BACKGROUND
Histologic assessment of mucosal disease activity has been increasingly used in clinical trials of treatment for Crohn's disease. However, the operating properties of the currently existing histologic scoring indices remain unclear.

OBJECTIVES
A systematic review was undertaken to evaluate the development and operating characteristics of available histologic disease activity indices in Crohn's disease.

SEARCH METHODS
Electronic searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library (CENTRAL) databases from inception to 20 July 2016 were supplemented by manual reviews of bibliographies and abstracts submitted to major gastroenterology meetings (Digestive Disease Week, United European Gastroenterology Week, European Crohn's and Colitis Organisation).

SELECTION CRITERIA
Any study design (e.g. randomised controlled trial, cohort study, case series) that evaluated a histologic disease activity index in patients with Crohn's disease was considered for inclusion. Study participants included adult patients (> 16 years), diagnosed with Crohn's disease using conventional clinical, radiographic or endoscopic criteria.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two authors independently reviewed the titles and abstracts of the studies identified from the literature search. The full text of potentially relevant citations were reviewed for inclusion and the study investigators were contacted as needed for clarification. Any disagreements regarding study eligibility were resolved by discussion and consensus with a third author.Two authors independently extracted and recorded data using a standard form. The following data were recorded from each eligible study: number of patients enrolled; number of patients per treatment arm; patient characteristics: age and gender distribution; description of histologic disease activity index utilized; and outcomes such as content validity, construct validity, criterion validity, responsiveness, intra-rater reliability, inter-rater reliability, and feasibility.

MAIN RESULTS
Sixteen reports of 14 studies describing 14 different numerical histological indices fulfilled the inclusion criteria.Inter-rater reliability was assessed in one study. For the Naini and Cortina Score, estimates of correlation were 'almost perfect', ranging from r = 0.94 to 0.96. The methodological quality of this study with respect to reliability was 'good'.With respect to validity, correlation estimates between various histological scoring systems and Crohn's disease activity as measured by objective markers of inflammation (including C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, fecal calprotectin and fecal lactoferrin); endoscopic disease activity scores; clinical disease activity scores; and quality of life questionnaires were reported. Comparisons between histologic scoring indices and endoscopic scoring indices ranged from no correlation to 'substantial' (r = 0.779). The methodological quality of the studies that explored validity ranged form 'poor' to 'good'.Responsiveness data were available in seven studies. After subjects were administered a treatment of known efficacy, statistically significant change in the index score was demonstrated in five studies with respect to six indices. Two studies failed to indicate whether there was statistically significant change in the index score post-treatment. With regard to methodological quality, six of the studies were rated as 'poor' and one of the studies was rated as 'fair'.Feasibility was assessed by one study. The Naini and Cortina Score was shown to be simple to use and feasible for every given case.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Currently there is no fully validated histological scoring index for evaluation of Crohn's disease activity. Development of a validated histological scoring index for Crohn's disease is a clinical and research priority.


Much has been written about hearing in Hamlet. Yet this work has overlooked a crucial aspect of the play's interest in audition—its intervention in a turn-of-the-century contest over how plays should sound, and how audiences should hear them. Hamlet responds directly to attacks, made by Ben Jonson and other playwrights, on revenge tragedy's rumbling speeches and on the supposedly unthinking, indiscriminate reception they required. Boasting that their cutting-edge comedies introduced a new, trippingly pronounced sound to London's stages, these playwrights insisted theatergoers hear their works differently by practicing tasteful audition. A play which not only takes hearing as one of its subjects, but which does so from within the genre of revenge, Hamlet questions the viability of Jonsonian reception while at the same time recuperating revenge tragedy from charges of creaking irrelevance. Preoccupied with the social significance of his auditory choices and appreciating most what is "caviare to the general," Hamlet makes numerous mistakes as a listener. These point the way to an auditory alternative—Horatio's cautious, conscious hearing, which is more attentive to sense than to sound, or to substance than to style. Ultimately, Hamlet's investigation of formally specific modes of hearing entails nothing less than the transformation of the revenge tragedy form. From an outmoded but still-popular genre, one straditionally been focused on the violent effects of audition and the instability of corporeal and political bodies that signifies, revenge is remade into a genre attuned to the individual's struggle to protect the self against aural and other onslaughts.


Veins of iron run deep in the history of America. Iron making began almost as soon as European settlement, with the establishment of the first ironworks in colonial Massachusetts. Yet it was Great Britain that became the Atlantic world's dominant low-cost, high-volume producer of iron, a position it retained throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until after the Civil War that American iron producers began to match the scale and efficiency of the British iron industry. In "Mastering Iron", Anne Kelly Knowles argues that the prolonged development of the American iron industry was largely due to geographical problems the British did not face. Pairing exhaustive manuscript research with analysis of a detailed geospatial database that she built of the industry, Knowles reconstructs the American iron industry in unprecedented depth, from locating hundreds of iron companies in their social and environmental contexts to explaining workplace culture and social relations between workers and managers. She demonstrates how ironworks in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia struggled to replicate British technologies but, in the attempt, brought about changes in the American industry that set the stage for the subsequent age of steel. Richly illustrated with dozens of original maps and period art work, all in full color, "Mastering Iron" sheds new light on American ambitions and high-lights the challenges a young nation faced as it grappled with its geographic conditions.


We read about the effects of globalisation everyday in the pages of our newspapers; now read about them here in the pages of your rheumatology journal—the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) and the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) have agreed to collaborate. The two organisations have been discussing collaboration for over 3 years and in this issue of both the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and Arthritis & Rheumatism (Arthritis Care & Research), the first fruits of that collaboration are blossoming. Aletaha and colleagues from Europe and North America have developed recommendations on reporting disease activity in clinical trials of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and this paper (as well as this Editorial) is published simultaneously in the two journals (see page 1360). 2 This document is not only important for its content but also for the process of development. European investigators with sponsorship from EULAR invited the ACR and North American investigators to collaboratively discuss RA trial guidance and develop a document that investigators from around the world should adhere to when conducting RA trials. While global collaboration is nothing new in science, bringing two organisations (and their bureaucracies) together is no small feat. The collaboration is planned to focus on concrete projects in two areas. The paper by Aletaha and colleagues demonstrates one area: guidance on how to report results from trials in RA patients. 2 Rheumatology trials are increasingly global in their scope and trialists worldwide need a common set of guidelines to follow. The expertise for conducting the best trials is international. Thus, while regulatory agencies can have slightly different requirements, bringing together EULAR and ACR for collaboration in this area is natural. The methodology of the project, ie, the evidence and consensus based approach to elaborate the recommendations, is described in a separate paper. The second area of collaboration focuses on measurement in rheumatology clinical research. Valid classification and response criteria are critical for conducting high quality research in rheumatology. The datasets and experience for developing and validating these criteria sets are global. The leaders of the EULAR Standing Committee for Clinical Affairs (ESCCA) and ACR's Quality of Care Committee have common purposes that have propelled the organisational relationship forward. The reasons to collaborate were clear early on, but it has taken time to establish the ''ground rules'' and a procedure that would serve the organisations and their constituents. The first principle of the relationship is transparency. This is achieved through allocation of reciprocal membership on relevant committees and subcommittees. In this way, ACR and EULAR representatives participate as members on each other's committees, including formulating agendas for new projects, developing review procedures, and discussing publication strategies. In addition, EULAR and ACR have developed a budgeting timeline that allows for both organisations to review proposed collaborative projects in a timely manner. A second principle of the relationship, following from the first, is proactive planning (as opposed to surprised reactions). Joint planning through reciprocal committee memberships and transparent agendas facilitates smooth collaboration. The final principle is the true desire to collaborate and not compete. ACR and EULAR are the two largest rheumatology professional organisations in the world. While much of the ''core business'' of the organisations can be viewed as competitive, such as the meetings, journals, and educational products, at the heart of both organisations, the ''core mission'' is to forward the clinical, educational, and research endeavours of rheumatologists all over the world. Collaboration, if done well, can only improve this core mission.


We demonstrate a new pulse-shaping technique, using an acousto-optic modulator as a spatial modulator in a zero-dispersion delay line. Compared with existing techniques, this approach simplifies optical alignment and dramatically improves update rates. It should also improve flexibility for generating complex waveforms.


In this article, we present an overview of empirical research on boards and governance in leading U.S. and international academic journals in general management. Samples, methods, theories, and main concepts are presented and compared. The contributions are positioned with respect to contingency perspectives, behavioral perspectives, and evolutionary perspectives. Through an analysis of 127 empirical articles, we find that most studies on boards and governance have been influenced by a research tradition that treats the board of directors as an isolated "black box." Only few studies explore boards in context or explore behavioral perspectives of boards. Almost no studies include evolutionary perspectives. Based on our analysis, we explore alternative research streams and outline various directions for future research.


Several scientific projects use BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) to perform largescale simulations using volunteers' computers (workers) across the Internet. In general, the scheduling of tasks in BOINC uses a First-Come-First-Serve policy and no attention is paid to workers' past performance, such as whether or not they have tended to perform tasks promptly and correctly. In this paper we use SimBA, a discrete-event Simulator of BOINC Applications, to study new threshold-based scheduling strategies for BOINC projects that use availability and reliability metrics to classify workers and distribute tasks according to this classification. We show that if availability and reliability thresholds are selected properly, then the workers' throughput of valid results increases significantly in BOINC projects.


This paper presents an application of the split-population duration model in identifying operating strategies and structural attributes of commercial banks that increased their financial and temporal endurance (translated into probability and duration of survival, respectively) during the late 2000s recession. This study's results identify the isolated effects of certain variables on a bank's temporal endurance that have not been captured by other commonly used survival models. For instance, delinquency rates for consumer and industrial loans have separate adverse effects on the banks' chances of survival and temporal endurance, respectively, while real estate loan delinquency rates negatively affect both survival parameters. Aside from the loan portfolio composition effects, interest rate risk, fund sourcing strategies, and business size could also significantly influence a bank's survival through the financial crises.


Minor histocompatibility antigens (mHAgs) constitute the targets of the graft-versus-leukemia response after HLA-identical allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Here, we have used genetic linkage analysis to identify a novel mHAg, designated lymphoid-restricted histocompatibility antigen-1 (LRH-1), which is encoded by the P2X5 gene and elicited an allogeneic CTL response in a patient with chronic myeloid leukemia after donor lymphocyte infusion. We demonstrate that immunogenicity for LRH-1 is due to differential protein expression in recipient and donor cells as a consequence of a homozygous frameshift polymorphism in the donor. Tetramer analysis showed that emergence of LRH-1-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T cells in peripheral blood and bone marrow correlated with complete remission of chronic myeloid leukemia. Furthermore, the restricted expression of LRH-1 in hematopoietic cells including leukemic CD34+ progenitor cells provides evidence of a role for LRH-1-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T cells in selective graft-versus-leukemia reactivity in the absence of severe graft-versus-host disease. These findings illustrate that the P2X5-encoded mHAg LRH-1 could be an attractive target for specific immunotherapy to treat hematological malignancies recurring after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.


Background and study aims: Better endoscopic diagnosis in case of Barrett's esophagus is still needed. White globe appearance (WGA) is a novel endoscopic marker for gastric adenocarcinoma, with high sensitivity for differentiating between gastric cancer/high-grade dysplasia and other lesions. We report 2 cases of esophageal adenocarcinoma with WGA. In Case 1, esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) revealed a 10-mm esophageal adenocarcinoma in a 48-year-old Japanese woman with short-segment Barrett's esophagus. A small (< 1 mm) white globular lesion, typical of WGA, was observed under the epithelium by magnifying narrow-band imaging. A dilated neoplastic gland with eosinophilic material and necrotic epithelial fragments was identified at the site of the WGA by histologic examination. In Case 2, EGD revealed a 5-mm esophageal adenocarcinoma in a 60-year-old Caucasian man with long-segment Barrett's esophagus. A typical WGA was observed by magnifying narrow-band imaging and similar histologic findings were identified at the site of the WGA. WGA could be a reliable endoscopic finding for target biopsy in esophageal adenocarcinoma, if its specificity is as high as in gastric cancer. The clinical implications of WGA in patients with Barrett's esophagus should be investigated further.


This is a film review of The Skin I Live In (2011), directed by Pedro Almodovar. This film review is available in Journal of Religion & Film: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol16/iss1/21 The Skin I Live In, written and directed by the inimitable Pedro Almodovar, is a Hitchcockian thriller haunted by religion. By "haunted," I mean that religious themes, ideas, and questions, particularly centering on the body as a site of identity, are implicit but also pervasive and driving. A work of multifaceted pleasures and sensations, the movie involves mysterious doubles and disguises, startling metamorphoses, kinky sex, and homicidal insanity. It also boasts pitch-perfect casting and excellent acting, and is shot through with dark—at times even ghastly—humor (seemingly missed by most critics). The film follows the evil motivations and machinations of an elegant, brilliant, wealthy, and, as we come to find out, deeply psychotic plastic surgeon, Robert Ledgard. Played with marvelously eerie intensity by Antonio Banderas (in what marks a homecoming both to Spanish film and to the director who introduced him to the world), Ledgard is renowned for his innovative work on face transplant technology. In an early scene, we find Legard presenting his research on an experimental form of artificial skin, produced through a gene therapy called "transgenesis," that in addition to its lifelike plasticity, is also resistant to burning. The exalted expression on Legard's face indicates that plastic surgery—the reconfiguration of the flesh—affords him a godlike sense of power; it is something akin to a spiritual experience for this soulless man. Creating burn-resistant skin is one element of the sinister obsession Ledgard pursues within the cloistered confines of his estate. As we learn in a flashback, Ledgard is possessed by the memories of his wife, who committed suicide following a fire that left 1 Biles: The Skin I Live In Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2012 her horrifically scarred. The flashback contains a particularly unsettling scene in which Ledgard inhales the odor of his wife's burned flesh, apparently intoxicated by the scent. Conjuring shades of Vertigo, Legard now seeks to recreate his wife through the surgical alteration of a victim he keeps secreted within his mansion. Almodovar, like the malevolent doctor he has imagined for this movie, is a man obsessed with the flesh, and inclined toward delighting in the aesthetics of its polymorphously perverse possibilities. Like David Cronenberg, known so well for his "body horror" movies, Almodovar is interested in the mysteries and monstrosity of visceral depths. As one character screams in this movie, "I have insanity in my entrails!" (This movie's allusions to the work of artist Louise Bourgeois underscore Almodovar's interest in the more abject forms of corporeality.) But Almodovar really takes delight in the plasticity and beauty of bodily surfaces, in the skin itself and the fashions that comprise our second skins. In The Skin I Live In, the theme of flesh, already indicated in the title, is signaled from the first shot. The opening sequence finds the camera caressing the lithe but curving figure of Elena Anaya, who plays Vera, Ledgard's victim. Anaya's form and luminous skin are ideal for the role, and Almodovar takes full advantage of the actress's corporeal presence, depicting her in close-fitting body suits, in a variety of outfits, and in the act of applying makeup—so many ways of altering appearance. She is also made the obsessive object of the doctor's, and the audience's, eroticized gaze, which is at once solicited, exploited, and critically scrutinized by the director. 2 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 16 [2012], Iss. 1, Art. 21 http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol16/iss1/21 Indeed, the pleasures of the (heterosexual male) audience's gaze (famously analyzed in Laura Mulvey's classic essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"), here complicit with that of the villainous doctor, is thematized in the very conditions of Vera's captivity. She is held within a sparse room containing a one-way glass through which Ledgard can observe his victim. The frame of the window evokes the movie screen itself, subjecting the female form to double scrutiny—a conceit the openly gay director takes patent delight in playing with. The movie's evocations of the flesh extend also to its color palette, which deals in rich, sanguinary reds as well as cool blues that prevail in the clinical settings where the victim's body is reconfigured. The human body, and particularly its fleshly aspects, provides a primary fulcrum for religious ideas in this movie. Freud famously claimed that "anatomy is destiny"—that one's body, and particularly one's genitals, determines one's personality traits, one's identity. This is a movie that plays with that idea, with gender-bending and alterations of physical form, from the anatomical to the more superficial (makeup, fashion, costumes). Scholar of religion David Chidester has argued that religion has to do with creating and negotiating identity, with the human body being "the basic ground of religion." If so, then one religiously haunted dimension of this movie lies in its deep investigation of the relations between inner and outer, between one's identity—perhaps even one's soul—and one's outward appearance. 3 Biles: The Skin I Live In Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2012 The movie's attention to the body carries with it other religious connotations and speculations. The doctor's devotion to the flesh, and his attempt to create perfect skin, is imposed on Vera, who is also subjected to a battery of drugs, both medicinal (for the skin grafts) and recreational (opium is used as an intoxicant). The victim resorts to practicing yoga as a way of attempting to achieve a sense of freedom even within her confines. The ritual aspects of yoga—the pursuit of spiritual freedom and control—in combination with the imposition of aesthetic perfection—disciplined devotion to the flesh—gestures toward questions about the contemporary obsession with bodily perfection. As commentators like Rebecca Mead have pointed out, today's mania for disciplining and perfecting the body through exercise regimens, drugs, and plastic surgery call to mind the disciplinary rigors of medieval mystics. Mead compares the modern obsession with cosmetic surgery to Christian asceticism. Cosmetic surgery addicts describe their fixation in "the language of religious experience, with its wretchedness and its sublimity and its consciousness of transgression." They display all the "self-scourging rigor" of medieval ascetics. Mead speaks to women who regard cosmetic surgery as both "a passion and a pastime"; they are "beauty nuns, dedicated to the discipline of personal physical reformation." Like some sadistic deity, Ledgard wants to impose transcendence of a sort on his victim, whose body would be the site of his own redemption. He aims to make of Vera's mortal, corruptible body a perfect body, impervious to time as well as fire. The location of eternal life has thus moved from the heavens to the material world. This movie is thus 4 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 16 [2012], Iss. 1, Art. 21 http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol16/iss1/21 a meditation on the resurrection of the flesh, a fact indicated in the very name of Ledgard's estate, where he carries out his malevolent rituals of fleshly resurrection: Cigarra (cicada), alluding to the insect that "dies" beneath the earth to be metamorphically "resurrected." Today's surgical rituals usher initiates—or victims—from the imperfect to the more perfect, from the humanly mortal to the deifically immortal. For better or worse, there is something undeniably miraculous about such momentous transformations. Plastic surgery and other responses to the longing for immortality are attempts to effect the miraculous. "A miracle," critic Roland Barthes once wrote in an essay on plastic, "is always a... transformation of nature." Plastic surgery heralds a transformation of the very stuff of humanity. It portends a forfeiture of the "natural" body—a wish to transcend the mortal, aging body and a corresponding desire to be resurrected as immortal. As Chidester puts it, treating the body as—malleable, transformable, and perhaps even imperishable—is a form of "plastic religion" that gestures toward immortality. The Skin I Live In will readily trigger bioethical questions in relation to the religious dimensions I mention here. But Almodovar is not out to preach or proclaim a moral position on the matter. Rather, his movie is a darkly playful and skillfully rendered meditation on plasticity and perfection, on demonical devotion and ritualized resurrections, and ultimately on the pleasures and possibilities of spirit and flesh alike. 5 Biles: The Skin I Live In Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2012


Clearance of the beta-blocker, propranolol (PR), is decreased in inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, in both humans and rats. However, inflammation in arthritic patients is often controlled by drugs such as the nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Therefore, it is possible that arthritic-induced changes in drug disposition are minimized or suppressed in subjects receiving NSAIDs. To examine this hypothesis, we induced mild and severe adjuvant arthritis (AA) in rats and daily doses of the NSAID, ketoprofen (KT), were given to half of these rats. The pharmacokinetics of PR were thus examined in nontreated (MILDcontrol and SEVEREcontrol) and KT-treated (MILDKT and SEVEREKT) arthritic rats. Treatment with KT significantly reduced the arthritic index (AI) in the severe model of AA. In AA, the AUC0-8 of R- and S-PR were not significantly different in MILDKT rats (R, 15.8 +/- 9.5; S, 1.72 +/- 9.1 mg.hr/liter) as compared with MILDcontrol rats (R, 16.2 +/- 12; S, 1.76 +/- 1.2 mg.hr/liter). On the other hand, the AUC0-8 of both enantiomers were significantly lower in SEVEREKT (R, 39.2 +/- 13.2; S, 2.92 +/- 1.2 mg.hr/liter) as compared with SEVEREcontrol (R, 79.9 +/- 17; S, 6.88 +/- 2.1 mg.hr/liter). A high correlation between disease severity (AI) and the AUC0-8 of R- (r = 0.82) and S-PR (r = 0.81) was observed in all groups. Furthermore, the relationship between the AI and protein binding of R- and S-PR was significant in severe AA. Therefore, increased plasma concentrations of PR in arthritis are related to the degree of inflammation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


Bacterial meningitis (BM) is a life-threatening condition which affects the central nervous system (CNS). Its incidence rate is estimated between 0.22 - 2.66 and 0.81 - 6.1 cases/1000 lives worldwide and in Africa respectively. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of bacterial organisms isolated from CSF of children less than five years old in Windhoek. A retrospective analysis was performed on 784 results of CSF submitted to the Namibia Institute of Pathology (NIP) from January 2010 to August 2014. The results showed that out of the suspected meningitis cases, 18 (28.6%) were due to Streptococcus pneumoniae, making it the frequently isolated organism, followed by Staphylococcus aureus 7 (11.1%), Escherichia coli 5 (7.9%) and Haemophilus influenzae 4 (6.3%). Streptococcus pneumoniae showed high resistance to penicillin 17 (70.5%) & cotrimoxazole 16 (93.7%) and 100% susceptibility to ciprofloxacin (5), vancomycin (13) & ceftri-axone (8). Haemophilus influenzae showed moderate resistance to cotrimoxazole 3 (66%) & tet-racycline 2 (50%). It showed 100% sensitivity to chloramphenicol (4), cefuroxime (2) & ceftriaxone (3). Neisseria meningitidis showed high resistance to cotrimoxazole by 100% (n = 2) and high sensitivity to chloramphenicol (n = 2), ceftriaxone & penicillin by 100% (n = 2). Streptococcus agalactiae was resistant to tetracycline and sensitive to penicillin & erythromycin by 100% (n = 1). Streptococcus pneumoniae was isolated the most in this current study and it had high resistance to penicillin & cotrimoxazole. There was a significant difference between results CSF culture and PCR, Gram stain, CSF cell count, protein & glucose, as all comparisons yielded in P values less than 0.05, indicating a significant statistical association.


Reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) copolymerization was used to prepare copolymers of N-isopropyl acrylamide (NIPAM) and vinyl acetate (VAc) with mole fractions of NIPAM ranging from 0.1 to 0.6 and targeted degrees of polymerization of 100 and 250. The measured kinetic parameters and obtained experimental results revealed that this copolymerization system leads to a "one pot" synthesis of amphiphilic gradient copolymers, which have thermoresponsive and self-assembly characteristics resembling those of the analogous block copolymers but with some intriguing differences. Their self-assembly behavior in water suggests the formation of dynamic aggregates which respond rapidly to changes in solubility as revealed by 1H NMR spectroscopy, in contrast to the kinetically frozen aggregates formed by block copolymers. Furthermore, despite their block-like composition profiles, these copolymers display a single and broad glass transition, as is typically found in linear gradient copolymers. The synthetic approach presented in this contribution could readily be adapted to other comonomer systems to provide an accessible and economic alternative to the conventional multi-step preparation of block copolymers.


The advent of the digital era and the global market pose unique challenges to intellectual property law. To adapt, U.S. patent laws require constant interpretation in the face of rapidly changing technological advances. In AT&T Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., the Federal Circuit interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) in a technologydependent manner in order to effectuate the purpose of the law with respect to global software distribution. However, the Federal Circuit failed to consider the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. law, and its decision now risks international discord and harm not only to the American software industry, but other U.S. industries as well. This iBrief critiques the lower court decisions in AT&T Corp. v. Microsoft Corp. in light of the presumption against extraterritoriality, and analyzes how the Supreme Court should apply the presumption in its review of the case.


Technological change is a central feature of modern societies and a powerful source for social change. There is an urgent task to direct these new technologies towards sustainability, but society lacks perspectives, instruments and policies to accomplish this. There is no blueprint for a sustainable future, and it is necessary to experiment with alternative paths that seem promising. Various new transport technologies promise to bring sustainability benefits. But as this book shows, important lessons are often overlooked because the experiments are not designed to challenge the basic assumptions about established patterns of transport choices. Learning how to organise the process of innovation implementation is essential if the maximum impact is to be achieved - it is here that strategic niche management offers new perspectives. The book uses a series of eight recent experiments with electric vehicles, carsharing schemes, bicycle pools and fleet management to illustrate the means by which technological change must be closely linked to social change if successful implementation is to take place. The basic divide between proponents of technological fixes and those in favour of behavioural change needs to be bridged, perhaps indicating a third way.


Variational inference with α-divergences has been widely used in modern probabilistic machine learning. Compared to Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence, a major advantage of using α-divergences (with positive α values) is their mass-covering property. However, estimating and optimizing α-divergences require to use importance sampling, which could have extremely large or infinite variances due to heavy tails of importance weights. In this paper, we propose a new class of tail-adaptive f-divergences that adaptively change the convex function f with the tail of the importance weights, in a way that theoretically guarantee finite moments, while simultaneously achieving mass-covering properties. We test our methods on Bayesian neural networks, as well as deep reinforcement learning in which our method is applied to improve a recent soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm (Haarnoja et al., 2018). Our results show that our approach yields significant advantages compared with existing methods based on classical KL and α-divergences.


By using pharmacological tools, the biological actions of adenosine (ADO) were manipulated in rat intestine that had been rendered ischemic for 5 or 15 minutes and reperfused for 1 or 24 hours. With 100 microM ADO topically administered for 30 minutes after ischemia and then washed out, intestinal arteriolar blood flow (BF) and tissue ATP were restored to preocclusion levels, and histological damage was minimal after 1 hour of reperfusion. For comparison, with vehicle treatment after ischemia, BF was reduced by 50%, tissue ATP was reduced by 50%, myeloperoxidase levels in the intestine and lung were increased at least twofold, and mucosal villi were shortened and thickened after 1 hour of reperfusion. Furthermore, with vehicle treatment, both baseline BF and reactivity to endothelium-dependent (acetylcholine) and endothelium-independent (2-chloroadenosine) vasodilators were significantly depressed after 24 hours of reperfusion. In contrast, with ADO, baseline BF remained near normal, and vascular reactivity to 2-chloroadenosine and acetylcholine was preserved after 24 hours. The salutary effect of ADO on BF was reduced by simultaneous application of the antagonist 8-phenyltheophylline or the cellular uptake inhibitor dipyridamole. The nonmetabolized agonist 2-chloroadenosine, the purine precursor aminoimidazole carboxamide riboside, or dipyridamole alone all had favorable effects relative to the vehicle, but all were less potent than ADO. The conclusions are as follows: 1) Endogenous ADO modulates the inflammatory response evoked by intestinal reperfusion because aminoimidazole carboxamide riboside or dipyridamole, which increases its availability, generally had favorable effects, whereas 8-phenyltheophylline tended to have opposite effects. 2) Exogenous ADO arrests most of the inflammatory changes associated with reperfusion by mechanisms that include both extracellular (e.g., receptor-mediated vasodilation and granulocyte inhibition) and intracellular (e.g., restoration of ATP) actions. 3) The effectiveness of ADO-related compounds even when administered after ischemia attests to the practicality of salvaging ischemic bowel, at least in some conditions.


Planetary Sciences Convener:*Satoshi Okuzumi(Graduate School of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology), Kosuke Kurosawa(Planetary Exploration Research Center, Chiba Institute of Technology), Chair:Peng Hong(Department of Complexity Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo), Masanori Onishi(Graduate School of Science, Kobe University) Tue. Apr 29, 2014 11:00 AM 12:45 PM 416 (4F) We call for general interest papers for Planetary Sciences. Planetary Sciences consist of a variety of studies on the past, present, and future of our solar system and exoplanetary systems. Discussions based on various backgrounds are encouraged.


Abstract:  This study was designed to evaluate commonly used voice stress analyzers—in this case the layered voice analysis (LVA) system. The research protocol involved the use of a speech database containing materials recorded while highly controlled deception and stress levels were systematically varied. Subjects were 24 each males/females (age range 18–63 years) drawn from a diverse population. All held strong views about some issue; they were required to make intense contradictory statements while believing that they would be heard/seen by peers. The LVA system was then evaluated by means of a double blind study using two types of examiners: a pair of scientists trained and certified by the manufacturer in the proper use of the system and two highly experienced LVA instructors provided by this same firm. The results showed that the "true positive" (or hit) rates for all examiners averaged near chance (42–56%) for all conditions, types of materials (e.g., stress vs. unstressed, truth vs. deception), and examiners (scientists vs. manufacturers). Most importantly, the false positive rate was very high, ranging from 40% to 65%. Sensitivity statistics confirmed that the LVA system operated at about chance levels in the detection of truth, deception, and the presence of high and low vocal stress states.


Background: Pulseless electrical activity (PEA) is a clinical condition characterized by unresponsiveness and lack of palpable pulse in the presence of organized cardiac electrical activity. It is induced by factors that results in the inability of cardiac muscle to generate sufficient force in response to electrical depolarization. Those factors could be physiological, pathological, or drug-induced. Previous reports have identified haloperidol-induced QTprolongation, but to the best of our knowledge this is the first case report of a patient with documentation of a normal baseline echocardiogram who experience haloperidol-induced PEA. Case Report: A 46-year-old woman was observed who developed a PEA a few minutes after receiving 2 mg of intravenous (IV) haloperidol. Haloperidol was administered to control her agitation and aggressiveness. A few minutes after administering the haloperidol, she experienced PEA and cardiac arrest. She recovered after receiving CPR for six minutes and 1 mg IV epinephrine, then she was intubated for mechanical ventilation and sedated. The drug was discontinue and was not restarted. For the rest of her stay in the hospital, the patient experienced no further cardiac events. Two days later, she became stable and she was extubated. She was discharged after 60 days with an out-patient follow-up appointment. Applying the Naranjo adverse drug reaction probability scale to this case (score of 4) indicated the possible relationship between the patient's adverse cardiac event and haloperidol. Conclusions: IV haloperidol is advocated as safe effective therapy for agitated delirium in medical or surgical cardiac patients in the intensive care unit. Thus, it may be overlooked as a cause of pulseless electrical activity. Therefore, practitioners should be instructed about the potential for IV haloperidol to bring about bradycardia prompting pulseless electrical movement despite performing comprehensive cardiac examination before prescribing haloperidol.


Silica fume is a widely
used pozzolan in the concrete industry that has been shown to have numerous
benefits for concrete including improved mechanical properties, refined pore
structure, and densification of the interfacial transition zone between paste
and aggregates. Traditionally, silica
fume is used as a 5% to 10% replacement of cement; however, newer classes of
higher strength concretes use silica fume contents of 30% or greater. At these high silica fume contents, many
detrimental effects, such as poor workability and inconsistent strength
development, become much more prominent.

In order to understand
the fundamental reasons why high silica fume contents can have these
detrimental effects on concrete mixtures, eight commercially available silica
fumes were characterized for their physical and chemical properties. These included traditional properties such as
density, particle size, and surface area.
A non-traditional property, absorption capacity, was also determined. These properties or raw material
characteristics were then related to the hydration and rheological behavior of
pastes and concrete mixtures. Other
tests were performed including isothermal calorimetry, which showed that each
silica fume reacted differently than other silica fumes when exposed to the
same reactive environment. Traditional
hydration models for ordinary portland cement were expanded to include the
effects that silica fumes have on water consumption, volumes of hydration
products, and final degree of hydration.

As a result of this
research, it was determined necessary to account for the volume and surface
area of unhydrated cement and unreacted silica fume particles in water-starved
mixture proportions. An adjustment factor
was developed to more accurately apply the results from hydration
modeling. By combining the results from
hydration modeling with the surface area adjustments, an analytical model was
developed to determine the thickness of paste (hydration products and capillary
water) that surrounds all of the inert and unreacted particles in the system. This model, denoted as the "Paste Thickness
Model," was shown to be a strong predictor of compressive strength
results. The results of this research
suggest that increasing the paste thickness decreases the expected compressive
strength of concretes at ages or states of hydration.

The rheological behavior
of cement pastes containing silica fume was studied using a rotational
rheometer. The Herschel-Bulkley model
was fit to the rheological data to characterize the rheological behavior. A multilinear model was developed to relate
the specific surface area of the silica fume, water content, and silica fume
content to the Herschel-Bulkley rate index.
The Herschel-Bulkley rate index is practically related to the ease at
which the paste mixes. This multilinear
model was shown to have strong predictive capability when used on randomly
generated paste compositions.

Additionally, an
analytical model was developed that defines a single parameter, idealized as
the thickness of water surrounding each particle in the cementitious system. This model, denoted as the "Water Thickness
Model," incorporated the absorption capacity of silica fumes discovered during
the characterization phase of this study and was shown to correlate strongly
with the Herschel-Bulkley rate index.
The Water Thickness Model demonstrates how small changes in water
content can have a drastic effect on the rheology of low w/c or high silica
fume content pastes due to the combined effects of surface area and absorption. The effect of additional water on higher w/c
mixtures is significantly less.


Four herbicide experiments were conducted in a Son Anton soil at Juana Diaz Substation from 1985 to 1988. In the first experiment, conducted in 1985-86, we found that post emergence oxyfluorfen (0.14, 0.28 and 0.56 kg ai/ha) preceded by preemergence DCPA (11.2 kg ai/ha) plus hand weeding effectively controlled broadleaf weeds (93-97%) for 9 weeks. Onion yield increased proportionately with the increasing rates of oxyfluorfen. In the second experiment, established in 1986-87, preemergence metolachlor (2.8 and 5.6 kg ai/ha) caused high phytotoxicity on onion and affected its yield. Oxyfluorfen (0.14 kg ai/ha) applied in mixture and sequentially with fluazifop-P (0.24 kg ai/ha) provided an excellent weed control with onion yields similar (P = 0.05) to that obtained in the hand-weeded check. In two subsequent experiments established in 1987-88 we found that two or three applications of either oxyfluorfen (0.14 kg ai/ha) 4- fluazifop-P (0.25 kg ai/ha) or oxyfluorfen (0.14 kg ai/ha) + sethoxydim (0.25 kg ai/ha) mixtures gave excellent grass and broadleaf weed control. However, no significant differences (P = 0.05) in onion yield were detected by increasing the number of herbicide applications in either experiment.


When studying concentrations of particulate matter with a size of 10 µm or below (PM10), measured locally, it becomes evident that two main portions need to be quantified: The concentration produced by sources in the vicinity of the station and the long range transports. The traditional approaches include analyses of the components of PM10, comparisons upwind and downwind of a station, investigation of trajectories and complex chemical transport modelling. The development of an independent strategy which makes use of statistical methods, including regression and correlation analysis is a reasonable alternative. This method, presented here, does not apply the concept of PM10 sources, but, rather, analyzes the relations between times series of PM10 measurements and atmospheric properties. It is applied to identify the shares of the local portion and the large-scale background plus a stochastic portion that cannot be attributed to either of the two. Using regression analysis, a set of objectively chosen meteorological parameters is used to reconstruct the local PM 10 measurement series, defining the local portion. This weather-dependent part of the series is then removed and the residuum, which contains the large-scale PM10 background and a stochastic portion is analyzed further with correlations. Results are shown for a three-year set of data which includes well over 250 PM10 stations across Germany. The data is analyzed according to di erent stratifications, such as the PM 10 load and the wind direction as well as for the data set as a whole. In a further development of the method, a study of PM10 transports across several border sections is shown.


Polling control system is widely used in production and life including time-sharing computer systems, industrial control, communications, and computer networks. The article proposes a new polling control system based on Busy/Idle queues, which sorts normal polling queues into Busy Queues (BQ) and Idle Queues (IQ) according to if there are customers in the queue. Then, BQ is served by a Gated access policy and IQ keeps a sleeping state until it is woken up by arriving customers. Moreover, parallel scheduling is used to save switch-over time. We build a system model using the embedded Markov chain, probability mother function, the throughput, cycle time, mean queue length and mean waiting time of significant system characteristics. Theoretical calculated values are approximately equal to the simulated values, indicating that the new system is correct and achieves a better performance than the traditional polling scheme.


Objectives The role of occupation in the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a topic of research because few studies have examined longitudinal associations, and because occupation can be an indicator of socioeconomic position (SEP) and a proxy for hazard exposure. This study examines associations of occupational category as an SEP marker and selected occupational exposures with progression of the subclinical carotid artery disease. Methods A community-based, multiethnic sample (n=3109, mean age=60.2) provided subclinical CVD measures at least twice at three data collection points (mean follow-up=9.4 years). After accounting for demographic characteristics, SEP, and traditional CVD risk factors, we modelled common carotid intima-media thickness, carotid plaque scores, and carotid plaque shadowing as a function of occupational category, physical hazard exposure, physical activity on the job, interpersonal stress, job control and job demands. These job characteristics were derived from the Occupational Resource Network (O*NET). Random coefficient models were used to account for repeated measures and time-varying covariates. Results There were a few statistically significant associations at baseline. After all covariates were included in the model, men in management, office/sales, service and blue-collar jobs had 28–44% higher plaque scores than professionals at baseline (p=0.001). Physically hazardous jobs were positively associated with plaque scores among women (p=0.014). However, there were no significant longitudinal associations between any of the occupational characteristics and any of the subclinical CVD measures. Conclusions There was little evidence that the occupational characteristics examined in this study accelerated the progression of subclinical CVD.


ACADEMIC) Arsenic (As) in drinking water poses a critical threat to public health. More than 150 million people worldwide are at risk of developing diseases from unsafe concentrations of As in groundwater. Arsenic occurs naturally in rocks, soils, and sediments and generally remains associated with solid phases. However, changes in aquifer geochemistry can mobilize As into groundwater, contaminating drinking water sources. This dissertation investigates As cycling in an aquifer contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons near Bemidji, Minnesota, where As is mobilized into groundwater due to biodegradation of hydrocarbons coupled to reduction of ferric oxides. The first project describes how aquifer sediments act as both sources and sinks for As in groundwater, depending on the prevailing redox conditions. Results show that As is released to groundwater near the hydrocarbon source but is removed near the hydrocarbon plume's leading edge. Comparison of data from 1993 to 2016 shows that As has been redistributed in aquifer sediment as the plume has expanded over time. The second project presents a mass balance for As, which shows that despite elevated As in groundwater (up to 230 μg/L), >99.7% of As mass in the aquifer is in sediments. Calculations demonstrate that As in sediment can be 22x less than the method detection limit and still cause unsafe concentrations in groundwater, suggesting that the use of standard methods limits our ability to predict where naturally occurring As poses a threat to groundwater. In the third project, a reactive transport model simulates As cycling for 400 years. Results show that sorption of As to ferrihydrite limits As transport within 300 m of the hydrocarbon source. Modeling predicts that over the plume's lifespan, more groundwater will be contaminated by As than benzene, the primary contaminant of concern in hydrocarbon plumes. Combined, these studies suggest that many aquifers are vulnerable to unsafe As concentrations due to mobilization of natural As if bioavailable organic carbon is introduced. Although aquifers can attenuate As, it may take centuries for As to be fully removed from groundwater, suggesting it is prudent to account for natural contaminants like As when developing remediation strategies at petroleum spill sites. BIOGEOCHEMICAL CONTROLS ON ARSENIC CYCLING IN A HYDROCARBON PLUME Brady Allen Ziegler


This paper compares four freely available programming libraries for support of social scientific agent based computer simulation: RePast, Swarm, Quicksilver, and VSEit. Our aim is evaluation to determine the simulation framework that is the best suited for theory and data based modeling of social interventions, such as information campaigns. Our first step consisted in an Internet search for programming libraries and the selection of suitable candidates for detailed evaluation on the basis of 'knock out' criteria. Next, we developed a rating system and assessed the selected simulation environments on the basis of the rating criteria. The evaluation was based on official program documentation, statements by developers and users, and the experiences and impressions of the evaluators. The evaluation results showed the RePast environment to be the clear winner. In a further step, the evaluation results were weighted according to effort/time/energy saved by social scientists by using the particular ready-made programming library as compared to doing their own programming. Once again, the weighted results show RePast to win out over the other Java based programming libraries examined.


The Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court begins by invoking the New Deal, and expressing admiration for the way its goals and some of its social programs have been put into practice by Northern European social democracies. Most important are their protections for workers and the unemployed—protections the Judge finds deplorably absent in U.S. law and corporate labor practices. Nevertheless, when contemplating how corporate boards in the U.S. might respond to the growing demand for U.S. public companies to address social problems like the environment and economic inequality, the Delaware judge falls back on the prescription of Adolph Berle, who, though one of the framers of the New Deal, insisted that companies "stick to their knitting" by putting shareholders first as the only way of ensuring the accountability of corporate managements and boards. Harvard Law's Mark Roe responds with a defense of corporate America against the charge of corporate short‐termism by noting that, although U.S. capital expenditures have declined in the past 15–20 years, corporate investment in R&D and other intangible assets have both grown sharply. Corporate distributions in the form of dividends and stock buybacks are rising, but so have the net borrowings of the companies making the distributions, leaving the cash balances of U.S. companies also near record levels. And the remarkably high valuations of successful high tech companies are themselves forceful rebuttals of the idea that pressure from the stock market for current earnings is a serious deterrent to investment and innovation. The University of Pennsylvania's Jill Fisch follows Roe's dismissal of the short‐termism argument with even more forceful questioning of whether corporate America in fact has a major governance problem. U.S. companies have been taking voluntary measures to address environmental problems—in some cases even in the face of federal deregulatory initiatives—and many have raised their workers' wages, without any challenges (and often with encouragement) from their shareholders. And echoing Justice Strine's concerns, Fisch also ends up questioning the premise that companies can be asked to define a single social purpose (other than maximizing shareholder value) that would be appropriate for, and end up satisfying, all their different stakeholders. Columbia Business School's Bruce Kogut closes with the suggestion that our greatest problems today may be coming not from the shortsightedness and other failings of corporations and corporate law, but from "deep distrust of the competence of the state." Kogut's main prescription is that to take advantage of the enormous potential gains from effective arm's‐length collaboration between business and the public sector, governments at all levels should find ways to strike "Coasian bargains" with the private sector that makes the best possible uses of the core competencies and resources of each.


An increasin g interest in biofuel applications in modern engines requires a better understanding of biodiesel combustion behaviour. Many numerical studies have been carried out on unsteady combustion of biodiesel in situations similar to diesel engines, but very few studies have been done on the steady combustion of biodiesel in situations similar to a gas turbine combustor environment. The study of biodiesel spray combustion in gas turbine applications is of special interest due to the possible use of biodiesel in the power generation and aviation industries. In modelling spray combustion, an accurate representation of the physical properties of the fuel is a first important step, since spray formation is largely influenced by fuel properties such as viscosity, density, surface tension and vapour pressure. In the present work, a calculated biodiesel properties database based on the measured composition of Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) has been implemented in a multi-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) spray simulation code. Simulations of non-reacting and reacting atmospheric-pressure sprays of both diesel and biodiesel have been carried out using a spray burner configuration for which experimental data is available. A pre-defined droplet size probability density function (pdf) has been implemented together with droplet dynamics based on phase Doppler anemometry (PDA) measurements in the near-nozzle region. The gas phase boundary condition for the reacting spray cases is similar to that of the experiment which employs a plain air-blast atomiser and a straight-vane axial swirler for flame stabilisation. A reaction mechanism for heptane has been used to represent the chemistry for both diesel and biodiesel. Simulated flame heights, spray characteristics and gas phase velocities have been found to compare well with the experimental results. In the reacting spray cases, biodiesel shows a smaller mean droplet size compared to that of diesel at a constant fuel mass flow rate. A lack of sensitivity towards different fuel properties has been observed based on the non-reacting spray simulations, which indicates a need for improved models of secondary breakup. By comparing the results of the non-reacting and reacting spray simulations, an improvement in the complexity of the physical modelling is achieved which is necessary in the understanding of the complex physical processes involved in spray combustion simulation. Copyright © 2012 SAE International.


Southwestern ecosystems are fire-adapted and fire is arguably the most important process in our forests and grass lands. This overview is designed to help everyone from the general public to natural resource managers better understand the past fire season.

This report describes the vegetation impacted by the 12 largest fires in Arizona and New Mexico of 2015 (greater than 4,000 acres) and the degree to which the fires affected resources including soils, vegetation, and structures.

Weather, climate, vegetation type, fuel conditions, and topography all influence how an individual wildfire burns on the landscape and whether it
will have beneficial effects on the landscape. Some fires will leave a large number of unburned patches creating a mosaic burn pattern, whereas others will burn more contiguously. Managers approach each fire with multiple objectives that range from managing the fire for public safety and to protect homes and property to managing the fire to improve natural resources. As federal wildland fire management policy states:

"Response to wildland fires is based on ecological, social and legal consequences of the fire. The circumstances under which a fire occurs, and the likely consequences on firefighter and public safety and welfare, natural and cultural resources, and, values to be protected, dictate the appropriate response to the fire."1

A full range of wildland fire response strategies may be employed to meet these objectives, including containing, confining or suppressing the wildfire. In a notable change, the national Incident Management Situation Report (IMSR) in 2015 began noting fires managed for full suppression in contrast to those using a strategy other than full suppression monitor, confine, or point protection. The Southwest Coordinating Committee recognized that multiple strategies are often used in an individual fire and lists the percentage of each fire managed with monitor, confine, point protection, or suppression.2 It is important to note that federal agencies only recognize two types of fires: prescribed fires and wildfire.
Wildland fire management strategies are based on a thoughtful and systematic risk-based approach that takes into account firefighter and public safety, cause of the wildfire, location, existing land management plans, availability of resources, values at risk, and social factors. Federal policy dictates that "initial action on human-caused wildfire will be to suppress the fire."1

This report follows the format of past years' overviews3 to facilitate a comparison between years. As in previous overviews, this report covers the temporal period, fire management costs, vegetation types, previous burn footprints, and burn severity. The conclusion section summarizes these same measures for the large fires in the region and also touches on how these fires burned in relation to communities. In 2013, the eight largest fires burned 215,380 acres. In 2014, the 12 largest fires burned 177,907 acres. In 2015, the largest 12 fires burned 125,746, or 62 percent of the total number of acres burned by wildfire in the Southwest in 2015.

Prescribed fires made up 37% of the acres burned, the highest percentage of acres burned in the Southwest since 2003. Based on the Southwest Coordination Center's listing, managers used full suppression strategies on 11% and other strategies on 89% of the acres burned in fires over 100 acres in 2015.5 Eighty- six percent and 65% of fires over 100 acres were managed with full suppression strategies in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

Most of the fires in the Southwest in 2015 burned
in Arizona (79%). This overview only includes three New Mexico fires: the Red Canyon, North Cut and Guadalupe fires; eight fires burned in Arizona: Whitetail, Camillo, Springs, Sawmill, Playground, Rattlesnake, Jar Complex, and SA Hill; and the remaining fire, the Hog Fire, burned in both states. These 12 fires are listed in order of size starting with the largest.


The public health field exists to safeguard the general public from health risks by controlling risk factors, classically through immunization programmes that prevent or control epidemics, or through actions such as monitoring the quality of drinking water. In our post-industrialised society, risk factors other than the environment, such as diet, exercise, tobacco and alcohol use, have grown in importance. The policy response to the growing demand upon healthcare services arising from chronic diseases caused by changing lifestyle factors has taking different forms, and these include targeting vulnerable groups using health promoting campaigns.
This thesis addresses some of the challenges and opportunities in public health campaigns and healthcare planning that arise from the growing repositories of data that can be made available for targeting at the individual and small area level in a public health setting.
The first part sets the scene by describing the concepts of health, public health and social marketing. The intention is to pave the way for broader discussions – in the progress of the thesis – about healthcare planning, population health, and social processes in the light of targeted public health interventions.
Part two addresses the problems and possible solutions to a number issues in healthcare planning, starting with studies at the individual, then moving to organisations and ending with area classifications. The thesis draws on a number of case studies for targeting in a public health context including frequent accident and emergency users, teenage users of abortion services, women's breast screening uptake, GP registration, and the neighbourhood characteristics of chronic disease patients. Finally, part three provides a synopsis of both context (part one), results (part two) and future perspectives on how routinely collected healthcare data can be used to create evidence for the planning of new cost-effective interventions.


The dollar's steady depreciation has had little impact on the official reserves of central banks. As scholars of the international monetary system debate whether the dollar can continue to play the dominant role in the international monetary system, actual developments in exchange relations already give reason to expect that the world's currency regime is changing. Recent measures taken by China to internationalize its renminbi, including several bilateral swap agreements signed with other central banks, have reinforced other eastward trends in the world economy. In this paper, China's acceleration of renminbi internationalization is examined. The growth of renminbi-based trade and settlements has made it Asia's new reference currency, surpassing the US dollar. These developments are mostly due to the effects of the financial crisis and have been supported by the region's economic and financial integration. As a reference currency of necessity or choice, the emergence of the renminbi in Asia is set to weaken the current global dominance of the US dollar. In conclusion, the paper makes the case that the growth of the renminbi as an international currency could generate a multipolar currency system that balances and distributes responsibilities in a better way than the current currency regime.


The chapter contains linguistic analysis of a sample of 100 catalogue entries written for three American museums to describe individual paintings. The aim of the study is to investigate the use of color words by art critics and painters in American English. Results of the analysis indicate an extensive use of nominalization in the color lexicon of discourse studied – along with attributive function of color words, which perform as modifiers of nouns and signal color as a property of an entity. Notably, both basic and non-basic color terms tend to be used as nouns. The nominalized color words exhibit the full range of morphological, semantic, and syntactic features of nouns. We suggest that this kind of verbalization of color concepts in painting descriptions reflects a certain model of understanding color as a domain of human experience, in particular, categorizing color as a thing-like manipulable entity.


Light emitting diodes (LEDs) are commonly used in general lighting applications due to their rapidly improving efficiency, long-life, compact, low power consumption, and high climate resistance. In this paper, the Red-Emitting Ca2Si5N8Eu 2+ Phosphor was investigated like an innovative approach for improvement on the color uniformity and Color Quality Scale (CQS) of 8500 K, 7000K, 5600 K multi-chip white LED lamps (MCW-LEDs). The influence of the Red-Emitting Ca2Si5N8Eu 2+ Phosphor concentration on the color uniformity and the CQS is simulated, analyzed with using Mat lab and Light Tools software. The research results indicated that the color uniformity and the CQS were crucially affected by the Red-Emitting Ca2Si5N8Eu 2+ Phosphor concentration. This paper provided an essential recommendation for selecting and developing the phosphor materials for MCW-LEDs manufacturing.


Abstract In California, the Vegetation Type Map (VTM) project of the 1930's has provided valuable historical vegetation data. Albert Wieslander led this effort to survey the forests of California in the 1930's. His crews surveyed over 150,000 km2, drawing detailed vegetation maps, taking 3000 photos and 17,000 vegetation plots. We developed a technique to digitize the Placerville 30′ quadrangle VTM, rendering it to a Geographic Information System (GIS). The map covers 2408.8 km2 of the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. In this area VTM crews identified 59 dominant plant species and eight genera or land cover classes and mapped their distribution into 3422 polygons. They identified recently disturbed areas that covered 13.5% of the landscape. We compared the digital VTM quad to CALVEG, a satellite-derived vegetation map from 1996. Land cover change for California Wildlife Habitat Relationship (WHR) vegetation types had occurred on 42.1% of the area. WHR types with the largest gains were: Montane Hardwood, Douglas-Fir, and Annual Grassland. Low elevation hardwoods, particularly Blue Oak Woodland (dominated by Quercus douglasii, Fagaceae), chaparrals and upper elevation conifers were the types that lost the most area. Differences in mapping techniques are unlikely to be the cause of this change because the analysis used controlled for map-based errors. Potential causes of the observed change at these physiognomic levels of classification include human perturbation, succession, and climate change.


The rapid flow fluctuations experienced downstream of hydropeaking facilities can alter the river hydromorphology. Given the dependence of riverine fish on physical habitat, those alterations have the potential to change the physiology and behaviour of fish. We assessed whether artificial velocity refuges mitigated the physiological and behavioural consequences of hydropeaking for the Iberian barbel (Luciobarbus bocagei). Hydropeaking trials were conducted in an indoor flume equipped with deflectors that created low flow velocity areas to serve as refuges. The FLOW‐3D was used to obtain detailed characterizations of the different velocity fields, which facilitated the interpretation of fish responses. Changes in flow magnitude and duration triggered stress responses, demonstrated by the increased blood glucose levels in the single up‐ramping event for 60 L s−1 and in the step up‐ramping event. Fish tended to seek out velocity refuges to avoid higher flow velocities and harsh hydraulic conditions at peak flows, and during the longer events. The movement behaviour frequency increased when fish were subjected to the highest peak flow (60 L s−1), particularly the individual sprints and the drifts. For the base flow (7 L s−1) and the lowest peak flow (20 L s−1) conditions, fish swam freely in the flume, whereas in the harshest hydraulic conditions they showed more difficulty in finding velocity refuges. This research presents a novel approach by combining physiology and behavioural observations with hydraulic modelling to assess the extent to which artificial flow refuges mitigate the consequences of hydropeaking. Our work serves as a model approach for future mitigation studies for fish in hydropeaking rivers.


A must-read for those who think flu pandemic preparedness is much ado about nothing, this first novel by Reina James brings home the severity and plausibility of a flu disaster. And without data, statistics, or comment, it makes a compelling case for progress on the matter of influenza, to ease suffering, prevent spread, and possibly eliminate the scourge.

A series of journal entries beginning October 14 and ending November 7, 1918, this story of humans under stress unfolds in London against the savage backdrop of World War I and amidst the oft-recorded pestilence of Spanish flu. Without speculation, the author constructs population drama, one patient and one family at a time. The reader is drawn into it instantly and stays absorbed 'til the end.

Characters from all walks of life make up the cast of the unfolding tragedy. They chase about in their masks obsessing over work, social and self-imposed restrictions, unrelenting class barriers, and daily trivia until the schools close, the servants die or flee the ailing households, businesses fail, or until they succumb, filling the streets, mortuaries, graveyards, churches. We are allowed into their disinfected homes, to watch the banality, madness, or sheer horror of their lives.

Some are stars. The heroic physician is back from the war with heightened awareness of the health emergency. "A plague is now among us which may well leave the earth to the animals," he writes in a note intended to alert the health authorities. "You must stop the movement of troops, close our ports and warn others to follow suit." He dies, "a blue man in the road," before he can deliver the message. "His lips and ears were purple-blue, like a plum, and the skin on his face was mottled and pale but still tinged with blue, as if he'd been wiped with an inky rag."

The undertaker, who finds the warning note crumbled in the dead physician's palm, is a man who plays the piano in between constructing coffins and practicing the family trade. He becomes increasingly unsettled by the note as the dead overwhelm his business, his city, his life. "The world's body can hardly draw breath; it is sick and brought to its bed," the physician had written. "Its wounds are open. The young spill out ... Death is crossing every sea." He confirms that indeed the dying "were unusually young," tries in vain to inform the authorities, and concludes with disbelief that "They had no plan." The knowledge imparted by the note changes the undertaker's life, which is already complicated by his universally disapproved affair with a woman "a little bit above his station."

His friend dismissed her, "She's like a bloke." Her friend, in a moment of weakness, thought her "a foolish ageing woman with a weak, offended face. Her lips merged unpleasantly into the skin surrounding them; her cheeks were dragged flat by failing muscle. There was too much eyelid and too little eyebrow. There was even a suggestion of fluff above the mouth, of the type that would inevitably grow into a moustache." Their attraction, slowed by awkwardness and saved by spunk, adds an endearing almost hopeful quality to a tale rife with decomposing bodies.

Another physician, a retired practitioner, is exhausted by the torrent of patients and his inability to improve their situation. Asked his opinion about the epidemic, he retorted angrily, "I haven't got an opinion ... I'm too busy." Exasperated by people reporting "cyanosis," he admitted that few things irritated him "more than patients using medical terminology." In the absence of medical interventions, he suggested "fresh air in the bedroom, aspirin for headache, plenty of fluids and light food only, if tolerated." His unloved wife and assistant by default props him up in bed to sign a few more death certificates before he collapses.

Dedicated by the author to her maternal grandparents who died of it, this account of Spanish flu in London rings true for its hold on human behavior and of course for the flu, whose specter looms on our horizon. Along with the science, along with the vaccine, a dose of past history in human terms warns against underestimating a new pandemic. As James put it, "if every one of the newly bereaved were to hold a lantern in the sky, the man in the moon would think the world to be on fire."


This chapter gives an account of how the orange economy begins to penetrate the traditional economy of Latin American countries, which are oriented towards the export of generic products and low commercial value. For this, the authors have analyzed the experiences of 18 Latin American creative companies identified by the Inter-American Development Bank. Cases selected concentrates in the media and software platforms sectors of the orange economy, with a qualitative approach and a narrative design through the analysis of the information of these 18 extreme cases of business success describes the possibilities that in the Latin American reality can be visualized. As a result, this chapter allows us to understand the opportunities of entrepreneurship, through the orange economy in Latin America, and to distinguish how this economic, social, and cultural phenomenon is observed, starting from the Latin American academic discourse, contributing to the construction of a definition that tries to achieve a greater conceptual precision concerning Orange economy.


Vital services that are provided through critical infrastructures such as electricity and mobile telecommunication present us with a paradoxical development: society demands increasing levels of reliability of these services as we grow more dependent on them, while at the same time the conventional organisational means with which to ensure those high levels of reliability are being dismantled. Developments such as liberalisation, technological innovation and outsourcing have made the provision of highly reliable services through critical infrastructures increasingly the product of networks of organisations, rather than individual or a limited set of organisations. A key question for next generation critical infrastructures is therefore: how can networks of organisations, many with competing goals and interests, provide highly reliable services in the absence of conventional forms of command and control and in the presence of rapidly changing circumstances, technologies and demands? This paper reports on extensive field research that suggests the answer to complexity, and institutional change may be found in real time.


Community-based service learning is used in engineering and construction curricula to engage students in interesting, complex problems that benefit the community while developing competencies essential to professional practice. Service learning projects effectively expose students to issues otherwise difficult to teach, including critical resource constraints, tactics to overcome them, tradeoffs among possible solutions, systems integration, and organizational challenges of implementation. However, they are often underutilized due to the risks and challenges of integrating them into classes and managing student involvement. This paper explores the questions of what makes CBSL projects successful and the challenges faced by both faculty and students who participate in them. The findings are based on a literature analysis of challenges and a review of two service learning projects implemented by a conjoint senior level/graduate class on sustainable facility systems at Virginia Tech. Lessons learned are identified in three key areas: design as listening vs. design as inspiration, conflicting and unspoken objectives, and construction realities. Service learning projects offer a secure environment in which to learn about the challenges of construction, where the unexpected is an expected and valued part of learning. Through these experiences, students can better understand the tradeoffs required to pursue sustainability in capital projects and can better place sustainability objectives such as "minimize waste" and "reuse construction materials" in the context of what these objectives require in practice. These projects also offer benefits to clients in the community and afford the opportunity for civic engagement by students that may carry forward into their lives after graduation.


The eukaryotic nucleolus is involved in ribosome biogenesis and a wide range of other RNA metabolism and cellular functions. An important step in the functional analysis of the nucleolus is to determine the complement of proteins of this nuclear compartment. Here, we describe the first proteomic analysis of plant (Arabidopsis thaliana) nucleoli, in which we have identified 217 proteins. This allows a direct comparison of the proteomes of an important nuclear structure between two widely divergent species: human and Arabidopsis. The comparison identified many common proteins, plant-specific proteins, proteins of unknown function found in both proteomes, and proteins that were nucleolar in plants but nonnucleolar in human. Seventy-two proteins were expressed as GFP fusions and 87% showed nucleolar or nucleolar-associated localization. In a striking and unexpected finding, we have identified six components of the postsplicing exon-junction complex (EJC) involved in mRNA export and nonsense-mediated decay (NMD)/mRNA surveillance. This association was confirmed by GFP-fusion protein localization. These results raise the possibility that in plants, nucleoli may have additional functions in mRNA export or surveillance.


Emergence: Business Strategies vs. Moral Strategies In 1906, Carl Laemmle entered the fledgling motion-picture industry when he opened a small nickelodeon movie house in Chicago to exhibit silent short films. After rapid expansion of the company over the next few years, Laemmle formed Universal Pictures in 1913, and then, two years later, he became one of the first producers to set up shop in Southern California, in a North Hollywood area newly dubbed Universal City.1 From 1915 to the early 1920s, Universal developed a form of vertical integration by producing its own films, distributing them to domestic and international markets, and then exhibiting those films in Universal-owned theaters. However, Laemmle now opted against expanding the company's theater holdings or updating its cinemas, a period when more venturesome companies were acquiring regional chains that controlled the most profitable theaters. Instead, Universal sold off many of the exhibition outlets it did own and focused on producing "programmers": shorts and low-budget feature films. While this production and distribution strategy minimized financial risk and provided a steady production schedule, it also threatened the company's ability to secure favorable exhibition deals at first-run movie houses for its few, but vital, bigbudget feature films. The emergence of sound films, or talking pictures, was a boon for many Hollywood filmmaking corporations, but it only exacerbated Universalis industrial disadvantages.2 While the majors had significant levels of capital and theater holdings to produce and exhibit sound films, major-minors like Universal owned few or no theaters and had little money with which to invest in sound technology. Moreover, if such studios were to produce talking pictures, they would have no guarantee that their films would be distributed to sound-equipped theaters, most of which would be in those large urban markets controlled by the major studios. Universale "programmer" production policy was re-evaluated in 1928, the same year that Carl Laemmle ceded control of production to his twenty-one year old son, Carl "Junior" Laemmle. Unlike his father, Junior Laemmle believed the company needed to develop an identity that could help it gain a foothold in the major market and that prestige ?-level film releases were the shortest path to that destination, but he was also aware that Universal did not have a steady stream of cash to feed the larger budgets of such pictures. Creditors were not clamoring to supply capital, nor was marquee acting talent (migrating in waves from Broadway to Hollywood after the conversion to sound) eager to sign on with the studio. So Junior Laemmle formulated an alternative strategy that might deliver corporate stability and notoriety for Universal. His solution was the horror genre, which would consist of pictures with sensationalistic subject matter, socially taboo themes, and sadistic and grotesque characters.3 Emphasizing a single production category would allow the company to achieve greater levels of efficiency and, crucially, significant cost savings in the production and distribution of each release. Moreover, if commercially successful, these films would leave an indelible impression on moviegoers and distinguish Universal from its competitors. The implementation of Universale strategy also depended, however, on the degree to which it could accommodate the guidelines of the recently formulated Hollywood Production Code and its arbiter, the Studio Relations Committee (SRC). The "pre-Code Hollywood" era - that is to say, the brief period between 1930, when the Hollywood Production Code was formally introduced by the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), and 1934, when those guidelines were enforced by the newly established Production Code Administration (PCA) - has been mythologized as an anarchic period in which the agency tasked with enforcing the Code, the SRC, watched helplessly as studios "operated under rules of their own," releasing film-after-film rife with "the raw stuff of American culture. …


Summary 1. As measuring biodiversity in its entirety is impractical, there is a need for bioindicators. This study tested the hypothesis that parasitoid Hymenoptera are potential bioindicators that provide a useful means to assess the wider biodiversity of arthropod populations in agro-ecosystems. There are a range of theoretical arguments to support such a claim, including the high trophic position of these taxa within the arthropod communities in which they occur, and the unique nature of their biological relationships with the majority of terrestrial arthropod groups. 2. A survey of 48 commercial farms was conducted and Generalized Linear Models used to investigate relationships between six taxa—parasitoid Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Diptera, Araneae and plants (species richness and sward height)—in agricultural grasslands. As well as relationships between these groups, the relationship of each individual group to the overall biodiversity of all other arthropod groups was explored. 3. Both abundance (r 2 =0 AE58) and taxon richness (r 2 =0 AE54) of parasitoid Hymenoptera had stronger relationships with overall arthropod taxon richness than any other arthropod group investigated. Parasitoid abundance also had a positive relationship with species richness of Coleoptera (r 2 =0 AE23) and Hemiptera (r 2 =0 AE47). 4. An historical data set demonstrated how the relationship between parasitoid abundance and overall arthropod taxon richness changes over the growing season. July, when the relationship was strongest, is potentially the most useful time to sample. 5. For use in routine monitoring, it is important that an effort be made to understand the seasonal influence on the relationship in the context being studied. Equal sampling effort must be made for all sites being compared and sites should be sampled as close together in the season as is possible. 6. Synthesis and applications We show that, within agricultural grasslands, both the abundance and taxon richness of parasitoid Hymenoptera are more closely related with overall arthropod diversity than any other arthropod group investigated. The use of parasitoid abundance provides a simple and practicable monitoring tool for tracking change in wider arthropod diversity in agro-ecosys


Taxpayers have invested over $45 billion in state-sponsored 529 college savings plans. Created by federal legislation in 1996 and enhanced by a 2001 tax law change, all 50 states and the District of Columbia now offer a 529 plan. States provide tax deductions and/or exemptions to taxpayers choosing in-state plans. Because of the lack of historical return data on these funds and the absence of comparable investment vehicles, investors rely extensively upon securities dealers for fund recommendations. Using proprietary panel data for 77 plans in 50 states over eight quarters, this paper compares tax and non-tax factors that drive 529 investment choices. This paper explains why an investor may choose an out-of-state 529 plan despite losing a potential state tax deduction. This paper also has policy implications for lifetime savings accounts proposed by the Bush administration.


MapSite of the National Land Survey of Finland was the first national Internet map service in Europe. It was launched in September 1996. Since then the service has been a huge success. Until now it has almost 300,000 users in all, the number of paying customers is over 2,000. In the spring of 2001 National Land Survey (NLS) started a project to produce a new Internet map service to replace the old MapSite. The developing project is divided in three phases. In the first phase services of paying customers are renewed. Free of charge map browsing service is being modernised in the second phase. Totally new services may be produced in the third phase.


It is said that we need twice the number of pharmacists who are currently practising in South Africa. This means that the pharmacist profession is one of the scarcest in South Africa. In recent years, the total number of pharmacists qualifying at all the pharmacy schools in South Africa has scarcely been sufficient to replace those leaving the profession through retirement, immigration, or for other reasons.


Anacroneuria is the most widespread genus of Perlidae throughout the Neotropical region and 30 species have been reported from Costa Rica. In this paper, we describe and illustrate a new species from a high elevation cloud forest, A. quetzali sp.n., increasing to 31 the number of described species for Costa Rica. In addition, we examine the altitudinal distribution of Anacroneuria in Costa Rica to determine possible patterns, using the data available on its altitudinal range (10-2700 masl). We divided the elevational range in seven categories, using 500 m intervals. We found that most species (90.3%) are distributed in elevations that range from 500 to 1500 masl, followed by low-elevations (35.5%). Interestingly, despite the fact that Plecoptera are known to inhabit clean, fast flowing water at high elevations, only 16.1% of the species have been found at high elevations in Costa Rica (above 2000 masl). Thus, it seems that most Anacroneuria species are distributed in middle elevations, which are the areas that have a high diversity of freshwater habitats.


When it comes to the workplace, nowhere are the barriers of gender-based discrimination felt more keenly than in the STEMM fields. This episode we explore where the lines are drawn when it comes to "getting ahead" in male-dominated workplaces, and what we can all do to challenge this hierarchy. Producer Cheyne Anderson chats to Meredith Nash (University of Tasmania) about why the dominant "lean in" philosophy just doesn't cut it. Karen O'Connell (University of Technology Sydney) explains the invisible dimensions of workplace discrimination. And finally we join geologist and science communicator Kathleen Patrick on a trip to Antartica that may just hold the answer.


We define a new class of "rapid round trip" interplanetary missions for which the principal characteristic is a total mission duration that is 1 or more years shorter than the traditional round trip using Hohmann transfers. Round trip missions using Hohmann transfers to near-Earth asteroids or other nearby interplanetary objects may require many years. (For example, 8 years for a round trip to a Near-Earth Asteroid at 1.1 AU.) Consequently, rapid round trips are the only practical means for human space travel to these objects. The Hohmann round trip mission to Mars typically requires about 2.7 years. Rapid round trips to Mars can be as short as 5 months in total mission duration, but these trips require delta V's 5 times or more greater than for Hohmann round trips. This paper explores rapid round trip missions that are intermediate in terms of both total mission duration and total delta V required. These are significantly faster and take a greater delta V than Hohmann round trips, but are not as fast and use less delta V than the very rapid missions. For example, an intermediate round trip mission to Mars can have a total duration of 14 to 15 months, stay on the surface of Mars of 2 to 3 months, and a total applied delta V of around 14 km/sec if direct entry is used.


Learnability evaluation has traditionally required expensive and time-consuming techniques. Practitioners have refrained from performing extended learnability evaluation due to its prohibitive costs. We propose a discount method for evaluation of an interactive system's learnability. Our method is based on automated logging of user actions, detection of user mental chunks, and observation of chunk size as it grows over time with experience. We introduce a model for chunk detection, and present experimental results validating the use of chunk size as an indicator of learnability.


Software architectures and designs "notations" are typically based on bubble-and-arc diagrams. Embellishing these diagrams may increase their information content but does not make a language. A formal language has syntax, semantics, and inference rules, so that reasoning and automatic manipulation are made possible. We describe LePUS, a formal language for describing and reasoning about object oriented software architectures, designs, and patterns. A LePUS formula imposes constraints on the software at an appropriate level of abstraction but does not unnecessarily restrict the implementation. LePUS is not an ad hoc collection of loosely related concepts but instead originates from an insight on a small number of necessary and sufficient basic "building blocks" that are ubiquitous in object oriented design. A LePUS specification can be expressed as either a formula or a semantically equivalent diagram. We provide examples of LePUS descriptions ranging from simple design patterns, such as FACTORY METHOD, to popular current architectures, such as Enterprise JavaBeansTM.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the influence of patient characteristics on practice profiling. Using the example of specialty referrals by primary care physicians, we evaluated the impact of adjusting for patient characteristics (age/sex vs case mix) on the estimation of practice variation, the identification of outlier practices, and the evaluation of potential predictors of variation.

DESIGN AND SETTING
We applied several measurement strategies to a retrospective cohort of patients (N = 37,830) within 52 physician practices in a large staff-model health maintenance organization during a 1-year period.

OUTCOME MEASURES
We calculated unadjusted referral rates and adjusted standardized referral ratios for each physician. Using these, we determined coefficients of variation and statistical "outlier status."

RESULTS
Adjustment for patient characteristics decreased the observed variation in referral profiles, with a decrease of more than 50% in the coefficient of variation. Three quarters of the physicians identified as statistical outliers with use of an age/sex-adjusted measure were no longer identified as such with use of an case-mix-adjusted measure. Several key predictors of unadjusted referral rate (including physician age, practice tenure, site of practice, and extent of laboratory test ordering) dropped out of regression models when the outcome variable was adjusted for patient characteristics.

CONCLUSION
Failure to adjust for case mix in physician practice profiles may lead to overestimates of variation and misidentification of outliers. To the extent that unadjusted practice profiles are used for decisions about education, sanctions, or employment, physicians may be subject to inequitable decisions and actions. Misinformation about the causes and extent of practice variation may also lead to misdirection of scarce resources for quality improvement efforts.


1. By means of a quantitative immunoelectrophoretic technique, serum protein changes have been followed in seven patients before and during the week following inguinal herniorrhaphy, and in a single case of influenza. 2. The twenty proteins studied are grouped according to whether they rise (orosomucoid, α1-antitrypsin, Gc-globulin, caeruloplasmin, haptoglobin, β1A–C-globulin and proteins numbered 45, 99, 101 and X); fall (pre-albumin, α2HS-glycoprotein and protein No. 9); or show no significant change (α2-macroglobulin, haemopexin). α1-Lipoprotein fell in the case of influenza but did not change in the hernia patients; α1-easily-precipitable-glycoprotein increased in the hernia cases only. 3. The nature of the 'acute phase reaction' and the factors which elicit it are discussed.


This review will deal with two evolving concepts which describe and attempt to unify various observations concerning the behaviour of motor units that have been reported during the past decade. The two concepts are: The common drive which describes the behaviour of the firing rates of motor units, and appears to provide a simple schema for controlling motor units; and the firing rate/recruitment interaction which appears to enhance the smoothness of the force output of a muscle. The evolution of these concepts has been expedited by the development of recent techniques such as our decomposition technique which enables us accurately to decompose the myoelectric signal into the constituent motor unit action potential trains. For details refer to LeFever & De Luca (1982), Mambrito & De Luca (1983) and Mambrito & De Luca (1984).


Abstract. Tropical cyclones play an important role in modifying the tropopause structure and dynamics as well as stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) processes in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. In the present study, the impact of cyclones that occurred over the north Indian Ocean during 2007–2013 on the STE processes is quantified using satellite observations. Tropopause characteristics during cyclones are obtained from the Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) measurements, and ozone and water vapour concentrations in the UTLS region are obtained from Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) satellite observations. The effect of cyclones on the tropopause parameters is observed to be more prominent within 500 km of the centre of the tropical cyclone. In our earlier study, we observed a decrease (increase) in the tropopause altitude (temperature) up to 0.6 km (3 K), and the convective outflow level increased up to 2 km. This change leads to a total increase in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) thickness of 3 km within 500 km of the centre of cyclone. Interestingly, an enhancement in the ozone mixing ratio in the upper troposphere is clearly noticed within 500 km from the cyclone centre, whereas the enhancement in the water vapour in the lower stratosphere is more significant on the south-east side, extending from 500 to 1000 km away from the cyclone centre. The cross-tropopause mass flux for different intensities of cyclones is estimated and it is found that the mean flux from the stratosphere to the troposphere for cyclonic storms is 0.05 ± 0.29 × 10−3 kg m−2, and for very severe cyclonic storms it is 0.5 ± 1.07 × 10−3 kg m−2. More downward flux is noticed on the north-west and south-west side of the cyclone centre. These results indicate that the cyclones have significant impact in effecting the tropopause structure, ozone and water vapour budget, and consequentially the STE in the UTLS region.