Over the last five years, Africa's MSGBC geological basin situated in five African countries: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, and Guinea Conakry has started to attract increased interest from international oil and gas companies (IOCs). The Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) gas field development project, overlapping Mauritania and Senegal's offshore waters, is a key example. This project is a unique case of cooperation and partnership between two African countries and IOCs (BP and Kosmos Energy) in a potentially new African natural gas province.

The focus of the GTA gas development project is a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) export project. This would make available natural gas supplies not only for exports, but also for the domestic energy markets of Mauritania and Senegal. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the commissioning of the first phase of the GTA project, which was initially planned for 2022, has been delayed to 2023. The capacity of this Phase 1 FLNG project is about 2.5 mtpa . The subsequent phases of this LNG export project, if and when approved, are expected to potentially expand the project's LNG export capacity to 10 mtpa. Furthermore, two other separate LNG projects with a 10 mtpa LNG capacity each are planned or under consideration in Mauritania and Senegal. This is a huge LNG export capacity for these two countries. Can these on-going and planned gas developments transform Mauritania and Senegal into a new emerging African gas province.


Meegan Kennedy, "'A True Prophet'? Speculation in Victorian Sensory Physiology and George Eliot's 'The Lifted Veil'" (pp. 369–403) George Eliot's novella "The Lifted Veil" (1859) is often considered an outlier in Eliot's realist corpus, perhaps due to its focus on controversial theories of mind (phrenology, animal magnetism) and physical medicine (blood transfusion, human experiment, reanimation). The story draws on a tradition of Gothic medicine long recognized in the romantic novel but less acknowledged in histories of clinical medicine. As this essay shows, however, mid-Victorian clinicians and researchers accepted speculative cases of hyperaesthesia, prevision, and telepathy as a path for skeptical neurological inquiry. The textbooks of physicians like John Hughes Bennett, William Carpenter, John Elliotson, Henry Holland, and Forbes Winslow codified a range of sensational phenomena, circulating cases like Latimer's and considering both natural and supernatural explanations for them. The events in "The Lifted Veil" are thus more realistic than they may appear; and the story extends rather than interrupts the trace of science in Eliot's early fiction. In Latimer's story, Eliot plays with the boundaries of Victorian physiology, neurology, and cardiology and expands our view of what both Victorian science and realism accommodate. "The Lifted Veil" performs and invites the same dual movement that mid-Victorian scientists were developing, a two-step of speculation and skepticism. As in Eliot's other work, the analogy with scientific inquiry grounds the story's moral, aesthetic, and epistemological concerns about human knowledge. Finally, these oddities of Victorian nerve physiology paradoxically allow Eliot to make a familiar realist argument, for this sensational story celebrates ordinary life as rare and valuable.


Oceanic island basalts are commonly thought to differentiate by fractional crystallization, yet closed-system fractionation models have so far failed to reproduce major and trace element variations observed in mafic lavas from the Teide–Pico Viejo stratovolcano complex on Tenerife. Here, new high-precision plagioclase trace element data are fed into such a fractionation model. The results confirm that fractionation of phenocrysts found in the lavas does not reproduce trace element variations, in particular enrichment of Sr and Zr observed in the Teide–Pico Viejo mafic suite. This enrichment of Sr and Zr is tested by an energy-constrained recharge, assimilation and fractional crystallization (EC-RAFC) model at high T and low ΔT intervals, consistent with previously determined magma storage beneath Tenerife at sub-Moho depths. Published mineral–melt equilibrium relations using the plagioclase anorthite content (0.4 < XAn < 0.8) constrain the temperature during differentiation. Gabbroic xenoliths found in Tenerife lavas are assumed as contaminant. Enrichment of Sr and Zr in the Teide mafic suite is reproduced by this combined assimilation and fractional crystallization model, as assimilation causes higher degrees of enrichment in incompatible trace elements than is possible by crystal fractionation alone. Recycling of plutonic roots may thus have significantly enriched trace elements in the primitive lavas of the Teide–Pico Viejo succession. Supplementary material: Detailed average mineral compositions of low and high Sr–Zr lavas, composition of the bulk extracts and full graphs of the recalculated closed-system model are available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18604.


Sunshine plays an important role in all aspects of life but there has been little social analysis of the sun and its place in our world. Recently experts have warned us that the sun's rays are dangerous. Yet, a suntan can still be taken as a sign of health. How did we arrive at this ambivalent relationship to the sun and what does this say about our changing attitudes to the human body and environment?

Rise and Shine takes as its starting point a view of sunlight as part of our material and social culture. How did the use of sunlight to treat tuberculosis and rickets in the early twentieth century alter our relationship with the sun? When was suntan lotion invented? By drawing on a range of archival and historical sources, Rise and Shine traces the network of social and medical forces that constitute our current, sometimes problematic, relationship with sun and sunlight.


For holographic biopsy purposes, holograms of biological tissue samples have been recorded in vitro to establish the possibility of differentiating tissues on the holograms. With the use of specific absorbing dyes for staining tissues, the contrast has been improved. On the holograms, tissue architecture has been observed in the cortex of the kidney. Isolated epithelial cells could be seen with a distinct nucleus. Two distinct layers of the gray matter in the human brain have been differentiated. Finally, the case of human ovary carcinoma, the differentiation of putatively normal areas and the cancerous lesion has been evidenced and a submillimetric localization of the lesion could be done. Thus, it has been shown that tissue differentiation on holograms is possible, so that holographic biopsy can be used as a diagnostic aid. The use of an endoscope to perform holographic biopsy would provide the surgeon or physician with a new minimal-invasive quick diagnostic method allowing in situ examination of tissues when conventional biopsy is difficult or even impossible. In the near future, the development of an endoscope for holographic biopsy should lead to clinical investigation in early cancer detection. Prior to measurements on tissues, the recording material (silver-halide) has been evaluated to determine the display and processing parameters in order to obtain the best possible results. The resolution has been estimated below 2.8 ?m with a diffraction efficiency of 20%, in the tissue recording configuration.


Histogram modification is often used for contrast enhancement of color images, usually by separately modifying the color components in some appropriately chosen color space. Despite its computational efficiency, independent component processing is seldom able to exploit the full RGB gamut. While joint processing of color components can generally utilize the full display gamut, such approaches generally produce greater computational complexity and execution times. The authors introduced the "histogram decimation" algorithm for enhancement by joint processing of the color components. The algorithm recursively partitions the 3-D histogram of an image and independently processes the subdivided volumes of color space to modify their color distributions. Histogram decimation achieves the gamut usage of other joint processing techniques and provides much greater computational efficiency. The algorithm and its characteristics are presented, followed by the results of processing several images and measuring the uniformity of their histograms using a novel technique.


Correct assessment of consumption risk and its international diversification has important policy implications. However, existing studies of international risk sharing rely on the unrealistic assumptions that all economies are characterized by symmetric preferences and uniform transmission of global shocks. We relax these homogeneity constraints and compare our proposed approach with the conventional ones using a 44-year panel of 120 countries. Our results confirm that consumption is only partially smoothed internationally and risk sharing is directly related to the level of development, but we do not detect a significant increase in risk sharing during the surge in financial globalization over the last four decades.


The thesis offers an interpretation of Shelley's poetry which focuses on his treatment of external nature. Its main argument is that a subject-object dialectic lies at the basis of his thought and style. Manifesting itself as a tension and oscillation between dualist and monist tendencies, this dialectic underlies the opposing strains of thought associated with his sceptical idealism; it informs the relationship between various contraries with which he is recurrently concerned, such as reason and feeling, necessity and freedom, language and thought; and it accounts for some major characteristics of his style--for example, its self-reflexiveness, indeterminacy, and restless forward momentum. Nature is found to play a complex dual function in this dialectical process: first, as the circumference to the circle of which mind is the centre, it provides the material of thought and poetry; secondly, through its cyclic processes, it serves as an emblem of the mind's dynamic relationship with that material. In finding the characteristic thought-pattern of his poetry to be constituted of a creative-destructive interplay of contraries, the thesis contends that Shelley is a significant exponent of Romantic irony. Such a reading of his work mediates between an earlier tradition of interpreting him as a Platonising poet of nature and the more recent emphasis that has been given to his philosophical scepticism and political radicalism. Throughout, attention is given to the interacting influences of his direct experience of nature (as recorded mainly in his letters) and the representations of nature he encounters in his reading. The following poems, chosen for their importance in Shelley's canon and as clear illustrations of his treatment of nature, are discussed chronologically in successive chapters: Queen Mab, Master, the 1816 odes, Prometheus Unbound, Adonais, and The Triumph of Life.


There is general agreement that families are considered an important building block of society. However, in international fora, there is significant disagreement about what constitutes family. This article discusses the development of the Protection of the Family initiative at the UN's primary human rights body, the UN Human Rights Council. This article uses Protection of the Family resolutions at the Council to build upon theories of norm contestation in international relations and international law. Elite-level interviews and participant observation of Council meetings on the four Protection of the Family resolutions adopted at the Council show that both advocates and opponents of Protection of the Family argue that their positions adhere to universal rights and prior law while their opponents are revisionist. In addition, the article illustrates a series of new strategies adopted by advocates of Protection of the Family that may be used in other resolutions to advance human rights agendas.


This article examines customers' short-term attitudinal and long-term behavioral responses to service failures and recovery efforts. Our data from a tracking study of casual dining restaurants customers indicate that those who did not experience any failure were more satisfied than those who experienced successful recovery following a failure. The satisfactory recovery group, in turn, was more satisfied than customers who either did not complain or were not successfully recovered following their complaints. Importantly, the pattern of brand patronage over the medium and long run differed substantially from the short-term variation in satisfaction levels across the four customer groups. In the medium term, the brand visitation frequency for those who never experienced failure was similar to those of customers who were successfully recovered. The visitation frequencies of customers who did not complain or were not successfully recovered were lower. However, over the long run, the visitation pattern changed substantially, and those who never experienced failure had higher brand patronage frequency than all the three remaining groups that behaved relatively similarly. These results suggest that customers make a distinction between the qualities of the core service and the recovery effort. Although successful recovery temporarily compensates for core failure, its positive influence dissipates over time. In the longer term, customers' complaining behavior and the firm's recovery efforts matters less and customers' brand patronage depends largely on whether or not they experienced core service failure. Nevertheless, firms can recover their investments in service recovery because of increased brand patronage in the medium term.


Although patent filing is increasing worldwide, it does not follow a uniform growth trend. China and South Korea have seen a substantial growth in patent filing as compared to developed nations. Regarding India, the growth is minimal. The trend reveals that more patents in India are filed for formulations, dosage forms, combination drugs and mode of delivery. New drug discovery has moved away from chemical entities to biological moieties. India, though known for its significant contribution to pharmaceutical industry by way of generic drugs is yet to make a meaningful presence in the patent scenario.


Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-dependent Cushing's syndrome is caused by an ACTH-producing tumor, as is the case with Cushing's disease and ectopic ACTH syndrome (EAS). Diagnosis and differential diagnosis of Cushing's disease from EAS in ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome are thus challenging problems in clinical endocrinology. The diagnostic criteria for Cushing's disease in Japan, established by the working group of the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, were originally reported in 2003 and revised in 2007 and 2010. In addition, criteria for subclinical Cushing's disease were established in Japan in 2010. In this review, we evaluate the usefulness and accuracy of the most recent diagnostic criteria. Previous data suggest that as an initial test of Cushing's syndrome, 0.5 mg dexamethasone is more sensitive than 1 mg in the overnight dexamethasone suppression test (DST). Here, we recommend 0.5 mg plus a plasma cortisol cut-off level of 3 μg/dL as a suitable low-dose overnight DST for screening of all cases of ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome in Japan. Recently, standardization of cortisol measurements by the ID-LC/MS/MS method using seven assay kits with standard plasma material containing synthetic hydrocortisone-d4 was carried out in Japan. The resulting relative standard deviation was within 10%. The cut-off value remains valid even after standardization of plasma cortisol measurements. Although the recent diagnostic criteria achieve higher diagnostic specificity, care should be taken since data for Cushing's disease partially overlaps with some cases of EAS. Overall, therefore, this review suggests that the accuracy of each diagnostic test should be considered.


Liquid–liquid CO2 heat pump systems are a promising technology for commercial building applications, which require simultaneous heating and cooling. This paper presents the investigation of a data center on the Purdue University, West Lafayette campus. The data center located in the Department of Mathematics is the most energy intensive data center on campus. The cooling load of the data center is approximately 750 kW/hour. The heating season in West Lafayette is 7 to 8 months and the heating load of the buildings is very high during the coldest months. The heating load of the Mathematics building can go to as high as 600 kW/hour during the coldest days of the year. To suffice this simultaneous cooling and heating demand, a liquid-liquid CO2 heat pump is proposed. Presently, the cooling load of the data center is met by eight electrically driven and four steam-driven chillers and the heating load is satisfied by two coal fired and two natural gas boilers. Simulations are performed to compare the proposed CO2 heat pump system with the present system. The assessment shows noteworthy fuel savings and reduction in the CO2 emissions with the system working with a coefficient of performance (COP) of 6.19. If the CO2 heat pump system is installed, 574.92m/day of natural gas and 751.68 kg/day of coal could be saved on a cold day. The system has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by 2980.76 kg/day.


Aims & Objectives: Word fluency is a long
established measure of executive functioning.
As well as depending on executive resources
(localised in the pre-frontal areas), word fluency is
also thought to load on the temporal lobes. Users
of MDMA ('Ecstasy') exhibit deficits in recall tests,
which also load on the temporal lobes, and in
measures of executive prefrontal functioning. This
raises the possibility that MDMA users will also
exhibit deficits in a word fluency task.
Design & Method: 25 ecstasy users and 31 nonecstasy users were recruited. A multivariate
design was implemented with user group
(ecstasy user/non-user) as the between
participants variable, and the three word fluency
measures as the dependent variables. The task
consisted of three parts: Firstly participants were
given four minutes to write down as many animal
names as they could. Secondly participants were
given five minutes to write down as many words
beginning with the letter 'S' as they could. And
finally, participants were given four minutes to
write down as many four-letter words as they
could beginning with 'C'.
Results: MANOVA revealed that the ecstasy
users performed significantly worse on all three
word fluency measures relative to non-MDMA
user controls. The overall effects of ecstasy on
word fluency remained significant after statistical
controls for the use of cannabis during the three
months prior to testing. Control for measures of
verbal working memory reduced the MDMA
related variance by almost one half, but the effect
remained statistically significant.
Conclusion: The results provide additional
evidence of executive impairment among MDMA
users.


For the first time, two series of platinum(II) complex end functionalized star polymers have been designed and synthesized by the coordination reaction of K2PtCl4 with star polystyrene ligands ended with 2,6-bis(benzimidazol-2′-yl)pyridine. The resulting stars can self-assemble to generate spherical unimolecular micelles with a core of polystyrenes and a corona of planar platinum(II) complexes in the chloroform/methanol mixture solvent. The phosphorescence emissions of the star polymers show a stepwise increase in intensity in toluene/n-hexane or chloroform/n-hexane mixture solvents with increasing n-hexane content, where the solvent quality is gradually worsened for both the polystyrene and planar platinum(II) blocks. This class of aggregation-enhanced emissions is accordingly assigned to a triplet metal–metal-to-ligand charge-transfer excited state and has its origin in Pt⋯Pt and π–π stacking interactions that increasingly evoked between the planar platinum(II) blocks with weakening solvent quality. The star polymers terminated with high retention of luminescence metal complexes will represent a new class of functional polymer nanocomposites with well-defined topological architectures.


This paper develops a theory for the application of fan filters to moving objects. In contrast to previous treatments of the subject based on the 3-D Fourier transform, simplicity and insight are achieved by using the 3-D Radon transform. With this point of view, the Radon transform decomposes the image sequence into a set of plane waves that are parameterized by a two-component slowness vector. Fan filtering is equivalent to a multiplication in the Radon transform domain by a slowness response function, followed by an inverse Radon transform. The plane wave representation of a moving object involves only a restricted set of slownesses such that the inner product of the plane wave slowness vector and the moving object velocity vector is equal to one. All of the complexity in the application of fan filters to image sequences results from the velocity-slowness mapping not being one-to-one; therefore, the filter response cannot be independently specified at all velocities. A key contribution of this paper is to elucidate both the power and the limitations of fan filtering in this new application. A potential application of 3-D fan filters is in the detection of moving targets in clutter and noise. For example, an appropriately designed fan filter can reject perfectly all moving objects whose speed, irrespective of heading, is less than a specified cut-off speed, with only minor attenuation of significantly faster objects. A simple geometric construction determines the response of the filter for speeds greater than the cut-off speed.


A costimulatory receptor for immune cells in the skin is identified. Lymphocytes in the skin known as γδ T cells provide an important barrier against infection and injury. Unlike classical αβ T cells, less is known about the molecular requirements of γδ T cell activation. Two studies demonstrate that the junctional adhesion molecule–like protein (JAML) is a costimulatory molecule for mouse γδ T cells. Witherden et al. (see the Perspective by Shaw and Huang) showed that JAML, binding to its ligand Coxsackie and adenovirus receptor (CAR), leads to proliferation, as well as cytokine and growth factor production by γδ T cells. In vivo, JAML-CAR interactions contributed to the wound-healing response in mice. Verdino et al. (see the Perspective by Shaw and Huang) present a crystal structure of CAR/JAML, which reveals an intracellular signaling motif similar to that known for the αβ T cell costimulatory receptor that signals through phosphoinositide 3-kinase. D. A. Witherden, P. Verdino, S. E. Rieder, O. Garijo, R. E. Mills, L. Teyton, W. H. Fischer, I. A. Wilson, W. L. Havran, The junctional adhesion molecule JAML is a costimulatory receptor for epithelial γδ T cell activation. Science 329, 1205–1210 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text] P. Verdino, D. A. Witherden, W. L. Havran, I. A. Wilson, The molecular interaction of CAR and JAML recruits the central cell signal transducer PI3K. Science 329, 1210–1214 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. S. Shaw, Y. Huang, CAR'ing for the skin. Science 329, 1154–1155 (2010). [Summary] [Full Text]


This study examines the ways in which children's fantasy fictions transmit ideologies, and how the matter of these ideologies and the manner of their transmission relate to adult-child power relations. It begins from the premise that the relationships between childhood and adulthood are political and problematic, both conceptually and in the lived experiences of children and adults. This idea has been the focus of increasing scholarly interest in recent years, particularly with regards to its potential impact on understandings of children's literature. Yet while many researchers have acknowledged that children's literature fulfils a socialising function and some have explicitly theorised that children's literature does transmit ideologies, the mechanics of how such transmission might occur remains underexplored.

This study uses Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony to understand the politics of adult-child relations and Louis Althusser's work on ideology and interpellation to suggest how ideologies may be reproduced. This study contends that children's literature is a cultural institution existing within an adult hegemonic system, a communique from a group in power to a subordinate and potentially resistant group. As an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) according to Althusser's definition, it seeks to support the status quo by socialising children within the hegemonic system, both to accept a current subordinate position and also to learn the values and knowledge required to maintain the hegemony over time. Applying Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony to children's literature also raises the question of how the literature overcomes the potential ideological resistance or counter-consciousness that children may have towards the adult hegemony and its ideologies.

The central hypothesis of this study is that children's fantasy literature transmits ideologies to implied child readers using a specific interpellative mechanism I define as a Trojan Horse mechanism. The term "Trojan Horse" evokes the Trojan Horse of Greek mythology, a construction designed to slip past Troy's defences, appearing innocuous but concealing and carrying oppositional elements. In a similar way, the Trojan Horse mechanism uses hailing devices that evoke signs of childhood, adult-aligned ideologies and values which aim to socialise the child reader within the adult hegemony, and strategies by which those ideologies are concealed in the text. This kind of covert ideological transmission was described by one famous children's author, C.S. Lewis using the phrase, to "steal past those watchful dragons" ("Sometimes" 37).

In order to test this hypothesis, the study examines eight texts of fantasy literature published between 1900 and 1997, aimed at an implied readership of children aged between approximately six and fourteen years. These texts are, in chronological order: L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (1911), Enid Blyton's The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937), C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising (1973), Philip Pullman's Northern Lights (1995), and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997).

Trojan Horse mechanisms were evident in all of the texts in the study, which suggests that these ideological structures may be intrinsic to the nature of children's fantasy literature in the twentieth century. However, due to the texts' differing contexts of production, plot structures and ideological foci, no two texts executed Trojan Horse mechanisms in exactly the same way. Hailing devices focused on physical markers of childhood, the representation of children's cultural artefacts, play or peer interactions, or ideas such as child empowerment and evasion of adult supervision. Concealed ideologies usually supported the existing adult hegemony by naturalising good child behaviour and children's dependence on adults, and by creating an apprenticeship space in the text where the values and knowledge of adulthood within the system could be learned and practised. One text of the group created a different ideological arrangement, using the structure of the Trojan Horse mechanism to critique hegemonic assumptions and offer a more radical apprenticeship. Analysis of the texts also revealed additional ideologies transmitted within the Trojan Horse mechanism and often related to adult-child power relations, including ideologies of gender, race, religion and imperialism.

Significant avenues for future research include broadening the scope of analysis in order to discover whether the findings are relevant across the corpus of children's literature, as well as determining whether more recent texts from the twenty-first century extend the trends noted in this study's texts. Furthermore, an analysis of the ways that children read and understand the texts may assist in ascertaining the extent to which child readers internalise, ignore or reject the attempted socialisation of Trojan Horse mechanisms.


As one of the most mentally rigorous designers working in fashion, Yohji Yamamoto creates garments that can be intellectual - sometimes even difficult - yet always beautiful. Yohji's free-spirited world is explored here via "i-D" magazine's archives starting back in the 1980s, including his adoration for women and the female form, the painful process of creating anti-fashion through fashion and how his timeless utilitarian designs can be both avant-garde and classic at once. Packed into 120 pages is biographical and personal information as well as imagery from over 30 years of i-D's history with images from photographers including Paolo Roversi, Max Vadukal, and Nick Knight, plus interviews with Jamie Huckbody, Holly Shackleton, and Terry Jones.


In the Summer 1978 issue of The Judges' Journal, a pair of researchers published an article purporting to bring the lessons of comparative study to bear upon the question of whether Americans devote adequate resources to their court system. The authors, Earl Johnson and Ann Drew, announced their conclusion in the title: "This Nation Has Money for EverythingExcept Its Courts." 1 Statistical evidence from "analogous industrial democracies,"2 especially West Germany (one of "the two most economically analogous countries studied,"3) brought Johnson and Drew to decide that "it may be that the American judicial system ... is currently being sabotaged by an inadequate public investment."4 The purpose of this article is to show that no such conclusion can be drawn from the evidence that Johnson and Drew report. My main point is that the authors have undertaken their comparison of American and European legal systems on a purely quantitative basis, disregarding the qualitative differences between our adversarial and the Europeans' nonadversarial procedures. These qualitative differences are the true source of the quantitative differences. Johnson and Drew derived erroneous implications for the manning of American courts because they ignored those characteristics of European procedure that explain European manpower levels.


Virtual Reality has become nowadays not simply a way to graphically represent archaeological hypotheses concerning space archaeology or architecture, but also a tool within the process of interpretation of remains. As it is a suitable technique to visualise 3D environments, it helps to perceive correctly volume, perspective and proportions, all features that can be hardly represented in traditional 2D archaeological drawings. The process of building a VR model will be a continuous testing of major and minor hypotheses, and formulating new questions as new needs show up. These questions lead to new interpretations, more fieldwork in search of new data and search of parallels. This conception of VR has allowed us to propose a solution for the evolution of two close buildings in the NE area of the forum of the Roman city of Pollentia (Mallorca, Spain). Pollentia was founded after the Roman conquest of the Balearic islands (123 BC), probably between 70 and 60 BC. During the last 10 years archaeological research in the site has uncovered an area of the Forum where several walls overlap, and some of them even remained isolated at some moment, without any connection to others. Altogether makes difficult their architectural interpretation. The building of a VR model has allowed an approach to the evolution of this area. A building ("Building A"), belonging to one of the first phases of the city in the Republic, stood northwards. In the Early Empire, a new building with a fine opus sectile pavement ("Building B") was raised up southwards, overlapping the southern part of the Building A. Some of the walls of Building A remained destroyed to their foundations and isolated within the boundaries of Building B, while others were completely removed to clear the area for the new building. The evolution of this spot is difficult to follow until the 4 th cent. AD, when the Building B was altered, probably related to a renewal of the city after a great fire that affected the city around 270/280 AD. The abandonment is also confusing as it seems to be abandoned slowly somewhere in the Late Antique period and affected by an Early Medieval necropolis. The interpretation of the evolution of the area E of the forum, through VR offers a feasible solution to the problem of interpreting poorly preserved structures, and it may be a good help to plan new archaeological campaigns.


Abstract This paper is concerned with adiabatic compression of a plasma sphere with a random small-scale magnetic field embedded in the plasma. The length of the field line between two intersections with the wall, determined from random walk scaling, is large enough to make electron heat losses along the field lines negligible. Then, such a sphere may become an interesting target for magnetized target fusion experiments. Key processes affecting the performance of such a target are identified, and constraints on the parameters of the system are formulated.


The soil is a rich compendium of diverse organisms which have multifaceted roles in the ecological dynamics. The diversity and functional activity of the soil-borne organisms depend on the soil structure and the types of nutrients available there. From the perspectives of plants growth and development, these organisms may be beneficial, harmful or neutral. Among the organisms, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) constitute a significant and ecologically important portion which directly or indirectly corresponds to the growth improvement of plants. PGPR are of diverse types. Some of these bacteria are found in symbiotic association with hosts while others remain free living. They are efficiently involved in nitrogen fixation, phosphate, and iron solubilization, mitigation of heavy metals and other pollutants, antagonism with phytopathogens, and the production of growth promoting molecules. The net consequences of PGPR activities are growth stimulation of plants. Here we review the importance of PGPR and their role in growth improvement of cultivated crops.


Accurate weather prediction is crucial for many activities, including Naval operations. Researchers within the meteorological division of the Naval Research Laboratory have developed and fielded several expert systems for problems such as fog and turbulence forecasting, and tropical storm movement. They are currently developing an automated system for satellite image interpretation, part of which involves cloud classification. Their cloud classification database contains 204 high-level features, but contains only a few thousand instances. The predictive accuracy of classifiers can be improved on this task by employing a feature selection algorithm. We explain why non-parametric case-based classifiers are excellent choices for use in feature selection algorithms. We then describe a set of such algorithms that use case-based classifiers, empirically compare them, and introduce novel extensions of backward sequential selection that allows it to scale to this task. Several of the approaches we tested located feature subsets that attain significantly higher accuracies than those found in previously published research, and some did so with fewer features.


We argue that the process of selection into political office is different for women than it is for men, which results in important differences in the performance of male and female legislators once they are elected. If voters are biased against female candidates, only the most talented, hardest working female candidates will succeed in the electoral process. Furthermore, if women perceive there to be sex discrimination in the electoral process, or if they underestimate their qualifications for office relative to men, then only the most qualified, politically ambitious females will emerge as candidates. We argue that when either or both forms of sex-based selection are present, the women who are elected to office will perform better, on average, than their male counterparts. We test this central implication of the theory by using legislators' success in delivering federal spending to their home districts as our primary measure of performance. We find that congresswomen secure roughly 9 percent more spending from federal discretionary programs than congressmen. This amounts to a premium of about $49 million per year for districts that send a woman to Capitol Hill. Finally, we find that women's superiority in securing particularistic benefits does not hurt their performance in policymaking: women also sponsor more bills and obtain more cosponsorship support for their legislative initiatives than their male colleagues.


Despite the considerable success of neural networks in security settings such as malware detection, such models have proved vulnerable to evasion attacks, in which attackers make slight changes to inputs (e.g., malware) to bypass detection. We propose a novel approach, \emph{Fourier stabilization}, for designing evasion-robust neural networks with binary inputs. This approach, which is complementary to other forms of defense, replaces the weights of individual neurons with robust analogs derived using Fourier analytic tools. The choice of which neurons to stabilize in a neural network is then a combinatorial optimization problem, and we propose several methods for approximately solving it. We provide a formal bound on the per-neuron drop in accuracy due to Fourier stabilization, and experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in boosting robustness of neural networks in several detection settings. Moreover, we show that our approach effectively composes with adversarial training.


When intermittent streams flow, benthic algae develop from both colonising propagules and regrowing dried biofilm. We aimed to determine whether colonisation processes influence algal densities and taxonomic composition beyond the period immediately following commencement of winter flows, and whether regulation modifies those processes, in the Victoria Range, Australia. Stones were placed in two unregulated streams, and upstream and downstream of weirs in three regulated streams, after dry biofilm was removed. Epilithic algae on treatment and control stones were collected after winter flows (12 weeks). Treatment effects were still apparent in one (unregulated) stream, but not in the other streams. Algal assemblages and densities upstream and downstream of weirs differed, but there was no systematic pattern among streams. In intermittent headwater streams, recolonisation processes may influence algal assemblages until spring; but in most streams, the duration of influence will be shorter, depending on the assemblage composition in regrowth and refuges, which is also shaped by conditions during the previous flow season. If the effects of regulation depend on how idiosyncratic flow regimes and assemblage compositions influence recolonisation, they may be difficult to predict. Similarly, recovery trajectories for stream communities after drought will differ among streams, depending on whether biofilm can develop during potentially short seasonal flows.


Glacial inversion modelling of continental-scale palaeo-ice sheets is now recognized as an important tool in palaeoglaciology. Existing palaeoglaciological reconstructions of the dimensions, geometry and dynamics of former ice sheets are based mainly on glacial depositional, as opposed to glacial erosional, landforms. Part of the reason for this is a lack of detailed understanding of the origin and significance of glacial erosional landforms. Here we review recent developments in our understanding of the processes and landforms of glacial erosion and consider their value in palaeoglaciology. Glacial erosion involves the removal and transport of bedrock and/or sediment by glacial quarrying, glacial abrasion and glacial meltwater. These processes combine to create a suite of landforms that are frequently observed in areas formerly occupied by ice sheets and glaciers, and which can be used in palaeoglaciological reconstructions. For example, all landforms of glacial erosion provide evidence for the release of subglacial meltwater and the existence of warm-based ice. Landforms of glacial quarrying such as roches moutonnées, rock basins and zones of areal scouring are created when cavities form between an ice sheet and its bed and therefore are indicative of low effective basal pressures (0.1-1 MPa) and high sliding velocities that are necessary for ice-bed separation. Fluctuations in basal water pressure also play an important role in the formation of glacially quarried landforms. Landforms of glacial abrasion include streamlined bedrock features ('whalebacks'), some 'p-forms', striae, grooves, micro-crag and tails, bedrock gouges and cracks. Abrasion can be achieved by bodies of subglacial sediment sliding over bedrock or by individual clasts contained within ice. Although abrasion models depend critically on whether clasts are treated as dependent or independent of subglacial water pressure, it appears that abrasion is favoured in situations where effective basal pressures are greater than 1 MPa and where there are low sliding velocities. Consequently, landforms dominated by glacial abrasion are created when there is no ice-bed separation. Landforms of glacial meltwater erosion include both subglacial and ice-marginal meltwater channels. Investigations of the relationship between glacial meltwater channels and other aspects of the subglacial drainage system, such as areas of ice-bed contact, areas of ice-bed separation and precipitate-filled depressions, enable inferences to be made concerning former subglacial water pressure-drainage relationships, effective pressures and glacier velocities. Meltwater palaeovelocity and palaeodischarge can also be calculated from measurements of channel shape, channel width and the size of material transported within former glacial meltwater channels. We surmize that glacial erosional landforms offer insight into former glacio-logical conditions at both the landform- and landscape-scale within palaeoglaciology. Exposure-age dating techniques, including cosmogenic isotope dating of bedrock surfaces, will be important in increasing our understanding of the age and chronological significance of landforms of glacial erosion. We conclude that landforms of glacial erosion are of great value in ice mass reconstruction and speculate that these landforms will achieve greater recognition within palaeoglaciology in line with improvements in exposure-age dating techniques.


Wedescribe four cases of eosinophilic cystitis in whom no specific cause could be found, and review the literature. Complaints at presentation included urgency, frequency, abdominal pain, and haema-turia. In three patients the symptoms and ultrasound pictures suggested a bladder tumour. One patient was treated with anticholinergics and corticosteroids with-out relief of symptoms; a localised eosinophilic tumour was excised in one patient who remained symptom free; and two patients were managed conservatively with spontaneous resolution of bladder pathology and symptoms. One case was identified by random bladder biopsy in 150 consecutive patients with unexplained irritable micturition complaints. Eosinophilic cystitis is rare in children. After biopsy, we consider a wait and see policy is justified as symptoms tend to disappear spontaneously. Routine bladder biopsies in children with unexplained bladder symptoms is not justifiable. ( Arch Dis Child 2001; 84 :344–346)


The modification of the transverse wave profile by the free electron laser (FEL) interaction in the collective Raman regime is considered. The gain is calculated and the transverse wave profile is found by solving for the eigenvalues and the actual eigenmodes of the system. When a waveguide is employed, a strong FEL interaction is shown to couple various vacuum waveguide modes, as was demonstrated by A. Bhattacharjee et al. (1988). When no waveguide or cavity is present, a coupling parameter which measures the strength of the interaction is identified. Expressions are derived for the gain for large and small values of the coupling parameter, corresponding to a strong optical guiding and large diffraction, respectively. Comparing the present results for the Raman regime with previous results for the strong pump regime, it is shown that the gain scales differently in each case, depending on both the regime of operation and on the beam geometry. The linear analysis is valid when the signal is small, and is useful mainly when the gain is high prior to saturation. >


Previous research is inconclusive about whether supervisor support always increases employee innovative behavior. To address this inconsistency, this research explores how and when supervisor support promotes innovative behavior by examining intrinsic motivation as a mediator and employee general self-efficacy and internal locus of control as boundary conditions. Although these 2 positive self-view variables are similar in terms of their positive effects on a variety of desirable work outcomes, we draw on self-verification theory, which posits that self-confirming information draws more attention, to reason that they exhibit opposite moderating effects on the influence of supervisor support. Based on 2 samples of employees in different industries and locations in China, this moderated mediated model was supported. General self-efficacy showed an enhancement moderating effect, such that it amplified the mediated relationship between supervisor support and employee innovative behavior via intrinsic motivation. In contrast, internal locus of control showed a substitutional moderating effect, such that it weakened this mediated relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


To survive, cells and organisms must regulate concentrations of Na+ within a range compatible with physiological functions. Shimizu et al. show that Na+ sensing occurs in part through an unusual mechanism in the mammalian brain in which neuronal activity is controlled by associated glial cells. Mammals appear to sense Na+ concentrations in the blood through special brain structures known as circumventricular organs, in particular the subfornical organ (SFO), where a blood-brain barrier is not present, allowing cells to sense the chemical makeup of the blood. Sodium channels known as Nax channels are required for proper behavioral responses to excess Na+, but these channels are expressed on astrocytes rather than neurons. The authors used a yeast two-hybrid screen to detect proteins that interacted with the cytoplasmic domain of Nax. One of the interacting proteins was identified as the cell membrane sodium pump (Na+/K+-ATPase). In cultured cells expressing Nax, increased concentrations of extracellular Na+ caused increased activity of the Na+/K+-ATPase. Suspecting that the association of Nax with the Na+/K+-ATPase might influence cellular energy metabolism, the authors showed that exposure of slices from the SFO of wild-type mice to excessive extracellular Na+ caused an increase in glucose uptake that was absent in SFO slices from animals lacking Nax. This enhanced glucose use led to increased lactate secretion in the slices. The lactate in turn was found to increase the firing frequency of GABAergic neurons in the SFO slices. The effect on the neurons was reduced when activity of the transporter that carries lactate into the neurons was inhibited. Thus, the authors conclude that Na+ sensing in the SFO results from glial cells that are the key sensors, which then signal to neighboring neurons by secretion of lactate. Commentary by Iadecola places the work in the context of other instances of lactate signaling in neurons and other physiological mechanisms that cooperate to keep Na+ concentrations in check. H. Shimizu, E. Watanabe, T. Y. Hiyama, A. Nagakura, A. Fujikawa, H. Okado, Y. Yanagawa, K. Obata, M. Noda, Glial Nax channels control lactate signaling to neurons for brain [Na+] sensing. Neuron 54, 59-72 (2007). [Online Journal] C. Iadecola, Astrocytes take center stage in salt sensing. Neuron 54, 3-5 (2007). [Online Journal]


Vítek, J. (2013): Škrapy ve vápencích Pavlovských vrchů. – Acta Mus. Moraviae, Sci. geol., 98, 1, 91–109. Lapiés (karren) in limestones of the Hills Pavlovské vrchy (Southern Moravia, Czech Republic) Complex information about small surface forms in limestone areas of the Czech Republic is missing up-to now. The author presents geomorphological characteristic of lapiés (karren) in limestones of the Hills Pavlovské vrchy in Southern Moravia supplemented by some information from the Hills Falkensteiner Höhenzügen in Austria. Lapiés developed on rocky outcrops of Ernstbrunn Limestones (age Upper Jurassic up to Lower Cretaceous). The author studied especially lapiés crests that form top parts of some rock blocks and rock towers. Grikes (kluftkarren, joint karren), pit karren, slaggy karren, tubular karren, on some places rock-rills (rillenkarren), pointed karren, rund karren, kamenitzas (solution pans), stone pavements (plane karren), etc. developed on subhorizontal or slightly inclined surfaces. Wall lapiés (wand karren), cellular karren (honeycombs) developed on vertical and steeper inclined stone surfaces. Solution rock holes (cavernous karren) are typical feature in the studied area (some of them can be termed as tafoni or basis-tafoni). The author found the largest concentration of various types of lapiés on hill Děvín (554 m a.s.l.) in the northern part of the Hills Pavlovské vrchy where he studied karst forms in detail in three test areas (segments). Lapiés in the Hills Pavlovské vrchy developed due to chemical (corrosion) and mechanical processes strongly controlled by the lithology and texture of the Ernstbrunn Limestones. The management and nature protection problems in the Protected Landscape Area (PLA) Pálava and biospherical reservation are discussed in the closing part of the paper.


Time series modeling and analysis is central to most financial and econometric data modeling. With increased globalization in trade, commerce and finance, national variables like gross domestic productivity (GDP) and unemployment rate, market variables like indices and stock prices and global variables like commodity prices are more tightly coupled than ever before. This translates to the use of multivariate or vector time series models and algorithms in analyzing and understanding the relationships that these variables share with each other. Autocorrelation is one of the fundamental aspects of time series modeling. However, traditional linear models, that arise from a strong observed autocorrelation in many financial and econometric time series data, are at times unable to capture the rather nonlinear relationship that characterizes many time series data. This necessitates the study of nonlinear models in analyzing such time series. The class of bilinear models is one of the simplest nonlinear models. These models are able to capture temporary erratic fluctuations that are common in many financial returns series and thus, are of tremendous interest in financial time series analysis. Another aspect of time series analysis is homoscedasticity versus heteroscedasticity. Many time series data, even after differencing, exhibit heteroscedasticity. Thus, it becomes important to incorporate this feature in the associated models. The class of conditional heteroscedastic autoregressive (ARCH) models and its variants form the primary backbone of conditional heteroscedastic time series models. Robustness is a highly underrated feature of most time series applications and models that are presently in use in the industry. With an ever increasing amount of information available for modeling, it is not uncommon for the data to have some aberrations within itself in terms of level shifts and the occasional large fluctuations. Conventional methods like the maximum likelihood and least squares are well known to be highly sensitive to such contaminations. Hence, it becomes important to use robust methods, especially in this age with high amounts of computing power readily available, to take into account such aberrations. While robustness and time series modeling have been vastly researched individually in the past, application of robust methods to estimate time series models is still quite open. The central goal of this thesis is the study of robust parameter estimation of some simple vector and nonlinear time series models. More precisely, we will briefly study some prominent linear and nonlinear models in the time series literature and apply the robust S-estimator in estimating parameters of some simple models like the vector autoregressive (VAR) model, the (0, 0, 1, 1) bilinear model and a simple conditional heteroscedastic bilinear model. In each case, we will look at the important aspect of stationarity of the model and analyze the asymptotic behavior of the S-estimator.


One issue that did not get adequate attention regarding control and protection of power systems in the past is the data integration and information exchange. The traditional approaches assume that each function such as protection, control, monitoring, and maintenance are supported by a separate infrastructure of recording instruments and/or controllers for obtaining and processing data. With introduction of the new computer-based equipment for control and protection in the mid eighties, the integration of data and information exchange were possible, but not explored. This paper indicates what are the improvements and benefits that can be obtained by integrating the data and exchanging information among control and protection as well as system-wide monitoring and control functions.


Abstract : The Cold War was portrayed as an epic clash of two ideologies Western Democracy versus Communism. Section IV of the defining cold war document, National Security Council 68 (NSC 68), was entitled "The Underlying Conflict in the Realm of Ideas and Values between the U.S. Purpose and the Kremlin Design," and it argued that the basic conflict was between ideas "the idea of freedom under a government of laws, and the idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin." The adversary resided in the Soviet Union and violence in other regions in the world including terrorist violence was exported from or used by this center of Communism. Today, the war of ideas is Western Democracy versus Salafi Islam. Al Qaeda is the main enemy, with our main effort targeted to a particular geographic region the Middle East, where undemocratic, repressive regimes represent the center of the opposing ideology. This is oversimplified, but there is some merit in such a mental picture.


Background Acinetobacter baumannii is a significant hospital pathogen, possessing a considerable degree of antimicrobial resistance. A. baumannii resistance to carbapenems and aminoglycosides is mostly conferred by class D OXA carbapenemases and aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes, respectively. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of selected genes encoding OXA carbapenemases and aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes in multidrug-resistant strains of A. baumannii. Material/Methods The study included 61 carbapenem-resistant and aminoglycoside-nonsusceptible A. baumannii isolates, collected between 2009 and 2011 in Cracow, Poland. Selected resistance genes, including: blaOXA-51-like, blaOXA-23-like, blaOXA-40-like, blaOXA-58-like, aac(6′)-Ih, aac(3)-Ia, aac(3)-IIa, aac(6′)-Ib, aph(3′)-Ia and aph(3′)-VI, were detected by PCR method. Results The blaOXA-51-like genes were detected in all isolates, while acquired carbapenemase encoding genes were found in 96.7% of tested strains. Presence of blaOXA-40-like and blaOXA-23-like genes was observed among 65.6% and 27.9% of isolates, respectively. Assayed aminoglycoside resistance genes were found to harbor 98.4% of isolates. Among tested strains, we observed the following percentages of resistance determinants: aac(3)-Ia – 78.7%, aph(3′)-VI – 78.7% and aph(3′)-Ia – 27.9%. Analysis of co-occurrence of carbapenem and aminoglycoside resistance genes revealed the highest percentage of strains possessing blaOXA-40-like, aac(3)-Ia, and aph(3′)-VI genes (44.3%). Conclusions The blaOXA-40-like and aac(3)-Ia/aph(3′)-VI were the most prevalent genes encoding acquired OXA carbapenemases and aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes, respectively, among A. baumannii strains in Cracow, Poland. Genes conferring resistance to carbapenems and aminoglycosides coexisted in the clinical strains of A. baumannii. The phenomenon of A. baumannii resistance indicates the necessity of monitoring for the presence of the resistance genes.


The development of microsatellite loci has become more efficient using next-generation sequencing (NGS) approaches, and many studies imply that the amount of applicable loci is large. However, few studies have sought to quantify the number of loci that are retained for use out of the thousands of sequence reads initially obtained. We analyzed the success rate of microsatellite loci development for three amphibian species using a 454 NGS approach on tetra-nucleotide motif-enriched species-specific libraries. The number of sequence reads obtained differed strongly between species and ranged from 19,562 for Triturus cristatus to 55,626 for Lissotriton helveticus, with 52,075 reads obtained for Calotriton asper. PHOBOS was used to identify sequences with tetra-nucleotide repeat motifs with a minimum repeat number of ten and high quality primer binding sites. Of 107 sequences for T. cristatus, 316 for C. asper and 319 for L. helveticus, we tested the amplification success, polymorphism, and degree of heterozygosity for 41 primer combinations each for C. asper and T. cristatus, and 22 for L. helveticus. We found 11 polymorphic loci for T. cristatus, 20 loci for C. asper, and 15 loci for L. helveticus. Extrapolated, the number of potentially amplifiable loci (PALs) resulted in estimated species-specific success rates of 0.15% (T. cristatus), 0.30% (C. asper), and 0.39% (L. helveticus). Compared with representative Illumina NGS approaches, our applied 454-sequencing approach on specifically enriched sublibraries proved to be quite competitive in terms of success rates and number of finally applicable loci.


This study was conducted to investigate the influence of firm-specific characteristics which include firm size, profitability, debt equity ratio, liquidity and audit firm size on voluntary disclosure level of rural banks in the Ashanti region of Ghana. The research was conducted through detailed analysis of the disclosures of the financial statements of the rural banks for the year 2009. Descriptive analysis was performed to provide the background statistics of the variables examined. This was followed by regression analysis which forms the main data analysis. The results indicate that profitability represented by Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) is positively related to the disclosure level, whilst debt equity ratio, liquidity, firm size and audit firm size were insignificantly related to the disclosure level.


In the irrigation area automatic system, high- performance embedded micro-controller and low-power technology is used to design the water wireless sensor network. The sensor node gathers the hydrographic information such as water-level, gate position and rainfall. The sink node receives the real-time data; the information center stores and processes those data which are transmitted from the sink node through the GPRS network. The system replaces the wired transmission with the wireless transmission, which reduces the costs in installment and maintenance, and improves the system's reliability and extension. It has better application prospect.


This work presents the results of the first experimentation of +me-the first prototype of Transitional Wearable Companion–run on 15 typically developed (TD) children with ages between 8 and 34 months. +me is an interactive device that looks like a teddy bear that can be worn around the neck, has touch sensors, can emit appealing lights and sounds, and has input-output contingencies that can be regulated with a tablet via Bluetooth. The participants were engaged in social play activities involving both the device and an adult experimenter. +me was designed with the objective of exploiting its intrinsic allure as an attractive toy to stimulate social interactions (e.g., eye contact, turn taking, imitation, social smiles), an aspect potentially helpful in the therapy of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and other Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). The main purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate the general acceptability of the toy by TD children, observing the elicited behaviors in preparation for future experiments involving children with ASD and other PDD. First observations, based on video recording and scoring, show that +me stimulates good social engagement in TD children, especially when their age is higher than 24 months.


Improvement in the performance of thermal barrier coating systems (TBCs) is one of the key objectives for further development of gas turbine applications. The material most commonly used as TBC topcoat is yttria stabilised zirconia (YSZ). However, the usage of YSZ is limited by the operating temperature range which in turn restricts the engine efficiency. Materials such as pyrochlores, perovskites, rare earth garnets, etc. are suitable candidates which could replace YSZ as they exhibit lower thermal conductivity and higher phase stability at elevated temperatures. The objective of this work was to investigate different multi-layered TBCs consisting of advanced topcoat materials fabricated by Suspension Plasma Spraying (SPS). The investigated topcoat materials were YSZ, dysprosia stabilised zirconia, gadolinium zirconiate, cerium doped YSZ and yttria fully stabilised zirconia. All topcoats were deposited with TriplexPro-210 plasma spray gun and radial injection of suspension. Lifetime of these samples was examined by thermal cyclic fatigue and thermal shock testing. Microstructure analysis of as-sprayed and failed specimens was performed with scanning electron microscope. The failure mechanisms in each case have been discussed in this article. The results show that SPS could be a promising route to produce multilayered TBCs for high temperature applications.


This landmark catalogue presents a retrospective study of Frank Stella (b. 1936), one of the most important figures in 20th-century American art. Showcasing works from all of his major series, the book surveys the full sweep of Stella's career, from his artistic beginnings in high school and college to today. The book's spectacular plate section comprises more than 100 works, including paintings, sculptures, reliefs, and works on paper. Notable inclusions are his seminal Black Paintings, recent high-relief aluminum works, and a selection of drawings, maquettes, and digital renderings-many of which are reproduced here for the first time-that offer fresh insight into Stella's thinking and process. Essays discuss topics such as the artist's early years at Phillips Academy in Andover and Princeton University, and his late-career architectural pieces created with the aid of computer software. An interview with Stella conducted by American painter Laura Owens allows Stella to illuminate his artistic practice in his own words. Additional resources include a chronology with extensive bibliographic and exhibition references.This definitive publication is the most thorough examination to date of Stella's astounding contributions in all media, which cement his role as one of the most important practitioners of modern abstraction.


The core operation of current Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) is the aggregation enabled by the graph Laplacian or message passing, which filters the neighborhood node information. Though effective for various tasks, in this paper, we show that they are potentially a problematic factor underlying all GNN methods for learning on certain datasets, as they force the node representations similar, making the nodes gradually lose their identity and become indistinguishable. Hence, we augment the aggregation operations with their dual, i.e. diversification operators that make the node more distinct and preserve the identity. Such augmentation replaces the aggregation with a two-channel filtering process that, in theory, is beneficial for enriching the node representations. In practice, the proposed two-channel filters can be easily patched on existing GNN methods with diverse training strategies, including spectral and spatial (message passing) methods. In the experiments, we observe desired characteristics of the models and significant performance boost upon the baselines on 9 node classification tasks.


A cost-effective fabrication methodology for the mass production of conical microfunnels for drug delivery applications is presented. The fabrication methodology originates from a technique previously used for fabricating suspended or hollow microstructures. The process comprises six stages: in stage 1, a UV-opaque resin substrate is formed by mixing photocurable SU-8 with a UV-opaque impurity; in stage 2, an embossing stamp with an array of microrods is fabricated; in stage 3, the upper surface of the UV-opaque resin substrate (from the first stage) is mechanically deformed by stamping with the embossing stamp from stage 2; in stage 4, the regions in which microfunnels are photolithographically defined are selectively exposed to UV light; in stage 5, the wafer from stage 4 is subjected to heat and then developed in 1-methoxy-2-propanol acetate; finally, a hole on the tip of each microfunnel is formed by dry etching with oxygen plasma. The sharpness of the funnel tips can be flexibly adjusted by changing the stroke speed of the stamping in stage 3. The overall process can be carried out photolithographically with conventional photolithographic equipment. Using the proposed fabrication methodology, a matrix of polymeric microfunnels tapering from the base measuring 300 μm to the tip measuring 50 μm over a funnel height of 100 μm has been fabricated. Each fabricated microfunnel features a wide base and a sharp tip so that it has sufficient mechanical strength and sharpness to pierce the human skin. The conical geometry used in this study had a volume in excess of 24.4 nl.


Performance on standardized writing assessments indicates that less than one-third of American K‐12 students are proficient in writing. Despite this statistic, the current emphasis on reading in elementary schools means preservice elementary teachers may observe little writing instruction during field experiences. This article presents the results of a semester-long collaborative writing exchange designed in response to these problems. Qualitative methods were used to determine how 22 elementary students' writing improved as a result of helping a cohort of five student teachers learn to use the 6+1 Trait® Writing Model for Improving Student Writing. The findings have implications for classroom teachers, teacher educators, and teacher preparation programs.


Studies about the primary production in aquatic ecosystems have been conducted since about 100 years ago, and to date the primary production remains the biological process most commonly measured, either by quantifying the change in the concentration of dissolved O 2 in water, or the accumulation of 14 C in algal cells. However, both techniques have limitations. The change in dissolved O 2 concentration needs to be measured both in the light and in the dark (or in open systems in 24h cycles), and there is no warranty that rates in the dark are the same that in the light. In addition, there is the problem that the respiration measured in the dark is the community respiration, and not the phytoplankton respiration. This is problematic for quantifying gross primary production. With the 14 C method, the measured parameter depends on the duration of the incubation: 14 C consumption in short incubations of a few hours is probably equivalent to gross primary production, but the consumption in long incubations around 24h duration is probably equivalent to net primary production. A way to avoid these problems is the simultaneous measurement of the changes in concentration and stable isotope composition of oxygen or carbon in incubations done in closed systems. Another is the measurement of oxygen isotopes, including the rare 17 O, in open systems, but with low temporal resolution. The application of techniques based on stable isotopes has revealed several aspects of aquatic system metabolism that were unknown with the sole application of the classic techniques, indicating that the information obtained with the classical methods are not enough for correctly understanding the studied processes.


Many epizootics in marine wildlife have been associated with increasing temperatures. Those pathogen outbreaks can cause severe decline in host populations which are experiencing strong selection by such infectious diseases. A relevant disease evoking global concern is the "Summer Mortality Syndrome (SMS)" leading to mass mortalities in Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas), which has been associated to high temperatures in conjunction with pathogenic bacteria, notably of the genus Vibrio. Within the European Wadden sea SMS has only been observed for southern populations. Since northern and southern populations are genetically distinct the question arises, whether a northward expansion of SMS is facilitated by temperature directly, or whether genetic differences between northern and southern populations might potentially constrain a further expansion. Until now the ecological and evolutionary implication of emerging marine diseases such as SMS still remains unknown. However, to completely understand an infectious disease the isolation, identification and characterization of respective causative agents is fundamental. We isolated various Vibrio sp. strains from Pacific oysters. by sequencing of 16srRNA and constructed a phyolgenetic tree. Based on 16srRNA phylogeny we singled out suitable candidates for controlled infection experiments on adult oysters to estimate taxonomic pathogen diversity under elevated summer temperatures. With this approach we are now able to derive predictions on the pathogenicity of opportunistic Vibrio sp. from their phylogentic position relative to known virulent strains. This comprehensive study on diversity and pathogenicity of Vibrio strains forms the basis for further experiments investigating differences in response to a selective force, such as SMS between southern and northern populations of the Pacific oyster within the European Waddensea.


The present chapter provides an alternative approach to discourse analysis based on the Cognitive Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 1999; Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1993, inter alia). Unlike other studies on text structure, this paper argues that our metaphorical conceptualization of discourse as a form of motion through space and time is one of the basic structuring devices that shape the internal architecture of a text. To explore how this conceptualization of discourse affects the organizational patterns of texts and how it manifests in linguistic terms, a collection of journal abstracts from the field of biology is analyzed qualitatively. Our results seem to indicate that the configuration of this type of text is stable and tends to reproduce the topological structure of the metaphor discourse is a form of motion along a path influenced by force dynamics .


A new polypeptide-antioxidizing enzyme 24 of human peroxidase, the polynucleotide for coding it, the process for preparing said polypeptide by DNA recombination, the application of said polypeptide in treating diseases (cancer, HIV infection, etc), the antagonist of said polypeptide and its medical function, and the application of said polynucleotide are disclosed.


Consumer culture addresses us with various forms of a demand to 'be ourselves'. Ostensibly an emancipatory call, how can it be expressed in the form of a demand? This article enquires after the role of television in producing this demand. It is represented in its most contradictory form in the Big Brother format. The allusion of the show to an authoritarian regime is realised in a capricious game, whose goal, as the participants recurrently explain, is "to be themselves". It is not coincidental that this articulation of a demand for authenticity in the language of a regime is represented on television. The article argues that Big Brother stages a demand that the medium of television addresses at its viewers, as manifested by the institution of the celebrity. Using Daniel Boorstin's conceptualisation of the celebrity as a substitute for the traditional hero, the article presents the celebrity as a focal point of an ethical demand that television addresses towards its viewers. A new form of celebrity, namely "the ordinary celebrity", suggests that it is a demand to be oneself as distinct from others. In this sense, television plays a crucial role in post-Fordist economy, maintaining a context where being true to oneself entails expressing one's difference from others through consumption.


Background: Calculus is the mineralised matrix of plaque present on the hard and soft tissues of the oral cavity. The breakdown of proteins within dental plaque releases ammonia and carbon dioxide which increases salivary pH and lowers the precipitation constant. Precipitation of the calcium phosphate salts within the plaque facilitates calculus formation. In order to prevent plaque accumulation after oral prophylaxis, chlorhexidine mouthwash is routinely prescribed. However, common side effects of brown staining of the teeth and calculus formation have been seen to occur with frequent use. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the efficacy of two anti-calculus tootpastes subsequent to chlorhexidine use. Materials and methods: 90 patients with calculus formation were selected for the study and broadly categorised into two groups. Following oral prophylaxis, one group of patients used the anti-tartar toothpaste XTAR-TM (ICPA, India) with the active ingredient potassium pyrophosphate while the other used Colgate Total (Colgate-Palmolive) with the active ingredient triclosan. Within this group, the patients were further divided into 3 sub-groups: the first using only the toothpaste, the second using the toothpaste and chlorhexidine mouthwash for a week and the third group that used chlorhexidine for two weeks along with the toothpaste. The calculus accumulation on the lower anteriors was recorded preoperatively and post-operatively using the Volpe-Manhold index. All the indices and the pockets were measured from baseline to the end of 2 weeks. Results:Accessing the two week statistical data we were able to find a good prognosis in use of the potassium pyrophosphate tooth paste in comparing the triclosin tooth paste. After the use of chlorhexidine there was a little positivity at the end of second week. Among that group potassium pyrophosphate had better prognosis even after the use of chlorhexidine for 1 week Conclusion:Use of Anticalculus has a good prognosis of periodontium along with the use of the chlorhexidine mouth wash. Effect of triclosin on prevention of calculus is minimal but when used with it has a better action. General oral hygiene maintenance by the candidates is important which act as a main criteria for the plaque formation; better oral hygiene prevent the accumulation of the plaque thereby preventing calculus formation European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine ISSN 2515-8260 Volume 08, Issue 01, 2021 514


BACKGROUND
Most persons with prediabetes (impaired glucose tolerance or impaired fasting glucose) are overweight, and obesity worsens the metabolic and physiologic abnormalities associated with this condition. Prediabetes is an important risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this review was to assess the effectiveness of dietary, physical activity, and behavioral weight loss, and weight control interventions for adults with prediabetes.

SEARCH STRATEGY
Studies were obtained from computerized searches of multiple electronic bibliographic databases, supplemented by hand searches of selected journals, and consultation with experts in obesity research. The last search was conducted May, 2004.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Studies were included if they were published or unpublished randomized controlled trials in any language and examined weight loss or weight control strategies using one or more dietary, physical activity, or behavioral interventions, with a follow-up interval of at least 12 months.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Effects were combined using a random-effects model.

MAIN RESULTS
Nine studies were identified, with a total of 5,168 participants. Follow-up ranged from 1 to 10 years. Quantitative synthesis was limited by the heterogeneity of populations, settings, and interventions and by the small number of studies that examined outcomes other than weight. Overall, in comparisons with usual care, four studies with a follow-up of one year reduced weight by 2.8 kg (95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.0 to 4.7) (3.3% of baseline body weight) and decreased body mass index by 1.3 kg/m(2) (95% CI 0.8 to 1.9). Weight loss at two years was 2.6 kg (95% CI 1.9 to 3.3) (three studies). Modest improvements were noted in the few studies that examined glycemic control, blood pressure, or lipid concentrations (P > 0.05). No data on quality of life or mortality were found. The incidence of diabetes was significantly lower in the intervention groups versus the controls in three of five studies examining this outcome at 3 to 6 years follow-up.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Overall, weight loss strategies using dietary, physical activity, or behavioral interventions produced significant improvements in weight among persons with prediabetes and a significant decrease in diabetes incidence. Further work is needed on the long-term effects of these interventions on morbidity and mortality and on how to implement these interventions in diverse community settings.


Objectives: The aim of this study is to estimate the recovery rate and death rate of the Covid-19 patients in Pakistan both at provincial level and at national level Methods: In the current study simple linear regression model is used to estimate the case fatality rate (CFR) and recovery rate (RR) Also, the polynomial regression model has been employed to predict the infected patients of Covid-19 across Pakistan and for all its provinces Results: The results indicate that the provinces: Punjab, Sindh, KPK and ICT have been projected to be sensitive regarding COVID-19 Conclusion: it is strongly suggested that prevention must be considered, and full attention must be provided by each citizen to follow the SOPs recommend by health department If responsible attitude will not be expressed by individuals, then there is chance of increase of COVID patients again and put the country back in struggle


Development organisations can play a significant role in supporting women in the communities where they work to challenge unequal gender relations. The authors of this article argue that the majority of development organisations fail to do so because they pay insufficient attention to the importance of social institutions in perpetuating inequality. Two prominent approaches to gender mainstreaming emphasise organisational infrastructure and culture. Ideas in these approaches are necessary, but insufficient, to enable organisations to play a part in transforming the social institutions that perpetuate gender inequality. Gender at Work is a new global capacity-building and knowledge network aiming to promote institutional change through encouraging development organisations to analyse gender relations in the societies in which they work, and in the institutions they need to challenge. It reviews past efforts of development organisations to mainstream gender into their work, and develops programmes and processes to challenge institutional norms which work against women's interests.


For 48 years (1952–2000) the south half of Lac Saint-Pierre, a widening of the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec, was used as an experimental firing range. Some 500,000 shells were fired into the lake, of which about 8000 are thought to contain energetic material. Approximately 2000 projectiles are considered as unexploded explosive ordnance (UXO). Furthermore, the lake itself is potentially the recipient of other contaminants associated with industrial wastes and agricultural runoff. The Canadian Department of National Defence, in order to research appropriate clearance approaches programs, instigated a large sediment transport study (sediment trend analysis or STA) to determine both sediment and contaminant sources and sinks and to assess the possible environmental consequences of various clearance options. STA is an empirical technique whereby patterns of sediment transport and dynamic behavior are derived from relative changes in grain-size distributions. About 1000 samples were collected at 500 m spacing encompassing the entire firing range. The lake bottom contained a complex number of sediment types ranging from "ancient" late glacial deposits, recent mud and sand, and a variety of mixtures. The STA identified the significance of the late glacial deposits as the dominant source for the sediments contained in the lake. The latter showed complex patterns of transport that originated from the ancient sediments and terminated on well-sorted sand. The findings demonstrated that anthropogenic contaminants were unlikely to be deposited in the lake sediments, or if they were, self-cleaning by natural processes would likely be rapid. Furthermore, trace metals were strongly associated with the ancient sediments evidently originating from an underlying anaerobic black shale formation. The STA provides an important framework to understand the chemistry of the sediments and their dynamics and helps to define the context within which the UXO clearance and environmental remediation options can be developed.


Observations of single receptor molecules show that random membrane insertion can account for highly organized clusters of receptors in bacteria. Bacteria can sense tiny changes in the concentration of food molecules and can adjust their swimming motion to move toward the source of a gradient. They can do this in part because they localize enormous clusters of thousands of transmembrane receptors at specific positions at opposite ends of the cell, the cell poles. Surprisingly, evidence has suggested that formation and maintenance of such clusters may occur through stochastic self-assembly of clusters, rather than by association of receptors with some sort of anchor. But to test this idea rigorously, one needs the ability to detect and count single receptor proteins even if they are densely packed in clusters. That's a job for PALM (photoactivated localization microscopy), a technique in which fusion proteins containing a photoactivatable moiety are stimulated with a low intensity of UV light that activates a single molecule at a time in a small area monitored in a microscope. This allows optical resolution 10 to 100 times better than the diffraction limit for light microscopy. Greenfield et al. analyzed over 1 million receptor molecules and observed that many were present as single receptors or small clusters, consistent with a stochastic model of cluster assembly. They also extended a mathematical model in which the receptors are randomly inserted in the membrane but can be captured and incorporated into existing clusters and showed that the model could account for the observed distribution of receptors. Because of this capture by existing clusters, the density of new clusters is highest at a position farthest from a large cluster. This, the authors explain, means that through random formation of clusters, a cell with a large cluster at one pole will normally form a new large cluster at the opposite pole. Generation of new membrane occurs in lateral parts of the cell, further favoring clustering of receptors toward the poles. The authors propose that these processes can give rise to distinct large clusters of receptors of appropriate size and stability, all without any specific cellular machinery to position the receptors. D. Greenfield, A. L. McEvoy, H. Shroff, G. E. Crooks, N. S. Wingreen, E. Betzig, J. Liphardt, Self-organization of the Escherichia coli chemotaxis network imaged with super-resolution light microscopy. PLoS Biol. 7, e1000137 (2009). [PubMed]


The paper considers the writing abilities of Hebrew-speaking grade school and middle school students from mid-high compared with low SES backgrounds, as reflected in stories and compositions they wrote on the topic of friendship. A range of linguistic means of expression were employed as diagnostic of school-age written text construction, focusing on the lexicon and including both devices applicable in different languages (overall text length in words and clauses, syntactic clause density, and lexical diversity and density as reflected in proportions of content words) as well as Hebrew-specific features (verb-pattern morphology and construct-state noun compounds). Analyses showed these features to differentiate across the independent variables of the study-age-schooling level, and SES background, and text genre (narrative vs. expository). In terms of genre, expository-type essays usually had denser and more lexically diverse texture than stories. In developmental perspective, lexical diagnostics improved in the texts produced by 13–14 year-olds in comparison with those of 9–10 year-olds. Finally, texts produced by middle-class children attending well-established schools were in general of better lexical quality than those produced by children from disadvantaged backgrounds attending low-achieving schools. Keywords:linguistic usage; school-age language development; SES background; discourse genre; clause length; text length, lexical quality; Hebrew


Description The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was established on 26 August 1991 by Order in Council P.C. 1991-1597 with the following mandate: "The Commission of Inquiry should investigate the evolution of the relationship among aboriginal peoples (Indian, Inuit and Métis), the Canadian government, and Canadian society as a whole. It should propose specific solutions, rooted in domestic and international experience, to the problems which have plagued those relationships and which confront aboriginal peoples today. The Commission should examine all issues which it deems to be relevant to any or all of the aboriginal peoples of Canada..." (P.C. 1991-1597)


Norfolk Southern Railway Company (NS) is developing an all-electric switching locomotive, the NS 999, to provide a zero point source emission electric locomotive option for rail switching service. The original NS 999, unveiled in September 2009, suffered from poor battery management and challenging battery packaging. The rebuilt NS 999, anticipated in the 4th quarter 2013, will be powered by Axion Power's PbC® batteries. The Axion PbC® batteries provide increased charge/discharge cycle life and charge acceptance compared to conventional Valve Regulated Lead–Acid (VRLA) batteries, as well as increased usable energy when configured in series as 'long strings.'NS and Axion will review the challenges of the initial NS 999 battery management system, improvements to the battery management system, and test results from the Norfolk Southern Hybrid Locomotive Simulator using Axion's PbC® lead–carbon hybrid battery/supercapacitor. Axion will present test data showing the low variation in strings of PbC® batteries compared to VRLA while simulating locomotive switching. PbC® batteries have a unique charging curve, known as "concave down, increasing," which allows the batteries to self-equalize in strings. This characteristic of PbC® batteries provides for simpler battery management and reduced maintenance charging, while increasing the usable energy available within the string.The rebuilt experimental locomotive NS 999 will use Axion's PbC® lead–carbon batteries for the energy storage system to power locomotive switching and recover braking energy. If this research is successful, a zero point source emission electric locomotive could provide an option to reduce emissions in urban non-attainment areas and reduce dependence on petroleum. The NS 999 electric switcher is the first step to the ultimate goal of recovering braking energy from high power conventional diesel locomotives.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


Introduction: The concept of dehydration is defined as a risk to the health of athletes and their performance. Many athletes reach very high levels of dehydration due to water loss through sweat and low fluid intake.
Objective: This study aims to assess the state of hydration of athletes who come to the consultation by completing a questionnaire about their habits regarding fluid intake. The questionnaire consists of 28 questions on hydration. In addition, information on sports history and personal data of each athlete were required.
Method: A sample of 58 athletes participated in the study, 37.9% were men and 62.1% women, with a mean age of 29.1 years (SD = 5.5). They participated voluntarily and data collection was conducted from April to July 2015.
Results: The results showed that more experienced athletes presented higher intake of litres of liquid than the less experienced athletes, and this difference approached the statistical significance. This suggests an effect of experience on the hydration of the athletes. More research in this field is necessary.


The paper deals with the question of whether it is possible to combine the insights and recommendations of optimal individual lifecycle investing with the proven gains of defined benefit pension funds. These gains primarily stem from cost efficiency and (intergenerational) risk sharing. We investigate this subject for a concrete case, the pension fund sector in the Netherlands. Dutch pension funds traditionally are strong in organizing intergenerational risk sharing. There is a nation-wide strong support among participants, employers and labour unions to continue with these collaborative funds; however stakeholders agree that renewal continuously is needed to adapt the system to an ever changing environment.The paper explores two variants to the current setup. Both variants aim to combine collective risk sharing with the recommendations of individual lifecycle investing. One route is by adding return-related indexation policy to the current widespread practice of wage-related indexation policy. The second route is that participants have age-dependent stakes in an individual plan without risk sharing and a defined benefit plan with risk sharing.


Background Prostate cancer has been shown to be susceptible to significant stigmatisation, because to a large extent it is concealable, it has potentially embarrassing sexual symptoms and has significant impact on the psychosocial functioning. Methods This review included studies that focused on qualitative and/or quantitative data, where the study outcome was prostate cancer and included a measure of stigmatization. Electronic databases (CINAHL, Medline, PubMed, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library, PROSPERO, and the Joanna Briggs Institute) and one database for grey literature Opengrey.eu, were screened. We used thematic analysis, with narrative synthesis to analyse these data. We assessed risk of bias in the included studies using the RoBANS. Results In total, 18 studies met review inclusion criteria, incorporating a total of 2295 participants. All studies recruited participants with prostate cancer, however four studies recruited participants with other cancers such as breast cancer and lung cancer. Of the 18 studies, 11 studies evaluated perceived or felt stigma; four studies evaluated internalised or self-stigma; three studies evaluated more than one stigma domain. Discussion We found that patients living with prostate cancer encounter stigmatisation that relate to perception, internalisation, and discrimination experiences. We also identified several significant gaps related to the understanding of prostate cancer stigmatization, which provides an opportunity for future research to address these important public health issues. Registration This systematic review protocol is registered with PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews in health and social care. Registration number: CRD42020177312.


Literature review
Traditionally, aggressiveness and impulsivity have been defined,
measured and predicted based on the overt behaviour that is often displayed by
those who possess a high level of these characteristics. As such, this has led to a
view of human nature as either impulsive, aggressive or neither. This paper
explores current theories regarding the development of aggressiveness and
impulsivity and their nature, and argues that impulsivity and aggressiveness can
be conceptualised as personality characteristics that exist on a continuum, and
that each and every individual possesses some level of both. This paper further
examines the nature and development of psychopathy as a personality disorder,
and posits that this cluster of interrelated but relatively independent facets is also
dimensional in nature. Finally, the current paper examines the role of impulsivity
and aggressiveness in psychopathy, and suggests directions for future research.

Empirical study
The present study investigated the role of impulsivity and aggressiveness in
subclinical psychopathy within an undergraduate university sample. One hundred
and fifty three participants (122 female, 28 male, 3 gender unidentified)
completed self-report measures in the areas of impulsivity, aggressiveness and
psychopathy. Correlation analysis and stepwise regression models were
constructed in accordance with the aim of the study, which was to clarify the role
of impulsivity and aggressiveness in psychopathic characteristics, and to
determine the utility of self-report measures in psychopathy research. The results
of the study supported the hypothesis predicting a positive relationship between
impulsivity, aggressiveness and psychopathy scores, and that high levels of both
impulsivity and aggression were a better predictor of psychopathy scores than
either impulsivity or aggressiveness alone. Partial support was received for the
hypotheses predicting differential relationships between components of
impulsivity, aggressiveness and psychopathy. Specifically, impulsivity scores
were found to significantly correlate with the erratic lifestyle scale. However, a
significant negative relationship was not found between empathy scores and
callous affect scores, contrary to predictions. Post hoe stepwise regression was
undertaken to examine which, if any, aspects of impulsivity and aggressiveness
were predictive of aspects of psychopathy. The results of the post hoe analysis
were discussed with reference to current theories regarding the nature of
psychopathy.