Although facial symmetry correlates with facial attractiveness, human faces are often far from symmetrical with one side frequently being larger than the other (Kowner, 1998). Smith (2000) reported that male and female faces were asymmetrical in opposite directions, with males having a larger area on the left side compared to the right side, and females having a larger right side compared to the left side. The present study attempted to replicate and extend this finding. Two databases of facial images from Stirling and St Andrews Universities, consisting of 180 and 122 faces respectively, and a third set of 62 faces collected at Abertay University, were used to examine Smith's findings. Smith's unique method of calculating the size of each hemiface was applied to each set. For the Stirling and St Andrews sets a computer program did this automatically and for the Abertay set it was done manually. No significant overall effect of gender on facial area asymmetry was found. However, the St Andrews sample demonstrated a similar effect to that found by Smith, with females having a significantly larger mean area of right hemiface and males having a larger left hemiface. In addition, for the Abertay faces handedness had a significant effect on facial asymmetry with right-handers having a larger left side of the face. These findings give limited support for Smith's results but also suggest that finding such an asymmetry may depend on some as yet unidentified factors inherent in some methods of image collection.


This paper reports on the experiences of creative practice graduate researchers and academic staff as they seek to comply with the requirements of the Australian National Statement on the Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. The research was conducted over a two-year period (2015 to 2017) as part of a wider project 'iDARE – Developing New Approaches to Ethics and Research Integrity Training through Challenges Presented by Creative Practice Research'. The research identified the appreciation of ethics that the participants acquired through their experience of institutional research ethics procedures at their university. It also revealed a disjunction between the concepts of ethics acquired through meeting institutional research ethics requirements, the notion of ethics that many researchers adopt in their own professional creative practice and the contents of professional codes of conduct. A key finding of the research was that to prepare creative practice graduates for ethical decision-making in their professional lives, research ethics training in universities should be broadened to encompass a variety of contexts and enable researchers to develop skills in ethical know-how.


To assess how rhetoric is positioned in English and communica- tions programs, I review surveys of undergraduate majors, including my own survey of a stratified sample of one hundred four-year institutions. I also analyze the statements of purposes from varied departments. While discussions of rhetorical studies tend to be defined in terms of depart- mentalized disciplines, the relations between fields such as English and communications vary by types of institutions, with joint programs more common in smaller colleges and rhetoric and composition courses more pervasive in public institutions. Such situational factors need to be as- sessed in order to develop a more rhetorical stance on the collaborative capacities of rhetorical studies in English and communications. The prag- matics of the two disciplines differ in ways worth noting if rhetoricians in the two fields are to collaborate more productively.


The results of the comparative analysis of chloroplast ultrastructure and analysis of photosynthetic pigments content in floating and submerged leaves of water fern Salvinia natans (L.) All. at the different stages of ontogeny are presented. The ultrastructure of photosynthetic organelles and pigments content are significantly different in floating and submerged leaves. The chloroplasts of parenchymal cells of floating leaves have a well-developed membranous system with many grana and contain many starch grains. Submerged leaves were shown to form smaller chloroplasts with low starch content in the stroma. A smaller number and smaller size of grana complexes in chloroplasts were marked, too. Destructive changes in the photosynthetic membranes of chloroplasts in both types of leaves were observed at the stage of sporocarps formation. The content of photosynthetic pigments in the floating leaves was twice higher than in the submerged leaves, and at the certain stages of ontogeny three times higher. During development of the plant, a content of photosynthetic pigments raised up in the floating leaves. At the stage of sporocarps formation, some reduction of chlorophylls and carotenoids content in submerged leaves occurred. In this article, we discuss the relationship between the identified differences and the functional activity of floating and submerged leaves during growth and development of water fern S. natans.


The advent of optogenetics and genetically encoded photosensors has provided neuroscience researchers with a wealth of new tools and methods for examining and manipulating neuronal function in vivo. There exists now a wide range of experimentally validated protein tools capable of modifying cellular function, including light-gated ion channels, recombinant light-gated G protein-coupled receptors, and even neurotransmitter receptors modified with tethered photo-switchable ligands. A large number of genetically encoded protein sensors have also been developed to optically track cellular activity in real time, including membrane-voltage-sensitive fluorophores and fluorescent calcium and pH indicators. The development of techniques for controlled expression of these proteins has also increased their utility by allowing the study of specific populations of cells. Additionally, recent advances in optics technology have enabled both activation and observation of target proteins with high spatiotemporal fidelity. In combination, these methods have great potential in the study of neural circuits and networks, behavior, animal models of disease, as well as in high-throughput ex vivo studies. This review collects some of these new tools and methods and surveys several current and future applications of the evolving field of optophysiology.


The aim of this article is to investigate how in the last decades, in Western democracies, energy, once confined to the field of economy and technology, has become a major political issue. The article analyzes the impact of different types of energy (carbon, oil, nuclear, etc.) on democratic societies. It devotes special attention to the new cleavage provoked by the emergence of renewable energies (solar and aeolian in particular) which, together with better and more diffuse information, has given citizens the possibility to express their democratic aspirations in energetic matters. The article argues for the need to historically investigate the political discourse on energy - energy being crucial for our societies, and the tensions between industrial and environmental needs not being destined to disappear anytime soon.


This paper questions the conventional view of F. A. Hayek as a reviver of 'classical liberalism'. It argues that the foundation of Hayek's doctrine is a naturalist or physicalist conception of man which is at variance with the classic tenets of liberalism. It shows how Hayek's theory of society and of the abstract rules that ought to govern society are partly a continuation and partly a contradiction of his physicalist notion of man. The paper draws particular attention to Hayek's work The Sensory Order and to the sometimes overlooked influence of Ernst Mach on his ideas.


In a recent study, Helen Taylor and Axel Kaehne looked at responses to the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Bill to consider how effective the public consultation process is at incorporating wider expertise into the legislative process. The findings highlighted a number of issues relating to both the nature of responses and the way in which they were sought. The authors argue that if the government values participation from a broad range of organisations and citizens, additional efforts are required to promote effective inclusion.


The world's largest energy consumer and producer as well as the top oil importer and carbon dioxide emitter,
the People's Republic of China is in the centre of the global energy landscape – and at a turning point towards a
low-carbon future. There is an increasingly clear congruence of China's domestic interests and the world's
collective interests in terms of energy security, economic development and sustainable growth. In global energy
governance, the country is gradually transforming from outsider to insider and from follower to influencer, with
instrumental implications for the country and the world. This book provides a historical perspective on China's
approach to global energy governance and highlights how greater positive and constructive Chinese
engagement can be a step towards a better energy future for all.


Aniline is widespread in groundwater and of great toxicity. Advanced oxidation processes, such as the ferrous iron (Fe2+)-activated persulfate process, have been proven to be effective for organic pollutants. However, few studies have focused on the effects of coexisting ions on the degradation of aniline. In this study, the degradation efficiency of aniline and the effects of common inorganic ions (CO32−, PO43−, HCO3−, SO42−, NO3−, Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+) on aniline degradation were examined. Under the optimum operating conditions, 86.33% aniline degradation (C = 11 mmol/L) was observed within 60 min. The effects of cations on aniline degradation were negligible. Anions decreased the removal efficiency of aniline because of the radicals generated by the reaction between sulfate radical or hydroxyl radical and these anions. As the concentrations of PO43−, CO32−, SO42−, HCO3−, and NO3− increased from 0 mmol/L to 5 mmol/L, the removal efficiency of aniline decreased to 19.72%, 24.56%, 66.76%, 68.76%, and 82.42%, respectively. The order of inhibitory effects was PO43− > CO32− > >SO42− > HCO3− > >NO3−.


The paper presents a new simple and cheep method to synthesize hematite- magnetite nanocomposite. Lowvoltage dc arc is exerted into the electrochemical cell between two iron tip electrodes in different solvents. The results of this works show that polar solvents such as water and dimethylformamide can be used as suitable media to establish a low voltage dc arc in small distance between two needle electrodes. In the polar solvents, lower dc voltage can make a low current arc between two electrodes with 2 mm distance. The synthesized iron oxide nanomaterials are in hydrated and amorphous form. The synthesized nanomaterial can converted into crystalline iron oxides. The morphology and the composition of the iron oxide samples are characterized by SEMand XRD.


Two rhesus monkeys were trained to track a small moving target in the presence of a moving distractor. The target and distractor were distinguished by their color. Smooth pursuit eye movements were quantified in terms of the latency of the eye movement and the open- loop eye acceleration profile. Smooth pursuit latencies for single targets were on the order of 100 msec. When the target was paired with a distractor moving in the same direction as the target, pursuit latencies decreased to roughly 85 msec. When the target was paired with a distractor moving in the opposite direction, pursuit latencies increased to roughly 150 msec. The motion of the distractor had no significant effect on the eye acceleration profile. Experiments were performed to dissociate visual search for the target from pursuit initiation by providing a spatial cue rather than the color cue. These experiments showed that visual search necessarily preceded pursuit initiation only when the distractor moved in the opposite direction relative to the target. In this case, visual search contributed about 25 msec to the overall latency of pursuit. Control experiments showed that the monkey need not attend to the distractor in order for it to influence the latency of pursuit. A network model was developed in which units that represent the motions of the target and distractor compete against one another. Attention serves to bias the outcome of this competition toward the direction of the selected target. The performance of this network exhibits a striking parallel to the effect of the distractor on smooth pursuit latency.


To what extent did capitalism come into being in Africa before 1850? If by capitalism we mean the production of goods for exchange by capitalists who combine their own capital and land with labor bought from free workers without land, then the accumulative historical evidence tells us that only to a limited extent had capitalism emerged before 1850, and it was most certainly not the dominant system of production in Africa (Iliffe 1983). This does not mean that there was no production for the market. Nor does it imply that there was no wage labor, or that exchanges of capital did not take place. Finally it does not mean that there was no economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa before 1850. As will be analyzed here, markets did exist, there were some wage labor and there were means of exchange that facilitated some economic growth, though growth mostly occurred on the extensive margin.


Abstract Idaho National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have developed and demonstrated a pyroprocessing technology for the U.S. Department of Energy to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. One of the key steps in the pyroprocessing was electrorefining the spent fuel in a metal form in a molten LiCl-KCl-UCl3/liquid cadmium (Cd) system using the Mark-IV, an engineering-scale electrorefiner (ER). This paper summarizes experimental observations and engineering aspects for the roles of the Cd in electrorefining spent fuel in the Mark-IV ER. It was found that the Cd pool acted as an intermediate electrode during the electrorefining process. The Cd level gradually decreased because of its high vapor pressure at the ER operating temperature. The low Cd level caused the anode assembly to electrically short with the ER vessel hardware, which resulted in difficulty determining the endpoint of uranium dissolution from the anode baskets and reduced the current efficiency. A reflux Cd vapor trap successfully prevented the Cd level from decreasing and mitigated Cd vapor deposition on the cold metal surface inside the ER.


Abstract. Bio-sand filters (BSFs) are point-of-use (POU) potable water filtration systems commonly used in low-income communities at household level. The principle of operation is similar to that of a slow sand filter and the major difference is that they are operated intermittently at the POU. It is one of the emerging low-cost technologies which makes use of readily and locally available construction materials but is poor in the removal of nitrates. In order to enhance the removal of nitrates through denitrification, a modified BSF with ethanol as an external carbon source at C  /  N ratios of 1.1 and 1.8 was investigated. In the absence of an external carbon source, the nitrate removal efficiency was 32 %, whilst removal efficiencies at C   /   N ratios of 1.1 and 1.8 were 44 and 53 % respectively. The inflow rate reduced significantly from an initial flow rate of 0.04 to 0.01 m3 h−1. The reduction in the inflow rate was mainly due to the growth of the biological layer on the filter media. The study showed that the use of an external carbon source like ethanol in bio-sand filtration enhances the removal of nitrates in potable water.


In a much-anthologized story from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, a pagan counselor of King Edwin compares earthly life to a sparrow flying through the hall, illuminated "for the briefest of moments" by the comfortable fires burning within, passing "out of the stormy winter and into it again". If Christianity, he concludes, "brings us more certain information", it is appropriate and right to accept it (II.13). A clearer conception of where one goes after death is posited as the single most significant attraction of the new Christian faith. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the core element of lay belief in Norway and Iceland, according to Nedkvitne, was "doctrines about eternal life and salvation" (p. 310). In this book, Carlsen takes a look at some of the narratives generated by these core Christian beliefs: visions of the afterlife in Old Norse literature.


Diffusiophoresis, a ubiquitous phenomenon that induces particle transport whenever solute concentration gradients are present, was recently observed in the context of microsystems and shown to strongly impact colloidal transport (patterning and mixing) at such scales. In the present work, we show experimentally that this nanoscale mechanism can induce changes in the macroscale mixing of colloids by chaotic advection. Rather than the decay of the standard deviation of concentration, which is a global parameter commonly employed in studies of mixing, we instead use multiscale tools adapted from studies of chaotic flows or intermittent turbulent mixing: concentration spectra and second and fourth moments of the probability density functions of scalar gradients. Not only can these tools be used in open flows, but they also allow for scale-by-scale analysis. Strikingly, diffusiophoresis is shown to affect all scales, although more particularly the small ones, resulting in a change of scalar intermittency and in an unusual scale bridging spanning more than seven orders of magnitude. By quantifying the averaged impact of diffusiophoresis on the macroscale mixing, we explain why the effects observed are consistent with the introduction of an effective P\'eclet number.


Tumour invasion is the key element in the high rate of mortality and morbidity in glioma patients. Increased expression, in neoplastic cells, of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) of the TAM family (comprising Tyro3, Axl and MerTK), has been reported in several cancers including gliomas, in which they play a key role in tumour invasion. Axl RTK, with molecular weight of 120-140 kDa, mediates glioma cell adhesion and invasion through a variety of ways. Within the scope of this thesis, Western blotting, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tissue microarray revealed an upregulation of Axl and Tyro3 in brain tumours and two adult GBM cell lines, SNB-19 and UP007. Both cell lines were treated with the TAM ligand Gas6 and/or the specific Axl small molecule inhibitor BGB324, and analysed in assays for survival, 3D colony growth, motility, migration and invasion. Western blotting was used to detect protein expression and signal protein phosphorylation. In both cell lines, BGB324 inhibited specifically phosphorylation of Axl as well as Akt kinase further downstream. BGB324 also inhibited survival and proliferation of both cell lines in a concentration-dependent manner, as well as completely suppressing migration and invasion. Axl inhibition by BGB324 also sensitised GBM cells to golden standard chemotherapeutic agent temozolomide. Furthermore, novel, unconventional activation mechanisms for the TAMs in human GBM cells were investigated. With the use of Western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation and in vitro kinase assays, Axl was shown to both interact with and be activated by the RTK EGFR. With the aid of qRT-PCR screens, EGFR was shown to promote GBM cell invasion through the Axl/TIMP1/MMP9 signalling axis. Additionally heterodimerisation of Axl with its sister RTK, Tyro3, in GBM cells was confirmed using co-immunoprecipitation assays; the functional significance of this complex was determined to be promotion of GBM cell survival. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates the importance of TAM signalling in GBM, identifies novel molecular pathways employed by GBM cells for their survival, growth and spread, and thereby further strengthens the case for targeting TAM receptors as a novel therapeutic approach to combat both primary tumours as well as secondary tumours arising from drug resistance.


We present an analysis on the uptake of open access on COVID-19 related literature as well as the social media attention they gather when compared with non OA papers. We use a dataset of publications curated by Dimensions and analyze articles and preprints. Our sample includes 11,686 publications of which 67.5% are openly accessible. OA publications tend to receive the largest share of social media attention as measured by the Altmetric Attention Score. 37.6% of OA publications are bronze, which means toll journals are providing free access. MedRxiv contributes to 36.3% of documents in repositories but papers in BiorXiv exhibit on average higher AAS. We predict the growth of COVID-19 literature in the following 30 days estimating ARIMA models for the overall publications set, OA vs. non OA and by location of the document (repository vs. journal). We estimate that COVID-19 publications will double in the next 20 days, but non OA publications will grow at a higher rate than OA publications. We conclude by discussing the implications of such findings on the dissemination and communication of research findings to mitigate the coronavirus outbreak.


SIP, Session Initiation Protocol, is a protocol designed by Henning Schulzrinne (Columbia University) and the latest version by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) SIP Working Group for controlling for setting up and tearing down multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls over the Internet, video conferencing, streaming multimedia distribution, instant messaging, presence information and online games.
My objective in this project is developing and implements SIP in mobile phones using the Symbian OS operating system alongside a development kit in c++ for Nokia S60 series and an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) called Carbidec++. To understand how we can make that we review the most important aspects of SIP, characteristics and functionalities; explaining how the establishment of calls, what pieces are part of the protocol, what security problems we find and what mechanisms we have to minimize.
Based on the characteristics of the current telephone systems, the SIP protocol was designed allowing users to have similar characteristics, such as making calls to users, make that a terminal sounds when is called, giving busy signal, or by calling, etc. Actually SIP is regarded as the main standard in multimedia communications, being the choice made by the major manufacturers such as Microsoft with its Live Communication Server Messenger or AOL or Google with Google Talk.
The services that are enabled by SIP are equally applicable in the world of mobile. A prime example is presence; a user registers their location with a SIP server and the server then knows if the user is available and where the user can be found. Location could be home, work or mobile. The mobile component, then, is crucial if services are to be portable across platforms.
I will explain how to run a basic program with the tools mentioned before, It is an example with which we can display a message on the screen of our mobile Nokia Series 60 and understand quickly the functionality of the emulator, of the compiler and the development kit. From this example will be adapted our new code in C++. Finally, check the functioning of the SIP stack c++ provided by Nokia running a little game between two users and with whom we can understand the different possibilities of the SIP protocol, including setting up the meeting, the control of this, sending IM and logout.


The Royal College of Psychiatrists has just issued a set of recommendations for good practice in treating patients with "recovered memories" of childhood sexual abuse.1 The college advises strongly against persuasive or suggestive psychotherapeutic techniques designed to unearth sexual abuse of which the patient has no memory and encourages psychiatrists to voice any doubts which they may have about the historical accuracy of patients' recovered memories. These recommendations will figure strongly in the widely publicised current debate on "recovered memory therapy" and the possibility that such therapy may encourage so-called false memories.

When false memories occur patients may become convinced that they were victims of long repressed childhood sexual abuse, often at the hands of their parents or other trusted figures. These memories may become a raison d'etre for certain patients, diverting them from any other therapies, alienating them from their families, and often producing devastating aftershocks in the courtroom. In a recent American case, for example, a young woman in psychotherapy recovered the memory that …


Over the years, frequent itemset discovery algorithms have been used to solve various interesting problems. As data mining techniques are being increasingly applied to non- traditional domains, existing approaches for finding frequent itemsets cannot be used as they cannot model the requirement of these domains. An alternate way of modeling the objects in these data sets, is to use a graph to mode the database objects. Within that model, the problem of finding frequent patterns becomes that of discovering subgraphs that occur frequently over the entire set of graphs. In this paper we present a computationally efficient algorithm for finding all frequent subgraphs in large graph databases. We evaluated the performance of the algorithm by experiments with synthetic datasets as well as a chemical compound dataset. The empirical results show that our algorithm scales linearly with the number of input transactions and it is able to discover frequent subgraphs from a set of graph transactions reasonably fast, even though we have to deal with computationally hard problems such as canonical labeling of graphs and subgraph isomorphism which are not necessary for traditional frequent itemset discovery.


Landscapes and soils evolve in non‐linear ways over millennia. Current knowledge is incomplete as only average denudation (or erosion) rates are normally estimated, neglecting the temporal discontinuities of these processes. The determination of regressive and progressive phases of soil evolution is important to our understanding of how soils and landscapes respond to environmental changes. The Sila Massif (Italy) provides a well‐defined geomorphological and geological setting to unravel temporal variations in soil redistribution rates. We used a combination of in situ cosmogenic radionuclide measurements (10Be) along tor (residual rock) height profiles, coupled with fallout radionuclides (239+240Pu) in soils, to model soil denudation rates over the last 100 ka. We measured rates prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) of ≤30 t km−2 yr−1 (~0.036 mm yr−1). Following the LGM, during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, these rates increased to ~150–200 t km−2 yr−1 and appeared to be above soil production rates, causing regressive soil evolution. For the last ~50 years, we even describe erosion rates of ≥1,000 t km−2 yr−1 (~1.23 mm yr−1) and consider human impact as the decisive factor for this development. Consequently, the natural soil production rates cannot cope with the current erosion rates. Thus, a distinct regressive phase of soil formation exists, which will give rise to shallowing of soils over time. Overall, our multimethod approach traced denudation and erosion histories over geologic and human timescales and made a new archive to soil science and geomorphology accessible.


The growth of Italian exports has lagged that of euro area peers. Against the backdrop of unit labor costs that have risen faster than those in euro area peers, this paper examines whether there is a competitiveness challenge in Italy and evaluates the framework of wage bargaining. Wages are set at the sectoral level and extended nationally. However, they do not respond well to firm-specific productivity, regional disparities, or skill mismatches. Nominally rigid wages have also implied adjustment through lower profits and employment. Wage developments explain about 45 percent of the manufacturing unit labor cost gap with Germany. In a search-and-match DSGE model of the Italian labor market, this paper finds substantial gains from moving from sectoral- to firm-level wage setting of at least 3.5 percentage points lower unemployment (or higher employment) rate and a notable improvement in Italy's competitiveness over the medium term.


In recent years, the mobile Internet underwent revolutionary changes, and has fundamentally changed the way users access the Internet. This resulted in an unprecedented demand for ubiquitous network access. However, due to the fundamental radio frequency communication constraints, the service quality and scalability of cellular systems is limited. Wi-Fi, now being a well-developed standard technology, has been densely deployed, especially in urban area. My research work is primarily motivated by these exciting trends in mobile networks. We believe WiFi has the unique potential to form a community infrastructure that provides a truly scalable, efficient and ubiquitous access to wireless and data, especially in urban area. In this work, we propose an Open Infrastructure framework. Based upon this framework, we explore a group of mechanisms to boost the mobile computing experience with the leverage of urban WiFi. To evaluate the feasibility of our ideas, we have built and deployed an Open Infrastructure testbed, consisting of 30 customized home WiFi APs running in the urban areas of Boston and Houston. Since February 2011, we have collected over 70 million residential network usage statistics record and 1.3TB of traffic data trace. This testbed provides us with first-hand information on urban WiFi and a realistic setup to try out a variety of research ideas. Our research has been focusing on two domains, urban WiFi assisted energy saving on mobile devices and idle bandwidth harvesting from home WiFi APs. We have initiated two projects, WiZi-Cloud and BaPu, to develop a set of enabling mechanism and prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of our ideas. In WiZi-Cloud, we extend the current WiFi AP and mobile device with an alternative ultra-low power ZigBee radio interface, to reduce the battery consumption on the energy constrained mobile devices. The WiZi architecture and its support for multiple heterogeneous radios is transparent to the applications and allows seamless interfaces switching. WiZi supports multiple ZigBee transceivers and channel coding schemes. We design and prototype a complete suite of hardware/software solution. Our experimental results show that the WiZi-Cloud well supports a large set of mainstream mobile applications and improves the energy efficiency by 3 folds and can exceed WiFi coverage range. BaPu is motivated by the fact that today's residential broadband connections have limited backhaul bandwidth, especially in uplink, which highly constrains many fastly growing applications, such as HD content instant sharing, efficient cloud storage backup, etc. In BaPu, we design the mechanisms of aggregating the idle broadband uplinks, by having the mobile device communicate with multiple proximate WiFi APs in the same neighbourhood. BaPu is a complete software solution running on home WiFi APs, and requires no modifications to the client devices. This makes an easy incremental adoption of BaPu technology. Our architecture and protocols design provide a clean solution to several challenges in efficiently supporting both TCP and UDP. Our prototype system shows that BaPu can efficiently aggregate the backhaul bandwidth of multiple access points and achieves up to 90% of the theoretical maximum throughput.


We analyze underpricing in the United States surrounding the time of the collapse of the IPO market in the last quarter of 2000. During this quarter, the press gave insider accounts about how profits (from extreme underpricing) were made through illegal tie-ins in the IPO aftermarket. These allegations motivate our research as we seek to find out what impact they had on underpricing. Our research hypothesis is that the allegations will lead to overpricing. In our analysis, we use a different methodology. First, we offer different underpricing measures than used previously. Second, we compare IPO underpricing with a standard given by the SEO market. Third, we focus on dollar underpricing as opposed to percentage underpricing. This focus is consistent with our aim to examine the amount of profit-taking in the IPO aftermarket. Prior to the allegations, we find underwriters and preferred clients could have made over half the money raised by the firm. However, this profit-taking made in the IPO aftermarket dissipates at the time of the allegation and shortly after. Consistent with our research hypothesis, we find significant positive overpricing during this period (which lasts about six months). However, after this period, underpricing reverts to historical norms. In addition to offering support for our research hypothesis, we show how setting the offer price relative to an ex ante price (i.e., average price range) impacts underpricing. Finally, we find that the inclusion of high-tech or Internet IPOs has little influence on our findings.


of a thesis at the University of Miami. Thesis supervised by Associate Professor Dilip Sarkar. No. of pages in text. (37) A GPS system selects routes between two points with minimum physical distance or minimum driving time. Here we address a different type of route selection problem. Given a road map with driving distance and wireless connectivity for each road segment, find a driving route that maximizes total wireless connectivity while its length is bounded by a predetermined value. In this thesis, we present three heuristic algorithms. Initially they compute the shortest path for determining a distance bound. The first modifies the road map by replacing each road segment with the ratio of the distance and wireless communication capacity, and selects a route on this modified road map that satisfies the length bound. The second assigns a penalty value to intersections based on their distance from a shortest path. The closer the intersection to such a path, the higher the penalty value. It selects among unexplored intersections one that has the minimum penalty value. The final algorithm utilizes the first algorithm twice for selecting a route once to find distance and communication capacity of each intersection from the origin and then the same from the destination. Through extensive simulation of grid road networks, we find that all three algorithms select routes that have higher communication capacity than any shortest paths. More interesting is that the communication capacity gain is higher than the route length increase.


Our understanding of the neural computations that underlie the ability of animals to choose among options has advanced through a synthesis of computational modeling, brain imaging and behavioral choice experiments. Yet, there remains a gulf between theories of preference learning and accounts of the real, economic choices that humans face in daily life, choices that are usually between some amount of money and an item. In this paper, we develop a theory of magnitude-sensitive preference learning that permits an agent to rationally infer its preferences for items compared with money options of different magnitudes. We show how this theory yields classical and anomalous supply-demand curves and predicts choices for a large panel of risky lotteries. Accurate replications of such phenomena without recourse to utility functions suggest that the theory proposed is both psychologically realistic and econometrically viable.


We have derived analytical formulations for the strain field produced by a moment tensor source in homogeneous isotropic media. Such formulations are important for microseismic projects that increasingly are monitored with fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems. We find that the spatial derivative of displacement produces new terms in strain proportional to [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text]. In viscoelastic media, the derivative also produces an additional far-field term that is scaled by a frequency-dependent factor. When comparing with full wavefield synthetic data, we observe that the new terms proportional to [Formula: see text] can be considered part of a near-field in strain, similar to the practice with the displacement formulation. Analyses of moment tensor resolvability show that full moment tensors are resolvable with P-wave information from two or more noncoplanar vertical DAS cable geometries if intermediate- and far-field terms are considered and that S-wave information alone cannot constrain full moment tensors using only vertical wells. These results mirror previous observations made with displacement measurements. Furthermore, the addition of the new terms proportional to [Formula: see text] in strain improves the moment tensor resolvability but only in the case of a single vertical array. In the case of a single deviated/horizontal well, we can, in theory, resolve a full moment tensor but a case-by-case analysis is necessary to identify regions of full constraint around the well and the necessary noise conditions to guarantee reliable solutions. Real DAS measurements also are affected by the gauge length and interrogator details. In the case of the gauge length, we observe that this operator does not change the resolvability of the problem but it does affect inversion stability. The results derived here represent theoretical limits or in some cases specific examples. Practical implementations require analyses of conditioning, noise, coupling, and the effect of gauge length on a case-by-case basis.


"And all the while, the rising power of my vote, helping build democracy" (1) The notion that every citizen should have the unimpeded ability to cast a vote in the federal electoral process is an axiom embedded in America's collective subconscious. (2) The Presidential Election of 2000, however, provided a stark illustration of how easy it is to disprove the principle of Americans' inherent right to vote. Discrepancies and flaws in procedural policies for the administration of the election silenced thousands of voices in the State of Florida. (3) The wide-scale disenfranchisement of numerous citizens highlighted the need for federal intervention into this long-neglected area of election law. (4) The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (5) ("HAVA"), was designed to implement sweeping national election reform to remedy some of the ills that occurred in 2000. (6) One major cause of the breakdown of the electoral process in 2000 was the lack of uniform procedural guidelines for various aspects of the voting process. (7) Congress sought to provide such standards through the creation of HAVA, which was passed on October 16, 2002, by Congress and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29 of the same year. (8) HAVA generally received a warm reception from the public because of the urgency of the need for legislative reform. (9) There are several provisions however, that have not received universal acceptance, including Section 303, (10) which deals with the identification requirements for voter registration, meant to reduce voter fraud. (11) Part of the Anti-Fraud provision requires that prospective voters provide valid photo identification, such as a driver's license, in order to register. (12) If potential voters do not possess a valid photo ID, they can use their Social Security number for identification instead. (13) If the registrant has neither a photo ID nor a Social Security number, the anti-fraud provision provides that she will be assigned a voter registration number based on a state-authored computerized voter list. (14) Further, first-time voters who register and cast a ballot by mail must submit with the ballot valid photo identification or a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, of other government document that verifies the name and address of the voter. (15) This Anti-Fraud provision is highly contentious and was hotly debated during the months of Congressional negotiations over HAVA. (16) The fallout of the debate took place on the floor of Congress along predominantly partisan lines. (17) The House and Senate Republicans argued that the Anti-Fraud provision was necessary, including Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO), who said it was needed to "combat problems of votes being cast on behalf of dead people and dogs." (18) Democrats vociferously opposed the provision because of the obstacles to voting that it creates for lower socioeconomic groups and racial/ethnic minorities. (19) Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) responded, "While its humorous to talk about dogs who voted, it's not funny to talk about people who showed up and didn't, and were denied to do so." (20) Despite the deep ideological divide that separates Democrats and Republicans on this issue, the bill passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate, (21) illustrating the Congressional consensus on urgency of the need for immediate reform of the electoral process. After passage of the bill, the torch of opposition to the Anti-Fraud provision was passed to Civil Rights and Civic Participation Organizations. These groups propose that the implementation of the provision holds the potential to paralyze the strides made in voting rights legislation throughout the twentieth century, such as the establishment of voter equality for gender and racial minorities, (22) and deprives racial and ethnic minority groups and lower socio-economic groups (two categories which often overlap) of having their voices heard in the political process because these groups are the most likely to be without the requisite forms of ID. …


The extravagant horns of male dung beetles are extremely diverse, varying in size, shape, and location on the head and thorax. This diversity has been attributed to sexual selection: The bigger the horns, the better able is the male beetle to fend off competing males and to win a mate. However, sexual selection is less able to explain the different locations on the body of the beetle horns. In a Perspective,
 Harvey and Godfray
 discuss new findings (Emlen) showing that there is a cost associated with such elaborate structures--nearby organs are much smaller--so that different beetle species evolved horns at locations close to the organs that they needed the least.


Social media has profound impact on society and affects many aspects of human life. Its applications in combating crises are unanticipated results of social media inventors and many lessons could be learned from its applications in combating real crises. From July 2011 to January 2012, Thailand experienced a 7-month flood disaster and more than 13.6 million people were affected. Hundreds of social communities in Thailand thrived to help prepare, combat, mitigate, and respond to this crisis. This paper offers a structuration perspective to examine knowledge-sharing activities employed by these local social communities to combat the crisis. Interviews were conducted with social community leaders, victims, and government officers to reflect actions taken before, during and after the disaster. Based on the structuration theory and rich data collected from key participants in this crisis event, a social media-based crisis management framework is proposed. The analysis results suggest that social media should be utilized to help a society thrive in crises by managing community-based knowledge and creating chaotic order. The findings of this study could guide crisis managers into turning each crisis into opportunity with the creative use of social media as a knowledge-sharing tool.


Caregivers experience low back pain because of patient handling such as supporting standing-up. The lumbar load of a caregiver depends on the required force for patient handling motions. If the relationship between the required force and the lumbar load is quantitatively clarified, it may be useful for preventing low back pain in caregivers. In this study, we investigated the quantitative relationships between the required force and lumbar loads such as vertebral stress and muscle activity in supporting standing-up by computational musculoskeletal simulation. First, a musculoskeletal model of a caregiver was prepared, and then the model performed simulated supporting standing-up motions. The vertical load used as the required force was placed on the upper limb of the model. The compressive/shear stress of the vertebral (L4–L5) and muscle activities of spinae erector muscle group were recorded as the lumbar load. The results showed that there are highly significant correlations between the required force (r > 0.9, p < 0.01). In addition, regression equations for predicting each lumbar load by the required force with highly determination coefficients (R2 > 0.9) were obtained from these relationships. Furthermore, we found that when the required force was more than 120 N, the compression stresses of the vertebral exceeded injury threshold (3400 N) by the regression equation. These regression equations contribute to quantitatively consider lumbar loads of caregiver during patient handling based on injury thresholds and the required force.


Septoria leaf blotch of wheat (Triticum aestivum L. em Thell) caused by the pathogen Septoria tritici Rob. in Desm. [telemorph Mycosphaerella graminicola (Fuckel) J. Schroeter in Cohn] is a major disease reaching epidemic proportions in many parts of the world. Concerns have been expressed that widespread distribution of early maturing semidwarf cultivars and changes in cultural practices have contributed to its increased incidence. This study was undertaken to determine the mode of inheritance of Septoria leaf blotch resistance and possible associations between specific traits in a cross of two parents representing extremes in their reaction to Septoria leaf blotch. Parents, F 1 , F 2 , F 3 , and backcrosses were evaluated under field conditions over a 3-yr period. Both natural and artificial inoculations were used. Generation mean analyses were employed to study gene effects for resistance to the disease. Phenotypic correlations and path coefficient analyses were calculated to determine associations among heading date, plant height, disease severity, and grain yield. Differences for all measured traits were observed in all generations. Frequency distribution of the F 2 population for disease reaction was continuous. Both additive and nonadditive gene action contributed to the expression of disease resistance with dominance and epistasis effects being tbe most important. Negative associations were observed for both plant height and heading date on disease severity with heading date having the largest direct effect. When the associations were examined in relation to grain yield, a negative association was observed between heading date and yield, whereas a positive association was noted between plant height and yield. A large negative, direct effect of disease severity on grain yield was measured from path coefficient analyses. Because no resistant progeny were observed that were as early and short as the susceptible parent, a compromise may have to be reached for these traits to achieve acceptable levels of disease resistance in this cross.


From March 2014 - June 2016 E2A implemented the University Leadership for Change (ULC) project in Niger to promote youth leadership for driving social change and health systems strengthening with the aim of reducing unintended pregnancies and maternal mortality and increasing gender equality. In Niger public health issues and family planning and reproductive health in particular are among key priorities for development. At the heart of this project was a comprehensive approach to behavior change that sought to create an enabling environment to improve SRH among young people. The project was composed of three main technical components: (1) Youth leadership and demand generation; (2) Expanded access and improved quality of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services; and (3) Participatory stakeholder engagement for sustainability. These three pillars were used simultaneously to work towards the achievement of the ULC project's objectives. This report presents the project outcomes and documents the strategies and approaches that led to the results achieved. The report also highlights considerations for scaling up the ULC approach in different contexts. The success stories and lessons learned within this report are relevant for a global health audience seeking to improve AYSRH outcomes through effective strategies for behavior change that are coupled with the delivery of youth-friendly SRH services.


In sub-Saharan Africa, older people make up a relatively small fraction of the total population and are supported primarily by family and other kinship networks. They have traditionally been viewed as repositories of information and wisdom, and are critical pillars of the community but as the HIV/AIDS pandemic destroys family systems, the elderly increasingly have to deal with the loss of their own support while absorbing the additional responsibilities of caring for their orphaned grandchildren. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa explores ways to promote U.S. research interests and to augment the sub-Saharan governments' capacity to address the many challenges posed by population aging. Five major themes are explored in the book such as the need for a basic definition of "older person," the need for national governments to invest more in basic research and the coordination of data collection across countries, and the need for improved dialogue between local researchers and policy makers. This book makes three major recommendations: 1) the development of a research agenda 2) enhancing research opportunity and implementation and 3) the translation of research findings.


Jacob Boehme, the seventeenth-century mystical philosopher, had a significant influence upon Paul Tillich. In this article I offer a reassessment of the relationship between these two thinkers by arguing for an orthodox interpretation of Boehme's doctrine of God that links him more closely with Tillich than recent commentators have suggested. Specifically, I show how Boehme and Tillich stand united against the heterodox Hegel in their presentation of a dynamic process of divinity's self-differentiation and reconciliation that completes itself apart from history rather than within history. This move, I conclude, keeps Boehme and Tillich squarely within the realm of Christian orthodoxy.


Tiebout's (1956) suggestion that people "vote with their feet" to find the community that provides their optimal bundle of taxes and public goods has played a central role in the theory of local public finance over the past 50 years. Given the central importance of Tiebout's insights, there have been surprisingly few direct tests of his premise. In this paper, we use a Tiebout equilibrium model to derive testable hypotheses about changes in local community demographics. The model clearly predicts increased population density in neighborhoods that experience an exogenous increase in public goods but yields only tentative predictions about the effect on neighborhood composition. To test these hypotheses, we use a difference-in-difference model to identify the effect of initial pollution levels and changes in local pollution on population and demographic composition. Our results provide strong empirical support for the notion that households "vote with their feet" in response to changes in environmental quality. This result has two implications. First, and most broadly, it provides direct empirical support for the assumptions underlying the Tiebout model. Second, in our particular application, the potential for what we call "environmental gentrification" has important implications both for the analysis of environmental equity and for the design of environmental policies aimed at benefiting the less-advantaged elements of society.


A central goal in the cognitive sciences is the development of numerical models for mental representations of object concepts. This paper introduces Variational Interpretable Concept Embeddings (VICE), an approximate Bayesian method for embedding object concepts in a vector space using data collected from humans in a triplet odd-one-out task. VICE uses variational inference to obtain sparse, non-negative representations of object concepts with uncertainty estimates for the embedding values. These estimates are used to automatically select the dimensions that best explain the data. We derive a PAC learning bound for VICE that can be used to estimate generalization performance or determine a sufficient sample size for experimental design. VICE rivals or outperforms its predecessor, SPoSE, at predicting human behavior in the triplet odd-one-out task. Furthermore, VICE's object representations are more reproducible and consistent across random initializations, highlighting the unique advantage of using VICE for deriving interpretable embeddings from human behavior.


It seems appropriate to start my exposition with the words Napoleon himself had uttered about his Code Civil while exiled on St Helen: "My real glory is not having won forty battles; Waterloo will efface the memory of all those victories. That which nothing can efface and which will live eternally is my Code Civil."


The paper introduces bibliotaxonomy as a generic name for those aspects of Library and Information Science (LIS) scholarship that deal with the processing and organization of books, documents and other information materials. It traces the origin of, and inspiration for bibliotaxonomy to different taxonomic practices in various communities, societies, as well as earlier philosophical and botanical classifications. A sketch of the contours of the field of bibliotaxonomy was presented which shows that this phenomenon cuts across specific library technical services of cataloguing, classification, indexing and accessioning. In addition, successful application of taxonomic principles from other disciplines in the organization of knowledge was highlighted and clarified. Some of the implications of the adoption of bibliotaxonomy would be increased interdisciplinary collaborations, deepened librarianshipinspired taxonomic researches, emergence of recognizable areas of specialization in LIS, more visibility for document taxonomists, and societal appreciation of the role and influence of taxonomic principles in the practice of librarianship. The paper concludes that bibliotaxonomy is a preferable academic nomenclature considering that the underlying philosophy has been tried and perfected in other disciplines with amazing results. The recommendations of the paper include: regular use of the term "bibliotaxonomy" in LIS researches, acceptance of bibliotaxonomy as an area of academic specialization for LIS scholars, increased funding of bibliotaxonomic researches and regular academic collaborations amongst taxonomists in various disciplines.


Endonuclease III, encoded by nth in Escherichia coli, removes thymine glycols (Tg), a toxic oxidative DNA lesion. To determine the biological significance of this repair in mammals, we established a mouse model with mutated mNth1, a homolog of nth, by gene targeting. The homozygous mNth1 mutant mice showed no detectable phenotypical abnormality. Embryonic cells with or without wild‐type mNth1 showed no difference in sensitivity to menadione or hydrogen peroxide. Tg produced in the mutant mouse liver DNA by X‐ray irradiation disappeared with time, though more slowly than in the wild‐type mouse. In extracts from mutant mouse liver, we found, instead of mNTH1 activity, at least two novel DNA glycosylase activities against Tg. One activity is significantly higher in the mutant than in wild‐type mouse in mitochondria, while the other is another nuclear glycosylase for Tg. These results underscore the importance of base excision repair of Tg both in the nuclei and mitochondria in mammals.


This article is concerned with how men and women on farms socially construct their gender and work identities through interaction with each other and public representations of themselves. It is argued that identity is a process, and like gender, it is socially constructed through doing identity. Farming has changed tremendously over the last forty years in Europe. The position of women in the labour market and on the family farm has also undergone significant changes. In Western Europe, women in general and women on family farms are more likely to be active in the labour market than they were forty years ago. While it remains the case that all of their labour on the farm is not properly recorded, they now also have visible, paid employment. Scholars have been surprised that farm women's gender identity has not changed more significantly with this changed labour market presence. This article argues that in order to understand this limited change we need to understand how men and women in family farms verify and reinforce farming work identities and farming gender identities. It is argued that while off-farm work does not "look" like gender deviant work, it is because it questions the male breadwinner role. An analysis of this helps us understand why the discourse of the family farm remains so dominant and so persistent. In 2012 and 2013, a qualitative study was undertaken in Northern Ireland to examine the gender implications of the EU rural development programme on farms and rural areas. Some of the data gathered as part of this study is interpreted to shed light on how and why particular work and gender identities are constructed within the farm family.


The ability of high dynamic range (HDR) to capture details in environments with high contrast has a significant impact on privacy in video surveillance. However, the extent to which HDR imaging affects privacy, when compared to a typical low dynamic range (LDR) imaging, is neither well studied nor well understood. To achieve such an objective, a suitable dataset of images and video sequences is needed. Therefore, we have created a publicly available dataset of HDR video for privacy evaluation PEViD-HDR, which is an HDR extension of an existing Privacy Evaluation Video Dataset (PEViD). PEViD-HDR video dataset can help in the evaluations of privacy protection tools, as well as for showing the importance of HDR imaging in video surveillance applications and its influence on the privacy-intelligibility trade-off. We conducted a preliminary subjective experiment demonstrating the usability of the created dataset for evaluation of privacy issues in video. The results confirm that a tone-mapped HDR video contains more privacy sensitive information and details compared to a typical LDR video.


Traditionally, studies in gender linguistics have been qualitative anecdotes which view gender on a dichotomous plane. Using normative research participants and small amounts of data, researchers in gender linguistics have made an array of assumptions about how men and women speak. Women are commonly thought of as being cooperative speakers while men are typically thought of as operating out of a power hierarchy. The study conducted in this thesis tests these assumptions by applying qualitative, corpus, and discourse analyses. A corpus of transcribed spoken conversational speech was compiled and measured for various linguistic and discourse elements which have historically been touted as paradigms of gendered speech. Using a demographically diverse sample of 185 participants, 50 hours of conversation were recorded and transcribed. From this corpus, various language elements such as theme, thematic conveyors, turn-taking, laughter, referencing, expletives, adjectives, hedges, `polite speech', and verbs were identified and measured for frequency of use by gender and by sexuality. The results from this study indicate that women and men do indeed use language with idiosyncratic linguistic and discourse features and at significantly different frequencies of use. When language use based upon sexuality was examined, the results indicate that queer men speak using a distinct language variety from women and heterosexual men. Thus, the planar dichotomy of gender and language does not appear to be a valid view due to the sharp divergence from the binary by a third group based upon sexuality. The results further demonstrate that using corpus analysis is an effective and optimal approach for analyzing some aspects of language use. The quantitative composition of corpus data has allowed research, to dispel and support many assumptions made by anecdotal observation. It is my hope that the results drawn from this study inspire other researchers to use corpus-based methodology in examining gender, sexuality, and language.


I ntroduction: The  trigeminocardiac  reflex  (TCR)  refers  to  the  sudden development of bradycardia as well as asystole along with arterial hypotension associated with any manipulation of sensory branches of the trigeminal nerve. Clinically, the TCR has been reported to occur during craniofacial surgery. It is crucial to learn about this sudden physiological response during maxillofacial surgery that is likely to happen with any craniofacial surgical procedures. Materials and Methods: In  this clinical study 44 volunteers without any systemically compromising conditions were divided into 2 groups. The first group underwent Le Fort I osteotomy and the second mandibular osteotomy. Mean  arterial  blood  pressure  and  pulse  rate  (MABP1,  PR1)  values  were recorded before down fracture (DF) of maxilla and Sagittal Splitting (SS) of mandible, during DF and SS (MABP2, PR2), and after DF and SS (MABP3, PR3). The data were analyzed using repeated measure ANOVA tests (p =0.05). Result: In Le Fort I group, PR1 and PR3 were significantly higher than PR2 (P< .001). MABP2 was significantly lower compared with MABP1 and MABP3 (P < .001). PR2 and MABP2 showed a mean decrease of 7.4% and 8.9%  compared  with  PR1  and  MABP1,  respectively.  In  second  group differences on MABP and PR was not statistically significant. Conclusion: It is concluded that TCR is triggered by the stimulation of V2 but V3 branch stimulation does not cause such reflex.


In this work several aspects of quantum chaos are studied in the time domain. The wave equation for flat microwave cavities is equivalent to the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics. Therefore microwave measurements provide an experimental approach to quantum chaos. The experiments are described in terms of scattering theory, to take the coupling of the antennas to the system as well as the dissipation in the cavity walls into account. In the first part the scattering matrix of several microwave cavities is analyzed in the regime of overlapping resonances. The difference between regular and chaotic systems can be observed both in the autocorrelation functions of the same S-matrix elements, and in the cross-correlation functions of different S-matrix elements. In accordance with literature, this difference is more pronounced in the cross-correlation functions. To describe the experimental correlation functions, the absorption in the cavity walls is modeled by an infinite number of weak decay channels. In the second part the focus is shifted to the stability of quantum timeevolution. The fidelity amplitude is a standard benchmark for the stability of a quantum system against a change of the Hamiltonian. It is defined as the overlap of the perturbed and unperturbed time-evolution of the same initial state. Exact theoretical results for a random matrix model are compared with numerical simulations and the linear-response results. For strong perturbations a partial recovery of the fidelity amplitude is found, and an intuitive explanation for this behavior is given in terms of a spectral Debye-Waller factor. Further, in the third part, experimental results for the fidelity amplitude are presented for two microwave cavities with classically chaotic dynamics. The perturbation of the systems is realized by applying small changes to their geometry. The results are well described by the linear-response expression, and the perturbation strength can be related to the change of the geometry of the cavities. In the fourth part microwave measurements on dielectric quadrupole billiards with mixed phase space are discussed. The internal dynamics is analyzed by means of Husimi distributions, while for the outer region the Poynting vector is determined to obtain the emission pattern. The emission pattern of the quadrupole billiard is strongly influenced by the structures of its mixed phase space.


Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a mitogen that plays a crucial role in angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. It is involved in tumor survival through inducing tumor angiogenesis and by increasing chemoresistance through autocrine signaling. Because of its importance in tumor formation and survival, several medications have been developed to inhibit VEGF and reduce blood vessel formation in cancer. Although these medications have proven to be effective for late-stage and metastatic cancers, they have been shown to cause side effects such as hypertension, artery clots, complications in wound healing, and, more rarely, gastrointestinal perforation and fistulas. Current research in using anti-VEGF medication as a part of cancer treatments is focusing on elucidating the mechanisms of tumor resistance to VEGF medication, developing predictive biomarkers that assess whether a patient will respond to VEGF therapy and creating novel treatments and techniques that increase the efficacy of antiangiogenic medication. This chapter aims to review the role of VEGF in tumor angiogenesis and metastasis, the structure and function of VEGF and its receptors, and VEGF's role in cancer are discussed. Furthermore, tumor therapies targeting VEGF along with their side effects are presented and, finally, new directions in anti-VEGF therapy are considered along with the challenges.


Forensic social work is a fairly new concept in the South African context. However, the activities of forensic social work began with the dawn of the profession itself. In recent times the demand for social workers in court has spiraled. The researcher endeavored to explore the perceptions and experiences of social workers functioning in the courts. Further, the problems that they encountered were also examined. The results of this qualitative study stem from indepth interviews with thirteen social workers. The main findings indicate that the majority of social workers had not received any training in legal processes prior to their first experience in court. Social workers also perceived legal officials to be lacking in training in respect of child related issues. Social workers are generally called to testify in relation to their expertise of a specific child, and not in relation to their expertise of subject matter. In view of the demands placed upon social workers to appear in court, it is recommended that social workers endeavor to organise themselves into a group that can lobby for the recognition of social workers as experts. It is the researcher's contention that such a concerted effort by social workers will improve the status of the profession in the legal system.


Hewitt [Rings of real-valued continuous functions. I., Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 64 (1948), 45--99] defined the $m$-topology on $C(X)$, denoted $C_m(X)$, and demonstrated that certain topological properties of $X$ could be characterized by certain topological properties of $C_m(X)$. For example, he showed that $X$ is pseudocompact if and only if $C_m(X)$ is a metrizable space; in this case the $m$-topology is precisely the topology of uniform convergence. What is interesting with regards to the $m$-topology is that it is possible, with the right kind of space $X$, for $C_m(X)$ to be highly
non-metrizable. E. van Douwen [Nonnormality of spaces of real functions, Topology Appl. 39 (1991),
3--32] defined the class of DRS-spaces and showed that if $X$ was such a space, then $C_m(X)$ satisfied the property that all countable subsets of $C_m(X)$ are closed. In J. Gomez-Perez and W.Wm. McGovern, The $m$-topology on $C_m(X)$ revisited, Topology Appl. 153, (2006), no. 11, 1838--1848, the authors demonstrated the converse, completing the characterization. In this article we define a finer topology on $C(X)$ based on positive regular elements. It is the authors' opinion that the new topology is a more well-behaved topology with regards to passing from $C(X)$ to $C^*(X)$. In the first section we compute some common cardinal invariants of the preceding space $C_r(X)$. In Section 2, we characterize when $C_r(X)$ satisfies the property that all countable subsets are closed. We call such a space for which this happens a weak DRS-space and demonstrate that $X$ is a weak DRS-space if and only if $\beta X$ is a weak DRS-space. This is somewhat surprising as a DRS-space cannot be compact. In the third section we give an internal characterization of separable weak DRS-spaces and use this to show that a metrizable space is a weak DRS-space precisely when it is nowhere separable.


"Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. Richard Rorty, a Princeton professor who had contributed to the analytic tradition in philosophy, was now attempting to shrug off all the central problems with which it had long been preoccupied. After publication, the Press was barely able to keep up with demand, and the book has since gone on to become one of its all-time best-sellers in philosophy. Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation. They compared the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. In their view, knowledge is concerned with the accuracy of these reflections, and the strategy employed to obtain this knowledge - that of inspecting, repairing, and polishing the mirror - belongs to philosophy. Rorty's book was a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned. He argued that the questions about truth posed by Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and modern epistemologists and philosophers of language simply couldn't be answered and were, in any case, irrelevant to serious social and cultural inquiry. This stance provoked a barrage of criticism, but whatever the strengths of Rorty's specific claims, the book had a therapeutic effect on philosophy. It reenergized pragmatism as an intellectual force, steered philosophy back to its roots in the humanities, and helped to make alternatives to analytic philosophy a serious choice for young graduate students. Twenty-five years later, the book remains a must-read for anyone seriously concerned about the nature of philosophical inquiry and what philosophers can and cannot do to help us understand and improve the world.


Layered light is a textile design project aiming to explore light as a design variable and its abilities to - in combination with layers of laser cut textiles - create dynamic patterns. The reason being to explore how light can be used to create the very pattern itself and what the textile quality can bring to the expression. Through a practice based working method, laser cutting has been used to manipulate different textile materials, that in combination with movement have resulted in range of design examples displaying various effects of the technique. Three of the found effects have been used to take forth a collection of patterns drawing inspiration from the elusive beauty of light in nature. One of which has been produced in a larger scale, exemplifying how the expression could be used in a spacial context. The result implicates the usefulness of integrating light early on in a design process and how textile and light can be combined to enhance each other all well as displaying a whole new expression for laser cut textiles.


The measurement of total basin discharge along coastal regions is necessary for understanding the hydrological and oceanographic issues related to the water and energy cycles. However, only the observed streamflow (gauge-based observation) is used to estimate the total fluxes from the river basin to the ocean, neglecting the portion of discharge that infiltrates to underground and directly discharges into the ocean. Hence, the aim of this study is to assess the total discharge of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) basin. In this study, we explore the potential response of total discharge to changes in precipitation (from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission—TRMM), evaporation (from four versions of the Global Land Data Assimilation—GLDAS, namely, CLM, Mosaic, Noah and VIC), and water-storage changes (from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment—GRACE) by using the terrestrial water budget method. This method has been validated by comparison with the observed streamflow, and shows an agreement with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 14.30 mm/month for GRACE-based discharge and 20.98 mm/month for that derived from precipitation minus evaporation (P − E). This improvement of approximately 32% indicates that monthly terrestrial water-storage changes, as estimated by GRACE, cannot be considered negligible over Yangtze basin. The results for the proposed method are more accurate than the results previously reported in the literature.


As health resources diminish, there are compelling reasons to utilize health dollars in a fiscally responsible manner. The reconstruction of complex oromandibular defects involving mucosa, bone, and skin coverage poses one of the greatest challenges in microsurgery of the head and neck. The cancer patient who requires a through-and-through resection and microsurgical reconstruction usually has a poor prognosis. In this study, the authors examine whether this type of surgery is worthwhile in terms of cost, functional outcome, and patient satisfaction. Of 16 cases of through-and-through oromandibular reconstruction performed, the survival outcome of ten (n = 10) advanced cases requiring immediate oromandibular reconstruction (7 radial forearm flaps; 3 scapular flaps) is presented. Six cases were considered cured and required delayed reconstruction. Seven of the 10 patients died within 39 months postoperatively, while three survived up to 68 months postoperatively. The combined experience of these ten patients was examined using the Kaplan-Meier (product-limit) estimator of the survival curve. Results show that of the seven patients who died of disease, five did so within the first postoperative year. More important, among those five patients who survived for more than one postoperative year, three were still alive up to 68 months, representing a combined total of over 15 postoperative years. The probability of long-term survival is good in through-and-through oromandibular cancer patients who can survive to 1 year postoperatively, and it is proposed that microsurgical reconstruction, albeit costly, remains a worthwhile procedure,


The characterization, properties and applications of the novel nanostructured microgel (nanoparticle network and microgel crystal) composed of poly-N-isopropylacrylanmide-co-allylamine (PNIPAM-co-allylamine) and PNIPAM-co-acrylic acid(AA) have been investigated. For the novel nanostructured hydrogels with the two levels of structure: the primary network inside each individual particle and the secondary network of the crosslinked nanoparticles, the new shear modulus, drug release law from hydrogel with heterogeneous structure have been studied. The successful method for calculating the volume fraction related the phase transition of colloid have been obtained. The kinetics of crystallization in an aqueous dispersion of PNIPAM particles has been explored using UV-visible transmission spectroscopy. This dissertation also includes the initial research on the melting behavior of colloidal crystals composed of PNIPAM microgels. Many new findings in this study area have never been reported before. The theoretical model for the columnar crystal growth from the top to bottom of PNIPAM microgel has been built, which explains the growth mechanism of the novel columnar hydrogel colloidal crystals. Since the unique structure of the novel nanostructured hydrogels, their properties are different with the conventional hydrogels and the hard-sphere-like system. The studies and results in this dissertation have the important significant for theoretical study and valuable application of these novel nanostructured hydrogels.


A balanced plane-mirror heterodyne interferometer with a polarizing beam splitter used to recombine the reference and measurement beams is proposed to reduce periodic nonlinearity and to eliminate thermal error. Experimental results indicated that the periodic error due to ghost reflection was kept within ±36  pm, and the interferometer proposed was immune from thermal error.


While the growing number of computational models available to designers can solve a lot of problems, it complicates the process of properly utilizing the information provided by each simulator. It may seem intuitive to select the model with the highest accuracy, or fidelity. Decision makers want the greatest degree of certainty to increase their efficacy. However, high fidelity models often come at a high computational expense. While comparatively lacking in veracity, low fidelity models do contain some degree of useful information that can be obtained at a low cost. We propose a method to utilize this information to generate a fused model with superior predictive capability than any of its constituent models. Our methodology estimates the correlation between each model using a model reification approach that eliminates the observational data requirement. The correlation is then used in an updating procedure whereby uncertain outputs from multiple models may be fused together to better estimate some quantity or quantities of interest.


This item is part of: Boarin, P., Haarhoff, E., Manfredini,
M., Mohammadzadeh, M., Premier, A., (2021). Rethinking Sustainable Pacific Rim
Territories. Proceedings of the 2020 APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Hub
PhD Symposium, Future Cities Research Hub, School of Architecture and Planning
of the University of Auckland. ISBN: 978-0-473-53616-9ABSTRACTGiven the rise of natural disasters, post-disaster reconstruction plays an essential role in forming resilient communities. However, among the multiple post-disaster reconstruction processes, temporary housing had been ignored by most post-disaster reconstruction practitioners. The 2009 Typhoon Morakot post-disaster management process was no exception. Therefore, this study uses literature research, interviews, and a time-series questionnaire to understand the temporary housing policy, stakeholders' opinions associated with the post-disaster management process, and the temporary shelter and housing living satisfaction trends. Two typhoon-affected indigenous communities located in southern Taiwan were selected as case studies owing to similarities in their social structure and conditions. Findings from this research shows that past experience and collaborating NGO might be the principal factors that influence the decision making on temporary housing policy. Moreover, an ideal environment and location for temporary housing are essential for living satisfaction. Finally, this research suggests an ideal pre-established policy, community-centered considerations, and spatial design are crucial for the future of temporary shelter and housing programs.


This Article explains why federal and state commitments to align transitions from foster care services with the two-parent, often heterosexual model undermines primary goals of child welfare services, including providing permanent, stable placements for abandoned, neglected, and abused children. Compelling empirical research demonstrates why the two-parent model may be overinclusive. This Article takes a different approach challenging the normative constructions of family and showing why the two-parent nuclear family model might be underinclusive. It considers the legal, economic, and social conundrums of child welfare services, unpacking the tragic outcomes and failures of the foster care system, which sets as its goal the twoparent family model. This Article combines a rigorous economic critique of the bureaucratic inertia in child welfare generally with a nuanced study of child welfare outcomes, exposing high incarceration rates, teen pregnancy, homelessness, and poverty. Despite these outcomes and significant economic waste in the foster care system, legal scholars offer very little by way of theory or prescription. Parental Civil Unions makes several important economic claims: the foster care funding structure bears little relationship to quality or outcomes, foster care promotes perverse economic incentives and rent-seeking behavior, and foster care funding is rooted in historic rather than


This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by small farmers in Asia and the Pacific region in raising agricultural productivity and in diversifying into high-value commodities. About 87 percent of the world's 500 million small farms (less than 2 hectares) are in this region, with China and India accounting for 193 million and 93 million of these, respectively. Small farms significantly contribute to agricultural production, food security, rural poverty reduction, and biodiversity conservation, despite their constraints with respect to access to productive resources and service delivery. More new challenges confront them: integration into high-value chains, adaptation to climate change, market volatility, and other risks and vulnerability. The small farms can benefit from high-value chains if they can receive support through intermediation (e.g., public-private cooperation to ensure food safety standards) and internalization (e.g., through producers' association to meet quality standards). New investment opportunities have emerged in agriculture, leading to large-scale investments and competition for land. Although new economies of scale (e.g., in external financing) have emerged, smallholders can enhance their competitiveness only if the biases against them (e.g., in credit) are eliminated. Governments must play an active role in coordinating the delivery of inputs, technical services, and output marketing services to small farms. They must also provide incentives to the private sector to innovate. Support is also needed to enable smallholders to adapt to climate change and market volatility.


Investigation of the sedimentary record of pre‐Alpine Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) focused on the environmental reaction to rapid Lateglacial climatic changes. Results of this study reveal complex proxy responses that are variable in time and influenced by the long‐term evolution of the lake and its catchment. A new field sampling approach facilitated continuous and precisely controlled parallel sampling at decadal to sub‐annual resolution for µ‐XRF element scanning, carbon geochemistry, stable isotope measurements on ostracods, pollen analyses and large‐scale thin sections for microfacies analysis. The Holocene chronology is established through microscopic varve counting and supported by accelerator mass spectrometry 14C dating of terrestrial plant macrofossils, whereas the Lateglacial age model is based on δ18O wiggle matching with the Greenland NGRIP record, using the GICC05 chronology. Microfacies analysis enables the detection of subtle sedimentological changes, proving that depositional processes even in rather large lake systems are highly sensitive to climate forcing. Comparing periods of major warming at the onset of the Lateglacial and Holocene and of major cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas reveals differences in proxy responses, reflecting threshold effects and ecosystem inertia. Temperature increase, vegetation recovery, decrease of detrital flux and intensification of biochemical calcite precipitation at the onset of the Holocene took place with only decadal leads and lags over a ca. 100 a period, whereas the spread of woodlands and the reduction of detrital flux lagged the warming at the onset of the Lateglacial Interstadial by ca. 500–750 a. Cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas is reflected by the simultaneous reaction of δ18O and vegetation, but sedimentological changes (reduction of endogenic calcite content, increase in detrital flux) were delayed by about 150–300 a. Three short‐term Lateglacial cold intervals, corresponding to Greenland isotope substages GI‐1d, GI‐1c2 and GI‐1b, also show complex proxy responses that vary in time. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This study sets out to explore the institutional embeddedness of civic engagement in the form of monetary donations and volunteering by firms in Western Europe. Drawing on a recent analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), two contradictory hypotheses—institutional mirror versus substitute—are discussed focusing on three institutional spheres: corporatism, welfare arrangements and statism. The paper argues for moving beyond a linear perspective and takes the interaction of institutional spheres into account. Using a comparative quantitative multilevel approach, institutional, sectoral and organizational determinants of enterprises' civic engagement are empirically analysed drawing on a survey of small- and medium-sized firms in 17 Western European countries. While firm size remains an important determinant of civic engagement, it is shown that the impact of welfare arrangements is conditional on the presence of corporatist arrangements and vice versa. This suggests that civic engagement both mirrors and substitutes for existing institutions, depending on underlying institutional complementarities.


Our objective was to investigate the use of bowel preparation before 18F-FDG PET/CT to reduce intestinal 18F-FDG uptake. Methods: Sixty-five patients with abdominal neoplasias were assigned either to a bowel-preparation group (n = 26) or to a native group (n = 39). 18F-FDG activity was measured in the small intestine and the colon. Results: In the 26 patients with bowel preparation, average maximal standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was 3.5 in the small intestine and 4.4 in the colon. In the 39 patients without bowel preparation, average SUVmax was 2.6 in the small intestine and 2.7 in the colon. 18F-FDG activity impaired diagnosis in 6 patients (23%) in the bowel-preparation group and 11 patients (28%) in the native group (P = 0.5). SUVmax in the colon was significantly higher in the bowel-preparation group (P = 0.002), but SUVmax in the small intestine did not significantly differ between the 2 groups (P = 0.088). Conclusion: Bowel preparation increases 18F-FDG activity in the large intestine and is therefore not useful before PET/CT.


Two important studies were presented back to back. David Nolan's study was presented immediately after Michael Dube's A5005s substudy of ACTG 384.

Using a different approach from the ACTG study (a longitudinal, non-randomized trial), this group from western Australia looked at what happened to the peripheral fat of treatment-naive patients who were started on a regimen containing either stavudine (d4T, Zerit) or zidovudine (AZT, Retrovir). The number of patients in this study was smaller than in the A5005s substudy. There were only 53 patients in Dr. Nolan's study, 27 of whom had received stavudine, and 26 zidovudine. Both groups of patients were comparable at baseline, with a slightly lower body mass index (BMI) for the group that received stavudine (remember, this was not a randomized trial). Patients were followed for two and a half years on average, and if they changed their medication, they were censored at that point.

Patients had three to six dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans during the follow up. With the longitudinal data captured, they were able to model fat loss over time for each group of patients. They were also able to create mathematical equations that would predict the rate of fat loss depending on the nucleoside (stavudine or zidovudine) that was selected to originally treat the patients.

The choice of stavudine or zidovudine was a strong predictor of the rate of fat loss in the extremities of these patients. Whether the patient was or was not on a PI- or an NNRTI-based regimen did not matter at all. Age and an AIDS diagnosis were also predictors of the fat loss.

The study has the beauty of longitudinal studies. Cross-sectional studies, no matter how well done or large they are, cannot tell us more of what they have told us already.

This study confirms A5005s, which proved that patients receiving stavudine lose peripheral fat faster than patients receiving zidovudine. Not a big surprise for anybody, but it is nice to see data that supports conventional wisdom.


A 12-year-old girl with rheumatoid factor negative polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) attends an outpatient appointment with her mother. Her disease has been controlled by subcutaneous methotrexate, but over the past month, she has stopped taking medication because of adverse effects—in particular, nausea and vomiting after administration of methotrexate injection. On examination, she is found to have a flare of her disease with 10 swollen inflamed joints and early morning stiffness for 2 h/day. You apply for funding for anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) treatment and, in the meantime, plan to treat her disease flare with a course of prednisolone. On discussion during the consultation, her mother tells you that she has had a letter from the general practitioner asking her child to attend for a flu vaccination and asks your advice.

Structured clinical questions

Do children with JIA [patient] who become infected with influenza [intervention] have a more prolonged illness [outcome] than healthy children [comparison]? In children with JIA [patient], should flu vaccinations be given [intervention] to prevent flu [outcome]? Do children with JIA respond to flu vaccination [does the vaccination have the required effect]? Does flu vaccination [intervention] cause a flare of JIA [adverse event]?

Search strategy and outcomes

Search terms used for all searches (search date 13 September 2006) were: {vaccine OR vaccination} AND {arthritis}, AND {child OR childhood OR children or juvenile} AND {influenza}.

Primary sources: Medline via Pubmed; 20 papers identified, 3 relevant. Embase: 58 …


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
In response to the massive tsunami disaster in South Asia, two Korean medical relief teams provided emergency medical care in the southern coastal area of Sri Lanka. Their findings are reported here to provide a realistic picture of medical needs created by the tsunami disaster and to enable a better-prepared medical response to future disasters of this type.

METHODS
All victims of the tsunami in the area of operation of the two medical relief teams were encouraged to receive medical care. Care provided to each victim was documented in individual medical records. All medical records were reviewed and classified by age, gender, and diagnosis.

RESULTS
A total of 4,710 people were treated by the two Korean medical relief teams for 9 days of operation in southern Sri Lanka. Respiratory problems were common, but diarrhea was diagnosed in an average of only 4.3 patients per day. Minor skin trauma and wound infection in the extremities were frequent as long as 3 weeks after the disaster. The proportion of skin trauma in relation to total trauma decreased as days elapsed from the disaster.

CONCLUSIONS
Because of the provision of adequate quantities of potable water, the likelihood of waterborne diarrhea was low. Acute respiratory problems and chronic problems were prevalent in tsunami refugee camps. Despite concerted international relief efforts, inadequate treatment of minor skin trauma and skin infections was evident.


The present paper represents a continuation of Sofonea and Matei's paper (Sofonea, M. and Matei, A. (2011) History-dependent quasivariational inequalities arising in contact mechanics. Eur. J. Appl. Math. 22, 471–491). There a new class of variational inequalities involving history-dependent operators was considered, an abstract existence and uniqueness result was proved and it was completed with a regularity result. Moreover, these results were used in the analysis of various frictional and frictionless models of contact. In this current paper we present a penalization method in the study of such inequalities. We start with an example which motivates our study; it concerns a mathematical model which describes the quasistatic contact between a viscoelastic body and a foundation; the material's behaviour is modelled with a constitutive law with long memory, the contact is frictionless and is modelled with a multivalued normal compliance condition and unilateral constraint. Then we introduce the abstract variational inequalities together with their penalizations. We prove the unique solvability of the penalized problems and the convergence of their solutions to the solution of the original problem, as the penalization parameter converges to zero. Finally, we turn back to our contact model, apply our abstract results in the study of this problem and provide their mechanical interpretation.


China's rampant movie piracy has given rise to an alternative film culture. Through the viral infrastructure of pirate circulation and consumption, an active cineaste culture of "D-buffs" and an independent film practice, the "D-generation," have rapidly emerged and expanded in urban China. This essay's examination of the D-buff subculture and the D-generation movement shows that this alternative, pirate film culture has opened up precious space for an alternative public sphere to develop counter to the hegemonic pseudo-public controlled by state censorship and commercial industries. By organizing spectatorship and filmmaking through the shadow system of piracy, this alternative public sphere provides an inclusive, heterogeneous, and non-controllable social horizon for organizing collective experience and identities.


Rapid technical advances have made it possible to instrument even massive computing systems. However, the technology for processing high-speed data streams from physical sensors and software systems has lagged the capability to produce such streams. The goal of stream processing research is to develop algorithms and software infrastructures capable of processing streaming data with high throughput and low latency.
A large class of streaming applications requires that stream processing systems be both expressive and scalable. That is, a stream processing system should be able to process a large number of reasonably sophisticated queries over high-speed input streams. There are however general tensions between expressiveness and scalability in stream processing. In this dissertation, we present techniques and prototype systems that address both expressiveness and scalability aspects.
First, we present Cayuga, a general-purpose event monitoring system with an expressive event algebra and a set of novel query optimization techniques. Second, we describe a rule-based Multi-Query Optimization framework, which generalizes Cayuga, unifies large-scale stream processing and event processing, and provides a platform for integrating future query rewrite based optimization techniques. Finally, we describes an approach in large-scale XML stream join processing. To our knowledge, this is the first scalable solution to the problem of processing a large number of XML stream join queries.
As the adoption of stream processing technology increasingly gains momentum, the ideas and techniques developed in this dissertation provide a foundation for building expressive and scalable stream processing systems with affordable cost and high reliability.


Despite ease of deployment being seen as a primary advantage of sensor networks, deployment remains difficult. We present Snap, a system for rapid sensornet deployment that allows sensor networks to be deployed, positioned, and reprogrammed through a sensornet appstore. Snap uses a smartphone interface that uses QR codes for node identification, a map interface for node positioning, and dynamic loading of applications on the nodes. Snap nodes run the Contiki operating system and its low-power IPv6 network stack that provides direct access from nodes to the smartphone application. We demonstrate rapid sensor node deployment, identification, positioning, and node reprogramming within seconds, over a multi-hop sensornet routing path with a WiFi-connected smartphone.


Choosing the political party nominees, who will appear on the ballot for the US presidency, is a long process that starts two years before the general election. The news media plays a particular role in this process by continuously covering the state of the race. How can this news coverage be characterized? Given that there are thousands of news organizations, but each of us is exposed to only a few of them, we might be missing most of it. Online news aggregators, which aggregate news stories from a multitude of news sources and perspectives, could provide an important lens for the analysis. One such aggregator is Google's Top stories, a recent addition to Google's search result page. For the duration of 2019, we have collected the news headlines that Google Top stories has displayed for 30 candidates of both US political parties. Our dataset contains 79,903 news story URLs published by 2,168 unique news sources. Our analysis indicates that despite this large number of news sources, there is a very skewed distribution of where the Top stories are originating, with a very small number of sources contributing the majority of stories. We are sharing our dataset1 so that other researchers can answer questions related to algorithmic curation of news as well as media agenda setting in the context of political elections.