BACKGROUND: Memory declines with the progression of age through the neurodegeneration process. Aerobic exercise and environmental enrichment can delay neurodegeneration by improving neuroplasticity via expression of insulin like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) and other proteins. Combination treatment of aerobic exercise and continuous environmental enrichment and their effect on the expression of IGF-1 and FGF-2 which were expected to improve memory function has not been studied previously. Thus, this study aimed to observe it. METHODS: This is an experimental research using 24 male Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus, 300-400 g, age 7-8 months) divided randomly into 4 groups: control (C), aerobic exercise (A), continuous (EE), and combination of aerobic exercise and continuous environmental enrichment (A-EE). At the end of an 8-week treatment, rats were sacrificed, and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) examination was performed to assess hippocampal IGF-1 and FGF-2 levels. RESULTS: In the 8th week, A-EE group showed the best improvement in rats' spatial memory (47.84±10.6 %) followed by EE group (45.03±4.1 %), A group (38.61±3.8 %), and C group (22.76±7.12 %). However, A-EE group's hippocampal IGF-1 (16.21±7.56 ng/mg protein) and FGF-2 (1.29±0.57 ng/mg protein) expression were not higher than other groups. CONCLUSION: Improvement in memory function in the combination group is a result of induction of various growth factors' expression in the hippocampus, including IGF-1 and FGF-2, but the primary pathway of memory function improvement may be from other growth factors. KEYWORDS: spatial memory, aerobic exercise, environmental enrichment, hippocampus, IGF-1, FGF-2


Growing evidence suggests that the efficacy of immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) is associated with the immune microenvironment within the tumor. We aimed to explore radiologic phenotyping using a radiomics approach to assess the immune microenvironment in NSCLC. Two independent NSCLC cohorts (training and test sets) were included. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis was used to determine the tumor microenvironment, where type 1 helper T (Th1) cells, type 2 helper T (Th2) cells, and cytotoxic T cells were the targets for prediction with computed tomographic (CT) radiomic features. Multiple algorithms were in the modeling followed by final model selection. The training dataset comprised 89 NSCLCs and the test set included 60 cases of lung squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. A total of 239 CT radiomic features were used. A linear discriminant analysis model was selected for the final model of Th2 cell group prediction. The area under the curve value of the final model on the test set was 0.684. Predictors of the linear discriminant analysis model were skewness (total and outer pixels), kurtosis, variance (subsampled from delta [subtraction inner pixels from outer pixels]), and informational measure of correlation. The performances of radiomics on test set of Th1 and cytotoxic T cell were not accurate enough to be predictable. A radiomics approach can be used to interrogate an entire tumor in a noninvasive manner and provide added diagnostic value to identify the immune microenvironment of NSCLC, in particular, Th2 cell signatures.


We have applied the population surface method to estimate the mortality rates of eggs, nauplii, and copepodids of Calanus spp. in two Norwegian fjords with contrasting predator guilds. Efforts were concentrated in Lurefjorden on the western coast (sampled weekly from late February to mid‐June), an unusual fjord dominated by invertebrate (tactile) planktivores. In addition, monthly sampling in Sørfjorden was carried out for comparisons. The latter fjord resembles most Western Norwegian fjords in that it contains populations of vertebrate (visual) planktivores but lower abundance of the invertebrate planktivores. In Lurefjorden, mortality of Calanus spp. was high early in life (~0.35 d−1), but significantly lower (~0.00 d−1) in the early copepodid stages. In Sørfjorden, mortality was rather uniform throughout ontogeny (~0.08 d−1). The noted differences are consistent with different patterns of selective predation between the two fjords. Visual predation in SÄrfjorden gave rise to persistent high mortality over the life cycle. Tactile predation in Lurefjorden gave rise to a concave mortality curve for the later developmental stages. Our results indicate that mortality patterns suffered by natural zooplankton populations may differ greatly over short geographical distances, and we suggest that the predator community and mortality patterns must be considered when addressing the spatial and temporal dynamics of zooplankton populations.


Juvenile ossifying fibroma (JOF) is a rare, benign, locally aggressive entity of the extragnathic craniofacial bones with a high tendency towards recurrence. Two distinctive microscopic patterns of juvenile ossifying fibroma have been described: a trabecular juvenile ossifying fibroma (TrJOF) and a psammomatoid juvenile ossifying fibroma (PJOF). Psammomatoid variant is predominantly a craniofacial lesion and occurs rarely in the jaws. The pathognomonic histopathologic feature is the presence of spherical ossicles, which are similar to psammoma bodies. Aneurysmal bone cyst exists as a secondary lesion arising from another osseous condition such as fibrous dysplasia, ossifying fibroma and giant cell granuloma. Very few cases of juvenile psammomatoid ossifying fibroma in association with the secondary aneurysmal bone cyst formation have been reported in the literature. Treatment consists of complete surgical removal; the incomplete excision has been associated with a high local recurrence rate. The authors report a case of recurrence of psammomatoid juvenile ossifying fibroma with aneurysmal bone cyst in an 8-year-old boy emphasizing the point that concomitant occurrence of these locally aggressive lesions requires adequate surgical removal and long-term follow-up.


ISBN: 978-1-905767-71-7
This is a technical report of a research project funded by safefood to investigate the potential food safety, economic and environmental impacts of climate change on the dairy production chain on the island of Ireland. To achieve this, an extensive review of available research literature was undertaken. The project also included a series of semi-structured interviews – pre-determined questions that led to further discussion – with a range of experts associated with the dairy sector. The research identified a number of food safety risks involving pathogens, chemical contaminants and natural toxins. Of particular note is the potential for an increase in the range and occurrence of mycotoxins, particularly given the future climate on the island of Ireland is projected to be warmer and wetter. This will lead to an increased risk of crop, and therefore feed, contamination, and possibly an increased reliance on imported feed that may also be contaminated. Similarly, the changing climatic conditions will influence the spectrum and behaviour of animal diseases with a potential knock-on effect on the use of veterinary medicines and other agents that could enter the food chain. The research found that the level of awareness regarding climate change among the various stakeholders in the dairy supply chain is high and the general consensus is that collective action is required to address this issue. Climate change presents both threats to and opportunities for the Irish dairy sector. The major threats identified by stakeholders centered around extreme weather events and the knock-on effects on feed, diseases, pests and consumer concerns. The negative impact of climate change on dairy production elsewhere in the world was seen as presenting an opportunities for the dairy industry on the island of Ireland given carbon-efficient system of milk production already in place here. Science and technology will play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change but this will necessitate buy-in at all stages along the dairy production chain. This is necessary to not only ameliorate the impacts on climate change on dairy production, but to ensure that dairy production is as sustainable as it possibly can be.


The proper treatment of strcutured representations Katherine Livins University of Hawaii Leonidas Doumas University of Hawaii Abstract: Accounts of human mental representation typically posit either the sole existence of structured (i.e., totally symbolic) representations, or the sole existence of holistic (i.e., totally sub-symbolic, or connectionist) repre- sentations. We argue that systems that implement structured representations are not necessarily as different form those that represent holistic representations as they appear at first blush. In fact, when a connectionist system is augmented with a single source of information, it becomes functionally symbolic. The resulting system addresses many of the problems associated with traditional symbolic approaches to cognition


Tin industry was once a major contributor to the Malaysian economy as
Malaysia was the world's largest tin-producing country, from the 1950s to 1980s. As
the mining practice used was mainly surface mining, large mine pools were left
behind. The pools are contaminated with the heavy metals, especially arsenic from
naturally occurring minerals in excess from the mining. When the cities expand and
the need for more building ground arises, ex-tin mining pools will be filled with
construction site waste or other available discards and built upon. Arsenic
contamination of drinking water is a world-wide problem. Long term exposure to
arsenic via drinking water leads to wide range of health problems including: skin
cancer, gangrene of the limbs, vascular diseases, conjunctivitis, central nervous
system damage and hyperkeratosis. Coagulation flocculation and sedimentation is
widely used for water treatment. Alum, as the common coagulant used in this process
can lead to rise in the pH which requires further treatment for pH adjustment prior to
discharge, besides its low ability for As (III) removal. Therefore, alternative coagulants have been investigated. Moringa oleifera is considered as one of the
environmentally friendly coagulant used in turbidity removal. In this study,
coagulation and flocculation process using M. Oleifera seeds and alum followed by
sedimentation was used to compare their abilities for As (III) removal. In this
experimental setup, the concentration of coagulant, initial As (Ill) levels and pH
were varied to study their effect on As (Ill) removal. The mixing speeds (rapid and
slow) were fixed at 100 and 40 rpm for 2 and 20 minutes, respectively, and the
sedimentation time used was 30 minutes. While As (Ill) removal using alum, as
coagulant was less than 10%, M. Oleifera achieved very high As (Ill) removal. At
initial concentration of 0.5 ppm arsenic, 1000 and 2000 mg/l of M. Oleifera were
able to remove 91.9 and 95.8 % of arsenic respectively. The As (III) residual level
achieved in this study complied with the Malaysian Standard Drinking Water, which
permits level for 0.05 ppm of arsenic. At higher initial As (Ill) concentrations of 2.0
and 3.0 ppm, 4000 and 5000 mg/l of M. Oleifera were able to remove 97 and 96.8 %
of arsenic, respectively. The residual level of As (Ill) complied with the Malaysian
Standard Discharge Water which permits level for 0.1 ppm of arsenic. When the
concentration of initial arsenic was increased to 5.0 and 10.0 ppm, 1000 and 1500
mg/l of M. Oleifera removed 70.4 and 65.6 % of arsenic, respectively. Although, the
residual level of As (Ill) was higher than the permitted discharge level, perhaps due
to the high concentrations of As (Ill), the removal achieved is noticeably higher than
that achieved by alum. The results showed that M. Oleifera is a promising natural
polymer for removing heavy metals from the ground water.


We investigate the relation between the quality of bank regulatory reporting prior to and bank stability during the financial crisis that erupted in 2008. Using a large sample of private and public commercial banks in the United States and the incidence of accounting restatements as a proxy for the overall quality of the reporting system, we find that reporting quality is positively associated with stability. We show that lower reporting quality before the crisis is associated with higher non-performing loans and lower profitability at the onset of the crisis. We document that banks with lower reporting quality are more likely to experience regulatory intervention through enforcement actions and bank failures during the crisis. We also find some evidence that higher reporting quality is associated with more effective regulatory enforcement actions. We corroborate our findings using an alternative proxy that focuses on the quality of the loan loss provision. A key implication of our findings is that good regulatory reporting is important for the success of the banking system.


Philosophers of mind and epistemologists are increasingly making room in their theories for epistemic emotions (E-emotions) and, drawing on metacognition research in psychology, epistemic – or noetic or metacognitive – feelings (E-feelings). Since philoso- phers have only recently begun to draw on empirical research on E-feelings, in particular, we begin by providing a general characterization of E-feelings (section 1) and reviewing some highlights of relevant research (section 2). We then turn to philosophical work on E-feelings and E-emotions, situating the contributions to the focus section (two articles devoted to E-feelings and two devoted to E-emotions) with respect to both the existing literature and each other (section 3). We conclude by briefly describing some promising avenues for further philosophical research on E-feelings and E-emotions (section 4).


1. Simple methods are described for applying known bending and twisting moments to pigeon bones. The ultimate bending and torsional strengths of the humerus and radio-ulna are determined. 2. Lift distributions are calculated from a strip diagram on the assumption that local lift coefficient is constant across the span. The position of the centre of lift is calculated for ( a ) gliding, in which the relative air speed is entirely due to the forward motion of the bird; and ( b ) hovering, in which it is entirely due to rotation of the wing about the shoulder joint. 3. Estimates of the ultimate load factor of the humerus in bending and twisting yielded 8.8 and 9.0 respectively in gliding, and 5.7 and 5.6 in hovering. Corresponding figures for the radio-ulna were 6.9 and 9.1 in gliding, and 4.0 and 5.1 in hovering. 4. The pectoralis insertion is strong enough to apply 4.2 g in gliding and 2.9 g in hovering, so the muscles would be forcibly extended before any danger could arise of the bones being broken by excessive lift. 5. A lift coefficient of at least 3.4 is achieved during the downstroke of hovering.


Since 1970, the Fifth District has seen changes in state laws governing bank branching and interstate banking and in federal laws governing bank holding company activities. Now that branching within states has been liberalized in all Fifth District jurisdictions, the major field for future evolution of the law is in interstate banking. In particular, nationwide interstate banking, interstate branching, and de novo entry are the last areas in which the law blocks competition among banks.


The purpose of the present study was to add to the research geared toward meeting the needs of ethnic minority families. The rapidly increasing population of Hispanics has been met with a gap in research between the needs of the Hispanic community and the ability of mental health providers to provide culturally competent services. The lack of information on Hispanic families may contribute to less cultural competence and further discrimination. In many cases, there is not sufficient training of mental health professionals to prepare them for working with Hispanic families. Therefore, it is important to add to current knowledge of ethnic and otherwise diverse populations and promote cultural competence among marriage and family therapists. Specifically, the goal of the study was to identify parental risk or protective factors for substance use among Hispanic adolescents. The secondary analysis used data from portions of the larger Youth and Family Project data set. The research analyzed parental influence on Hispanic adolescent substance use. Structural Equation Modeling was the principle statistical procedure used for analyzing the data. The parenting protective factors focused on in the present study included Parent Limit Setting, Father's and Mother's Monitoring, Parent-Adolescent Relationship, Father's and Mother's Acceptance/Support, and Parental Involvement in Peer Relationships. The parenting risk factors focused on in the present study included Parent-Adolescent Conflict, Father's and Mother's Inconsistence Control, Father's and Mother's Harsh Discipline, and Father's and Mother's Laissez-Faire.

The present study used a subsample comprised of Hispanic participants (N=840) drawn from the larger Youth and family Project sample of 2214 adolescents in 9-12th grades from west Texas area school districts. Respondents in the Hispanic subsample included 359 males and 480 females with one missing value. The sample was made up of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders with a mean age of 16.1 years (SD = 1.1). The Final Model contained 13 parenting-related latent constructs and one standalone indicator representing adolescent substance use. The standalone indicator included alcohol use, marijuana use, hard drug use, and tobacco use. Goodness of fit tests suggested the final model to be a good fit.

The results of this study suggested that the positive parenting factors of Parent Limit Setting and Mother's Monitoring, as perceived by Hispanic adolescents, were significant protective factors against Hispanic adolescent substance use. Additionally, the negative parenting factors of Parental Laissez-Faire and Parent-Adolescent Conflict, as perceived by the Hispanic adolescents, were significant risk factors for Hispanic adolescent substance use. Furthermore, the reduction of these significant negative parenting factors may be facilitated by increasing the significant positive parenting factors. Moreover, some unexpected findings revealed that positive parenting factors seemed to have more of an impact on Hispanic adolescent…


Sex workers and sweepers are socially isolated in Bangladesh. Sex workers are not economically deprived, but social elites or political forces as well as the religious leaders most of the time take stance against the sex workers. Though sex workers are comparatively affluent, they can't live in the society with dignity and pride due to social stigma and isolation. They are also deprived of basic human rights including water, sanitation and hygiene services. On the other hand, sweepers are extremely poor and socially indispensible. They clean the shit of thousands, but their WaSH facilities are unhygienic and many times unusable.
WaterAid in its Inclusion programme included both these communities and provided special support to ensure their WaSH rights in the respective communities. In this briefing paper, we will try to explore the different level of software and hardware interventions we have taken in our programme in different communities namely the sex workers and the sweepers of Tangail district.


The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the closest and most studied example of an irregular galaxy. Among its principal defining morphological features, its off-centred bar and single spiral arm stand out, defining a whole family of galaxies known as the Magellanic spirals (Sm). These structures are thought to be triggered by tidal interactions and possibly maintained via gas accretion. However, it is still unknown whether they are long-lived stable structures. In this work, by combining photometry that reaches down to the oldest main sequence turn-off in the colour-magnitude diagrams (CMD, up to a distance of ∼4.4 kpc from the LMC centre) from the SMASH survey and CMD fitting techniques, we find compelling evidence supporting the long-term stability of the LMC spiral arm, dating the origin of this structure to more than 2 Gyr ago. The evidence suggests that the close encounter between the LMC and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) that produced the gaseous Magellanic Stream and its Leading Arm also triggered the formation of the LMC's spiral arm. Given the mass difference between the Clouds and the notable consequences of this interaction, we can speculate that this should have been one of their closest encounters. These results set important constraints on the timing of LMC-SMC collisions, as well as on the physics behind star formation induced by tidal encounters.


Abstract The physical mechanism by which large-scale vortical structures augment convective heat transfer is a fundamental problem of turbulent flows. To investigate this phenomenon, two separate experiments were performed using simultaneous heat transfer and flow field measurements to study the vortex–wall interaction. Individual vortices were identified and studied both as part of a turbulent stagnation flow and as isolated vortex rings impacting on a surface. By examining the temporal evolution of both the flow field and the resulting heat transfer, it was observed that the surface thermal transport was governed by the transient interaction of the vortical structure with the wall. The magnitude of the heat transfer augmentation was dependent on the instantaneous strength, size and position of the vortex relative to the boundary layer. Based on these observations, an analytical model was developed from first principles that predicts the time-resolved surface convection using the transient properties of the vortical structure during its interaction with the wall. The analytical model was then applied, first to the simplified vortex ring model and then to the more complex stagnation region experiments. In both cases, the model was able to accurately predict the time-resolved convection resulting from the vortex interactions with the wall. These results reveal the central role of large-scale turbulent structures in the augmentation of thermal transport and establish a simple model for quantitative predictions of transient heat transfer.


In her 2010 book, The Just City, Susan Fainstein evaluates justice in her case-study cities (Amsterdam, New York and London) though a three dimensional analysis of justice (Equity, Diversity and Democracy). Her approach, popular among Western scholars, cannot be replicated as such in disadvantaged cities such as Bujumbura because of the important processes happening outside the formal institutional and policy frameworks. The main claim of this article is that justice cannot be evaluated in such contexts without taking into consideration the informal. Through a multi-scalar analysis of informality in household water provision in Bujumbura, the article assesses the importance of informality on the different dimensions of Fainstein's Just City concept. Informality has to be included in the considerations if the concept of the 'Just City' is used as the analytical lens through which to make policy recommendations. This analytical lens then enables us to evaluate justice in and rethink the governance of urban systems with high degrees of informality, such as that of household water provision in Bujumbura.


Postcollisional extension superimposed on arc-continent collision complexes is a common feature in the orogenic belts of eastern Indonesia. In the southern Banda arc, the arc-continent collision event is essentially a Pliocene and younger feature, but already an element of extension is being superimposed on the compressional structures of the collision complex. It is thus likely that the extension commences within a very short period (<5 m.y.) after the initiation of collision-related compressional deformation. A similar history of fold-belt development immediately followed by extension can be inferred for the Lengguru fold belt and the adjacent Wandamen-Wondiwoi terranes of Irian Jaya and for the Gulf of Bone in Sulawesi. It is suggested that the extension results from decoupling of the subducting oceanic lithosphere from the unsubductable continental lithosphere and that the superimposition of extension is a virtually unavoidable consequence of the arc-continent collision.


Two aluminosilicate oxyfluoride glass systems, a lead-cadmium-aluminosilicate oxyfluoride and a lithium-lanthanum-aluminosilicate oxyfluoride, doped with different TbF 3 concentrations, have been fabricated and investigated. By appropriate heat treatment of the as-prepared glasses above, transparent glass-ceramics (TGC) were obtained. The glass-ceramics contain Tb:Pb(Cd)F 2 or Tb:LaF 3 nano-crystals in the glass-matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry, Raman scattering, and luminescence under both UV and β-particle excitation have been investigated on as-prepared glasses and glass-ceramics. It has been found that the terbium-doped lithium-lanthanum-aluminosilicate oxyfluoride glass exhibits good UV excited luminescence and β-induced luminescence. The luminescence yield increases for glass-ceramic compared to that of the as-prepared glass. The including of LaF 3 in the glass-matrix is beneficial for a higher Tb-doping concentration and a high light yield. The light yield of lithium-lanthanum-aluminosilicate oxyfluoride glass and glass-ceramic is comparable to that of Schott IQI-301 product. However, the terbium-doped lead-cadmium-aluminosilicate oxyfluoride glass and glass-ceramic have a detrimental luminescence performance. The lead cations in the glass-matrix may create non-bridging oxygen defects, which are a strong source of charge traps, and correlated to a strong Raman "Boson" peak.


For historical linguists, exaptation is an attractive notion, offering an overt link with biological evolution. Nonetheless, one can ask whether it represents something substantive about linguistic change or is merely an appealing metaphor. I critically assess exaptation, using case studies suggesting that speakers in crafting new "grammar" simply make use of material on hand. Whether it is "junk" (Lass 1990) or not is immaterial to the speaker; what matters is a model's availability, often a very "localised" one. Through these examples, I argue that "exaptation" reduces to regular and well-understood processes of diachronic morphology, particularly analogy, not limited to any component of grammar. The material forming the model for innovation can be highly restricted and can itself be an irregular bit of the grammar. Similarly, any parallels with "grammaticalization" derive from these developments all being ways that speakers creatively make connections among elements in their language and act on them.


The emergency care of morbidly obese acutely ill or injured patients presents special problems both outside and inside the hospital emergency department.
Adequate preparation is required in order to provide adequate care.
Position the morbidly obese patient in the semi-Fowler's or reverse Trendelenburg position at 45o to protect the airway.
Always administer high-flow, high-concentration oxygen to all morbidly obese patients, as they are chronically hypoxic.
Use the 2-person, 4-handed technique during manual bag / valve / mask ventilation.
Use adequately sized cuffs when attempting blood pressure measurements.
Plan intravenous access carefully and use appropriate size needles and cannulas to ensure success and prevent repeated attempts.
Radiological and surgical specialist advice may be necessary for diagnostic procedures that cannot accommodate the patient owing to physical limitations.
Use ideal body weight or adjusted body weight measurements when calculating most emergency dosages and titrate where necessary.
Do not be afraid to ask for advice when necessary.


One of the topics in current psycholinguistic research is the study of the factors affecting syntactic choice in sentence production. Previous research suggests tha t syntactic choice results from an interplay between linguistic and non-linguistic factors, and a speaker's attention to the elements of a described event represents one such factor. It is a well-established fact tha t our attention simultaneously receives input from various attentional modalities (e.g. auditory, motor, olfactory, etc.). Afterwards, attention filters the input by a number of factors (e.g. saliency) and allocates resources to the most prominent and im portant input at a given moment. This poses the question of w hether other attentional modalities affect syntactic choice in a similar manner to visual modality In this study we aimed to understand w hether auditory and visual a ttention can affect syntactic choice. English native speakers described drawings of simple transitive events while their attention was directed to the location of the agent or the patient of a depicted event by means of either an auditory (monaural beep) or a visual (red circle) explicit lateral cue. We have measured the am ount of passive structures produced. Our results were not significant, however there was a visible trend in visual cueing condition. In this paper we discuss possible reasons for such outcomes.


The expansion of U.S. counterterrorist operations throughout the world coincides with a growing sense among some U.S. policymakers that so-called "failed states" pose grave threats to international security. The governments of failed states have weakened to the point that they can no longer provide public goods, such as territorial integrity, economic infrastructure, and physical security. U.S. defense strategists suspect that the lawlessness of failed states may do more to undermine security in the United States than direct confrontation by hostile governments. Denying terrorists the sanctuary they seek in failed states may become a central feature in the war on terror, and it is likely that the United States will use preemptive force against suspected terrorists inside a state that is incapable of policing itself. This Note examines the legality of using preemptive military force against suspected terrorists located in failed states.


Abstract Allanite is present in most samples of the tonalitic Bell Island Pluton, with an average mode near 0.05 wt.%. Allanite occurs as cores in igneous epidote-clinozoisite and exhibits characteristic and consistent zoning patterns. REE-rich cores (All40-70) grade out towards epidote-clinozoisite with REE below electron microprobe detection limits. La, Ce and Pr contents are highest in the REE-rich cores of zoned crystals. Nd and Sm contents both initially increase as total REE decreases and are highestin intermediate zones. Y contents are generally low throughout, but tend to be highest in analyses with All5-20. The zoning behaviour exhibited by the allanite, specifically the rimward increases in Nd, Sm, and Y, cannot be accounted for by simple fractionation and are best explained by increases in allanite/ melt partition coefficients (Kd values) for these elements during crystallization. We propose that the variation in Kd values reflects modification of the allanite structure with changing REE content. These modifications are manifested by changes in colour, extinction, and pleochroism within the zoned crystals and include changes in unit-cell volume and dimensions. The changes in Kd values are large enough to result in crossing REE patterns within single allanite crystals. Fractional crystallization of zoned allanite can have noticeable effects on LREE contents and La/Sm (and almost certainly La/Lu) in magmas. In the Bell Island pluton, 80% of La, but <3% of Y is contained in allanite. Although some of the variation in the LREE chemistry of the pluton is attributable to statistical sampling error, much of it appears to reflect petrogenetic processes that controlled LREE abundance and, ultimately, allanite mode. One sample of Bell Island tonalite is depleted in LREE and has low La/Lu and La/Sm. These chemical features can be modelled by fractionation of zoned allanite.


Foreigner Adrian Gill (a Scot) goes in search of the essence of England and the English The English are naturally, congenitally, collectively and singularly, livid much of the time. In between the incoherent bellowing of the terraces and the pursed, rigid eye-rolling of the commuter carriage, they reach the end of their tethers and the thin end of their wedges. They're incensed, incandescent, splenetic, prickly, touchy and fractious. They sit apart on their half of a damply disappointing little island, nursing and picking at their irritations. Perhaps aware that they're living on top of a keg of fulminating fury, the English have, throughout their history, come up with hundreds of ingenious and bizarre ways to diffuse anger or transform it into something benign. Good manners and queues, roundabouts and garden sheds, and almost every game ever invented from tennis to bridge. They've built things, discovered stuff, made puddings, written hymns and novels, and for people who don't like to talk much, they have come up with the most minutely nuanced and replete language ever spoken - just so there'll be no misunderstandings. In this hugely witty, personal and readable book, A.A. Gill looks anger and the English straight in the eye.


Inversion of a finite-convolution operator is known to be an ill-posed problem. However, although the complete solution cannot be recovered to within any specified accuracy, certain components of the solution can be accurately determined. We present an estimate of the number of such components, termed here the essential dimension of the finite-convolution operator, that is dependent on the noise levels in the data, the desired accuracy in the solution, and the singular values of the finite convolution. We then show that the required singular values may be easily and accurately approximated so that the essential dimension is easily estimated and indicate its superiority over previously proposed measures of ill conditioning for this problem.


The growth in the popularity of interactive network games has increased the importance of a better understanding of the effects of packet loss and latency on user performance. While previous work on network games has studied user tolerance for high latencies and has studied the effects of latency on user performance in real-time strategy games, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no systematic study of the effects of loss and latency on user performance. In this paper we study user performance for Unreal Tournament 2003 (UT2003), a popular first person shooter game, under varying amounts of packet loss and latency. First, we deduced typical real world values of packet loss and latency experienced on the Internet by monitoring numerous operational UT2003 game servers. We then used these deduced values of loss and latency in a controlled networked environment that emulated various conditions of loss and latency, allowing us to monitor UT2003 at the network, application and user levels. We designed maps that isolated the fundamental first person shooter interaction components of movement and shooting, and conducted numerous user studies under controlled network conditions. We find that typical ranges of packet loss have no impact on user performance or on the quality of game play. The levels of latency typical for most UT2003 Internet servers, while sometimes unpleasant, do not significantly affect the outcome of the game. Since most first person shooter games typically consist of generic player actions similar to those that we tested, we believe that these results have broader implications.


This book argues that the neglect of aesthetics in most contemporary theories of biopolitics has resulted in an overly restricted conception of life. The book insists we need a more flexible notion of life: one attuned to the interplay and conflict between its many dimensions and forms. The book develops such a notion through the meticulous study of works by Kant, Goethe, Kleist, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Benn, Musil, and others. It shows that the modern conception of "life" as a generative, organizing force internal to living beings emerged in the last decades of the eighteenth century in biological thought. At the core of this vitalist strand of thought, the book maintains, lies a persistent emphasis on the dynamics of formation and deformation, and thus on an intrinsically aesthetic dimension of life. The book brings this older discourse into critical conversation with contemporary discussions of biopolitics and vitalism, while also developing a rich conception of life that highlights, rather than suppresses, its protean character. It demonstrates that life unfolds in the open-ended interweaving of the myriad forms and modalities of biological, ethical, political, psychical, aesthetic, and biographical systems.


Cotton burr with stems (CBS), a byproduct from cotton ginning operations was evaluated for its suitability in firelogs. Firelog burn quality was examined by varying the CBS to paraffin wax ratio, and firelog processing conditions. The firelogs were burned in a wood stove to quantify the burn quality, burn time, product durability, and gaseous emissions. Firelog composition had no effect on the burn temperatures. Carbon monoxide (CO), ammonium (NH4), hydrogen (H2), and nitrous oxide (NO) gases were not detected in the gaseous emissions. Air emission samples from combustion showed the presence of n-alkanes, n-alkenes, oxygenated volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), halogenated alkane, cyclic terpenes, benzene derivatives and naphthalene. Overall this study showed the potential of CBS as an alternative material for manufacturing firelogs.


It is advantageous to develop controlled release dosage forms utilising site-specific delivery or gastric retention for those drugs with frequent or high dosing regimes. Cimetidine is a potent and selective H2 -reception antagonist used in the treatment of various gastrointestinal disorders and localisation in the upper gastrointestinal tract could significantly improve the drug absorption. Three strategies were undertaken to prepare controlled release systems for the delivery of cimetidine to the GI tract. Firstly, increasing the contact time of the dosage form with the mucus layer which coats the gastrointestinal tract, may lead to increased gastric residence times. Mucoadhesive microspheres, by forming a gel-like structure in contact with the mucus, should prolong the contact between the delivery system and the mucus layer, and should have the potential for releasing the drug in sustained and controlled manner. Gelatin microspheres were prepared, optimised and characterised for their physicochemical properties. Crosslinking concentration, particle size and cimetidine loading influenced drug release profiles. Particle size was influenced by surfactant concentration and stirring speed. Mucoadheisve polymers such as alginates, chitosans, carbopols and polycarbophil were incorporated into the microspheres using different strategies. The mucoadhesion of the microspheres was determined using in vitro surface adsorption and ex vivo rat intestine models. The surface-modification strategy resulted in highest levels of microsphere adhesion, with chitosan, carbopols and polycarbophil as the most successful candidates for improvement of adhesion, with over 70% of the microspheres retained ex vivo. Specific targeting agent UEA I lectin was conjugated to the surface of gelatin microspheres, which enhanced the adhesion of the microspheres. Alginate raft systems containing antacids have been used extensively in the treatment of gastro-oesophageal disease and protection of the oesophageal mucosa from acid reflux by forming a viscous raft layer on the surface of the stomach content, and could be an effective delivery system for controlled release of cimetidine.


The objective of this study is to assess the filtering capability of porous pavement models and the quality of rainwater and stormwater filtered by such models. Three slabs of porous asphalt mixtures and two systems composed of porous layers that resulted in porous pavement structures were produced. Data were collected in two phases: using rainwater directly from the sky and then using stormwater collected from a street. The models with different layers were assembled in acrylic boxes and rainwater was stored in the boxes in each rainfall event. Parameters such as pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, phosphorus, nitrite, aluminium, chromium, copper, zinc and iron were measured. The infiltration capacity of the models varied from 83.4% to 83.7%. For both rainwater and stormwater quality analyses, there was an increase in the concentration of the following parameters: phosphorus, iron, aluminium, zinc, nitrite, chromium, cooper and pH; there was no significant variation in the concentration of dissolved oxygen; and there was a decrease in ammonia in one of the models. However, the concentrations of only phosphorus and aluminium exceeded the limits established by the Brazilian National Environmental Council and National Water Agency for the use of non-potable water. The models were capable of filtering rainwater and stormwater, and reducing the concentration of ammonia. It can be concluded that it is possible to collect stormwater from asphalt porous surfaces and porous pavements. Porous pavements are able to filter out certain pollutants from stormwater and rainwater, and were shown to be an alternative to harvest rainwater for non-potable uses and to recharge the water table.


The method of sparse spectrum estimation developed by Chen and Donoho (1998) for real-valued one-dimensional signals has been extended to complex-valued signals, and is used here in two widely different applications: to denoise and superresolve ISAR images, and to transform extended X-ray absorption fine-structure (EXAFS) data of the elements to aid in the determination of their detailed crystal structure. This extension of the Chen-Donoho algorithm, which we call the l/sup 1/-FFT, incorporates the a priori information that the spectrum is sparse by minimizing the l/sup 1/ norm of the coefficients of the expansion functions. The l/sup 1/-FFT is applied to stepped-frequency ISAR imaging where it increases resolution by factors of 4 and 64 over that of the windowed Fourier transform, for the real and simulated data presented here. In the second application, to determine the effects of aging on the crystal structure of plutonium, the l/sup 1/-FFT is used to transform EXAFS plutonium data. The l/sup 1/-FFT increases inter-atomic spatial resolution by a factor of 64 over that delivered by a windowed Fourier transform.


On subjects from Superman to rock 'n' roll, from Donald Duck to the TV news, from soap operas and romance novels to the use of double speak in advertising, these lively essays offer students of contemporary media a comprehensive counter statement to the conservatism that has been ascendant since the seventies in American politics and cultural criticism. Donald Lazere brings together selections from nearly forty of the most prominent Marxist, feminist, and other leftist critics of American mass culture-from a dozen academic disciplines and fields of media activism. The collection will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars, and general readers.


Whilst satellite monitoring of snow cover is already operational in some countries, the maritime climate of the United Kingdom poses special problems for assessment of snow cover by satellite, including the short snow duration, its intermittent occurrence and associated conditions of cloud. Both satellite and ground-based observations of cloud have been used to assess the limitations imposed by cloud over broad regions and also for individual sites at different elevations and during periods of snow accumulation, stability and ablation. It is concluded that satellite sensing based on visible and infrared images alone is restricted by cloud cover, but can often provide helpful ancillary information in support of ground based measurements and satellite images from other spectral bands.


Rational expectations equilibria (REE) assume that the ex post equilibrium price function is able to reveal ex ante informWe evaluate the effects of different equivalence scale parameter estimates on the distribution of catastrophic health payments in South Africa. Our analysis makes use of Xu et al.'s (2003) initial estimate, which underscores the World Health Organization's methodology (Xu, 2005). We also update it using more recent data for one of the original countries included in Xu et al. (2003), South Africa. South Africa is considered, because the data used in Xu et al. (2003) was collected before the end of Apartheid, and the end of Aparthied has led to extensive social and economic changes, which could have influenced equivalence. We extend the empirical exercise by estimating a base-independent equivalence scale via semiparametric methods. Using these equivalence scales, we examine their effect on the distribution of catastrophic health payments using thresholds of 5%, 10% and 15%. The revised estimates suggest that the initial equivalence estimates were overstated by as much as 35%, such that poverty lines in the country were understated by as much as 17%. However, despite these large differences, the distribution of catastrophic health expenditures were unaffected.


Given a finite group G, associative and noncommutative products * will be constructed on the function space L²(G), where these star-products are parametrized by the unitary dual G of G. If Rf:L²(G)→ L²(G) is the convolution operator Rf(f1)=f*f1, then the projections of Rf on the irreducible spaces of the elements of G is equivalent to Rf*, Rf*(f1)=f*f1. It is thus natural to consider Harmonic Analysis/Quantum Mechanics on L²(G) using the star-product. In this work, we establish star-product formulas on finite groups, both in the position and momentum representation.


Enantioselectivity of esterases, contained in 9,000g supernatant fraction (S9) prepared from homogenate of small intestinal mucosa of male Sprague-Dawley rats and the subsequent 105,000g supernatant (cytosol) and pellet (microsomes) prepared from S9, was studied using racemic oxazepam 3-acetate (rac-OXA) as the substrate. Esterases in S9 were enantioselective in hydrolyzing either S-OXA or R-OXA, depending on a particular subcellular preparation. Cytosolic and microsomal esterases had opposite enantioselectivity and selectively hydrolyzed S-OXA and R-OXA, respectively. Enantioselectivity of esterases solubilized from microsomes with Triton X-100 (0.1%, w/v) was identical to that of the membrane-bound microsomal esterases. Cytosolic esterases were more sensitive to temperature than either solubilized or membrane-bound microsomal esterases. In the presence of paraoxon (1 microM), the esterases selective toward R-OXA in both microsomes and S9 were completely inhibited, whereas the esterases selective toward S-OXA in cytosol were inhibited by approximately 6%. These results indicate that cytosolic and microsomal esterases in rat small intestinal mucosa are distinctly different enzymes, with opposite enantioselectivity in the hydrolysis of rac-OXA.


Around the world, courts in the last two decades have increasingly extended constitutional law to oversee the basic structure of democracy itself. This development constitutes a significant transformation in the object of constitutional law - a shift from the conventional individual rights and anti-discrimination focus and toward judicial engagement with the institutions and processes of democratic politics. Whether resolving disputed Presidential elections, evaluating the design of representative institutions, determining the role of political parties, assessing the financing of elections, or even managing the transition from authoritarian to democratic regimes, courts and constitutional law have now become central actors in organizing the way democracy is practiced. The first aim of this Foreword is to make this transformation fully visible. The Foreword focuses primarily on the United States Supreme Court, where these developments are most pronounced. The Foreword then turns to assessing this new frontier of constitutional law; the Foreword argues that, thus far, courts have done both too little and too much in the way they have constitutionalized the essential structures of democracy. Courts have been insufficiently responsive to the tendency of those holding political power to structure the ground rules of democracy to entrench themselves more deeply in power. At the same time, courts have inappropriately constitutionalized, without sufficient justification, the broad rights of politics - to vote, to speak, to associate - in ways that wrongly limit the ability of democracies to experiment with new ways of organizing democratic politics. Given the disaffection with current forms of democracy expressed in many mature democracies today, this judicial tendency to constitutionalize existing democratic arrangements and freeze them in place threatens the ability of democracies to revise themselves. As courts enter this new domain, the Foreword offers a theoretical and doctrinal framework that defines the role constitutional law ought to play - more expansive in some contexts, less expansive in others - in overseeing the structure of democracy. The Foreword then applies this framework to a number of specific issues: partisan gerrymandering; the representation of diverse groups in political bodies; the legal regulation of political parties; the role of independent bodies to oversee election practices; and campaign financing.


ABSTRACT Modified transient plane source method has been applied for thermal conductivity measurements of three water-based nanofluids containing Al2O3, TiO2, and graphene nanoparticles. Experiments were conducted at different temperatures and concentrations. The effects of sort of nanoparticles, concentration, and diameter of nanoparticles as well as temperature were studied by comparing the experimental results with the predictions of ten preceding models. The overall performances of these models were compared in terms of percent error. Percent errors were observed in the current study ranging from vicinity of zero up to nearly 110% that belonged to Bruggeman model in predicting the thermal conductivity ratio of graphene/water nanofluids. All ten models performed acceptably in calculating thermal conductivity ratio of Al2O3 nanofluids with the maximum percent error of 2.16%. Four correlations are proposed based on the experimental results of this work three of which are special to each nanofluid and the fourth one is overall. These models succeeded to predict the thermal conductivity ratio of the studied nanofluids with considerably lower percent errors which was maximum 5.19% observed in predicting the thermal conductivity ratio of graphene/water nanofluid.


WOODS CREE WOMEN'S LABOUR WITHIN THE SUBSISTENCE-BASED MIXED ECONOMY OF PELICAN NARROWS, SASKATCHEWAN The subsistence-based mixed economy of Northern Canada is both productive and essential to community life and survival (Berger, 1977; Brody, 1981 ; Wenzel, 1981; Asch, 1982; Fait, 1982; Usher, 1982). Usher further states that this economy needs to be maintained for its economic value and fundamental linkages to social and cultural conditions. Most researchers state that the productivity of this economy depends on the interdependency of women's and men's work; however, within the extensive literature on this subject few writers examine the labour of women. The purpose of this thesis is to document and analyze Woods Cree women's labour within the subsistence-based mixed economy. Their labour, which is embedded in the profoundly different voice of Woods Cree culture, is best understood through detailed case studies. Oral histories were collected from three generations of Woods Cree Women aged sixteen to seventy, covering the period between 1900 and 1989. Usher's analytical framework of the anatomy of the Northern economy is a most useful model; however, it required some adjustment in order to address genderaffected production. The feminist critiques of Delphy and Nicholson are used in analyzing the nature of women's labour. The research found that although Woods Cree women's labour has changed over time and space, it is still essential to the functioning and maintenance of the subsistence-based mixed economy.


This paper presents analysis of data aggregated from three experiments, investigating whether there are social differences in the processing of sociolinguistic variation. Three self-paced reading experiments tested the processing of variable subject-verb agreement in English. Sentences appeared in one of three agreement conditions: standard [singular+doesn't] or [plural+don't], nonstandard [singular+don't], or "uncommon" [plural+doesn't]. While the nonstandard form is common in vernacular English dialects, the uncommon form is not known to be a dialect variant. For participants as a whole, relative to standard sentences, both nonstandard and uncommon sentences took longer to read. Uncommon sentences took the longest, reflecting participants' greater familiarity with the nonstandard compared to uncommon form. To explore social differences, I compared responses by grouping the data on three social dimensions: class (higherand lowerclass participants), race (white and African American participants), and sex (female and male participants). The hypothesis was that if these social groups map onto differences in linguistic experience/knowledge, such differences would be reflected in different responses to the nonstandard variant. The main findings are a) groups show differences in reading speed, independent of agreement, and b) agreement was not a significant predictor of reading times for the African American participant group. I discuss the implications for experimental methodology and future research on sociolinguistic perception. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/


The Code of Practice contains general principles taken from the labor law in Indonesia as well the ILO Conventions, especially the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111) and Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100).


A national questionnaire survey of car drivers investigating their recent experience of road accidents has been carried out. The Report describes an analysis of the data obtained relating specifically to the cost of repairing vehicle damage following an accident. These results are based on information about 3810 of 5381 reported accidents. The Report also examines the relative incidence of damage-only and injury accidents, and the levels of reporting of accidents to the police and of making claims from insurance companies. The results suggest that the figures for vehicle damage at present used by the Department of Transport in the economic assessment of road accidents are somewhat low. The Department's current review of the major components of accident costs will take these new estimates into account, together with data from a number of other sources.


Abstract Meeting global and regional environmental targets is challenging, given the multiplicity of stakeholders and their diverse and often competing policy agendas and objectives. Relatively few studies have sought to systematically analyse the progress, or lack thereof, of institutionally complex and diffuse projects. Here we analyse one such project, which aims to protect and restore a critical landscape corridor for tigers Panthera tigris in north-western India, using a temporal–analytic framework that integrates ecological information on species population status and spatial connectivity modelling with a systematic examination of the decision-making process. We find that even with adequate ecological knowledge the tiger population is on the verge of local extinction because of weak institutional support, poor adaptive planning and ineffective leadership in a complex political arena, which has led to delays in conservation action. From the outset the conservation agencies and NGOs that were the primary drivers of the project lacked awareness of the political idiosyncrasies of coordinating the actions of disparate agencies within the decision-making process. To secure better future environmental outcomes we recommend the adoption of an improved project appraisal methodology that explicitly encompasses an evaluation of organizational incentives, to determine political buy-in, including alignment with organizational objectives and funding availability.


The construction industry is gradually increasing its use of structured information and building information modelling.To date, the industry has suffered from the disadvantages of a project-based organizational structure and ad hoc solutions. Furthermore, it is not used to formalizing the flow of information and specifying exactly which objects and properties are needed for each process and which information is produced by the processes. The present study is based on reviewing the existing methodology of Information Delivery Manuals (IDM) from Buildingsmart, which also is also an ISO standard 29481 Part 1; and the Model View Definition (MVD) methodology developed by Buildingsmart and BLIS. The research also includes a review of concrete IDM development projects that have been developed over the last five years. Although the study has identified interest in the IDM methodology in a number of countries, it has also noted that it can be difficult to finalize IDM and make the necessary changes in the relevant software products, change existing processes, and develop a data validation system that verifies that the data delivered is according to the specifications. Based on experiences from the concrete proposals ofIDMdeveloped by research institutions and industry partners, the greatest obstacle to full support for construction processes, from an IDM point of view, is not so much documenting the processes and exchange requirements related to the processes, but agreeing on the "to be" processes. The project-based approach is an obstacle to standardized processes and exchange requirements, which are vital elements in the methodology of making IDMs. Several of the proposed IDMs have been developed or sponsored by public clients that have a long-term perspective and the ability to push implementation by setting demands to design teams and contractors.


Background: Childhood immunisation is an important public health issue which protects against infectious diseases. Uptake of vaccines is complex in the literature with various barriers and facilitating influences implicated. These influences have been variously identified and isolated for specific vaccines largely through quantitative surveys. However, previous qualitative research has indicated the significance of exploring contextual influences for vaccine choices (Poltorak et al, 2005). Recent findings from a preliminary findings suggested that such decisions about vaccination may be influenced by previous health experiences. Collaboration between NHS Lothian and Edinburgh Napier University in an ongoing study seeks to explore vaccination experiences in a local area across two vaccines, MMR and the recently introduced HPV vaccine for cervical cancer.
Aims/Questions: The aims of the present research were to explore the views and health experiences of various stakeholders for the delivery of childhood immunisations including MMR and HPV in an urban area. An additional aim was an exploration and understanding of vaccination choices across different vaccines.
Method: Qualitative methods were used as they are important in eliciting in-depth understandings about experiences of immunisation delivery. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups discussions were the main methods used amongst the stakeholders including parents, young people, and health staff. Thematic analysis was used in the preliminary findings amongst four parents, sixteen health staff and five managers to identify common themes across the data.
Findings: Preliminary findings amongst parents and health staff about childhood immunisations indicated four main themes: lay health beliefs about vaccination; communication; organisational issues as well as the relevance of past parental health experiences with the health services for future decisions for immunisations.
Conclusions: Immunisation is an important public health issue and understandings about parental and health staff views and experiences for enhancing or preventing vaccination decisions are important considerations for service delivery. Clearly, personal and social knowledge for parents were important consideration in vaccination choices and was deemed as important as medical knowledge which supports previous qualitative findings elsewhere. The ongoing study will explore these findings in a wider sample.


We establish two previously undocumented patterns in the purchase selections of individual investors. These patterns hinge on investors' previous experiences with a stock. We demonstrate that investors prefer to (1) repurchase stocks they previously sold for a gain rather than stocks they previously sold for a loss and (2) repurchase stocks that have lost value subsequent to a prior sale rather than those that have gained value. We document these trading patterns by analyzing trading records for 66,465 households at a large discount broker between January 1991 and November 1996, and 665,533 investors at a large retail broker between January 1997 and June 1999. We propose that the first trading pattern results from a simple form of learning whereby investors repeat actions that previously resulted in pleasure while avoiding actions that previously led to pain (i.e., they repurchase their previous winners more readily than their previous losers). We argue that the second trading pattern is tied to counterfactuals. Investors who buy a stock at a higher price than they previously sold it for are painfully aware that they are worse off than if they had simply never sold that stock. Investors who buy a stock at a lower price than they previously sold it experience the pleasure of knowing they are better off than if they had never sold that stock. Investor returns do not benefit from either of the two patterns we document.


This paper analyses the financial impact of Social Security by age cohort under alternative assumptions concerning future financing of Social Security. It examines the Social Security Administration's intermediate IIB and various combinations of optimistic and pessimistic assumptions concerning fertility, mortality, and wage growth. Importantly, it examines the implications of alternative potential resolutions of the long-term financing deficit and scenarios concerning the planned systematic deviation from pay-as-you-go finance in the retirement and disability funds. The results suggest that the Social Security retirement program offers vastly different returns to households in different circumstances, and especially to different cohorts. Most important, if Social Security does not maintain the large retirement trust fund surplus currently projected for the next 30 years, alternative scenarios for return to pay-as-you-go finance differ dramatically in the taxes, benefits, transfers, and real rates of return that can be offered to different birth cohorts. The implications of cutting taxes, raising benefits or diverting the surplus to other purposes have dramatic impact on the overall financial status of the system, the time pattern of taxes, benefits and surpluses or deficits, and therefore, the treatment of different age cohorts. Under the intermediate assumptions, the OASDI surplus is projected to grow almost as large as a fraction of GNP as the current ratio of privately held national debt to GNP. For example, if the OASDI surplus is used to raise benefits, and they remained at higher levels thereafter during the height of the baby-boom generation's retirement, the long-run actuarial deficit will zoom from $500 billion to over $3 trillion. Correspondingly, if benefits increase, financed by the OASDI surplus over the next 30 years, the expected rate of return on lifetime contributions increases for those currently about 40 years old from 1.9% to 2.7%, about a 40% increase. Correspondingly, if the surplus is dissipated and the subsequent long-run deficit is made up with a tax increase on a pay-as-you-go basis at the time of the projected deficit, the rate of return relative to the intermediate assumptions for those persons now being born will fall by about 158, and in this case, the overall system finances would move from a long-run actuarial deficit of slightly under one-half percent of taxable payroll to actuarial balance. Thus, as Social Security is projected to deviate systematically from pay-as-you-go finance, the potential alternative scenarios with respect to accruing the surplus and/or dissipating it in various ways have potentially large intergenerational redistribution effects.


Abstract. This study analyzes future climate for the Mediterranean region projected
with the high-resolution coupled CM2.5 model, which incorporates a new and
improved land model (LM3). The simulated climate changes suggest pronounced
warming and drying over most of the region. However, the changes are
distinctly smaller than those of the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble. In
addition, the changes over much of southeast and central Europe indicate
very modest warming compared to the CMIP5 projections and also a tendency toward wetter conditions. These differences indicate a possible role of factors such as land surface–atmospheric interactions in these regions. Our analysis also highlights the importance of correctly projecting the magnitude of changes in the summer North Atlantic Oscillation, which has the capacity to partly offset anthropogenic warming and drying over the western and central Mediterranean. Nevertheless, the projections suggest a decreasing influence of local atmospheric dynamics and teleconnections in maintaining the regional temperature and precipitation balance, in particular over arid regions like the eastern and southern Mediterranean, which show a local maximum of warming and drying. The intensification of the heat low in these regions rather suggests an increasing influence of warming land surface on the local surface atmospheric circulation and progressing desertification.


Summary

1. As long-term observational lake records continue to lengthen, the historical overlap with lake sediment records grows, providing increasing opportunities for placing the contemporary ecological status of lakes in a temporal perspective.

2. Comparisons between long-term data sets and sediment records, however, require lake sediments to be accurately dated and for sediment accumulation rates to be sufficiently rapid to allow precise matching with observational data.

3. The critical role of the sediment record in this context is its value in tracking the changing impact of human activity on a lake from a pre-disturbance reference through to the present day.

4. Here, we use data from a range of lakes across Europe presented as case studies in this Special Section. The seven sites considered all possess both long-term observational records and high-quality sediment records. Our objective is to assess whether recent climate change is having an impact on their trophic status and in particular whether that impact can be disentangled from the changes associated with nutrient pollution.

5. The palaeo-data show clear evidence for the beginning of nutrient pollution varying from the mid-nineteenth century at Loch Leven to the early and middle twentieth century at other sites. The monitoring data show different degrees of recovery when judged against the palaeo-reference.

6. The reason for limited recovery is attributed to continuing high nutrient concentrations related to an increase in diffuse nutrient loading or to internal P recycling, but there is some evidence that climate change may be playing a role in offsetting recovery at some sites. If this is the case, then lake ecosystems suffering from eutrophication may not necessarily return to their pre-eutrophication reference status despite the measures that have been taken to reduce external nutrient loading.

7. The extent to which future warming might further limit such recovery can be evaluated only by continued monitoring combined with the use of palaeo-records that set the pre-eutrophication reference.


The inner ear is a complex sensory organ essential for hearing and balance. During embryonic development, the inner ear depends on signaling information originating from the embryonic hindbrain to establish dorsoventral and anteroposterior identity. The Hedgehog (Hh) and Wnt signaling pathways are active in the hindbrain and implicated in otic development, but their exact mechanisms of action remained unclear. We investigated the function of Hh in ear development using a mouse model where we conditionally inactivated Hh signaling in the otic vesicle, a transient embryonic structure that gives rise to the inner ear, while leaving nearby Hh dependent tissues unaffected. We found Hh signaling within the otic vesicle functions to establish ventral otic identity and drive the proliferation of cochlear-vestibular ganglion (cvg) neuroblasts that will innervate the ear. We identified presumptive Hh target genes in the developing inner ear using microarrays. Several of these presumptive Hh targets are known to function in ear development or hearing. We also identified many novel targets that have not been characterized in the ear. Many of these novel presumptive Hh target genes are expressed in the ventral otic vesicle, a region that will give rise to the cochlear duct. To interrogate the function of Wnt signaling in ear development, we used a Wnt responsive inducible Cre recombinase (TopCreERT2) to genetically label cells at different stages of ear development. We found cells that make up dorsal, vestibular, structures and cvg neurons are Wnt responsive for prolonged periods of ear development. In the cochlear duct, we found both sensory and support cells originate from a Wnt responsive population. Surprisingly, we found the Wnt responsive population of cochlear progenitors was also labeled using a cre recombinase expressed from the Gbx2 locus. TopCreERT2 and Gbx2 expression overlap in the dorsomedial wall of the otic vesicle, suggesting this region is a likely source for auditory cells. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Cell & Molecular Biology First Advisor Douglas Epstein


In this paper we describe one example of female-female aggression in the House Wren (Troglodytes aedon). An intruding female usurped the resident female and paired with the resident male. House Wrens are known for committing infanticide as well as puncturing and removing eggs of conspecifics and other species. These behaviors have been mainly attributed to resident and floating males, but we suggest that females may also be responsible.


This book assesses the impacts of COVID-19 on the Indonesian economy, particularly on employment, education, poverty, trade, and macroeconomy. The chapters explain how fiscal and monetary stimulus work and the roles of local governments in managing stimulus. It also presents paths to recovery and lessons learned from countries that have found success in mitigating the economic impacts of the pandemic (China, Germany, Singapore, and Vietnam). This text will be a useful reference for policy makers, scholars, students, and public audience working or interested in the fields of development economics, trade, health economics, economics, and East Asia. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA). All rights reserved.


Genetic programming (GP) is a systematic, domain-independent method for getting computers to solve problems automatically starting from a high-level statement of what needs to be done. Using ideas from natural evolution, GP starts from an ooze of random computer programs, and progressively refines them through processes of mutation and sexual recombination, until high-fitness solutions emerge. All this without the user having to know or specify the form or structure of solutions in advance. GP has generated a plethora of human-competitive results and applications, including novel scientific discoveries and patentable inventions. This unique overview of this exciting technique is written by three of the most active scientists in GP. See www.gp-field-guide.org.uk for more information on the book.


We apply the side-illumination fluorescence (SIF) measurement to determine the linear absorption spectrum in the fluorescence emission range and to study the excited states of dye molecules in polymer fibers. These studies demonstrate that the dye is the main contributor to light absorption in the 720–840-nm range in squaraine-dye-doped polymer fibers and reveal a J-like aggregate absorption spectrum in the 780–810-nm range. We also determine that a two-level model, which accounts for inhomogeneous broadening, describes the dominant excited state of poly(methyl methacrylate) fibers doped with PSQ and HSQ dyes more effectively than does the standard Lorentzian or Gaussian two-level model. We conclude that the SIF method is a useful, nondestructive, and accurate method for measuring off-resonance absorption.


For decades, studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have challenged traditional concepts in toxicology, in particular the dogma of "the dose makes the poison," because EDCs can have effects at low doses that are not predicted by effects at higher doses. Here, we review two major concepts in EDC studies: low dose and nonmonotonicity. Low-dose effects were defined by the National Toxicology Program as those that occur in the range of human exposures or effects observed at doses below those used for traditional toxicological studies. We review the mechanistic data for low-dose effects and use a weight-of-evidence approach to analyze five examples from the EDC literature. Additionally, we explore nonmonotonic dose-response curves, defined as a nonlinear relationship between dose and effect where the slope of the curve changes sign somewhere within the range of doses examined. We provide a detailed discussion of the mechanisms responsible for generating these phenomena, plus hundreds of examples from the cell culture, animal, and epidemiology literature. We illustrate that nonmonotonic responses and low-dose effects are remarkably common in studies of natural hormones and EDCs. Whether low doses of EDCs influence certain human disorders is no longer conjecture, because epidemiological studies show that environmental exposures to EDCs are associated with human diseases and disabilities. We conclude that when nonmonotonic dose-response curves occur, the effects of low doses cannot be predicted by the effects observed at high doses. Thus, fundamental changes in chemical testing and safety determination are needed to protect human health.


Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been suggested to drive immune system activation, but the induction of interferon signaling by mtDNA has not been demonstrated in a Mendelian mitochondrial disease. We initially ascertained two patients, one with a purely neurological phenotype, and one with features suggestive of systemic sclerosis in a syndromic context, and found them both to demonstrate enhanced interferon-stimulated gene (ISG) expression in blood. We determined each to harbor a previously described de novo dominant-negative heterozygous mutation in ATAD3A, encoding ATPase family AAA domain-containing protein 3A (ATAD3A). We identified five further patients with mutations in ATAD3A, and recorded up-regulated ISG expression and interferon alpha protein in four of them. Knockdown of ATAD3A in THP-1 cells resulted in increased interferon signaling, mediated by cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS) and stimulator of interferon genes (STING). Enhanced interferon signaling was abrogated in THP-1 cells and patient fibroblasts depleted of mtDNA. Thus, mutations in the mitochondrial membrane protein ATAD3A define a novel type I interferonopathy. Summary Dominant-negative mutations in ATAD3A, a ubiquitously expressed mitochondrial protein, cause mitochondrial DNA-dependent up-regulation of type I interferon signaling in the context of neurological disease and autoimmunity, thereby defining a novel type I interferonopathy.


We use a new procedure for estimating acid ionization constants of fluorescein using the spectrophotometric method at 25°C and at the constant ionic strength I = 0.1 M (KNO3) in pure water as well as in aqueous media containing variable percentages (10–50% w/v) of organic solvents. The used organic solvents were methanol, ethanol, N,N-dimethyl formamide, dimethyl sulfoxide, acetonitrile, and dioxane. The obtained results indicated that acidity constants decrease as the content of an organic solvent in the medium increases. The acidity constants of all related equilibria are estimated using the whole spectral fitting of the collected data. The DATAN program was applied for determination of acidity constants. The effects of various solvents on absorption properties and acidity constants of each component are also discussed.


The present work investigates the collective imaginary of Physical Education students about disabled people. It articulates methodologically on the use of the thematic drawing-and Story telling Procedure to a collective approach of a class of thirty students. the obtained material was analyzed from a psychoanalytical perspective in light of the Theory of Fields. We verified that the conceptions of the students about disabilities arise from two non-conscious psychological fields: 'disability as human suffering' and 'disability as a technical problem'. In our view, the first field relates to the possibility of assuming sensitive and caring approaches when facing the disability issue, while the latter expresses the action of defensive strategies to deny the importance of the affective-emotional dimensions related to the suffering, turning the disabled person into an object of essentially technical actions.


The Ghalilah Formation, UAE provides a complete and continuous equatorial shallow-water carbonate sequence through the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic interval. In higher latitudes, this interval is frequently associated with widespread ocean acidification evidenced by a lack of carbonates or a hiatus in deposition. The data presented here in contrast show evidence for aragonite supersaturation at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary in the equatorial Tethys. δ13Ccarb shows a characteristic negative excursion with values as low as −2.8‰ just below the boundary. Deposition of fossiliferous limestones in this location persisted into the latest Rhaetian through the initial negative carbon isotope excursion. Supplementary material: δ13Ccarb data from bulk rock and a detailed stratigraphic log with sample locations are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3277283.


Caspar Bowden (email@example.com) is the author of a recent DLTR article, Closed Circuit Television for Inside Your Head: Blanket Traffic Data Retention and the Emergency Anti-Terrorism Legislation. He is the Director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (http://www.fipr.org), an independent non-profit think-tank that undertakes research on the interaction between information technology and society, technical developments with significant social impact, and public policy alternatives. He was formerly a consultant specializing in Internet security and e-commerce, senior researcher of an optionarbitrage trading firm, a financial strategist with Goldman Sachs, and chief algorithm designer for a virtual reality software house. We interviewed Mr. Bowden about combating terrorism in Europe and other issues related to European cyber-policy, such as the success of a European Internet and Information policy.


The recent economic crisis – already deservedly labeled the 'great recession' – continues to plague the health of the economy as a whole and has motivated us to probe its characteristic features and compare it to the typical economic downturn. Events during the boom and crash have been sharply delineated, progressing from (1) an unprecedented housing price bubble from 1997 to 2006, (2) rapid house price decline beginning early in 2007, (3) freezing of credit markets in August 2007, (4) rapid declines in equities prices and economic output by the middle of 2008, and (5) deterioration of the financial system in 2008 and an aggressive and unprecedented Federal Reserve intervention in the fall of 2008. This sequence of events has provided a fresh perspective with which to examine past economic cycles, and, we believe, is likely to change how economists, policy makers, investors, and others think about monetary policy, housing cycles, and business cycles. We find that eleven of the most recent fourteen economic downturns in the U.S. – from the great depression that began in 1929 to the great recession starting in late 2007 – were led by declines in housing investment. In these eleven downturns, housing investment declined before any other major component of GDP and its total decline before and during the recession was larger in percentage terms than the decline in any other major sector. In the 1945 recession – one of the three recessions in which housing was not implicated – national defense expenditures fell while all major components of private expenditure rose. The other two – in 1937-38 and 2001 – resulted primarily from declines in non-residential fixed investment that preceded and exceeded declines in any other major component of GDP. Figure 1 shows the percentage of GDP contributed by housing expenditures over the past 81 years. Although housing is not a large component of GDP – which may explain its limited role in accounts of recessions – it is volatile, it has declined before almost every recession, it has rarely declined substantially without a recession following soon afterward, and the extent of its decline emerges as a good predictor of the depth and duration of the recession that follows.2 In addition to its role as a leading indicator, and its volatility over the business cycle, housing investment has recovered faster than any other sector of the economy in every recession since 1921, with the single exception of the 1980 recession, which lasted only 12 months.


This note is a direct response to Gloria Ferrari's article, "The Ancient Temple of the Acropolis at Athens" (AJA 106 [2002] 11–35). The analysis presented here concentrates on the blocks listed in the building block inventory IG 13 474 from the Athenian Acropolis: a comparative study of the inscriptional and archaeological evidence shows that the catalogued blocks are all related to the completion of the Erechtheion; therefore, the inscription cannot be used in the argument that the Old Temple of Athena, or the Dörpfeld temple, was not completely pulled down after the Persian sack of the Acropolis. The note also correlates evidence from the inscription and the extant blocks to give an indication of how the length of the Doric foot can be evaluated.


A new recursive function on discrete interval exchange transformation associated to a composition of length $r$, and the permutation $\sigma(i) = r -i +1$ is defined. Acting on composition $c$, this recursive function counts the number of orbits of the discrete interval exchange transformation associated to the composition $c$. Moreover, minimal discrete interval exchanges transformation i.e. the ones having only one orbit, are reduced to the composition which label the root of the Raney tree. Therefore, we describe a generalization of the Raney tree using our recursive function.


Intelligent devices are quickly becoming necessities to support our activities during both work and play. We are already bound in a symbiotic relationship with these devices. An unfortunate effect of the pervasiveness of intelligent devices is the substantial investment of our time and effort to communicate intent. Even though our increasing reliance on these intelligent devices is inevitable, the limits of conventional methods for devices to perceive human expression hinders communication efficiency. These constraints restrict the usefulness of intelligent devices to support our activities. Our communication time and effort must be minimized to leverage the benefits of intelligent devices and seamlessly integrate them into society. Minimizing the time and effort needed to communicate our intent will allow us to concentrate on tasks in which we excel, including creative thought and problem solving.
An intuitive method to minimize human communication effort with intelligent devices is to take advantage of our existing interpersonal communication experience. Recent advances in speech, hand gesture, and facial expression recognition provide alternate viable modes of communication that are more natural than conventional tactile interfaces. Use of natural human communication eliminates the need to adapt and invest time and effort using less intuitive techniques required for traditional keyboard and mouse based interfaces.
Although the state of the art in natural but isolated modes of communication achieves impressive results, significant hurdles must be conquered before communication with devices in our daily lives will feel natural and effortless. Research has shown that combining information between multiple noise-prone modalities improves accuracy. Leveraging this complementary and redundant content will improve communication robustness and relax current unimodal limitations.
This research presents and evaluates a novel multimodal framework to help reduce the total human effort and time required to communicate with intelligent devices. This reduction is realized by determining human intent using a knowledge-based architecture that combines and leverages conflicting information available across multiple natural communication modes and modalities. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated using dynamic hand gestures and simple facial expressions characterizing basic emotions. It is important to note that the framework is not restricted to these two forms of communication. The framework presented in this research provides the flexibility necessary to include additional or alternate modalities and channels of information in future research, including improving the robustness of speech understanding.
The primary contributions of this research include the leveraging of conflicts in a closed-loop multimodal framework, explicit use of uncertainty in knowledge representation and reasoning across multiple modalities, and a flexible approach for leveraging domain specific knowledge to help understand multimodal human expression. Experiments using a manually defined knowledge base demonstrate an improved average accuracy of individual concepts and an improved average accuracy of overall intents when leveraging conflicts as compared to an open-loop approach.


This is a study of the values, goals, and life choices of 40 ultrawealthy (net worth greater than $25 million), middle-aged (between 40 and 65 years old) women, focusing on their evolving relationship to their wealth and the role it plays in their decisions about work, family, children, and the community. The study is based on interviews with women who represent three ways of coming into wealth: through inheritance, through marriage, or through working in their own or their family's business. They give voice to life journeys representing a three-generational perspective on their wealth: from their family of origin, their current family, and the values and patterns that they have set for their children—who range in age from very young to adults with their own children. In listening to them, we learn how the societal changes of the past half century have affected the roles and values of these women in regard to work, money, career, family, and lifestyle. TOPICS: Wealth management, behavioral finance in wealth management Key Findings • In our study, wealthy women from three wealth origins—inherited, self-created, or through marriage—view their affluence as having a very different place in their lives than men traditionally describe. Rather than viewing wealth as a measure of success, they see it primarily as a means to pursue pathways that align with their deepest values: self-reliance, personal development, and service to the community. • They were mostly raised in households with traditional views of a woman's role, but they emerged with a commitment to develop their professional skills and be viewed as having equal opportunities and status. They want to impart these newer values to their children, though they are not always certain about how to do that effectively. • Relationships with their fathers were important to instilling confidence and belief in possibilities, in contrast to the roles and expectations their fathers had of their wives.


Band selection for remotely sensed image data is an effective means to mitigate the curse of dimensionality. Many criteria have been suggested in the past for optimal band selection. In this paper, a joint band-prioritization and band-decorrelation approach to band selection is considered for hyperspectral image classification. The proposed band prioritization is a method based on the eigen (spectral) decomposition of a matrix from which a loading-factors matrix can be constructed for band prioritization via the corresponding eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Two approaches are presented, principal components analysis (PCA)-based criteria and classification-based criteria. The former includes the maximum-variance PCA and maximum SNR PCA, whereas the latter derives the minimum misclassification canonical analysis (MMCA) (i.e., Fisher's discriminant analysis) and subspace projection-based criteria. Since the band prioritization does not take spectral correlation into account, an information-theoretic criterion called divergence is used for band decorrelation. Finally, the band selection can then be done by an eigenanalysis based band prioritization in conjunction with a divergence-based band decorrelation. It is shown that the proposed band-selection method effectively eliminates a great number of insignificant bands. Surprisingly, the experiments show that with a proper band selection, less than 0.1 of the total number of bands can achieve comparable performance using the number of full bands. This further demonstrates that the band selection can significantly reduce data volume so as to achieve data compression.


The objective ofthis research is to provide quantitative data on the equilibrium and thermodynamic properties of aluminum minerals required to model changes in permeability and brine chemistry associated with fluid/rock interactions in the recharge, reservoir, and discharge zones of active geothermal systems. This requires a precise knowledge of the thermodynamics and speciation of aluminum in aqueous brines, spanning the temperature and fluid composition rangesencountered in active systems. The empirical and semi-empirical treatments of the solubility/hydrolysis experimental results on single aluminum mineral phases form the basis for the ultimate investigation of the behavior of complex aluminosilicate minerals. The principal objective in FY 1998 was to complete the solubility measurements on boehmite (AIOOH) inNaC1 media( 1 .O and 5.0 molal ionic strength, IOO-250°C). However, additional measurements were also made on boehmite solubility in pure NaOH solutions in order to bolster the database for fitting in-house isopiestic data on this system. Preliminary kinetic Measurements of the dissolution/precipitation of boehmite was also carried out, although these were also not planned in the earlier objective. The 1999 objectives are to incorporate these treatments into existing codes used by the geothermal industry to predict the chemistry ofthe reservoirs; these calculations will be tested for reliability againstmore » our laboratory results and field observations. Moreover, based on the success of the experimental methods developed in this program, we intend to use our unique high temperature pH easurement capabilities to make kinetic and equilibrium studies of pH-dependent aluminosilicate transformation reactions and other pH-dependent heterogeneous reactions.« less


This is the first biography in over 100 years of the great Tom Morris of St Andrews, who presided over one of the most illustrious periods in the history of golf, who - more than anyone before or since in any game - stamped his individual character upon his sport and how, in large measure, made golf what it is today. Born in a humble weaver's cottage in St Andrews in 1821, by the time of his death in 1908, he had become a figure of international renown. When he was buried with all the pomp and ceremony befitting an eminent Victorian, newspapers around the world reported his funeral, followed by his internment below the effigy of his son, Tommy, amidst the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral. In the course of his long life, he witnessed huge social and scientific changes in the world, none more so than in the game of golf that he had, in many respects, overseen and directed. By the time of his death, the game had expanded to become the most popular and geographically widespread of all sports and the essential recreational pursuit of gentlemen. Tom Morris was a sporting hero in an age of heroes, as well as golf's first iconic figure.


We have exposed pulp handsheets to two different degradative treatments, and compared their effects on strength properties. In accordance with earlier research, tensile stiffness and the shape of the stress-strain curve were independent of cellulose chain length and the fiber defects caused by the degradative treatments. When evaluated at the same viscosity, we found acid vapor treatment to be more detrimental to axial fiber strength than ageing treatment at elevated temperature and humidity. At the same mean fiber strength, acid vapor-treated handsheets show higher tensile strength. This is because acid vapor treatment is more heterogeneous than ageing treatment. The fiber network is able to compensate for the local defects, but not for the general degradation in fiber strength. In both treatments the mechanism for cellulose cleavage is assumed to be acid hydrolysis, the difference in the effect on fibers coming from the treatment conditions. Acid vapor treatment induces a fast reaction at defect sites and discontinuities in a fiber, while ageing treatment induces a slow, more homogeneous hydrolysis in fibers. Unlike axial strength, the Z-directional strength of softwood decreases only after harsh degradation when viscosity has dropped below 400 ml/g. The Z-directional strength of hardwood is already compromised at a 13th Fundamental Research Symposium, Cambridge, September 2005 631 Preferred citation: R. Wathén, O. Joutsimo and T. Tamminen. Effect of different degradation mechanisms on axial and z-directional fi ber strength. In Advances in Paper Science and Technology, Trans. of the XIIIth Fund. Res. Symp. Cambridge, 2005, (S.J. I'Anson, ed.), pp 631–647, FRC, Manchester, 2018. DOI: 10.15376/frc.2005.1.631. viscosity of around 700 ml/g. The differences probably arise from differences in fiber ultrastructure.


A multitude of evidence has accumulated in support of the existence of dark matter in our Universe. There are already plenty of dark matter candidates. However, we do not know yet whether any of these candidates constitutes the whole or a part of the dark matter population despite the tremendous experimental efforts. In this thesis, we study several possible dark matter production mechanisms and the corresponding observational and theoretical constraints in the context of inflationary cosmology. Adopting a model-independent approach, we explore the parameter space for dark matter with a mass of order MeV and above showing that only small regions of the parameter space for the popular freeze-out mechanism are still viable. Nevertheless, the regions of the parameter space corresponding to the freeze-in and non-thermal dark matter scenarios are mostly unexplored. We, therefore, zoom into these regions and show that a connection to the inflationary observables can be established, which can help constrain these scenarios. We then consider the parameter space of a sub-eV dark matter candidate, the axion. We show that using the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation constraint on the effective number of relativistic species, an interesting constraint can be placed. This bound arises from the fact that the field whose angular excitations are the axions can be displaced from its minimum during inflation and later decays dominantly into ultra-relativistic, axions which contribute to the effective number of relativistic species. We finally consider the possible production of axion-like particle via non-perturbative effects due to their coupling to inflatons or moduli. We show that this mechanism is efficient only if the amplitude of inflaton/moduli oscillations is initially much larger than the mass scale associated with the axion-like particles. In this case, bounds can be placed on the corresponding parameter spaces.