Tax motivated takings are takings by a local government aimed purely at increasing its tax base. Such an action was justified by the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London, which allowed the use of eminent domain for a private redevelopment project on the grounds that the project promised spillover public benefits in the form of jobs and taxes. This paper argues that tax motivated takings can lead to inefficient transfers of land for the simple reason that assessed values understate owners' true values. We, therefore, propose a reassessment scheme that may reduce the risk of this sort of inefficiency.


INTRODUCTION: Surgical management of younger patients requiring primary total hip arthroplasty is challenging due to increased activity levels, physical demands, and the need for longevity of implanted components. There is debate regarding the most suitable component type, and the optimal fixation, should a stemmed component be utilised.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed a sequential group of patients, aged 55 years or younger at the time of surgery, who underwent uncemented primary total hip arthroplasty, and are currently at a minimum of 5 years post operation. Eighty-eight primary uncemented total hip replacements were performed between January 2004 and December 2006. The patient ages ranged from 18 to 55 years with a mean of 43.1 years at time of operation. At last review, eight patients (ten hips) had demised of unrelated causes and 16 patients (20 hips) were lost before completing 5 years of follow-up.
RESULTS: Complications included one peri-operative mortality, ten intra-operative femoral calcar fractures, two revisions for sepsis, one dislocation and one deep vein thrombosis. All stems achieved bony fixation as per Engh's criteria. At a minimum of 5 years post operation, there were no revisions for aseptic loosening.
CONCLUSION: We present our radiological results, complications, and survivorship of uncemented primary total hip replacements in patients 55 years or younger.


Abstract Objective To compare the characteristics of patients with cerebrovascular disease in primary care with those of the participants in the PROGRESS trial, on which national guidelines for blood pressure lowering are based. Design Population based cross sectional survey of patients with confirmed stroke or transient ischaemic attack. Setting Seven general practices in south Birmingham, England. Participants All patients with a validated history of stroke (n = 413) or transient ischaemic attack (n = 107). Main outcome measures Patient characteristics: age, sex, time since last cerebrovascular event, blood pressure, and whether receiving antihypertensive treatment. Results Patients were 12 years older than the participants in PROGRESS and twice as likely to be women. The median time that had elapsed since their cerebrovascular event was two and a half years, compared with eight months in PROGRESS. The systolic blood pressure of 315 (61%) patients was over 140 mm Hg, and for 399 (77%) it was over 130 mm Hg. One hundred and forty seven (28%) patients were receiving a thiazide diuretic, and 136 (26%) were receiving an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor. Conclusions Important differences exist between the PROGRESS trial participants and a typical primary care stroke population, which undermine the applicability of the trial's findings. Research in appropriate populations is urgently needed before the international guidelines are implemented in primary care.


A fundamental pillar of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is Article 17, which enshrines the complementarity principle – the idea that ICC jurisdiction will only be triggered when states fail to act to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes within their national courts or in circumstances where they prove unwilling and or unable to do so. The problem is that, as shown in this case report in the American Journal of International Law on the first ICC Appeals Chamber ruling regarding a state party's objection to the court's assertion of jurisdiction over its nationals, the appellate chamber has wrongly interpreted the text and effectively killed the spirit of Article 17. It devised, in its Kenya judgment, an untenable legal test that states must prosecute the same persons for substantially the same conduct as the tribunal's prosecutor in order to displace the court's jurisdictional claims and successfully secure their first right to prosecute. This leaves no "margin of appreciation" for states to make different charging decisions of persons and conduct arising out of the same events. Thus, I argue that while in the short term this covert judicial offensive against the complementarity bargain struck by states may work for the ICC, at least in Kenya, in the long-term, it will not. The denial of Kenya's admissibility challenge when the state was taking some investigative steps to address the post-election violence is not only a missed opportunity for the ICC to show it is serious about "positive complementarity," it may have set a dangerous precedent that will likely undermine the ICC's future effectiveness.


We investigated the Nco I restriction fragment
length polymorphism (RFLP) of the tumor necrosis
factor beta (TNFB) gene in 173 patients with systemic
lupus erythematosus (SLE), 192 unrelated
healthy controls, and eleven panel families, all of German
origin. The phenotype frequency of the TNFB*I
allele was significantly increased in patients compared
to controls (63.6% vs 47.1%, RR = 1.96, p <0.002).
The results of a two-point haplotype statistical analysis
between TNFB and HLA alleles show that there is linkage
disequilibrium between TNFB*I and HLA-A1,
Cw7, B8, DR3, DQ2, and C4A DE. The frequency of
TNFB*I was compared in SLE patients and controls in
the presence or absence of each of these alleles.
TNFB*I is increased in patients over controls only in
the presence of the mentioned alleles. Therefore, the
whole haplotypeA1, Cw7, B8, TNFB* I, C4A DE, DR3,
DQ2 is increased in patients and it cannot be determined
which of the genes carried by this haplotype is
responsible for the susceptibility to SLE. In addition,
two-locus associations were analyzed in 192 unrelated
healthy controls for TNFB and class I alleles typed by
serology, and for TNFB and class II alleles typed by
polymerase chain reaction/oligonucleotide probes. We
found positive linkage disequilibrium between
TNFB*I and the following alleles: HLA-A24, HLA-B8,
DRBI*0301, DRBI*ll04, DRBI*1302, DQAI*0501, DQBI*0201, DQBI*0604, and DPBI*OIO1. TNFB*2
is associated with HLA-B7, DRBI*1501, and
DQB I *0602.


Several animal species were found to harbour Zaïre Ebola virus (ZEBOV), mainly non-human primates and fruit bats. The risk for persons in Europe linked to the transmission of ZEBOV via handling and preparation (by consumers or staff handling the food in kitchens immediately prior to consumption), and consumption of bushmeat illegally imported from Africa was assessed. The outcome was the probability for at least a single human case of ZEBOV in Europe due to transmission via bushmeat. This probability results from a combination of several steps: 1) the bushmeat has to be contaminated with ZEBOV; 2) the bushmeat has to be (illegally) introduced into the EU; 3) the imported bushmeat needs to contain viable virus when it reaches the person; 4) the person has to be exposed to the virus; and 5) the person needs to get infected following exposure. Due to lack of data and knowledge, which results in very high uncertainty, it is not possible to estimate this risk. Considering all these elements, and based on: (i) the limited number of outbreaks confirmed to date in Africa in spite of the routine consumption of bushmeat in that continent, (ii) the handling of bushmeat in Europe not involving high risk practices such as hunting and butchering, and (iii) the assumed low overall consumption of bushmeat in Europe, it can be assumed that the potential for introduction and transmission of ZEBOV via bushmeat in Europe is currently low. The public health consequences of such an event would be very serious given the high lethality and potential for secondary transmission. Hardly any information on ZEBOV infectivity is available on the effect of salting, smoking or drying of meat. Therefore, a conclusion cannot be reached regarding the effectiveness of these methods for virus inactivation. Thorough cooking (100 °C) will destroy the virus. © European Food Safety Authority, 2014


The paper addresses some key issues in the application of projections for technology development in models used to analyse large-scale energy systems. Examples of technology development in the electricity and transport industry are used to illustrate the difficulties. It is suggested that projections should be obtained from uncommitted sources and standard assessment criteria used. Factors in addition to cost influence the overall attractiveness of a technology and should be included in its characterisation. The prospects for a reduction in costs by learning as technology develops should be contrasted for renewable technologies with a progressive reduction in suitability of available sites as installed capacity increases. In general, an approach based on knowledge of the factors influencing the take-up of technology is advocated (even when poorly understood) rather than "black-box" modelling.


A whisker is a common name of single crystalline inorganic fibre of small dimensions, typically 0.5-1 μm in diameter and 20-50 μm in length. Whiskers are mainly used as reinforcement of ceramics. This work describes the synthesis and characterisation of new whisker types. Ti0.33Ta0.33Nb0.33CxN1-x, TiB2, B4C, and LaxCe1-xB6 have been prepared by carbothermal vapour–liquid–solid (CTR-VLS) growth mechanisms in the temperature range 900-1800°C, in argon or nitrogen. Generally, carbon and different suitable oxides were used as whisker precursors. The oxides reacted via a carbothermal reduction process. A halogenide salt was added to form gaseous metal halogenides or oxohalogenides and small amount of a transition metal was added to catalyse the whisker growth. In this mechanism, the whisker constituents are dissolved into the catalyst, in liquid phase, which becomes supersaturated. Then a whisker could nucleate and grow out under continuous feed of constituents. The syntheses of TiC, TiB2, and B4C were followed at ordinary synthesis conditions by means of mass spectrometry (MS), thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA) and quenching. The main reaction starting temperatures and reaction time for the different mixtures was revealed, and it was found that the temperature inside the crucible during the reactions was up to 100°C below the furnace set-point, due to endothermic nature of the reactions. Quench experiments showed that whiskers were formed already when reaching the temperature plateau, but the yield increased fast with the holding time and reached a maximum after about 20-30 minutes. Growth models for whisker formation have been proposed.Alumina based composites reinforced by (2-5 vol.%) TiCnano and TiNnano and 25 vol.% of carbide, and boride phases (whiskers and particulates of TiC, TiN, TaC, NbC, (Ti,Ta)C, (Ti,Ta,Nb)C, SiC, TiB2 and B4C) have been prepared by a developed aqueous colloidal processing route followed by hot pressing for 90 min at 1700°C, 28 MPa or SPS sintering for 5 minutes at 1200-1600°C and 75 MPa. Vickers indentation measurements showed that the lowest possible sintering temperature is to prefer from mechanical properties point of view. In the TiNnano composites the fracture mode was typically intergranular, while it was transgranular in the SiCnano composites. The whisker and particulate composites have been compared in terms of e.g. microstructure and mechanical properties. Generally, additions of whiskers yielded higher fracture toughness compared to particulates. Composites of commercially available SiC whiskers showed best mechanical properties with a low spread but all the other whisker phases, especially TiB2, exhibited a great potential as reinforcement materials.


We propose an integrated development environment (IDE) called "VisionSketch", which supports example-centric programming for easily building image processing pipelines. With VisionSketch, a programmer is first asked to select the input video. Then, he can start building the pipeline with a visual programming language that provides immediate graphical feedback for algorithms applied to the video. He can also use a text-based editor to create or edit the implementation of each algorithm. During the development, the pipeline is always ready for execution with a video player-like interface enabling rapid iterative prototyping. In a preliminary user study, VisionSketch was positively received by five programmers, who had prior experience of writing text-based image processing programs and could successfully build interesting applications.


Background Alternative treatments for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) are required in East Africa. Paromomycin sulphate (PM) has been shown to be efficacious for VL treatment in India. Methods A multi-centre randomized-controlled trial (RCT) to compare efficacy and safety of PM (20 mg/kg/day for 21 days) and PM plus sodium stibogluconate (SSG) combination (PM, 15 mg/kg/day and SSG, 20 mg/kg/day for 17 days) with SSG (20 mg/kg/day for 30 days) for treatment of VL in East Africa. Patients aged 4–60 years with parasitologically confirmed VL were enrolled, excluding patients with contraindications. Primary and secondary efficacy outcomes were parasite clearance at 6-months follow-up and end of treatment, respectively. Safety was assessed mainly using adverse event (AE) data. Findings The PM versus SSG comparison enrolled 205 patients per arm with primary efficacy data available for 198 and 200 patients respectively. The SSG & PM versus SSG comparison enrolled 381 and 386 patients per arm respectively, with primary efficacy data available for 359 patients per arm. In Intention-to-Treat complete-case analyses, the efficacy of PM was significantly lower than SSG (84.3% versus 94.1%, difference = 9.7%, 95% confidence interval, CI: 3.6 to 15.7%, p = 0.002). The efficacy of SSG & PM was comparable to SSG (91.4% versus 93.9%, difference = 2.5%, 95% CI: −1.3 to 6.3%, p = 0.198). End of treatment efficacy results were very similar. There were no apparent differences in the safety profile of the three treatment regimens. Conclusion The 17 day SSG & PM combination treatment had a good safety profile and was similar in efficacy to the standard 30 day SSG treatment, suggesting suitability for VL treatment in East Africa. Clinical Trials Registration www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT00255567


This paper discusses the syntactic variation of modal predicates between structures with a nominative primary argument and those with an oblique primary argument. In the literature, this variation is related to a change from deontic to epistemic meanings, whereby epistemicity seems to be more commonly expressed by highly grammaticalized impersonal constructions. After having shown the weakness of this relationship, I suggest a new explanation for the variation of modal predicates on the basis of diverse ancient Indo‐European languages, such as Vedic, Ancient Greek and Latin, as well as of some of their modern descendants, especially Hindi, Modern Greek, and standard and colloquial Italian. I argue that modal predicates with an oblique primary argument are favoured for functions of necessity, while modal predicates with a nominative primary argument preferably express functions of possibility. This reflects the different meanings of the lexical sources of these predicates, that is, capacity or power for predicates of possibility, and lack or obligation for predicates of necessity, which also imply different degrees of agentivity and control.


Ever since Erasmus and Charles Darwin laid down the foundations of the concept, sexual selection has largely been regarded as a matter of male competition and female selection. While their role in plant evolution and the elusive origin of flowering plants has largely been neglected in contrast to the situation with animals, there is a growing body of evidence accumulated over the past 50 years supporting the hypothesis that, together with the flower and the carpel, increased pollination has led to an intensification of the competition between the fittest (and faster) pollen tubes and their selection by the surrounding maternal tissue. In contrast, the potential role of female competition was historically seldom considered but started to re-emerge a decade ago in both animal and plant evolution. Here, I review a large body of the vast embryological literature to re-evaluate unusual developmental traits in the plant female germline, traditionally considered as teratological occurrences of mere systematic interest, in the light of the current phylogenetic framework for flowering plants. After a summary of the basic tenets of sexual selection and the role of male competition and maternal selection in shaping plant evolution and diversity, I show how recent insights into the deepest nodes of flowering plant phylogeny and confirmation of their systematic relationships over the past 30 years have led to major shifts in our understanding of the reproductive biology of their most recent common ancestor. I also show that a re-evaluation of these unusual developmental traits in the female germline, especially in early-diverging lineages of flowering plants, may potentially be correlated with some floral structural traits. On the basis of these results, I argue that there is circumstantial evidence for mechanisms of female intrasexual competition and selection in individual ovules of flowering plants that are similar to those between pollen tubes competing inside the carpel. I also argue that although they may have evolved independently multiple times in unrelated lineages, they could also be the 'burning embers' of plesiomorphic traits that would have been largely selected against after the evolution of their most recent common ancestor.


: This paper is based on the 2018 Neil Smith Lecture presented at the University of St Andrews. It considers the plantation past/futures of Sapelo Island, Georgia, one of the Sea Islands forming an archipelago along the US Southeastern coast. I work through the abolitionist efforts of the Saltwater Geechee ' s who have resided there since at least 1803 to better understand how we can mobilise an emancipatory politics of land and property and to produce commons that work to repair and heal the vio-lence done through enslavement and ongoing displacement. I weave together a series of historical threads to better situate linked ideas of abolition democracy and abolition geography, and to extend the notion of abolition ecology as a strategic notion to con- nect Eurocentric based political ecologies with the emancipatory tradition of Black


We describe and analyze efficient algorithms for learning a linear predictor from examples when the learner can only view a few attributes of each training example. This is the case, for instance, in medical research, where each patient participating in the experiment is only willing to go through a small number of tests. Our analysis bounds the number of additional examples sufficient to compensate for the lack of full information on each training example. We demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms by showing that when running on digit recognition data, they obtain a high prediction accuracy even when the learner gets to see only four pixels of each image.


Protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation regulate much of the machinery of the cell. Emphasis in recent years has swung toward regulation by dephosphorylation. Much current research focuses on protein tyrosine phosphatases. Researchers of cellular regulation use vanadium as a probe because of its unparalleled ability to selectively inhibit protein tyrosine phosphatases at submicromolar concentrations. This review focuses on the biological actions of vanadium relevant to cellular regulatory cascades. Recent research has led to identification of control points and possible drug targets in 1) the glucose control mechanisms downstream from insulin receptors; 2) pathways regulating mitogenesis, tumor promotion, and other events downstream from growth factor receptors; 3) regulation of osteogenesis and possibilities for counteracting the bone damaging actions of glucocorticoids. An up-to-date understanding of the mechanisms by which vanadium acts and of its currently identified targets is prerequisite to the intelligent design of experiments of this kind. In this review, we will consider mechanisms at the enzymological level, in cellular regulatory cascades, and events affecting the cell or organism as a whole. J. Trace Elem. Exp. Med. 16:281–290, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.


This thesis proposes a theory of Motivation to Work, as a particular condition of general motivation, using the Maussian concept of the Gift to explain the operation of Lacanian Desire. Specifically, it argues that de-motivation stems from Gift rejection. However, as the arguments are not paradigmatically commensurable with managerialist theories, it has been necessary to establish the epistemological tradition of which this work is representative, namely, Critical Theory and Post-Structuralism/Post- Modernism. In distinction to the managerialist explanations of motivation, management and work, behaviourist theories of motivation are characterised as more properly a concern with psychological incentives, management in its current socio-historic institutionalised form as a process of social domination and work as a social experience of domination, but also as a forum for social life generally. However, as such a view receives little theoretical or empirical confirmation from managerialist literature, it is argued that it is necessary to broaden the catchment area of relevant writing, and that the literary arts have more insight than orthodox science. This is supported by reference to modern literary theory in terms of the Form/Content distinction. Central to this argument is the ontological concept of Difference and its `political' use in maintaining social domination by privileging certain forms over others. Having established the basis on which to articulate this theory of motivation, the Lacanian concept of Desire is explored, together with its relevance to motivation and management/organisation theory. The theory of the Gift Relationship is then explicated and developed, together with some of its popular sociological conceptualisations, and an argument made for an understanding in terms of its psychological signficance in explaining the operationalisation of Lacanian Desire. This is related to the work situation and to its relevance for organisational management. In conclusion, its utility is considered, as are some potential criticisms of the arguments put forward.


We propose an extension of the well-known Klausmeier model of vegetation to two plant species that consume water at different rates. Rather than competing directly, the plants compete through their intake of water, which is a shared resource between them. In semi-arid regions, the Klausmeier model produces vegetation spot patterns. We are interested in how the competition for water affects the co-existence and stability of patches of different plant species. We consider two plant types: a "thirsty" species and a "frugal" species, that only differ by the amount of water they consume per unit growth, while being identical in other aspects. We find that there is a finite range of precipitation rate for which two species can co-exist. Outside of that range (when the rate is either sufficiently low or high), the frugal species outcompetes the thirsty species. As the precipitation rate is decreased, there is a sequence of stability thresholds such that thirsty plant patches are the first to die off, while the frugal spots remain resilient for longer. The pattern consisting of only frugal spots is the most resilient. The next-most-resilient pattern consists of all-thirsty patches, with the mixed pattern being less resilient than either of the homogeneous patterns. We also examine numerically what happens for very large precipitation rates. We find that for a sufficiently high rate, the frugal plant takes over the entire range, outcompeting the thirsty plant.


We project medium to long term trends in labour force participation and employment for selected low-participation EU countries (Italy, Spain, Ireland, Hungary and Greece), with Sweden as a benchmark, by means of a dynamic microsimulation model. By 2020, only Sweden will be above the Europe 2020 target of 75% employment rate, though Ireland will be close; the target will be approached by all other countries only at the end of the simulation period at 2050, with the exception of Hungary. Our forecasts, that fully take into account the uncertainty coming from the estimation of all the processes in the microsimulation, significantly depart from the official projections of the European Commission for two of the six countries under analysis.


BACKGROUND
It is well established that antiretroviral therapy (ART), while highly effective in controlling HIV replication, cannot eliminate virus from the body. Therefore, the majority of HIV-1-infected individuals remain at risk for developing AIDS due to persistence of infected reservoir cells serving as a source of virus re-emergence. Several reservoirs containing replication competent HIV-1 have been identified, most notably CD4+ T cells. Cells of the myeloid lineage, which are the first line of defense against pathogens and participate in HIV dissemination into sanctuary organs, also serve as cellular reservoirs of HIV-1. In latently infected resting CD4+ T cells, the integrated copies of proviral DNA remain in a dormant state, yet possess the ability to produce replication competent virus after cellular activation. Studies have demonstrated that modification of chromatin structure plays a role in establishing persistence, in part suggesting that latency is, controlled epigenetically.

CONCLUSION
Current efforts to eradicate HIV-1 from this cell population focus primarily on a "shock and kill" approach through cellular reactivation to trigger elimination of virus producing cells by cytolysis or host immune responses. However, studies revealed several limitations to this approach that require more investigation to assess its clinical application. Recent advances in gene editing technology prompted use of this approach for inactivating integrated proviral DNA in the genome of latently infected cells. This technology, which requires a detailed understanding of the viral genetics and robust delivery, may serve as a powerful strategy to eliminate the latent reservoir in the host leading to a sterile cure of AIDS.


INTRODUCTION "He (Jesus) did not say anything to them without using a parable." Mark: 4:34 Storytelling is one of the world's most powerful tools for achieving results (Guber, 2007). It is particularly appropriate for all students of business as Pheffer and Sutton (2006a) stated "when used correctly, stories and cases are powerful tools for building management knowledge" (p. 67). Yet, far too few business professors use this learning tool to its fullest potential. Part of the problem may be due to the profession being dominated by left-brain thinkers. A larger part of the reluctance may have to do with the image that the moniker of storytelling conjures up. For many, it's a mental picture of kindergarten teachers with their children gathered around them on the floor and then reading the words and showing pictures from a book. But, you know what? It works! It works for people of all ages, not just small children. One doesn't' have to be trained in drama, go overboard with theatrics, show pictures, or dress in character. One simply needs to relay a story to the other person. Stories suck us in as children and as adults. Story telling plays an important role in the learning process. In today's university technology-laced teaching environment, professors are sometimes guilty of overlooking the most obvious and effective teaching tool of all. Even in my relatively short span as a management professor (30+ years), I have seen classrooms go from chalk and blackboard, to one filled with so many electronic gadgets, instructors are confused which ones go to which ones. Professors act like Nintendo players moving around with all the electronics. In today's technology-laced teaching environment, the merits of blogging, vlogging, moodleing, podcasting, wikiing, and tweeting (whatever those are) are touted as the instructors' tools of tomorrow. It is safe to assume that all professors have wondered on occasion "just how much are my students taking in?" Maybe even more importantly, is the question of "how much are they retaining?" I have to admit that for many years at the start of my career, I thought my teaching role consisted primarily of transferring facts, explaining concepts, or developing technical skills. Throughout my career, in all my courses, I did try to incorporate appropriate examples. Then several years ago, my students began writing comments on class evaluations like the following: * "he can relate the course really well with different real-life stories" * "good story teller" * "excellent lecturers, the best I've had, very interesting and it was like story time!" * "he has many stories and examples that pertain to the curriculum" * "like the way he applies the chapters to real life stories" * "stories and examples reinforced the material" Now, I will be the first to admit that not all my student reviews are that complimentary, but it did open my eyes to the impact that my stories were having on students and their learning. I will also admit that some classes are more attuned to storytelling than others. I teach organizational behavior, business strategy, and business ethics, all of which are, or can be, filled with stories. But whatever the class, there are opportunities to use stories as a teaching tool. It is one thing to acknowledge from a common sense approach that storytelling is a powerful communication tool, but it is a lot more convincing when there is research evidence to back it up (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006b). Osborn and Ehninger (1962) found that in storytelling the listener is not a passive receiver of information but is triggered into a state of active thinking. The listener must consider the meaning of the story and try to make sense of it. Kouzes and Posner (2002) found that storytelling results in the listener being more engaged; their attention and interest are fostered. Borgida and Nisbett (1977), Zembe (1990), Wilkens (1983), and Conger (1991) all found that information is more quickly and accurately remembered when it is first presented in the form of an example or story, particularly one that is intrinsically appealing. …


What histories can be written from an archive of lies? Specifically, what histories of the present can be written from Donald Trump's Twitter feed? As default press conference and presidential archive, Trump's tweets break with the past in terms of presidential communication with the public. However, Trump's political oeuvre is distinguished for additional reasons, including the scale and extent of his public lies and his extreme and derogatory comments about a range of individuals and groups. Both of these include speech that is interpreted as not only (White) nationalist but also racist and misogynist. In this current political moment, scholarly responsibilities include witnessing and analyzing this archive in formation, its contents, the communities it creates, and the sometimes violent work it does in the contemporary United States.


In the livestock domain, Big Data is becoming more common and is being anchored into the mind-set of researchers. With the increasing availability of large amounts of data of varying nature, there is the challenge of how to store, combine, and analyse these data efficiently. With this study, we explored the possibility of using a data lake for storing and analysing sensor data, using an animal experiment as the use case, to improve scalability and interoperability. The use case was an experiment within Breed4Food (a public-private partnership), in which the gait score of 200 turkeys was determined. In the experiment, a gait score was traditionally assigned to each animal by a highly-skilled person who visually inspected them walking. Next to it, a set of sensor data streams was recorded for each animal, specifically inertial measurement units (IMUs), a 3D-video camera, and a force plate, with the ambition to explore the effectiveness of these data streams as predictors for estimating the gait score. The resulting sensor output, i.e. raw data, were successfully stored in its original format in the data lake. Subsequently, for each sensor output we performed extract, transform, and load activities, by executing custom-made scripts to generate tab or comma separated files. Lastly, by using Apache Spark it was possible to easily perform parallel processing of the data, allowing for fast computing. In conclusion, we managed to set up a data lake, load animal experimental data and run preliminary analyses. The data lake allowed for easy scale up of both data loading and analyses, which is desired for dynamic analyses pipelines, especially when more data are collected in the future.


Based on recordings of classroom speech and conversational interviews with teachers, this paper analyses language use and attitudes in Trinidadian secondary schools. Whereas students often speak Trinidadian Creole in class, teachers generally differentiate, with English being used for formal explanations and Creole for comments or personal remarks to students; they consider Creole as complementary and ancillary to English. Their English, however, is characterized not only by a local accent but also by a few grammatical properties that can be ascribed to Creole influence. The prospect seems to be that a local Standard English will continue to be the predominant medium of instruction in secondary schools. More emphasis on the teaching of spoken English is necessary, some teachers suggest.


This study aims to demonstrate that harmful stimulation of the buccal mucosa because of a rough tooth surface may cause lumbago. This report illustrates two cases of women in their 30s and 40s who are suffering from lumbago due to unknown causes. The patients are cured by a simple dental procedure in which the buccal surface of a molar is smoothened, thereby inhibiting the negative stimulation of the buccal mucosa. Soon after this treatment, the symptoms of lumbago have subsided. The reason for the effectiveness of this treatment remains unclear. However, the balance dysregulation observed in the patient may have been due to stimulation of the oral mucous membrane by the rough surface of the tooth. It is important for dentists to pay attention to the effects of tooth formation, dental restorations, and dental prosthetics on the entire body. A dental condition may have an effect on diseases affecting other parts of the body; thus a dental treatment may be considered as an option for the management of other systemic disorders. It appears that cooperation between the fields of dentistry and medicine is of utmost importance.


Abstract The recognition that postcumulus processes significantly modify primary textures in layered mafic intrusions has thrown into question many early observations on which classical crystallization theories are based. Petrographic observations combined with quantitative textural analysis of samples from various stratigraphic levels of the Lilloise intrusion, East Greenland, demonstrate that postcumulus textural modification of cumulates, formed during the solidification of a closed system magma chamber, may be detected. Crystal size distribution (CSD) measurements of Lilloise cumulates and the resulting CSD profiles are compared to predicted theoretical closed system CSD profiles. Similarities between the measured CSD profiles and published predicted CSD profiles support Lilloise magma evolving in a closed system chamber and indicate that primary crystallization processes can be distinguished using quantitative textural techniques. Textural coarsening driven by syn-magmatic deformation is suggested to be the dominant postcumulus process affecting CSD plot morphology. CSD slope values and profiles (plot shapes) remain relatively constant for a given liquidus mineral (particularly olivine and clinopyroxene), so that the number of phases on the liquidus at any one time affects mineral modal abundances. As a result, CSDs generally exhibit overall smaller grainsizes and progressively lower nucleation densities at higher levels in the intrusion.


In 2002, the UCR time series classification archive was first released with sixteen datasets. It gradually expanded, until 2015 when it increased in size from 45 datasets to 85 datasets. In October 2018 more datasets were added, bringing the total to 128. The new archive contains a wide range of problems, including variable length series, but it still only contains univariate time series classification problems. One of the motivations for introducing the archive was to encourage researchers to perform a more rigorous evaluation of newly proposed time series classification (TSC) algorithms. It has worked: most recent research into TSC uses all 85 datasets to evaluate algorithmic advances. Research into multivariate time series classification, where more than one series are associated with each class label, is in a position where univariate TSC research was a decade ago. Algorithms are evaluated using very few datasets and claims of improvement are not based on statistical comparisons. We aim to address this problem by forming the first iteration of the MTSC archive, to be hosted at the website this http URL. Like the univariate archive, this formulation was a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of California, Riverside (UCR). The 2018 vintage consists of 30 datasets with a wide range of cases, dimensions and series lengths. For this first iteration of the archive we format all data to be of equal length, include no series with missing data and provide train/test splits.


This paper examines the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on publicly traded firms by analyzing its effect on Latin American companies traded in the United States through Depositary Receipt programs in relation to their non-U.S. trading Latin American competitors. In my analysis, I address the potential selection bias issue that may arise when comparing the returns of ADRs with those of their domestic competitors as a result of the endogeneity of the cross-listing decision. The findings of the present study indicate that ADRs display negative and significant abnormal returns in association with events that signaled that different provisions of the Act (or the Act itself) would be implemented, and respond positively to events indicating that accommodations could be made for foreign issuers. Moreover, controlling for selection bias causes the significance and the magnitude of the effects to increase. Overall, the evidence of my empirical analyses is consistent with the notion that the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley on foreign issuers may have been previously underestimated; for foreign issuers, the positive gains from improved disclosure standards seem to be outweighed by the costs of regulatory compliance.


This study evaluated the effectiveness of SIWES Programme in Lagos State to ensure quality of technical, vocational education and training. Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study in which survey research design was used. The entire population of 130, comprising 120 teachers of technical vocational education and training in Lagos State and also 10 industrial supervisors from Reckit and Benkiser in Ogun State was used for the study. A 35-item questionnaire was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts. Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument at a coefficient of 0.86. A total of 130 copies of the questionnaire were administered but only 127 copies were retrieved and analysed using mean, standard deviation and t-test. The study found out that there exist 10 challenges of Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme in developing the needed skill in the industry, 15 strategies that can be adopted in evaluating the effectiveness of SIWES in Nigeria and 10 remedies to the challenges faced by TVET student on their industrial attachment programme were identified. The paper recommended that government should grant tax relief and other incentives to private sector organizations who implement the SIWES programme satisfactorily, and that the administrators of TVET in technical colleges in Lagos State should organize orientation to industrial supervisors to fully understand the role they need to play in the student attachment programme. The paper concluded by saying that most of the students admitted to TVET programme found themselves in a helpless situation of securing a place of industrial attachment and also employment in the industry, hence the need for the evaluation of the SIWES programme.

 Key words: Technical and vocational education and training (TVET), Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), evaluation, graduates, and practical skills.


The development of relevant cellular model systems for colorectal cancer is of utmost importance for an improved in vitro assessment of therapeutic strategies against colorectal cancer.
Recently published low passage colon cancer cell lines that closely reflect the characteristics of the respective parental in vivo tumor cells represent very promising cell culture models and were therefore used for the investigations in the present thesis. To provide an in vitro model system that also recapitulates the three-dimensional structure of in vivo tumors, these low passage cell lines were cultivated as multicellular spheroids. Compared to monolayer cultures the multicellular spheroids exhibited a wide variety of changes in their expression patterns. The differential expression includes proteins that are involved in growth signaling (15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase), protein biosynthesis (acidic ribosomal protein P0), and regulation of the cyto- or nucleoskeleton (acidic calponin and LMNA protein). These proteins were identified by 2D electrophoresis and subsequent MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Both methods were established in the lab in the context of this work.
Chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) represents the traditional treatment of colorectal cancer. However, in many patients the efficiency of this therapeutic strategy is often limited by the development of chemoresistance against 5-FU. Therefore, it was an aim of this thesis to detect novel proteins involved in 5-FU chemoresistance that were previously not ascribed to resistance against this chemotherapeutic drug. A chemoresistant subline of a colon cancer cell line was generated by long-term treatment with 5-FU and served as a model for the investigation of 5-FU chemoresistance. This subline exhibited resistance against both 5-FU-induced inhibition of proliferation and apoptosis. Differences in the expression of cytokeratin 18, heat shock protein 27 and aldehyde dehydrogenase 1B1 between the chemoresistant subline and parental cells were detected by 2D electrophoresis. These findings imply that the cytoskeleton plays a role in the development of chemoresistance against 5-FU. Furthermore, processes located to the mitochondria seem to be involved in this resistance, since heat shock protein 27 and aldehyde dehydrogenase 1B1 are associated with this subcellular organelle. The biological relevance of the findings made in the present PhD thesis has to be determined in further studies.
Gene therapy represents a promising alternative strategy for the treatment of colorectal cancer. A novel nonviral gene transfer system was developed by combination of DNA with the polycation PEI25br and the cationic lipids DOCSPER or DOSPER to form lipopolyplexes. These lipopolyplexes enabled enhanced gene transfer in vitro and are promising for in vivo applications, since the established lipopolyplexes preserved their small size at physiological conditions; a property essential for a successful in vivo application. Furthermore, the lipopolyplexes exhibited the capability to efficiently transfect three-dimensional multicellular spheroids. The potential of lipopolyplexes for therapeutic applications was further increased by the utilization of the artificial promoter CTP4 which enables highly specific gene expression in cancer cells with mutations in the Wnt signaling pathway by transcriptional targeting. In addition to its high specificity, this promoter enabled high gene expression levels that were comparable to expression levels obtained by the strong, but unspecific CMV promoter. The efficiency of the CTP4 promoter was demonstrated in seven low passage colon cancer cell lines and also in multicellular spheroids. The transcriptional targeted lipopolyplexes not only enabled high tumor specific expression of reporter genes like luciferase or EGFP but also the expression of a therapeutic gene, interleukin-2 (IL-2). Furthermore, tumor specific expression of cytotoxic protease 2A in combination with IL-2 was possible by using a novel bicistronic construct. The expression of the rhinoviral protease 2A led to efficient reduction of overall cap-dependent gene expression levels and therefore also the proliferation of the transfected cells, while continued IL-2 expression was guaranteed by an IRES element enabling cap-independent gene expression in the presence of protease 2A.
In summary, the present results provide a promising basis for the development of novel potent strategies in the treatment of colorectal cancer.


Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals, and Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox. Edited by Robert Garth Scott. (Kent, Ohio, and London. Kent State University Press, c. 1999. Pp. xxxii, 720. $49.00, ISBN 0-87338-628-0.) Forgotten Valor is a whale of a book. Rarely are collections of personal papers so extensive or carefully edited without the support of the National Historical Publications and Records Committee. More than that, these papers are genuinely new, "the largest collection of Civil War papers to surface in half a century" (p. xiii), and editor Robert Scott's tale of discovery, the sort historians dream about, will brighten any scholar's day. Two hundred fifty pages of Forgotten Valor treat Orlando B. Willcox's life from childhood through the U.S. Military Academy, where he graduated in the class of 1847, and his service in Mexico, Florida, a variety of eastern garrisons, and on the western frontier. It provides scholars with a broad-ranging look at the antebellum army, intimate views of operations in the Army of the Potomac, and of civil-military relations across the antebellum and Civil War eras. Yet the book is not for Civil War scholars alone. It is a highly self-conscious personal narrative woven together over two decades by the complex tensions between religious self-discipline, domestic and romantic sensibilities, and gendered sociability. The papers include the many memoirs Willcox wrote, largely between 1885 and 1905, which he intended to form his autobiography, as well as his journals and letters from 1841 through 1865. These materials were and are arranged in the chronological order in which events took place, and Scott has retained Willcox's practice of appending journals and letters to the pertinent chapters. Because Willcox sometimes wrote more than one memoir of an experience--for example, the capture of Alexandria, the Battle of Bull Run, and the year he spent as a prisoner of war--Scott has used the most comprehensive accounts and inserted supplementary material from the others, using a system of brackets to identify insertions. Thus a typical chapter begins with Willcox's memoir, usually short for the antebellum period, then concludes with letters, almost entirely from the Civil War and including letters both to and from Willcox, and the intermittent journal entries. Scott sometimes provides introductions, particularly for the Civil War period, and his extensive footnotes both clarify references and identify places and individuals. The most significant antebellum chapters are those on Willcox's service in the Third Seminole War, virtually the sole published primary account by a regular officer, and on his service as one of the commanders of the force involved in the rendition of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, the only primary account by a regular officer involved in this event, the only case in which the regular army was employed to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. Apart from these, Willcox paid little attention to military affairs, writing primarily of his extensive social engagements, romantic longings, and ever-uncertain religious state. …


Fungal laccases are remarkable green catalysts that have a broad substrate specificity and many potential applications in bioremediation, lignocellulose processing, organic synthesis, and more. The white-rot fungus Pleurotus ostreatus is able to express multiple laccase genes encoding isoenzymes with different and particularly interesting physico-chemical characteristics: POXC, POXA1w, POXA1b, POXA3a and POXA3b. Several P. ostreatus laccases have been successfully expressed in yeasts and the availability of established heterologous recombinant
expression systems has allowed the construction of mutated, "better performing" enzymes through molecular evolution techniques. The cDNAs encoding POXA1b and POXC have been selected as "parent molecules" to guide the evolution of
laccases with higher specific activity and different substrate specificities. Genetic variants were created by random mutagenesis through error prone PCR (EP-PCR) and DNA shuffling. After two round of mutations, four POXA1b mutants (1M9B,1L2B, 1M10B and 3M7C) were selected for their improved activity against nonphenolic substrates.
New criteria of selection were applied in a further screening of the already avalaible 2300 mutants library, using different substrates (e.g. 2,6 dimethoxyphenol,
DMP), assaying the enzyme stability and activity at different operating conditions (different pHs). Three new mutants were selected for their improved performances
and characterized from a structural and functional point of view. They showed stability at pH 5 and at 60°C higher than that of the wild-type enzyme.
A new mutant was rationally designed and constructed. This new mutant, R4, contains the mutations of the two parental enzymes 1M10B and 3M7C. Catalytic and kinetic properties of R4 mutants were analyzed and compared with those of the wildtype enzyme. It showed stability at pH10 2 fold higher than that of the wild-type enzyme. This new clone was used as template for producing a new collection of 1100 mutants. Two new mutants (4M10G and 1H6C) were selected for their
improved activity against ABTS. The isolated mutants were partially purified and fully characterized.
Amino acid substitutions of each mutant were identified and located in POXA1b laccase model. Analysis of possible molecular mechanisms responsible of better performances was carried out.
A parallel session of the project was aimed at overproducing POXA1b laccase and its best variant 1H6C using the filamentous fungi Aspergillus niger as host. The
necessity to produce large amounts of enzymes for biotechnological applications and the low yields of laccases secreted from wild-type fungal organisms claims for an efficient heterologous expression of the enzymes of interest. The two laccases have been expressed in the filamentous fungi A. niger, obtaining an improvement of 100-
fold in the enzyme production. These preliminary results indicate that A. niger could be a promising expression system for P. ostreatus laccases if compared to other
expression systems.


A class of continuous-time dynamical systems able to sort a list of real numbers is introduced in this paper. The dynamical sorting is achieved in a completely distributed manner, by modifying a consensus problem, namely right multiplying a Laplacian matrix by a diagonal matrix of weights that represents the desired order. The sorting obtained is relative, i.e., a conservation law is imposed on the dynamics. It is shown that sorting can be achieved in finite-time even in a globally smooth way.


The purpose of this chapter is to develop ideas about photography as a consumer behavior and as a researcher practice, by examining social science research traditions, photographers, and consumer research that utilizes photography. Photography is one stream of many in representing consumers. Interactions between photography and identity - personal identity, gender identity, ethnic identity - are analyzed to demonstrate the functions of photography as an important site for discussing issues of representation. Through a selective, personal review of photography focused on the production and consumption of photographic representation I develop a framework for incorporating photography into consumer research that bears on questions of consumption, identity, and representation. The paper draws on photography writings, consumer research, social science research, and personal narrative to discuss the role photography plays in the construction and representation of identity. Mass media photography - popular magazine photography, art photography, books, and popular film - is analyzed, employing concepts of the gaze, identity, and representation. Throughout, travel photography will provide illustrative examples. Consumer researchers might be considered 'tourists' in these matters, casting the 'tourist gaze' upon other methods, other fields, and research 'subjects' in our quest for new scholarly resources and frontiers. This metaphor will be explored through an analysis of travel photography, theories of tourism, and personal reflection. Through a discussion of photography and identity, I intend to sketch an outline of a theory of consuming representation.


Next generation integrated photonic circuits will be dominated by small footprint devices with lower power consumption, low threshold currentsand high efficiencies. Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) having those attractive qualities has shown results to meet the next generation demands for optical communication sources. VCSELs applications are sensors, data com, optical communication, spectroscopy, printers, optical storage, laser displays, atomic optical clocks, laser radar, optical signal processing to name a few. This review centres around on the basic operation of semiconductor lasers, structure analysis of the devices and parameter optimisation for optical communication systems. This paper will provide comparisons on growth techniques and material selection and intends to give the best material realisation for nano optical sources that are up to date as used in optical communication systems. It also provides summarised improvements by other research groups in realisation of VCSELs looking at speeds, efficiency, temperature dependence and the device physical dimensions. Different semiconductor device growth methods, light emitting materials and VCSELs state of art are reviewed. Discussions and a comparisons on different methods used for realising VCSELs are also looked into in this paper.


Abstract Pinolenic acid (PLA) enrichment as an ethyl ester from pine nut oil was successfully accomplished in a batch reactor by lipase-catalyzed ethanolysis using Novozym 435 lipase from Candida antarctica as a biocatalyst. PLA is predominantly an sn-3 substituent of the pine nut oil triacylglycerol (TAG), where it accounts for about 39 mol% of the fatty acids esterified at that position. In the presence of ethanol, Novozym 435 exhibited sn-3 regiospecificity with respect to the TAG of pine nut oil. The effect of the molar ratio of reactants on PLA enrichment by ethanolysis was investigated. The molar ratios of pine nut oil to ethanol were varied from 1:20 to 1:100. A fatty acid ethyl ester (FAEE) fraction with higher PLA content was obtained in the early stage of the reaction, although the yield of PLA was small. However, the PLA content of the FAEEs decreased with increasing reaction time, while the yield of PLA increased. The molar ratio of pine nut oil to ethanol that produced the optimum content and yield of PLA in FAEEs was 1:80.


In 2006, Prochter et al. reported a statistically significant enhancement of very strong Mg ii absorption systems intervening the sight lines to gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) relative to the incidence of such absorption along quasar sight lines. This counterintuitive result has inspired a diverse set of astrophysical explanations (e.g., dust, gravitational lensing) but none of these has obviously resolved the puzzle. Using the largest set of GRB afterglow spectra available, we reexamine the purported enhancement. In an independent sample of GRB spectra with a survey path three times larger than Prochter et al., we measure the incidence per unit redshift of ⩾1 Å rest-frame equivalent width Mg ii absorbers at z ≈ 1 to be ℓ(z) = 0.18 ± 0.06. This is fully consistent with current estimates for the incidence of such absorbers along quasar sight lines. Therefore, we do not confirm the original enhancement and suggest those results suffered from a statistical fluke. Signatures of the original result do remain in our full sample (ℓ(z) shows an ≈1.5 enhancement over ℓ(z)QSO), but the statistical significance now lies at ≈90% c.l. Restricting our analysis to the subset of high-resolution spectra of GRB afterglows (which overlaps substantially with Prochter et al.), we still reproduce a statistically significant enhancement of Mg ii absorption. The reason for this excess, if real, is still unclear since there is no connection between the rapid afterglow follow-up process with echelle (or echellette) spectrographs and the detectability of strong Mg ii doublets. Only a larger sample of such high-resolution data will shed some light on this matter.


Deep-sea coral reefs live in the cold, dark waters of the oceans but like shallow water tropical coral reefs they have a distinct, diverse and sometimes highly endemic associated animal community. These reefs are under direct threat from deep-sea trawling and in some areas have already been seriously impacted by fishing. At present there is no protection for these habitats on the high seas.


Democracy and media are inseparable as has been documented by several scholars (See Fog, 2004; Wahl-Jorgenson & Hanitzsch, 2009; Dutta, 2011; Bhattacharyya & Hodler, 2012 ). Disciples of democracy claim the system has an intertwined relationship with media, possibly explaining why the two words are often used interchangeably. Contemporary media research has moved to focus more on the democratic potentiality of participatory journalism (Carlson, 2007; Deuze et. al., 2007; De Zuniga, 2009; Kaufhold et. al., 2010) The emergence of new media platforms is thus expectedly rejuvenating long-standing debate on the role of media in democracy. Better still, empirical research has credited participatory journalism for example with helping free up the democratic space in several countries including China (Reeze & Dai, 2009), the U.S. (Young, 2008) and Burma (Pidduck, 2010). Only a handful of studies have however documented the democratic potentiality of content wholly-produced and shared among untrained media professionals on the African continent. This study uses Zimbabwe as a case study to investigate the democratic significance of participatory journalism. Traditionally, Zimbabwe has dominated headlines in the West for several reasons including the perceived repression on the part of the government towards free press. Journalists seen as critical to President Robert Mugabe's government have allegedly been arrested while independent newspapers are said to have been closed down. But for some, the Internet has changed the rules of the game forcing previously authoritarian governments, including purportedly Zimbabwe's, to open up. Critiquing Rheingold's (1993) utopian view that the Internet has democratising potential, this study argues based on a three-month online ethnographical assessment of citizen comments appearing in the country's two major publications (NewZimbabwean.com and The Zimbabwean.co.uk) that the major democratic contribution of citizen journalism is rather its ability to enable Zimbabweans to tell stories from their own perspectives, a chance never accorded to them by both the state and Western media in general.


Within a rather abstract computational framework Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be defined as intelligence exhibited by machines. In computer science, though, the field of AI research defines itself as the study of "intelligent agents." In this context, interaction with popular virtual environments, as for instance in virtual game playing, has gained a lot of focus recently in the sense that it provides innovative aspects of AI perception that did not occur to researchers until now. Such aspects are typically formed by the computational intelligent behavior captured through interaction with the virtual environment, as well as the study of graphic models and biologically inspired learning techniques, like, for instance, evolutionary computation, neural networks, and reinforcement learning. In this short survey paper, we attempt to provide an overview of the most recent research works on such novel, yet quite interesting, research domains. We feel that this topic forms an attractive candidate for fellow researchers that came into sight over the last years. Thus, we initiate our study by presenting a brief overview of our motivation and continue with some basic information on recent virtual graphic models utilization and the state-of-the-art on virtual environments, which constitutes two clearly identifiable components of the herein attempted summarization. We then continue, by briefly reviewing the interesting video games territory, and by discerning and discriminating its useful types, thus envisioning possible further utilization scenarios for the collected information. A short discussion on the identified trends and a couple of future research directions conclude the paper.


Threats to biodiversity are diverse and the management of these threats is a major research direction in the conservation of biological diversity. Determining the status of a species is essential in identifying those in danger of becoming extinct and also to establish conservation priorities. For the management of all types of threats that manifest themselves for certain species of community interest in the Iron Gates Natural Park, we must first understand their causes and effects. Conservationists are increasingly interested in determining threats to biological communities, this being an important part of territorial and environmental planning strategies. The analysis undertaken for some geographical areas showed that the most important threats are the socioeconomic and demographic variables, the fragmentation, destruction and degradation of habitats through various practices, the introduction of non-native species, illegal hunting or overfishing. In this context, for elaborating sustainable patterns of habitat management we must analyze and prioritize the threats that we are dealing with. The method requires an inventory of the main threats in the Iron Gates Natural Park, the threats for certain Species of Community Interest (Tulipa hungarica, Colchicum arenarium, Pulsatilla grandis). We have also applied a method used by WWF in order to achieve a hierarchy of the main threats and to establish logical and efficient actions that can be locally applicable.


Packet traceback—determining how a packet could have arrived at a point of observation—is useful for network debugging, performance testing, and network forensics. However, existing mechanisms (e.g., NetSight) require modifications to switches and introduce additional network overhead. By providing a centralized representation of the network's packet-processing behavior as a policy, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) makes it possible to compute the transformations that could lead to the observed packet. Our work leverages higher-level SDN controller languages to perform packet traceback in a provably-correct manner entirely on the controller. Using the current policy as input, we precompute a compact symbolic representation of the back policy, which can then quickly produce all possible predecessors for any input packet. Our prototype is implemented in the Pyretic language; however, since any policy specified in low-level OpenFlow rules can be easily converted to a Pyretic representation, our method is completely general.


We have reported frequent allele loss for the marker HRAS on chromosome 11p in human lung cancer and defined the smallest common region of deletion (designated LOH11B) to approximately 500 kb. Here, we investigated the association of allele loss for LOH11B with epidemiological, pathological, and clinical parameters. Analysis of allele loss was performed using Southern blotting on a cohort of 200 patients with lung cancer, and data were interpreted with the use of a phosphorimager. Results were statistically compared with retrospectively collected variables. LOH11B allele loss was significantly associated with cigarette consumption (P = 0.009), gender (P = 0.02), and survival (P = 0.04). None of the nonsmokers had allele loss as compared with 28% of the patients with low and 43% with high cigarette consumption. Allele loss was more frequent in men (43%) than in women (11%). The median survival of patients without allele loss was 42 months compared with 25 months for patients with allele loss. These results suggest that the LOH11B region contains a gene responsible for a more malignant phenotype independent of the metastatic potential of lung cancer. They also suggest that alterations in this gene are associated with cigarette consumption and are more frequent in men than in women.


Background and aim As people live longer, dying in very old age is becoming more common. Palliative care is trying to adapt, from models that evolved predominantly from cancer care origins, to better meet the needs and priorities of frail older people. From one of the longest-running studies of ageing1 we have already described disability and cognition in the last year of life of a population-representative sample of men and women who died aged ≥852 and their end-of-life place of care transitions,3,4 showing most died away from home, with markedly higher dependency levels amongst people dying ≥90. From interviews with relatives after the study participants' deaths, reportedly dying comfortably was associated with avoiding transitions, particularly with staying in care homes that had become home.5 Qualitative research in the same study found participants aged ≥95 were willing to discuss their end-of-life care preferences.6 We also sought to understand bereaved family members' perspectives on their 'older old' relatives' deaths. Methods Analysis (framework approach) of n = 295 informant interview responses to an open question 'If you had to live through the time of […participant's…] final illness again, would you like anything to have been managed differently?' regarding n = 290 deceased participants (mean age at death 90.2, SD 5.1 years) in the Cambridge City over-75s Cohort study, UK. Results We will detail our findings that highlighted four key themes: communication (information-sharing, inter-personal/professional understanding), time (responsiveness, constraints), place (staying, moving, continuity) and care (in all settings). Discussion Training and service integration implications for end-of-life care for society's 'oldest old' will be discussed. References Fleming J, Zhao E, O'Connor DW, et al.Cohort profile: the Cambridge City over-75s Cohort (CC75C). I J Epidemiol 2007;36(1):40–46. http://ije.oxfordjournals.org Zhao J, Barclay S, Farquhar M, et al.The "oldest old" in the last year of life: population-based findings from CC75C study participants aged at least 85 at death. J Am Geriatr Soc 2010;58(1):1–11 Fleming J, Zhao J, Farquhar M, Brayne C, Barclay S. Place of death for the 'oldest old': ≥85-year-olds in the CC75C population-based cohort. Br J Gen Pract 2010;60(573):171–179 Perrels AJ., Fleming J, Zhao J, et al. Place of death and end-of-life transitions experienced by very old people with differing cognitive status: retrospective analysis of a prospective population-based cohort aged 85 and over. Palliat Med 2014;28(3):220–233 Fleming J, Calloway R, Perrels A, et al. Dying comfortably in very old age with or without dementia – a representative "older old" population study. Palliat Med 2016a;30(4):S36. http://pmj.sagepub.com/content/30/4/S1.full.pdf+html Fleming J, Farquhar M, Brayne C, Barclay S. Death and the oldest old: attitudes and preferences for end-of-life care – qualitative research within a population-based cohort study. PLoS ONE 2016b;11(4):e0150686


OBJECTIVES
To review the use of laboratory tests for antiplatelet agents to determine escalation of antiplatelet therapy and for emergent reversal of P2Y12 inhibitors.

METHODS
A case scenario and review of cardiovascular and neurointerventional literature are described.

RESULTS
In cardiovascular disease patients, large randomized trials failed to demonstrate superiority of tailored antiplatelet regimens using the VerifyNow P2Y12 assay, where earlier studies had shown promise. Platelet transfusions restored platelet function measured by vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein, light transmission aggregometry, or thromboelastography but not VerifyNow P2Y12, with the most restoration for clopidogrel and the least for ticagrelor.

CONCLUSIONS
Current evidence does not support changing antiplatelet therapy based on the results of platelet function monitoring tests. For emergent reversal of P2Y12 inhibitors, test method can affect platelet dosing recommendations, as different methods may give different results.


Over the last few years, with the immense popularity of the Kinect, there has been renewed interest in developing methods for human gesture and action recognition from 3D skeletal data. A number of approaches have been proposed to extract representative features from 3D skeletal data, most commonly hard wired geometric or bio-inspired shape context features. We propose a hierarchial dynamic framework that first extracts high level skeletal joints features and then uses the learned representation for estimating emission probability to infer action sequences. Currently gaussian mixture models are the dominant technique for modeling the emission distribution of hidden Markov models. We show that better action recognition using skeletal features can be achieved by replacing gaussian mixture models by deep neural networks that contain many layers of features to predict probability distributions over states of hidden Markov models. The framework can be easily extended to include a ergodic state to segment and recognize actions simultaneously.


We review the recent paper by Su et al. (2013). Using Global Position System and Global Ionospheric Maps data, Su et al. claimed to have found ionospheric precursors a few days before the 16 October 1999 Hector Mine, California, earthquake. They proposed that this type of analysis of ionospheric data may be useful for locating forthcoming large earthquakes. In this Comment, we reexamine these data and show that ionospheric anomalies reported by Su et al. were not precursors to the Hector Mine earthquake. Therefore, their proposed analysis is not useful in the context of earthquake prediction.


Poor harvesting practices can accelerate soil erosion and decrease water quality and site productivity. Forestry Best Management Practices (BMPs) were developed to protect water quality, primarily by minimizing erosion during and after timber harvests. Although properly employed BMPs mitigate against the immediate potential for soil loss, little information exists regarding their long-term effectiveness.

Since 1993, the Virginia Department of Forestry (VDOF) has conducted random water quality audits on forest harvesting operations. The VDOF will recommend remedial BMPs immediately if there is an active water quality law violation, and these recommendations are usually obviously clear to all parties. However, the potential for water degradation is more controversial and debates can arise over these recommendations. The VDOF, as in most states, does not have the resources to make visits to post harvest sites over time. Therefore, it is imperative that the BMPs employed at the closeout of the timber harvest be sufficient to ensure erosion control until the site has recovered, yet, BMP evaluations should represent real or potential problems.

This study was undertaken to provide a quantitative analysis of erosion rates over time on VDOF random audited harvest sites and to identify key factors of erosion rates for log decks, skid trails, access roads, harvest areas, and stream crossings within each of Virginia's physiographic regions. A secondary objective was to provide a greater level of decision support for VDOF field staff, through the identified key factors which would indicate potential problem areas of erosion and water quality degradation particularly from logging activities and temporary roads.

To better understand the primary causes of erosion over time the Dissmeyer and Foster Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was used to establish quantitative erosion rates which officials can use to focus BMP recommendations. Such a decision support system for field staff, based on quantifiable erosion estimates, provides a proactive targeted prevention assessment prior to the development of actual water pollution problems.

Analyses of logged tracts throughout Virginia revealed that estimated erosion rates were not statistically significant between physiographic provinces as well as VDOF audit classifications. Timber access roads were the greatest source of erosion in the Piedmont and Mountains, while harvested areas were the largest identified erosion area in the Coastal Plain, based upon the disturbance categories ratio to the total tract area.

Estimated erosion rate trends over time indicated that the majority of disturbance categories were essentially recovered between eight to ten years after harvest. Further, disturbance categories in the Coastal Plain recovered faster than the other province. Erosion rates could not be explained by the year since harvest, since numerous variables interact to cause erosion.

Overall predicted erosion rates and VDOF audit classifications of problems did not have consistent agreement. This indicates the need for additional calibration of VDOF ratings and perhaps the establishment of more quantifiable BMP inspection criteria.


Objectives: To explore the impact of a range of psychosocial factors on the subjective experience of new entrants to Higher Education.
Design: A longitudinal study which combines convergent qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
Methods: A cohort of first generation H.E. students completed health related measures, including, measures of coping, subjective well-being, self-efficacy, self-esteem and social support. Students also wrote narrative accounts in order to capture the broader experiences related to entry to Higher Education more fully.
Analysis: Scores on the range of structured measures were calculated and examined in relation to social background and themes emerging from the students' individual narrative accounts.
Conclusion: In the cohort explored, particular profiles of coping strategies including clusters of negative and positive coping strategies emerged. In addition there are contrasts between the experience of this group and students who have familial experience of Higher Education. These are discussed in conjunction with themes identified in the discourse. Psychology reveals potential vulnerabilities in the widening of participation in Higher Education and we discuss how good practice can be informed.


The cellular prion protein (PrPC) is a copper binding protein that undergoes post-translational modifications, such as endoproteolytic alpha cleavage, which occurs in the vicinity of the His111 Cu binding site. Alpha cleavage processing of PrPC is considered to be neuroprotective since the cleavage site is located in a region that is key to the conversion of PrPC into the infectious scrapie isoform (PrPSc), yielding a membrane bound C1 fragment of PrPC that still contains His111. In this work, we use hPrP(111-115) fragment as a model peptide to evaluate the impact of alpha cleavage processing of PrPC in its ability to coordinate Cu(ii) ions at His111. By using different spectroscopic techniques such as electronic absorption, circular dichroism, nuclear magnetic resonance, and electron paramagnetic resonance, this study demonstrates that Cu(ii) binding to the cleaved His111 site is highly dependent on Cu and proton concentrations. The imidazole group of His111 and its free NH2 terminus emerge as the main anchoring sites for Cu(ii) coordination, yielding very different complexes from those characterized for the intact His111 site in the full protein. Different Cu(ii) coordination modes that could form with the alpha cleaved PrPC under physiological conditions are identified and characterized. Overall, this study contributes to understand how alpha cleavage processing of PrPC impacts its Cu(ii) binding properties at His111. While the functional implications of Cu binding to the cleaved PrPC remain to be discovered, proteolytic processing of PrPC and its Cu binding features appear to be molecular events that might be strongly linked to its cellular function.

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2016/07/24 Abstract Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and one of the major causes of cancer deaths in women. Early diagnosis leads to significant reduction of mortality from breast cancer, in other words it can increase the lifespan of people with this cancer. This study aimed to determine the effect of education on knowledge and performance of 20-60 year old women in Yazd city about Breast Self Examination (BSE). Materials & Methods: In this study, 100 women aged from 20 to 60 years old who referred to Yazd health centers were selected. They were matched in terms of cultural, social, and economical aspects. In this quasi-experimental study, data was collected through administration of questionnaires before and after training in two stages. The collected information were then analyzed using the statistical software SPSS (version 18) by T-tests and ANOVA. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: The results of statistical analyses revealed a significant difference between participants' knowledge and performance scores before and after training (0.05> p). In this study, age, marital status, education level, history of breastfeeding, and its duration had a significant relationship with participants' knowledge; also, positive family history of breast cancer had a significant relationship with their performance (0.05> p). Between the subjects' performance was a significant difference in two groups with negative and positive family history of Brest cancer before and after two months of educational program. (0.05> p). Conclusion: According to the achieved results and the positive impact of education on the increase of knowledge and performance, educational programs in the field of breast cancer and its screening methods are recommended to be held for all age groups. In order to promote women's health from puberty to menopause more attention should be paid to the follow-up and


Scaling up production in medium and large high-throughput sequencing facilities presents a number of challenges. As the rate of samples to process increases, manually performing and tracking the center's operations becomes increasingly difficult, costly and error prone, while processing the massive amounts of data poses significant computational challenges. We present our ongoing work to automate and track all data-related procedures at the CRS4 Sequencing and Genotyping Platform, while integrating state-of-the-art processing technologies such as Hadoop, OMERO, iRODS, and Galaxy into our automated workflows. Currently, the core system is in its testing phase and it is on schedule to be in production use at CRS4 by May 2013. The results thus far obtained are encouraging and the authors are confident that the CRS4 Platform will increase its efficiency and capacity thanks to this system. In the near future, the integration components will be released as as open source software.


The initial aim of our study was to dissect the mosaic of cell populations within the CD133+ putative stem cell compartment in human colon cancer. While addressing this question we built up a panel of 20 monoclonal antibodies chosen on the basis of information provided by selecting in a literature search molecules somewhat involved in the overall malignant behavior of tumor cells. We used an innovative seven-color flow cytometric approach to characterize cells obtained from the mechanic and enzymatic digestion of fresh normal colon and colon cancer tissues. We subdivided our panel into different tubes analyzing two selected markers for each tube and using other fluorescence channels available to keep fixed two putative stem cell markers (CD133 and CD44), a hematopoietic specificity (CD45), an epithelial specific marker (CD326) and a vital dye (Sytox blue). Tumoral population to be analyzed was selected as CD45-/CD326+/Sytox Blue-. This gating was fundamental for the subsequent evaluation of the other markers because of the amount of contaminants composing the cell suspension derived from the digestion of a fresh tissue. These contaminants could easily confuse results leading to ambiguous, misleading and incorrect data. A first analysis of our data revealed a distribution of analyzed markers into three main categories: 1) highly expressed antigens, 2) bimodally expressed antigens and 3) low expressed antigens.
A first interesting finding was the observation of a small subset of double positive CD133+/CD44+ cells. The existence of this subset could explain similar results obtained by the three groups which first isolated colorectal cancer stem cells using apparently different approaches (CD133+ or CD44+/CD326+). At the same time we observed this population rapidly appeared in literature studies enforcing the idea that the CD133+/CD44+ population could represent a more purified stem cell subset in human colon cancer. We analyzed the presence of CD133+, CD44+ and CD133+/CD44+ cells in 36 patients correlating these markers to tumor progression and disease free survival. From our analysis CD133 alone seems to be correlated to tumor progression while only the CD133+/CD44+ subset's presence affected disease free survival in the analyzed patients, suggesting that this cell population was not the main responsible for tumor growth but it was involved in cancer recurrence.
From a first analysis of the expression of the analyzed markers another molecule got our attention: CD66c.
CD66c is a GPI-linked molecule belonging to the family of CEA antigen known to be involved in carcinogenesis and in colon cancer pathogenesis, however no complete and exhaustive informations are available. From our data, CD66c showed an extremely reproducible behavior and interesting correlations with other cancer related molecules. Its expression correlated with that of all proposed colon cancer stem cell markers (CD133, CD44, CD166, CD24). A correlation was also observed with CD151 (PETA3, involved in the extravasion of cancerous cells), CD227 (MUC1, known as prognostic factor in colon cancer), CD182 (CXCR2, involved in cell migration), CD221 (insulin-like growth factor 1, linked to cell proliferation) and CD55 (Decay accelerating factor, a complement inhibiting molecule). We carefully analyzed the expression of CD66c in normal colon and in colon cancer tissues finding this antigen to be a cancer associate molecule. In fact it was significantly expressed at higher levels in cancer than in normal tissue. We also found a gradient of expression from normal tissues to adenomas and to carcinomas with an increase related to the severity of the lesion. As expected a significantly higher expression was also observed in advanced stages (T3-4 and M1) of colon cancer and in in vitro sphere cultures, which promote the proliferation of stem-like cells. We further analyzed CD66c expression in CD133+ putative stem cell compartment and found a surprisingly sharp distinction between normal and cancer tissues. In normal tissues CD133+ cells are completely CD66c negative while a correlation between the two antigens was observed in cancerous samples. When CD66c was silenced in Caco2 cells, which express high levels of this molecule, their proliferation resulted slowed down while their apoptosis and necrosis appeared increased. Moreover, the in vitro clonogenic and tumorigenic potential of Caco2 cells resulted impaired. Initial hints about the possible use of CD66c as a therapeutic target are suggested by the cCD66c mRNA silencing experiments in Caco2 cells, further studies will be needed to unveil this possibility.


The 100 m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope K-band (KFPA) receiver was used to perform a high-sensitivity search for rotational emission lines from complex organic molecules in the cold interstellar medium toward TMC-1 (cyanopolyyne peak), focussing on the identification of new carbon-chain-bearing species as well as molecules of possible prebiotic relevance. We report a detection of the carbon-chain oxide species HC7O and derive a column density of cm−2. This species is theorized to form as a result of associative electron detachment reactions between oxygen atoms and C7H−, and/or reaction of C6H2+ with CO (followed by dissociative electron recombination). Upper limits are given for the related HC6O, C6O, and C7O molecules. In addition, we obtained the first detections of emission from individual 13C isotopologues of HC7N, and derive abundance ratios HC7N/HCCC13CCCCN = 110 ± 16 and HC7N/HCCCC13CCCN = 96 ± 11, indicative of significant 13C depletion in this species relative to the local interstellar elemental 12C/13C ratio of 60–70. The observed spectral region covered two transitions of HC11N, but emission from this species was not detected, and the corresponding column density upper limit is (at 95% confidence). This is significantly lower than the value of previously claimed by Bell et al. and confirms the recent nondetection of HC11N in TMC-1 by Loomis et al. Upper limits were also obtained for the column densities of malononitrile and the nitrogen heterocycles quinoline, isoquinoline, and pyrimidine.


Background: Few studies have investigated the impact of sexual violence on health during pregnancy. We examined the association between sexual violence and the reporting of physical symptoms during pregnancy. Methods: A population-based national cohort study conducted by The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study (MoBa) collected data from pregnant women through postal questionnaires at 17 and 32 weeks gestation. Three levels of sexual violence were measured: 1) mild (pressured into sexual relations), 2) moderate (forced with violence into sexual relation) and 3) severe (rape). Differences between women reporting and not reporting sexual violence were assessed using Pearson's X test and multiple logistic regression analyses. Results: Of 78 660 women, 12.0% (9 444) reported mild, 2.8% (2 219) moderate and 3.6% (2 805) severe sexual violence. Sexual violence was significantly associated with increased reporting of pregnancy-related physical symptoms, both measured in number of symptoms and duration/degree of suffering. Compared to women not reporting sexual violence, the probability of suffering from ≥8 pregnancy-related symptoms estimated by Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) was 1.49 (1.41–1.58) for mild sexual violence, 1.66(1.50–1.84) for moderate and 1.78 (1.62–1.95) for severe. Severe sexual violence both previously and recently had the strongest association with suffering from ≥8 pregnancy-related symptoms, AOR 6.70 (2.34–19.14). Conclusion: A history of sexual violence is associated with increased reporting of pregnancy-related physical symptoms. Clinicians should consider the possible role of a history of sexual violence when treating women who suffer extensively from pregnancy-related symptoms.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that all-ceramic crown core-veneer system reliability is improved by modifying the core design and as a result is comparable in reliability to metal-ceramic retainers (MCR). Finite element analysis (FEA) was performed to verify maximum principal stress distribution in the systems.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A first lower molar full crown preparation was modeled by reducing the height of proximal walls by 1.5 mm and occlusal surface by 2.0 mm. The CAD-based preparation was replicated and positioned in a dental articulator for specimen fabrication. Conventional (0.5 mm uniform thickness) and modified (2.5 mm height, 1 mm thickness at the lingual extending to proximals) zirconia (Y-TZP) core designs were produced with 1.5 mm veneer porcelain. MCR controls were fabricated following conventional design. All crowns were resin cemented to 30-day aged composite dies, aged 14 days in water and either single-loaded to failure or step-stress fatigue tested. The loads were positioned either on the mesiobuccal or mesiolingual cusp (n = 21 for each ceramic system and cusp). Probability Weibull and use level probability curves were calculated. Crack evolution was followed, and postmortem specimens were analyzed and compared to clinical failures.

RESULTS
Compared to conventional and MCRs, increased levels of stress were observed in the core region for the modified Y-TZP core design. The reliability was higher in the Y-TZP-lingual-modified group at 100,000 cycles and 200 N, but not significantly different from the MCR-mesiolingual group. The MCR-distobuccal group showed the highest reliability. Fracture modes for Y-TZP groups were veneer chipping not exposing the core for the conventional design groups, and exposing the veneer-core interface for the modified group. MCR fractures were mostly chipping combined with metal coping exposure.

CONCLUSIONS
FEA showed higher levels of stress for both Y-TZP core designs and veneer layers compared to MCR. Core design modification resulted in fatigue reliability response of Y-TZP comparable to MCR at 100,000 cycles and 200 N. Fracture modes observed matched with clinical scenarios.


A comparative analysis of the descriptions of fluctuations in statistical mechanics (the Gibbs approach) and in statistical thermodynamics (the Einstein approach) is given. On this basis solutions are obtained for the Gibbs and Einstein problems that arise in pressure fluctuation calculations for a spatially limited equilibrium (or slightly nonequilibrium) macroscopic system. A modern formulation of the Gibbs approach which allows one to calculate equilibrium pressure fluctuations without making any additional assumptions is presented; to this end the generalized Bogolyubov – Zubarev and Hellmann – Feynman theorems are proved for the classical and quantum descriptions of a macrosystem. A statistical version of the Einstein approach is developed which shows a fundamental difference in pressure fluctuation results obtained within the context of two approaches. Both the 'genetic' relation between the Gibbs and Einstein approaches and the conceptual distinction between their physical grounds are demonstrated. To illustrate the results, which are valid for any thermodynamic system, an ideal nondegenerate gas of microparticles is considered, both classically and quantum mechanically. Based on the results obtained, the correspondence between the micro- and macroscopic descriptions is considered and the prospects of statistical thermodynamics are discussed.


We propose single-shot digital holography which is capable of simultaneously capturing both the information of multiple phase-shifted holograms and the distribution of the polarization. In this technique, a single image sensor records both the information required for phase-shifting interferometry and that of the polarization states of objects using an array of polarizers. The essence of the technique is the capability of imaging the distribution of the polarization of three-dimensional objects with a single-shot exposure by using the space-division multiplexing of holograms. The validity of the proposed technique was confirmed by the preliminary experiments.


Traditionally, the estimation of forest parameters using physically-based canopy radiative transfer models (RT) requires correcting the remote sensing data to top-of-canopy (TOC) level by inverting an atmosphere RT model. By coupling the same canopy and atmosphere models, it is possible to simulate the top-ofatmosphere (TOA) radiance and to work directly with the measured TOA radiance data, thus avoiding the correction to TOC level. Many studies discussed the increased potential of multiangular data for parameter estimation, especially for forests, which have strong directional properties. These studies, however, were based on TOC data. In this study, we investigate the potential of multiangular data at TOA level, based on a case study for three Norway spruce stands in the Czech Republic, using multi-angular CHRIS data and the coupled SLCMODTRAN model. The coupled model provided satisfactory TOA simulations of spectral and angular signatures, and the dimensionality of the parameter estimation problem increased with increasing angular sampling. Canopy cover, fraction of brown material, leaf chlorophyll and leaf dry matter content were estimated using all possible angular combinations. No combination was best for all parameters.


The optical scanning holography (OSH) technique can capture all the three-dimensional volume information of an object in a hologram via a single raster scan. The digital hologram can then be processed to reconstruct individual sectional images of the object. In this paper, we present a scheme to reconstruct sectional images in OSH with enhanced depth resolution, where a spatial light modulator (SLM) is adopted as a configurable point pupil. By switching the SLM between two states, different Fresnel zone plates (FZPs) are generated based on the same optical system. With extra information provided by different FZPs, a depth resolution at 0.7 μm can be achieved. © 2014 Chinese Laser Press


The Khlong Marui fault zone is a major fault located in the southern part of Thailand extending across the peninsula. In spite of the available information on fault segments and tectonic activity associated with faulting, the local scale fault characteristics are currently barely known and are often difficult to detect in areas where surface displacement has not occurred. The present geological field investigation reveals that the study area in Surat Thani province possibly contains more minor faults where the shallow faulting is evident. To detect fault locations and to study fault characteristics, seismic reflection analysis and 2-D electrical imaging were applied along the three survey lines as a case study. After data processing, an interpretation was proposed based on the correlation of geophysical results with the geological information. Discontinuities in the main horizons in seismic sections and correlatable zones in resistivity imaging indicate that faulting is present in a Permian-Carboniferous unit and may extend to the shallow subsurface in Quaternary sediments.


Bridelia cathartica is an important medicinal plant throughout its distributional range in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the botany, ethnomedicinal uses, chemical and biological properties of B. cathartica . Information on the medicinal, phytochemistry and biological properties of B. cathartica was undertaken using electronic databases such as Medline, Pubmed, SciFinder, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, Science Direct, EThOS, ProQuest, OATD and Open-thesis. Pre-electronic literature was sourced from the University library. Literature search revealed that B. cathartica is mainly used as a charm and to cast spells, as herbal medicine used by women during child bearing and pregnancy, remedy for fever and malaria, gastro-intestinal, headache, haemorrhoids, menstrual problems, pain, sores and wounds, reproductive, respiratory disorders and sexually transmitted infections. Pharmacological studies of B. cathartica extracts revealed that the species has antibacterial, antifungal, antimalarial and antioxidant properties. Based on its wide use as herbal medicine in tropical Africa, B. cathartica should be subjected to detailed phytochemical and pharmacological evaluations aimed at elucidating its chemical, pharmacological and toxicological properties.