Background: Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) provides the opportunity to perform 3D DNA content measurements on intact cells in thick histological sections. So far, sample size has been limited by the time consuming nature of the technology. Since the power of DNA histograms to resolve different stemlines depends on both the sample size and the coefficient of variation (CV) of histogram peaks, interpretation of 3D CLSM DNA histograms might be hampered by both a small sample size and a large CV. The aim of this study was to analyze the required CV for 3D CLSM DNA histograms given a realistic sample size. Methods: By computer simulation, virtual histograms were composed for sample sizes of 20000, 10000, 5000, 1000, and 273 cells and CVs of 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5%. By visual inspection, the histogram quality with respect to resolution of G0/1 and G2/M peaks of a diploid stemline was assessed. Results: As expected, the interpretability of DNA histograms deteriorated with decreasing sample sizes and higher CVs. For CVs of 15% and lower, a clearly bimodal peak pattern with well distinguishable G0/1 and G2/M peaks were still seen at a sample size of 273 cells, which is our current average sample size with 3D CLSM DNA cytometry. Conclusions: For unambiguous interpretation of DNA histograms obtained using 3D CLSM, a CV of at most 15% is tolerable at currently achievable sample sizes. To resolve smaller near diploid stemlines, a CV of 10% or better should be aimed at. With currently available 3D imaging technology, this CV is achievable.


Braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) are becoming more and more popular as an input device for virtual worlds and computer games. Depending on their function, a major drawback is the mental workload associated with their use and there is significant effort and training required to effectively control them. In this paper, we present two studies assessing how mental workload of a P300-based BCI affects participants' reported sense of presence in a virtual environment (VE). In the first study, we employ a BCI exploiting the P300 event-related potential (ERP) that allows control of over 200 items in a virtual apartment. In the second study, the BCI is replaced by a gaze-based selection method coupled with wand navigation. In both studies, overall performance is measured and individual presence scores are assessed by means of a short questionnaire. The results suggest that there is no immediate benefit for visualizing events in the VE triggered by the BCI and that no learning about the layout of the virtual space takes place. In order to alleviate this, we propose that future P300-based BCIs in VR are set up so as require users to make some inference about the virtual space so that they become aware of it, which is likely to lead to higher reported presence.


Following the decentralisation of governmental processes in many European countries, a number of political decisions are now being made by regional instances of government. As they gain more political autonomy, regions also take on a renewed significance as places in which to convene a number of democratic debates between a number of actors. At the same time, the democratic trends in regions have also been characterised by the introduction of participatory elements which complement the more traditional channels of representative democracy. Modern democracies are often "hybrid democracies" in which citizens and groups delegate power by electing representatives, but simultaneously retain the possibility to raise issues or participating in decision-making between elections. This thesis is specifically concerned with the contribution of the various particularistic groups in regional decision-making processes. Within this broad area of research, my project focuses on the involvement of particularistic groups through "consultative forums". Consultative forums are relatively formal participatory structures which aspire to deepen the ways in which people and groups can effectively participate in and influence the policy-processes prior to legislation being considered. They are purposely designed to help groups get their message across to government by nurturing their voices, organising a level of interaction between the various groups, and channelling the groups' message across to government. The thesis provides an in-depth exploration of the functioning of two such consultative forums: the Scottish Civic Forum and the French Regional Economic and Social Council. Based on observations collected during thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, the thesis critically examines the extent to which these two organisations can promote the sort of dialogue and democratic debate which could lead to an effective re-composition of political action in devolved democratic processes. Theoretically, the thesis draws from a number of contemporary debates relative to the participation of particularistic groups in modem liberal democratic processes. These debates address the commonly accepted prevalence of representative democracy, the quality of regional public spheres and the in-house functioning of participatory organisations such as the consultative forums. The thesis concludes that, while the consultative forums might not necessarily be the primary means of democratic expression in the regions, each of them fulfils a very important function. One model seeks primarily to empower smaller, vulnerable groups within policy processes. The second model foments an intensive level of interaction between key regional stakeholders. I argue that both these objectives are eminently worthwhile and that the consultative forums are able to fulfil important functions in regional public spheres.


The concept of interrogating similarities within a data set has a long history in fields ranging from medicinal chemistry to image analysis. We define a descriptor as an entropic measure of similarity for an image and the neighborhood of images surrounding it. Differential changes in descriptor values imply differential changes in the structure underlying the images. For example, at the location of a zero crossing in the descriptor values, the corresponding image is a watershed image clearly sitting between two dissimilar groups of images. This paper describes a fast algorithm for image sequence clustering based on the above concept. Developed initially for an adaptive system for capture, analysis and storage of lengthy dynamic visual processes, the algorithm uncovers underlying spatio-temporal structures without a priori information or segmentation. 9 The algorithm estimates the average amount of information each image, in an ordered set, conveys about the structure underlying the ordered set. Such signatures enable capture of relevant and salient time periods directly leading to reductions in cost of followup analysis and storage. As a part of the video capture system, the above characterization may provide predictive feedback to an adaptive capture sub-system controlling temporal sampling, frame-rate and exposure. Details of the algorithm, examples of its application to quantification of biological motion, and video identification and recognition are presented. Prior to the workshop, an efficient implementation will be posted as a web service to generate characterization of unknown videos online.


Recent scholarship offers compelling evidence on the negative impact of income inequality on satisfaction with democracy. This article studies whether the impact of inequality on evaluations of the democratic process varies for different groups in the population and over time. The central argument is that the impact of inequality is conditional on individual characteristics and experience. Young adults and members of the 90s generation should be more sensitive to income inequality compared to older generations. To answer this question, we use cumulative six-wave data from the European Social Survey (2002-2012), matched with income inequality estimates from the Standardized World Income Inequality Dataset (2014). Results from a series of mixed-effects models reveal that higher levels of income inequality are associated with lower levels of satisfaction with democracy, but with a disproportionate negative influence on young adults compared to older citizens and also on the 1990s cohort compared to all other cohorts.


Summary 1. Behavioural change in response to anthropogenic activities is often assumed to indicate a biologically significant effect on a population of concern. Disturbances can affect individual health through lost foraging time or other behaviours, which will impact vital rates and thus the population dynamics. However, individuals may be able to compensate for the observed shifts in behaviour, leaving their health and thus their vital rates and population dynamics, unchanged. 2. We developed a mathematical model simulating the complex social, spatial, behavioural and motivational interactions of coastal bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the Moray Firth, Scotland, to assess the biological significance of increased rate of behavioural disruptions caused by vessel traffic. 3. We explored a scenario in which vessel traffic increased from 70 to 470 vessels a year in response to the construction of a proposed offshore renewables' facility. Despite the more than sixfold increase in vessel traffic, the dolphins' behavioural time budget, spatial distribution, motivations and social structure remain unchanged. 4. We found that the dolphins are able to compensate for their immediate behavioural response to disturbances by commercial vessels. If the increased commercial vessel traffic is the only escalation in anthropogenic activity, then the dolphins' response to disturbance is not biologically significant, because the dolphins' health is unaffected, leaving the vital rates and population dynamics unchanged. 5. Our results highlight that behavioural change should not automatically be correlated with biological significance when assessing the conservation and management needs of species of interest. This strengthens the argument to use population dynamics targets to manage human activities likely to disturb wildlife.


The visualization of space-time trajectory data is challenging due to the fact that, in most cases, the data inherently exists in more than two dimensions. In many space-time visualizations, additional variables must be mapped into other visual attributes such as color or size. Given that substantive analyses of trajectory data will likely be concerned with variables beyond space and time, we propose a method that allows trajectory positions to be determined by an arbitrary number of variables in a multi-dimensional space-time dataset. Our method is based on Star Coordinates [5], a prior technique for interactively positioning multi-dimensional data. Our technique is catered specifically to multi-dimensional space-time trajectory data. The technique is demonstrated using a large multidimensional space-time dataset related to touring musicians.


AIM
To assess the three-dimensional (3D) position of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) in the cranial base structure, the 3D morphology of the TMJ, and the fossa-condyle interspaces in subjects with normal occlusion and patients with mandibular asymmetries using 3D computed tomography (CT) images. We hypothesized that the fossa-condyle interspaces and the shape or size of the TMJ would correlate with mandibular asymmetry.

METHODS
Twenty women with mandibular asymmetry and nine control subjects were recruited. The TMJ position, linear distances, angles, surface areas, and the fossa-condyle relationship were assessed with 3D CT images of the TMJ.

RESULTS
The fossa surface area was larger on the contralateral side, although no significant difference was observed in the linear or angular measurements of the fossa. The condylar neck height and condylar angle on the contralateral side were larger than those on the deviated side, and the frontal neck angle on the deviated side was larger than that on the contralateral side and of the control. No significant difference was observed in the condylar area. The fossa-condyle interspaces in the posterolateral section of the TMJ were smaller on the deviated side.

CONCLUSION
The condyle in the patients with mandibular asymmetry was rotated posterolaterally within the fossa on the deviated side. Patients with mandibular asymmetry showed larger fossas and longer condylar processes on the contralateral side and narrower fossa-condyle interspaces on the deviated side, especially in the posterolateral section of the TMJ.


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Propofol is a cerebral vasoconstrictor that modulates cerebral perfusion by decreasing the metabolic rate of oxygen. Because younger children often undergo intravenous sedation for MR imaging, this study set out to evaluate the degree of leptomeningeal contrast enhancement on 3T postcontrast brain MR imaging and to determine whether this phenomenon relates to sequence, sedation dosage, or patient age or weight. MATERIALS AND METHODS: During a 2-year period, of 152 children 1–5 years of age who underwent MR imaging, 43 were included for MRI review. Of these, 37 underwent postcontrast imaging with either solely gradient-echo T1WI (n = 20) or spin-echo T1WI (n = 17); notably, 6 patients underwent both sequences. Three neuroradiologists separately graded the degree of leptomeningeal contrast enhancement (grades 0–3) that was correlated with various factors and calculated the interobserver reliability. RESULTS: For the 43 patients, the mean patient age was 3.1 ± 1.4 years. The leptomeningeal contrast-enhancement grade was significantly greater (P < .0001) on spin-echo T1WI (1.9–2.1) versus gradient-echo TIWI (1.2–1.4). Patient weight (r = −0.366 to −.418, P = .003–.01) and age (r = −0.315 to −0.418, P = .004–.032) moderately and inversely correlated with the leptomeningeal contrast-enhancement grade, while the propofol dosage, sedation duration, and time to T1WI post-contrast administration did not (each, P > .05). The interobserver κ was strong regarding the leptomeningeal contrast-enhancement grade on both spin-echo T1WI (κ = 0.609–0.693, P < .0001) and gradient-echo TIWI (κ = 0.567–0.698, P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: Leptomeningeal contrast enhancement (or "pseudo"-leptomeningeal contrast enhancement) occurs with a greater frequency and degree on 3T postcontrast spin-echo T1WI relative to gradient-echo TIWI in younger children sedated with propofol and should not be mistaken for disease. This phenomenon may be more prominent with lower age or size and may arise from propofol-induced vascular smooth-muscle dilation.


Pasteurella multocida (P. multocida) causes fowl cholera in birds and the pathogenesis and virulence factors involved are still poorly understood. TonB protein is a periplasmic protein prevalent in a large number of Gram-negative bacteria, as in Pasteurella, which is believed to be responsible for the import of ferric iron complexes across the outer membrane and plays a role as an important virulence factor to help bacteria to obtain nutrients. In this study, a total of 23 isolates of P. multocida were obtained from 172 cases of clinical respiratory disease in duck and geese, giving an isolation rate of 13.4%. P. multocida Serogroup A was isolated from 22 cases (95.7%), whereas serogroup F was from 1 case (4.3%). All isolates were analyzed for their susceptibility to 15 antibiotics and the presence of 18 genes for virulence factors. The susceptibility profiles suggested that Tetracycline, Cephalosporin, Enrofloxacin, and Aminoglycosides were the drugs most likely to be active against P. multocida. However, 78.3% and 52.2% of poultry strains were resistant to Penicillin and Sulfisoxazole, respectively. PCR results showed that ptfA, fimA, tonB, fur, hgbA, hgbB, sodA, sodC, pmHAS, nanH, nanB, plpB and ompH genes occur in most poultry strains of P. multocida. The virulence genes such as toxA, tadD, hsf-1, pfhA and ompA were each present in <73.9% of strains. The tonB gene was detected in all 23 clinical strains of P. multocida which were recovered from different hosts and harboring different serotypes. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that these tonB genes of P. multocida from different hosts and harboring different serotypes have close genetic relationship with a high similarity. Multiple sequence alignment demonstrated that TonB protein of Gram-negative bacteria exists in multiple conserved sites, such as -xSSGx-, -YP-, -LDand xA[A/V]Lx motif. These findings provide clinical data into the epidemiological and molecular characteristics of avian P. multocida isolates and provide a reference for the researches of drug target in P. multocida.


The mycelial culture of Ganoderma lucidum found in Nigeria was tested on some human pathogenic bacteria using dual and Weller techniques. The mycelial culture was active against all the test organisms: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bacterium, Escherichia coli showed the highest susceptibility to the mushroom mycelia at 10.6 mm on the first day of incubation which increased to 15.2 mm on the fourth day using the dual method while Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed the least susceptibility of 5.7 mm on the fourth day. In the Weller method the growth of the test organisms were completely antagonized by the mycelia of Ganoderma lucidum as total inhibition was recorded from all the plates. These could be an indication that Ganoderma lucidum can be used in the treatment of diseases caused by these organisms as well as preventive measure against them.


This paper presents a case of alleged PLC (Programmable Logic controller) hacking aboard a commercial ship, and the forensic investigation of PLC components. It presents the lessons drawn from this case and the particular difficulty of investigating PLC and SCADA systems onboard. Whereas hacking is often seen as taking control of a ship, or part of a ship, it is also related to the alteration of the sensors, the PLCs, the data logger or the SCADA systems. This alteration can be done from a hacking group but in the investigated case, it is more likely an action triggered either by the ship owner, or the ship manufacturer himself. This paper also advocates for an addition of a section concerning cybersecurity in the SOLAS - Safety Of Life At Sea - convention or one of other IMO (International Maritime Organization) conventions.


We present recurrent geometry-aware neural networks that integrate visual in- formation across multiple views of a scene into 3D latent feature tensors, while maintaining an one-to-one mapping between 3D physical locations in the world scene and latent feature locations. Object detection, object segmentation, and 3D reconstruction is then carried out directly using the constructed 3D feature memory, as opposed to any of the input 2D images. The proposed models are equipped with differentiable egomotion-aware feature warping and (learned) depth-aware unprojection operations to achieve geometrically consistent mapping between the features in the input frame and the constructed latent model of the scene. We empirically show the proposed model generalizes much better than geometry- unaware LSTM/GRU networks, especially under the presence of multiple objects and cross-object occlusions. Combined with active view selection policies, our model learns to select informative viewpoints to integrate information from by "undoing" cross-object occlusions, seamlessly combining geometry with learning from experience.


We have developed a novel vertical seismic profile (VSP) imaging method that requires only a local velocity model around the well. This method is denoted as a "local migration," where the model-based forward-propagation and backward-propagation operators are computed using a local velocity model between the well and the target body. The velocity model for the complex overburden and salt body is not needed, and the source-side statics are automatically accounted for. In addition, kinematic and dynamic effects, including anisotropy, absorption, and other unknown/undefined rock effects outside of this local velocity model, are mostly accounted for. Numerical tests on an acoustic 2D Sigsbee VSP data set, an elastic salt model, and offset 2D VSP data in the Gulf of Mexico partly validate the effectiveness of this method by accurately imaging the sediments next to the vertical well.


This paper presents a quality enhancement method to efficiently enhance the resolution of the scalable view window on touchable displays. Based on an optimized image interpolation algorithm, the image quality on the display systems can be enhanced . The image interpolation algorithm combines a 6-tap interpolation filter and a bilinear filter which can be effectively and efficiently optimized to reduce computational complexity. In addition, the cost-effective hardware architecture of the algorithm is also designed and implemented on an FPGA platform with a touchable display. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.


Seaweeds are used in pharmaceutical and biochemical applications as they possess interesting biological activities that contribute to the discovery of natural therapeutic agents. In this study, the antibacterial activity of n-hexane, dichloromethane and methanolic extracts of brown seaweeds (Phaeophyceae), Sargassum polycystum C. Agardh and Padina australis Hauck, was examined using the disc diffusion and broth microdilution methods. The bioactivity of the seaweed extracts was expressed as minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC). The antibacterial activity against Gram-negative bacteria (beta-lactamase positive and negative Escherichia coli , Pseudomonas aeruginosa ) and Gram-positive bacteria ( Staphylococcus aureus , Bacillus cereus ) was discussed. Gram-positive bacteria especially B. cereus was more susceptible to the seaweed extracts (MIC = 0.130 to 0.065 mg/ml). Generally, S. polycystum extracts exhibited higher bacteriostatic activity (lower MICs) against all the tested bacterial strains when compared with P. australis . However, P. australis extracts showed a narrow spectrum of bactericidal activity against B. cereus . n-Hexane extracts of S. polycystum exhibited promising bacteriostatic agents against B. cereus (MIC = 0.065 mg/ml) with MIC value lower than the standard MIC of potential antimicrobial drug (0.100 mg/ml). Since only crude seaweed extracts were tested in this study, further purification and isolation of bioactive compounds from the extracts are essential in future studies in order to optimize their antibacterial activity. Key words: Phaeophyceae, disc diffusion test, minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC), minimum inhibition concentration (MIC).


In patients with cystic fibrosis, chronic infection with the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the primary cause of death. During the course of such long-lasting infections, the bacteria respond to their environment, first expressing a set of genes optimal for early infection and colonization and later expressing components that favor formation of biofilms that allow aggregation of the bacteria and protection from host defenses. Goodman et al. screened for two-component system proteins (histidine kinase sensors or phosphate receiver response regulators) that might participate in control of the gene expression programs that mediate the distinct properties of the bacteria during early or late infection. They isolated a gene named retS (for regulator of exopolysaccharide and type III secretion). Transcriptional profiling showed that expression of retS enhanced expression of genes encoding virulence factors and decreased expression of genes that enhance synthesis of exopolysaccharides, cell surface components that support formation of biofilms. RetS thus appears to be a primary regulator of the phenotypic transition from early to late infection. The RetS protein has a very unusual structure in that it contains two dissimilar response regulator receiver domains and lacks a histidine phosphotransfer domain. The authors propose that one or both of the receiver domains may respond to phosphorylation by proteins other than RetS itself, thus allowing RetS to provide coordination of multiple inputs that coordinate the phenotypic response. A. L. Goodman, B. Kulasekara, A. Rietsch, D. Boyd, R. S. Smith, S. Lory, A signaling network reciprocally regulates genes associated with acute infection and chronic persistence in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Developmental Cell 7, 745-754 (2004). [Online Journal]


The presence of high and time-varying volatility of volatility and leverage effects bring additional uncertainty in the tails of the distribution of asset returns, even though returns standardized by (ex-post) quadratic variation measures are nearly gaussian. We argue that in this setting modeling shocks to volatility is more relevant for applications than extracting more precise predictions of the variable, as point forecasts differences are swamped by the size of the volatility of volatility and rendered less informative by the nongaussianity in the ex-ante distribution of returns. Using S&P 500 data, we document that this volatility of volatility is subject to strong leverage effects, short-lived explosive regimes and is strongly and positively related to the level of volatility. Starting from a mixing hypothesis for volatility and returns, we propose a Monte Carlo method for translating these features into refined density forecasts for returns from our conditional volatility, skewness and kurtosis framework. We show how this method brings large improvements over traditional approaches for density and risk forecasting.


Today, as the legitimacy of various forms of therapeutic intervention is under attack, and as practitioners in all areas of the human services are increasingly held accountable for monitoring and evaluating their practices in an objective manner, a sound familiarity with objective measurement techniques has become essential. In addition, practitioners must also be concerned with satisfying state, agency, or insurance company guidelines. Now, this updated and expanded two-volume edition of Fischer and Corcoran's standard reference enables professionals to gather this vital information easily and effectively. In "Measures for Clinical Practice, Volume 1: Couples, Families and Children and Volume 2: Adults," Joel Fischer and Kevin Corcoran provide an extensive collection of over 320 "rapid assessment instruments" (RAIs), including questionnaires and scales, which assess virtually any problem commonly encountered in clinical practice. All instruments are actually reprinted in the book, and are critiqued by the authors to aid in their selection. The instruments included are brief and easy to administer and will be useful for all types of practice and all theoretical orientations. Introducing the compendium of instruments, Fischer and Corcoran explain the principles of measurement and how to apply them in practice. They explore the range of assessment techniques available, including behavioral observations, rating scales, and client logs, as well as unobtrusive, electromechanical, and standardized measures. After examining the advantages and disadvantages of rapid assessment instruments, they show practitioners how to effectively select, administer, score, and interpret thesemeasures as part of the treatment process. This fully updated and expanded two-volume edition will be essential to every practitioner and student of social work, psychology, psychiatry, nursing, counseling, and the rehabilitative therapies.


M. Kogan, P. Gomez, A. Fischer, and C. Alister. 2011. Using penoxsulam ALS inhibitor as a broad-spectrum herbicide in Chilean rice. Cien. Inv. Agr. 38(1): 83-93. The continuouslyflooded rice production system in Chile has selected highly competitive aquatic weeds selection capable of reducing paddy yields by 25 to 50%. Penoxsulam is a broad-spectrum triazolopyrimidine (ALS inhibitor) commercially introduced in Chile in 2006, where Alisma plantago aquatica hads already evolved resistance to sulfonylurea herbicides (SU). Several field trials with water seeded rice were conducted during 2003 and 2004 in Chile to determine efficacy, timing of application, spectrum of control, and control of SU-resistant A. plantago aquatica with the herbicide penoxsulam, either in single applications or in sequence with other herbicides. Penoxsulam was applied a) 12 days after seeding (DAS) into the water (IW), b) in postemergence after draining the water from field (ADW) at 35 DAS or c) IW followed by ADW applications of MCPA, cyhalofop, bentazon, or triclopyr. Penoxsulam was tested at 20, 30, and 40 g a.i. ha -1 . Comparisons were made with recommended rates of other IW treatments (metsulfuron, bensulfuron and cyclosulfomuron) and sequential applications of molinate (IW) followed by ADW applications of MCPA, cyhalofop, bentazon, or triclopyr. One IW penoxsulam application was sufficient to achieve broad-spectrum control: Echinochloa spp. (100% control), A.plantago-aquatica (80 to 100%), Schoenoplectus mucronatus (50 to 80%), and Cyperus difformis (80 to 100%). Rice yields in penoxsulam-treated plots were 30 to 56% higher than in the untreated controls. Yields with penoxsulam IW (all rates) were similar (P>0.05) to those obtained using molinate (IW) followed by ADW applications of bentazon or MCPA. Although penoxsulam is an ALS inhibitor, it controlled A. plantago-aquatica resistant to metsulfuron and bensulfuron.


Mixed hematopoietic chimerism may provide a treatment for patients with nonmalignant hematologic diseases, and may tolerize patients to organ allografts without requiring chronic immunosuppression. However, the toxicity of the usual conditioning regimens has limited the clinical applicability of this approach. These regimens generally include some level of whole body irradiation (WBI), which is thought to facilitate engraftment either by making room for donor hematopoietic stem cells or by providing sufficient host immunosuppression to enable donor cells to engraft. Here, we have established mixed chimerism across both minor and major histocompatibility barriers in swine, by using high doses of peripheral blood stem cells in the absence of WBI. After mixed chimerism was established, swine leukocyte antigen-matched (SLA-matched) donor skin grafts were tolerated and maintained for a prolonged period, whereas third-party SLA-matched skin was rejected promptly. Donor-matched kidney allografts were also accepted without additional immunosuppression. Because of its low toxicity, this approach has potential for a wide range of clinical applications. Our data may indicate that niches for engrafting stem cells are filled by mass action and that WBI, which serves to empty some of these niches, can be omitted if the donor inoculum is sufficiently large and if adequate host T-cell depletion is achieved before transplant.


Ion density enhancements at the topside low-latitude ionosphere during a Bastille storm on 15–16 July 2000 and Halloween storms on 29–31 October 2003 were studied using data from ROCSAT-1/IPEI experiment. Prominent ion density enhancements demonstrate similar temporal dynamics both in the sunlit and in the nightside hemispheres. The ion density increases dramatically (up to two orders of magnitude) during the main phase of the geomagnetic storms and reaches peak values at the storm maximum. The density enhancements are mostly localized in the region of a South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), which is characterized by very intense fluxes of energetic particles. The dynamics of near-Earth radiation was studied using SAMPEX/LEICA data on >0.6 MeV electrons and >0.8 MeV protons at around 600 km altitude. During the magnetic storms the energetic particle fluxes in the SAA region and in its vicinity increase more than three orders of magnitude. The location of increased fluxes overlaps well with the regions of ion density enhancements. Two mechanisms were considered to be responsible for the generation of storm-time ion density enhancements: prompt penetration of the interplanetary electric field and abundant ionization of the ionosphere by enhanced precipitation of energetic particles from the radiation belt.


A tiny mother and child bustle through a dusty township in Cape Town, while a miniature informant whispers in a telephone box in Beijing. Thumb-sized riot police climb the Acropolis in Athens, while an inch-high woman pole-dances around a lamppost in a Hong Kong red light district. From West London to the West Bank, from the scorched flagstones of Marrakech to the lowest of low-rise views of Manhattan, all life is here. Global Model Village collects together the international works of Slinkachu, the London-based artist who as part of his 'Little People Project' has been abandoning tiny model people on the mean streets of the world since 2006. Documented through photography, these little dramas of hope and tragedy, loneliness and humour somehow get to the heart of what it means to be human; to be alone among millions of other people, all experiencing the particular melancholy and magic of life in the big city. Praise for Slinkachu's work: 'We care about these little humans. We can see how frail they are - a fact so less easy to absorb when we are sharing the same dimensions' Evening Standard '[These] tiny figurines are more fully us than any possible full-size models ...I love Slinkachu's works. I hope you will too' Will Self


With an array of activating and inhibitory receptors, natural killer (NK) cells can specifically eradicate infected and transformed cells. Target cell killing is achieved through directed release of lytic granules. Recognition of target cells also induces production of chemokines and cytokines that can coordinate immune responses. Upon contact with susceptible cells, a multiplicity of activating receptors can induce signals for adhesion. Engagement of the integrin leukocyte functional antigen-1 mediates firm adhesion, provides signals for granule polarization and orchestrates the structure of an immunological synapse that facilitates efficient target cell killing. Other activating receptors apart from leukocyte functional antigen-1 signal for lytic granule exocytosis, a process that requires overcoming a threshold for activation of phospholipase C-γ, which in turn induces STIM1- and ORAI1-dependent store-operated Ca2+ entry as well as exocytosis mediated by the SNARE-containing protein syntaxin-11 and regulators thereof. Cytokine and chemokine release follows a different secretory pathway which also requires phospholipase C-γ activation and store-operated Ca2+ entry. Recent studies of human NK cells have provided insights into a hierarchy of effector functions that result in graded responses by NK cell populations. Responses display cellular heterogeneity and are influenced by environmental cues. This review highlights recent knowledge gained on the molecular pathways for and regulation of NK cell activation.


The writings covered to by the umbrella term "Gothic" are so varied in style, thematic interests, and narrative effects that an overarching definition becomes problematic and even undesirable. The contemporary Gothic, drawing on an already fragmented and heterogenic artistic tradition, is less a genre than a vestigial type of writing that resuscitates older horrors and formulas and filters them through the echo chambers of a modern preoccupation with the social value of transgressive literature. In a century when the Gothic has once again exploded in popularity, and following a period of strong institutionalization of its study in the 1990s and 2000s, establishing some of its key modern manifestations and core concerns becomes a pressing issue. The Gothic may be fruitfully separated from horror, a genre premised on the emotional impact it seeks to have on readers, as a type of literature concerned with the legacy of the past on the present—and, more importantly, with the retrojecting of contemporary anxieties into times considered more barbaric. These have increasingly manifested in neo-Victorian fictions and in stories where settings are haunted by forgotten or repressed events but also by weird fiction, where encounters with beings and substances from unplumbed cosmic depths lead to a comparable temporal discombobulation. The intertextual mosaics of the contemporary Gothic also borrow from and recycle well-known myths and figures such as Dracula or Frankenstein's monster in order to show their continued relevance or else to adapt their recognizable narratives to the early 21st century. Finally, the Gothic, as a type of literature that is quickly becoming defined by the cultural work it carries out and by its transnational reach, has found in monstrosity, especially in its mediation of alterity, of traumatic national pasts and of the viral nature of the digital age, a fertile ground for the proliferation of new nightmares.


Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains accounts for around one-third of California's water supply. Melting snow provides water into dry summer months characteristic of the region's Mediterranean climate. As climate changes, understanding patterns of snowpack, snowmelt, and biological response is critical in this region of agricultural, recreational, and ecological value. Here we investigated the relationships between tree rings of montane conifer trees (Tsuga mertensiana, Abies magnifica, Abies concolor, Calocedrus decurrens, Juniperus occidentalis, and Pinus ponderosa) and regional climate indices with the goal of reconstructing April 1 snow-water equivalent (SWE) in the North Fork American River watershed of the Sierra Nevada. Chronologies were positively correlated with April 1 SWE of the year prior to ring formation. Temporal trends in correlation between tree-ring chronologies and climate indices indicate strengthening tree growth response to climate over time. We developed a skillful, nested reconstruction for April 1 SWE, 1661–2013. Variability of the reconstruction is within the envelope of 20th and 21st-century variability; however, the 2015 record low snowpack is unprecedented in the tree-ring record, as in results from previous studies. Future research should focus on integrating modern snow sensor data into paleoclimate research and understanding mechanistic linkages between snow and tree growth response.


Gritli-Linde et al. developed an improved fixation technique that allows visualization of mammalian Hedgehog proteins (Sonic Hedgehog and Indian Hedgehog) by immunohistochemistry at sites distant from the site of Hedgehog production. This represents an important advance in demonstrating that the acylation and cholesterol-modified signaling ligands can act directly on distant target cells to control differentiation and morphogenesis instead of exerting their effects through intermediary signals. Their method relies on fixation with ethanol-acetic acid solution, which precipitates and preserves proteoglycan (PGs) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) in the tissue. Experiments in which the tissues were treated with enzymes to increase PG and GAG solubility in aqueous solutions led to loss of staining for the Hedgehog proteins under one staining condition, but if the ethanol-acetic acid fixation solution was used the Hedgehog proteins could be visualized. These results suggest that Hedgehog may interact with PGs and GAGs and support experiments in Drosophila that suggested that proteoglycan synthesis is important for Hedgehog signaling. A. Gritli-Linde, P. Lewis, A. P. McMahon, A. Linde, The whereabouts of a morphogen: Direct evidence for short- and graded long-range activity of Hedgehog signaling proteins. Dev. Biol. 236, 364-386 (2001). [Online Journal]


Of the many questions raised by David Law and Mila Versteeg's important article,1 I want to focus on two. First, as a methodological matter, do they measure constitutional convergence and divergence in the right way? Second, what is the relationship between quantitative, large-n work of the genre represented by Law and Versteeg's article and small-n, qualitative work that has hitherto been the favored methodological approach in comparative constitutional law and politics?


When Nashville's black teachers first learned of the 17 May 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision, some like Lillie Bowman felt excited and believed black children would no longer have to attend schools that lacked curricular choices and adequate materials. Others, however, such as Dorothy Crippens, welcomed the ruling outlawing racial segregation in public schools, but doubted if integration would ever happen. If Nashville's teachers were skeptical about the impact of Brown, some were also concerned about being fired. Almost a month later, on 10 June 1954, the Nashville branch of the NAACP vowed to protect teachers' jobs when it submitted a document from the Atlanta branch to the Nashville City Board of Education, which stated: "The fullest resources of the association, including the legal staff, the research staff, and educational specialists on the staff will be utilized to insure that there will be no discrimination against teachers as a result of integration." (1) Despite their fears, Nashville's African American teachers supported desegregation and its promise of a better education for black children. They were "Negroes first, and teachers second." (2) Whether these teachers looked upon Brown with anticipation, fear, or indifference, they resigned themselves to their new fate. As Lillian Dunn Thomas stated when she heard about the decision, "it didn't matter to me." (3) She was a teacher and she would continue to do her job. While officials in many southern states expressed outrage at the Brown decision and implemented evasive measures, Tennessee's politicians responded to the ruling in a manner ranging from disgust to reluctant acceptance with Nashville's Mayor Ben West, publicly stating, "All of our citizens are entitled to the opportunity of an education and I am sure our Board of Education will protect all in this right." (4) While his response seemed to reassure those who favored integration, as in many other southern school systems, Nashville's school officials responded to the Brown decision with inactivity and avoidance. Although known as the "Athens of the South," Nashville with a population of approximately 174,000 citizens, including more than 58,000 African Americans, was still a racially segregated city. After the local NAACP filed suit against the local Board of Education in 1955, the Federal court forced the board to develop a program for desegregation, which in 1957 was known as the Nashville Plan. This gradual one-grade-per-year program was so successful in delaying public school desegregation that school officials in other cities such as Dallas and Houston later adopted the plan. (5) In the initial years after the Brown decision, the school board allocated funding to construct new black schools, remodel older ones, and hire more black teachers. In an ironic twist, the decision, which declared segregated black schools inherently unequal, helped to strengthen and improve them. Public school systems in southern towns and cities soon began to construct state-of-the-art buildings for African American students. While supporting the Nashville NAACP's legal battles to end school segregation, the city's African American teachers and administrators worked to provide a positive environment for students by fighting to obtain better facilities and materials in segregated schools. In the early 1960s, when Nashville's black college and high school students set out to sit-in or march for social justice, black teachers were often the ones who took them to protest meetings and nervously waited to drive them home safely. By further analyzing the powerful impact of African American teachers on their students' educational experiences and the black community, we can explain why some black Nashvillians continued to work to maintain equalized educational facilities and retain their black teachers, while fighting for school desegregation. While the images of black children attempting to integrate public schools are most familiar, ironically, in Nashville white parents were the first to test the Brown decision and to defy the now overturned 1901 school segregation law prohibiting persons from teaching or attending schools with persons of another race. …


New technologies have always been of interest for libraries, both for the potential of increasing the quality of service and for improving efficiency of operations. In the era of globalisation and liberalisation and with the advent of hi-technologies, the whale world has been condensed in a very small frame. With enormous knowledge explosion, the need to quench the thirst of information cannot be over emphasized. Barcode made inventory tracking easier, but they have their disadvantages. For starts each barcode has to be read in individually by the reader. If an entire well stocked information Centre needed to be checked in to a computer, it could mean several hours of work. Furthermore, the basic barcode is just a tag with data printed on it, and this data can't be updated. Except, of course by sticking another barcode over it. Where Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags come in takes asset tracking to the next level, with smart intelligent tags embedded in the package, the information on the tag can be scanned and updated automatically by readers. RFID married with today's enterprise resource planning solutions, may soon be the next big thing in information management. The technology provides an automated method to collect product or transaction information. The RFID system works using "smart" tags, with inbuilt silicon chips that store data, a reader that scans information from the tags, and the infrastructure to store and analyse the data. This present paper will give you an understanding of how technology can impact on our libraries.


An unexploited pentacarboxylate ligand, 2,5-bis(3′,5′-dicarboxylphenyl)-benzoic acid (H5L), was designed and used for the preparation of metal organic material using Zn2+ as a node. The new compound, {(Me2NH2)[Zn2(L)(H2O)]·0.5DMF}n (1) (DMF = dimethylformamide), has been synthesized and structurally characterized. The topology of the 5-connected anionic framework may be described as (44)(66) (Schlafli symbol) based on {M2(CO2)5} molecular building blocks (MBBs) and L ligands in 1. It has been demonstrated that 1 can act as a fluorescent sensor for highly sensitive detection of nitroaromatics and Fe3+, with a detection limit of 0.54 ppm for 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP) and 0.81 ppm for Fe3+. The possible emission quenching mechanism in the presence of nitroaromatics has been addressed by theoretical calculations.


This paper describes a novel apparatus and method for conducting torsion tests on large-size hollow reinforced concrete (RC) beams. Previous torsion tests of concrete beams often used metal components to clamp the concrete beam specimen while exerting a twisting torque. This type of apparatus could allow gaps and slips between the clamping metal components and the concrete specimen, introducing errors into the small deformation measurement. In this study we used a monolithic transverse RC beam to convey a twisting torque without gaps to the twist end of the longitudinal test beam and constructed a monolithic RC block at the fixed end. Pre-tensioning forces were used to fasten the RC blocks of the specimens to the underlying steel seat and to the strong floor, thus producing a slippage-free mechanism for the fixed end. The test apparatus also incorporated devices to eliminate any constraints on the longitudinal elongation of the test beams. Seven quantities were experimentally determined for each of the specimens through continuous measurement, using various measurement lengths. The test results show that the test apparatus is rather efficient in determining small twists and that the initial branches of the obtained torque-twist curves exhibit a high degree of linearity. The results also demonstrate that a measurement length should be long enough to incorporate the entire failure region, but not too long, as too much length can cause the twist angles to be underestimated. Furthermore, the experimental values of the shear flow zone thickness decrease drastically around the cracking and remain relatively constant after cracking. The obtained elongation-twist curves are smooth when the measurement length covers the entire failure region, but otherwise they have abrupt turns due to drastic losses of measured twist angles.


We report on the chemical synthesis, structural and compositional characterization, and hierarchical organization of Co-core, concentric CoO–Au multi-shell nanocrystals (Co@CoO@Au). Based on electron microscopy, magnetometry and spectroscopy experiments, we present compelling evidence for the formation of the Au outer shell on CoO, challenging the common assumption that the reduction reaction to form Au shells can only occur if the cobalt surface has not oxidized. Our findings suggest that the presence of a metal shell surrounding a transition-metal core nanocrystal following such a reduction reaction cannot be taken as evidence that the transition metal oxide is absent from the surface of the nanocrystal core. We find that Au shell growth can produce Co@CoO@Au nanocrystals possessing five-fold twinning symmetry and we suggest that their growth is facilitated through self nucleation and coalescence of Au particles.


This study proposes an ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD)-based multiscale entropy (EME) approach. The proposed model is used to analyze and gage variability of the annual precipitation series and spatially classify raingauges in Iran. For this end, historical annual precipitation data during 1960–2010 from 31 raingauges are decomposed using EEMD. Decomposed series of precipitation series present different periods and trends. Next, entropy concept is applied to the components obtained from EEMD to measure dispersion of multiscale components. It is observed that entropy values of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) 1–5 and residual component show different behaviors. IMF 5 and residual components have highest values of entropy, whereas IMF 3 and 4 present highest entropy variation among all components. Based on spatial distribution of EME values, EME 3 and 1 have a downward variation from north to south, whereas EME 1 presents increasing variation. Spatial classification of raingauges is performed using EME values as input data to self-organizing map (SOM) and k-means clustering techniques. Finally, spatial structure of annual precipitation variation is investigated. It is observed that EME values have a downward trend with latitude, whereas it is observed that EME shows an upward relationship with longitude in Iran.


Continuity is relevant for the real numbers and functions, namely to understand singularities and jumps. The standard approach first defines the notion of a limit and then defines continuity using limits. Surprisingly, Vredenduin (1969), Van der Blij (1970) and Van Dormolen (1970), in main Dutch texts about didactics of mathematics (journal Euclides and Wansink (1970, volume III)), work reversely for highschool students: they assume continuity and define the limit in terms of the notion of continuity. Vredenduin (1969) also prefers to set the value at the limit point (x = a) instead of getting close to it (x → a). Their approach fits the algebraic approach to the derivative, presented since 2007. Conclusions are: (1) The didactic discussions by Vredenduin (1969), Van der Blij (1970) and Van Dormolen (1970) provide support for the algebraic approach to the derivative. (2) For education, it is best and feasible to start with continuity, first for the reals, and then show how this transfers to functions. (3) The notion of a limit can be defined using continuity. The main reason to mention the notion of a limit at all is to link up with the discussion about limits elsewhere (say on the internet). Later, students may see the standard approach. (4) Education has not much use for limits since one will look at continuity. The relevant use of limits is for infinity.


This chapter highlights work in which dynamic covalent bonds have been utilized to link together hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties within small molecule and macromolecular amphiphiles and surfactants. The incorporated dynamic covalent bonds endow the diverse range of supramolecular assemblies formed from these species with the ability to undergo controlled assembly and disassembly or to engage in component-exchange processes that allow the supramolecular assemblies to change their constituent building blocks. The nature of the supramolecular assemblies can also influence the properties of the dynamic covalent bonds, facilitating emergent properties such as autocatalysis.


In analysing the obstacles to democratisation in post-independence Africa, Mahmood Mamdani offers a bold, insightful account of colonialism's legacy - a bifurcated power that mediated racial domination through tribally organised local authorities, reproducing racial identity in citizens and ethnic identity in subjects. Many writers have understood colonial rule as either "direct" (French) or "indirect" (British), with a third variant - apartheid - as exceptional. This benign terminology, Mamdani shows, masks the fact that these were actually variants of a despotism. While direct rule denied rights to subjects on racial grounds, indirect rule incorporated them into a "customary" mode of rule, with state-appointed Native Authorities defining custom. By tapping authoritarian possibilities in culture, and by giving culture an authoritarian bent, indirect rule (decentralised despotism) set the pace for Africa; the French followed suit by changing from direct to indirect administration, while apartheid emerged relatively later. Apartheid, Mamdani shows, was actually the generic form of the colonial state in Africa. Through case studies of rural (Uganda) and urban (South Africa) resistance movements, we learn how these institutional features fragment resistance and how states tend to play off reform in one sector against repression in the other. Reforming a power that institutionally enforces tension between town and country, and between ethnicites, is the key challenge for anyone interested in democratic reform in Africa.


Aeolian soil erosion and deposition have worldwide impacts on agriculture, air quality and public health. However, ecosystem responses to soil erosion and deposition remain largely unclear in regard to microorganisms, which are the crucial drivers of biogeochemical cycles. Using integrated metagenomics technologies, we analysed microbial communities subjected to simulated soil erosion and deposition in a semiarid grassland of Inner Mongolia, China. As expected, soil total organic carbon and plant coverage were decreased by soil erosion, and soil dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was increased by soil deposition, demonstrating that field simulation was reliable. Soil microbial communities were altered (p < .039) by both soil erosion and deposition, with dramatic increase in Cyanobacteria related to increased stability in soil aggregates. amyA genes encoding α‐amylases were specifically increased (p = .01) by soil deposition and positively correlated (p = .02) to DOC, which likely explained changes in DOC. Surprisingly, most of microbial functional genes associated with carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium cycling were decreased or unaltered by both erosion and deposition, probably arising from acceleration of organic matter mineralization. These divergent responses support the necessity to include microbial components in evaluating ecological consequences. Furthermore, Mantel tests showed strong, significant correlations between soil nutrients and functional structure but not taxonomic structure, demonstrating close relevance of microbial function traits to nutrient cycling.


Objective: Aim of this trial was to compare efficacy of activated platelet-rich plasma against hyaluronic acid as intra-articular injections to people with osteoarthritis of the knee. Design: Phase-2 randomized controlled trial, with blind patients and outcome assessors. Setting: Outpatient rehabilitation service; years 2011–2013. Subjects: Patients with knee osteoarthritis grades 2–3 at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were included after consent and randomized. Target sample size was 25 patients per group. Interventions: Patients received three activated platelet-rich plasma (intervention group) or hyaluronic acid (controls) intra-articular injections at 4-week intervals. Main measures: Main outcome measure was proportion of patients with >1 grade improvement at six months from last injection, as assessed by a radiologist blind to study group. Patients were evaluated over time clinically and with functional scales (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Lysholm, Tegner, American Knee Society Score (AKSS), Lequesne, visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain). Results: Overall, 30 patients were randomized to intervention and 28 to control group. For primary outcome, 28 patients (29 knees) in the intervention and 22 (25 knees) in the control group were available. Patients with at least 1 grade improvement at repeat MRI were 14 (48.3%) in the intervention and 2 (8%) in the control group (P < 0.003). Improvement in symptoms and functional scales was consistently higher in the intervention group. No side-effects were observed in either group. Conclusion: Activated platelet-rich plasma reduces articular damage as evident at MRI, as soon as six months after treatment; it reduces pain and improves patient's function and overall quality of life.


Enterprise Modeling has emerged in an attempt to take a more holistic view of organizations and today it is widely used to describe all activities of modeling any pertinent aspect of an organization's structure and operation in order to improve or reposition selected parts of the organization. Over the last decade, typical applications of Enterprise Modeling were seen in the fields of Business Process Reengineering, the selection and development of Information Systems and in Knowledge Management. Many methods for Enterprise Modeling have emerged, each for a different purpose. Unfortunately organizations, undertaking Enterprise Modeling projects, often fail in achieving the desired objectives or succeed with varying degrees of success. This happens especially when Enterprise Modeling is used for the conceptual design of information systems and can be the result of both the selection of an appropriate modeling method and the communication gap between end users and information systems specialists. In fact, the selection of the right modeling method is not straightforward and could mislead the analysis of business processes, if an inappropriate method is selected. The main objectives of this research are to present guidelines for the selection of the right modeling method, to propose a structured methodology for Enterprise Modeling based on the combined use of the IDEF0 technique and the Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) and to test the methodology in a real case study. The proposed methodology is an innovative, intuitive and powerful approach to understanding complex interactions, whilst facilitating the management of change and creating a shared vision of business processes. The methodology was tested in a real case study where the entire operation of an organization were modeled and models were used for the definition of functional requirements of a web based collaborative working software tool. The case study was conducted in a British organization, involved in the construction supply chain as a manufacturer and installer of cladding and facade elements. By adopting this methodology, the internal interactions between all the organization's departments (commercial, sales and estimation, design, procurement, manufacturing and project management) and external interactions with external stakeholders (client, architect and site) were modeled. These models were then used to capturing and defining a clear set of functional requirements for the collaborative software, which were communicated to the system developer. Future applications of the methodology are in Business Process Reengineering of companies migrating from a departmentalized arrangement to process based arrangement.


To assess the maximum possible impact of further government regulation of asbestos exposure, projections were made of the use of asbestos in nine product categories for the years 1985-2000. A life table risk assessment model was then developed to estimate the excess cases of cancer and lost person-years of life likely to occur among those occupationally and nonoccupationally exposed to the nine asbestos product categories manufactured in 1985-2000. These estimates were made under the assumption that government regulation remains at its 1985 level. Use of asbestos in the nine product categories was predicted to decline in all cases except for friction products. The risk assessment results show that, although the cancer risks from future exposure to asbestos are significantly less than those from past exposures, in the absence of more stringent regulations, a health risk remains.


Variation in pelvic morphology has a complex genetic basis and its patterning and specification is governed by conserved developmental pathways. Whether the mechanisms underlying the differentiation and specification of the pelvis also produce the morphological covariation on which natural selection may act, is still an open question in evolutionary developmental biology. We use high-resolution quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping in the F34 generation of an advanced intercross experiment (LG,SM-G34 ) to characterize the genetic architecture of the mouse pelvis. We test the prediction that genomic features linked to developmental patterning and differentiation of the hind limb and pelvis and the regulation of chondrogenesis are overrepresented in QTL. We find 31 single QTL trait associations at the genome- or chromosome-wise significance level coalescing to 27 pleiotropic loci. We recover further QTL at a more relaxed significance threshold replicating locations found in a previous experiment in an earlier generation of the same population. QTL were more likely than chance to harbor Pitx1 and Sox9 Class II chromatin immunoprecipitation-seq features active during development of skeletal features. There was weak or no support for the enrichment of seven more categories of developmental features drawn from the literature. Our results suggest that genotypic variation is channeled through a subset of developmental processes involved in the generation of phenotypic variation in the pelvis. This finding indicates that the evolvability of complex traits may be subject to biases not evident from patterns of covariance among morphological features or developmental patterning when either is considered in isolation.


An underwater shock simulator has been developed for the underwater shock loading of materials and test structures within the laboratory. The tube is struck at one end by a steel projectile, with the test structure placed at the opposite end of the tube. Realistic exponentially decaying pressure pulses are generated in the water with peak pressures in the range 15–70 MPa and decay times ranging from 0.1 to 1.5 ms. The peak pressure and the pulse duration are independently adjusted by varying the projectile velocity and mass, respectively. The underwater shock simulator is used to investigate the one-dimensional fluid–structure interaction of sandwich plates with steel face sheets and an aluminium foam core. The degree of core compression is measured as a function of both the underwater shock impulse and the Taylor fluid–structure interaction parameter. Fully coupled finite element simulations agree well with the measurements while decoupling the fluid–structure interaction phase from the core compression phase within the finite element analysis leads to an under-prediction of the degree of core compression.


Although silicon is the dominant semiconductor today, lightemitting devices are currently based on compound semiconductorsdue to their direct band-gap, which promotes fast radiativerecombination. However, in nanometer-size silicon structures,carrier confinement enhances the radiative recombination,while, at the same time, suppresses diffusion to non-radiativerecombination centra, resulting in a significant increase inlight emission efficiency. Moreover, the band-gap is wideningas the crystal size is reduced (quantum confinement), enablinglight emission in the visible range. In this work, twodifferent approaches to manufacture a light emitting diode(LED) in silicon have been investigated. The first type ofsilicon LED's is based on porous silicon (PSi) and manufacturedby electrochemical etching of a previously formed pn diodestructure. After optimizing the etching process, PSi LED's wereproduced with an external quantum efficiency of ~0.2% underpulsed excitation, more than an order of magnitude higher thanpreviously reported. Tunability of the emission wavelength inthe range 1.6-2eV was demonstrated by varying the etchingparameters. The EL wavelength is determined by the band-gap ofthe nanocrystals, i. e. their size, as evidenced by a lowerthreshold for longer EL wavelengths, due to lower barriers forinjection into larger crystallites. The EL decay after the biaspulse follows a stretched exponential shape, in agreement witha model involving exciton migration in partially interconnectednanocrystals. Under constant bias, the EL and forward currentare decreasing, due to charging, caused by carrier trapping inthe porous network. After the etching the hydrogen passivatedporous silicon surface is being gradually oxidized, resultingin increased barriers, permanent conductivity reduction and ELdegradation. To improve stability, the second LED approach,based on Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO2, was studied. Nanocrystals were formed by theimplantation of Si into thermally grown SiO2and by subsequent annealing at high temperatures(mostly 1100°C). Photoluminescence investigation showedthat luminescence properties are dependent on nanocrystal sizeand similar to those of PSi. However, decay shapes and timeconstants revealed a stronger isolation of the nanocrystalsthan in PSi. For the EL, good current transport properties werenecessary. That required a thin SiO2layer and efficient injection, realized using anin-situ doped poly-Si cap layer. The Si nanocrystal LED's werestable, although the total light intensity was lower than inPSi, as a consequence of a thin active layer.Key words: Electroluminescence, photoluminescence, lightemitting diode, porous materials, nanostructured materials,silicon, etching, anodized layers, ion implantation.


Existing theory for multivariate extreme values focuses upon characterizations of the distributional tails when all components of a random vector, standardized to identical margins, grow at the same rate. In this paper, we consider the effect of allowing the components to grow at different rates, and characterize the link between these marginal growth rates and the multivariate tail probability decay rate. Our approach leads to a whole class of univariate regular variation conditions, in place of the single but multivariate regular variation conditions that underpin the current theories. These conditions are indexed by a homogeneous function and an angular dependence function, which, for asymptotically independent random vectors, mirror the role played by the exponent measure and Pickands' dependence function in classical multivariate extremes. We additionally offer an inferential approach to joint survivor probability estimation. The key feature of our methodology is that extreme set probabilities can be estimated by extrapolating upon rays emanating from the origin when the margins of the variables are exponential. This offers an appreciable improvement over existing techniques where extrapolation in exponential margins is upon lines parallel to the diagonal.


On 30 May 2008, 107 governments participating in a Dublin Diplomatic Conference formally adopted the text of a new Convention on Cluster Munitions banning those that cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The convention is the culmination of what has become known as the Oslo Process - a process similar to that which resulted in the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. The Oslo Process involved like-minded states, in cooperation with global civil society, negotiating a new disarmament treaty outside of the UN's normal structures and processes. This paper describes cluster munitions and the humanitarian impact of their use. It critically assesses Africa's role in what has been described as a new chapter in arms control and disarmament.


Maintaining the levels of nitrogen in agricultural fields to ensure crop yield performance is challenging due to the complex dynamics of nitrogen transformation in soil. Nitrogen is mainly taken up by plant roots in the form of nitrate, but it is considered as an environmental pollutant that threatens human and animal health. Therefore, it is necessary to use adsorbent compounds to retain nitrate in the soil. The effectiveness of two types of biochar produced from rice husk (Br) and populous wood (Bp) and two arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, namely Funneliformis intraradices (Mi) and Funneliformis versiforme (Mv), on nitrate leaching in soil was evaluated. The soil columns planted with corn were filled with an artificial sandy clay loam soil fertigated with urea fertilizer under glasshouse conditions . After nine weeks of growing the plants, a pulse of nitrogen (0.48 g urea per core) was added to the columns. One week after the addition of urea, the shoots of the plants were removed, and the columns immediately flushed with 500 ml of deionized water to leach the soil nitrogen from the columns. The results showed that the shoots' dry-weight increased significantly (p≤ 0.05) in almost all the treatments with the highest in the BrMi treatment when compared to the control (C). The nitrate concentration in the leachate decreased 79% (from 23.2 mg/l in C treatment to 4.2 mg/l in Bp treatment), but the nitrate concentration in the soil solution increased up to 6.7-fold (Bp was the highest), which suggested a high N retention by the biochars used. It was concluded that the application of biochar and mycorrhizal fungi could reduce nitrogen loss through this artificial sandy clay loam soil and may have some implications in environment conservation.


A brute-force approach has been used to address a classic problem in cell biology--how cell growth and the cell division cycle are coordinated so that cells maintain a certain size. Jorgensen et al. (see the Perspective by Sudbery) performed a systematic analysis of the complete set of yeast haploid deletion strains that yielded strains (several thousand) that were either larger or smaller than their normal counterparts. Further genetic analysis revealed a dozen new regulators of Start, the point in the yeast cell cycle at which the cell commits to a new round of cell division. The groups of genes identified point to a key role of nucleolar genes and genes affecting ribosome biogenesis in control of cell size, as well as cell growth. P. Jorgensen, J. L. Nishikawa, B.-J. Breitkreutz, M. Tyers, Systematic identification of pathways that couple cell growth and division in yeast, Science 297, 395-400 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text] P. Sudbery, When Wee meets Whi, Science 297, 351-352 (2002). [Summary] [Full Text]


Abstract In "The Choice Theory of Contracts," we explain contractual freedom and celebrate the plurality of contract types. Here, we reply to critics by refining choice theory and showing how it fits and shapes what we term the "Contract Canon". I. Freedom. (1) Charles Fried challenges our account of Kantian autonomy, but his views, we show, largely converge with choice theory. (2) Nathan Oman argues for a commerce-enhancing account of autonomy. We counter that he arbitrarily slights noncommercial spheres central to human interaction. (3) Yitzhak Benbaji suggests that choice theory's commitment to autonomy is overly perfectionist. Happily, in response to Benbaji, we can cite with approval Charles Fried's point that contract types are "enabling our liberties." II. Choice. (4) Aditi Bagchi criticizes our inattention to impediments to choice. We show how choice theory's commitments to both multiplicity and relational justice ameliorate these impediments. (5) Gregory Klass explores parol evidence to highlight the mechanisms of choice. We substantially concur with his position, and show how such mechanisms can ensure voluntariness, an essential element of choice. (6) Oren Bar-Gill and Clayton Gillette question the institutional capacity of existing legal actors to implement choice theory. Working from the example of cohabitation, we offer a somewhat more optimistic view. III. Contracts. (7) Peter Benson contends our focus on the rational slights the reasonable. Although we did not use this Rawlsian vocabulary, choice theory complies with its strictures — more so than transfer theory. (8) Daniel Markovits and Alan Schwartz claim provocatively that contract theory must: capitulate before pluralism (as they endorse); leverage it; or fall victim to a so-called "embracing" approach (their charge against us). We reject the charge that choice theory is foundationally value-pluralist. Instead, we cabin pluralism and put it to work. (9) The Contract Canon starts on the next big step for choice theory by explaining existing doctrine (rebutting Benson on lack of fit) and helping adjudicate contract practice (countering Markovits and Schwartz on the vices of our pluralism). Each Article in this Issue advances the field; each prompts us to refine choice theory — all steps, we hope, toward a more just and justified law of contract.


Freckles are usually thought of as small, poorly marginated, well-circumscribed, pale brown macules present on sun-exposed skin areas in fair-complexioned individuals. However, freckles also occur in patients who have skin types IV and V, and there is a risk of prolonged depigmentation after treatment with a Q-switched laser emitting wavelengths of 532 nm. Unlike in fair-complexioned patients with light eyes and auburn hair who respond well but relapse in a matter of weeks, patients with skin type V show a permanent and satisfactory response to laser therapy. However, lower energies have to be used to prevent permanent hypopigmentation, which stands out in patients with skin of color. It is advisable to perform test spots on freckles before treating the entire face. After treatment, freckles can become of an ash white color. Test spots can be evaluated after 6 weeks. Sunscreen should be mandatory after the procedure. Additionally, freckles should be differentiated from lentigines by Wood lamp examination, where the superficial freckles get accentuated. Lentigines are treated using wavelengths of 1,064 nm.


Knowing the environmental factors affecting species' distribution is an important basic step in ecologi- cal research. Here, we present a literature review on the environmental factors influencing European badger (Meles meles) distribution and density. According to the published literature, the badger is a highly adaptive species, capa- ble of using different environmental services and adapting to different conditions. However, when studying badger populations across their distribution, a general pattern of preferred environmental characteristics and influencing factors arises. These environmental characteristics may indicate the badger's realised niche and may potentially give an approximation of its fundamental niche. A combination of environmental factors favouring both sett (bur- row) location and food availability appears to drive local badger success: terrain characteristics (both suitable soil type for sett excavation and terrain heterogeneity for visual hiding), wood coverage and earthworm-rich grassland. The presence and density of badgers vary depending on the geographic study area and the relative importance of these specific environmental drivers. We discuss how these insights can assist spatial modelling studies, conserva- tion and management, and future research on habitat suitability and badger density. We stress that more research is needed to understand how each component of the life cycle of badgers is affected by environmental drivers, and what the cumulative effect is on their spatial population dynamics.


Virus genome sequence variants that appear over the course of an outbreak can be exploited to map the trajectory of the virus from one susceptible host to another. While such variants are usually of no functional significance, in some cases they may allow the virus to transmit faster, change disease severity, or confer resistance to antiviral therapies. Since the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 as the cause of COVID-19, the virus has spread around the globe, and thousands of SARS-CoV-2 genomes have been sequenced. The rate of sequence variation among SARS-CoV-2 isolates is modest for an RNA virus but the enormous number of human-to-human transmission events has provided abundant opportunity for selection of sequence variants. Among these, the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein variant, D614G, was not present in the presumptive common ancestor of this zoonotic virus but was first detected in late January in Germany and China. The D614G variant steadily increased in frequency and now constitutes >97% of isolates world-wide, raising the question whether D614G confers a replication advantage to SARS-CoV-2. Structural models predict that D614G would disrupt contacts between the S1 and S2 domains of the Spike protein and cause significant shifts in conformation. Using single-cycle vectors we showed that D614G is three to nine-fold more infectious than the ancestral form on human lung and colon cell lines, as well as on other human cell lines rendered permissive by ectopic expression of human ACE2 and TMPRSS2, or by ACE2 orthologues from pangolin, pig, dog, or cat. Nonetheless, monoclonal antibodies targeting the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein retain full neutralization potency. These results suggest that D614G was selected for increased human-to-human transmission, that it contributed to the rapidity of SARS-CoV-2 spread around the world, and that it does not confer resistance to antiviral therapies targeting the receptor binding domain.


»Menschenrechte und Tierrechte: auf die Unterschiede kommt es an«. This critique of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's important book, Zoopolis, asks in what respect humans and animals categorically differ and to what extent this difference counts in a moral sense. Second, the text explains why it is illegitimate to equate human victims of racial discrimination and murder with tormented and killed animals. Finally, it is demonstrated why the conceptual analogies to animals presented in this book, namely 'co-citizens' as a term for animals that live in companionship with humans, 'denizens' for those animals that cross borders between human and natural living spaces, and 'sovereign nations' for wild animals, have to be interpreted as overstretched analogies. The main thesis is that the promise of the book – to develop a political theory of animals' rights – remains unfulfilled.


This video documents the making of a piece of theatre in education for children. Filmed over a semester, the video offers an account of the complex processes involved in taking an idea for a performance (the play, Shakespeare at Sea, written especially for theatre and drama students at Murdoch University) from the original script phase through to a professional performance.

Writer/director Jenny de Reuck is interviewed about the process she has refined in her theatre in education classes and she offers an analysis of an effective production process with clips from the workshops on dance, circus skills, improvisation and auditions that the students undertake. Running in tandem through the narrative are interviews with the set designer, stage manager, and actors. Each facet is linked to the developing project. The video concludes with a sense of the excitement that builds as a production approaches and the script ideas of the early part of the process are realized in a vibrant performance where costumes, lighting, sets, music and sound are brought together.

Ideal for teachers of drama at all levels (primary, secondary, tertiary), the documentary offers an in-depth but practical look at the various elements required to produce a professional piece of theatre in education with young people for young people.


Regular inspection of tortoise nesting sites along the Murray River in South Australia showed that over 96% of eggs were taken by predators. Endemic predators accounted for less than 3% of this total. Foxes took the rest. Comparison of the age structure of the Emydura species in the Murray and Cooper Creek revealed that the populations were very different. The Murray population of Emydura rnacquarii contained a disproportionately large number of old individuals; this difference was attributed to egg losses. The same was true for Chelodina longicollis. As these old animals die recruitment of juveniles into the population will probably fall even further. As a result tortoise populations in the Murray will decline.


Artificial magnetism in optical frequencies is one of the most intriguing phenomena associated with metamaterials. The Mie resonance of high-index resonators provides an alternative approach to achieving optical magnetism with simple structures. Given the generally moderate refractive index exhibited by available materials at optical frequencies, Mie resonances usually suffer from coupling between the multipole modes, and the corresponding response of the Mie metasurfaces can be analyzed based on the concept of "meta-optics." Here, we show that the optical magnetism in high-index resonators can be significantly enhanced by adding a highly reflective back mirror to the system. To highlight the transformative ability of this approach for improving meta-optics in the linear and nonlinear regimes, two proof-of-concept demonstrations are presented. Theoretical modeling reveals that low-pump power ultrafast nonlinear optics can be realized in periodic Si nanodisk arrays backed with a gold film, a system supporting guided resonance modes. Moreover, based on the enhanced magnetism of individual high-index resonators, a pair of silicon cuboids is demonstrated as a magnetic antenna for directional excitation of surface plasmon waves. The interference-enhanced magnetism of high-index resonators provides a disruptive technology for enabling meta-optics comprising ultracompact, high-speed, and power-efficient photonic devices.


This article traces back the historical origins of migrants' rights and analyses their contemporary features under general international law. The systemic perspective proposed in the present article recalls that migrants' rights are anchored in public international law and reflect its broader evolution.The first part of this article accordingly provides an historical account about the law of state responsibility for injuries committed to aliens. This was a typical question of classical international law which had been crystallised through the notion of international minimum standards at the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The second part demonstrates how this notion has been progressively encapsulated within international human rights law before constituting nowadays the primary source of protection. The last part then focuses on the principle of non-discrimination as the ultimate benchmark of migrants' rights.


Annotation Guidelines for Non-native Arabic Text in the Qatar Arabic Language Bank The Qatar Arabic Language Bank (QALB) is a corpus of naturally written unedited Arabic and its manual edited corrections. QALB has about 1.5 million words of text written and post-edited by native speakers. The corpus was the focus of a shared task on automatic spelling correction in the Arabic Natural Language Processing Workshop that was held in conjunction with 2014 Conference on Empirical Methods for Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) in Doha, with nine research teams from around the world competing. In this poster we discuss some of the challenges of extending QALB to include non-native Arabic text. Our overarching goal is to use QALB data to develop components for automatic detection and correction of language errors that can be used to help Standard Arabic learners (native and non-native) improve the quality of the Arabic text they produce. The QALB annotation guidelines have focused on native speaker text. Learners of Arabic as a second language (L2 speakers) typically have to adapt to a different script and a different vocabulary with new grammatical rules. These factors contribute to the propagation of errors made by L2 speakers that are of different nature than those produced by native speakers (L1 speakers), who are mostly affected by their dialects and levels of education and use of standard Arabic. Our extended L2 guidelines build on our L1 guidelines with a focus on the types of errors usually found in the L2 writing style and how to deal with problematic ambiguous cases. Annotated examples are provided in the guidelines to illustrate the various annotation rules and their exceptions. As with the L1 guidelines, the L2 texts should be corrected with a minimum number of edits that produce semantically coherent (accurate) and grammatically correct (fluent) Arabic. The guidelines also devise a priority order for corrections that prefer less intrusive edits starting with inflection, then cliticization, derivation, preposition correction, word choice correction, and finally word insertion. This project is supported by the National Priority Research Program (NPRP grant 4-1058-1-168) of the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of the Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.


Self-organization of complex morphological patterns from local interactions is a fascinating phenomenon in many natural and artificial systems. In the artificial world, typical examples of such morphogenetic systems are cellular automata. Yet, their mechanisms are often very hard to grasp and so far scientific discoveries of novel patterns have primarily been relying on manual tuning and ad hoc exploratory search. The problem of automated diversity-driven discovery in these systems was recently introduced [26, 61], highlighting that two key ingredients are autonomous exploration and unsupervised representation learning to describe "relevant" degrees of variations in the patterns. In this paper, we motivate the need for what we call Meta-diversity search, arguing that there is not a unique ground truth interesting diversity as it strongly depends on the final observer and its motives. Using a continuous game-of-life system for experiments, we provide empirical evidences that relying on monolithic architectures for the behavioral embedding design tends to bias the final discoveries (both for hand-defined and unsupervisedly-learned features) which are unlikely to be aligned with the interest of a final end-user. To address these issues, we introduce a novel dynamic and modular architecture that enables unsupervised learning of a hierarchy of diverse representations. Combined with intrinsically motivated goal exploration algorithms, we show that this system forms a discovery assistant that can efficiently adapt its diversity search towards preferences of a user using only a very small amount of user feedback.


With increasing focus on online platforms in learning and teaching, it is vital to examine how we can best assess students in the online context. The main rationale driving innovative assessment in MOOCs is the unprecedented scale of class sizes. While it may be logistically challenging for staff to mark/give feedback on the large number of student assignments, peers are plentiful. Assessment and feedback must therefore come either from automated processes, like MCQ quizzes or from other students i.e. peer review (PR).

Our study was based on data from the 6-week MOOC 'Cancer in the 21st Century: The Genomic Revolution' on which there were >7000 students enrolled. Over 200 students took part in a PR task as part of the MOOC. The aim of our research was to investigate the quality of the PRs produced, what factors influence this and the students' experience of the PR process.

Demographic data (age, gender, previous level of education, whether students are currently employed and field of employment) was collected and linked to 79 students who had participated. Peer reviews were compared with staff marking of the written task and the demographic data was analysed in relation to both written task and peer review performance. Qualitative comments were also gathered from various forums and thematic analysis was carried out on these.

Overall, many high quality reviews were generated, and students identified specific benefits to both receiving and giving reviews, including promoting deeper learning. We also found that while several demographic factors may influence both participation in, and quality of initial written task itself, they do not appear to have a marked effect on the quality of the peer review which an individual is able to give.

We will discuss the implications of these results for use of PR in both online and offline environments.


Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that individuals are better at recognizing and discriminating faces of their own race versus other races. The own-race effect has typically been investigated in relation to recognition memory; however, some evidence supports an own-race effect at the level of perceptual encoding in adults. The current study investigated the developmental basis of the own-race effect in White primary students (aged 7-11), secondary students (aged 12-15) and university students. Face stimuli were generated by morphing South Asian and White parent faces together along a linear continuum. In a same/different perceptual discrimination task, participants judged whether the face stimuli (morphs and parent faces) were physically identical to or different from the original parent faces. Results revealed a significant race of face effect for each age group, whereby participants were better at discriminating White relative to Asian faces. A significantly larger own-race effect was observed for the secondary and university students than for primary students. A questionnaire was used to assess other-race social anxiety and contact; however, this self-report measure was not found to be related to the observed own-race effect.


In this article we argue that, in the interests of protecting rights of political free speech, it is of central importance that the distinction between such speech and commercial free speech is maintained. The article combines a clear focus on the commercial speech doctrine as developed (using a categorisation approach) by the US Supreme Court with a review of the proportionality approach used in Canada and the European Union (EU). It was in the US that commercial speech was first protected and the case law there related to this area is both extensive and detailed. That jurisprudence continues to exert a substantial influence internationally. The case law in the EU and Canada is also significant not least because it offers an important alternative mode of reasoning when claims for constitutional protection for commercial speech are advanced These are the two dominant analytical methods deployed, internationally, to address the issue of the constitutional protection of commercial speech. Due to the unfortunate but manifest incoherence of the US commercial speech doctrine, as it has evolved, the US approach should not, now, be followed in Hong Kong. The Canadian and EU alternative approaches, however, offer a more coherent framework for reviewing when, and to what extent, commercial speech may deserve protection. Ultimately we take the view that, in the case of Hong Kong, it makes sense for the courts to develop their own view (drawing on relevant international jurisprudence) on the degree to which commercial speech may attract constitutional protection. Courts elsewhere in Asia (and beyond) should also carefully consider their own best way forward in addressing this important issue.


To design, to study, and to control mixed animals-robots societies is a challenging field of scientific exploration that can bring new frameworks to study individual and collective behaviors in animal and mixed robot-animal societies. In the Chicken Robot project we aim at developing a mobile robot, able to collaborate with a group of chicks and to control certain group behaviors. The first research step is to build formal models of relevant animal behaviors by performing ethological experiments. Hence, one of the principal tasks is to design a setup equipped with appropriate monitoring tools. In this paper, we present a toolset for running chick-robot experiments and analyzing results. It includes an autonomous PoulBot robot and an experimental setup, able to autonomously record experimental video and audio data, to detect displacements of chicks and robots, to detect their calling activity and to provide robots with these data. We also present a visual data analysis system to extract behavioral features of individual chicks using the variational Bayesian Gaussian mixture model classification with a particle filters based prediction of future positions of chicks. We show how these tools are currently used to carry out chick-robot experiments, to collect behavioral data and to extract animal behavioral features that allow us to build behavioral models bound to be implemented in the robot.


Chronic lung infections by the ubiquitous and extremely adaptable opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa correlate with the formation of a biofilm, where bacteria grow in association with an extracellular matrix and display a wide range of changes in gene expression and metabolism. This leads to increased resistance to physical stress and antibiotic therapies, while enhancing cell-to-cell communication. Oxygen diffusion through the complex biofilm structure generates an oxygen concentration gradient, leading to the appearance of anaerobic microenvironments. Ribonucleotide reductases (RNRs) are a family of highly sophisticated enzymes responsible for the synthesis of the deoxyribonucleotides, and they constitute the only de novo pathway for the formation of the building blocks needed for DNA synthesis and repair. P. aeruginosa is one of the few bacteria encoding all three known RNR classes (Ia, II, and III). Class Ia RNRs are oxygen dependent, class II are oxygen independent, and class III are oxygen sensitive. A tight control of RNR activity is essential for anaerobic growth and therefore for biofilm development. In this work we explored the role of the different RNR classes in biofilm formation under aerobic and anaerobic initial conditions and using static and continuous-flow biofilm models. We demonstrated the importance of class II and III RNR for proper cell division in biofilm development and maturation. We also determined that these classes are transcriptionally induced during biofilm formation and under anaerobic conditions. The molecular mechanism of their anaerobic regulation was also studied, finding that the Anr/Dnr system is responsible for class II RNR induction. These data can be integrated with previous knowledge about biofilms in a model where these structures are understood as a set of layers determined by oxygen concentration and contain cells with different RNR expression profiles, bringing us a step closer to the understanding of this complex growth pattern, essential for P. aeruginosa chronic infections.


The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States marked the beginning of the study of our postindustrial information society. Austrian-born economist Fritz Machlup had focused his research on the patent system, but he came to realize that patents were simply one part of a much bigger "knowledge economy." He then expanded the scope of his work to evaluate everything from stationery and typewriters to advertising to presidential addresses--anything that involved the activity of telling anyone anything. The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States then revealed the new and startling shape of the U.S. economy. Machlup's cool appraisal of the data showed that the knowledge industry accounted for nearly 29 percent of the U.S. gross national product, and that 43 percent of the civilian labor force consisted of knowledge transmitters or full-time knowledge receivers. Indeed, the proportion of the labor force involved in the knowledge economy increased from 11 to 32 percent between 1900 and 1959--a monumental shift. Beyond documenting this revolution, Machlup founded the wholly new field of information economics. The transformation to a knowledge economy has resonated throughout the rest of the century, especially with the rise of the Internet. As two recent observers noted, "Information goods--from movies and music to software code and stock quotes--have supplanted industrial goods as the key drivers of world markets." Continued study of this change and its effects is testament to Fritz Machlup's pioneering work.