Problem statement: Although the diversity of marine Actinobacteria
have been studied and biotechnologically exploited throughout the world, the studies
on marine actinobacteria in Indian peninsula are largely unexplored. Of 9 maritime
states in India, only 4 states have been extensively studied for the diversity
of actinobacteria. Further, the studies on bioactive actinomycetes from saline
soil are very scanty. In the present study, we had taken an initiative to isolate
culturable halophilic actinomycetes and to screen the bioactive potential. Approach:
The marine sediment sample was collected at a depth of 400 cm at Marakkanam. The
strain was isolated using ISP No. 2 medium supplemented with 25% sea water. The
polyphasic taxonomy of the strain was evaluated by phenotypic, chemotaxonomic
and phylogenetic analysis. The 16S rRNA was sequenced and phylogenetic relationship
with the closest related species were studied. The growth conditions and the medium
had been optimized under shake-flask conditions by measuring the dry weight of
the mycelium. The isolate was subjected to fermentation and the crude extract
was screened for cytotoxic, hemolytic and antimicrobial activity. The cytotoxicity
was evaluated on HeLa cells by MTT assay, hemolytic assay on mouse erythrocytes
and the antimicrobial activity was determined by agar diffusion assay.
Results: Based on polyphasic taxonomy the species was identified as Saccharopolyspora
salina and belongs to the genus Saccharopolyspora. The 16S rRNA sequence of the
isolate showed 100% similarity with Saccharopolyspora salina. Based on the phylogenetic
and phenotypic evaluation the isolate was designated as Saccharopolyspora salina
VITSDK4. The growth was maximal in the designed production medium with the incubation
temperature of 28°C and pH of 7.4. It is a moderately halophilic species requires 9% NaCl concentration for optimal growth. The cytotoxicity on HeLa cells showed the IC50 value of 26.2 μg mL-1 by MTT assay. The hemolytic activity on mouse erythrocytes showed the EC50 value of 266 μg mL-1. The crude extract also exhibited significant antagonistic activity against fungal pathogens Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Candida albicans and the Gram negative bacteria Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Only moderate activity was seen against Gram positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis. Conclusion/Recommendations: Based on the results of our investigation, the isolated strain was identified as Saccharopolyspora salina VITSDK4, which was moderately halophilic, produces an extracellular bioactive metabolite, which inhibits the proliferation of HeLa cells as well as antagonistic to fungal and bacterial pathogens. Further studies on purification and characterization of the pure compound from the strain were ongoing. The results of this study suggested that the marine actinomycetes from the unexplored Indian coast could provide lead compounds of therapeutic value.


This paper explores the idea that the properties of adpositional systems can suffice to explain the Talmian distinction between satellite and verb framed languages. Following the insight that morphological simple prepositions in Romance languages are only locative, I propose that the functional domain of the directional/path preposition is defective and, hence, has to be licensed via incorporation to the (motion) verb. Prepositional incorporation, understood as head movement, prevents manner incorporation, as a particular case of Kayne's (1994) condition on adjunction. The paper offers an account for Talmian lexicalization patterns from a non lexicalist perspective, reducing typological differences between languages to specific properties within the functional domain of lexical heads.


Coxsackievirus B infections have been associated with clinical manifestation of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) in several studies, but their initiating role in the slowly progressing β-cell damage is not known. This is the first prospective study designed to assess the role of coxsackie B and other enterovirus infections in the induction and acceleration of this process. Three separate series were studied: 1) an intrauterine exposure series comprising 96 pregnant mothers whose children subsequently manifested IDDM and 96 control mothers whose children remained nondiabetic; 2) a cohort of 22 initially unaffected siblings of diabetic children who were followed until they developed clinical IDDM (mean observation time, 29 months) and 110 control siblings who remained nondiabetic; 3) a case-control series comprising 90 children with newly diagnosed IDDM and 90 control subjects. Enterovirus infections were identified on the basis of significant increases in serum IgG, IgM, or IgA class antibodies against a panel of enterovirus antigens (capture radioimmunoassay). Enterovirus antibodies were significantly elevated in pregnant mothers whose children subsequently manifested IDDM, particularly in cases in which IDDM appeared at a very young age, before the age of 3 years (P < 0.005). Serologically verified enterovirus infections were almost two times more frequent in siblings who developed clinical IDDM than in siblings who remained nondiabetic (mean, 1.0 vs. 0.6 infections/follow-up year; P < 0.001). This difference was seen both close to the diagnosis of IDDM and several years before diagnosis. Up to 19% (10 of 52) of the infections in prediabetic siblings were associated with increases in islet cell antibody (ICA) levels, and 83% (10 of 12) of ICAs increase with enterovirus infections. The corresponding figures in control siblings were 3% (5 of 185, P < 0.001) and 38% (5 of 13, Ns). IgM class enterovirus antibodies were slightly elevated in young children (<3 years old)with newly diagnosed IDDM (P < 0.05), but not in older patients. These observations suggest that exposures to enterovirus infections, both in utero and in childhood, are able to induce β-cell damage and lead to clinical IDDM after a varying subclinical period.


The notion that election campaigns mobilize people politically is often treated as conventional wisdom. There is, however, a scarcity of research on the mobilizing effects of election campaigns in the current high-choice media environment. The same holds true for research on the role of the media—and more specifically on how the mobilizing effects differ between news seekers and news avoiders—and on how mobilizing effects might differ between first- and second-order national election campaigns. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to investigate the mobilizing effects of elections in a high-choice media environment and how they differ between first- and second-order national election campaigns and between news seekers and news avoiders. Empirically, the study draws on a four-wave panel study conducted in Sweden during the 2014 elections to the European Parliament and the national parliament.


The distribution of resources is vital to any system or society. This is particularly true of social insect colonies where independent access to resources is not available to all members. Only a fraction of individuals are responsible for obtaining food for the colony from outside the nest. Surprisingly little is known about how this food is subsequently distributed to members inside the nest. The work in this thesis is focused around a set of food distribution experiments conducted using four colonies of the ant Temnothorax albipennis. The study applies a well-used technique in a new way to investigate the distribution of food under two different scenarios: feeding under normal conditions and famine relief feeding after a period of starvation. All ants in each colony are marked and then individually tracked recording every feeding interaction to obtain a complete network of food transmission. This work has shown that all four colonies efficiently relieved the famine within 30 minutes of introducing new food. This process was facilitated by workers abandoning their spatial structure and expanding their space use; feeding multiple recipients from a single donor; and simultaneously spreading stored food and new food. Recruitment of foragers did not play a major role in relieving the famine but foragers were responsible for most of the first round of feeding. The study revealed that not all members received the same amount of food and most ants received food in multiple feeding interactions. The transmission pathways used to distribute the food present an opportunity for harmful substances to spread. The pathways are explored in this context to see whether the colonies might aim to minimize the spread by partitioning the pathways or maximise spread by mixing to promote social immunity. The study reveals behavioural differences between the four colonies which are likely to result from the inherent variation in demographic and geometric properties. These differences highlight the flexibility of ant colonies during problem solving under different conditions.


Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) are a group of bacteria that enhances plant growth and yield. PGPRs as biofertilizers, are the living micro-organisms which are applied to surface of plant, seed, or soil. They colonize the plant rhizosphere or inside the plant body (as endophyte) and promotes plant growth by providing fundamental nutrients to crop plants. The rapidly increasing population is exerting immense pressure on agricultural lands for higher crop yields, which results in increasing use of chemical fertilizers. But due to negative environmental impact of artificial fertilizers and their increasing costs, microorganisms have a vital role in agriculture as they promote the exchange of plant nutrients and reduce application of chemical fertilizers as much as possible. Substances produced by PGPRs protect the plants against various pathogens by direct antagonistic interactions between the biocontrol agent and the pathogen, as well as by induction of host resistance. Resistance-inducing and antagonistic rhizobacteria might be useful in formulating new inoculants with combinations of different mechanisms of action, leading to a more efficient use for biocontrol strategies to improve cropping systems.


This paper investigates the main trends, goals and tools of the industrial policy carried out in Italy in recent years, with particular attention to its aspects in Southern regions. The first section highlights the latest positions in business promotion policies in some of the major advanced countries and the guidelines that have been developed in Europe at Community level. After recalling the main dynamics of the southern industrial sector, in comparison with the Centre-North Italy (section 2), the following section assesses trends in incentives granted and allocated to businesses (section 3). Section 4 analyses the new programmatic framework that is being outlined, whose main novel elements are «Industry 4.0» for national policies and «Smart specialization strategies» for regional industrial policy. The final section is based on the reasons why the overall industrial policy framework, that has just been completed, has not been a «real» industrial policy strategy yet, in the authors' view. It is recognized above all the need for a firm strengthening of the national component of industrial policy, whose action is particularly weak in Southern Italy, thus condemning regional industrial policy to being perpetually substituted.


Reconstitution of the hematopoietic system by bone marrow (BM) transplantation operates on a knife-edge. Engraftment can be improved by allowing some degree of mismatch between the tissue antigens of the donor and recipient and, in diseases such as leukemia, also provides a powerful means for helping destroy host-derived leukemic cells. However, the greater the mismatch, the more vigorously residual T cells in the donor BM will react against the recipient tissues, leading to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Two reports address how natural killer (NK) cells help prevent rejection (see the Perspective by Kärre). Rugerri et al. observed that for NK cells, a greater level of NK cell reactivity against host antigens correlated with a higher incidence of successful transplantation. In mice, preconditioning with purified host-reactive NK cells removed the need for the usual preablation of recipient bone marrow by irradiation, and these animals did not develop T cell-mediated GVHD seen in control mice. Host-reactive NK cells may ablate antigen-presenting cells in the host and, in so doing, prevent them from inducing anti-host T cells. Activation of NK cells can also be prevented by ligands that bind inhibitory receptors on the NK cell surface. Wang et al. observed that in mice lacking the phosphatase SH-2-containing inositol phosphatase (SHIP), the repertoire of inhibitory NK receptors was skewed in favor of select receptors that could recognize foreign, as well as self, ligands. When transplanted with bone marrow, these mice failed to reject bone marrow from a mismatched donor. Incidence of GVHD was also absent in these mice, suggesting a possible role for host-derived NK cells in GVHD. K. Kärre, A perfect mismatch. Science 295, 2029-2031 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] L. Ruggeri, M. Capanni, E. Urbani, K. Perruccio, W. D. Shlomchik, A. Tosti, S. Posati, D. Rogaia, F. Frassoni, F. Aversa, M. F. Martelli, A. Velardi, Effectiveness of donor natural killer cell alloreactivity in mismatched hematopoietic transplants. Science 295, 2097-2100 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] J.-W. Wang, J. M. Howson, T. Ghansah, C. Desponts, J. M. Ninos, S. L. May, K. H. T. Nguyen, N. Toyama-Sorimachi, W. G. Kerr, Influence of SHIP on the NK repertoire and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Science 295, 2094-2097 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


We consider the problem of blind (i.e., without training sequences) linear mitigation of multiple-access interference in the uplink of quasi-synchronous multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) systems. In the first part of the paper, we present the analytical performance assessment of the recently proposed blind two-stage multiuser detector, whose synthesis requires only the knowledge of the spreading code of the desired user. The analysis allows one to evaluate the actual performance when the receiver's parameters are estimated by resorting to a finite data record. Based on this analysis, in the second part of the paper, we propose to improve the performance of the two-stage detector by adding a quadratic constraint in the first stage synthesis, which exploits the knowledge of the spreading codes of the active users within the cell of interest. It is shown analytically that incorporation of such a quadratic constraint improves the receiver robustness against errors in the estimated statistics of the received data, although it slightly reduces the interference suppression capabilities of the two-stage detector. The effectiveness of the proposed receiver is further corroborated by computer simulation results.


The third phase of the recovery from cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an exercise-based rehabilitation programme. However, adherence to an exercise regime is typically not maintained by the patient for a variety of reasons such as lack of time, financial constraints, etc. In order to facilitate patients to perform their exercises from the comfort of their home and at their own convenience, we have developed a mobile application, termed MedFit. It provides access to a tailored suite of exercises along with easy to understand guidance from audio and video instructions. Two types of wearable sensors are utilized to allow motivational feedback to be provided to the user for self monitoring and to provide near real-time feedback. Fitbit, a commercially available activity and fitness tracker, is used to provide in-depth feedback for self-monitoring over longer periods of time (e.g. day, week, month), whereas the Shimmer wireless sensing platform provides the data for near real-time feedback on the quality of the exercises performed. MedFit is a simple and intuitive mobile application designed to provide the motivation and tools for patients to help ensure faster recovery from the trauma caused by CVD. In this paper we describe the MedFit application as a demo submission to the 2nd MMHealth Workshop at ACM MM 2017.


Anyone who has had the opportunity to teach corporate law understands how difficult it is to provide a compelling explanation of why the business judgment rule (Rule) is so important. To provide a better explanation of why this is so, this Article takes the approach that the Aronson formulation of the Rule is not the proper starting place. Instead, this Article begins by starting with a close read of two cases that initiated the application of the Rule under Delaware law, the Chancery and Supreme Court opinions in Bodell v. General Gas & Elec. By taking this approach, the following insights into the Rule were discovered that may not have been so readily apparent if the starting point was Aronson.First, without the Rule, the raw power of equity could conceivably require all challenged Board decisions to undergo an entire fairness review. The Rule is the tool used by a court to restrain itself from implementing such a review. This is the most important function of the Rule. Second, as a result of equity needing to be restrained, there is no room in the Rule formulation for fairness; fairness and fiduciary duties must be mutually exclusive. Third, there are three policy drivers that underlie the use of the Rule. Protecting the Board's statutory authority to run the company without the fear of its members being held liable for honest mistakes of judgment; respect for the private ordering of corporate governance arrangements which almost always grants extensive authority to the Board to make decisions on behalf of the corporation; and the recognition by the courts that they are not business experts, making deference to Board authority a necessity. Fourth, the Rule is an abstention doctrine not just in terms of precluding duty of care claims, but also by requiring the courts to abstain from an entire fairness review if there is no evidence of a breach in fiduciary duties or taint surrounding a Board decision. Fifth, stockholder wealth maximization (SWM) is the legal obligation of the Board and the Rule serves to support that purpose. The requirement of SWM enters into corporate law through a Board's fiduciary duties as applied under the Rule, not statutory law. In essence, SWM is an equitable concept.


The culture of microalgae requires rigorous control of all growth factors: nutrients, pH, temperature, and light. Among these factors, the light that directly influences photosynthesis mechanism is an important factor in defining optimal conditions for the culture. In this study, the effects of various intensities and its photoperiods on the growth and biochemical composition (carbohydrates, proteins) of two freshwater green algae (Tetranephris brasiliensis and Scenedesmus sp) were studied. Three different light intensities (50, 100 μmol m-2 s-1 and daylight) and three photoperiod cycles (24:0, 18:06 light: dark and natural photoperiod) is launched at a constant temperature of 23°C. Microalgal growth was measured using cell count, specific growth rate and OD in three. The results showed that under the light intensity of 100 μmol m-2 s-1 and photoperiod of 18 hour light: 6 hour dark cycle, Tetranephris brasiliensis, Scenedesmus sp. was found to grow favorably with a maximum cell concentration of 2.88 × 107 cells/mL, which corresponds to the growth rate of 0.253 d-1 for Tetranephris brasiliensis and 2.56 × 107 cells/mL which corresponds to the growth rate of 0.190 d-1 for Scenedesmus sp. These results confirm the real effect of photoperiod on the microalgae growth rate and show a good correlation between the absorbance measurements and cell concentrations.


My ethnographic research in the urban peripheries of New Delhi critically examines a popular, ICT-led skills training initiative for marginalized youth. Contemporary policy discourses in India emphasize the urgency for "training" versus "education" to prepare an efacient workforce trained for India's emerging, global economy. I argue that marginalized youth form critical subjects of these ICTD projects. Contrary to the aims of the training initiatives, participants continue to prioritize and press for an education. Their claim is an assertion of equality with more privileged individuals based on their experiences of a lack of access to familial, institutional, and linguistic privileges. I demonstrate that students' narratives disrupt the policy emphasis on consumption and hygiene, and point to deeper structural inequities in their lives. My research highlights the contradictions of ICTD programs and the limitations of the promise of inclusionfor marginalized youth in the global economy.


Optical transport networks typically deploy dynamic restoration mechanisms in order to automatically recover optical connections disrupted by network failures. Elastic optical networks (EONs), currently emerging as the next-generation technology to be adopted in optical transport, introduce new challenges for traditional generic multiprotocol label-switching (GMPLS)-based restoration that may seriously impact the achievable recovery time. At the same time, the software-defined networking (SDN) framework is emerging as an alternative control plane. It is therefore important to investigate possible benefits provided by SDN in the implementation of restoration mechanisms for EONs. This paper proposes a dynamic restoration scheme for EONs based on the SDN framework. The proposed scheme contemporarily exploits centralized path computation and node configuration to avoid contentions during the recovery procedure with the final aim of minimizing the recovery time. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by means of simulations in terms of recovery time and restoration blocking probability and compared against three reference schemes based on GMPLS and SDN.


Media is largely consumed and previous research has indicated it can be influential. Research has illustrated that media is inundated with images of the cultural standard of beauty to be thin and scenes of sexuality. Poor body image has been connected to media exposure and low sexual satisfaction. Sexual satisfaction was related to sexual self-disclosure and communication. This study was an exploratory examination to look at the relationship between media utilization, body image, sexual satisfaction, and sexual assertiveness. Participants were volunteers and included 84 women, ages 21-66, who took an online survey. The results of the present study found relationships between body image, sexual satisfaction, and sexual assertiveness. Media related results included consumption of reality television, TV talk shows, fashion magazines, and sports magazines. Results corresponded with previous findings in the field.


Development of remote stimulation techniques for neuronal tissues represents a challenging goal. Among the potential methods, mechanical stimuli are the most promising vector to convey information non-invasively into intact brain tissue. In this context, selective mechano-sensitization of neuronal circuits would pave the way to develop a new cell-type specific stimulation approach. We report here for the first time the development and characterization of mechanosensitized neuronal networks through the heterologous expression of an engineered bacterial large conductance mechanosensitive ion channel (MscL). The neuronal functional expression of the MscL channel was validated through patch-clamp recordings upon application of calibrated suction pressures. Moreover, we verified the effective development of in-vitro neuronal networks expressing the engineered MscL channel in terms of cell survival, number of synaptic puncta, and spontaneous network activity. The pure mechanosensitivity of the engineered MscL channel, with its wide genetic modification library, may represent a versatile tool to further develop a mechano-genetic approach.


Perpetual conservation easements are intended to protect the particular land they encumber for the conservation purposes specified in the deed of conveyance in perpetuity, or at least until circumstances have changed so profoundly that continued protection of the land for those purposes is no longer feasible. To protect the public interest and investment in perpetual conservation easements, and, at the same time, permit adjustments to be made to respond to changing conditions, such easements should be treated like any other form of charitable asset acquired by a government or charitable entity for a particular charitable purpose - i.e., as subject to equitable charitable trust principles. This Article outlines the considerable support for applying charitable trust principles to perpetual conservation easements, including uniform laws, the Restatement of Property, federal tax law, and judicial activity on this issue to date. This Article cautions that perpetual land protection is not appropriate in all circumstances and recommends a more considered use of perpetual conservation easements as a land protection tool. This article also explores the possible use of a number of nonperpetual conservation easements to accomplish land protection goals.


This thesis is about border crossing. Literary Journalism is a border-crossing writing genre claiming ground in fields as diverse as science, mathematics, memoir, travel and culture. The established academic discipline of anthropology is also crossing borders as styles of writing ethnography are changing and being challenged. This work is situated at the meeting point of these two genres. It examines how literary journalism can be used to write about culture for a wider audience beyond the academic community.
The defining characteristics of literary journalism – documentable subject, exhaustive research, novelistic writing techniques, voice and attention to underlying meaning – signal strengths and possible limitations to its use in writing about culture when measured against the demands of academic ethnographic writing. The requirements for research and writing about culture are examined from the perspectives of literary journalism and ethnography in Part 1 of this thesis.
To explore literary journalism's suitability to write about culture, research was conducted among the Rejang people of Sumatra. Part Two of the thesis, titled Family Strength, is presented as an example of a literary journalist approach to recording culture. It is the result of five fieldtrips to Sumatra to gather data about members of four generations of Pak Taher's family group in the village of Kelobak in the early 21st century. Each section of Family Strength tells the story of Pak Taher's relatives, highlighting changes within the lifetime of family members, including gender roles, religious values, the influence of education, generational change and farming practices. The work is not an exhaustive treatment of Rejang culture but records culture as several "slices of life".


Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality--more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words "under God" appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.


Pretreatment of wood chips with lignin-degrading fungi can save substantial amounts of electrical energy during a mechanical pulping process. In order to optimize this process, a rapid and reliable method was needed to predict energy savings. In this paper, we examine a fiber staining method that involves the use of Simons stain. This stain for microscopic examination of pulp fibers has been used previously to evaluate the degree of fibrillation in beaten fibers or more recently to differentiate fibers from untreated (control) and fungus-treated wood chips. Aspen or loblolly pine wood chips were treated with white-rot fungi under different experimental conditions in static-bed bioreactors for two or four weeks. At harvest, control and fungus-treated chips were refined through a single-disk mechanical refiner and then evaluated for fiber staining characteristics and the energy consumption during refining. Fibers obtained from control pulps stained a deep blue, whereas those obtained from different biopulps showed different intensities of yellow. The yellowing of biopulp fibers correlated very well with energy savings. The results demonstrate that the Simons staining method can accurately predict appreciable energy savings during biomechanical pulping and therefore can be used as a rapid screening technique to optimize the biopulping process.


Many bone marrow cytogenetic abnormalities in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) are tumor specific, clonal, nonrandom, and related to prognosis; it has been hypothesized that they may be markers of exposure to etiological agents. A previous report from our institution revealed several such associations; the purpose of the current study was to determine whether previous findings were present in a new group of patients. Subjects included 84 newly diagnosed AML patients (French-American-British M1 and M2); exposure data were gathered using self-report questionnaires at the time of registration. Two sets of comparisons were made: (a) patients with all (AA) or some (AN) cytogenetically abnormal cells versus those with normal karyotypes (NN) and (b) patients with specific abnormalities [-5/5q-, -7/7q-, +8, t(8;21)] versus all others. Odds ratios (ORs) were 4.64 for the association between prior cytotoxic therapy and -5/5q- and 6.38 for the association with -7/7q-, but were <1.00 for +8 and t(8;21). There were no ORs > 2.0 for specific abnormalities in any of the other exposures evaluated (cigarette smoking, alcohol use, occupational exposure to organic chemicals, paints, or pesticides/herbicides), with the exception of exposure to paints and -7/7q- (OR, 7.50). The ORs for AA/AN versus NN patients were 1.43 and 3.81 for smoking and alcohol use, and weak dose-response trends were present. The most consistent positive associations between the two series were for prior cytotoxic therapy (-5/5q-; -7/7q-), cigarette smoking (AA/AN versus NN) and alcohol use (AA/AN versus NN). Reasoning from the known association between prior cytotoxic therapy and -7/7q-, we would have predicted relatively high ORs (> 4.0) if specific abnormalities acted as markers for the exposures assessed, but none were present. However, in both series, AA/AN patients were more likely to smoke and use alcohol than were NN patients, and weak dose-response patterns were present for both. This finding suggests that both smoking and alcohol use may play a role in the pathogenesis of cytogenetic abnormalities in AML-M1/M2; however, the mechanism by which they work and whether they are involved in the etiology of these diseases remain unclear.


Studies were made of the contact resistance of Ag2S films on pure silver, and on gold-silver and palladium-silver alloys. Although relatively thick films of Ag2S on silver gave low contact resistance, equivalent film thicknesses on other substrates gave contact resistance values that were orders of magnitude higher. These results were attributed to mechanical rather than electrical-property differences of either the films, the substrates, or an interaction of both. Data clearly indicate that the "desirable" properties of silver sulfide are unique only to films on pure silver.


Although agriculture and fisheries account for only 1.6% of the GDP of the Bahamas, they produce 3% of all jobs and are important for the diversification of the economy. The Government of the Bahamas supports agriculture through a combination of value chain development measures, research and extension services, infrastructure development, and border protection. Support to producers averaged 19.08% of gross farm receipts in 2012-2014, and a significant share of support (29%) was provided in the form of transfers to general services. At the same time, total transfers arising from agricultural policy reached only 0.28% of the national GDP. Reducing barriers to trade, reducing regulations and streamlining access to incentives for farmers, and improving information services will help increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the agricultural sector.


BACKGROUND
Clinical trials for alcoholism have historically regarded alcohol consumption as the primary outcome. In a subset of trials, quality of life (QOL) has been considered as a secondary outcome. Joint latent-variable modeling techniques may provide a more accurate and powerful simultaneous analysis of primary and secondary outcomes in clinical trials. The goal of this study was to evaluate longitudinal associations between treatment status, alcohol consumption, and QOL in the Combined Pharmacotherapies and Behavioral Interventions for Alcohol Dependence (COMBINE) study.

METHODS
A total of 1,383 alcohol-dependent patients were randomized to 9 treatment groups. Percent heavy drinking days (PHDD) and health-related QOL from the 30 days preceding baseline, week 16, and week 52 were calculated using the Form 90 and the Medical Outcomes Study Health Survey Short Form-12 (SF-12), respectively. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to determine an appropriate number of latent states to represent PHDD and QOL. Subsequently, univariate and coupled hidden Markov models (for PHDD and SF-12 mental health, and PHDD and SF-12 physical) were fit to the data.

RESULTS
LPA suggested that PHDD should be represented by 3 latent states and that each SF-12 scale should be represented by 2 states. Joint modeling results suggested that (i) naltrexone significantly predicted decreased PHDD (p < 0.05), and marginally predicted improved mental health QOL via decreased PHDD (p < 0.10), and (ii) that the combinations of naltrexone and combined behavioral intervention (CBI), and acamprosate and CBI, each predicted significantly improved physical QOL (p < 0.05), and marginally predicted decreased PHDD via improved physical QOL (p < 0.10).

CONCLUSIONS
This study illustrates a powerful and novel statistical approach for simultaneously evaluating the impact of treatments on primary and secondary outcomes in clinical trials. This study also suggests that behavioral interventions may impact drinking behavior through their ameliorative effects on QOL.


The tourism sector is regarded as the second largest source of foreign exchange revenue in Kenya. Kenya has witnessed revolutionary development of ICTs, especially the recent development in internet with the arrival of the undersea fibre bandwidth in East Africa in 2009/2010. This development has led to many players in the tourism sector in Kenya adopting different ICT platforms to derive positive strategic and operational management and marketing benefits. Specifically, big and medium players have used these platforms to fight off competition and maintain market share, while informal and small players have used the same platforms to make entry into the sector. At the same time, customers are using the ICT platforms to by-pass the middle players and access services directly from the destination holiday providers. The net effect has been increased competition as well asboth positive and negativeimpacts for most of the players. However, there are challenges that prevent the deepening of the more positive impacts. The key ones were found tobethe high cost of developing and maintaining the ICT platforms, relatively unaffordable broadband Internet, lack of adequate human resource skills, lack of affordable online payment platforms and poor quality of broadband connectivity. We provide appropriate policy recommendations to address these challenges.


A deep-blue emitter 1-(10-(4-methoxyphenyl)anthracen-9-yl)-4-(10-(4-cyanophenyl)anthracen-9-yl)tetraphenylethene (TPEA) has been successfully prepared by a combinational molecular design, which contains triplet–triplet fusion (TTF) and hybridized local charge transfer (HLCT) characteristics to increase the ratio of triplet excitons used. The tetraphenylethene (TPE) moiety contributes the emitter with an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property to enhance the solid-state luminescence efficiency. The crystallographic structure shows that the two anthracene groups are twisted from the central TPE moiety, which effectively prevents a bathochromic shift of the emission. In addition, we adopted a donor–acceptor (D–A) structure to improve the charge balance in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). The material possesses high thermal stability with a glass transition temperature (Tg) of 155 °C. Based on all these advantages, a high performance of the non-doped device was achieved with a turn-on voltage (Von) of 2.6 V at a luminance of 1 cd m−2, a maximum power efficiency (ηPE,max) of 11.1 lm W−1, a maximum current efficiency (ηCE,max) of 9.9 cd A−1, and a low current efficiency roll-off even at 1000 cd m−2. Moreover, a deep-blue emission with Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.15, 0.09), a maximum external quantum efficiency (ηext,max) of 8.0% and the highest ηPE,max of 7.3 lm W−1 among all the TTF and HLCT deep-blue emitters were obtained by doping TPEA into the host of bis-4-[(N-carbazolyl)phenyl]-phenylphosphine oxide (BCPO). These results indicate that the combinational molecular design is promising for highly efficient deep-blue emitters.


PURPOSE: To provide information about the etiology, diagnostic evaluations, and clinical features of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS). TARGET AUDIENCE: This continuing education activity is intended for physicians and nurses with an interest in skin and wound care. OBJECTIVES: After participating in this educational activity, the participant should be better able to: 1. Identify the prevalence, pathophysiology, and risk factors associated with HS. 2. Describe diagnostic evaluations, staging, and comorbid disorders associated with HS. ABSTRACT Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a recurrent inflammatory follicular disease that commonly affects the apocrine-bearing skin. The aim of this continuing education article is to review the pathogenesis and clinical presentations of HS. The spectrum of clinical presentations ranges from subcutaneous nodules to draining sinus and fistula. The pathogenesis of HS remains unknown.


The research study explored the responsiveness of children's homes to the admission of children with physical and sensory disabilities. The research study was undertaken in the Ethekwini Municipality. Access to appropriate alternate care is enshrined in the Constitution of the country and the provision of residential care is one option for children who are found in need of care. The objectives of the research study were to identify gaps in the provision of residential services for children with disabilities and to explore what challenges are faced by children's homes in admitting children with physical and sensory disabilities. The theoretical framework that was used to guide the study was ecosytems theory. The ecosystems approach provided an understanding of the impact of barriers to inclusion. It also provided an understanding on the reciprocity that exists between children's homes and other systems. A qualitative research approach was used. A sample of ten children's homes was selected in the Ethekwini region, using the non-probability sampling technique. Data was collected using in-depth interviews, observation and a perusal of records. In-depth interviews were conducted with the assistance of an interview guide. The data was recorded and analysed according to common themes and trends. The results of the research study show that children's homes do not have the capacity to respond to the needs of children with disabilities. All the children's homes faced similar challenges, in the form of funding, human resources, building structures and access to resources that hinder the' admission of children with physical and sensory disabilities to their facility. One of the major findings was that children with disabilities made up less than one percent of the total population of children in the children's homes. None of the children's home had developed inclusive admission policies for children with physical and sensory disabilities. There was a clear indication that the government would need to strengthen existing.residential care facilities to make them more inclusive in nature.


We consider the task of representation learning for unsupervised segmentation of 3D voxel-grid biomedical images. We show that models that capture implicit hierarchical relationships between subvolumes are better suited for this task. To that end, we consider encoder-decoder architectures with a hyperbolic latent space, to explicitly capture hierarchical relationships present in subvolumes of the data. We propose utilizing a 3D hyperbolic variational autoencoder with a novel gyroplane convolutional layer to map from the embedding space back to 3D images. To capture these relationships, we introduce an essential self-supervised loss -- in addition to the standard VAE loss -- which infers approximate hierarchies and encourages implicitly related subvolumes to be mapped closer in the embedding space. We present experiments on both synthetic data and biomedical data to validate our hypothesis.


Abstract. Water quality data, collected by the Environment Agency in England and Wales over 10 years (1991 – 2000) were used to examine the spatial distribution of nutrient pollution risk and for assessing broad-scale spatial and temporal variability in nutrient fluxes across the Wye catchment. Nutrient water quality across the upper and middle Wye catchment, and along the main River Wye, is generally very good. However, the main areas of concern lie in the small tributaries in the south and east of the catchment, which have lower dilution capacity and high agricultural and effluent inputs, and where mean Total Reactive Phosphorus (TRP) in some cases exceed 1 mg-P l-1. Indeed, mass load calculations have demonstrated that the lowland south and east portion of the catchment contributes more than 85% of the whole-catchment TRP and more than 78% of nitrate (NO3‾) loads. Ratios of NO3‾:Ca were used to fingerprint different water-types across the catchment, linked to weathering and agricultural activity. The Wye catchment has been subject to two major sets of perturbations during the study period: (i) climatic fluctuations, with a drought during 1995-6, followed by a subsequent drought-break in 1997/8, and extreme high river flows in the autumn/winter of 2000/2001, and (ii) introduction of tertiary P-treatment at major sewage treatment works in the catchment. The implications of these perturbations for the nutrient water quality of the Wye catchment are discussed. Recommendations are made for more targeted monitoring to directly assess diffuse source nutrient contributions. Keywords: nutrients, phosphate, phosphorus, nitrate, nitrogen, river, Wye, PSYCHIC, Defra


The Perspectives of Psychiatry by Drs McHugh and Slavney, first published in 1986 and revised in 1998, was written to provide psychiatrists with a coherent framework for better understanding mental disorders and helping patients. The authors envisioned it as a kind of manifesto against what they perceived as ''the problematic state of American Psychiatry'' at the time (p. ix). Looking beyond the ''reductionism'' of the biopsychosocial model and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the book's central thesis was that psychiatric presentations and disorders cannot be understood by using only one standard investigative and diagnostic method. McHugh and Slavney firmly believed that clinicians, to gain the comprehensive, balanced, systematic understanding of their patients, need to consider all psychiatric presentations from four points of view or perspectivesVdisease, dimensional, behavior, and life story. This conceptual framework for understanding psychiatric patients was adopted over the years by a number of departments of psychiatry, including Johns Hopkins, where it originated. More than 20 years later, Margaret Chisolm, MD, and Constantine Lyketsos, MD, MHS, both seasoned faculty members in the department of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, published Systematic Psychiatric Evaluation, a casebook that provides a practical framework for conducting a psychiatric clinical evaluation and developing a comprehensive treatment plan. In the words of its authors, this volume was ''an attempt to distill the detailed instructions of the Perspectives of Psychiatry into a practical 'recipe' for trainees'' (p. xiii). The book is divided into two sections. Part 1, titled ''The Concepts Behind the Approach,'' provides a very clear, concise description of the four perspectives. The life story perspective is usually compelling to clinicians. We all live both surrounded by stories and telling stories. Stories define our culture, our family origins, and our place in the world. We use stories to explain who we are and what we do. Being able to construct a meaningful narrative to explain life events makes us feel less fragmented, more secure, and whole. The life story perspective focuses on the fact that an individual's psychiatric condition arises, in part, from understandable psychological reactions to life's events. The dimensional perspective focuses on personality (which is composed of enduring cognitive and temperament dimensions). This perspective informs the psychiatrist about the role played by personality traits on a patient's psychiatric condition. As (McHugh 1992) aptly described it, ''it grapples with patients who cannot be placed in clear and distinct categories, but can sometimes be comprehended in their vulnerability to mental distress from their individual position on psychological dimensions that are analogous to physical dimensions such as height or weight.'' The disease perspective, most familiar to physicians, rests on ''disease reasoning''V in other words, categorical logic. It assumes that a patient's presentation can be explained by the presence of a clinical syndrome. This clinical syndrome emerges from an underlying pathology as a result of one or more etiologies. Fundamentally, the disease perspective emphasizes what the patient has. The behavior perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes what the patient is doing. It can explain repetitive, maladaptive behaviors involving the satisfaction of common drives (eating, drinking, and sexuality) or strong, acquired, desired goals (gambling and substance abuse). Behavior is viewed as a function of physiological drive, learning, and personal choice. The therapeutic goal, from a behavioral perspective and based on conditioned learning theory, is to interrupt the maladaptive behavior (stopping the behavior to gradually extinguish the drive and limiting exposure). Each perspective sheds a particular light on a different aspect of psychopathology. Not surprisingly, certain psychiatric conditions are more easily ''explained'' by some perspectives than others. For instance, given our current state of knowledge, the disease model, a model that applies to psychiatric conditions that a patient has, seems to provide the most ''natural fit'' when evaluating a patient with schizophrenia. Several short clinical cases are introduced in part 1 to illustrate each perspective. I particularly enjoyed one of these cases based on Edgar Allan Poe's history. Part 2, titled ''The Approach in Action,'' consists of nine clinical cases. It provides the reader with a practical, effective roadmap to evaluate and better understand patients with psychiatric conditions having multiple etiologies. Each chapter starts out with excerpts from an actual patient interview, followed by a systematic discussion of the case. Each patient's history is seen through the prism of the four perspectives, regardless of the clinical presentation. The authors firmly believe that ''applying such a systematic approach to complex cases I is necessary to reach a full formulation and comprehensive treatment recommendation'' (p. 197). The book ends with two very useful appendicesVthe Psychiatric Evaluation and the Mental Status Examination, presented in a format that can be used at the bedside. I believe that this book will be a useful companion to psychiatric residents and other mental health practitioners who struggle to better understand, diagnose, and treat patients with complex psychiatric and medical conditions.


The drive for harmonisation of environmental criminal standards at both the international and European level emerges from the increasing recognition of the scale and seriousness of environmental crime, the need to strengthen mechanisms of police and judicial interstate cooperation to combat cross-border crime, and the objective to ensure fair competition in a global economy and an integrated EU common market. The harmonisation of environmental criminal law requires a competent institutional framework able to convey the need for criminalisation of environmental harm while not overriding national aspirations to sovereignty in criminal matters. The book Environmental Criminal Liability and Enforcement in European and International Law assesses legal, theoretical and practical questions of harmonisation of national environmental criminal law and the mechanisms for cooperation by sovereign states under European and International Law, with a particular emphasis on legislative developments in the European Union, the Council of Europe and other international institutions, assessing the case for an extension of the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over international environmental crimes.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to design an objective, valid and reliable "Checklist" tool that teachers could use to measure their students' food skills acquisition.

Design/methodology/approach

The design of the Checklist was based on 18 procedural food skills identified by teachers and verified by analysis of skills in recipes that are typically used in food education programmes in secondary schools. The skills were divided into five skill-sets and a recipe covering the skills was selected to test the Checklist. For the test, three hypothetical situations of a person with low, some and expert skills making the recipe were demonstrated in separate videos. Teachers were invited to test the Checklist by viewing the videos, completing the Checklist for each of the three conditions and completing an evaluation.

Findings

In total, 40 home economics teachers tested the Checklist and reported that they could use the tool to measure the development and progress of their students' procedural food skills. Analysis of variance analyses of the data and the non-parametric analyses suggest that the Checklist is a reliable and valid evaluation tool.

Originality/value

Teachers report using various tools to measure their students' food skills acquisition but these have not been well-documented in the literature. These preliminary findings of an original and quantifiable tool showed that home economics teachers used the Checklist to measure their students' procedural skills however, as the teachers' comments suggest, further development and validation of the tool are required.


The title of my article, "Five Easy Pieces," may not resonate with those of you who are too young to remember Jack Nicholson as a budding young movie star cut out of the James Dean mold. For those who do remember, it is, of course, the title of one of Nicholson's early (and, to my mind, greatest) movies. Jack's five easy pieces were piano pieces, easy for him to perform, less so for others. There was a certain irony about the word "easy" in the title. The irony lay not only in the fact that just about everyone else consider those pieces difficult, but, more deeply, because those piano pieces were the only pieces of the life of Bobby Dupea, the character whom Jack portrayed, that were easy for him. Life as a whole, the big picture, was one great, almost impossible challenge for him.My five easy pieces have their own ironic twist. They are rather different but equally challenging in their own ways that first-year law students here will readily recognize. My pieces, this piece, is really aimed at them. The pieces I will discuss are five recurrent themes in American property law, leit motifs, to continue the metaphor from the Nicholson movie, that run throughout American legal doctrines. These themes provide a way of structuring all of property law, adding coherence to what so often appears to law students as an unintelligible rag-tag collection of rules and doctrines that defy any attempt to construct an overarching framework for analysis. I have given five simple labels to these recurrent topics: "conceptualizing property," "categorizing property, " "historicizing property," "enforcing property," and "de-marginalizing property." We begin with how we conceptualize property.


Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a well known cause of death and disability in patients worldwide. Although in some countries, mortality rates due to CAD have decreased, CAD is still responsible for one-third of all deaths in patients above the age of 35 years.1 Thus, many studies aim to search for new anti-ischemic therapy to treat CAD.

Collateral arteries provide blood-flow to the myocardium distal to a stenosis in a coronary vessel. Formation of these collateral arteries (arteriogenesis) is related to outcome as well as long-term survival after myocardial infarction.2 Interestingly, there is a significant variation in the arteriogenic response upon coronary stenosis. This variation is seen between different species and also within the same species, especially in mankind.3 In about one-third of patients with CAD, a coronary collateral circulation develops that is capable of restoring myocardial blood flow to a level at which complete blockage of antegrade flow by intracoronary balloon inflation does not lead to angina pectoris (AP) or ischaemia, as assessed by intracoronary derived electrocardiography (ECG). Supposedly, these patients will also not encounter exertional angina, at least not from that specific lesion. In two-thirds of patients, however, the development of the coronary circulation lags behind. Hence, this implies that there is a large potential for proarteriogenic therapy in the treatment of CAD. It also stresses the need to search for factors that …


We consider the problem of statistical computations with persistence diagrams, a summary representation of topological features in data. These diagrams encode persistent homology, a widely used invariant in topological data analysis. While several avenues towards a statistical treatment of the diagrams have been explored recently, we follow an alternative route that is motivated by the success of methods based on the embedding of probability measures into reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. In fact, a positive definite kernel on persistence diagrams has recently been proposed, connecting persistent homology to popular kernel-based learning techniques such as support vector machines. However, important properties of that kernel enabling a principled use in the context of probability measure embeddings remain to be explored. Our contribution is to close this gap by proving universality of a variant of the original kernel, and to demonstrate its effective use in two-sample hypothesis testing on synthetic as well as real-world data.


The twins
or clock paradox has been a subject of lively discussion and occasional disagreement
among both relativists and the public for over 100 years, and continues to attract
physicists who write papers giving new analyses or defending old ones, even though
many physicists now consider the matter only of educational interest. This paper
investigates the number of papers, which is increasing, and trends in explanations,
some of which are now targeted at professional physicists and other of which are
targeted at optical or radar visualization rather than problem solving. Observations
of students indicate that the latest techniques help but only somewhat. An analysis
is made of 21 previous treatments appearing in the education related American Journal
of Physics, Einstein's discussions and several other pedagogical papers. A new memory
aid for simultaneity transformation is given that puts it on a par with "time dilation"
and "length contraction" for quick and easy problem visualization. The point of
view of a trailing twin is introduced to show how simultaneity changes account for
missing time in the turnaround. Length contraction is treated on equal footing with
time dilation, and Swann's insight into clocks is extended to lengths. Treatments
using the conventionality of simultaneity are seen as equivalent to choice of co-moving
frames. Responses to difficult questions are suggested which avoid being dismissive,
and engage students' critical thinking.


Forestry nurseries play an important role in supporting small-scale plantation, tree farming as well as government initiated afforestation and reforestation programs. However, constraints have been identified in the forestry nursery sector in the Philippines particularly in the supply of high quality planting materials. This hindrance is being investigated to formulate intervention points as part of a continuing research project on enhancing tree seedling supply via economic and policy changes, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). This paper presents baseline information regarding the profile of forestry nurseries in the Northern Mindanao region of the Philippines through a personal interview survey of operators of private, communal and government nurseries. Most nurseries in all nursery types are operating on a small scale and are strategically situated based on the purpose of their existence. Private nurseries, being business oriented, are located near the main road, as are government nurseries which distribute seedlings mostly without charge but in some cases for sale. Communal nurseries are mostly situated on farms since they cater for the seedling needs of their members and are therefore established far away from main roads. In terms of stability, private and government nurseries are stable compared to communal nurseries which rely on support organizations. When the support stops communal nurseries also cease to operate. There is no current policy that supports the production and use of high quality seedlings. Intervention points to address these problems are seen as necessary extension efforts in promoting the use of high quality seedlings, thereby in effect creating a strong market, training operators to increase their capability to produce high quality seedlings, and promoting and supporting the forestry nursery industry with policies such as tree nursery certification.


Combining multiple information sources such as subbands, streams (with different features) and multimodal data has been shown to be a very promising trend, both in experiments and to some extents in real-life biometric authentication applications. Despite considerable efforts in fusions, there is a lack of understanding on the roles and effects of correlation and variance (of both the client and impostor scores of base-classifiers/experts). Often, scores are assumed to be independent. In this paper, we explicitly consider this factor using a theoretical model, called variance reduction-equal error rate (VR-EER) analysis. Assuming that client and impostor scores are approximately Gaussian distributed, we showed that equal error rate (EER) can be modeled as a function of F-ratio, which itself is a function of 1) correlation; 2) variance of base-experts; and 3) difference of client and impostor means. To achieve lower EER, smaller correlation and average variance of base-experts, and larger mean difference are desirable. Furthermore, analysing any of these factors independently, e.g. focusing on correlation alone, could be miss-leading. Experimental results on the BANCA multimodal database confirm our findings using VR-EER analysis. We analyzed four commonly encountered scenarios in biometric authentication which include fusing correlated/uncorrelated base-experts of similar/different performances. The analysis explains and shows that fusing systems of different performances is not always beneficial. One of the most important findings is that positive correlation "hurts" fusion while negative correlation (greater "diversity", which measures the spread of prediction score with respect to the fused score), improves fusion. However, by linking the concept of ambiguity decomposition to classification problem, it is found that diversity is not sufficient to be an evaluation criterion (to compare several fusion systems), unless measures are taken to normalize the (class-dependent) variance. Moreover, by linking the concept of bias-variance-covariance decomposition to classification using EER, it is found that if the inherent mismatch (between training and test sessions) can be learned from the data, such mismatch can be incorporated into the fusion system as a part of training parameters.


This is an extended version of our short report [1], where a holographic interpretation of entanglement entropy in conformal field theories is proposed from AdS/CFT correspondence. In addition to a concise review of relevant recent progresses of entanglement entropy and details omitted in the earlier letter, this paper includes the following several new results: We give a more direct derivation of our claim which relates the entanglement entropy with the minimal area surfaces in the AdS3/CFT2 case as well as some further discussions on higher dimensional cases. Also the relation between the entanglement entropy and central charges in 4D conformal field theories is examined. We check that the logarithmic part of the 4D entanglement entropy computed in the CFT side agrees with the AdS5 result at least under a specific condition. Finally we estimate the entanglement entropy of massive theories in generic dimensions by making use of our proposal.


We study federated learning (FL) at the wireless edge, where power-limited devices with local datasets collaboratively train a joint model with the help of a remote parameter server (PS). We assume that the devices are connected to the PS through a bandwidth-limited shared wireless channel. At each iteration of FL, a subset of the devices are scheduled to transmit their local model updates to the PS over orthogonal channel resources, while each participating device must compress its model update to accommodate to its link capacity. We design novel scheduling and resource allocation policies that decide on the subset of the devices to transmit at each round, and how the resources should be allocated among the participating devices, not only based on their channel conditions, but also on the significance of their local model updates. We then establish convergence of a wireless FL algorithm with device scheduling, where devices have limited capacity to convey their messages. The results of numerical experiments show that the proposed scheduling policy, based on both the channel conditions and the significance of the local model updates, provides a better long-term performance than scheduling policies based only on either of the two metrics individually. Furthermore, we observe that when the data is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) across devices, selecting a single device at each round provides the best performance, while when the data distribution is non-i.i.d., scheduling multiple devices at each round improves the performance. This observation is verified by the convergence result, which shows that the number of scheduled devices should increase for a less diverse and more biased data distribution.


Crosscurrents of Children's Literature: An Anthology of Texts and Criticism. Edited by J. D. Stahl, Tina L Hanlon, and Elizabeth Lennox Key ser. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. xli + 1009 pp. The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English. Edited by Jack Zipes, Lissa Paul, Lynne Vallone, Peter Hunt, and Gillian Avery. New York: W W Norton, 2005. xxxv + 2428 pp. What is children's literature? How does children's literature differ from young adult and adult literature? Do authors of children's literature write for the very young, for adults, or for both? How do our conceptions of childhood shape the production as well as censorship of children's literature? The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature and Crosscurrents of Children's literature both grapple with these and other questions surrounding the genre, and they refrain from providing a clear definition of children's literature due to the genre's inherent ambiguities. Yet both anthologies, though different in their selections and approaches, successfully introduce and illuminate children's literature from varying angles and allow students and scholars alike to further their understanding of this relatively young genre. Covering the last 350 years and including more than 170 writers and illustrators, The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature represents a significant historical account of the genre that is "designed to introduce students to the variety and abundance of literary works for children" (xxvii). Each of the nearly twenty sections in the table of contents examines a subgenre of children's literature, including fairy tales, animal fables, legends, fantasy, science fiction, and comics; every section contains a critical introduction, at least one complete reprint of a relevant text, and excerpts of several other works in chronological order. The extensive unit on fairy tales is particularly impressive and contains a detailed study of Little Red Riding Hood that outlines the tale's development over time, beginning with Charles Perrault's and the Grimms' versions and ending with more recent rewritings by authors such as Roald Dahl and Francesca Lia Block. (Surprisingly, however, none of Angela Carter's tales are included in this collection.) The anthology's section on picture books, too, is outstanding with its fifty pages of illustrations, many of which are in color, and points toward the need for scholars to further integrate illustrations into critical discussions of children's literature. As the work's subtitle, The Traditions in English, indicates, this Norton Anthology is concerned primarily with the Anglo-American tradition of children's literature and consequently incorporates only few works in translation. Indeed, one of the collection's aims is to trace "the historical development of genres and traditions through 350 years of children's literature in English" (xxxii), and thus only translated works that have had a significant impact on this development are represented, while some others are referred to in the chapter introductions. The editors' historical approach to children's literature, moreover, results in the notable absence of many acclaimed contemporary writers of children's literature that one might expect to find excerpted in this anthology, such as Phillip Pullman or Lois Lo wry. While this focus on the Anglo-American tradition of children's literature allows the Norton Anthology to present a detailed account of the genre's history that would hardly be manageable were texts from other countries to be considered, it may be advisable for instructors of children's literature to supplement selections from this collection with tales from other cultures. Crosscurrents of Children's Literature, an anthology that includes both literary texts and criticism, offers such a compariti vist approach, containing a large variety of both works in translation and texts written in English. …


People who delay claiming Social Security receive higher lifelong benefits upon retirement. We survey individuals on their willingness to delay claiming later, if they could receive a lump sum in lieu of a higher annuity payment. Using a moment-matching approach, we calibrate a lifecycle model tracking observed claiming patterns under current rules and predict optimal claiming outcomes under the lump sum approach. Our model correctly predicts that early claimers under current rules would delay claiming most when offered actuarially fair lump sums, and for lump sums worth 87% as much, claiming ages would still be higher than at present.


This paper discusses the significance of the quadrupolar gravitational force in the context of test masses destined for use in equivalence principle (EP) experiments, such as STEP and MICROSCOPE. The relationship between quadrupolar gravity and rotational inertia for an arbitrary body is analysed, and the special, gravitational, role of a body's principal axes of inertia is revealed. From these considerations the gravitational quadrupolar force acting on a cylindrically symmetrical body, due to a point-like attracting source mass, is derived in terms of the body's mass quadrupole tensor. The result is shown to be in agreement with that obtained from MacCullagh's formula (as the starting point). The theory is then extended to cover the case of a completely arbitrary solid body, and a compact formulation for the quadrupolar force on such a body is derived. A numerical example of a dumb-bell's attraction to a local point-like gravitational source is analysed using this theory. Close agreement is found between the resulting quadrupolar force on the body and the difference between the net and the monopolar forces acting on it, underscoring the utility of the approach. A dynamical technique for experimentally obtaining the mass quadrupole tensors of EP test masses is discussed, and a means of validating the results is noted.


In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid control system for the trajectory tracking control problem of robotic systems. The design combines fuzzy system with robust adaptive control algorithm. The fuzzy system approximates the certainty equivalent-based optimal controller, while a robustifying adaptive control term is used to cope with uncertainties due to the presence of the external disturbance, fuzzy approximation errors, and other modeling errors. Using the Lyapunov method, we first develop a stable hybrid controller by assuming that the system output and its derivatives are available for feedback control design. Then, an output-feedback form of the position-velocity (state-feedback) controller is proposed, where the unknown velocity signal is replaced by the output of a model-free linear estimator. We show that the tracking of the output-feedback design can converge asymptotically to the performance achieved under the state-feedback control design. Finally, the proposed method is evaluated on a robotic system to demonstrate the theoretical development.


There is a growing trend in the number of M&S studies that report on the use of Hybrid Simulation. However, the meaning and the usage of the term varies considerably. Indeed, the hybrid simulation panel during last year's conference (WSC2016) laid bare the strong views, from the panelists and audience alike, as to what constitutes a hybrid model and what is new? The ensuing debate set the scene for this year's paper, in which we discuss the various perspectives on hybrid simulation by focusing on three aspects: its definition, its purpose and its benefits. We hope this paper will pave the way for further studies on this subject, with the objective of achieving a convergence of the definition of hybrid simulation.


Alfred Cortot and Franz Schubert are two names that are rarely mentioned in the same context. Although Cortot was a renowned pianist and pedagogue of the first half of the twentieth century, his work on Schubert has remained obscure. This can be explained by the fact that his recordings of, and writings on, Schubert's works comprise only a small sample of his affinity with this repertoire, in comparison to his affiliation to the work of other composers, such as Chopin. This degree of obscurity is also increased by the fact that, to a certain extent, Schubert's works for piano remained neglected until early in the twentieth century, in contrast to his great reputation as a composer of Lieder. However, the study of Cortot's recordings and commentary editions of Schubert's piano music reveals that Cortot can potentially be a relevant source for the performance of this repertoire. Due to his educational background and the roots of his performance style, he can be a link to performance traditions of the late nineteenth century, which comprise important sources for the performance of Schubert's work, especially given the notable lack of primary evidence specific to this music. Cortot's editions discuss issues, which are still current regarding the performance of Schubert's works, and provide answers, which are comparable with modern and updated approaches. On the other hand, Cortot's editions and recordings of Schubert's music cover a range of time within the twentieth century (1920-1960) that encompassed some of the greatest changes in performance styles that have ever been documented in writing and in sound. His work therefore also becomes a valuable source for the study of this evolution and the way it might have been realized and influenced by leading artists of the twentieth century. This thesis aims to present Cortot's work as an inspiring source for the interpretation of Schubert's music today, and as an important testimony to the history of performance practice.


In recent years, there has been an explosion of books on the nature of organisational change and the management skills needed to effectively carry it out. Many are written by change gurus and management consultants offering quick fixes and metaphor laden business toolkits, however, much of their advice is banal and under-theorized. This book redresses this balance by providing an original analysis of change management in organizations in the light of wider sociological perspectives. It critically examines the, often implicit, theoretical frameworks underpinning many contemporary accounts of organizational change, and covers subjects including:

 the importance of explicit analysis of theory and context
 a critique of populist management gurus and quick-fix 'how-to' solutions
 'under-socialized' models of change which emphasise structure over human action
 trenchant analysis of 'soft' HRM solutions
 the management of culture.

Radical and innovative, this book, the first to adopt a sociological approach, is a much-needed challenge to the orthodoxies of change management.


Micro rotary swaging is a cold forming process for production of micro components with determined geometry and surface. It is also possible to change the microstructure of wires and hence the material properties. Swaging dies revolve around the work piece with an overlaid radial oscillation. Newly developed tools (Flat Surface Dies, FSD) feature plain surfaces and do not represent the geometry of the formed part as in conventional swaging. Using these tools allows for producing wires with triangle geometry (cross section) as well as a circular shape. To test the influence of FSD on material properties by micro swaging a new method is investigated: the variation of the relative speed between the specimen and dies in infeed rotary swaging. During this specific process copper (C11000) and steel (304 Alloy) wires with diameter d 0 = 1 mm are formed. It is noticed that the mechanical characteristics such as ductility and strength differ from the characteristics after conventional swaging. Moreover this approach enables new possibilities to influence the geometry and the surface quality of wires. The impact of the relative speed on the processed wire features is described in this paper.


BACKGROUND
Bone graft augmentation is often selected to treat defects associated with unstable tibial plateau fractures. This prospective, randomized, multicenter study was undertaken to determine the efficacy of bioresorbable calcium phosphate cement compared with standard autogenous iliac bone graft in the treatment of these osseous defects.

METHODS
One hundred and twenty acute, closed, unstable tibial plateau fractures (Schatzker types I through VI) in 119 adult patients were prospectively enrolled in twelve study sites in North America between 1999 and 2002. Randomization for the type of grafting of the subarticular defect was done at the time of surgery, with use of a 2:1 ratio, to treatment with calcium phosphate cement (eighty-two fractures) or autogenous iliac bone graft (thirty-eight fractures). After open reduction, standard plate-and-screw or screw-only fixation was used and then either the cement or the bone graft was placed in the defect cavity for subarticular support. Follow-up included standard radiographs, evaluated by multiple reviewers to avoid bias, and knee range-of-motion assessment at six months to one year or later.

RESULTS
The age, weight, height, and sex of the patients and the fracture patterns were comparable in the two groups, as were union rates and time to union. There was a significantly (p = 0.009) higher rate of articular subsidence during the three to twelve-month follow-up period in the bone graft group.

CONCLUSIONS
The bioresorbable calcium phosphate cement used in this study appears to be a better choice, at least in terms of the prevention of subsidence, than autogenous iliac bone graft for the treatment of subarticular defects associated with unstable tibial plateau fractures.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Therapeutic Level I. See Instructions to Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.


In 2018, Zhang et al. introduced the Persistent Fault Analysis (PFA) for the first time, which uses statistical features of ciphertexts caused by faulty Sbox to recover the key of block ciphers. However, for most of the variants of PFA, the prior knowledge of the fault (location and value) is required, where the corresponding analysis will get more difficult under the scenario of multiple faults. To bypass such perquisite and improve the analysis efficiency for multiple faults, we propose Chosen-Plaintext based Persistent Fault Analysis (CPPFA). CPPFA introduces chosen-plaintext to facilitate PFA and can reduce the key search space of AES-128 to extremely small. Our proposal requires 256 ciphertexts, while previous state-of-the-art work still requires 1509 and 1448 ciphertexts under 8 and 16 faults, respectively, at the only cost of requiring 256 chosen plaintexts. In particular, CPPFA can be applied to the multiple faults scenarios where all fault locations, values and quantity are unknown, and the worst time complexity of CPPFA is O(28+nf ) for AES-128, where nf represents the number of faults. The experimental results show that when nf > 4, 256 pairs of plaintext-ciphertext can recover the master key of AES-128. As for LED-64, only 16 pairs of plaintext-ciphertext reduce the remaining key search space to 210.


Depressed mood has been associated with reduced natural killer cell activity (NKCA). Further, amelioration of depressive symptoms by pharmacotherapy has resulted in augmented NKCA. Serotonin, an indoleamine implicated in the pathophysiology of affective disorders, enhances NKCA in vitro and lymphocytes possess serotonin transporters and receptors. The present study evaluated NKCA in depressed outpatients before and during treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluoxetine (Prozac®). Further, the SSRIs, fluoxetine and paroxetine (Paxil®), were also incubated in vitro with lymphoid cells to evaluate possible direct effects of SSRIs on NKCA. Depressed outpatients were administered fluoxetine (20 mg/day) for 4 weeks. NKCA and severity of depression were evaluated at weeks 0, 1, 2, and 4. Serum concentrations of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine were obtained as well. Mononuclear cells obtained from nonpatient volunteers were incubated with pharmacologic concentrations of fluoxetine or paroxetine and NKCA measured with a standard chromium release assay. Fluoxetine treatment resulted in decreased symptoms of depression and increased serum concentrations of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine. Further, fluoxetine treatment was associated with augmented NKCA in a subgroup of depressed outpatients exhibiting low NKCA at baseline. Fluoxetine had no effect on NKCA in depressed individuals exhibiting high NKCA at baseline. Incubation of mononuclear cells with fluoxetine and paroxetine augmented NKCA in vitro. The enhancing effects of antidepressants on NKCA in vivo and in vitro indicate a possible direct drug interaction with lymphoid cells during pharmacotherapy, suggesting that pharmacologic treatment of depression may result in enhanced immune competence as indexed by enhanced NKCA and that NKCA could be pharmacologically augmented with antidepressants in individuals with compromised immune function.


One of the most salient and relevant dimensions of team heterogeneity is ethnicity. We measure the causal impact of ethnic diversity on the performance of business teams using a randomized field experiment. We follow 550 students who set up 45 real companies as part of their curriculum in an international business program in the Netherlands. We exploit the fact that companies are set up in realistic though similar circumstances and that we, as outside researchers, had the unique opportunity to exogenously vary the ethnic composition of otherwise randomly composed teams. The student population consists of 55% students with a non-Dutch ethnicity from 53 different countries of origin. We find that a moderate level of ethnic diversity has no effect on team performance in terms of business outcomes (sales, profits and profits per share). However, if at least the majority of team members is ethnically diverse, then more ethnic diversity has a positive impact on the performance of teams. In line with theoretical predictions, our data suggest that this positive effect could be related to the more diverse pool of relevant knowledge facilitating (mutual) learning within ethnically diverse teams.


Summary
Biodiversity conservation policies incorporating a no net loss (NNL) principle are being implemented in many countries. However, there are linguistic and conceptual inconsistencies in the use of terms underlying these NNL policies.
We identify inconsistencies that emerge in the usage of eight key terms and phrases associated with NNL policies: biodiversity, frames of reference (i.e. baselines, counterfactuals), no net loss, mitigation hierarchy, biodiversity offset, in-kind/out-of-kind, direct/indirect and multipliers.
For each term, we make recommendations to support conceptual convergence, reduce ambiguity and improve clarity in communication and policy documentation. However, we also warn of the challenges in achieving convergence, especially given the linguistic inconsistencies in several of these key concepts among countries in which NNL policies are employed.
Policy implications. The recommendations made in this article, on improving clarity and supporting convergence on key no net loss (NNL) concepts, should help eliminate ambiguity in policy documentation. This is crucial if policymakers are to design robust policies that are (i) transparent, (ii) translatable into practice in a consistent manner and (iii) sufficiently understood and supported by stakeholders to be effective in practice.


 Abstract — This paper summarizes the work conducted to assess the root cause of the failure of a medium commercial vehicle leaf spring failed in service. Macro- and micro-fractographic analyses by scanning electron microscope as well as material verification tests were conducted in order to understand the failure mechanisms and root cause of the failure. Findings from the fractographic analyses indicated that failure mechanism is fatigue. Crack initiation was identified to have occurred from a point on the top surface near to the front face and to the left side. Two other crack initiation points were also observed, however, these cracks did not propagate. The propagation mode of the fatigue crack revealed that the cyclic loads resulting in crack initiation and propagation were unidirectional bending. Fractographic analyses have also showed that the root cause of the fatigue crack initiation and propagation was loading the part above design stress. Material properties of the part were also verified by chemical composition analysis, microstructural analysis by optical microscopy and hardness tests.


As a disulfide form B(1), namely, thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryldisulfide (TTFD) possessing tetrahydrofurfuryl group, has been synthesized on the heel of alkyldisulfide form B(1) derivatives such as thiamine propyldisulfide (TPD) and thiamine oxyethyldisulfide (TOED), etc, the author with purpose to compare B(1)-effects not only of TTFD, but also of TPD and TOED, carried out a series of experiments on the prevention of B(1) deficiency in lovebirds. For the test animals 28 lovebirds weighing about 12g each and fed on the routine feed for one week were divided into 5 groups, and they were then fed on B(1) deficient standard feed. One group was taken as the control, and each of four other groups was daily fed orally on 0.006μM of B(1), TPD, TOED and TTFD respectively at a given time for 16-17 days. Next, the daily dose of each was cut down to 0.003μM, and the daily body weight and the length of survival time were recorded. The dose of 0.006μM is equivalent to about 2γ B(1). The experiments were repeated twice, and in the second series tow birds selected from each group on the eleventh day, namely, on the day just before the vitamin B(1)-deficient group died of cramps, were sacrificed, and the total B(1) contents in the liver, heart and brain were estimated. The quantitative analysis of B(1) was carried out by the thiochrome method and estimated by Coleman's fluorescent spectroscope. The duration of survival in the B(1)-deficient group was on the average of 8.8 days, while that given B(1), TPD, and TTFD was on the average of 16.4, 202, and 17.0 days respectively. The total B(1)-contents in the organs were 59.0γ, 119.0μ, and 79.6γ in the liver, heart and brain respectively. In the groups administered B(1), TPD, and TTFD, the contents in the liver of each were 259.1γ, 251.1γ, and 206.2γ; in the heart, 289. 2γ, 242.3γ, and 228.5γ; and in the brain, 135.2γ, 145.6γ and 121.9γ respectively. Among the groups given B1-derivative there is no significant difference, but the groups given B(1), the B(1)-content of the heart is somewhat greater while the B(1)-contents of the liver, heart and brain in TTFD group were slightly lower than in other groups. 1. From these it has been confirmed that TPD, TOED, and TTFD like B(1) all prolong the span of life and show the effect preventing B(1) deficiency. 2. Among them the preventive effect of TPD is most marked, while the other B(1)-derivatives show the effect not greatly different from that of B(1). 3. On estimating values of B(1)-contents in the organs of the each gruop on the eleventh day, the tissue B(1)-contents of the liver, heart and brain in TTFD group were somewhat less than these in B(1)-group or in TPD group.


1. Using specific-pathogen-free New Zealand White rabbits, we have compared the effects of faecal peritonitis over a period of 5 h in eight test animals with eight controls in which a sham operation was performed. 2. There was morphological damage to lungs, liver and spleen of test animals. Lung capillaries and sinusoids of the liver showed occlusion by cell debris and leucocytes, with endothelial damage. The lungs also showed alveolar epithelial disruption, basement membrane exposure and type II pneumocytes lacking lamellar bodies. In the liver there was fibrin deposition and swollen Kupffer cells. The spleen showed degranulating neutrophils, fibrin deposits, platelet aggregates and activated macrophages, with no damage to the endothelium. 3. There was no morphological damage to the kidney or heart of test animals or to any organs of sham-operated animals. 4. There were mixed anaerobes and aerobes in faecal material used to induce peritonitis. Cultures of liver, spleen and kidney isolated four different types of micro-organisms. Blood cultures showed two types of micro-organisms. Cultures of lung and heart showed one type of micro-organism. 5. The presence of micro-organisms in an organ could not be correlated with the degree of histological damage to that organ. 6. In test animals an early significant reduction in circulating leucocytes and platelets was sustained for the duration of the experiment with significant diffuse intravascular coagulation. 7. There was no change in test animal neutrophil adhesiveness until 120 min, when significant reduction was observed. 8. Serum phospholipase A2 (EC 126.96.36.199) activity in the test group showed a threefold increase at 300 min.


Abstract Following recent phylogenetic studies of the families and genera of Dioscoreales, the identification of monophyletic infrageneric taxa in the pantropical genus Dioscorea is a priority. A phylogenetic analysis based on sequence data from the plastid genes rbcL and matK is presented, using 67 species of Dioscorea and covering all the main Old World and selected New World lineages. The analysis used 14 outgroup taxa, including Trichopus Gaertn., Tacca J.R. & G. Forster, Stenomeris Planch., Burmannia L. and Thismia Griff. The main findings are: a) that a clade of rhizomatous taxa is sister to the rest of Dioscorea; b) the main Old World groups (such as the right-twining D. sect. Enantiophyllum) are monophyletic and c) there are two distinct lineages among the endemic Malagasy taxa. The consequences of the results for infrageneric classification of Dioscorea is considered, in particular the possibility of greatly simplifying the classifications of Knuth and Burkill. The results are also used to present novel hypotheses of character evolution in selected underground storage organ, inflorescence, fruit and seed characters and to discuss the origins of diversity in Dioscorea.


Arrival of Laramide uplift sediments to the Texas Gulf Coastal Plain and northwestern Gulf of Mexico during the early Paleogene is recorded in strata of the Wilcox Group as a significant increase in sediment accumulation and with the appearance of 65–52 Ma detrital zircons that correspond with the timing of late Laramide uplift. New U-Pb dating of detrital zircons by laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for samples obtained from the Lower Paleocene Tehuacana Member through the Lower Eocene Queen City Formation in east-central Texas identifies the Hooper Formation of the Wilcox Group as the oldest stratigraphic unit to contain 65–52 Ma ages. Late appearance of 65–52 Ma detrital zircons in the Hooper Formation is correlated with unroofed Laramide magmatic intrusions or nearly syndepositional volcaniclastic sources; whereas older detrital zircons are inferred to be derived primarily from sedimentary cover and basement rocks exposed during uplift of Laramide blocks. Potential source region and Gulf Coastal Plain detrital zircon data support a relatively similar paleodrainage area and sediment sources for east-central Texas Tehuacana Member to Carrizo Formation and central Louisiana Wilcox Group data, and for east-central Texas Queen City Formation and central Louisiana middle-upper Claiborne Group data. South Texas Wilcox Group data contrast with data from these samples and support a different paleodrainage area and sediment sources for the south Texas region. We propose that headwaters sourced from southeastern Wyoming to the southern Rocky Mountain region delivered sediments to east-central Texas and central Louisiana during the Paleocene to Middle Eocene. Pronounced Mesoproterozoic and Neoproterozoic detrital zircons in the lower Claiborne Group of east-central Texas and the middle-upper Claiborne Group of central Louisiana are attributed to new or unroofed recycled sediments with Grenvillian age detrital zircons incorporated from the Ouachita region and other proximal locations in the preexisting paleodrainage area. The inferred paleodrainage area for east-central Texas and central Louisiana includes most of the Rocky Mountain Laramide uplift blocks, has a southern boundary separating it from a south Texas paleodrainage, and an eastern boundary roughly coincident with the Mississippi embayment, which separates it from Appalachian Mountains drainages.


Contemporary multicultural issues in Europe raise the question whether the overlap between the non-discrimination regimes of the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe in the field of public employment may lead to conflicting case law. Would the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) address potential sex, race and religious discrimination in a similar manner or would the Courts take a different approach? This study consists of three parts. Firstly, an analysis is presented of the EU non-discrimination Directives 2006/54, 2000/43 and 2000/78, and the ECJ's assessment in cases of alleged sex, race and religious discrimination in the public workplace. Secondly, the non-discrimination provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the right to freedom of religion are studied. Further, the ECtHR's assessment in cases involving potential discrimination in the public workplace based on sex, race and religion are examined. In the final part a comparison is made between the provisions and the assessment of the ECJ and the ECtHR. Besides an examination of European legislation, case law and academic literature, this research also uses a legal case study to explore the similarities and differences between the non-discrimination regimes. Accordingly, the theory is again discussed, but now in light of a much debated issue in Europe: the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in public employment. The result of the study is a detailed explanation of the relevant similarities and differences between the approaches of the two Courts to claims of discrimination.


textabstractAbstract
Politics is central to development discourse yet remains peripheral. And, over some twenty years, a civil society narrative has not fulfilled its potential to 'bring politics back in'. Reasons can be found in conceptual confusion, in selectivity in donor thinking and policies towards civil society and in the growth-driven political economy of NGO-ism. Remedies for the political lacunae are being sought through a focus on rights, citizenship and leadership that show valuable, focused progress. This article examines a comprehensive complement to such efforts referred to as civic driven change (CDC). Originating in a grounded empirical approach, the constituent principles and elements of CDC offer a lens that can both sharpen and deepen insights and advance analysis of socio-political processes. As a work in progress, a CDC narrative is illustrated by reference to contemporary examples of citizen action that play out at multiple sites of governance.


Prolonged hyperglycemia is the primary metabolic abnormality responsible for the development of irreversible tissue damage in chronic diabetes. However, patients with similar levels of chronic hyperglycemia can differ markedly in their susceptibility to diabetic complications. Among the mechanisms by which hyperglycemia may lead to tissue damage, nonenzymatic glycosylation involves excessive chemical attachment of glucose to proteins without the involvement of enzymes. The early Amadori products, resembling hemoglobin A1c, slowly give rise to complex irreversible glycosylation adducts. Only these post-Amadori products accumulate in diabetic tissues over long periods. However, early nonenzymatic glycosylation or Amadori product formation can alter such physiological processes as enzyme activity or binding of regulatory molecules. Advanced glycosylation end products can covalently trap extravasated serum proteins to the extravascular matrix, and thus may contribute to capillary closure in the retina and glomerulus, and to arterial narrowing in the coronary, cerebral, and peripheral circulation. Although a macrophage receptor system may antagonize this glycosylation-mediated accumulation of proteins by recognizing and ingesting those proteins with advanced glycosylation end products, excessive formation of those proteins in diabetes may saturate the capacity of the macrophage removal system.