Suppose one assigns two interventions to a small number K of different populations or communities, and one measures covariates and outcomes on a random sample of independent individuals from each of the K populations. We investigate the problem of identification and estimation of the causal effect of the choice of intervention assigned at the community level, and, if the intervention is timedependent, the causal effect of the changes in the intervention at time t, on the outcome. The challenge one is confronted with is that different populations have different environmental factors and that the intervention and environment are assigned to the whole population instead of to the individual. The question we wish to address is if one can still estimate the causal effect of the intervention one would have obtained if one would have combined all units across the multiple populations, each unit having their assigned environment and individual covariates, randomly assign the intervention among the two possible interventions to the unit, and then compare the outcome distributions for the two treatment groups: i.e., if one would have carried out the ideal experiment of randomizing treatment allocation to the units of the combined population, thereby dealing with confounding due to different units having different environments and corresponding individual covariates. We apply the roadmap based on causal modeling with a nonparametric structural equation model, which involves 1) defining the target causal effect as a parameter on the nonparametric structural equation model, 2) addressing the identifiability from the observed data, and, 3) given an identifiability result under the required assumptions, the efficient estimation of the resulting statistical target parameter through targeted maximum likelihood substitution estimators, using cross-validation to fine tune the estimators. The fundamental identifiability assumption we make is that one collects baseline covariates on the individual that block the effect of the environment on the outcome of interest, which is formulated as an exclusion restriction assumption in the nonparametric structural equation model. In addition, we utilize the understanding of the causal identifiability assumptions to evaluate the matched sampling design in which the units of different communities are matched on individual factors. We present efficient weighted targeted maximum likelihood estimators for these matched sampling designs, and we establish the concrete theoretical gain in information for the target parameter relative to independent sampling, by application of general results on case-control biased sampling in van der Laan (2008). Our methods can be reasonably well applied to the case that the intervention causes infectious behavior among individuals, possibly resulting in an enhanced effect, and to the case that interaction between individuals creates dependence between the individuals. However, the methods would not take into account the effect of this dependence among individuals on the assessment of uncertainty in the point estimates. For that purpose we also propose an estimate of standard error of the point estimate that takes into account arbitrary (and unknown to the user) dependence structures that still permit a central limit theorem based normal approximations. Our framework and methods are extended to the case that the communities are followed up over time and exposed to a single time-dependent treatment regimen, while also being subjected to changes in environment over time. In particular, we consider the case of estimation of a causal effect of a change in treatment over time based on observing a single community over time under a certain time-dependent treatment regimen. We also generalize our results to causal effects of combined community based intervention and individually assigned treatment on an outcome of interest. It is shown that G-computation formulas and corresponding estimators developed for causal effects of individually assigned treatments can be fully utilized to estimate these causal effects. Finally, we consider the case in which one is not willing to assume the exclusion restriction assumption, but many communities are sampled. For that purpose we propose statistical inference that naturally adapts to the degree at which the exclusion restriction assumption is approximated and the number of communities that are sampled. This allows for a unified framework for analyzing studies that involve community based interventions.


The thesis examines the nature of the legal interests in emissions allowances (emissions entitlements), the tradable instruments created by the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The potential categorisation of emissions entitlements as private property impacts significantly on the environmental success of the EU ETS and, more widely, on the conceptualisation and functionality of property rights. The current silence of the EU ETS on the nature of the entitlements has caused problems in the emissions market, as illustrated by a case study and an analysis of the commercial contracts constituting this market. In turn, the public policy goals of the EU ETS depend on the success of the private market. The thesis puts forward an analytical framework designed to articulate a construction of emissions entitlements that reconciles the multiple and potentially conflicting goals of the regime. The framework consists of two parts. The first part examines legal theories of property and establishes that the elements required to constitute a property right are exclusion, transfer and use. The second part examines three legislatively created rights regimes, namely intellectual property rights, milk quotas and spectrum rights, which are compared to emissions entitlements from the viewpoint of the identified requisite elements. This exercise further reveals instructive insights into the evolutionary nature of property rights in a regulatory environment. For private property to act as an effective tool of regulation, it needs to be specifically conceptualised as instrumental property, a new category which is put forward by the thesis. The notion of instrumental property is defined by the public policy goals of the regulatory regime and also by the particular context in which the rights operate. Instrumental property must necessarily be balanced against extraneous public or private interests which the law regards as deserving of protection.


Small organizations that conduct environmental stewardship projects often lack access to the research capacity, funding, or tools needed to evaluate scientifically the environmental effectiveness of the measures they undertake. Still, evaluation of environmental effectiveness, defined here as the implementation of specific local goals, is prudent where projects are carried out with environmental stewardship goals in mind. We propose and test a process for evaluating environmental effectiveness of stewardship programs in a rigorous, yet feasible, approach through analysis of archived documents, program materials, and project inventories, as well as a survey of program participants. Using three franchises of the Watershed Stewards Academy in Maryland as a case study, we evaluate the environmental effectiveness of the stewardship work conducted by these organizations.


Reading and interpreting the Bible, whether as an 'ordinary' or critical reader, has always been strongly influenced by a person's own experience. They demonstrate the variety of ways in which the Bible can have meaning for different people. The contributors offer challenging new perspectives on the ancient biblical books and individual texts of the Torah, the prophets, the Gospels, (Pauline) letters and Revelation. The Personal Voice in Biblical Scholarship contains the original essays of distinguished Jewish and Christian scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament from all over the world and a variety of backgrounds.


Abstract. Land use is an important piece of information with many applications. Commonly, land use is stored in geospatial databases in the form of polygons with corresponding land use labels and attributes according to an object catalogue. The object catalogues often have a hierarchical structure, with the level of detail of the semantic information depending on the hierarchy level. In this paper, we extend our prior work for the CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)-based prediction of land use for database objects at multiple semantic levels corresponding to different levels of a hierarchical class catalogue. The main goal is the improvement of the classification accuracy for small database objects, which we observed to be one of the largest problems of the existing method. In order to classify large objects using a CNN of a fixed input size, they are split into tiles that are classified independently before fusing the results to a joint prediction for the object. In this procedure, small objects will only be represented by a single patch, which might even be dominated by the background. To overcome this problem, a multi-scale approach for the classification of small objects is proposed in this paper. Using this approach, such objects are represented by multiple patches at different scales that are presented to the CNN for classification, and the classification results are combined. The new strategy is applied in combination with the earlier tiling-based approach. This method based on an ensemble of the two approaches is tested in two sites located in Germany and improves the classification performance up to +1.8% in overall accuracy and +3.2% in terms of mean F1 score.


BACKGROUND
Mothers develop expectations regarding midwives' care during labour and when these are not met mothers become dissatisfied and eventually have negative experiences of their labour. It is only when mothers' voices are heard by midwives in the labour ward that efficient and quality care will be provided. To ensure mothers have a positive experience of labour, midwives should include mothers' expectations when caring for them.

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the study on which this article is based was to determine mothers' expectations of midwives' care during labour. To achieve this purpose the researcher sought to explore and describe mothers' expectations of midwives' care during labour in a specific public hospital in Gauteng.

METHOD
A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual study design was used. Face-to-face, in-depth individual interviews were conducted with mothers about their expectations of midwives' care during labour. Data were then analysed with an open descriptive method of coding (Tesch's eight steps) that is appropriate for qualitative research to identify categories. The data was also analysed by an independent coder. The categories were subsequently placed within a holistic health promotive nursing theory that encompasses body, mind and spirit.

RESULTS
The findings revealed the provision of comfort and support as the two main aspects that the mothers expected from the midwives' care. The mothers expected midwives to improve their communication skills with them (mothers) as well as with fathers or partners if they were available. The mothers expected midwives to facilitate bonding between mother, father and baby, and also encouraged the midwives to improve their (midwives') knowledge, skills and morale.

CONCLUSION
The results of this study should assist midwives in providing holistic quality care to mothers during labour, thus providing satisfaction and positive experiences of the mothers' labour.


The high capacity of gas hydrate in natural gas storage makes it attractive to use it for storage and transportation of natural gas and other gases as a competitor to liquefaction and condensation methods. Since the 1960s, when gas hydrate was introduced as a disturbing factor in gas pipelines, the idea of natural gas transfer by hydrate has been on the minds of many scientists. Because the hydrate transport temperature is higher than the liquefied natural gas (LNG) transport temperature, gaseous hydrate can be easily transported; Therefore, the technology of building hydraulic vessels will be much less complex than that of LNG vessels, and hydrogen production facilities can be designed much easier than LNG facilities. But the main problem is the smaller volume of gas transferred. According to studies in this field, each cubic meter of hydrate contains 175 cubic meters of gas. However, in LNG technology, the volume reduction reaches one hundred percent, and this issue is very important in the economics of gas transmission projects, especially long distances. Nevertheless, there is still great hope that hydrate will be used as a completely economical solution for gas transmission. In this regard, British Petroleum, in collaboration with other scientific centers such as the University of Gwasen, is building a small industrial unit that can produce 100 kg of hydrate per day.


This article provides an overview of the impact of raising capital on the equity ownership structure of a biotechnology company. The equity ownership structure as captured in a table of capitalization determines how the fruits of success will be divided between founders, management and investors at an exit event such as an acquisition or initial public offering. The evolution of the Cap Table is captured and described through multiple financing events and scenarios and illustrates how value is allocated to the various parties involved in the transactions as the company grows and develops.


The authors have designed an experiment to detect a hitherto unrecognized interaction between high doses of the glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, and brain irradiation. Eighteen juvenile male rhesus monkeys received 1800 rads to the whole brain in 8.5 minutes. For 1 1/2 days before and 10 1/2 days after the irradiation, nine animals received approximately 2.9 mg/kg/day of dexamethasone intramuscularly in addition to irradiation, while the remaining nine animals served as the control group and received saline. All animals eventually developed a progressive neurological syndrome, and died of delayed radiation necrosis of the brain. The two groups were compared with regard to latency to onset of clinical signs, survival time, and number, distribution, and location of lesions of radionecrosis. Large doses of desamethasone did not alter the susceptibility of the primate brain to delayed radiation necrosis. Detailed morphological study of the radionecrotic lesions supports the hypothesis that most, if not all, of the lesions develop as the consequence of injury to blood vessels.


Stable isotope and pollen data from Gölhisar Gölü, a small intramontane lake located in southwest Turkey, provide complementary records of Holocene climate change. Modern oxygen and hydrogen isotope water data are used as a means of comparing present‐day isotope composition of the lake water to the past oxygen isotope composition of the lake water as calculated from 18O/16O ratios in calcite precipitated in the summer months. Despite the lake system being chemically dilute, the modern isotope data clearly establish that the lake water is evaporated in relation to its spring input, suggesting that the palaeo data can be interpreted primarily in terms of changing precipitation/evaporation ratios. δ18O and δ13C values from authigenic calcite through the Holocene show predominantly negative values indicating climatic conditions wetter than today. Particularly notable are low (depleted) isotope values during the earliest Holocene (ca. 10 600–8800 cal. yr. BP), a period for which pollen data imply drier conditions than at present. This divergence between pollen‐inferred and stable isotope palaeoclimate data is found in other east Mediterranean lake sediment records, and suggests that vegetation may have taken several millennia to reach climatic equilibrium at the start of the Holocene. Isotopic fluctuations during the early‐to‐mid Holocene (8800–5100 cal. yr. BP) suggest oscillations between aridity and humidity. Higher δ18O and δ13C values for the second half of the Holocene indicate generally drier conditions than during the period before ca.5100 cal. yr BP although there is some evidence for increased humidity coinciding with pollen evidence for increasing human impact and intensification of agriculture, notably during the so‐called Beyşehir Occupation Phase (Classical and early Byzantine periods). The modern trend towards aridity started about 1300 yr ago. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Specialization is one of the foremost traits of modern industrial development. Technical and commercial factors have interacted to make large-scale production more profitable than earlier. This process has been concomitant with a regional concentration of production activities according to the prevailing comparative advantages. Even large, and strong, economic regions tend to have an insufficiently differentiated economy. In Tuscany, Italy, it is the leather, footwear, and textile industries that constitute the economic backbone of the region. They are complemented by, and competitive with, the traditional tourist industry.

Technical progress and the development of factor costs have entailed a shift in international and interregional comparative advantages. Those industries demanding only low-skilled labor have expanded in low cost countries or regions. How these factors will affect the long-term development is a general problem of strongly specialized regions in industrialized countries.

Such questions are also at the core of the case study of systems analysis for regional industrial development undertaken by the Regional Development Group, IIASA, in collaboration with the Regional Institute for Economic Planning of Tuscany (IRPET). A third party in this collaboration is the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IASI) of the National Research Council, Rome. In the case study, a system of economic forecasting and policy evaluation models that address the above-mentioned development issues are being built. The models have a stronger emphasis on interregional and international dependencies than earlier regional studies. Moreover, the role of the regional authorities in policy generation and evaluation is more clearly designed here than elsewhere. The aim of the work is to develop a computerized model system for more or less permanent use, with a direct applicability to other urbanized regions of the Tuscany type.

The Tuscany interregional input-output model (TIM) described in this paper forms the core of the economic forecasting and policy-evaluation model system. TIM is a linear static recursive system of equations of small dimensions that is intended as a tool for analyzing the trade relations of Tuscany. Tuscany and the Rest-of-Italy are considered as two regions in TIM. Each one is linked to the rest of the world where exports are exogenously determined. Foreign trade is taken into account by distinguishing between national and international flows. Complementarity and competitiveness of imports are considered in this model.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background and Purpose: Cerebral microbleeds (CMB) are associated with stroke and cognitive impairment. We previously reported a high prevalence of CMB in people with Streptococcus mutans expressing Cnm, a collagen-binding protein in the oral cavity. S. mutans is a major pathogen responsible for dental caries. Repeated challenge with S. mutans harboring the cnm gene encoding Cnm induced cerebral bleeding in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats. The purpose of this longitudinal study is to examine the relationship of cnm-positive S. mutans to the development of CMB. Methods: We retrospectively investigated patients with stroke receiving oral microbiological examination and head 3T magnetic resonance imaging evaluations twice in the period 2014 to 2019, allowing >180-day interval. Patients with cnm-positive S. mutans were compared with those without. Quasi-Poisson regression models were used to explore associations between cnm-positive S. mutans and the increase in number of CMB between the 2 magnetic resonance imaging scans. Results: A total of 111 patients were identified; 21 (19%) with cnm-positive S. mutans and 90 (81%) without. Clinical history, including blood pressure and the use of antithrombotic agents, were comparable between the 2 groups. New CMB were more commonly observed in patients with cnm-positive S. mutans (52% versus 23%; P=0.008). The incidence of CMB was significantly higher in the group with cnm-positive S. mutans, especially in deep areas, (incidence rate ratios [95% CI], 5.1 [1.9–13.6] for CMB in any brain region; 15.0 [5.4–42.0] for deep CMB), which persisted after adjusting for age, sex, hypertension, and renal impairment (4.7 [1.8–11.9] for CMB in any brain region; 13.9 [4.3–44.5] for deep CMB). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that cnm-positive S. mutans is associated with an increased incidence of CMB. Treatment for cnm-positive S. mutans infection may be a novel microbiota-based therapeutic approach for stroke and cognitive impairment.


Earth's primary production depends to a considerable extent on the mycorrhizal symbiosis, since mycorrhizal fungi supply their host plant with important mineral nutrients. I examined the influence of different nutrient regimes on the fungal partner in the arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis. I especially focused on salinity problems, as they occur in southern Tunisia, where I performed several field studies. The following main results were obtained:
• The spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) may contain high amounts of mineral nutrients. Therefore, our results indicate that AM fungal spores do not only serve for carbon storage, but also as mineral nutrient reservoirs. Both high environmental P concentrations and low C status of the plant partner led to an accumulation of P and other mineral nutrients in the fungus. We suggest that AMF can control the transfer of P and hold it back if not provided with sufficient C from the host, and that there must be a feed-back mechanism in the symbiotic C-P exchange.
• I found AMF in saline ecosystems in southern Tunisia with at least 17 morphospecies per 40 g soil. The AMF biomass in soil declined with rising salinity Under elevated salinity, AM fungal hyphae and spores contained high amounts of Ca, Cl and K, while Na was found at low levels. The same findings hold true for a salinity stressed G. intraradices grown in in vitro cultures. This led us to suggest that AMF could act as an ion filter for the plant under high salinity, which could explain the high K/Na rates that are often reported in mycorrhized plants growing in saline soils.
• Sole osmotic stress had different effects on G. intraradices than salinity stress, which includes both osmotic and toxic ion stress. Sole osmotic stress impaired the growth of the external mycelium and spores more than salinity stress, while the uptake of nutrients from the medium was more reduced by salinity stress caused by NaCl or KCl. This indicates that sole osmotic stress constitutes a high energetic cost in osmoregulation in AMF.
• NaCl stress triggered a strong rise in production of glomalin, a protein important for soil structure, while sole osmotic stress did not. Thus, glomalin seems to be a stress response, but not a general one.
• Growth of AM external mycelium was strongly stimulated by organic matter addition to the soil, and also the C flow from the plant to the mycelium was higher under organic matter addition. Mineral nutrient addition to the soil also stimulated AMF growth, though to a lesser extent than organic material. Organic matter addition to subtropical soils can therefore be an important soil remedy, since by stimulating AMF growth, it supports the symbiotically associated vegetation, improves soil structure and increases C storage in the soil.
• In a revegetation project, double inoculation of Acacia saplings with AMF and Rhizobium in the desert border of the Sahara did not lead to measurable effects on the plants after five years, but the overall survival of the saplings in field after having been raised in a nursery was satisfactory. We suggest that the inoculum needs to be very carefully chosen in order to be compatible with the ecosystem, or that the native soil inoculum should be considered in management practices.


With an overall objective for broad and confident integrity management of the PetroChina Pipeline Company's pipeline network, we illustrate the impact of a collaborative effort between PetroChina and GE Oil & Gas for the inspection and mitigation of spiral weld anomalies, particularly for new advanced assessments of features oriented along and within the spiral weld. Tool configuration, sensor types and the role of novel data analysis techniques including magnetic vector component measurements, is presented as a set to address a broader variety of spiral weld threats, while ensuring a high level of operational robustness and reliability. This paper describes some of the science behind the art, and describes the fundamentals of MFL magnetics and it's evolution as an ILI technology into the 21st century for spiral weld anomaly inspection.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


OBJECTIVES
Nowadays, the extended ecological plaque hypothesis equates dental health with the occurrence of acidogenic generalists in the plaque flora and explains disease?the irreversible demineralization of the dental hard tissue?by an ecologic shift in plaque composition, favoring acidogenic and aciduric specialists, following repeated conditions of high sugar. In the present study, aspects of the extended ecological plaque hypothesis were examined in retrospect.

METHOD AND MATERIALS
Serving as a basis were data on (1) the caries incidence of children, classified according to their DMFT as having low or high caries risk; (2) the qualitative plaque composition of the children with the prevalence of mutans streptococci and actinomyces; (3) the amounts of acid and acid tolerance, determined by pH state titration (glucose), of representatively isolated strains of mutans streptococci and actinomyces; (4) the extrapolation of the acid amount to the occurrence of mutans streptococci and actinomyces in the plaque of children; and (5) the relationship between the extrapolated acid amount in plaque and caries incidence and the respective classification of the children into low and high caries risk.

RESULTS
The synoptic consideration of the numbers of A naeslundii and S mutans in plaque of children, with their capacity for acid production in vitro, reflected the caries risk classification.

CONCLUSION
The analysis of the clinical, microbiologic, and in vitro findings concerning the virulence of the plaque isolates supports the extended ecological plaque hypothesis. Children with low caries risk had developed one new decayed surface within 4 years; children with high caries risk developed four within the same time period.


Because of different reported effects of parasitism on the accumulation of metals in fish, it is important to consider parasites while interpreting bioaccumulation data from biomonitoring programmes. Accordingly, the first step is to take parasitism into consideration when simulating metal bioaccumulation in the fish host under laboratory conditions. In the present study, the accumulation of metals in fish-parasite systems was simulated by a one-compartment toxicokinetic model and compared to uninfected conspecifics. As such, metal accumulation in fish was assumed to result from a balance of different uptake and loss processes depending on the infection status. The uptake by parasites was considered an efflux from the fish host, similar to elimination. Physiological rate constants for the uninfected fish were parameterised based on the covalent index and the species weight while the parameterisation for the infected fish was carried out based on the reported effects of parasites on the uptake kinetics of the fish host. The model was then validated for the system of the chub Squalius cephalus and the acanthocephalan Pomphorhynchus tereticollis following 36-day exposure to waterborne Pb. The dissolved concentration of Pb in the exposure tank water fluctuated during the exposure, ranging from 40 to 120 μg/L. Generally, the present study shows that the one-compartment model can be an effective method for simulating the accumulation of metals in fish, taking into account effects of parasitism. In particular, the predicted concentrations of Cu, Fe, Zn, and Pb in the uninfected chub as well as in the infected chub and the acanthocephalans were within one order of magnitude of the measurements. The variation in the absorption efficiency and the elimination rate constant of the uninfected chub resulted in variations of about one order of magnitude in the predicted concentrations of Pb. Inclusion of further assumptions for simulating metal accumulation in the infected chub led to variations of around two orders of magnitude in the predictions. Therefore, further research is required to reduce uncertainty while characterising and parameterising the model for infected fish.


Large isotopic anomalies are found in meteoritic insoluble organic materials (IOMs) and, for nitrogen, show 15N-excesses up to δ 15 ?> N ∼ 5000‰. These 15N-enrichments are commonly ascribed to presolar origins, but the attribution seems contradicted by available data on N-isotopes' cosmic distribution. We report here that 15N hotspots in several IOMs are reduced by hydrothermal treatment and their loss correlates with 15N values of ammonia released upon treatment. Because released ammonia's 15N-enrichments also relate with meteorites' mineralogy, i.e., asteroidal processes, and no current models offer plausible explanations for the finding, we account for our data with a novel scenario whereby 15N-enriched ammonia produced in the solar nebula is incorporated by carbonaceous materials and delivered to early Earth by comets and meteorites. The proposal also implies that abundant reduced nitrogen, a required element in origins of life theories, could reach our nascent planet and other planetary systems affecting their habitability.


The Spanish novelist Jesus Fernandez Santos (1926-1988) published twelve novels and four collections of short stories between 1954 and 1988. Over the years his work has been the subject of many articles and five monographs which have, overwhelmingly, studied his fiction in terms of changing narrative modes, constant themes, geographical determinism in rural communities, and existential anguish. However, an important and valid approach to analysing his work involves the assessment of Jesus Fernandez Santos as a dissident voice within the system, a serious critic of the main ideological tenets of the Francoist regime. From his belief that man is a product of historical circumstances, he explored the consequences of the socio-economic and political structures of the country and the prevailing culture on the lives of his characters, exposing the negative effects in terms of lack of sense of personal worthiness, alienation, inability to communicate with others, lack of community spirit, and so on. In so doing, he challenged the triumphalistic myth of the regime: that the Spanish individual and national identity constituted an eternal essence that Franco was helping to safeguard and develop. Thus, Jesus Fernandez Santos's narrative can be viewed as a counter-discourse. In my thesis I study three aspects of the narrative of Fernandez Santos that have been particularly neglected in previous studies. First, the theme of challenging social values by making individuals aware of the injustices of the system and presenting the transformation of social and political relationships as a valid goal in life. The author maintained that the personal is always political, that we are all part of the system. Second, I examine his perception of Catholicism as a negative influence on the development of the self and his criticism of the Catholic Church as an institution that colluded with Franco's regime in order to maintain the political and social status quo. A third aspect of Jesus Fernandez Santos's narrative that I have studied is the author's attitudes to women and feminist issues. Although Fernandez Santos's sympathetic approach to women has been acknowledged in general terms by others, I have undertaken a more detailed analysis. In my thesis I have studied how the author includes women's voices to present their perspective within the general framework of society and culture.


On a regular day, healthcare providers will be contacted by one or more health seekers presenting with cough as a symptom. Cough has been considered an important physiological reflex that protects the airways from aspiration of foreign materials. Cough is one of the most common symptoms for which people seek medical attention from their healthcare practitioners. The common classifications for cough include acute, subacute and chronic cough. Such classification is time dependant. Acute cough is generally self-limiting, while subacute and chronic coughs have various different causes. There are many different causes of cough, and the common causes of persistent coughs include: upper airway cough syndrome, asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD) and even pharmacological therapy. There are other important causes of chronic cough especially in the Southern African region that include: pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), environmental diseases, and others, which will not be covered by this article. Management of subacute and chronic coughs should be individualised according to their cause. Currently, there is no evidence to suggest acute coughs need to be treated. Moreover, there is poor evidence to recommend the use of over the counter (OTC) cough syrups in the management of acute coughs.


Injury prevention—need for a consensus between epidemiologists and traffic engineers

In this issue, Morency and Cloutier1 (see page 360) report that, over a 5-year period, motorists injured pedestrians at exactly one quarter of all intersections in central Montreal. Those of us alarmed over unsafe streets will not be surprised by this finding. But I suspect that many of those setting traffic policies will be.

That is because the roads agency in Montreal operates under a policy of fixing collision "black spots", where a "black spot" is an intersection with eight or more collisions in a 5-year period. Amazingly, seven motorist–pedestrian collisions in 5 years—that's one in every 260 days—is not enough to brand an intersection as dangerous. The black spots approach fixes only 1% of the intersections where a motorist hits a person.

The unspoken premise of this policy seems to be that a high frequency of collisions is evidence of design problems unique to that intersection. However, Morency and Cloutier's report suggests that faults in the road design are not site-specific but are nearly universal.

Morency and Cloutier approach the data from the perspective of epidemiologists and present the data in terms that make the problem particularly vivid: one quarter of all intersections were the site of a collision over a relatively short period of 5 years. By contrast, traffic engineers identify 22 black spot intersections for fixes.

These two different presentations may result from the different perspectives of the different professions. …


Ocular malformations and visual deficits are pathognomic of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). However, there are no reports on retinal visual function. To determine if prenatal (human second-trimester equivalent) or prenatal plus 10 days of postnatal (human third-trimester equivalent) ethanol exposure produced scotopic and/or photopic deficits in adult hooded rats, electroretinography (ERG) was used to examine rod and cone, increment threshold, dark adaptation, and paired-flash amplitude recovery functions. The rhodopsin content per eye also was determined. Five main results were found. First, voltage-log intensity and latency-log intensity functions, generated from single-flash ERGs in fully dark-adapted rats, showed increases in absolute threshold and latency and decreases in response amplitude. Second, cone ERGs had latency increases. Third, there were decreases in the scotopic and photopic critical flicker-fusion frequencies, increment threshold functions, and absolute and relative refractory periods. Fourth, rod sensitivity, range, and rate of dark adaptation were decreased. Fifth, rhodopsin content per eye was decreased. These data showed that prenatal ethanol exposure produces long-term deficits in retinal sensitivity, amplitude, light and dark adaptation, temporal processing, and excitability. Larger deficits occurred in the scotopic than photopic system and were produced with an additional 10 days of postnatal ethanol exposure. Alterations in photoreceptors and other cells of the distal retina probably contributed to these deficits. The relevance and applicability of these data to FAS and subclinical alcohol embryopathy have yet to be demonstrated; however, they suggest that similar retinal alterations may occur in human FAS.


Background Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a well-established oncogenic virus of cervical, anogenital, and oropharyngeal cancer. Various subtypes of HPV have been detected in 0% to 60% of breast cancers. The roles of HPV in the carcinogenesis of breast cancer remain controversial. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of HPV-positive breast cancer in Korean patients and to evaluate the possibility of carcinogenic effect of HPV on breast. Methods Meta-analysis was performed in 22 case-control studies for HPV infection in breast cancer. A total of 123 breast cancers, nine intraductal papillomas and 13 nipple tissues of patients with proven cervical HPV infection were tested by real-time polymerase chain reaction to detect 28 subtypes of HPV. Breast cancers were composed of 106 formalin-fixed and paraffin embedded (FFPE) breast cancer samples and 17 touch imprint cytology samples of breast cancers. Results The overall odds ratio between breast cancer and HPV infection was 5.43 (95% confidence interval, 3.24 to 9.12) with I2 = 34.5% in meta-analysis of published studies with case-control setting and it was statistically significant. HPV was detected in 22 cases of breast cancers (17.9%) and two cases of intaductal papillomas (22.2%). However, these cases had weak positivity. Conclusions These results failed to serve as significant evidence to support the relationship between HPV and breast cancer. Further study with larger epidemiologic population is merited to determine the relationship between HPV and breast cancer.


In the paper an efficient coding system for very low bit rates is presented. It is characterized by three operating modes. The intraframe mode combines image segmentation and an efficient luminance representation focalized on the concept of symmetry. The motion compensated mode is based on an adaptive motion representation which provides a good trade-off between the cost of parameter transmission and the quality of prediction. The obtained motion vector field is used for the reconstruction in the predicted mode. Experimental results are given on four test sequences. Simulations show good performance of the coding system both in terms of PSNR and bitrate. In particular, experiments show that the system is capable of working at around 24 kbit/sec with good quality for head-and-shoulder sequences. With more complex sequences, 50 kbit/sec are reached with acceptable degradation of the reconstructed images. >


A useful feature of Web services is that new and more complex Web services can be composed of other Web services. However, in many cases composed web services are useful only if they can be processed atomically. The (semantic) atomicity of composed Web services is ensured in a similar way as with advanced transaction models which use compensating transactions to undo the effects of successfully executed subtransactions. However, a problem of such compensation is that it has two contradicting semantics: from local point of view the subtransaction is like any single transaction while from global point of view it is a subtransaction of a distributed transaction having the mutual atomicity dependencies. As a result executing compensating transaction may cause problems, e.g., the cancellation of the hotel reservation may give rise for a special charge. In order to achieve shared understanding of transactions' semantics we have developed a transaction ontology to be used in the Web. In this paper we explain how it should be used in information exchange between Web services. In addition we present our developed CWS-Transaction model (Composed Web Service Transaction model), which censures the atomicity of composed Web services but does not use compensating transactions at all. We also illustrate how CWS-transactions can be processed by a workflow engines based on BPEL4WS-code.


Since the first applications of the Stokes V line ratio in the early 1970s and the Hanle depolarization effect in the early 1980s we have had a dualistic view of quiet-Sun magnetism: intermittent kG flux tubes surrounded by an ocean of turbulent fields with strengths of order 10-100 G. There has been the concern that this dualism could be an artefact of using two mutually almost exclusive diagnostic tools, the Zeeman and Hanle effect. We find however that the Hinode line-ratio data alone, without any reference to the Hanle effect, reveal the existence of two distinct flux populations, representing strong (collapsed) and weak (uncollapsed) flux. The collapsed population is preferentially located in the intergranular lanes, while the uncollapsed population is most visible in the bright cell interiors. From a comparison between the intrinsic field strengths, as derived from the line ratio for the collapsed population, and the corresponding flux densities, we can deduce the size distribution of the flux tubes. The majority of them are found to have sizes in the range 10-70 km. The intrinsic flux tube field strength decreases with diminishing size to become substantially smaller than kG for sizes below about 60 km. Comparison between the average of the unsigned flux density in the Hinode quiet-Sun data set and earlier constraints from the Hanle depolarization effect shows that most of the flux remains invisible at the Hinode resolution scale due to cancellation of the opposite magnetic polarities within the spatial resolution element. We have derived the cancellation function that describes how the visibility of the hidden flux improves with increased spatial resolution. It needs to be extrapolated to extremely small scales before the constraints imposed by the Hanle effect get satified, which suggests that the bulk of the hidden flux resides at scales near the end of the magnetic scale spectrum (of order 10 m).


This paper has been long ago inspired by Jared Diamond (1997) and, in particular, by his extensive use of the concept of economic surplus as the key to the development of civilization. Unfortunately, Diamond does not even mention the origin of the concept in classical and pre-classical economics. Moreover, Diamond does not pay any consideration to the long debates in economic anthropology on the role of economic analysis in studying primitive and ancient economic formations. These debates are instead the object of a more recent book by Cedrini & Marchionatti (2017), who context the neoclassical "imperialist" attempt to occupy the territory of economic anthropology. They rely, however, upon the frail institutionalist background provided by Karl Polanyi and his school and by other anthropologists of similar inspiration. In so doing, they fail to provide a robust economic basis to institutional change, by firmly anchoring it around the changing modes of generation and distribution of the economic surplus. These notes are explorative, as also shown by a post-scriptum. Comments welcome.


Human prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders that include sporadic, infectious and genetic forms. Inherited Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease due to the E200K mutation of the prion protein-coding gene is the most common form of genetic prion disease. The phenotype resembles that of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at both the clinical and pathological levels, with a median disease duration of 4 months. To date, there is no available treatment for delaying the occurrence or slowing the progression of human prion diseases. Existing in vivo models do not allow high-throughput approaches that may facilitate the discovery of compounds targeting pathological assemblies of human prion protein or their effects on neuronal survival. Here, we generated a genetic model in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which is devoid of any homologue of the prion protein, by expressing human prion protein with the E200K mutation in the mechanosensitive neuronal system. Expression of E200K prion protein induced a specific behavioural pattern and neurodegeneration of green fluorescent protein-expressing mechanosensitive neurons, in addition to the formation of intraneuronal inclusions associated with the accumulation of a protease-resistant form of the prion protein. We demonstrated that this experimental system is a powerful tool for investigating the efficacy of anti-prion compounds on both prion-induced neurodegeneration and prion protein misfolding, as well as in the context of human prion protein. Within a library of 320 compounds that have been approved for human use and cross the blood-brain barrier, we identified five molecules that were active against the aggregation of the E200K prion protein and the neurodegeneration it induced in transgenic animals. This model breaks a technological limitation in prion therapeutic research and provides a key tool to study the deleterious effects of misfolded prion protein in a well-described neuronal system.


In the period from 1793 to 1797, the United States confronted its first major foreign policy crisis after adoption of the Constitution. France was at war with Britain and other European powers. The United States primary foreign policy goal was to maintain neutrality and avoid war with Britain and France. The executive branch formulated the broad contours of U.S. neutrality policy in 1793. Congress enacted legislation in 1794 to codify that policy in statutory form. However, the federal judiciary was centrally involved in implementing U.S. neutrality policy in the years 1794 to 1797. This article tells the story of the federal judiciary's active role in implementing U.S. foreign policy in the 1790s. The "exclusive political control" thesis holds that the judiciary is barred from participating in foreign affairs decision-making because the Constitution grants the political branches exclusive control over foreign policy. This article demonstrates that the exclusive political control thesis is incompatible with the original understanding of the Founders. The judiciary's active role in implementing U.S. neutrality policy in the 1790s provides compelling evidence that the Founders did not endorse the exclusive political control thesis. In fact, the Cabinet officers and Supreme Court Justices of that era, most of whom were intimately involved in the process of drafting and ratifying the Constitution, reached a consensus that the judicial branch, not the executive branch, should play the lead role in deciding several of the major issues that the U.S. confronted in its effort to avoid entanglement in a European war.


The dynamics at the threshold of transition in plane Couette flow is investigated numerically in a large spatial domain for a certain type of localized initial perturbation, for Re between 350 and 1000. The corresponding edge state is an unsteady spotlike structure, localized in both streamwise and spanwise directions, which neither grows nor decays in size. We show that the localized nature of the edge state is numerically robust, and is not influenced by the size of the computational domain. The edge trajectory appears to transiently visit localized steady states. This suggests that basic spatiotemporally intermittent features of transition to turbulence, such as the growth of a turbulent spot, can be described as a dynamical system.


This study examines the relationship that people have with the modern day food environment. This study used a qualitative approach using interviews, videotapes, and questionnaires with seventeen participants. This varied approach was used to understand the decision-making process at dinnertime when deciding whether to cook at home or eat out at a restaurant. This was examined primarily through semi-structured interviews as well as the observation and videotaping of individuals preparing meals at dinnertime. The research resulted in three different categories of importance: why people choose to eat out, how people utilize restaurants, and the current roles restaurants have in modern American society. The results show the importance of restaurants in modern society beyond the nourishment that a meal can provide. Many of the themes that arose in this research have been seen in other research in this field, but a few new areas came up. For example, using a restaurant as a resource for new recipes to prepare at home was an area that emerged that had not been mentioned in the previous research. This shows that the relationship that American's have with the food environment outside the home is continuously transforming. Understanding all of the reasons people eat outside the home is important, as there is a general decrease in cooking practices inside the home. Gaining knowledge in how people make food choices on a daily basis is a good first step in being able to address public health issues that relate to food. This study explores the current food environment in order to have a deeper understanding of why people make the choice to eat outside the home, the ways people utilize restaurants, and the roles of restaurants in society.


In this work, we are interested in the computation of logical representations of discourse. We argue that all discourse connectives are anaphors obeying different sets of constraints and show how this view allows one to account for the semantically parenthetical use of attitude verbs and verbs of report (e.g., think, say) and for sequences of conjunctions (A CONJ_1 B CONJ_2 C). We implement this proposal in event semantics using de Groote (2006)'s dynamic framework.


The goal of a hub-based distance labeling scheme for a network G = (V, E) is to assign a small subset S(u) $\subseteq$ V to each node u $\in$ V, in such a way that for any pair of nodes u, v, the intersection of hub sets S(u) $\cap$ S(v) contains a node on the shortest uv-path. The existence of small hub sets, and consequently efficient shortest path processing algorithms, for road networks is an empirical observation. A theoretical explanation for this phenomenon was proposed by Abraham et al. (SODA 2010) through a network parameter they called highway dimension, which captures the size of a hitting set for a collection of shortest paths of length at least r intersecting a given ball of radius 2r. In this work, we revisit this explanation, introducing a more tractable (and directly comparable) parameter based solely on the structure of shortest-path spanning trees, which we call skeleton dimension. We show that skeleton dimension admits an intuitive definition for both directed and undirected graphs, provides a way of computing labels more efficiently than by using highway dimension, and leads to comparable or stronger theoretical bounds on hub set size.


Round buildings are a popular—but sometimes expensively perceived—design choice. With careful engineering and planning, they can offer a creative, cost-competitive option. They add another element to a designer's aesthetic arsenal. The structural engineers at HTB Inc., Oklahoma City, have refined circular methods with recent work on five partially-round buildings. They do not begin with rectangular framing and force it into a circular shape; that would result in too many small structural pieces and an extremely complex geometry. Instead, they start with a truly circular plan—one with a sloping roof that forms a frustum, or segment, of a right circular cone. Architects say circular elements offer more flow and movement, and, consequently, more ways to use space inside and outside of a building. Obviously, a circular structure costs more than a rectangular one. The geometry involved is more complicated and requires slightly more tonnage for steel frame work. Contrary to popular perceptions, however, these extra costs are negligible. Round buildings are cost competitive with more conventionally-shaped structures.


In this paper, the authors argue that the firm value implications of sport sponsorships for sponsors may depend on the competitive environment during the bidding process for different types of sponsorships. More specifically, the authors contend that the bidding environment for professional football (soccer) kit sponsorships represents a form of common value auction, while the bidding environment for corporate logo sponsorships on teams' shirts does not. As common value auctions are prone to winner's curse, the firm value implications should be different for kit sponsorship announcements than for shirt sponsorship announcements. Our results suggest that shareholders indeed perceive the value derived from kit and shirt sponsorships differently, resulting in the predicted distinction in their impact on sponsors' firm value. This study sheds light on conflicting results on firm value implications of sport sponsorships in the prior literature and provides rich areas for future research.


This book is devoted to an analysis of alternative land tenure systems in Papua New Guinea and offers a blend of philosophical, legal, sociological and economic approaches to this issue. The text is divided roughly into two sections. The first six chapters provide a religious, philosophical, historical, sociological and legal context in which to understand Melanesian culture and Melanesian customary land tenure, and its contemporary recognition within the country's legal system. The early chapters review the historical approaches to customary land tenure from the pre-independence period up to and including the most recent amendments that deal with the incorporation of customary land owning groups. In these chapters we recommend that the present system be replaced with one that gives greater emphasis to formalized forms of private individual ownership and provides answers to various cultural, social and philosophical objections to such proposals. The latter section of the book demonstrates the economic advantages to be gained through the conversion of customary forms of individual land tenure to private ownership based on documented titling. The economic issues considered include the serious shortage of land for other than purely subsistence food production; the inadequacy of both food and cash crop production for export when based on customary land ownership; and the failure of the new Forestry Act to promote increased levels of sustainable production by Papua New Guineans themselves. The book concludes with examination of the scope for land registration in Papua New Guinea with reference to developments in Kenya that transformed customary ownership across much of the country into individual private ownership, and, in the Appendix, to the impact of the reversion from titled to customary land ownership across most of Zimbabwe after 2000.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the noninvasive electrical velocimetry (Aesculon) monitor for cardiac output (CO) by subxiphoidal Doppler flow measurement in children. METHODS: CO was determined at the end of diagnostic or interventional cardiac catheterization for congenital heart defects. Standard ECG surface electrodes were attached in a vertical direction to the patients' left middle and lower neck, and lower thorax at the level of the heart and xiphoid process. Aesculon CO data were compared with a simultaneously measured CO by the subxiphoidal Doppler flow measurement technique. For each patient, measurements were repeated three times within 5 min. Whitney U-test, simple regression and Bland-Altman analysis were performed to compare CO values obtained by the two techniques. Data are given as range (median). RESULTS: A total of 36 children aged 5.7 (0.5-16.0) years were investigated. CO values obtained by Aesculon monitor [0.55-5.58 (2.62) l min] and subxiphoidal Doppler flow measurements [0.62-6.27 (3.05) l min] differed significantly between both methods (P = 0.04). Simple regression analysis revealed moderate correlation between CO values obtained from the two techniques (r = 0.5544, P < 0.001). Bias between the two methods was 0.31 l min with a precision of 1.92 l min. CONCLUSION: We conclude that electrical velocimetry using the Aesculon monitor does not reliably reflect absolute CO values as compared with subxiphoidal Doppler flow measurement.


This thesis describes a series of studies which were undertaken to improve the diagnostic accuracy of the electrocardiogram (ECG), given the availability of computer assisted measurement techniques. Scalar 12 lead electrocardiograms have been recorded from over 200 cardiac patients recruited specifically for this study. Over 1,500 additional ECGs were available from normal and abnormal test populations. The ECG measurements were correlated with clinical, echocardiographic, radionuclide, coronary angiographic and contrast angiographic data of the left ventricle in order to meet the aims of the study.

The history of electrocardiography was reviewed both with respect to the technique itself and the evolution of equipment through to present day computer assisted technology for recording and measurement of ECG waveforms. In addition, the development of echocardiography, nuclear cardiology and cardiac catheterization was also reviewed with particular attention being given to recent developments in technology which have allowed a reappraisal of gold standards against which the ECG can be compared.

With more specific relevance to the aim of this study, the development of ECG criteria mainly with respect to post mortem examinations was reviewed so that a contrast could be drawn with present day techniques. In particular, emphasis was laid on the twin areas of left ventricular hypertrophy and ischemic heart disease.

Evaluation of left ventricular function from the scalar electrocardiogram was undertaken in two ways. First of all the latest ECG scoring system of Selvester was assessed, from which left ventricular ejection fraction could be calculated. Secondly, indirect evidence of left atrial overload from the electrocardiogram was also studied. It was shown that left ventricular function could be predicted qualitatively with reasonable accuracy in the early post infarct period (third day) using the 54 criteria/32 points scoring system.


In answering the question of how judges should approach unconscious discrimination claims, scholars ignore a practical solution to this problem: by putting the burden on the firm to reduce the incidence of unconscious bias ex ante, as opposed to putting the burden on the employee of proving it in court ex post. The means of accomplishing this is multifaceted, whereby firms that have been previously exposed to extensive employment discrimination litigation use their market power to force their smaller competitors to adopt a new diversity norm. Delaware law then steps in and memorializes the new norm in the case law, transitioning the norm into a rule of law enforceable through the duty to monitor (a species of the duties of care and loyalty). While this may sound a little unusual, this article will show that it is a meaningful alternative to combating discrimination primarily addressed through Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) by forcing firms incorporated within the state to create an environment amenable to diversity. Such initiatives could address overt discrimination and also unconscious discrimination, which is more prevalent and the focus of this study. While unconscious discrimination is actionable under Title VII (presumably), scholars are in agreement that court regulation of it has failed. Contrary to the alternatives suggested in the literature, placing the burden on the firm to regulate discrimination ex ante is more likely to minimize unconscious, discriminatory behavior, at least more than tinkering with the ex post remedies available for those few violations that can be proven through Title VII. This article first explains why courts have failed to address unconscious discrimination, a failure that has emerged largely out of respect for employment at will and an unwillingness to infer differential treatment where other explanations are possible. Courts can address only the most extreme cases of unconscious discrimination, which require the presence of certain factors that will allow the court to isolate the bias. Second, this article proposes other mechanisms for addressing unconscious discrimination that account for its peculiar nature, mainly firm-based remedies that will be more successful than the courts have been in addressing this problem. The difficulty comes in giving the Delaware courts an incentive to become involved in the controversy over unconscious discrimination, or in the alternative, convincing firms to address unconscious discrimination without the impetus of litigation. This article demonstrates that such incentive can come from an unlikely blend of the duties of care and loyalty, corporate norms, and economic pressure from corporate giants like Wal-Mart.


It has been known for some years now that histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition exerts a
variety of effects on cellular proliferation and apoptosis. The potential for use of inhibitors
of HDAC in the field of cancer therapy has now been realised; the first drug of this class
recently being approved for use.1 Structurally, a great variety of molecules have been shown
to be capable of producing an inhibitory effect, through mechanisms elucidated by
crystallographic studies of the inhibitor-bound enzyme. Despite the diversity of these
compounds, several structural features common to most of the known inhibitors can be
identified, including a moiety capable of binding a zinc ion present at the enzymes active
site. A great number of the known inhibitors bear a hydroxamic acid group for this reason,
despite the reportedly unfavourable characteristics of this functionality in vivo.2 This thesis
focuses on the synthesis of novel inhibitors of HDAC, attempts to develop nonhydroxamate
inhibitors and biological evaluation of the HDAC inhibitory capability of
compounds synthesised within this group.
A series of compounds bearing aryloxyalkanoic acid hydroxyamide motifs were synthesised
following the identification of this class of compounds as potent HDAC inhibitors.
Systematic variation of these molecules allowed optimisation of their activity in isolated
enzyme inhibition assays and in human cancer cell line cytotoxicity assays.
Attempts to identify novel zinc-binding groups capable of replacing the hydroxamic acid
motif were possible through use of the structure of a known potent inhibitor and substitution
of the motif with a variety of structures proposed to provide the same role. A further group
of novel hydroxamate inhibitors were synthesised based on the simple structure of a known
inhibitor. Diversification of the structure and substitution of bio-isosteres led to
enhancement of inhibitory activity. Finally, a selection of novel compounds synthesised
within this group were evaluated for their effect on cell cycle, cell protein expression and
isolated HDAC inhibition.


We study cross-layer design in random-access-based fixed wireless multihop networks under a physical interference model. Due to the complexity of the problem, we consider a simple slotted ALOHA medium access control (MAC) protocol for link-layer operation. We formulate a joint routing, access probability, and rate allocation optimization problem to determine the optimal max-min throughput of the flows and the optimal configuration of the routing, access probability, and transmission rate parameters in a slotted ALOHA system. We then also adapt this problem to include an XOR-like network coding without opportunistic listening. Both problems are complex nonlinear and nonconvex. We provide extensive numerical results for both problems for medium-size mesh networks using an iterated optimal search technique. Via numerical and simulation results, we show that: 1) joint design provides a significant throughput gain over a default configuration in slotted-ALOHA-based wireless networks; and 2) the throughput gain obtained by the simple network coding is significant, especially at low transmission power. We also propose simple heuristics to configure slotted-ALOHA-based wireless mesh networks. These heuristics are extensively evaluated via simulation and found to be very efficient.


"The Rose Consort combines an entrancing ear for line and texture with great beauty of sound and suppleness of phrase, transporting us at once back to an era which gave a premium to grace, refinement, and civilised discourse", said CD Review. The programme we have chosen for the consort to perform is a series of dramatic songs from Elizabethan plays interspersed with dances and fantasias from Byrd, Tomkins and their contemporaries. For this they are joined by Katherine King, Mezzo-Soprano.


Follicular lymphoma (FL) is currently incurable using conventional chemotherapy or immunotherapy regimes, compelling new strategies. Advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies that can reveal oncogenic pathways have stimulated interest in tailoring therapies toward actionable somatic mutations. However, for mutation-directed therapies to be most effective, the mutations must be uniformly present in evolved tumor cells as well as in the self-renewing tumor-cell precursors. Here, we show striking intratumoral clonal diversity within FL tumors in the representation of mutations in the majority of genes as revealed by whole exome sequencing of subpopulations. This diversity captures a clonal hierarchy, resolved using immunoglobulin somatic mutations and IGH-BCL2 translocations as a frame of reference and by comparing diagnosis and relapse tumor pairs, allowing us to distinguish early versus late genetic eventsduring lymphomagenesis. We provide evidence that IGH-BCL2 translocations and CREBBP mutations are early events, whereas MLL2 and TNFRSF14 mutations probably represent late events during disease evolution. These observations provide insight into which of the genetic lesions represent suitable candidates for targeted therapies.


The behaviour and cache sites of European Nuthatches storing naturally occurring beech Fagus sylvatica and hazel Corylus avellana nuts in a South Swedish wood are described. Data are also given on the retrieval of cached nuts in winter and on recaching. On average it took a Nuthatch about 1 min to cache a beech nut. A third of all caches were below 1 m, 20% in the ground. Of those in trees, most were at heights between 5 and 15 m and less than 20% on branches thinner than 4 cm; of caches made above ground, 43% were in dead, often rotten wood. The choice of cache site was related to the kind of item to be cached: a higher proportion of hazel than beech nuts was cached in the ground. Oak was used proportionally more, and other species of tree proportionally less for caching than suggested by their abundance, perhaps because oak presented much dead wood which was extensively used for caching. More than 80% of all caches were covered with material from the immediate surroundings of the cache site. The Nuthatches removed the seed coat from a high proportion of the beech nuts before caching them; however, none of those cached in the ground and similar sites were shelled. During the coldest part of the winter, 1.1 nut per hour was retrieved in a winter following a poor mast crop vs 4.6 in a winter following a rich one. Recaching was common at all times but less so in winter.


An experiment was conducted from August to December 2004 under greenhouse conditions to evaluate the effects of aging residues of different plant species [coverage sorghum (Sorghum bicolor x S. sudanensis 'Cober Exp'), forage millet (Pennisetum americanum 'BN2'), finger millet (Eleusine coracana) and St. Lucia Grass (Brachiaria brizantha)], on the control of Ipomoea grandifolia using the pre-emergence herbicides diclosulam and imazaquin. Crop residues were subjected to chemical analyses. The efficiency of diclosulam was not affected by any of the residues. On the other hand, in association with residues of any of the species, but especially with St. Lucia Grass, this herbicide showed increased weed control efficiency. The control potential of imazaquin was influenced by forage millet and St Lucia Grass residues 90 days after laying residues on the soil. This behavior may be due to cellulose and lignin increase in both forage millet and St. Lucia Grass.


This article presents findings from a qualitative case study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in rural Sierra Leone. It adds to the sparse literature directly evaluating local experiences of transitional justice mechanisms. It investigates the conceptual foundations of retributive and restorative approaches to postwar justice, and describes the emerging alternative argument demanding attention be paid to economic, cultural, and social rights in such transitional situations. The article describes how justice is defined in Makeni, a town in Northern Sierra Leone, and shows that the TRC's restorative approach was unable to generate a sense of postwar justice, and was, to many, experienced as a provocation. The conclusions support an alternative distributive conception of justice and show that local conception of rights, experiences of infringement and needs for redress, demand social, cultural, and economic considerations be taken seriously in transitional justice cases.


No single book has encompassed the vast scope of Edward Said's erudition quite like "Power, Politics and Culture" - a collection of his interviews from the last three decades. In these twenty-nine interviews, Said addresses everything from Palestine to Pavarotti, from his nomadic upbringing under colonial rule to his politically active and often controversial life in America, and reflects on Austen, Beckett, Conrad, Naipaul, Mahfouz and Rushdie as well as fellow critics Bloom, Derrida and Foucault. Said speaks here with his usual candour, acuity and eloquence - confirming that he was in his lifetime among the truly most important intellects of our century.


The increasing popularity of Web 2.0 has led to exponential growth of user-generated content in both volume and significance. One important type of user-generated content is the blog. Blogs encompass useful information (e.g., insightful product reviews and information-rich consumer communities) that could potentially be a gold mine for business intelligence, bringing great opportunities for both academic research and business applications. However, performing business intelligence on blogs is quite challenging because of the vast amount of information and the lack of commonly adopted methodology for effectively collecting and analyzing such information. In this paper, we propose a framework for gathering business intelligence from blogs by automatically collecting and analyzing blog contents and bloggers' interaction networks. Through a system developed using the framework, we conducted two case studies with one case focusing on a consumer product and the other on a company. Our case studies demonstrate how to use the framework and appropriate techniques to effectively collect, extract, and analyze blogs related to the topics of interest, reveal novel patterns in the blogger interactions and communities, and answer important business intelligence questions in the domains. The framework is sufficiently generic and can be applied to any topics of interest, organizations, and products. Future academic research and business applications related to the topics examined in the two cases can also be built using the findings of this study.


Abstract. The mid-Pliocene Warm Period (mPWP) bears many similarities to aspects of future global warming as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007). Both marine and terrestrial data point to high-latitude temperature amplification, including large decreases in sea ice and land ice, as well as expansion of warmer climate biomes into higher latitudes. Here we present our most recent simulations of the mid-Pliocene climate using the CMIP5 version of the NASA/GISS Earth System Model (ModelE2-R). We describe the substantial impact associated with a recent correction made in the implementation of the Gent-McWilliams ocean mixing scheme (GM), which has a large effect on the simulation of ocean surface temperatures, particularly in the North Atlantic Ocean. The effect of this correction on the Pliocene climate results would not have been easily determined from examining its impact on the preindustrial runs alone, a useful demonstration of how the consequences of code improvements as seen in modern climate control runs do not necessarily portend the impacts in extreme climates. Both the GM-corrected and GM-uncorrected simulations were contributed to the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) Experiment 2. Many findings presented here corroborate results from other PlioMIP multi-model ensemble papers, but we also emphasise features in the ModelE2-R simulations that are unlike the ensemble means. The corrected version yields results that more closely resemble the ocean core data as well as the PRISM3D reconstructions of the mid-Pliocene, especially the dramatic warming in the North Atlantic and Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Sea, which in the new simulation appears to be far more realistic than previously found with older versions of the GISS model. Our belief is that continued development of key physical routines in the atmospheric model, along with higher resolution and recent corrections to mixing parameterisations in the ocean model, have led to an Earth System Model that will produce more accurate projections of future climate.


Dense protein clusters are known to play an important role in nucleation of protein crystals from dilute solutions. While these have generally been thought to be formed from a metastable phase, the observation of similar, if not identical, clusters above the critical point for the dilute-solution/strong-solution phase transition has thrown this into doubt. Furthermore, the observed clusters are stable for relatively long times. Because protein aggregation plays a central role in some pathologies, understanding the nature of such clusters is an important problem. One mechanism for the stabilization of such structures was proposed by Pan, Vekilov and Lubchenko and was investigated using a dynamical density functional theory model which confirmed the viability of the model. Here, we revisit that model and incorporate additional physics in the form of state-dependent reaction rates. We show by a combination of numerical results and general arguments that the state-dependent rates disrupt the stability mechanism. Finally, we argue that the state-dependent reactions correct unphysical aspects of the model with ideal (state-independent) reactions and that this necessarily leads to the failure of the proposed mechanism.


Split-thickness skin grafts constitute an established and widely used procedure for treating skin ulcers. However, in patients on anticoagulation therapy, wound healing abnormalities can prevent smooth epithelialization of their donor site. We aimed to investigate the usefulness of a technique to facilitate smooth wound healing through partial dimension reduction, and spared skin grafts back of donor sites with split-thickness skin grafts for patients undergoing anticoagulation therapy and investigate its usefulness. Partial dimension reduction and spared skin grafting back was performed on the donor site in 4 cases (group A), and the conventional method (moist dressing) was performed in 3 cases (group B). We compared the time to achieve complete epithelialization, the degree of pain, the frequency of dressing changes during the perioperative period, and the cosmetic results 6 months after surgery in both groups. The spared skin graft achieved good circulation. The time to achieve complete epithelialization was 3.1 weeks (2.5-4 weeks) in group A and 5.7 weeks (3-8 weeks) in group B; group A tended to experience less pain and fewer dressing changes during the perioperative period than group B. In addition, group A yielded superior cosmetic results to group B. Our technique can contribute to increasing the defense against physical stimulation in the donor site. Therefore, rapid wound healing and easy wound management can be achieved. We believe that it may be useful in split-thickness skin grafts for patients undergoing anticoagulation therapy.


Next generation of Internet of Things (IoT) services imposes stringent requirements to the future networks that current ones cannot fulfill. 5G is a technology born to give response to those requirements. However, the deployment of 5G is also accompanied by profound architectural changes in the network, including the introduction of technologies like multi-access edge computing (MEC), software defined networking (SDN), and network function virtualization (NFV). In particular, NFV poses diverse challenges like virtual network function (VNF) placement and chaining, also called VNF-mapping. In this paper, we present an algorithm that solves VNF-placement and chaining in a metro WDM optical network equipped with MEC resources. Therefore, it solves the VNF-mapping in conjunction with the virtual topology design of the underlying optical backhaul network. Moreover, a version of the method providing protection against node failures is also presented. A simulation study is presented to show the importance of designing the three problems jointly, in contrast to other proposals of the literature that do not take the design of the underlying network into consideration when solving that problem. Furthermore, this paper also shows the advantages of using collaboration between MEC nodes to solve the VNF-mapping problem and the advantage of using shared protection schemes. The new algorithm outperforms other proposals in terms of both service blocking ratio, and number of active CPUs (thus reducing energy consumption). Finally, the impact of deploying different physical topologies for the optical backhaul network is also presented.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deems large indoor gatherings without social distancing the "highest risk" activity for COVID-19 contagion. On June 20, 2020, President Donald J. Trump held his first mass campaign rally following the US coronavirus outbreak at the indoor Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) arena. In the weeks following the event, numerous high-profile national news outlets reported that the Trump rally was "more than likely" the cause of a coronavirus surge in Tulsa county based on time series data. This study is the first to rigorously explore the impacts of this event on social distancing and COVID-19 spread. First, using data from SafeGraph Inc, we show that while non-resident visits to census block groups hosting the Trump event grew by approximately 25 percent, there was no decline in net stay-at-home behavior in Tulsa county, reflecting important offsetting behavioral effects. Then, using data on COVID-19 cases and deaths from the CDC and a synthetic control design, we find little evidence that COVID-19 grew more rapidly in Tulsa County, its border counties, or in the state of Oklahoma than each's estimated counterfactual during the five-week post-treatment period we observe. Difference-in-differences estimates further provide no evidence that COVID-19 rates grew faster in counties that drew relatively larger shares of residents to the event. We conclude that offsetting risk-related behavioral responses to the rally — including voluntary closures of restaurants and bars in downtown Tulsa, increases in stay-at-home behavior, displacement of usual activities of weekend inflows, and smaller-than-expected crowd attendance — may be important mechanisms.


Portal vein thrombosis (PVT) is a frequent complication in cirrhosis and its prevalence increases with disease severity. Several factors are involved in the development and progression of PVT. The challenge for the management of PVT is the precise evaluation of the bleeding risk as opposed to life-threatening extension of thrombosis. Nevertheless, the impact on the progression and outcome of liver disease is unclear. A critical evaluation of the available data discloses that treating PVT in cirrhotics is safe and effective. However, there are open issues, such as which anticoagulant could represent a safer therapeutic option, and when and for how long this treatment should be administered to cirrhotic patients with PVT.


In underwater optical imaging using pulsed laser radiation the vector nature of the electromagnetic wave can be used to produce polarization contrast. We have analyzed different polarimetric transformations of light pulses through seawater on immersed targets and defined optimum conditions for using polarization parameters.


Continuous Evaluation of Time Varying Speech Quality (CETVSQ) is a method of subjective assessment of transmitted speech quality for long speech sequences containing quality fluctuations in time. This method is modeled for continuous evaluation of long speech sequences based on two subjective tasks. First task is to assess the speech quality during the listening and second task is to assess the overall speech quality after listening to the speech sequences. The development of continuous evaluation of time varying speech quality was motivated by fact that speech quality degradations are often not constant and varies in time. In modern IP telephony and wireless networks, speech quality varies due to specific impairments such as packet loss, echo, handover in networks etc. Many other standard methods already exist, which are being used for subjective assessment of short speech sequences. These methods such as ITU-T Rec. P.800 are well suited for only time constant speech quality. In this thesis work, it was required to implement CETVSQ methodology, so that it could be possible to assess long speech sequences. An analog hardware slider is used for the continuous assessment of speech qualities, as well as for overall quality judgments. Instantaneous and overall quality judgments are being saved into Excel file. The results stored in the Excel file are analyzed by applying different statistical measures. In evaluation part of the thesis work, subjects' scores are analyzed by applying statistical methods to identify several factors that have originated in the CETVSQ methodology. A subjective test had already been conducted according to P.800 ACR method. The long speech sequences were divided into 8 seconds short sequences and then assessed using P.800 ACR method. In this study, the long speech sequences are assessed using CETVSQ methodology and comparison is conducted between P.800 ACR and CETVSQ results. It has been revealed that if long speech sequences are divided into short segments and evaluated using P.800 ACR, then P.800 ACR results will be different from the results obtained from CETVSQ methodology. The necessity of CETVSQ methodology is proved by this study.


We empirically analyze how bank lending reacts to monetary policy in the presence of global financial flows. Employing a unique and novel dataset of the funding modes and currency composition of the full population of Norwegian banks in structurally identified regressions, we show that the efficiency of the bank lending channel is affected when banks can shift to international funding and thus insulate their costs of funding from domestic monetary policy. We isolate the effect of global factors from domestic monetary policy by focusing on the deviation of exchange rates from the prediction of (uncovered and covered) interest rate parity. The Norwegian banking sector represents an ideal laboratory since the exogenous exchange rate dynamics allows for a convincing identification of the relation between lending and global factors.


This paper emphasizes the benefits of embedding data categorization within fusion of classifiers for text-independent speaker verification. A selective fusion framework is presented which considers data idiosyncrasies by assigning particular test samples to appropriate fusion schemes. As an extension, incompatible data can be spotted and excluded from inherent classification errors. In addition, it's shown that multi-resolution low-level classifiers successfully boost fusion capabilities in noise.


We investigate theoretically and experimentally the evaporation of liquid disks in the presence of natural convection due to a density difference between the vapor and the surrounding gas. From the analogy between thermal convection above a heated disk and our system, we derive scaling laws to describe the evaporation rate. The local evaporation rate depends on the presence of a boundary layer in the gas phase such that the total evaporation rate is given by a combination of different scaling contributions, which reflect the structure of the boundary layer. We compare our theoretical predictions to experiments performed with water in an environment controlled in humidity, which validate our approach.


The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area Project (KCAP) provides a remarkable example of a gender-sensitive nature conservation project. The KCAP is an Integrated Conservation and Development Project (ICDP) in the mountainous area of East Nepal, jointly managed by the WWF Nepal Program and the Nepalese Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. The project includes a specific women's-development approach 1 . It not only aims at direct integration of women into nature conservation, but also applies a broad strategy and a combination of activities for women's development. Questions arise in the context of both participatory nature conservation and gender issues. This study focuses equally on positive and critical aspects and highlights the importance of a balance between women-only and gender-mixed interventions. As an introduction, the present article provides first a short overview of women's integration into nature conservation projects and development efforts, followed by the outline of the research questions and methodological procedure and a brief description of the case study area. The findings including a discussion of the KCAP's women's-development approach and conclusions are presented subsequently.


We present a hands-on assignment for students in a junior-level Algorithms class that explores performance of sorting algorithms in practice. The assignment is set up as a competition to develop the fastest program to sort a large data file on a combined criterion: by the length of words and, within each group of the same length, alphabetically. The criterion allowed for a variety of approaches which led students to explore details of various sorting algorithms and to develop data-specific modifications. The paper presents the testing setup and discusses the results and the value of the assignment.


Degenerative diseases of the lumbar spine, which are common among elderly people, cause back pain and radicular symptoms and lead to a poor quality of life. Lumbar spinal fusion is a standardized and widely accepted surgical procedure used for treating degenerative lumbar diseases; however, the classical posterior approach used in this procedure is recognized to cause vascular and neurologic damage of the lumbar muscles. Various studies have suggested that using the minimally invasive transforaminal interbody fusion (TLIF) technique provides long-term clinical outcomes comparable to those of open TLIF approaches in selected patients. In this study, we compared the perioperative and short-term advantages of miniopen, MI, and open TLIF. Compared with open TLIF, MI-TLIF and miniopen TLIF were associated with less blood loss, shorter hospital stays, and longer operative times; however, following the use of these procedures, no difference in quality of life was measured at 6 months or 1 year. Whether miniopen TLIF or MI-TLIF can replace traditional TLIF as the surgery of choice for treating degenerative lumbar deformity remains unclear, and additional studies are required for validating the safety and efficiency of these procedures.


When we envisioned a journal of visual culture issue on 'Internet Memes' over two years ago, we sensed that the best way to be generous to our subject matter was to not presume to know what it would look like. Academic publishing – characterized by its long review periods and labored revision processes – habitually plays tortoise to the internet's hare. Entire online communities can rise, flourish, and evaporate in the time it takes to get your book reviewed. On 4chan, Reddit, or Tumblr, a single image can spin out a meme genre of subtle iterations while you're still fine-tuning your paragraphs. And yet, the mismatch between the speed of internet culture and the slowness of scholarship does not absolve us – researchers, thinkers, critics, artists – from tracing the unfolding drama of internet memes, and the systems, networks and communities to which they are germane.


Quantum computing has attracted considerable interest in the past decade as a possible way to deal with certain intractable problems of conventional digital computing. Quantum computers built using the versatile methods of solid-state technology are attractive because the many thousands of devices needed for such a computer could be fabricated with well-established technologies. However, the imperfections of solid-state devices constructed in laboratories and factories will limit the use of solid-state devices in quantum computing. The challenge for solid-state quantum computing is to find a. way to use devices without precise knowledge of their physical characteristics.


The Author explores the use of due process and equal protection guarantees from the U.S. Constitution as a means to challenge workplace discrimination faced by LGBT government employees. The Author also discusses how private employees must rely on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to assert similar claims. Because sex discrimination is prohibited under both the Constitution and Title VII, federal courts have relied on reasoning in the former context when analyzing the latter, and vice versa. This means that a watershed case regarding one law can contain reasoning for the other. The Author goes on to the discuss the significance of Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, a Supreme Court case which ruled that Title VII's prohibition against discrimination because of sex includes discrimination based on gender stereotyping. Importing this reasoning, courts have ruled that the constitutional prohibition against discrimination on sex also prohibits gender stereotyping. The Author then discusses how, because gender stereotyping is often the root of discrimination faced by LGBT employees, Price Waterhouse lays a foundation for sex-based employment discrimination by these individuals. This includes linking discrimination against LGBT employees to comments or views about the person's gendered appearance or about stereotypes of sexuality linked to a person's sex (e.g., a man should only form physical and emotional attachments to a woman). For transgender employees, discrimination may be linked to stereotypes about physical manifestations of gender identity. The Author then goes on to explore how various courts have interpreted constitutional claims brought by LGBT and transgender employees under the above theories, with some theories proving more successful than others. Finally, the Author discusses the level of scrutiny applied by courts when evaluating equal protection and due process claims.


Magnetron sputtering of two independent Pt and Ru targets coupled with inert gas aggregation in a modified commercial source has been combined with soft landing of mass-selected ions to prepare bare 4.5 nm diameter PtRu nanoparticles on glassy carbon electrodes with controlled size and morphology for electrochemical reduction of oxygen in solution. Employing atomic force microscopy (AFM) it is shown that the nanoparticles bind randomly to the glassy carbon electrode at a relatively low coverage of 7 × 10(4) ions μm(-2) and that their average height is centered at 4.5 nm. Scanning transmission electron microscopy images obtained in the high-angle annular dark field mode (HAADF-STEM) further confirm that the soft-landed PtRu nanoparticles are uniform in size. Wide-area scans of the electrodes using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveal the presence of both Pt and Ru in atomic concentrations of ∼9% and ∼33%, respectively. Deconvolution of the high energy resolution XPS spectra in the Pt 4f and Ru 3d regions indicates the presence of both oxidized Pt and Ru. The substantially higher loading of Ru compared to Pt and enrichment of Pt at the surface of the nanoparticles is confirmed by wide-area analysis of the electrodes using time-of-flight medium energy ion scattering (TOF-MEIS) employing both 80 keV He(+) and O(+) ions. The activity of electrodes containing 7 × 10(4) ions μm(-2) of bare 4.5 nm PtRu nanoparticles toward the electrochemical reduction of oxygen was evaluated employing cyclic voltammetry (CV) in 0.1 M HClO4 and 0.5 M H2SO4 solutions. In both electrolytes a pronounced reduction peak was observed during O2 purging of the solution that was not evident during purging with Ar. Repeated electrochemical cycling of the electrodes revealed little evolution in the shape or position of the voltammograms indicating high stability of the nanoparticles supported on glassy carbon. The reproducibility of the nanoparticle synthesis and deposition was evaluated by employing the same experimental parameters to prepare nanoparticles on glassy carbon electrodes on three occasions separated by several days. Surfaces with almost identical electrochemical behavior were observed with CV, demonstrating the highly reproducible preparation of bare nanoparticles using physical synthesis in the gas-phase combined with soft landing of mass-selected ions.


Abstract Small vertebrates have remained relatively poorly known from the Nemegt Formation, although it has produced abundant and well-preserved large dinosaur remains. Here we report three new avialan specimens from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Omnogov Aimag, Mongolia. These fossils were collected from the Nemegt Formation exposed at the locality of Tsaagan Khushu in the southern Gobi Desert. All of the new finds are partial isolated bones with a limited number of preserved morphologies; however, they further understanding of dinosaur diversity in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia and, specifically, from the Nemegt Formation. The new specimens are described and evaluated in phylogenetic analyses. These analyses indicate that all three fossils are placed as part of the clade Ornithurae. Avialan diversity of the Nemegt Formation is reviewed and briefly compared with that of the underlying Djadokhta and Barun Goyot Formations. These formations have been considered to represent at least two distinct Late Cretaceous environments, with the Nemegt typically interpreted as representing more humid conditions. Ornithurine and enantiornithine birds are known from the Nemegt as well as the Djadokhta and Barun Goyot Formations, although ornithurine remains are more common in the Nemegt. No avialan species known from the Djadokhta, or Barun Goyot, are also known from the Nemegt Formation and, overall, the avialan taxa from these formations do not appear more closely related to each other than to other avialans. Whether these faunal differences are best interpreted as environmental, temporal, or sampling/preservational should be further investigated.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study is to asses blood plasma concentrations of S-100B protein and Tissue Polypeptide Antigen (TPA) in patients with confirmed ischemic stroke and to correlate these concentrations with stroke severity.

METHODS
S-100B protein and TPA blood plasma concentrations were determined in 47 patients with acute ischemic infarction and in the control population. S-100B protein was assessed on the 1th day, TPA on the 1th, 7th and 14th day. The clinical status was documented using Scandinavian Stroke Scale. The functional deficit after the stroke was scored by Barthel Index.

RESULTS
The analysis of the entire examined group in relation to the control population showed elevated concentrations of S-100B protein (0.47 ng/ml vs. 0.19 g/ml). The highest concentrations were in the severe stroke group (0.89 ng/ml). The assessment of TPA blood plasma concentrations showed higher ones in the examined group of patients: 225.7 U/l on the 1st day; 96.1 U/l on the 7th day; 125.64 U/l on the 14th day after the stroke in relation to the control population.

CONCLUSION
The analysis of obtained results showed significant increase of S-100B protein blood plasma concentrations in patients with severe stroke and TPA in patients with mild stroke. S-100 protein blood plasma concentration assessed on the 1st day after the ischemic stroke is the parameter presenting the highest diagnostic utility and its value above 0.6 ng/ml was obtained only in patients with severe stroke.