Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions is both a roadmap for navigating the intellectual universe of constitutional amendment and a blueprint for building and improving the rules of constitutional change. Drawing from dozens of constitutions in every region of the world, this book blends theory with practice to answer two all-important questions: What is an amendment and how should constitutional designers structure the procedures of constitutional change? The first matters now more than ever. Reformers are exploiting the rules of constitutional amendment, testing the limits of legal constraint, undermining the norms of democratic government, and flouting the constitution as written to create entirely new constitutions that masquerade as ordinary amendments. The second question is central to the performance and endurance of constitutions. Constitutional designers today have virtually no resources to guide them in constructing the rules of amendment, and scholars do not have a clear portrait of the significance of amendment rules in the project of constitutionalism. Constitutional Amendments: Making, Breaking, and Changing Constitutions shows that no part of a constitution is more important than the procedures we use change it. Amendment rules open a window into the soul of a constitution, exposing its deepest vulnerabilities and revealing its greatest strengths. The codification of amendment rules often at the end of the text proves that last is not always least.


Predator restorations often result in apparent competition, where co-occurring prey populations experience asymmetric predation pressure driven by predator preferences. In many rangeland ecosystems, livestock share the landscape with wildlife, including ungulates and the large carnivores that consume them. We examined whether apparent competition reorganized prey communities following restoration of lions (Panthera leo) to a savanna ecosystem, and whether and how livestock management could alter this indirect interaction between lions and their prey. Three lines of evidence supported the hypothesis that Jackson's hartebeest (Alcelaphus bucelaphus lelwel; an ungulate of conservation concern) are suppressed via lion-mediated apparent competition. First, hartebeest exhibited an Allee effect where they were exposed to lions, but displayed negative density-dependent population growth where they were protected from lions. Second, spatial overlap between plains zebra (Equus burchelli; the primary prey of lions) and hartebeest further exacerbated lion predation on hartebeest. Finally, hartebeest were killed selectively by lions, whereas zebra were killed by lions in proportion to their abundance. We then tested whether glades (nutrient-rich hotspots created by abandoned cattle [Bos indicus] corrals) could be used to manipulate top-down control of hartebeest via their influence on the spatial distribution of zebra. Zebra aggregated at glades, and survival of hartebeest increased with increasing distance from glades, suggesting that corrals may be placed on the landscape away from hartebeest to create spatial refuges from lions. Our findings demonstrate how informed placement of livestock corrals can be used to manipulate the spatial distribution of primary prey (zebra), thereby reducing apparent competition suffered by hartebeest. Our work further provides an example of how integrating apparent competition theory with proactive livestock management can improve conservation efforts in multiple-use landscapes.


In this EUDO CITIZENSHIP Forum Debate, several authors consider the interrelations between eligibility criteria for participation in independence referendum (that may result in the creation of a new independent state) and the determination of putative citizenship ab initio (on day one) of such a state. The kick-off contribution argues for resemblance of an independence referendum franchise and of the initial determination of the citizenry, critically appraising the incongruence between the franchise for the 18 September 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and the blueprint for Scottish citizenship ab initio put forward by the Scottish Government in its 'Scotland's Future' White Paper. Contributors to this debate come from divergent disciplines (law, political science, sociology, philosophy). They reflect on and contest the above claims, both generally and in relation to regional settings including (in addition to Scotland) Catalonia/Spain, Flanders/Belgium, Quebec/Canada, Post-Yugoslavia and Puerto-Rico/USA.


We performed ground-penetrating radar measurements to study the internal structure of Puente del
Inca (Inca Bridge). This natural structure is located in Mendoza, Argentina, and its formation is
associated with deposition of travertine caused by geobiological processes created by hot mineral
springs. The 200-MHz ground-penetrating radar measurements performed on the surface of the
bridge allowed us to relate the behaviour of the electromagnetic signal with the presence or absence
of hot spring activity. We also made ground-penetrating radar measurements at 20 MHz to estimate
the propagation velocity and study the bridge's internal structure. In order to validate the groundpenetrating
radar results, we used a soil dielectric sensor to obtain the attenuation and the velocity
of the medium. The results showed similar propagation velocities (0.0222 m/ns on average) between
field observation (ground-penetrating radar) and independent sensor data, as well as significant
attenuation due to the hot spring water, which is the primary element controlling the response of the
electromagnetic signals. As checked through dielectric sensor measurements, the unusually low
electromagnetic wave velocity is due to polarisation mechanisms related to thermal water, which
cause a very high permittivity value (178.1). However, the medium is not sufficiently dispersive
(conductivity=27.7 mS/m; attenuation=3.5 dB/m) to condition the results of ground-penetrating
radar measurements if low-frequency antennas (20 MHz) are used.


Kimchi is a traditional Korean food manufactured by fermenting vegetables with probiotic lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Many bacteria are involved in the fermentation of kimchi, but LAB become dominant while the putrefactive bacteria are suppressed during salting of baechu cabbage and the fermentation. The addition of other subingredients and formation of fermentation byproducts of LAB promote the fermentation process of LAB to eventually lead to eradication of putrefactive- and pathogenic bacteria, and also increase the functionalities of kimchi. Accordingly, kimchi can be considered a vegetable probiotic food that contributes health benefits in a similar manner as yogurt as a dairy probiotic food. Further, the major ingredients of kimchi are cruciferous vegetables; and other healthy functional foods such as garlic, ginger, red pepper powder, and so on are added to kimchi as subingredients. As all of these ingredients undergo fermentation by LAB, kimchi is regarded as a source of LAB; and the fermentative byproducts from the functional ingredients significantly boost its functionality. Because kimchi is both tasty and highly functional, it is typically served with steamed rice at every Korean meal. Health functionality of kimchi, based upon our research and that of other, includes anticancer, antiobesity, anticonstipation, colorectal health promotion, probiotic properties, cholesterol reduction, fibrolytic effect, antioxidative and antiaging properties, brain health promotion, immune promotion, and skin health promotion. In this review we describe the method of kimchi manufacture, fermentation, health functionalities of kimchi and the probiotic properties of its LAB.


This study investigates factors such as location, altitude, number of animals and number of employees influential in breed preferences of sheep and goat farms in and around Siirt. Research material was formed from a survey carried out in 286 enterprises in Siirt and 6 districts. Data were analysed using SPSS 20.0 software package. Breeds reared in farms are varying by location, in such districts as Centrum, Baykan and Kurtalan with low altitude, hair goats were not preferred, while in places like Eruh, Pervari and Şirvan with rich pasture and high altitude hair goats were preferred intensely. Inbreed preference of farms animal number was found significant (p<0.01). It was found 42.5% of hair goats and 64.3% of Awassi ewes in farms with 26-50 animals, while in farms with 250 and more animals no hear goats was found. Satisfaction case in farms was different according to education level of farmers. Hence, 94.7% of uneducated farmers were satisfied with the reared breed. This rate was 98.3% in primary school graduates, 96.6% in secondary school graduates and increased to %100 in high school graduates. In cattle breed preferences Kurtalan and Pervari districts preferred exotic cattle in the close rates (%35.9, %33.3), also it was pointed out that the both districts had different altitudes. Again, the low percent of native breed and zero crossbreed cattle in Kurtalan district was found significant. Influential factors as location, number of employees in the farm, education, farming duration (p<0.01), altitude and age (p<0.05) were found significant in farms' cattle breed preferences. With this study made in sheep and goat farms located in Siirt, the impact of the investigated factors in breed selection was found significant. Considering the potential of the livestock in Siirt, it is concluded that in giving directions to the livestock in Siirt, these factors must be taken into account.


Over the course of the recent global financial crisis, emerging economies experienced massive swings in capital inflows. In this paper, we estimate a VAR model to assess the impact of capital inflow shocks, which are identified using a set of sign restrictions, on house prices in Korea. We base the analysis on three alternative measures of capital inflows: net total inflows, net portfolio inflows and gross total inflows. The results suggest that capital inflow shocks have a significantly positive and persistent effect on real house prices. Although shocks to capital inflows are found to be substantially more important for Korean asset markets than for other OECD countries, their overall explanatory power is modest. Using regional house price data we also show that capital inflow shocks have an asymmetric effect on property markets across the seven largest Korean cities and across different parts of Seoul.


The NETCONF remote network configuration protocol currently lacks an access control model. The need for such a model has been recognised within the NETCONF working group. The eXtended Access Control Markup Language (XACML) is an XML-based access control standard, with widespread acceptance from the industry and good open-source support. This document proposes a profile that defines how to use XACML to provide fine-grain access control for NETCONF commands.


Nano-biotechnology holds a great potential in various fields of life sciences. Nanotechnology involves the use of materials with components that have dimensions less than 100 nm. The demand for green synthesis of nanoparticles increases day by day due to the drawbacks of chemical synthesis. Application of nano-sized materials is an emerging area of nanotechnology. Among various metal nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles gain special interest due to its remarkable properties. Silver nanoparticles are usually ranging from 1-100nm size. They have unique electrical, optical, and thermal properties and which can be incorporated into industrial application of electronics, catalysis, and photonics. Silver nanoparticles exhibit a broad spectrum of anti-bactericidal and anti-fungicidal activities making them extremely popular in a diverse range of consumer products, including plastics, soaps, pastes, food, and textiles, thus increasing their market value. The presence of soluble organics in the plant extracts was mainly responsible for the silver ions reduction to nano-sized silver particles. The present review provides information on silver nanoparticles synthesis from various medicinal plants, various methods of characterization and it's biological application.


Albania is one of the countries with highest smoking prevalence in Europe. Despite the seriousness of the smoking phenomena, there has been limited research on the smoking behavior including also determinant factors. Accordingly, motivated by the need to investigate the demand of tobacco in Albania, from which policies can be better tailored, and the scarcity of empirical studies, this paper is based on econometrical analysis of aggregate macro data with focus on demand price elasticity. The empirical analysis conducted on annually aggregate data for the time span 2006-2017 suggests that prices significantly affect tobacco consumption. More precisely, the estimated results suggest that tobacco demand is price inelastic, with demand being relatively more elastic in the long-run than in the short run. Namely, the price elasticity of tobacco ranges from -0.27 to -0.77 in long-run and from -0.007 to -0.107 in the short run. We recommend that the government should further engage in gradual increase of taxation, since empirical evidence confirms that this is an efficient strategy to reduce smoking.


We present GLASSES: Global optimisation with Look-Ahead through Stochastic Simulation and Expected-loss Search. The majority of global optimisation approaches in use are myopic, in only considering the impact of the next function value; the non-myopic approaches that do exist are able to consider only a handful of future evaluations. Our novel algorithm, GLASSES, permits the consideration of dozens of evaluations into the future. This is done by approximating the ideal look-ahead loss function, which is expensive to evaluate, by a cheaper alternative in which the future steps of the algorithm are simulated beforehand. An Expectation Propagation algorithm is used to compute the expected value of the loss.We show that the far-horizon planning thus enabled leads to substantive performance gains in empirical tests.


In finance and healthcare, event processing systems handle sensitive data on behalf of many clients. Guaranteeing information security in such systems is challenging because of their strict performance requirements in terms of high event throughput and low processing latency.

We describe DEFCON, an event processing system that enforces constraints on event flows between event processing units. DEFCON uses a combination of static and runtime techniques for achieving light-weight isolation of event flows, while supporting efficient sharing of events. Our experimental evaluation in a financial data processing scenario shows that DEFCON can provide information security with significantly lower processing latency compared to a traditional approach.


In 2010 the Supreme Court addressed the extraterritorial application of U.S. securities law in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., and held that U.S. laws could not be applied to stocks bought and sold on foreign markets. The holding also invalidated the "conduct and effects" test that lower courts had used to assess the extraterritoriality of securities laws, and mandated that courts look to a statute's focus to determine if Congress intended the law to apply abroad. Prior to Morrison, courts had also used the conduct and effects test to assess the extraterritorial application of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"). Since the Supreme Court's ruling, lower courts have struggled to identify RICO's focus and formulate a new test for the extraterritorial application of RICO. Three approaches have emerged: the enterprise approach, the "predicate acts" approach, and the "pattern of activity" approach. This Note argues that the enterprise approach is the best approach. This Note discusses the history of the conduct and effects test in RICO jurisprudence, the landmark Supreme Court decision in Morrison, and the resulting lower court confusion regarding extraterritorial applications of RICO. This Note then illuminates the flaws in the predicate acts and pattern of activity approaches, and argues that the enterprise approach is the clearest, most easily applicable approach and should thus be adopted by lower courts.


Standard Arabic licenses raising structures with three types of verbs known collectively as verbs of appropinquation. Raising structures with these verbs are unique in that they permit different subject positions and an agreement pattern that is not found otherwise in the language. Matching the different word orders to positions that have been proposed for raising constructions in languages like English, we show that a striking similarity holds and that raising in Standard Arabic provides new support for the existence of opacity domains (phases) in raising contexts. The chapter analyzes these raising configurations, along with the different word orders and agreement patterns they allow, by proposing a cyclic spell-out approach in which a particular PF choice at an early cycle (phase) creates certain opacity effects for the agreement options at later cycles.


The article will bring a reading of Agamben's interpretation of horkos [oath] in the Sacrament of language , a reading of Derrida's faith as the grammar of language, into conversation with Lacan's interpretation of Poe's 'The purloined letter' by taking into consideration the context of this reading: South Africa. South Africa is a multilingual context in the fullest sense of the word 'multilingual', and as such, it is faced with the dilemma of a corrupt postal system. The postal system is a metaphor for the system of communication where messages are sent and received. This postal system is corrupt as the sender and receiver of messages are not sacramentally bound by the same oath, and therefore the letters are doomed to be purloined. Derrida's differance and the grammar of faith transcends the various languages and the various oaths as the quasi-transcendental condition for the sacrament of language, thereby opening a sacred space to encounter the inevitable corruption of the postal service.


Pranic healing (PH) is an ancient technique, utilizing Prana or life energy for healing. The present study investigates the effect of PH on Quality of Life of women employees working in a garment factory. An experimental design was used in this study. 65 employees with a mean age of 30.1 years were divided into 2 groups, 36 in Pranic and 29 in control group. The quality of life scale was measured during pre-test and post-test for both the groups, Mass PH was applied for 20 minutes, weekly twice for a month for the pranic group. Also, Pranic group participant's response was audio recorded after the last healing session to record their experiences. The preand post-test data were collected and analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA and Chi-square tests. The overall level of quality of life increased from the preto post for both control and pranic groups. However, the magnitude of change in the pranic group was significantly more compared to control group (p<.003). Majority of the pranic group employees expressed tingling sensations (77.8%) during pranic healing session and their experience was found to be significant (p<.001). The study demonstrated that PH was effective in enhancing the quality of life of working women employees.


The Canadian egg industry has introduced a number of specialty eggs, including Omega-3, organic, free run/range, vitamin enhanced and vegetarian over the past few decades. These eggs are generally sold at prices higher than the 'normal' egg and there has been little analysis of the consumer awareness of and interest in purchasing these eggs. All previous econometric analysis of the Canadian egg market has assumed eggs and consumers are homogeneous. This study makes use of Stated preference and Revealed preference data to model the consumer interest in the different egg types. Stated preference surveys were conducted in two separate years: 2005 during which consumers were surveyed on their interest in Omega-3 and Vitamin Enhanced eggs relative to 'normal' eggs, white large, Grade A eggs, and 2006 during which consumers were surveyed on their interest in organic, freerun and vegetarian eggs relative to brown Grade-A eggs. Consumers were also assessed on their health behaviour, health consciousness, and in 2006 on their attitudes towards animal welfare, novelty foods, and environmental concerns. Results from this phase of the research suggested that among the sample of Alberta consumers, there is only modest interest in the specialty eggs, eggs, in general, are associated with other healthy behaviours, health conscious consumers are willing to pay more for specialty eggs, of all types, older consumers and consumers with families are significantly more price sensitive and hence, have constraints on their ability to purchase specialty eggs. As well, consumers with concerns about animal welfare will pay more for free run eggs, there is an increased interest in eggs with identified health attributes among older consumers. Revealed preference analysis of actual purchase behaviour was conducted on an A C Nielsen Homescan© panel data set over a three year period. Separate analyses were conducted for Alberta and Ontario frequent egg purchasers, with some significant differences across provinces. In Alberta no one is willing to pay more for specialty eggs than for normal eggs, with either modeling technique applied. In Ontario this assessment is less clear, the frequency model of how often across a three year period households purchased each type of egg, would suggest that consumers are willing to pay more for specialty eggs than for 'normal' eggs, with organic the egg that they are willing to pay the most for. At the same time the choice model for Ontario, a model of actual purchases across time with the type of egg as the dependent variable, suggests that consumers are willing to pay the most for 'normal' eggs with Free run and Organic close behind. Overall, as we look more closely at the relative ranking of specialty eggs, at the mean of all variables, organic eggs are the ones all households are willing to pay the most for. In the frequency model Alberta consumers's willingness to pay for organic eggs is closest to the normal egg and Ontario consumers would pay $1.72 relative to normal eggs. The choice model exhibits similar patterns. Free run eggs are also popular in Ontario, but less so than organic. One of the findings of the study is that there may be some misunderstanding of the relative nutritional benefits of the different types of eggs or other human health aspects of agricultural production. Health seems to be an issue in the purchase of organic eggs as much as it does in the purchase of Omega-3 eggs. Further specific research on the reasons why consumers purchase organic would allow the industry to develop better marketing tools.


The pace of technological innovation, the complex clinical research enterprise and increased public expectation for health benefits has led to the adoption of a new strategy of research inquiry: translational science. This model aims to encourage a team-based, interdisciplinary approach to patient oriented research by increasing the efficiency by which discoveries are implemented to clinical practice. The goals of translational science require a shift of perspective from traditional approaches to research ethics to that of a more humanistic framework. The core of this re-interpretation is the claim that the mere application of formal rules, codes, regulatory procedures, and ethical principles undermines and even ignores the moral content of the practice of translational science. Rather, translational ethics draws on humanities approaches to integrate relationship building, interdisciplinarity and narrative interpretation within a multidisciplinary, team-based setting. In this way, ethical values and norms are generated, experienced and shared through relationships, dialogue, reflection, and support. By adopting this humanistic framework, the translational ethicist seeks to broaden the ethical competence of translational scientists, deepen understanding of the subjective experiences of research participants, and enlarge the capacity and sustainability of trust within research institutions and the communities they serve. By integrating the values common to both science and ethics and aligning the aspirations at the core of these human endeavors, researchers and ethicists strive together to improve the practice of science.


Only a small proportion of the published research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDC) directly examined effects on neuroendocrine processes. There is an expanding body of evidence that anthropogenic chemicals exert effects on neuroendocrine systems and that these changes might impact peripheral organ systems and physiological processes. Neuroendocrine disruption extends the concept of endocrine disruption to include the full breadth of integrative physiology (i.e., more than hormones are upset). Pollutants may also disrupt numerous other neurochemical pathways to affect an animal's capacity to reproduce, develop and grow, or deal with stress and other challenges. Several examples are presented in this review, from both vertebrates and invertebrates, illustrating that diverse environmental pollutants including pharmaceuticals, organochlorine pesticides, and industrial contaminants have the potential to disrupt neuroendocrine control mechanisms. While most investigations on EDC are carried out with vertebrate models, an attempt is also made to highlight the importance of research on invertebrate neuroendocrine disruption. The neurophysiology of many invertebrates is well described and many of their neurotransmitters are similar or identical to those in vertebrates; therefore, lessons learned from one group of organisms may help us understand potential adverse effects in others. This review argues for the adoption of systems biology and integrative physiology to address the effects of EDC. Effects of pulp and paper mill effluents on fish reproduction are a good example of where relatively narrow hypothesis testing strategies (e.g., whether or not pollutants are sex steroid mimics) have only partially solved a major problem in environmental biology. It is clear that a global, integrative physiological approach, including improved understanding of neuroendocrine control mechanisms, is warranted to fully understand the impacts of pulp and paper mill effluents. Neuroendocrine disruptors are defined as pollutants in the environment that are capable of acting as agonists/antagonists or modulators of the synthesis and/or metabolism of neuropeptides, neurotransmitters, or neurohormones, which subsequently alter diverse physiological, behavioral, or hormonal processes to affect an animal's capacity to reproduce, develop and grow, or deal with stress and other challenges. By adopting a definition of neuroendocrine disruption that encompasses both direct physiological targets and their indirect downstream effects, from the level of the individual to the ecosystem, a more comprehensive picture of the consequences of environmentally relevant EDC exposure may emerge.


The electrical behaviour of fully electrolyte-saturated reservoir rock samples has been represented through verified type curves as a continuum across a range of electrolyte resistivity. The type curves can be used to facilitate the well-log interpretation of clastic reservoirs for which the Archie porosity exponent is known or can be realistically assumed. They allow an immediate appreciation of the electrical characteristics of reservoir rocks and how these relate to other, previously studied formations. The type curves can be used with core or log data to infer whether a reservoir is behaving as effectively clean or shaly. In the case of effectively shaly sands, a single-point value of excess conductivity can be evaluated from log data alone. More generally, the type curves allow different reservoirs to be compared in terms of their electrical behaviours. Where these are similar, it is reasonable to assume that the petrophysical interpretation procedures will be similar for the reservoirs under consideration. Thus, the type curves allow a given reservoir to be characterized and evaluated within a generic framework of electrical behaviour. This, in turn, allows experience gained elsewhere to be brought to bear on the current appraisal, especially in terms of the identification of appropriate procedures for the well-log evaluation of hydrocarbons-in-place. Through this insight, the method constitutes a potential basis for greater confidence in petrophysically-supported reservoir models at an earlier stage in the evaluation of a field.


1. Introduction
According to the main text of Shahnameh, the Sasanian Yazdgerd III after awareness of defeated his armies toward Arabs and to be killed Rostam Farrukhzad, he consults with the elders of court and says to them "he wants to go of Baghdad to Marv and stay near ruler there Mahoe Suri that he is his bred. Farrukhzad one of the leaders of that community to Yazdgerd says:

که این را یکی داستان است نو
 به بدگوهران بر بس ایمن مشو

بکوشی کزو رنگ بیرون کنی
 که هرچند بر گوهر افسون کنی

تو بر بند یزدان نیابی کلید
 چو پروردگارش چنان آفرید

In Cairo manuscript (796 AH) after the third line the three bits is as follows:

گرش درنشانی به باغ بهشت
 درختی که تلخ آمد او را سرشت

به بیخ انگبین ریزی و شیر ناب
 ور از جوی خلدش به هنگام آب

همان میوۀ تلخ بار آورد
 سرانجام گوهر به کار آورد

The lines except Cairo handwritten (796 AH) do not exist in any of the editions basis editing of Dr. Khaleghi Motlagh and also editions of Saint-Joseph, Saadlou and margins of Zafarnameh and it is extension. The main references of fame and using the three mentioned lines the name of Ferdowsi, satire is attributed to him. For the reason that popularity Ferdowsi's lampoonery and reputation with enhancement and development of lines called satire from the early eighth century onwards, the three bits of writings and various narratives of satire entered the literary and historical sources and alone or with the number of their back and forth lines called Ferdowsi was written. Poet of the lines anyone who is probably he considered to older example to verse them and as previously researchers have noted to it, these two lines belong to Abushakur Balkhi, Forth century poet it is available in his the book Mathnavi "Afarinnameh":

اگر چرب و شیرین دهی مر ورا
 درختی که تلخش بود گوهرا
همان میوۀ تلخت آرد پدید
 از او چرب و شیرین نخواهی مزید

2. Discussion
The three well-known lines attributed to Ferdowsi due to the important issue and the form of its human-social, visual and expression construct of the poem and famousness of that called Ferdowsi particularly in the form of satire section and addressed to Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, it attracted the attention of many different poets and several examples according to its pattern were composed so that these bits we can consider as one of the full more imitation the poem sonnets in Persian literature history. To the best of my research, the oldest example like this lines-which is likely imitated them- three bits is in the poem "large Faramarz-nama" (probably composed in the late fifth century) and then there are other similar examples that most notably of them is four lines belong to Abdollah Hatefi Jami it became a new model for following a number of poets and in Qassim Husseini Gonabadi's lyrics, poem of Zarrin Ghaba-nama, sonnet of Vali Gholi Beyg Shamlou, Arefi, Mohebbi and etc. is imitated of that.
3. Conclusion
In this article, fifteen similar examples to imitate the three famous bits attributed to Ferdowsi was shown that the most repetition word/content element/ image maker in the lines and sonnets is the word "Serest" with eight times ingemination and then words and compounds are located such as "Cesme /Āb Behest" (6 times), "Behest and its belongings" (Bāq, Tāvus, Anjir, Kabab and Morq" (5 times), "Jibrail" (5 times), "Mey, Angabin, Shir and Golāb" (4 times), "Hur" (3 times), "Āb Hayat" (3 times) and "Derakht" (2 times), respectively. The other point, because Hatefi in his well-known imitation from lines attributed to Ferdowsi, "Zāq" has replaced to "Deraxt" in the first bit and conditional section of speech and to impact of this change, creatures and other animals have brought in part of his speech such as: "Bacce Mār af'i', Bacce Div, Bacce xuk, Kudake Zangi and Bache Joqd. In other words, element of plant and tree ("Deraxt" and "Nān") in the original and ancient samples of this literature, in previously imitations generally has become to animal and human.
Another noteworthy point, the number of lines is this imitation sonnets that in most examples (nine cases) to following the original pattern (lines attributed to Ferdowsi) is the three bits and three samples also with imitation from Hatefi's lines have gone to parody of this content
and format. The longest adapted is five lines, as well and it belong to Amir Ali Shirnavaei.


Due to a raise of network-based society and interaction based decision making processes in contemporary World cultural heritage field must respond by being an active actor of holistic development. Contemporary theory in heritage hardly sheds light on an adjacent processes happening in a field of economy, policy or alteration of social activity patterns. Therefore, the following issue focuses on broader perception on cultural heritage field on the basis of the theory of the narrative. As pointed out in Ricoeur's (1985) linguistic approach towards narrative theory whereas he suggested to derive the past out of the future and thus to make our present to be a time of initiative in purpose to transpose history into a reasonable decision making. Therefore, the narrative based approach towards an urban heritage (urban heritage here is to be a matrix where various of static structures of past, present and future meet and bias torrents of vivid social structure) contributes to a constant procedure of alteration that is likely enabled by the global-local continuum. The issue is to claim that the latter alteration procedures (those that provide a growth of quantity in terms of Human development) are a set of tools and methods used to rethink and interpret the past; yet the model of the future has been nearly designed. The use of narrativity in heritage is still novel trial to adjust the prevailing heritage discourse. However, the methodology of narrativity either enhances a field of cultural ecology that plays a key role to achieve a convivial place. On the basis of some urban patterns made by Alexander as well as rethinking some researches of Zaleckis, I suggest to take a look back to a politan city structure in order to preserve and transmit a relevant leftovers of a genotype of the Polis into a megapolitan paradigm. To sum it up, the idea of ecological is to be understood as novelty or already designed future to our cities that turn smart . However, the shape or frame for this kind of future must be sculpted by rethinking our past and the processes of alteration inside the past. Urban heritage (stable structures and vivid torrents) dwelled in a field of narrative may suggest a unique ways to turn about the physical environment in order to ensure convivial presence of cities as well as to prevent drastic alteration processes (that is already happening) and preserve a genotypic identity of the past. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.13.4.13555


A novel fuzzy approach developed to recognize traffic signs is presented in this paper. More than 3400 images of traffic signs were collected in different light conditions by a digital camera mounted in a car and used for developing and testing this approach. Every RGB image was converted into HSV color space and segmented by using a set of fuzzy rules depending on the hue and saturation values of each pixel. Objects in each segmented image are labeled and tested for the presence of probable sign. Objects passed this test are recognized by a fuzzy shape recognizer which invokes another set of fuzzy rules. These fuzzy rules are based on four invariant shape measures which are invoked to decide the shape of the sign; rectangularity, triangularity, ellipticity, and the new shape measure octagonality. The method is tested in different environmental conditions and it shows high robustness.


An outlier detection, usually called measurement editing, is commonly used by data fusion algorithms. In a typical implementation, a measurement is accompanied by an estimate for its standard deviation. If the measurement residual exceeds some multiple of standard deviations (e.g., 4), the editing algorithm rejects this measurement as an outlier. The standard approach does not provide any guidance for setting the threshold. A threshold that is too low rejects legitimate measurements, and the filter may get "stuck" in a wrong state. A threshold that is too high lets outliers in, affecting the quality of a solution. A modern navigation system integrates data from different sensors that have different error statistics, including the amount and the severity of outliers. A sensor-specific approach for treating outliers becomes a necessity. For a Gaussian statistics, large residuals are exponentially rare, and outliers are not an issue. Unfortunately, the nature rarely follows Mr. Gauss; any hopes to salvage the situation by invoking the Central Limit Theorem are crushed by a Gaussian's extremely slow convergence at the tails. In practice, "fat tails" are quite common and are at the root cause of solution errors due to outliers. In this paper, we present two new method of detecting and treating outliers. These methods are consistent with the general philosophy of optimal fusion: process only the data that is needed, with weights that accurately reflect data error statistics. The first method uses Pickands - Balkema - de Haan (PBdH) theorem to detect fat tails. For any particular sensor, we pre-process large amount of data and estimate the statistics of the tail of the error distribution. We derived a formulation that translates the tail statistics into actionable outlier rejection algorithm and/or into a means for pre-processing measurements before they are fed into a navigation filter. In a simple case, the algorithm is similar to the conventional threshold for measurement editing; however, the magnitude of this threshold is now tailored to the statistics of measurement errors for the sensor in question. We processed real data from multiple navigation sensors to test this algorithm in practice. While some sensors are nearly outlier-free, others (e.g., magnetic compass) are not. The measurement editing threshold for such sensors is significantly lower; for example, for a magnetic compass the optimal threshold is only at approximately two standard deviations of the measurement noise. The second method uses pattern recognition in the data to detect faulty measurements. At each time epoch, the algorithm processes recent measurements from a brief rolling window. The application of the algorithm includes a training stage, where multiple sets of measurements in the window are collected and categorized. After the training has been completed, the algorithm can detect an outlier at epoch N by looking at the pattern of measurements at epochs (N-n), (N-n+1), ..., N. This algorithm was implemented and tested in real time. The results show reliable detection of outliers in a sensor with a small form factor and with limited computational resources. Finally, we present an approach that integrates the above two outlier detection algorithms. While they may appear unrelated, there is a way to combine them in a mathematically sensible way.


To evaluate the efficacy of Ormeloxifene in DUB. Medical management of DUB is a challenging task and many drugs are available for this condition but show lack of consensus for medical treatment. Ormeloxifene mediates its effects by high affinity interaction with ER, antagonizing the effect of estrogen on uterine and breast tissue and agonizing the effect on vagina, bone, cardiovascular system. So it is suitable for medical management of DUB. Sixty five women aged between 30 to 50 were recruited for the study whom chief complaint was heavy menstrual flow. Ormeloxifene 60 mg was given orally twice in a week for first 12 weeks followed by once in a week for next 12 weeks. Menstrual blood loss measurements using subjective assessment of amount of flow, blood hemoglobin and endometrial thickness were the main measurements to evaluate the efficacy of therapy. Statistical analysis was done using a paired 't' test and 'z' test. The difference in mean heamoglobin concentration of 1.31gm/dl between pretreatment and post-treatment levels was also statisticallysignificant (P<0.001). 87.05% showed a reduction in endometrial thickness as assessed by transvaginalsonography. 8.2% women needed hysterectomy. Ormeloxifene is an effective drug therapy in medical management of DUB.


The paper aims to explore how bonds issuance affects banking performance. This paper uses data panel to analyse the data for the period of 2008 to 2012. The result are as follows: BOPO (operational cost to Operational revenue), CAR (capital adequacy ratio), LDR (loan deposits ratio), NIM (Net Interest Margin) statistically significant affected the RoE (return on equity) but NPL (non-performance loan) does not affect RoE. BOPO, CAR, NIM and NPL statistically significant affected the RoA (return on assets), but LDR does not affect the RoA. Bonds issuance does not affect the RoE but affected to the RoA. Crisis period affected the RoE and RoA. The interaction between bond issuance and crisis period affected the RoE and RoA.


Numerous applications demand that we manipulate large sets of very high-dimensional signals. A simple yet common example is the problem of finding those signals in a database that are closest to a query. In this paper, we tackle this problem by restricting our attention to a special class of signals that have a sparse approximation over a basis or a redundant dictionary. We take advantage of sparsity to approximate quickly the distance between the query and all elements of the database. In this way, we are able to prune recursively all elements that do not match the query, while providing bounds on the true distance. Validation of this technique on synthetic and real data sets confirms that it could be very well suited to process queries over large databases of compressed signals, avoiding most of the burden of decoding.


* Television Truths: Forms of Knowledge in Popular Culture. John Hartley. Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 290 pp. $36.95 pbk. John Hartley's name has been on the short list of influential television studies scholars for over thirty years. He has held numerous academic posts and is now distinguished professor, Australian Research Council Federation FeUow, and research director of the Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. He has earned the right to use a similarly authoritative and profound primary title for his most recent book. What is "truth" with regard to a medium? In Television Truths, Hartley addresses the TV via lenses of epistemology, ethics/politics, aesthetics, and metaphysics. He does so by dividing the book into four parts, each headed by a question: Is TV true? Is TV a polity? Is TV beautiful? What can TV be? While perhaps not entirely or definitively answered, they are the types of questions that cut to the very core of television's being. Hartley covers both the breadth and depth in an eminently portable book. By turns Hartley teaches, theorizes, and muses. He provides, for example, a mini-primer on TV ratings systems and useful definitions of "globalization" and "mediasphere," as weU as an analytical passage on the movement of social identity from the poUtical arena to the cultural arena, often within the same page. Using specific details from programs in the United States, Australia, China, and the United Kingdom, he expounds on his baiUwick of the interplay between television and the public, and its effect on the collective - or what's left of it in today's fragmented media world. Most of what Hartley wrestles with in some way touches upon the consumer-citizen binary. After all, he coined "democratainment" in his 1999 Uses of Television, and it has proven to be perhaps the foundation of his work and a succinct description of at least one school of thought. In this book he spends abundant time on "plebiscitary" formats (those constructed by or around public opinion sampling). He discusses the use of entertainment to reach the popular voter, the popularity of voting for pleasure, DIY participation in reality TV, and connections between voting skepticism in American Idol and in U.S. elections. With regard to news, he observes that today's media content is shaped by editorial practices rather than authorship, and consequently our most trusted sources are organizations as opposed to individuals (which I interpret as CNN: 1, Walter Cronkite: 0). Hartley also makes important statements about the mediated environment as a whole, of which television is only an element. He reveals some optimism about the current mediasphere in pointing out its positive attributes. For instance, "People are responding to different speeds of public communication, but this doesn't necessarily mean the end of democracy. It's not dumbing down but speeding up." While he may not directly answer his four questions, he nonchalantly embeds small truths throughout the text. …


On 20 April, well-known biologist and author Jared Diamond was sued in the Supreme Court of the State of New York for allegedly defaming two tribesmen from Papua New Guinea whom he described in The New Yorker as having engaged in a violent "revenge war." The lawsuit, which also names as a defendant Advance Publications Inc., the owner of The New Yorker , demands at least $10 million in damages. It follows a yearlong investigation led by artist Rhonda Roland Shearer, the widow of evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who directs a journalism ethics program that publishes a Web site called Stinkyjournalism.org.


A methodology to acquire valuable informa- tion on the chemical composition and evolution of vehicu- lar emissions is presented. The analysis of the gases is per- formed by passing a constant flow of a sample gas from the tail-pipe into a 10 L multi-pass cell. The absorption spec- tra within the cell are obtained using an FTIR spectrometer at 0.5 cm 1 resolution along a 13.1 m optical path. Addi- tionally, the total flow from the exhaust is continuously mea- sured from a differential pressure sensor on a Pitot tube in- stalled at the exit of the exhaust. This configuration aims to obtain a good speciation capability by coadding spectra dur- ing 30 s and reporting the emission (in g/km) of both criteria and non-regulated pollutants, such as CO2, CO, NO, SO2, NH3, HCHO and some NMHC, during predetermined driv- ing cycles. The advantages and disadvantages of increasing the measurement frequency, as well as the effect of other pa- rameters such as spectral resolution, cell volume and flow rate, are discussed. To test and evaluate the proposed tech- nique, experiments were performed on a dynamometer run- ning FTP-75 and typical driving cycles for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) on a Toyota Prius hybrid vehi- cle. This car is an example of recent marketed automotive technology dedicated to reduced emissions, increasing the need for sensitive detection techniques. This study shows the potential of the proposed technique to measure and report in real time the emissions of a large variety of pollutants, even from a super ultra-low emission vehicle (SULEV). The emis- sions of HC's, NO x, CO and CO2 obtained here were com- pared to experiments performed in other locations with the same model vehicle. The proposed technique provides a tool for future studies comparing in detail the emissions of vehi- cles using alternative fuels and emission control systems.


Background: In July 1999, a national toddler-only hepatitis A virus (HAV) vaccination program was introduced in Israel. Passive and active surveillance showed a large reduction in disease rate, but an objective measurement was needed. We hypothesized that toddler's vaccination in a population living in an endemic area would reduce virus circulation, resulting in reduced HAV seropositivity rates in unvaccinated toddlers. Methods: The study was conducted among Bedouin children in southern Israel, for whom HAV vaccine coverage reached 85.5% and 74.9% for first and second HAV vaccine doses, respectively, in 2000. Toddlers received 2 doses of HAV vaccine at 18 and 24 months. Data on vaccine coverage was received from well-baby clinics. Sera were obtained from healthy unvaccinated 16- to 20-month-old toddlers. Anti-HAV immunoglobulin (Ig)G concentrations were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: A total of 629 sera were tested (209 obtained in 1991–2000 and 420 obtained in 2001–2002). Seropositivity rates of ≥100 mIU/mL ranged from 16.2% to 19.6% in 1991 through 2000 (children born before immunization program). These rates dropped to 2% in 2001–2002 and to 0% in 2003 through 2007. Furthermore, IgG concentrations were significantly lower (P < 0.001) in samples taken in 2000, only a few months after beginning of vaccination, than in those taken before initiation of the HAV immunization program (1991–1998), suggesting a marked reduction in circulating HAV resulting in natural boosting. Conclusions: Because HAV vaccines are licensed in children ≥12 months old, rates of anti-HAV seropositivity in unvaccinated toddlers can be an objective and sensitive tool to evaluate the effect of immunization program on virus circulation. This method is of special value in communities where no appropriate surveillance is in place.


To say that education in Africa is under stress is all to obvious. News reports from that continent seem to describe only war and violence, poverty and malnutrition, corruption and mismanagement, or natural disasters that destroy or threaten already frail infrastructures - most news from Africa is bad news. When an education system survives in a country like Uganda, long subjected to the whims of despotic leadership, it warrants an investigation. This book tells the story of four senior secondary schools during a time of war and intractable social conflict, examining a complex topic through multiple perspectives such as documentary history, oral history, ethnography, and organization theory. The author develops a broad picture of the Amin/Obote years and the accompanying political and social chaos in Uganda, while at the same time filling in the crucial details essential for developing an understanding of school survival in the Kaborole District. The author's intensive field work gives this study a unique dimension: by preserving a record of African voices - students, teachers, parents, alumni, board members, community leaders - a rich tableau of theh local conditions for school survival emerges. At the same time the discussion is situated within the larger Ugandan historical and political context, thus offering an excellent example of the application of multiple research perspectives to a complex social, cultural and political setting.


Abstract There appears to be a divergence between the conceptual literature in economics on forest sustainability indicators and the practical literature on economic indicators of sustainable forest management. The former focuses on forest resource accounts and issues related to measurement of integrated natural or forest capital accounts. The latter includes some elements of capital accounts but also contains a variety of other community level economic activity indicators. The divergence between these two bodies of literature is evaluated in this paper. Some explanations for the differences are offered as are some suggestions for improvement and investigation in the area of economic sustainability indicators.


This paper analyzes a stylized model of international capital mobility and diffusion of embodied technologies from North to South. The South can fall behind in terms of technologies or get trapped in a situation in which it is unable to attract foreign capital and embodied technologies if it is too far away from the technology frontier and if its absorptive capacity is too low. The paper reconciles the view that technological catching up is stronger the larger the technology gap with the alternative view that technological catching up is strongest at a medium technology gap. The closer the South is to the technology frontier the more beneficial is a higher income share of foreign capital.


Most triaxial tests are fraught with substantial membrane penetration errors. A simple correction procedure for data obtained from various tests is proposed. Correction formulas for the membrane penetration error have been derived for different types of tests including not perfectly saturated soils. In particular, a correction of the undrained cyclic stress paths is presented in detail. It is demonstrated that the correction for the membrane penetration error is indispensable for a realistic estimation of the cyclic resistance ratio in coarseand mediumgrained liquefiable soils. A MATHEMATICA code for the correction of laboratory data is given. An analogous MATLAB code is available from the authors. Without the correction many results could lie far on the unsafe side. This is the case especially for the undrained cyclic loading.


In this paper, we address the problem of computing an intrinsic decomposition of the colors of a surface into an albedo and a shading term. The surface is reconstructed from a single or multiple RGB-D images of a static scene obtained from different views. We thereby extend and improve existing works in the area of intrinsic image decomposition. In a variational framework, we formulate the problem as a minimization of an energy composed of two terms: a data term and a regularity term. The first term is related to the image formation process and expresses the relation between the albedo, the surface normals, and the incident illumination. We use an affine shading model, a combination of a Lambertian model, and an ambient lighting term. This model is relevant for Lambertian surfaces. When available, multiple views can be used to handle view-dependent non-Lambertian reflections. The second term contains an efficient combination of l2 and l1-regularizers on the illumination vector field and albedo respectively. Unlike most previous approaches, especially Retinex-like techniques, these terms do not depend on the image gradient or texture, thus reducing the mixing shading/reflectance artifacts and leading to better results. The obtained non-linear optimization problem is efficiently solved using a cyclic block coordinate descent algorithm. Our method outperforms a range of state-of-the-art algorithms on a popular benchmark dataset.


This paper places the sub-Antarctic region in its international context by contrasting the sub-Antarctic's geographical qualities with the region's
international legal and political characteristics. It sbows that the international aspects of the legal regime applying in the sub-Antarctic are
less developed than in the Antarctic. An overview is provided of some of the most relevant international instruments and arrangements that
apply. This includes an analysis of some of the matters that are regulated and some that are not regulated. It is concluded that there is no
requirement for a dedicated international regime in the sub-Antarctic, but tbere is substantial scope for further internationally cooperative
arrangements to address the immediate issues facing the sub-Antarctic region.


The impact of a potential future fleet of supersonic aircraft on contrail coverage and contrail radiative forcing is investigated by means of simulations with the general circulation model ECHAM4.L39(DLR) including a contrail parameterization. The model simulations consider air traffic inventories of a subsonic fleet and of a combined fleet of sub- and supersonic aircraft for the years 2025 and 2050, respectively. In case of the combined fleet, part of the subsonic fleet is replaced by supersonic aircraft. The combined air traffic scenario reveals a reduction in contrail cover at subsonic cruise levels (10 to 12 km) in the northern extratropics, especially over the North Atlantic and North Pacific. At supersonic flight levels (18 to 20 km), contrail formation is mainly restricted to tropical regions. Only in winter is the northern extratropical stratosphere above the 100 hPa level cold enough for the formation of contrails. Total contrail coverage is only marginally affected by the shift in flight altitude. The model simulations indicate a global annual mean contrail cover of 0.372% for the subsonic and 0.366% for the combined fleet in 2050. The simulated contrail radiative forcing is most closely correlated to the total contrail cover, although contrails in the tropical lower stratosphere are found to be optically thinner than contrails in the extratropical upper troposphere. The global annual mean contrail radiative forcing in 2050 (2025) amounts to 24.7 mW m −2 (9.4 mW m −2 ) for the subsonic fleet and 24.2 mW m −2 (9.3 mW m −2 ) for the combined fleet. A reduction of the supersonic cruise speed from Mach 2.0 to Mach 1.6 leads to a downward shift in contrail cover, but does not affect global mean total contrail cover and contrail radiative forcing. Hence the partial substitution of subsonic air traffic leads to a shift of contrail occurrence from mid to low latitudes, but the resulting change in contrail-induced climate impact is almost negligible.


Design methods for reinforced soil structures under static loading conditions are relatively well established. Little research has been conducted on the behavior of embedded geosynthetics subjected to repeated loadings. Such research is needed to improve the design of reinforced soil structures subjected to traffic and seismic loadings. The study reported here is related to the long-term performance of a geogrid embedded in Ottawa sand under several confining pressures and subjected to various tensile loads. Different magnitudes of sustained and repeated tensile loads were applied to the geogrid incrementally using a pullout device. The confining pressure increased the soil-geogrid interface friction force and thus affected strain distribution along the geogrid length. Creep developed in the geogrid as the applied tensile load increased. The geogrid creep strain rate at a given tension force was found to be independent of confining pressure at the point of this force application, that is, creep can be viewed as an intrinsic property of the geogrid. A rapid pullout failure of geogrid occurred as the applied sustained load approached the ultimate pullout capacity. Conversely, under repeated loading the pullout occurred progressively. The ultimate pullout load and interaction coefficient, Ci, obtained from repeated loading tests were about 20% less than the values obtained from sustained loading tests. This suggests that a Ci smaller than that obtained in static (conventional) tests should be used in structures subjected to dynamic load. Creep under repeated load was smaller than that under sustained load.


How well can market fundamentals such as earnings-to-price (EP) ratios, book-to-market (BM) ratios, and dividend yields (DY), along with political risk measures and economic variables, predict stock market returns in the transitional countries of Eastern Europe? BM ratios are positively and significantly related to future returns with 1- to 12-month horizons. There is some evidence that EP ratios are negatively related to returns with holding periods longer than six months. Dividend yields are on average positively related to stock returns but with lower degrees of statistical significance. The findings also show that stock returns are significantly related to market liquidity and systematic risk. The linkages between returns and economic and political variables are mixed and inconclusive.


Many Western Observers believe that China's economic liberalization will inevitably lead to its democratization. Economist Frank S. Fang, director of Chicago's Institutional Economics Center, thinks otherwise. In a must-read for anyone interested in what's to come in the "American-Chinese Century," Fang details why the U.S. must deal with China on China's own terms or risk embroiling itself in a political and strategic quagmire. Presenting a massive amount of up-to-date business data in an easy-to-follow manner, Fang, who has studied and worked as a consultant in both China and the U.S., offers an insider's look at the fundamental "on the ground" issues faced by China and the West, highlighting the cultural basis for China's ideological conflicts with America and using case studies in business, economics, and politics to explain China's rapid growth and international influence. Fang demonstrates why China will never adopt Western-style democracy and why the Chinese challenge to America is on a much more fundamental "state model" level. Frank S. Fang, an economist, is the director of the Institutional Economics Center (www.iecenter.org), an independent research organization based in Chicago.


Aside from reality television, which often depicts former Amish as raucous partiers, many documentaries and memoirs portray ex-Amish as runaways, leaving in the night with nothing but the clothes on their back. As the gap between "the world" and the Amish closes, how accurate is this portrayal of leaving the Amish for the roughly 15% who choose to leave? How do ex-Amish negotiate the transition from Amish to English (non-Amish) life? This study, based on interviews with former Amish, explores the difficult decision to leave the Amish church as well as the challenges of transitioning into English life and negotiating an ex-role. Drawing on Victor Turner's concept of liminality, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of capital, and Ebaugh's model of role exit, I explore the multiple and conflicting meanings of leaving an ethnoreligious group. The findings suggest that the current literature on ex-Amish fails to capture the diversity of former Amish experiences, as more liberal Amish in the sample typically had a smoother transition into English life. However, this study shows that issues of embodied cultural capital and a state of liminality persist long after one has exited a role in an ethnoreligious group.


Successful application of nanoparticles is dependent on understanding the mobility, retention, and transport fate of nanoparticles in natural formations. These aspects are greatly influenced by subsurface environmental conditions such as electrolyte type and concentration, temperature, pH and mineral composition of the formation as well as characteristics of the nanoparticle itself such as concentration and surface modifications. Characterizing the effects of surface functionalization and retention of nanoparticles onto clay minerals due to adsorption under subsurface conditions will be necessary for selecting the types of nanoparticles or surface modification to be used as suitable nanosensors or EOR agents. In this study, the effects of surface functionalization through a polyethylene (PEG) coating on 5 nm silica nanoparticle on mobility was evaluated through observations on clay swelling inhibition. Adsorption onto montmorillonite and illite was also investigated. Visual swelling tests were utilized to investigate clay swelling inhibition and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy was used to determine the concentration of adsorbed nanoparticles in conditions that are likely to be found in subsurface reservoir environments.


Descending pathways are important modulators of motor networks and allow the dynamic adjustment of behaviors to changing internal and external conditions. Central pattern generating networks (CPG) have been particularly amenable to study the modulation of motor networks and demonstrated that virtually all levels of information processing are controlled by descending projections. CPGs receive sensory feedback and while it is known that sensory activity can be gated by central pathways, we here present for the first time that descending projection neurons modulate action potential initiation in sensory neurons. We used the fact that the anterior gastric receptor neuron (AGR), a single-cell bipolar muscle tendon organ in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system, generates spontaneous ectopic action potentials in its axon. We found that axonal spike initiation is under direct neuromodulatory control by a pair of descending projection neurons. These IV (inferior ventricular) neurons descend from the brain and are known to control CPGs in the stomatogastric ganglion (STG). Activation of the IV neurons elicited a long-lasting decrease in AGR ectopic spike activity. This decrease was only observed when spikes were generated ectopically in the central portion of the axon, i.e. the modulation was specific to the site of spontaneous spike initiation. The decrease could be mimicked by focal application of the IV neuron co-transmitter histamine and IV neuron actions were diminished after blocking H2 receptors, indicating a direct descending modulation of the axonal spike initiation site. In contrast, the propagation dynamics of en-passant action potentials were not affected. Descending modulatory projection neurons therefore control axonal spike initiation in sensory neurons without affecting afferent spike propagation to increase the physiological activity repertoire of sensory pathways.


This paper presents results from a series of evolutionary robotics simulations that were designed to investigate the informational basis of visually-guided braking. Evolutionary robotics techniques were used to develop models of visually-guided braking behavior in humans to aid in resolving existing questions in the literature. Based on a well-used experimental paradigm from psychology, model agents were evolved to solve a driving-like braking task in a simple 2D environment involving one object. Agents had five sensors to detect image size of the object, image expansion rate, tau, tau-dot and proportional rate, respectively. These optical variables were those tested in experimental investigations of visually-guided braking in humans. The aim of the present work was to investigate which of these optical variables were used by the evolved agents to solve the braking task when all variables were available to control braking. Our results indicated that the agent with the highest performance used exclusively ...


Polyethyleneglycol-based networks were employed as substrates to graft bioactive peptides to study macrophage interactions with materials. Our overall objective was to utilize biologically active factors to stimulate certain macrophage function on materials suitable for implantation in connective tissues. In this study, we sought to explore the bioactivity of several peptides derived from extracellular matrix adhesion proteins and macrophage-active proteins that are normally soluble. The candidate peptides examined corresponded to residues 63 to 77 of complement component C3a (C3a(63-77)), residues 178 to 207 of interleukin-1 beta (IL1beta(178-207)), residues 1615 to 1624 of fibronectin (FN(1615-1624)), endothelial-macrophage activating polypeptide II, complement component C5a inhibitory sequence, macrophage inhibitory peptide, and YRGDG; materials lacking peptides were used as negative controls. An established murine cell-line IC-21 was employed as a macrophage model, and human dermal fibroblasts were used for comparison. Our results showed that the substrates without grafted peptides were free from artifactual cell adhesion associated with the adsorption of serum or cellularly secreted proteins for long duration of culture. Of all grafted samples, IL1beta(178-207)- and C3a(63-77)-grafted surfaces supported higher adherent macrophage densities. C3a(63-77)- and FN(1615-1624)-grafted surfaces supported higher adherent fibroblast densities. From competitive inhibition studies, cell adhesion was determined to occur in a receptor-peptide specific manner. The presence of grafted YRGDG in addition to IL1beta(178-207), C3a(63-77), or FN(1615-1624) synergistically increased macrophage and fibroblast adhesion. Materials grafted with IL1beta(178-207) or C3a(63-77) co-grafted with or without YRGDG did not support the formation of multinucleated giant cells from the fusion of adherent macrophages in vitro.


Educational institutions serving minority communities of myriad varieties face the challenge of enculturation into the minority traditions in ways that avoid reification of those traditions, on the one hand, while attending to the surrounding majority culture, on the other. This article explores the practices found in one such context, Talmud study at a religious Jewish Israeli high school. Analysis of paired havruta learning uncovers activity-centered learning in which language and context are key features. A new concept, epistemic appropriation, is proposed in interpretation of this data. This research exemplifies the successful grounding of cultural traditions in linguistic and epistemological practices while raising important questions regarding the feasibility and desirability of analogous enactments in other minority, Indigenous, or religious educational contexts.


Federated learning is typically approached as an optimization problem, where the goal is to minimize a global loss function by distributing computation across client devices that possess local data and specify different parts of the global objective. We present an alternative perspective and formulate federated learning as a posterior inference problem, where the goal is to infer a global posterior distribution by having client devices each infer the posterior of their local data. While exact inference is often intractable, this perspective provides a principled way to search for global optima in federated settings. Further, starting with the analysis of federated quadratic objectives, we develop a computation- and communication-efficient approximate posterior inference algorithm -- federated posterior averaging (FedPA). Our algorithm uses MCMC for approximate inference of local posteriors on the clients and efficiently communicates their statistics to the server, where the latter uses them to refine a global estimate of the posterior mode. Finally, we show that FedPA generalizes federated averaging (FedAvg), can similarly benefit from adaptive optimizers, and yields state-of-the-art results on four realistic and challenging benchmarks, converging faster, to better optima.


[1] A spectacular, well-observed Leonid meteor of visual magnitude −14.3 appeared on 17 November 1998 and left a lingering trail, dubbed the Glowworm, that was well studied. From a location on Kirtland Air Force Base, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, we obtained CCD images of the trail from 94 to 203 s after the meteor and recorded a video with an intensified camera for even longer. From information obtained with a sodium lidar half an hour after the meteor, we have determined that a gravity wave with a vertical wavelength of 2.4 km was responsible for the right-angled appearance of the trail. The trail ended abruptly at 85 km, and its uppermost altitude may have been no greater than 91 km. We designate the Glowworm a Type I trail: one that is wide (1 km), cloudy in appearance, has high diffusion rates (800 m2 s−1), high total line emission rates (1.5×1018 photons m−1 s−1), and is optically thicker than Type II trails. The lower parts of the Diamond Ring, another Leonid lingering trail that appeared 38 min earlier than the Glowworm, define the Type II trails, which appear as narrow, optically thinner parallel trails, with low diffusion rates (12 m2 s−1) and total line emission rates (1–3×1016 photons m−1 s−1). No explanation is offered for the two orders of magnitude difference in these quantities. The Glowworm meteor produced infrasound [ReVelle and Whitaker, 1999], from which a meteoroid mass estimate of 522 g was made. We compare our photometry to a detailed numerical modeling of the shape of the trail and emission from the Glowworm made by Zinn et al. [1999], who find that the largest contributors to emission recorded by our CCD and video cameras are atmospheric O2 vibrational bands. Compared to our measurements, their calculated emission is too high by two orders of magnitude, but since most of O2 emission may be absorbed by atmospheric O2 before it reaches the ground, this may indeed be the primary contributor to the observed flux. Although the calculations of Zinn et al. lead to a hollow cylinder appearance which may be appropriate for the Glowworm, it is not pronounced enough to account for the complete darkness between the parallel structures seen in Type II trails. An upper limit to backscattering from dust of 3.7 × 10−5 of the expected return was found from directing a 180 W copper vapor laser at the Glowworm.


Models of the three-dimensional physical property variation of the NICO Au-Co-Bi-Cu deposit, Northwest Territories, and the Southern Breccia albitite-hosted uranium occurrences and their iron oxide-alkali alteration envelopes, were derived from inversion of high-resolution aeromagnetic, gravity, and magnetotelluric (MT) data at deposit to regional scales. In turn, integration of the geophysical results with physical property measurements and geologic observations leads to a new understanding of the geometry of the deposit, adjacent mineralized and altered zones, and potential cogenetic links within the host metasomatic system. NICO, which is a variant of the magnetite group iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) class of deposit, is spatially associated with a discrete zone of lower electrical resistivity occurring within a broader, NE-dipping zone of higher density. The high-density zone overlaps a NE-dipping zone of higher magnetic susceptibility and is truncated to the southwest by a NW-striking geophysical discontinuity interpreted as a major fault zone. This inferred fault divides the magnetite-altered metasedimentary rocks hosting the NICO deposit from the albite-altered rocks within the Southern Breccia corridor to the southwest that host the uranium mineralization. Having been active during development of the metasomatic system, this fault influenced the formation of these distinct but complementary deposit types.


In Western Australia, many local governments are looking to incentives strategies to encourage private landowners to maintain remnant bushland and wetlands on their properties in peri-urban areas. With the rapid urbanization of the Perth metropolitan region, the conservation of wetlands and bushland on private property is critical for both their ecosystem services and many social values. Local governments and resource managers want to invest in those incentives that will be most effective in facilitating positive biodiversity conservation behaviours on the part of private landowners. A study of landowner perceptions in a peri-urban area near Perth demonstrates how Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour can provide valuable insights to the design of a bushland conservation incentives strategy targeting private landowners. According to Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour, behavioural intention is the best predictor of actual behaviour. Behavioural intention is influenced by three major factors: the person's attitude toward the behaviour, the influence of the person's social environment or subjective norm, and perceived control over the opportunities, resources, and skills necessary to perform the behaviour.


With law school externships more popular than ever, the need for an empirical evaluation of externship success is timely and essential. The promise of getting closer to practice readiness propels many law students to enroll in an externship (also known as field placements). But no study has empirically measured whether and to what extent law students get close to first-year law practice readiness through their externship, and what factors lead to that success. Without such a study, the American Bar Association's regulation of externships and law schools' externship design decisions are made without the benefit of critical data. This Article describes the year-long, multi-school Externship Study conducted to concretely measure (1) whether and to what extent externships lead to practice-readiness and (2) which attributes of the law school, the externship placement, or the students themselves are the most important contributors to that success.

In this Article, the authors use statistical models, descriptive summary, and narrative summary to analyze data from hundreds of law students and the lawyers and judges who supervised them in externships. The results reveal a high level of externship success, measured in terms of practice readiness. The contributing factors to that success are noteworthy. The Externship Study shows that neither law school entering credentials (e.g., median entering LSATs of 168, 158 and 153 for the surveyed schools) nor the academic component of the externship (i.e., class and related work in addition to the externship fieldwork – as low as 3.25 hours and as high as 27.5 hours for the surveyed schools) contribute to externship success. Moreover, law school GPA plays a very limited role in externship success. Instead, the most important factor that leads to measurable extern success is the student's relationship with supervisor, feedback from supervisor, and nature of assignments at the placement. Other contributing factors include the students themselves, who play a critical role in their externship success – namely, their previous professional experience, motivation to work in the real world as well as their attitude toward the externship. These findings warrant attention as a critical first step for data-driven externship policy and program decisions.


The duration of signals emanating from the T cell receptor (TCR) is finely regulated through several processes that control protein half-life, posttranslational modification of proteins, and the recruitment of inhibitory proteins. Egen and Allison have found that the inhibitory protein cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) is recruited to the immunological synapse, in direct proportion to the strength of the TCR signal, where it acts to extinguish TCR-dependent signals. CTLA-4 in T cells that were cultured with antigen-presenting cells (APCs) bearing agonistic or weakly agonistic peptides translocated to microtubule-organizing centers (MTOCs) close to the site of T cell-APC apposition. However, only T cells stimulated with the stronger agonist peptides led to the movement of CTLA-4 to the immune synapse at the plasma membrane. These data suggest that the location of CTLA-4 is dependent on the strength of the signal sent by the TCR. More important, the data suggest a reason why T cells would need a mechanism to inhibit TCR-dependent signaling after a strong signal is elicited. It is in an organism's best interest to have a widely varied immune response to a pathogen. Strong signals by a few T cells (that have high affinity for an antigen) could quickly lead to the proliferation of a very small subset of T cells at the expense of a diverse group of proliferating T cells with varying degrees of affinity for the antigen. Thus, a large number of T cells would recognize a very narrow repertoire of antigen--clearly a situation to the pathogen's advantage. However, by recruiting CTLA-4 to the immune synapse, the prolonged signaling that would be mediated by strongly agonistic antigens is attenuated, such that weakly stimulated T cells have an opportunity to proliferate and increase the diversity of T cell-mediated responses. J. G. Egen, J. P. Allison, Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 accumulation in the immunological synapse is regulated by TCR signal strength. Immunity 16, 23-35 (2002). [Online Journal]


Contracts as Reference Points: Experimental Evidence In a recent paper, Hart and Moore (2008) introduce new behavioral assumptions that can explain long term contracts and important aspects of the employment relation. However, so far there exists no direct evidence that supports these assumptions and, in particular, Hart and Moore's notion that contracts provide reference points. In this paper, we examine experimentally the behavioral forces stipulated in their theory. The evidence confirms the model's prediction that there is a tradeoff between rigidity and flexibility in a trading environment with incomplete contracts and ex ante uncertainty about the state of nature. Flexible contracts – which would dominate rigid contracts under standard assumptions – cause a significant amount of shading on ex post performance while under rigid contracts much less shading occurs. Thus, although rigid contracts rule out trading in some states of the world, parties frequently implement them. While our results are broadly consistent with established behavioral concepts, they cannot easily be explained by existing theories. The experiment appears to reveal a new behavioral force: ex ante competition legitimizes the terms of a contract, and aggrievement and shading occur mainly about outcomes within the contract. JEL Classification: C7, D00, D2, D8, K00


Abstract: Fossils of mosasaurs, late Cretaceous marine reptiles, are frequently found partially preserved in concretions (i.e., hard mineral masses), but little is known about this mode of fossilization. Concretionary fossils are difficult to extract, so are often ignored in the field and laboratory. Accounts suggest that skulls, the most taxonomically diagnostic element, are most often preserved in concretions. The presence of concretions was documented in four anatomical regions (head, torso, tail, limbs) in 48 mosasaur fossils from the Pierre Shale of South Dakota. Specimens were compiled from a restricted lithostratigraphic interval to minimize the effects of lithologic variation on concretion formation. In this sample, the skull and torso were preserved more often in concretions than were limbs and tails. The occurrence of concretion formation was found to vary depending on anatomical region. The results suggest that concretion growth begins in the core of the organism with a higher volume of organic matter, and successively precipitates towards the periphery. The skull and torso contain many taxonomically diagnostic features; thus concretionary specimens should not be overlooked. Additionally, increased likelihood of preservation of specific anatomic regions was dependent on concretion formation, suggesting that our view of the fossil record is affected by concretions.


1. Venous occlusion plethysmography has been used to measure the blood flow in the calves of nineteen patients with fractures of the lower limb and in six normal control subjects. 2. The resting blood flows were significantly higher in the injured legs than in uninjured legs, irrespective of the site of injury. Flows in the uninjured limbs were similar to those of the control subjects. 3. During reactive hyperaemia after 10 min arterial occlusion, the increase of flows in both legs of the patients was significantly lower than in the control subjects. Because of the increased resting flow, the maximal flow in the injured leg was similar to that in the control subjects, whereas the maximal flow in the uninjured leg was significantly lower than in the control group. 4. The changes in resting flow cannot be accounted for by a change in the proportions of tissues in the limb but they may be explained by an increase of the flow through muscle secondary to a relative increase in the mass of slow to fast muscle fibres.


OBJECTIVE
To review the literature on acute toxic exposure in children, excluding envenomations.

SOURCES OF DATA
MEDLINE review (emphasis on the past decade), including the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology and the European Association of Poison Centres and Clinical Toxicologists position statements and position papers (peer-reviewed information based on scientific evidence and broad consensus) on gastrointestinal decontamination, multiple-dose activated charcoal and urine alkalinization.

SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS
Acute toxic exposure in children is a common event, mainly in children under six years of age. Death is rare. Although widely employed, there is no evidence that gastrointestinal decontamination and multiple-dose activated charcoal improve the outcome of poisoned patients. Very few efficient antidotes are used on a consistent basis, and some of them are very expensive and not available in Brazil.

CONCLUSIONS
Ipecac syrup and cathartics should not be administered on a routine basis in acute toxic exposures in outpatient treatment. Excluding the contraindications, single-dose activated charcoal and gastric lavage may be considered within one hour of ingestion if a patient ingested a potentially toxic amount or a potentially lethal amount, respectively. Whole bowel irrigation, multiple-dose activated charcoal and urine alkalinization may be considered in a few situations. Fomepizole and octreotide are safe and efficient antidotes, which can be used in the treatment of alcohol (methanol and ethylene glycol) and sulfonylureas poisoning, respectively.


This paper presents the design of an electrically actuated, proportional brake that provides a significantly greater torque-to-weight ratio than a magnetic particle brake (MPB) (considered a benchmark of the state of the art) without sacrificing other characteristics, such as dynamic range, bandwidth, or electrical power consumption. The multidisc brake provides resistive torque through a stack of friction discs, which are compressed by a dc-motor-driven ball screw. Unlike nearly all other proportional brakes, which operate in a normally unlocked mode, the brake presented here is designed such that it may be configured in either a normally unlocked or normally locked mode. The latter enables lower electrical energy consumption and added safety in the event of electrical power failure in certain applications. Following the device description, experimental data are presented to characterize the performance of the brake. The performance characteristics are subsequently compared to those of a commercially available MPB of comparable size.


The present literature on political marketing strategy has provided important knowledge about how the material context of technologies, polls or competitors influences strategy formulation. However, less attention has been directed to the constraints facing a political organization from the social context related to habits, norms or social conventions. This article thus aims at bringing organizational new institutional theory into the field of political marketing strategy. Accordingly, it is investigated how political organizations when initiating marketing strategies act or react toward institutionalized demands in their environment, such as issues or ideas that are considered socially appropriate. As such, a strategy framework consisting of a phase model and a typology is developed. The phase model is drawn from extant literature within organizational new institutional theory stating that decision makers will (1) scan information from their environment, (2) interpret this incoming information in available cognitive categories and (3), finally, select a strategy premised on their cognitive interpretations. On this ground, we build a novel typology that specifies which political marketing strategy decision makers will select under different cognitive framings of their environment. Here, we delineate four ideal type political marketing strategies—conformity, decoupling, defense and entrepreneurial—that correspond to how organizational decision makers interpret their institutional surroundings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


ABSTRACT The growth of high technology has penetrated the sphere of human life, and education being one of them. Education starts to support the use of technology in the classroom activities since students nowadays are digital natives. Consequently, educators should assist their students with information and technology media to help either teachers or students entangle and comprehend the materials effectively. One of the IT-based media which can be applied in the classroom, especially in structure class which is commonly regarded as the demanding subject is Wondersharequiz maker. It is kind of free-software which offers some facilities where teacher can simply create some multiple-choice, true-false, fill in the blank, or sequencing words or sentences quiz. This media contributes students to have more structure exercises which set the automatic key answer that can be assessed autonomously by the learner outside the classroom since the exercises are published in the blog. In this paper, the writer will share her personal experience in providing web quiz maker in the structure class. Furthermore, some procedures and samples of creating this media will also be shown in order to give some inputs to English educators on how to design their own digital media


Wampum has become a synonym for money, and it is widely assumed that it served the same purposes as money among the Native Algonquians even after coming into contact with European colonists' money. But to equate wampum with money only matches one slippery term with another, as money itself was quite ill-defined in North America for decades during its colonization. In this stimulating and intriguing book, Marc Shell illuminates the context in which wampum was used by describing how money circulated in the colonial period and the early history of the United States. Wampum itself, generally tubular beads made from clam or conch shells, was hardly a primitive version of a coin or dollar bill, as it represented to both Native Americans and colonial Europeans a unique medium through which language, art, culture, and even conflict were negotiated. With irrepressible wit and erudition, Shell interweaves wampum's multiform functions and reveals wampum's undeniable influence on the cultural, political, and economic foundations of North America. Published in Association with the American Numismatic Society, New York, New York.


In this work, the performance estimation of polarity controlled electrostatically doped tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) is reported. The proposed device exhibits heavily doped n-type Si-channel with two distinctive gates, namely control gate (CG) and polarity gate (PG). First, the CG and PG work functions of 4.72 eV are considered to convert the layer beneath CG and PG of intrinsic type. Next, the PG voltage of −1.2 V is used at source side to induce a p+ region, so that, it follows the similar trend as like a n + –i–p + gated structure of conventional TFET. Silvaco ATLAS simulation of the proposed device shows I ON/I OFF ratio of ∼7.8 × 1010 and OFF current is less than 1 fA, with high-k dielectric of gate material at V DS = 0.5, V. Finally, a minimum point subthreshold slope of 12 mV/decade at 300 K is achieved, which indicates that the proposed TFET has the potential to achieve better than ITRS low-standby-power switch performance.


Maternal and infant mortality in Banyumas district is still high. Moreover, not all targets of PWS-KIA are achieved, severe malnutrition still exist and service by bidan di desa (midwife in the community) has been unsatisfactory. Supervision by Puskesmas discovers lack of Poskesdes facilities, supervision on the bidan di desa is not optimal. The objective of this study is to learn factors which influence the performance of bidan di desa as an executor of poskesdes service guide in the district of Banyumas, in the year 2009.
This study is an observational study using survey method and cross sectional approach. Structured questionnaire which had been tested for its validity and reliability was employed. Chi-square test for testing two variables and multivariate logistic regression were used for data analysis. Ninety nine midwifes were included in this study, covering all midwifes in 27 sub district, 39 Puskesmas, 331 villages within the district of Banyumas.
Result of the study shows that good performance of bidan di desa are found in 49 midwifes (49.5%) and poor performance in 50 midwifes (50.5%). Forty-five percentage of respondent has D-1 midwifery level of education and 54.5% has D-III midwifery level of education. More than half of respondents (51.5%) have been working for > 10 years and 48.5% respondents for 0-10 years. The study also found there were 30.0% of respondents with good knowledge and 69.7% with less satisfactory level of knowledge, 39.4% respondents with good motivation and 60.6% with less satisfactory level of motivation, 49.5% of good supervision is found in the respondents and 50.5% of less satisafactory level of supervision. Respondents with good perception on compensation system consist of 45.5% and 60.6% has less satisfactory level of perception. Significant association is found between perception and motivation (p: 0.0001), supervision and compensation system (p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis indicates the influence of several variables together toward performance of bidan di desa as an executor Poskesdes service guide. Those variables are motivation (OR= 8,668, p: 0.0001), supervision (OR: 2.463, p:0.073), perception on the compensation system (OR=4.061, p:0.007).
Sumber Utama : www.mikm.undip.ac.id


In the EU, one in seven employees work on temporary contracts associated with lower pay and less training. Using workplace-level data from 21 countries, I show that, in contrast with previous evidence for the US, unionized workplaces are more likely to use temporary employment across Europe. To address the endogeneity of unions, I then use a British dataset and exploit variation over time and across occupations to control for workplace unobserved heterogeneity. This confirms that unions contribute to creating contract duality in the labour market and thus do not limit the ability of firms to adjust employment through flexible contracts.


For nearly 30 years, fake digital documents have been used to identify external intruders and malicious insider threats. Unfortunately, while fake files hold potential to assist in data theft detection, there is little evidence of their application outside of niche organisations and academic institutions. The barrier to wider adoption appears to be the difficulty in constructing deceptive content. The current generation of solutions principally: (1) use unrealistic random data; (2) output heavily formatted or specialised content, that is difficult to apply to other environments; (3) require users to manually build the content, which is not scalable, or (4) employ an existing production file, which creates a protection paradox. This paper introduces a set of requirements for generating automated fake file content: (1) enticing, (2) realistic, (3) minimise disruption, (4) adaptive, (5) scalable protective coverage, (6) minimise sensitive artefacts and copyright infringement, and (7) contain no distinguishable characteristics. These requirements have been drawn from literature on natural science, magical performances, human deceit, military operations, intrusion detection and previous fake file solutions. These requirements guide the design of an automated fake file content construction system, providing an opportunity for the next generation of solutions to find greater commercial application and widespread adoption.


Background: Genome of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) reveals a high degree of genetic diversity that could be associated with differential response to Interferon based antiviral therapy. Therapeutic response against chronic HCV infection depends on viral genetic mutations in various sub-genomic regions of HCV including Core gene. Identification of these mutations will help guiding individualized treatment regimens that will result in better treatment outcomes as well as future vaccine development against the virus.
Objective: To determine the association of Core gene mutations with response to conventional Interferon and Ribavirin combination therapy among chronically infected HCV genotype 3a patients of Peshawar.
Methods: This observational study was conducted in Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Khyber Medical University Peshawar from November 2015 to December 2016 and comprised 100 HCV genotype 3a infected patients that received conventional INF and RBV combination therapy for 24 weeks. Core gene was amplified using qualitative nested PCR followed by cloning and sequencing. Viral gene sequences were analyzed for mutations among patients with Sustained Virological Response (SVR) and Non-responder (NR) patients using MEGA 6 software. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS version 20.
Results: Comparison of amino acid sequences among patients who achieved SVR and those who turned out to be non-responders against HCV 3a reference sequence (Isolate NZL1; BAA04609) revealed no specific amino acid changes that were associated with either resistance or favorable response to antiviral therapy. No significant differences were observed between the amino acid sequences of patients with SVR and NR (p-value≥0.05).
Conclusion: Core protein of HCV genotype 3a was highly conserved among the studied isolates. Observed mutations in the amino acid sequence of Core gene had no significant effect on treatment response of chronic HCV infected patients.


In response to President Mnangagwa's public welcoming of international observers as well as requests from political leaders and civil society organizations, the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) are jointly observing Zimbabwe's 2018 harmonized elections for president, parliament, and local government. IRI and NDI have observed collectively over 200 elections in more than 50 countries during the last 30 years. The IRI-NDI observation is being conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Principles for International Observers, in conformity with the laws of Zimbabwe, and in reference to international and regional standards for elections – including the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Guidelines and Principles for Democratic Elections and the African Union (AU) Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.