AIDS, Drugs and Prevention brings together a range of international contributions on the research, theory and practice of developing community-based HIV prevention. It aims to understand how individual actions to prevent HIV transmission are constrained and encouraged by situational and social context. Drawing on ethnographic and epidemiological research among populations of drug users, sex workers and gay men, it explores how future HIV prevention interventions can target changes at the level of the individual as well as at the level of the community and wider social environment. AIDS, Drugs and Prevention offers practical and theoretical insights into community-based health work in the time of AIDS. It provides invaluable reading for students, lecturers, researchers and practioners in health promotion, health policy, social work and medical sociology.


This essay explains a tension on the contemporary Supreme Court that has been widely noted but not well understood. Though constitutional conservatives have long advocated judicial restraint, the Rehnquist Court has exercised its own power quite actively, going so far as to enter the "political thicket" of the 2000 presidential election. The complex pattern of conservative influence on the modern Court cannot be explained by reference to either legal or partisan factors in isolation, but only by the interaction of such factors over time. While many scholars have noted that the Court is both a legal and a political institution and that we need to understand it as such, I seek to sharpen our understanding of this dynamic by drawing on several key concepts from the literature on political development. In particular, historical institutionalist scholars have recently highlighted the importance of "conjunctures of separately determined processes" in shaping patterns of political order and change-a useful rubric for understanding the interaction between the post-New Deal entrenchment of rights-based constitutionalism and the post-1968 conservative realignment in American politics. In short, modern conservatives have sought both to abandon liberal constitutional rights and to create new conservative rights. Given the entrenchment of rights-based constitutionalism-and the path-dependent nature of constitutional development-they have been more successful at the latter.


The role of object identification in a sonification system for navigation assistance to the visually impaired (NAVI) is discussed. The developed system includes a single board processing system (SBPS), vision sensor mounted on headgear and stereo earphones. The vision sensor captures the vision information in front of the blind user. The captured image is processed to identify the object in the image. Object identification is achieved by a real time image processing methodology using fuzzy algorithms. The processed image is mapped onto stereo acoustic patterns and transferred to the stereo earphones in the system. Blind individuals were trained with NAVI system and tested for obstacle identification. Suggestions from the blind volunteers regarding the pleasantness and discrimination of the sound pattern were incorporated in the prototype. With object identification, the discrimination of object and background by sound is found to be easier compared to sound produced from the unprocessed image.


Summary The increasing popularity of computer graphics applications in video games and movie production has resulted in a growing demand for the development of virtual environments with rich visual scene content. As such, the use of procedural content generation techniques is an attractive solution that can avoid the manual effort involved in the creation of highly complex scenes, by automating the generation of scene content. However, while there is much research on procedural content generation techniques, the procedural generation of 3D cave models is relatively unexplored. The focus of our research is on procedural cave generation, and this paper presents a method of producing a smooth triangle mesh of procedurally generated interior cave walls with visually plausible stalactites and stalagmites.


Combined hyperlipidemia (CHL) is a common disorder of lipid metabolism that leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The lipid profile of CHL is characterised by high levels of atherogenic lipoproteins and low levels of high-density-lipoprotein-cholesterol. Apolipoprotein (APO) A5 is a newly discovered gene involved in lipid metabolism located within 30kbp of the APOA1/C3/A4 gene cluster. Previous studies have indicated that sequence variants in this cluster are associated with increased plasma lipid levels. To establish whether variation at the APOA5 gene contributes to the transmission of CHL, we performed linkage and linkage disequilibrium (LD) tests on a large cohort of families (n=128) with familial CHL (FCHL). The linkage data produced evidence for linkage of the APOA1/C3/A4/A5 genomic interval to FCHL (NPL = 1.7, P = 0.042). The LD studies substantiated these data. Two independent rare alleles, APOA5 and APOC3 of this gene cluster were over-transmitted in FCHL (P = 0.004 and 0.007, respectively), and this was associated with a reduced transmission of the most common APOA1/C3/A4/A5 haplotype (frequency 0.4425) to affected subjects (P = 0.013). The APOA5 allele was associated with increased plasma triglyceride levels in FCHL probands, whereas the second, and independent, APOC3 allele was associated with increased plasma triglyceride levels in FCHL pedigree founders. Thus, this allele (or an allele in LD) may mark a quantitative trait associated with FCHL, as well as representing a disease susceptibility locus for the condition. This study establishes that sequence variation in the APOA1/C3/A4/A5 gene cluster contributes to the transmission of FCHL in a substantial proportion of affected families, and that these sequence variants may also contribute to the lipid abnormalities of the metabolic syndrome, which is present in up to 40% of persons with cardiovascular disease.


Seventeen students completed a course in which no face-to-face meetings and no paper exchanged hand. All information was shared either on the WWW or by email. In the first few weeks, extensive email dialogue occurred about the method of learning but after that the students focused exclusively on the content of the course. The first readings and exercises gave the students much freedom of choice but that proved too much freedom for the students. They preferred the assignment to be highly focused. The automatic indexing of email by the Hypermail program needed to be augmented with manual indexing by the teacher. This indexing and generally managing the email was the most time consuming aspect of the teaching, but in the end this was less demanding on the teacher than would have been a traditional course. The students rated the course as an above-average learning experience .


While the use of online social networking services (SNS) is still largely attributed to leisure communication, online social networking services are gaining popularity in education and business. Social networks tie individuals together and online social networking services enable these ties through technology. People flock to web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Tribe.net to keep in touch with friends, interest groups and family, communicate and share news about them. User friendliness of social networking technology has popularised SNSs and a growing body of research suggest various applications of social networking sites in higher education settings (for an overview see Benson, Filippaios and Morgan, 2010). Some practitioners view social networking services as a future platform for lifelong learning stretching beyond the virtual wall of institutional learning management systems. Furthermore, online social networking has been praised for its social capital potential beneficial for building professional connections and successful career management (Benson & Filippaios, 2010). Students, overwhelmingly comfortable with social technology, are already networking with classmates on Facebook, etc. and the thought of employing this familiar platform for learning and teaching has been tested by many HE institutions. However, issues arising from mixing informal communication platform with formal professional networking with potential employers and instructors are plenty. The prospect of personal content becoming available to the outsiders of an informal social circle is highly likely, is only one of the problem areas. This paper addresses the phenomenon of Public and Private Dichotomy, i.e. contextualisation of private and public content including communication and media shared through online social networks. Further research directions are discussed regarding successful strategies and factors hindering effective exploitation of SNSs in HE settings.


The cognitive and social structures, and publication practices, of the humanities have been studied bibliometrically for the past 50 years. This article explores the conceptual frameworks, methods, and data sources used in bibliometrics to study the nature of the humanities, and its differences and similarities in comparison with other scientific domains. We give a historical overview of bibliometric scholarship between 1965 and 2018 that studies the humanities empirically and distinguishes between two periods in which the configuration of the bibliometric system differs remarkably. The first period, 1965 to the 1980s, is characterized by bibliometric methods embedded in a sociological theoretical framework, the development and use of the Price Index, and small samples of journal publications from which references are used as data sources. The second period, the 1980s to the present day, is characterized by a new intellectual hinterland—that of science policy and research evaluation—in which bibliometric methods become embedded. Here metadata of publications becomes the primary data source with which publication profiles of humanistic scholarly communities are analyzed. We unpack the differences between these two periods and critically discuss the analytical avenues that different approaches offer.


We study the values on which managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) draw when constructing their personal and organizational-level engagement with environmental issues, particularly climate change. Values play an important mediating role in business environmental engagement, but relatively little research has been conducted on individual values in smaller organizations. Using the Schwartz Value System (SVS) as a framework for a qualitative analysis, we identify four "ideal-types" of SME managers and provide rich descriptions of the ways in which values shape their constructions of environmental engagement. In contrast to previous research, which is framed around a binary divide between self-enhancing and self-transcending values, our typology distinguishes between individuals drawing primarily on Power or on Achievement values and indicates how a combination of Achievement and Benevolence values is particularly significant in shaping environmental engagement. This demonstrates the theoretical usefulness of focusing on a complete range of values. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.


Artificial neural networks and statistical techniques like decision trees, discriminant analysis, logistic regression and survival analysis play a crucial role in Business Intelligence. These predictive analytical tools exploit patterns found in historical data to make predictions about future events. In this paper we have shown some recent developments of a few of these techniques in financial and business intelligence applications like fraud detection, bankruptcy prediction and credit rating scoring.


In cultivation of medicinal trees, seed germination is a very important problem. Various seed enhancements are being adopted nowadays to improve seedling emergence. Among these seed enhancement, seed fortification is an efficient method for increasing of seed vigour and improvement of germination and seedling growth. The laboratory experiment was conducted at the Department of Seed Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. The present study was conducted for evaluation of ecofriendly seed treatment with three botanical fresh leaf extracts in two concentrations with the soaking durations of 3 and 6h in Bael ( Aegle marmelos ). The results revealed that soaking of seeds in one per cent moringa ( Moringa oleifera ) leaf extract for 6h adopting 1:1 seed to solution ratio enhanced the seedling quality characters of bael in germination room and it was followed by 0.5 per cent tamarind (Tamarindus indica) leaf extract. On evaluation of these treatments at polypot nursery upto three months also exposed the efficacy of these treatments in production elite seedlings.


With the rapid development of the city in recent years, many old factories were abandoned, or are underused. How to reuse and preserve the built heritage in the old factory, and combine them with local culture has become a very important issue in urban design. Reusing the old buildings while respecting and integrating local culture effectively can protect and preserve natural and cultural resources. It also gives the old building a new life, creating an image for the city. This is the so-called "minimal consumption of resources to get the maximum economic and social benefits" (Zhang, 2006). The aim of this thesis is to discuss and propose ways of integrating local culture in the reconversion of old industrial areas. It begins by discussing key concepts used in the research, then goes to the current discussion of how to reuse built heritage in industrial areas against the background of urban development and abandoned industrial areas. The paper tries to sum up experiences from examples in Europe and China, complemented by the theoretical discussion on the key concepts. The experience learned from the examples will then be used in the case study for my design proposal. To answer the research question, I conducted a literature review, and followed a case study and inductive approaches as the methods of this paper. I summarized five principles from the cases and used them in the design proposal. The principles are: 1) Using the original urban elements in the site; 2) Find the characteristics of the Buildings that can be used to promote local culture and enlarge them; 3) Geography features and vegetation; 4) Respect and protect the art activities of the city; 5) Give new functions to old buildings. Through the analysis of the cases in China and Europe and the practice of the analysis in the design proposal, this paper takes a first step in suggesting ways of how to integrate local culture into reusing of old buildings in industrial areas.


Hypoxia occurs in two forms in tumors. Chronic or diffusion-limited hypoxia is relatively well characterized. In contrast, intermittent or perfusion-limited hypoxia is not well characterized, and it is not known how common it is in tumors. The purpose of this study was to determine whether spontaneous fluctuations in tumor microvessel flow rate can modify vessel oxygen tension (pO2) sufficiently to cause intermittent hypoxia (IH; tissue pO2 < 3 mmHg) in the tumor parenchyma supplied by such vessels. Microvessel red cell flux (RCF) and perivascular pO2 were measured simultaneously and continuously in dorsal flap window chambers of Fischer-344 rats with implanted R3230Ac tumors. In all vessels, RCF was unstable, with apex/nadir ratios ranging from 1.5 to 10. RCF and pO2 were temporally coordinated, and there were linear relationships between the two parameters. Vascular pO2 was less sensitive to changes in RCF in well-vascularized tumor regions compared with poorly vascularized regions. Simulations of oxygen transport in a well-vascularized region of a tumor demonstrated that two-fold variations in RCF can produce IH in 30% of the tissue in that region. In poorly vascularized regions, such fluctuations would lead to an even greater percentage of tissue involved in transient hypoxia. These results suggest that IH is a relatively common phenomenon. It could affect binding of hypoxic cytotoxins to tumor cells, in addition to being an important source of treatment resistance. Intermittent hypoxia also could contribute to tumor progression by providing repeated exposure of tumor cells to hypoxia-reoxygenation injury.


Title of Document: A STATIONLESS BIKESHARE PROOF OF CONCEPT FOR COLLEGE CAMPUSES Luke Boegner, Yong Cho, Nicholas Fleming, Tyler Gilman, Teng Kuan Huang, Kyle King, Nathaniel Kruder, Joshua Lafond, Timothy McLaughlin, Sye Hoon Noh, William Poh, Emily Ruppel, Libby Wei Directed by: Dr. Robert Newcomb Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park Bikeshares promote healthy lifestyles and sustainability among commuters, casual riders, and tourists. However, the central pillar of modern systems, the bike station, cannot be easily integrated into a compact college campus. Fixed stations lack the flexibility to meet the needs of college students who make quick, short-distance trips. Additionally, the necessary cost of implementing and maintaining each station prohibits increasing the number of stations for user convenience. Therefore, the team developed a stationless bikeshare based on a smartlock permanently attached to bicycles in the system. The smartlock system design incorporates several innovative approaches to provide usability, security, and reliability that overcome the limitations of a station centered design. A focus group discussion allowed the team to receive feedback on the early lock, system, and website designs, identify improvements and craft a pleasant user experience. The team designed a unique, two-step lock system that is intuitive to operate while mitigating user error. To ensure security, user access is limited through near field ii communications (NFC) technology connected to a mechatronic release system. The said system relied on a NFC module and a servo working through an Arduino microcontroller coded in the Arduino IDE. To track rentals and maintain the system, each bike is fitted with an XBee module to communicate with a scalable ZigBee mesh network. The network allows for bidirectional, real-time communication with a Meteor.js web application, which enables user and administrator functions through an intuitive user interface available on mobile and desktop. The development of an independent smartlock to replace bike stations is essential to meet the needs of the modern college student. With the goal of creating a bikeshare that better serves college students, Team BIKES has laid the framework for a system that is affordable, easily adaptable, and implementable on any university expressing an interest in bringing a bikeshare to its campus.


Currently two osteopathic courses exist in Melbourne. The course at RMIT, until last year offered a double Bachelors degree and has undergone several revisions, whilst the course at VU is a Bachelors degree followed by a Masters course. Whether a difference exists in the clinical thinking of students, depending on their choice of university, has not been investigated.
The objective of this study is to determine whether a difference exists between the clinical thinking of fifth year osteopathic students dependent on their university of choice.
Nine fifth year students, four from RMIT and five from VU, took part in the study. The study consists of two parts. An examination which followed the model of a Victoria University Clinical Practicum Four case history assessment and a focus group where the students discussed among their student peers the thinking and criteria they used to answer each of the sections of the examination.
Although students of both universities considered similar differentials for the given case, substantial differences existed in the thought processes behind the generation of the differentials. Several possible reasons were identified for this, furthermore, most participants focused upon a musculoskeletal osteopathic diagnosis and merely considered a pathological diagnosis fleetingly indicating the need for osteopathic examinations to be tailored to include not only biomechanical diagnosis but also systemic investigations.
This minor thesis was written by a post-graduate student as part of the requirements of the Master of Health Science (Osteopathy) program.


The inhibitory effect of cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP) on lymphocyte activation is mediated through cAMP-dependent protein kinase (protein kinase A/PKA). Lymphocyte activation is also negatively regulated by a subgroup of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases) that inactivate MAP kinases. The hematopoietic PTPase, HePTP, is known to bind to and rapidly deactivate the MAP kinases Erk1, Erk2, and p38. Hence, HePTP reduces transcription activation from Erk/p38-dependent promoters. Saxena et al. now report that HePTP is phosphorylated by PKA. This phosphorylation event reduced HePTP interaction with its bound MAP kinase. Release from this inhibition resulted in MAP kinase activation and transcription from the c-fos promoter. Hence, crosstalk between the cAMP/PKA pathway and MAP kinase activation pathways may occur through PTPases in immune cells. Saxena, M., Williams, S., Tasken, K., Mustelin, T. (1999) Crosstalk between cAMP-dependent kinase and MAP kinase through a protein tyrosine phosphatase. Nature Cell Biol. 1: 305-310. Online Journal


Family firms are the most prevalent firm type in the world, particularly in emerging economies. Dynastic family firms tend to have lower productivity, though what explains their underperformance is still an open question. We collect new data on CEO successions for over 800 firms in Latin America and Europe to document their corporate governance choices and, crucially, provide causal evidence on the effect of dynastic CEO successions on the adoption of managerial best practices tied to improved productivity. Specifically, we establish two key results. First, there is a preference for male heirs: when the founding CEO steps down they are 30pp more likely to keep control within the family when they have a son. Second, instrumenting with the gender of the founder's children, we estimate dynastic CEO successions lead to 0.8 standard deviations lower adoption of managerial best practices, suggesting an implied productivity decrease of 5 to 10%. To guide our discussion on mechanisms, we build a model with two types of CEOs (family and professional) who decide whether to invest in better management practices. Family CEOs cannot credibly commit to firing employees without incurring reputation costs. This induces lower worker effort and reduces the returns to investing in better management. We find empirical evidence that, controlling for lower skill levels of managers, reputational costs constrain investment in better management.


Upon arrival in that stinking grotty modern world of Van Diemen's Land in the stinking late summer heat, all hideous new sandstone warehouses and customs houses and chaingangs and redcoats, I was assigned to Palmer the coachbuilder in Launceston, what passes as the capital of the island's north. (Richard Flanagan, Gould's Book of Fish 67)

IN a methodological echo of Fredric Jameson's claim that 'our cultural languages are totally dominated by space rather than categories of time, as in the preceding period of high modernism proper' (16), spatial metaphors have become a staple tool for cultural critics interested in tracing the development of new narrative forms. Philip Mead seems to be persuaded by this impulse in his review of Richard Flanagan's novel Gould's Book of Fish when he compares the 'strange narrative density of Tasmania' to the moment in Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies 'where the narrator realises that stories don't proceed along thin, linear planes', engendering a situation in which 'the act of reading produces a dense forest of story in whichever direction the reader proceeds' (15). While I recognise the richness of this kind of approach, in this essay I want to distance myself from spatialising metaphors, and mobilise the second of Kant's intuitive categories, time (Russell 681), as the focus in reading Gould's Book of Fish. The purpose of this essay is to examine the ways in which configurations of temporality in Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, his most recent novel, and his other fiction, articulate a desire that precedes and exceeds the works themselves.

One of the recurring motifs in Flanagan's writing is the impoverishment of the Tasmanian present, a state of affairs both enacted by, and embodied in, a failed modernity. The imaginative force exerted upon Flanagan's fiction by this configuration of energies bleeds into his cultural criticism, to produce the following problem: how are we to summon up hope for Tasmania's future, when its past is so overwhelmingly full of defeat? The answer proposed in Gould's Book of Fish is to radically fictionalise that past, and to imbue it with the residue of collective longing left over from the project of hydro-electrification that was aborted after the Franklin River conflicts of the early 1980s.

At first glance, Gould's Book of Fish doesn't appear to be a book about modernity. It's predominantly set in the 1820s for one thing, and its protagonist, the convict forger William Buelow Gould, is certainly no Renaissance man, although he does do a fine line in imitational water colours. Essentially, this is a book about convictism and the plight of a singular victim of its depredations. Sid Hammet, a twenty-first-century Tasmanian furniture restorer and local skite, discovers the Book of Fish in a meatsafe at Hobart's Salamanca place. After its mysterious transmogrification into a brackish puddle at a popular Hobart drinking hole, he begins to recount its contents. From there we are submerged into the life history of its author, William Buelow Gould--forger, convict, painter of fish--as Flanagan traces his biography from its lowly arc in industrial London to the transportation of its subject to Van Diemen's Land, and on to its final termination amid the wreckage of the hallucinogenic 'Nova Venetia' constructed at the convict colony of Sarah Island on Tasmania's wild West Coast. Flanagan's book is about the malleability of truth and the reliability of writing, it's about what can happen when imagination and desire slip into the gaps between de jure and de facto interpretations of history. It's also about the ways in which modalities of temporality can be inserted into an economy of longing for the future, so that a fictional past becomes the alternative future for a non-fictional present. In Gould's Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan returns to the time of Tasmania's first modernity in order to realise his hopes and ambitions for another modernity that is yet to come. The tragic-comic failure of that fictional modernisation embodies the ambivalence he feels about the real history of Tasmanian modernity.

In broad terms, the time of Gould's Book of Fish is split into two parts: the time of the present, and the time of the past. The time of the present is the time of Sid Hammett and the discovery of the Book of Fish in the old meat-safe at Salamanca markets. The time of the past is the time of William Buelow Gould--'the Commandant'--and of Sarah Island. This second ...


Abstract. Although non-human primates (NHPs) represent only a minor fraction of all animals used in biomedical research, there is a continuous effort to further reduce, refine and replace research with NHPs in accordance with the principles of the three R's. Most of the NHP model species are genetically highly diverse, and significant variation occurs among populations of different geographic origins, particularly in macaques. Since such differences can considerably affect the outcome of biomedical experiments, genotyping represents a promising tool to refine research approaches and to reduce the number of NHPs in biomedical research. Accordingly, the European Primate Network (EUPRIM-Net) developed an anonymous online survey to evaluate possibilities and potential hindrances for the application of genotyping in NHP research. On the one hand, our results point to the importance of genetic variation in NHPs and the need to consider the genetic background for future research approaches. On the other hand, our survey identified several hindrances and limiting factors for the application of genotyping and its incorporation in research, primate husbandry and breeding. We provide some fundamental recommendations on how to meet these challenges and how genotyping can be efficiently used to refine NHP research and to reduce the number of NHPs in biomedical research in the long term.


ABSTRACT Beachrocks on the north coast of Lake Taupo are composed of volcanic grains and diatoms that are bound together by isopachous, meniscus, or pore-filling amorphous silica cements. The littoral sediments were originally stabilized by epilithic and chasmolithic filamentous microbes that bound neighboring grains together. The amorphous silica cement was precipitated from silica-rich geothermal fluids that originated from warm-water plumes that form in the northern part of Lake Taupo where hot spring waters flow into the lake and move along the shoreline. Water from the warm water plumes that is washed onshore by prevailing winds and currents then percolates down through the beach sands and gravels. Precipitation of amorphous silica, triggered by cooling of the mixed spring and lake water, is preferentially focused on the epilithic and chasmolithic filamentous microbes, which act as templates for silica nucleation and precipitation.


Executive function (EF) is a regulatory construct of learning and general cognitive abilities. Genetic variations underlying the architecture of cognitive phenotypes are likely to affect EF and associated behaviors. Mice lacking one of Ntng gene paralogs, encoding the vertebrate brain-specific presynaptic Netrin-G proteins, exhibit prominent deficits in the EF control. Brain areas responsible for gating the bottom-up and top-down information flows differentially express Ntng1 and Ntng2, distinguishing neuronal circuits involved in perception and cognition. As a result, high and low cognitive demand tasks (HCD and LCD, respectively) modulate Ntng1 and Ntng2 associations either with attention and impulsivity (AI) or working memory (WM), in a complementary manner. During the LCD Ntng2supported neuronal gating of AI and WM dominates over the Ntng1-associated circuits. This is reversed during the HCD, when the EF requires a larger contribution of cognitive control, supported by Ntng1, over the Ntng2 pathways. Since human NTNG orthologs have been reported to affect human IQ (1), and an array of neurological disorders (2), we believe that mouse Ntng gene paralogs serve an analogous role but influencing brain executive functioning.


The anthropocene era has brought with it increased threats to the biodiversity of the world's oceans. Until the latter half of the twentieth century, human use of the oceans beyond a narrow coastal belt was largely confined to navigation, fishing, whaling and from the mid nineteenth century, the laying of submarine cables and pipelines. With the development of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone, coastal States have extended their jurisdictional reach to a wider offshore domain for purposes such as resource exploitation, marine scientific research and the generation of energy from wind and waves. Other developments such as the depletion of inshore fish stocks, an increase in global maritime trade and transport and the search for new resources have led to greater human activity in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). These activities have expanded to include more frequent and invasive marine scientific research expeditions, associated bioprospecting for marine genetic resources, exploration for deep seabed minerals and geoengineering experiments utilising the capacity of the ocean to absorb excess carbon dioxide from the earth's atmosphere. The extended spectrum of human activities now taking place in ABNJ has the potential to harm the highly interconnected and sensitive ecosystems of these areas if not carefully managed now and into the future. International law can play a vital role in preventing and mitigating the adverse impacts of human activities on the rich repository of marine biodiversity in ABNJ through the further development of environmental assessment in ABNJ. Environmental assessment is acknowledged as a key element in the suite of tools for biodiversity conservation, and its application to activities affecting the marine environment has been endorsed in many international law instruments and policy statements. Currently there is limited legal and institutional provision for the implementation of environmental assessment in ABNJ. This chapter examines international law obligations for environmental assessment in the world's oceans and the complex challenges involved in implementing these in ABNJ. The fragmentary nature of the legal and institutional framework for environmental governance in ABNJ is discussed as well as some initiatives being taken at the global level to develop a more comprehensive framework for environmental assessment in these extensive areas of the ocean.


"Godard is the most contemporary of directors, one who has never set a film in the past. Yet since the 1990s he has produced a whole cycle of works whose tones are retrospective, memorial, elegaic. These include JLG/JLG:Auto-portrait du Decembre (1995), the much-discussed Histoire(s) du Cinema (begun in 1988, completed in 1998) 2 x 50 Years of French Cinema (commissioned by the BFI for the centennial of cinema in 1995), The Old Place (commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in 1999), On the Origin of the Twenty-First Century (commissioned by the Cannes Film Festival for the year 2000), Dans Le Noir du Temps (a contribution to the 2002 compilation film Ten Minutes Older ), and the 2006 Centre Pompidou exhibition "Travels in Utopia." This last was a retrospective in the conventional sense (screenings of four decades worth of film and video by Godard, Godard/Gorin, Godard/Mieville, etc), but was also retrospective as an installation, divided into three spaces identified as hier, l'avant-hier, and aujourd'hui (yesterday, the day before yesterday, and today), with tomorrow notable for its absence..."


Current link-state routing protocols (e.g., OSPF) use flooding to disseminate link-state information throughout the network. Despite its simplicity and reliability, flooding incurs unnecessary communications overhead since nodes may receive multiple copies of the same advertisement. This extra overhead becomes an Issue in the context of quality-of-service (QoS) routing, where link state is dynamic and needs to be advertised frequently. The advertisement overhead can be significantly reduced by using tree-based broadcasting approaches. Although several of these approaches have been proposed in the literature, they are not used in practice because of their complexity and/or unreliability. We propose a new link-state dissemination approach that combines the best features of flooding and tree-based broadcasting. Our hybrid approach is particularly suited for "dynamic" link metrics (e.g., available bandwidth). It uses periodic flooding to advertise topology changes and first-time LSAs (link-state advertisements), and uses tree-based broadcasting to disseminate subsequent refresh LSAs. The broadcast trees in our approach are constructed dynamically during the flooding of the first LSA, without the need for the complex algorithms of previous tree-based approaches. Two versions of our dissemination approach are presented, with one being more suitable for networks with frequent topological changes. We prove the correctness of our approach and contrast its communications overhead with flooding and pure tree-based broadcasting. The results indicate that our hybrid approach has a significantly lower overhead than flooding; yet It enjoys the simplicity, reliability, and fast convergence of flooding. Finally, we outline how OSPF can be extended to support the proposed dissemination approach.


[Extract] During the 1980's much was written about the inadequacies of the Australian fraudulent and reckless trading provisions contained in sections 556 and 557 of the Companies Code and later sections 592 and 593 of the Corporations Law.

These indadequacies were not lost on the Government and whilst the introduction of the National companies scheme in 1990 did not effect any reforms to the defaulting officer provisions, as they have commonly become known, over a six year period a series of committees was established to examine both the adequacy of the laws relating to insolvency and the regulation of directors. Subsequently the Corporate Law Reform Act 1992 enacted, amongst other reforms, significant changes to the defaulting officer provisions. Thses amendments took effect from 24 June, 1993.


The purpose of this research was to determine whether indirect land use occurs and if so to what extent. Indirect land use is a change from non-cropland to cropland (e.g. deforestation) that may occur in response to increasing scarcity of cropland. As farmers worldwide respond to higher crop prices in order to maintain the global food supply and demand balance, pristine lands are cleared and converted to new cropland to replace the crops for feed and food that were diverted elsewhere to biofuels production. We examine the impact of corn-based ethanol production in the United States on land use in other countries.


The analysis of newspaper discourse offers valuable insights into how society represents or misrepresents certain social participants and their actions. In view of the bias claimed to exist in journalistic prose (Bednarek, 2006; White, 2006), it is not uncommon to find evidence of the mistreatment directed towards particular minorities (Baker et al., 2008; Fowler, 1991). In this paper, the ideological stance associated with a specific minority group (i.e. homosexuals) is brought to the forefront in 2008, when Ireland's vibrant economy took a dramatic turn for the worse. Incidentally, this coincided with homosexuality taking centre stage in Ireland's political agenda, as 2008 marked the final stage of the long drawn-out debate on the Civil Partnership Bill. This paper is designed to offer insights into how evaluative language may reflect the mentality of Irish society in relation to the LGBT community. Martin & White's (2005) APPRAISAL theory is highly relevant and applicable for this purpose, as it covers the idea of social esteem, social sanction, personal attitude and appreciation, which can be powerful indicators of a society's take on current affairs. The methodology employed here is that of corpus-assisted discourse analysis (Stubbs, 1996). The dataset comprises over 200,000 words taken from three different newspapers: Two tabloids and one broadsheet. Our dataset is annotated on the basis of the categories in Martin & White's (2005) subsystem of ATTITUDE (AFFECT, JUDGEMENT and APPRECIATION). The application of this taxonomy uncovers a remarkably negative stance towards the Irish LGBT community in the sample analysed. This is particularly evident in the predominance of evaluative and emotive language associated with the categories of negative JUDGEMENT and AFFECT. Previous research on the same sample, looking at metaphor, transitivity and modality (e.g. Bartley & Hidalgo-Tenorio, 2015), has cast light on how homosexuals are repeatedly discriminated against and vilified in the Irish public arena. This study confirms the results so far obtained through the analysis of evaluative language.


We consider distributed estimation of a source in additive Gaussian noise, observed by sensors that are connected to a fusion center with unknown orthogonal (parallel) flat Rayleigh fading channels. We adopt a two-phase approach of i) channel estimation with training and ii) source estimation given the channel estimates and transmitted sensor observations, where the total power is fixed. In the second phase we consider both an equal power scheduling among sensors and an optimized choice of powers. We also optimize the percentage of total power that should be allotted for training. We prove that 50% training is optimal for equal power scheduling and at least 50% is needed for optimized power scheduling. For both equal and optimized cases, a power penalty of at least 6 dB is incurred compared to the perfect channel case to get the same mean squared error performance for the source estimator. However, the diversity order is shown to be unchanged in the presence of channel estimation error. In addition, we show that, unlike the perfect channel case, increasing the number of sensors will lead to an eventual degradation in performance. We approximate the optimum number of sensors as a function of the total power and noise statistics. Simulations corroborate our analytical findings.


Most existing sparse Gaussian process (g.p.) models seek computational advantages by basing their computations on a set of m basis functions that are the covariance function of the g.p. with one of its two inputs fixed. We generalise this for the case of Gaussian covariance function, by basing our computations on m Gaussian basis functions with arbitrary diagonal covariance matrices (or length scales). For a fixed number of basis functions and any given criteria, this additional flexibility permits approximations no worse and typically better than was previously possible. We perform gradient based optimisation of the marginal likelihood, which costs O(m2n) time where n is the number of data points, and compare the method to various other sparse g.p. methods. Although we focus on g.p. regression, the central idea is applicable to all kernel based algorithms, and we also provide some results for the support vector machine (s.v.m.) and kernel ridge regression (k.r.r.). Our approach outperforms the other methods, particularly for the case of very few basis functions, i. e. a very high sparsity ratio.


The world needs an energy source that can replace nonrenewable fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We explored the production of ethanol from switchgrass, a North American grass that is suitable for biofuel production because it contains large amounts of cellulose, a chemical energy that can be used as fuel. Our experiments evaluated whether key factors would increase the efficiency of ethanol production from switchgrass — in other words, which factors produced the highest percentage of ethanol in the final step of distillation. There are four steps to producing ethanol: pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, and distillation. We tested two variables: the concentration of potassium hydroxide (KOH) added to the switchgrass during pretreatment and using ground versus unground grass. After adding the KOH to the grass and letting it sit for a week, we balanced the pH and added 5 grams of cellulase to each sample to convert the cellulose to glucose. After 48 hours, we added 10 grams of yeast to turn the glucose into ethanol. In the final step, we distilled all of the samples and measured the percentage of alcohol. Most large-scale production companies use a 30% KOH concentration during their pretreatment procedure, leading us to speculate that a 30% KOH concentration would yield the greatest amount of ethanol. Contrary to this expectation, we found that the sample with 15% KOH content produced the greatest ethanol yield.


We present a detailed experimental-theoretical analysis of O K-edge resonant 1σ-2π inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) from carbon monoxide with unprecedented energy resolution. We employ high-level ab initio calculations to compute the potential energy curves of the states involved in the RIXS process and simulate the measured RIXS spectra using the wave-packet-propagation formalism, including Coulomb coupling in the final-state manifold. The theoretical analysis allows us to explain all the key features of the experimental spectra, including some that were not seen before. First, we clearly show the interference effect between different RIXS channels corresponding to the transition via orthogonal Πx1 and Πy1 core-excited states of CO. Second, the RIXS region of 13 eV energy loss presents a triple structure, revealed only by the high-resolution measurement. In previous studies, this region was attributed solely to a valence state. Here we show a strong Coulomb mixing of the Rydberg and valence final states, which opens the forbidden RIXS channels to the "dark" final Rydberg states and drastically changes the RIXS profile. Third, using a combination of high-resolution experiment and high-level theory, we improve the |4σ-12π1) final-state potential-energy curve by fitting its bottom part with the experiment. Also, the coupling constants between Rydberg and valence states were refined via comparison with the experiment. Our results illustrate the large potential of the RIXS technique for advanced studies of highly excited states of neutral molecules. (Less)


In our previous article, we outlined the pathophysiology of inflammatory diseases and mechanisms to inhibit the inflammatory mediators, one of which is TNF-alpha. The nomenclature and characteristics of the TNF-alpha inhibitors,a biological class of drugs, were also reviewed. In addition, the clinical application of these drugs in various inflammatory conditions was discussed.
In this article, the second in the series, adverse effects and toxicities of the TNF blockers are investigated, in particular tuberculosis and the controversy over malignancy. Furthermore, we focus on the induction of autoimmunity caused by the anti-TNFs. Neutralising antibody formation, which may cause a decrease in the effectiveness of some of these drugs, is a specific problem, but may be reduced by various strategies.
Lastly, we look at issues around which anti-TNF drug to select, as well as the appropriateness of switching from one to another in patients where a particular TNF blocker does not show adequate or sustained clinical benefit.


"America is a power, Europe is an experience" -- Joschka Fischer IN 2002 ROBERT KAGAN, a leading neoconservative intellectual temporarily "exiled" in Brussels, wrote a brilliant essay, "Power and Weakness," arguing that the political personality of European power as we know it today is the product of America's Cold War policies and the universalization of Europe's post-World War II political experience. But more than anything else, it is the product of Europe's current military weakness. In his analysis, post-9/11 America should naturally have cooperated with Europe, but Washington could not rely on the European Union as a strategic partner in managing the world because "on the all-important question of power-- the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power-- American and European perspectives are diverging." A decade later American and European perspectives diverge on the all-important question of the decline of Western power. While American elites view the very discussion of "decline" as "pre-emptive superpower suicide," Europeans are busy learning how to live in a world where the EU is not a leading actor and the European continent is not the center of the world but simply the wealthiest province. Could it be that the clash between Washington's denial of the very possibility of America's decline and Europe's excessive readiness to adjust to it can damage the Western alliance more than the controversy over the use of power did? Could it be that at the heart of the current troubles in the transatlantic relationship is a crisis of the political imagination of the West? I want to argue that the paradox of the new world order emerging out of the ongoing recession is that the global spread of democracy and capitalism, instead of signaling "the end of history," marked "the end of the West" as a political actor constructed in the days of the Cold War. In the decades to come the nature of the political regimes will be an unreliable predictor for the geopolitical alliances to emerge; and it is the blurring borders between democracies and authoritarian capitalism, rather than the triumph of democracy or the resurgence of authoritarianism, that defines the global political landscape. Kagan's "Long Telegram IN "POWER AND WEAKNESS" Robert Kagan eschewed political correctness, insisting that after the end of the Cold War Americans and Europeans no longer shared a common view of the world. They no longer shared a common strategic culture. The divergence between America and Europe can be best explained not by differences in "national character" or value systems but by the asymmetry of power. It is Europe's relative military weakness that determines Europeans' rejection of power as an instrument in international relations. And it is America's strength that defines Americans' readiness to use military power. In short, capabilities shape intentions. Forced to choose between increasing their military budgets and becoming second-rate powers, Europeans most likely will choose marginality. Contrary to the opinion of its critics, Kagan's essay was not a dismissal of the eu's relevance in the world. Paradoxically Kagan's dispatch from Brussels was reaffirmation of the importance of the transatlantic alliance. Arguing with the prevailing consensus in Washington at the time, he asserted that it was true that Europe had lost its geostrategic and military significance for the U.S. But Europe had retained its critical ideological relevance for the American foreign policy, he believed, because the split between America and Europe meant the end of the post-Cold War world. And in Kagan's strategic vision it is the post-Cold War world-- a world without Soviet power but defined by the ideological confrontation between free nations and tyrannical regimes-- that best suits American interests. Re-reading Kagan's article a decade later, we face three critical questions. …


We present the notion of a type-safe disk (TSD). Unlike a traditional disk system, a TSD is aware of the pointer relationships between disk blocks that are imposed by higher layers such as the file system. A TSD utilizes this knowledge in two key ways. First, it enables active enforcement of invariants on data access based on the pointer relationships, resulting in better security and integrity. Second, it enables semantics-aware optimizations within the disk system. Through case studies, we demonstrate the benefits of TSDs and show that a TSD presents a simple yet effective general interface to build the next generation of storage systems.


The number of tropical species established in the Mediterranean Sea has risen at an unprecedented rate in the last 40–50 years, often entering the basin from the Red Sea and to a lesser extent by shipping or mariculture. The taxonomic identity of these alien species can be difficult to determine and DNA barcoding can help to clarify the status of questionable species. One of these cases is the W-shaped mark Aglajidae slug usually identified as being the Indo-West Pacific species Chelidonura fulvipunctata Baba, 1938 but was first described in the Mediterranean Sea as a native species under the name C. mediterranea Swennen, 1961. A Bayesian phylogeny using the barcode marker cytochrome c oxidase subunit I and an ABGD species delimitation analysis unequivocally showed that specimens from the eastern and central Mediterranean Sea are conspecific with specimens from the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In this work, we hypothesize that C. fulvipunctata (presently occurring in the entire Mediterranean Sea and Indo-West Pacific; only once recorded in the Red Sea) has entered the Red Sea through the Mediterranean Sea. Thus the Red Sea can also be a receiver of tropical species that have arrived in the Mediterranean by other routes than Lessepsian immigration, with the Suez Canal acting as a "revolving door" allowing both species of Indo-Pacific origin to enter the Mediterranean and species established in the Mediterranean resilient to tropical/subtropical environmental conditions to move into the Red Sea.


Swift Parrots (Lathamus discolour) are an endangered migratory species that breed only in Tasmania. The foraging habitat available for the species is fragmented and in decline, and continued tree loss is reducing already diminished food resources. The species has been listed as threatened under the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) since 1999, and the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act since 1995. The aims of this thesis was to assess how Federal and State threatened species legislation acts to protect the habitat of the Swift Parrot in Tasmania, how effective it is at achieving this outcome, and to make suggestions on possible improvements to the system. This was achieved through three case studies examining the removal of key foraging habitat of the Swift Parrot, E. globulus woodland and forest. The first case study, focusing on forestry operations in Tasmania through an examination of the Wielangta case, found that the Tasmanian Regional Forestry Agreement offers scant protection to threatened species. The second case study looked at a property development in Sandy Bay, which demonstrated the management of threatened species habitat is too onerous a task to be taken on by a local planning authority. The third case study of two associated infrastructure upgrades in south-east Tasmania referred to Environment Australia, demonstrated that the removal of 1000 trees crucial to a threatened species does not constitute a "significant impact" under the EPBC Act, so long as the loss is offset. Additionally the number of large E. globulus removed since the enactment of threatened species legislation in Tasmania was measured from remote sensing imagery. Four hundred and ninety four trees were found to have been removed in the study area, with 87% of the loss in Kingborough and 75% in Hobart due to urban development. Recommendations include removal of the exemption provided to RFA from the EPBC Acts assessment and approval process, and reform to the definition of "significant impact" on threatened species to ensure developments are assessed appropriately. Additionally it is recommended that a regional planning authority be establishment to alleviate part of the burden on local councils of threatened species management. Finally improvements should be made to the regulatory system to prevent unnecessary tree removal in urban areas.


Objectives Disseminated gonococcal infections (DGIs) are rare. We describe the characteristics of DGIs in France. Methods This is a 3-year retrospective analysis of DGI cases collected through two networks of microbiologists and infectious disease specialists in France between 2009 and 2011. DGI was defined either by the isolation of Neisseria gonorrhoeae from blood and synovial fluid or by the existence of a clinical syndrome consistent with DGI and the isolation of N gonorrhoeae from any site. We describe the epidemiological, clinical and microbiological characteristics and outcomes of DGIs. Results 21 patients (9 women, 12 men; 18–62 years old) were diagnosed with DGI. The number of DGI cases increased between 2009 and 2011. Two men who had sex with men were coinfected with HIV. We found 28 extragenital locations, including arthritis (14 cases), tenosynovitis (7), skin lesions (4), endocarditis (1), prostatitis (1) and pelvic inflammatory disease (1). Genital signs were present in five patients. The diagnosis was confirmed by cultures in 20 patients—blood (4), synovial fluid (11), genital (3), throat (1), urine (1)—and by molecular biology on a pharyngeal swab in 1 patient. Seven cases were resistant to fluoroquinolones. The patients were treated with ceftriaxone, associated with corticosteroids (two cases) and surgery (six cases). Four patients had joint sequelae. Conclusions DGIs are increasing. Men seem to be at higher risk than women. Joint involvement was common. Microbiological diagnosis was based on culture, however molecular biology using pharyngeal swabs was helpful when cultures were negative.


Context. The goal of the Herschel open time programme "TNOs are Cooll" is to derive the physical and thermal properties for a large sample of Centaurs, and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including resonant, classical, detached and scattered disk objects. Aims. Based on observations of two targets we tried (i) to optimise the SPIRE observing technique for faint (close to the background confusion noise), slowly moving targets; (ii) to test different thermal model techniques; (iii) to determine radiometric diameter and albedo values; (iv) to compare with Spitzer results whenever possible. Methods. We obtained SPIRE photometry on two targets and PACS photometry on one of the targets. Results. We present results for the two targets, (90482) Orcus and (136472) Makemake, observed with SPIRE and for one of those targets, Makemake, observed with PACS. We adopt pv = 0.27 and D = 850 km as our best estimate of the albedo and diameter of Orcus using single terrain models. With two-terrain models for Makemake, the bright terrain is fitted by, 0.78 \textless pv \textless 0.90, and the dark terrain 0.02 \textless pv \textless 0.12, giving 1360 \textless D \textless 1480 km. Conclusions. A single terrain model was derived for Orcus through the SPIRE photometry combined with MIPS data. The Makemake data from MIPS, PACS and SPIRE combined are not compatible with a single terrain model, but can be modelled with a two-terrain fit. These science demonstration observations have shown that the scanning technique, which allows us to judge the influence of background structures, has proved to be a good basis for this key programme.


This research was carried out to provide empirical information on the relationship between agricultural production and the growth of Nigerian economy with focus on poverty reduction. Time series data were employed in this research and the analyses of the data were done using unit root tests and the bounds (ARDL) testing approach to cointegration. The result of the data analysis indicated that agricultural production was significant in influencing the favourable trend of economic growth in Nigeria. Despite the growth of the Nigerian economy, poverty is still on the increase and this calls for a shift from monolithic oil-based economy to a more plural one with agriculture being the lead sector. It was recommended that pro poor policies should be designed for alleviating rural poverty through increased investments in agricultural development by the public and private sector.


In defining the transition towards a post-carbon future, understanding the needs and determinants for policy priorities in different types of cities will help tailor a common roadmap that can be adopted under various socio-economic contexts. This paper provides an analysis of results collected in a participatory scenario building exercise undertaken within a research project on post-carbon urban futures (Post-Carbon Cities of Tomorrow, POCACITO). It is based on local workshops organised in nine European case study cities, which employed a three-step methodology consisting of an initial assessment, vision building and backcasting exercises. All exercises had a strong focus on the inclusion of stakeholders. Comparison of outcomes from the visions and scenarios resulting from these workshops provides insights on the drivers that determine different priorities in policy action for cities working to transition toward post-carbon futures. Results from the case study cities show similar elements in the strategies proposed by stakeholders, focusing primarily on urban projects for energy efficiency and the transition to non-fossil energy resources. However, the specific mix of strategies envisaged for each city has been influenced by local issues, such as the geographical location or the size, as well as different points of departure with regards to emission reductions and sustainability strategies already achieved.


Dozens of studies in different nations reveal that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual's subjective well-being (SWB). These effects suggest that although the pursuit of social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on one's SWB. However, we propose that sociometric status – the respect and admiration one has in face-to-face groups (e.g., one's friendship group or workplace) – has a stronger effect on SWB than does socioeconomic status. Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a "Local Ladder Effect": sociometric status significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rises or falls, SWB rises or falls accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals' sociometric status – their respect and admiration in local, face-to-face groups –matters more than their socioeconomic status for SWB.


Exceptional State analyzes the nexus of culture and contemporary manifestations of U.S. imperialism. The contributors, established and emerging cultural studies scholars, define culture broadly to include a range of media, literature, and political discourse. They do not posit September 11, 2001 as the beginning of U.S. belligerence and authoritarianism at home and abroad, but they do provide context for understanding U.S. responses to and uses of that event. Taken together, the essays stress both the continuities and discontinuities embodied in a present-day U.S. imperialism constituted through expressions of millennialism, exceptionalism, technological might, and visions of world dominance.

The contributors address a range of topics, paying particular attention to the dynamics of gender and race. Their essays include a surprising reading of the ostensibly liberal movies Wag the Do g and Three Kings , an exploration of the rhetoric surrounding the plan to remake the military into a high-tech force less dependent on human bodies, a look at the significance of the popular Left Behind series of novels, and an interpretation of the Abu Ghraib prison photos. They scrutinize the national narrative created to justify the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the ways that women in those countries have responded to the invasions, the contradictions underlying calls for U.S. humanitarian interventions, and the role of Africa in the U.S. imperial imagination. The volume concludes on a hopeful note, with a look at an emerging anti-imperialist public sphere.

Contributors . Omar Dahbour, Ashley Dawson, Cynthia Enloe, Melani McAlister, Christian Parenti, Donald E. Pease, John Carlos Rowe, Malini Johar Schueller, Harilaos Stecopoulos


Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH)-contaminated soils are a great environmental and public health concern nowadays. Aerobic soil-slurry bioreactor technology has emerged as an effective and feasible technique with a high remediation potential, especially for the fine soil fractions, which often contain the highest pollution levels and are hard to treat with conventional approaches. However, the mechanisms involved in the PAH removal in the bioreactor are still not completely understood. In addition to the biological processes, important mass transfer mechanisms need to be considered (gas-liquid oxygen mass transfer, sorption-desorption, volatilization, etc.). For this study, a mechanistic approach was developed, in which the bioslurry process was deconstructed using a model system. Each part was isolated and analyzed individually. Then, the global process was studied and the results of the analysis of the individual parts were used to understand the global bioremediation treatment. Among the results obtained, it was demonstrated that clay presence in soils can strongly affect oxygen transfer in slurry systems, the pollutant bioavailability was limited by the desorption process, particularly when organic matter was present in the soil and volatilization can be the major removal process during the lag phase period in biodegradation. The results of this research work can be extrapolated to the study of real contaminated soil remediation. The mechanistic approach can be used as a generic method to investigate the slurry bioreactor treatment for any type of soil, different pollutants and microbial communities, and other operating conditions


The design of analog circuits strongly relies on the accuracy of the models available in the circuit simulators. The recently proposed BSIM6 bulk MOSFET compact model is set to replace the hitherto widely used BSIM3 and BSIM4 models as the de-facto industrial standard. Unlike its predecessors which were threshold voltage based, the BSIM6 core is charge-based and thus physically continuous at all levels of inversion and from linear region to saturation region. Hence, it lends itself conveniently for the use of a design methodology suited for low-power analog circuit design and based on the inversion coefficient (IC). The IC based design methodology that has been extensively used in conjugation with the EKV model allows to make simple calculations of, for example, transconductance efficiency, gain bandwidth product, input-referred noise, mismatch offsets etc. This methodology helps to make a near-optimal selection of transistor dimensions and operating points even in moderate and weak inversion regions. This paper will discuss the IC based design methodology and its application to the next generation BSIM6 compact MOSFET model.


The problems involved in the development of user interfaces become even more severe through the ubiquitous use of a variety of devices such as PCs, mobile phones and PDAs. Each of these devices has its own specifics that require a special user interface. Therefore, we developed and implemented an approach to generate user interfaces for multiple devices fully automatically from a high-level model. In contrast to previous approaches focusing on abstracting the user interface per se, we make use of speech act theory from the philosophy of language for the specification of desired intentions in interactions. Our new approach of using communicative acts in high-level models of user interfaces allows their creation with less technical knowledge, since such models are easier to provide than user-interface code in a usual programming language. From one such high-level model, multiple user interfaces for diverse devices are rendered fully automatically using a number of heuristics. A generated user interface for a PDA is already in real-world use and its usability was informally evaluated as good


The Data Intelligence 4 Librarians course was developed by 3TU.Datacentrum at the end of 2011 to provide online resources and training for digital preservation practitioners, specifically for library staff. The course objectives are to transfer and exchange knowledge about data management, and to provide participants with the skills required to advise researchers or research groups on efficient and effective ways of adding value to their data. The paper describes the process of creating the course, the methodology and the results of the first pilot, which took place from February to June 2012. It also demonstrates the choices made during the design process and discusses the implications of the evaluation of the pilot course for further development: in particular, how the course might be expanded to more disciplines and other data repositories.


During the 1990s in the herbal products industry, a boom followed by a decline resulted in losses to some US farmers. In response, representatives of several medicinal herb growers associations began a discussion series to share information and find solutions to problems. Their analysis of the market led them to form and test a hypothesis regarding market acceptance of their products. Concentrating their efforts on an emerging market segment, licensed practitioners of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in the US, growers conducted a feasibility and planning study in 2004–2005 and now are pursuing a marketing strategy based on the conclusions of the study.


In Bangladesh, lots of private commercial banks are contributing for economic growth. The performance of the banks depends on a well-structured communication system. So by maintaining an effective communication system, the banks can gain competitive advantage. Thus the study aims to investigate the communication barriers that should be removed for effective communication in the private commercial banks of Bangladesh. A structured questionnaire survey based on 5-point Likert-scale was conducted on 165 full-time employees of private commercial banks. The sample includes 15 private commercial banks. The Principal Component Analysis reveals three types of communication barriers; personal barriers, job barriers, and organizational barriers. Among these barriers, personal barriers are the most significant barriers according to the respondents of the study. Personal barriers include lack of English knowledge, local tone, opposite sex and hot temper. The second most important barriers are job barriers that include technical words, personal life and job monotony. The third most important barriers are organizational barriers which include defective technology and internal politics.


Many skeletal diseases, such as osteoporosis and malignant bone metastases, are generally osteolytic and associated with increased bone resorption and decreased bone strength. Within a complex cytokine environment, the proteins RANKL and M-CSF are critical for osteoclast differentiation and activation, and thus fundamental effectors of osteolytic disorders. Previous studies showed that M-CSF stimulates the proliferation and early differentiation of osteoclast progenitors to osteoclast lineage, while RANKL targets the later stages of fusion and activation, and stimulates the formation of functional active osteoclasts. However, impacts of artificially elevated levels of these proteins on the skeleton system have not been fully characterized. In this project, we amplified the circulating levels of RANKL and M-CSF by injections or continuous administrations and examined the effects on bone volume and quality. We hypothesized that while M-CSF and RANKL can both stimulate osteoclastogenesis, the differences in activation stages targeted by these two cytokines would result in distinct responses on bone biomechanics. RANKL would directly stimulate osteoclast activity and increase bone resorption, while M-CSF would act anabolically through coupling between osteoblast development and the promoted osteoclastogenesis at the early stage, and promote bone formation indirectly. Data obtained in this project demonstrated that in vivo administration of RANKL and M-CSF induced general opposing effects on bone volume, architecture, mineralization and strength. RANKL directly stimulated bone resorption and reduceed bone biomechanical properties. The destructive skeleton induced by RANKL could serve


Many investors require equity-like returns, but lack the risk tolerance to endure extreme losses. Trading moving average crossovers (MACs) is one strategy that may aid equity market investors in avoiding long protracted downturns. This article provides further analysis of MAC strategies. The findings suggest that trading MACs has remained a simple and effective risk-reduction strategy over the last 20 years. Investors who cannot tolerate extreme losses are signaled out of the market before a significant drawdown. However, the nature of the "bull" market volatility in recent years has significantly reduced the benefits associated with the strategy. In addition, while trading MACs does incur increased negative tax effects over that of a buy-and-hold strategy, the impact appears to be minimal.


Pure inorganic silica capsules were prepared using polyethoxysiloxane (PAOS) as a cross-linker, and the capsules contain inorganic hydrated salt inside. During this work, six different hydrated inorganic salts evaluated to be used as inorganic phase change materials (namely: calcium nitrate tetrahydrate (Ca(NO3)2.4H2O), calciumchloride hexahydrate (CaCl2.6H2O), sodium sulphate decahydrate (Na2SO4.10H2O), disodium hydrogen phosphate dodecahydrate (Na2HPO4.12H2O), ferric nitrate nonahydrate (Fe(NO3)3.9H2O), and manganese (II) nitrate hexahydrate (Mn(NO3)2.6H2O)) in silica-based micro-capsules. Inorganic phase change materials have been studied for their application in textiles. The best results are achieved for sodium sulphate decahydrate, and disodium hydrogen phosphate dodecahydrate, respectively. The microcapsules, which show good phase change property, were embedded in a film of the polypropylene at the extruding stage. The basic mechanical properties of the new material do not differ from those of the pure polypropylene.


We have developed an all-solid-state tunable continuous-wave coherent light source near 202 nm by using sum-frequency mixing of 266- and 850-nm radiation in β-barium borate (BBO). The 266-nm radiation was generated by frequency doubling of a laser-diode-pumped frequency-doubled Nd:YVO4 laser. The power of the 850-nm radiation, which was provided by a laser-diode-based master-oscillator power-amplifier system, was enhanced in an external cavity. An output power of 59 µW was generated at 202.6 nm. We obtained ultraviolet radiation from 201.5 to 203.1 nm by tuning the wavelength of the master oscillator.


Malnutrition is one of the main factors that contribute significantly to health status mortality and general wellbeing of elderly people. The elderly have a greater risk of malnutrition due to high morbidity rate, lack of care and support, loss of muscle mass that normally come with ageing and physiological changes that derail intake of food, digestion, nutrients absorption and metabolism. Physical disabilities also interfere with their ability to look for and prepare food. For any interventions addressing the nutritional issues in elderly people to succeed, the magnitude of the problem and associated factors need to be clearly investigated. In Kenya, studies have been conducted on institutionalized elderly persons and those residing in urban areas but the elderly living in the rural community is a less studied group. This study sought to find out what dietary and care practices exist in the study area, the morbidity status and their relationship to the nutritional status of an elderly population in a rural set up. The study was cross sectional analytical by design and was conducted in Igembe South, Meru County. A sample size of 152 elderly persons was targeted. Respondents were selected using simple random sampling. Data was collected using Researcher administered questionnaires to the elderly and focus group discussion guide. An observation checklist was used to validate some of the data collected through the interviews. Data was entered then analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences software and Nutrisurvey computer package. BMI and MUAC parameters were used to determine the respondents' nutritional status by means of WHO cut offs. The study population was described by means of descriptive statistics. Correlation between income and dietary intakes and the nutritional status of the elderly people was done using Pearson correlation moment. Chi-square test established relationships between sex and age groups of the elderly and their nutritional status. A P value of < 0.05 was considered significant. The study population consisted of 88 females (58%) and 64 males (42%). The mean age was 71 ±8 years. The mean energy intake was 1587 ±653 for men and 1442 ±590 for women. Loneliness was a significant problem with 25.6% of the participants living alone. Based on WHO BMI cutoffs, 39.4% elderly persons were undernourished, 50.7% were normal, 7.2% overweight and 2.6% were obese. Morbidity was high with 89.5% of the respondents reporting to have been sick 2 weeks prior to the study. Nutritional status was correlated with household income, amount spent on food, age, dietary intake, living alone and functionality of the elderly. The study concluded that malnutrition is a major problem among the elderly hence is a public health concern that demands for specific interventions targeting the elderly and the community at large. Behavior change and communication involving all the stakeholders in the welfare of the elderly should be emphasized. The findings will influence policy making and assist in designing appropriate nutrition interventions for the elderly people in the country.


In the era of globalization, one of the key factors for manufacturing machine builders/suppliers to remain competitive is their capability to provide cost-effective and comprehensive machine service and maintenance for their clients at anytime, anywhere. Previous research has highlighted the role of virtual engineering tools in the design and development life cycle of manufacturing machinery systems. Virtual engineering models created during the development phase can potentially be used to provide valuable functions for many other tasks during the operational phase, including service and maintenance support. This paper introduces an innovative Internet-enabled three-dimensional-based virtual engineering framework that can be used for such purposes. Specifically, it addresses a system architecture that is designed to facilitate the tight integration between virtual engineering tools and a set of Internet-based reconfigurable modular maintenance supporting tools. This system architecture has been verified by implementations using different toolsets atop of various Internet technologies (e.g. XML Web services and LabView's Datasocket). Implementation details and successful industrial-based test cases are also provided in this paper.


Food hubs are proliferating. But what exactly are they? What are they for? And why do we need them? This Discussion Paper, based on collaborative work involving local food practitioners and academic researchers, aims to answer some of these questions.

Broadly speaking, food hubs are entities that sit between people who produce food and people who use it, gathering food from growers and distributing it either to commercial customers or directly to consumers. Often, they focus on helping small-scale suppliers find markets, and operate within an explicit ethical framework. They can fill gaps in local food infrastructure, help consumers find locally sourced produce, support new forms of food retail, incubate food enterprises, or create a space for community education and action.

The paper has been written for people who want to understand the role of multifunctional food hubs in the UK, or to determine whether a food hub (or what type of food hub) is appropriate for their locality and purposes. We hope the report will spark debate and provide pointers for people who are already busy in this expanding and energised sector. We also hope it will help policymakers, investors and funders to engage with, and potentially support, the role of food hubs in sustainable food systems.


Correct establishment and maintenance of cell polarity is required for the development and homeostasis of all metazoans. Cell-polarity mechanisms are responsible not only for the diversification of cell shapes but also for regulation of the asymmetric cell divisions of stem cells that are crucial for their correct self-renewal and differentiation. Disruption of cell polarity is a hallmark of cancer. Furthermore, recent evidence indicates that loss of cell polarity is intimately involved in cancer: several crucial cell-polarity proteins are known proto-oncogenes or tumor suppressors, basic mechanisms of cell polarity are often targeted by oncogenic signaling pathways, and deregulation of asymmetric cell divisions of stem or progenitor cells may be responsible for abnormal self-renewal and differentiation of cancer stem cells. Data from in vivo and three-dimensional (3D) cell-culture models demonstrate that tissue organization attenuates the phenotypic outcome of oncogenic signaling. We suggest that polarized 3D tissue organization uses cell-cell and cell-substratum adhesion structures to reinforce and maintain the cell polarity of pre-cancerous cells. In this model, polarized 3D tissue organization functions as a non-canonical tumor suppressor that prevents the manifestation of neoplastic features in mutant cells and, ultimately, suppresses tumor development and progression.


Soil moisture dynamics in the Velen drainage basin (Sweden) were analyzed in order to assess the degree of and the reasons for spatial variation in basin behaviour. The main tool was a modified version of the soil moisture accounting routine in the conceptual runoff model HBV, optimized against neutron probe field data. Simulated soil moisture dynamics, interception and percolation rates agreed well with measurements and other calculations. Integration of simulated evapotranspiration from sites with different characteristics agreed well with water balance computations for the area. It was shown that unsaturated flow through macropores probably occurred after heavy rainstorms. During spring, evapotranspiration was limited to values below the potential (Penmans equation) even at times when no soil moisture deficit existed. Soil moisture differences between forest and grassland (including a deforested site) were, during summer, mainly attributed to differences in the root distribution with depth. The effect of interception on the total evapotranspiration rates was only significant during periods when transpiration demands were low. Soil moisture differences between forest sites were mainly attributed to topography but variations in soil characteristics and root distribution had to be considered, especially during dry periods.


Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is known to result in a complex microstructural development, with features that remain unexplained, such as: the formation of the onion rings structure. Moreover, various microstructural factors have been suggested to control the strength in Al-Mg AA5xxx welds. The influence of the basemetal microstructural parameters (e.g. grains, intermetallic particles, stored energy) on the microstructure-property development has not been previously investigated, and is the subject of the present work. To rationalise the microstructural and local strength (hardness) development, especially within the heat affected zone (HAZ), a simple and rapid 3-D heat transfer model was established to predict the thermal fields associated with FSW. This numerical model utilises the alternating direction implicit method to simulate the transient thermal cycle based on the process parameters, thermo-physical and thermo-mechanical properties of the material. The model was fitted for the friction coefficient and contact conductance between the sheet and the backing plate using experimental torque and force data, as well as in-situ thermocouple measurements for AA2xxx and AA5xxx welds. The model predictions were consistent with the microstructural and microhardness development in the welds. Gleeble thermal simulations showed that the heating rate during welding affects the recrystallisation start temperature, which could delay or speed up recrystallisation. In the thermo-mechanically affected zone (TMAZ), the onion rings structure was studied in several AA5xxx and AA2xxx welds. This follows a thorough microstructural investigation of the basemetals sheets prepared by direct chill and continuous casting, to establish the influence of the microstructural heterogeneity in the basemetal on the onion rings formation and the microstructural development. Stereological studies of the intermetallic particle distributions in the basemetal and the welds revealed that there is a direct relation between the banding of constituent particles (Al(Fe,Mn)Si or Al6(Fe,Mn) in AA5xxx) or equilibrium phases (Al2CuMg or Al2Cu in AA2xxx) along the rolling direction, and the formation of the onion rings. A clear onion rings structure was defined by three microstructural features, which are: 1) the existence of fine and coarse grain bands, 2) grain boundary precipitates coinciding with the fine grain bands, and 3) coarse particle segregation in the coarse grain bands. Upon etching, these microstructural heterogeneities form the unique onion rings etching profile. The formation of the onion rings was rather independent of the process parameters and alloy type, as long as the intermetallic particles are banded regardless of their types. However, alloys with high area fraction of intermetallic particles (~> 0.02) were found to produce more pronounced microstructural heterogeneities, which resulted in a stronger etching intensity. The microstructural heterogeneities within the AA5xxx welds, especially the interaction between the dislocations and the fine Al6(Fe,Mn) dispersoids, indicated that establishing a structure-property model requires the incorporation of the various strengthening factors. Stereological studies of the grain size and intermetallic particle distributions in the TMAZ indicated that the hardness is a combination of various microstructural factors, with grain-boundary strengthening as the main factor, with additional contributions by Orowan strengthening by the Al6(Fe,Mn) particles in specific locations, as well as a minor contribution by solid solution strengthening which resulted from the dissolution of Mg2Si during welding. The high dislocation stored energy in the TMAZ, as measured by differential scanning calorimetry, was associated with the geometrically-necessary dislocations which resulted from the interaction with the intermetallic particles and grains, but do not contribute to the hardness.


The main goal of this study is to identify bridging reading strategy — a strategy that a reader uses to make a connection from the current sentence to previous sentences to help understanding the meaning of the text. For a specific target sentence, there are two types of bridging: local and distal. Benchmarks were created to help represent each type of bridging. The two immediate prior sentences of each target sentence together created a benchmark for the local bridging. The benchmarks for distal bridging were those prior sentences, excluding two immediate prior sentences. There were three ways that distal benchmarks were created: chunks based-on paragraph, chunks based-on target sentence, and entire collection of prior sentences. The results showed that using modified benchmark by removing up to 4 words within a threshold 0.4 has significantly improved the identification of distal bridging reading strategy by 14% from the original benchmark evaluation. On the other hand, to identify local bridging, using modified benchmark by removing 4 words has significantly improved the identification by 19% from the original benchmark evaluation.


This chapter recognizes John Roth's contributions to the genetic study of microbial metabolism by summarizing results in an area that the authors have explored over the years. Wild-type Escherichia coli can make biotin (vitamin H) from an inorganic medium with glucose as the sole carbon source. In the course of studies on prophage insertion, the authors isolated both specialized transducing phages and deletions that included the mutant site, which facilitated asking how many bio genes were clustered there, what they did, and how they were regulated. However, the biotin operon intrigued the authors because the product is required in such minute amounts, roughly 1,000 molecules per cell. The repressor protein BirA is encoded by a gene distant from the bio operon. BirA also functions as a biotin ligase. The biotin operon is transcribed bidirectionally, from overlapping promoters controlled by the same operator. The authors discuss at the outset why they thought biotin biosynthesis and its control might be interesting. Biotin-d-sulfoxide (BDS) is reduced by a specific reductase (BisC) and a molybdopterin cofactor (functional also in the reduction of nitrate and dimethyl sulfoxide), whose biosynthesis requires at least 15 genes. If BDS is added to wild-type cells at high concentration, the biotin operon is repressed. The authors turned the regulatory system around and used it as a possible selection for mutations that knock out BDS reduction.


This qualitative study investigated P–12 school administrators' perceptions of teacher education candidates' online digital portfolios for hiring purposes. Over the course of three semesters, focus group interviews and an online questionnaire gauged administrators' perceptions of selected candidates' portfolios and how they might be used to help select teachers to hire. Based on preliminary feedback from administrators, candidates had opportunity to modify their portfolios each semester. Findings give evidence that administrators will use digital portfolios as a tool in the hiring process if they can easily access them, navigation is clear, and items they have traditionally used are still available. Administrators also viewed online video clips of candidates as a potentially powerful tool to help in selecting teachers to hire.


We design and experimentally demonstrate a migration of electrically neutral particles in liquids driven by electric current according to the discrepancies of their electrical conductivities. A force from electric current to electrically neutral particles has been identified to drive the particles toward the lateral surface from the centre of suspension via three distinguishable zones, namely, pushing, trapping, and expelling zones. The driving force can overtake gravity in practical cases. The property of the force is found neither similar to that of the force in electromagnetophoresis nor similar to that of the electromigration force in terms of direction and magnitude. An expression for the force at the pushing zone has been developed based on the numerical calculation of the thermodynamics of suspension fluids. The excellent agreement between numerical calculations and experimental data demonstrates that our calculation provides fundamental and predictive insight into particles separation from the liquids. Therefore, it is possible to use the force in many engineering applications such as separation of particles according to the differences of their electrical conductivities.


The transport efficiency during capillary flow-driven sample transport on microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs) made from filter paper has been investigated for a selection of model analytes (Ni2+, Zn2+, Cu2+, PO43-, bovine serum albumin, sulforhodamine B, amaranth) representing metal cations, complex anions, proteins and anionic molecules. For the first time, the transport of the analytical target compounds rather than the sample liquid, has been quantitatively evaluated by means of colorimetry and absorption spectrometry-based methods. The experiments have revealed that small paperfluidic channel dimensions, additional user operation steps (e.g. control of sample volume, sample dilution, washing step) as well as the introduction of sample liquid wicking areas allow to increase analyte transport efficiency. It is also shown that the interaction of analytes with the negatively charged cellulosic paper substrate surface is strongly influenced by the physico-chemical properties of the model analyte and can in some cases (Cu2+) result in nearly complete analyte depletion during sample transport. The quantitative information gained through these experiments is expected to contribute to the development of more sensitive μPADs.

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This paper analyzes how the interaction between green consumers and responsible firms affects the market equilibrium. The main result is that a higher responsibility by both producers and consumers can have different impacts on the efficiency of the firms' abatement activity, depending on the nature of the cleaning costs. When the abatement costs are fixed, the efficiency of the clean-up effort is always increasing in their degree of responsibility. On the other hand, when the abatement costs are variable, a higher level of responsibility may reduce social welfare. Finally, the first best allocation is never reached, even in the presence of the highest credible level of responsibility of both consumers and producers.


Rhythmic oscillations of the PER protein, the product of theDrosophila period (per) gene, in brain neurons of the adult fly are strongly involved in the control of circadian rhythms. We analyzed temporal and spatial expression patterns of three per–reporter fusion genes, which share the same 4 kb regulatory upstream region but contain increasing amounts ofper's coding region fused in frame to the bacteriallacZ gene. The fusion proteins contained either the N-terminal half (SG), the N-terminal two-thirds (BG), or nearly all (XLG) of the PER protein. All constructs led to reporter signals only in the known per-expressing cell types within the anterior CNS and PNS. Whereas the staining intensity of SG flies was constantly high at different Zeitgeber times, the in situ signals in BG and XLG flies cycled with ∼24 hr periodicity in the PER-expressing brain cells in wild-type andper01 loss of function flies. Despite the rhythmic fusion-gene expression within the relevant neurons ofper01 BG flies, their locomotor activity in light/dark cycling conditions and in constant darkness was identical to that of per01 controls, uncoupling protein cycling from rhythmic behavior. The XLG construct restored weak behavioral rhythmicity to (otherwise)per01 flies, indicating that the C-terminal third of PER (missing in BG) is necessary to fulfill the biological function of this clock protein.


Continuous desertification of arable lands mandates use of low quality/ saline water for irrigation, especially in regions experiencing water shortage. Using low quality/ saline water for irrigation imposes more stress on plants that are already under stress in these regions. Thus, a logical solution will be to find a salt/ drought-tolerant plant species that will survive/sustain under such stressful conditions. As the native plants are already growing under such conditions and are adapted to these stresses, they are most suitable for use under these harsh arid environmental conditions. If stress-tolerant species/ genotypes of these native plants are identified, there will be substantial savings in inputs (i.e., water, fertilizers, and agrochemicals) in using them under these stressful conditions. My research studies at the University of Arizona on various native grasses indicate that saltgrass (Distichlis spicata) has a great potential to be used under harsh environmental desert conditions, to combat the desertification processes. The objectives of this review article are to introduce saltgrass, a halophytic plant species, which through my investigations on various salinity and drought-tolerant halophytic plant species has proven to be the most tolerant plant species for recommendation as the potential species for use in arid regions and in areas with saline soils and limited water supply or drought conditions, for sustainable agriculture and for combating desertification. In my various investigations, different saltgrass clones/accessions/genotypes were studied in a greenhouse, to evaluate their growth responses under salinity or drought stress conditions. The grasses were grown vegetatively either hydroponically in culture solution for salt tolerance or in galvanized cans that contained fritted clay for drought tolerance. For salt tolerance, the grasses were grown under four treatments (EC = 6 (control), 20, 34, and 48 dSm-1 salinity stress) with three replications in a randomized complete block (RCB) design experiment. During this period, the shoots were clipped bi-weekly for fresh and dry matter (DM) weight determination. At the last harvest, the roots were also harvested and the DM weights determined. For drought tolerance, the growth responses of the grasses were evaluated under a progressive drought condition for four months in a split plot design experiment with three replications. Shoots were harvested bi-weekly for DM determination. Although growth responses reduced at high salinity levels or as the drought period progressed, all the grasses showed a high degree of salinity/drought tolerance. However, there was a wide range of variations observed in salinity/ drought tolerance among the various clones/accessions/genotypes. The superior salinity/ drought-tolerant plants were identified, which could be recommended for sustainable production under arid regions and combating desertification.


Rheumatologic and autoimmune diseases are among foremost diseases for which patients seek complementary and integrative medicine options. Therefore, physicians should be informed on the advances in research of these therapies, in order to be able to discuss possible indications and contraindications for these treatment modalities with their patients. This review summarizes several therapeutic modalities of complementary medicine that may be involved in the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway. The analysis of systematic reviews of acupuncture for rheumatic conditions has concluded that the evidence is sufficiently sound to warrant positive recommendations of this therapy for osteoarthritis, low back pain and lateral elbow pain. There is relatively strong evidence to support the use of hypnosis in pain treatment, such as in cases of fibromyalgia. A recent controlled study that evaLuated tai-chi in fibromyalgia has reported reductions in pain, improvements in mood, quality of Life, self efficacy and exercise capacity. There is also cumulative evidence that acupuncture, hypnosis and tai-chi may decrease the high frequency of heart rate variability, suggesting enhancement of vagus nerve activity. Hence, it has been hypothesized that these modalities might impact the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway to modulate inflammation. Further clinical and basic research to confirm this hypothesis should be performed in order to validate integration of these therapies in comprehensive treatment for some inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.