This research-in-progress paper examines factors that affect ecommerce. The design of ecommerce web sites has offered many challenges and opportunities for organizations throughout the world. There has been a rich stream in the information systems research on the antecedents of good web design. This has included ideas of how the size of the web site (e.g. the download delay) affects users' perceptions or even how interactive components affect consumer behavior. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, a conceptual model of the factors influencing online consumer motivation is presented. This model draws on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as well as the current practices used in web design. The model adapts concepts from SDT, and references components of use of motivation in design. Second, this paper presents an instrument that has been validated in laboratory and field tests.


OBJECTIVE Given the urgent need to develop effective programs that improve the ability for adolescents to achieve metabolic control equivalent to programs studied in the Diabetes. Control and Complications Trial, we have undertaken a clinical trial to determine if a behavioral intervention (coping skills training [CST]) combined with intensive diabetes management can improve metabolic control and quality of life in adolescents implementing intensive therapy regimens. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 65 youths between the ages of 13 and 20 years, who elected to initiate intensive insulin therapy, were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the intensive management with CST group and the intensive management without CST group. CST consists of a series of small group efforts designed to teach adolescents the coping skills of social problem-solving, social skills training, cognitive behavior modification, and conflict resolution. Data were collected at pre-intervention and at 3 months following the use of the Self-Efficacy for Diabetes scale, Children's Depression Inventory, Issues in Coping with IDDM scale, and the Diabetes Quality of Life: Youth scale. Clinical data (HbA1c, adverse effects) were collected monthly. RESULTS The experimental and control groups were comparable on all measures at baseline. Results show that adolescents who received CST had lower HbA1c and better diabetes self-efficacy and were less upset about coping with diabetes than adolescents receiving intensive management alone. In addition, adolescents who received the CST found it easier to cope with diabetes and experienced less of a negative impact of diabetes on quality of life than those who did not receive CST. CONCLUSIONS CST is useful in improving not only an adolescent's metabolic control, but also their quality of life. As more pediatric providers aim for improved control, in adolescents with diabetes, the addition of this behavioral intervention may be helpful in achieving metabolic and life goals.


How will a nation's aggregate urban productivity be affected by climate change? The joint distribution of climate conditions and economic activity across a nation's cities will together determine industrial average exposure to climate risk. Air conditioning (AC) can greatly reduce this heat exposure. We develop a simple model of air conditioning adoption by heterogeneous firms within an industry. Our analysis suggests that high productivity firms are more likely to adopt AC since they suffer larger productivity losses when it is hot. Given that the most productive firms produce a disproportionate share of industry-level output, we present aggregation results highlighting how the industry's output is insulated from the heat. Our empirical analysis of the impacts of heat on total factor productivity in U.S manufacturing yields findings broadly consistent with our model's predictions.


Abstract There have been many genealogies of ethics. Philip Kitcher's The Ethical Project stands apart in its ability to incorporate the insights of earlier genealogies while avoiding their oversights and mistakes. In this essay, I compare and contrast Kitcher's genealogy of ethics with two contemporary alternatives, those offered by Frans do Waal and Richard Joyce. Comparing Kitcher's genealogy with these alternatives makes it easy to highlight his most useful contribution to our understanding of the origin of ethics: the idea of ethics as a social technology. I conclude by identifying an oversight of Kitcher's own genealogy, a significant way in which the function of ethics-as-a- technology has been transformed from its origin to today.


Normal skin's curiously abnormal genome Within every tumor, a battle is being waged. As individual tumor cells acquire new mutations that promote their survival and growth, they clonally expand at the expense of tumor cells that are "less fit." Martincorena et al. sequenced 234 biopsies of sun-exposed but physiologically normal skin from four individuals (see the Perspective by Brash). They found a surprisingly high burden of mutations, higher than that of many tumors. Many of the mutations known to drive the growth of cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas were already under strong positive selection. More than a quarter of normal skin cells carried a driver mutation, and every square centimeter of skin contained hundreds of competing mutant clones. Science, this issue p. 880; see also p. 867 Sun-exposed but physiologically normal human skin harbors an unexpectedly high number of cancer-causing mutations. [Also see Perspective by Brash] How somatic mutations accumulate in normal cells is central to understanding cancer development but is poorly understood. We performed ultradeep sequencing of 74 cancer genes in small (0.8 to 4.7 square millimeters) biopsies of normal skin. Across 234 biopsies of sun-exposed eyelid epidermis from four individuals, the burden of somatic mutations averaged two to six mutations per megabase per cell, similar to that seen in many cancers, and exhibited characteristic signatures of exposure to ultraviolet light. Remarkably, multiple cancer genes are under strong positive selection even in physiologically normal skin, including most of the key drivers of cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas. Positively selected mutations were found in 18 to 32% of normal skin cells at a density of ~140 driver mutations per square centimeter. We observed variability in the driver landscape among individuals and variability in the sizes of clonal expansions across genes. Thus, aged sun-exposed skin is a patchwork of thousands of evolving clones with over a quarter of cells carrying cancer-causing mutations while maintaining the physiological functions of epidermis.


Clinical standard 12-lead ECG recordings over 5 minutes on patients in atrial fibrillation or in atrial flutter were analyzed. After suppression of the signal components related to ventricular activity, the amplitude spectra of all leads were inspected. The spectrum of lead V1 clearly showed the presence of harmonics of a basic frequency, not necessarily at the modal frequency. The dominant basic frequencies in lead V1 of the patients in atrial fibrillation were (meanplusmnSD): 6.04 plusmn 1.1 Hz, range: [3.5 - 8.8] Hz. For lead V6 the values were: 4.79 plusmn 1.13 Hz and [3.5-7.7] Hz. In several cases, the spectra suggested the presence of a secondary prominent rhythmic activity. This could be verified by scanning the spectra of all leads for the presence of integer multiples of a different basic frequency. Among the standard 12-leads, leads VR, VL and V6 were the ones in which such multiple, prominent basic frequencies were most frequently identified.


Effects of 12 rootstocks on yield, yield efficiency, bearing potential and quality of Redblush' grapefruit were measured and potential rootstocks recommended for the arid climate of southwest Arizona. Trees on `Palestine' sweet lime and 'Volkamer' lemon produced high cumulative yield but small fruit. Trees on Macrophylla (Alemow)produced higher yields after 5 years of planting and had significantly higher mean yield efficiency than trees on other rootstocks. Thus, Macrophylla rootstock could be a good choice for 'Redblush'at the standard spacing and perhaps at high density spacing in southwest Arizona. Fruit of trees on ` Carrizo' and `Troyer' citranges were largest. Trees on `Savage' citrange had lowest yield thinnest peel and highest levels of total soluble solids and soluble solids /acid ratio. Fruit of trees on 'Swingle' citrumelo or C.P.B. 4475 rootstock consistently had higher percentage acid than those on other rootstocks. Considering yield and /or various quality factors, Vol/tamer' lemon, rough lemon , 'Palestine' sweet lime, 'Oklawaha' sour orange and particularly ' Carrizo' citrange are suitable for 'Redblush' grapefruit in the arid Southwest. 'Savage' citrange, *hang' pummelo , `Cleopatra' mandarin , and `Swingle' were poor yielding rootstocks for 'Redblush ' grapefruit, and therefore undesirable for planting under the standard spacing of this experiment. 'Savage' and `Swingle' might be good choices at higher densities because they have yield efficiency, high maximum bearing potential and quality.


Tropical secondary forests are increasingly widespread, but their potential for conserving endemic birds remains unclear. Previous studies report different results; however all have been restricted to geographically discreet locations. This is important as different ecosystems are influenced by different external factors, possibly influencing conservation potential. Here we use consistent survey methods to examine how endemic bird richness varies between primary and secondary forest habitats in two widely separated tropical ecosystems, providing a more global context for evaluating the conservation value of secondary forests. Research was completed in Lambusango Forest Reserve (LFR) on Buton Island, Sulawesi, and Cusuco National Park (CNP), a Honduran cloud forest reserve. Bird communities in both forests were surveyed using 50 m radius point counts. Vulnerability assessments based on ecological theory on avifaunal assemblages were then conducted, which suggested endemics in LFR to be more susceptible to disturbance than those in CNP. Contrary to the results from our vulnerability assessments, endemics in CNP were less tolerant of moderate habitat modification than those in LFR. Richness of Mesoamerican endemics per study site declined significantly between core zone forest (6.34 ± 0.81) and more degraded forest in the boundary zone (3.86 ± 0.69). Richness of Wallacean endemics was similar in primary (4.89 ± 1.68) and disturbed secondary forest (4.52 ± 1.62). We recommend considering local and regional biogeographical and ecological factors when determining the conservation value of secondary forests, and suggest examples of potential importance, including differential community richness, influence of figs and human settlement patterns.


Ethernet is a core networking technology used by every high tech business. While the basic protocols have changed little, new options such as Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet have increased the complexity of the topic. Ethernet has been the flavor of choice for networking administrators since the early 1980s because of its ease of use and scalability. Written by one of the foremost experts on Ethernet standards and configuration, Charles E. Spurgeon, Ethernet: The Definitive Guide includes everything you need to know to set up and maintain an Ethernet network. Ethernet: The Definitive Guide teaches you everything you need to know about the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard and its protocols. The book is logically separated into five parts: Introduction to Ethernet provides a tour of basic Ethernet theory and operation, including a description of Ethernet frames, operation of the Media Access Control (MAC) protocol, full-duplex mode and auto-negotiation.Ethernet Media Systems is the heart of the book. This sectionof Ethernet: The Definitive Guide shows you how to build media-specific Ethernet networks, from a basic 10BASE-T Ethernet offering 10 Mbps over twisted-pair cables, to an advanced 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet, providing up to 1 Gbps of data transfer over fiber optic cables.Building Your Ethernet System teaches you how to build twisted-pair and fiber optic media segments, as well as how to build your Ethernet using repeaters and hubs.Performance and Troubleshooting is divided into two chapters. The first describes both the performance of a given Ethernet channel, as well as the performance of the entire network system. The second includes a tutorial on troubleshooting techniques and describes the kinds of problems network administrators are likely to encounter. The last part of the book includes a complete glossary of terms used throughout the book, a resource list, descriptions of thick and thin coax-based Ethernet systems, a guide to AUI equipment installation and configuration, and a listing of troubleshooting numbers. This book is the definitive guide for anyone wanting to build a scalable local area network (LAN) using Ethernet.


This paper is a preliminary report of a larger research project on the central places in Buganda. Its purpose is to appraise the functions and other characteristics of trading centres in Central Buganda as they existed during 1971/72. Central Buganda is here defined to include the districts of West and East Buganda as well as the counties of Singo and Busujju in Mubende district. The offshore islands and the Kampala urbanized area were excluded. Sixty-four trading centres with a size of more than 10 shops and containing more than 80% of all shops in the area were examined. Various elements of their urban structure were recorded and interviews conducted.


Metamaterials composed of metal-dielectric nanostructures are engineered to have an effective refractive index less than unity at optical wavelengths. The effect of total external reflection is demonstrated when light from vacuum is incident onto these materials at an angle exceeding the critical angle defined by Snell's law. Novel approaches are discussed to derive the effective index of refraction from the reflection and refraction properties of finite slabs. The effect of losses and dispersion are analyzed in the visible range of frequencies by consideration of the measured properties of silver. The differences among ultralow refractive-index metamaterials, photonic bandgap materials, and metals are discussed. Remarkably, a bandgap is not required to obtain total external reflection.


This thesis analyzes labor market issues in Indonesia. The first chapter analyzes the insurance role of self-employment during the Asian Financial Crisis. Difference in difference estimation is used to estimate the effect of having self-employed business before the crisis on household consumption and labor supply during the crisis. I find that households with self-employed business before the crisis could increase labor supply by a much lesser amount to maintain the same level of consumption compared with households without self-employed business before the crisis. The second chapter looks at the effect of women's work hours on their intra-household bargaining power. I utilize direct information on household decision-making from the Indonesian Family Life Survey to construct direct measures of women's intra-household bargaining power. I also use regional price increase during the Asian Financial Crisis as an instrumental variable that positively affects women's work hours but does not affect women's bargaining power directly. I find evidence for a positive relationship between women's work hours and their intra-household bargaining power. The third chapter compares the Indonesian Family Life Survey and the Indonesian Labor Force Survey and tries to reconcile the inconsistencies between the two surveys in employment measures. After documenting and testing potential causes of the inconsistencies, I find that the inconsistencies are by large not reconcilable. The design of questions on working status in the survey and the treatment of unpaid family work, however, does seem to be a factor causing inconsistencies between the two surveys.


This paper reviews discourse phenomena that occur frequently in task-oriented man-machine dialogs, reporting on an empirical study that demonstrates the necessity of handling ellipsis, anaphora, extragrammaticality, inter-sentential metalanguage, and other abbreviatory devices in order to achieve convivial user interaction. Invariably, users prefer to generate terse or fragmentary utterances instead of longer, more complete "standalone" expressions, even when given clear instructions to the contrary. The XCALIBUR expert system interface is designed to meet these needs, including generalized ellipsis resolution by means of a rule-based caseframe method superior to previous semantic grammar approaches.


Financial planning via deep reinforcement learning holds much promise. One implementation, AIPlanner, delivered near optimal financial results, but had a major shortcoming. It required training a separate neural network model for each financial scenario. This paper describes extending AIPlanner so that a small family of trained neural network models are capable of rapidly producing financial plans for a wide variety of financial scenarios. Additionally AIPlanner is extended to produce results over the lifecycle, both pre and post retirement, and for couples, as well as individuals. A reasonably realistic income tax model is incorporated. And finally, a more realistic stock model is used. Over the lifecycle, compared to the best discovered alternative strategy, reinforcement learning was found to effectively deliver 14% more retirement consumption.


Up until the global credit crisis in 2008, 'Financial Services' was the fastest growing sector of the Australian economy. This growth has had profound implications for individuals, corporations and government. Following extensive review in the last part of the twentieth century, Australia put in place an overarching system for regulating all financial services, replacing a system that was based on separate regulation of products in individual industries. Focusing on the implications of the new system for retail clients - 'financial citizens' - Financial Services Law and Compliance in Australia provides a comprehensive account of the regulatory structure and a detailed analysis of the legislative framework, including discussion of the new regulatory bodies, the new licensing requirements for those wishing to enter the financial services market and the new obligations for those marketing or offering financial services to the public. This is an essential resource for those working in, and advising on, financial services, for students of financial services law, and for anyone needing to understand this new regime in Australia.


This article introduces four metrics quantifying the adequacy of retirement savings taking into account all major sources of retirement income. The metrics are applied to a representative sample of the Australian population aged 40 and above. Employers in Australia currently make compulsory contributions of 9.25 percent of wages and salaries to tax-advantaged defined-contribution employee retirement savings accounts. Our analysis reveals that compulsory retirement savings, even when supplemented by the means-tested government pension and private wealth accumulation, are not in general sufficient to fund a comfortable lifestyle during retirement. We further find that omitting one or more 'pillars' of saving will significantly bias estimates of retirement savings adequacy. Our analysis also points to several shortcomings of the widely-used income replacement ratio as an indicator of savings adequacy.


The aspects of population structure refer to the individually carried traits or attributes of a population group, and include such ascribed and non ascribed characteristics as age, sex, marital status, literacy and education, economic activities and related phenomena which are thought to be the principal associates of geodemographic conditions and socio-economic levels of a country. These observations are applied in this study of population of East Pakistan, The study attempts by means of a detailed and exclusive analysis of the available materials to evaluate and elaborate past and present patterns in the different ascribed and non-ascribed characteristics of the population and their growth in socio-economic, cultural and regional contexts, and in quantitative terms. For regional studies, the 17 rural districts and 37 selected urban centres have been taken into consideration in relation to different aspects of population structure. Further, the aspects of population structure are studied individually and regionalized quantitatively by using a multivariate technique, known as Factor Analysis, which incorporates geodemographic and socio-economic variables for the respective residential areas. The results of the quantification present some of the most significant spatial characteristics in this agrarian society with very high density, ethno-cultural and linguistic homogeneity, low urbanization, high and stable fertility, and unbalanced and un-favourable age-sex structures, which have far reaching geodemographic implications in the country. On the other hand, as indicated in the text, the patterns of the population characteristics are closely associated with the framework on which rests the institutional structure of the whole society, and the attitude and outlook of the people who live within it. Many elements of population composition are themselves functions of the form and the mode of operation of existing institutions, i.e. value systems, traditions and norms. The residential variations in this connection only reflect the mode of their institutional differentials. The uniformity in the aspects of population structure within a particular residential or regional unit signifies the institutional exclusiveness or distinctiveness within it, the intra-residential and spatial differences imply the degree of dynamism or change in this exclusiveness - which is more apparent in the urban centres than in the densely populated rural areas. The overall low variability in most elements of population structure, in turn, reflects the slow socio-economic change, and the traditionalism in the geodemographic set-up of East Bengal, Given no significant institutional and attitudinal changes any radical and favorable transformation in the patterns of population structure in the province seems to be rather remote. These aspects of East Pakistan's population are of particular importance in relation to her geodemographic development and planning strategy in relation to the overall socio-economic development of the country.


Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by aberrations in the genome. While several disease-causing variants have been identified, a major part of heritability remains unexplained. ALS is believed to have a complex genetic basis where nonadditive combinations of variants constitute disease, which cannot be picked up using the linear models employed in classical genotype-phenotype association studies. Deep learning on the other hand is highly promising for identifying such complex relations. We therefore developed a deep-learning based approach for the classification of ALS patients versus healthy individuals from the Dutch cohort of the ProjectMinE dataset. Based on recent insight that regulatory regions on the genome play a major role in ALS, we employ a two-step approach: first promoter regions that are likely associated to ALS are identified, and second individuals are classified based on their genotype in the selected genomic regions. Both steps employ a deep convolutional neural network. The network architecture accounts for the structure of genome data by applying convolution only to parts of the data where this makes sense from a genomics perspective. Our approach identifies potential ALS-associated genetic variants, and generally outperforms other classification methods. Test results support the hypothesis that ALS is caused by non-additive combinations of variants. Our method can be applied to large-scale whole genome data. We consider this a first step towards genotype-phenotype association with deep learning that is tailored to genomics and can deal with genome-sized data.


by Blanca I. Andı́a There are numerous methods for implementing tomographic image reconstruction. Commercially, the technique which is most commonly used is filtered backprojection (FBP), due to its simplicity in computation. However, this technique is not the most appropriate in cases where the data set is incomplete or the signal-to-noise ratio is low. Therefore, methods based on statistics have been introduced, such as maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation. These methods rely on modeling the process of projection data generation and modeling of the image a priori. Since the reconstruction problem posed in this manner usually reduces to an optimization problem, a variety of iterative numerical methods for solving this problem has been explored. This dissertation will explore techniques for tomographic image reconstruction that use non-standard two-dimensional filtering of the sinogram prior to conventional backprojection. These techniques take advantage of features of both the conventional and statistical methods. In the first of our techniques, we will develop optimal nonstationary linear sinogram filters based on sinogram statistics. The advantages of this method are the exploitation of correlation information among the projections of the sinogram data for the filter design, while maintaining a low computational cost for the reconstruction, comparable to that of FBP. This document also introduces a second technique named nonlinear backprojection (NBP), which attempts to directly model the pseudo-optimal reconstrucBlanca I. Andı́a tion operator through off-line training. This allows a more general, less explicit modeling of the data than the traditional statistical methods. The reconstruction of the image is non-iterative, reducing the cost of the method but achieving quality comparable to that of other statistical methods. Results with both methods introduced in this dissertation refute the commonly held belief that sinogram filtering should be one-dimensional along the radial variable.


Biological control of plant pathogens utilises one micro-organism to eliminate or reduce the disease caused by another. Inundative biological control utilises naturally-occurring microbial antagonists (biological control agents) that are isolated and reapplied in large numbers to suppress disease. This strategy has been studied for over 40 years and a number of commercial products for fruit rot control have been developed. Recent advances in techniques for monitoring microbial population dynamics, such as denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), microarrays, fl uorescent in situ hybridisation (FISH) and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), have made it easier to study an alternative strategy, restorative biological control. This aims to stimulate resident populations of biological control agents (BCAs) using benign interventions that do not harm microorganisms. The use of these techniques is reviewed, and their advantages and disadvantages are compared. The relevance of these techniques to the development of restorative biological control and future research to lead to improved disease management of fruit rots are discussed.


The aims of our present work were to assess whether treatment with either ischemic preconditioning (IPC) or 17β-estradiol or both combined produce proarrhythmic or antiarrhythmic effects, and whether opening of the sarcolemmal or mitochondrial KATP channels is relatable to this effect; to assess biochemically the effects of IPC and/or 17β-estradiol on oxidant stress and antioxidant defenses in the myocardium; to examine the effects of nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor, Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) pretreatment in rabbits treated with either IPC or 17β-estradiol (because 17β-estradiol evoked NO release has been implicated in KATP activation and IPC); and examine the effects of ischemic preconditioning and 17β-estradiol on myocardial energy metabolism during ischemia and reperfusion in a well-standardized model of reperfusion arrhythmias in anesthetized adult male New Zealand White rabbits (n = 124) subjected to 30 minutes occlusion of the left coronary artery followed by 120 minutes of reperfusion. Pretreatment with either 17β-estradiol (10 μg/kg, i.v.) or one cycle of ischemic preconditioning prior to the period of coronary occlusion offers significant infarct size reduction (18.6 ± 2.2% and 19.4 ± 1.9%, respectively versus 40.1 ± 3.9% in saline control and 39.2 ± 3.2% in vehicle control groups; P < 0.01) and antiarrhythmic effects. Both 17β-estradiol and ischemic preconditioning treatment significantly attenuated the incidence of life-threatening arrhythmias like sustained VT (13% and 13%, respectively versus 100% in saline control and 100% in vehicle control groups; P < 0.001) and other arrhythmias (25% and 25%, respectively versus 100% in saline control and 100% in vehicle control groups; P < 0.001), and were quite effective in increasing the number of animals that survived without developing any arrhythmia during ischemia and reperfusion. 5-hydroxydecanoate(5-HD; 5 mg/kg, i.v.) alone offered no cardioprotective and antiarrhythmic activities. Pretreatment with 5-HD but not HMR 1883 (3 mg/kg, i.v.) abolished the beneficial effects of 17β-estradiol and ischemia preconditioning on reperfusion-induced arrhythmias and cardioprotection suggesting that such effects have been achieved via the selective activation of cardiomyocyte mitochondrial KATP channels rather than sarcolemmal KATP channels. The reduced reperfusion arrhythmic incidence and durations induced by estrogen was not significantly altered by ICI 182 720 (2.5 mg/kg, i.v.). The lack of effect of ICI 182 720 on antiarrhythmic and infarct-limiting effects of 17β-estradiol and ischemic preconditioning suggest that these favorable effects are rapid, direct, and non-genomic effects. This study demonstrates similarities between 17β-estradiol and ischemic preconditioning of the rabbit myocardium in terms of cardioprotection, antiarrhythmic, and metabolic activities. Ischemic preconditioning and 17β-estradiol appear to share a final common effector; the mitochondrial KATP channel.


Modern thermal imaging lenses for uncooled detectors are high aperture systems. Very often, their aperture based fnumber is faster than 1.2. The impact of this on the depth of field is dramatic, especially for narrow field lenses. The users would like to know how the image quality changes with and without refocusing for objects at different distances from the camera core. The Depth of Field approach presented here is based on the lens specific Through Focus MTF. It will be averaged for the detector area. The lens specific Through Focus MTF will be determined at the detector Nyquist frequency, which is defined by the pixel pitch. In this way, the specific lens and the specific FPA-geometry (pixel pitch, detector area) are considered. The condition, that the Through Focus MTF at full Nyquist must be higher than 0.25, defines a certain symmetrical depth of focus. This criterion provides a good discrimination for reasonable lens/detector combinations. The examples chosen reflect the actual development of uncooled camera cores. The symmetrical depth of focus is transferred to object space using paraxial relations. This defines a typical depth of field diagram containing three functions: Hyperfocal distance, nearest and furthest distance versus sharp distance (best focus). Pictures taken with an IR Camera illustrate the effect in the depth of field and its dependence on focal length. These pictures confirm the methodology. A separate problem is the acceptable drop of resolution in combination with a specific camera core and specific object scenes. We propose to evaluate the MTF-graph at half Nyquist frequency. This quantifies the resolution loss without refocus in accordance with the IR-picture degradation at the limits of the Depth of Field. The approach is applied to different commercially available lenses. Pictures illustrate the Depth of Field for different pixel pitches and pixel counts.


Because sunlight is diffuse and intermittent, substantial use of solar energy to meet humanity's needs will probably require energy storage in dense, transportable media via chemical bonds. Practical, cost effective technologies for conversion of sunlight directly into useful fuels do not currently exist, and will require new basic science. Photosynthesis provides a blueprint for solar energy storage in fuels. Indeed, all of the fossil-fuel-based energy consumed today derives from sunlight harvested by photosynthetic organisms. Artificial photosynthesis research applies the fundamental scientific principles of the natural process to the design of solar energy conversion systems. These constructs use different materials, and researchers tune them to produce energy efficiently and in forms useful to humans. Fuel production via natural or artificial photosynthesis requires three main components. First, antenna/reaction center complexes absorb sunlight and convert the excitation energy to electrochemical energy (redox equivalents). Then, a water oxidation complex uses this redox potential to catalyze conversion of water to hydrogen ions, electrons stored as reducing equivalents, and oxygen. A second catalytic system uses the reducing equivalents to make fuels such as carbohydrates, lipids, or hydrogen gas. In this Account, we review a few general approaches to artificial photosynthetic fuel production that may be useful for eventually overcoming the energy problem. A variety of research groups have prepared artificial reaction center molecules. These systems contain a chromophore, such as a porphyrin, covalently linked to one or more electron acceptors, such as fullerenes or quinones, and secondary electron donors. Following the excitation of the chromophore, photoinduced electron transfer generates a primary charge-separated state. Electron transfer chains spatially separate the redox equivalents and reduce electronic coupling, slowing recombination of the charge-separated state to the point that catalysts can use the stored energy for fuel production. Antenna systems, employing a variety of chromophores that absorb light throughout the visible spectrum, have been coupled to artificial reaction centers and have incorporated control and photoprotective processes borrowed from photosynthesis. Thus far, researchers have not discovered practical solar-driven catalysts for water oxidation and fuel production that are robust and use earth-abundant elements, but they have developed artificial systems that use sunlight to produce fuel in the laboratory. For example, artificial reaction centers, where electrons are injected from a dye molecule into the conduction band of nanoparticulate titanium dioxide on a transparent electrode, coupled to catalysts, such as platinum or hydrogenase enzymes, can produce hydrogen gas. Oxidizing equivalents from such reaction centers can be coupled to iridium oxide nanoparticles, which can oxidize water. This system uses sunlight to split water to oxygen and hydrogen fuel, but efficiencies are low and an external electrical potential is required. Although attempts at artificial photosynthesis fall short of the efficiencies necessary for practical application, they illustrate that solar fuel production inspired by natural photosynthesis is achievable in the laboratory. More research will be needed to identify the most promising artificial photosynthetic systems and realize their potential.


Different forms of spatial knowledge (expert, tacit, sector and community knowledge) are a strategic resource in urban development. Research methods concerning participatory data collection and analysis that elicit and integrate the various forms of knowledge or co-produce knowledge through collaboration between scholars and practitioners have the potential to inform local action and public policy. Recent developments in the (geo)information technology and data collection tools have extended the opportunities for spatial knowledge production, use and exchange. Such technical advances have the potential to both enhance wider access and understanding as well as to result in more exclusive processes. Although such tools have generally been the preserve of professionals there are increasing examples which suggest they might offer some inclusionary benefits like the case of the collaborative Map Kibera project (http://www.mapkiberaproject.org/) in which a digital geo-referenced database of physical and socio-demographic database of an informal settlement is created and shared, or the provision of and access to user-generated data on Google Earth and Google Maps. While technology opens up new avenues for knowledge management, data reliability and the type of knowledge transmitted will become a pressing issue due to the open access to internet platforms and lack of control concerning user-generated information and reference data. We start the paper with a theoretical discussion on knowledge management models, followed by a review of available tools for the production, use and exchange of various forms of knowledge. Building on the review and examples of our own work in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we highlight key challenges, added value and its limitations in urban development. We argue that although much progress has happened, development of technology and new tools alone is not able to fully address key issues regarding greater accountability, empowerment, production, control and use of information. These developments may also foster social exclusion, which could hinder greater benefits of participatory spatial knowledge management in the context of urban sustainability.


Skp1‐Cdc53/Cul1‐F‐box (SCF) complexes constitute a class of E3 ubiquitin ligases. Recently, a multiprotein complex containing pVHL, elongin C and Cul2 (VEC) was shown to structurally and functionally resemble SCF complexes. Cdc53 and the Cullins can become covalently linked to the ubiquitin‐like molecule Rub1/NEDD8. Inhibition of neddylation inhibits SCF function in vitro and in yeast and plants. Here we show that ongoing neddylation is likewise required for VEC function in vitro and for the degradation of SCF and VEC targets in mammalian cells. Thus, neddylation regulates the activity of two specific subclasses of mammalian ubiquitin ligases.


In this article, we implemented a regression model and conducted experiments for predicting disease activity using data from 1929 rheumatoid arthritis patients to assist in the selection of biologics for rheumatoid arthritis. On modelling, the missing variables in the data were completed by three different methods, mean value, self-organizing map and random value. Experimental results showed that the prediction error of the regression model was large regardless of the missing completion method, making it difficult to predict the prognosis of rheumatoid arthritis patients.


The paper aims to make a contribution to semiotic research on the future by bringing together various approaches that deal with the relationship humans have with the future. More specifically, the paper concentrates on anticipation viewed as an activity that is based on modelling the (un)desired future as suggested by Nikolai Bernstein. The model-based approach to anticipation allows drawing connections between the psychophysiological and semiotically mediated forms of anticipation on the one hand, and between individual and collective forms of anticipation on the other hand. With these aims in mind, the paper offers a sketch of a semiotic approach to the future that is based on the framework of semiotic modelling systems, i.e. views the future in terms of models of it and the semiotic resources and processes involved in the model-building. As the semiotically mediated models of the future circulating in a culture can become collectively shared means of cognizing and anticipating some futures, it is possible to talk about a collective anticipation, analogous to Juri Lotman's cultural semiotic notion of collective memory. Accordingly, premediation, a future-oriented media practice outlined by Richard Grusin, is viewed as an example of collective anticipation. In addition to tracing the mechanisms of anticipation from its individual organismic to semiotically mediated collective forms, the paper foregrounds also the two fundamental problems that run across the diverse theoretical perspectives brought together within the approach: the individual and collective agency in futuremaking and the affective dimension of anticipation.


Electrokinetic based micro- and nanofluidic technologies provide revolutionary opportunities to separate, identify and analyze biomolecular species. Key to fully harnessing the power of such systems is the development of a robust method for integrated electrodes as well as a thorough understanding of the influence of the electrokinetic surface properties with and without different surface modifications. In this work, we demonstrate a surface micromachined fabrication approach for integrated addressable metal electrodes within centimeter-long nanofluidic channels using a low-temperature, xenon diflouride dry-release method for novel biosensing applications, as well as recent results from a joint theoretical and experimental study of electrokinetic surface properties in nano- and microfluidic channels fabricated with fused silica. The main contribution of this fabrication process involves the addition of addressable electrodes to a novel dry-release channel fabrication method, produced at <300°C, to be used in nanofluidic electronic sensing of biomolecules. Finally, we also show a novel method with which to coat our channels with silane based chemistries. Certain modifications are observed to show improved resistance to non-specific adhesion of both small molecules and proteins, indicating their further use as compatible surfaces in micro- and nanofluidic applications.


Estrogen causes nitric oxide (NO)-dependent vasodilation due to estrogen receptor (ER) &agr;-mediated, nongenomic activation of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS). The subcellular site of interaction between ER&agr; and eNOS was determined in studies of isolated endothelial cell plasma membranes. Estradiol (E2, 10–8 mol/L) caused an increase in eNOS activity in plasma membranes in the absence of added calcium, calmodulin, or eNOS cofactors, which was blocked by ICI 182,780 and ER&agr; antibody. Immunoidentification studies detected the same 67-kDa protein in endothelial cell nucleus, cytosol, and plasma membrane. Plasma membranes from COS-7 cells expressing eNOS and ER&agr; displayed ER-mediated eNOS stimulation, whereas membranes from cells expressing eNOS alone or ER&agr; plus a myristoylation-deficient mutant eNOS were insensitive. Fractionation of endothelial cell plasma membranes revealed ER&agr; protein in caveolae, and E2 caused stimulation of eNOS in isolated caveolae that was ER-dependent; noncaveolae membranes were insensitive. Acetylcholine and bradykinin also activated eNOS in isolated caveolae. Furthermore, the effect of E2 on eNOS in caveolae was prevented by calcium chelation. Thus, a subpopulation of ER&agr; is localized to endothelial cell caveolae where they are coupled to eNOS in a functional signaling module that may regulate the local calcium environment. The full text of this article is available at http://www.circresaha.org.


Since the launch in 2002 of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, several estimates of the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) have been produced. To obtain ice mass changes, the GRACE data need to be corrected for the effect of deformation changes of the Earth's crust. Recently, a new method has been proposed where ice mass changes and bedrock changes are simultaneously solved. Results show bedrock subsidence over almost the entirety of Greenland in combination with ice mass loss which is only half of the currently standing estimates. This subsidence can be an elastic response, but it may however also be a delayed response to past changes. In this study we test whether these subsidence patterns are consistent with ice dynamical modeling results. We use a 3-D ice sheet–bedrock model with a surface mass balance forcing based on a mass balance gradient approach to study the pattern and magnitude of bedrock changes in Greenland. Different mass balance forcings are used. Simulations since the Last Glacial Maximum yield a bedrock delay with respect to the mass balance forcing of nearly 3000 yr and an average uplift at present of 0.3 mm yr −1 . The spatial pattern of bedrock changes shows a small central subsidence as well as more intense uplift in the south. These results are not compatible with the gravity based reconstructions showing a subsidence with a maximum in central Greenland, thereby questioning whether the claim of halving of the ice mass change is justified.


Improvements to transportation networks, especially those in growing areas, tend to have impacts on local land markets. In principle, an improvement to a link in the network will confer economic benefits to adjacent and nearby properties by increasing the utility that the network provides. Traditional methods of economic analysis for highway improvement projects have focused primarily on user benefits and sought to quantify them through the estimation of reductions in travel delay or user cost. However, urban economic theory suggests that many of these benefits are capitalized into local property values, yielding a localized spillover effect. Accordingly, it should be possible to develop rough estimates of the value of the benefits from a highway project by estimating the response of local land markets to the improvement. This report explores the nature and magnitude of benefits accruing to nearby properties that arise from major highway construction or reconstruction projects, more precisely those that add capacity to an existing highway. Highway projects in three Minnesota counties (Hennepin, Jackson, and Olmsted) form the basis for this analysis.


Thirty-two patients with primary lung cancer receiving combination chemotherapy including cisplatin at a dosage of 80-120 mg/m2 were entered into an antiemetic randomized crossover trial. Patients received metoclopramide (2 mg/kg i.v. every 2 h X 5), droperidol (0.5 mg/kg i.v.) and dexamethasone (30 mg i.v.) on day 1, and metoclopramide (1mg/kg i.v. every 8 h X 3) (Regimen A) or metoclopramide and droperidol (2.5 mg i.v. every 8 h X 3) (Regimen B) on days 2 to 5. No vomiting occurred within the first 24 hours after cisplatin administration in 75% of patients. Regimen B was found to be more effective than regimen A with respect to the mean duration of vomiting (p less than 0.1), the mean duration of nausea (p less than 0.05), the mean duration of anorexia (p less than 0.05), and the mean score of the patients' opinions (p less than 0.1). When the patients were asked for their opinion of the two regimens, 39% preferred regimen B (p less than 0.05). There were no major side effects with either regimen.


The potential of radioactive disequilibria as tracers and chronometers of weathering processes has been recognised since the 1960's (e.g., Rosholt et al. 1966; Hansen and Stout 1968). This interest results from the dual property of the nuclides of the U and Th radioactive series (1) to be fractionated during water-rock interactions and (2) to have radioactive periods of the same order of magnitude as the time constants of many weathering processes and chemical transfers to ground and river waters. Therefore, the study of radioactive disequilibria in surface environments should help to bring information about the nature, the intensity but also the time-scale of the water-rock interactions produced during weathering and related chemical transfers. These different properties have justified many of the studies on U-Th series in weathering profiles and river waters.

Rosholt (1982), Scott (1982) and Osmond and Ivanovich (1992) gave a synthesis of the studies of U-series in weathering and surface hydrology up to the 1980's and the 1990's respectively. Here, we present the main directions taken in these domains over the last decade. They were partly stimulated by the analytical developments made in the measurement of the medium half-life nuclides of 238U series (i.e., 234U-230Th-226Ra) in the mid-1980's, namely, the use of thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (TIMS) (e.g., Chen et al. 1986; Edwards et al. 1987; Cohen et al. 1991; Chabaux 1993;Chabaux et al. 1994) and more recently the use of MC ICP-MS (Turner et al. 2001; Robinson et al. 2002) for U and Th isotope analysis. Details of these developments are given in this volume (Goldstein and Stirling 2003). Compared to the radioactive counting methods previously used, the new techniques permit (1) a reduction by one order of magnitude or more of the size of the sample required for …


ABSTRACT Turbidite sequences within confined basins constitute important hydrocarbon reservoirs world-wide and, for this reason, the discrimination of sedimentary sub-environments based on an objective statistical method is of interest for pure and applied science. We investigated the potential use of the Hurst test as a statistical tool to discriminate sub-environments within geologically complex turbiditic units that fill a confined basin with well-exposed facies transitions and onlaps, at the scale of several stacked reservoirs (Cengio and Bric la Croce–Castelnuovo Turbidite Systems in the Tertiary Piedmont Basin, Oligocene, northern Italy). In vertical stratigraphic sections, the Hurst test determines the degree of clustering of low and high values of sedimentological variables, such as bed thickness, grain size and sand/mud ratio, which are dependent on sub-environments of deposition. We applied the Hurst test to depocentral and marginal sub-areas across the basin (parallel and perpendicular to the main palaeocurrent direction), documenting a different clustering of thick and thin beds, and of high and low values of the sand/mud ratio, in the depocentre–distal sector with respect to the onlap areas. A new field (onlap sub-environment) could thus be added to the classification diagram of turbidite settings based on the Hurst index. The Hurst phenomenon (clustering of high and low values of the selected variables) was also able to distinguish between proximal and distal (depocentral) lobe settings, and to recognize the fingerprint of the different depositional lobes (fully confined aggrading, prograding, backstepping). The map of turbidite sub-environments obtained by interpolation of the Hurst index is quite comparable to the field-observed facies map, providing impressive robust validation of the Hurst statistics. This method seems to represent a very promising predictive tool for subsurface studies of turbiditic oil fields based on core and log analyses.


BACKGROUND
Constipation is extremely common in childhood and may lead to overflow soiling/encopresis. Standard treatment of the more severe case is to empty the bowels of impacted faeces by the use of oral or rectal laxatives and then maintain regular bowel movements by the continuation of osmotic and stimulant laxatives.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of the review was to determine the effect of stimulant laxative treatment in children with chronic constipation who may also suffer from soiling / encopresis.

SEARCH STRATEGY
The Cochrane database of randomised controlled trials was searched. Additional citations were sought by hand searching of paediatric journals and from contact with known professionals in the field.

SELECTION CRITERIA
All identified randomised controlled trials (RCTs) which compare the administering of stimulant laxatives to children with either placebo or alternative treatment.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
No trials were found that met the selection criteria.

MAIN RESULTS
No trials were found that adequately met the selection criteria.

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
The need exists to establish a secure footing for treatment decisions and adequately sized trials are required to provide comparative data on commonly used drugs.


BACKGROUNDS/AIMS
This study explores the potential of chronic treatment with the Foresaid X receptor (FXR) agonist obeticholic acid (OCA), which inhibits oxidative stress-related pathogenesis, in ascitic cirrhotic rats with hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) developed 6 weeks after bile duct ligation (BDL).

METHODS
Systemic, splanchnic, and renal hemodynamics and pathogenic cascades were measured in ascitic BDL and sham rats receiving 2-weeks of either vehicle or OCA treatments (sham-OCA and BDL-OCA groups), and NRK-52E cells, rat kidney tubular epithelial cells.

RESULTS
Chronic OCA treatment significantly normalized portal hypertension, glomerular filtration rate, urine output, renal blood flow; decreased ascites, renal vascular resistance, serum creatinine; and the release of renal tubular damage markers, including urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (uNGAL) and kidney injury moleculae-1 (uKim-1) in BDL-OCA rats. In the BDL group, inhibition of the renal oxidative stress (8-iso-PGF2a)-activated cyclooxygenase-thromboxane A2 [COX-TXA2] pathway, apoptosis, and tubular injury accompanied by a decrease in hyper-responsiveness to the vasoconstrictor 8-iso-PGF2a in perfused kidneys. In vitro experiments revealed that 8-iso-PGF2a induced oxidative stress, release of reactive oxygen species, and cell apoptosis, which were reversed by concomitant incubation with the FXR agonist.

CONCLUSIONS
Through the inhibition of renal 8-iso-PGF2a production and the downregulation of the COX-TXA2 pathway, our study suggests that chronic OCA treatment can ameliorate the HRS in ascitic cirrhotic rats. Thus, OCA is an agent with anti-oxidative stress, anti-vasoconstrictive, anti-apoptotic properties which benefit ascitic, cirrhotic rats with systemic, hepatic, and renal abnormalities.


Recently, widely broadened supercontinuum (SC) has been generated using ultrashort pulse and highly nonlinear fibers. However, inherent noise and fine structures have been the problem for the application of SC. We demonstrate wideband, low-noise, highly coherent, and ultraflat SC generation using soliton pulse and normal dispersion highly nonlinear fibers. Characteristics of generated SC are experimentally evaluated, and they are compared with those of the conventional SC. Octave spanning high-quality SC is also generated using high-power soliton pulse.


Giving shareholders more managerial power over corporate affairs — the goal of many recent corporate reform proposals — comes with costs that commentators have failed to recognize. In general, the more involved shareholders are in a firm's managerial decisions, the more difficult it is for directors to be held accountable for the outcome of those decisions. This can weaken directors' ex ante incentives to act in the interests of shareholders. This Article argues that this phenomenon may undermine the ambitions of the recent high-profile corporate reform requiring each public company to hold periodic, nonbinding shareholder votes on its executive compensation.Supporters of the reform, known as "say on pay," predict that corporate directors will be fearful of shareholder "no" votes because they will attract embarrassing attention to directors and the firm. In other words, shareholder voting will amplify the "outrage constraint" — the threat of shame or embarrassment in the media that, according to the influential managerial power model of executive compensation, limits directors' ability to award pay packages that are too big and not sensitive enough to performance. To avoid the amplified outrage associated with a "no" vote, directors will be compelled to modify executive pay in ways amenable to shareholders.Shareholder voting on executive compensation, however, could hurt shareholders in ways supporters of the reform have overlooked. Once shareholders have approved a firm's compensation arrangements, directors will no longer bear complete responsibility for them. If any negative attention — any outrage — is directed at the firm's pay practices in the future, directors can escape a portion of the blame that otherwise would have been theirs alone. This diffusion of responsibility willpartially insulate directors' reputations from future outrage, and because directors will no longer bear all of the future costs of taking risks in the CEO's favor, they may end up taking more of those risks.By clouding the functioning of the outrage constraint, shareholder approval thus may liberate directors at some firms to offer executive pay packages that are larger and more insensitive to performance than if the board were acting alone. In view of this effect, giving shareholders a say on executive pay may injure as many firms as it helps. To eliminate this overbreadth problem, this Article proposes amending the legislation to allow firms to opt-out of the say on pay regime by shareholder vote. This preserves the benefits of say on pay for those firms where shareholders wish to retain it and allows other firms to exit the regime at little cost.


One of the most important challenges that face medicinal chemists today is the design of new drugs with improved properties and diminished side-effects for treating human disease such as AIDS and others. Medicinal chemists began the process by taking a lead structure and then finding analogs exhibiting the preferred biological activities. Next, they used their experience and chemical insight to eventually choose a nominee analog for further development. This process is difficult, expensive and took a long time. The conventional methods of drug discovery are now being supplemented by shortest approaches made possible by the accepting of the molecular processes involved in the original disease. In this view, the preliminary point in drug design is the molecular target which is receptor or enzyme in the body as an option of the existence of known lead structure.


Abstract Contamination of pathogen bacteries at the fresh fish may occur during the post harvesting to the consuming period, and endanger human health. One of simple and safe way to protect secureness of fresh fish food is the use of Caulerpa lentillifera to push down pathogen bacteries activity. The aims of this research to investigate lability of sea grape (Caulerpa lentillifera) against the activity of pathogen bacteries Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae and Salmonella sp., in fresh fish, during storage phase, at ambient and ice temperatures. Method used in this research is experimental laboratories method, that is, 10%, 20% and 30% blended sea grapes applied on fresh fishes, Selar crumenopthalmus during storage of 1, 2 and 3 days at ambient and ice temperatures. All the applied of blended of Caulerpa lentillifera, shows the ability to obstruct the activity of bactery group coliform and Escherichia coli on fresh fish Selar crumenopthalmus up to 2x 24 hours, at ambient temperature, and 3x24 hours at ice temperature. During storage period, the occurance and grows of Salmonella sp. and Vibrio cholerae bacteries is undetected. Fresh sea grapes concentration of 10% is sufficient to be applied on fresh fish to obstruct the activity of pathogen bacteries Escherichia coli during storage time of 2 x 24 hours at room temperature, and 3 x 24 hours at ice temperature, and to block the occurance of Vibrio cholerae and Salmonella sp. during storage period.


Overview: The ABCD has published 34 guidelines in two Special Issues of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery (JFMS): the first in July 2009 (Volume 11, Issue 7, pages 527–620) and the second in July 2013 (Volume 15, Issue 7, pages 528–652). The present article contains updates and new information on 18 of these (17 disease guidelines and one special article 'Prevention of infectious diseases in cat shelters'). For detailed information, readers are referred to the guidelines published in the above-mentioned JFMS Special Issues.


ABSTRACT Neoliberal education reformers advance a set of strategies intended to improve public education by incorporating market-based approaches. To facilitate the adoption of these often unpopular ideas, neoliberal reformers advocate for governance mechanisms that make it more challenging for communities to control their public schools. The prevalence of such undemocratic governance mechanisms has grown over the last decade, undercutting communities' efforts to organize in opposition to the neoliberal education agenda. However, these governance mechanisms do not necessarily shut down the organizing. We examine what facilitates sustained community resistance to neoliberal reform in the presence of undemocratic governance mechanisms and find that access to social and economic capital and timely access to information via an engaged press are present in the existing accounts of such resistance. We explore this emerging hypothesis via in-depth comparative case studies of Newark and Camden, New Jersey. Our analysis of these 2 cities provides additional evidence for the hypothesis that access to social and economic capital and to information makes sustained resistance possible. We also identify a third variable, extreme political control as manifested through political machines, that intersects with the other variables to limit the sustainability of resistance movements in the presence of undemocratic governance mechanisms.


Cross-linguistic research has shown that languages vary greatly in the way they encode spatial reference. However, it has also shown that patterns can be identified in this variety of linguistic encodings. This dissertation focuses on the key components of spatial language in Baure, a critically endangered Arawakan language spoken in the Bolivian Amazonia. Firstly, it offers a detailed description of the linguistic means that are used for spatial reference, focusing in particular on locative noun phrases, predicates used for expressing location and motion, and spatial orientation by means of nominal and adverbial demonstratives. Secondly, the research uncovers the major patterns in the underlying semantics of spatial language in Baure, by studying its use in context. This systematic spatial knowledge is necessary for the correct interpretation of any spatial language. The thesis thus intends to offer the reader a comprehensive overview of the form, function, and semantics of Baure spatial language.


INTRODUCTION
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common among patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Untreated OSA exacerbates the cognitive and functional deficits. Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) has recently been shown to have beneficial effects on cognition in AD. Little attention has focused on the long-term benefits of CPAP in these patients.

METHODS
This was an exploratory study of sustained CPAP use (mean use = 13.3 months, SD = 5.2) among a subset of participants from an initial 6-week randomized clinical trial (RCT) of CPAP in patients with mild to moderate AD. Follow-up included 5 patients who continued CPAP (CPAP+) after completion of the RCT and 5 patients who discontinued CPAP (CPAP-), matched by time of completion of the initial study. A neuropsychological test battery and sleep/mood questionnaires were administered and effect sizes were calculated.

RESULTS
Even with a small sample size, sustained CPAP use resulted in moderate-to-large effect sizes. Compared to the CPAP- group, the CPAP+ group showed less cognitive decline with sustained CPAP use, stabilization of depressive symptoms and daytime somnolence, and significant improvement in subjective sleep quality. Caregivers of the CPAP+ group also reported that their own sleep was better when compared to the final RCT visit and that their patients psychopathological behavior was improved.

CONCLUSION
The results of this preliminary study raise the possibility that sustained, long-term CPAP treatment for patients with AD and OSA may result in lasting improvements in sleep and mood as well as a slowing of cognitive deterioration. Prospective randomized controlled research trials evaluating these hypotheses are needed.


Abstract The European Union's response to the current and persistent – if not wicked – refugee crisis has exposed a new legitimacy challenge. Characterised by interstate bickering and undignified competition for the most draconian measures, the crisis brings to the fore many inherent tensions of the EU which cannot be easily reconciled. The crisis has revealed the many shortcomings of EU governance. Deficits of leadership and solidarity and the rise of xenophobic politics across many member states exploit growing populism with pronounced effect. This multi-dimensional problem, so resistant to a distinct solution, underscores the EU's instability in a number of ways: its foundational values have lost resonance; its institutional inadequacies have become more apparent; its leadership and agenda-setting power have been noticeably weakened. Ultimately, the EU is no longer perceived as a problem-solver, a fact that inherently tests the legitimacy of a system that was created to solve problems.


The objective of the present study was to determine the location of the cholinergic neurons activated in the spinal cord of decerebrate cats during fictive locomotion. Locomotion was induced by stimulation of the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR). After bouts of locomotion during a 7-9 h period, the animals were perfused and the L(3)-S(1) spinal cord segments removed. Cats in the control group were subjected to the same surgical procedures but no locomotor task. The tissues were sectioned and then stained by immunohistochemical methods for detection of the c-fos protein and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) enzyme. The resultant c-fos labeling in the lumbar spinal cord was similar to that induced by fictive locomotion in the cat. ChAT-positive cells also clearly exhibited fictive locomotion induced c-fos labeling. Double labeling with c-fos and ChAT was observed in cells within ventral lamina VII, VIII, and possibly IX. Most of them were concentrated in the medial portion of lamina VII close to lamina X, similar in location to the partition and central canal cells found by Barber and collaborators. The number of ChAT and c-fos-labeled neurons was increased following fictive locomotion and was greatest in the intermediate gray, compared with dorsal and ventral regions. The results are consistent with the suggestion that cholinergic interneurons in the lumbar spinal cord are involved in the production of fictive locomotion. Cells in the regions positive for double-labeled cells were targeted for electrophysiological study during locomotion, intracellular filling, and subsequent processing for ChAT immunohistochemistry. Three cells identified in this way were vigorously active during locomotion in phase with ipsilateral extension, and they projected to the contralateral side of the spinal cord. Thus a new population of spinal cord cells can be defined: cholinergic partition cells with commissural projections that are active during the extension phase of locomotion.


BACKGROUND
Dementia is a clinical syndrome with a number of different causes which is characterised by deterioration in cognitive functions. Research is pursuing a variety of promising findings for the treatment of dementia. Pharmacological interventions are available but have limited ability to treat many of the syndrome's features. Little research has been directed towards non-pharmacological treatments. In this review the evidence for music therapy as a treatment is examined.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the effects of music therapy in the treatment of behavioural, social, cognitive and emotional problems of older people with dementia.

SEARCH STRATEGY
The Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group (CDCIG) Specialised Register was searched on 30 June 2003 using the term "music*". This Register contains records from all major health care databases and many ongoing trial databases and is updated regularly. The principal reviewer conducted additional searches to retrieve randomised controlled trials (RCTs) concerning the effect of music therapy on older people with dementia.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials that reported clinically relevant outcomes associated with music therapy in treatment of behavioural, social, cognitive and emotional problems of older people with dementia.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two reviewers screened retrieved studies independently for methodological quality using a checklist. Data from accepted studies were independently extracted by the reviewers.

MAIN RESULTS
Five studies were included. The methodological quality of the studies was generally poor and the study results could not be validated or pooled for further analyses.

REVIEWERS' CONCLUSIONS
The methodological quality and the reporting of the included studies were too poor to draw any useful conclusions.


This paper aim to synthesise waste polystyrene/amorphous carbon thin film composite resin (WPS/ACTF) beads by grinding and mixing the unused waste polystyrene bottles or others with carbon nanostructure. Such beads were converted into their corresponding Chloromethylated polymer by introducing chloromethyl group. The properties of (WPS/ACTF) composite resin beads and their corresponding chloromethylated polymers were investigated by FTIR and XRD. The surface morphology of ACTF was examined by the high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM). It was found from FTIR, the presence of C=C, and C-Cl stretching vibration band of vinyl benzyl chloride monomer. XRD shows a sharp peak at 280 corresponding to (002) plane of graphite and indicated the high crystallinity of ACTF. The HR-TEM of ACTF exhibits amorphous sheets having 2 nm widths and show the vicinity of individual sheets eclipsed over each other to form amorphous carbon thin film. By this technique, we succeed to develop a novel, low-price, but relatively high-performance chlorinated composite resin through the combination of novel amorphous carbon thin film with waste polystyrene using solvent evaporation process.


This paper investigates contextual word representation models from the lens of similarity analysis. Given a collection of trained models, we measure the similarity of their internal representations and attention. Critically, these models come from vastly different architectures. We use existing and novel similarity measures that aim to gauge the level of localization of information in the deep models, and facilitate the investigation of which design factors affect model similarity, without requiring any external linguistic annotation. The analysis reveals that models within the same family are more similar to one another, as may be expected. Surprisingly, different architectures have rather similar representations, but different individual neurons. We also observed differences in information localization in lower and higher layers and found that higher layers are more affected by fine-tuning on downstream tasks.


The use of small scale facilities in experimental fire research studies is well estabhshed. This thesis concerns the use of small scale facilities to examine principally the influence of thermal inertia of the lining material on ventilated enclosure fire
The radiation error of the thermocouple reading was studied using radiation network models. Previous theoretical studies were implemented to provide improved models appropriate to the more complex arrangements considered here. Modeling was used to assess the radiation error of different sizes of thermocouple in the hot layer measuring position for post and pre flashover fires, and the models were compared with experiment.
The current range of thermal inertia values for building products is much wider than those used in the regression by which the classical theory of pre-flashover temperature was derived (McCaffery et al. 1981). The range considered here is greater then has previously been considered by systematic experimental testing whilst maintaining all other independent key variables constant.
Using of reasonable assumptions, the mass loss rates of non-flashover and flashover conditions were predicted by numerical calculation integrated with a zone model. Successful prediction was also made for published tests where sufficient information was available, and good agreement was found irrespective of flashover, scale or geometry. Two important and necessary assumptions used in the zone model, concerning specifically radiation heat transfer in the flashover condition are: that an average temperature of hot gas and flashover flame may be represented by a single thermocouple measurement; and that the massive increase in production of flanu-nable vapours from the fuel surface during flashover leads to a "cool core" partial scattering or blocking of the incident radiant heat from the flashover flame and hot gas.
A computer programme was developed to implement and test recent flashover theory (Graharn et al. 1995). A logarithinic relationship has here been suggested between the thermal inertia parameter ', 8' and thermal inertia value of lining material. That relationship matches the current experimental results and other published data. The occurrence of flashover and the value of hot gas peak or steady temperature can be predicted using the computer programme, based on the published theory.


In this paper, a reserve money demand model is tried to be constructed for the Turkish economy. Using contemporaneous multivariate co-integration methodology for the investigation period 1987Q1-2007Q3 of the quarterly observations, we find that the real income elasticity of money demand is highly greater than unity which means that there exists an ongoing monetization process with regard to the increases in the real income in the economy. The most important alternative cost against the real money holdings seems to be the expected depreciation rate of the domestic currency against the exchange rate. Such a finding reveals the importance of currency substitution phenomenon dominated in the economy when the economic agents determine the motives of demand for monetary balances. Furthermore, a critical finding estimated in the paper is that domestic inflation has a weakly exogenous characteristic in the money demand variable space which requires no dynamic error correction model constructed on domestic inflation as a function of the excess money demand taken place under the money market disequilibrium conditions.


EFFECT OF GLOVE PORT HEIGHT ON UPPER BODY STRESS FOR PERFORMING LABORATORY WORK by Jason Mark Williams Glove boxes are used in many industries to constrain environmental contamination and protect the worker from harmful or hazardous exposures. This research specifically evaluates the effect of height of the glove box arm ports on the efficiency of task performance and physiological costs of work for the glove box users. Seven male and two female participants performed liquid mixing and vial filling tasks within a portable glove box. The tasks were designed to simulate common glove box tasks performed in pharmaceutical and laboratory settings. Each participant repeated the designed tasks while the glove port height was set at two different levels, at 122cm and 132cm. Electromyography techniques along with discomfort surveys performed before and after the experimental sessions were used to analyze the data. The electromyography data was analyzed for localized muscle fatigue in the targeted muscles, (trapezius, anterior deltoid, bicep, and erector spinae muscle groups). The surveys were used to gather information on the performed task while using glove boxes and to measure perceived stress and discomfort at the varying glove port heights. Results from this study reinforce the ergonomic guidelines for work height and demonstrates the importance of adjusting the correct glove port height according to the anthropometry of the user. The research also provides, for the first time, a set of qualitative data on upper body stresses in such situations with a glove box. EFFECT OF GLOVE PORT HEIGHT ON UPPER BODY STRESS FOR PERFORMING LABORATORY WORK by Jason Mark Williams A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Science in Occupational Health and Engineering Department of Industrial Engineering


Abstract Within the framework of the responsibilities of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), three international writing groups (WGs) were set up in 2003 to produce state-of-the-art reports on specific aspects of the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in addressing nuclear reactor safety (NRS) issues. Three reports followed on (a) the use of best practice guidelines in producing reliable computational results, (b) the status of the validation database for single-phase CFD applications to NRS, and (c) the extensions needed to the codes for application to two-phase NRS problems. The present paper summarizes the contents of the second of these documents and reports on the more recent activity of establishing a Web portal to act as a dynamic database for the material contained in the document. The Web pages can be reached via the NEA Web site and have been constructed using Wiki software, which enables users to readily find information they need in their respective application areas via active links, as well as to interactively support the maintenance of the site by contributing to the regular updating of the material. As a result of this endeavor, an up-to-date access point to the validation databases cataloged by the WG has been established, and a means has been provided for users to contribute with new material, thus keeping the information topical.


The public polls in all the Baltic States show that in average about 70% of citizens believe in Churches and that's are incredibly more then for Parliament or Parties. The according to the Lithuania Law on Religious Communities and Associations traditional religious communities and associations are those which are part of the historical, spiritual and social heritage of Lithuania. There is no state religion in Latvia as well. The Constitution of the Republic of Latvia (Satversme) does not mention any specific religion. The Latvian legislation (unlike that of Lithuanian) contains no concept of "traditional" denominations. No such distinction is drawn in the Law on Religious Organisations and that Law does not list religions or religious denominations that are regarded as traditional. In the Estonia, the church – state relations are governed not only by general laws, but also by formal agreements between the State and Churches.


This study's objective was to identify individual, social, and familial risk factors for depressive symptoms in adolescent students. The study included 1,923 seventh and eighth-grade (junior high) students and first and second-year high school students in public and private schools from a city in Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Depressive symptoms were evaluated with the SRQ-20 scale (Harding, 1980) and resilience scale (Wagnild & Young, 1993). Hierarchical logistic regression was the analytical method used. Symptoms of depression were present in 10% of adolescents. Girls had more than twice the odds of presenting these symptoms (CI: 1.58-3.67); adolescent children of divorced parents had 73% greater odds of depression (CI: 1.16-2.57); victims of serious physical abuse by mothers had 6.49 times the odds (CI: 2.07-20.30); those with low self-esteem, 6.43 greater odds (CI: 2.63-15.68); and those displaying dissatisfaction with their lives, 3.19 greater odds (CI: 2.08-4.89). The findings highlight the urgent need to improve public health policies for adolescents, especially at the preventive level, including psychosocial strategies with the development of a treatment network.


This paper uses sectoral systems of innovation framework to examine the relationship between technology policy and industrial development by comparing the emergence of the wind energy industry in Denmark and India. Since the late 1970s Denmark has led the development of a global wind energy industry and in 2004 wind energy supplied 18.8 per cent of Denmark's electricity consumption. India was however a late entrant that managed in a few years to establish itself as the fifth largest producer of wind energy in the world. We suggest that India's unique policy of "interactive learning" with international and especially Danish actors, instead of imitation of foreign technology policies and institutions, was a substantial contributor to India's success in developing their wind energy industry.


In the presented work, new composite nanomaterials, based on graphene oxide and styrene, have been developed for the retention purpose. 85Sr and 137Cs represent two of the main fission products being present in radioactive wastes from nuclear power cycle. The graphene oxide samples were prepared from natural graphite using high intensity cavitation field in a pressurized (6 bar) batch-ultrasonic reactor. Graphene oxide polystyrene composite was synthesized using direct emulsion polymerization of styrene in the presence of graphene oxide at 90 °C. The basic method used for the evaluation of nanomaterial retention properties was batch sorption methodology, based on a contact of solid material with a tracer solution under defined boundary conditions (solid/solution ratio, time, solution composition as pH and ionic strength).


The role of suspended minerogenic particles in light scattering in eastern Lake Superior and Keweenaw Bay (11 sites) during July of 2006 was evaluated with an individual particle analysis technique (scanning electron microscopy interfaced with automated image and X‐ray analyses, SAX), along with bulk measurements of particulate scattering and backscattering coefficients (bp and bbp) and chlorophyll a concentration ([Chl]). SAX measurements provided information on light‐scattering attributes of minerogenic particles, including chemical composition and particle size distribution (PSD). The data were used in Mie theory calculations for estimations of minerogenic scattering and backscattering coefficients (bm and bb,m). The bay had higher concentrations of minerogenic particles and higher values of bm, bb,m, bbp, and the backscattering ratio (bbp : bp) than the pelagic sites. Minerogenic scattering was primarily attributable to clay mineral particles in the size range of 1‐10 mm. The PSDs deviated from the (Junge) pattern of monotonic increase of particle numbers with decreasing particle size. The estimates of bm and bb,m combined with those of organic particulate components, as represented by empirical Case 1 bio‐optical models, showed reasonably good closure with bp and bbp, supporting the credibility of the SAX‐Mie approach. Variations in the bbp : bp ratio are strongly related to spatial differences in the relative contributions of phytoplankton vs. minerogenic particles to scattering, with higher values observed where the minerogenic component is more important. SAX can advance the understanding of optical variability by establishing the contributions of well‐defined minerogenic constituents that strongly influence optical properties.


Causal inference is at the heart of empirical research in natural and social sciences and is critical for scientific discovery and informed decision making. The gold standard in causal inference is performing randomized controlled trials ; unfortunately these are not always feasible due to ethical, legal, or cost constraints. As an alternative, methodologies for causal inference from observational data have been developed in statistical studies and social sciences. However, existing methods critically rely on restrictive assumptions such as the study population consisting of homogeneous elements that can be represented in a single flat table, where each row is referred to as a unit. In contrast, in many real-world settings, the study domain naturally consists of heterogeneous elements with complex relational structure, where the data is naturally represented in multiple related tables. In this paper, we present a formal framework for causal inference from such relational data. We propose a declarative language called CARL for capturing causal background knowledge and assumptions, and specifying causal queries using simple Datalog-like rules. CARL provides a foundation for inferring causality and reasoning about the effect of complex interventions in relational domains. We present an extensive experimental evaluation on real relational data to illustrate the applicability of CARL in social sciences and healthcare.


Freezing and thawing of soils may affect the turnover of soil organic matter and thus the losses of C and N from soils. Here we review the literature with special focus on: (i) the mechanisms involved, (ii) the effects of freezing temperature and frequency, (iii) the differences between arable soils and soils under natural vegetation, and (iv) the hypothesis that freeze‐thaw events lead to significant C and N losses from soils at the annual scale. Changes in microbial biomass and populations, root turnover and soil structure might explain increased gaseous and solute fluxes of C and N following freeze‐thaw events, but these mechanisms have seldom been addressed in detail. Effects of freeze‐thaw events appear to increase with colder frost temperatures below 0°C, but a threshold value for specific soils and processes cannot be defined. The pool of C and N susceptible to freeze‐thaw events is rather limited, as indicated by decreasing losses with short‐term repeated events. Elevated nitrate losses from soils under alpine and/or arctic and forest vegetation occurred only in the year following exceptional soil frost, with greatest reported losses of about 13 kg N ha−1. Nitrate losses are more likely caused by reduced root uptake rather than by increased N net mineralization. N2O emissions from forest soils often increased after thawing, but this lasted only for a relatively short time (days to 1–2 months), with the greatest reported cumulative N2O emissions of about 2 kg N2O‐N ha−1. The emissions of N2O after freeze‐thaw events were in some cases substantially greater from arable soils than from forest soils. Thus, freeze‐thaw events might induce gaseous and/or solute losses of N from soils that are relevant at the annual time scale. While a burst of CO2 after thawing of frozen soils is often found, there is strong evidence that, at the annual time scale, freeze‐thaw cycles either have little effect or will even reduce soil C losses as compared with unfrozen conditions. On the contrary, a milder winter climate with fewer periods of soil frost may result in greater losses of C from soils that are presently influenced by extended frost periods.


MARTIN MARINOS University of Pittsburgh Abstract: It is widely accepted in popular and scholarly discourse that Eastern European socialist media were mere tools of control and state propaganda. This article proposes a new approach that focuses on the cultural functions of socialist television. Using 1960s Bulgarian Television as a case study, this piece traces the participation of this new medium in the construction of a unique socialist mode of consumption described in local scholarly and political literature as 'harmonious consumption'. Through the work of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov the study highlights some of the challenges posed by the new consumption patterns of the late 1950s and 1960s and then outlines how television tried to respond to them. The main argument of the essay is that through its engagement with high culture and education, socialist television constituted an alternative television model that deserves a long overdue attention.


Abstract. Instrumental seismic observations in northern Finland started in the 1950s. They were originally initiated by the Institute of Seismology of the University of Helsinki (ISUH), but the staff of Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory (SGO) and later geophysicists of the University of Oulu (UO) were involved in the development of seismological observations and research in northern Finland from the very beginning. This close cooperation between seismologists and the technical staff of ISUH, UO, and SGO continued in many significant international projects and enabled a high level of seismological research in Finland. In our paper, we present history and current status of seismic observations and seismological research in northern Finland at the UO and SGO. These include both seismic observations at permanent seismic stations and temporary seismic experiments with portable seismic equipment. We describe the present seismic instrumentation and major research topics of the seismic group at SGO and discuss plans for future development of permanent seismological observations and portable seismic instrumentation at SGO as part of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) research infrastructure. We also present the research topics of the recently organized Laboratory of Applied Seismology, and show examples of seismic observations performed by new seismic equipment located at this laboratory and selected results of time-lapse seismic body wave travel-time tomography using the data of microseismic monitoring in the Pyhasalmi Mine (northern Finland).


The lion's share of retail traffic through search engines originates from organic (natural) rather than sponsored (paid) links. We use a dataset constructed from over 12,000 search terms and 2 million users to identify drivers of the organic clicks that the top 759 retailers received from search engines in August 2012. Our results are potentially important for search engine optimization (SEO). We find that a retailer's investments in factors such as the quality and brand awareness of its site increases organic clicks through both a direct and an indirect effect. The direct effect stems purely from consumer behavior: The higher the quality of an online retailer, the greater the number of consumers who click its link rather than a competitor in the list of organic results. The indirect effect stems from our finding that search engines tend to place higher quality sites in better positions, which results in additional clicks because consumers tend to click links in more favorable positions. We also find that consumers who are older, wealthier, conduct searches from work, use fewer words, or include a brand name product in their search are more likely to click a retailer's organic link following a product search. Finally, the quality of a retailer's site appears to be especially important in attracting organic traffic from individuals with higher incomes. The beneficial direct and indirect effects of an online retailer's brand equity on organic clicks, coupled with the spillover effects on traffic through other online and traditional channels, leads us to conclude that investments in the quality and brand awareness of a site should be included as part of an SEO strategy.


The goal of this study was to identify genes involved in regulating the function of class IV multidendritic neurons (nociceptors) integral to the detection of thermal, mechanical, and photic stimuli. We used Drosophila melanogaster larvae as a model organism, which exhibit a distinct and quantifiable response to noxious stimuli termed nocifensive escape locomotion (NEL). We systematically knocked down putative RNA-processing genes with a previously identified role in dendrite development and/or alternative splicing by crossing a ppk-GAL4;UAS-dicer2 fly strain with RNAi lines targeting genes of interest. Using ppk as our driver limits expression to nociceptors and dicer2 promotes increased expression of RNAi transcripts. We then tested progeny for changes in nocifensive response latency relative to wild-type larvae using a thermal nociception assay. Twenty-five genes were identified for which knockdown resulted in either a significant increase or decrease in response latency, indicating a potential defect. Follow-up assays validated seven genes with an insensitive phenotype and two with a hypersensitive phenotype. Additionally, our results have confirmed that behavioral defects do not correlate with defects in dendrite morphology. Finally, a complex role for translation initiation factors was revealed, suggesting the potential for a nociception-specific and possibly IRES-mediated translation mechanism involving eIFG2 and eIF4E3.


When increasing the wood fiber (WF) content in extruded wood fiber/plastic composites (WPC) foams, a good balance between reducing the cost and obtaining good cell morphology should be maintained. This study examines the relationship between WF content and the foam morphology in WPC foams. The role of WF as cell nucleating agent at low concentrations (10 wt.%) was observed, as WPC foam with 10 wt.% WF had lower average cell size and higher cell density than neat HDPE foams. Increasing the WF content further, decreased the average cell size and cell density, and increased the foam density of WPC foams. These results were linked to the rheological properties and crystallization behavior of HDPE and WPC with different WF content.


In this paper, I examine Chomsky's proposal that the phonological and semantic components interpret syntactic derivations before they are complete. According to Chomsky, syntactic representations are built up from the bottom, and at particular stages, called "phases", the result of the derivation is interpreted semantically and phonologically. In the past, authors have determined what constitutes phases by way of reconstruction effects, which can be used to determine how a syntactic derivation has occurred. This paper argues against this method, and claims that we should use the locality condition employed for determining anaphor-antecedent relationship instead.


Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work-along with a note on the individual volume-by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.


This volume continues previous DLES proceedings books, presenting modern developments in turbulent flow research. It is comprehensive in its coverage of numerical and modeling techniques for fluid mechanics. After Surrey in 1994, Grenoble in 1996, Cambridge in 1999, Enschede in 2001, Munich in 2003, Poitiers in 2005, and Trieste in 2009, the 8th workshop, DLES8, was held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, again under the auspices of ERCOFTAC. Following the spirit of the series, the goal of thisworkshopis to establish a state-of-the-art of DNS and LES techniques for the computation and modeling of transitional/turbulent flows covering a broad scope of topics such as aerodynamics, acoustics, combustion, multiphase flows, environment, geophysics and bio-medical applications. This gathering of specialists in the field was a unique opportunity for discussions about the more recent advances in the prediction, understanding and control of turbulent flows in academic or industrial situations.


Abstract A good working knowledge of seed germination requirements is important for plant establishment for restoration and experimentation, particularly in wild plant species. Some seeds require a period of after-ripening and cold stratification before germination will occur. In this study we examined the effects of after-ripening and stratification time on seeds from three disjunct populations of Arabidopsis lyrata ssp. lyrata, from serpentine and limestone sand substrates of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Differences among populations were evaluated through seed germination percentage and rate. Overall germination percentage and rate significantly varied by population, with seeds from the two serpentine populations having a lower germination percentage and rate than seeds from the limestone sand population. After-ripening time also significantly affected germination percentage and rate, with both measurements generally being the highest in 4 and 8 month-old seeds. Stratification did not generally alter germination percentage compared to the untreated control. However, stratification appeared to have the greatest effect on the germination rate of seeds that had after-ripened for 4 months, but the number of days of stratification required was not consistent across populations or across years. The variation observed among the populations of A. lyrata ssp. lyrata tested is a starting point for understanding how these differences developed and how they contribute to the success of each population in its native environment.


A study of three "epinicia" of Pindar, which have in common that they celebrate victories of Aeginetan athletes and that they respond to the contemporary political situation in Aegina and to circumstances of the victory. The primary objective of this book is to provide an interpretation of each of the three odes as meaningful, coherent works of the literary art. For each ode, it provides a commentary in which problems of text and interpretation are discussed in detail, a structural and metrical analysis, and an interpretative essay, in which the observations of detail are brought together in order to provide an answer to the question as to how the ode at hand could have functioned as a coherent, meaningful "epinicion," The introduction addresses questions of method and provides a description of Pindar's style.