We consider the problem of learning a sparse regression model for predicting multiple related outputs given high-dimensional inputs, where related outputs are likely to share common relevant inputs. Most of the previous methods for learning structured sparsity assumed that the structure over the outputs is known a priori, and focused on designing regularization functions that encourage structured sparsity reflecting the given output structure. In this paper, we propose a new approach for sparse multiple-output regression that can jointly learn both the output structure and regression coecients with structured sparsity. Our approach reformulates the standard regression model into an alternative parameterization that leads to a conditional Gaussian graphical model, and employes an inverse-covariance regularization. We show that the orthant-wise quasi-Newton algorithm developed for L1regularized log-linear model can be adopted for a fast optimization for our method. We demonstrate our method on simulated datasets and real datasets from genetics and finances applications.


Equality in the present age has become an idol, in much the same way as property was in the age of Locke. Many people worship it, and think that it provides the key to the proper understanding of politics, and that on it alone can a genuinely just society be reconstructed. This is a mistake. Although, like property, it is a useful concept, and although, like property, there are occasions when we want to have it in practice, it is not a fundamental concept any more than property is, nor can having it vouchsafe to us the good life. In an earlier paper I argued against equality by showing that the concept of equality was confused and that many of the arguments i egalitarians adduced were either invalid or else supported conclusions I which were not really egalitarian at all. Many egalitarians, however, have complained that my arguments were not fair, because I had failed to elucidate the concept adequately, or because the position I attacked was not one that any egalitarian really wished to maintain, or because I had overlooked other arguments which were effective in establishing egalitarian conclusions, or because the positive counter-arguments of my own I put forward more as a matter of taste than of serious political commitment. In this paper, therefore, I want to elucidate the concept more fully, concede what I should to my critics, point out that, even so, their conclusions do not follow, and give further reasons not only for supposing that egalitarian arguments are invalid but for discerning positive merits in some forms of inequality.


A multidisciplinary approach was applied in this work to characterise natural organic matter and evaluate the performance of a full-scale waterworks treating organic-rich surface water. It was shown that the combination of the treatment processes considered efficiently removed the dissolved organic matter, including its specific fractions. Most of the dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen (DOC and DON), biodegradable DOC and DON, as well as assimilable organic carbon were removed by coagulation/sedimentation. However, the coagulation process was not likely to be optimised for the removal of all molecular weight compounds. The breakdown of high molecular weight compounds into others of low molecular weight, as well as the production of biodegradable organic matter during ozonation, proved to enhance their removal efficiency by subsequent biological activated carbon filtration. The specific trihalomethane formation potential decreased during treatment, indicating a decrease in reactivity of DOC with chlorine across the treatment train. Fractionation experiments demonstrated that high and medium molecular weight organics were likely to be the main precursors for the formation of trihalomethanes. However, other disinfection by-products (such as haloacetic acids) should also be controlled, as the chlorine demand pattern did not necessarily follow that of trihalomethane formation.


This essay examines the continuing currency of the idea of progress to justify the state and corporate appropriation of Indigenous peoples' lands and the diminution of their rights. Focusing upon the Innu peoples of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula and the Newfoundland government-sponsored Lower Churchill hydroelectric project, especially its Muskrat Falls megadam component, the essay shows how the megadam is framed by a narrative of progress and a corrupt land claims process that violates Aboriginal title. In this context, I argue that the idea of industry as progress justifies the replacement of Indigenous peoples and their land-based ways of life with appeals to prosperity and sustainable development in which they are rendered insignificant.


Palm OS is one of the most popular handheld operating systems on the planet. From the newest Tungstens and Treos all the way down the family tree, Palms are everywhere. Although the Palm OS is simple to learn and use, there is more to it than meets the eye--from new features in the Palm to capabilities you can get with add-on software, the Palm can be made to do quite a lot. Palm and Treo Hacks gives you tips and tools that show you how to make the most of your Palm. A few minutes spent reading some of the hacks in this book will save you hours of research. Inside this book, you'll learn how to: Find great applications for your Palm and make the most of the ones you're using now Get super-organized, getting more from the built-in Personal Information Manager and learning how to manage complex projects with your Palm Extend the Palm with must-have software and hardware add-ons Take your Palm online, reading email, surfing the web, and sending instant messages Get some rest and relaxation with your Palm, whether it's listening to music, playing classic games, or watching video Written for beginning to experienced Palm users, Palm and Treo Hacks is full of practical, ingenious tips and tricks you can apply immediately. Whether you're looking to master the built-in applications or you want to trick out your Palm to its fullest extent, this book will show you how to get it.


Grouping patients meaningfully can give insights about the different types of patients, their needs, and the priorities. Finding groups that are meaningful is however very challenging as background knowledge is often required to determine what a useful grouping is. In this paper we propose an approach that is able to find groups of patients based on a small sample set of positive examples given by domain experts. Because of that, the approach relies on very limited efforts by the domain experts. The approach groups based on the activities and diagnostic/billing codes within health pathways of patients. To define such a grouping based on the sample of patients efficiently, frequent patterns of activities are discovered and used to measure the similarity between the care pathways of other patients to the patients in the sample group. This approach results in an insightful definition of the group. The proposed approach is evaluated using several datasets obtained from a large university medical center. The evaluation shows F1-scores of around 0.7 for grouping kidney injury and around 0.6 for diabetes.


To tackle the challenges of the 21st century, future scientists and engineers have to understand the interplay between societal challenges and technical solutions as early as possible in their education. They also have to develop the communication and the teamwork skills required to be effective professionals. To address this issue, the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) introduced a new Global Issues program to all 1800 first year engineering students. In this paper, we present this novel program and reflect on our experience. Our results suggest that student who showed positive attitude towards teamwork, benefited the most from the course and increase their perspectives on societal issues as measured by their moral reasoning after the course.


This paper arises out of my more than 40 years personal experience in the Daintree rainforest region of far north Queensland in Australia. Over this time, I have marveled at the starkly different ways in which people that live and visit think about the land, and particularly about the rainforest itself. I present in this paper my 'reading' of what different locals have said to me about the landscape and what it means to them. In particular, I focus on Kuku-Yalanji people, the indigenous residents of the area. I also draw for this paper on my reading of texts created by other, non-indigenous parties with interests in the Daintree: early colonial explorers, contemporary land developers, tourist operators and conservationists.


We herein propose a new model-based control method, in place of traditional adaptive control, for a low-frequency noise problem in a closed space. The proposed control method is based on state feedback control and a model of the acoustic space obtained by the concentrated mass model. Thus, we can control noise in the entire space. According to the concent rated mass model, the acoustic space is modeled as masses, connecting linear springs, connecting dampers, and base support dampers. Furthermore, a loudspeaker, a s a control source, is also modeled by a mass, a spring , and a damper. In the present paper, as a first st ep, we constructed a coupled analysis model of a one-dimensional sound field and the loudspeaker. We designed the model-based system for the standing sound wave in the low-frequency band. Specifically, we realized a state feedback control system based on a Kalman filter an d pole placement. Modal reduction using modal analysis is conducted to reduce the computation time of the controller. Then, we conducted experiments and a numerical simulation of the one-dimensional sound t ube to confirm the validity of the analysis model. Moreover, we perform an experiment to control the noise in the sound tube. The noise is reduced around the resonance frequency in the entire space. Therefore, the proposed method is valid for noise control in a closed space.


Large cloud service providers have invested in increasingly larger datacenters to house the computing infrastructure required to support their services. Accordingly, researchers and industry practitioners alike have focused a great deal of effort designing network fabrics to efficiently interconnect and manage the traffic within these datacenters in performant yet efficient fashions. Unfortunately, datacenter operators are generally reticent to share the actual requirements of their applications, making it challenging to evaluate the practicality of any particular design. Moreover, the limited large-scale workload information available in the literature has, for better or worse, heretofore largely been provided by a single datacenter operator whose use cases may not be widespread. In this work, we report upon the network traffic observed in some of Facebook's datacenters. While Facebook operates a number of traditional datacenter services like Hadoop, its core Web service and supporting cache infrastructure exhibit a number of behaviors that contrast with those reported in the literature. We report on the contrasting locality, stability, and predictability of network traffic in Facebook's datacenters, and comment on their implications for network architecture, traffic engineering, and switch design.


Going to Peco, Florida, for the summer to stay with Bernadette is not Chloe's first choice. Or her second or her third. It's her only choice. She has to leave town because of the hair contract. If she didn't sign it, her friends would shun her; if she did sign it, anytime any one of them had a bad hair day it would mean total immersion in the local pool for all of them, Chloe included. Chloe not only hates total immersion, she fears it. So it's off to Bernadette's for the summer. "Help Bernadette, " Nick, Chloe's stepfather, says. Bernadette is his sister. "And give the unexpected a chance." Just what that means Chloe discovers right away. Everything about Bernadette is unexpected: her dog; her job driving a commissary van that serves sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, and junk food to shipyard and dock workers; her way of teaching Chloe to swim; her ability to skate on Rollerblades; her adventures in the commune where she and Nick had lived for a year; and especially the fact that the unexpected is never unexpected to her, not even the events that follow when some commissary drivers begin wearing T-back swimsuits to work (a way of increasing business) and other groups in Peco decide T-backs should be banned forever. Bernadette, who will not wear T-backs but will not oppose them either, is caught in the middle. And no matter what Chloe does, the results are unexpected. Unexpected, it seems, is all you can really count on, unless, like Bernadette, you know enough about the past to have an idea of what the future might bring. And even then, well, maybe Bernadette doesn't always know everything.


Research demonstrates that many voters use gender stereotypes to evaluate candidates, but does that stereotyping affect women's electoral success? In this paper, we try to make headway in answering that question by combining a novel empirical strategy with local election data from California. Our empirical strategy relies on two key findings from the existing literature: first, that individuals are more likely to rely on stereotypes when they have less information about the candidates, and second, that the average voter in elections held concurrently with national elections has less information about local candidates than the average voter in off-cycle elections. We propose that we can therefore estimate the electoral effect of increased gender stereotyping by examining the difference in women's win rates in higherinformation (off-cycle) and lower-information (on-cycle) elections—and how that difference varies by constituency and the office sought. Our preliminary results show that the effect of increased stereotyping is more negative for female candidates in mayoral races than in city council races, and also that the effect of greater stereotyping is more negative for women running in conservative cities than in more liberal cities. Thus, we conclude that there probably isn't a single, one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how gender stereotyping affects female candidates, but rather that the direction and magnitude of the effect varies across contexts. This paper was prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 31-September 3, 2017, in San Francisco, California.


Shallowing of the Panama Sill and the closure of the Central American Seaway initiated the modern Loop Current–Gulf Stream circulation pattern during the Miocene, but no direct evidence has yet been provided for effective heat transport to the northern North Atlantic during that time. Climatic signals from 11 precisely dated plant-bearing sedimentary rock formations in Iceland, spanning 15–0.8 million years (Myr), resolve the impacts of the developing Miocene global thermohaline circulation on terrestrial vegetation in the subarctic North Atlantic region. "Koppen signatures" were implemented to express climatic properties of fossil plant taxa and their potential modern analogues using the principal concept of the generic Koppen–Geiger climate system, which is based on plant distribution patterns. Using Koppen signatures and the correlation between Koppen climate zones and major global vegetation zones, fossil assemblages were used to trace major vegetation shifts. This evidence was combined with evidence from tectonics and palaeoceanography. In contrast to the global climatic trend, the vegetation record reveals no cooling between ~ 15 and 12 Myr, whereas periods of climatic deterioration between 12 and 10 Myr, 8 and 4 Myr, and in the Pleistocene are in phase with increased pulses of ice-rafted debris in the Northern Hemisphere. The observed sequence of climate change in the northern North Atlantic can most likely be explained by an effective Gulf Stream-mediated heat transport from the middle Miocene onwards.


The WTO Agreement on Agriculture subjected agriculture to a set of international rules for the first time in the history of international trade. Ever since its negotiation the Agreement has been at the forefront of the controversy surrounding the purpose and impact of the WTO itself. This commentary provides a full legal analysis of the obligations imposed by the agreement on WTO members, and of the complex history of the Agreement's negotiation and revision and the controversy surrounding its effect on international development. The commentary is structured around the three areas of reform initiated by the Agreement - market access, domestic support and export competition. The book provides an in-depth examination of the substantive provisions and the disputes that have arisen in each of these three areas. In addition the book situates these provisions against their background in pre-WTO regulation. It analyses the operation of the 'Peace clause' and assesses the impact of the clause's expiration. The commentary concludes by assessing the Agreement's accommodation of and impact on developing economies, and examining the process of reforming domestic farm subsidies, one of the dominant issues currently confronting the WTO.


Background: The South African Government has recently implemented the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme through the school health system. For the vaccination programme to be effective, it is important to investigate the acceptability of the vaccines among university academics. The objective of this study was to determine the awareness and acceptability of HPV vaccination among university academics, and to investigate whether health information increases the acceptability of the vaccines. Materials and methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among academics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal — excluding medical school academics. Data were collected using a self-administered anonymous questionnaire, via an online survey. Results: It was found that most academics were aware of cervical cancer and HPV infections. The health information regarding HPV infections and vaccines had significantly increased the acceptance of HPV vaccine for their daughters (79% to 88%, p < 0.05). There was a knowledge gap regarding the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Conclusion: University academics need to be educated on this preventable disease so that they can provide accurate information to their students, who are in the high-risk population for cervical cancer.


John Knoll was 14 years old when the first Star Wars film (Episode IV) came out in 1977, and it changed his life. By the time the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, was released in 1999, he was its visual effects supervisor - in charge of all special effects - a position he held through Episodes II (Attack of the Clones) and III (Revenge of the Sith). With Knoll as tour guide, this deluxe addition to Abrams' 365 Days series provides the single most comprehensive collection of Star Wars images, including breathtaking 360-degree panoramic shots of sets and models, as well as concept art, props, film stills, and memorabilia. The only book that covers all six films, Star Wars: 365 Days is Knoll's spectacular survey of the visual world created by those films. It shows us George Lucas and his crew creating their universe on location and in the studio - in pages dense with imagery and information, documenting a remarkable sustained creative effort by hundreds of devoted filmmakers and craftsmen.


Wild-caught marine fish from 3 sites in SE Queensland, Australia, were examined over a period of up to 13 mo for infections of the parasitic ciliate Cryptocaryon irritans. Infections of C. irritans were found to be common on the fish sampled. Out of a total of 358 fish (14 species), 239 (66.7%) from 13 species were found to be infected. At Site 1 at the mouth of an estuary, the prevalence of C. irritans infections was 79% and the mean intensity was 12.9 parasites fish. At Site 2, a coastal bar area, the prevalence of infection dropped to 66% and a mean intensity of 5.0 parasites fish, whilst at Site 3 on the Great Barrier Reef, prevalence was lowest at 51% with a mean intensity of 2.3 parasites fish. The study concentrated on 2 sparid fishes, Acanthopagrus australis from Sites 1 and 2 and Gymnocranius audleyi from Site 3. The prevalence of infections on A. australis from Site 1 (n = 101) was 100% with a mean intensity of 14.6 parasites fish, whilst at Site 2 (n = 74) the prevalence was 88% at a mean intensity of 5.2 parasites fish. There was no apparent seasonality in prevalence or intensity of infections at Sites 1 and 2 despite water temperatures ranging between 15 and 27°C. At Site 3, the prevalence of infections of G. audleyi (n = 39) was 38% with a mean intensity of 1.9 parasites fish. The diameter of the tomonts collected from A. australis from Sites 1 and 2 varied inversely with water temperature, and was not related to host size. Our results show that infections of C. irritans are common on wild fish, not rare as previously thought. This may be partially due to the increased sensitivity of our tomont collection technique. Our data suggest that C. irritans may exhibit a degree of host specificity in the wild, and also that its natural distribution can be extended into estuaries and seasonally into warm temperate waters.


Research at the University of Barcelona, published in PLOS Computational Biology, supports the view that multiple sclerosis, the symptoms and progression of which vary widely between patients, is nonetheless a single disease with consistent underlying mechanisms. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that can cause a variety of problems, including blurred vision, impaired memory, and paralysis. Symptoms and patterns of disease progression over time vary among patients, leading to suggestions that it may consist of two or more different diseases. The researchers hypothesised that multiple sclerosis is a single disease with differing outcomes for different patients, but all driven by the same underlying biological mechanism: an immune system attack upon the protective sheaths around nerve cells, resulting in chronic inflammation and axonal degeneration. The researchers developed a mathematical model of multiple sclerosis based on experimental data from 66 patients who had been followed for up to 20 years. They used the model for computational simulations of the various biological processes known to be involved in the disease. To test the validity of their model, the investigators also ran simulations with data from a second group of 120 patients with multiple sclerosis. They found that changing the intensity of the underlying biological processes involved in multiple sclerosis at particular time points reproduced the variability of the disease courses seen in these patients. Their results support the hypothesis that the various symptoms and disease courses associated with multiple sclerosis are produced by the same underlying mechanisms. "This concept has significant therapeutic implications and will drive the development of new therapies because it implies that multiple sclerosis will produce significant disability if had for enough time in all patients," says co-author Dr Pablo Villoslada. "Indeed, preventing relapses, although very important, will not be enough to achieve good control of the disease."


The rapid development of tourism worldwide is giving rise to many anxieties about the actual as well as potentially negative consequences of tourism on host societies. However, despite such concerns, much of the academic research on tourism remains grounded in economic analysis with far less attention being paid to assessing the socio-cultural impacts of tourism, whether real or perceived. The neglect in this regard is particularly acute when it comes to research on the rapidly expanding tourism industry in the United Arab Emirates. This paper addresses this research gap by way of examining resident perceptions of tourism in the City of Dubai. In particular, this study, which was based on responses gathered from over 400 Emirati citizens, explores local attitudes to further tourism growth as well as resident perceptions of the cultural, economic, and behavioural similarities and differences of tourists and themselves. The general findings are then situated within a conceptual framework (Irridex model) designed to show the varying levels of tolerance of a host population to changes in tourist numbers. Key words: Tourism, social carrying capacity, resident perceptions, survey, Dubai


Background At the surface of body organs, epithelial tissues must withstand harsh external environments. To do so, they rely heavily upon stem cells to replenish and repair wounds and replace the many cells that die from this wear and tear. To maintain tissue size, the number of cells lost must be compensated by cell divisions. Tissue homeostasis and wound-repair are ensured by stem cells, located within specialized microenvironments, referred to as niches. Each niche is tailored to accommodate the regenerative needs of its tissue. Some tissues—for instance, skin epithelium—harbor multiple stem cell niches, each with their own responsibility for maintaining cellular balance within their particular domain. Governance of discrete tissue units has ancient origins and is also seen in Drosophila gut epithelium. Identifying stem cells and tracking their progeny is accelerated by lineage tracing, a technique in which a stem cell is genetically marked in its niche and in a way such that their subsequent progeny retain marker expression. Although interpretation of these experiments has been complicated by the lack of specificity of most stem cell markers, this method can be helpful in evaluating the contribution of stem cells to tissue homeostasis and wound-repair. Additional tools include live imaging of marked stem cells and ablating stem cells in situ either by laser or by targeted expression of diphtheria toxin/receptor in stem cells. Coordinating stem cell activity to match tissue output. Stem cells (purple) often exist in two states, one more quiescent than the other. Primed stem cells are closer to activating niche signals (green). They typically respond faster and generate shorter-lived progenitors (orange), which also signal, fueling tissue production. Each stem cell niche must be responsive to the regenerative demands of tissue homeostasis and wound-repair and adjust niche activating and inhibitory signals as necessary. Advances Accumulating evidence on bone marrow, intestinal stem cell crypts, and hair follicles suggests that stem cells often exist in two distinct states based upon their relative activity and/or their ease of activation during homeostasis and/or wound-induced regeneration. Recent studies on the hair follicle reveal that signals emanating from both heterologous niche cells and from lineage progeny influence the timing and length of stem cell activity. This in turn can profoundly affect the amount of tissue regenerated. Stem cell ablation studies on both intestinal and hair follicle stem cell niches further show that the two states are interconvertible, perhaps best exemplified by the ability of a single intestinal stem cell to eventually outcompete its siblings during rounds of turnover within an intestinal villus. Additional new findings suggest that fates and multilineage potentials of epithelial stem cells can change, depending upon whether a stem cell exists within its resident niche and responds to normal tissue homeostasis, whether it is mobilized to repair a wound, or whether it is taken from its niche and challenged to de novo tissue morphogenesis after transplantation. In this Review, we discuss how naturally lineage-restricted populations of stem cells and committed progenitors can display such remarkable plasticity under these different conditions. Outlook Although the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular plasticity, fate conversion, and reacquisition of stem cell properties in committed and/or differentiated cells still remain poorly understood, this cellular plasticity and lineage reversibility may represent adaptive mechanisms for the self-preservation of epithelia to repair body surfaces and linings in whatever ways possible following injuries. When gone awry, these repertoires become the curse of epithelial stem cells, contributing in major ways to human cancers. CREDIT: KATHARINE SUTLIFF/SCIENCE The versatility of epithelial stem cells Stem cells are very important in the maintenance of our bodies' tissues and organs. Blanpain and Fuchs review how different populations of naturally lineage-restricted epithelial stem cells and committed progenitors can also display remarkable plasticity. These cells can reacquire long-term self-renewing capacities and multilineage differentiation potential during physiological and regenerative conditions. These abilities depend on whether the stem cell remains within its resident niche or has been mobilized to repair a wound. Such cellular plasticity has implications for regenerative medicine and for cancer. Science, this issue p. 10.1126/science.1242281 Tissues rely upon stem cells for homeostasis and repair. Recent studies show that the fate and multilineage potential of epithelial stem cells can change depending on whether a stem cell exists within its resident niche and responds to normal tissue homeostasis, whether it is mobilized to repair a wound, or whether it is taken from its niche and challenged to de novo tissue morphogenesis after transplantation. In this Review, we discuss how different populations of naturally lineage-restricted stem cells and committed progenitors can display remarkable plasticity and reversibility and reacquire long-term self-renewing capacities and multilineage differentiation potential during physiological and regenerative conditions. We also discuss the implications of cellular plasticity for regenerative medicine and for cancer.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is counted as a worldwide public health problem. The possible causes of ASD are reactive oxygen species and free radicals. So, this study is aimed to evaluate the effects of Gallic acid, as an effective antioxidant, on histopathologic disorder of the cerebellum in valproic acid-induced autism animal models. 30 pregnant female rats were randomly divided into 5 groups, including: control, autism (or VAP) and experimental 1, 2 and 3. Using a gavage needle, Gallic acid administered orally until about2 months of age. After the end of the treatment period, the rats were anesthetized with ether and their cerebellar tissues were removed for histopathologic studies. A significant decrease in the number of Purkinje and granular cells was observed in this study in VAP group compared to the control group (P≤0.05). A trend toward improvement was observed in the groups received 100 and 200 mg/kg of Gallic acid (P≤0.05). The results of this research revealed that Gallic acid reduces the side effects caused by valproic acid on cerebellar tissue of autistic rats. So, it should be considered for therapeutic goals.


Moveable factories can enable leapfrogging of fixed industrial factories, and so make immediate contributions to global goals of more resilient sustainable manufacturing. Moveable factories bring into use diverse technological advances that reduce the number, size, and weight of machines needed to carry out manufacturing operations at points of supply and/or demand. However, fixed industrial factories continue to be the principal focus for development and application of new manufacturing technologies. At the same time, fixed industrial factories continue to be seen by policy makers around the world as the default option for developing prosperity: rather than as an old fashioned production paradigm to be leapfrogged over. In this paper, findings are reported from a case study investigating potential for moveable factories to bring leapfrog manufacturing to an industrial economy. This case study comprised literature review, interviews, and theoretical analyses. Study findings indicate that organisations in an industrial economy will consider moveable factories if fixed factories are not feasible, practical, or viable. By contrast, potential for improved efficiency and flexibility may not be sufficient to motivate a shift away from fixed industrial factories.


The study uses the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression technique to evaluate the growth rates of three agricultural export crops (cocoa, palm kernel and palm oil) in Nigeria between1970-2009. The result reveals that growth rates in export of these crops are higher in the financial sector reform period than in the pre-financial sector reform period except in palm kernel and are statistically significant at 5% probability level. This therefore suggests the need to enhance the production of these crops through provision of basic farm inputs, extension, proper financing as well as pursue policies that will encourage exportation and discourage the importation of these crops as the way out.


It is the duty of the directors of a company to run the business of the company in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. In principle, the company, alone, is responsible for the debts incurred in the running of the company and the creditors are, in principle, precluded from looking to the directors or shareholders for payment of any shortfall arising as a result of the company's insolvency. This principle has, in a number of jurisdictions undergone statutory change such that in certain circumstances, the directors and others who were concerned with the management of the company may be made liable to contribute, personally, to meet the payment – in part or entirely – of the company's debts. This paper aims to explore this statutory jurisdiction. It also seeks to describe succinctly the process by which the shift from unlimited to limited liability trading was achieved. It will end by examining briefly a comparatively new phenomenon, namely that of a shift in the focus of the directors' duties from company and shareholders to the creditors as the company becomes insolvent and nears the stage of a formal declaration of its insolvent status – the so-called 'zone of insolvency'.


Marine aquaculture and marine-based alternative energy, especially offshore wind, are increasingly competing for space on the Outer Continental Shelf and the water column above it with each other and with more traditional ocean uses. The laws governing this increasingly crowded space need to become better aware of changing uses of and values for the ocean and to promote rational planning of how this space is used in the future.
In one approach, various regions of the U.S. coast are actively engaged in comprehensive marine spatial planning. Marine spatial planning is a process designed to prioritize, balance, and rationally allocate the wide variety of values that a number of interested communities place on the ocean. It is, to be sure, a complex endeavor, but it currently offers the best process available for identifying, negotiating, and ameliorating value and use conflicts in the ocean.
However, technology is increasingly offering other options. Planned "multiple use" is a familiar concept for terrestrial public lands, but it has a less robust history in the marine realm. New technologies allow the potential for some of the more creative designs in offshore renewable energy, especially offshore wind, to alleviate several possible conflicts by allowing multiple uses (energy production, aquaculture, potentially recreation and living space) in the same physical space, freeing up other areas of the ocean for environmental and cultural protection. Permitting laws and regulations need to evolve to recognize and promote these multiple-use marine technologies, streamlining the multijurisdictional bureaucracy that exists to govern offshore structures.


Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? We consider two natural explanations: income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To assess the importance of these two forces, we build a simple model of labor supply by heterogeneous individuals and calibrate it to match international data on labor income taxation, government transfers relative to GDP, and hours worked per adult. The model predicts that income effects are the main driving force behind the decline of average hours worked with GDP per capita. We reach a similar conclusion in an extended model that matches cross-country patterns of labor supply along the extensive and intensive margins and of the prevalence of subsistence self-employment.


Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis are important food borne pathogens. However, the presence of competitive microbiota makes the isolation of Y. enterocolitica and Y. pseudotuberculosis from naturally contaminated foods difficult. We attempted to evaluate the performance of a modified Cefsulodin-Irgasan-Novobiocin (CIN) agar in the differentiation of Y. enterocolitica from non-Yersinia species, particularly the natural intestinal microbiota. The modified CIN enabled the growth of Y. enterocolitica colonies with the same efficiency as CIN and Luria-Bertani agar. The detection limits of the modified CIN for Y. enterocolitica in culture medium (10 cfu/ml) and in artificially contaminated pork (104 cfu/ml) were also comparable to those of CIN. However, the modified CIN provided a better discrimination of Yersinia colonies from other bacteria exhibiting Yersinia-like colonies on CIN (H2S-producing Citrobacter freundii, C. braakii, Enterobacter cloacae, Aeromonas hydrophila, Providencia rettgeri, and Morganella morganii). The modified CIN exhibited a higher recovery rate of Y. enterocolitica from artificially prepared bacterial cultures and naturally contaminated samples compared with CIN. Our results thus demonstrated that the use of modified CIN may be a valuable means to increase the recovery rate of food borne Yersinia from natural samples, which are usually contaminated by multiple types of bacteria.


The main goal of this work is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of recovering motion from a sequence of range images as an alternate solution to the complex motion problem. The work presented in this thesis can be divided into two separate parts. The first part describes the long term process, and the second part discusses the short term process. The major problem for the long term process is to reliably find matching features in two or more successive images. An approach is proposed to establish the best match of point features between successive frames using a Hopfield neural network. A model is developed to convert the correspondence problem to the problem of minimizing an energy function, which occurs at the stable state of a Hopfield neural network. After establishing the feature matching, a $\delta$-bound matching concept is introduced to detect the reliable matching features, therefore increase the accuracy of the estimated motion parameters by removing the effect of mismatching features. In this way, the algorithm is tolerant to noise due to feature detection or occlusion. For the short term process, the case of a single rigid moving object is first studied. A simple, yet powerful, algorithm is proposed to estimate motion of a single rigid object. The motion problem is modeled as solving a set of linear equations. A weighted least squares technique has been found to provide the best performance among several other versions of least squares techniques. Theoretical analysis on the necessary and sufficients conditions for the unique interpretation of the motion parameters and on the sensitivity of the estimated motion parameters to noise provides further insight into the behavior of the algorithm. For more complicated motion such as nonrigid motion, the complete process can be viewed in two separate levels: low and high. In this thesis, attention has been paid to the low level processing. A 3D velocity field has been chosen to be the output of the low level stage. We first develop an algorithm which uniquely estimates 3D velocities of points on smooth surfaces by its first and second order partial derivatives, except at parabolic points. The algorithm is very fast and easy to implement in hardware or software. However, it does not provide reliable estimates of velocities near edge points. Hence we propose another algorithm, which is based on the correlation of the local structure of principal curvatures. The advantage of this correlation approach is that it can estimate velocities of both corner points as well as points on smooth curved surfaces, and vernier velocities of line edge points. The disadvantage is that it is computationally intensive compared with the approach for smooth surfaces. Therefore, we suggest that two algorithms should be combined together to give the best performance. Many experimental results on both synthetic and real images are presented in this thesis.


This thesis considers the search of charged Higgs bosons, which are predicted by several extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Light charged Higgs bosons (below the top quark mass) can appear in top quark decays and are assumed to decay exclusively to tauons. Two discriminating variables are presented that are sensitive to such a process taking place in top-antitop events with two final state leptons. Distributions of these variables are computed for Monte Carlo simulations and for 35/pb of data from 7 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded in 2010 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Monte Carlo simulations are found to agree well with data, validating the use of these discriminating variables, but no conclusions about the existence of charged Higgs bosons can be made at this point.


In one-way ANOVA, most of the pairwise multiple comparison procedures depend on normality assumption of errors. In practice, errors have non-normal distributions so frequently. Therefore, it is very important to develop robust estimators of location and the associated variance under non-normality. In this paper, we consider the estimation of one-way ANOVA model parameters to make pairwise multiple comparisons under short-tailed symmetric (STS) distribution. The classical least squares method is neither efficient nor robust and maximum likelihood estimation technique is problematic in this situation. Modified maximum likelihood (MML) estimation technique gives the opportunity to estimate model parameters in closed forms under non-normal distributions. Hence, the use of MML estimators in the test statistic is proposed for pairwise multiple comparisons under STS distribution. The efficiency and power comparisons of the test statistic based on sample mean, trimmed mean, wave and MML estimators are given and the robustness of the test obtained using these estimators under plausible alternatives and inlier model are examined. It is demonstrated that the test statistic based on MML estimators is efficient and robust and the corresponding test is more powerful and having smallest Type I error.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the developmental functioning and service needs of a group of school-age children with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.

DESIGN
Retrospective data were collected through chart reviews and follow-up telephone calls to primary care givers.

SETTING
A multidisciplinary team provided care at a developmental diagnostic and treatment center.

PATIENTS
Cases were 90 school-age children (ages 5 to 14 years) with presumed perinatally acquired HIV infection.

RESULTS
Forty-four percent of the 86 children on whom there were diagnoses were functioning in the low average to average range of intelligence, whereas 56% were functioning in the borderline range or lower. Fifty percent of the children demonstrated significant language impairments, with 28% also demonstrating an articulation disorder. Thirty-six of the children (42%) were formally diagnosed as having emotional/behavioral disorders. Eighty-six of the children were in school-based programs and of that group, 74% were in special education classes and receiving related services.

CONCLUSIONS
Most of the children in this study demonstrated deficits in the cognitive and learning areas, although they are clearly functioning better than earlier studies of children with HIV infection would have predicted. Their service needs include alternative living arrangements, remedial education, and psychotherapeutic interventions. The children's increasing longevity will place strains on the respective service systems.


We argue that it is not necessary for the central bank to react to the exchange rate to have a desirable outcome in the economy. Indeed, when the Taylor rule includes contemporaneous data on the variables in the rule, the central bank can disregard from the exchange rate as long as there is enough with interest rate inertia in monetary policy. The reason is that interest rate inertia and a reaction to the current nominal exchange rate change are perfect substitutes in monetary policy. Hence, we give a rationale for the central bank to focus on the interest rate change rather than the interest rate level to have a desirable outcome in the economy, which we define as a determinate rational expectation equilibrium that is stable under least squares learning.


Wood logistics management has drawn a lot of attentions in recent wood transportation research. It is essential to research the wood logistics management for wood transportation optimization. In this paper, we analysis the wood logistics management pattern, construct a wood transportation optimal model based on economy concept, which is called utility theory. Then we research the solutions to the optimal wood transportation and give out the optimal wood control strategy when the transportation cost is minimized. Simulations show that our proposed scheme can achieve cost minimized and optimal control can be obtained.


The National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the USDA Forest Service governmental agencies in southern Nevada have collaborated with the Center for Energy Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to explore the feasibility of becoming energy neutral by 2010. The three federal agencies have set a goal to offset their combined annual energy demand (currently supplied by local utility companies) with an equal amount of power produced by renewable energy sources. The study results indicate that the three federal agencies above consume just over 3,000 megawatt-hours of electrical energy per year in and around the Las Vegas Valley. Upon researching various types of renewable energy, it was determined that wind, geothermal, and biomass technologies either failed to have sufficient resources available in southern Nevada or conflicted with the resource management philosophies of the federal agencies. Solar energy is the most abundant feasible source of renewable energy within the study area, and it was determined that a 1.5 megawatt fixed photovoltaic (PV) system is best suited for this project.Copyright © 2008 by ASME


Following substantial changes throughout the Australian education system, primary schools are no longer in the protected position of having a regulated flow of clients, a pre-determined curriculum and marginal levels of staff development. Recent moves have brought new or increased responsibilities for all schools in areas such as: *curriculum and policy development *staff development *monitoring and assessment *the use of new technologies *resource allocation This book seeks to review the impact of this change on Australian primary schools, on the people who are involved with them and the issues they face. Primary education is being re-structured throughout the world, and therefore these issues are of great interest and relevance to educators worldwide.


Wave function based ab initio and nonlocal density functional methods have
been employed to impart a unique insight into the competing mechanisms operating in
the carbonylation of alkyl-palladium(H) complexes of bidentate ligands. The
theoretical methods employed were established by two benchmark studies.
Geometries of physically meaningful accuracy were obtained using second-order
Moller-Plesset (MP2) methods or nonlocal density functional theory (DFT) with a
small-core pseudopotential on palladium and double-c basis sets with polarisation
functions on the ligands. Reliable reaction energies required a higher level of
correlation (such as CCSD(T)) together with large basis sets incorporating diffuse
functions and polarisation functions. For every system investigated, the lowest energy pathway proceeded via novel
five-coordinate intermediates and transition structures. This is in contrast to the
generally assumed four-coordinate pathways and has important ramifications in the
context of rationalising experimentally observed CO/olefin copolymensation activities.
The competing carbonylation mechanisms for the model neutral and cationic
palladium(fl) systems Pd(N-0)(CH3)(PH3) + CO - Pd(N-0)(COCH3)(PH3)
(N-O = NHCHCOO (1), NHCHCHO (21)) have been investigated in detail.
Despite marked differences in the lowest energy mechanisms, variation in the overall
energetics for the neutral and cationic systems was found to be less than 15 kJ/mol.
Furthermore, it has been unequivocally demonstrated that differences in CO/ethylene
copolymerisation activity of neutral and cationic palladium(II) complexes of bidentate
N-O ligand can be attributed to the activation energy of ethylene insertion (a variation
of 55.4 kJ/mol). This is the first theoretical investigation to reproduce the distinct
CO/ethylene copolymerisation rates of cationic and neutral complexes, thereby
allowing clear elucidation of this important phenomenon.
Ligand influences have been assessed by modelling the carbonylation reaction
for a range of complexes: Pd(X-Y)(CH3)(L) (X-Y = NHCHCHO, L = PF3 (41), P(CH3)3 (51); X-Y = NHCHCHNH, L = PH3 (61), CH3 (71)). With the exception
of the neutral diimine complex (71) variations in the activation energy for the methyl
migration step are surprisingly small. Values ranged from 39.5 kJ/mol for 41 to
55.6 kJ/mol for 1. Conversely, it was shown that differences in carbonylation
reactivity typically arise in the ligand substitution and isomerisation steps. The high
migration barrier associated with 71 (67.5 kJ/mol) is due to a reduction in cy-donation
by the migrating methyl group and an increase in metal-carbonyl it back-donation.
The study provides the most definitive theoretical evidence to date for the
participation of five-coordinate species in the migratory insertion reactions of
alkyl-palladium(H) complexes. In particular, a novel transition structure has been
identified which accounts for the isomerisation of square-pyramidal d 8complexes.
The integral role proposed for five-coordinate species in the carbonyl and olefin
migratory insertion reactions has led to the formulation of novel rationale to account
for several ambiguous experimental trends.
In summary, all of the theoretical results presented exhibit outstanding
agreement with all available experimental structural and kinetic data. This study clearly
demonstrates that computational chemistry is now mature and can make a significant
contribution at the leading edge of catalyst design and development.


The exponential growth of China's stock markets in the past decade has attracted global attention from academics and practitioners. The practitioner's interest in Chinese markets stems from corporations; investors and financial institutions foresee substantial benefits from investing in China in the long run. However, the academic literature on the development of securities markets and reform of state enterprises in China is still in its infancy and fragmented. This handbook aims to bridge that gap by presenting a wide spectrum of research in the forefront of financial applications. It integrates theory and practice with state-of-the-art statistical techniques and provides numerous insights into the main challenges confronting Chinese markets in the new millennium.


Leachate virtually is one of the problems in landfill system. The landfill liner with
different types has widely been used in modem landfill to overcome the problems. In
this study, improvement was made by studies further properties of kaolinite at nanoscale
of lnm to lOOnm for soil liner application. In this study the new design of nanokaolinite
is compared with current practice soil liner material to compare the
effectiveness of nano-kaolinite properties. Various percentages of bentonite and
sodium bentonite (2.0%, 5.0% 7.5% and 10.0%) are tested to evaluate the compaction
parameters to choose the best percentage of both admixtures. This result will reflect
for this admixture according to their properties pH value, shrinkage limit, Atterberg
limits and compaction parameter. Based on the determination of the compaction test,
we can determine the hydraulic conductivity of the kaolinite clay mixtures. The best
and desired compaction parameter is the ones that can be compacted with little
amount of water and gives the best compacted result. From this study, it can be
concluded that the addition of 3% nano-kaolinite to the kaolinite gives the best
compaction result which is 1.39 Mg/m3 for maximum dry density and 27.34% for
optimum moisture content. It is because of when dry density is increased, it reduces
the air voids, thereby reducing permeability. Furthermore, based on the Atterberg
limit test, all of the samples are suitable to be used as a compacted kaolinite liner.
Linear shrinkage result for K + 3% Nano was decreased the result of kaolinite itself
and the lower shrinkage limit 7.17% compare to kaolinite, bentonite and sodium
bentonite and is suitable to be used for a liner purpose. Ph value for the Kaolinite
itself is 5.66 (Acidic) and also the other 2 samples which are K +3.0%Nano,
K+5.0%B and K+2.5%SB resulting in the range of 5.66 to 6.37. This means that, the
present of the additives did not assist the kaolinite to reach the neutral value of pH as
expected for soil liner but the value is closer to the neutral value. From the results, the
addition of finer particles such as nano-kaolinite, even at low amount, could improve
the properties of soils. In addition this compaction parameter is predicted by using
hydraulic conductivity compaction plane which gives k value of 2.55 x ]0" 9 m/sec for
3.0% of nano-kaolinite compared with k value of blank kaolinite gives 4.3lx 1(T9
m/sec. Therefore, this can be conclude that by using nano-kaolinite as additives will
develop new liner design and reduce groundwater contamination by leachate into
ground and gives great benefits to the environment and also human health.


Background Attempted suicide rates are much higher in the UK than in the Netherlands. We have compared the characteristics of suicide attempters referred to general hospitals in Oxford and Utrecht. Method We compared the characteristics of referrals for attempted suicide to a general hospital in Oxford and one in Utrecht, for the years 1988 and 1989. Results Most of the attempters in Oxford were young whereas attempters in Utrecht were older; this age difference was particularly marked in females. Utrecht attempters appeared more often to have socio-economic problems and to suffer from psychiatric and personality disorders (except substance abuse), even when account was taken of the age differences of the two populations. Conclusions There is some evidence for different thresholds for attempted suicide in the UK and the Netherlands, although other social explanations for the difference in attempted suicide rates are feasible and require further study.


The case of the software industry in Ireland is particularly interesting as it is a unique example of a government led innovation in attracting and fostering the development of a knowledge based industry. Using a previous work of Eileen Drew (1994) as a starting point it tracks the growth of the industry in the 1990's and into the 21st century during a boom period in the Irish economy known as the Celtic Tiger. Growth is measured by macro-economic factors such as employment and exports. In this 15 year period Ireland increased employment in the software industry from 8,000 to over 30,000 people and its software exports from 1 to 15 billion euro. The government's influence is examined through the National Development Plans, The Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation 2006-2013 and by investigating the roles of the state sponsored bodies. Combining various secondary sources it gives a breakdown of the modern software industry in the areas of export, specialization, firm size and type. Ireland's competitiveness and productivity environment is inspected. The thesis highlights industry problems including: 1. Lack of software graduates, 2. Over dependence upon foreign investment, 3. Inability of indigenous software companies to grow, 4. Loss of competitive advantage. While influencing factors such as geography and demographics, which contributed to the software industry's success story are impossible to replicate, there are lessons to be learned of how a government led, innovative, consistent and educational based policies combined, with a business friendly environment, can be used to transform a struggling economy into a modern knowledge based one.


This paper seeks to explain why mediatization affects some governmental agencies more than others. An important dimension of our paper is to develop a measuring instrument for mediatization, and identify the salient driving forces behind variable levels of mediatization. To make sure that our analysis is comprehensive and productive strategy documents from all governmental agencies in Sweden (n=238) have been surveyed. The results show that agencies' tendency to adapt to mediatization is mainly determined by the type management structures the agencies are set to apply. Single-director agencies and board agencies were significantly more mediatized compared to council agencies even when control variables - such as media coverage of the agencies, size, geographic location, and extend of political salience - were included in the analysis. Our results suggest that agencies - similarly to other political actors - might have substantial agency in terms of how they cope with mediatization pressures.


Since its emergence, Holy Quran has been discussed and researched by scholars and admirers. The present study investigates this valuable work based on grammatical tenses. This study is conducted through an analyticaldescriptive method. Using the theory of traditional grammarians, the researchers have tried to find answers to different questions including the number of grammatical tenses used in the context of the Quran compared to the translations of different Persian and English translators. Hence, initially the verbs were detected in these three Surahs and then their Persian and English equivalents were found in four Persian translations as well as in four English translations. Finally, the results of the study led to significant conclusions; including significant differences among Persian and English translators in the use of diverse grammatical tenses. Although the ideology of translator has a direct impact on his/ her translation, there was no significant difference in the comparison of all tenses used by the Persian and English translators. So the comparison can be regarded as a very strong reason of Quran's comprehensiveness and the fact that it doesn't belong to a specific era.


Abstract : The U.S. Army War College's Ninth Annual Strategy Conference was held at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, during the period March 31-April 2, 1998. The theme of the conference was "Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America Be Defeated?" There were some 150 attendees, including active duty military personnel as well as members of academe, the U.S. Defense and service departments, think tanks, corporations, and news media. This book is an outgrowth of that conference, though it makes no effort to present a comprehensive and literal record of events in the mold of traditional colloquium "proceedings." Rather, the book is organized as an anthology of selected conference presentations, complemented by sufficient notice of roundtable and question-and-answer discussion to provide a glimpse of the vigorous interplay of ideas evoked by this most timely of topics.


The aim of the study was to evaluate frequency, types and renal manifestations in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Our research included 109 patients with chronic hepatitis C. They were examined and treated at the Department of Infectious Diseases of Bogomolets National Medical University and SI "Institute of Nephrology, NAMS of Ukraine." Renal manifestations of chronic hepatitis C were diagnosed in 12.8% of cases. Main clinical and laboratory manifestations included general weakness (was detected in 14 (100%) patients), arterial hypertension (was observed in 11 (78.6%) patients), edema (was observed in 9 (64.3%) patients), proteinuria (was observed in 14 (100%) patients) and microhematuria (was observed in 11 (78.6%) patients), nephrotic syndrome was observed in 9 (64.3%) patients. Arthralgia was observed in 3 (21.4%) patients, and purpura in 1 (7.1%) patient, eGFR reducing was in 9 (64.3%) patients. In 8 (66.7%) patients of our study elevated levels of serum cryoglobulins (from mild to high levels) were detected. According to our data long-term HCV-infection and cirrhosis were considered risk factors for the development of extrahepatic immunological diseases, including renal disease. An important role of renal biopsy in the differential diagnosis and determination of further treatment plan of patients with renal impairment in chronic hepatitis C was pointed out. We noted that kidney damage in patients with chronic hepatitis C in most of the cases were associated with the cryoglobulinemic syndrome. We performed renal biopsies in 12 patients with symptoms of chronic kidney disease and cryoglobulinemic glomerulonephritis was detected in 7 (58.3%) patients. Other types of kidney damage detected in our study included membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis without cryoglobulinemia, membranous nephropathy, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, mesangioproliferative glomerulonephritis. Keywords: Chronic hepatitis C; Cryoglobulinemic syndrome; Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis


Given the paucity of effective treatments for fibrotic disorders, new insights into the deleterious mechanisms controlling fibroblast activation, the key cell type driving the fibrogenic process, are essential to develop new therapeutic strategies. Here, we identified the long non-coding RNA DNM3OS as a critical downstream effector of TGF-β-induced myofibroblast activation. Mechanistically, DNM3OS regulates this process in trans by giving rise to 3 distinct profibrotic mature miRNAs (i.e. miR-199a-5p/3p and miR-214-3p), which influence both SMAD and non-SMAD components of TGF-β signaling in a multifaceted way, through two modes of action consisting of either signal amplification or mediation. Finally, we provide preclinical evidence that interfering with DNM3OS function using distinct strategies not only prevents lung and kidney fibrosis but also improves established lung fibrosis, providing thus a novel paradigm for the treatment of refractory fibrotic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. One Sentence Summary The DNM3OS lncRNA is a reservoir of fibromiRs with major functions in fibroblast response to TGF-β and represents a valuable therapeutic target for refractory fibrotic diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).


Observations of interannual variability in 18 Water (Talley and Raymer 1982)
and Gulf Stream transport (Worthington 1977) motivate an ocean model sensitivity
study. The North Atlantic circulation is simulated with a three-dimensional isopycniccoordinate
GCM. Idealized anomalous buoyancy-forcing fields (associated with
outbreaks of cold, dry continental air over the Gulf Stream/Sargasso Sea region) are
constructed. In a series of sensitivity experiments, wintertime buoyancy loss over the
Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea is thus increased to varying degrees, with anomalous
ocean-to-atmosphere buoyancy fluxes of up to double climatological values.
Under excess buoyancy loss, winter mixed layer depths increase, and a greater
volume of model 18 Water is formed. End-of-winter mixed layer density also
increases, leading to the formation of a denser variety of 18 Water. The anomalous 18
Water recirculates around the Sargasso Sea as a signal of low potential vorticity, which
spreads out and weakens on a decadal timescale. Strengthened horizontal pressure
gradients in the vicinity of the anomalous 18 Water drive intensified baroclinic
transports at the "immediate" end of winter (in March), after which a full-depth
barotropic intensification of the Gulf Stream develops. Strongest intensification occurs
in May, when the Gulf Stream barotropic transport is increased locally by up to 10 Sv.
The anomalous transports which account for barotropic intensification are
confined to deep and abyssal layers of the model. Where the associated anomalous
bottom currents traverse isobaths, "extra" bottom pressure torque (BPT) is invoked. An
anomalous BPT term in the barotropic vorticity balance may therefore account for the
intensification. Computed from the model fields of density and sea surface height, such
a term does appear to produce the extra negative vorticity associated with anticyclogenic
intensification. It is concluded that wintertime excess buoyancy loss drives a springtime
barotropic response of the subtropical gyre, through BPT, due to "JEBAR" (the Joint
Effect of Baroclinicity And Relief).
The Gulf Stream intensification decreases after May as lateral eddy mixing
weakens anomalous cross-stream pressure gradients. This eddy mixing is
parameterized in the model by a layer thickness diffusion velocity, ud, nominally
chosen to be 1.0 cm s'1. Further experiments establish the sensitivity of intensification
strength to the choice of ud. With ud = 0.1 cm s"1 (weak thickness diffusion), the
intensification is increased by ~50%, while, for ud - 10 cm s"1 (strong thickness
diffusion), the intensification is roughly halved. These further sensitivity experiments
also reveal the varying degrees to which the model subtropical gyre can be dominated
by diffusive eddy mixing (Rhines and Young 1982a, 1982b) or adiabatic (nondiffusive)
ventilation of the thermocline (Luyten, Pedlosky and Stommel 1983).
Recent (1980-97) interannual variability in the formation and recirculation of 18
Water, and other water masses, is deduced from observed surface heat and freshwater
fluxes. Interannual variations in the strength of 18 Water renewal (thus deduced) and a
wintertime index of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are found to be strongly anticorrelated
(with a correlation coefficient of -0.70, statistically significant at a 99%
confidence level). A further sensitivity experiment establishes that anomalous wind
forcing, characteristic of a minimum phase in the NAO, does not intensify the Gulf
Stream in the manner of excess cooling. It is concluded that 18 Water is more strongly
renewed, with accompanying Gulf Stream intensification, under NAO-minimum
buoyancy forcing.


Abstract. This paper deals with the 3D reconstruction of ancient Greek architectural members, especially with the element of the Doric column. The case study for this project is the Choragic monument of Nicias on the South Slope of the Athenian Acropolis, from which a column drum, two capitals and smaller fragments are preserved. The first goal of this paper is to present some benefits of using 3D reconstruction methods not only in documentation but also in understanding of ancient Greek architectural members. The second goal is to take advantage of the produced point clouds. By using the Cloud Compare software, comparisons are made between the actual architectural members and an "ideal" point cloud of the whole column in its original form. Seeking for probable overlaps between the two point clouds could assist in estimating the original position of each member/fragment on the column. This method is expanded with more comparisons between the reference column model and other members/fragments around the Acropolis, which may have not yet been ascribed to the monument of Nicias.


The objective of this paper is to develop a groundwater model for contaminant transport simulation. The transport model, in conjunction with the previously developed flow model, is used for groundwater planning and management in the Taipei basin. The groundwater basin is conceptualized as a two-layered aquifer system with an aquitard separating an upper unconfined aquifer and a lower confined aquifer. The governing equations are expressed in terms of two sets of advection-dispersion equations that take into consideration both conservative and decaying pollutants. The original partial differential equations are discretized by the Galerkin-finite-element method in the spatial domain and the Crank-Nicolson scheme in the time domain. The resulting algebraic equations are then solved by the point SOR method. The developed model has been calibrated and verified by using concentration observations of total dissolved solids (TDS) at 22 monitoring wells in the basin. The results obtained from calibration indicate acceptable matching between the observed and computed concentrations.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the effects of intra-articular (IA) versus IV administration of morphine on local and systemic inflammatory responses in horses with experimentally induced acute synovitis.

ANIMALS
8 horses.

PROCEDURES
Each horse received the following 2 treatments 4 hours after synovitis was induced: IA administration of morphine (0.05 mg/kg) with IV administration of 1 mL of saline (0.9% NaCl) solution/100 kg, and IA administration of 1 mL of saline solution/100 kg with IV administration of morphine (0.05 mg/kg). Treatments were administered in randomized order with a washout period of 3 weeks between treatments. Before each treatment, aseptic synovitis was induced by injection of lipopolysaccharide into a radiocarpal joint. For the second treatment, the contralateral radiocarpal joint was selected. Joint swelling and skin temperature over the treated joints were recorded. Clinical examinations were performed, and blood WBC count, serum amyloid A (SAA) concentration, serum cortisol concentration, synovial fluid WBC count, synovial fluid total protein (TP) concentration, and synovial fluid SAA concentration were measured before and repeatedly during each of the two 168-hour study periods. Data were analyzed by use of ANOVA with repeated measures.

RESULTS
IA administration of morphine resulted in significantly less joint swelling and lower synovial fluid TP and serum and synovial fluid SAA concentrations, and blood WBC count than did IV administration of morphine.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
IA administration of morphine exerted anti-inflammatory properties in horses with experimentally induced acute synovitis, supporting its use as a part of a balanced analgesic protocol.


We present empirical analysis of human searches for information from mobile devices, focusing on temporal dynamics, semantics, and topics of queries. Our analysis is based on a large scale data of mobile search logs over a week period from a major US mobile service provider. We find that human searches appear in bursts over time with the distribution of the query inter arrival time following a power law decay up to a day and decays exponentially beyond. Interestingly, this finding conforms to some other measures of human activity reported in previous studies. We also provide preliminary characterisation results of the semantics and topics of queries, some of which conform to that of previous studies. The results would be of general interest for understanding the dynamics of human activity and, in particular, may be leveraged for the design of mobile services.


Lake Miedwie is a eutrophic reservoir characterized by strong oxygen deficiencies in the hypolimnion, as well as high concentrations of nutrients (particularly phosphorus) and a significant recent increase in algae biomass. The water quality in the lake depends on pollutant inflow from the watershed, rate of biological activities, and accumulations of pollutants in bottom sediments. The lake has very good natural conditions, described by class I of vulnerability for degradation. Decreasing the level of anthropogenic stress should allow the natural self-purification of lake water. Thus changes in the type of land and waste management in the watershed should improve the water quality in Lake Miedwie.


CONTEXT
The impact of depression on morbidity and mortality among women with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has not been examined despite the fact that women with HIV have substantially higher rates of depression than their male counterparts.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the association of depressive symptoms with HIV-related mortality and decline in CD4 lymphocyte counts among women with HIV.

DESIGN
The HIV Epidemiologic Research Study, a prospective, longitudinal cohort study conducted from April 1993 through January 1995, with follow-up through March 2000.

SETTING
Four academic medical centers in Baltimore, Md; Bronx, NY; Providence, RI; and Detroit, Mich.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 765 HIV-seropositive women aged 16 to 55 years.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
HIV-related mortality and CD4 cell count slope decline over a maximum of 7 years, compared among women with limited or no depressive symptoms, intermittent depressive symptoms, or chronic depressive symptoms, as measured using the self-report Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale.

RESULTS
In multivariate analyses controlling for clinical, treatment, and other factors, women with chronic depressive symptoms were 2 times more likely to die than women with limited or no depressive symptoms (relative risk [RR], 2.0; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-3.8). Among women with CD4 cell counts of less than 200 x 10(6)/L, HIV-related mortality rates were 54% for those with chronic depressive symptoms (RR, 4.3; 95% CI, 1.6-11.6) and 48% for those with intermittent depressive symptoms (RR, 3.5; 95% CI, 1.1-10.5) compared with 21% for those with limited or no depressive symptoms. Chronic depressive symptoms were also associated with significantly greater decline in CD4 cell counts after controlling for other variables in the model, especially among women with baseline CD4 cell counts of less than 500 x 10(6)/L and baseline viral load greater than 10 000 copies/microL.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that depressive symptoms among women with HIV are associated with HIV disease progression, controlling for clinical, substance use, and sociodemographic characteristics. These results highlight the importance of adequate diagnosis and treatment of depression among women with HIV. Further research is needed to determine if treatment of depression can not only enhance the mental health of women with HIV but also impede disease progression and mortality.


We revisit the long-documented index effect, whereby stocks that are added/deleted to major indices experience positive/negative excess returns around the date that the indices rebalance. Our analysis focuses on major indices from MSCI, S&P, and FTSE Russell. We corroborate earlier research that the index effect is no longer significant for the S&P 500 and has weakened significantly for the Russell 1000 and Russell 2000. However, we find that the index effect is present in the global indices, particularly the MSCI World Small Cap and MSCI Emerging Markets indices. Security characteristics matter as well. The index effect is stronger for larger securities (relative to their index). We also find that the index effect appears to hold further ahead—for instance, a month before the index rebalance date. TOPICS: Mutual fund performance, passive strategies, exchange-traded funds and applications Key Findings • The index effect is an important phenomenon that needs to be monitored, particularly by index managers. • The index effect varies greatly across indices; it is most present in global indices, particularly those covering small cap and Emerging Markets. • The potential value add is even higher if one can accurately predict and trade index changes ahead of the announcement.


Meyer Schapiro (1904-96), renowned for his critical essays on nineteenth- and twentieth-century painting, also played a decisive role as a young scholar in defining the style of art and architecture known as Romanesque. And, appropriately, when he was invited to deliver the prestigious Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, he chose Romanesque architectural sculpture as his topic. These lectures, acclaimed for the verve and freshness with which Schapiro delivered them, languished unpublished for decades. But Linda Seidel, who knew Schapiro well and attended the 1967 lectures, has now expertly transcribed and edited them, presenting them for the first time to an audience beyond the halls of Harvard. In editing the lectures, Seidel closely followed the recordings of the originals. Sentences are rendered as Schapiro spoke them, affording readers a unique opportunity to experience the legendary teacher as he rarely appears in print: forming his thoughts spontaneously, interrupting himself to develop related ideas, and responding to the audience s interests by introducing humorous asides. Nonetheless, these lectures are carefully constructed, demonstrating Schapiro s commitment to the originality and value of artistic production and affirming his lifelong belief in artists engagement with their cultures. Amply illustrated with many key works and augmented with Seidel s indispensable introduction, this long-awaited volume will delight students and scholars of art history, as well as anyone interested in seeing a new side of a profoundly influential mind. "


In this paper, we estimate the varying probability of the occurrence of earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 6 by using a pattern dynamic algorithm. The pattern dynamic algorithm extracts information by constructing a pattern state vector evaluated from past seismic activities. The pattern state vector is expressed as a unit vector in a high-dimensional correlation space. To reduce the bias in constructing a pattern state vector, we only use high quality data provided by the Central Weather Bureau in Taiwan. Earthquakes that occurred from 1973 to 1997 are used as a "learning catalogue" to evaluate the future seismicity patterns. Using a log-likelihood function, we found that the optimized time span of 8 to 10 years is appropriate for a learning catalogue. The spatial distributions of increasing probability for each time span for the earthquakes after 1998 is estimated. Results show that most of the larger-size earthquakes that occurred inland after 1998 were located in the estimated areas. Earthquakes in the eastern, offshore Taiwan area, where the data quality is poor, could not be well located.


This paper investigates the role of governance, in particular bribes to tax officials, in shaping business tax compliance behavior in transition economies. The empirical results show that business noncompliance rises with the frequency of tax related bribes. More specifically, the findings from 27 economies suggest that tax evasion thrives when bribes to tax officials are commonplace. These findings are robust to a number of specifications that control for firm and country attributes as well as address the potential endogeneity of bribes.


Background Despite recent progress, pneumonia remains the largest infectious killer of children globally. This paper describes outcomes of not treating community-diagnosed fast-breathing pneumonia on patient recovery. Methods We conducted an exploratory subanalysis of an observational prospective cohort study in Malawi. We recruited children (2–59 months) diagnosed by community health workers with fast-breathing pneumonia using WHO integrated community case management (iCCM) guidelines. Children were followed at days 5 and 14 with a clinical assessment of recovery. We conducted bivariate and multivariable logistic regression for the association between treatment of fast-breathing pneumonia and recovery, adjusting for potential confounders. Results We followed up 847 children, of whom 78 (9%) had not been given antibiotics (non-treatment). Non-treatment cases had higher baseline rates of diarrhoea, non-severe hypoxaemia and fever. Non-recovery (persistence or worsening of symptoms) was 13% and 23% at day 5 in those who did receive and those who did not receive co-trimoxazole. Non-recovery, when defined as worsening of symptoms only, at day 5 was 7% in treatment and 10% in non-treatment cases. For both definitions, combined co-trimoxazole and lumefantrine-artemether (LA) treatment trended towards protection (adjusted OR (aOR) 0.28; 95% CI 0.12 to 0.68/aOR 0.29; 95% CI 0.08 to 1.01). Conclusion We found that children who did not receive co-trimoxazole treatment had worse clinical outcomes; malaria co-diagnosis and treatment also play a significant role in non-recovery. Further research into non-treatment of fast-breathing pneumonia, using a pragmatic approach with consideration for malaria co-diagnosis and HIV status is needed to guide refinement of community treatment algorithms in this region.


Elevated concentrations of various industrial-use Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), have been reported in some developing areas in subtropical and tropical regions known to be destinations of e-waste. We used a recent inventory of the global generation and exports of e-waste to develop various global scale emission scenarios for industrial-use organic contaminants (IUOCs). For representative IUOCs (RIUOCs), only hypothetical emissions via passive volatilization from e-waste were considered whereas for PCBs, historical emissions throughout the chemical life-cycle (i.e., manufacturing, use, disposal) were included. The environmental transport and fate of RIUOCs and PCBs were then simulated using the BETR Global 2.0 model. Export of e-waste is expected to increase and sustain global emissions beyond the baseline scenario, which assumes no export. A comparison between model predictions and observations for PCBs in selected recipient regions generally suggests a better agreement when exports are accounted for. This study may be the first to integrate the global transport of IUOCs in waste with their long-range transport in air and water. The results call for integrated chemical management strategies on a global scale.


Some of the local theory of extended prime spots on fields is developed here, with two applications in mind. In the first, two analogues to the Hasse-Minkowski theorem on equivalence of quadratic forms over global fields are developed, based on the notion of an ultracompletion of a field at an extended prime spot. They deal, respectively, with equivalence of quadratic forms over a simple transcendental extension of a global field, and with the reduced Witt ring of a general field. Examples illustrate problems involving the further extension of the global theory of quadratic forms. In the second application Harrison and Warner's ultracompletions of a field at a finite or infinite prime are shown to be essentially ultracompletions at associated extended prime spots.


While same-sex marriage is visibly gaining momentum (see Germany and Malta this year), many countries have not fully recognised the rights of same-sex couples. This isually takes the form of civil unions (e.g. Italy and Greece) or of no recognition (e.g. Poland and Lithuania). However, other solutions are also possible. For instance, some countries recognise only same-sex marriages celebrated abroad (e.g. Armenia and Estonia).

In Northern Ireland, adoption has been available to same-sex couples since 2013, even though the Northern Ireland Assembly voted against same-sex marriage (Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Re Judicial Review [2013] NICA 37). However, in many countries where there is no same-sex marriage, these couples cannot access adoption. This is the case in Italy, even though the case that is commented here brings some good news.

In Italy, the Adoptions Act (Legge No 183/1984) allows only married couples to adopt a minor. Since only heterosexual couples can get married, same-sex couples are de facto excluded from the adoption. However, this regime applies only to internal situations (e.g. two women domiciled in Italy adopting a minor in Italy). Different rules apply to the adoption by same-sex couples in other countries, once the couple asks the Italian authorities (ufficiale di stato civile) the recognition of the effects of the adoption. This is the topic recently clarified by the Court of Appeals of Genoa, with ordinanza No 1319 of 1 September 2017.

The Court holds that same-sex adoptions celebrated abroad should be automatically regognised in Italy by the competent civil servants, without any need for a judicial scrutiny.

The main reason is that even though Italian unmarried couples cannot adopt in Italy, there is no public policy or ordre public (ordine pubblico) consideration preventing the full recognition of the effects of foreign same-sex adoptions.


For the past generation, Chile has been graced with the most stable democracy and economy in South America. Chileans boast some of the highest standards of living in Latin America and one of the region's least corrupt and most efficient governments. Nevertheless, in spite of the rapid expansion of civil and political rights since the country's democratic transition in 1990, the presence of resolute and efficient institutions, and prolonged economic growth, socioeconomic inequality still abounds--a problem attributable to previous regimes' failure to guarantee equal social services to all strata of society. During the colonial era, royal monopolies dominated the Latin American economy, accumulating vast amounts of wealth in few hands and creating a wide gulf between the ruling class and the working class. This pattern of dual societies persisted long after independence and frequently generated social pressures that undermined the stability necessary to sustain a prosperous, modern-day working democracy. Chile typified this pattern. During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, the structure of the Chilean economy was radically altered from the socialist policies of President Salvador Allende. Pinochet's team of expert economists, the "Chicago Boys," made Chile an extreme experiment in neoliberalism, implementing tight monetary policies to tackle inflation, deregulating the economy and virtually abolishing trade barriers. Most notable, however, were the privatization of health care, higher education, and the pension system. The reforms initially did not have the expected results. In 1982 the Chilean economy collapsed, partly because of a region-wide debt crisis but also because a total lack of regulation led to the collapse of the banking sector. Unemployment soared above 20 percent while real wages fell, and even more cuts were made to government spending on social services. Only after Finance Minister Hernan Buchi made key reforms did the economy recover, hitting its highest-ever annual growth rate in 1989. In 1990 Chile finally returned to democracy. The Concertacion de Partidos por la Democracia, a bloc of center-left parties, assumed power with Patricio Aylwin, the first elected president since Allende, as their leader. The Aylwin government decided to continue the market-based model established by the Pinochet regime but to add more social protection to curb the effects of a purely neoliberal model. Since its democratic transition, Chile has experienced the highest average growth rate in its history while increasing social spending and fully expanding civil and political rights to its citizens. Despite good governance, Chile has faced a paradox of economic growth coupled with persistent inequality that can be traced to problems with social services, which continue to vary in quality despite increased coverage. The duality of Chile's social services is most evident in its education and health care systems. The quality of primary and secondary education still depends on socioeconomic status. A good family name is essential for admission to some of the most elite academies, whose high tuitions and exclusive policies effectively ban the poor. Higher education has seen better results, as the expansion of private universities has generated competition and increased scholarships for talented students. …


Withaferin, an active component obtained from the root extracts of Withania somnifera (Ashwaganda), showed antitumor and radiosensitising effects in animals. A similar approach in human cancer patients could probably increase the therapeutic outcome. Antioxidants are good markers of free radical induced tissue damage or in other words, radiosensitisation of tumor cells. Therefore an assay of erythrocyte antioxidant levels namely GSH, GSH-PX,SOD and G6PD were performed in cancers of uterine cervix, before, in the midst of, and post radiation and compared with the erythrocyte levels of the same in normal controls. Although a high level of GSH was observed in the baseline samples, this level was consistent after treatment. A significant decrease in GSHPX values following radiation was observed. SOD and G6PD levels remained non significant. Therefore establishing the role of withaferin as a radiosensitiser seems to be ambiguous.


This study aims at analysing the Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running schools (CFCRS) policy in China. The two major legislative documents related to CFCRS are Interim Provisions on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (1995) and the Regulations on Chinese-foreign Cooperation in Running Schools (2003). The major thrusts of these policy documents were to regulate the highly growing transnational higher education (TNHE). The analysis utilizes the Four Frame Policy Analysis Model developed by Yin Cheong Cheng and Wing Ming Cheung (1995). The Framework was used to dissect the policy process into four frames; background and underlying principles; policy formulation process; policy implementation (gaps between implementation and planning); and policy effects. Both, practical and legal challenges facing CFCRS are discussed in this analysis and suggestion for improvement are put forward. The analysis concludes by asserting that the policy has been a success though there are still some challenges and shortcomings that need to be addressed for the policy to realize the desired goals.


Although the average rate of unemployment across U.S. metropolitan areas declined between 1980 and 2000, the geographic concentration of the unemployed rose sharply over this period. That is, residential neighborhoods throughout the nation's metropolitan areas became increasingly divided into high- and low-unemployment areas. This paper documents this trend using data on more than 165,000 U.S. Census block groups (neighborhoods) in 361 metropolitan areas over the years 1980, 1990, and 2000; it also examines three potential explanations: (i) urban decentralization, (ii) industrial shifts and declining unionization, and (iii) increasing segregation by income and education. The results offer little support for either of the first two explanations. Rising residential concentration of the unemployed shows little association with changes in population density, industrial composition, or union activity. It does, however, show a significant association with both the degree of segregation according to income as well as education, suggesting that decreases in the extent to which individuals with different levels of income and education live in the same neighborhood may help account for this trend.


An early Oligocene (Rupelian) diagnostic larger foraminiferal assemblage is described and illustrated from marls and limestones of the Asmari Formation, at Jabals Hafit and Malaqet in the UAE. An equivalent assemblage is identified in the mudstones of the Tahwah Formation, Wadi Suq, Oman. Although Nummulites intermedius (D'Archiac 1846) and N. fichteli are fully synonymous (e.g. Roveda 1970; Schaub 1981; Sirel 2003), in this study both species are biometrically differentiated, distinct and both names are valid. N. fichteli Michelotti 1841, N. intermedius (D'Archiac 1846) and N. emiratus n. sp., which are index for the early Oligocene (Rupelian), and they are replacing each others competitively and environmentally. The presence of Blondeauina bouillei n.gen., N. emiratus n.sp., N. intermedius, N. fichteli, Planoperculina complanata (Defrance 1822) and Austrotrillina asmariensis Adams 1968 ascribed the section of the Asmari Formation to the early Oligocene (Rupelian). The studied marls and limestones were deposited in outer and inner shelf environments, respectively. The Asmari Formation in the area studied consists mainly of marl in its lower portion and reefal limestone in its upper part, indicating a major marine regression. The Tahwah Formation in Oman is composed of bioturbated silty and muddy marls and is a facies equivalent to the Asmari Formation marls. The Asmari Formation facies change probably relates to a mid-Oligocene fall in global sea level. In this study, the Dabaa Formation, a subsurface unit of late Eocene–Oligocene marine shales in the north Western Desert of Egypt, was chosen to correlate with the Oligocene of Emirates and Oman. The Dabaa Formation comprises Spiroclypeus ornatus (Henson 1937) and Eulepidina dilatata (Michelotti 1861). The environment of deposition was inner shelf to littoral, which become estuarine towards the top in many areas. This Oligocene Dabaa sequence is correlatable with Wadi El Arish sequence recently discovered by Kuss and Boukhary (2008) from Risan Aneiza, Northern Sinai, Egypt.


The periodic table of elements is among the most recognizable image in science. It lies at the core of chemistry and embodies the most fundamental principles of science. In this new edition, Eric Scerri offers readers a complete and updated history and philosophy of the periodic table. Written in a lively style to appeal to experts and interested lay-persons alike, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance begins with an overview of the importance of the periodic table and the manner in which the term "element" has been interpreted by chemists and philosophers across time. The book traces the evolution and development of the periodic table from its early beginnings with the work of the precursors like De Chancourtois, Newlands and Meyer to Mendeleev's 1869 first published table and beyond. Several chapters are devoted to developments in 20th century physics, especially quantum mechanics and and the extent to which they explain the periodic table in a more fundamental way. Other chapters examine the formation of the elements, nuclear structure, the discovery of the last seven infra-uranium elements, and the synthesis of trans-uranium elements. Finally, the book considers the many different ways of representing the periodic system and the quest for an optimal arrangement.


Abstract In variable frame theory a game is played rationally, but which game gets played is determined by nonrational (e.g., perceptual) player characteristics. These determine their "frames"—the sets of attributes of the objects of choice they think about. The theory implies that it is rational to play focal points in coordination games with multiple equilibria. The reported experiment confirms most of the theory's claims for such games, including the tradeoff theorem : players who can hope to coordinate only by randomizing over a class of objects trade off its smallness against the probability that it belongs to the partner's frame. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C72.


Background: There exists a lack of knowledge regarding the quantity and quality of scientific yield in relation to individual cancer types. We aimed to measure the proportion, quality and relevance of oncology-related articles, and to relate this output to their associated disease burden. By incorporating the impact factor(IF) and Eigenfactor TM (EF) into our analysis we also assessed the relationship between these indices and the output under study. Methods: All publications in 2007 were retrieved for the 26 most common cancers. The top 20 journals ranked by IF and EF in general medicine and oncology, and the presence of each malignancy within these titles was analysed. Journals publishing most prolifically on each cancer were identified and their impact assessed. PrincipalFindings: 63260 (PubMed) and 126845 (WoS) entries were generated, respectively. 26 neoplasms accounted for 25% of total output from the top medical publications. 5 cancers dominated the first quartile of output in the top oncology journals; breast, prostate, lung, and intestinal cancer, and leukaemia. Journals associated with these cancers were associated with much higher IFs and EFs than those journals associated with the other cancer types under study, although these measures were not equivalent across all sub-specialties. In addition, yield on each cancer was related to its disease burden as measured by its incidence and prevalence. Conclusions: Oncology enjoys disproportionate representation in the more prestigious medical journals. 5 cancers dominate yield, although this attention is justified given their associated disease burden. The commonly used IF and the recently introduced EF do not correlate in the assessment of the preeminent oncology journals, nor at the level of individual malignancies; there is a need to delineate between proxy measures of quality and the relevance of output when assessing its merit. These results raise significant questions regarding the best method of assessment of research and scientific output in the field of oncology.