BACKGROUND Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a topic of current interest due to a growing focus on sustainability and a changing role of business, where business is increasingly seen as playing an important part in solving environmental and social problems (Blowfield & Murray, 2011). This has given rise to the debate on what's in it for business, the business case for CSR (Carroll & Shabana, 2010). Up till this date, researchers have not been able to show consistent, positive findings of the influence of CSR on financial measures (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001; Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003). In addition, the business case can be highly dependent on industry and company size; large, branded manufacturers typically have more to gain on CSR than smaller service companies. Through looking at innovation benefits of CSR, it is presumed to find a business case for CSR less dependent on industry and company size (Preuss, 2011). Several studies promote CSR as an important driver for innovation (Nidumolu, Prahalad, & Rangaswami, 2009; Porter & Kramer, 2011). But most of these studies focus on larger companies, despite the fact that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an essential role in sustainable development and Europe's economic value creation (Morsing & Perrini, 2009). The few, existing studies on CSR as a driver for innovation in SMEs focus on describing practices, and there is a need for more research on how CSR can drive innovation and growth (Bos-Brouwers, 2010; MacGregor & Fontrodona, 2010; Mendibil, Hernandez, Espinach, Garriga, & Macgregor, 2007). GOAL AND SCOPE The goal of the thesis is to gain insight into how CSR can drive innovation and contribute to growth in SMEs. It aims to develop the theory on CSR-driven innovation by placing it in the context of SMEs, and by this making a contribution to the debate on the business case for CSR in SMEs. The focus is on the relationship between CSR, innovation and growth on a company level. Influences of industry, different SME sizes and growth are not within the scope of this study. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The main research question of the thesis is "How can CSR drive innovation and growth in SMEs?" To answer this question, the following sub questions are investigated. 1. How can CSR drive innovation in SMEs? 2. How is CSR-driven innovation related to growth in SMEs? METHOD This study uses both quantitative and qualitative method. It utilizes the results from a quantitative survey among 343 Norwegian high-growth SMEs, and conducts a multiple case study of six sampled survey respondents. High-growth SMEs are companies that fulfill certain criteria related to positive results and growth. The case companies were selected as "polar types" with different CSR and innovation focus, and from different industries. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS The results indicated a correlation between CSR and innovation, but not causality. It appeared to be the values and commitment of leader/owner and employees that were the main drivers for both CSR and innovation. Neither CSR nor innovation was found to have any effect on growth. The thesis proposes a model for how CSR can drive innovation and growth in SMEs, which shows the importance of integrating normative and business case drivers. A proactive CSR strategy with CSR activities integrated into the company and its value creation, showed to have the largest influence on innovation and growth. Also, innovation influenced CSR through collaborations. For the resulting CSR innovations to contribute positively to SME growth, they should be successful innovations aligned with the SMEs' core business. The results of this study are useful both for researchers and practitioners. It further develops the theory on CSR innovation by placing it in the context of SMEs. In addition, it provides a starting point of the integration of the normative and the business case for CSR in SMEs. Further research should focus on testing the model in different industries, SME sizes and countries. The results of this study can be an encouragement for SME leaders/owners and employees to engage and take a more proactive approach to CSR. Keywords: CSR, Sustainability, Innovation, Growth, SME, Quantitative Research, Qualitative Research, Case Studies


Precision medicine isn't just about genomics anymore. With the field moving forward as the next step in population health management, environmental, social and lifestyle factors that live outside the medical system are increasingly important to target treatments and engage patients. That means health plans also need innovative technology solutions to capture, store and integrate this crucial information.


Project tracking systems, test and build tools, source control, continuous integration, and other built-in parts of the software development lifecycle generate a wealth of data that can be used to track and improve the quality and performance of products, processes, and teams. Although the iterative nature of Agile development is perfect for data-driven continuous improvement, the collection, analysis, and application of meaningful metrics often fades in favor of subjective measures that offer less insight into the real challenges of making better software. Agile Metrics in Action: Measuring and enhancing the performance of Agile teams is a practical book that shows how to take the data already being generated to make teams, processes, and products better. It points out which metrics to use to objectively measure performance and what data really counts, along with where to find it, how to get it, and how to analyze it. The book also shows how all team members can publish their own metrics through dashboards and radiators, taking charge of communicating performance and individual accountability. Along the way, it offers practical data analysis techniques, including a few emerging Big Data practices. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-language:JA;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-language:JA;}


Crude extracts of the seed kernels of the neem tree (Azadirachta indica) are widely used as plant protection products. The active ingredient (a.i.) of these extracts is azadirachtin A (aza A). aza A is a phytochemical
(botanical) complex secondary metabolite which, with it is multiple toxic effects on insects, protects the plant against predation. Aza A is present in only low concentration in neem oil, but makes up 20-50% in the NSKEs extracted by polar solvents from the kernels. However, when used as foliar sprays it is rapidly destroyed by sunlight, and might be more effective if it is used systemically. Therefore the aim of the project was to extend previous work and to prepare a pelleted version of the main commercially-available neem-seed kernel extract, NeemAzal®-Technical (NAT) produced by Trifolio GmbH, in preparation for the expected registration of the product in the UK in 2011.

It was first necessary to purify a quantity of aza A for quantification of the a.i. pelleted material and in soil and plants in the rest of the project. In achieving high purity (over 98%) aza A, reverse phase chromatographic methods were used, and mass spectrometery was used to confirm purity and identification. A final quantity of 6.2 mg of azadirachtin A was obtained from 4 gm of NAT, a yield of 0.15%.

If aza A and the other neem terpenoids are to be used to plant protection, they must have a low phytotoxicity. Effect of NAT on the germination and its ensuing seedling development of two commercially important crops, sugar beet and cabbage was examined. NAT did have an inhibitory effect on seedling growth at 10-3 M aza A. In order to explore the inhibitory affect of aza A, the second part of the chapter was to examine effect of aza A on mitosis of onion root tips. The limonoids in concentration of 10-3 M adversely affected the mitotic activity of onion root tip cells. This could be failure of microtubules polymerisation into microtubules, or some other biochemical effect. From the findings in this part of the project, it can be concluded that only at a concentration of 10-3 M is aza A toxic to plant young seedlings, but in practice this is unlikely to be a significant problem.

The first part of Chapter 4 of the project was to lay the foundations for the behaviour of aza A in soil environment in both powder form and in 2 types of granular formulations. The half-life of azadirachtin in soil from this work was found to be 1.6 days which is consistent with the previous reports. This short half-life of aza A may be problematic in use as a PPP. The short persistence might be overcome by formulating neem materials in granules to achieve environmental stability and biological efficacy of application. The granular formulations used in the project showed controlled release characteristics. The release of azadirachtin into the soil water was in fact delayed by encapsulating it in pellets. Systemic uptake of aza A by roots and subsequent presence in the vascular system of plants was assessed. Aza A was transported and was more stable in the leaf areas of cabbage and sugar beet plants than in the soil, as the half-life was found to be 9 days. The concentration of aza A in the leaf-water was less than 10% of the solution bathing the roots.

The final part of the project, the application of the pelleted NSKE to protect cabbage, in both glass house and field conditions, demonstrated that neem products in pelleted formulations could be used as effective, systemically applied PPP to control pests of cabbage. In the field tests, the protective effect of the neem extract could be shown over a period of at least 5 weeks after addition of the pellets to the soil.

In conclusion, the short soil half-life of the neem a.i., aza A, in PPP could be overcome by a pelleted formulation, the composition of which can delay release of the a.i. The technology allows protection of crops from soil-borne, as well as foliar sucking and biting pest damage by controlled release into the soil to allow uptake into plant vascular system.


The Arab world witnessed unprecedented waves of revolt in 2011, which have taken the whole world by surprise, and led to many unexpected outcomes and varying results. Five years after this wave of revolt, it becomes necessary to examine its wide array of effects, especially on certain groups who played a significant role in the midst of these uprisings, such as youth and women. This article addresses a number of important points pertaining to Arab women and their future, such as the effect of the turbulent political environment in the Arab region on Arab women's movements and their ability to organize; the impact of violations of human rights and the curbing of media freedom on Arab women's online and offline activism; the implications of the prevailing environment of fragmentation and polarization in many parts of the Arab world on Arab women's activism, both offline and online; rethinking the potentials and limitations of "cyberactivism" and "cyberfeminism" in terms of enhancing Arab women's empowerment, activism, and inclusion; as well as coming up with a more inclusive and comprehensive approach, which accounts for different categories of Arab women, when rethinking the notion of "cyberfeminism."


The burgeoning field of data analysis is expanding at an incredible pace due to the proliferation of data collection in almost every area of science. The enormous data sets now routinely encountered in the sciences provide an incentive to develop mathematical techniques and computational algorithms that help synthesize, interpret and give meaning to the data in the context of its scientific setting. A specific aim of this book is to integrate standard scientific computing methods with data analysis. By doing so, it brings together, in a self-consistent fashion, the key ideas from:DT statistics,DT time-frequency analysis, and DT low-dimensional reductions The blend of these ideas provides meaningful insight into the data sets one is faced with in every scientific subject today, including those generated from complex dynamical systems. This is a particularly exciting field and much of the final part of the book is driven by intuitive examples from it, showing how the three areas can be used in combination to give critical insight into the fundamental workings of various problems.Data-Driven Modeling and Scientific Computation is a survey of practical numerical solution techniques for ordinary and partial differential equations as well as algorithms for data manipulation and analysis. Emphasis is on the implementation of numerical schemes to practical problems in the engineering, biological and physical sciences. An accessible introductory-to-advanced text, this book fully integrates MATLAB and its versatile and high-level programming functionality, while bringing together computational and data skills for both undergraduate and graduate students in scientific computing.


Natural products from Datura stramonium and Phytolacca dodecandra are increasingly of interest because they are known to have an effect on a living organism. The extraction of bioactive is an essential to the sustainability of cost-effective of chemical drugs. In this work, sample expected to have bacteria was collected around KIST IV lab of University of Rwanda in College of science and technology: toilet flusher, doorknobs, inside lab and wastewater. The preliminary bacterial identification was done based on morphological and biochemical tests. The antimicrobial activity of these plants was evaluated with resistant microorganisms and antibiotic susceptibility. The utmost antimicrobial potentials were detected from hexane and ethyl acetate extracts of Datura stramonium whereas the extracts from Phytolacca dodecandra using the same solvents inhibited only the strain of S. epidermitis; the extracts from both plants didn't show any inhibition zone on isolated bacteria. Moreover, the extracts obtained by using a combination of hexane and toluene on Datura stramonium and Phytolacca dodecandra presented greater inhibition. The present study would be a basic understanding to use for a practical purpose of Datura stramonium and Phytolacca dodecandra in pharmacological areas.


Extracted from text ... Noel, J A & Johnson, M V (eds) 2005 - The passion of the Lord: African American reflections
Publisher: Fortress. 190 Pages. Price: Unknown
Reviewed by: Prof Maake J Masango (University of Pretoria)
For those familiar with the history of slavery and how oppressor and the oppressed alike were affected by it, this book would deepen their understanding of suffering. As life among slaves and their masters was unfolding, the lifestyle of religious people became controversial. The "why" question is a central theme to this book. The book marks a new attempt to rethink African-American theology in light of the ..


To develop novel, selective, and reversible MAO-B inhibitors for safer treatment of Parkinson's disease, benzothiazole and benzoxazole derivatives with indole moiety were designed and synthesized. Most of the synthesized compounds showed inhibitory activities against MAO-B and selectivity over MAO-A. The most active compound was compound 5b, 6-fluoro-2-(1-methyl-1H-indol-5-yl)benzo[d]thiazole with an IC50 value of 28 nM with no apparent effect on MAO-A activity at 10 μM. Based on the reversibility assay, compound 5b turned out to be fully reversible with over 95% of recovery of enzyme activity after washout of the compound. Compound 5b showed a reasonable stability in human liver microsomes and did not affect the activities of CYP isozymes, suggesting an absence of high-risk drug-drug interaction. In an in vivo MPTP-induced animal model of Parkinson's disease, oral administration of compound 5b showed neuroprotection of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons as revealed by tyrosine hydroxylase staining and prevention of MPTP-induced parkinsonism as revealed by motor behavioral assay of vertical grid test. In summary, the novel, reversible, and selective MAO-B inhibitor compound 5b was synthesized and characterized. We propose compound 5b as an effective therapeutic compound for relieving parkinsonism.


HTML5 and CSS3 are the future of web development, but you don't have to wait to start using them. Even though the specification is still in development, many modern browsers and mobile devices already support HTML5 and CSS3. This book gets you up to speed on the new HTML5 elements and CSS3 features you can use right now, and backwards compatible solutions ensure that you don't leave users of older browsers behind. This book gets you started working with many useful new features of HTML5 and CSS3 right away. Gone are the days of adding additional markup just to style a button differently or stripe tables. You'll learn to use HTML5's new markup to create better structure for your content and better interfaces for your forms, resulting in cleaner, easier-to-read code that can be understood by both humans and programs. You'll find out how to embed audio, video, and vector graphics into your pages without using Flash. You'll see how web sockets, client-side storage, offline caching, and cross-document messaging can ease the pain of modern web development. And you'll discover how simple CSS3 makes it to style sections of your page. Throughout the book, you'll learn how to compensate for situations where your users can't take advantage of HTML5 and CSS3 yet, developing solutions that are backwards compatible and accessible. You'll find what you need quickly with this book's modular structure, and get hands-on with a tutorial project for each new HTML5 and CSS3 feature covered. "Falling Back" sections show you how to create solutions for older browsers, and "The Future" sections at the end of each chapter get you excited about the possibilities when HTML5 and CSS3 reach widespread adoption. Get ready for the future---in fact, it's here already.


The Burma Platelet covers the western part of Myanmar, lying between the Indian Plate with the attached Bengal Basin in the west and the Sunda Plate in the east. This platelet is also jammed between the volcanic ridges on the Indian Plate in the south and the Shillong continental buttress in the north. The tectonic boundaries of the platelet are the active Sagaing dextral strike-slip fault in the east, and the debatable Bengal Basin subduction zone in the west. This non-rigid sliver plate has accommodated the northwards India/Sunda dextral wrench movement, which has resulted in hyper-oblique convergence since the Early Cenozoic but has also been actively affected by recent lateral buckling and the curvature of the whole platelet. This peculiar structural geometry is discussed here on the basis of geophysical and geological studies conducted during the course of the Geodynamic India–Asia Collision (GIAC) project in Myanmar.

The northwestern part of Sundaland is composed mainly of the tectonically active Burma Platelet bordered by the relatively rigid Sunda Plate in the east, the Eurasian Plate to the north, and the presently northwards-drifting Indian Plate with the western margin in the Bengal Basin in the west.

The Burma Platelet is the northern extension of a larger microplate, including the Andaman Platelet to the south which is not discussed in this chapter (Fig. 3.1).

 Fig. 3.1.
Extension of the Burma–Andaman–Sumatra microplate (shown in green). The Burma Platelet is the northern part in Myanmar. Active faults are shown in red and inactive faults in purple. The post-Santonian magnetic anomalies and associated transform faults of the Indian and Australian plates are suggested in blue. Left-lateral red arrows along the 90° E Ridge illustrate left-lateral motion between the Indian and Australian plates. India/Eurasia relative motion is shown with a yellow arrow, India/Sunda motion with purple arrows and Australia/Sunda …


Clouds have become an attractive computing platform which offers on-demand computing power and storage capacity. Its dynamic scalability enables users to quickly scale up and scale down underlying infrastructure in response to business volume, performance desire and other dynamic behaviors. However, challenges arise when considering computing instance non-deterministic acquisition time, multiple VM instance types, unique cloud billing models and user budget constraints. Planning enough computing resources for user desired performance with less cost, which can also automatically adapt to workload changes, is not a trivial problem. In this paper, we present a cloud auto-scaling mechanism to automatically scale computing instances based on workload information and performance desire. Our mechanism schedules VM instance startup and shut-down activities. It enables cloud applications to finish submitted jobs within the deadline by controlling underlying instance numbers and reduces user cost by choosing appropriate instance types. We have implemented our mechanism in Windows Azure platform, and evaluated it using both simulations and a real scientific cloud application. Results show that our cloud auto-scaling mechanism can meet user specified performance goal with less cost.


A reconnaissance geochemical survey of Anglesey
was based on a drainage survey (at one sample per
km2 ) supplemented by low-density soil sampling.
A field survey of known mineralisation was carried
out to aid data interpretation and assessment of
mineral potential.
The reconnaissance field survey indicated that
the non-ferrous mineralisation of Anglesey may be
divided into three groups: (a) copper, (b) copper
(lead, zinc) and (c) baryte (lead). Economically,
group (b) is the most important and its occurrence
is virtually confined to the Lower Palaeozoic rocks.
Groups (a) and (c) are small vein occurrences,
within the Mona Complex and adjacent to the
basal Carboniferous unconformity respectively.
The drainage survey encountered major difficulties
from the lack of surface drainage, contamination
, subdued topography, variable background
geology and extensive drift deposits. At
least 35% of the island was not effectively covered
by the drainage sampling but this figure was
reduced by the collection of soil samples from
three areas of poor drainage and thin drift cover.
Problems were further countered by collecting
water, stream sediment and panned concentrate
samples at all drainage sites, mineralogically
examining anomalous concentrates, and resampling
streams with sites found to be contaminated. 440
drainage sites were sampled. Cu, Pb, Zn, Ba, Fe,
Mn, Co, Ni and MO were determined in sediment
samples and Cu, Pb, Zn, Ba, Fe,Mn, Ti, Ni, Sn, Sb
and Ca in panned concentrates. Cu, Pb and Zn
were determined in soil and water samples.
Large-scale regional variation of the drainage
results was examined using computer-generated
greyscale maps. Variation was related to bedrock
geology, mineralisation and contamination. The
comparison of statistical analyses and mineralogical
observations indicated that all high Sn and Sb
levels were related to contamination and that, in
this area, factor analysis was an effective means of
discriminating between anomalies caused by
contamination and those due to mineralisation.
Inter-element relationships also indicated the
presence of two chemically distinct types of
mineralisation : a Cu-Pb-Zn-Fe sulphide type and a
Ba type, which correspond to groups (a + b) and
(c) of those defined by the field survey.
Threshold levels were established using cumulative
frequency plots, and eighteen anomalous areas
related to sulphide or baryte mineralisation were
delineated. Four of these, at Carmel Head,
Llandyfrydog, City Dulas and Llanbadrig were the
subject of further study. Other areas considered
worthy of investigation are the basal Carboniferous
between Dulas and Malltreath, the Gwna rocks
around Cerrigceinwen, and the area east of Parys
Mountain; the latter area has been investigated by
mining companies without success. Further areas
not adequately covered by the survey, for example
the basic rocks around Rhoscolyn, may also be
worthy of further consideration.


Authors investigated sunburn incidence of apples on the combinations of three different growth inducing rootstocks (M.9,MM.106 and seedling) and five varieties ('Smoothee', 'Golden Reinders', 'Granny Smith', 'Gloster' and 'Jonagold Jonica'). Symptoms were classified as sunburn browning, sunburn necrosis and photooxidative sunburn. The frequency of symptoms was recorded at various parts of the canopy (N, E,W, S, and lower canopy, upper canopy) and on the cluster (terminal, lateral). Cultivar susceptibility varied between 0.30 and 5.65% on M.9 rootstock, 'Granny Smith' seemed to be the most susceptible cultivar whereas relatively low percentage of damaged fruit was observed for 'Gloster'. On MM.106 and seedling rootstocks, damage level was significantly lower than on M.9. Remarkable differences were not observed in the share of the three sunburn types between cultivars. The most common symptom observed was sunburn browning. Far less fruit was affected by sunburn necrosis and photooxidative sunburn. Photooxidative sunburn symptoms were not found on 'Granny Smith' and 'Gloster' fruits on MM.106 rootstock. Latter cultivar did not show sunburn necrosis symptoms either. With increasing growing vigor of the rootstocks the share of sunburn browning increased. Fruits with sunburn symptoms were found in a great majority on theW quadrant of the trees. This was true for all cultivars. Remarkable differences in the location within the canopy of affected fruits between the three types of sunburn were not observed. Specific distribution of sunburned fruit was observed along the vertical axis of the canopy, too. Most of the damaged fruit were found in the upper canopy. This is particularly true for trees on vigorous stocks such as MM.106 and seedling. On M.9 rootstock, depending on cultivars 5.9 to 38.9% of sunburned fruit was located in the lower canopy. Most common symptom in the lower canopy was the sunburn browning, however symptoms of sunburn necrosis were not found at lower canopy level. Low rate of photooxidative sunburn was observed such lower canopy conditions. Sunburn incidence was very similar on king or side fruit. Significant differences were not found in the share of each sunburn types between fruit positions on the cluster. This was not influenced by rootstocks either.


Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is an extremely variable genetic disorder showing an autosomal dominant inheritance that is characterised by myotonia, insulin resistance, cardiac conduction defects and cataracts. It is caused by a trinucleotide repeat expansion of CTG sequence located in the 3'-untranslated region of the dystrophia myotonica-protein kinase (DMPK) gene on chromosome 19 at q13.3. The severity of symptoms ranges from mild adult onset to severe congenital form. A characteristic clinical feature of DM1 is anticipation phenomenon where disease severity increases and age of onset decreases over successive generations. The DM1 mutation is highly unstable in both the germline and soma, and showed to be an age-dependent, tissue-specific (skeletal muscles comprised the largest allele length of approximately thousand units) and expansion biased. The unaffected level of the repeat sequence falls between ~5-37 repeats whereas the disease associated range starts from ~50 repeats, reaching several thousand units. These properties account for the observed anticipation and contribute toward the tissue-specificity and progressive nature of the symptoms.
The manifested phenotypes, symptoms severity and age at onset are extremely variable within and between families. This is mostly accounted for by the progenitor allele length (PAL) passed on from affected parents in addition to the level of somatic instability over time. Though, recent data have shown that additional sequence variations (CCG, CGG variant repeats) within the repeat and immediate flanking DNA are associated with additional symptomatic variation, modified stability and delayed age of onset. Furthermore, individual specific genetic factors have shown to be clustered within and between families as a heritable trait. Therefore, it has been verified that PAL, in addition to individual specific genetic variations are the main modifier of disease onset. More recently, it has been observed that mismatch repair (MMR) genes play a key role in modulating the dynamic of DM1 mutation, and subsequently impact on the age at onset. Therefore, these genes serve as powerful trans-acting modifiers of repeat instability and subsequent severity. Also, sequestration and up-regulation of RNA binding proteins (MBNL1, CELF1 respectively) against the trapped mutant transcripts are the hall mark of DM1 pathogenicity associated with alternative splicing defects that account for the variability of symptoms. Thus, sequence variations within these genes may underlie the genetic and phenotypic variability among DM1 patients. The current diagnostic test for DM1 only provides a qualitative value, and takes no account of the somatic instability and/or the presence of variations within or elsewhere in the genome. Thus, limited prognostic information is delivered to patients and their families. Although more elaborate genotyping approaches that measure the DM1 degree of instability was developed, they remain labour intensive, time consuming and are not suited to routine clinical diagnostics.
In this project, we have evaluated the utility of more rapid and higher throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies (Ion PGM and PacBio platforms) to simultaneously sequence the DM1 alleles of the Scottish patients, characterise the immediate flanking variants (5'-extra AAT and 5'-CCG variant repeats), elucidating the possible role of these variants on the DM1 instability, and finally sequencing the potential trans-acting modifiers in a massive customised panel (Ion AmpliSeq). Though, the accurate genotyping of the DM1 allele using NGS method remains challenging and cannot be used at the moment for accurate measurement of allele length. This is due to the sequencing biased nature towards shorter fragments resulting in differences of modal allele length measurement between PacBio and traditional SP-PCR methods. Additionally, Ion PGM platform was not successful at sequencing >20 CTG repeats.
To correct for the sequencing biased distribution towards shorter alleles and distinguish between possible somatic variants from sequencing errors, safe sequencing (SafeSeq) method was conducted by tagging each original parental molecule with unique identifier (UID) sequences via PCR followed by sequencing using MiSeq platform. As the UID assignment was successful in tagging different population of repeats lengths, unfortunately we were not able to confidently differentiate between true somatic mutants from possible repeat slippage events in earlier cycles of PCR. Thus, it was decided to modify the incorporation of UID sequences using ligation based approach instead of PCR, and better optimise the method for more accurate results in the future.
The identification of the immediate 5'-extra AAT flanking variant of the DM1 allele in a subset of the Scottish DM1 patients with and without CCG variant repeats has led us to speculate the possible presence of a new sub derived DM1 haplotype shared by a recent common ancestor in the Scottish population. In order to address this question, we were able to discriminate the normal allele haplotype of 11-13 repeats from >20 CTG haplotype among 18 DM1 patients whom were previously sequenced by Dr. Saeed Al ghamdi. These data have illustrated the most conserved haplotype around the DM1 allele. Therefore, the corresponding region was included in a customised Ion AmpliSeq sequencing panel for future larger scale haplotype analysis, in order to provide insights about future DM1 prevalence among the Scottish population.
The data of this project highlighted the importance of using NGS technologies to characterise the structural pattern of the DM1 allele containing variants that may impact on symptom severity. It also showed the successful sequencing of trans-acting genetic modifiers in massive parallel fashion. Over larger scale analysis, these data could be used for better genotype-phenotype correlation and stratify patients in future clinical trials.


This paper uses the analytical approach of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the dominant discourse(s) surrounding sustainable development and education that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) espouse. Focusing on SDG 4, which aims to "to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote lifelong learning," I analyze the extent to which SDG 4 promotes a utilitarian and/or transformative approach to education, and what the implications of such approaches are on achieving sustainable development. I use the official United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development policy document as the basis for my analysis, as well as previous global education policies, academic articles, and books on discourse analysis and education policy to build my argument. My findings show that despite transformative language used throughout the Agenda, the SDGs primarily espouse a pro-growth model of development and a utilitarian approach to education. I conclude that for SDG 4 to truly contribute to sustainable development, there needs to be a shift in the dominant educational discourse such that issues of social and environmental justice are placed at the heart of educational priorities, and that the notion of 'quality' education be challenged and expanded to encompass more than a focus on economic outcomes.


The integration of the Internet into all aspects of society has led to the quick and widespread distribution of information in digital form. This digital information can be easily aggregated and redistributed by third parties. Such information aggregators can free ride on the work of others. For example, Google News collects links to news stories from other news outlets. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media also enable redistribution of news stories and other information. Newspapers, wire services and other news creators and providers have voiced concern that such free riding allows aggregators to benefit from the work of enterprises that create news media without having to pay any of the costs to obtain such news stories. It has been asserted that free riding is unfair and that it can economically injure or destroy such enterprises. These concerns are reminiscent of the 1918 Supreme Court decision in International News Service v. Associated Press, in which a news organization successfully enjoined a competitor from free riding on its efforts to obtain news stories. The underlying basis for the Court's decision was a federal common law action for misappropriation. Although a subsequent Supreme Court decision negated federal common law some states adopted the misappropriation doctrine from International News Service under state unfair competition law. This doctrine has been asserted with limited success but courts continue to hold that the doctrine is viable under appropriate facts. This Article will critically examine the


In the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the evolution of Fish Trades Associations and their Union counterparts has been greatly impacted by the historic relationship between the processing sector and the harvesting sector. Processors, or merchants as they were traditionally referred to, have gone through a cycle over the past 60 years or more from holding tremendous power over fishers through what was known as the truck system, to today's environment characterized by legislation aimed at protecting the independence of fishers. -- The fishing industry has also undergone widespread change since the late 1940s when saltfish was king and the frozen fish sector was in its infancy. Since then the frozen industry has become the dominant sector. Until the early 1990s cod was the primary species, but since the decline of cod stocks throughout the 1980s and early 1990s and the resulting closure of the Northern cod fishery, shellfish had become the dominant sector. Trade unions have become a significant factor affecting all aspects of the conduct of the fishery from price issues with buyers to international issues such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) stock regulations and foreign overfishing. Processor associations on the other hand have seen their position of power erode beginning with the collapse of Newfoundland Associated Fish Exporters Limited (NAFEL) and its exclusive right to market saltfish, to the Fisheries Association of Newfoundland and Labrador's (FANL) inability to gain accreditation as the sole bargaining agent for all processors in the Province. -- There are many notable milestones in the evolution of processor and harvester organizations. Included in these milestones are the formation of the first fishermen's benevolent organization, the Society of United Fishermen (SUF) in 1873, the formation of the Fishermen's Protective Union in 1908, the formation of the Frozen Fish Trades Association (FFTA) in 1944, the formation of the UFFA WU, the predecessor to today's FFA W, and introduction of the Fishing Industry Collective Bargaining Act in 1971 as a means of governing the collective bargaining between the harvesting and processing sectors. There have also been other significant events that
have influenced the development of the fishery and have also impacted on both the harvesting and processing sectors in a significant way. These events include Newfoundland joining Canada in 1949 and the resulting change in jurisdiction over the harvesting sector away from Newfoundland to Ottawa. Following the change in jurisdiction came the introduction of fishermen's Unemployment Insurance to the Province. Other significant policies have evolved including the Federal government's Fleet Separation Policy which prevents processors from controlling licences for vessels under 65' LOA. -- Although groundfish stocks have collapsed and no recovery is in sight, the value of the fishery is now higher than it has ever been in the past. Today's fishery has evolved into one that is dominated by shellfish, primarily snow crab and shrimp. These species have yielded significantly greater economic benefits to participants and have afforded the harvesting sector the opportunity to significantly increase its power base within the industry. While many fishers remain at the low end of the economic ladder, fishers with access to crab and shrimp are generally better off than they have ever been. In fact, many of these fishers have developed their businesses into multi-million dollar enterprises. -- The collective bargaining system in which raw material prices are determined has serious flaws which place processors at a serious disadvantage to fishers. Fishers remain independent and have the ability to sell their product to those local firms who offer the highest price. While this has always been the system, problems in the crab and shrimp sectors associated with it have been masked by increased quotas since the moratorium on cod was announced in 1992. While the number of processing licences has increased 3-fold since then, so has the resource base. However, we are now seeing significant reductions in the abundance of crab and processors have been pitted against one another as they compete for sufficient raw material to maintain businesses in which they have invested so heavily. -- The most immediate issue facing the processing sector is the high cost of raw material generated by the increased competition. Fishers are now able to demand unprecedented prices from processors who are competing with long-established processing companies, as well as new entrants to the fishery for sufficient raw material to viably operate their plants. Plants are unable to vertically integrate their businesses by buying harvesting licences. The Fleet Separation Policy which was introduced by the Federal Government in 1976 prevents processing companies from owning licences for inshore vessels, except those which were "grandfathered" when the policy was implemented. -- As with any system that favours or appears to favour one group or another, pressure gradually mounts for change and the political opportunity to make the change. Perhaps it is time for change to the fishing industry collective bargaining system and to Federal and Provincial fishery regulations. Many of the regulations currently in place are aimed at protecting the independence of fishers from large processing companies, but it appears that processing companies may be in jeopardy by the ineffectiveness of these rules and regulations. History has played a large part in shaping the current regulatory regime, but perhaps the system has outlived its usefulness. However, given Newfoundland and Labrador's continued reliance on the fishery for the survival of many rural communities and the lack of prospects for employment generation in other industries, it is recognized that change won't come easily. -- The future role in collective bargaining of Fish Trades Associations such as FANL, which represents the majority of the processing capacity in the Province, continues to evolve. FANL continues to push for accreditation and the right to negotiate a maximum price for raw material for the entire industry. Until processors and fishers can negotiate on an equal footing the collective bargaining process currently in place will continue to generate problems for both sectors. While the industry continues to experience serious problems relating to raw material price and distribution, it is difficult to see a future role for FANL that does not involve collective bargaining. Negotiating raw material prices for the thousands of fishers and the plants they sell to will remain an important task. It remains to be seen what changes are implemented to the collective bargaining system and the timing of these changes to make the system less problematic for the industry as a whole.


Spindle cell proliferations of the thyroid have been described in association with reactive processes and aggressive malignant neoplasms. We describe spindle cell proliferations in 10 patients arising in association with papillary carcinoma and follicular adenoma. The spindle proliferations were 0.3 to 3.0 cm in size, constituted from 1% to 95% of the primary neoplasm, and were either admixed with the neoplastic elements or peripherally located within the primary tumor Cytologically, these proliferations showed bland-appearing spindle cells with fine chromatin and subtle nucleoli. Mitoses were rare, and inflammation was minimal. Immunostains showed reactivity with thyroglobulin, indicating their follicular origin. We believe it is important to recognize these metaplastic proliferations and distinguish them from aggressive malignant neoplasms.


Magnetic polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) based on chitosan and sodium ligninsulfonate as the support to stabilize Fe/Pd bimetallic particles (mPEC-Fe/Pd) were synthesized for the degradation and decolorization of organic pollutants in aqueous solution. The morphologies and structures of the as-obtained composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Various factors potentially influencing the decolorization performance of methyl blue (MB) and malachite green (MG) from aqueous solution (i.e., mPEC-Fe/Pd dosage, solution pH, initial dye concentration and reaction temperature) were investigated. mPEC-Fe/Pd exhibited higher catalytic activity towards the removal of MB and MG, which involved both adsorption of dye molecules on mPEC surface and reduction reaction by Fe/Pd particles. Nearly 99% and 91% of MB and MG were removed at initial dye concentration of 100 mg l−1 with 1.0 g l−1 of mPEC-Fe/Pd, respectively. The decolorization efficiency of MB and MG increased with the increase of solution pH and mPEC-Fe/Pd dosage but decreased with the increase of initial dye concentrations. mPEC-Fe/Pd could be recycled effectively, and the removal percentage of MB reached as high as 83.5% even at the eighth reuse. Furthermore, the catalytic performances were further investigated to remove other organic pollutants, in which 92.4% of oxytetracycline, 85.1% of Tetrabromobisphenol A, and 34.7% of norfloxacin were removed at 50 mg l−1 of aqueous solution using 1.0 g l−1 of mPEC-Fe/Pd. Due to high removal efficiency, rapid reaction rate, easy separation and good reusability, mPEC-Fe/Pd had the potential to become an environmental remediation material for the treatment of wastewater containing organic compounds.


Social and information networks have been extensively studied over years. In this paper, we concentrate ourselves on a large information network that is composed of entities and relationships, where entities are associated with sets of keyword terms (kterms) to specify what they are, and relationships describe the link structure among entities which can be very complex. Our work is motivated but is different from the existing works that find a best subgraph to describe how user-specified entities are connected. We compute information nebula (cloud) which is a set of top-K kterms P that are most correlated to a set of user-specified kterms Q, over a large information network. Our goal is to find how kterms are correlated given the complex information network among entities. The information nebula computing requests us to take all possible kterms into consideration for the top-K kterms selection, and needs to measure the similarity between kterms by considering all possible subgraphs that connect them instead of the best single one. In this work, we compute information nebula using a global structural-context similarity, and our similarity measure is independent of connection subgraphs. To the best of our knowledge, among the link-based similarity methods, none of the existing work considers similarity between two sets of nodes or two kterms. We propose new algorithms to find top-K kterms P for a given set of kterms Q based on the global structural-context similarity, without computing all the similarity scores of kterms in the large information network. We performed extensive performance studies using large real datasets, and confirmed the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.


A must-have resource for every event planner, manager, caterer, and student, this in-depth guide covers all aspects of the event planning process. Written by expert event manager Julia Rutherford Silvers, the book outlines the tools and strategies to effectively procure, organize, implement, and monitor all the products, vendors, and services needed to bring an event to life. Enhanced throughout with useful checklists, tables, and sample forms, the book includes chapters on everything from Developing the Event Site and Providing the Event Infrastructure to Ancillary Programs, Food and Beverage Operations, and Vendors and Volunteers. The practical information is supplemented throughout the book by "On-Site Insights" featuring real-world examples from successful event planners, as well as chapter objectives, discussion questions, and exercises in professional event coordination to help readers build key skills and test their knowledge. From weddings to corporate conferences and from intimate events to huge festivals, Professional Event Coordination is a versatile guide to planning events of all kinds.


The Tat protein export system translocates folded proteins across the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane and the plant thylakoid membrane. The Tat system in Escherichia coli is composed of TatA, TatB and TatC proteins. TatB and TatC form an oligomeric, multivalent receptor complex that binds Tat substrates, while multiple protomers of TatA assemble at substrate‐bound TatBC receptors to facilitate substrate transport. We have addressed whether oligomerisation of TatC is an absolute requirement for operation of the Tat pathway by screening for dominant negative alleles of tatC that inactivate Tat function in the presence of wild‐type tatC. Single substitutions that confer dominant negative TatC activity were localised to the periplasmic cap region. The variant TatC proteins retained the ability to interact with TatB and with a Tat substrate but were unable to support the in vivo assembly of TatA complexes. Blue‐native PAGE analysis showed that the variant TatC proteins produced smaller TatBC complexes than the wild‐type TatC protein. The substitutions did not alter disulphide crosslinking to neighbouring TatC molecules from positions in the periplasmic cap but abolished a substrate‐induced disulphide crosslink in transmembrane helix 5 of TatC. Our findings show that TatC functions as an obligate oligomer.


A Terabit Optical Link in Silicon Matthew Akio Streshinsky Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Assistant Professor Michael Hochberg Electrical Engineering As data centers grow, there is a need to be able to densely pack low power, high bandwidth, kilometer-reach interconnects into the same available rack space as existing technologies. Silicon is particularly well suited for this task due to its ability to accommodate high-speed single-mode optical systems-on-chip. An outstanding question is whether silicon photonics can easily scale to these larger systems and, more importantly, if these types of systems can yield reliably. This dissertation first investigates the design, fabrication, and test of a bi-wavelength polarization splitting grating coupler and two high-speed Mach-Zehnder modulators for integration into the OpSIS process development kit library (PDK). Finally, this dissertation discusses the integration of these components from the OpSIS PDK to demonstrate a 48 × 50 Gb/s parallel single mode transceiver. A novel bi-wavelength polarization splitting grating coupler is designed and tested. It is experimentally shown that it is possible to couple C-band and O-band wavelengths and perform polarization splitting simultaneously in a single device. For C-band light, we measure a maximum transmission of 7.6 dB, polarization isolation of 24 dB, and -1.5 dB transmission window of 35 nm. For O-band light, we measure a maximum transmission of 8.2 dB, polarization isolation of 8.4 dB, and -1.5 dB transmission window of 18 nm. Two differentially driven Mach-Zehnder modulators are designed and characterized for digital and analog applications. The first is demonstrated to operate at 50 Gb/s with a differential 1.5 Vpp RF driving signal with 0 V DC bias, suggesting an RF power efficiency of 450 fJ/bit. The second device is placed into an analog optical link and spurfree dynamic range measurements are performed. A SFDRIMD of 97 dB∙Hz and SFDRSHD of 82 dB∙Hz are measured by differentially driving the modulator. Lastly, the parallel single mode transceiver we report here represents nearly an order of magnitude greater aggregate data rate and four to five times the channel count compared against other silicon transmitters. Our receiver also compares favorably against previous arrays of Ge-on-Si photodetectors and is monolithically integrated on the same wafer as the transmitter. We present bit-error-rate versus received optical power curves as well as DC performance for all 48 channels of the transmitter and open eyes at 50 Gb/s


Abstract. The focus of this paper is to discuss the peculiarities of the digital modelling of masonry cross vaults. The proposed methodological approach for a multidisciplinary study of masonry vaults will be focused on: geometrical survey, crack pattern, geometrical modelling, and safety assessment based on structural analysis.Automatic reconstruction procedures recently proposed in the literature for ribbed masonry vaults, are used to overcome time-consuming modelling tasks. The created digital models take into consideration the different aspects of the three-dimensional geometry, the internal divisions with variations of material properties in different parts, and a suitable discretization for finite element analysis. Moreover, the same model can be used in BIM (Building Information Modelling), judged as a suitable environment in which to combine different aspects of the restoration works such as: documentation, intervention design, and the data system in an unique model. The same model is then used to perform finite element analysis. Each of these aspects is clarified with examples of different vaults typology coming from case studies as that of the church of St. Bassiano in Pizzighettone (Cremona) or the notable Milan Cathedral.


This book originates from a research program on the urban family in Sweden 1840-1940. It examines the family at the centre of life during Sweden's transition to a modern industrialized and urbanized country. The proportion of singles and married people as well as ages at marriage are analysed against the background of economic development, social structure, the housing situation and "male breadwinner-ideology". Generational relations and the different family and household forms in urban areas are discussed.By using the potential of the Demographic Data Base, Umea University in combination with population registers from the 20th century, eight marriage cohorts from the 1840's to the 1930's are created for two middle-sized Swedish cities, Linkoping and Sundsvall. The authors explore in detail the new fertility regimes that emerged rather rapidly in urban Sweden during the first decades of the last century. The concept "family strategies" is used to understand the behaviour of individuals and families within all social classes during the fertility transition. Smaller families were achieved through increased use of spacing and stopping and mainly by pre-industrial forms of fertility control. However, the authors also stress the importance of bourgeois debaters and early feminists as well as left wing women's associations for bringing down the birth rate.Finally, the book raises central issues concerning the economic, social and psychological forces that shaped the modern family and the interrelationship between history, demography and other related sciences.


Background: We conducted a secondary analysis to (1) compare changes in mood disorders and quality of life (QOL) among 4 groups of patients with heart failure in a home-based exercise program who had varying degrees of change in their exercise capacity and (2) determine whether there was an association between exercise capacity, mood disorders, and QOL. Methods: Seventy-one patients were divided into 4 groups based on changes in exercise capacity from baseline to 6 months: group 1showed improvements of greater than 10% (n = 19), group 2 showed improvements of 10% or less (n = 16), group 3 showed reductions of 10% or less (n = 9), and group 4 showed reductions of greater than 10% (n = 27). Results: Over time, patients in all 4 groups demonstrated significantly lower levels of depression and hostility (P < .001) and higher levels of physical and overall quality of life (P = .046). Group differences over time were noted in anxiety (P = .009), depression (P = .015), physical quality of life (P < .001), and overall quality of life (P = .002). Greater improvement in exercise capacity was strongly associated with lower depression scores (r = −0.49, P = .01). Conclusions: An improvement in exercise capacity with exercise training was associated with a decrease in depression and anxiety and an increase in QOL in patients with heart failure.


Precise and fast control chart pattern (CCP) recognition is important for monitoring process environments to achieve appropriate control and to produce high quality products. CCPs can exhibit six types of pattern: normal, cyclic, increasing trend, decreasing trend, upward shift and downward shift. Except for normal patterns, all other patterns indicate that the process being monitored is not functioning correctly and requires adjustment. This paper describes a new type of neural network for speeding up the training process and to compare three training algorithms in terms of speed, performance and parameter complexity for CCP recognition. The networks are multilayered perceptrons trained with a resilient propagation, backpropagation (BP) and extended delta-bar-delta algorithms. The recognition results of CCPs show the BP algorithm is accurate and provides better and faster results.


Last will and testament of Chauncey H. Redway on November 7, 1854. Upon his death, Redway wishes to give his wife Lodema one-third of the avails of his farm; his daughter Harriet $100 and two cows; his daughter Electa $100; his daughter Cornelia $200; his granddaughter Ida $100; his granddaughter Ellen Loretta $200; and his son Hamilton K. Redway all the remainder of his estates. Redway appoints Thomas C. Chiltenden to be executor of the will. The will was examined and executed on October 1, 1855.


BACKGROUND
Patients with mild-to-moderate essential hypertension in the HOMED-BP trial were randomly allocated to first-line treatment with a calcium channel blocker (CCB), angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) or angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB).

METHODS
We recruited 265 (93 for CCB, 71 for ACEI and 101 for ARB) patients who completed the genomic study. Home blood pressure was measured for 5 days off-treatment before randomization and for 5 days after 2-4 weeks of randomized drug treatment. Genotyping was performed by 500K DNA microarray chips. The blood pressure responses to the three drugs were analyzed separately as a quantitative trait. For replication of SNPs with p < 10(-4), we used the multicenter GEANE study, in which patients were randomized to valsartan or amlodipine.

RESULTS
SNPs in PICALM, TANC2, NUMA1 and APCDD1 were found to be associated with CCB responses and those in ABCC9 and YIPF1 were found to be associated with ARB response with replication.

CONCLUSION
Our approach, the first based on high-fidelity phenotyping by home blood pressure measurement, might be a step in moving towards the personalized treatment of hypertension.


Abstract Observations of natural minerals and experimental run products show that I-S (illitesmectite mixed-layer minerals) with a high illite content as well as pure mica-illite crystallites can have a lath shape (aspect ratio >3). This shape is common to the I-S minerals under a variety of conditions of formation. The experiments presented indicate that the occurrence of lath-shaped micaillite is due to a slow growth rate from supersaturated solutions. This lath-shaped crystallite is metastable as the ultimate stable shape is hexagonal. A longer period of crystal growth will replace the mica-illite laths with crystallites of a hexagonal form. Thus the presence of lath-shaped micaillite indicates the existence of a metastable crystal form for this mineral.


The use of technologies by the elderly is still restricted, especially concerning recent technologies. To better understand the older user experience, while using virtual reality technology, we performed a Systematic Literature Review. The databases selected for research were the digital libraries of ACM, IEEE, Science Direct and Google Scholar. During the literature review, we col- lected information about the characteristics of the participants of the studies selected, the experiences reported about the use of technology, the research method used, the technologies chosen for the tests, the results obtained and future work suggested. The main contributions of this work were to identify the state of art of virtual and augmented reality for older people, the possible applications of these technologies to them, the most used devices and also the considerations reported by previous experiences.


The maker movement advocates hands-on making with emerging technologies because of its value for promoting innovative and personally meaningful transdisciplinary learning. Educational research has focused on settings that primarily serve youth from dominant groups, yet we know surprisingly little about making among minoritized youth and the kinds of resources that support their making. This study sought to better understand the extent to which maker practices are present in the lives of minoritized youth and the network of resources that support their engagement. In this study, we analyzed survey responses of 52 youth from an urban, under-resourced community in Chicago and conducted an inductive thematic analysis of 20 interviews through a model of connected learning. Findings showed these youth participated in a diverse range of interest-driven, low-tech maker activities in their own homes more often than in school, after school programs, or through online resources and communities (i.e., YouTube, Internet, social media). Many youths displayed different levels of participation with intergenerational support, as parents and extended family members supported youth in their hands-on making. This work opens up pathways for fostering connected learning opportunities within minoritized communities by building on existing learning experiences within home settings and supportive relationships.


To better understand the complex mechanisms of action of earthworms on plants, we set up an experimental system using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh, Aporrectodea caliginosa a common temperate earthworm and two types of soil with contrasted contents in organic matter and nutrients. Changes in plant biomass, biomass allocation to roots, leaves and stems and C/N ratios were related to variations in the expression of several plant genes involved in cellular division and stress responses and with earthworm-induced alterations in soil mineral status. In the poorest soil, i.e. with low contents in mineral nutrient and organic matter, earthworms increased soil nitrate content very significantly and boosted plant aboveground biomass production. This correlated with changes in leaf transcript accumulation suggesting enhanced cell division and lesser incidence of reactive oxygen species. In the richer soil, earthworms had no significant effect on the production of aerial biomass. However, several plant responses were observed regardless of soil quality: enhanced accumulation of an auxin-responsive transcript in the leaves, a strong decrease in root length and biomass and a reduction in C/N values, particularly in the bolt stems. Although these results pointed out earthworm-induced enhancement of mineralization as a determining factor in the formidable plant growth responses, the release in the drilosphere of phytohormone-like compounds by earthwormactivated bacteria was most likely implicated as well in this process and resulted in "forced" nitrogen uptake by the plants. The herein demonstrated sensitivity of the model plant A. thaliana to earthworms shows that such new experimental set up could become a central key to the development of multidisciplinary investigations on plantesoil interactions. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


This article examines the political implications of early modern English verse dealing with the Hebrew king David and of English translations of the Psalms. The article first considers John Milton's minimization of David in Paradise Lost, before turning to 1) a survey of how and why David was praised or blamed by various poets, and 2) a case study of translations of the penitential Psalm 6 by Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, King James VI/I, and Milton. The article concludes by returning to Milton and argues that insofar as the Stuarts and their supporters associated themselves with the poetry, penance, and royal power of David, Milton views them as retrograde to the progress of human and sacred history, and thus attempts to consign David's royal example to oblivion. Therefore, a significant but understudied amount of English verse, dealing with David and his sin, is shown to be an early modern mode of poetical and political analysis.


Traditional analyses of redistributive effects of the tax-benefit system are rooted in the concepts of relative income inequality and proportionality. This observation also applies to decompositions proposed by Kakwani (1977, 1984) and Lambert (1985) that reveal the vertical and horizontal effects of tax-benefit instruments. This paper generalises those decompositions within the frameworks of the alternative inequality concepts suggested by Ebert (2004) and Bosmans et al. (2014). As expected, the results of the empirical analysis indicate that for different views of inequality, different taxes and benefits play significantly different roles in reducing inequality.


This research investigates the unsteady free convective flow of a viscous incompressible fluid from a differentially heated rotating sphere. The flow is assumed to remain laminar and to possess equatorial and azimuthal symmetry. The governing Navier-Stokes and energy equations are posed in terms of a scaled stream function vorticity formulation and are solved subject to no-slip and specified surface temperature conditions. At t = 0 an impulsive heat flux is applied in the form of a jump in surface temperature. An asymptotic solution valid for large Grashof numbers and small times following the impulsive startup is constructed. Two small parameters have been identified and based on this the flow variables are expanded in a double series in powers of these parameters. The non-zero leading-order terms in the asymptotic expansions have been determined analytically and the corresponding heat transfer coefficient has been found. Future work will involve obtaining numerical solutions.


This book examines claims for compensation for negligently-inflicted harm connected to an illegal act of the plaintiff. A variety of public policy and other grounds have been advanced for resolving these claims, resulting in an area that is characterised by confusing and contradictory doctrine. The book examines the illegality doctrine within a framework of corrective justice theory. Illegality doctrine poses particular difficulties for the corrective justice explanation of negligence law, especially where the basis for denial of relief is based on public policy considerations that are external to the relationship of the parties. The book argues that the only legitimate rationale for a doctrine of illegality is the legal policy of preserving the coherence of the legal system. In so doing it develops the work of Ernest Weinrib and Allan Beever to explain both how the 'policy' objective of legal coherence fits within the framework of corrective justice theory, and why legal coherence provides the only valid conceptual basis for a doctrine of illegality.


We examine the feasibility of using satellite altimeter data to measure the long-term change of global sea level (estimated from tide gauge data to be a rise of approximately 0.2 cm yr−1). Two and one-half years of collinear Geosat altimeter data (1986–1989) are used together with a 17-day set of Seasat altimetry (July–August 1978) having nearly the same ground track. A consistent set of precise orbits was used throughout, and residual orbit error was removed as a sinusoidal fit to approximately 3-day arcs of sea level collinear differences. The globally averaged Geosat data show sea level falling at 1.2 ± 0.3 cm yr−1 over the first 2 years, even after removal of tide errors and instrument biases not accounted for in the Geosat geophysical data records. This unrealistic result is found to be due largely to long-term error in the ionospheric model for the single-frequency Geosat altimeter. The Geosat-Seasat comparison, based on data 10 years apart, shows an apparent sea level rise of 1.0 cm yr−1. Assuming this result is also unrealistic, a possible explanation is a biased scale to the Doppler-determined Geosat orbit which, unlike Seasat, did not have the benefit of laser tracking. It is also possible that the Geosat altimeter (without external in-orbit calibration) had a bias of the order of 10 cm. We conclude that for satellite altimetry to make a fundamental contribution to monitoring global mean sea level change, both the altimeter (including its media corrections) and the orbit model which provides a geocentric reference for the ocean surface will need continuing and careful calibration with absolute standards.


When a Diameter server or agent becomes overloaded, it needs to be
able to gracefully reduce its load, typically by advising clients to
reduce traffic for some period of time. Otherwise, it must continue to
expend resources parsing and responding to Diameter messages, possibly
resulting in a progressively severe overload condition. The existing
Diameter mechanisms are not sufficient for managing overload
conditions. This document describes the limitations of the existing
mechanisms. Requirements for new overload management mechanisms are
also provided.


Complex causal networks underlie many real-world problems, from the regulatory interactions between genes to the environmental patterns used to understand climate change. Computational methods seek to infer these causal networks using observational data and domain knowledge. In this paper, we identify three key requirements for inferring the structure of causal networks for scientific discovery: (1) robustness to noise in observed measurements; (2) scalability to handle hundreds of variables; and (3) flexibility to encode domain knowledge and other structural constraints. We first formalize the problem of joint probabilistic causal structure discovery.  We develop an approach using probabilistic soft logic (PSL) that exploits multiple statistical tests, supports efficient optimization over hundreds of variables, and can easily incorporate structural constraints, including imperfect domain knowledge. We compare our method against multiple well-studied approaches on biological and synthetic datasets, showing improvements of up to 20% in F1-score over the best performing baseline in realistic settings.


Objectives
To examine gut bacterial composition following a higher-saturated fatty acids (SFA) run-in, standard Western diet (SWD) and 3 study diets where SFA was replaced with: whole walnuts (WD); vegetable oils in a fatty acid matched diet devoid of walnuts (WFMD); vegetable oils in an oleic acid replaces α-linolenic acid (ALA) diet (ORAD) and devoid of walnuts. Correlations between the bacterial composition and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors were also explored.

Methods
Adults at CVD risk (n = 42) were included in this secondary analysis of a randomized, crossover, controlled-feeding study that reported improvements in CVD risk factors. Only significantly changed risk factors were correlated with significantly enriched bacteria. Fecal collections followed a 2-week run-in diet and three 6-week diet periods. Linear discriminant analysis Effect Size plots were used to determine enriched taxa.

Results
Following the WD, Roseburia (mean relative abundance = 4.2%, LDA = 4, P = 0.0008), Eubacterium eligensgroup (1.4%, 4, 0.05), Lachnospiraceae UCG001 (1.2%, 3, 0.03), Lachnospiraceae UCG004 (1.0%, 3, 0.04) and Leuconostocaceae (0.03%, 3, 0.05) were abundant relative to the SWD. Relative to the SWD, Roseburia (mean relative abundance = 3.6%, LDA = 4, P = 0.02) and Eubacterium eligensgroup (1.5%, 3, 0.02) were enriched following the WFMD, and following the ORAD Clostridialesvadin BB60 (0.3%, 2, 0.04) was most abundant. Significant associations existed between enriched bacteria following the WD and CVD risk factors. Eubacterium eligens correlated with brachial (R = -0.5, P = 0.0009) and central mean arterial pressure (MAP; -0.5, 0.002), and central diastolic blood pressure (cDBP; -0.5, 0.0006). Lachnospiraceae correlated with brachial (R = -0.4, P = 0.02) and central MAP (-0.4, 0.02), cDBP (-0.3, 0.04), total cholesterol (TC; -0.4, 0.03), and non-HDL-C (-0.4, 0.02). Leuconostocaceae correlated with brachial (R = 0.3, P = 0.03) and central MAP (0.3, 0.03).

Conclusions
Similar eubiotic bacteria were enriched by the WD and WFMD suggesting ALA and linoleic acid affect the gut microbiome. Enrichment of Lachnospiraceae and associations with improved CVD risk factors suggests the microbiome contributes to the beneficial health effects of walnuts.

Funding Sources
The California Walnut Commission and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NIH.

Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs


16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA)-targeted fluorescent in situ hybridization combined with polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-cloning, light microscopy using Gram stains, scanning electron microscopy and denatured gradient gel electrophoresis were used to reveal the distribution of methanogens within an anaerobic closed digester tank fed with palm oil mill effluent. For specific detection of methanogens, 16S rRNA-cloning analysis was conducted followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) for presumptive identification of methanogens. To cover the drawbacks of the PCR-cloning study, the organization of the microorganisms was visualized in the activated sludge sample by using fluorescent oligonucleotide probes specific to several different methanogens, and a probe for bacteria. In situ hybridization with methanogens and bacterial probes and denatured gradient gel electrophoresis within activated sludge clearly confirmed the presence of Methanosaeta sp. and Methanosarcina sp. cells. Methanosaeta concilii was found to be the dominant species in the bioreactor. These results revealed the presence of possibly new strain of Methanosaeta in the bioreactor for treating palm oil mill effluent called Methanosaeta concilii SamaliEB (Gene bank accession number: EU580025). In addition, fluorescent hybridization pictured the close association between the methanogens and bacteria and that the number of methanogens was greater than the number of bacteria.


This study examines multiple perspectives on the education of a group of fifteen Year 6 and Year 8 students identified as mathematically gifted and talented. The students' mathematical experiences, both past and present are examined using evidence from school policy documents; student, teacher, and parent interviews; questionnaires; and classroom observations. The purpose of this case study was to seek understandings about awareness of the characteristics of mathematically gifted and talented students, the identification of and educational provisions for mathematically gifted and talented students, parental involvement, and school transfer. The group of fifteen students consisted of ten Year 6 students who transferred from primary school to a new school for Year 7, and five Year 8 students who moved to secondary schools for Year 9. These students had been identified by their school and teachers as gifted and talented in mathematics. This predominantly qualitative study is underpinned by an interpretive paradigm and influenced by a sociocultural philosophy of learning and teaching. The literature review presents the dilemmas, similarities, and differences that prevail in the field of gifted education. A more specific focus is given to the education of mathematically gifted students to highlight gaps in the field. This two-year study tracking a group of students provides a cohesive approach to understanding the educational provisions for students identified as mathematically gifted and talented in the New Zealand setting. The multiple case studies included interviews, questionnaires, documents, and observations. The research findings show that there is not a comprehensive understanding by schools and teachers about the characteristics of mathematically gifted students. Despite the documentation of a range of identification processes in school policies, a multiple method approach is not practised in many schools. Provision of appropriate programmes is variable and determined by factors such as school organization, identification, teacher knowledge and expertise, and resources. Parents play a key role in their children's mathematics education as motivators, resource providers, monitors, mathematics content advisers, and mathematical learning advisers. Schools, teachers, parents, and peers all contribute to the success of a student's transfer from one phase of schooling to another; they support a student's social and emotional well being and influence curriculum continuity in mathematics. This study provides insights into the various determinants of the development of mathematical talent. For New Zealand schools and teachers, it provides evidence that understanding the characteristics of mathematical giftedness is important and that identification processes must reflect this understanding. Provisions must be well considered and evaluated; the role of parents should be understood and valued; and home-school communications strengthened. Together, all stakeholders share a critical role in the education of mathematically gifted and talented students.


The automobile has been rendered invisible as a designed object that injures not only its consumers but other users of the street. This blind spot in how liability has been distributed in crash injuries has had three primary effects. First, it has resulted in a material distribution of goods in which the legal liability of automobile design as a cause of injury has been minimized. Second, it has determined how goods such as public space have been distributed, and third, it has had a constitutive role on how social and legal subjects such as a bad mothers and negligent drivers have been produced.


The purpose of the Thesis is to contribute to our theoretical and empirical understanding of the social dynamics of student mobility and higher education internationalisation in the European Union. Specifically, it examines the social factors influencing students from different EU countries in their choice i) to study in a country other than their own, and ii) select the UK as the place to study abroad. The Thesis approaches student mobility as a social choice and action effecting in the structuration of the European educational space, and the growing rapprochement and closer interaction among European higher education systems, actors, and societies, that is European social integration. The Thesis argues that student mobility and the structuration of the European educational space is a social process relating to systemic factors but also the actions of collective and individual actors, involved in hierarchical games, aimed at increasing some type of capital (economic, political, social, cultural). In a context of mass higher education systems and growing internationalisation of economies, societies, and labour markets new educational hierarchies emerge influencing student educational choices to study abroad. Foreign language competences, international experiences, and cultural communication and knowledge appear to constitute additional skills and qualifications students perceive important educational credentials in their struggle for successful entry into, and development within, labour markets, the hierarchies of occupations, and social hierarchies. Moreover, the Thesis argues that student choice to study abroad in the EU can be best interpreted as an interaction of the effects of globalisation and European integration processes with national social contexts, and between country-systems relationships within which educational choices are made. The factors specific to European national and regional social contexts identified include: i) the position of national higher education systems (and institutions) in the international hierarchy of systems, ii) the stage of development and expansion of national higher education systems, iii) the diversity of higher education systems, institutions, structures, and traditions across EU countries, iv) the functioning of higher education systems and institutions. Such hierarchical stratification and diversity of European higher education systems appear to also contain the social dynamics of student mobility, higher education internationalisation, the structuration of the European educational space, and European social integration.


The electricity network is undergoing significant changes in the transition to a low carbon system. The growth of renewable distributed generation (DG) creates a number of technical and economic challenges in the electricity network. While the development of the smart grid promises alternative ways to manage network constraints, their impact on the ability of the network to accommodate DG – the 'hosting capacity'is not fully understood. It is of significance for both DNOs and DGs developers to quantify the hosting capacity according to given technical or commercial objectives while subject to a set of predefined limits. The combinational nature of the hosting capacity problem, together with the intermittent nature of renewable generation and the complex actions of smart control systems, means evaluation of hosting capacity requires appropriate optimisation techniques. This thesis extends the knowledge of hosting capacity. Three specific but related areas are examined to fill the gaps identified in existing knowledge. New evaluation methods are developed that allow the study of hosting capacity (1) under different curtailment priority rules, (2) with harmonic distortion limits, and (3) alongside energy storage systems. These works together improve DG planning in two directions: demonstrating the benefit provided by a range of smart grid solutions; and evaluating extensive impacts to ensure compliance with all relevant planning standards and grid codes. As an outcome, the methods developed can help both DNOs and DG developers make sound and practical decisions, facilitating the integration of renewable DG in a more cost-effective way.


OBJECTIVE
Our aim was to describe the spectrum of CT findings in patients with acute epiploic appendagitis and also to evaluate the changes seen with this condition.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Fifty patients diagnosed with acute epiploic appendagitis seen on contrast-enhanced CT were included in this study. The CT scans of the epiploic appendagitis were evaluated for the presence of colon wall thickening, a focal fatty center, inflammatory changes, location in relationship to the colon, size, and presence or absence of central high density within the fat. In 10 patients, the initial findings were compared with findings of follow-up CT performed between 3 days-21 months after the first CT.

RESULTS
The most common part of colon involved by acute epiploic appendagitis was the sigmoid colon (31/50), and the most common position was anterior to the colonic lumen (41/50). All 50 patients with acute epiploic appendagitis had a central fatty core surrounded by inflammation. Colon wall thickening was present in only two, and a central high-density focus was noted only in 27 of 50 patients. In 86% (43/50) of patients, the fatty central core was between 1.5 and 3.5 cm in length. The changes seen on follow-up CT varied, including increased density with a decrease in the size of the fatty central core, no change, complete resolution of findings, and minimal residual density.

CONCLUSION
On CT, acute epiploic appendagitis has a predictable appearance in terms of location, size, and density. The most common finding on CT is a fat-density oval lesion with surrounding inflammation on the anterior aspect of the sigmoid colon. The changes on CT are not predictable in the 2-week to 6-month window.


Author(s): Mathew, Ashwin Jacob | Advisor(s): Chuang, John; Cheshire, Coye | Abstract: With the rise of global telecommunications networks, and especially with the worldwide spread of the Internet, the world is considered to be becoming an information society: a society in which social relations are patterned by information, transcending time and space through the use of new information and communications technologies. Much of the popular press and academic literature on the information society focuses on the dichotomy between the technologically-enabled virtual space of information, and the physical space of the material world. However, to understand the nature of virtual space, and of the information society, it is critical to understand the politics of the technological infrastructure through which they are constructed. In this dissertation, I study the infrastructure of the Internet to examine the processes through which the dichotomy between virtual space and physical space is produced. It is through Internet infrastructure that the seemingly placeless appearance of virtual space is produced over disparate physical telecommunications infrastructures which are fixed in space, such as copper telephone wires, satellites, and optical fiber cables. My examination of Internet infrastructure focuses on the system of interconnections amongst the networks which make up the Internet, which is called the inter-domain routing system. For all that the Internet is spoken of as a singular entity, it is in fact a complex distributed system of over 47,000 interconnected networks spanning the world. It is these interconnections - in the shape of the inter-domain routing system - which allow the Internet to appear to be a single entity, and provide the means through which the apparent placelessness of virtual space is produced. I approach the problem of understanding the production of virtual space by examining the mechanisms involved in the maintenance of order within the Internet's inter-domain routing system. To examine the mechanisms involved in maintaining order in the inter-domain routing system, I study the technology and practices involved in the interconnection of networks. The technology which enables network interconnection is the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which allows the establishment of network interconnections without any need for centralized oversight. In the absence of centralized oversight, I found that the practices involved in operating BGP rely on coordination and collaboration amongst the technical personnel responsible for managing the interconnection of networks. Coordination and collaboration are enabled amongst the Internet's technical personnel through social relationships of trust, running across corporate and state boundaries. Even though the inter-domain routing system operates without centralized oversight, it does rely on centralized institutional structures for specialized functions, such as standards-setting activity, and the allocation of unique numbering resources required to identify networks in the inter-domain routing system, and to identify computers within networks. The personnel involved in managing network interconnections, and in administering centralized institutions do so - to varying degrees - with an ideal of serving the common good, acting "for the good of the Internet". I argue that order is maintained within the inter-domain routing system through a distributed system of trust relationships, which are anchored by centralized institutional structures. As an arrangement of mechanisms for maintaining order, I consider this to be a governance arrangement, which I term "distributed governance". Distributed governance is an unusual, and possibly unique, model of governance. It has three distinguishing features which mark it off from hierarchical and market-based models of governance. First, in its reliance on a distributed system of trust relationships. These are produced and reproduced in the practice of interconnecting networks, and through professional communities of the technical personnel responsible for managing network interconnections. Second, in its centralized institutional structures, which are uniquely organized amongst global governance institutions. None of these centralized institutional structures are formed by international treaty, and all of them are strongly committed to openness and participation. Third, in its operation over the particular technological form of BGP which emphasizes coordination and collaboration. To change the technology of inter-domain routing would be to change the range of governance possibilities for inter-domain routing, modifying the nature of distributed governance itself. These distinguishing features are sites of contestation. Although technical personnel do owe allegiance to their professional communities, and to one another through trust relationships, they are also employees of corporations which invest in Internet infrastructure, and citizens of nation states which regulate (and sometimes invest in) Internet infrastructure in their territories. Distributed governance is accordingly complicated by market relationships, the interests of nation states, and international relations amongst nation states, just as markets, nation states and international relations are complicated by distributed governance. To make sense of distributed governance as a global system, I study its instantiation in professional communities of the Internet's technical personnel, centralized institutional arrangements, and state and market interests across two different regions: North America, which is relatively central to the global Internet, and South Asia, which is relatively peripheral. This provides the opportunity to perform a comparison between these two cases, to understand at once how distributed governance varies under different conditions, and how different articulations of distributed governance are linked into a single global system of governance. The range of social possibilities within a society are shaped by the model of governance which provides it with order. To understand the nature of the information society, it is essential to understand the mechanisms of distributed governance. Indeed, I argue that the social values of "freedom" and "democracy" which are often ascribed to the Internet are only made possible through distributed governance. Equally, these social values cannot be maintained through technology alone. They must be served by an appropriate combination of technology and social arrangements of technical personnel who act with these social values in mind, "for the good of the Internet".


The 2011 rendition of the DMASA's Assegai Integrated Marketing Awards sponsored by the South African Post Office is now in full swing. Entries are open for the very best in direct and integrated marketing campaigns that were executed between May 2010 and September 2011. This year, the very best examples of powerful direct response advertising can be entered into 30 categories across six sections.


In this article, I seek to identify a limitation in the analysis James Scott offers in Seeing Like a State (1998) by asking to what extent his account of the follies of schemes for planned improvement by states provides critical leverage on the present world of neoliberal global capitalism. Scott has claimed that a dynamic of standardization, homogenization, and grid making applies not only to developmentalist states but also equally to the contemporary world of downsized states and unconstrained global corporations. I contest that claim by tracing how recent capital investment in Africa has been territorialized, and some of the new forms of order and disorder that have accompanied that selectively territorialized investment. Because such investment has been overwhelmingly in mineral resource extraction—particularly in oil—a contrast will become visible between the homogenizing, standardizing state optic Scott analyzed and a rather different way of seeing, proper to the contemporary global oil company.


Prevalence of delayed language vs. normative language was examined in impoverished preschool children. On the basis of vocabulary, syntax comprehension, and syntax expression, 336 4-year-olds attending Head Start preschools in the US were assigned to five language status categories. A majority of these children living in poverty demonstrated clinically significant language delays, and this held true equally for Majority (White European) and Minority (here African-American or Latino) children. Many of the children living in poverty showed delays that place them in Strong Delay or Moderate Delay status rather than Mild Delay status. Moreover, as children's language status declined from High Language to Low-Average Language to the three increasingly strong language delays, their academic and socioemotional skills decreased systematically. This conclusion holds, with large effect sizes, for emotion recognition skills, basic mathematics, print knowledge, phonological elision, and phonological blending. Given the high prevalence of language delays and the strong associations of language status levels to multiple skills considered important for school readiness, it may be advisable in intervention, education, and clinical service programs to expand the use of high-quality and high-quantity language teaching and language therapy procedures. Further, it is suggested that making more adjustments in instruction to current levels of language mastery by children in poverty might facilitate instructional effectiveness in most preschool skill domains. These recommendations are discussed in relation to dynamic systems theory and prior intervention studies.


Stroke is one of the most common diseases affecting older adults in Western societies. Suffering a stroke can result in a loss or weakness of mental and motor functions, severely impacting the individual's quality of life. With effective rehabilitation it is possible to recover from stroke and regain some lost capabilities. However, rehabilitation can be very taxing on the individual, both physically and mentally, and many struggle with maintaining the motivation to continue.
Those who are unable to stay motivated tend to struggle with recovery. Without regular rehabilitation of an appropriate level of intensity, the individual's progress will wane. They may lose interest or faith in their ability to recover, maximizing the negative impact of the stroke.
To combat this, we explored the incorporation of a digital game system into the rehabilitation process. Such a system introduced a more engaging alternative to existing mundane physiotherapy exercises. The system converted prescribed exercises into gameplay using a special shoe controller designed to target lower-limb rehabilitation. Health professionals were involved in its development, ensuring the validity of the gameplay as a substitute for traditional rehabilitation methods. Tests were conducted with older adults to explore the target audience's needs and refine the system accordingly.
The final output was a digitized dominoes game (called 12-12) that required players to perform lower-limb physiotherapy exercises to progress gameplay. 12-12 incorporates Dr. Signal's Strength for Task Training (2014), a novel and contemporary rehabilitation scheme, supported by the custom shoe controller developed by co-researcher William Duncan. 12-12 explored engagement through the themes of adaptability, connectivity and meaningful interactions.


OBJECTIVES
To analyze adherence to antiosteoporosis drugs (AODs) and to assess the influence of patient-related and drug-related factors.

STUDY DESIGN
Observational, retrospective study.

METHODS
Data on prescriptions for AODs from 2007 through 2008 were retrieved from administrative databases of 10 Italian local health units. Key measurements included compliance and persistence at 1 year. Multivariate regression analyses were performed to estimate adjusted risk ratios for compliance less than 80% and adjusted hazard ratios for no persistence.

RESULTS
Of 40,004 new patients (89.9% women, mean age 69.8 years), 84.0% were treated with bisphosphonates and 74.6% of administration regimens were weekly. Overall, 75.1% of patients had suboptimal levels of compliance and 84.7% were not persistent; almost one-third had only 1 prescription. In regression analyses, younger age, change of drug, and concomitant corticosteroid therapy were significantly associated to compliance and persistence in both genders. In women, weekly and monthly regimens reduced the risk for poor compliance (sex-adjusted relative risks 0.729 [0.697-0.762], 0.846 [0.817-0.876], respectively) and no persistence (sex-adjusted hazard ratios 0.591 [0.541-0.646], 0.508 [0.461-0.560], respectively) compared with a daily regimen.

CONCLUSIONS
In our study, 75% of subjects had discontinuous treatment and inadequate drug supply. Age and frequency of administration were strongly associated with adherence. Improvement is urgently needed, and occasional prescriptions represent the main target.


A growing partisan divide in Congress stalled almost all new federal climate policy in 2011. The divide frustrated efforts to pass a cap-and-trade carbon permitting system, spawned a battle between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress, pushed most substantive climate change policy down to the municipal level and hindered US ability to effectively negotiate an international climate agreement. Amid the federal partisan wrangling, US cities have enacted far-sighted climate policy initiatives, and the growing cost of fossil fuels has stimulated investment in renewable energy, edging the country closer to commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels. These trends could help provide an alternate route to climate mitigation, even without international treaties or national legislation. But the inevitable shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources would be greatly hastened by federal action to tax carbon dioxide emissions and use the revenue generated to support alternative energy technologies. That action is extremely unlikely to occur unless climate change comes to be seen in the United States as a practical, rather than ideological, issue.