecture/land use patterns for emergency services as well as the challenges of the new, high rise, concrete cities. Most importantly, it looks to the governance issue of the Muslim faith, including the Quran itself, to see if there is any obligation or requirement to take community DRR seriously. It is this emphasis on understanding Muslim faith, the backbone of local lives, which underlie new directions for DRR in UAE. The research finds that there is too great a focus on institution building as opposed to improving community preparedness. It also finds there is strong support for a greater role of the Mosques in building community resilience.

The research ends with an outline of the different vulnerabilities in each UAE Emirate but also with an emphasis on the importance of Muslim faith as the backbone of the total national community and the stepping-stone to a community based DRR.


Autolysins are enzymes that cleave specific structural components within the bacterial cell wall. They contribute to numerous cellular activities such as cell growth, cell division, peptidoglycan recycling and turnover. In this study, twelve Enterococcal isolates (previously from the genus Streptococcus) were examined for susceptibility to the antibiotics Penicillin G and Vancomycin, using a Disk Diffusion and a Microtitre plate assay. In both methods, all twelve strains were resistant to Vancomycin. Six of these strains were susceptible to Penicillin G. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were twice that of the disk diffusion assay values. In the presence of antibiotic, the growth rates for the six strains were halved. Autolysins were extracted from the respective cell cultures using a 4% SDS precipitation method. The protein concentrations were calculated and estimated to be within the range of 5.47to 6.35 μg/μl. Profiles of the SDS precipitate were analyzed on SDS-PAGE. Autolytic proteins were identified and partially analyzed by renaturing SDSPAGE (zymograms) using gels containing cell wall substrate. Seven lytic bands of molecular weights 25, 30, 50, 63, 75 95 and 145 kDa (designated Autolysin A to G, respectively) were selected for further analysis. The temporal distribution of the enzymes ranged from the mid exponential phase to the early death phase. The seven proteins were blotted onto polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membranes and excised for N-terminal sequencing. Blast analysis of the respective N-terminal sequences showed autolysins A, C, D, E and F to have 100% similarity to the muramidase, amidase and peptidase from S. cremoris, S. suis, S. pneumonia, S. pyogenes and E. faecium, respectively. Biochemical characterization confirmed autolysins A, B, E and F to exhibit muramidase activity, and autolysin C and G to exhibit peptidase activity. Autolysin D displayed 100% similarity to the protein LytA, a peptidoglycan hydrolase that is known to exhibit amidase activity. Blast analysis could not determine any significant similarities for autolysins B and G to previously identified autolysins, thus indicating they may perhaps be novel autolysins.


The subject of declining jurisdiction in private international law is one of enormous practical importance and academic interest. It is also a topic where a comparative approach is particularly revealing. This book contains the 17 national reports and the general report on the subject of `Rules for declining to exercise jurisdiction: Forum Non Conveniens, Lis Pendens'. The Reports were held in Athens/Delphi in August 1994. The list of nations for which a report has been prepared is as follows: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Quebec, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and USA. This book by bringing together all the reports on `Declining Jurisdiction' provides a unique insight into this topic, and, dealing as it does with a key aspect of private international law, fits very well into the Oxford series of monographs on private international law.


SOA and especially Web services are a big evolving market these days. SOA typically uses Web services when interacting between different parts of applications. Methods to easily discover the Web services must exist. For this UDDI has been introduced. The current implementation of UDDI has a weak security model. We have developed an extension to this model, which interacts with the current solution to make it more secure. Our solution, S-UDDI, enable a way to find and publish Web services in a secure and trustworthy way.