The American basic cable channel HGTV became the object of public scorn after the housing market became associated with the current and ongoing global financial crisis. While noting the ways in which this channel's programming has been complicit in the financialization of home ownership and the effacement of risk that continue to transform "dwelling" into "home" into "investment," this article takes the occasion of enmity foisted on HGTV as an opportunity to more broadly consider the complex role of representation—or in the language of these programs, the role of "staging" —in and as part of the economic crisis. The links between complex and often abstract forms of financial speculation and the ideology of home ownership are not as direct as they were portrayed in the aftermath of the crisis. The staging of real estate in HGTV's programming and the staging of economic practices offer two simultaneous and parallel, but distinct, practices of representation. Just as recently developing approaches to conducting the ethnography of financial markets have begun to suggest new ways of thinking about the work done in and by the economy, grounded in material practices, so too do we need to take seriously the complexity of the work done by textual representation in our understanding of political economies. Yes, through crisis we found that these practices are linked, but not directly or causally. HGTV programming does not offer confirmation or reification of the link between representational games of financial speculation and those of home owners. It is not the site of culture that has led to economic crisis, but rather a telling site of the culture of crisis.


We observed in our in vitro studies that human leukocytes were attached by their complement receptors to the basement membrane zone (BMZ) of the skin specimens pretreated with pemphigoid antibodies and complement. The resultant histologic feature was very similar to that of an early stage of the inflammatory reactions observable in the lesions of bullous pemphigoid. Eosinophils were also attracted to the BMZ in proportion to their number in cell suspensions, but the adhesion of eosinophils occurred neither selectively nor excessively. The nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) test, which was carried out after the leukocyte attachment test, demonstrated that only those leukocytes bound specifically to the BMZ incorporated NBT dye complexes vigorously to form formazan crystals in their cytoplasms. The present studies showed that complement-fixing anti-BMZ antibodies induce enhancement of leukocyte activities as well as immune adherence to the BMZ, indicating that the enhanced leukocyte function plays a role in the separation between epidermis and dermis in bullous pemphigoid.


Based on practical experiences with large-format aerial cameras the impact of new medium-format digital cameras on topographic mapping tasks is discussed. Two new medium-format cameras are investigated with respect to elevation accuracy, area coverage and image quality. The produced graphs and tables show the potential of these cameras for general mapping tasks. Special attention is given to the image quality of the selected cameras. Applications for the medium-format cameras are discussed. The necessary tools for selected applications are described. The impact of sensors for georeferencing, multi-spectral images, and new matching algo-rithms is also dealt with. Practical investigations are carried out for the production of digital elevation models. A comparison with large-format frame cameras is carried out. It is concluded that the medium-format cameras have a potential for mapping of smaller areas and will be used in future in true orthoimage production, corridor mapping, and updating of maps. Their small dimensions and low weight allow installation in small airplanes, helicopters, and high-end UAVs. The two investigated medium-format cameras are low-cost alternatives for standard mapping tasks and special applications. The detection of changes in topographic databases and DTMs can be carried out by means of those medium-format cameras which can image the same area in four bands of the visible and invisible spectrum of light. Medium-format cameras will play an important role in future mapping tasks.


A unique feature of the ENVISAT RA-2 is to provide bursts of individual, unaveraged Ku band echo sample data in phase (I) and quadrature (Q), at the full rate 1800 Hz. This data offers a unique possibility to assess the full capabilities of altimeter measurements. Both technically and scientifically, much can be expected from these bursts of individual echoes, e.g., speckle characteristics over different altimeter scenes, ocean, ice, land, but also, potential blurring effects associated with range window changes during the 100 echoes on-board averaging. Moreover, for the first time in altimetry from space, investigations can be carried on the direct use of phase information from backscatter signals. ENVISAT RA-2 also features a second frequency in S band. The combination between absolutely calibrated Ku and S band data can yield interesting improvement for wind speed, wave period, gas exchange estimates, etc. ESA has launched a study on this topic to seed the use of individual echoes by scientists. This study is reaching completion and reconstructed echoes will be made available for the first time to the scientific community. Results from the technical and scientific application of individual echoes will be presented.


The Right Choice? So-called irrational decisions made by humans are popular fodder for "believe it or not" stories. But what's actually happening when we make choices that do not seem to be justifiable on purely economic or logical grounds? Presumably, we are not simply making errors; instead, our choices may reflect an internal bias that we are not aware of. Wimmer and Shohamy (p. 270) show how the hippocampus can instill an unconscious bias in valuations, whereby an object that is not highly valued on its own, increases in value when it becomes implicitly associated with a truly high-value object. As a consequence, we then end up preferring the associated object over a neutral object of equal objective value while not really knowing why. Remembered links between objects can result in the unintentional linking of their values and can affect choices. Every day people make new choices between alternatives that they have never directly experienced. Yet, such decisions are often made rapidly and confidently. Here, we show that the hippocampus, traditionally known for its role in building long-term declarative memories, enables the spread of value across memories, thereby guiding decisions between new choice options. Using functional brain imaging in humans, we discovered that giving people monetary rewards led to activation of a preestablished network of memories, spreading the positive value of reward to nonrewarded items stored in memory. Later, people were biased to choose these nonrewarded items. This decision bias was predicted by activity in the hippocampus, reactivation of associated memories, and connectivity between memory and reward regions in the brain. These findings explain how choices among new alternatives emerge automatically from the associative mechanisms by which the brain builds memories. Further, our findings demonstrate a previously unknown role for the hippocampus in value-based decisions.


This paper proposes a new hybrid control system for an AC microgrid. The system uses both centralised and decentralised strategies to optimize the microgrid energy control while addressing the challenges introduced by current technologies and applied systems in real microgrid infrastructures. The well-known 3-level control (tertiary, secondary, primary) is employed with an enhanced hierarchical design using intelligent agent-based components in order to improve efficiency, diversity, modularity, and scalability. The main contribution of this paper is dual. During normal operation, the microgrid central controller (MGCC) is designed to undertake the management of the microgrid, while providing the local agents with the appropriate constraints for optimal power flow. During MGCC fault, a peer-to-peer communication is enabled between neighbouring agents in order to make their optimal decision locally. The initial design of the control structure and the detailed analysis of the different operating scenarios along with their requirements have shown the applicability of the new system in real microgrid environments.


It has been 25 years since the beginning of the economic transformation in Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, associated with the change of the centrally controlled system over economy towards an economy based on market rules. Those changes, taking place in the conditions of globalisation of the world economy and European integration, and in recent years also the global recession, affect previously developed socio-economic structures, including the structures of industry. The aim of the article is to present changes in the role of industry in the economy of Poland, transformation of the ownership, branch and spatial structure of the industry of Poland and its diversification in regional and supra-regional systems as well as to attempt to answer the question of how the processes of industrial restructuring, undertaken during the years of economic transformation, contributed to its adaptation to the conditions of the market economy and improvement of its competitive position in global and European levels, including the possibility of integration into the global industrial networks.


The p-center problem consists of choosing p centers from a set of candidates to minimize the maximum distance between any client and its assigned center. In this paper, we transform the p-center problem into a series of set covering subproblems, and propose a vertex weighting-based tabu search (VWTS) algorithm to solve them. The proposed VWTS algorithm integrates distinguishing features such as a vertex weighting technique and a tabu search strategy to help the search to jump out of the local optima. Computational experiments on 138 most commonly used benchmark instances show that VWTS is highly competitive comparing to the state-of-the-art methods in spite of its simplicity. As a well-known NP-hard problem which has already been studied for over half a century, it is a challenging task to break the records on these classic datasets. Yet VWTS improves the best known results for 14 out of 54 large instances, and matches the optimal results for all remaining 84 ones. In addition, the computational time taken by VWTS is much shorter than other algorithms in the literature.


Fugitive emission of dust is common in various chemical, mining and metallurgical process industries and causes severe health problem of the workers in the plant. To control such huge emission generally bag filter system is suitable when temperature is not more than 150 °C. The performance of bag filter depends on the characteristics of dust and its nature of particle settling velocity. In this work an attempt have been made to investigate the effect of particle size distribution and capture velocity of particle on the removal efficiency of the file dusts by using bag filter system. It has been observed that by marinating a capture velocity much higher than terminal settling velocity of the particle resulted in enhanced collection efficiency of the particles and thus minimizes the fugitive emission, which meets the stringent regulations of environmental pollution.


The 'Hot Topic' article in this issue originates from the latest 'Saving Children' Report, published in May 2011. It summarises some of the important findings of the Child Healthcare Problem Identification Programme (PIP), which was developed for the Medical Research Council's Unit for Maternal and Infant Health Care Strategies. In this programme, careful auditing of each child death allows conclusions to be drawn about quality of care and possible modifiable factors in that death. From a small beginning at a few hospitals, Child PIP has been gathering momentum and is now being implemented at nearly a third of all public hospitals in South Africa. The full report and more detail is available on-line at www.childpip.org.za, and is an important resource.


Abstract. An accurate characterization of the vertical structure of the Arctic atmosphere is useful in climate change and attribution studies as well as for the climate modelling community to improve projections of future climate over this highly sensitive region. Here, we investigate one of the dominant features of the vertical structure of the Arctic atmosphere, i.e. water-vapour inversions, using eight years of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder data (2002–2010) and radiosounding profiles released from the two Arctic locations (North Slope of Alaska at Barrow and during SHEBA). We quantify the characteristics of clear-sky water vapour inversions in terms of their frequency of occurrence, strength and height covering the entire Arctic for the first time. We found that the frequency of occurrence of water-vapour inversions is highest during winter and lowest during summer. The inversion strength is, however, higher during summer. The observed peaks in the median inversion-layer heights are higher during the winter half of the year, at around 850 hPa over most of the Arctic Ocean, Siberia and the Canadian Archipelago, while being around 925 hPa during most of the summer half of the year over the Arctic Ocean. The radiosounding profiles agree with the frequency, location and strength of water-vapour inversions in the Pacific sector of the Arctic. In addition, the radiosoundings indicate that multiple inversions are the norm with relatively few cases without inversions. The amount of precipitable water within the water-vapour inversion structures is estimated and we find a distinct, two-mode contribution to the total column precipitable water. These results suggest that water-vapour inversions are a significant source to the column thermodynamics, especially during the colder winter and spring seasons. We argue that these inversions are a robust metric to test the reproducibility of thermodynamics within climate models. An accurate statistical representation of water-vapour inversions in models would mean that the large-scale coupling of moisture transport, precipitation, temperature and water-vapour vertical structure and radiation are essentially captured well in such models.


We explore mode locked operation of a Ti:Sapphire laser with enhanced Kerr nonlinearity, where the threshold for pulsed operation can be continuously tuned down to the threshold for continuous-wave (CW) operation, and even below it. At the point of equality, even though a CW solution does not exist, pulsed oscillation can be realized directly from zero CW oscillation. We experimentally investigate the evolution of the mode locking mechanism towards this point and beyond it, and provide a qualitative theoretical model to explain the results.


MIREOT is a mechanism for the selective re-use of individual ontology classes in other ontologies. Designed to minimise effort and to support orthogonality, it is now in widespread use. The consequences for ontology integrity and automated reasoning of using the MIREOT mechanism have so far not been fully assessed. In this paper, we perform an analysis of the Experimental Factor Ontology (EFO), an ontology which uses the MIREOT process to gather classes from a large range of other ontologies. Our study examines the effect of combining EFO with the ontologies it references by actually importing them into the EFO. We then evaluate the consistency and status of the combined ontologies. Through our investigation, we reveal that EFO in combination with all its referenced ontologies is logically inconsistent. Furthermore, when EFO is individually combined with many of the ontologies it references, we find a large number of unsatisfiable classes. These results demonstrate a potential problem within a major ontological ecosystem, and reveals possible disadvantages to the use of the MIREOT system for developing ontologies.


This article analyses the role of HRM practices in the implementation of an innovative cross-functional approach to new product development (concurrent engineering, CE) in Eurotech Industries. Contrary to CE methodology stipulations, and despite supportive conditions, HRM received scant attention in the implementation process. Organizational power and politics were clearly involved in this situation, and this article explores how their play created such HRM 'absences'. The article builds on a four-dimensional view of power in order to provide a deeper understanding of the embedded, interdependent and political nature of HRM practice and innovation.


Finding the necessary negative feedback The evolution of galaxies seems to be tied to the growth of the supermassive black holes at their centers, but it's not entirely clear why. Models have suggested a mechanism in which the growth of the black hole results in an outflow of gas that interrupts star formation. However, evidence for enough of this negative feedback has been lacking. Nardini et al. now see a signature in x-ray spectra of a strong persistent outflow in the quasar PDS 456. They estimate a broad solid angle spanned by the wind that enables a far greater impact on the host galaxy than narrower jet outflows. Science, this issue p. 860 A broad wind outflow from an accreting supermassive black hole could stunt star formation in its host galaxy. The evolution of galaxies is connected to the growth of supermassive black holes in their centers. During the quasar phase, a huge luminosity is released as matter falls onto the black hole, and radiation-driven winds can transfer most of this energy back to the host galaxy. Over five different epochs, we detected the signatures of a nearly spherical stream of highly ionized gas in the broadband x-ray spectra of the luminous quasar PDS 456. This persistent wind is expelled at relativistic speeds from the inner accretion disk, and its wide aperture suggests an effective coupling with the ambient gas. The outflow's kinetic power larger than 1046 ergs per second is enough to provide the feedback required by models of black hole and host galaxy coevolution.


Abstract Stalagmites and stalactites, as observed within natural caves, may develop inside geological repositories during constructional and post-operational periods. It is therefore important to understand actinide sorptionwithin such materials. Towards this, experimental studies were carried out with 233U, 238Np (VI), 238Np (IV), 239Pu and 241Am radiotracers using natural speleothem samples collected from the Dharamjali cave of the Kumaon Lesser Himalayas, India. Petrological/mineralogical studies showed that natural speleothems have three general domains: (1) columnar calcite; (2) microcrystalline calcite; and (3) botryoidal aragonite - each with ferruginous materials. Results showed that all domains of speleothems can take up >99% actinides, irrespective of valence state and pH (1-6 range) of the solution. However, distribution coefficients were found to be at a maximum in aragonite for most of the actinides. Such data are very important for long-term performance and safety assessments of the deep geological repositories planned for the disposal of high-level nuclear wastes.


A preliminary study to measure total water in lint cotton demonstrated that volumetric Karl Fischer Titration of moisture transported by a carrier gas from an attached small oven is a more accurate method than standard oven drying in air. The objective of the present study was to assess the measurement reproducibility of this new reference method as a function of sample type, sample sequence and condition of the working medium in the titration cell. Sensor response was linear and accurate over the range of 5.5 to 8.5 mg water, which corresponds to 5.5 to 8.5 % water in 100 mg cotton (recommended sample size). Optimal conditions were: oven temperature, 150 o C; 270 sec of drying, and nitrogen gas. The actual temperature inside the sealed glass sample vial was 15 to 25 o C less than the oven temperature. Karl Fischer selectivity to water over interfering substances increased with extent of cleaning: raw, mechanical cleaning, and scoured and bleached. In sequential analysis of cotton using the same working medium in the titration cell, the non-aqueous volatiles caused a negative bias (trend) in measured water contents. This was prevented by alternating six replicates of cotton and one replicate of: a blank vial, a water standard vial or adding fresh working medium to replace spent medium in the titration cell. Method validation involved checking for residual water in cotton by NIR spectra taken through the bottom of the vial and comparing results from a second reference procedure developed in this laboratory – Low Temperature Distillation.


IP Multicasting has been a crucial requirement of many scalable networked virtual environments by providing an efficient network mechanism through which a sender can transmit its information to a large number of receivers without having to send multiple copies of the same data over a physical link. The widespread deployment of IP Multicast has been slow due to some yet unresolved issues, prompting recent efforts in the development of multicasting protocols at the application layer instead of at the network layer. Most of these protocols address the case of a single source streaming media to a large number of receivers in applications such as video-on-demand or live broadcast. Collaborative and distributed virtual environments exhibit different characteristics that in turn necessitate a different set of requirements for application layer multicast protocols. This paper presents an introduction to application layer multicasting as it relates to distributed and collaborative virtual environments and the development of our own end system multicast protocol for multi-sender virtual teleconference applications.


Package universes is a component-distribution architecture based on explicitly managing the set of components visible at assembly time. The architecture is usable as is for a number of common organizations and software-engineering processes. Also, by providing a context of use for components, it allows several simplifications in the underlying component system. Experience is reported about two prototype implementations and user groups.


The transition from hand layup to automated composites manufacturing is difficult, time consuming, and costly endeavor with many barriers to make the switch. This paper seeks to make the benefits and considerations of the transitional process apparent and therefore easier to navigate. Through the outline of a business case for automation and considerations of machine type the reader will be well-equipped to determine the appropriateness of automation for their composites manufacturing. This paper attempts to provide knowledge of that evolution.


In the wake of the postsecular turn, we propose to reappraise both the religious as studied in anthropology and how anthropologists who have religious or spiritual interests can contribute to an emerging postsecular anthropology. Such an anthropology recognizes the failure of secularization theory to dissolve the dichotomy between the religious and the secular. We propose that as anthropologists we consciously occupy the ontological penumbra, an ambiguous and plural space in which we engage with various counterparts, both human and nonhuman. This means that we have to be open to the real possibility of the existence of gods, spirits, and other nonhuman entities. These should not only be treated as subjects of study, but also recognized as valid counterparts with whom we can engage in the ethnographic encounter. While this necessitates relinquishing the former privileged position of secular and Western epistemology, it opens up the discipline to a potentially unprecedented ethnographic productivity that is epistemologically and ontologically innovative. Without neglecting its secular heritage, such a theologically minded postsecular anthropology places anthropology in a better position to explore what it is to be human, especially in terms of understanding religious and spiritual experiences.


Abstract. This paper presents the first global set of observations of CO2 in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) obtained by the ACE-FTS instrument on SCISAT-I, a small Canadian satellite launched in 2003. The observations use the solar occultation technique and document the fall-off in the mixing ratio of CO2 in the MLT region. The beginning of the fall-off of the CO2, or "knee" occurs at about 78 km and lies higher than in the CRISTA-1 measurements (~70 km) but lower than in the SABER 1.06 (~80 km) and much lower than in rocket measurements. We also present the measurements of CO obtained concurrently which provide important constraints for analysis. We have compared the ACE measurements with simulations of the CO2 and CO distributions in the vertically extended version of the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (CMAM). Applying standard chemistry we find that we cannot get agreement between the model and ACE CO2 observations although the CO observations are adequately reproduced. There appears to be about a 10 km offset compared to the observed ACE CO2, with the model "knee" occurring too high. In analyzing the disagreement, we have investigated the variation of several parameters of interest (photolysis rates, formation rate for CO2, and the impact of uncertainty in turbulent eddy diffusion) in order to explore parameter space for this problem. Our conclusions are that there must be a loss process for CO2, about 2–4~times faster than photolysis that will sequester the carbon in some form other than CO and we have speculated on the role of meteoritic dust as a possible candidate. In addition, from this study we have highlighted a possible important role for unresolved vertical eddy diffusion in 3-D models in determining the distribution of candidate species in the mesosphere which requires further study.


This study focuses on critical design practice. The research challenges the colloquial understanding of 'critical design.' It problematises, defines and reassesses the concept of 'critical design' situating it among other forms of critical design practice.

The research reviews the field of activity from a historical perspective. It reviews contemporary activity in contexts of design research and the gallery system to establish domain authorities and theoretical perspectives that inform critical design practice. The research draws from a body of literature relating to design theory and critical design practice to identify several important themes by which to discuss the practice.

The research employs a hermeneutic methodology and engages expert 'critical' designers through a series of conversational interviews. The interviews are analysed using code to theory methods of inductive qualitative analysis and subjected to hermeneutic analysis that draws on the extensive contextual review. Salient concepts found in the discourse are extracted, theorised and organised to create taxonomy of critical design practice.

In the taxonomy, the field of critical design practice is categorised by three types of practice: Associative Design, Speculative Design and Critical Design. These three practices are differentiated by topics addressed in each and further differentiated by the type of Satire, Narrative and Object Rationality used in each practice.

The original contribution of this research is a Taxonomy of critical practice in product design, which consists of a written and visual dimension. The taxonomy acts as a discursive tool to chart design activity and it illustrates the diversity in critical design practice beyond the colloquial understanding of 'critical design'.

The taxonomy presents three distinct types of critical design practice; it outlines the design methods used to establish the critical move through design and identifies the contexts where critical design is practiced. It can be used to compare projects, chart designers' activity over time, illustrate trajectories of practice and identify themes in practice. The taxonomy provides theoretical apparatus to analyse the field. Such analysis contributes towards a discussion on critical design within design studies.


Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1994), Anna Deavere Smith's 15th project in her On the Road series, is a docudrama that explores American identity through the diverse cultural memories of the 1992 Los Angeles crisis. She works to make the play an open platform where racial minority groups in multicultural America can negotiate and coexist by repeating interviews from various groups who were involved in the L.A. crisis. Despite the many advantages in her docudrama, the genre itself has been criticized, owing to the dubious characteristics of "reality," "truthfulness," and "neutrality" that she emphasizes. This paper examines the characteristics of the docudrama that Smith employs and investigates whether Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is effective in achieving her aim of shedding light on the diverse layers of American identity. In particular, this paper will focus on "reality," one of the significant traits of the docudrama, and will investigate whether or not this might cause other forms of racial discrimination. Moreover, the researcher will analyze whether Smith's racial representation is balanced so that the play becomes meaningful to minorities and helps them work through their foundational historical trauma, that is, the L.A. crisis, which has already become part of their cultural identity.


ABSTRACT Nanotechnology has an increasingly large impact on a wide range of biotechnological, pharmacological and pure technological applications. Its current use in bioenergy production from biomass is very limited. This paper examines the potential interrelationships between nanotechnology and bioenergy production through a comprehensive literature review and analysis of data from biomass characterisation studies. The aim of this review is to indicate how nanotechnology can be applied in biomass-to-bioenergy conversion. This study shows currently nanotechnology has been applied in the production of only two types of biomass, i.e. sludge and algae. Hence, interaction of nanomaterials with active sludge and algal cells were examined. Our extensive literature review indicates that anaerobic digestion process in sludge can potentially be enhanced by using magnetite nanoparticles, which gives higher methane yields. On the other hand, nanosilver reduces growth and causes adverse effects on the morphology of green algae. This process for bioenergy generation has already been successfully applied to sludge and algae biomass. Our study confirms that the process can also be used in the production of bioenergy from the other biomasses, such as agricultural wastes and industrial residues. Outcomes of this work will be an important tool for implementing nanotechnology in bioenergy research.


By tracing the development and evolvement of certain legal theories over the centuries, as well as consequences emanating from such developments, this paper highlights how and why a shift from the model of "classical formalism" towards more deformalised models has arisen. The paper also illustrates how deformalisation and "a corresponding loss of certainty" could be harnessed in order to provide for greater "realism" and externalities, whilst still attaining a respectable level of consistency. Developments and efforts aimed at exploring the applicability of classical formalism and deformalised models should be regarded as "an endeavour to establish a consistency of terms, as well as a probing into how far principles, notions, and rules for decision making can be generalised, and rectification when generalisations have gone too far." Unity, as well as "a common law of mankind" are goals which are still capable of being achieved even where fragmentation, diversification and pluralisation of the law occur. Such processes of specialisation, where correspondingly countered by the appropriate level of generality as well as the ability to apply rules – such that they are consistently applied in similar situations, are capable of achieving more equitable, just and unifying goals as opposed to a model which merely strives for the achievement of legal certainty. Looking beyond the borders of legal theory may indeed provide the much needed redress in situations where generalisations exceed the required limits.


Our research takes place in the context of a discipline kwown as Communication for Development, sited inside the field of Communication for Social Change, characterized by the use of interpersonal ad mass communication theories and tools, applyied to international development cooperation.
Our study aims at pointing out a change of paradigm in this field: our object is Public Administration's communication, therefore, what we suggest is a shift from Communication for Development, to Development Communication.
The object of our study, hence, becomes the discourse itself, in its double action of representation and construction of reality. In particular, we are interested in the discourse's tribute to the creation of a collective immagination, wich is the perspective towards which we have oriented the analysis, through a structuralist semoitics-based methodology integrated with a socio-semiotic approach.
Taking into consideartion the fact that in our contemporary society (that is to say a 'Western' and 'First World' society), the internet is a crucial public space for the mediation and the management of collective immagination, we chose the web sites of Public Bodies which are dedicated to International Cooperation has our analysis corpus. This, due to their symbolic and ideologic significance, as well as for the actual political responsibility we think these web sites should have. The result of our analysis allows us to suggest some discoursive strategies used in the web sites of Public Bodies. In these sites, there is a tendency to shift the discourses around international cooperation from the ideological axis - avoiding in so doing to explicit a political statement about the causes of injustices and un-balances which lead to the necessity of a support in development (i.e. avoiding to mention values such as social justice and democracy while acknowledging socio-economical institutions which contribute to foster underdevelopment on a global scale) -, to the ethical axis, hence referring to moral values concerning the private sphere (human solidarity and charity), which is delegated mainly to non governamental associations.


We report a sensory platform for the determination of common explosive species (e.g., TNT, PETN, RDX) based on the differential response from two different luminescent metal nanoclusters. In particular, whereas the red emission from bovine serum albumin-protected gold nanoclusters was strongly quenched by nitro-, nitrate-, and nitroamine-containing explosive organic molecules, blue-emitting glutathione-capped copper nanoclusters proved inert to quenching by these same analytes, instead showing evidence for aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE). As a result, this discrete gold/copper nanocluster pairing provides a dual-probe, ratiometric (red-to-blue) system signaling the presence of TNT and other common explosives. This strategy opens up new potential for nanocluster-based analyte signaling, with implications to fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) strategies as well.


The forest gap model FORCLIM that originally was developed for central European conditions is applied to simu late the species composition of near-natural forests in eastern North America along a latitudinal transect from 60 to 30 0 N, covering the transition from the tundra to the boreal and deciduous forests. The results show that FORCLIM provides plausible species compositions along this gradient; most of the divergences concern species that are of minor abundance. In the central part of the gradient, the simulated species composition is considerably more realistic than the one obtained in an earlier study with a model developed for these conditions. However, in the boreal forest the behaviour of some light-demanding species is anomalous. Along drought gradients in the south western part of the gradient, FORCLIM misrepresents the influence of increased drought on forest structure, thus point ing to further research needs. The results are discussed within the context of model verification, the applicability of FORCLIM to study climatic change issues and the evolution of different tree species on the two continents. Prospects are outlined for developing a forest gap model that is applicable over a wide range of environmental conditions across several continents, thus contributing to the development of dynamic global vegetation models.


The changing nature of literacy is well documented within the literature, challenging educators to examine their pedagogies in light of the needs of learners in the current climate. The development and creation of non‐linear texts within primary classrooms is of current interest as they reflect the types of texts accessed and created by users of technology and afford children opportunities to make connections between their in and out of school literacy experiences. The authors observed children over extended periods as they collaborated with teachers and peers to author non‐linear texts for a range of purposes. Three case studies will be reported, providing examples of how three cohorts of primary school children (one lower primary, one middle primary, one upper primary) responded to the challenge to create texts using Information and Communication Technology and the specific learning observed. What is interesting about these cases is the process that the children engaged with as they planned, constructed and evaluated their texts. This paper describes this process and the implications it presents for what we understand about the pedagogy of writing, the creation of text and the opportunities for providing classroom literacy experiences aimed at supporting and fostering student learning.


This paper studies the role that market structure plays in affecting the diffusion of electronic banking. Electronic banking (and electronic commerce more generally) reduces the cost of performing many types of transactions for firms. The full benefits for firms from adoption, however, only accrue once consumers begin to perform a significant share of their transactions online. Since there are learning costs to adopting the new technology firms may try to encourage consumers to go online by affecting the relative quality of the online and offline options. Their ability to do so is a function of market structure. In more competitive markets, reducing the relative attractiveness of the offline option involves the risk of losing customers (or potential customers) to competitors, whereas, this is less of a concern for a more dominant firm. We develop a model of branch-service quality choice with switching costs meant to characterize the trade-off banks face when rationalizing their network between technology penetration and business stealing. The model is solved numerically and we show that the incentive to lower branch-service quality and drive consumers into electronic banking is greater in more concentrated markets and for more dominant banks. We find support for the predictions of the model using a panel of household survey data on electronic payment usage as well as branch location data, which we use to construct measures of branch quality.


Intrauterine surgery is being performed with increasing frequency. Correction of foetal anomalies in utero can result in normal growth of foetus and a healthier baby at delivery. Intrauterine surgery can also improve the survival of babies who would have otherwise died at delivery, or in the neonatal period. There are three commonly used approaches to correct foetal anomalies: open surgery, where the foetus is exposed through hysterotomy; percutaneous approach, where needle or foetoscope is inserted through the abdominal wall and the uterine wall; finally, ex utero intrapartum treatment (EXIT) surgery, where the intervention is performed on the baby before terminating the maternal umbilical support to the baby. Anaesthetic management of the mother and the foetus requires good understanding of maternal physiology, foetal physiology, and pharmacological and surgical implications to the foetus. Uterine relaxation is a critical requisite for open foetal procedures and EXIT procedures. General anaesthesia and/or regional anaesthesia can be used successfully depending on the nature of foetal intervention. Foetal surgery poses complications not only to the foetus but also to the mother. Therefore, the decision for undertaking foetal surgery should always consider the risk to the mother versus benefit to the foetus.


Cervical cancer is the most common malignant tumor among women in Tanzania and other countries in tropical Africa. Genital schistosomiasis has been proposed as a possible cofactor in the genesis of this malignant disease that might contribute to its high incidence in regions where bilharzias is endemic. One hundred nine Tanzanian patients from an area with endemic bilharzias who were transferred to a gynecologic out-patient clinic were age-matched with 109 German controls. In patients and controls, separate samples were taken for cytologic assessment and human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA detection using the Hybrid Capture 2 assay (HC2) and PCR (GP5+/6 +). Samples that tested positive for HPV DNA with general primers were re-tested with HPV type-specific primers. After application of 3% acetic acid, punch biopsies were taken from any cervical lesion. Patients were interviewed for recent symptoms or clinical history suggestive of bilharzias. Urine samples from all patients were examined for the presence of schistosoma hematobium ova. Additionally six Tanzanian patients with invasive cervical cancer were included for separate analysis. Patients and controls had an identical prevalence of HPV-DNA (21.5%) using HC2. Based on PCR results with general primers, the corresponding prevalence was 34.5% for Tanzanian cases and 26.9% for German controls. A history suggestive of bilharzias and/or active schistosomiasis were associated with a significantly increased risk for infection with high-risk HPV types. We conclude that infection with Schistosoma hematobium seems to favor persistent genital HPV infection either by traumatizing the genital epithelium and/or by local immunosuppression.


For many years the study of culture in Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) has relied on a teacher-centred, prescriptive approach introducing cultural characteristics and facts about Japan. Most syllabuses used in JFL programs in Australian universities have cultural, as well as linguistic aims. However, objectives for cultural studies are harder to define than for linguistic studies and are generally treated as something extra, or detachable. The study of Japanese culture and society is regarded as the responsibility of Japanese Studies (JS) and there has been little integration of the two. However, as awareness about the nature of language studies grows, there is a concomitant need for JFL to shift educational focus to more interactive, cross-cultural participation. This paper explores an alternative approach to the study of culture in JFL, with particular attention to material and topics.


Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) offer the potential to reduce both oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions, but high upfront costs, battery-limited vehicle range, and concern over high battery replacement costs may discourage potential buyers. A subscription model in which a service provider owns the battery and supplies access to battery swapping infrastructure could reduce upfront and replacement costs for batteries with a predictable monthly fee, while expanding BEV range. Assessing the costs and benefits of such a proposal are complicated by many factors, including customer drive patterns, the amount of required infrastructure, battery life, etc. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has applied its Battery Ownership Model to compare the economics and utility of BEV battery swapping service plan options to more traditional direct ownership options. Our evaluation process followed four steps: (1) identifying drive patterns best suited to battery swapping service plans, (2) modeling service usage statistics for the selected drive patterns, (3) calculating the cost-of-service plan options, and (4) evaluating the economics of individual drivers under realistically priced service plans. A service plan option can be more cost-effective than direct ownership for drivers who wish to operate a BEV as their primary vehicle where alternative options for travel beyondmore » the single-charge range are expensive, and a full-coverage-yet-cost-effective regional infrastructure network can be deployed. However, when assumed cost of gasoline, tax structure, and absence of purchase incentives are factored in, our calculations show the service plan BEV is rarely more cost-effective than direct ownership of a conventional vehicle.« less


Background There is evidence that antiretroviral therapy (ART) increases cardiovascular risk (CVR). The use of protease inhibitors (PIs), specially indinavir and lopinavir/ritonavir, has been associated with a higher incidence of myocardial infarction. Purpose To characterise the CVR profile of an HIV-infected cohort on ART from the northwest of Spain. To determinate the effect of exposure to protease inhibitors (PIs) and exposure time (ET) to ART in CVR. Materials and Methods Cross-sectional study including HIV patients on ART who were treated at our hospital between March and May 2012. We recorded demographics, ART history and CVR risk factors. CVR was estimated using the Framingham function calibrated for the Spanish population (REGICOR). CVR categories were: low (<5%); intermediate (5–9%); high (10–14%); very high (>15%). Five PI exposure groups were defined: a) no PI exposure (NoPI); b) exposure to PIs but not indinavir or lopinavir/ritonavir (PInoINDnoLPV/r); c) exposure to indinavir (IND); d) exposure to lopinavir/r (LPV/r); e) exposure to indinavir and lopinavir/r (IND+LPV/r). Results 89 HIV patients were included in the study (83.1% males, mean age 47.4 ± 7.8 years). Smoking prevalence was 51.7%, hypertension 39.3%, dyslipidaemia 24.7%, low HDL cholesterol 67.4%, diabetes 4.5%. Mean global CVR was 4.01%±2.50. The proportion of patients with a low CVR was 70.8%; intermediate 25.8%; high 2.2%; very high 1.1%. Mean CVR according to PI exposure was 4.06 ± 2.60 (NoIP); 3.52 ± 2.29 (IPnoINDnoLPV/r); 5.05 ± 2.99 (IND); 3.50 ± 2.28 (LPV/r); 4.29 ± 1.50 (IND+LPV/r). Significant differences were found when we compared the group IND with the groups IPnoINDnoLPV/r (P = 0.02) and LPV/r (P = 0.03). The effect of ET was significant only for indinavir exposure (P = 0.02). Conclusions Our HIV population presents low CVR. Smoking, hypertension and low HDL cholesterol are the outstanding modifiable risk factors in our cohort. Indinavir exposure and ET to indinavir increases CVR in our population, but no differences were found with lopinavir/r or other PIs. No conflict of interest.


Fluorinated polymers have attracted increasing attention in a broad range of areas, and access to such polymers with low-cost agents and simple conditions would offer improved application opportunities for both academia and industry. An efficient preparation of a variety of semifluorinated poly(meth)acrylates without the use of a fluorinated iniferter/initiator or a solvent via photo-controlled radical polymerization is herein reported. The polymerizations can be efficiently switched between "ON" and "OFF" both in the presence and absence of a photoredox catalyst in response to visible light while maintaining a linear increase in polymer molar mass with conversion and first order kinetics. As demonstrated with gel permeation chromatography analysis and kinetic investigations, catalyzed photopolymerizations provide polymers with narrower molar mass distributions, shorter induction times and higher conversions in comparison with catalyst-free reactions, representing a reliable and efficient synthetic approach starting off from fluorine-free agents. The high chain-end fidelity of the polymer was confirmed by MALDI-TOF-MS measurements and chain-extension experiments. Furthermore, the method using fluorine-free iniferters facilitated surface fabrication with fluoropolymers, providing highly hydrophobic materials. These results illustrate the simplicity and utility of the light-controlled polymerization of semifluorinated monomers.


El Cabril is the low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility
for Spain. After sealing the cells that stored the radioactive waste, water was
collected from a drainpipe, indicating flow of water within the cell. A hypothesis
had been proposed to explain this phenomenon which consists of capillary rise
from groundwater and evaporation and condensation within the cell produced by
temperature gradients caused by seasonal temperature fluctuations outside. To corroborate
this hypothesis a 2D numerical model was made taking into account all
relevant processes such as multiphase flow and heat transport. Data were used
measured by sensors in the cells and data from laboratory test. There is a good
agreement between the temperature measured by the sensors and the ones calculated
by the model. The model shows a drying of the concrete at the hot side (that
is the wall during summer and the container during winter). The concrete is saturated
with water at the cold side (that is the container during summer and the wall
in winter), leading to runoff of water to the drainpipe. The flux at this drainpipe
occurred in the two yearly periods, being higher in winter than in summer.


This contribution deals with an extended approach of the Vienna monitoring method (VMM), which is a model based technique to detect rotor asymmetries in the squirrel cage of an induction machine. The conventional VMM requires the measured voltages, currents and the signal of a rotor position sensor. The novel scheme presented in this paper alternatively works without a rotor position sensor. Especially for low inertia drives accurate estimation of rotor position is required. The rotor fault related double slip frequency torque modulation causes a speed ripple with the same frequency. Consequently, low inertia drives are exposed to higher speed ripples. In this case, it's not sufficient to estimate the mean value of the actual speed, only. Even the speed ripple has to be acquired to benefit from the accuracy of the employed models of the VMM. The proposed technique evaluates the signatures of an inherent rotor fault in order to determine the rotor position signal. The speed ripple can be obtained from the torque modulations that the models already compute. This way, an accurate rotor fault detection technique without rotor position sensor can be realized.


Almost all of us would agree that the experience of art is deeply rewarding. Why this is the case remains a puzzle; nor does it explain why many of us find works of art much more important than other sources of pleasure. Art and Knowledge argues that the experience of art is so rewarding because it can be an important source of knowledge about ourselves and our relation to each other and to the world. The view that art is a source of knowledge can be traced as far back as Aristotle and Horace. Artists as various as Tasso, Sidney, Henry James and Mendelssohn have believed that art contributes to knowledge. As attractive as this view may be, it has never been satisfactorily defended, either by artists or philosophers. Art and Knowledge reflects on the essence of art and argues that it ought to provide insight as well as pleasure. It argues that all the arts, including music, are importantly representational. This kind of representation is fundamentally different from that found in the sciences, but it can provide insights as important and profound as available from the sciences. Once we recognise that works of art can contribute to knowledge we can avoid thorough relativism about aesthetic value and we can be in a position to evaluate the avant-garde art of the past 100 years. Art and Knowledge is an exceptionally clear and interesting, as well as controversial, exploration of what art is and why it is valuable. It will be of interest to all philosophers of art, artists and art critics.


A person's behavior is under the influence of his own past experiences and future life goals. Therefore, everyone has a reference framework of his own to interpret the daily world. Tulving called this type of autobiographical knowledge "autonoetic awareness," which binds the past, present and possible future together and forms one's behavior with continuous entity through time, like pearls with memory elements threaded and hooked to make a necklace of self-awareness, and the semantic knowledge linkage plays the role of thread; the time, the hook.


The San Rafael Sn-Cu deposit, located at lat 14°13'58" S, long 70°19'18" W, on the upper slopes of the Cordillera de Carabaya, northern Puno Department, southeastern Peru, yielded 38,182 t of fine tin in 2001 and, with reserves of 14.460 Mt at 5.14 percent Sn, the main San Rafael Lode constitutes, both at present and historically, the largest-known bonanza-grade cassiterite repository. Sn and subordinate Cu mineralization were confined to laterally and vertically extensive brittle shear zones generated by regional tectonism that transect a small 24.65 ± 0.20 Ma, epizonal stock of strongly peraluminous, Lachlan S-type cordierite-biotite monzogranite and granodiorite. Early, barren, stage I quartz-tourmaline veins and breccias were emplaced at 24.10 ± 0.15 Ma by high-temperature (<580°C), boiling, saline fluids that plausibly directly exsolved from the granitic melt, whereas both cassiterite (stage II) and, at higher elevations, chalcopyrite (stage III) ores were precipitated from largely nonboiling, cooler (Th = 215°–420°C), and less saline (0–20 wt % NaCl equiv) fluids at 21.9 to 22.7 ± circa 0.5 Ma.

Only narrow (<2 m) envelopes of chlorite and weaker sericite and silica are associated with stages II and III veins, but more than 80 percent of the upper 750 m of the San Rafael stock experienced quasipervasive hydrothermal alteration. Early K metasomatism is recorded by widespread replacement of magmatic plagioclase and perthitic alkali feldspar by Na-free orthoclase, while broadly coeval alteration to albite more erratically affected groundmass plagioclase and the rims of alkali feldspar phenocrysts. Despite the intensity of the alkali metasomatism, only minor redistribution of dispersed, magmatic Sn occurred, largely during alteration to orthoclase. Other petrographically similar granitic bodies in the region experienced more intense Na metasomatism, and they host argentian base metal rather than Sn-dominated veins. Superimposed hydrolytic alteration, most intense within 20 to 30 m of the San Rafael Lodes, converted biotite to Fe-rich chlorite and converted alkali feldspar and plagioclase to fine-grained muscovite, but there is no significant dispersed cassiterite or chalcopyrite.

Secondary fluid inclusions trapped in quartz phenocrysts of the granitic rocks range in salinity from 0 to 65 wt percent NaCl equiv and in Th from 200° to 530°C; fluid boiling is evident in the higher-temperature populations. First-melting temperatures and decrepitate analyses reveal, in addition to NaCl, widely variable concentrations of KCl, CaCl2 (attaining 40 wt % of the solute) and, apparently most abundant in proximity to the lodes, FeCl2. Entrapment pressures are estimated to have fluctuated in the range 150 to 615 bars for much of the hydrothermal history, but fluid overpressuring to at least 2 kbar occurred, probably cyclically, during the evolution of the hydrothermal system. The salinity vs. homogenization temperature range for the phenocryst-hosted inclusions closely matches that of primary inclusions in quartz and cassiterite in the lodes and, remarkably, small clusters of the former record the entire thermal and compositional trajectory of the mineralizing fluids. Early magmatic brines are inferred to have permeated much of the stock whereas, circa 2 m.y. later, Sn- and Cu-rich, lower-temperature, lower-pH fluids were largely channeled along the evolving shear zones where they mixed with cool, nonsaline, tectonically driven ground water. In conjunction with fluid neutralization through hydrolytic alteration, this channeling resulted in catastrophic precipitation of botryoidal and coarsely crystalline cassiterite and, subsequently, chalcopyrite. The hiatus between initial retrograde boiling and ore deposition, a feature documented in several world-class, high-grade lithophile-element deposits, may record protracted storage of metal-rich brines at depth, perhaps in association with small volumes of highly fractionated melt, such as is represented by small bodies of tourmaline leucogranite exposed on the upper margin of the San Rafael stock. However, the parallel evolution in temperature and salinity exhibited by the early nonmineralizing and later fertile hydrothermal fluids may also indicate that Sn and Cu were largely introduced into the subjacent magma chamber at a late stage.


Do authoritarian leaders take preemptive actions to deter their citizens from joining cross-national waves of popular mobilizations against authoritarian rulers? Are they more likely to engage in such behavior when these uprisings appear to be more threatening—in particular, when they take place in neighboring countries and in regimes that resemble their own? We provide answers to these questions by comparing the responses of the Russian and Chinese leadership to two such waves: the color revolutions and the Arab uprisings. We conclude that, despite differences in the ostensible threats posed by these two waves, they nonetheless prompted the leaders of both of these countries to introduce similar preemptive measures in order to "diffusion-proof" their rule from the color revolutions and the Arab upheavals. These findings have some important implications for our understanding of authoritarian politics and diffusion processes. One is to reinforce the emphasis in many recent studies on the strategic foundations of authoritarian resilience. That recognized, however, we would add that the authoritarian toolkit needs to be expanded to include policies that preempt international, as well as domestic threats. The other is to provide further confirmation, in this case derived from the behavior of authoritarian rulers, of how scholars have understood the drivers of cross-national diffusion. At the same time, however, we counsel students of diffusion to pay more attention to the role of resisters, as well as to adopters. In this sense, the geographical reach of diffusion is much broader than many analysts have recognized.


INTRODUCTION The COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing yet, due to the lack of a COVID-19 specific tool, clinicians must use pre-existing illness severity scores for initial prognostication. However, the validity of such scores in COVID-19 is unknown. METHODS The North West Collaborative Organization for Respiratory Research (NW-CORR) performed a multi-centre prospective evaluation of adult patients admitted to hospital with confirmed COVID-19 during a two-week period in April 2020. Clinical variables measured as part of usual care at presentation to hospital were recorded, including the CURB-65, NEWS2, and qSOFA scores. The primary outcome of interest was 30-day mortality. RESULTS Data were collected for 830 people with COVID-19 admitted across 7 hospitals. By 30 days, a total of 300 (36.1%) had died and 142 (17.1%) had been in ICU. All scores underestimated mortality compared to their original validation in non-COVID-19 populations, and overall prognostic performance was generally poor. Among the 'low risk' categories (CURB-65<2, NEWS2<5, qSOFA<2) 30-day mortality was 16.7%, 32.9% and 21.4%, respectively. Multivariable logistic regression identified features of respiratory compromise rather than circulatory collapse as most relevant prognostic variables. CONCLUSION All existing prognostic scores evaluated here underestimated adverse outcomes and performed sub-optimally in the COVID-19 setting. New prognostic tools including a focus on features of respiratory compromise rather than circulatory collapse are needed. We provide a baseline set of variables which are relevant to COVID-19 outcomes and may be used as a basis for developing a bespoke COVID-19 prognostication tool.


This study focused to identify the likelihood factors affecting on farmers' higher gain from paddy marketing in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka, where the main paddy cultivation area of the country. The required data was drawn from the field survey carried out in three irrigation systems covering 257 farmers during July to August 2010. The empirical logit model was used to assess factors. The study found that imperfections of existing paddy marketing system in the area due to concentrated market power among few oligopolistic buyers. Furthermore, land size, land ownership, poor accessibility in formal sector credit market and farmers involvement in informal sector credit sources are critical to farmers' decisions to gain higher returns from paddy marketing. The results further showed the need of reviewing the roles and functions of government extension services and farmer organizations with regard to the paddy marketing.


This paper discusses the commonly realised social speech act of refusal strategies in English among university students in the Southern part of Thailand, in explaining how they say 'no' to request and the effects of this speech act on the hearer's face. Using Discourse Completion Test (DCT) to collect oral data in naturally-occurring situations, together with a qualitative analysis of the transcribed data according to Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz (1990) classification scheme of refusal, the study affirms that there are two major common ways of realising refusals to request in English among these students, namely: direct and, overwhelmingly, indirect refusal strategies. The findings also reveal that the last strategy of the classification scheme, adjuncts to refusals, was not found in the data. Similarly, not all the indirect refusal sub-strategies were found in the data. However, two novel sub-strategies: giving advice/explanation, and lack of empathy were found in the analysis. The findings have implications for better socio-cultural communication and interaction in a multicultural university context.


The "modern times" of the early twentieth century saw the rise of the assembly line and the belief that standardization would make the world a better place. Yet along with greater production efficiency came dehumanization, as the division of labor created many jobs requiring mindless repetition rather than conscious involvement with work. In our own modern times, a comparable revolution has been wrought by information technology. In Our Modern Times, Daniel Cohen traces the roots of this revolution back to the uprisings of 1968, when the youth of the industrialized world rejected the bourgeois values of their parents and the general situation of the workers. Students raised in the anti-establishment culture of the 1960s were able to shatter the world of standardization created by their parents. By the end of the twentieth century, information technology had created decentralized work structures that encouraged autonomy and personal initiative. But with this greater flexibility came the psychic stress and burnout of "24/7." Cohen explores the many ways that the new technology has changed our work and personal lives, our very conceptions of family and community. He argues compellingly that the present era represents a revolution that will be completed only when the importance of human capital is no longer overshadowed by the cost-saving efficiencies demanded by financial capital.


Lowering the operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) devices is one of the major challenges limiting the industrial breakthrough of this technology. In this study we explore a novel approach to electrode preparation employing amorphous cathode materials. La0.8Sr0.2CoO3−δ dense films have been deposited at different temperatures using pulsed laser deposition on silicon substrates. Depending on the deposition temperature, textured polycrystalline or amorphous films have been obtained. Isotope exchange depth profiling experiments reveal that the oxygen diffusion coefficient of the amorphous film increased more than four times with respect to the crystalline materials and was accompanied by an increase of the surface exchange coefficient. No differences in the surface chemical composition between amorphous and crystalline samples were observed. Remarkably, even if the electronic conductivities measured by the Van Der Pauw method indicate that the conductivity of the amorphous material was reduced, the overall catalytic properties of the cathode itself were not affected. This finding suggests that the rate limiting step is the oxygen mobility and that the local electronic conductivity in the amorphous cathode surface is enough to preserve its catalytic properties. Different cathode materials have also been tested to prove the more general applicability of the amorphous-cathode route.


The history of the antiapartheid movement brings up images of boycotts and public campaigns in the UK, but another story went on behind the scenes, in secret. This is the story of the foreign volunteers and their activities in South Africa, how they acted in defiance of the apartheid government and its police on the instructions of the African National Congress (ANC). From the transportation of weapons to the passage of ANC fighters into South Africa, this account describes the many risks taken by the volunteers--many of whom were young communists, Trotskyists, or independent socialists who traveled from the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United States--to join the cause.


OBJECTIVE
Our previous work has shown that α-adrenoreceptor (α-AR)-coupled signaling modulates T lymphocyte function. Here, we investigate the expression of α₁- and α₂-ARs in natural killer (NK) cells and roles of the two subtypes of α-ARs and their coupled signals in modulation of NK cell function.

METHODS
NK cells were purified by Ficoll-Isopaque one-step gradient centrifugation and in discontinuous Percoll density gradients from splenic cells of rats. The mRNA expressions of α₁-ARs and α₂-ARs in NK cells were measured by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Flow cytometry was employed to detect the cytotoxicity of NK cells.

RESULTS
NK cells expressed both α₁-AR and α₂-AR mRNAs. Phenylephrine, a selective α₁-AR agonist, increased the cytotoxicity of NK cells. This effect of phenylephrine was reduced by corynanthine, a selective α₁-AR antagonist, and was blocked by PLC inhibitor U-73122, but not by PKA inhibitor H-89. Clonidine, a selective α₂-AR agonist, also enhanced the cytotoxicity of NK cells. This action of clonidine was blocked by α₂-AR antagonist yohimbine or by PKA inhibitor H-89, but not by PLC inhibitor U-73122.

CONCLUSIONS
NK cells express α₁- and α₂-ARs. Activation of the either subtype of α-ARs augments NK cell function. This action of α₁-ARs is transduced by PLC, while α₂-AR effect is mediated by PKA signaling.


"Salud y Sociedad Uptc" is the official scientific journal of the School of Health Sciences of the "Universidad Pedagogica y Tecnologica de Colombia". This journal publishes biannually original manuscripts from the health and psychology fields. The main objective of this journal is publishing original research work and other types of scientific papers that help expand the knowledge and promote the advancement of the health sciences. Therefore this publication is targeted to health and psychology professionals, researchers of the health sciences, students, and all of those involved in the practice of health and psychology related activities. The types of publications offered by the journal are: original papers, peer reviews, reflective pieces, short articles, essays, clinical cases, and letters to the editor. Under the principle of globalization of knowledge, this journal offers open access of its contents through its website.


Learning your first language is an incredible feat and not easily duplicated. Doing this using nothing but a few pictureless books, a corpus, would likely be impossible even for humans. As an alternative we propose to use situated interactions between agents as a driving force for communication, and the framework of Deep Recurrent
Q-Networks (DRQN) for learning a common language grounded in the provided environment. We task the agents with interactive image search in the form of the game Guess Who?. The images from the game provide a non trivial environment for the agents to discuss and a natural grounding for the concepts they decide to encode in their communication. Our experiments show that it is possible to learn this task using DRQN and even more importantly that the words the agents use correspond to physical attributes present in the images that make up the agents environment.


BACKGROUND
A review of the surgical cases of Harvey Cushing, MD, at The Johns Hopkins Hospital provided insight into his early work treating breast cancer metastasis to the central nervous system (CNS). At the time, neurologic surgery was in its infancy. Metastases of breast carcinoma to the CNS were recognized; however, many surgeons of the era adhered to a general principle of not operating in these situations.

METHODS
The Johns Hopkins Hospital surgical records from 1896 to 1912 were reviewed. Four cases in which Cushing treated patients with a history of breast cancer who were diagnosed as having CNS metastasis were selected for further study.

RESULTS
Cushing performed surgery on 4 patients with suspected CNS metastasis in the early 1900s. For a spinal metastasis, Cushing performed a laminectomy and intradural exploratory surgery. His treatments in cerebral cases sought to relieve increased intracranial pressure through decompression. He resected the lesions when they could be located.

CONCLUSIONS
From the start of his career as a neurosurgeon, Cushing chose to perform surgery on patients with suspected CNS metastasis in an attempt to palliate some of their symptoms. Although his patients did not survive long after the procedures, they did experience temporary relief of symptoms that likely encouraged Cushing's continued operations in such situations and laid the foundation for future therapies for these patients.


A 35-year-old Sudanese man experienced bitter tastes on the right side of his tongue from January 2012. He was admitted to our hospital in March 2012 because of the appearance of distress, right facial palsy, nausea, and dizziness from late February 2012. A neurological examination revealed Bruns nystagmus, which increased on rightward gaze, as well as total hypoesthesia in the distribution of the maxillary branch of the right trigeminal nerve, moderate right peripheral type facial nerve palsy, and limb ataxia on the right side. Neither muscle weakness nor sensory disturbance was observed. Slight hyperreflexia was noted in the right extremities, and bilateral plantar responses were flexor. He showed wide-based ataxic gait and was unable to do tandem gait. Brain CT scans and magnetic resonance (MR) images revealed a mass lesion in the right pons to the right middle cerebellar peduncle with ring enhancement, suggestive of a "target" sign. Laboratory tests, including hematological and biochemical analyses, tumor markers, and antibodies, had normal values while the tuberculin reaction and QuantiFERON-TB Gold were strongly positive. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed a slight increase in the protein level (76 mg/dl) with a normal cell count (2 per μl), and polymerase chain reaction-based tests and cultures were negative for Mycobacterium tuberculosis three times. Right subclavicular lymph node and right adrenal gland showed accumulation of fluorodeoxyglucose on positron emission tomography-CT, as did the mass lesion in the brainstem. These findings suggested a possibility of a metastatic malignant tumor or extrapleural tuberculoma. Because of the patient's religious belief, we were unable to perform a biopsy of the lymph node, and thus administered anti-tuberculous drugs. With treatment, his neurological symptoms such as facial palsy and ataxia improved steadily except for paradoxical worsening for the initial five days, and the gadolinium-enhanced lesion shrunk markedly. Follow-up MR images demonstrated that the lesions did not expand further for 9 months. From this course of treatment, we diagnosed the patient's tumor as brainstem tuberculoma. Brain tuberculoma sometimes resembles a malignant tumor, and it is therefore challenging to diagnose brainstem tuberculosis in cases without lung lesions. It is important to make a comprehensive diagnosis based on the patient's background, imaging, and course of treatment, and to treat brainstem tuberculoma promptly.


Expressions of human creativity in the form of technological achievements have astonished and amazed—consistently interrupting the experience and expression of reality. Yet many are gripped by the novelty of technological progress and the emergence of curious techniques, while continuing to remain confounded about where, or what, the boundaries are. The following article explores this topic further, identifying recent and regular scientific and technological breakthroughs that have challenged our conception of human life and death. For this, the author draws from some of the claims of Raymond Kurzweil, whose advocacy of transhumanism and life extension technologies have garnered wide public attention. In response, the following also explores how Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theological anthropology might inform our understanding as technological and biological life are blurred and the panoply of scientific advancements constrain current conceptions of human being and becoming.


Ndedi, Sarah Brenda, Analysis of Patient Practices and Attitudes towards Compliance with Contact Lens Storage Cases in Relation to Microbial Contamination Levels. Master of Science (Clinical Research Management) November 20, 2015, 135 pages, 8 tables, 16 figures Bibliography, 15 titles, 2 surveys, Daily Journal of Internship. Purpose: Non-compliant practices amongst contact lens wearers contribute to a high incidence of ocular complications and infections. During a contact lens-related adverse event, the infectious agent is almost always recovered from the contact lens storage case. This study measured the level of actual compliance with lens storage case hygiene, characterized the attitudes of contact lens wearers in regards to lens storage case hygiene, and correlated these factors with microbial contamination of the contact lens storage case. Since compliance is based upon patients' adherence to physicians' recommendations, this study also surveyed eye care practitioners about their knowledge of contact lens case care to identify areas of education that need to be addressed within both the practitioner and lens wearer populations. Hypotheses: 1) Certain personality traits and negative attitudes toward compliance with contact lens wear and care may be indicative of non-compliant hygiene practices and, in turn, result in higher levels of contact lens storage case contamination. 2) Recommendations by eye care practitioners regarding contact lens storage case care may be inadequate and may contribute to inappropriate care practices and low compliance rates amongst lens wearers. Methods: In the first arm of this study, a contact lens storage case drive was conducted at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. During the contact lens storage case drive, participants completed anonymous, self-administered questionnaires, and submitted their used contact lens cases for analysis. Collected surveys served to characterize patient attitudes towards proper lens storage case hygiene and calculate compliance scores based on patient reported practices. The cases were then analyzed using a crystal violet assay to stain and quantify the level of biofilm (matrix of microorganisms) present within the wells. In the second arm of the study, 616 eye care practitioners were invited to complete a survey regarding their recommendations for proper lens storage case hygiene. Data summarizing the overall results of each set of surveys were compiled and statistical analyses were conducted to determine trends and correlations between variables. Results: In the patient group, 90% of individuals were deemed as having positive attitudes (sc ore of 1 and above). The average attitude score was 10 + 6.7 with a range of -7 to 26. Average compliance was 64% + 20% with a range of 4-100%. Approximately 57% of subjects displayed poor compliance ( 90%), and 1.5% had full compliance (100%). No significant relationship was found between the subjects' attitude scores and compliance grades (p=0.516). The average absorbance from the crystal violet assays, used to quantify the level of biofilm, was 1.9 + 6.5 with a range of 0.0093 to 64.1. No significant relationship was found between compliance grades and absorbance values (p=0.794). Additionally, no significant relationship was found between attitudes and absorbance (p=0.689). Certain patient attitudes and improper contact lens storage case hygiene practices reflected the reported recommendations of practitioners. Conclusions: Education about the importance of contact lens case replacement and cleaning is needed for both eye care practitioners and patients alike. Both of these educational goals could reduce the risks of infections in the contact lens wearing population.


Strawberry and potato are both important crop species in the world providing various nutritional values. The cultivated strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa, is a fruit crop with a complex genome (2n=8x=56) whereas the diploid woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, has a smaller genome (2n=2x=14, 240 Mb) and lots of other qualities that make it a good model for genetic and genomic study, such as high yield of seeds and efficient transformation. Potato (Solanum tuberosum, 2n=4x=48) is an important vegetable crop in the world and is highly heterozygous. The successful sequencing of the homozygous doubled monoploid clone of potato provides good insight into the study of important genes in this species in improving the pest resistance and improving yield. One approach to characterize gene function in a model system is having large populations of T-DNA insertional or transposon tagged mutants. The idea of using AcDs construct to create transposon tagged mutant populations has also been applied in many species. Here we transformed two species, Fragaria vesca and a monoploid potato, Solanum phureja 1-3516, which is the progenitor of the sequenced doubled monoploid clone, with the same AcDs construct, Ac-DsATag-Bar_gosGFP, to generate mutant collection, compare the marker gene performance and transposition efficiency, as well as characterizing phenotypic mutants with genes of interest. Transposants were found to reinsert to unlinked sites from the launch pad site in the strawberry genome, whereas in potato transposants tended to locate locally from the launch pad position when using the same construct. One transposon based activation tagging strawberry mutant, with its insertion in the promoter region of gene of interest in strawberry from the Ac-DsATagBar_gosGFP population was studied. In a segregating T2 population, expression level of the candidate gene, epidermis-specific secreted glycoprotein EP1 precursor, was 670 fold higher in petioles of homozygotes than in wild type plants, suggesting the function of this gene involved in maintaining mechanical strength of petioles. Since the often-used iii transposase gene was cloned from the monocot species maize, the efficiency of obtaining germinal transposants was many times lower than expected in order to saturate the genome for diploid species. In order to improve the chance of getting unique transposants, we attempted to codon optimize the transposase gene, as well as switching to microspore specific promoters that had been well characterized to control timing of expression of the transposase gene. Transposants were found in both T0 primary regenerates and anther culture derived potatoes using both the pAcDs-AtSCP and pAcDsAmDEFH125 constructs. Sequencing of the empty donor site revealed that excision occurred in different cells during anther culture. A strawberry mutant with sugar transport deficiency due to T-DNA insertion near a sucrose transporter-2 gene showing stunted phenotype with increased level of anthocyanin was also characterized. The concentrations of sucrose, glucose, and fructose were significantly greater in source leaves of the mutant than wild type plants, suggesting these compounds might be substrates of this gene in transporting to sink leaves and roots.


52 Scientific American, January 2013 Illustration by Jean-François Podevin In one of the most iconic scenes in science-fiction films, luke skywalker casually examines his new synthetic forearm and hand. The Star Wars hero is able to move the fingers by extending and contracting pistons shown through an open flap along the wrist. Then he senses the robotic surgeon's pinprick of one of the fingers. Not only can the prosthesis be moved with Skywalker's thoughts, it feels to him like his own hand.


We report on an ethnographic study of mobile stores' business practices in a slum community in Mumbai. The basic mobile phone store that sells small "talktime" (the period of billing per call) is graduating to repair, formatting, and maintenance of phone hardware and software. Central to this process of store expansion and skill building is the store entrepreneur. He forges relations with procurement channels and mediating agents, renewing existing ties and expanding business loops by interweaving social and business networks. We refer to these aggregations as "hybrid networks," and we highlight their maintenance as a critical resource governing enterprise potential. By evoking the ecology of the mobile phone business in an urban slum setting, the paper draws attention to the following concepts: 1) the unique potential of ICTs as an entrepreneurial commodity, 2) the micro- and small enterprise (MSE) as a functional model for local technology immersions, and 3) local social networks as pivotal in expanding technology adoption and aligning with the needs of the low-income consumer. In essence, we locate the small mobile phone store as the site of convergence for the commercial expansion of mobile phone technology.


Concrete brittle fracture and low tensile strength constitute an important durability problem, since they can lead to disastrous damage and failure of the reinforced concrete structures. The improvement of concrete mechanical properties by adding steel fibers to plain concrete is considered as an interesting solution to the problem. This work fits into the continuity of scientific contributions in the field of Steel Fiber Reinforcement Concrete (SFRC). It relies on an experimental study conducted to examine compressive, flexural and abrasion resistance of steel fiber reinforced concrete specimens. The used Steel Fibers (S.F) are curved steel elements with a length to diameter ratio equal to 67. Concrete is made of local materials. The steel fiber contents examined are 0.5%, 1% and 1.5%. The purpose of this research is to investigate the mechanical performances of steel fibers reinforced concrete regarding compressive strength, flexural strength, mechanical abrasion and ductility according to the specimen age. The experimental results show a significant improvement in the mechanical behavior of the SFRC specimens in comparison with plain concrete without reinforcement.


The principle of flexibility, as an environmental capability of meeting various uses compatible with people's various goals, is one of the significant approaches to housing architecture. In Western architecture, this issue has been widely raised with an organized structure after World War I, while in Iranian architecture, it is inherently evident in traditional housing. Unfortunately, due to lack of sufficient knowledge of this principle and the reasons for its use in traditional housing, flexibility has become known as a modern western innovation by people, with the phenomenon of globalization, its western appearance has entered the contemporary architecture of Iran, and even changed the lifestyle of the Iranian people. The present study is descriptive-analytic research in which the factors forming a flexible housing, flexibility typology, and constructive elements of the western and Iranian flexible residential architectures are studied comparatively. The results show that flexibility in Iranian traditional house has originality based on needs, abilities, and knowledge raised at that time and is fully in line with the standards set at modern times and claimed by western architecture. The most important difference between the two is the issue of privacy, which has been ignored in the use of Western design structures in the Iranian context, leading to the change of Iranian lifestyle. By understanding this issue, this social dimension of housing (i.e. privacy) can be considered in the flexibility issue to see the richness of this concept in Iranian architecture.


A truck-mounted attenuator (TMA) is a device that attaches to the back of a work truck to help protect work crews and the traveling public from the severe consequences of rear-end crashes between motorists and slow-moving or stopped work vehicles. Although TMAs have been used by most highway agencies and contractors for many years, there are few data on the actual in-field performance of TMAs and on reductions in crash costs attributable to their use by agencies and contractors. Such data would be useful in establishing criteria on when and where TMAs must be used. An analysis of potential rear-end crashes of motorists with work vehicles in mobile and short-duration operations found that TMAs were highly effective in reducing the severity of rear-end crashes and the costs of crashes. Each crash involving a TMA resulted in a savings of $196,855 in crash costs relative to the costs that would have been incurred had no TMA been present. On the basis of current TMA prices, agencies can recoup the cost of the TMA in terms of reduced rear-end crash costs in less than a year of daytime work shifts on facilities serving 20,000 vehicles per day or more and of nighttime work shifts on facilities serving 50,000 vehicles per day or more.


Kelley et al. used data from the Database of Interacting Proteins (http://dip.doe-mbi.ucla.edu/) and developed a computational method, which they call PathBlast (http://www.pathblast.org/bioc/pathblast/blastpathway.jsp), to analyze networks of interacting proteins. Using this approach, they aligned functionally similar pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Helicobacter pylori. This allowed gaps in the pathways to be identified and allowed proteins with unknown functions to be tentatively assigned to functional pathways; these results can direct future wet laboratory research. In addition, the analysis showed potential intersections between cellular pathways and potential new functions for components. Using their pathway query process, the authors searched within the yeast network to identify pathways involved in similar functions (paralogous pathways), which led to the identification of putative new pathways and partners within pathways, such as the ubiquitin conjugation process, the SUMO conjugation process, and the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. Thus, network analysis provides new directions for the wet laboratory and provides validation of biological relevance based on the conservation of pathways among multiple species. B. P. Kelley, R. Sharan, R. M. Karp, T. Sittler, D. E. Root, B. R. Stockwell, T. Ideker, Conserved pathways within bacteria and yeast as revealed by global protein network alignment. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100, 11394-11399 (2003). [Abstract] [Full Text]


This paper presents two well known design patterns that are appropriate for designing Interactive Simulation components for educational purposes. These are the Delegation Event Model, used for linking between components, and the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern, used for connecting the components to their visualizations and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Combining both architectures, we have constructed Discrete Event Simulation (DES) components for modelling queuing networks in the Flash environment. The resulting components not only help teachers with little programming skill to construct simulation models, but also allow learners to conduct various experiments through interactive Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) and obtain feedbacks of model behaviour through a range of engaging visualizations.


The second messenger guanosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cGMP) controls a broad range of cellular functions, many of which are regulated through the cGMP-dependent protein kinase. Cyclic GMP is synthesized by guanylyl cyclases (GCs) that catalyze their formation from guanosine triphosphate. A study by Guo et al. provides insight into the upstream regulation of the GCs. Unlike the adenyl cyclases, which are well known as targets of GPCRs [heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein)-coupled receptors], transmembrane guanylyl cyclases are thought to act as receptors themselves, although not all have identified ligands. Guo et al. explored how intracellular signals can also regulate the transmembrane guanylyl cyclase GC-E and observed that transient overexpression of the small GTPase Rac1 led to activation of GC-E. Activation of the platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR) also stimulated formation of cGMP, and this was inhibited when the authors used a dominant-negative form of Rac1 to inhibit activity of endogenous Rac1. The authors tested known targets of Rac1 to explore how Rac1 might be coupled to activation of GC-E. PAK (p21-activated protein kinase) is one such target, and it could substitute for Rac1 in activating formation of cGMP; expression of the autoinhibitory domain of PAK also inhibited the effect of constitutively active Rac1 to stimulate GC-E activity. The authors used in vitro and in vivo studies with purified proteins and protein fragments to show that PAK directly interacts with and stimulates GC-E. This activation required the kinase activity of PAK--but apparently only for autophosphorylation, because GC-E was not phosphorylated by PAK. This new pathway from receptor tyrosine kinase to cGMP was shown to be physiologically important in the control of cell migration. Depletion of GC-A in mouse embryo fibroblasts with small interfering RNA (siRNA) reduced the effect of PDGF on accumulation of cGMP and inhibited PDGF-dependent cell migration and formation of lamellipodia. Settleman discusses the work in a commentary and emphasizes some of the intriguing questions raised by the work, such as why Cdc42, another small GTPase that also activates PAK, fails to activate GC-E. D. Guo, Y.-C. Tan, D. Wang, K. S. Madhusoodanan, Y. Zheng, T. Maack, J. J. Zhang, X.-Y. Huang, A Rac-cGMP signaling pathway. Cell 128, 341-355 (2007). [Online Journal] J. Settleman, PAK-in' up cGMP for the move. Cell 128, 237-238 (2007). [Online Journal]


Presentation slides have become a common addition to the teaching material. Emphasizing strong leading words in presentation slides can allow the audience to direct the eye to certain focal points instead of reading the entire slide, retaining the attention to the speaker during the presentation. Despite a large volume of studies on automatic slide generation, few studies have addressed the automation of design assistance during the creation process. Motivated by this demand, we study the problem of Emphasis Selection (ES) in presentation slides, i.e., choosing candidates for emphasis, by introducing a new dataset containing presentation slides with a wide variety of topics, each is annotated with emphasis words in a crowdsourced setting. We evaluate a range of state-of-the-art models on this novel dataset by organizing a shared task and inviting multiple researchers to model emphasis in this new domain. We present the main findings and compare the results of these models, and by examining the challenges of the dataset, we provide different analysis components.


Since the May 2015 general election when the Tory Party gained an absolute majority in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Cameron has put his campaign into high gear to get a 'new settlement' with the EU and invested much personal diplomacy to try to advance his objective. "What does he really want?" is still heard from other EU leaders, yet his agenda is taking rough shape with calls for results under four headings: "competitiveness, sovereignty, social security and economic governance". These are only code words, however, for a mixed bag of more specific desiderata, which overall seem to be moderate. Impossible demands have been quietly dropped. Some items will still be tricky to negotiate while others can be placed on the agenda for ongoing EU 'reform' that can be widely supported. The Brussels side of the affair thus seems manageable, but the wild cards at home in the UK remain or are becoming even wilder. The standard hazards of the referendum instrument are now exacerbated by the unknown quantity of the new Labour leadership alongside the aggressively Eurosceptic majority of Tory MPs and the great migration crisis, which is translating now into a negative factor for the EU in UK opinion polls. This ostensibly very democratic process is looking more and more like a deadly serious game of Russian roulette.


The 1999 National Competition Policy Review of Ag & Vet Chemical legislation recommended, inter alia, that registrants no longer be required to prove 'APPROPRIATE' levels of efficacy of their products but only that the claims on product labels be 'TRUE'. 'Appropriate' efficacy standards amount to market regulation, limiting economic competition from formulations with lower efficacies. Cheaper formulations with lower efficacies are excluded from the marketplace by such standards. Unanswered is the question of what 'TRUTH' on a label means in practical terms. Flexibility in dose rates and guidance with usage information is not always well-stated on herbicide labels. There is considerable evidence that efficacy of herbicide varies with dose and with environmental or growth conditions. Under favourable conditions at a given site, a low rate of herbicide will kill most of the target weeds. Under less favourable conditions at the same site, a high rate may be required. Labels could take variations in efficacy into account by indicating observed results for a range of environmental conditions at different dose rates. This is illustrated with examples of herbicide performance and analogies from another industry in which explicit performance information is absolutely required. This paper raises the question of reforms towards providing 'the whole truth' in herbicide labelling, to provide users with guidance on when they might adjust doses to specific environmental and growth conditions.


This discussion paper points out some current contradictions for authors publishing scholarly articles. It is based on comments from a number of Oxford academics including professorial research staff, researchers, and doctoral students. It includes their opinions around author rights, practices, concerns and preferences with regard to research dissemination. The paper concludes with a wish list of potential solutions. It is intended as a reality check. Whilst we are in a world where researchers want to disseminate work freely, where gold OA is not ubiquitous and not currently financially sustainable, researchers and journal editors can help by changing the rules so that authors who undertake the research and who create the resulting papers can do with their own work what they want and need. The scholarly dissemination environment continues to change, but a complex stranglehold on dissemination by publishers is not going to help. We have a situation where publishers are promoting two mutually contradictory points at the same time, that is, claiming widest possible dissemination, coupled with limited and controlled sharing. That conundrum needs to be resolved: instead of publishers trying to change the culture and practice that academics already choose to share their work (such as the variety of platforms), they could change the rules and get rid of embargoes and complex sharing instructions. Many authors are ignoring them anyway.


During the first half of the twentieth century, psychotherapy research was synonymous to single case research. Research and practice were highly integrated in this era, but to be considered full-fledged scientific research, the case descriptions lacked methodological rigor. From 1970 onwards, the experimental Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) design gained momentum in the field of psychotherapy research and the single case paradigm was marginalized. In this article, it is argued that the classical RCT design is ethically troublesome, created a dramatic gap between research and practice, fails to yield the promised 'objective' evaluation of the efficacy of psychotherapy, and systematically disadvantages the types of therapy that prove to be most effective in everyday clinical practice. For several reasons, returning to the classical single case paradigm, however, is not an option. As an alternative, a research program based on naturalistic effectiveness studies and empirical single case studies is put forward. It is argued that, compared to RCT research, this type of research (1) is methodologically superior, (2) is more informative towards clinicians, (3) is a more reliable basis for anticipating cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy.