The Kingdom of Bhutan is a small country sandwiched between the two large countries in Asia, in terms of size and population. To the north lies China and India to the south, east and west. This is a country which follows the development philosophy of "Gross National Happiness" in contrast to the conventional economic parlance called "Gross Domestic Product". A reliable, affordable and sustainable supply of energy to its citizens is seen as one of the main inputs to a nation's well being and growth. To this end, Bhutan strives to achieve 100% rural electrification by 2013. To meet the above target in time, Bhutan faces a unique challenge. To extend the grid to every nook and corner of the country is technically infeasible and economically prohibitive. Other options, like small and micro hydropower systems and solar home lighting systems, are widely used to accelerate rural electrification programmes. Through provision of such modern forms of energy services, the lives of rural people have generally improved. However, Bhutan faces a series of sustainability challenges to keep such systems operational in the long run. Many projects have failed over the years and, even today, such projects are difficult to sustain without the government's subsidy. The main objective of this research is to diagnose the critical sustainability issues in the context of renewable energy projects and to understand their long term prognosis through an integrated approach. In order to achieve the higher goals of sustainability, it is essential to address the root cause of the problems, rather than prescribing end of the pipe technical fixes. In this study, four renewable energy projects are reviewed and evaluated using a lifecycle sustainability matrix framework. The following are some of the key findings revealed through this research:

1. In terms of overall sustainability, the scores of small/micro hydropower projects are better than the solar projects in Bhutan.

2. For all the four projects reviewed, the sustainability scores are high during the time of planning and design phase, but decrease as and when the projects progress into the implementation and Operation and Maintenance stages.

3. A very low tariff structure for grid connected households is seen to be the main dissuading factor for people to accept off-grid options.

4. The projects have failed to stimulate income generating activities.

The key recommendations include the need to have a holistic project development approach in Bhutan, where the sustainability factors are consistently addressed and monitored throughout the project lifecycle. There is also disparity in terms of subsidy from the Government between those households connected to the grid and off-grid options. The Government needs to review its energy policies to strike a better balance. Further, provision of energy services do not necessarily guarantee automatic uptake of economic activities in rural areas. The Government needs to explore avenues to provide easy access to finance and markets for the people.


Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) projects often offer an effective solution for many transportation problems as compared to traditional solutions such as increasing road capacity to solve congestion problems. However, ITS projects are often not evaluated in economic terms either because methodologies are not available, or when they are, data become a limitation. Since economic assessment is the order of the day in the transportation sector, many potential ITS projects are losing terrain relative to alternative solutions. This study develops and demonstrates that economic evaluation of ITS projects in the road sector is possible. The authors use the Oslo toll cordon as a case example, where semi-automatic toll collection was replaced by a full-fledged ITS-based toll collection. The results show that ITS-based toll collection is highly profitable from an economic point of view. The reasons are that the ITS-based toll collection relieves congestion at toll points thereby leading to (i) time savings for road users, (ii) reduced noise and pollution associated with slow movement of vehicles at toll points, (iii) improvement of the city's landscape because toll booths and signposts are removed and (iv) reduced costs associated with operating tolls. The study urges ITS proponents to start using economic evaluation when assessing the merits of their projects.


Patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) are routinely evaluated using the peritoneal equilibrium test (PET) to determine the best method for achieving target total dialysis clearance (T-Kt/V). In this study, we tested the hypothesis that standard CAPD prescription would achieve an initial T-Kt/V of more than 1.7 in all the patients regardless of their PET measurements. This is a retrospective study that included patients who started standard CAPD of four two-liter exchanges per day. The study included 118 patients; their mean age was 51.5 years with a standard deviation (SD) of 14.39 years. There were 83 males (70.3%) and 35 females (29.7%). PET and Kt/V were performed during the first four to six weeks of the study. The PET classified the patients into four categories: 24 (20.3%), high transporters; 65 (55.1%), high average; 28 (23.7%), low average; and one (0.8%), low transporter. Patients were then divided in two groups: Group 1 comprised of the high transporters while Group 2 included all the other patients. The T-Kt/V of the two groups was similar; in Group 1, it was 2.57 (± 1.17) and in Group 2 it was 2.50 (± 0.88) (P = 0.77). The T-Kt/V of patients with no residual renal function was also similar; in Group 1 and Group 2 it was 1.8 (± 0.29) and 1.97 (± 0.56), respectively (P = 0.45). All patients in our study who started on standard CAPD treatment had an adequate initial T-Kt/V. Thus, our data demonstrate that all patients with end-stage renal disease can safely begin standard CAPD without PET, which only needs to be performed if the patient encounters trouble in his/her T-Kt/V or fluid removal.


Pollock's How to Build a Person is a highly sophisticated defence of the "strong" Artificial Intelligence (AI) program within the framework of a physicalist/functionalist ontology. Its central thesis is as robust as any defender of strong AI could possibly want it to be: to build a person—"a thing that literally thinks, feels, and is conscious" (p. ix)—is to build a physical system that adequately models human rationality; and building such a system is, essentially, a computational task. The epistemological groundwork for the computational task (a task already underway at the University of Arizona under the name "the OSCAR project") is sketched in the sixth and last chapter of the book—a 64-page-long chapter ("Cognitive Carpentry") where Pollock presents the main lines of a general theory of rationality which he has been developing over the course of many years. The bulk of the book (chaps. 1 to 4) is devoted to an articulation and defence of what Pollock takes to be the metaphysical underpinnings of his conception of a person as an intelligent machine: token-physicalism, agent materialism, psychophysical supervenience and (a form of) analytical functionalism. This part of the book, which will be the focus of this review, provides an account of "the physical basis for mentality"—an account of what it is that makes a physical structure capable of having mental states relevantly like our own. And since on the proposed account mental capacity "involves a way of codifying information—a system of mental representations" (p. 93), Pollock devotes a chapter (chap. 5) to the semantics of "the language of thought"; though basically a digression, since "semantics plays no role" in the computations involved in rational thought, the chapter is intrinsically very interesting, bearing as it does on current debates on thought ascription and content individuation.


Approach to numerical simulation of water and air flow around aquaplaning cam tire is described. The approach for governing equations solving is based on a finite-volume method and non-staggered Cartesian adaptive locally refined grid. A method of subgrid geometry resolution is proposed for accurate description of curvilinear complex boundaries. This method uses a presentation of boundaries as a set of plane facets and makes CFD code compatible with CAD systems. The described technology is implemented in Flow Vision code. Some results of simulation of cam tire aquaplaning performed by Flow Vision are presented The tire lift dependence on a tread picture is calculated.


Innovation is indisputably one of the most important strategic and operational levers available to managers for creating competitive advantage. Recent studies suggest that there remains a serious disconnect between what firms are hoping for, and what they, in fact, are reaping from their investments in innovation. Conventional approaches to performance measurement have as yet had little impact in the area of innovation management. The purpose of the research reported in this paper has been to address some of the more pertinent of the many questions raised by innovation practitioners and managers today concerning the measurement of innovation performance.


Dating violence is often thought of as a precursor for spousal abuse and that understanding is beneficial. However, according to Makepeace (1981), the reasons that married individuals give for remaining in violent relationships do not apply to courtship relationships, thus inspiring the question as to why do individuals in dating relationships remain in abusive relationships. Emotional commitment has been a prominent response and has been found to play a powerful role in the individual's acceptance of violence and the outcome of the relationship (Arriaga, 2002). For this reason, it is believed that individuals in committed relationships will be more accepting of violence in a relationship than those who are not in committed relationships. This study is particularly applicable to college students because the potential impact of these findings could provide greater prevention of violence as well as increased knowledge about domestic violence. Data collection was done by means of distributing 300 group-administered surveys to students in classes at the University of Central Florida (UCF) main campus. UCF Victim Services information was given as a resource on the consent form to protect human subjects, that is, those who were 18 years or older. Modified versions of established scales were used to add to the reliability of the measures. Findings indicated that as the level of commitment increases, the acceptability of violence decreases.


Försth, P. 2015. On Surgery for Lumbar Spinal Stenosis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1135. 66 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-554-9340-0. The incidence of lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is steadily rising, mostly because of a noticeably older age structure. In Sweden, LSS surgery has increased continuously over the years and is presently the most common argument to undergo spine surgery. The purpose of the surgery is to decompress the neural elements in the stenotic spinal canal. To avoid instability, there has been a tradition to do the decompression with a complementary fusion, especially if degenerative spondylolisthesis is present preoperatively. The overall aims of this thesis were to evaluate which method of surgery that generally can be considered to give sufficiently good clinical results with least cost to society and risk of complications and to determine whether there is a difference in outcome between smokers and non-smokers. The Swespine Register was used to collect data on clinical outcome after LSS surgery. In two of the studies, large cohorts were observed prospectively with follow-up after 2 years. Data were analysed in a multivariate model and logistic regression. In a randomised controlled trial (RCT, the Swedish Spinal Stenosis Study), 233 patients were randomised to either decompression with fusion or decompression alone and then followed for 2 years. The consequence of preoperative degenerative spondylolisthesis on the results was analysed and a health economic evaluation performed. The three-dimensional CT technique was used in a radiologic biomechanical pilot study to evaluate the stabilising role of the segmental midline structures in LSS with preoperative degenerative spondylolisthesis by comparing laminectomy with bilateral laminotomies. Smokers, in comparison with non-smokers, showed less improvement after surgery for LSS. Decompression with fusion did not lead to better results compared with decompression alone, no matter if degenerative spondylolisthesis was present preoperatively or not; nor was decompression with fusion found to be more cost-effective than decomression alone. The instability caused by a decompression proved to be minimal and removal of the midline structures by laminectomy did not result in increased instability compared with the preservation of these structures by bilateral laminotomies. In LSS surgery, decompression without fusion should generally be the treatment of choice, regardless of whether preoperative degenerative spondylolisthesis is present or not. Special efforts should be targeted towards smoking cessation prior to surgery.


The partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) in surface seawater is an important biogeochemical variable because, together with the pCO2 in the atmosphere, it determines the direction of air–sea carbon dioxide exchange. Large‐scale observations of pCO2 are facilitated by Ships‐of‐Opportunity (SOOP‐CO2) equipped with underway measuring instruments. The need for expanding the observation capacity and the challenges involving the sustainability and maintenance of traditional equilibrator systems led the community toward developing simpler and more autonomous systems. Here we performed a comparison between a membrane‐based sensor and a showerhead equilibration sensor installed on two SOOP‐CO2 between 2013 and 2018. We identified time‐ and space‐adequate crossovers in the Skagerrak Strait, where the two ship routes often crossed. We found a mean total difference of 1.5 ± 10.6 μatm and a root mean square error of 11 μatm. The pCO2 values recorded by the two instruments showed a strong linear correlation with a coefficient of 0.91 and a slope of 1.07 (± 0.14), despite the dynamic nature of the environment and the difficulty of comparing measurements from two different vessels. The membrane‐based sensor was integrated with a FerryBox system on a ship with a high sampling frequency in the study area. We showed the strength of having a sensor‐based network with a high spatial coverage that can be validated against conventional SOOP‐CO2 methods. Proving the validity of membrane‐based sensors in coastal and continental shelf seas and using the higher frequency measurements they provide can enable a thorough characterization of pCO2 variability in these dynamic environments.


The history of National Socialism as movement and regime remains one of the most compelling and intensively studied aspects of twentieth-century history, and one whose significance extends far beyond Germany or even Europe alone. This volume presents an up-to-date and authoritative introduction to the history of Nazi Germany, with ten chapters on the most important themes, each by an expert in the field.

Following an introduction which sets out the challenges this period of history has posed to historians since 1945, contributors explain how Nazism emerged as ideology and political movement; how Hitler and his party took power and remade the German state; and how the Nazi 'national community' was organized around a radical and eventually lethal distinction between the 'included' and the 'excluded'. Further chapters discuss the complex relationship between Nazism and Germany's religious faiths; the perverse economic rationality of the regime; the path to war laid down by Hitler's foreign policy; and the intricate and intimate intertwining of war and genocide, with a final chapter on the aftermath of National Socialism in postwar German history and memory.


This study focuses on the influence of culture on the semiotics of modern African drama. Semiotics is the science of signs, or the study of how meaning is produced. Semiotics deals with the meaning of everything that can be considered a sign, including words and actions. In other words, signs can be verbal and non-verbal; meaning can be produced both by speech and silence. This study however recognises the fact that some signs are culture-specific and that the semiotic process is largely determined by the cultural orientation of both the writer and the reader. This study will attempt to show that the reader needs to have an idea of the writer's cultural orientation in order to conduct a meaningful semiotic reading of a text. In this study however the focus is on the relationship between culture and the semiotics of the contemporary African dramatic text. It is concerned with how cultural factors influence the semiotic aspects of the writings of African dramatists, as well as how they influence the semiotic reading of the African dramatic text. This study postulates that the dramatic text is different from the performance or theatrical text. While the former is the text of the play before it is performed, the latter is the play when it is performed. This study is concerned only with the semiotic reading of the dramatic text and not the theatrical text. Since African dramatists are influenced by African culture in their writings, it is important to take this factor into account when conducting a semiotic reading of an African dramatic text. It is possible to misunderstand or misinterpret a play text because of failure to understand the relationship between its sign-vehicles and the text's cultural context. On the other hand, an understanding of the cultural context of the text's sign-vehicles, either by experience or research, can help in the process of semiotic interpretation of the text. In addition, it is possible to write a play about a culture one has never experienced by studying it thoroughly and correctly employing its culture-driven sign-vehicles. The findings and conclusions of this study are based on the analysis of four contemporary African dramatic texts: The Black Mamba Two by Kabwe Kasoma of Zambia, Nothing but the Truth by South African John Kani; The Dilemma of a Ghost by Ghana's Ama Ata Aidoo and The Black Hermit by Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o.


PTA is an established method of revascularization in a variety of medical conditions. It is performed for specific morphologic and clinical indications. PTA is the procedure of choice in Fontaine stage IIB through IV lower extremity ischemia due to iliac and/or femoropopliteal stenosis or short occlusion. Its role is less certain in infrapopliteal disease, although current studies have begun to establish long-term effectiveness. PTA is the procedure of choice for renal revascularization in renovascular hypertension due to fibromuscular disease or non-ostial atherosclerosis, selected cases of renal artery stenosis associated with renal insufficiency, and transplant renal artery stenosis. It is also useful in treating the renovascular component of complex hypertension and may be indicated in severe renal artery stenosis (75%-99%), even in the absence of clinically demonstrable RVHTN. PTA has limited applications in the venous system and only short-term success in the treatment of stenoses in dialysis access fistulas. PTA often serves as an important adjunct to surgical revascularization by providing improved inflow or outflow. PTA is the procedure of choice when anatomically feasible in subclavian steal syndrome. The role of PTA in carotid artery disease, particularly atheromatous disease of the internal carotid artery, is uncertain. The same may be said of PTA for vertebral artery stenosis, although the overwhelming majority of vertebral artery stenoses are morphologically suitable for PTA. PTA and surgery are both effective in the treatment of abdominal angina. There are more data available to verify the long-term patency of thromboendarterectomy and bypass grafts than PTA for mesenteric ischemia. However, since the technical success for PTA is high and since coronary co-morbidity is the most common cause of perioperative mortality in surgical series, PTA should be seriously considered as the procedure of first choice. Serious complications of PTA occur in approximately 5% of cases. Two to three percent of PTA patients have complications requiring surgery or causing a prolongation or alteration of hospital course. The morbidity, mortality, and cost associated with PTA are low. The discomfort is minor, and postprocedural recovery rapid. The major limitations of PTA include its unsuitability for some lesions (long-segment occlusions and stenoses, orifice lesions, eccentric lesions) and postangioplasty restenosis. These problems are being addressed by ongoing laboratory and clinical research. In the near future, it is likely that endoluminal transmural sonography of the vessel wall will help guide our interventions.


Systematic investigation of the known even-even transactinide cluster emitters has been carried out by considering the cluster as a point particle and using the exact quantum mechanical treatment of the decay process. It is shown that the cluster decay phenomenon can be described reasonably well using a simple Woods-Saxon mean field. Sensitivity of the half-lives on various aspects of the mean field has been investigated in detail.


It is quite usual to see clear fluid collecting continuously on the surface of the spinal cord of 'functionally decapitate' cat preparations which have no functioning choroid plexus. The activity of potassium and calcium ions in interstitial fluid of these decapitate spinal cords is equal to that in spinal cords of cats with intact choroid plexus function, similar to normal cerebrospinal fluid, and different from blood plasma. It follows that fluid is being formed within the spinal cord by a process different from ultrafiltration. Endothelial cells seem likely to form this interstitial fluid by actively transporting Na+, with water following by osmotic force. Potassium and other ion concentrations may be adjusted by independent transport processes. A role could be attributed to glial cells in these transports if exchange of material could be demonstrated between glia and endothelium.


Recent large-scale drinking water chemical contamination incidents in Canada and the U.S. have affected more than 1 000 000 people and involved disparate premise plumbing decontamination approaches. In this study, past premise plumbing decontamination approaches were reviewed and a mass balance water heater model was developed and tested. Organic contaminants were the sole focus of this work. Thirty-nine contamination incidents were identified and contaminants had a wide range of physiochemical properties [i.e., log Kow, water solubility, vapor pressure]. Minimal data was available pertaining to flushing protocol design and effectiveness. Results showed that premise plumbing design, operational conditions, contaminants present and their properties, as well as building inhabitant safety have not been fully considered in flushing protocol design. Results indicated that flushing could decontaminate some, but not all plumbing systems. Several modeling scenarios showed contaminant levels exceeded drinking water health limits after flushing following recent large-scale water contamination incidents. Water saving fixtures and devices, water heater size, and flow rate affected contaminant removal efficiency. Modeling did not consider service lines or piping. This study provides a first step in the development of science based premise plumbing flushing protocols for organic contaminants.


The fishing communities studied in this paper, although influenced by the more important urban growth movement of the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, have reacted in a different manner to the urbanization process, maintaining 'old' ways of life and spatial forms while the 'new' ones are being established. It is precisely this co-existence of the 'old' and the 'new' that marks the particular character of this portion of the space of Marica. Thus, this study intended to investigate the organization of a portion of the space of Marica, trying to understand the transformation process in its spatial projection and its relation to environmental conditions. Subjects covered include study methodology, population structure, occupational categories, environmental interaction, and others.


Objective: To determine the effects of an adversary's behavior on the defender's accurate and timely detection of network threats. Background: Cyber attacks cause major work disruption. It is important to understand how a defender's behavior (experience and tolerance to threats), as well as adversarial behavior (attack strategy), might impact the detection of threats. In this article, we use cognitive modeling to make predictions regarding these factors. Method: Different model types representing a defender, based on Instance-Based Learning Theory (IBLT), faced different adversarial behaviors. A defender's model was defined by experience of threats: threat-prone (90% threats and 10% nonthreats) and nonthreat-prone (10% threats and 90% nonthreats); and different tolerance levels to threats: risk-averse (model declares a cyber attack after perceiving one threat out of eight total) and risk-seeking (model declares a cyber attack after perceiving seven threats out of eight total). Adversarial behavior is simulated by considering different attack strategies: patient (threats occur late) and impatient (threats occur early). Results: For an impatient strategy, risk-averse models with threat-prone experiences show improved detection compared with risk-seeking models with nonthreat-prone experiences; however, the same is not true for a patient strategy. Conclusions: Based upon model predictions, a defender's prior threat experiences and his or her tolerance to threats are likely to predict detection accuracy; but considering the nature of adversarial behavior is also important. Application: Decision-support tools that consider the role of a defender's experience and tolerance to threats along with the nature of adversarial behavior are likely to improve a defender's overall threat detection.


Disease outbreaks forecasting is a vital component in public-health resource planning and emergency preparedness. However, the existing procedures have limitations due to the lack of analytical knowledge about spatiotemporal data. In this paper, we investigate how spatiotemporal data can be leveraged to forecast future disease outbreaks, using dengue incidences in the Philippines for demonstration purposes. Our approach is based on identifying highly correlated regions and using inputs from these regions to train and forecast dengue incidences using Artificial Neural Networks. We then removed the spatial aspect, focusing separately on each region to measure the effect of introducing spatial data. In all the experiments, monthly dengue incidences in 2016 were used as the testing data. Our empirical results show that including spatial data reduces the Mean Absolute Error by approx. 54 % compared to only using data from the target region. We conclude that adding data from neighbouring regions for forecasting can enhance the traditional approaches for forecasting dengue outbreaks, and we recommend that a spatio-temporal analysis is introduced as a standard component of disease outbreak forecasting.


The Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer are at the heart of the New Testament and the key to the message and life of Jesus. In this book, Rudolf Schnackenburg provides a clearly written and easy-to-understand exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount in light of the Lord's Prayer. By doing so, he demonstrates that the strenuous requirements for true discipleship as prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount are indeed attainable especially when read in the contest of Jesus' whole message.


Hedgehog (Hh) proteins carry signals that are essential for pattern formation during vertebrate embryogenesis. Extracellular Hh molecules bind to a receptor on the cell surface and activate Smoothened, a membrane-spanning protein, which transmits signals to the cell interior. β-Arrestin proteins are inhibitors of heterotrimeric GTP-binding protein (G protein)-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling and also promote internalization and signaling by GPCRs. Chen et al. find that in mammalian cells, activated Smoothened molecules preferentially associate with β-arrestin 2. Reducing levels of β-arrestin 2 inhibited internalization of Smoothened. Furthermore, Wilbanks et al. find that loss of β-arrestin 2 in zebrafish causes developmental abnormalities similar to those of mutants in the Hh signaling pathway. Overexpression of β-arrestin 2 could partially rescue some defects in embryos with deficient Hh signaling, and loss of β-arrestin 2 decreased expression of Hh-responsive genes. Together, the findings provide insight into the roles of β-arrestin 2 during development and the mechanisms by which Hh signaling influences developmental processes from embryogenesis to cancer. W. Chen, X.-R. Ren, C. D. Nelson, L. S. Barak, J. K. Chen, P. A. Beachy, F. de Sauvage, R. J. Lefkowitz, Activity-dependent internalization of Smoothened mediated by β-arrestin 2 and GRK2. Science 306, 2257-2260 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. M. Wilbanks, G. B. Fralish, M. L. Kirby, L. S. Barak, Y.-X. Li, M. G. Caron, β-Arrestin 2 regulates zebrafish development through the Hedgehog signaling pathway. Science 306, 2264-2267 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]


End stage renal disease (ESRD) is a condition with an irreversible loss of renal function. The two major treatment options are transplantation and dialysis; hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD). In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of HD vs. PD on quality of life (QOL) in these patients. This cross sectional study recruited 140 PD and HD patients in the range of 15-65 years old from two main dialysis centers of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. After obtaining some demographic data, patients were asked to complete the the Kidney Disease Quality of Life- Short Form (KDQOL-SF) questionnaire. Statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS 20.0 for Windows. Of the 140 participants in this study, 68 (48.57%) were on HD and 72 (51.43%) were on PD. PD patients had better score in sleep, kidney disease effect, social functioning, pain, etc. were differed significantly from HD patients. Overall QOL score had better for PD patients (p = 0.008). This study provides evidence that QOL in PD is better than HD patients. These results could become in use particularly in the planning of health care policies and patient management


Recent studies have shown that mutations in the hepatocyte nuclear factor (HNF)-1α gene are the cause of maturity-onset diabetes of the young type 3 (MODY3). We have screened 193 unrelated Japanese subjects with NIDDM for mutations in this gene: 83 with early-onset NIDDM (diagnosis at <30 years of age) and 110 with late-onset NIDDM (diagnosis >30 years of age). All of the members of the latter group also had at least one sibling with NIDDM. The 10 exons, flanking introns, and promoter region were amplified using polymerase chain reaction and were sequenced directly. Mutations were found in 7 of the 83 (8%) unrelated subjects with early-onset NIDDM. The mutations were each different and included four missense mutations (L12H, R131Q, K205Q, and R263C) and three frameshift mutations (P379fsdelCT, T392fsdelA, and L584S585fsinsTC). One of the 110 subjects with late-onset NIDDM was heterozygous for the missense mutation G191D. This subject, who was diagnosed with NIDDM at 64 years of age, also had a brother with NIDDM (age at diagnosis, 54 years) who carried the same mutation, suggesting that this mutation contributed to the development of NIDDM in these two siblings. None of these mutations were present in 50 unrelated subjects with normal glucose tolerance (100 normal chromosomes). Mutations in the HNF-1α gene occur in Japanese subjects with NIDDM and appear to be an important cause of early-onset NIDDM in this population. In addition, they are present in about 1% of subjects with late-onset NIDDM.


Iurii Moiseevich Eskin, Ocberki istorii mestnicbestva v Rossii XVI-XVII vv. (Essays in the History of Precedence in 16th- and 17th-Century Russia). 509 pp. Moscow: RosArkhiv, Kvadriga, 2009. ISBN-13 978-5904162061. Irina Borisovna Mikhailova, I zdes" soshlis" vse tsarstva...: Ocherki po istorii Gosudareva dvora v Rossii XVI v. Povsednevnaia i prazdnichnaia kul'tura, semantika, etiketa i obriadnosti (And Here All Kingdoms Met: Essays in the History of the Sovereigns Court in 16th-Century Russia. Everyday and Celebratory Culture, Semantics, Etiquette, and Ritual). 648 pp. St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2010. ISBN-13 978-5860076341. Thirty-five years ago, Paula Fichtner openly lamented the fact that "historians have given little sustained attention to the customs of royalty," and that any historian who studied "court pageantry" was deemed then--in 1976, and in previous generations--to be displaying their "intellectual mediocrity" and "lack of scholarly integrity, or both." (1) Fichmer recorded this lament in a pioneering article on Habsburg dynastic marriage in the 16th century, an article that in many ways jumpstarted the study of symbol and ritual (in her case, the symbols and rituals pertaining to royal marriage) and infused it with insights drawn from other disciplines--including, mostly, cultural anthropology. A similar plea was independently made a few years later by Robert Crummey in his groundbreaking study of court rituals in Muscovy, a study one colleague called a "preliminary stab at describing and understanding court spectacles in the seventeenth century." (2) Both Fichmer and Crummey offered innovative models in their respective fields for analyzing symbols and rituals in the early modern period, laying an early claim to this subject for legitimate and serious study, even if both were, in their day, offering only "preliminary stabs." Happily, times have changed. The study of the "customs of royalty" has matured into a valid and valuable dimension of cultural, political, family, and women's history. The symbols and rituals of kings, queens, and tsars now serve as rich and decipherable primary sources that can be "read" for insights into cultures that left behind few reflective descriptions of their political values. Royal rituals are now understood to be useful lenses onto political culture, serving, in the words of Michele Fogel, as "ceremonies of information" (les ceremonies de l'information)--broadcasting a carefully crafted message about power, identity, or religious belief (depending on the ritual) that a king's or tsar's subjects could apprehend in their own time and context, and that historians today can use to comprehend the "rules" of a now-defunct political culture. (3) The two books reviewed here are both recent contributions to the thriving literature on the "customs of royalty" in early modern Russia, building on the model provided by Crummey more than 25 years ago. Irina Mikhailova's debt to Crummey is clear and enormous, even though she does not cite Crummey's article (nor, of course, Fichtner's). However, Mikhailova's book follows in the solid tradition established more than a century ago by Ivan Egorovich Zabelin and elaborated today by a range of Russian and non-Russian scholars of Muscovite royal ritual, including Sergei Bogatyrev, Nancy Shields Kollmann, Daniel Rowland, Michael Flier, Priscilla Hunt, Viacheslav Shaposhnik, Isolde Thyret, and others. (4) Mikhailova's book is perhaps the first attempt at a synthetic survey of the Problematik of symbol and ritual: in many ways, it is a modern, updated, and richly expanded version of Zabelin's classic treatment. As for Eskin, his is a vast and magisterial (a word that is often overused, but here is entirely appropriate) investigation of precedence (mestnichestvo), revealing more that is genuinely new about the system than any study before it. Even so, he almost entirely ignores the symbolic and performative aspects of the system, despite the fact that this important aspect has been successfully studied by Western scholars--if again, only as a "preliminary stab. …


A complex containing HIF-2α enables the translation of select mRNAs under hypoxic conditions when most protein synthesis is normally inhibited. Under conditions of normal oxygen tension (normoxia), translation of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins depends on the binding of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) to the 7-methylguanosine (m7-GpppG) 5′ cap of the mRNA. When oxygen tension is low (hypoxia), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)–dependent signaling results in the sequestration of eIF4E, thus inhibiting cap-dependent translation. Uniacke et al. studied expression of the gene encoding the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and found that EGFR mRNA was translated under hypoxic conditions through a process that was dependent on hypoxia-inducible factor 2α (HIF-2α) but was not affected by the addition of transcription inhibitors to block the expression of HIF-2α target genes. EGFR mRNA was associated with polysomes in hypoxic cells, and knockdown of HIF-2α blocked its translation. HIF-2α was physically associated with polysomes containing EGFR mRNA, and RNA immunoprecipitation assays showed that the HIF-2α was associated with a region in the 3′-untranslated region (UTR) of EGFR mRNA. This association was indirect and depended on RNA-binding motif protein 4 (RBM4), which interacted with the N-terminal region of HIF-2α during hypoxia to recruit HIF-2α to EGFR mRNA. The RBM4–HIF-2α complex was captured by m7-GpppG–conjugated beads, and immunoprecipitation studies showed that the RBM4–HIF-2α complex bound to eIF4E2, a homolog of eIF4E. Silencing of eIF4E2, but not eIF4E, blocked the translation of EGFR mRNA, among others, during hypoxia. Under normoxic conditions, eIF4E was associated with polysomes, whereas under hypoxic conditions, eIF4E was replaced with eIF4E2. Inhibition of mTOR with rapamycin blocked mRNA translation under normoxic, but not hypoxic, conditions. Together, these data suggest that a reduction in oxygen tension causes a switch from eIF4E- to eIF4E2-dependent translation through a process that depends on HIF-2α. J. Uniacke, C. E. Holterman, G. Lachance, A. Franovic, M. D. Jacob, M. R. Fabian, J. Payette, M. Holcik, A. Pause, S. Lee, An oxygen-regulated switch in the protein synthesis machinery. Nature 486, 126–129 (2012). [Online Journal]


This is the first - ever biography of the second longest serving Supreme Court Justice. During Justice Sonya Sotomayor's recent confirmation hearings, the idea of 'biography' played a high-profile role in the debate. How much does a person's experience affect his or her judicial opinions? Should personal history be a key consideration when determining qualifications to sit on the highest court in the land? In this impeccably researched book, journalist Bill Barnhart and retired lawyer and former legislator Gene Schlickman paint a detailed portrait of Justice John Paul Stevens' remarkable life and tenure on the Court. Through vivid family history and a careful look at his work on the bench, Barnhart and Schlickman offer the first biography of the second longest serving Supreme Court justice - one who has proudly earned the title of the Court's most prolific dissenter. To provide a nuanced and multifaceted look at the justice, Barnhart and Schlickman interviewed Stevens and an extraordinary number of Stevens' friends and family members, former clerks, current colleagues, politicians, and court watchers. They spoke with such public figures as former President Ford, former Ford chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Interviews with Stevens' children and one of his brothers provide personal insights into the man behind the robe. Tales of his childhood, of growing up in an affluent family in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, and of the family business, including The Stevens Hotel (now the Chicago Hilton and Towers), create a rich portrait of the independent man and judge. Intimate anecdotes from Stevens' former law clerks reveal the lighter side of some of the most serious work in the country. Barnhart and Schlickman also give careful consideration to Stevens' career. They trace his early years as a Chicago lawyer, his appointment to the federal appeals bench in Chicago, and his ultimate nomination to the Supreme Court by Republican President Ford. They examine his best-known opinions, including his emotional dissents in Texas v. Johnson and Bush v. Gore. They trace his growth as a molder of Court decisions. In an era of an increasingly politicized judiciary, the story of Stevens' life, as a lawyer who joined the bench with no political or ideological baggage, is an urgent reminder of the importance of judicial impartiality and the need to cultivate it. This vibrant biography will be of interest to those fascinated by the inner workings of the Supreme Court as well as those who simply want to learn more about one of Chicago's favorite sons.


This fascinating study of mathematical thinking among sub-Saharan African peoples covers counting in words and in gestures; measuring time, distance, weight, and other quantities; manipulating money and keeping accounts; number systems; patterns in music, poetry, art, and architecture; and number magic and taboos. African games such as mankala and elaborate versions of tic-tac-toe show how complex this thinking can be. An invaluable resource for students, teachers, and others interested in African cultures and multiculturalism, this third edition is updated with an introduction covering two decades of new research in the ethnomathematics of Africa.


Study material consists of a total of 2827 brown comber Serranus hepatus specimens collected in Izmir Bay, the central eastern Aegean Sea, by seasonal bottom trawl surveys between February 2007 and November 2008. The number of stomachs that contained at least one prey item or any digested remains was 782. There were 551 empty stomachs. The remaining 1494 fish had stomachs which were inside-out position. The percentages of full and empty stomachs varied according to the sampling season but not to the predator length class. Significantly more fish with empty stomachs were found in November 2008. The diet composition revealed that the species is carnivorous and consuming mainly benthic crustaceans. According to %IRI values, the most dominant crustacean group in the diet was Decapoda with a score of 65.38%, and was followed by Mysida (30.96) and Amphipoda (1.66). Apart from crustaceans, Ophiurida was the only other notable prey group (1.62). The remaining prey organism groups with much less importance were polychaetes, bony fish and molluscs, respectively. The contributions of the prey organisms to the diet composition did not change seasonally but changed with predator size class. The proportion of fish prey in the diet increased with predator size. In terms of weight, they constituted 8.91% of the diet of combers larger than 9 cm. However, contribution of fish prey by weight to the diet was only 0.26% for combers smaller than 9 cm. The total lengths of the sampled brown comber ranged between 6.3 and 11.7 cm.


SUMMARY Seismic reflection profiles show that the Permo-Triassic rocks of the ENE-trending Carlisle Basin occur in several en echelon synclines and intervening anticlines, rather than the relatively simple syncline generally shown in the literature. At least two of the synclines correspond to Permo-Triassic depocentres, which probably continued into the Early Jurassic. The western depocentre is the more pronounced, interpreted as locally containing >500 m of Appleby Group strata (Brockram and Penrith Sandstone) that are completely concealed beneath younger strata. Rocks of this age were not deposited in the other synclines and there is no subsurface continuity with Appleby Group strata in the nearby Vale of Eden Basin. The western depocentre may have been formerly contiguous with the NNW-trending Dumfries Basin prior to post-Triassic footwall uplift and erosion on the crosscutting North-East Axial-Waterbeck Fault. Both the Sherwood Sandstone and Mercia Mudstone groups locally exceed 500 m in thickness in the western syncline and 400 m in the central syncline, reducing to c. 250 m in the intervening saddle area. The depocentres were also the principal loci of Cainozoic inversion during which c. 2500 m of mainly Jurassic and Cretaceous strata were removed locally. Unlike other nearby Permo-Triassic basins, there is no evidence of synsedimentary displacements on basin margin faults. The NNW-trending Crummock Fault, which cuts across the basin, provides the best evidence for synsedimentary movement, but only during deposition of the Appleby Group. This fault, and a suite of adjacent parallel faults, may be a southerly continuation of the Dumfries Fault, which forms the western boundary of the Dumfries Basin. The outlier of the youngest preserved rocks, the Penarth and Lias groups, is preserved in the saddle area between the main depocentres where less inversion is inferred to have occurred.


In the present paper, a simple and sensitive method for simultaneous preconcentration and determination of lead and copper by flame atomic absorption spectrometry was developed. This method was based on solid phase extraction of lead and copper with 1-nitroso-2-naphthol-3,6-disulfonic acid chelate on naphthalene column. After preconcentration stage, the column was eluted by 5 mL of 1.2 mol L nitric acid solution and metal ions directly determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The effect of different variables such as pH, sample volume, amount of chelate, flow rate and eluent solution on the recovery of the analyte was investigated. The detection limits were 0.7 and 0.5 μg L for lead and copper, respectively. The relative standard deviations of the determinations for analyte ions were below 4 %. This procedure was applied to the determination of lead and copper in water samples. The results demonstrated that the procedure can be applied for analysis of waters with satisfactory accuracy.


We present the concept of a virtual node as means to achieve predictable integration of software components with real-time requirements. The virtual node is based on the technology using the hierarchical scheduling framework to achieve temporal isolation between components (or sets of components). The temporal isolation means that all components deployed to a virtual node will retain their temporal properties when integrated with other components on a physical node. We present how the concept of virtual nodes is applicable to three different component technologies: ProCom, Autosar and AADL. Keywords-real-time systems; component integration


The legal profession adheres to a story of a unified profession. Nevertheless, the profession has distinct professional sub-groups which repeatedly represent clients with interests adverse to those represented by attorneys who identify with other sub-groups. The idea of "professional identity as advocacy" describes how such professional sub-groups accuse opposing subgroups of greed, self-aggrandizement, or worse. This is most notable in two areas: personal injury litigation and criminal cases. This process has two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, it renders narrow areas extraordinarily visible, thus defining popular discourse and conceptions about lawyers and law. Second, it masks vast areas of litigation and law that have a fundamental impact on social justice yet do not generate the "profile" triggered where professional identity as advocacy is at its most intense. This Article explores the nature and consequences of professional identity as advocacy and examines the degree to which this dynamic can or should change.


The provision of water supply, its usage and discharge, are major concerns for all mines, often accounting for a significant portion of the daily running costs. To reduce these costs, mines will collect as much site runoff as possible, and recycle the water whenever economically feasible. The constant recycling of onsite waters can mean that, over time, the levels of salinity, acidity or alkalinity, or other contaminants may build up within the internal water management system to a point which may lead to problems with licensed discharge requirements. This project investigated the water quality at West Cliff Colliery, in order to develop an improved system for managing water resources with minimal environmental impact. While West Cliff Colliery is totally self sufficient and independent of any town water supply, issues have arisen with the quality of water being discharged into the receiving waterways, Brennans Creek and the upper Georges River. To alleviate these issues, a new water management system (WMS) has been established to try and maintain an adequate supply of clean recycled water and to prevent uncontrolled discharges to the environment outside West Cliff's Environment Protection Licence (EPL) requirements. This paper reports on the design of the new WMS, results of monitoring its effectiveness results, and implications for mine operations and environmental licence compliance.


Book synopsis: Collaborative Practice in Psychology and Therapy provides mainstream academics and practitioners with easy access to cutting-edge thinking in social constructionist psychology and therapy. This unique book is geared to readers who may not be familiar with narrative, social constructionist, or critical psychology and therapy, presenting contemporary theory and practice with a minimum of jargon. The field's leading practitioners and theorists demonstrate, through a collaborative and relational focus, how to work with people, rather than on them in a mutual, co-constructive exchange.

Collaborative Practice in Psychology and Therapy bridges the gap between modern and postmodern theory, providing a well-rounded view that enables readers to see how contemporary theory can be applied in various subdisciplines. Each "user-friendly" chapter is virtually free of technical terms, beginning with a readable thumbnail summary of the practical, accessible material that follows. The book includes case studies and examples, illustrations, tables, a brief glossary of the few terms that do need explaining, and suggestions for additional readings.

Collaborative Practice in Psychology and Therapy includes easy-to-apply ideas on:
theory
therapeutic practice
teaching/supervision
research
and much more!
Collaborative Practice in Psychology and Therapy is a practical, accessible resource for psychology and therapy students and practitioners, academics working in psychotherapy training and supervision, critical psychology, and psychological research. The book provides vital information for theorists and professionals interested in relational and collaborative practice on psychology and therapy, including clinical psychologists, individual, couple, and family therapists, school counselors, and social workers.


Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are utilized in a number of critical infrastructures, e.g. healthcare, disaster and relief. In sensitive environments, it is vital to maintain the operability of the network in an effort to support the decision-making process that depends on the sensors' observations. The network's operability can be maintained if observations can reach the specified destination and also if the sensors have adequate energy resources. The operability is negatively affected by security attacks, such as the selective forward and the denial of service (DoS), that can be executed against the WSN. The attacks' impact greatly depends on the attackers' capabilities such as their knowledge and the number of malicious nodes they hold. Currently, the research community focuses on addressing casual attackers that don't persist with their attack strategy. However, the proposed solutions cannot address persistent attackers that continue with their attack execution after the network has applied appropriate recovery countermeasures. Designing an adaptive recovery strategy is challenging as a number of issues need to be taken into consideration such as the network's density, the number of malicious nodes and the persistent attack strategy. This research work formulates a persistent attack strategy and investigates the integration of different recovery countermeasures in WSNs. The evaluation results demonstrate that an adaptive recovery strategy can enhance the network's recovery benefits, in terms of increased packet delivery and decreased energy consumption, and prolong its operability. Moreover, the observations made are envisioned to encourage new contributions in the area of adaptive intrusion recovery in WSNs.


Objective: To determine the prevalence of tooth size discrepancy (TSD) in a representative orthodontics population, to explore how many millimeters of TSD is clinically significant and to determine the ability of simple visual inspection to detect such a discrepancy. Materials and Methods: The sample comprised 150 pretreatment study casts with fully erupted and complete permanent dentitions from first molar to first molar, which were selected randomly from records of the orthodontic patients. The mesiodistal diameters of the teeth were measured at contact points using digital calipers and the Bolton's analysis was carried out on them. Simple visual estimation of Bolton discrepancy was also performed. Results: In the sample group, 24% of the patients had anterior tooth width ratios and 8% had total arch ratios greater than ±2 standard deviation (SD) from Bolton's means. For the anterior analysis, correction greater than ±2 mm was required for 24% of patients in the upper arch or 14% in the lower arch. For the total arch analysis, correction greater than ±2 mm was required for 36% of patients in the upper arch or 32% in the lower arch. Conclusion: Bolton's analysis should be routinely performed in all orthodontic patients and the findings should be included in orthodontic treatment planning. 2 mm of the required tooth size correction is an appropriate threshold for clinical significance. Visual estimation of TSD has low sensitivity and specificity. Careful measurement is more frequently required in clinical practice than visual estimation would suggest.


This paper investigates the performance of shared virtual memory protocols on large-scale multicomputers. Using experiments on a 64-node Paragon, we show that the traditional Lazy Release Consistency (LRC) protocol does not scale well, because of the large number of messages it requires, the large amount of memory it consumes for protocol overhead data, and because of the diÆculty of garbage collecting that data. To achieve more scalable performance, we introduce and evaluate two new protocols. The rst, Home-based LRC (HLRC), is based on the Automatic Update Release Consistency (AURC) protocol. Like AURC, HLRC maintains a home for each page to which all updates are propagated and from which all copies are derived. Unlike AURC, HLRC requires no specialized hardware support. We nd that the use of homes provides substantial improvements in performance and scalability over LRC. Our second protocol, called Overlapped Home-based LRC (OHLRC), takes advantage of the communication processor found on each node of the Paragon to o oad some of the protocol overhead of HLRC from the critical path followed by the compute processor. We nd that OHLRC provides modest improvements over HLRC. We also apply overlapping to the base LRC protocol, with similar results. Our experiments were done using ve of the Splash-2 benchmarks. We report overall execution times, as well as detailed breakdowns of elapsed time, message traÆc, and memory use for each of the protocols.


This article presents descriptive findings from new survey data on households' decisions to change or remain with their providers of checking or savings accounts. The data show that the distribution of household tenure is wide, and that about a third of households have never changed depository institutions. The primary reason reported for changing banks is a household relocation; other reasons are customer service and price factors. Customer service and location are the most frequently cited reasons for remaining with a bank. The importance of location and mobility supports previous survey evidence that the local area is the appropriate market for competitive analysis in banking. The findings presented here are consistent with earlier studies showing that population migration increases competitive pressure on firms and therefore should mitigate the anticompetitive effects of bank mergers.


This paper provides an integrated approach to the seismic evaluation of low-rise reinforced masonry buildings with flexible roof diaphragms. The paper is divided into four phases. In Phase 1 (Behavior), results from shaking-table testing, quasi-static testing, and analytical predictions are integrated to provide a coherent description of the seismic response of low-rise reinforced masonry buildings with flexible roof diaphragms. Two half-scale, low-rise reinforced masonry buildings with flexible roof diaphragms are subjected to earthquake ground motions on the Tri-axial Earthquake and Shock Simulator at the United States Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Engineer Research and Development Center. Following the shaking-table tests, diaphragms and top four courses of attached masonry walls are salvaged from the half-scale structures and tested quasi-statically in their own plane. A new index, the diaphragm drift ratio, is introduced to describe the potential for diaphragm damage. In Phase 2 (Analysis), coordinated analytical modeling is developed and implemented to corroborate and extend the results of that experimental work, and to examine the efficacy and accuracy of different analytical modeling approaches. Linear elastic finite-element models, simplified two-degree-of-freedom models, and nonlinear lumped-parameter models are developed; all agree well with measured responses. In Phase 3 (Seismic Evaluation), the first two phases are used to develop and verify a simple extension to FEMA 310, the predominant seismic evaluation methodology for low-rise reinforced masonry building with flexible diaphragms. In Phase 4 (Application and Verification), the proposed extension, applied to four existing buildings, is shown to be simple, useful, and necessary.


PURPOSE
Hospital surgical volume has been shown to correlate with short-term outcomes after cancer surgery, but the relationship between volume and cost of care is unclear. We sought to characterize variation in payments for cancer surgery and assess the relationship between hospital volume and payments.

METHODS
Using 2000 to 2007 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data, we assessed risk-adjusted 30-day episode Medicare payments for elderly patients undergoing one of six procedures for resection of cancer. Payments for the index hospitalization, readmissions, physician services, emergency room visits, and postdischarge ancillary care were analyzed, as were data on 30-day mortality and complications.

RESULTS
The analysis included 31,191 colectomies, 2,670 cystectomies, 1,514 pancreatectomies, 2,607 proctectomies, 12,228 prostatectomies, and 10,151 pulmonary lobectomies. There was substantial variation in cost; differences between the first and third terciles of cost varied from 27% for cystectomy to 40% for colectomy. The majority of variation (66% to 82%) was attributable to payments for the index admission rather than readmissions or physician services. There were no meaningful associations between total risk-adjusted payments and hospital volume. Surgical mortality was low, but complication rates ranged from 10% (prostatectomy) to 56% (lobectomy). Complication rates were not correlated with hospital volume, but occurrence of complications was associated with 47% to 70% higher costs.

CONCLUSION
We found substantial variation in Medicare payments for these six cancer procedures. Cost was strongly associated with postoperative complications and primarily driven by differences in the cost of the index hospitalization. Efforts to prevent and cost-effectively manage complications are more likely to reduce costs than volume-based referral of cancer surgery alone.


This Article suggests that there is Proper Methodology that courts apply when reviewing cases at the intersection of due process and equal protection. Briefly, courts operate under a rule that heightened review applies if either a fundamental right or a suspect class is involved in a case, and that rational basis review applies if neither is involved (the "Rule"). Two primary exceptions to the Rule exist, and this Article identifies them as the "Logical" and "Ill Motives" Exceptions. The Logical Exception applies when a court need not apply heightened review because a law fails rational basis review. The Ill Motives Exception applies when a law fails rational basis review because the sole purpose behind a law is an ill motive. The Rule and the Exceptions provide the Proper Methodology to be applied in intersection cases. The genesis for the Article arose in the context of analyzing the constitutionality of laws that ban marriage between persons of the same sex, popularly called "gay marriage." Notwithstanding the fact that the right to marry is a fundamental right, confusion exists as to whether gay marriage bans are subject to rational basis review or heightened scrutiny. Some of the confusion exists because the Supreme Court has not decided where sexual orientation fits in the equal protection paradigm. But this void is responsible for only part of the confusion. This Article exposes another dangerous source of confusion -- a tendency to allow popular discourse to shape the legal analysis in sexual orientation discrimination cases, resulting in what this Article calls the "Collapsible Error." Courts commit the Collapsible Error when they conflate the equal protection question ("Are gays a suspect class?") into the due process question ("Is there an underlying fundamental right?") by defining the underlying right by the group targeted by the law -- gay marriage -- and then limiting the analysis to substantive due process ("Is there a fundamental right to gay marriage?"). This Article explores why committing the Collapsible Error is a denial of the due process and equal protection rights of gays because it results in an unjustifiable deviation from the Proper Methodology that is applied in cases involving other types of discrimination. Understanding and applying the Proper Methodology is not only a matter of judicial integrity, but it also is an opportunity to bring gays into the Constitution's fold.


Glyphosate-based herbicides are used extensively in forestry and agriculture to control broadleaf plant competition. A review of the literature offers conflicting results regarding the impact of glyphosate on fungal growth. This study investigated the effects of 7 glyphosate concentrations (1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, and 1000 microg*mL-1) of Roundup (35.6% glyphosate) on the number of colony-forming units (CFUs) of soilborne microfungi from a boreal forest soil sample and on the in vitro linear growth of 20 selected species of microfungi representative of this boreal forest soil. Concentrations of glyphosate at 50 microg*mL-1 and higher significantly decreased the number of CFUs observed. At glyphosate concentrations equal to 5 microg*mL-1, 13 fungal species exhibited colony diameters less than 50% than that of their respective controls. Several species showed an inhibition of pigmentation and sporulation when subjected to glyphosate concentrations of 1 microg*mL-1. Differential sensitivity was observed among species at the various concentrations, suggesting the possibility of a shift towards tolerant species of fungi when they are exposed to glyphosate.


Although concerns for equity have become ever more central within mathematics education, there is still little consensus on how the term should be defined or how to effectively work towards equity in classroom learning. Equity initiatives that rely solely on arguments about achievement gaps can be dangerous, as they can perpetuate deficit notions of marginalized students and position dominant groups as the norm to which others should aspire. The project is analyzed using Marilyn Cochran-Smith's six principles of pedagogy for teaching for social justice. In the study group, teachers were involved in designing research projects to honour their students' cultural and community knowledge and to develop mathematics teaching with a social justice focus. We offer three examples of teaching mathematics for social justice in diverse classrooms, and consider the broader implications of inquiry projects such as these. While we and the teachers came together as a group because of a shared interest in using a social justice approach to mathematics teaching. We found that the study group process ended up emphasizing some aspects of teaching for social justice – in particular, bringing social justice issues explicitly into the curriculum, building on student interests and experiences, and working with families and community.


High-temperature, high-pressure experiments were performed at 1350 °C and 0.5 GPa to determine the dependence of germanium partitioning behavior between coexisting solid metal and liquid silicate phases on oxygen fugacity and melt composition. A piston cylinder apparatus was used to perform experiments under effectively closed-system conditions to avoid possible loss of volatile Ge species. The oxygen fugacity of the experiments was adjusted by using silicate melts with different amounts of FeO. This causes a change of the melt composition. Additional experiments with different melt compositions but identical FeO contents were performed to determine the effect of melt composition on the metal–silicate partitioning behavior.

The partitioning behavior of Ge depends on both oxygen fugacity ( f O2) and silicate melt composition (NBO/T). The dependences can be described by the equation:

\batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \[logD^{met{\mbox{--}}sil}Ge=\ 3.32({\pm}0.07)\ {-}0.50({\pm}0.03)\ {\cdot}\ log\mathit{f}O_{2}\ {-}\ 0.29\ ({\pm}0.04)\ {\cdot}\ \frac{NBO}{T}\ (\mathit{R}^{2}\ =\ 0.99).\] \end{document}

The slope of the correlation between Dmet–silGe and oxygen fugacity allows one to determine the valence state of Ge in the silicate melt. Within the f O2 range of the experiments (−0.9 to −2.7 log units relative to the Fe-FeO (IW) buffer), the valence state of Ge is 2.00 (±0.12), i.e . GeO is the stable species in the silicate melt. This is in good agreement with an earlier study performed in 1 atm furnaces at 1300 °C and a comparable f O2 range (−0.5 to −2.7 log units relative to the IW buffer), but at variance with another study that determined tetravalent Ge cations dissolved as oxides in silicate melts in 1 atm experiments performed at more oxidizing conditions (−1.3 to +3.8 log units relative to IW buffer). The data of the present study in combination with these earlier data suggest a change in the dominant formal Ge oxide species in silicate melts at oxygen fugacities slightly below the IW buffer.


We demonstrate that there are machine learning algorithms that can achieve success for two separate tasks simultaneously, namely the tasks of classification and bipartite ranking. This means that advantages gained from solving one task can be carried over to the other task, such as the ability to obtain conditional density estimates, and an order-of-magnitude reduction in computational time for training the algorithm. It also means that some algorithms are robust to the choice of evaluation metric used; they can theoretically perform well when performance is measured either by a misclassification error or by a statistic of the ROC curve (such as the area under the curve). Specifically, we provide such an equivalence relationship between a generalization of Freund et al.'s RankBoost algorithm, called the "P-Norm Push," and a particular cost-sensitive classification algorithm that generalizes AdaBoost, which we call "P-Classification." We discuss and validate the potential benefits of this equivalence relationship, and perform controlled experiments to understand P-Classification's empirical performance. There is no established equivalence relationship for logistic regression and its ranking counterpart, so we introduce a logistic-regression-style algorithm that aims in between classification and ranking, and has promising experimental performance with respect to both tasks.


This research was designed to figure out whether cognitive factors which consist of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as well as personal factors which divided into computer anxiety, influencing the intentions of internet usage among students. Furthermore, this research would also like to compare the cognitive and
personal model in influencing the internet use intention.We use quantitative descriptive to analyse the data gathered through questionnaires among the students of State Islamic University Sultan Syarif Kasim (UIN SUSKA) Riau Indonesia, which actively and daily using the computer and internet technology.These students were chosen as samples through simple random sampling and processing data by using multiple linear
regression analysis. The results showed that perceived usefulness from cognitive factor affecting the intention in using internet while perceived ease of use does not affect the intention of using the internet.It is also found that anxiety computer from personal factors does not affect the intention in using internet technology.Oppositely, the intentions feelings affect the intention in using internet technology. When it comes to the comparison, it could be concluded that cognitive factors also do not have a greater effect when compared with personal factors of students in using internet.


Transcriptional factor E2F-1 as well as tumor suppressor p53 have been shown to cause apoptosis independently in some types of human cancer cells when overexpressed. Here we report that sequential transfer of the wild-type p53 and E2F-1 genes efficiently induces apoptosis in human esophageal cancer cells and that E2F-1 overexpression directly activates expression of p14 (ARF), which inhibits MDM2mediated p53 degradation, resulting in the stabilization of p53. Infection of human esophageal cancer cell lines T.Tn and TE8 with adenovirus vector-expressing E2F-1 (AdE2F-1) enhanced mRNA and protein expression of ARF and decreased MDM2 protein expression. Transfection of ARF plasmid decreased MDM2 protein expression, which in turn increased p53 protein expression. Infection of T.Tn and TE8 cells first with adenovirus-expressing wild-type p53 (Adp53) and then with Ad-E2F-1 resulted in rapid induction of apoptosis; in contrast, simultaneous infection with AdE2F-1 and Ad-p53 had no significant antitumor effect. As shown by Western blot analysis, infection with suboptimal concentrations of Ad-E2F-1 induced the accumulation of exogenous p53 transduced by suboptimal concentrations of Ad-p53. Moreover, Ad-E2F-1-mediated ARF expression inhibited the up-regulation of MDM2 by overexpressed p53 in TE8 cells. Thus, overexpression of ectopic E2F-1 protein may stabilize endogenous as well as ectopic p53 protein via the E2F-1/ARF/MDM2/p53 regulatory pathway and, in this way, render cells more sensitive to apoptosis, an outcome that has important implications for the treatment of human esophageal cancers.


A world of unequal carbon prices requires measures aimed at preventing carbon leakage. Climate policy imperatives demand that such measures must be compatible with the goal of sending a carbon price signal down the value chain. For carbon intensive materials, the combination of dynamic free allocation combined with Inclusion of Consumption (IoC) into emissions trading systems such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) arguably fulfils both the aims of preventing carbon leakage and of sending the price signal. The paper presents concrete proposals regarding the legal design and practical administration of this mechanism. It argues that the IoC is, provided appropriate choices are made, ripe for implementation.


Summary 1.Effective assessment of the success of ecological restoration projects is critical in justifying the use of restoration in natural resource management as well as improving best practice. One of the main goals of ecological restoration is the recovery of ecosystem function, yet most researchers assume that increasing species and or functional diversity equates with restoration of ecosystem function, rather than empirically demonstrating these mechanistic relationships. 2.In this study we assess how dung beetle species diversity, community composition, functional diversity and ecological functions vary along a restoration chronosequence and compare restored areas with reference (rainforest) and degraded (pasture) systems. We also directly investigate the dung beetle diversity – ecosystem functioning relationship in the context of ecological rainforest restoration by testing the predictive power of traditional taxonomic indices and functional diversity metrics for functionality. 3.Species richness, abundance, biomass and functional richness all increased with restoration age, with the oldest restoration sites being most similar to rainforest; whereas functional evenness and functional divergence decreased with restoration age. Community composition in the restored areas was clearly progressing towards the rainforest sites and deviating from the pasture sites with increasing restoration age. 4.Secondary seed dispersal rates increased with restoration age, but there was only a weak positive relationship between dung removal and soil excavation and restoration age. Biodiversity metrics explained 47–74% of the variation in functions mediated by dung beetles; however, functional trait-based indices provided greater explanatory power of functionality than traditional species-based metrics. 5.Synthesis and applications. Our results provide empirical evidence on the potential of tropical forest restoration to mitigate biodiversity losses, recovering not only faunal species diversity, but also functional diversity and ecosystem functions in a relatively short period of time. We also demonstrate that functional trait-based metrics are better predictors of functionality than traditional species-based metrics but that the relationship between restoration age, diversity and ecosystem functioning is not straightforward and depends on the functions, traits and metrics used.


This paper introduces a more sophisticated modelling of the labour market functioning of the European member and candidate states through the introduction of labour supply curves in an applied general equilibrium model. A labour supply curve offers a middle way in labour supply modelling, sitting between the two commonly adopted extremes of spare capacity and full employment. The first part of the paper outlines the theoretical foundation of the labour supply curve. Real world data is then used to derive labour supply curves for each member state, along with Croatia and Turkey. Finally, the impact of the newly specified labour markets on the results of an illustrative scenario involving reform of the common agricultural policy is explored. The results of computable general equilibrium analysis with the labour supply curve confirm the theoretical expectation that modelling the labour supply through an upwards-sloping curve produces results that lie between the extremes of spare capacity of the labour factor and fully employed labour. This specification captures a greater degree of heterogeneity in the labour markets of the member and candidate states, allowing for a more nuanced modelling of the effects of policy reform, including welfare effects.


Background: Amount of drug in milk depend upon the concentration of drug in the mother's serum. Medications with more half-life time (T1/2) are likely to retain higher levels in breast milk. Also number of times of feeding and amount of milk taken by the infant are significant considerations. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and practice about drug use while breastfeeding. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted and sample size was determined using Krejcie and Morgan's sample size calculator. A survey was carried in eastern province, Saudi Arabia community by approaching a conveniently selected sample of 545 participants. Results: The maximum percentage of participants were housewives (43.11%) while the least participants were from health care professional (6.97%, p< 0.05). Among all the participants, maximum (90.64%) were from urban residents Approx. 50 % (p< 0.05) of participants are not getting proper information from doctors about the prescribed drugs. Conclusion: Awareness should be raised about the possible side effects of medication use during breastfeeding.


There are many significant research projects focused on providing semantic web repositories that are scalable and efficient. However, the true value of the semantic web architecture is its ability to represent meaningful knowledge and not just data. Therefore, a semantic web knowledge base should do more than retrieve collections of triples. We propose RDFKB (Resource Description Knowledge Base), a complete semantic web knowledge case. RDFKB is a solution for managing, persisting and querying semantic web knowledge. Our experiments with real world and synthetic datasets demonstrate that RDFKB achieves superior query performance to other state-of-the-art solutions. The key features of RDFKB that differentiate it from other solutions are: 1) a simple and efficient process for data additions, deletions and updates that does not involve reprocessing the dataset; 2) materialization of inferred triples at addition time without performance degradation; 3) materialization of uncertain information and support for queries involving probabilities; 4) distributed inference across datasets; 5) ability to apply alignments to the dataset and perform queries against multiple sources using alignment. RDFKB allows more knowledge to be stored and retrieved; it is a repository not just for RDF datasets, but also for inferred triples, probability information, and lineage information. RDFKB provides a complete and efficient RDF data repository and knowledge base.


The official apology is a discursive phenomenon with complex rhetorical significance and must be distinguished from the apologia. The main difference is that the official apology entails an element of regret and acknowledgement of wrongdoing that makes it an even more delicate rhetorical matter than the apologia—not least because it involves a collectivity such as a nation state. The symbolic nature of the assumption of guilt is therefore particularly clear. This article argues that official apologies, however circumscribed by public skepticism, nevertheless may serve important functions as loci for articulating the norms of a society at a given time. The article discusses how the official apology raises a host of issues concerning rhetorical agency and argues that this particular type of rhetoric is promising point of departure in the ongoing pedagogical and theoretical exploration of the concept of rhetorical agency. By integrating theories of epideictic rhetoric and of rhetorical agency, the complexity of the official apology is analyzed, and through a reading of an official apology by the Danish Prime minister, the essay examines how rhetorical agency is both established and undercut by the speaker.


Competition is the principal form of interaction of economic entities (in this work - enterprises) in market economy. It can be perceived statically, i.e. as a specific structural fluxion of the market which implies 'tension' between enterprises, or dynamically, i.e. as a process or 'struggle' of market participants in the course of which a new situation is formed. The position of the enterprise in the market as well as its potential in the competitive struggle is traditionally described as competitiveness. In regard of the necessary knowledge that the companies as the participants of the market must have at their disposal, the procedure of selection of resources and actions to facilitate the acquisition of future competitiveness is of the utmost importance in theoretical and practical studies. In other words, it is necessary to define in advance the state of things which can lead to gaining competitive advantage. This state should be determined by studying the expected efficiency of actions performed on the basis of the enterprise's competitive potential and which can be regarded as the potential of successful competition. The above mentioned circumstances are the main motif to introduce an additional element into the structure of competitiveness which can provide the possibility for all concerned (researchers, experts, managers) to identify and assess the resources and related actions which are to determine future competitiveness of the enterprise. Ability to compete consists of two interrelated parts, i.e. ability as physical possibilities to do something (resources, labor, equipment, raw materials, operating abilities, etc.) and knowledge, i.e. knowing how to efficiently make use of competitive potential (how much and, which is most important, what resources are necessary and how they are to be utilized). This work suggests the competitive ability assessment model which consists of five successive and interrelated elements: ‒        formation of the list of resources, operational capabilities and external circumstances; ‒        identifying the importance of resources, capabilities and external circumstances within the framework of the sector; ‒        assessment of the enterprise's strength' of competitive potential elements (competition instruments); ‒        assessment of the enterprise's management competencies (i.e. knowing how to compete); ‒        synthesis of the assessed results and the formation of opinion about the enterprise's capability to compete. The assessment of competitive ability is not an end in itself. The measured level of this ability can serve as a certain instrument to be used in making managerial decisions. The further summary of the results or the decision to make use of partial indexes depend on the needs of those applying this instrument (i.e. the goals of the planned analysis). http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.22.4.717


The Gondwanan relict tree genus Nothofagus has generated much research due to its biogeographical significance in understanding the biota of the Southern Temperate Zone. However, the southern temperate forest arthropod fauna, including that of Nothofagus, has received less attention than northern temperate forest and tropical rainforest. The extant Tasmanian Nothofagus canopy arthropod fauna has been considered depauparate. Yet with a palaeohistory of long persistence, high diversity and widespread distribution of the genus within Australia, the endemic Tasmanian Nothofagaceae – the evergreen Nothofagus cunninghamii and winter deciduous N. gunnii - could be expected to have accreted a large and diverse arthropod fauna, as have its sister Fagalean families in the northern hemisphere.
Conversely, range contraction of Tasmanian Nothofagus in the increasingly arid conditions of the late Tertiary, and its cyclical isolation from the Australian mainland during the glacial cycles of the Pleistocene, could have depleted the associated arthropod fauna.
Thus the aims of this project were to document in detail the diversity and structure of the invertebrate communities associated with both species of Tasmanian Nothofagus; to build an inventory of canopy arthropod fauna according to feeding guild; and to measure the levels of herbivory, as an indication of herbivore activity, on the these host species. These data enabled comparison of the arthropod communities on the two hostplants, and comparison with similar studies on closely related tree species (Nothofagus elsewhere, northern temperate Fagales) and other Australian tree taxa, now widespread (Acacia and Eucalyptus).
A cross section of survey sites was chosen, 17 for N. cunninghamii, and 12 for N. gunnii, including three where the host plants were sympatric. Canopy arthropods were sampled by branch beating, and leaves were collected from, or examined in situ on marked branches. The sampling schedule from March 1998 until March 2002 yielded data sets by Nothofagus species, site, sampling aspect, season, region, and between years. Priority was given to arthropod orders containing herbivorous taxa or scavenging taxa known to forage on trees. These were sorted to family, then genus and species where possible, otherwise to morphospecies; and allocated to feeding guilds. The leaves were designated 'chewed' or 'intact' and the leaf area lost from the chewed leaves was estimated. Mean percentage leaf area loss was calculated as a measure of herbivory.
The main finding from these investigations was that there existed a strong contrast in the diversity and taxonomic profile of the arthropod fauna between the two Nothofagus species. For N. cunninghamii, the associated fauna was relatively rich in taxa and comparable with other temperate zone trees in both its diversity and guild structure. Similarly the N. cunninghamii herbivory levels were within the range of those found on temperate and subtropical tree taxa. N. gunnii in contrast was clearly depauparate, particularly lacking many important folivorous groups such as chrysomelid beetles, leaf miners and aphids. However there was, for the two Nothofagus species, considerable local variation in the arthropod communities and levels of herbivory - between regions; between sites within a region; and within a site, seasonal variation and also differences between consecutive sampling years - insights which have significance for effective biodiversity surveys and conservation strategies.


This paper explores the "brain drain" hypothesis – the idea that New Zealand is losing many of its most talented citizens to other countries. We conclude that we are experiencing more of a brain exchange than a brain drain. There have been net outflows of New Zealand citizens for forty years, and we have been replacing those leaving with non-New Zealand citizens. On the basis of the data available, our immigrants appear to be more skilled than our emigrants (and than our general population). But there may be some cause for concern if immigrants cannot get jobs to make use of their skills. Migration flows to and from Australia are different from those with the rest of the world. New Zealand consistently loses its citizens to Australia, but they are not just the highest skilled. Instead, they are representative of the general population of New Zealand. That is, there is no brain drain to Australia either, but what might be called a "same drain". This is likely to be a consequence of the common labour market. Policy responses could focus on both outflows and inflows. Limited policy levers exist for attracting and retaining New Zealand citizens within the country, other than making the country a more attractive place to work, and live. The key policy issue for inflows is the improvement of the selection, settlement, and integration of immigrants. The paper ends by calling for a more sophisticated debate on immigration and emigration, and a more accurate conception of what will be an ongoing trend – that is, the increasingly free flow of people (including New Zealanders), around the globe.


The new product/service development (NPSD) business processes in organisations are often considered to be exemplars of innovation in those organisations. However, NPSD processes are not synonymous with innovation. In some cases the NPSD process can even supplant the process of innovation, leading to confusion and ineffectiveness of innovation in other business processes. Furthermore, the need to develop and sustain innovation within the NPSD can be obscured by an operational focus leading to incremental orthodoxy rather than radical innovative change. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explore the role of innovation within the NPSD processes in organisations by examining how organisations have reengineered these processes to achieve more radical innovation within such processes. The implicit hypothesis is that reengineering enables the role of innovation in such processes to be more fully exposed and probed. A multiple case methodology is used to probe organisations in high growth markets where innovative NPSD processes are essential for business success. The results indicate that understanding and careful planning is necessary to incorporate essential knowledge, creativity and innovation constructs within the NPSD process.


Is Marriage Good for Your Health? By TARA PARKER-POPE In 1858, a British epidemiologist named William Farr set out to study what he called the "conjugal condition" of the people of France. He divided the adult population into three distinct categories: the "married," consisting of husbands and wives; the "celibate," defined as the bachelors and spinsters who had never married; and finally the "widowed," those who had experienced the death of a spouse. Using birth, death and marriage records, Farr analyzed the relative mortality rates of the three groups at various ages. The work, a groundbreaking study that helped establish the field of medical statistics, showed that the unmarried died from disease "in undue proportion" to their married counterparts. And the widowed, Farr found, fared worst of all.


High-resolution 31P magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectroscopy is presented as a direct and non-perturbing
 method for measuring changes in surface charge density occurring in mixed phospholipid membranes
 upon binding of charged surface-active peptides. 31P MAS NMR was used to investigate mixed lipid membranes of neutral phosphatidylcholine and negatively charged phosphatidylglycerol where the molar fraction of the charged lipid was varied from 0 to 1. The chemical shifts of the individual membrane lipids showed a simple variation in response to changes in the fraction of the negatively charged component phosphatidylglycerol. Addition of the positively charged amyloid-β1-40 peptide, a key substance in Alzheimer's disease, resulted in changes in the isotropic chemical shifts of the membrane lipid phosphates in a way consistent with reduction in the negative surface charge of the mixed lipid bilayers. Binding of different amounts of the positively charged peptide pentalysine to L-α-dioleoylphosphatidylcholine/L-α-dioleoylphosphatidylglycerol (DOPC/DOPG) vesicles (2:1 molar ratio) also showed a systematic variation of both chemical shift values. These changes
 were described by a simple two-site model and indicate purely
 electrostatic binding of pentalysine.


This Article makes a case for using a private right of action to protect overseas employees from retaliation by their employers for reporting or opposing the bribery of foreign officials. After surveying public enforcement efforts, voluntary corporate initiatives, and existing private causes of action that may be predicated on FCPA violations, the Article finds that they all have their shortcomings and recommends several legal and legislative solutions. First, a private cause of action for retaliation should be implied under the FCPA. Second, section 806 of the Sarbanes- Oxley Act of 2002 should be read to protect whistleblowers who disclose FCPA violations by publicly held U.S. companies. Third, the territorial scope of section 806 should be expanded to cover employees working overseas. The Article takes issue with the First Circuit's decision in Carnero v. Boston Scientific Corp., which declined to extend section 806 whistleblower protection to a foreign employee of a foreign subsidiary of a publicly held U.S. company. The Article then explores two alternative approaches to extraterritoriality suggested in the Southern District of New York court's recent decision in O'Mahony v. Accenture Ltd. to support prescriptive jurisdiction in such cases: the 'conduct' and 'effects' tests. Alternatively, it argues section 806 and the administrative complaint procedures from AIR21 it incorporates by reference should be amended to provide specific procedures for employees overseas to bring whistleblower complaints. Finally, the Article endorses the Foreign Business Bribery Prohibition Act of 2008, H.R. 6188, which is expected to be reintroduced by Congressman Ed Perlmutter in the 111th Congress, to authorize private suits for treble damages against foreign concerns whose bribery costs American businesses and their employees.


Practical method in science subject is an instructional method that gives students the opportunity to do their own scientific investigation through planning, performing and discussing. The purpose of this study was to explore the way teachers manage their students, in order to increase their involvements in science practical work. This qualitative case study studied three experienced science teachers by garnering data through teachers' observation, students' interview and analysis of students' documents. All data were analyzed manually. This study found that students' involvement in Additionally, it was also found that patrolling and checking the students' progress during practical session, giving out positive rewards and cooperation from lab assistant in monitoring students, did help in increasing students' involvement during practical work. Certainly, active students' involvement throughout the teaching and learning process will help in producing human capital equipped with criteria such as creative, critical and innovative. science practical are high when the teacher manage the students by dividing them into a group of three to five, and by disseminating the work.


Aging is associated with a decline in physiological capacity and metabolic function, leading to increased risk for chronic conditions such as insulin resistance and diabetes. Reduced ability to utilize fatty acids in the elderly has been linked to increased fat deposition within skeletal muscle. However, intramuscular triglyceride (IMTG) content and its relation to substrate oxidation has not been clearly established in older individuals. The two main purposes of the present investigation were 1.) to compare IMTG stores in the elderly with a younger group of men and women and 2.) to examine the relationship between substrate content and utilization during an acute sub-maximal bout of exercise in the elderly. A total of thirteen sedentary, healthy older men (5) and women (8) aged 67 + 3 yrs were matched for gender and percent body fat with a younger, control group (age=39 + 6 yrs) for IMTG comparison. Fat free mass (FFM), body mass index (BMI), weight, and height were not significantly different between the old and young and ORO staining from vastus lateralis muscle obtained by percutaneous needle biopsy revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups. Sixteen sedentary elderly men (5) and women (11) were given constant infusions of 13C palmitate and d2 glucose during 60 minutes of cycle ergometry exercise at ~58% VO2peak to assess substrate utilization during exercise. There was a significant negative correlation between IMTG content by Oil Red O staining and total fatty acid oxidation (rho= -0.5989; p=0.03) and IMTG content and oxidative capacity of muscle (rho= -0.6485; p=0.04) induced by sub-maximal exercise. Oxidative capacity of muscle was not associated with rates of NPFA oxidation during sub-maximal exercise. Fitness was marginally correlated with fasting insulin levels (rho= -0.4857; p=0.056) and HOMA IR (rho= -0.4441; p=0.085). In summary, IMTG content was not higher in this group of sedentary elderly compared to younger individuals, but higher IMTG content was associated with decreased fat oxidation during sub-maximal exercise in this group. In addition, higher fitness predicted more favorable trends for markers of insulin resistance.


Do you believe in ghosts? Jerry doesn't. He's a nineteen-year-old American, who just wants a good holiday with his friend, Brad. They are travelling round the north of England by bicycle. But strange things begin to happen in the small hotel where they are staying. First, Brad seems to think that he has been there before. And then a girl called Ellen appears ...The first of these three original plays is set in the seventeenth century, and the other two take place in modern times. In each play, a ghost comes back from the dead to change the lives of living people.


The beginning of crowdfunding in Russia is associated with a launch of the crowdfunding platform for creative projects Kroogi. Although it has been 10 years since Kroogi was established, we have to admit that crowdfunding in Russia remains a comparatively small and local market.Definitely, the Russian crowdfunding industry has experienced substantial fluctuations, but nowadays it shows sustainable growth and both market players and the regulator believe in its prospective, so that new players appear, new regulations are expected. In 2017, the biggest Russian crowdfunding platform Planeta.ru celebrated its fifth anniversary and claimed to have raised over 770 million Russian rubles. Still, the rate of successfully funded projects is rather low.To improve the situation it is necessary to find out which crowdfunding projects potential backers are more willing to support. Within the scope of this paper we provide quantitative analysis of open data on 9 179 projects divided by 15 categories from two largest non-equity-based crowdfunding platforms in Russia. The key findings demonstrate the total funding, the largest categories by number of projects, most popular categories within the backers support, the sum of average pledges.Issues for further research and discussion are identified including factors of project success and backers' motivation.