Sphingolipids (SLs) play essential roles in most eukaryotes, but in the trypanosomatid protozoan Leishmania major their functions differ significantly. Previously we showed that null mutants defective in de novo sphingoid base synthesis (spt2–) lacked SLs but grew well and retained lipid rafts while replicating as promastigotes in vitro. However, they experienced catastrophic defects in membrane trafficking on entry into stationary phase, and failed to differentiate to the infective metacyclic form. Here we showed this mutant retained the ability to enter macrophages silently and inhibit activation, although as expected most parasites were destroyed. However, in mouse infections, after a delay rapidly progressive lesions appeared, and purified amastigotes were fully virulent to macrophages and mice. Mass spectrometry of spt2– amastigote lipids revealed the presence of high levels of parasite‐specific inositol phosphorylceramides (IPCs) not synthesized by the mammalian hosts. Inhibitor studies showed that salvage occurs at the level of complex SLs, suggesting that parasites carry out 'headgroup' remodelling. Additionally, we describe a new defect of the spt2– promastigotes involving 'empty' acidocalcisomes (ACs), which may point to the origin of this organelle from the lysosome‐related organelle/multivesicular body biogenesis pathway. However, ACs in spt2– amastigotes appeared quantitatively and morphologically normal. Thus salvage of SLs and other molecules by intracellular amastigotes play key roles in AC biogenesis and parasite survival in the host.


To date, versatile polymer semiconductors have been reported for field-effect transistors (FETs). And the third-generation donor–acceptor (D–A) polymers have been among the most intensively studied semiconductors. Meanwhile, there are a variety of methods adopted for the enhancement of performance. To the best of our knowledge, a p-type polymer semiconductor with a highest hole mobility of 52.7 cm2 V−1 s−1, an n-type polymer semiconductor with a highest electron mobility of 8.5 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a balanced ambipolar semiconductor with the highest both hole and electron mobility of over 4 cm2 V−1 s−1 have been achieved. This review describes building block selection, backbone halogenation, side chain engineering and random copolymerization, which are the effective synthesis approaches applied in this field, affording assistance for developing high-performance polymer semiconductors in the future.


The present study was to elucidate the phytochemical content and antioxidant activity (by DPPH and FRAP) of crude leaf extract (CLE), crude seeds extract (CSE) and alkaloid seeds extract (ASE) from Peganum harmala. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of tannins, sterols and steroids, coumarins, anthocyanins and saponins. DPPH method specifies an IC50 equal to: 112.96 μg/mL, 35.83 μ/mL and 107.91 μg/mL respectively for leaf, seeds and alkaloids extracts. Standard ascorbic acid shows IC50 value of 4.24 μg/ml. Reducting power revealed that all extracts from Peganum present less significant effect and weaker than that of standard ascorbic acid (0.66, 0.30, 0.58 absorbance for seeds, leaf, alkaloids seeds at 800 μg/ml, ascorbic acid 3.82 absorbance at 200 μg/ml). The presence of secondary metabolites in leaves and seeds of P. harmala could be attributed for the antioxidant activity.


BACKGROUND
Sleep problems are common in children with an intellectual disability (ID), often lasting for many years. Many parents do not perceive their child to have a sleep problem, do not believe treatment is possible and do not seek treatment. This paper examined prevalence and duration of sleep problems in children with an ID and considered parental perceptions of sleep problems and views towards treatment.

METHOD
The paper reports on two studies (n = 149 and 243 respectively) of children between 3 and 18 years, with a range of disabilities. Parents in each study completed a questionnaire about their child's sleep problems, and the type and effectiveness of any treatment used to address their child's sleep problems.

RESULTS
Prevalence rates ranged between 25.5% and 36.2% for sleep problems with an average duration of between 6 and 9 years. Around half of parents had sought treatment for their child's sleep problem in Study 1, while 76% had done so in Study 2. Parental ratings regarding treatment effectiveness were higher in Study 1 than in Study 2. Contrary to expectations, behavioural treatment was not rated as significantly more effective than other treatments in either study.

CONCLUSIONS
While sleep problems are common and chronic in children with an ID, parents may not recognize a sleep problem as present, often do not seek treatment for their child's sleep problems, and treatment advice and effectiveness is very variable. Thus, further research and parent and professional education regarding the identification and treatment of sleep problems in these children is required.


For two decades, psychologists studying ovulation have successfully employed a series of "T-shirt studies" supporting the hypothesis that men can detect when a woman is most fertile based on olfactory detection of ovulatory cues. However, it is not known whether the ability to detect female fertility is primarily a function of biological sex, sexual orientation, or a combination of both. Using methodologies from previous T-shirt studies, we asked women not using hormonal contraceptives to wear a T-shirt for three consecutive nights during their follicular (ovulatory) and luteal (non-ovulatory) phases. Male and female participants of differing sexual orientations then rated the T-shirts based on intensity, pleasantness, and sexiness. Heterosexual males were the only group to rate the follicular T-shirts as more pleasant and sexy than the luteal T-shirts. Near-significant trends also indicated that heterosexual men and non-heterosexual women consistently ranked the T-shirts, regardless of menstrual stage, to be more intense, pleasant, and sexy than did non-heterosexual men and heterosexual women. Recommendations for future research, including suggestions for methodological changes, are discussed.


Psalm 90 is a communal lament authored by Moses in which he sought the wisdom and favor of the Lord. Perhaps toward the end of the Israelites' 40-year period of wandering in the desert, the great lawgiver, intercessor, and advocate of God's people reflected on the brevity of human existence, especially against the backdrop of Yahweh's eternality. Moses noted that even the strongest and healthiest of people are frail and transient before the all-powerful Creator of the universe. Only He, in His grace and mercy, can bring enduring value out of the toils and troubles experienced by His loyal followers. Likewise, He alone can fill the lives of the covenant community with productivity, joy, and satisfaction for His glory.


We derive an annealed large deviation principle (LDP) for the normalised and rescaled local times of a continuous-time random walk among random conductances (RWRC) in a time-dependent, growing box in $\Z^d$. We work in the interesting case that the conductances are positive, but may assume arbitrarily small values. Thus, the underlying picture of the principle is a joint strategy of small conductance values and large holding times of the walk. The speed and the rate function of our principle are explicit in terms of the lower tails of the conductance distribution as well as the time-dependent size of the box.
An interesting phase transition occurs if the thickness parameter of the conductance tails exceeds a certain threshold: for thicker tails, the random walk spreads out over the entire growing box, for thinner tails it stays confined to some bounded region. In fact, in the first case, the rate function turns out to be equal to the $p$-th power of the $p$-norm of the gradient of the square root for some $p\in(\frac {2d}{d+2},2)$. This extends the Donsker-Varadhan-G\"artner rate function for the local times of Brownian motion (with deterministic environment) from $p=2$ to these values.
As corollaries of our LDP, we derive the logarithmic asymptotics of the non-exit probability of the RWRC from the growing box, and the Lifshitz tails of the generator of the RWRC, the randomised Laplace operator.
To contrast with the annealed, not uniformly elliptic case, we also provide an LDP in the quenched setting for conductances that are bounded and bounded away from zero. The main tool here is a spectral homogenisation result, based on a quenched invariance principle for the RWRC.


OBJECTIVE
To determine physician preparation for performing the skin cancer examination (SCE).

DESIGN
We evaluated medical students' observation, training, and practice of the SCE; hours spent in a dermatology clinic; and self-reported skill level for the SCE by a self-administered survey.

PARTICIPANTS
Graduating students at 7 US medical schools during the 2002-2003 academic year.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Percentages of students reporting SCE skill observation, training, and practice.

RESULTS
Of 934 students, 659 (70.6%) completed surveys. Twenty-three percent of students had never observed an SCE, 26.7% had never been trained to perform an SCE, and 43.4% had never examined a patient for skin cancer. Only 28.2% rated themselves as somewhat or very skilled in the SCE. This rate dropped to 19.7% among 553 students who had not completed a dermatology elective. Compared with students without training, students who had been trained at least once in the SCE were 7 times more likely to rate themselves as being somewhat or very skilled in the SCE. Sixty-nine percent of students agreed that insufficient emphasis in their medical training was placed on learning about the SCE.

CONCLUSIONS
This survey documents the need for more consistent training of medical students in SCE. Even brief curricular additions would augment students' perceived skill levels and improve practice patterns and competencies of future physicians. More frequent and improved SCEs might result in earlier detection of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers by nondermatologists, with significant public health benefits.


Thyroid hormones play an important role in the regulation of physiologic processes. Thyroid dysfunction is the second most common glandular disorder of the endocrine system and is increasing predominantly among women. Thyroid disease can lead to imbalance in the homeostasis of the body and affect the healing capacity of tissues. The oral cavity is adversely affected by either an excess or deficiency of these hormones. This case report presents the influence of thyroid hormone dysfunction and its impact on periodontal disease progression, systemic health of the patient, and the management of periodontal disease. The report emphasizes the need for frequent professional evaluations, patient education, and consistent educational reinforcement by health care providers in patients with hypothyroidism. Thus, this case report determines the relationship between thyroid hormone imbalance and periodontal health.


This one page memo references "Actuacion No. 1678/07" and says that there has been a small advance in the cleanup effort. It states that in relation to Article 1, (Sanitary Assistance Program) the testing of people's blood is moving forward, but highlights that less than a third of the population of Abra Pampa has been tested. In relation to Article 2 (that the toxic residue be appropriately isolated until it is removed) there is less progress. The enclosure where they keep the residue has no roof, and the bagging of the residue is not done in a way recommended by the experts. Houses nearby were not washed. The fence around the enclosure is open in several places, and the warning signs have been removed from the area.


The electrocardiogram is the graphic representation against time of the difference in potential between points of the body caused by the current field of the heart. To examine the origin of this current field, a method of transforming body surface electrocardiographic data to the epicardial surface has been developed. The computed epicardial current density distributions in 219 patients with acute inferior myocardial infarction showed that, in 89% of patients, the current flow out of the heart during the ST segment came from two regions, not only from the infarction region but also from a region over the great vessels. This findings suggests that current flows from the ischemic region, through the low-resistance pathway provided by the intracavity blood, out the great vessels, and back to the epicardium. A similar pathway has been hypothesized when ischemia caused endocardial ST elevation, such as during a stress test or with unstable angina. To test this hypothesis, a group of patients with ST depression on the 12-lead electrocardiogram, not associated with ST elevation, was examined with body surface mapping. Ninety-four percent of patients had epicardial current density distributions that showed a region of current flow out of the heart and over the great vessels that was consistent with this hypothesis. This could explain the poor localization of coronary artery disease by electrocardiographic techniques when there is ST depression on the body surface.


This paper examines the pattern of controls on cross-border capital inflows and their association with measures of financial vulnerability, GDP, and exchange rates. A key distinction is made between long-standing controls that cover a broad range of assets (walls) and episodic controls that tend to be imposed on a narrower set of assets (gates). The paper presents a new data set that differentiates between controls on inflows and on outflows as well as among asset categories for 44 developed and emerging market economies over 1995-2010. The imposition of episodic controls is found not to have followed the prescriptions of theories that suggest first imposing controls on those inflows most likely to contribute to financial vulnerability. Estimates show significant differences in the partial correlations of long-standing and episodic controls with the growth of certain financial variables and with GDP growth, but these differences seem to arise because countries with long-standing controls are poorer on average than the other countries in the sample. With a few exceptions, estimates that control for GDP per capita find little evidence that capital controls affect the growth of these financial variables, the real exchange rate, or GDP growth at an annual frequency. These preliminary results raise doubts about assumptions behind recent calls for a greater use of episodic controls.


Recently, the availability of new high spatial and temporal resolution observations of the solar photosphere has allowed for the study of the oscillations in small magnetic elements. Small magnetic elements have been found to host a rich variety of oscillations detectable as intensity, longitudinal, or transverse velocity fluctuations that have been interpreted as magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) waves. Small magnetic elements, at or below the current spatial resolution achieved by modern solar telescopes, are thought to play a relevant role in the energy budget of the upper layers of the Sun's atmosphere, as they are found to cover a significant fraction of the solar photosphere. Unfortunately, the limited temporal length and/or cadence of the data sets or the presence of seeing-induced effects have prevented accurate estimates of the power spectra of kink-like oscillations in small magnetic elements so far. Motivated by this, we studied kink-like oscillations in small magnetic elements, by exploiting very long duration and high cadence data acquired with the Solar Optical Telescope on board the Hinode satellite. In this paper, we present the results of a statistical study of the power spectral density of kink-like oscillations. We found that small magnetic elements exhibit a large number of spectral features in the range 1−12 mHz. Most of these spectral features are not shared among magnetic elements rather they represent a unique signature of each magnetic element itself.


This Ph.D. thesis is focused on the development of novel models for calculation of AC losses, current and magnetic field profiles in high-temperature superconductors (HTS). The thesis is concentrated on the modelling of Bi-2223 conductors at 77 K, which for the moment have the most advanced manufacturing technology and will be primarily used in the first large-scale power applications of high-temperature superconductors. The analysis of AC losses in Bi-2223 conductors is the leading thread in the structure of the thesis. An introduction to high-temperature superconductivity is made with special emphasis on the mechanisms of AC losses in HTS. Presented are some of the most promising power applications of HTS materials together with a discussion on the required improvements in their performance. A model for dissociating the hysteresis, eddy-current and resistive flux-creep loss contributions, based on relatively broad-range frequency measurements on Bi-2223 tapes has been used for analysis of the frequency behaviour of the transport-current loss in self-field. The hysteresis, eddy-current and flux-creep loss components have been separated due to their different frequency dependence. The study of eddy current loss in the silver sheath and matrix has been complimented by numerical simulations using a simple electromagnetic model of HTS tapes. Described is an original method for estimating the performance of Bi-2223 tapes in typical power grid perturbations by experiments and analysis of over-critical current excursions of various waveform, frequency and current amplitude up to 20×Ic. For precise calculation of the AC losses and studying the electromagnetic properties of HTS with smooth current-voltage characteristics and complex geometry, the finite element method (FEM) has been used. The implementation of the power-law model of the E-J characteristic of HTS into the FEM software package Flux2D is presented. The Flux2D implementation has been validated by means of comparison with results from theoretical predictions, electrical measurements, and other numerical methods. The significance of the power index n and the lateral distribution of the critical current density Jc in multifilamentary HTS tapes has been evaluated by FEM simulations. New anisotropic models of Jc(B) and n(B) for textured Bi-2223 materials have been developed. The models are based on experimental data; they are fairly simple and take into account the orientation of the local magnetic field. These models have been used in FEM simulations on monofilamentary and multifilamentary Bi-2223 conductors with different geometry and filament arrangement. In conductors with given Jc(B) dependence, the notion of effective AC critical current has been defined. The AC losses in Bi-2223 multifilamentary flat tapes and wires of round and square geometry in various operating conditions have been calculated and compared. The AC loss analysis has been supported and complimented by current density and magnetic flux distributions in the different conductors. The influence of the shape factor of the geometry and the filament orientation with respect to the local magnetic field has been thoroughly investigated. The optimal geometry and filament arrangement have been determined for each application.


The secret-ballot election is the National Labor Relations Board's preferred method for employees to determine whether they wish to be represented by a union. Employer domination of the election process, however, has led many unions to opt out of elections and instead to demand recognition based on authorization cards signed by a majority of employees. The primary objection to this "card check" process is that it is less democratic than the secret-ballot election. This article places the issue in the context of the theoretical basis for claims of industrial democracy and argues that card checks are more consistent with the basic premises of industrial democracy than are extant Board elections.


Inspired by Alan Weisman's book "The World Without Us" (2007) I analyse the thought experiment of a world in which law professors suddenly vanished. First, without academic teachers legal training would shift back to the legal professions. Purely professional law schools would provide legal training for future lawyers. This is feasible in both Common Law and Civil Law jurisdictions. These professional law schools can also be involved in a more general provision of legal education. In addition, non-law faculties of universities can take responsibility for teaching on law-related subjects. Secondly, I analyse the impact on legal research. Self-referential research would diminish. Doctrinal research would persist but it would be done by practitioners and the current oversupply would melt down. At universities legal research would continue but it would shift to related fields of social sciences and humanities. Thus, the threshold would be an "academic dinner party test": legal research would have to show that it is of interest for other academic disciplines. Overall, I would therefore expect some changes; however, legal education and research would not disappear. In some respects, one could even argue that without law professors the quality of both teaching and research may improve. The paper finishes with the implications for the current system.


Passed largely to address the problem of vote dilution and racially polarized voting, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) bans racial discrimination in voting practices by federal, state, and local governments. While the VRA has been successful in many respects, several large gaps remain. In an effort to narrow some of the gaps left by the federal VRA, four states have enacted or proposed individual state-VRAs or functional equivalents (herein referred to as individual state-VRAs).In this paper, I seek to explore how these states have attempted to use individual VRAs — and how successful they have been — in closing the gaps in coverage existing under the federal VRA. For each of the four enacted or proposed VRAs, I explore the background of the legislation, followed by an analysis of how the legislation operates. For California, Illinois, and Florida — the three states with enacted individual state-VRAs — I then examine how successful the legislation has been in increasing minority representation, and how it can be strengthened to further the state's goals. Since Washington's VRA has yet to become law, I explore the background, followed by an analysis of the proposed legislation. I conclude by assessing which individual state-VRAs — or aspects thereof — are best suited to serve as models for the forty-six other states without such legislation.I find that all four state-VRAs are ultimately successful insofar as they expand protection against minority vote dilution beyond that which is afforded to minority voters under the federal VRA. However, the level of success varies by state plan.


BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: To describe the caregiving experiences and physical and emotional needs of family members and friends who provide care to veterans with mental, physical, and cognitive comorbidities. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: National telephone surveys administered from 2017 to 2019. PARTICIPANTS: Family caregivers of veterans enrolled in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Program of General Caregiver Support Services between October 2016 and July 2018 who responded to a telephone survey (N = 1,509; response rate = 39%). MEASUREMENTS: We examined caregiver burden, depressive symptoms, financial strain, satisfaction with care, amount and duration of caregiving, life chaos, loneliness, and integration of caregiver with the healthcare team using validated instruments. We also collected caregiver demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and asked caregivers to identify the veteran's condition(s) and provide an assessment of the veteran's functioning. RESULTS: Average caregiver age was 62.2 (standard deviation [SD] = 13.7) and 69.8 (SD = 15.6) for veterans. Among caregivers, 76.7% identified at White, and 79.9% were married to the veteran. Caregivers reported having provided care for an average of 6.4 years and spending on average 9.6 hours per day and 6.6 days per week providing care. Average Zarit Subjective Burden score was 21.8 (SD = 9.4; range = 0–47), which is well above the cutoff for clinically significant burden (>16). Caregivers reported high levels of depressive symptoms; the sample average Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression 10-item Scale score was 11.5 (SD = 7.1; range = 0–30). Caregivers also reported high levels of loneliness and financial strain. CONCLUSION: Caregivers who care for veterans with trauma-based comorbidities reported intensive caregiving and significant levels of distress, depressive symptoms, and other negative consequences. These caregivers require comprehensive support services including access to health care, financial assistance, and enhanced respite care. Planned expansion of VA caregiver support has the potential to provide positive benefits for this population and serve as a model for caregiver support programs outside the VA health care system. J Am Geriatr Soc 68:2675-2683, 2020.


Rationale The asthma susceptibility gene ADAM33/Adam33 is associated with bronchial hyperresponsiveness(BHR) in humans and mice. Soluble ADAM33 is increased in bronchoalveolar lavagefluid (BALF) of allergic asthma patients (Lee JY et al, AJRCCM 2006 Apr1; 173(7):729–35). Its levels correlate with declining FEV1%, suggesting a role in airway remodelling in asthma. Maternal allergy orexogenous IL-13 suppresses Adam33/ADAM33mRNA expression but enhances ADAM33 protein processing in human embryonic and juvenile mouse lungs (Haitchi HM et al, JACI. 2009 Sep; 124(3):590–7, 597). We hypothesise thatconditional expression of IL-13 in mouse lungs induces the enzymatically active, soluble form of ADAM33 in BALF, which is associated with BHR. Methods IL-13 expression wasinduced using Doxycycline in CCSP-rtTA/Otet-Il-13 double-transgenic (dTg) mice. Methacholine challenge and lung function measurements were performed and lungswere harvested for mRNA extraction and immunohistochemistry (IHC). BALF was obtained forWestern-blotting for ADAM33 and testing of ADAM33 enzymatic activity using a fluorescenceresonance energy transfer (FRET) peptide assay. Results There was asignificant increase in BHR to Methacholine in IL-13 expressing double transgenicmice. IHC showed an increase inbronchial smooth muscle in lungs of double transgenic mice. Similar to the RTqPCR findings in humanembryonic and juvenile mouse lungs, IL-13 suppressed Adam33 mRNA but no difference in a-smooth muscle actin (aSma) was evident. Immunoblotting for ADAMA33 in BALF demonstrateda 76kDa band, consistent with the ADAM33 ectodomain and processed forms at38/44kDa in dTg animals. ADAM33 enzymatic activity was also significantly increased. Conclusion The data suggest thatallergic inflammation induced by IL-13 suppresses Adam33 mRNA expression but induces the release of soluble forms ofADAM33, yielding enzymatically active forms. The release of soluble forms may play a role in airway remodelling, potentiallyleading to BHR. We next propose to test the effect of specific ADAM33inhibitors on airway remodelling in this allergic mouse model to assess theirpotential as novel treatments for asthma.


We explore the possibility of using an emerging tool in statistical signal processing, sequential importance sampling (SIS), for joint estimation and decoding of space-time trellis codes (STTC). First, we provide background on SIS, and then we discuss its application to space-time trellis code (STTC) systems. It is shown through simulations that SIS is suitable for joint estimation and decoding of STTC with time-varying flat-fading channels when phase ambiguity is avoided. We used a design criterion for STTCs and temporally correlated channels that combats phase ambiguity without pilot signaling. We have shown by simulations that the design is valid.


Generalist seabirds forage on a variety of prey items providing the opportunity to monitor diverse aquatic fauna simultaneously. For example, the coupling of prey consumption rates and movement patterns of generalist seabirds might be used to create three‐dimensional prey distribution maps ('preyscapes') for multiple prey species in the same region. However, the complex interaction between generalist seabird foraging behaviour and the various prey types clouds the interpretation of such preyscapes, and the mechanisms underlying prey selection need to be understood before such an application can be realized. Central place foraging theory provides a theoretical model for understanding such selectivity by predicting that larger prey items should be 1) selected farther from the colony and 2) for chick‐feeding compared with self‐feeding, but these predictions remain untested on most seabird species. Furthermore, rarely do we know how foraging features such as handling time, capture methods or choice of foraging location varies among prey types. We used three types of animal‐borne biologgers (camera loggers, GPS and depth‐loggers) to examine how a generalist Arctic seabird, the thick‐billed murre Uria lomvia, selects and captures their prey throughout the breeding season. Murres captured small prey at all phases of a dive, including while descending and ascending, but captured large fish mostly while ascending, with considerably longer handling times. Birds captured larger prey and dove deeper during chick‐rearing. As central place foraging theory predicted, birds travelling further also brought bigger prey items for their chick. The location of a dive (distance from colony and distance to shore) best explained which prey type was the most likely to get caught in a dive, and we created a preyscape surrounding our study colony. We discuss how these findings might aid the use of generalist seabirds as bioindicators.


Obesity has been found to be associated with increased incidence of various metabolic disorders. Anti-obesity interventions are therefore urgently needed. An earlier study has demonstrated that treatment with an herbal formula MCC, which comprises the fruit of Momordica charantia (MC), the pericarpium of Citri reticulate (CR) and L-carnitine (CA), reduced the weight gain in high fat diet (HFD)-fed mice. In the present study, we investigated the effect of long-term treatment with MCC (6 g/kg/day × 40 doses) and various combinations of its constituents in HFD-fed female ICR mice. Body weight change was monitored during the course of the experiment. Total and differential adiposity, plasma lipid contents, metabolic enzyme activities and mitochondrial coupling efficiency in skeletal muscle were measured. Glucose homeostasis was also assessed. Results showed that HFD increased the body weight, total and differential adiposity, and plasma lipid contents as well as impaired metabolic status in skeletal muscle and glucose homeostasis. MCC and all combinations of its constituents reduced the weight gain in HFD-fed mice, which was accompanied with an improvement on glucose homeostasis. While MC, CA and CR independently suppressed the HFD-induced weight gain in mice, MC seems to be the most effective in weight reduction, all of which correlated with the induction of mitochondrial uncoupling in skeletal muscle. Only CA and CR, but not MC, significantly reduced the total adiposity and visceral adiposity as well as plasma cholesterol level. However, the two component combinations, MC + CR and MC + CA, decreased the degree of visceral adiposity and plasma cholesterol level, respectively. MCC treatment at 1.5 g/kg (but not a higher dose of 6 g/kg) suppressed visceral adiposity and induced mitochondrial uncoupling in skeletal muscle in HFD-fed mice. The finding suggests that MCC may offer a promising prospect for ameliorating the diet-induced obesity and metabolic disorders in humans.


Chloroquine resistant malaria is a serious problem in Indonesia particularly in Papua. A trial of the existing antimalarial drugs was conducted in Timika, Papua. The objective of the study was to determine the efficacy of cloroquine (CQ) + sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP). Patients with uncomplicated malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale or P. malariae were enrolled and treated with supervised CQ+SP (P. falciparum) or CQ (non-P. falciparum). Patients were followed for 28-42 days. Patients failing therapy were retreated with unsupervised quinine±doxycycline. 207 patients were enrolled in the study (88 P. falciparum, 40 P. vivax, 15 mixed infections, 50 P. malariae and 14 P. ovale). Early treatment failures occurred in 4 of 86 (5%) patients with falciparum malaria, 6 of 37 (16%) patients with vivax malaria and none of those with P. ovale or P. malariae infections. The failure rate by day 28 for P. vivax was 22 of 30 (73%) patients, with all recurrences occurring in the presence of plasma chloroquine concentration above the minimum effective concentration (MEC>15ng/ml). After correcting for reinfections the day 42 recrudescence rate for falciparum malaria was 48% [95%CI:31-65] and in 61% of cases this was in the presence of chloroquine levels above 30 ng/ml. Retreatment with unsupervised quinine±doxycycline resulted in further recurrence of malaria in 48% [95%CI:31-65] of P. falciparum infections and 70% [95%CI:37-100] of P. vivax infections. None of the patients with P. ovale or P. malariae had treatment failures within 28 days. There is a high prevalence of antimalarial drug resistance of P. falciparum and P. vivax to the existing antimalarial drugs. However chloroquine retains adequate efficacy against P. ovale and P. malariae in Papua. (Med J Indones 2006; 15:251-8) Keywords: Malaria, P. falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae, Chloroquine, Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, Papua


Entrepreneurship research on decision making under uncertainty has focused largely on the effect
of uncertainty on the entrepreneurial actions while attempt at the individual level particularly,
from the cognitive framework seeks to explain why actions differ. Scholarly efforts have also been
made on what informs entrepreneurial actions from the perspective of the entrepreneur's
personal attributes. However, no integrated approach is offered in the literature to study how
cognitive skills and personality traits complement each other. In this paper, we consider how
cognitive skills and personality traits affect an entrepreneur's decision to discover or create
opportunities under uncertainty. Specifically, we examine the complementary role of personality
traits and cognitive skills towards opportunity decisions. We provide a conceptual basis for a
broader perspective on behaviors and cognitions that motivate or hinder entrepreneurial actions
while at the same time positioning the entrepreneur's decision at the core of the decision theory.
Propositions regarding the application of some selected personality traits and cognitive skills and
their complementarity are presented and discussed.


Our Conrad is about the American reception of Joseph Conrad and its crucial role in the formation of American modernism. Although Conrad did not visit the country until a year before his death, his fiction served as both foil and mirror to America's conception of itself and its place in the world. Peter Mallios reveals the historical and political factors that made Conrad's work valuable to a range of prominent figures - including Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Richard Wright, Woodrow Wilson, and Theodore and Edith Roosevelt - and explores regional differences in Conrad's reception. He proves that foreign-authored writing can be as integral a part of United States culture as that of any native. Arguing that an individual writer's apparent (national, gendered, racial, political) identity is not always a good predictor of the diversity of voices and dialogues to which he gives rise, this exercise in transnational comparativism participates in post-Americanist efforts to render American Studies less insular and parochial.


Inductive inference is of central importance to all scientific inquiries. Automating the process of inductive inference is the major concern of machine learning researchers. This article proposes inductive inference techniques to address three inductive problems: (1) how to automatically construct a general description, a model, or a theory to describe a sequence of observations or experimental data, (2) how to modify an existing model to account for new observations, and (3) how to handle the situation where the new observations are not consistent with the existing models. The techniques proposed in this article implement the inductive principle called the minimum descriptive length principle and relate to Kolmogorov complexity and Occam's razor. They employ finite state machines as models to describe sequences of observations and measure the descriptive complexity by measuring the number of states. They can be used to draw inference from sequences of observations where one observation may depend on previous observations. Thus, they can be applied to time series prediction problems and to one‐to‐one mapping problems. They are implemented to form an automated inductive machine.

http://benchoi.info/bens/research/publication/ben choi 2003 on computational intelligence.pdf


Reported insulin-stimulated glucose removal saturation levels vary widely between individuals and trade off with insulin sensitivity in model-based control methods. A non-linear model and adaptive insulin infusion protocol enabled high-precision blood glucose control in critically ill patients using a constant insulin-stimulated glucose removal saturation parameter. Analysis of clinical trial results with and without saturation modelling indicates the significant impact of this saturation parameter on controller efficacy. Without accounting for saturation, the time-average prediction error during a five-hour trial was up to 17.6%. The average prediction error between the four patients examined in this study was reduced to 5.8% by approximating the saturation parameter. Hence, saturation is an important dynamic that requires good methods of estimation or identification to enable tight glycaemic control.


A new genus of freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) is described from the Mekong River Basin as Namkongnaia gen. nov. The validity of the new genus is supported by its unique conchological characteristics, namely the lack of hinge dentition and elongated shells, together with its evolutionary distinctiveness as estimated by multi-locus phylogenetic analyses (mitochondrial COI and 16S, and nuclear 28S genes). The new genus includes two lineages with deep divergence, shown by 5.10% uncorrected COI p-distance. One lineage is a type species described herein as Namkongnaia inkhavilayi gen. et sp. nov. The other is a recognized species under the name 'Pilsbryoconcha lemeslei (Morelet, 1875)'. Molecular phylogenetic analysis further shows that the new genus belongs to the tribe Pseudodontini, and evolutionarily is closely related to the genus Monodontina Conrad, 1853. However, its conchology is similar to the genus Pilsbryoconcha Simpson, 1900. Time-calibrated phylogeny suggests that the main radiation events of the tribe Pseudodontini occurred during the Late Cretaceous to the Eocene, with the divergence between the new genus and Monodontina placed in the Miocene. The discovery of new freshwater mussel taxa in this study highlights the importance of the Mekong River Basin as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots for freshwater fauna.


In the modern Congress, one of the highest hurdles for major bills or nominations is gaining the sixty votes necessary to shut off a filibuster in the Senate. But this wasn't always the case. Both citizens and scholars tend to think of the legislative process as a game played by the rules in which votes are the critical commodity - the side that has the most votes wins. In this comprehensive volume, Gregory Koger shows, on the contrary, that filibustering is a game with slippery rules in which legislators who think fast and try hard can triumph over superior numbers. "Filibustering" explains how and why obstruction has been institutionalized in the U.S. Senate over the last fifty years, and how this transformation affects politics and policy making. Koger also traces the lively history of filibustering in the U.S. House during the nineteenth century and measures the effects of filibustering - bills killed, compromises struck, and new issues raised by obstruction. Unparalleled in the depth of its theory and its combination of historical and political analysis, "Filibustering" will be the definitive study of its subject for years to come.


The article shows that when people consider differentiated goods or services that differ in price and quality, they exhibit a decision-making bias of "relative thinking": relative price differences affect them even when economic theory suggests that only absolute price differences matter. This result is obtained in four different consumption categories. Sometimes subjects are affected only by relative price differences ("full relative thinking") and sometimes also by absolute price differences ("partial relative thinking"). This behavior has implications for various disciplines, and it is particularly relevant in models dealing with horizontal or vertical differentiation, optimal pricing, competitive strategy, or advertising.


Rain attenuation is a major source of impairment to signal degradation at millimetre wave bands above 10 GHz. This research work determines the extent of signal degradation due to rainfall on terrestrial radio links within Minna and Lapai. The meteorological rainfall data collected from the Automatic Weather Stations installed at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, and at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, for a period of 3 years (2011-2013) were used to compute the rainfall attenuation on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The Lavergnat-Gole (LG) model was used for the conversion of cumulative distributions of rainfall of 5-min to 1-min integration time in Minna and Lapai respectively. The LG model was used to estimate the rain attenuation in the two stations at a frequency range of 10-18 GHz. The relationship between rain rate and specific attenuation was studied using three years rainfall data. It was observed that a power-law relationship exists between rainfall rates of different
integration times. The results for the rain rate exceeded for 0.01% of time, show that the
horizontal polarisation experiences more degradation than the vertical polarisation. The results also show that specific and total attenuations increase with increasing operational frequency, and are polarisation-dependent. These results would be useful for planning terrestrial radio networks within the study area.


While we instantaneously recognize a face as attractive, it is much harder to explain what exactly defines personal attraction. This suggests that attraction depends on implicit processing of complex, culturally and individually defined features. Generative adversarial neural networks (GANs), which learn to mimic complex data distributions, can potentially model subjective preferences unconstrained by pre-defined model parameterization. Here, we present generative brain-computer interfaces (GBCI), coupling GANs with brain-computer interfaces. GBCI first presents a selection of images and captures personalized attractiveness reactions toward the images via electroencephalography. These reactions are then used to control a GAN model, finding a representation that matches the features constituting an attractive image for an individual. We conducted an experiment (N = 30) to validate GBCI using a face-generating GAN and producing images that are hypothesized to be individually attractive. In double-blind evaluation of the GBCI-produced images against matched controls, we found GBCI yielded highly accurate results. Thus, the use of EEG responses to control a GAN presents a valid tool for interactive information-generation. Furthermore, the GBCI-derived images visually replicated known effects from social neuroscience, suggesting that the individually responsive, generative nature of GBCI provides a powerful, new tool in mapping individual differences and visualizing cognitive-affective processing.


A massive tufa complex in the lower Lorze Valley (550 m a.s.l., north-central Switzerland) formed between 9000 and 5000 cal. yr BP. In the plain 4 km southeast of the complex lies Neugrundmoor (830 m a.s.l.), a mire in the hydrologic recharge area of the springs responsible for the tufa formation. Here we address an earlier, untested hypothesis that the transition of Neugrundmoor from fen to raised bog caused the end of the tufa formation, by means of pollen and testate amoebae analyses on a peat section. The chronology of the section is based on ten AMS 14C-dates of terrestrial plant macrofossils. Our results suggest that until 7100 cal. yr BP the plain had shallow ponds, which gradually developed into fens. Starting 5350 cal. yr BP, large raised bogs developed in the fens in a few centuries. This agrees with the hypothesis that the end of tufa formation coincided with the transition from fen to raised bog. It also coincided with the end of the mid-Holocene temperature optimum, when climate became cooler and wetter. We suggest that the main factor causing the end of tufa formation at 5500—5000 cal. yr BP was declining air temperatures, which on the one hand led to diminished calcium precipitation, on the other to enhanced bog formation. Peat has a low hydraulic conductivity, so we suggest that less water became available for tufa formation because of increased thickness of peat layers, exacerbating the direct effect of cooling on calcium precipitation. Noticeable human influence in the surroundings did presumably not start before c. 3500 cal. yr BP and was then very weak, so this was not responsible for the end of the tufa formation. Extrapolation of our results suggests that climatic cooling alone is sufficient to explain the widespread termination of tufa formation after the mid Holocene.


People from honor cultures show heightened emotional responses to insults to their social image. The current research investigates whether people from honor cultures also show heightened protection of social identities. We find that honor concerns may be embedded in some social identities but not others, and that those identities associated with honor concerns are defended more than identities not associated with honor. Three experiments investigated participants' emotional responses to insults to their ethnic or student identity. Results showed that compared with dignity culture (British) participants, participants from an honor culture (Arab) reported stronger anger responses both across and within cultures when their Arab identity, an identity explicitly linked to honor concerns, was insulted. In contrast, responses did not differ between dignity (American) and honor (Arab) cultures when participants received an insult to their student identity, a non-honor-oriented identity. These findings suggest that overarching cultural values are not applied to all identities, and therefore, that cultural variables influence psychological outcomes differently for different identities.


The geomatics profession has gone through a major revolution during the last two decades with the emergence of advanced GNSS, GIS and Remote Sensing technologies. These technologies have changed the core principles and working procedures of geomatics professionals. For this reason, surveying and mapping regulations, standards and specifications should be updated to reflect these changes. In Israel, the "Survey Regulations" is the principal document that regulates the professional activities in four key areas geodetic control, mapping, cadastre and Georaphic information systems. Licensed Surveyors and mapping professionals in Israel are required to work according to those regulations. This year a new set of regulations have been published and include a few major amendments as follows: In the Geodesy chapter, horizontal control is officially based on the Israeli network of Continuously Operating GNSS Reference Stations (CORS). The regulations were phrased in a manner that will allow minor datum changes to the CORS stations due to Earth Crustal Movements. Moreover, the regulations permit the use of GNSS for low accuracy height measurements. In the Cadastre chapter, the most critical change is the move to Coordinate Based Cadastre (CBC). Each parcel corner point is ranked according to its quality (accuracy and clarity of definition). The highest ranking for a parcel corner is 1. A point with a rank of 1 is defined by its coordinates alone. Any other contradicting evidence is inferior to the coordinates values. Cadastral Information is stored and managed via the National Cadastral Databases. In the Mapping and GIS chapter; the traditional paper maps (ranked by scale) are replaced by digital maps or spatial databases. These spatial databases are ranked by their quality level. Quality level is determined (similar to the ISO19157 Standard) by logical consistency, completeness, positional accuracy, attribute accuracy, temporal accuracy and usability. Metadata is another critical component of any spatial database. Every component in a map should have a metadata identification, even if the map was compiled from multiple resources. The regulations permit the use of advanced sensors and mapping techniques including LIDAR and digita l cameras that have been certified and meet the defined criteria. The article reviews these new regulations and the decision that led to them.


Inhibitory effects of bone morphogenetic protein 15 may explain effects on development and adult infertility. Di Pasquale and Brivanlou present an exploration of the embryological function of bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15) in Xenopus that yields insights into its mechanism of action and roles in embryogenesis and also allows the authors to suggest a possible new interpretation of why its mutation in adult human females leads to ovarian failure. BMP15 is a member of the transforming growth factor–β (TGFβ) family and has structural features shared by family members that inhibit TGFβ signaling. Injection of Xenopus embryos with RNA encoding BMP15 caused formation of a secondary head structure, and treatment of embryo explants with BMP15 directly caused formation of neural tissue. These effects appeared to result from inhibitory effects on signaling through TGFβ signaling pathways. BMP15 inhibited the ability of BMP4 to promote formation of epidermis in embryo explants and inhibited BMP4-dependent increase in transcription from a BMP-responsive element. Interaction of tagged forms of BMP15 and BMP4 could be detected when expressed in embryos, suggesting a possible mechanism for the antagonism. BMP15 also appeared to be necessary for head formation in embryos, because expression of a dominant-negative mutant caused formation of embryos without heads. BMP15 could also inhibit Wnt signaling in embryos, a property shared with some other TGFβ pathway inhibitors. The authors discuss how, when morphogen gradients establish cell fates in the embryo, BMP15 might function to prevent inappropriate spread of TGFβ and Wnt signals to the animal pole and to limit BMP4 signals to allow formation of neural structures. If BMP15 has similar inhibitory effects in granulosa cells of the ovary, the mechanisms leading to premature infertility in women expressing the dominant-negative form of BMP15 may be rather different from the loss of downstream TGFβ signaling considered previously. E. Di Pasquale, A. H. Brivanlou, Bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15) acts as a BMP and Wnt inhibitor during early embryogenesis. J. Biol. Chem. 284, 26127–26136 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Have you ever wandered into that record shop in town and promptly hurried back out,
driven backwards by the force of loud, up tempo dance music? Have you ever endured
that interminable wait at the supermarket checkout, a captive audience to the beat of
unrecognisable pop tunes. Have you ever wondered about the influence of background,
or even foreground music on our everyday lives? Marketing lecturer Steve Oakes, from
the University of Central Lancashire iii doing just that and focusing in particular on the
way that music can make us behave in the service environment.
Steve, a jazz guitarist, is lucky enough to be able to combine his hobby with his work :in
the University's Department of International Business and Accounting. His research
interests focus upon the way in which background music can affect customer responses
within advertising and service environment contexts. Although influenced by factors
such as customer age and gender, research has shown that variations in tempo and style
of background music can influence satisfaction levels and purchase behaviour of
consumers in different contexts (e.g. supermarket shoppers and restaurant diners).
Whilst younger punters are attracted to the clubland environment of the town centre
record shop, older customers may prefer a setting with quiet background music, allowing
them to browse at their leisure. Music itself can even influence customers' perception of
waiting time.
"Music is a powerful tool," says Steve Oakes. "The actual tempo of background music
can be used to make people think that they have queued for a shorter length of time, and
no music at all can cause customers to believe that they have waited longer." Steve is
currently using students at the University in his latest experiment, having tested them for
their reactions to background music varying in tempo as they waited to enrol for their
new courses.
21 March 2002
nr036pc
-end-
Note: For further information, please contact Steve Oakes, in the Department of
International Business and Accounting on tel: 01772 894705, or Pamela Culley in the
Media Office on 01772 892486.


We document some new stylised facts about how Australian homeowners value their homes using household panel data and unit-record data on home sale prices. We find that homeowners' price beliefs are unbiased at the postcode level, on average, although there is considerable dispersion in the difference between beliefs and prices across postcodes. Household characteristics, such as age and tenure, and the regional unemployment rate are correlated with differences between beliefs and prices. We also find evidence that the difference between beliefs and prices has explanatory power for average household consumption, leverage and portfolio decisions after controlling for the market-inferred value of the home. These facts provide empirical evidence to support recent literature on the importance of belief formation for household decision-making.


In recent years researchers have achieved considerable success applying neural network methods to question answering (QA). These approaches have achieved state of the art results in simplified closed-domain settings such as the SQuAD (Rajpurkar et al., 2016) dataset, which provides a pre-selected passage, from which the answer to a given question may be extracted. More recently, researchers have begun to tackle open-domain QA, in which the model is given a question and access to a large corpus (e.g., wikipedia) instead of a pre-selected passage (Chen et al., 2017a). This setting is more complex as it requires large-scale search for relevant passages by an information retrieval component, combined with a reading comprehension model that "reads" the passages to generate an answer to the question. Performance in this setting lags considerably behind closed-domain performance. In this paper, we present a novel open-domain QA system called Reinforced Ranker-Reader $(R^3)$, based on two algorithmic innovations. First, we propose a new pipeline for open-domain QA with a Ranker component, which learns to rank retrieved passages in terms of likelihood of generating the ground-truth answer to a given question. Second, we propose a novel method that jointly trains the Ranker along with an answer-generation Reader model, based on reinforcement learning. We report extensive experimental results showing that our method significantly improves on the state of the art for multiple open-domain QA datasets.


The Handbook of Research on IPOs provides a comprehensive review of the emerging trends and directions in the global initial public offerings (IPO) markets. The empirical evidence included in the book covers Europe, the US and the Far East, and presents a truly global perspective of IPO markets around the world and at the different stages of the entire IPO process.


What's in a name? As Osumaka Likaka argues in this illuminating study, the names that Congolese villagers gave to European colonizers reveal much about how Africans experienced and reacted to colonialism. The arrival of explorers, missionaries, administrators, and company agents allowed Africans to observe Westerners' physical appearances, behavior, and cultural practices at close range - often resulting in subtle yet trenchant critiques. By naming Europeans, Africans turned a universal practice into a local mnemonic system, recording and preserving the village's understanding of colonialism in the form of pithy verbal expressions that were easy to remember and transmit across localities, regions, and generations. Methodologically innovative, "Naming Colonialism" advances a new approach that shows how a cultural process - the naming of Europeans - can provide a point of entry into economic and social histories. Drawing on archival documents and oral interviews, Likaka encounters and analyzes a welter of coded fragments. The vivid epithets Congolese gave to rubber company agents - 'the home burner', 'Leopard', 'Beat, beat', 'The hippopotamus-hide whip' - clearly conveyed the violence that underpinned colonial extractive economies. Other names were subtler, hinting at derogatory meaning by way of riddles, metaphors, or symbols to which the Europeans were oblivious. Africans thus emerge from this study as autonomous actors whose capacity to observe, categorize, and evaluate reverses our usual optic, providing a critical window on central African colonialism in its local and regional dimensions.


A grand challenge of the 21st century cosmology is to accurately estimate the cosmological parameters of our Universe. A major approach in estimating the cosmological parameters is to use the large scale matter distribution of the Universe. Galaxy surveys provide the means to map out cosmic large-scale structure in three dimensions. Information about galaxy locations is typically summarized in a "single" function of scale, such as the galaxy correlation function or power-spectrum. We show that it is possible to estimate these cosmological parameters directly from the distribution of matter. This paper presents the application of deep 3D convolutional networks to volumetric representation of dark-matter simulations as well as the results obtained using a recently proposed distribution regression framework, showing that machine learning techniques are comparable to, and can sometimes outperform, maximum-likelihood point estimates using "cosmological models". This opens the way to estimating the parameters of our Universe with higher accuracy.


The U-Pb age spectrum of detrital zircons in sandstone of the fluvial Middle Jurassic Ionia Formation in the Michigan basin, United States, resembles the age spectra in Jurassic eolianites of the Colorado Plateau, except that a Neoproterozoic (725–510 Ma) subpopulation present in the eolianites is absent from the Michigan basin strata. The detrital zircon data are compatible with the hypothesis that the Ionia Formation was deposited by northern tributaries of a transcontinental Jurassic paleoriver system that transported detritus from headwaters in Atlantic rift highlands of the Appalachian region to floodplains and deltas in the present northern Rocky Mountains region. Previous detrital zircon studies have indicated that sedimented lowlands in that paleogeographic position were deflated by paleowinds to feed eolian sand southward (in present coordinates) into the Colorado Plateau ergs (sand seas).


There are studies proposing that lecturers play an important role in stimulating students to learn. Therefore, current research study was undertaken to study the effect of lecturer's gender on student's interest in learning. This study was conducted to find out whether students would prefer lecturers of the same gender or not. Besides, this study was also conducted to determine other factors that would influence student's interest in learning. A cross sectional survey was done by distributing questionnaires to 368 MBBS undergraduate students studying in first and second Year of their medicine course at Melaka-Manipal Medical College. Their response were collected and tabulated before being analyzed. More than 75% of the students disagree that lecturer's gender do have an effect on their interest in their learning while for those small percentage who agreed are mostly from first year. The student's disagree with our hypothesis giving reason that other factors like lecturer's knowledge, attitude, the subject taught itself as a more important factor compared to lecturer's gender. We conclude from the study that lecturer's gender has no significant effect on student's interest in learning while other factors such as subject taught, lecturer's teaching method, knowledge, skills are more significant factors affecting their interest in learning.


In recent years, the legal academy has experienced a surge of interest in quantitative empirical analysis. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm has not always been accompanied by careful analysis of what the tools and resources of quantitative analysis can tell us about law and legal doctrine. As this Article demonstrates, the findings of some studies therefore unwittingly reflect the limitations of those tools and resources rather than providing insight into the workings of courts.Specifically, this Article provides a long-overdue critical analysis of the most influential source of data about the Supreme Court, the Original Supreme Court Database, created by political scientist Harold J. Spaeth. The Database, which codes every opinion issued by the Supreme Court since 1953, contains coding for legal provisions considered by the court and for what Spaeth calls issue and issue area. Although numerous scholars - within both political science and law - rely on them, these codes do not report reliable information about the role that law and legal doctrine plays in the Supreme Court's cases. The Database does not reliably report the legal provisions or doctrines relied upon or at issue; it does not attempt to report legal issues at all, instead describing the "public policy context" of the case; and by design, it generally reports only one issue per case. These limitations have important, but poorly understood, implications for the many, many scholars who rely on the Database, and the Article describes a number of specific studies whose results are unreliable because of the way they use the Database.This critique of the Database and the ways scholars use it can help scholars to be smarter and more accurate in their use of the Database. At the same time, the Article explores ways to incorporate law and legal doctrine into empirical legal scholarship. To further both goals, the Article presents the results of my Recoding Project of a random sample of recent Supreme Court cases. The findings of the Recoding Project confirm that significant information about law and doctrine is omitted from the databases. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the databases systematically underreport law and doctrine related to courts in particular and to the structure and operations of government in general - issues that may be very salient to the justices in at least some cases. By demonstrating what information is missing or misstated in the Database and by exploring ways to develop more comprehensive and law-focused coding protocols, this Article helps positive scholars - whether political scientists or legal academics - to consider how to take account of law. The Article concludes by discussing implications for future research.


We examine the impact of a temporary price shock on the attainment of undocumented college students enrolled in a large urban college system. In spring 2002, the City University of New York reversed its policy of charging in-state tuition to undocumented students. By fall 2002, the state legislature restored in-state rates. Using a differences-in-differences identification strategy, we estimate impacts on reenrollment, credits, grades, and degree completion. The price shock led to an immediate 8 percent decrease in senior college students' enrollment. Senior college students who entered college the semester prior to the price shock experienced lasting reductions in attainment, including a 22 percent decrease in degree receipt. Conversely, among senior college students who been enrolled for at least a year, the price shock only affected the timing of exit.


High performance reconfigurable computing has become a crucial tool for designing application-specific processors/cores in a number of areas. Improvements in reconfigurable devices such as FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) and their inclusion in current computing products have created new opportunities, as well as new challenges for high performance computing (HPC). An FPGA is an integrated circuit that contains tens of thousands of building blocks, known as configuration logic blocks (CLBs) connected by programmable interconnections. FPGAs tend to be an excellent choice when dealing with algorithms that can benefit from the high parallelism offered by the FPGA fine-grained architecture. In particular, one of the most valuable features of FPGAs is their reconfigurability, i.e., the fact that they can be used for different purposes at different stages of a computation and they can be, at least partially, reprogrammed at run-time. HPC applications with reconfigurable computing (RC) have the potential to deliver enormous performance, thus they are especially attractive when the main design goal is to obtain high performance at a reasonable cost. Furthermore they are suitable for use in embedded systems. This is not the case for other alternatives such as grid-computing. The problem of accelerating HPC applications with RC can be compared to that of porting uniprocessor applications to massively parallel processors (MPPs). However, MPPs are better understood to most software developers than reconfigurable devices. Moreover, tools for porting codes to reconfigurable devices are not yet as well developed as for porting sequential code to parallel code. Nevertheless, in recent years considerable progress has been in developing HPC applications with RC in such areas as signal processing, robotics, graphics, cryptography, bioinformatics, evolvable and biologically-inspired hardware, network processors, real-time systems, rapid ASIC prototyping, interactive multimedia, machine vision, computer graphics, robotics, and embedded applications, to name a few. This special issue contains a sampling of the progress made in some of these areas. In the first paper, Lieu My Chuong, Lam Siew Kei, and Thambillai Srikanthan propose a framework that can rapidly and accurately estimate the hardware area- time measures for implementing C-applications on FPGAs. Their method is able to predict the delays with average accuracy of the 97%. The estimation computation of this approach can be done in the order of milliseconds. This is an essential step to facilitate rapid design exploration for FGPA implementations and significantly helps in the implementation of FPGA systems using high-level description languages. In the second paper, T. Hausert, A. Dsu, A. Sudarsanam, and S. Young design an FPGA based system to solve linear systems for scientific applications. They analyze the FPGA performance per wait (MFLOPS/W) and compare the performance with microprocessor-based approaches. Finally as the main outcome of this analysis, they propose helpful recommendations for speeding up FPGA computations with low power consumption. In the third paper, S. Mota, E. Ros, and F. de Toro describe a computing architecture that finely pipelines all the processing stages of a space variant mapping strategy to reduce the distortion effect on a motion-detection based vision system. As an example, they describe the results of correcting perspective distortion in a monitoring system for vehicle overtaking processes. In the fourth paper, Sadaf R. Alam, Pratul K. Agarwal, Melissa C. Smith, and Jeffrey S. Vetter describe an FPGA acceleration of molecular dynamics using the Particle-Mesh Ewald method. Their results show that time-to-solution of medium scale biological system simulations are reduced by a factor of 3X and they predict that future FPGA devices will reduce the time-to-solution by a factor greater than 15X for large scale biological systems. In the fifth paper, Nazar A. Saqib presents a space complexity analysis of two Karatsuba-Ofman multiplier variants. He studies the number of FPGA hardware resources employed by those two multipliers as a function of the operands' bitlength. He also provides a comparison table against the school (classical) multiplier method, where he shows that the Karatsuba-Ofman method is much more economical than the classical method for operand bitlengths greater than thirty two bits. The complexity analysis presented in this paper is validated experimentally by implementing the multiplier designs on FPGA devices. The help of the follow reviewers, who ensured the quality of this issue, is gratefully acknowledged: Mancia Anguita, University of Granada, Spain, Beatriz Aparico, Andalucia Astrophysics Institute, CSIC, Spain, AbdSamad Benkrid, Queen's University, Northern Ireland, Eunjung Cho, Georgia State University, USA, Nareli Cruz-Cortes,CIC-IPN, Mexico, Sergio Cuenca, University of Alicante, Spain, Jean-Pierre Deschamps, University Rey Juan Carlos, Spain, Edgar Ferrer, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Luis Gerardo de la Fraga, CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico, Antonio Garcia, University of Granada, Spain, Javier Garrigos, University of Cartagena, Spain, Miguel Angel Leon-Chavez, BUAP, Mexico, Adriano de Luca-Pennacchia CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico, Antonio Martinez, University of Alicante, Spain, Christian Morillas, University of Granada, Spain, Daniel Ortiz-Arroyo, Aalborg University, Denmark. Dorothy Bollman, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Javier Diaz, University of Granada, Spain. Francisco Rodriguez-Henriquez, Center for Research and Advanced Study, National Polytechnical Institute, Mexico.


There is indeed a strong opportunity for South Asian countries to benefit from intensifying regional ties. As a regional policy dialogue becomes stronger and barriers are gradually eliminated, or at least substantially reduced, economic integration will intensify in the next decade or two. This is partly due to the very low level of integration it starts from. For instance, intraregional trade in South Asia accounts for only 5.5 per cent of total trade, as opposed to East Asias almost 60 per cent. As the region continues to build its economic infrastructure and new cross-border projects are implemented, these will not only intensify trade in goods and services, but also facilitate the movement of people. Easing existing cross-border impediments to trade and labour movements, will likely be the strongest economic driver over the coming decade. But the key to any experiment in cooperation and economic integration is political will.


The class IV glycine-rich RNA-binding proteins are a distinct subgroup within the heterogenous superfamily of glycine-rich proteins (GRPs). They are distinguished by the presence of an RNA-binding domain in the N-terminus; generally in the form of an RNA-recognition motif (RRM) or a cold-shock domain (CSD). These are followed by a C-terminal glycine-rich domain. Growing evidence suggests that these proteins play key roles in the adaptation of organisms to biotic and abiotic stresses including those resulting from pathogenesis, alterations in the osmotic, saline and oxidative environment and changes in temperature. Similar vertebrate proteins are also cold-induced and involved in, e.g. hibernation, suggesting evolutionarily conserved functions. The class IV RNA-binding GRPs are likely to operate as key molecular components of hormonally regulated development and to work by regulating gene expression at multiple levels by modifying alternative splicing, mRNA export, mRNA translation and mRNA degradation.


In the last years wireless communications have experienced a fast growth due to the high
mobility that they allow. However, wireless channels have some disadvantages, like multipath
fading, that make them difficult to deal with. A modulation that efficiently deals with
selective fading channels is OFDM. The advancements in digital signal processing and
very large scale integrated circuits allow efficient and cost-effective implementation of the
FFT operations making OFDM an attractive solution for wireless channels. An important
disadvantage of OFDM systems is their high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). High
PAPR degrades OFDM signals by forcing the analog amplifier to work in the nonlinear
region, distorting this way the signal and making the amplifier to consume more power.
There are several ways to reduce the PAPR of OFDM signals which can be divided in two
groups: the techniques that non-linearly distort the signal and the ones that reduce the
PAPR without distorting the signal. A simple technique, belonging to the first group, is to
clip the signal to a maximumallowed value, at the cost of BER degradation and out-of-band
radiation. Clipping does not add extra information to the signal and high peaks occur with
low probability so the signal is seldom distorted. Out-of-band radiation can be reduced by
filtering at the transmitter, the filter used in this project consists on a FFT-IFFT pair which
is easier to implement than traditional FIR filters and allows the implementation of the
clip&filter set several times in order to reduce the peak regrowth that filtering introduces.
The BER degradation can be mitigated by reconstructing the signal at the receiver. We
analyzed the performance of some commonly used techniques that iteratively try to guess
the original symbols and proposed an improvement for one of those techniques. The
methods have been tested with Matlab and from the simulation results some conclusions
are extracted.


We estimate a model of urban productivity in which the agglomeration effect of density is enhanced by a metropolitan area's stock of human capital. Estimation accounts for potential biases due to the endogeneity of density and industrial composition effects. Using new information on output per worker for U.S. metropolitan areas along with a measure of density that accounts for the spatial distribution of population, we find that a doubling of density increases productivity by 2 to 4 percent. Consistent with theories of learning and knowledge spillovers in cities, we demonstrate that the elasticity of average labor productivity with respect to density increases with human capital. Metropolitan areas with a human capital stock one standard deviation below the mean realize no productivity gain, while doubling density in metropolitan areas with a human capital stock one standard deviation above the mean yields productivity benefits that are about twice the average.


Fallback authentication is the backup authentication method used when the primary authentication method (e.g., passwords, biometrics, etc.) fails. Currently, widely-deployed fallback authentication methods (e.g., security questions, email resets, and SMS resets) suffer from documented security and usability flaws that threaten the security of accounts. These flaws motivate us to design and study Geographical Security Questions (GeoSQ), a system for fallback authentication. GeoSQ is an Android application that utilizes autobiographical location data for fallback authentication. We performed security and usability analyses of GeoSQ through an in-person two-session lab study (n=36, 18 pairs). Our results indicate that GeoSQ exceeds the security of its counterparts, while its usability (specifically login time and memorability) has room for improvement.


In this brief the design and analysis of an optimal robust minimax linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control of vibration of a flexible beam is studied. The analysis is performed by transforming the minimax LQG control design problem to its equivalent mixed sensitivity design problem. The first six modes of the beam in the frequency range of 0–700 Hz are selected for control purpose. Among these modes, three modes in the frequency range of 100–400 Hz are used for control, while the other three modes are left as the uncertainty of modeling. Both the model and the uncertainty are measured based on experimental data. The nominal model is identified from frequency response data and the uncertainty is presented by frequency weighted multiplicative modeling method. For the augmented plant consisting of the nominal model and its accompanied uncertainty, a minimax LQG controller is designed. Analysis and tradeoff between robust stability and robust performance is shown by selecting two different choices of uncertainty modeling. Simulation results used to show how the uncertainty weights can be tuned so that the proposed robust controller increase the damping of the system in its resonance frequencies and maintain the robust stability of the feedback system at the same time.


This paper presents the ARAMIS project accepted for funding in the 5 Framework Programme of the European Commission, which started on January 2002. The ARAMIS project aims at developing a new risk assessment methodology which allows to evaluate the risk level of an industrial plant by taking into account prevention measures against major accidents and the vulnerability of its environment. The methodology will support the harmonised implementation of the SEVESO II Directive. The project is built to result in the composition of an integrated risk index based on the definition of Reference Scenarios and combining the evaluation of: 1. Scenario consequence severity 2. Safety management effectiveness affecting the probability of occurrence of major accidents 3. Environment vulnerability. The methodology will be validated with case studies. Efforts are given to disseminate the methodology to decision-makers in charge of the control of major accident hazards. Thus the project development will be continuously monitored by a review team gathering risk experts from industry and EU competent authorities in order to ensure the widest acceptance of the approach.


Most commonly, nearshore suspended sediment time series are characterized by distinct high concentration events. These events are coherent structures which should have lengths scales that are dependent on the length scale of the near bed turbulence. Possible generation mechanisms for coherent turbulent structures include bed shear, vortex shedding from bed forms, shear instabilities of oscillatory boundary layers, and surficial wave breaking. For turbulence mechanisms other than wave breaking, the characteristic length scale should be governed by the thickness of the bottom boundary layer. The objective of this investigation is to characterize the observed vertical length scales of suspended sediment plumes over the course of a single evolving storm and to compare these length scale estimates with the thickness of the displacement WBBL. Field observations were made at Queensland Beach on the east coast of Nova Scotia in 1995. This steep planar beach faces a restricted opening, with incoming waves approaching normal to the shore and has a 1 m tidal range. The instruments were located in an intermediate water depth of 3.2 m where the median grain size was 0.02 cm. Sediment suspension was measured with a 2.25 MHz acoustic sounder looking downward and the bed geometry was measure with a rotary sonar. Over the course of a relatively short lived storm event within a 24 hour period, the wave height ranged from .35 m to 1.4 m and the bed geometry underwent multiple transitions. During this event, the sediment suspension observations showed that while the the relatively infrequent large suspension events increase with increasing storm intensity, the mean suspension event length scale shows little variability. The suspended sediment length scales were compared with an estimate of the displacement thickness of the wave bottom boundary layer. Although the two estimates showed an order of magnitude agreement, the displacement thickness estimates increased slightly with increasing storm intensity. The rms deviation between the estimated boundary layer thickness and the mean length scale of the suspended sediment vertical excursion was 1.2 cm.


Healthy city planning means seeking ways to eliminate the deep and persistent inequities that plague cities. Yet, as Jason Corburn argues in this book, neither city planning nor public health is currently organized to ensure that today's cities will be equitable and healthy. Having made the case for what he calls 'adaptive urban health justice' in the opening chapter, Corburn briefly reviews the key events, actors, ideologies, institutions and policies that shaped and reshaped the urban public health and planning from the nineteenth century to the present day. He uses two frames to organize this historical review: the view of the city as a field site and as a laboratory. In the second part of the book Corburn uses in-depth case studies of health and planning activities in Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, and Richmond, California to explore the institutions, policies and practices that constitute healthy city planning. These case studies personify some of the characteristics of his ideal of adaptive urban health justice. Each begins with an historical review of the place, its policies and social movements around urban development and public health, and each is an example of the urban poor participating in, shaping, and being impacted by healthy city planning.


This volume contains the results of joint research conducted by Korean and Russian experts, focusing on the following objectives. First, we wish to illustrate the need for trilateral economic cooperation within the changing political situation on the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast Asian region, through which it will become possible to pursue mutual prosperity within the region and establish a foundation for permanent peace. Our second goal is to perform an in-depth study of the perceptions and situations on each side in regard to South Korea–North Korea–Russia cooperation, through which we can identify the basic directions, tasks and strategies to promote cooperation between the three parties. This approach is particularly timely and significant on an academic level when it comes to identifying strategic connections between Korea's New Northern Policy and Russia's New Eastern Policy, and to realize qualitative development in South Korea–Russia relations. Finally, we wish to offer important policy implications for the Korean government as it implements its New Northern Policy and the New Economic Map for the Korean Peninsula, and help produce measures to expand economic cooperation between Korea and Russia in the Russian Far East.


The Economic Development Administration (EDA), targeted for elimination or major "reinvention" early in the 104th Congress, gained a new lease on life in the waning days of the 105th. Having been kept alive via appropriations bills since its last authorizing legislation expired in 1982, P.L. 105-393 reauthorized the EDA and its programs for 5 years. On October 27, Congress approved a conference agreement recommending $286.7 million for EDAP and $28 million for S&E, for a totalFY2001 appropriation of$411.9 million for EDA. It became part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 4942, P.L. 106-553) signed into law on December 21, 2000.


Berlin, Brussels, Florence, London, Toronto, Zurich - fascinating western metropolises which are all sophisticated icons of international commerce, finance, tourism, though in very different ways. Striking appearances and successful structures are, however, only one side of the reality. On the shadow side, there are the insidious changes which have come about primarily for reasons of quick profit and consumerism; social and ethnic ghettos are on the increase. Yet in all these cities there are forces which are facing up to these supposedly irreversible developments and which must be taken seriously. INURA - an International Network for Urban Research and Action - published Possible Urban Worlds in 1998 to draw attention to contemporary urban renewal. Now they are publishing Contested Metropolis which looks at these six cities, presenting the most important critics and alternative urban projects.


Kali Linux: a complete pentesting toolkit facilitating smooth backtracking for working hackersAbout This BookConduct network testing, surveillance, pen testing and forensics on MS Windows using Kali LinuxFootprint, monitor, and audit your network and investigate any ongoing infestationsCustomize Kali Linux with this professional guide so it becomes your pen testing toolkitWho This Book Is ForIf you are a working ethical hacker who is looking to expand the offensive skillset with a thorough understanding of Kali Linux, then this is the book for you. Prior knowledge about Linux operating systems and the BASH terminal emulator along with Windows desktop and command line would be highly beneficial. What You Will LearnSet up Kali Linux for pen testingMap and enumerate your Windows networkExploit several common Windows network vulnerabilitiesAttack and defeat password schemes on WindowsDebug and reverse-engineer Windows programsRecover lost files, investigate successful hacks and discover hidden data in innocent-looking filesCatch and hold admin rights on the network, and maintain backdoors on the network after your initial testing is doneIn DetailMicrosoft Windows is one of the two most common OS and managing its security has spawned the discipline of IT security. Kali Linux is the premier platform for testing and maintaining Windows security. Kali is built on the Debian distribution of Linux and shares the legendary stability of that OS. This lets you focus on using the network penetration, password cracking, forensics tools and not the OS. This book has the most advanced tools and techniques to reproduce the methods used by sophisticated hackers to make you an expert in Kali Linux penetration testing. First, you are introduced to Kali's top ten tools and other useful reporting tools. Then, you will find your way around your target network and determine known vulnerabilities to be able to exploit a system remotely. Next, you will prove that the vulnerabilities you have found are real and exploitable. You will learn to use tools in seven categories of exploitation tools. Further, you perform web access exploits using tools like websploit and more. Security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Passwords are often that weak link. Thus, you learn about password attacks that can be used in concert with other approaches to break into and own a network. Moreover, you come to terms with network sniffing, which helps you understand which users are using services you can exploit, and IP spoofing, which can be used to poison a system's DNS cache. Once you gain access to a machine or network, maintaining access is important. Thus, you not only learn penetrating in the machine you also learn Windows privilege's escalations. With easy to follow step-by-step instructions and support images, you will be able to quickly pen test your system and network. Style and approach This book is a hands-on guide for Kali Linux pen testing. This book will provide all the practical knowledge needed to test your network's security using a proven hacker's methodology. The book uses easy-to-understand yet professional language for explaining concepts.


This review thoroughly analyses draft 01 of the Quick-Start proposal, focusing mostly on security issues. It is argued that the recent new QS nonce proposal gives insufficient protection against misbehaving receivers, and a new approach is suggested. But it would be perverse to strengthen protection against malicious receivers too much when the protocol only works if all senders can be trusted to comply. The review argues this is an inevitable result of choosing to have routers allocate rate to senders without keeping per-flow state. The paper also questions whether Quick-Start's under-utilisation assumption defines a distinct range of operation where fairness can be ignored. Because traffic variance will always blur the boundary, we argue that under-utilisation should be treated as the extreme of a spectrum where fairness is always an issue to some extent. If we are to avoid per-flow state on routers, the review points to an alternative direction where endpoints allocate rate to themselves. Counter-intuitively, this allows scalable security and a spectrum of fairness to be built in from the start, but rate allocation is less deterministic. Issues not related to security are also raised, including the possibility of a catastrophic overload if path delays are atypical. A solution to this is offered, as well as solutions to scalability issues with the range and precision of the Rate Request field. Many other more minor review comments are given.


A new anisotropic damage model for rock is formulated and discussed. Flow rules are derived with the energy release rate conjugate to damage, which is thermodynamically consistent. Drucker–Prager yield function is adapted to make the damage threshold depend on damage energy release rate and to distinguish between tension and compression strength. Positivity of dissipation is ensured by using a nonassociate flow rule for damage, while nonelastic deformation due to damage is computed by an associate flow rule. Simulations show that the model meets thermodynamic requirements, follows a rigorous formulation, and predicts expected trends for damage, deformation and stiffness.


The study examined the price generating process and volatility of Nigerian agricultural commodities market using secondary data for price series on meat, cereals, sugar, dairy and food for the period of January 1990 to February 2014. The data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics used the coefficient of variation while the inferential statistics used the linear Gaussian State-Space (SS) model. The results of the descriptive statistics showed that the coefficients of variation for cereals (39.88 %), food (32.65 %) and dairy price (43.08 %) were respectively higher during the overall time period (January 1990 to February 2014) than during the first (January 1990 to January 2002) and second (February 2002 to February 2014) sub-time periods. The results of the inferential statistics showed that authoregressive moving average (ARMA) model is the most selected Nigeria agricultural commodity price generating model for the time periods, and that the final states of their unobserved component of cereals, meat, dairy and sugar prices were 6317.86, 2.06, 34.45 and 10.24 respectively. The prices of cereals, meat, dairy, sugar and food in general were generated and most fitted by the ARMA in Nigeria. Also the prices have been on the increase and have exhibited high volatility. The volatility, process and the determinants of the Nigerian food commodities prices can best be described by the simple (ARMA) model. Keywords : price, volatility, state-space, stationarity, ARMA


It has been proposed that metadata describing data quality (DQ), termed DQ tags, be made available in situations where decision makers are unfamiliar with the data context, for example, in data warehouses. However, there have been conflicting reports as to the impact of such DQ tags on decision-making outcomes. Early studies did not explicitly consider the usability and semantics of the DQ tag designs used experimentally or the impact of such tags on decision process, except in suggestions for future research. This study addresses these issues, focusing on the design of usable DQ tags whose semantics are explicitly specified and exploring the impact of such DQ tags on decision outcomes and process. We use the information quality framework InfoQual, the interaction design technique of contextual inquiry, and cognitive process tracing to address DQ tag semantics, usability, and impact on decision process, respectively. In distinct contrast to earlier laboratory experiments, there was no evidence that the preferred decision choice changed with DQ tags, but decision time was significantly increased and there were indications of reduced consensus. These results can be explained by understanding the impact of DQ tags on decision process using concurrent protocol analysis, which involves participants verbalizing thoughts while making a decision. The protocol analysis study shows that DQ tags are associated with increased cognitive processing in the earlier phases of decision making, which delays generation of decision alternatives.


The sedimentary sequences of the continental margin off southwest Africa have been shaped by different forces: So, the interaction of climate, oceanic currents and sea level fluctuations left a significant imprint in the sedimentary structures along the continental margin. Additionally, tectonic movements affected the sedimentary sequences. Our aim is to unravel the development and modifications of the depositional system in the Northern Cape Basin. Especially we want to concentrate on the effect of the Initiation of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation on the depositional environment.As a first step we present a seismostratigraphic model for the Neogene and Quarternary sedimentary layers in the Northern Cape Basin based on a combination of reflection seismic lines with drill site records of the ODP Leg 175 Site 1082 assisted by palynological data. The drill site data were converted from depth domain to two-way traveltime domain by sonic logs calculated from P-wave velocities of the site data. This procedure provides the mapping of seismostratigraphic units and reflectors (event horizons) and enables an interpretation of their origin.We defined seven seismic units NCB-1a to NCB-5 for the Cenozoic sediments in the Northern Cape Basin according to the reflection pattern. These units, their acoustic base reflectors as well as some discontinuities own a laterally marked continuity on the existing seismic lines. Thus, they can be traced about 250 km over the northern Cape Basin, along the outer shelf, slope and slope basin. We suggest that the continuity of the reflectors indicates a relatively widespread and uniform depositional environment.A striking observation is an unconformity dated at 2.2 Ma between units NCB-1b and NCB-1c. The reflectors above onlap onto this interface (named NCB-B) whereas the internal reflectors of unit NCB-1c show toplap termination. The outbuilding of the slope in unit NCB-1c indicates a low relative sea level. In contrast the sigmoid reflection configuration in unit NCB-1b is an indication for a gentle rise of relative sea level which indeed corresponds to a rise in eustatic sealevel. Since we can identify interface NCB-B 250 km along the margin of the Northern Cape Basin we infer a large regional change in deposition regime. It coincides with a marked change of pollen assemblages. The palynology of ODP Site 1082 revealed profound changes in the terrestrial environment of southwestern Africa at 2.2 Ma. The accumulation rate of pollen suddenly drops from 50-60 pol/a/ccm in older layers to 8 pol/a/ccm in average after 2.2 Ma. This marked reduction of pollen input into the ocean is interpreted as the result of a loss of a perennial river discharge, indicating in turn a change of hinterland climate from humid to drier conditions in the late Pliocene.As further point we found that since the Middle to Upper Miocene boundary (~10 Ma) the deposition on the outer shelf almost starved or even erosion took place. The four seismic units NCB-1a to NCB-1c, and NCB-2 own their highest thickness on the slope and pinch out at the shelf break. This configuration documents that progradation prevailed on the slope since the Upper Miocene. Slumping features indicate a high instability of deposited material, which in turn we associate with strong increase in sedimentation rate. The age of the unit corresponds to the end of the Mid-Miocene climate optimum associated with a strong sea level drop at 11 Ma. The onset of modern Benguela Current circulation is dated at 10 Ma, associating enhanced productivity with stepwise increase in organic-carbon accumulation. We found slumping traces in unit NCB-2 to confirm a high instability of deposited material during these times, and associate the establishment of the upwelling system with the sediments accumulated since unit NCB-2.