The relevance of individual psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the context of post-apartheid South Africa is a contentious issue. The western-centric universalist bias of this treatment approach has been criticised for not being applicable to Black South African individuals. With these criticisms in mind the appropriacy and efficacy of psychoanalytic psychotherapy was examined by focusing on three Black English-speaking South African women between the ages of 25 and 35 from the urban Western Cape. A collective case study design situated within a postmodern framework of enquiry was chosen for its capacity to incorporate both the therapist's and the participant's experience of the therapeutic process over time. This study focused on the analytic attitude, which comprises the basic template through which psychoanalytic psychotherapy is practised. The model used was that described by Ivey (1999) which includes five elements: generative uncertainty, abstinence, neutrality, countertransference receptivity, resoluteness and three related concepts: the task process and setting. The therapeutic dyad comprised the principal unit of analysis; by examining the interactive responses within this dyad in terms of the eight sub-units of the analytic attitude it was possible to evaluate the effectiveness of this modality. The findings showed that this model was successful with an emerging group of individuals who simultaneously hold traditional collective values and western values of individuation and selfdetermination. Some adjustments to abstinence and neutrality were necessary and a high degree of vigilance and self-reflection on the part of the therapist was required. It was revealed that western ideals of individualism, subject/object dualities, and taken-for-granted assumptions tend to obscure the practice of psychoanalytic psychotherapy across culture. The relational two-person model was able to accommodate cultural difference to good effect, opening the way for universalistic assumptions to be challenged and re-thought. This attitude was effective both as a treatment model and as a research tool. The participants in this study represent an emerging class of Black South Africans who are seeking different pathways for psychological concerns. The findings of this study can be generalised to a body of knowledge concerning the use of the analytic attitude in specific cross-cultural contexts in South Africa.


Mexico has a rich literary heritage that extends back over centuries to the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. This major new reference work surveys more than five hundred years of Mexican literature from a sociocultural perspective. More than merely a catalog of names and titles, it examines in detail the literary phenomena that constitute Mexico's most significant and original contributions to literature. Recognizing that no one scholar can authoritatively cover so much territory, David William Foster has assembled a group of specialists, some of them younger scholars who write from the most current and emerging trends in Latin American and Mexican literary scholarship. The topics they discuss include pre-Columbian indigenous writing (Joanna O'Connell), Colonial literature (Lee H. Dowling), Romanticism (Margarita Vargas), nineteenth-century prose fiction (Mario Martin Flores), Modernism (Bart L. Lewis), major twentieth-century genres (narrative, Lanin A. Gyurko; poetry, Adriana Garcia; theater, Kirsten F. Nigro), the essay (Martin S. Stabb), literary criticism (Daniel Altamiranda), and literary journals (Luis Pena). Each essay offers detailed analysis of significant issues and major texts and includes an annotated bibliography of important critical sources and reference works.


: The target article by Key (2016) discusses the thesis that fish cannot feel pain because of the lack of the necessary neural structure. This commentary suggests the possibility that fish do not need conscious neural processing by taking into account recent results from biomimetic robotics. State-of-the-art biomimetic robot fish are based on a tight interaction between the body and the environment and are typically controlled by behavior-based architectures. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that cognitive architectures are not needed to control a robot fish. This is in line with the thesis proposed by Key: what biomimetic robot fish show is that it is difficult to explain what causal role sentience would add to their robotic capacities.


The destruction of the four Cluster craft was a major loss to the planned ISTP effort, of which studies of the magnetopause and low-latitude boundary layer (LLBL) were an important part. While awaiting the re-flight mission, Cluster-II, we have been applying advances in our understanding made using other ISTP craft (like Polar and Wind) and using ground-based facilities (in particular the EISCAT incoherent scatter radars and the SuperDARN HF coherent radars) to measurements of the LLBL made in 1984 and 1985 by the AMPTE-UKS and -IRM spacecraft pair. In particular, one unexplained result of the AMPTE mission was that the electron characteristics could, in nearly all cases, order independent measurements near the magnetopause, such as the magnetic field, ion temperatures and the plasma flow. Studies of the cusp have shown that the precipitation is ordered by the time-elapsed since the field line was opened by reconnection. This insight has allowed us to re-analyse the AMPTE data and show that the ordering by the transition parameter is also due to the variation of time elapsed since reconnection, with the important implication that reconnection usually coats most of the dayside magnetopause with at least some newly-opened field lines. In addition, we can use the electron characteristics to isolate features like RDs, slow-mode shocks and slow-mode expansion fans. The ion characteristics can be used to compute the reconnection rate. We here retrospectively apply these new techniques, developed in the ISTP era, to a much-studied flux transfer event observed by the AMPTE satellites. As a result, we gain new understanding of its cause and structure.


Serbia has two autonomous provinces, with nearly identical constitutional and political claims: heavily Albanian Kosovo and ethnically diverse but Serb-majority Vojvodina. One is headed towards some form of internationally recognized independence; the other almost certainly is not, even though calls for its autonomy have been mounting. What makes the difference? This article examines what the reasons for these different outcomes show about the changing content of self-determination in an environment of persistent ethnic claims. The defining characteristic of self-determination today is its indeterminacy, which allows policymakers to pursue a broader range of policies than was possible in the era of decolonization. These policies are only limited by the ability of states to define their actions consistently with past practice or to claim new rhetorical ground in the name of self-determination. This in turn will give rise to a new orthodoxy. To achieve a positive outcome in Kosovo, policymakers have adopted rhetorical and legal positions that will shape self-determination as a legal claim and policy option, and will do so in ways that partly revive its original, Wilsonian rationale. Consistent application of the principles that appear to underlie the West's preferred solution in Kosovo should logically encourage similar outcomes in Vojvodina - yet this is a result few parties desire, so policymakers have to distinguish these claims. Efforts to do so inevitably have to address the different ethnic makeup of the provinces which underlies their different treatment. In disfavoring similar treatment for Vojvodina - and finding it easy to do so - the international community implicitly acknowledges that an ethnic criterion, long disfavored, has definitively reentered the legal and political analysis of self-determination.


Chronic respiratory disease (CRD) is caused by Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG). Infected birds show respiratory and reproductive problems which lead to severe economic losses in poultry industry. There are only few published data on avian mycoplasmosis in Malaysia, thus, this study was carried out to determine the strain variability and pathogenicity of MG isolates, towards understanding the control of the infection. A total of 4605 samples were collected from chickens and their progeny from various commercial farms using sterile cotton swabs for culturing onto mycoplasma agar. Twenty three (23) MG isolates were obtained from suspected MG infected commercial chickens. Although MG could be isolated from various sites of the host, in this study, choanal and tracheal sites proved to be the best sites in live birds. On the other hand, trachea and airsac samples were the best sites for the detection of MG for chick embryos or chicks. Size variations among polymerase chain reaction products divergence of the MG-specific gene were the basis for strain differentiation. The local isolates exhibited gene size polymorphism in pvpA gene, 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer region gene, ermA gene and pMGA or vlhA gene with the presence of insertion or deletion observed in PCR products. However, the gapA gene, LP gene, F-strain-specific DNA fragment gene, CrmB gene, CrmC gene, p47 gene, HMW3-like protein gene and pneumoniae-like protein A gene sequences were constant in size. The embryonated eggs were each inoculated with
"pleuropneumonia like organism" (PPLO) broth containing MG strains, via yolk sac. Mycoplasma gal/isepticum embryos, broth inoculated and uninoculated control embryonated eggs were examined at necropsy days 7, 10, 13 and 15 post-inoculation. The pathogenicity of the isolates in chicken embryonated eggs showed variations among each other. The MG isolates and strains that showed a wide variation in genes were examined for virulence in ovo. In this study, the presence of caseous airsac lesion correlated with virulence ofMG and presence of high maternal antibody titer. MG were isolated only in embryos that did not develop any caseous airsac lesions. MG inoculated embryos were polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive regardless of the absence or presence of caseous airsac lesion, suggesting that caseous airsac lesion maybe the result of formation of antigen-antibody complex. Caseous airsacs were found to be one of the prominent lesions associated with MG infection. For certain highly pathogenic strains, there was clear relationship between the caseous airsac lesion and the presence of maternal antibody titer and embryo mortality. Less pathogenic strains that grow well usually caused embryo mortality during later stages of incubation and there was no strict correlation between caseous airsac lesion and the presence or absence of maternal antibody and embryo mortality. Based on the presence of the gene size polymorphism in pvpA gene and pMGA or vlhA gene; MGS6 (reference strain), 144 and 1-18 strains of MG showed a similar pattern of pathogenicity in that they are highly pathogenic, whereas, H21 8T, H21 lIT, H24 5C and H26 9C have similar pattern of molecular characterization and pathogenicity with ts-l1 (vaccine strain), characterized by their less pathogenicity in embryos. MGS6, 144 and 1-18 strains caused early embryonic death compared to ts-11, H21 8T, H2 1 lIT, H24 5C and H26 9C strains that caused embryo mortality during later
stages of incubation. At this point, the postulation is that, when maternal antibody of MG is high and MG challenge is present, caseous airsac may occur. This would be due to maternal antibody in the eggs which may bind to MG that served as antigen to form antigen-antibody complexes. The immune complexes may help to release cytokines and attract more macrophages and other inflammatory cells, which help to
increase the severity of the air sac lesion. When the MG strain with the gene size polymorphism in pvpA gene and pMGA or vlhA gene that has similar pattern with MGS6, it correlates with the formation of caseous air sac, as well as the increase in severity of the caseous airsac. This study showed that the combination of the gene size polymorphism in pvpA gene and pMGA or vlhA gene can be used as pathogenic markers for MG in determination of its pathogenicity towards chick embryos. Based on characterization and pathogenicity, MG field strains H2 1 8T, H21 HT, H24 5C and H26 9C showed similar pattern of molecular and pathogenicity characteristic with ts-l1 and therefore are potential candidates for live MG vaccine.


While the rise of populism in Western Europe over the past
three decades has received a great deal of attention in the academic and
popular literature, less attention has been paid to the rise of its opposite—
anti-populism. This short article examines the discursive and stylistic dimensions
of the construction and maintenance of the populism/anti-populism
divide in Western Europe, paying particular attention to how anti-populists
seek to discredit populist leaders, parties and followers. It argues that this
divide is increasingly antagonistic, with both sides of the divide putting forward
extremely different conceptions of how democracy should operate
in the Western European political landscape: one radical and popular, the
other liberal. It closes by suggesting that what is subsumed and feared under
the label of the "populist threat" to democracy in Western Europe today is
less about populism than nationalism and nativism.


Zinc finger nucleases (ZFN) are powerful tools for editing genes in cells. Here we use ZFNs to interrogate the biological function of ADPGK, which encodes an ADP-dependent glucokinase (ADPGK), in human tumour cell lines. The hypothesis we tested is that ADPGK utilises ADP to phosphorylate glucose under conditions where ATP becomes limiting, such as hypoxia. We characterised two ZFN knockout clones in each of two lines (H460 and HCT116). All four clones had frameshift mutations in all alleles at the target site in exon 1 of ADPGK, and were ADPGK-null by immunoblotting. ADPGK knockout had little or no effect on cell proliferation, but compromised the ability of H460 cells to survive siRNA silencing of hexokinase-2 under oxic conditions, with clonogenic survival falling from 21±3% for the parental line to 6.4±0.8% (p = 0.002) and 4.3±0.8% (p = 0.001) for the two knockouts. A similar increased sensitivity to clonogenic cell killing was observed under anoxia. No such changes were found when ADPGK was knocked out in HCT116 cells, for which the parental line was less sensitive than H460 to anoxia and to hexokinase-2 silencing. While knockout of ADPGK in HCT116 cells caused few changes in global gene expression, knockout of ADPGK in H460 cells caused notable up-regulation of mRNAs encoding cell adhesion proteins. Surprisingly, we could discern no consistent effect on glycolysis as measured by glucose consumption or lactate formation under anoxia, or extracellular acidification rate (Seahorse XF analyser) under oxic conditions in a variety of media. However, oxygen consumption rates were generally lower in the ADPGK knockouts, in some cases markedly so. Collectively, the results demonstrate that ADPGK can contribute to tumour cell survival under conditions of high glycolytic dependence, but the phenotype resulting from knockout of ADPGK is cell line dependent and appears to be unrelated to priming of glycolysis in these lines.


Saliency prediction typically relies on hand-crafted (multiscale) features that are combined in different ways to form a "master" saliency map, which encodes local image conspicuity. Recent improvements to the state of the art on standard benchmarks such as MIT1003 have been achieved mostly by incrementally adding more and more hand-tuned features (such as car or face detectors) to existing models. In contrast, we here follow an entirely automatic data-driven approach that performs a large-scale search for optimal features. We identify those instances of a richly-parameterized bio-inspired model family (hierarchical neuromorphic networks) that successfully predict image saliency. Because of the high dimensionality of this parameter space, we use automated hyperparameter optimization to efficiently guide the search. The optimal blend of such multilayer features combined with a simple linear classifier achieves excellent performance on several image saliency benchmarks. Our models outperform the state of the art on MIT1003, on which features and classifiers are learned. Without additional training, these models generalize well to two other image saliency data sets, Toronto and NUSEF, despite their different image content. Finally, our algorithm scores best of all the 23 models evaluated to date on the MIT300 saliency challenge, which uses a hidden test set to facilitate an unbiased comparison.


The paper reports on numerical simulation of impact problems on fiber reinforced plastic composite laminated plates reinforced with Kevlar 29. The ballistic impact caused by STANAG-2920 projectile is analyzed to obtain an estimate for the V50 and the global damage. All estimates have been carried out using the finite difference numerical code AUTODYN-3D, are compared with the experimental data to illustrate the performance of the simulation. Good correlation between resulting simulations and experimental results is demonstrated both in terms of deformation and damage of the laminates and ballistic performance.


Assuring the protection of people and the environment from unnecessary exposure to radiation is of great concern to nuclear electric power generators and regulators. In order to secure and maintain a license for operation of a nuclear power plant in the United States, the applicant is required to assess postulated scenarios to determine if an accidental chemical release either onsite or offsite will result in a design-basis event. When determining design-basis events, accident categories such as fire, explosion and/or toxic vapor cloud formation are considered.Evaluations must consider whether the postulated accidental chemical release will result in operator impairment or damage to safety related structures, systems or components (SSCs), either of which may prevent safe shutdown of the nuclear plant. A critical step in performing such safety evaluations is selection of an appropriate model which will most closely reflect the behavior of a chemical release in the scenario under consideration. Many chemical dispersion models are available for use in safety evaluations for accidental chemical releases; however, it is imperative that the model selected be appropriate for the postulated release conditions. Model selection should be based on careful evaluation of factors such as release location, meteorological conditions, terrain, chemical inventory and storage conditions, as well as the physical and chemical properties of the chemical under consideration in the postulated release.Failure to select a model suitable for the conditions under which the chemical is released or to appropriately evaluate the physical properties of the chemical and the corresponding limitations of the model may result in underpredicting or overpredicting the impact of a fire, explosion or toxic chemical release. Underpredicting could leave the facility susceptible to damage of safety related SSCs or lead to operator impairment both of which may affect the ability of the plant to safely operate following an accident. While overpredicting the impacts could lead to unnecessary and costly overdesign. This paper will address the considerations that must be evaluated when selecting a chemical dispersion model and will illustrate the importance of model selection in performing nuclear safety evaluations through examples and case studies.© 2013 ASME


This dissertation aims to explore the needs of the Young Adults Group in the Lutheran Church, Hayfields, Pieterrnaritzburg. Focus groups were conducted with young adults to establish their needs. During the three months of data collection, group dynamics were also observed, and at the focus groups, specific focus group dynamics were detected. The focus group interactions were recorded and transcribed. Using thematic analysis, the transcribed data was encoded using existing codes based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and analysed. Twelve themes of needs emerged from the data. These were: i) physiological needs; ii) safety needs; iii) the need for acceptance and love and the absence ofjudgement; iv) the need to be understood by others and the church; v) the need to be valued and appreciated; vi) the need to have fun; vii) the need for nature; viii) the need to delay life's pace and prioritise; ix) the need to grow spiritually as individuals and as church; x) the need for a spiritual outlet and expression of one's spirituality; xi) the need to be used by God for a specific purpose; xii) the need for assurance from God. Using these needs, a framework for a programme was developed. All the guidelines and exercises suggested in the programme aim to promote growth spiritual, emotional, and personaJ and focus on fulfilling the individual's potential within the group.


Author(s): Mills, Evan; Bourassa, Norman; Rainer, Leo; Mai, Jimmy; Vaino, Ian; Curtin, Claire; Shehabi, Arman; Desroches, Louis; Mills, Nathaniel | Abstract: Two-thirds of Americans play computer games. Although among the most complex and energyintensive plug loads, gaming has been largely overlooked in energy research and development and policy. Systems used for computer gaming in California consumed 4.1 terawatt-hours/year in 2016 or $700 million in energy bills, with emissions of 1.5 million tons carbon dioxideequivalent allocated 66 percent to consoles, 31 percent to desktop personal computers, 3 percent to laptops, and less than 1 percent to emerging media streaming devices. Key findings include: • Aggregate energy demand places gaming among the top plug loads in California, with gaming representing one-fifth of the state's total miscellaneous residential energy use. • Market structure changes could substantially affect statewide energy use; energy demand could rise by 114 percent by 2021 under intensified desktop gaming, or fall by 24 percent given a major shift towards consoles coupled with energy efficiency gains. • Unit energy consumption is remarkably varied across gaming platform types: across 26 systems tested, client-side electricity use ranged from 5 to more than 1,200 kWh per year, reflecting equipment choice and usage patterns. • Some emerging technologies and activities are driving energy demand higher, including processor overclocking, cloud-based gaming, higher-resolution connected displays, and virtual reality gaming. • User behavior influences gaming energy use more than technology choice; duty cycle and game choice are particularly strong drivers of demand. • Energy efficiency opportunities are substantial, about 50 percent on a per-system basis for personal computers and 40 percent for consoles if past rates of improvement continue. While simultaneously quantifying efficiency and gaming performance is problematic, evidence suggests that efficiency can be improved while maintaining or improving user experience. Familiar energy policy strategies can help manage gaming energy demand, although mandatory system-level standards are not promising (component-level measures may be).


Known in the Pelican State as the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway's "The Hustler," train No. 4-203, northbound, arriving in Shreveport, Louisiana from New Orleans on an April morning in 1939.
The small Pacific, type 4-6-2 locomotive, which heads this passenger train, carries the train's name etched on a metal plate attached to the boiler front, positioned below the headlight.
These overnight trains - operating between New Orleans and Shreveport were popular over a long span of years, making the approximate 329.4 mile run in about 10 hours. A portion of the route was over Louisiana and Arkansas rails and also over Louisiana Railway and Navigation company's rails. This subsidiary of the Kansas city Southern Lines was known as the "Edenborn Line".


AIM
This paper describes perceptions of the end users on quality of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in public health facilities in Nigeria.

BACKGROUND
Health care services in Nigeria face challenges of meeting end users' requirements and expectations for quality ART service provision.

METHOD
A qualitative design was followed. Unstructured focus group discussions were conducted with end users (n = 64) in six locations across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.

RESULTS
The findings indicate that end users were satisfied with uninterrupted antiretroviral drug supplies, courtesy treatment, volunteerism of support group members and quality counselling services.

CONCLUSION
End users expect effective collaboration between healthcare providers and support group members, to enhance the quality of life of people living with HIV.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
A best practice guideline for the provision of end user focused ART service provision was developed for nurse managers.


Decentralization in Brazil's Unified National Health System is challenging the management capability at the local level. Municipalities are required to operate health teams, provide infrastructure, technology, and supplies for the health services, and organize the work process. An epidemiological survey assessed the management of work, education, information, and communication in primary care services in 41 municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants each in the Northeast and South of the country. Health professionals and administrators were insufficiently trained for their daily responsibilities, and the infrastructure and management tools were deficient. Precarious work contracts (lack of formal job stability) for health workers is a serious problem in Brazil's primary care system. The work supervision was weakly linked to health care and planning. Continuing education for the health team was limited, and health information focused only on collection of data to send to the State and Federal management levels. Thus far health communication has been ineffective as a tool to connect primary care managers and professionals to the population and society.


This article provides new insights into how geography shapes spatiotemporal variations in the propensity of actors from particular countries to file for non-resident patents in specific foreign economies. Our major contribution is to show that, in addition to bilateral exports and outward foreign direct investment, the geography of non-resident patenting is shaped by transnational spatial dependencies: the cross-border patenting activity of residents from one country is influenced by the prior patenting activity of residents from third countries. We find that domestic actors from particular countries are more likely to file for patent protection in focal foreign economies where their regional peers and, to a lesser extent, competitors from economies with similar export product structures have filed for a larger number of patents. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


Dynamic partial reconfiguration (DPR) allows parts of an FPGA to be reprogrammed at runtime (i.e., repurposed). Though DPR has been supported by commercial devices and tools for more than a decade, it has been underutilized, perhaps, due to a shortage of demonstrated use-cases and quantified benefits over static FPGA mapping (without DPR). In this paper, we quantify the benefits of dynamic FPGA mapping (with DPR) over traditional static FPGA mapping for two vision applications deployed on systems with area/device cost, power or energy constraints (i.e., smart car and smart robot). In both applications, the FPGA needs to accelerate multiple tasks at 60 fps. However, all tasks are not required at the same time. In this work, instead of mapping all tasks statically on a large FPGA, the set of tasks needed at a given time is (1) repurposed on a smaller FPGA and (2) still meets the functional and performance requirements (i.e., 60 fps). In the two application examples, we show that dynamic mapping on smaller FPGAs reduces logic resource utilization by up to 3.2x, device cost by up to 10x, and power and energy consumption by up to 30% in comparison with static mapping on larger FPGAs. These benefits are crucial for applications deployed on systems where reducing area/device cost, power and energy is as important as meeting performance requirement.


In this paper, we explore how French Free Software activism can help to understand the dynamics of globalization from below. First, we explore the global context within which French Free Software activists built their community. They applied the approach of the global Free Software Foundation (FSF), which grounded its work in what we call the "freedom discourse." Through this discourse, FSF leaders articulated their goals and activities to emphasize the importance of software users and developers having access to source code. Equally important, they established Free Software as a new form of property that provided an alternative to the proprietary form. Second, we explore the development of the Free Software community in France. Since 1996, activists applied the freedom discourse to promote and defend Free Software as a new form of property. For the first five years they focused on public education work; however, after 2001 they mobilized to oppose two legislative initiatives that threatened Free Software by imposing digital rights management provisions. Finally, we reflect on how the case of French activists illuminates the dynamics of globalization from below. We highlight the contradictory ways that these activists forged links between local and global communities to create transboundary publics.


To reveal regulators of innate immunity, we used RNAi assays to monitor the immune response when genes are inhibited in Caenorhabditis elegans and mouse macrophages. Genes that altered innate immune responsiveness in C. elegans were validated in murine macrophages, resulting in the discovery of 11 genes that regulate the innate immune response in both systems and the subsequent identification of a protein interaction network with a conserved role in innate immunity regulation. We confirmed the role of four of these 11 genes in antimicrobial gene regulation using available mutants in C. elegans. Several of these genes (acy-1, tub-2, and tbc-1) also regulate susceptibility to the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These genes may prove critical to understanding host defense and represent potential therapeutic targets for infectious and immunological diseases.


A multi-step electromechanical /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator for /spl mu/g accelerometers is described. A two-element sensor array is used in two /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ loops and resolution improves by >2x compared to a conventional 2nd-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator. This CMOS chip operates at 1 MHz and provides 0.2-1.2V/pF sensitivity, <20aF resolution, >120dB dynamic range, and dissipates <12mW.


The "sunk costs fallacy" is a popular import into political science from organizational psychology and behavioral economics. The fallacy is classically defined as a situation in which decision-makers escalate commitment to an apparently failing project in order to "recoup" the costs they have already sunk into it. The phenomenon is often framed as a good example of how real decision-making departs from the assumption of forward-looking rationality which underpins traditional approaches to understanding politics. Researchers have proposed a number of different psychological drivers for the fallacy, such as cognitive dissonance reduction, and there is experimental and observational evidence that it accurately characterizes decision-making in certain contexts. However, there is significant skepticism about the fallacy in many social sciences, with critics arguing that there are better forward-looking rational explanations for decisions apparently driven by a desire to recoup sunk costs – among them reputational concerns, option values and agency problems. Critics have also noted that in practical situations sunk costs are informative both about decision makers' intrinsic valuation for the issue and the prospects for success, making it hard to discern a separate role for sunk costs empirically. To address these concerns, empirical researchers have employed a number of strategies, especially leveraging natural experiments in certain non-political decision making contexts such as sports or business, in order to isolate the effects of sunk costs per se from other considerations. In doing so, they have found mixed support for the fallacy. Research has also shown that the prevalence of the sunk costs fallacy may be moderated by a number of factors, including the locus of decision-making, framing, and national context. These provide the basis for suggestions for future research.


When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, they sent virtually the entire Jewish population to Auschwitz. A Hungarian Jew and a medical doctor, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli was spared from death for a grimmer fate: to perform "scientific research" on his fellow inmates under the supervision of the infamous "Angel of Death": Dr. Josef Mengele. Nyiszli was named Mengele's personal research pathologist. Miraculously, he survived to give this terrifying and sobering account of the terror of Auschwitz. This new Penguin "Modern Classics" edition contains an introduction by Richard Evans.


This paper provides a tentative reconstruction of environmental shifts in Europe associated with changes of the North Atlantic Current and related meridional sea-surface temperature (SST) gradients. During most of the Eemian interglacial (ca. 126–115 ka), the North Atlantic Current extended far north into the Nordic Seas and European environments were comparable to those of the Holocene. However, ca. 115 ka an SST drop in the Nordic Seas marked a southward displacement of the North Atlantic Current. This hydrographic shift was associated with substantial cooling in northern Europe and drier conditions in the Mediterranean region. The polar timberline retreated southward from 69°N in northernmost Scandinavia to 52°N in central Europe, and thermophilous deciduous trees became extinct north of the 48th parallel. Woodlands persisted in southern Europe for another 5 k.y. well into marine isotope substage 5d. These conditions indicate steep vegetation and climate gradients at the inception of the last glacial.


This report uses recent economic modelling to relate cognitive skills – as measured by PISA and other international instruments – to economic growth, demonstrating that relatively small improvements to labour force skills can largely impact the future well-being of a nation. The report also shows that it is the quality of learning outcomes, not the length of schooling, which makes the difference. A modest goal of all OECD countries boosting their average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years would increase OECD gross domestic product by USD 115 trillion over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010. Other aggressive goals could result in gains in the order of USD 260 trillion.


Net-centric networking environments are often faced with limited resources and must utilize bandwidth as efficiently as possible. In networking environments that span wide areas, the data transmission has to be efficient without any redundant or exuberant metadata. The Autonomous Byte Stream Randomizer software provides an extra level of security on top of existing data encryption methods. Randomizing the data s byte stream adds an extra layer to existing data protection methods, thus making it harder for an attacker to decrypt protected data. Based on a generated crypto-graphically secure random seed, a random sequence of numbers is used to intelligently and efficiently swap the organization of bytes in data using the unbiased and memory-efficient in-place Fisher-Yates shuffle method. Swapping bytes and reorganizing the crucial structure of the byte data renders the data file unreadable and leaves the data in a deconstructed state. This deconstruction adds an extra level of security requiring the byte stream to be reconstructed with the random seed in order to be readable. Once the data byte stream has been randomized, the software enables the data to be distributed to N nodes in an environment. Each piece of the data in randomized and distributed form is a separate entity unreadable on its own right, but when combined with all N pieces, is able to be reconstructed back to one. Reconstruction requires possession of the key used for randomizing the bytes, leading to the generation of the same cryptographically secure random sequence of numbers used to randomize the data. This software is a cornerstone capability possessing the ability to generate the same cryptographically secure sequence on different machines and time intervals, thus allowing this software to be used more heavily in net-centric environments where data transfer bandwidth is limited.


It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones. If all ideas have equal validity then you are lost, because then, it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all. Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism," Pasadena lecture, 1987


Members of a theater audience see themselves in a mirror image projected on to a large screen. This 'mirror' is augmented by virtual balls that bounce realistically when hit by the audience. The effect is created with a computer and a single camera. It is robust and convincing and we have devised several different games that an audience can play. Since 2005, we have displayed these games publicly at two international science fairs, and to many student groups. We usually explain the rules of the games briefly, but even this is hardly necessary. People learned to manipulate the virtual objects intuitively and could infer the rules of scoring in only a few minutes. Our games encourage cooperation and provide an enjoyable, active group experience without making individuals self conscious.


A study of the mortality rates among 1657 employees at two Ontario automotive parts factories that manufactured friction materials containing chrysotile asbestos was initiated in response to the workers' concerns about the effects of asbestos on their health. A total of 1194 men and 258 women had had their first potential exposure at least 10 years before the end of the study period; 563 of the men and 138 of the women had had such an exposure at least 20 years before the end of the study period. A significantly increased rate of death from laryngeal cancer and an elevated rate of death from lung cancer were observed in a cohort analysis. One or two deaths might have been due to pleural mesothelioma. There was no increase in the rate of death from gastrointestinal cancer or from nonmalignant respiratory disease. Case-control analysis showed no association between the risk of laryngeal or lung cancer and the total duration of employment (a surrogate for the extent of ambient exposure to asbestos or other workplace toxic substances) or employment in departments where asbestos had been used. An association between risk of death and occupational exposure is uncertain.


A method is presented for measuring the correlation between the optical fields scattered in different directions by an arbitrary three-dimensional turbid medium. The field angular correlation function is obtained by processing ensemble average intensity data, which are recorded experimentally by a single-channel Shack–Hartmann wave-front sensor. Some general properties of scattered light are expressed in terms of the field angular correlation function, and the correlation function is measured for transmission through a suspension of microspheres under nonballistic transport conditions.


This paper describes the structure of the flagella, basal bodies, and some of the associated fibre systems in three genera of complex flagellates, Trichonympha, Pseudotrichonympha, and Holomastigotoides. Three groups of longitudinal fibres occur in a flagellum: two central and nine outer fibres such as have been repeatedly described in other material, and an additional set of nine smaller secondary fibres not previously identified as such. Each central fibre shows a helical substructure; the pair of them are enveloped in a common sheath. Each outer fibre is a doublet with one subfibre bearing projections—called arms—that extend toward the adjacent outer fibre. The basal body is formed by a cylinder of nine triplet outer fibres. Two subfibres of each triplet continue into the flagellum and constitute the doublets. The third subfibre terminates at the transition of basal body to flagellum, possibly giving rise to the nine radial transitional fibres that seem to attach the end of the basal body to the surface of the organism. The central and secondary flagellar fibres are not present in the lumen of the basal body, but other complex structures occur there. The form of these intraluminal structures differs from genus to genus. The flagellar unit is highly asymmetrical. All the flagella examined have possessed the same one of the two possible enantiomorphic forms. At least two systems of fibres are associated with the basal bodies of all three genera.


Tissue engineering (TE) applies scientific and clinical techniques to restore and regenerate tissues using scaffolds, stem cells, growth factors and gene therapy, and, for orthopaedic surgery, has evolved to meet a clinical need to develop suitable alternatives to current bone grafting techniques. Collagen-based scaffolds are successfully used as skin graft substitutes but have limited mechanical properties for bone. Using established animal models, the primary objective of this thesis was to evaluate the potential of a collagen-glycosaminoglycan (CG) scaffold previously developed and optimized in our laboratory for bone repair, and to compare its healing response to three composite scaffolds also developed in our laboratory: (i) a collagencalcium phosphate (CCP) scaffold, (ii) a collagen-hydroxyapatite (CHA) scaffold and (iii) a collagen-nano hydroxyapatite (coll-nHA) scaffold. In addition, we analysed the capacity of these scaffolds to act as delivery systems for cells, growth factors and genes. In Chapter 2, a CG scaffold stiffened 7-fold over the standard skin graft collagen scaffold and a CCP scaffold with 25-fold increased stiffness over the skin graft collagen scaffold were tested in a 7mm rat calvarial model. Results demonstrated that both scaffolds, but especially the CCP scaffolds, significantly enhanced healing over untreated controls and both scaffolds elicited an appropriate tissue remodelling immune response demonstrating their potential for bone repair. In Chapter 3, contrary to expectation, the seeding and culture of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) onto the same CG and CCP scaffolds, prior to implantation, produced poorer results than the cell-free scaffolds used in Chapter 2. Irnmunohistochemical analysis revealed impaired healing due to the physical barrier of tissue formed during in vitro culture. This study thus improves our understanding of host response in bone tissue engineering. In Chapter 4, a novel collagen hydroxyapatite (CHA) scaffold demonstrated healing rates of a 15mm rabbit radius segmental defect equivalent to autogenous bone graft (ABG) and the CG scaffold soaked with recombinant bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP2). When the CHA scaffold was soaked in rhBMP2 at a dose exponentially lower than a commercially available rhBMP2 product, it healed the defect with complete anatomical restoration demonstrating both the off-the-shelfpotential of the product as well as its capacity to be used for growth factor delivery. In Chapter 5, as part of a gene therapy approach, nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) particles developed in our laboratory successfully transfected MSCs with the BMP2 gene. A gene- activated matrix (GAM) was then successfully created by incorporating the transfected MSCs into a scaffold fabricated with the nHA particles and collagen, demonstrating a positive osteogenic response using MSCs in vitro, validating their potential for use in bone tissue regeneration. In conclusion, the application of novel techniques to the existing clinically-approved collagen scaffold has demonstrated considerable healing potential as off-the-shelf bone graft substitutes using established animal models. The results also demonstrate their versatility in bone tissue engineering as this study has shown the ability of these scaffolds to act as delivery devices for stem cells, growth factors and gene therapy and thus their potential to heal large defects where an off-the-shelf approach might not be sufficient.


Panentheism: A functional and inductive endeavour in the dialogue between science and religion. Panentheism is an approach that gains more and more popularity in both systematic and practical theology, as well as in philosophy. But what lies at the heart of panentheism? Could panentheism be the key to a valid contemporary understanding of God and creation? This article aims at illuminating the richness of panentheism whilst at the same time exploring whether this construct could enhance the interdisciplinary dialogue. The author of this article departs from the premise that it is the task of systematic theology to understand reality in a collective enterprise, together with other disciplines and even other sciences. A constructive empiricism could, when combined with the notion of social constructionism, lead to an understanding of reality where reality is more than mere idealistically conceived. Truth is therefore to be replaced with a pragmatic but value-laden concept of understanding. Therefore panentheism and both epistemology and ontology have to be reconsidered. It is the opinion of the author that panentheism can enrich both the dialogue between disciplines as well as the interaction between practical and systematic theology. However, panentheism then has to be even more radical and steer clear of the traditional meaning of space and time.


Spin-orbit free and spin-orbit coupled CASPT2 wave functions and energies are presented for the ground and low-lying excited states of four actinide element sandwich molecules; thorocene (ThCOT(2)), uranocene (UCOT(2)), plutonocene (PuCOT(2)), and curocene (CmCOT(2)). Spin-orbit coupling is found to make little difference to the equilibrium geometry of uranocene and plutonocene but has a significant effect on the energy spectrum of all the systems considered here other than thorocene. In all cases, however, the spin-orbit free ground states make the dominant contribution to their spin-orbit coupled counterparts. Following work presented in J. Phys. Chem. A 2009, 113, 2896, the variation in the multiconfigurational character of the ground-state wave functions as the 5f series is crossed is quantified via the occupation of the a(u)/b(1u) (e(2u)) metal-ring bonding and antibonding natural orbitals. The ground state of plutonocene is found to be nondegenerate with |M(J)| = 0, in agreement with its temperature-independent paramagnetism.


Cold hardiness among zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp.) genotypes varies, but the physiological basis for cold hardiness is not completely understood. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship of carbohydrate (starch, total soluble sugars, total reducing sugars, sucrose, glucose, and raffi nose family oligosaccharides) and proline concentrations with the cold acclimation of zoysiagrass and the lethal temperature killing 50% of the plants (LT 50 ). Thirteen genotypes of zoysiagrass were selected with contrasting levels of winter hardiness. Plants were grown for 4 wk of 8/2°C day/night cycles and a 10-h photoperiod of 300 μmol m −2 s −1 to induce cold acclimation. Rhizomes and stolons were sampled from nonacclimated and cold-acclimated plants and used for carbohydrate and proline analysis. Concentrations of soluble sugars and proline increased during cold acclimation, while starch concentrations decreased. Starch, sugar/starch ratio, glucose, total reducing sugars, and proline in cold-acclimated plants were correlated (r = 0.61, −0.67, −0.73, −0.62, and −0.62, respectively) with LT 50 . These correlations indicate that higher concentrations of total reducing sugars, glucose, and proline are positively associated with zoysiagrass freeze tolerance, whereas higher concentrations of starch appeared detrimental to freeze tolerance.


Finasteride (a synthetic 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor) is used for the treatment of male pattern baldness and benign prostatic hyperplasia. There have been few reports on pregnancy outcomes after paternal exposure to finasteride either prior to or during pregnancy. Nineteen cases with documented paternal exposure to finasteride either prior to or during pregnancy were identified through the Korean Motherisk program. Detailed patient histories were obtained and each patient was followed from pregnancy through abortion or delivery. Of the 19 patients, 13 (68.4%) gave birth to normal full-term babies. The other six cases (31.6%) resulted in either spontaneous (n=3) or artificial (n=3) abortions. These results are consistent with previous animal studies demonstrating an increase in adverse outcomes with paternal exposure to finasteride.


Better measures of how global levels of OH vary from year to year will improve climate science. The hydroxyl radical (OH) is an oxidizing molecule that has a major impact on the distribution and concentrations of pollutants and greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. It is the most common oxidant in the troposphere, the lowest portion of the atmosphere. Understanding OH variability is important to evaluating human impacts on the atmosphere and climate. Measuring global OH distribution and variability, however, has been difficult, in part because the molecule has a lifetime of less than one second. On page 67 of this issue, Montzka et al. (1) use an indirect method to present a global estimate of OH's interannual variability that is consistent with past model-based estimates (2–5). This could be an important step toward understanding OH's role in the atmosphere, including its role in influencing concentrations of methane (CH4), a gas important in considerations of global warming.


Although tacit knowledge constitutes the major part of what we know, it is difficult for organisations to fully benefit from this valuable asset. This is because tacit knowledge is inherently elusive, and in order to capture, store, and disseminate it, it is argued that it first has to be made explicit. However, such a process is difficult, and often fails due to three reasons: (1) we are not necessarily aware of our tacit knowledge, (2) on a personal level we do not need to make it explicit in order to use it, and (3) we may not want to give up a valuable competitive advantage. During an empirical study of recommender system usage, it was noticed how such technology could be used to circumvent these problems, and make tacit knowledge, in form of our professional interests, available to the organisation as a whole. Using Polanyi's theories it will be showed how intranet documents can be used to make tacit knowledge tangible without becoming explicit, suggesting that tacitly expressed entities not necessarily are beyond the reach of information technology.


The aim of this small explorative study was to get an impression of the participants' views and understanding of the role of becoming a teacher in Swedish schools, realising the characteristic of pedagogy aimed for in the curriculum (in Lgr11 and Lgy), specifically the interaction patterns and student participation in learning processes. Main research questions addressed participants expectations of differences and challenges in the Swedish school context as compared to their experiences in Syria contexts, in specific the development of their understanding of student participation in interaction as characteristic of Swedish education and curriculum. From this, recommendations are formulated for curriculum and research for future Fast Track trajectories.


PURPOSE
To develop four-dimensional cone beam CT for an image guided radiation system for small animals without the use of external respiration monitoring systems.

METHODS
Nine mice were scanned using the cone beam CT capabilities of an X-Rad 225Cx system. The mice were anesthetized with 1.5 to 3% isoflurane and scanned (60 kVp and 4 mA) at a sampling rate of 15 fps and gantry rotation rate of 0.5 rpm to yield a total of approximately 1800 975×975 projection images. The projections were used to obtain a respiratory signal using a modified Amsterdam Shroud method. Inspirations appeared approximately as vertical lines in the Amsterdam Shroud image due to the small ratio of inspiration to expiration times in mice anesthetized with isoflurane. The locations of these lines were extracted using vertical edge detection, dilation and projection onto one dimension. Four-dimensional cone beam CT images (voxel size 0.1 × 0.1 × 0.3 mm) were then obtained using these peak inspirations to sort the projections into 6 phases. The peak inspirations of two mice were manually extracted from the projections to test the peak extraction method.

RESULTS
4D CBCT images were successfully created for each mouse with minimal streak artifacts. Some blurring in the initial phase was seen due to the sharpness of the inspiration peak. The peak finding algorithm determined the peaks correctly to within an average of 0.7 and 0.4 projections for the first and second mouse, respectively. 82% and 89% of the projections were sorted into the correct phase bin for the two mice.

CONCLUSION
The four-dimensional CBCT method developed here can be used to analyze lung motion in mice and assist in preclinical targeted radiation therapy studies.


This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows:

To estimate and compare the diagnostic accuracy of DUS, TCD/TCCD, MRA and CTA for detecting relevant vertebral artery stenosis in symptomatic patients with (posterior circulation) ischaemic stroke or TIA as well as in asymptomatic patients. A patient is considered asymptomatic in this review when he or she did not have any clinical signs or symptoms related to stroke or TIA of the posterior circulation in the last six to 12 months. This includes patients that were in fact symptomatic of anterior circulation pathology and were investigated by a combination of the aforementioned image modalities (see Participants below).

As the accuracy of imaging may depend on the location of the stenosis in the vertebral artery we are planning to analyse the data according to the location of the stenosis. The vertebral artery can be divided into four anatomical parts: V1 to V3 form the extracranial vertebral artery and V4 forms the intracranial vertebral artery (Khan 2007, Figure 2).


Mirocaris fortunata were sampled from the Lucky Strike hydrothermal vent area (Eiffel Tower site) on the mid-Atlantic ridge during the French DIVA 2 cruise (June 1994). Small adults (17 to 22 mm total length), although morphologically identical, could be divided into 2 categories on the basis of pigmentation, lipid composition and 13C/12C stable isotope ratios of fatty acids. Highly pigmented small adults (8.6 to 9.2 μg carotenoid shrimp-1) contained higher levels of total lipid than similar-sized individuals containing lower levels of pigment (0.9 to 2.9 μg carotenoid shrimp-1). Lipid class analysis indicated that wax esters comprised 62.5% of total lipid in the former group. These pigmented shrimp also contained high proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), particularly the phototrophic microplanktonic markers 20:5(n-3) and 22:6(n-3) (14.0 and 33.5% respectively). By contrast small adults (22 mm) and adult shrimp (25 to 26 mm) with low levels of carotenoid pigmentation contained lower amounts of total lipid, little or no wax ester and low levels of 20:5(n-3) and 22:6(n-3), but did contain 16:2(n-4) and 18:2(n-4) and the non-methylene interrupted dienes 20:2Delta5,13 and 22:2Delta7,15. GC-IRMS analysis of all fatty acids and fatty alcohols in the pigmented small adults indicated delta13C values of -18.2 to -27.7o/oo, which is consistent with a photosynthetic carbon source for these compounds. The 13C/12C isotope composition of fatty acids from low-pigmented small adults and adults was more variable (-12.5 to -33.1o/oo) and suggests a bimodal distribution which may be attributable to differing nutritional sources or the physiological/reproductive status of these shrimp. Samples of eggs, which are carried by the female on the pleopods, represented approximately 57% of total somatic lipid which indicates a substantial reproductive investment by this species. The egg lipids comprised high proportions of triacylglycerols (64.4 to 78.0% of total lipid) whilst the fatty acid composition was dominated by the monounsaturated fatty acids 16:1(n-7), 18:1(n-7) and 18:1(n-9), which accounted for 65.7 to 73.5% of total fatty acids. By contrast, PUFA were relatively minor components of egg lipids, particularly 20:5(n-3) and 22:6(n-3), which accounted for only 1.1 and 2.9% of total egg fatty acids respectively. This indicates that the reproductive investment by this species is supported mainly by material derived from bacterial chemosynthesis. The potential for M. fortunata hedge betting by producing larvae which either metamorphose at the vent site or adopt a bathypelagic lifestyle and delay metamorphosis to facilitate more widespread dispersal is discussed.


This dissertation, a qualitative case study, investigates issues oflanguage and identity among sixteen young black women studying at Technikon Natal. I examine the ways in which identities are structured by discourses of which language practices are an important part. The research participants' need to learn English is also interrogated against a scenario of South Africa during and post-apartheid. In Chapter 1, I give historical background on the educational structures and legislation which affected my research participants before 2000, and then briefly describe their present context of study. The literature on which my dissertation is based is reviewed in Chapter 2. Humanist theories of motivation for second language learning, for example, Gardner's (1985), are rejected in favour ofNorton Peirce's (1995) notion of investment in second language learning, which builds on Bourdieu' s (1977 1991) concepts of capital, and views the second language learner as inseparable from her social world. However, the emphasis in Chapter 2 is given to some of the central ideas of poststructuralist thinking, particularly those pertaining to the undermining oftotalising theories, and those arguing in favour of multiple subjectivity. Chapter 3 contains both my research methods, which were mainly social constructionist, as well as the broad discourse analysis techniques I deployed for my data analysis. Notable in Chapter Four, in which I present and analyse my findings, is the power of ethnic discourses to govern the use of their own and other languages by their subjects. Significant, too, are the shifts in subjectivity which individuals experience as they integrate new discourses into their lives. Amongst my conclusions in the final chapter is the notion that, from a poststructuralist perspective, code switching may allow the simultaneous display ofmore than one identity; that the use ofEnglish by black South Africans is fraught with contradictions, and that indigenous African languages appear vulnerable to the pressure from powerful English discourses. I also discuss the limitations of this research and make recommendations for future research, and end with the particular insights into language and subjectivity I have gained as a lecturer in my current teaching context.


Mobile Learning Systems are often described as supporting informal learning; as such they are a good fit to the idea of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs), software systems that users choose and tailor to fit their own learning preferences. This paper explores the question of whether existing m-learning research is more in the spirit of PLEs or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). To do this we survey the mobile learning systems presented at M-Learn 2007 in order to see if they might be regarded as informal or formal learning. In order to categorise the systems we present a four dimensional framework of formality, based on Learning Objective, Learning Environment, Learning Activity and Learning Tools. We use the framework to show that mobile systems tend to be informal in terms of their environment, but ignore the other factors. Thus we can conclude that despite the claims of m-learning systems to better support informal and personal learning, today's m-learning research is actually more in the spirit of a VLE than a PLE, and that there remains a great deal of unexplored ground in the area of Mobile PLE systems.


Doxorubicin (Dox), an antineoplastic drug, has been extensively used for the treatment of different cancers. Dox is hydrophilic and therefore distributes to normal organs at a faster rate. Due to its required high doses, it poses severe toxicity, such as cardiotoxicity and nephrotoxicity. Diverse approaches, including nanoparticulate delivery systems, have been designed and evaluated to improve its delivery to the target site and reduce toxicity to normal organs; however, this has met little success. Here in this review, we have discussed various systems (metal nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, liposomes, dendrimers, cyclic peptides, and other covalent/non-covalent systems) that have been used for Dox. We have critically evaluated their designing and outcome ( in vitro and in vivo ) with potential applications in the clinical setting.


Davison et al. (Reports, 28 August 2015, p. 970) claim that virtual taxa of Glomeromycota show little endemism and that endemism that exists is similar to the levels seen in plant families. We show that this is likely due to the conservative species definition rather than to any ecological pattern.


BACKGROUND
Recently, ultrasonic tissue characterization of the composition of plaques has been performed in a quantitative fashion on the basis of integrated backscatter (IBS) analysis, but most of those studies have used high-frequency ultrasound to obtain microscopic images.

METHODS AND RESULTS
We performed B-mode measurement and IBS signal analysis with acoustic densitometry with a 7.5-MHz linear-array transducer in freshly excised human aortas (n=58) (normal, atheromatous, and fibrous tissue) obtained at autopsy. Atheromatous and fibrous tissue had a similar intima-media thickness (IMT), but the IBS value in atheromatous specimens was lower than that in fibrous specimens. We further applied this method to human carotid ultrasonography. The subjects were young (80 regions), middle aged with 1 or no coronary risk factors (low risk) (120 regions), middle aged with >/=2 coronary risk factors (high risk) (240 regions), or elderly (80 regions) or were patients with myocardial infarction (MI) with multivessel disease (90 regions). The IMT was similar in middle-aged, elderly, and MI subjects. In contrast, the IBS value was significantly higher in elderly subjects and lower in high-risk middle-aged and MI subjects compared with that in low-risk middle-aged subjects. The percent of regions diagnosed as atheromatous (IBS less than mean minus 2-SD value of IBS in young subjects) was 11% in low-risk middle-aged subjects, 29% in high-risk middle-aged subjects, and 63% in the MI group.

CONCLUSIONS
In conjunction with conventional B-mode imaging, IBS analysis with carotid ultrasonography appeared to provide prognostic information to identify a high-risk group with systemic atherosclerosis, which could lead to coronary heart disease in individuals with early-stage disease.


Federal agencies propose thousands of regulations in any given year. The Administrative Procedure Act requires such agencies to follow certain procedures when enacting rules and regulations. However, when an agency proposes a new rule that is purely discretionary—not mandated by Congress—it may withdraw the proposed rule at any point before the rule is finalized. In October 2017, the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) withdrew a proposed rule that, if enacted, would have required long-term care facilities to recognize out of state same-sex marriages as a condition of Medicare and Medicaid participation. In its formal withdrawal published in the Federal Register, CMS reasoned that the proposed rule was no longer necessary due to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. This Comment examines the circumstances under which a district court can review an agency's withdrawal of a discretionary proposed rule. For nearly forty years, the D.C. Circuit has held that withdrawn discretionary rules may be ripe for judicial review if two requirements are met: (1) the withdrawal signals final agency action and (2) the agency created an adequate and precise record pursuant to informal notice-and-comment rulemaking. However, some commentators, notably former Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, argue that an agency's decision to withdraw a proposed rule is wholly discretionary and thus unreviewable in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Heckler v. Chaney. This Comment concludes by arguing that judicial review of withdrawn discretionary proposed rules is necessary to prevent arbitrary and capricious agency action. Moreover, despite Judge Kozinski's concerns, arbitrary and capricious review supplies a reviewing court with the critical tools to review withdrawn discretionary rules.


This dissertation studied real-time interaction over the Internet (RTI2) in the context of remote experimentation where there is typically a person at the client side interacting with physical equipments at the server side. Remote experimentations of mechatronic equipment have strong real-time constraints due to the dynamical evolution of the behaviors to be observed and controlled. The objective of this dissertation is to propose solutions that provide the best possible feedback to the user such that the drawbacks inherent to the distance between the client and the remote equipment are minimized while providing sufficient information about the equipment state and its operational conditions. In the ideal solution, the information representing the state of the remote equipment are rendered at the same pace it has been acquired, with a minimal time delay between the acquisition phase and the rendering phase. Solutions are proposed to approach as closely as possible to this ideal solution despite the inherent variability of the Internet and the versatility of the devices used by the clients. To characterize the feedback provided to the user, a definition for the RTI2 Quality of Service is proposed which includes three properties: the level of interaction, the accuracy of dynamic rendering and the wealth of semantic content. As these three properties cannot be directly measured, three related metrics are defined. The metrics definition relies on two abstractions; the first one defines a block as a unit of information that fully describes the state and the conditions of operation of the remote equipment at a given time. The second abstraction defines an end-to-end structure that includes the communication link and both the server and the client devices. The estimated metrics are the block end-to-end round trip time, the block duration ratio and the block size ratio. To guarantee a given quality of service, a cascade end-to-end adaptation structure is proposed. This control scheme is designed to track the block round trip time by adapting the block size. The adaptation scheme and the underlying model are validated with real-world measurements. A mechanism called TCP Most-Recent is proposed as an enhancement to the TCP protocol. It alleviates the problem related to the TCP buffering mechanism, thus improving the data transmission delay. This mechanism is especially useful for applications that send perishable data as in RTI2. Perishable data are data with limited time validity, thus resending this outdated data is useless and inefficient. The tradeoff in using TCP-MR is to accept possible losses in order to gain interactivity. Such a tradeoff can be limited if the adaptation, carried out at the application level, chooses the data to be discarded according to some criteria specified at the user level. This dissertation proposes a broad but consistent foundation for studying RTI2 in the context of remote experimentation. It is build around three main contributions. First, based on the identified objectives of a successful interaction, the quality of service for RTI2 in the context of remote experimentation is defined. The associated metrics and abstractions permitting to work at the right level are also defined. Second, using the provided metrics and abstractions, an adaptation scheme to enforce the QoS provided to the user is proposed and successfully validated. Third, a mechanism called TCP Most-Recent has been proposed to improve the information transmission delay without breaking the Internet best practice.


Fold and fabric patterns developed within a major Caledonian thrust nappe in NW Scotland reflect a progressive increase in regional D2 strain towards the basal ductile detachment. Within the upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies thrust sheet, the main gently east-dipping foliations and SE-plunging transport-parallel lineations maintain a broadly similar orientation over c. 600 km2. Associated main phase, thrust-related folds (F2) are widely developed, and towards the base of the thrust sheet display progressive tightening and increasing curvilinearity of fold hinges ultimately resulting in sheath folds. Secondary folds (F3) are largely restricted to high-strain zones and are interpreted as flow perturbation folds formed during non-coaxial, top-to-the-NW ductile thrusting. These features are consistent with a structural model that incorporates plane strain pure-shear flattening with a superimposed and highly variable simple shear component focused into high-strain zones. The increase in strain over a distance of 30 km across strike is similar to the increasing deformation observed when structures are traced along strike to the north, and which are apparently related to proximity to basement-cover contacts. A U–Pb zircon age of 415±6 Ma obtained from a syn-D2 meta-granite confirms that regional deformation occurred during the Scandian phase of the Caledonian orogeny.


Since the release of Napster in 1999, peer-to-peer file-sharing has enjoyed a dramatic rise in popularity. A 2000 study by Plonka on the University of Wisconsin campus network found that file-sharing accounted for a comparable volume of traffic to web applications, while a 2002 study by Saroiu et al. on the University of Washington campus network found that file-sharing accounted for more than treble the volume of web traffic observed, thus affirming the significance of P2P in the context of Internet traffic. Empirical studies of peer-to-peer traffic are essential for supporting the design of next-generation peer-to-peer systems, informing the provisioning of network infrastructure and underpinning the policing of peer-to-peer systems. This paper surveys existing work in the field of peer-to-peer monitoring and based upon this assessment of the state-of-the-art describes the design and implementation of the Open P2P tracing system, which aims to improve the research community's understanding of P2P file sharing systems by providing continuous and up-to-date traffic data which is anonymized and made freely accessible to all interested parties. Data from this system has been used in a variety of projects and papers, which are used to illustrate the broad range of research that can benefit from an open tracing system.


An archival tag equipped with sensors for temperature, depth and luminous intensity is an excellent method to elucidate behaviour and migration of marine organisms. Herein, what we believe is the first successful archival tag experiment with swordfish in the world is reported. The swordfish, which was harpooned with an archival tag encased in a plastic capsule, was released in July 1999 off the east coast of Japan. The fish was recaptured by a harpoon fishing vessel in June 2000, only 103 km from the tagging location and weighed approximately 120-kg. By comparing the water temperature data of the archival tag with oceanographic data, a cyclic seasonal migration between the food-rich Oyashio cold current area (40–45°N) during summer and the subtropical wintering area (10–20°N) was suggested. During most of the days of observation and for the majority of the time within a day, tagged fish swam in cold water (3–6°C) and deeper than approximately 200 m; at night, fish generally stayed near the warmer surface waters (21–27°C). The greatest swimming depth was approximated to be 900 m, deduced from ambient water temperature data. The swimming depth and behaviour pattern changed in response to the ambient water temperature.


INTRODUCTION
Axillary reverse mapping (ARM) is unproven in preventing lymphedema. The purpose of this study is to evaluate lymphedema rates with ARM added to lymphadenectomy.

METHODS
In this IRB approved study, 156 cases of SLNB/ALND from May 2007 to March 2010 were prospectively accrued to the study. Patients with an increase in arm volume greater than 20% over the contralateral side were considered to have lymphedema. Data was collected on identification and variations in lymphatic drainage, nodal status, ARM lymphatics preservation rate, adjuvant treatment (XRT, chemo) and lymphedema rate.

RESULTS
114 patients underwent SLNB only and 42 patients underwent ALND after SLNB, with a SLN identification rate of 100%. Median age was 56.9(±12.5) and BMI was 29.4(±6.9). Mean follow up was 14.6±9.4 months. ARM lymphatics were near or in the SLN field in 45/114 (39%) of the SLNB cases and in 34/42 (81%) of the ALND. ARM nodes were preserved in 92.3% of the cases (144/156). A total of 12 ARM nodes were resected because of crossover or suspicious appearance. The 2 ARM nodes involved by malignancy were in heavily positive axilla (>5 positive nodes). Lymphedema was diagnosed in 3.5% (4/114) of the SLNB cases and 7%(3/42) of the combined SLNB+ALND cases. 2.9% (4/140) of the patients who had the ARM lymphatics preserved and 18.7%(3/16) who had it transected developed clinical lymphedema. No regional recurrences were seen.

CONCLUSION
Preserving the ARM nodes is safe and resulted in a low incidence of postoperative lymphedema after SLNB and ALND.


This paper is based on an interpretative multiple case study of two organization where we examine how different middleware architecture approaches affect the utilization of sensor technology, in particular Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Our
study reveals five interesting findings. First, sensor technology is able to digitize and automate previously manual routines but the received value of this process alone is often limited. Second, the possibility of downstream exploitation, and thus innovation, is inhibited when sensor data is too rigidly packaged. Third, organizations should have a clear strategy or vision
regarding the desired business benefits when filtering and aggregating sensor data. Fourth, to enable innovative business solutions organizations should combine sensor data with business application data. Fifth, and finally, when utilizing sensor
data organizations should prioritize exploitation over exploration since it enables organizations to obtain business innovation.


Every age, it is said, gets the savior it deserves. Who then would be recognized as a deliverer for our millennium? The answer is pretty clear. Our redeemer would have been a programmer, a cyber-savior, walking forth upon the worldwide web with a cheap fix for the so-called Year 2000 problem. Surely it is a matter of cultural concern when the only millennial event anyone can talk about is the coming of a bug-a computer bug. How much will it cost to exterminate this little Year 2000 bug? Only, according to one estimate, about $600 billionl-and that's for the United States alone. Given that I am supposed to be addressing constitutional textualism today, you will probably be surprised-you will probably not even believe me-when I say that the aim of this paper is to discover a deep truth buried in this chiliastic coding fiasco, the reflection it casts upon our entire democratic culture, and the hidden secret it reveals about constitutional law in general and textualism in particular. (I said you wouldn't believe me.) But to make this connection between the Charter of 1787 and the codes of the Year 2000, I need to introduce another text, a famous thesis of Thomas Jefferson's. Jefferson's thesis encapsulates not only a particular view of constitutionism (a view, as we shall see, that underlies a variety of interpretive schools, including textualism), but also at the same time, a particular imperative concerning the proper human relationship to time (an imperative, as we shall see, that underlies a variety of social phenomena, including the Year 2000 problem). It is Jefferson's second declaration of independence-this time from time itself. Here is Jefferson's simple thesis: "the earth belongs to the living."'2 Not to "the dead," nor to "the unborn," but rather, "in usufruct," only to us, only to those in being here and now. 3 This anti-millennial thesis will be our antimillennial text as we investigate textualism at the millennium.


Roman baroque sculpture is usually thought of in terms of large-scale statues in marble and bronze, tombs, or portrait busts. Smaller bronze statuettes are overlooked, and the extensive production of sculptural silver--much of which is now lost but can be studied from drawings--is omitted from the histories of art. In these lectures, Jennifer Montagu enriches our understanding of the sculpture of the period by investigating these works in metal: the bronzes that adorn the great tabernacles, which are a prominent feature of Roman churches; the often gilded silver, both secular and ecclesiastical; and elaborately embossed display dishes. She also looks at the production of medals, an essential aspect of metal sculpture that is usually confined to specialist literature.The book concentrates on selected pieces by such master sculptors as Bernini, and leading metal-workers such as Giovanni Giardini. Making extensive use of archival documents and drawings, Montagu examines the often tortuous relationship between the patrons and the artists and elucidates the relationship between those who provided the drawings or models and the craftsmen who executed the finished sculptures. In this way she provides insights into the procedures of the workshops, and at the same time opens our eyes to a new and fascinating area of sculpture.


Oxidation of TMP fibers was compared at 298 K with molecular oxygen, in the presence of either [Co(salen)] in methanol or [Co(sulphosalen)] in water. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy made it possible to reveal and quantify the formation of phenoxy cobalt radicals in the former case and of phenoxy radicals in the latter. These radicals reached the same concentration after 60 min from the onset of reaction. Fiber integrity was more preserved after oxidation in water than in methanol, as assessed by heteronuclear single quantum coherence - nuclear magnetic resonance (2D-HSQC-NMR) spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of carbon (13C-NMR), and Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC). These results suggest that efficient radical formation on fibers can be achieved also with water-soluble catalysts. Thus, it is proposed that treatment with molecular oxygen in the presence of [Co(sulphosalen)] in water represents a promising way to approach an environmentally sustainable radicalization of fibers, without heavy modification of the lignin structure.


Digital technologies pervade contemporary life, so much so that the boundary between the physical and virtual world has become increasingly blurred as digital technologies are embedded "seamlessly" into our constructed environment. Our awareness of the presence and tangible qualities of computational systems disappears, as these technologies are rendered inseparable from physical reality. This phenomenon is a direct consequence of Ubiquitous Computing, or UbiComp. In this study, I investigate UbiComp and other related technologies, such as electronic sensors, camera vision and radio frequency ID, with a view to creating a body of creative work that elicits in viewers an awareness, or sense of "technology-beingwith-us". The study is undertaken through the lens of my Korean cultural background, as in Korean culture, symbolic rituals and objects are used to evoke a sense of connection between immediate, physical presence and other realities, including the spiritual. In this sense, the artworks produced as part of the studio investigations are cultural probes that investigate our relationship with computational systems through instilling a sense of "technology-being-withus" in UbiComp. In the accompanying exegesis, I will document three artworks that were conceived and developed as a series of creative responses to my studio research. This document will also elaborate on my position on how a sense of "technology-being-with-us" can be identified with digital art. In particular, I will address the use, application, and critique of a subset of technologies related to ubiquitous computing; the modes of interaction associated with these technologies; and discuss Device Art and its influence on my artmaking practice.


Sustainable index funds are becoming mainstream. A natural question is how well these funds promote sustainability. They can do so in two ways: by influencing firms' cost of capital; and by voting and engaging management. Both work empirically. Moreover, promoting ESG creates financial value for shareholders. How well sustainable index funds use these two promotion levers varies a lot, though. For example, 37% of sustainable index funds have a lower ESG score than their non-ESG benchmark. Only 16% perform more than a simple negative screening and go beyond specific themes while improving ESG scores by at least 5% and avoiding derivatives. The number and sophistication of sustainable index funds should continue to grow. Frameworks for analyzing them are therefore timely. TOPICS: ESG investing, mutual funds/passive investing/indexing, performance measurement


With declining law school enrollments, rising rates of pro se litigation, increasing competition from international lawyers and other professionals, and disparaging assessments from the Supreme Court, the legal profession is under increasing attack. Recent research suggesting that legal representation does not benefit clients has further fueled an existential anxiety in the profession. Are lawyers needed and do they matter? In this Article, we review the existing empirical research on the effect of legal representation on civil dispute outcomes. Although the pattern of results has complexities, across a wide range of substantive areas of law (housing, governmental benefits, family law, employment law, small claims, tax, bankruptcy, and torts), professional legal representation is associated with better outcomes for litigants. Only in juvenile court (and perhaps in cases involving claims to government benefits) is the benefit of representation unclear.


Objective To investigate whether attendance at cardiac rehabilitation (CR) independently predicts all-cause mortality over 14 years and whether there is a dose–response relationship between the proportion of CR sessions attended and long-term mortality. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting CR programmes in Victoria, Australia Patients The sample comprised 544 men and women eligible for CR following myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass surgery or percutaneous interventions. Participants were tracked 4 months after hospital discharge to ascertain CR attendance status. Main outcome measures All-cause mortality at 14 years ascertained through linkage to the Australian National Death Index. Results In total, 281 (52%) men and women attended at least one CR session. There were few significant differences between non-attenders and attenders. After adjustment for age, sex, diagnosis, employment, diabetes and family history, the mortality risk for non-attenders was 58% greater than for attenders (HR=1.58, 95% CI 1.16 to 2.15). Participants who attended <25% of sessions had a mortality risk more than twice that of participants attending ≥75% of sessions (OR=2.57, 95% CI 1.04 to 6.38). This association was attenuated after adjusting for current smoking (OR=2.06, 95% CI 0.80 to 5.29). Conclusions This study provides further evidence for the long-term benefits of CR in a contemporary, heterogeneous population. While a dose–response relationship may exist between the number of sessions attended and long-term mortality, this relationship does not occur independently of smoking differences. CR practitioners should encourage smokers to attend CR and provide support for smoking cessation.


Static light scattering (SLS) is a spectroscopic technique for determination of molar masses (molecular weights) and radii of gyration for macromolecules in solution. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurement allows determination of translational diffusion coefficient and hydrodynamic radius. Measurement of molar mass from SLS experiment determines the oligomeric state and thus provides association stoichiometry for biological macromolecules such as native and modified proteins and their complexes, nucleic acids as well as phospholipid vesicles, viruses or drug delivering nanoparticles. Both static and DLS are routinely used to assess monodispersity (homogeneity with respect to molar mass or size) of protein stocks prepared for structural studies. Both homo- and hetero-association of proteins can be detected and quantitatively characterized from light scattering measurements performed at various concentrations.

Keywords:

light scattering;
molar mass;
radius of gyration;
hydrodynamic radius;
molecular weight


ABSTRACT We are still working out how to do global history, especially for pre-modern periods. How do we achieve the necessary shift in scale without falling back on standard definitions of categories like states, ethnicity, religion, urbanisation, when these are increasingly challenged at the specialist level? This article sets out an approach that could help pre-modern historians 'going global' to challenge claims that 'there is no alternative' to modern frameworks such as neoliberal economics, and especially the nation-state. Useful alternative techniques include thinking in layers rather than blocks, not seeking narrative arcs, and not using words like 'China'. These methods are illustrated with analysis of three Liao dynasty (907–1125) cities and three comparators from neighbouring states to the north, south and east of the Liao. The intention is to disrupt the re-emergence in the new venue of global history of essentially national narratives, using the opportunities presented by pre-modern worlds before nation-states to free us from teleological concepts. This article argues that there is indeed an alternative to the putative precursors of modern nation-states, and offers a framework for doing without them.


Background One of the primary roles of Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) is to promote athlete health. The planning and delivery of major international event medical services is carried out in collaboration with the Local Organizing Committee Medical Commission (LOCMC). Aspetar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital provided the medical services to the 12th FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) creating a unique opportunity for collaboration with FINA. Aim The purpose of this paper is to review the planning and delivery of medical services and athlete health promotion projects during the 12th FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) to facilitate the planning of future sporting events of this size and scope. Methods The 12th FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) hosted 974 athletes from 166 countries. The LOC medical team recorded all medical encounters—newly incurred (or acute exacerbations of chronic) injuries and illnesses as well as follow-up consultations. Results More than 90% of teams did not travel with a team physician and relied on the LOCMC for diagnosis and treatment of injuries and illnesses in athletes and accredited team officials. The LOC medical team had a total of 554 medical encounters: 385 therapy, 34 athlete injury, 65 athlete illness and 70 non-athlete encounters. Conclusions The LOCMC in collaboration with FINA delivered comprehensive medical services to athletes, officials and spectators attending the 12th FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m). This review paper provides information relevant to the planning and delivery of LOCMC medical services for future international swimming events contributing to the FINA objective of promoting athlete health.


Clement M. Doke's 1929–1930 research on Zimbabwean languages has played a key role in shaping the tribalised and politicised linguistic terrain that characterises modern Zimbabwe. Doke, professor of linguistics at the University of Witwaters-rand, was commissioned in 1929 by the government of Southern Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) to research the language varieties spoken by Zimbabwean natives. His work, which was premised on the quest for standardised, monolithic and homogeneous linguistic categories, marked the genesis of language politics in Zimbabwe. The Dokean legacy left an indelible mark on the terrain of language treatment and language policy formulation in postcolonial Zimbabwe. This paper uses Antonio Gramsci's hegemony theory to interrogate and problematise the contribution of Doke's pioneering work to language politics and language margin-alisation in Zimbabwe. Gramsci's theory of hegemony posits that dominant social groups impose their supremacy over weaker groups either by overt coercion or by using more intellectual means of realising their dominance. The paper concludes by observing that the marginalisation of Ndebele in contemporary Zimbabwe cannot be fully understood outside the context of this Dokean legacy.


Background:Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with pulmonary inflammation and dysfunction. This may lead to acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome with increased morbidity and mortality. The authors hypothesized that inhaled carbon monoxide before initiation of CPB would reduce inflammatory response in the lungs. Methods:In a porcine model, a beating-heart CPB was used. The animals were either randomized to a control group, to standard CPB, or to CPB plus carbon monoxide. In the latter group, lungs were ventilated with 250 ppm inhaled carbon monoxide in addition to standard ventilation before CPB. Lung tissue samples were obtained at various time points, and pulmonary cytokine levels were determined. Results:Hemodynamic parameters were largely unaffected by CPB or carbon monoxide inhalation. There were no significant differences in cytokine expression in mononuclear cells between the groups throughout the experimental time course. Compared with standard CPB animals, carbon monoxide significantly suppresses tumor necrosis factor-&agr; and interleukin-1&bgr; levels (P < 0.05) and induced the antiinflammatory cytokine interleukin 10 (P < 0.001). Carbon monoxide inhalation modulates effector caspase activity in lung tissue during CPB. Conclusions:The results demonstrate that inhaled carbon monoxide significantly reduces CPB-induced inflammation via suppression of tumor necrosis factor &agr;, and interleukin-1&bgr; expression and elevation of interleukin 10. Apoptosis induced by CPB was associated with caspase-3 activation and was significantly attenuated by carbon monoxide treatment. Based on the observations of this study, inhaled carbon monoxide could represent a potential new therapeutic modality for counteracting CPB-induced lung injury.


EXPERIMENTS WITH AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CONTEXT SENSITIVE TEXT SUMMARIZER by Charles J. Bocage Automatic text summarization is the ability to obtain key ideas from a text passage using as few words as possible. With the increase in data on the web, manual summarization of web pages has become unfeasible, and the need for automatic text summarization has become ever greater. This project explored and implemented various parts of the automatic text summarization process for an open source search engine, Yioop. These parts included stemming, text segmentation, term frequency weighting, automatic sentence compression, and content management system detection. In addition, experiments were conducted on different pre-existing Yioop summarizers. These results served as a baseline for comparison with results obtained from two new ways to generate summaries which we implemented: A graph based approach and an average sentence approach. Summaries were evaluated using Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation (ROUGE). Analyzing the ROUGE results of each summarizer showed that the new summarizers did not produce better summaries than Yioop's pre-existing summarizers. During the course of conducting these experiments, it was noted that the location of useful information on a web page could often be obtained if one could determine the content management system that created the web page. An extensible detector for the content management system was written for the Yioop search engine. ROUGE results using this system were recomputed for the various summarizers. Using the content management system detector resulted in a ten to twenty percent increase in ROUGE scores across various page experiments.


Complexation of proteins with polyelectrolytes or block copolymers can lead to phase separation to generate a coacervate phase or self-assembly of coacervate core micelles. However, many proteins do not coacervate at conditions near neutral pH and physiological ionic strength. Here, protein supercharging is used to systematically explore the effect of protein charge on the complex coacervation with polycations. Four model proteins were anionically supercharged to varying degrees as quantified by mass spectrometry. Proteins phase separated with strong polycations when the ratio of negatively charged residues to positively charged residues on the protein (α) was greater than 1.1-1.2. Efficient partitioning of the protein into the coacervate phase required larger α (1.5-2.0). The preferred charge ratio for coacervation was shifted away from charge symmetry for three of the four model proteins and indicated an excess of positive charge in the coacervate phase. The composition of protein and polymer in the coacervate phase was determined using fluorescently labeled components, revealing that several of the coacervates likely have both induced charging and a macromolecular charge imbalance. The model proteins were also encapsulated in complex coacervate core micelles and micelles formed when the protein charge ratio α was greater than 1.3-1.4. Small angle neutron scattering and transmission electron microscopy showed that the micelles were spherical. The stability of the coacervate phase in both the bulk and micelles improved to increased ionic strength as the net charge on the protein increased. The micelles were also stable to dehydration and elevated temperatures.


Using a comprehensive sample from 2011 through 2016, we examine variation in earnings management in U.S. hospitals by ownership type, and before and after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We expect managers' reporting incentives to differ between ownership type (for-profit versus non-profit), resulting in differing uses of accrual and real earnings manipulations. First, we document that non-profit hospitals exhibit lower levels of both income-increasing and income-decreasing earnings manipulations than for-profit hospitals do. Second, we find that compared to non-profit hospitals, for-profit hospital managers use discretionary accruals (in particular) to create larger reserves when pre-managed earnings are high and to increase reported earnings more when pre-managed earnings are low. Together, these findings suggest that, relative to non-profit managers, for-profit managers have incentives to report higher and more consistent earnings. Third, we find that post-ACA, both non-profit and for-profit managers use real earnings management to report lower earnings, while only non-profit managers appear to use discretionary accruals to bolster earnings. Our findings also show that for-profit hospital administrators manage their earnings downwards using real earnings manipulations more so than non-profit administrators do. It is plausible that for-profit hospital managers are less willing to disclose any increased margins resulting from the ACA implementation than non-profit managers are.