TCP and UDP communication protocols are the most widely used transport methods for carrying out XML data messages between different services. XML data security is always a big concern especially when using internet cloud. Common XML encryption techniques encrypt part of private sections of the XML file as an entire block of text and apply these techniques directly on them. Man-in-the-Middle and Cryptanalysts can generate statistical information, tap, sniff, hack, inject and abuse XML data messages. The purpose of this study is to introduce architecture of new approach of exchanging XML data files between different Services in order to minimize the risk of any alteration, data loss, data abuse, data misuse of XML critical business data information during transmission; by implementing a vertical partitioning on XML files. Another aim is to create a virtual environment within internet cloud prior to data transmission in order to utilise the communication method and rise up the transmission performance along with resources utilisation and spreads the partitioned XML file (shredded) through several paths within multi agents that form a multipath virtual network. Virtualisation in cloud network infrastructure to take advantage of its scalability, operational efficiency, and control of data flow are considered in this architecture. A customized UDP Protocol in addition to a pack of modules in RIDX adds a reliable (Lossless) and Multicast data transmission to all nodes in a virtual cloud network. A comparative study has been made to measure the performance of the Real-time Interactive Data Exchange system (RIDX) using RIDX UDP protocol against standard TCP protocol. Starting from 4 nodes up to 10 nodes in the domain, the results showed an enhanced performance using RIDX architecture over the standard TCP protocol.


Abstract Michele Roberts is a contemporary feminist writer born in England in 1949. Brought up with two languages and cultures, she was educated at a religious school and she later lived in a convent for a long time. The conversation presented below took place in London in August 2010. The purpose of this interview was to talk with Michele Roberts about her writing and the link between her novels and her memoir. The contemporary and feminist writer talked about Virginia Woolf, Marion Milner, about personal and public spheres, about exploring when writing and about being an artist, among other topics. The conversation is thus presented in full as it happened. Keywords: memoir, Michele Roberts, novels, women's writing ********** Michele Roberts is a contemporary feminist writer born in Hertfordshire, England in 1949. She was brought up with two languages and cultures and she was educated at a religious school. Half-English and half-French, Roberts also lived in a convent for a long time, and these facts have influenced her works. Daughter of an English Protestant father and a French Catholic mother, Roberts has always combined her personal inner feelings with the political outer thoughts in her narration. Not only were her parents relevant in her upbringing but also her grandmother. As the novelist has commented on various occasions, the figure of her grandmother gave her freedom and inspiration at the time of writing. Her grandmother introduced Roberts in the art of storytelling and thus in the process of imagining, dreaming and inventing (The Book of Mrs Noah). In relation to her family, Roberts has also revealed how her battle with her mother--that body of authority who wants to have power over her daughter and makes her behave according to the morality required by society--has been depicted in her works of fiction (A Piece of the Night). On the other hand, not only the relationship between mother and daughter, but also the union between father and daughter, and her wish to be accepted by the male body, are reflected in novels like Impossible Saints. Roberts attended Oxford University where she read a Bachelor of Arts in English. It was during these years at university that Michele Roberts became a member of the "Women's Liberation Movement," which she has always supported by writing articles in magazines like Spare Rib and City Limits. Michele Roberts has not only been a feminist activist, but she has also performed other professions such as a librarian in Bangkok, a cook, and a creative writing professor at the University of Norwich. Although she lives between France and England, Roberts has also resided in Thailand, Italia, and USA. Through exploring, reading and writing, and through the revision of stories Michele Roberts has fought against the stereotypes marked by society, and against the doctrines defended by the Catholic Church, although she recognises that this religious culture has given her both stories and a productive language. Roberts has always fought back against authoritarianism, against Catholicism, and it is by means of her novels how the feminist writer creates new women who are liberated from religious, social and political margins. In this line, there are many depictions of the body and sex in Roberts's heroines. For Roberts, the female protagonist is rescued in order that she can verbally and sexually express herself being triumphant before the Fathers of the Church. For that reason, Roberts subversively finishes with the binaries between good and bad women in novels such as The Wild Girl, for instance, in which not only being a woman is fully depicted and celebrated but also, the sexual union with the man. Michele Roberts's production is quite varied. The contemporary author has written novels, short stories, poetry, articles and essays. This conversation, however, did especially focus on her works of fiction. Her first novel was written when the author was 29 years old, A Piece of the Night (1978), and it shows biographical data about the search of her persona and her sexuality. …


COPD is associated with a relevant burden of disease and a high mortality worldwide. Only recently, the importance of comorbidities of COPD has been recognized. Studies postulated an association with inflammatory conditions potentially sharing pathogenic pathways and worsening overall prognosis. More evidence is required to estimate the role of comorbidities of COPD. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence and clustering of comorbidities associated with COPD, and to estimate their impact on clinically relevant outcomes. In this population-based case-control study, a nation-wide database provided by the Swiss Federal Office for Statistics enclosing every hospital entry covering the years 2002–2010 (n = 12′888′075) was analyzed using MySQL and R statistical software. Statistical methods included non-parametric hypothesis testing by means of Fisher's exact test and Wilcoxon rank sum test, as well as linear models with generalized estimating equation to account for intra-patient variability. Exploratory multivariate approaches were also used for the identification of clusters of comorbidities in COPD patients. In 2.6% (6.3% in patients aged >70 years) of all hospitalization cases an active diagnosis of COPD was recorded. In 21% of these cases, COPD was the main reason for hospitalization. Patients with a diagnosis of COPD had more comorbidities (7 [IQR 4–9] vs. 3 [IQR 1–6]; ), were more frequently rehospitalized (annual hospitalization rate 0.33 [IQR 0.20–0.67] vs. 0.25 [IQR 0.14–0.43]/year; ), had a longer hospital stay (9 [IQR 4–15] vs. 5 [IQR 2–11] days; ), and had higher in-hospital mortality (5.9% [95% CI 5.8%–5.9%] vs. 3.4% [95% CI 3.3%–3.5%]; ) compared to matched controls. A set of comorbidities was associated with worse outcome. We could identify COPD-related clusters of COPD-comorbidities.


The analysis of scenarios in which a number of microphones record the activity of speakers, such as in a round-table meeting, presents a number of computational challenges. For example, if each participant wears a microphone, speech from both the microphone's wearer (local speech) and from other participants (crosstalk) is received. The recorded audio can be broadly classified in four ways: local speech, crosstalk plus local speech, crosstalk alone and silence. We describe two experiments related to the automatic classification of audio into these four classes. The first experiment attempted to optimize a set of acoustic features for use with a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier. A large set of potential acoustic features were considered, some of which have been employed in previous studies. The best-performing features were found to be kurtosis, "fundamentalness," and cross-correlation metrics. The second experiment used these features to train an ergodic hidden Markov model classifier. Tests performed on a large corpus of recorded meetings show classification accuracies of up to 96%, and automatic speech recognition performance close to that obtained using ground truth segmentation.


The objectives of this study were to identify the factors affecting the obesity of breast cancer patients and to provide basic data for the development of an effective obesity management program for them using the propensity score matching method and data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) with a bigger sample size and a higher level of representativeness. In this study, 231 breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had been treated for more than 3 months among the adult KNHANES participants (aged 19 and older) were selected. The results of this study showed that the degree of physical activity, the number of days of doing strength exercise, the food intake reduction level, the protein intake ratio, and the thermal effect of food affected the obesity of the breast cancer patients. Therefore, future studies are needed to examine the factors associated with the obesity management of breast cancer patients in various aspects, using a wide range of data, and to suggest political measures for managing the obesity of breast cancer patients.


After the growth of information technology, the traditional methods of teaching that are currently running do not alone meet the educational needs. Therefore, this research was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using mobile educational software in increase of the amount of learning of dentistry students. In this semi-experimental study (pre-test and post-test), from between the last two years students of academic year 2015-16 of dentistry of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (AJUMS), 60 people were selected in a simple random way and divided randomly into two groups of intervention and control. Then the intervention group was given mobile educational software of the unit dental considerations on systemic patients; 30 days later, it was taken separate tests and their scores were compared with those of the control group who did not use software. The data were analyzed by SPSS V21 and regression test. The mean scores of awareness had increased in students of the intervention group before and after receiving the software and it was significant (P<0.05). Furthermore, the difference of the mean scores of awareness after the intervention between control group and intervention one had been significant (P<0.05). Based on the regression test, the age, gender, and semester had no impact on the score changes before and after the intervention. Although the use of smartphones was not included still in the formal curriculum of universities and educational institutions in line with the educational goals, but it allows students to use more various methods for learning.


Drainage surveys and airborne geophysical surveys of a
600 km2 area from Blair Atholl to Braemar identified
several targets near Glenshee within the Ben Eagach
Schist, the host formation of the Aberfeldy deposits, lying
30 km along the Dalradian strike to the SW. Integrated
geological, geochemical and geophysical surveys have
been carried out over these targets. The extensive cover of
peat and glacial overburden, particularly over the softer
lithologies of the formation, hinders geological mapping
and near-surface leaching has destroyed most of the
sulphide. The presence of base metals and baryte is best
shown by detailed drainage sampling and the sulphidebearing
graphitic schist can be traced through drift
covered ground by VLF-EM, IP and SP surveys. Six
shallow boreholes were drilled on the basis of the
geochemical and geophysical anomalies and mapping of
the available outcrops.
Zinc-lead mineralisation has been found in the elastic
lower member of the Ben Eagach Schist as well as in the
upper member of graphitic schist. Vein baryte with minor
base metals is present in the Ben Lui Schist, a higher
Middle Dalradian formation, in southern Glenshee.
The detailed information available for the Glenshee
area is listed in the Data Package. A charge of &lOOO will
be made for a copy of this information, consultation with
staff, drillcore examination and for the time of staff required
to make a short field visit to the area.


A genome stability regulator integrates DNA repair and stress signaling pathways. Sirtuin 6 (SIRT6) is a mammalian homolog of the yeast Sir2 deacetylase. Mice deficient for SIRT6 exhibit genome instability. Here, we show that in mammalian cells subjected to oxidative stress SIRT6 is recruited to the sites of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) and stimulates DSB repair, through both nonhomologous end joining and homologous recombination. Our results indicate that SIRT6 physically associates with poly[adenosine diphosphate (ADP)–ribose] polymerase 1 (PARP1) and mono-ADP-ribosylates PARP1 on lysine residue 521, thereby stimulating PARP1 poly-ADP-ribosylase activity and enhancing DSB repair under oxidative stress.


Modern, science-centered naturalisms can be charged with a certain moral laxity, according to S. T. Coleridge. This fault reflects a devitalizing, materialistic metaphysics informed by a narrow and self-serving conception of reason. Thus seeking a remedy that can bring justice to the spiritual as well as the physical aspects of experience, Coleridge envisages a 'true naturalism' that will not only address the question 'What is Life?' but also frame a 'true realism' that includes what might be called a 'true moralism'. This calls, however, for a Heraclitean metaphysics capable of linking 'goodness' in both thinking and acting to a *Logos* - that is, an essentially nonmodern theory of actuality that can do justice at once to the quicknesses and the uniformities of both Life and Thought. Coleridge thus presents an outline of how one might respond to a challenge that can be best met, I argue, with the help of certain insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, A. N. Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and C. S. Peirce. By enlisting Hannah Arendt's  individual-centered conception of morality, which ties ethics to public concerns, it is also possible to sketch a metaphysically grounded response to Friedrich Nietzsche's call for a healthy morality capable of overturning the nihilistic values entrenched in modern thought.


INTRODUCTION
The prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) ranges from <10% to as much as 84% depending on region and composition of the population studied. The MetS is a growing public health problem in the world.

AIM
To evaluate association of hyperuricaemia with components of MetS and insulin resistance.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sixty patients with MetS were conveniently recruited. MetS was defined as per Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) guidelines. For the purpose of analysis study participants were grouped into, group-I (controls - normal serum uric acid levels) and group-II (cases - hyperuricaemia). Hyperuricaemia was defined with cut-off >6.8mg/dl in both men and women. Associated work up for MetS and insulin resistance like fasting blood sugar, fasting lipid profile, fasting insulin, serum uric acid was done. Blood pressure and anthropometric measurements including weight, height and waist circumferences were measured and BMI was calculated. HOMA IR method was used to measure the degree of insulin resistance. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate association of hyperuricaemia with MetS and insulin resistance. Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) was plotted to find out optimum cut-off value for insulin resistance.

RESULTS
A significant increase in systolic blood pressure (p < 0.001) and triglyceride levels (p=0.027) were observed in hyperuricaemia subjects when compared to controls. After adjusting for potential confounders, Insulin resistance (HOMA IR >3.4) was independently associated with hyperuricaemia (OR=5.79, 95% CI=1.6- 20.69, p=0.007).

CONCLUSION
Insulin resistance beyond a threshold is independently associated with hyperuricaemia in subjects with MetS.


In the development of new research environments, hardware has often been neglected. E-readers have (reasonably) successfully been developed for leisurely reading, but reading with the goal of writing demands a different approach. This bibliography has been written to inform the INKE research group on physical aspects of digital scholarly reading. It consists of two parts: a hardware section, including a description of commercial e-readers as well as an overview of academically developed digital reading devices and a software section, also including commercially available packages next to academically developed reading environments which allow for flexible manipulation of text and other modalities; as well as reflections on digital scholarly reading. Combined, the two sections inform an integrated approach in the development of new research environments.


The purpose of the present study was to examine kindergarten student performance on a story retell task across at-risk and typically achieving groups (Intervention, Control, Reference) and language status (English-only, Englishlanguage learners). Additionally, the current study examined the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and the quality of production on a Story Retell task. Kindergarten students (n = 540) from twenty-two schools across Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Oregon completed a vocabulary program approximately 20 weeks in duration, including an additional vocabulary intervention for students in the Intervention group. Each student was assessed on vocabulary knowledge measures before and after completion of the vocabulary program, using both standardized and experimenter-developed formats: PPVT-4, Receptive Target Word, and Expressive Target Word. In addition, a Story Retell measure was completed with all students at the end of the school year. Results showed that language status had no impact when considering Story Retell performance across different groups of students within the course of an academic program. The students in the Intervention group performed better on the Story Retell task than the students in the Control group and the students in the Reference group performed better than both Intervention and Control groups. Further, the current study demonstrated that all vocabulary measures were positively correlated with the Story Retell comprehension measure and that PPVT-4 growth accounted for more unique variance in Story Retell performance than initial PPVT-4 scores. It was also established that student performance on the Expressive Target Word measure was the best predictor of the quality of Story Retell.


From the late 1800s and until the protection of polar bears came into force in 1973, there were regular private hunting expeditions to the Arctic by boat, including several from Tromso. In this article, I investigate how masculinity is manifested in specific empirical evidence: a trophy hunting expedition with the Sutton family that left from Tromso in the summer of 1932. Using masculinity as a lens through which to see the historical trophy hunt shows, however, that this activity deals with more than obtaining trophies and potency. The Sutton family expedition undertook to hunt, kill and stuff wild animals to the benefit of science and the general information of the public. Sutton himself goes in and out of the role of conqueror; he puts his trust in the Norwegian crew and highlights his recommendations for safety on such trips. By looking at a specific example such as Sutton's expedition, it is obvious that this also deals with various forms of masculinity – or manliness: about the conquering and mastering of nature, but also about an interest in and care of nature. Masculinity is seen in terms of civic ideals with an emphasis on rationality and discipline – a hunt in which women may also be granted a place – as well as the role of fatherhood with a responsibility for the training of new generations and educating the public by contributing to the development of scientific collections and the municipal zoo.


Abstract. The interaction between a glacier and its glacial lake plays an increasingly important role in glacier shrinkage and proglacial lake expansion, and it increases the risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Longbasaba Glacier is directly contacted by a moraine-dammed lake with a high outburst risk in the central Himalayas, and has drawn a great deal of attention from scientists and local governments. Based on Landsat images and in-situ measurements, the evolution records of the shrinkage of Longbasaba Glacier and the corresponding expansion of its proglacial lake were determined for 1988–2018, and the mass contributions of glacier shrinkage to the increase in lake water volume were assessed. During the past three decades, Longbasaba Glacier has experienced a continuous and accelerating recession in glacier area and length but accompanied by the decelerating surface lowing and ice flow. Consequently, Longbasaba Lake has expanded significantly at an accelerating rate. The glacier surface lowering played a predominant role in the mass contribution of glacier shrinkage to the increase in lake water volume, while ice avalanches were the main potential trigger for failure of moraine dams and subsequent GLOF events. Due to the areal expansion, decreasing mass contributions from parent glacier shrinkage, and some mitigation measures by local governments to improve the drainage systems, the potential risk of outburst for Longbasaba Lake has continuously decreased during the last decade.


AIMS: To compare the efficacy of and tolerance to oral fluconazole and intraconazole in preventing fungal infection in neutropenic patients with haematological malignancies. PATIENTS: 213 consecutive, afebrile adult patients treated with or without autologous stem cell transplantation for haematological malignancies. METHODS: A randomised, double blind, single centre study. Patients were randomly assigned to receive fluconazole 50 mg or itraconazole 100 mg, both twice daily in identical capsules. An intention to treat analysis was performed on 202 patients, 101 in each group. RESULTS: Microbiologically documented systemic fungal infections occurred in four patients in each group. Clinical fungal infection was thought to be present in seven recipients of fluconazole and four of itraconazole. In all 202 patients, 29 proceeded to intravenous amphotericin (amphotericin B), 16 in the fluconazole group and 13 in the itraconazole group. Superficial fungal infection was seen only in three non-compliant patients in the fluconazole group. All these infections were oral. No major differences were noted in the isolates of fungi in mouth washes and fecal samples. Overall mortality was 8.9% (18 deaths; seven in the fluconazole group, 11 in the itraconazole group). Mortality from microbiologically and clinically documented fungal infection was 4.5% (nine deaths; three in the fluconazole group, six in the itraconazole group). Median time to suspected or proven fungal infection was 16 days in both groups. None of these comparisons reached statistical significance (p < 0.05). No major clinical toxicity was noted and compliance was excellent. CONCLUSIONS: In neutropenic patients treated for haematological malignancies with or without autologous stem cell transplantation, fluconazole and itraconazole in low doses result in a similar low frequency of fungal disease. Fluconazole may be the preferable drug because of the smaller number of capsules and lack of need for timing relative to meals.


USA market is the benchmark for empirical finance and considered the closest example of how an efficient market should behave. On the other hand, divergent results from the observed in the USA are often associated with unreliable and due deviations from efficient hypothesis. However, how would the US market results behave had the data the same constraints as an emerging market economy? To answer that question, we analyze the risk premia market estimation under the typical constraints from emerging equity markets: the small number of assets and the short time-series sample available for estimation. We use parameters of timeseries length, number of assets and accounting variables distribution from the Brazilian equity market. Surprisingly, we conclude that the US market risk premia convey the same data features as the Brazilian risk premia if under the same time constraints. Then, we evaluate two potential causes of problems in risk premia estimations with small T: i) small sample bias on betas, and ii) divergence between ex-post and ex-ante risk premia. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we conclude that for the T around 5 years the beta estimates are no longer a problem. However, it is necessary to analyze a time-series sample exceeding 40 years to obtain robust ex-ante risk premia.


Background: Pemphigus is a chronic autoimmune blistering disease where systemic steroids and immunosuppressants are the mainstay of therapy, but long-term treatment with these agents is associated with many side effects. Rituximab, a chimeric monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody, in low doses has shown efficacy as an adjuvant to reduce the dose of steroids. Aim: To study the clinical efficacy and safety of low-dose rituximab as an adjuvant therapy in pemphigus. Methods: Fifty patients with extensive pemphigus were selected, who either had recalcitrant pemphigus, were steroid dependent, had relapsed after pulse therapy, had anti-desmoglein levels >20, had contraindications to conventional treatment or wanted to avoid conventional treatment and its side effects. Two doses of rituximab (500 mg) were given 2 weeks apart and patients were regularly followed up every 2 weeks for 3 months and then monthly upto 2 years. Complete blood counts, liver function tests, renal function tests, skin biopsy, direct immunofluorescence and desmoglein levels were checked before and after rituximab administration. Pre-rituximab chest X-ray and electrocardiograph were also obtained. Results: At 3 months, 41 (82%) patients showed complete remission. Nine (18%) patients had partial remission. After 6–12 months, 20 (40% of enrolled patients) continued to be in remission and were off all systemic therapy and the remaining 19 (38%) were continuing to take low doses of steroids with or without other adjuvant immunosuppressants and 2 (4%) had to be given another 2 doses of rituximab and subsequently could be managed with low-dose steroids. Of the 9 patients in partial remission at 3 months, after 6–12 months 5 (10% of the total) were completely off treatment and went into complete remission and 4 (8%) were on additional treatment out of which 2 (4%) had to be given 2 additional doses of rituximab and were in partial remission with low-dose therapy at the end of 12 months. One patient developed urticaria as a side effect. Another developed herpes zoster. Conclusion: Our results show that low-dose rituximab is a well-tolerated and beneficial adjuvant therapy in recalcitrant pemphigus which helps reduce both the severity of disease as well as the dose of steroids and immunosuppressants.


Varieties of Native American English, especially those spoken by groups east of the Mississippi River, have been relatively underrepresented in the description of ethnolinguistic variation in American English, and almost completely disregarded in terms of prosody, arguably one of one of the most striking features of some ethnolinguistic varieties. This paper examines one aspect of prosody, rhythm, using the Pairwise Variability Index (PVI) as applied previously to British and Singapore English (Low, Grabe, & Nolan 2001), African American and Southern English (Thomas & Carter 2006), and Hispanic English (Carter 2005). PVI, which normalizes for overall speaking rate, compares adjacent syllables, where a greater difference corresponds with a more stress-timed language and a smaller difference corresponds with a more syllable-timed language. The analysis focuses on Eastern Cherokee English as spoken in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Lumbee English as spoken in the Coastal Plain of North Carolina. Though both groups are primarily rural, their backgrounds vary. The Eastern Cherokee are a federally recognized tribe with knowledge of their ancestral language but small numbers (about 6,000). They are the only ethnic minority of note in their region surrounded by European Americans. The Lumbee, on the other hand, have much larger numbers (over 46,000), making them approximately equal in number to their African American and European American cohorts; they are also the largest tribe east of the Mississippi. The Lumbee have no current ancestral language, as they are most likely the result of an ethnogenic mix of several tribes decimated by disease and war after the arrival of Europeans. In fact, they were "discovered" in the 1730s speaking English. They are federally recognized without entitlements, placing them in an indeterminate position with respect to their status. Previous studies of these two groups (Anderson 1999, Coggshall 2006, Schilling-Estes 2000, Wolfram & Dannenberg 1999) have shown that, while the Eastern Cherokee differ little from their non-Indian cohorts in vowel quality and syntax, the Lumbee do differ from their non-Indian cohorts. The rhythm data, however, show a different pattern. Eastern Cherokee English is much more syllable-timed than European Americans, but Lumbee English does not differ from either their European or African American cohorts' English, though there is a slight shift towards more syllable-timing in the younger speakers. The pattern among the Eastern Cherokee is most likely the result of a substrate influence from Cherokee passed down to the monolingual English generations. On the other hand, have not had a native speaker of the Lumbee language or languages for many generations and, indeed, we do not know the nature of the prosodic structure of such languages. Thus, the prosodic rhythm of Lumbee English is unsurprising. This initial inquiry into suprasegmental aspects of varieties of Native American English suggests that prosodic rhythm may be a locus of a pan-Native American English ethnolinguistic variety, much like the glottal stop as proposed by Rowicka (2005). The detailed comparison of these varieties further offers an enhanced understanding of issues such as substrate influence and dialect contact.


Little explored and virtually inaccessible, the Tsangpo Gorge in south-east Tibet is the world's deepest gorge. Through it twists the Yarlong Tsangpo, Tibet's great river, emerging from below on the plains of India. This is the story of its exploration and the rich plant and animal life found there. "Riddle of the Tsangpo Gorges", first published in 1926, is the fascinating account of plant-hunter and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward's most important expedition. Kenneth Cox, Kenneth Storm, Jr. and Ian Baker spent over ten years retracing the route of the 1924-25 expedition and managed to reach further into this magical and only partly explored land. The book contains the original Kingdon Ward text and extensive additional material, including a history of the exploration, geography and religious significance of the area and more than 250 colour photographs with detailed captions on the plants of the area, most of which are described by Kingdon Ward in the original text. There are first person accounts of expeditions to the area by Kenneth Cox and Kenneth Storm. Jr. and a photographic essay documents, for the first time in a book, the new Hidden Falls located in the portion of the gorge left unexplored by Frank Kingdon Ward and Lord Cawdor in 1924.


The aim of this paper is identify and explore the conceptual framework of the relationship among country of origin, familiarity, and world-mindedness toward purchased decision through trust and perceived risk mediating role. The identification result obtains conceptual framework of variable relationship that influences imported product purchased decision. The identification result indicates that when the business consumer perception on the country of origin, familiarity, and world-mindedness is positive, then it will improve consumer belief in making a purchased decision. Trust and perceived risk has reciprocal relationship. Purchased decision, to some extent, is influenced by trust first and then considers the perceived risk possibility. On the other hand, farmers consider purchase risk so that they have to gather product information as many as possible then evaluate the product to build product quality belief during the purchased decision process. Originality delivers integrated conceptual framework to explain the relationship of purchased decision with country of origin, familiarity, and world-mindedness as mediated by the role of trust and perceived risk.


Rational choice theory has become the basis for much of the recent work done in political science. Yet explanations of many political phenomena elude rational choice theorists. Robert Grafstein offers a modification to rational choice theory that extends its ability to explain social behavior.Grafstein argues that, instead of basing the analysis on the assumption that an actor will maximise her expected utility or her utility given the probability that the event will happen, we should define rationality as the maximisation of expected utility conditional on the probability that her act will bring the event about. This definition of utility, based on the work of Richard Jeffrey, restores the consequences of an individual's act to rational choice analysis. For example, in making a decision to vote, a conditional expected utility maximiser will compare the likelihood of victory for her preferred candidate given her own participation with the likelihood of a victory given her abstention.The author shows the theoretical implications of this new definition of rationality and then uses it to explain certain aspects of ethnic identity and mobilization, ideology, and altruism and intertemporal choice. He then explores the implications of this idea for policy analysis and econometrics. This book will provoke a debate about how work based in rational choice theories is done.Robert Grafstein is Professor of Political Science, University of Georgia.


Wireless multi-hop networks, in various forms and under various names, are being increasingly used in military and civilian applications. Studying connectivity and capacity of these networks is an important problem. The scaling behavior of connectivity and capacity when the network becomes sufficiently large is of particular interest. In this paper, we briefly overview recent development and discuss research challenges and opportunities in the area, with a focus on the network connectivity. We demonstrate some intrinsic connections between the connectivity analysis and capacity analysis and point out the fundamental pa- rameters determining the capacity of a wireless multi-hop network.


We present the development of superstructure fiber gratings (SFG) in Ge-doped, silica optical fiber using femtosecond laser inscription. We apply a simple but extremely effective single step process to inscribe low loss, sampled gratings with minor polarization dependence. The method results in a controlled modulated index change with complete suppression of mode coupling associated with the overlapping LPG structure leading to highly symmetric superstructure spectra, with the grating reflection well within the Fourier design limit. The devices are characterized and compared with numerical modeling by solving Maxwell's equations and calculating the back reflection spectrum using the bidirectional beam propagation method (BiBPM). Experimental results validate our numerical analysis, allowing for the estimation of inscription parameters such as the ac index modulation change, and the wavelength, position and relative strength of each significant resonance peak. We also present results on temperature and refractive index measurements showing potential for sensing applications.


Models of programming and debugging suggest many causes of errors, and many classifications of error types exist. Yet, there has been no attempt to link causes of errors to these classifications, nor is there a common vocabulary for reasoning about such causal links. This makes it difficult to compare the abilities of programming styles, languages, and environments to prevent errors. To address this issue, this paper presents a model of programming errors based on past studies of errors. The model was evaluated with two observational of Alice, an event-based programming system, revealing that most errors were due to attentional and strategic problems in implementing algorithms, language constructs, and uses of libraries. In general, the model can support theoretical, design, and educational programming research.


The methylation of cytosines in CpG dinucleotides is essential for cellular differentiation and the progression of many cancers, and it plays an important role in gametic imprinting. To assess variation and inheritance of genome-wide patterns of DNA methylation simultaneously in humans, we applied reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) to somatic DNA from six members of a three-generation family. We observed that 8.1% of heterozygous SNPs are associated with differential methylation in cis, which provides a robust signature for Mendelian transmission and relatedness. The vast majority of differential methylation between homologous chromosomes (>92%) occurs on a particular haplotype as opposed to being associated with the gender of the parent of origin, indicating that genotype affects DNA methylation of far more loci than does gametic imprinting. We found that 75% of genotype-dependent differential methylation events in the family are also seen in unrelated individuals and that overall genotype can explain 80% of the variation in DNA methylation. These events are under-represented in CpG islands, enriched in intergenic regions, and located in regions of low evolutionary conservation. Even though they are generally not in functionally constrained regions, 22% (twice as many as expected by chance) of genes harboring genotype-dependent DNA methylation exhibited allele-specific gene expression as measured by RNA-seq of a lymphoblastoid cell line, indicating that some of these events are associated with gene expression differences. Overall, our results demonstrate that the influence of genotype on patterns of DNA methylation is widespread in the genome and greatly exceeds the influence of imprinting on genome-wide methylation patterns.


This paper will discuss the features and the trends of Portugal?s future maritime activities in the context of a political process related to the enlargement of the continental shelf. It is our belief that the extension of Portugal?s continental shelf will have a multidimensional impact over a set of different economic activities and it will represent a major challenge in terms of our geopolitical orientation. This way, we chose a set of specialists with different scientific backgrounds and professional experience, in order to put our main hypothesis into test. In practical terms, and with the goal to evaluate our main objective, we have launched a DELPHI survey, collecting the opinion of said pre-selected panel of specialists. This panel included specialists in politics, economics, military and academia. This paper is divided into four sections: In the first part, we will discuss some theoretical trends related to maritime related activities and maritime transport that might have a strong impact in Portugal?s political and economic options towards the Atlantic. It is important to stress that the enlargement of the continental shelf will bring different impacts over a diverse range of sectors, including transports, logistics, defense and different branches of economic activities. In the second part, we will present the methodological concerns related to the DELPHI method, in order to explain our main choices where this method multidimensional impact derived from the enlargement of Portugal?s continental shelf. The third part of our paper will be dedicated to our case-study, that is, the impact derived from the enlargement of Portugal?s continental shelf. It will be the author?s main concern to discuss the differential impacts over four main areas: a) advantages that might come as a result of the said enlargement; b) Management related issues; c) Portugal weaknesses that might play a negative role in terms of the continental shelf future management; d) Multidimensional solutions towards the future. In terms of methodological options it is important to point out that for one part, the DELPHI Inquiry was divided according to those four main issues and, that for another part, we launched two rounds of questions. In the second round, we chose only the questions that were considered as more controversial taking into account the answers obtained during the first round of inquiry; In the final section of our paper, we will discuss the main results from our survey and we will propose some guidelines for further research.


In the world of the Internet, the rapid growth and exponential use of digital medias leads to the emergence of virtual environments namely digital ecosystems composed of multiple and independent entities such as individuals, organizations, services, software and applications sharing one or several missions and focusing on the interactions and inter-relationships among them. The digital ecosystem exhibits self-organizing environments, thanks to the re-combination and evolution of its "digital components", in which resources provided by each entity are properly conserved, managed and used. The underlying resources mainly comprehend data management, innovative services, computational intelligence and self-organizing platforms.

Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of digital ecosystems and their characteristics, they are highly complex to study and design. This also leads to a poor understanding as to how managing resources will empower digital ecosystems to be innovative and value-creating. The application of Information Technologies has the potential to enable the understanding of how entities request resources and ultimately interact to create benefits and added-values, impacting business practices and knowledge . These technologies can be improved through novel techniques, models and methodologies for fields such as data management, web technologies, networking, security, human-computer interactions, artificial intelligence, e-services and self-organizing systems to support the establishment of digital ecosystems and manage their resources.

The International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems (MEDES) aims to develop and bring together a diverse community from academia, research laboratories and industry interested in exploring the manifold challenges and issues related to resource management of Digital Ecosystems and how current approaches and technologies can be evolved and adapted to this end.


This report reviews research from the 1930s to the present that has extended our understanding by investigating the characteristics of tinnitus that can be studied using psychoacoustic techniques. Studies of tinnitus masking and residual inhibition began in the 1970s, leading to the therapeutic use of tinnitus masking and a consequent increase in research devoted to tinnitus measurement. In 1981, the CIBA Foundation symposium on tinnitus advocated general adoption of four tinnitus measures: (1) pitch, (2) loudness, (3) maskability, and (4) residual inhibition. Since then, psychoacoustic research into all four topics has proliferated, yielding many valuable insights and controversies concerning the details of measurement techniques. A consensus has emerged that neither the loudness nor other psychoacoustic measures of tinnitus bear a consistent relation to the severity or perceived loudness of tinnitus. Nevertheless, quantification is needed in clinical trials of proposed treatments and in a variety of other types of tinnitus research. Standardization of techniques for specifying the acoustic parameters of tinnitus thus continues to be an important research goal.


Abstract 2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the planting of Plymouth Colony. Although the literature about Plymouth is voluminous, the discussion about law and religion has been inappropriately superficial to date. This article addresses the Pilgrims' conception of law on matters of religion and the new insights into the Pilgrims' story that can be ascertained by focusing on law. "Law" has been defined in many different ways by many different people throughout history. Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and other proponents of natural law argued that law is the exercise of reason to deduce binding rules of moral behavior from nature's or God's creation. The renowned English positivist John Austin, in contrast, maintained that law is the command of the sovereign. To Karl von Savigny and other proponents of the so-called historical school, law is the unconscious embodiment of the common will of the people. To the philosophical school, law is the expression of idealized ethical custom. The dominant contemporary view seems to be that law is the reflection of social, political, and economic interests. For the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony, law was both the memorialization of their commitment to the Word of God and an instrument for exercising social control so as to effectuate that commitment. The Pilgrims, of course, used law to regulate the more mundane aspects of life as well. Indeed, quantitatively speaking, more laws were enacted by the Pilgrims that addressed the day-to-day activities of life in Plymouth Colony than memorialized the Pilgrims' commitment to eternal glory in the afterlife, but the latter was unquestionably more important, qualitatively speaking, than the former. In the oft-quoted words of a young William Bradford, "to keep a good conscience, and walk in such a way as God has prescribed in his Word, is a thing which I must prefer before you all, and above life itself."


Mining is among the oldest industries. It is the primary source of raw materials for most of the sectors. Little is known about the complex inter-sectoral carbon linkages of the mining industry. In this work, we estimate the inter- and intra-sectoral carbon linkage impacts of the mining sector across ten major economies by applying an input-output model, and the hypothetical extraction method and its modified version. The hypothetical extraction method removes an industrial block from an economic system, and afterwards, it makes a comparison between the before and after removal values. China with 195.47 Mt has the highest mining emissions, followed by USA, India, and Canada with 110.99 Mt, 108.79 Mt, and 76.92 Mt, respectively. The India's mining sector with 26.33 t/104 $ is the most carbon-intensive, followed by Japan and Canada with 6.84 t/104 $ and 5.22 t/104 $, respectively. China's carbon emissions with -11.56% and -11.28%, respectively, have been affected the most by the total extraction of mining sector and forward carbon linkages, while for the backward carbon linkage, Canada with -1.33% has been affected the most. Canada has the highest mixed and internal emissions of 0.42 Mt and 47.88 Mt, respectively. However, China has the highest net-backward and net-forward emissions of 16.91 Mt and 189.22 Mt, respectively. For all nations, the mining sector is a net exporter of emissions to other industries. Based on the numerical findings, in this work, we discuss the mitigation measures for both the direct and indirect mining emissions.


The rapid growth of mobile devices has resulted in the generation of a large number of user behavior logs that contain latent intentions and user interests. However, exploiting such data in real-world applications is still difficult for service providers due to the complexities of user behavior over a sheer number of possible actions that can vary according to time. In this work, a time-aware RNN model, TRNN, is proposed for predictive analysis from user behavior data. First, our approach predicts next user action more accurately than the baselines including the n-gram models as well as two recently introduced time-aware RNN approaches. Second, we use TRNN to learn user embeddings from sequences of user actions and show that overall the TRNN embeddings outperform conventional RNN embeddings. Similar to how word embeddings benefit a wide range of task in natural language processing, the learned user embeddings are general and could be used in a variety of tasks in the digital marketing area. This claim is supported empirically by evaluating their utility in user conversion prediction, and preferred application prediction. According to the evaluation results, TRNN embeddings perform better than the baselines including Bag of Words (BoW), TFIDF and Doc2Vec. We believe that TRNN embeddings provide an effective representation for solving practical tasks such as recommendation, user segmentation and predictive analysis of business metrics.


Neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, and brain imaging studies have helped to shed light on how the brain transforms raw sensory information into a form that is useful for goal-directed behavior. A fundamental question that is seldom addressed by these studies, however, is why the brain uses the types of representations it does and what evolutionary advantage, if any, these representations confer. It is difficult to address such questions directly via animal experiments. A promising alternative is to use probabilistic principles such as maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference to derive models of brain function. This book surveys some of the current probabilistic approaches to modeling and understanding brain function. Although most of the examples focus on vision, many of the models and techniques are applicable to other modalities as well. The book presents top-down computational models as well as bottom-up neurally motivated models of brain function. The topics covered include Bayesian and information-theoretic models of perception, probabilistic theories of neural coding and spike timing, computational models of lateral and cortico-cortical feedback connections, and the development of receptive field properties from natural signals.


This paper accounts for the intercontinental elaboration of French mathematician Laurent Schwartz's theory of distributions in the years immediately following World War II by tracing how mathematicians explained the theory to each other, advanced new interpretations, and reconciled existing ones. Situating distributions in mathematicians' changing contexts of funding, travel, and publication, especially in connection with the postwar reconstruction of international science, I argue that wordplay and suggestive comparisons—often termed "abuses of language"—helped tie communities of scholars together across disparate geographies and fields of study. Material limits and linguistic ambiguity, here, offered important resources for asserting relevance and unity in a fragmented and heterogeneous discipline. I show in particular how reinterpretations and puns of the calculus technique of integration by parts helped advocates of Schwartz's theory create a far-reaching community of students and researchers that was itself partially integrated—with distributions' scholars believing themselves to be using a common theory while understanding and using that theory in considerably different (if sometimes mutually recognizable) ways. If exponents of modern mathematical research and pedagogy tend to emphasize settled theories and stabilized innovations, the history of these activities demands a converse emphasis on the variable and ongoing labor required to reconcile techniques and concepts—a labor that often hinges on theories' instability, pliability, and susceptibility to play.


The paper focuses on the opportunities and costs of online steering as applied to a substantial parallel application. We demonstrate potential performance improvements through the use of the Falcon system, an experimental system for the online monitoring and steering of parallel programs. The visual presentation of program output along with animated displays of program performance information via Falcon's monitoring system enables the online capture, analysis, and display of program information required for program steering. Falcon also provides the mechanisms for the manipulations of program state that accomplish this online steering.<<ETX>>


The ubiquity of the Internet has led to increased resource sharing between large numbers of users in widely-disparate administrative domains. Unfortunately, traditional identity-based solutions to the authorization problem do not allow for the dynamic establishment of trust, and thus cannot be used to facilitate interactions between previously-unacquainted parties. Furthermore, the management of identity-based systems becomes burdensome as the number of users in the system increases. To address this gap between the needs of open computing systems and existing authorization infrastructures, researchers have begun to investigate novel attribute-based access control (ABAC) systems based on techniques such as trust negotiation and other forms of distributed proving.
To date, research in these areas has been largely theoretical and has produced many important foundational results. However, if these techniques are to be safely deployed in practice, the systems-level barriers hindering their adoption must be overcome. In this thesis, we show that safely and securely adopting decentralized ABAC approaches to authorization is not simply a matter of implementation and deployment, but requires careful consideration of both formal properties and practical issues. To this end, we investigate a progression of important questions regarding the safety analysis, deployment, implementation, and optimization of these types of systems.
We first show that existing ABAC theory does not properly account for the asynchronous nature of open systems, which allows attackers to subvert these systems by forcing decisions to be made using inconsistent system states. To address this, we develop provably-secure and lightweight consistency enforcement mechanisms suitable for use in trust negotiation and distributed proof systems. We next focus on deployment issues, and investigate how user interactions can be audited in the absence of concrete user identities. We develop the technique of virtual fingerprinting, which can be used to accomplish this task without adversely affecting the scalability of audit systems. Lastly, we present TrustBuilder2, which is the first fully-configurable framework for trust negotiation. Within this framework, we examine availability problems associated with the trust negotiation process and develop a novel approach to policy compliance checking that leverages an efficient pattern-matching approach to outperform existing techniques by orders of magnitude.


This paper discusses the challenges of countering far‐Right political violence in the wake of the terrorist attack carried out by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in July 2011. With brief case studies of Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, it argues that classic neo‐Nazi groups are being supplemented by new ' counter‐jihadist' far‐Right movements, which use various modes of political action, including participation in elections, street‐based activism and terrorist violence. Building on recent interest among scholars and practitioners in the role of narratives and performativity in counter‐terrorism, this paper argues that official security discourses tend to hinder efforts to cou nter far‐Right violence and can unwittingly provide opportunities for counter‐jihadists to advance their own narratives. When leaders and officials of Western European governments narrate issues of multiculturalism and radical Islamism in ways that overlap with counter‐jihadist ideology, it suggests a need for reflection on the un intended side‐ effects of their security discourse. The paper concludes with a discussion of how governments can rework their security narratives to oppose far‐Right violence.


London is famous for Big Ben; Paris for the Eiffel Tower; Rome for the Colosseum. Barcelona, on the other hand, is not identified by one or two famous buildings as these other European cities, but rather by an entire movement of turn-of-the-century architecture known simply as "Modernisme." Familiar to Americans as art nouveau, its most famous practitioner was the artist and architect Antoni Gaudi. But the city is filled with superb examples of art nouveau in vivid color in "Barcelona Art Nouveau." This book offers a tour of 46 houses, public buildings, and monuments in the art-nouveau style, including brand-new photographs of the work of Gaudi. Visit the famous literary cafe Els Quarte Gats, which was once patronized by Pablo Picasso, who also designed the menu. Lose yourself in the whimsical curves of Casa Josep Batllo, a wonderful example of the combination of artisan tradition and richness that exemplifies art nouveau. These structures, fully restored to pristine condition for the 1992 Olympics, have been rediscovered by both foreigners and Barcelonans alike, and are captured inside and out in this fascinating record of the adventurous, undulating designs of an exciting era.


This report provides an overview and analysis of the current understanding of how "experiential learning" is conceptualized, implemented and evaluated in professional service fields of study. Better understanding of this educational approach will benefit educators as well as students. Experiential learning is an integral part of the authors' institutional culture: 90% of all undergraduate programs include an experiential learning component (Learning and Teaching Office, Ryerson University, 2015). Experiential learning is also rapidly expanding in other Ontario universities (Council of Ontario Universities, 2014). Despite its prevalent use, the field of experiential learning remains under-researched and the research that has been done is fragmented. There is a lack of evidence to support the extent to which this type of learning bridges the gap between theory and practice, broadens career prospects, and contributes to the development of students' critical thinking skills. This report focuses on the nine professional fields associated with the Faculty of Community Services, Ryerson University: Child and Youth Care, Disability Studies, Early Childhood Studies, Midwifery, Nursing, Nutrition, Public and Occupational Health, Regional and Urban Planning and Social work. (Executive Summary, page 3)


This paper provides evidence for why individuals join unions instead of free-riding. I model membership as legal insurance. To test the model, I use the incidence of news stories concerning allegations against teachers in the UK as a plausibly exogenous shock to demand for such insurance. I find that, for every five stories occurring in a region, teachers are 2.2 percentage points more likely to be members in the subsequent year. These effects are larger when teachers share characteristics with the news story and can explain 45 percent of the growth in teacher union membership between 1992 and 2010.


The amygdaloid complex receives sensory information from a variety of sources. A widely held view is that the amygdaloid complex utilizes this information to orchestrate appropriate species‐specific behaviors to ongoing experiences. Relatively little is known, however, about the circuitry through which information is processed within the amygdaloid complex. The lateral nucleus is the major recipient of extrinsic sensory information and is the origin of many intra‐amygdaloid projections. In this study, we reinvestigated the organization of intraamygdaloid projections originating from the lateral nucleus using the anterograde tracer Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin (PHA‐L). The lateral nucleus has highly organized intranuclear connections. Dense projections interconnect rostral and caudal levels of the lateral and the medial divisions of the nucleus, and the lateral and medial divisions of the lateral nucleus are also interconnected. The major extranuclear projections of the lateral nucleus are (in descending order of magnitude) to the accessory basal nucleus, the basal nucleus, the periamygdaloid cortex, the dorsal portion of the central division of the medial nucleus, the posterior cortical nucleus, the capsular division of the central nucleus, and the lateral division of the amygdalohippocampal area. The pattern of extranuclear projections varied depending on the rostrocaudal or mediolateral location of the injection site within the lateral nucleus. These findings indicate that intra‐amygdaloid projections originating in the lateral nucleus are both more widespread and more topographically organized than was previously appreciated. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


EPAStat is the first PerformanceStat system to be used at the agency level in the federal government. A short history of agency-level performance management systems compares EPAStat to its precursors at the Environmental Protection Agency. This study examines the development of EPAStat, particularly the measures used in its quarterly reporting system. The process behind measures selection is described and analyzed from the perspective of the principals, as are lessons learned. While there are common challenges and lessons learned among participants, there are clear differences between the headquarters offices and the regional offices in terms of how measures were selected, the types of metrics chosen, and the perceived worth of EPAStat as an agency-wide performance management system.


Papilio memnon is a Swallowtail butterfly widely distributed in South-East Asia. The females are highly polymorphic and many of them are Batesian mimics. A previous paper gives an account of the mode of inheritance of seventeen of these female forms and here we describe the inheritance of nine from Java and Sumatra, an area we had not investigated before. We have also obtained further information on some of the forms whose modes of inheritance are not clear in the earlier paper. The nine new forms and one of those previously investigated (f. thunbergi) have been shown to be determined by the same complex locus or super-gene which controls the polymorphism already studied. The results from the present genetic investigation confirm the previous findings in P. memnon and P. dardanus that the resemblance of a form to its model is greater in the gene complex of the race in which the form is found than it is in intra-specific hybrid gene complexes. This suggests that the detailed resemblance of the mimic to its model has been built up gradually by the accumulation of modifiers. Of particular interest in this connexion is the mimic f. achates in Java and South Sumatra in which the heterozygote is a better mimic than the homozygote in the gene complex of its own race. Evidence has also been accumulated on the nature of dominance. Previously, complete dominance was present between most sympatric forms and absent between allopatric ones, both in P. dardanus and P. memnon. In contrast, the forms found in Java and Sumatra show only partial dominance between sympatric forms in most instances. However, in a hybrid gene complex the heterozygotes are even more intermediate. Thus, on these two islands the evolution of dominance has proceeded less far than elsewhere. There is ample evidence for the presence of dominance modifiers, but we are uncertain whether the absence of full dominance results from the modifiers having other, more powerful, selective forces acting upon them, or whether insufficient time has elapsed for full dominance to have evolved. In a complex Batesian mimetic polymorphism the forms must either be controlled by multiple allelomorphs at a single locus, by a group of closely linked loci (a super-gene), or by independent genes having complex epistatic interactions. In both P. dardanus and P. memnon it has been established that super-genes have been evolved. The present study throws further light on the super-gene in P. memnon. We have reason to believe that a number of very rare forms (some of which we have bred) result from crossing over rather than from point mutations, since if mutations were responsible we should have expected some of the patterns to be controlled by loci unassociated with the super-gene. This is not the case. Furthermore, in one instance, a double mutation would be required to explain the pattern. On the assumption that crossing over is the explanation of these rare forms we have postulated five loci. These control the presence or absence of tails (T), hindwing pattern (W), forewing pattern (F), colour of the basal triangle or epaulette on the forewing (E), and abdomen colour (B). Previously we had deduced that W must lie between T and B. The present study has given independent support to this order and also suggested that neither W nor B lies between E and F, and that T does not lie between W and E, the probable order being TWFEB. If the hypothesis is correct the initial mimic of P. sycorax could have been produced by a single crossover, and f. anceus, the modern mimic, evolved by subsequent minor modifications. In our investigations into the genetics of Batesian mimicry we have found that the polymorphism is controlled by a multiple allelic series at one locus or by a super-gene in P. dardanus, P. memnon and P. polytes (unpublished). This contrasts with the situation in Mullerian mimicry. In order to see whether the evolution of such super-genes is a general phenomenon or whether in other genera of Lepidoptera, and perhaps in other orders, complex epistatic interactions have been developed rather than super-genes, it will be necessary to extend this investigation outside the genus Papilio. We have already started to study Pseudacraea eurytus from Africa, which seems a particularly suitable species to use since the Batesian relationships of its forms are well documented.


We report on 176 close (<2″) stellar companions detected with high-resolution imaging near 170 hosts of Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs). These Kepler targets were prioritized for imaging follow-up based on the presence of small planets, so most of the KOIs in these systems (176 out of 204) have nominal radii <6 . Each KOI in our sample was observed in at least two filters with adaptive optics, speckle imaging, lucky imaging, or the Hubble Space Telescope. Multi-filter photometry provides color information on the companions, allowing us to constrain their stellar properties and assess the probability that the companions are physically bound. We find that 60%–80% of companions within 1″ are bound, and the bound fraction is >90% for companions within 0.″5; the bound fraction decreases with increasing angular separation. This picture is consistent with simulations of the binary and background stellar populations in the Kepler field. We also reassess the planet radii in these systems, converting the observed differential magnitudes to a contamination in the Kepler bandpass and calculating the planet radius correction factor, XR = Rp(true)/Rp(single). Under the assumption that planets in bound binaries are equally likely to orbit the primary or secondary, we find a mean radius correction factor for planets in stellar multiples of XR = 1.65. If stellar multiplicity in the Kepler field is similar to the solar neighborhood, then nearly half of all Kepler planets may have radii underestimated by an average of 65%, unless vetted using high-resolution imaging or spectroscopy.


The Baffin Bay, located between Canada and Greenland, is a sediment filled oceanic basin which developed during Paleocene and Eocene times. Its genesis is closely related to the opening of Labrador Sea and Davis Strait. While the crust of the Labrador Sea and Davis Strait has been studied in detail, data on central and northern Baffin Bay is scarce. Southern Baffin Bay is underlain by oceanic crust with volcanic margins. The margins of northern Baffin Bay are characterized by serpentinized mantle material. To study the crustal structure of central and northern Baffin Bay and analyse the change from amagmatic to volcanic margins, a multidisciplinary scientific cruise was undertaken in 2010. Refraction seismic profiles were acquired along with other geophysical data in the Greenlandic part of Baffin Bay. We present a P-wave velocity model of one of these profiles. The 321-km-long profile consists of 25 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) and runs from the deep area of northern Baffin Bay to the shelf area of Melville Bay.
The model can be divided into different crustal sections: In the central Northern Baffin Bay, 6-km-thick sediments overlay a 3-5 km thick oceanic crust, which thickens towards the continental slope. At the shelf edge, a buried seamount and high velocities in the lower crust are indicators for volcanic activity and intrusions of mafic material in this region. These features mark the onset of the transition between oceanic and continental crust. The stretched continental crust of Melville Bay is characterized by basement highs and deep sediment basins. Well constrained reflections of the Moho can be found at a depth of 22-24 km in many seismic sections. Near the Greenland margin, a basement outcrop, characterized by high velocities, is present.


The JET experimental campaign has focused on studies in support of the ITER physics basis. An overview of the results obtained is given for the reference ELMy H mode and advanced scenarios, which in JET are based on internal transport barriers. JET studies for ELMy H mode have been instrumental in the definition of ITER FEAT. Positive elongation and current scaling in the ITER scaling law have been confirmed, but the observed density scaling fits a two term (core and edge) model better. Significant progress in neoclassical tearing mode limits has been made showing that ITER operation with q(95) around 3.3 seems to be optimized. Effective helium pumping and divertor enrichment is found to be well within ITER requirements. Target asymmetries and hydrogen isotope retention are well simulated by modelling codes taking into account drift flows in the scrape-off plasmas. Striking improvements in fuelling effectiveness have been made with the new high field pellet launch facility. Good progress has been made on scenarios for achieving good confinement at high densities, both with radiation improved modes and with high field side pellets. Significant development of advanced scenarios, in view of their application to ITER, has been achieved. Progress towards integrated advanced scenarios is well developed with edge pressure control (impurity radiation). An access domain has been explored showing, in particular, that the power threshold increases with magnetic field but can be significantly reduced when lower hybrid current drive is used to produce target plasmas with negative shear. The role of ion pressure peaking on MHD has been well documented. Lack of sufficient additional heating power and interaction with the septum at high beta prevents assessment of the beta limits (steady plasmas achieved with beta (N) up to 2.6). Plasmas with a non-inductive current (I-NI/I-p = 60%), well aligned with the plasma current, high beta and good confinement have also been obtained.


There is a potential for major structural damage to offshore installations leading to fatalities and serious injuries in the event of collision by either a passing or an in-field seagoing vessel. Both categories of collision have occurred on the UK Continental Shelf although to date only significant, rather than catastrophic, consequences have occurred. Internationally, collisions have occurred that have caused both loss of life and environmental damage. This report describes work to update the Ship/Platform Collision Incident Database for the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) and the collision frequency analysis which was previously described in Research Report RR053 (2001). Report RR1153 considers collision threat detection. Data was collected from collision incident record sources to confirm or complete previous records and to expand the database up to December 2015. The database overlaps with the previous version by providing information from 1996 to 2015. The database of operating experience has been recompiled and extended to encompass all mobile and fixed installations operating on the UKCS and takes into account recent abandonments. The main database includes actual collisions, while 'near misses' are analysed in a separate section. In an attempt to expand the previous database and gain further understanding of the scale and nature of the 'near miss' events, data from a variety of sources is included: the findings are interpreted in section 4 of the report.


Extended classifier systems (XCS) suffer from suboptimal performance when the optimal classifiers of the functions they deal with overlap. As this overlap is the property of Boolean functions and the generalization capabilities of the ternary alphabet {0,1,#}, it is necessary to improve XCS to better deal with those functions that make up most of the possible Boolean functions. This paper proposes two techniques that improve XCS performance, both in terms of system and population state metrics. The first technique, termed Essentiality Assessment, alters the current fitness update mechanism by disallowing competition between potentially essential classifiers. The second technique, named Individualized Learning Rate, proposes an individually computed learning rate for each classifier based on the level of generality of each classifier. The results obtained show improvement and significance both in absolute and statistical terms, for the vast majority of system and population state metrics. This paper is a contribution toward improving XCS performance when dealing with single-step problems that necessarily require overlapping classifiers for their optimal solution.


A simple design paradigm for making broadband ultrathin plasmonic absorbers is introduced. The absorber's unit cell is composed of subunits of various sizes, resulting in nearly 100% absorbance at multiple adjacent frequencies and high absorbance over a broad frequency range. A simple theoretical model for designing broadband absorbers is presented. It uses a single-resonance model to describe the optical response of each subunit and employs the series circuit model to predict the overall response. Validity of the circuit model relies on short propagation lengths of the surface plasmons.


The global climate challenges and growing discrepancy between the availability and demand
for natural resources have driven many industries to alter their practices. The construction
industry is highly responsible for climate impact and natural resource usage. The pressure
for the industry to change is apparent but lacking the required innovation capability as a
major obstacle. At the same time, the call for new sustainable solutions provide great
business opportunities for organisations.
The aim of the study is to analyse the drivers and barriers for implementing sustainable
materials into construction projects in Gothenburg, Sweden. The case of timber structures in
multi-storey buildings represents a material that has recently been reintroduced to the
Swedish construction industry. The theoretical basis is constructed upon current research on
the topics of sustainability, socio-technical systems, resource analysis and construction
innovation. The research involves three steps. Firstly, the perspectives of a diverse set of
stakeholders are provided. Secondly, the case studies of twelve construction projects
formulate the context of timber construction in Sweden. Thirdly, four in-depth perspectives
are summarised from Gothenburg stakeholders that represent the public sector, private
sector and academia.
The results show the political pressure for implementing timber constructions in Gothenburg
due to the associated sustainability benefits. However, the activities of various stakeholders
hinder the progress. Similar innovations in other regions have required strong strategic
orientations by municipalities, timber industry firms and property developers. The ensuing
networks of organisations have provided the resource bases for successful innovation
projects. In addition, stable relationships enable the industry to seek benefits from advancing
the processes of timber construction, such as standardisation and prefabrication. The
successful introduction of sustainable materials into construction requires intense
collaboration between the public sector, private sector and academia.
The findings of the research provide a framework which can explain and guide the enabling
processes for sustainability transitions in the construction industry. Furthermore, with certain
adaptations, the research methodology and process could be applied to other industries due
to its suitability for explaining pressures on existing systems. Apart from further research, the
results are applicable for regional policy-making and strategy formulation of existing and
starting businesses.


In a game where players are expected to call their own penalties and scoring the least points leads to victory, decorum takes precedence over showmanship and philosophical questions become par for the course. Few other sports are as suited for ethical and metaphysical examination as golf. It is a game defined by dichotomies relaxing, yet frustrating, social, yet solitary and between these extremes there is room for much philosophical inquiry. In Golf and Philosophy: Lessons from the Links, a clubhouse full of skilled contributors tee off on a range of philosophical topics within the framework of the fairway. The book's chapters are arranged in the style of an eighteen-hole golf course, with the front nine exploring ethical matters of rationality and social civility in a world of moral hazards and roughs. The back nine pries even deeper, slicing into matters of the metaphysical, including chapters on mysticism, idealism, identity, and meaning. Taken together, the collection examines the intellectual nature of this beloved pastime, considering the many nuances of a sport that requires high levels of concentration, patience, and consistency, as well as upstanding moral character. Golf and Philosophy celebrates the joys and complexities of the game, demonstrating that golf has much to teach both its spectators and participants about modern life.


We have seen an explosive growth of mobile usage, particularly on mobile apps. It is more important than ever to be able to properly evaluate mobile app release. A/B testing is a standard framework to evaluate new ideas. We have seen much of its applications in the online world across the industry [9,10,12]. Running A/B tests on mobile apps turns out to be quite different, and much of it is attributed to the fact that we cannot ship code easily to mobile apps other than going through a lengthy build, review and release process. Mobile infrastructure and user behavior differences also contribute to how A/B tests are conducted differently on mobile apps, which will be discussed in details in this paper. In addition to measuring features individually in the new app version through randomized A/B tests, we have a unique opportunity to evaluate the mobile app as a whole using the quasi-experimental framework [21]. Not all features can be A/B tested due to infrastructure changes and wholistic product redesign. We propose and establish quasi-experimental techniques for measuring impact from mobile app release, with results shared from a recent major app launch at LinkedIn.


The book of Ruth contains one of the Bible's best-known and most-loved stories. This major commentary by Robert L. Hubbard Jr. shows how the author of Ruth used, with great literary artistry, the story of Ruth and Naomi to convey important theological themes. In his introduction Hubbard discusses the issues of text, canonicity, literary criticism, authorship, date, purpose, setting, genre, legal background, themes, and theology, concluding with an outline of the book and a thorough bibliography. The commentary proper is based on Hubbard's own fresh translation and accented by copious footnotes on textual, philological, and literary matters. Gleaning the best from recent research on Ruth, Hubbard gives the story's rich literary, grammatical, and theological dimensions a careful, rigorous treatment. He allows for the possibility that the anonymous author was a woman and argues that the narrative itself aims to counter opposition to the Davidic monarchy in Israel and Judah during Solomon's reign. Throughout, Hubbard's sensitivity to the literary genius of Ruth's author and his coherent explication of the outworking of the book's theological themes make this volume an invaluable tool for anyone desiring to explore the intriguing story of Ruth in depth.


In this study, we compare the level and distribution of genetic variation between South African conserved and village chicken populations using microsatellite markers. In addition, diversity in South African chickens was compared to that of a reference data set consisting of other African and purebred commercial lines. Three chicken populations Venda, Ovambo and Eastern Cape and four conserved flocks of the Venda, Ovambo, Naked Neck and Potchefstroom Koekoek from the Poultry Breeding Resource Unit of the Agricultural Research Council were genotyped at 29 autosomal microsatellite loci. All markers were polymorphic. Village chicken populations were more diverse than conservation flocks. structure software was used to cluster individuals to a predefined number of 2 ≤ K ≤ 6 clusters. The most probable clustering was found at K = 5 (95% identical runs). At this level of differentiation, the four conservation flocks separated as four independent clusters, while the three village chicken populations together formed another cluster. Thus, cluster analysis indicated a clear subdivision of each of the conservation flocks that were different from the three village chicken populations. The contribution of each South African chicken populations to the total diversity of the chickens studied was determined by calculating the optimal core set contributions based on Marker estimated kinship. Safe set analysis was carried out using bootstrapped kinship values calculated to relate the added genetic diversity of seven South African chicken populations to a set of reference populations consisting of other African and purebred commercial broiler and layer chickens. In both core set and the safe set analyses, village chicken populations scored slightly higher to the reference set compared to conservation flocks. Overall, the present study demonstrated that the conservation flocks of South African chickens displayed considerable genetic variability that is different from that of the assumed founder populations (village chickens).


Herbs are the fresh or mixtures of dried leaves, seeds, grasses, nuts, barks, fruits, flowers, or other botanical elements. The production and uses of herbs are not new to the Worlds and Ethiopia. However, there is no such compiled information about herbal tea and its uses in Ethiopia. Herbs have a long history of both culinary use and health benefits, as well as acting as preservatives. Many herb plants are widely used as cooking to enhancing the flavor of foods including meats, sauces, vegetables, and health benefits by ensuring protection against harmful free radicals which consequently damaging of cellular structures, which contributes to the development of many diseases, have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral and antiallergic. Drinking herbal teas has the advantage of boosting energy levels and invigorating the body, quenching the body by preventing hydration of the body, it promotes night sleep due to caffeine-free and it also has distinctive sensory qualities due to it contain the volatile fractions of various aroma active compounds. Herbal tea can be prepared by infusion or decoction using water on the whole or reduced to a suitable size and allowing too steep for a defined period. This review gives information on the production and the uses of herbal in the form of teas.


Resource allocation games such as the famous Colonel Blotto (CB) and Hide-and-Seek (HS) games are often used to model a large variety of practical problems, but only in their one-shot versions. Indeed, due to their extremely large strategy space, it remains an open question how one can efficiently learn in these games. In this work, we show that the online CB and HS games can be cast as path planning problems with side-observations (SOPPP): at each stage, a learner chooses a path on a directed acyclic graph and suffers the sum of losses that are adversarially assigned to the corresponding edges; and she then receives semi-bandit feedback with side-observations (i.e., she observes the losses on the chosen edges plus some others). Then, we propose a novel algorithm, EXP3-OE, the first-of-its-kind with guaranteed efficient running time for SOPPP without requiring any auxiliary oracle. We provide an expected-regret bound of EXP3-OE in SOPPP matching the order of the best benchmark in the literature. Moreover, we introduce additional assumptions on the observability model under which we can further improve the regret bounds of EXP3-OE. We illustrate the benefit of using EXP3-OE in SOPPP by applying it to the online CB and HS games.


Drawing on his own experience as an award-winning reporter and TV producer and through illuminating interviews with journalists and producers who have worked on presidential debates, Alan Schroeder sheds new light on every debate from 1960 to the present. From the selection of questioners to the camera angles, from issues of makeup to lighting and stage set, Schroeder shows how decisions are made that influence every aspect of what the audience perceives. "Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High-Risk TV" takes readers on a fascinating backstage tour, approaching the debates within the framework of the fundamental steps to which TV producers adhere: preproduction, production, and postproduction.Calling upon behind-the-scenes stories from seven campaign seasons, Schroeder illustrates how the live component of the debates, far from diminishing dramatic potential, increases our anticipation - not least because of viewer curiosity to watch one candidate make a grave error and go down in flames. "Presidential Debates" illuminates such details as: the elaborate attempts to offset height discrepancies between candidates, such as the "belt buckle compromise" between Carter and Ford mandating the height of the candidates' respective podiums; the full story behind debate moderator Bernard Shaw's infamous question to Michael Dukakis about his wife being hypothetically raped and murdered; and, the calculation and faux-spontaneity of Reagan's influential quip, "There you go again," which effectively dismissed Carter's pointed accusations about health care.With innumerable behind-the-scenes stories about the candidates, their advisers, the on-air correspondents, the producers, and other backstage lore, Schroeder illustrates how, like all forms of television, debates combine artifice with truth. An unusual blend of civics and show biz, the presidential debates are revealed here as both carefully scripted rituals and opportunities for the totally unexpected.


"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us." - Albert Schweitzer


In this perspective piece, the author attacks the notion of "moral involuntariness" in the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment in R. v. Ruzic. He asserts that the voluntarist account of criminal liability is purely descriptive. Through the embrace of a mechanistic understanding of human agency, it forestalls judgment and veils the normative foundation of criminal law. The author asserts the need for a more normative approach, one which seeks to evaluate the moral blameworthiness of an act. In the case of duress, the author suggests that it is not enough to simply state that a person's will is constrained because he or she is acting under the influence of emotion. An evaluative account of emotions would suggest that emotions involve thought on the part of the actor, and that emotions can be mistaken. Therefore, the moral bases of emotions can and should be evaluated. The law could have considerable conservative inertia under a legal regime which allowed certain attitudes to go unexamined. For instance, the sources of a particular "emotional" reaction might be rooted in a subordinating, retrograde vision of society that placed a low value on certain classes of persons. Hence, the voluntarist account may allow morally suspect social norms and their regressive effects to persist in the criminal law. Through these and other lines of inquiry, the author leads us to question some of the underpinnings of criminal law thinking, and calls for the reintroduction of meaningful and open judgment into the law of criminal defences.


Live fuel moisture content is an important variable for assessing fire risk. Satellite observations provide the potential for monitoring fuel moisture across large areas. The objective of this study was to use data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer to monitor live fuel moisture content of three fire-prone vegetation types (shrubland, heathland and sclerophyll forest) in south-eastern Australia. The performances of four spectral indices (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index, Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index, Normalised Difference Infrared Index centred on 1650 nm and Normalised Difference Water Index) were compared. Models based on Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index and Normalised Difference Infrared Index centred on 1650 nm provided the best results (R2 values of 0.537 and 0.586). An empirical model based on these two indices was developed and its performance compared with a meteorological index traditionally used in this context, the Keetch–Byram Drought Index. The empirical model (R2 = 0.692) outperformed the meteorological index (R2 = 0.151), showing an enhanced capability to predict live fuel moisture content of the fire-prone vegetation types considered.


Background An increasing use of point of care diagnostic tests that exclude malaria, coupled with a declining malaria burden in many endemic countries, is highlighting the lack of ability of many health systems to manage other causes of febrile disease. A lack of knowledge of distribution of these pathogens, and a lack of screening and point-of-care diagnostics to identify them, prevents effective management of these generally treatable contributors to disease burden. While prospective data collection is vital, an untapped body of knowledge already exists in the published health literature. Methods Focusing on the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, published data from 1986 to 2011 was screened to for frequency of isolation of pathogens implicated in aetiology of non-malarial febrile illness. Eligibility criteria included English-language peer-reviewed studies recording major pathogens for which specific management is likely to be warranted. Of 1,252 identified papers, 146 met inclusion criteria and were analyzed and data mapped. Results Data tended to be clustered around specific areas where research institutions operate, and where resources to conduct studies are greater. The most frequently reported pathogen was dengue virus (n = 70), followed by Orientia tsutsugamushi and Rickettsia species (scrub typhus/murine typhus/spotted fever group n = 58), Leptospira spp. (n = 35), Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi and Paratyphi (enteric fever n = 24), Burkholderia pseudomallei (melioidosis n = 14), and Japanese encephalitis virus (n = 18). Wide tracts with very little published data on aetiology of fever are apparent. Discussion and Conclusions This mapping demonstrates a very heterogeneous distribution of information on the causes of fever in the Mekong countries. Further directed data collection to address gaps in the evidence-base, and expansion to a global database of pathogen distribution, is readily achievable, and would help define wider priorities for research and development to improve syndromic management of fever, prioritize diagnostic development, and guide empirical therapy.


The first stars in the history of the universe are likely to form in the dense central regions of ∼105–106 M☉ cold dark matter halos at z ≈ 10–50. The annihilation of dark matter particles in these environments may lead to the formation of so-called dark stars, which are predicted to be cooler, larger, more massive, and potentially more long-lived than conventional population III stars. Here, we investigate the prospects of detecting high-redshift dark stars with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We find that all dark stars with masses up to 103 M☉ are intrinsically too faint to be detected by JWST at z > 6. However, by exploiting foreground galaxy clusters as gravitational telescopes do, certain varieties of cool (Teff ⩽ 30, 000 K) dark stars should be within reach at redshifts up to z ≈ 10. If the lifetimes of dark stars are sufficiently long, many such objects may also congregate inside the first galaxies. We demonstrate that this could give rise to peculiar features in the integrated spectra of galaxies at high redshifts, provided that dark stars make up at least ∼1% of the total stellar mass in such objects.


Planting and harvesting times drive cropland phenology. There are few datasets that derive explicit phenological metrics, and these datasets use the visible to near infrared (VNIR) spectrum. Many different methods have been used to derive phenometrics such as Start of Season (SOS) and End of Season (EOS), leading to differing results. This discrepancy is partly due to spatial and temporal compositing of the VNIR satellite data to minimize data gaps resulting from cloud cover, atmospheric aerosols, and solar illumination constraints. Phenometrics derived from the downward Convex Quadratic model (CxQ) include Peak Height (PH) and Thermal Time to Peak (TTP), which are more consistent than SOS and EOS because they are minimally affected by snow and frost and other non-vegetation related issues. Here, we have determined PH using the vegetation optical depth (VOD) in three microwave frequencies (6.925, 10.65 and 18.7 GHz) and accumulated growing degree-days derived from AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on EOS) data at a spatial resolution of 25 km. We focus on 50 AMSR-E cropland pixels in the major grain production areas of Northern Eurasia (Ukraine, southwestern Russia, and northern Kazakhstan) for 2003–2010. We compared the land surface phenologies of AMSR-E VOD and MODIS NDVI data. VOD time series tracked cropland seasonal dynamics similar to that recorded by the NDVI. The coefficients of determination for the CxQ model fit of the NDVI data were high for all sites (0.78 < R2 < 0.99). The 10.65 GHz VOD (VOD1065GHz) achieved the best linear regression fit (R2 = 0.84) with lowest standard error (SEE = 0.128); it is therefore recommended for microwave VOD studies of cropland land surface phenology. Based on an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) analysis, the slopes from the linear regression fit were not significantly different by microwave frequency, whereas the intercepts were significantly different, given the different magnitudes of the VODs. PHs for NDVI and VOD were highly correlated. Despite their strong correspondence, there was generally a lag of AMSR-E PH VOD10.65GHz by about two weeks compared to MODIS peak greenness. To evaluate the utility of the PH determination based on maximum value, we correlated the CxQ derived and maximum value determined PHs of NDVI and found that they were highly correlated with R2 of 0.87, but with a one-week bias. Considering the one-week bias between the two methods, we find that PH of VOD10.65GHz lags PH of NDVI by three weeks. We conclude, therefore, that maximum-value based PH of VOD can be a complementary phenometric for the CxQ model derived PH NDVI, especially in cloud and aerosol obscured regions of the world.


INTRODUCTION
Biofilms have been implicated in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and may explain the limited efficacy of antibiotics. There is a need to find more effective, non-antibiotic based therapies for CRS. This study examines the effects of xylitol on CRS biofilms and planktonic bacteria.

METHODS
Crystal violet assay and spectrophotometry were used to quantify the effects of xylitol (5% and 10% solutions) against Staphylococcus epidermidis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus. The disruption of established biofilms, inhibition of biofilm formation and effects on planktonic bacteria growth were investigated and compared to saline and no treatment.

RESULTS
Xylitol 5% and 10% significantly reduced biofilm biomass (S. epidermidis), inhibited biofilm formation (S. aureus and P. aeruginosa) and reduced growth of planktonic bacteria (S. epidermidis, S. aureus, and P. aeruginosa). Xylitol 5% inhibited formation of S. epidermidis biofilms more effectively than xylitol 10%. Xylitol 10% reduced S. epidermidis planktonic bacteria more effectively than xylitol 5%. Saline, xylitol 5% and 10% disrupted established biofilms of S. aureus when compared with no treatment. No solution was effective against established P. aeruginosa biofilm.

CONCLUSIONS
Xylitol has variable activity against biofilms and planktonic bacteria in vitro and may have therapeutic efficacy in the management of CRS.