Abstract Context. The reintroduction of dingoes into sheep-grazing areas south-east of the dingo barrier fence has been suggested as a mechanism to suppress fox and feral-cat impacts. Using the Western Division of New South Wales as a case study, Dickman et al. (2009) recently assessed the risk of fox and cat predation to extant threatened species and concluded that reintroducing dingoes into the area would have positive effects for most of the threatened vertebrates there, aiding their recovery through trophic cascade effects. However, they did not formally assess the risk of dingo predation to the same threatened species. Aims. To assess the risk of dingo predation to the extant and locally extinct threatened vertebrates of western New South Wales using methods amenable to comparison with Dickman et al. (2009). Methods. The predation-risk assessment method used in Dickman et al. (2009) for foxes and cats was applied here to dingoes, with minor modification to accommodate the dietary differences of dingoes. This method is based on six independent biological attributes, primarily reflective of potential vulnerability characteristics of the prey. Individual-attribute scores were used to derive an overall risk score. Key results. Up to 75 (94%) of the 80 extant species were predicted to be at risk of dingo predation (71% at high risk) regardless of any effect dingoes might have on foxes or cats. Up to 17 of the 21 (81%) locally extinct species were predicted to be at high risk of dingo predation using this approach. The re-establishment of even low-density dingo populations may have negative effects on at least 22% of extant threatened vertebrates. Conclusions. The generic risk-assessment method was insensitive, and experienced difficulty in describing the true nature of canid predation risk. Despite this weakness, however, it is clear that several threatened vertebrates are susceptible to dingo predation. Prior to the re-establishment of dingoes, we recommend that dingo predation risks to all vertebrates (threatened or otherwise) be assessed using more sensitive and descriptive techniques, and we strongly caution against the positive management of dingoes under current ecological conditions. Implications. The results of this study imply that dingoes present similar levels of direct risk to threatened species as foxes and feral cats, and dingo predation of threatened species should be formally considered in any proposal encouraging dingo populations in western New South Wales.


This paper examines John Berryman's Dream Songs from a psychoanalytic perspective. The paper formulates a means of discussing three factors that impinge on Henry's construction of himself: the heteroglossic nature of thought one's relationship to power and one's relationship to the metaphysical. Though other major mid-century "confessional" poets (such as Bishop and Lowell) had developed ways of interiorizing the modernist poetics of Eliot, Williams and Pound, the main lens through which the paper examines the interiorizing poetics of the Dream Songs is Shakespeare's tragic period, which Berryman had studied closely his entire career. Berryman found in Shakespeare's tragedies not only a means of dramatizing one's relationship to power and to God, but also the use of dramatic dialogue to represent an individual mind. keywords: Shakespeare, Berryman, Dream Songs, suicide, fratricide, tyranny, oppression, heteroglossia, religion url: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/2008_peters01.shtml [Delmore] Schwartz once asked me why it was that all my Shakespearean study had never showed [sic] up anywhere in my poetry, and I couldn't answer the question. . . . I seem to have been sort of untouched by Shakespeare, although I have had him in my mind since I was twenty years old. -John Berryman (Stitt) Berryman's remarks notwithstanding, the influence of Shakespeare can be found on almost every page of The Dream Songs. In the conceptualization of Henry's world, in the poems' thematic preoccupations, and in the formation of Henry's thought, the song sequence owes as much a debt to Shakespeare's tragic period as to any other poetry whose influence Berryman has acknowledged. Shakespeare understood theater as a kind of dream, and Berryman understood dreaming as a kind of theater. And both poets understood that in dreaming and playing, anything can be represented as long as it is properly contained. Both dreamwork and plays "constitute strategies of psychological defense, defending...against the very fantasies they represent" (Fineman 73). Henry's dreams are very much attempts to represent yet contain unspeakable fantasies. And as Joel Fineman has provocatively pointed out, Elizabethan theatrical conventions-the logistical requirements of producing a play on the Elizabethan stage-correlate with three central procedures of such dreamwork: displacement, repression and condensation (Fineman 72-73). In writing the two collections of dream songs-77 Dream Songs and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest-Berryman was faced with the challenge of finding a form and a language that would allow him to dramatize Henry's conflict from within Henry. Throughout the songs Henry, like Hamlet, searches for the solutions to questions about whether the world and his own soul is sacred or corrupt. How could his father have died and left behind his son to this teeming and seedy world? Unable to reconcile the trauma, Henry suffers a disintegration of the self that is partially willed and welcomed by his desire to end his own life. Other poets of the so-called "confessional" school (to which critics have given Berryman an honorary enrollment) might have been describing trauma and loss and commenting on the effects of it, but their poetics were essentially those inherited from the modernists. The content had turned inward, but the poetics had not. To meet this challenge, Berryman turned to Shakespeare, whose work he had studied intimately his entire adult life-his friend Elizabeth Bettman once said that Berryman "identified personally with the period of Shakespeare's tragedies" and that he tried to "recapture" Shakespeare's experience "by trying to relive it" (Berryman Shakespeare xxxv). From Shakespeare, Berryman found a means of dramatizing a character's inner turmoil through interior dialogue-Henry is made up of multiple voices, some in conflict and some in accord. And in Cassius's and Hamlet's conflation of fratricide with suicide, Berryman found a means of containing Henry's central trauma, the suicide of his father, within a cycle of agonistic violence to which Henry would be heir and avenger. …


Proportional hazards models are used to test hypotheses about the effect of women's prior childbearing on the probability of having a birth in remarriage and to analyze the effects of other factors. Results indicate that the number of children at the time of remarriage has no effect on childbearing probabilities, but the age of the youngest child has a significant effect. These findings support the view that having a child is important to confirm the marriage, but that individual and family life course factors also affect the decision to have a child in a remarriage.


The objective of this study is to evaluate the risk associated with major agricultural commodity yields in the United States. We are particularly concerned with the nonstationary nature of the yield distribution, which arises primarily as a result of technological progress and changing environmental conditions over time. In contrast to common two-stage methods, we propose an alternative parametric model that allows the moments of yield distributions to change with time. Several model selection techniques suggest the proposed time-varying model outperforms more conventional models in terms of in-sample goodness-of-fit, out-of-sample predictive power, and the prediction accuracy of insurance premium rates.


E-commerce is one of the most dynamic and important sectors of the economy as well as one of the main factors leading to greater competitiveness. The dynamic development of e-commerce is driven by rapidly expanding Internet access, but also by growing mobility and popularity of portable devices, via which customers order goods and services at a convenient time and place more and more frequently. They do not only order things, but, more and more often, everyday products to which they want to have very fast access. If products do not meet their expectations, they want to return them. Returns in e-commerce should be seamless and leave a good experience. Thanks to that, they could add some new value for customers. If online sellers take returns seriously, they can gain a competitive advantage in the form of greater customer satisfaction and loyalty. The subject of value for customers in e-commerce is a relatively new research area (Francis et al., 2014). Most of the studies conducted so far have focused on customer-seller relations, excluding the role and participation of other entities involved in the process of value creation for the customer (Bakker et al., 2008). The first aim of the article is to present the results of research on value for customers in e-commerce returns from the different perspectives of: customers, online sellers, suppliers and complementors. The second objective is to determine the impact of returns on customer satisfaction and loyalty and, consequently, on consumer spending and business performance. The research evaluated the significance of factors evoked by different entities that create value for the customer, using empirical research, on a sample of 800 respondents.


This paper analyses exchange rate control measures adopted in Italy and Bulgaria during the interwar period. The first two sections provide a detailed account of the institutional and economic framework in which these measures were enforced and interpret them utilizing statistical data. In the third section it suggests a theoretical interpretation of exchange control and clearing agreements stressing that these policies were a serious interference in market mechanisms. A further point is that exchange control introduced and practiced in Italy and Bulgaria was an eloquent example of how serious the balance of payments constraint was at that time and how difficult it was to circumvent it. In the last section it derives some lessons for today's Italian and Bulgarian economies.


Ethiopia is one of 30-high burden multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) countries globally. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of patients with MDR-TB and to investigate risk factors for MDR-TB relative to having drug-susceptible tuberculosis (TB), in northwest Ethiopia. A hospital-based, unmatched case-control study was conducted. Cases were all MDR-TB patients (i.e., resistant to at least rifampicin and isoniazid) who were confirmed by culture and drug-susceptibility testing whilst enrolled on treatment at Gondar University Hospital. Controls were all drug-susceptible tuberculosis (DS-TB) patients who were confirmed by Gene Xpert MTB/RIF at Gondar University Hospital. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were used for comparisons, and odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed to measure the strength of association between the dependent and independent variables. A total of 452 patients (242 MDR-TB and 210 DS-TB) were included in this study. The mean age of the study participants was 33 years (SD ± 14 years). Approximately one-fifth (78, 17%) of all study participants were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive; 21% (51) of cases and 13% (27) of controls. Risk factors associated with MDR-TB were a history of previous TB treatment (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR): 83.8; 95% CI: 40.7, 172.5), low educational status (AOR: 5.32; 95% CI: 1.43, 19.81); and ages less than 20 years (AOR: 9.01; 95% CI: 2.30, 35.25) and 21-30 years (AOR: 2.61; 95% CI: 1.02, 6.64). HIV infection was also significantly associated with MDR-TB among new TB patients (AOR: 5.55; 95% CI: 1.17, 26.20). This study shows that clinical and demographic features can be used to indicate higher risks of drug resistance in this setting.


We determine a joint link activation and routing policy that maximizes the stable throughput region of time-varying wireless ad-hoc networks with multiple commodities. In practice, the state of the channel process from the time it is observed till the time a transmission actually takes place can be significantly different. With this in mind, we introduce a stationary policy that takes scheduling and routing decisions based on a possibly inaccurate estimate of the true channel state. We show optimality of this policy within a broad class of link activation processes under certain mild conditions. In particular, processes in this class may be induced almost by any policy, possibly non-stationary, even anticipative and aware of the entire sample paths of the arrival, estimated and true channel processes, provided that it has no knowledge on the current true channel state, besides that available through its estimate.


Atomic force microscopy was used to compare the structures of dried, torus-bearing pit membranes from four woody species, three angiosperms and one gymnosperm. Tori of Osmanthus armatus are bipartite consisting of a pustular zone overlying parallel sets of microfibrils that form a peripheral corona. Microfibrils of the corona form radial spokes as they traverse the margo. Margo microfibrils are loosely packed thus facilitating passage of water molecules. The pustular layer is removed by acidified sodium chlorite. Tori of Cercocarpus montanus also have a pustular surface, but lack a corona. Tori of Pinus taeda have a finely granular to amorphous torus matrix. Ulmus alata tori have microfibrils traversing the surface. The atomic force microscope proves itself a useful tool for high resolution study of pit membranes with only minimal specimen preparation.


Patterns of carbon integration in aclonal species are poorly understood in spite of their potential to influence individual fitness. To provide more information about these patterns, we performed a defoliation experiment with P. aristata. We examined, at the metameric level, the reproductive responses to the removal of the major carbon sources within metamers. Bracts on marked reproductive spikes and leaves subtending these spikes were removed at three stages of reproductive maturity: spike elongation, flowering, and fruiting. Spike dry weight and length, capsule number, seeds per capsule, and seed weight were measured. We tested the hypothesis that seed weight would respond least to defoliation. We also performed a complementary 14 C translocation experiment to measure the amount of radioactive carbon moving into the marked spikes from outside the metamer. Defoliation depressed all components of reproduction within marked spikes, and little 14 C was translocated from outside the metamer into the reproductive spikes, even those that were defoliated. Both results support the view that reproductive metamers in this species are largely autonomous with respect to their carbon budget. Defoliation during spike elongation most depressed reproduction, and bract removal depressed reproduction more than did leaf removal. The data suggest that bracts compensate for leaf removal by increasing their photosynthetic rate; however, the ability to compensate differs among plant populations. Of all the reproductive components, seed weight was least affected by defoliation. The data show, however, that the time of defoliation relative to reproductive development influences which reproductive components are affected.


The present study describes clinical, virological, histopathological, immunohistochemical and electron microscopic findings of pox infection encountered in a quail flock. Lesions consisted of single or multiple nodules with a crust in variable size of gray to yellow or dark brown discoloration on the comb, eyelids, and the other poorly feathered areas of the body. Histopathological changes consisted of hyperplastic epithelium overlying, with ballooning degeneration of keratinocytes, many of which had eosinophilic intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies (Bollinger bodies), and heterophilic infiltrations admixed with mononuclear cells extending into dermis. Avipoxvirus infection was confirmed by positive immunostaining in the cytoplasm of affected cells for poxvirus antigen, excluded no immunostaining of inclusion bodies, using streptavidin-biotin peroxidase complex method and by demonstration of brick- shaped virus particles with a central core using direct electron microscopy. Typical thickness of chorio-allantoic membranes (CAMs) infected with virus, compared with controls, was observed, and the harvested virus on CAMs was detected as positive against known fowlpox virus using gel diffusion test.


OBJECTIVE: Recent reports have linked calcium channel blockers (CCBs) with an increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We sought to determine to what extent physicians relinquished CCBs following these adverse reports and if there were differences in the use of CCBs and other AMI therapies across 3 levels of specialist involvement: generalist attendings, collaborative care (generalist with cardiologist consultation), and cardiologist attendings.DESIGN: We measured use of CCBs during hospitalization for AMI before (1992–1993) and after (1995–1996) the adverse CCB reports, controlling for hospital-, physician-, and patient-level variables. We also examined use of effective medications (aspirin, β-blockers, thrombolytic therapy) and ineffective AMI treatments (lidocaine).SETTING: Thirty-seven community-based hospitals in Minnesota.PATIENTS: Population-based sample of 5,347 patients admitted with AMI.MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was prescription of a CCB at the time of discharge from hospital. Secondary outcomes included use of other effective and ineffective AMI therapies during hospitalization and at discharge.MAIN RESULTS: Compared with cardiologists, generalist attendings were less likely to use aspirin (37% vs 68%; adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.58; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.42 to 0.80) and thrombolytics (29% vs 64%; adjusted OR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.13 to 0.25), but not β-blockers (20% vs 46%; adjusted OR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.66 to 1.31). From 1992-1993 to 1995-1996, the use of CCBs in patients with AMI decreased from 24% to 10%, the net result of physicians starting CCBs less often and discontinuing them more often. In multivariate models, the odds of CCB relinquishment after the adverse reports (adjusted OR, 0.33; 95% CI, 0.27 to 0.39) were independent of, and not modified by, the involvement of a cardiologist.CONCLUSIONS: Compared with cardiologists, generalist physicians were less likely to adopt some effective AMI therapies, particularly those associated with risk such as thrombolytic therapy. However, generalists were as likely as cardiologists to relinquish CCBs after the adverse reports. This pattern of practice may be the generalist physicians' response to an expanding, but increasingly risky and uncertain, pharmacopoeia.


Much of America's promise is predicated on the existence of economic mobility—the idea that people are not limited or defined by where they start, but can move up the economic ladder based on their efforts and accomplishments. Family income mobility—changes in individual families' real incomes over time—is one indicator of the degree to which the eventual economic wellbeing of any family is tethered to its starting point. In the United States, family income inequality has risen from year to year since the mid-1970s, raising questions about whether long-term income is also increasingly unequally distributed; changes over time in mobility, which can offset or amplify the cross-sectional increase in inequality, determine the degree to which the inequality of longer-term income has risen in parallel. ; Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a number of mobility concepts and measures drawn from the literature, we examine mobility levels and trends for U.S. working-age families, overall and by race, during the time span 1967–2004. By most measures, we find that mobility is lower in more recent periods (the 1990s into the early 2000s) than in earlier periods (the 1970s). Most notably, mobility of families starting near the bottom has worsened over time. However, in recent years, the down-trend in mobility is more or less pronounced (or even non-existent) depending on the measure, although a decrease in the frequency with which panel data on family incomes are gathered makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions. Measured relative to the overall distribution or in absolute terms, black families exhibit substantially less mobility than whites in all periods; their mobility decreased between the 1970s and the 1990s, but no more than that of white families, although they lost ground in terms of relative income. ; Taken together, this evidence suggests that over the 1967-to-2004 time span, a low-income family's probability of moving up decreased, families' later year incomes increasingly depended on their starting place, and the distribution of families' lifetime incomes became less equal.


Since the introduction of the Apriori algorithm a decade ago, the problem of mining patterns is becoming a very active research area, and efficient techniques have been widely applied to the problems either in industry or science. Currently, the data mining community is focusing on new problems such as: mining new kinds of patterns, mining patterns under constraints, considering new kinds of complex data, and real-world applications of these concepts. Data Mining Patterns: New Methods and Applications provides an overall view of the recent solutions for mining, and also explores new kinds of patterns. This book offers theoretical frameworks and presents challenges and their possible solutions concerning pattern extractions, emphasizing both research techniques and real-world applications. Data Mining Patterns: New Methods and Applications portrays research applications in data models, techniques and methodologies for mining patterns, multi-relational and multidimensional pattern mining, fuzzy data mining, data streaming, incremental mining, and many other topics.


Background/Aims: Anthocyanins are plant-derived dietary components that are highly abundant, for example, in bilberries. We have previously demonstrated that anthocyanins exert anti-inflammatory properties in mouse colitis models and ameliorate disease activity in ulcerative colitis patients. Here, we studied the molecular mechanisms through which anthocyanin-containing bilberry extract (BE) exerts anti-inflammatory effects in human monocytic THP-1 cells. Methods: THP-1 cells were pre-incubated with BE 20 min prior to TNF-a or IFN-γ (100 ng/ml each) stimulation. Signalling protein activation was studied by Western blotting, mRNA expression by quantitative PCR and cytokine secretion by ELISA. Results: IFN-γ-induced phosphorylation of STAT1 and STAT3 was significantly reduced by BE co-treatment. Consequently, levels of mRNA expression and/or cytokine secretion of MCP-1, IL-6, TNF-a, ICAM-1, and T-bet were lower with BE co-treatment. In contrast, BE enhanced TNF-a-mediated p65-NF-γB phosphorylation but reduced ERK1/2 phosphorylation. BE co-treatment further increased TNF-a-induced mRNA expression and secretion of NF-γB target genes, such as IL-6, IL-8, and MCP-1, while mRNA levels of ICAM-1 were reduced. Conclusions: BE co-treatment reduced IFN-γ-induced signal protein activation, pro-inflammatory gene expression, and cytokine secretion, whereas it enhanced TNF-a-induced responses. These findings suggest a distinct role for anthocyanins in modulating inflammatory responses that need to be further studied to fully understand anthocyanin-mediated effects.


Linear systems can be used to adequately model and control an aircraft in either ideal steady-level flight or in ideal hovering flight However, constructing a single unified system capable of adequately modeling or controlling an airplane in steady-level flight and in hovering flight, as well as during the highly nonlinear transitions between the two, requires the use of more complex systems, such as scheduled-linear, nonlinear, or stable adaptive systems. This paper discusses the use of dynamic inversion with real-time neural network adaptation as a means to provide a single adaptive controller capable of controlling a fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system in all three flight phases: steady-level flight, hovering flight, and the transitions between them. Having a single controller that can achieve and transition between steady-level and hovering flight allows utilization of the entire low-speed flight envelope, even beyond stall conditions. This method is applied to the GTEdge, an eight-foot wingspan, fixed-wing unmanned aircraft system that has been fully instrumented for autonomous flight. This paper presents data from actual flight-test experiments in which the airplane transitions from high-speed, steady-level flight into a hovering condition and then back again.


Offshore petroleum platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico provide a unique environ- ment for many reef-associated and pelagic fish species; however, the factors that contribute to increased localized fish abundance remain poorly quantified. All manned platforms possess large floodlights for nighttime operations and these also illuminate the surrounding waters. Two platforms (MC582 and ST151), located off the Louisiana coast, were examined to quantify this artificial light field. A multi-spectral radiometer instrument package was used to record subsurface irradiance along a regularly spaced grid around each platform. Spectral patterns indicated that the predominant source of underwater light near MC582 was the natural gas flare, while floodlights predominated in the water beneath ST151. Irradiance profiles (log10 photosynthetically active radiation) indicated that 10 to 1000 times more light was present near the platforms compared to open water control sites and that light levels decreased with increasing depth. Irradiance values were interpolated to estimate the 3-dimensional underwater light field and volumes were constructed based on published visual thresholds for 3 larval/juvenile fish taxa. Results suggest that platforms provide an enhanced foraging environment for larval, juvenile and adult fishes by providing sufficient light to locate and capture prey, as well as by attracting and concentrating positively phototaxic prey taxa.


Introduction Caries and periodontal disease are problems frequently affecting patients with disabilities. Objective In this study we aim to evaluate the periodontal conditions and the oral hygiene in students with neuropsychomotor disorders enrolled in a rehabilitation center. Method Data collect was based in interview with the responsible and the scholar's clinical exam to register the plaque index and the bleeding index. After the clinical exam were performed professional prophylaxis, oral hygiene orientation and explanation of doubts. Result The sample consisted of 41 students with neuropsychomotor disabilities, with ages among 7 and 14 years, 20 females (48.8%) and 21 males (51.2%) with a mean age of 10.8 years. Most patients had the figure of the mother as primary caregiver (85%). It was observed that 71% of students need help in performing oral hygiene and nearly 40% of caregivers had difficulty doing it, in most of the cases because the patient "did not open his mouth". Almost the totality of the students doesn't use dental floss. It was also found that 87.2% had gingival bleeding and 84.7% had the plaque index greater or equal to 2. Conclusion It was concluded that disabled students included in this study had bad periodontal conditions and poor oral hygiene. It shows the need of preventive programs to guide themselves and the caregivers, seeking for effectiveness of oral hygiene.


Today, individual U.S. retail investors have virtually limitless opportunities to invest their money, with a notable exception: they cannot directly invest in securities of foreign issuers and still be protected under U.S. law. This missing opportunity deprives U.S. investors of the ability to fully diversify their investments and also imposes undue costs and risks upon investors seeking to invest directly overseas. This Article shows that a Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") policy of "mutual recognition" of foreign regulatory regimes that achieve investor protection outcomes comparable to those of the SEC would solve this problem. A foreign issuer or other entity seeking to access U.S. capital markets should be permitted to substitute compliance with its home country's investor protection regulations for compliance with U.S. regulation, as long as it agreed to submit to SEC antifraud jurisdiction in its dealings with U.S. investors. The foreign entity would thereby not have to comply with federal securities law to have access to individual U.S. investors, as is currently the case. Similarly, U.S. entities should be permitted to enter foreign markets without subjecting themselves to a second layer of regulation on top of what the SEC already requires.Under an outcome-based approach to transnational investment, U.S. companies could then opt for foreign regulation and sell securities to U.S. investors as foreign-regulated issuers, as could foreign entities with respect to their home regulator. Allowing firms to choose a regulator from the set of nations with comparable investor protections would intensify the regulatory competition already taking place around the globe, and help to ensure that such competition serves the interests of investors.


I work with clay at the intersection of three defined constructed spaces:
decorative expression, technological triumphs and functional applications. The
manipulation of surfaces leads to decorative expression, and it is only through
understanding the particular behaviors of clay and attention to process that
technological success may be achieved. The functional applications afforded
by the materiality of clay are many and varied: of particular relevance to this
project was the application of clay slip, for its synergies with line, fluidity, and
expressive potential.
Central to the project's aims was the particular technique of fluid pouring
processes as a method of translating the schematics and geometric mapping
systems prevalent in computer aided modes of object design and 3D
modeling programs, into material form.
Methodologies developed from both hand and computer-aided drawing
informed these fluid pouring processes that deposited slip by using layering,
slicing, merging, drawing, depositing, building and exposing architectural
structures. The interpretation and adaption of these methodologies prompted
me to respond and deviate from computer generated drawings as a way of
investigating the dialogue between structure and surface within the field of
ceramics.
A high value was placed on material processes, expression and intuition. This
manifested into the development of a controlled application of clay slips of
differing viscosities to essentially draw an object into form from the ground up,
comparable to the way in which current 3D printers construct form in slices
and layers, or how some organic life forms, coral for example, deposit calcium
as they expand their colony.
The designers, architects, and artists who provide the relevant context for this
research include Andrew Kudless, and Lab Architects, who employ various technologies to enhance object design. Their manufactured surfaces also
evoke qualities of other matter, extending bold aspirations for what is possible
in the constructed sphere. In contrast, ceramic artists Kenji Uranishi and
Rebecca Catterall create objects that are pared back and expose an inner
and outer structure. In diverging from attempts to generate or replicate design
objects, the experiments carried out aimed instead at extending the
vernacular of slip trailing through embracing error as a means of generating
unique form.
The outcome was a series of experimental objects created with clay slip,
which interweaved aspects of digital technology and material processes.
These responses produced this series of speculative forms.


Monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) and fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitors exert preclinical effects indicative of therapeutic potential (i.e., analgesia). However, the extent to which MAGL and FAAH inhibitors produce unwanted effects remains unclear. Here, FAAH and MAGL inhibition was examined separately and together in a Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC; 5.6 mg/kg i.p.) discrimination assay predictive of subjective effects associated with cannabis use, and the relative contribution of N-arachidonoyl ethanolamine (AEA) and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and caudate putamen to those effects was examined. Δ9-THC dose-dependently increased Δ9-THC appropriate responses (ED50 value = 2.8 mg/kg), whereas the FAAH inhibitors PF-3845 [N-3-pyridinyl-4-[[3-[[5-(trifluoromethyl)-2-pyridinyl]oxy]phenyl]methyl]-1-piperidinecarboxamide] and URB597 [(3′-(aminocarbonyl)[1,1′-biphenyl]-3-yl)-cyclohexylcarbamate] or a MAGL inhibitor JZL184 [4-nitrophenyl-4-(dibenzo[d][1,3]dioxol-5-yl(hydroxy)methyl)piperidine-1-carboxylate] alone did not substitute for the Δ9-THC discriminative stimulus. The nonselective FAAH/MAGL inhibitors SA-57 [4-[2-(4-chlorophenyl)ethyl]-1-piperidinecarboxylic acid 2-(methylamino)-2-oxoethyl ester] and JZL195 [4-nitrophenyl 4-(3-phenoxybenzyl)piperazine-1-carboxylate] fully substituted for Δ9-THC with ED50 values equal to 2.4 and 17 mg/kg, respectively. Full substitution for Δ9-THC was also produced by a combination of JZL184 and PF-3845, but not by a combination of JZL184 and URB597 (i.e., 52% maximum). Cannabinoid receptor type 1 antagonist rimonabant attenuated the discriminative stimulus effects of Δ9-THC, SA-57, JZL195, and the combined effects of JZL184 and PF-3845. Full substitution for the Δ9-THC discriminative stimulus occurred only when both 2-AG and AEA were significantly elevated, and the patterns of increased endocannabinoid content were similar among brain regions. Overall, these results suggest that increasing both endogenous 2-AG and AEA produces qualitatively unique effects (i.e., the subjective effects of cannabis) that are not obtained from increasing either 2-AG or AEA separately.


The NETCONF protocol provides mechanisms to manipulate configuration
datastores. However, client applications often need to examine system
information to determine the appropriate configuration requirements.
In addition, common system events such as a change in system
capabilities may impact management applications. Standard mechanisms
are needed to support the monitoring of the managed system supported
by a NETCONF server. This document defines a YANG module for the
monitoring of system information, which allows a NETCONF client to
identify system properties and receive notifications for system
events.


The Smithsonian Institution and the Tlingit community of southeast Alaska have collaborated on several initiatives to 3D digitize important cultural objects for preservation and educational purposes. For some projects, the Smithsonian created 3D replicas of objects repatriated by the National Museum of Natural History to the Tlingit community as sacred objects, objects of cultural patrimony and funerary objects. The Tlingit and Smithsonian recognize that 3D digitization provides a form of security against the loss of cultural objects and allows for reproduction and restoration in various forms. The production of physical replicas also creates the opportunity to further educational goals while the original objects remain in use for ceremony or in seclusion as restricted items. The collaborations between the Smithsonian and the Tlingit illustrate the potential for responsible applications of digital technology to transform museum-indigenous relations in a wide range of areas.


Background: Few studies have investigated whether means accessibility is related to the spatial distribution of suicide. Aims: To examine the hypothesis that indicators of the accessibility to specific suicide methods were associated with method-specific suicide rates in Taipei City, Taiwan. Method: Smoothed standardized mortality ratios for method-specific suicide rates across 432 neighborhoods and their associations with means accessibility indicators were estimated using Bayesian hierarchical models. Results: The proportion of single-person households, indicating the ease of burning charcoal in the home, was associated with charcoal-burning suicide rates (adjusted rate ratio [aRR] = 1.13, 95% credible interval [CrI] = 1.03–1.25). The proportion of households living on the sixth floor or above, indicating easy access to high places, was associated with jumping suicide rates (aRR = 1.16, 95% CrI, 1.04–1.29). Neighborhoods' adjacency to rivers, indicating easy access to water, showed no statistical evidence of an association with drowning suicide rates (aRR = 1.27, 95% CrI = 0.92–1.69). Hanging and overall suicide rates showed no associations with any of these three accessibility indicators. Limitations: This is an ecological study; associations between means accessibility and suicide cannot be directly inferred as causal. Conclusion: The findings have implications for identifying high-risk groups for charcoal-burning suicide (e.g., vulnerable individuals living alone) and preventing jumping suicides by increasing the safety of high buildings.


Due to increased demand of electrical power, the trend of the capacity and voltage rating of power transformers increases with reliable design; especially in large oil-cooled power transformers. Consequently, the use of polymer blended and polymer coated insulations in such transformers are the most recent advances in modern technology. The consequences of the type of solid insulating material, in contact with the streaming oil, on the ECT (electrostatic charging tendency) of oil are the principal aim of this paper. ECT of transformer oil is experimentally investigated using different types of oils and solid insulting materials. Two laboratory analog cycles are used; namely, a closed and an open cycle. In the closed cycle, the investigated factors are the type and polarity of the applied voltage (/spl plusmn/10 kV and 10 kV/sub rms/ at 50 Hz), solid insulating material (polymeric and non-polymeric insulation), and oil type, temperature (20 to 70/spl deg/C) and velocity (1.5 to 3.25 m/s). Good agreement is achieved between the measured data under ac and dc voltages of both the conduction and streaming currents, and the derived formulas. The currents increase exponentially with oil temperature, velocity and applied voltage. All solid dielectrics used show quantitative as well as qualitative changes in oil electrification especially at low temperatures. In the open cycle, both the rotating cylinder speed (430 rpm) and the oil volume are kept constant, and the oil temperature is raised to 120/spl deg/C for different types of oils and solid dielectrics. ECT depends on the oil type and is activated with temperature. Cellulose-based dielectrics give the highest ECT and coating of these dielectrics with epoxy resin enhances the ECT. Different suppression characteristic is obtained using Theophylline in different fresh oils.


A drienne Kennedy's recent play She Talks to Beethoven first appeared in Antaeus in the spring of 1991 and was subsequently included as the first of the Alexander Plays published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1992. Alisa Solomon's observation in the foreword to the Alexander Plays that "Kennedy's plays scare off theatre producers" (xiv) is unfortunately true regarding She Talks. First staged in an unnoticed production by River Arts in Woodstock in 1989, the play received a Kennedydirected student reading at Harvard University in 1989 (Kolin, Kennedy interview)--and thus ends She Talks' brief production history. Sorry to say, the play was not performed at the Kennedy Festival at the Great Lakes Theatre Festival in March 1992, despite the fact that the longest of the Alexander plays--the Ohio State Murders--received an exemplary production directed by Gerald Freedman (Kolin, "Adrienne" 85). In spite of its sparse stage history to date--one hopes for many spirited productions--She Talks to Beethoven is a central play in the Kennedy canon, since it marks a new direction, I believe, for the playwright and her work. She Talks has all the earmarks of earlier Kennedy plays, but this work offers healing consolation instead of the nightmarish world of fragmentation that has characterized Kennedy's surreal theatre in the past. Unique in the Kennedy canon, She Talks assures happy conjugal closure and promotes racial reconciliation. Set in "Accra, Ghana, in 1961, soon after independence" (She Talks 4), the plot deals with the forced separation of Suzanne Alexander, an American writer, from her physician/artist husband David, whom, it is feared, has been kidnapped or driven into hiding to protect his sick wife. As in so many other Kennedy plays, historical personages appear alongside fictional ones. Beethoven talks and travels with Suzanne, Kennedy's heroine. As in other Kennedy plays, such as Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) or The Owl Answers (1965), a festering wound is associated with a decaying whiteness, a horrifying fistula of miscegenation. Suzanne suffers from a wound which results in "part of her arm and shoulder" being "wrapped or bandaged in gauze" (5), and the "color" of this "surgical" wound is deathly "pale white." But the suffering of Kennedy's black heroine/protagonist in She Talks is matched, if not exceeded, by the suffering of the great white composer Beethoven, with whom she communicates throughout the play. The characteristic betrayal and suffering of Kennedy's black women characters are thus shared with a white male. Additionally, the wild hair that marks many of Kennedy's own protagonists, and perhaps reflects her concern about her own personal appearance (Kolin, LeBlanc interview 308), is transferred to the white composer-"The neglect of his person which he exhibited gave him a somewhat wild appearance. His features were strong and prominent; his eye was full of rude energy; his hair, which neither comb nor scissors seemed to have visited for years, overshaded his brow in a quantity and confusion to which only the snakes of Gorgon's head offer a parallel" (8). This description of the white composer, with its emphasis on the gory and the exaggerated, would seem more appropriate to a Kennedy black female. The violence we have come to associate with a Kennedy play--for example, the bloody cleft in Patrice Lamumba's head in Funnyhouse of a Negro or the heinous tortures in A Rat's Mass--also occurs in She Talks, but it is in the background, not foregrounded with bloody props and graphic detail. We only hear about the violence in Beethoven's Vienna or Suzanne's Accra through reportage; it is not represented with gripping horror. For example, Suzanne reads from one of Beethoven's published diaries: "... the war with Napoleon escalated .... the Russians have retreated as far as Saint Polten. Vienna is in great danger of being swept over by marauding Chasseurs" (6), and a little later we hear an account by Barron of events in Vienna before the premiere of Fidelio: "To make matters worse, [Beethoven's] lodging was next to the city wall, and as Napoleon had ordered its destruction, blasts had just been set off under his windows" (11). …


BACKGROUND
Medical economics have significant impact on the entire country. The explosion in surgical techniques has been accompanied by questions regarding actual improvements in outcome and cost-effectiveness, such as the da Vinci(®) Surgical System (dVS) compared with conventional video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS).

OBJECTIVE
To establish a medical fee system for robot-assisted thoracic surgery (RATS), which is a system not yet firmly established in Japan.

METHODS
This study examines the cost benefit performance (CBP) based on medical fees compared with VATS and RATS under the Japanese National Health Insurance System (JNHIS) introduced in 2012.

RESULTS
The projected (but as yet undecided) price in the JNHIS would be insufficient if institutions have less than even 200 dVS cases per year. Only institutions which perform more than 300 dVS operations per year would obtain a positive CBP with the projected JNHIS reimbursement.

CONCLUSION
Thus, under the present conditions, it is necessary to perform at least 300 dVS operations per year in each institution with a dVS system to avoid financial deficit with current robotic surgical management. This may hopefully encourage a downward price revision of the dVS equipment by the manufacture which would result in a decrease in the cost per procedure.


"Red flags"are indicators of potential issues regarding governance failure, collusion or corruption in projects. While some specific red flags can be powerful indicators of issues to be addressed, the hypothesis of this paper is that many proposed red flags are potentially too ubiquitous and randomly distributed to be useful as indicators of significant governance failure. The paper examines project documentation from a small sample of World Bank water and sanitation projects in an attempt to collect data on the presence or absence of 13 commonly accepted red flags. This paper finds that: (i) almost every contract reviewed raised at least one of 13 red flags analyzed; (ii) potentially tainted contracts did not exhibit notably more red flags than control contracts; and (iii) the occurrence of multiple red flags in the same contract was rare enough to suggest that joint occurrence was largely by chance, not as a result of a strongly causal inter-relationship between flags. The ubiquity and apparent randomness of these red flags suggests that their roll-out as a monitoring tool requires additional thought as to interpretation, context and use. The paper examines an alternate tool for uncovering potential problem projects -- supplier concentration. Across a very small sample, there does appear to be a relationship between such concentration and potential problem projects.


Despite the occupation and ensuing war, Iraq has experienced the mergence of a truly pluralistic media landscape after the fall of the Baath regime in 2003. Today, media coverage of domestic affairs is characterized not only by pluralism but also by bias and partiality reflecting strong ties between political actors and media outlets. Accordingly, the Iraqi media are often accused of fueling conflict and deepening the ethno-sectarian divide in society. Based on a qualitative frame analysis of Iraqi news bulletins, this study reveals that Iraqi media outlets provide indeed contesting frames on even the most divisive issues. Only the coverage of the armed war against IS is characterized by a non-pluralistic conformity among Iraqi channels that unequivocally focus on military successes against IS and jointly refrain from any criticism against the varied forces fighting IS in Iraq


This paper develops two arguments for randomizing regulatory approval of private activities: adaptive diversification and deterrence. Adaptive diversification may be appealing when regulatory agencies make approval decisions under uncertainty. At a point in time, diversification enables an agency to limit potential errors. Over time, it generates randomized experiments that enable an agency to learn and improve its decision making; this constitutes adaptive diversification. The deterrence argument arises when an approval process affects private decisions to seek approval for contemplated activities. Randomization enables an agency to control the likelihood of approval. An agency may seek to choose an approval rate that encourages applications for beneficial activities and deters applications for deleterious ones. To study the circumstances in which adaptive diversification and/or deterrence motivate randomized approval, I bring to bear normative public economics and decision theory.


The Charpy V-notch (CVN) impact test is used extensively for determining the toughness of structural materials. Research programs in many technologies concerned with structural integrity perform such testing to obtain Charpy energy vs temperature curves. American Society for Testing and Materials Method E 23 includes rather strict requirements regarding determination and control of specimen test temperature. It specifies minimum soaking times dependent on the use of liquids or gases as the medium for thermally conditioning the specimen. The method also requires that impact of the specimen occur within 5 s removal from the conditioning medium. It does not, however, provide guidance regarding choice of conditioning media. This investigation was primarily conducted to investigate the changes in specimen temperature which occur when water is used for thermal conditioning. A standard CVN impact specimen of low-alloy steel was instrumented with surface-mounted and embedded thermocouples. Dependent on the media used, the specimen was heated or cooled to selected temperatures in the range {minus}100 to 100{degree}C using cold nitrogen gas, heated air, acetone and dry ice, methanol and dry ice, heated oil, or heated water. After temperature stabilization, the specimen was removed from the conditioning medium while the temperatures were recorded four times permore » second from all thermocouples using a data acquisition system and a computer. The results show that evaporative cooling causes significant changes in the specimen temperatures when water is used for conditioning. Conditioning in the other media did not result in such significant changes. The results demonstrate that, even within the guidelines of E 23, significant test temperature changes can occur which may substantially affect the Charpy impact test results if water is used for temperature conditioning. 7 refs., 11 figs.« less


STORM (STochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy), which offers an order of magnitude improvement in resolution, is based on high-precision single-molecule localization of photoswitchable fluorophores. The performance of STORM depends on photophysical properties of photoswitching fluorophores. Conventional fluorescent proteins used in STORM suffer from fast photobleaching, which results in limited number of independent snapshots in live-cell super-resolution imaging. We aim to develop a new STORM fluorophore for virtually no photobleaching. UnaG, a fluorogen-binding protein derived from the Japanese freshwater eel, fluoresces upon binding of non-fluorescent bilirubin, an endogenous metabolite. We discovered photoswitching behavior of UnaG; UnaG fluorescence turns off upon 488-nm illumination. The photoswitching of UnaG can be repeated about hundreds of switching cycle. Most notably, we found that UnaG fluorescence recovers after photobleaching when exogenous bilirubin is added into the imaging buffer solution. We have applied UnaG to STORM imaging of the subcellular ultrastructure.


This paper concerns the soft-in soft-out detection in a coded communication system, where the transmitted symbols are discrete valued, and the exact a posteriori probability (APP) detection often involves prohibitive complexity. By using the properties of Gaussian functions, an approximate approach to the APP detection is devised with the idea that, in the computation of the APP of each symbol, the remaining symbols are distinguished based on their contributions to the APP of the concerned symbol, and the symbols with less contributions are approximated as (continuous) Gaussian variables [hence the name partial Gaussian approximation (PGA)] to reduce the computational complexity. The connection between the PGA detector and the reduced dimension maximum a posteriori detector (RDMAP) is investigated. It is shown that, PGA is equivalent to RDMAP, but it has a complexity much lower than that of RDMAP, i.e., PGA can be regarded as an efficient implementation of RDMAP. In addition, the application of PGA in intersymbol interference (ISI) channel equalization is also investigated. We show that PGA allows further significant complexity reduction by exploiting the circulant structure of the system transfer matrix, which makes PGA very attractive in handling severe ISI channels with large memory length.


We introduce the Marco Polo localization approach, where we apply sound as a tool for gathering range measurements between robots, and use those to solve a range-only simultaneous localization and mapping problem. Range is calculated by correlating two recordings of the same sound, recorded on a pair of robots, after which the resulting time delay estimate is converted to a range measurement. The algorithmic approach we use is a straightforward application of the Bayesian estimation framework. We also present two complementary views on the associated optimization problem that provide insight into the problem and allows one to devise initialization strategies, indispensable in a range-only scenario. We illustrate the approach with both simulated and experimental results.


Many companies in the U.S. are entering the wood pellets market due to the increasing importance of woody biomass utilization for energy purposes. Despite a 200% increase in U.S. production, it is difficult to obtain reliable information from the research community relative to the production costs, requirements, and market trends for wood pellets. Based on comprehensive investigations, a techno-economical model for the determination of production costs for U.S. manufacturers (internal market, with sell strategy based on bagged product) was developed, considering the most important technical and financial factors that affect pellet production. Outcomes from a case-study show that pellet production is profitable for U.S. manufacturers and distributors/retailers, with more revenue margin for retailers. Sensitivity analyses were performed, showing that a pellet plant is especially sensitive to changes to the cost of biomass and labor. In addition, changes in energy and CAPEX also affect the NPV and IRR of the project, but not as significantly as biomass and labor costs. Additional findings indicate that increasing the plant size especially increases CAPEX, with labor being the least increased cost factor; in addition, production factors have to be closely monitored for small-scale producers, due to increases in operational costs.


—Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are a major part of the industrial economies. Their survival and growth has therefore been a prominent issue. Research and development (R&D) enables firms to create new technologies and/or to build on existing technologies obtained through technology transfer. owadays unpredictable environment suggests that many firms seek new ways of conducting their business through some kind of R&D activities to make a profit and stay ahead of the competition. To survive in the global economy SMEs have to improve their products and processes exploiting their intellectual capital in a dynamic network of knowledge-intensive relations inside and outside their borders. SMEs need to focus on core competences for efficiency matters; they need to cooperate with external partners to compensate for other competences and resources. Responding to the increasing decentralization and globalization of work processes, many SMEs have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams. Virtual teams are growing in popularity. By a comprehensive literature review this article following define a virtual teams, SMEs and its characteristics, addressing a sustainable infrastructure for promoting SMEs. Finally conclude that managers of SMEs should invest less in tangible assets, but more in the areas of expanding virtual R&D activities which will directly generate their future competitive advantage. Future research need to elaborate the effect of virtual R&D team working on the performance of SMEs.


The accuracy with which a person recalls the orientation of a human figure or head has been shown to depend systematically on the person's handedness. This study investigated whether memory for the orientation of an inanimate object displays a similar effect. In contrast to previous work investigating memory for depictions encountered over many years, the present work focused on memory for a unique event that engaged considerable attention over a relatively brief period—Comet Hale-Bopp. The results showed that although right-handed and left-handed individuals did not differ in their memory for semantic information concerning the comet, they did differ in their memory for its orientation. Right-handed people were significantly more likely than left-handed people both to recall and to recognize the comet as facing to the left. The results suggest that memory performance may be influenced by patterns of underlying cerebral motor activation.


The change point detection method ( Watkins , L. P. ; Yang , H. J. Phys. Chem. B 2005 , 109 , 617 ) allows the objective identification and isolation of abrupt changes along a data series. Because this method is grounded in statistical tests, it is particularly powerful for probing complex and noisy signals without artificially imposing a kinetics model. The original algorithm, however, has a time complexity of [Formula: see text], where N is the size of the data and is, therefore, limited in its scalability. This paper puts forth a parallelization of change point detection to address these time and memory constraints. This parallelization method was evaluated by applying it to changes in the mean of Gaussian-distributed data and found that time decreases superlinearly with respect to the number of processes (i.e., parallelization with two processes takes less than half of the time of one process). Moreover, there was minimal reduction in detection power. These results suggest that our parallelization algorithm is a viable scheme that can be implemented for other change point detection methods.


Background and Objectives: The Caveolin (CAV1-3) family contains a unique class of membrane integral proteins with cytosolic termini. CAV1 or CAV3 are essential components of the caveolar core complex, a disc-shaped multimeric macromolecular scaffold, which interacts with membrane lipids and proteins. CAV3 was conceptualized as a muscle-specific and CAV1 alternative isoform. Finally, most CAV3 protein interactions were identified under non-endogenous conditions in heterologous overexpression systems. However, recent quantitative analysis by mass spectrometry demonstrated both CAV1 and CAV3 in the human heart. Therefore, we hypothesized that isoform-specific CAV1 and CAV3 protein interactions provide unique subcellular functions. Therefore, we have targeted the CAV3 complex for live-cell proteomic analysis. Moreover, we developed isoform-specific affinity proteomic approaches to compare CAV1 versus CAV3 interactors. As human CAV3 mutations were associated with action potential prolongation in HEK293 cells, we analyzed the functional impact and pathogenic proteomic mechanisms of the CAV3-F97C and CAV3-S141R mutations in gene edited human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived cardiomyocytes.

Methods and Results: In this thesis, an ascorbate peroxidase (APEX2) proximity assay was combined with stable isotope labeling for quantitative CAV3 proximity proteomics. We developed an N-terminally tagged V5-APEX2-CAV3 expression construct for viral transfection of living neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (NRCMs). This assay labels proteins in the proximity of the CAV3 core complex and identified the monocarboxylate transporter (McT1) and the transferrin receptor (TfR1) as novel CAV3 candidate interactors. STED microscopy confirmed the nanometric proximity of McT1 and TfR1 with CAV3 clusters in adult mouse ventricular cardiomyocytes. Affinity proteomics and co-immunoprecipitation of ventricular cardiomyocyte lysates confirmed McT1 and TfR1 as CAV3 interactors, while aquaporin-1 was identified as a novel CAV1 interactor. Importantly, introducing the human mutations in V5-APEX2-CAV3-F97C and V5-APEX2-CAV3-S141R disrupted the proximity of the CAV3 complex with McT1 and TfR1. In addition, V5-APEX2-CAV3-F97C diminished the physiological interactions between essential proteins that constitute the caveolar core complex. CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing was used to generate CAV3 knock-out and CAV3-F97C knock-in human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. CAV3 knock-out led to decreased surface expression of both McT1 and TfR1. Importantly, the human CAV3-F97C reduced McT1 surface expression by 97%, destabilizing proton-coupled lactate export and reducing the extracellular acidification, mitochondrial respiration and ATP production. Quantitative mass spectrometry and STED microscopy confirmed abundant CAV1 expression in mouse ventricular cardiomyocytes. Interestingly, CAV1 clusters were juxta-positioned in proximity to CAV3 clusters in transverse tubules. Immunoblotting of atrial cardiomyocytes revealed distinct α and β CAV1 forms, while ventricular cardiomyocytes expressed only the longer CAV1 α-form.

Conclusion: Using a combination of proximity and affinity proteomics, we identified CAV1 and CAV3 isoform-specific protein interactions in cardiomyocytes. McT1 and TfR1 define a new functional group of CAV3 interacting proteins with immediate relevance for cardiac metabolism. CAV3 surface expression was necessary to stabilize McT1 and TfR1 function in the sarcolemmal membrane. Knock-in of F97C in human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes destabilized McT1 surface expression and lactate-coupled proton export, resulting in depressed mitochondrial respiratory ATP production. These data support a novel pathomechanism for the CAV3-F97C mutation through impaired lactate and proton transport, which may affect mitochondrial function in human cardiomyocytes. Given that lactate is an important energy substrate, the functional stabilization of McT1 provides a novel role of Caveolin3 for cardiac stress adaptation.


The leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Heinz-Christian Strache, has previously proposed that Austria could join the Visegrad Group of nations, which currently consists of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. With the FPO likely to become a junior member of the next Austrian government in coalition with the Austrian People's Party (OVP), is this now a realistic prospect? Paul Schmidt explains why the scenario of Austria joining the Visegrad Group remains unlikely, and why the country will still look first to Berlin and Paris for its approach to Europe, rather than to Warsaw or Budapest.


The glycosylation, the reaction which forms a bond between sugar molecules (the donor and the acceptor), is the central reaction in carbohydrate chemistry. Despite tremendous advances in the past decades, however, the glycosylation reaction remains relatively poorly understood. Especially the formation of 1,2-cis glycosidic linkages remains a significant challenge.

This thesis describes an investigation of the influence of reactivity and selectivity of several classes of carbohydrate donors and –acceptors on the selectivity in glycosylation reactions. Special emphasis was placed on the influence of protecting groups on the donor, and nucleophilicity of the acceptor, two major factors that play a tremendous role in the outcome of a glycosylation reaction.

The obtained knowledge has been applied in the synthesis of complex carbohydrate molecules, native to pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus, of which antibiotic-resistant forms such as MRSA present significant danger in hospitals, and the parasite Schistosoma mansoni, causative agent of the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis. The synthesis of these molecules can play a part in the development of vaccines targeted against these pathogens.


We examine the pairing process of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) down to scales of 20–100 pc using a set of N-body/SPH simulations of binary mergers of disk galaxies with mass ratios of 1:4 and 1:10. Our numerical experiments are designed to represent merger events occurring at various cosmic epochs. The initial conditions of the encounters are consistent with the ΛCDM paradigm of structure formation, and the simulations include the effects of radiative cooling, star formation (SF), and supernovae feedback. We find that the pairing of SMBHs depends sensitively on the amount of baryonic mass preserved in the center of the companion galaxies during the last phases of the merger. In particular, due to the combination of gasdynamics and SF, we find that a pair of SMBHs can form efficiently in 1:10 minor mergers, provided that galaxies are relatively gas-rich (gas fractions of 30% of the disk mass) and that the mergers occur at relatively high redshift (z ∼ 3), when dynamical friction timescales are shorter. Since 1:10 mergers are most common events during the assembly of galaxies, and mergers are more frequent at high redshift when galaxies are also more gas-rich, our results have positive implications for future gravitational wave experiments such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.


Background/Context Recent research has demonstrated the potential for teacher professional development to enhance teacher learning, improve instruction, and increase student achievement. Nevertheless, research examining the relationship between state and local policies and teachers' participation in professional development is sparse. This connection between policy environments and teacher-based outcomes becomes increasingly important as educational reforms place new demands on teachers. Since professional development is a key mechanism to improving teachers' instruction and students' achievement, we address the extent to which state and school policy environments are associated with teachers' participation in content-focused professional development. We consider such policy environments within the context of both mathematics, a high-stakes subject area, and science, currently a low-stakes subject area. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study In describing state policy environments along several dimensions, we seek to discover which types of policies are more or less influential in moving teachers into the types of professional development that research has shown to be most effective for improved teaching and learning. Research Design Using a national sample of high school mathematics and science teachers from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), we conduct a secondary analysis using a three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to predict teachers' level of participation in different types of professional development. We conduct separate analyses for mathematics (a high-stakes subject area) and for science (currently a low-stakes subject area). Findings/Results We find that the policy context at both the school- and state-level is more predictive of teacher participation in effective professional development in a high-stakes subject (mathematics) than a low-stakes subject (science). We also find that the alignment between state standards and assessments is a key attribute of state-level policies that tend to promote teacher participation in content-focused professional development in high-stakes subject areas. Even though state-level policies are important in promoting participation in effective professional development, we find that policy environments are strongest when they are closest to the teacher. Conclusions/Recommendations We conclude that both state- and school-level policy environments are associated with teachers taking high-quality professional development, but these findings are most pronounced in high-stakes subject areas. We also find that policies promoting consistency in the form of alignment between standards and assessments are perhaps the most important type of policies that states can adopt to encourage teachers to participate in effective professional development.


Aims To establish the safety, tolerability and most promising regimen of darexaban (YM150), a novel, oral, direct factor Xa inhibitor, for prevention of ischaemic events in acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Methods In a 26-week, multi-centre, double-blind, randomized, parallel-group study, 1279 patients with recent high-risk non-ST-segment or ST-segment elevation ACS received one of six darexaban regimens: 5 mg b.i.d., 10 mg o.d., 15 mg b.i.d., 30 mg o.d., 30 mg b.i.d., or 60 mg o.d. or placebo, on top of dual antiplatelet treatment. Primary outcome was incidence of major or clinically relevant non-major bleeding events. The main efficacy outcome was a composite of death, stroke, myocardial infarction, systemic thromboembolism, and severe recurrent ischaemia. Results Bleeding rates were numerically higher in all darexaban arms vs. placebo (pooled HR: 2.275; 95% CI: 1.13–4.60, P = 0.022). Using placebo as reference (bleeding rate 3.1%), there was a dose–response relationship (P = 0.009) for increased bleeding with increasing darexaban dose (6.2, 6.5, and 9.3% for 10, 30, and 60 mg daily, respectively), which was statistically significant for 30 mg b.i.d. (P = 0.002). There was no decrease (indeed a numerical increase in the 30 and 60 mg dose arms) in efficacy event rates with darexaban, but the study was underpowered for efficacy. Darexaban showed good tolerability without signs of liver toxicity. Conclusions Darexaban when added to dual antiplatelet therapy after ACS produces an expected dose-related two- to four-fold increase in bleeding, with no other safety concerns but no signal of efficacy. Establishing the potential of low-dose darexaban in preventing major cardiac events after ACS requires a large phase III trial. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00994292


Marine heat flow surveys typically utilize Lister-type heat probes, which allow multi-penetrations to measure both temperature and thermal conductivity in situ. The temperature rise resulting from penetration friction must first be removed in order to obtain the equilibrium temperature and the thermal conductivity of the sediments. However, the time needed to return to the original sediment temperature may be very long. Using high- resolution heat probes, temperatures with resolution of 0.1 mK were obtained within the first few meters below the seafloor off southwestern Taiwan. This research introduces an improved data processing technique that can extrapolate friction-raised temperature to infinite time and obtain equilibrium ambient temperature accurately from a limited amount of high-resolution temperature recordings. The computing technique is to regress the temperature decay function numerically on parameters of ambient temperature, initial temperature rise, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity of the sediment. In order to obtain a better fit between the data and the model as well as a better prediction of the friction raised temperature, we allowed erroneous solutions to parameters for regression. This technique was tested on both synthetic and high-resolution field data to demonstrate accuracy and efficiency. From the field experiment, we estimated that the error between the prediction and the true equilibrium ambient temperatures to be within a few 0.1 mK which is much smaller than a typical resolution, of a few mK in marine heat flow measurement.


Elections and public opinion scholarship has traditionally relied on datasets designed and collected for the specific purpose of measuring individuals' political attitudes and behaviors. The Internet has greatly increased the availability of new non-purposefully or incidentally collected data (ICD), i.e. data that arises from citizen daily interactions on social media platforms, with search engines or civic technology platforms. ICD is now increasingly used in studies of public opinion, as well as to forecast elections and test causal relationships. While this work has shown that ICD can provide a valid basis for inference, it is clear that researchers need to treat such data with considerable caution in order to avoid making false claims. In this chapter we review the range and robustness of current research conducted with ICD and describe the main analytic challenges that researchers face in using ICD. Finally we show how, when properly handled, ICD can yield important new insights into political phenomenon.


In English-speaking countries around the world people celebrate Easter, Valentine's Day, Christmas, and other special days. Some celebrations are new, like Remembrance Day and Mother's Day; others, like the summer solstice, go back thousands of years. What happens on these special days? What do people eat, where do they go, what do they do? Why is there a special day for eating pancakes? Who is the 'guy' that children take onto the streets in November? And where do many people like to spend the shortest night of the year in England? Come on a journey through a year of celebrations, from New Year's Eve to Christmas.


Health promotion has received increasing attention in rehabilitation counseling research. Health promotion research contributes to theory building and provides the foundation for empirically supported interventions that can improve the health-related quality of life and employment outcomes of people with chronic illness and disability. In this article, the authors present their rationale for developing this special issue on health promotion. They highlight some of the exciting new findings reported in the articles contained in this special section as well as some recent health promotion and disability research. The goal of this special issue is to stimulate thinking and discussion about incorporating health promotion strategies in vocational rehabilitation and return-to-work interventions for people with disabilities.


Purpose: The goal of this study was evaluation of the incidence rate of posttraumatic endophthalmitis, its clinical features and probable risk factors in repaired open globe injuries. Methods: In this retrospective case series, surgical and medical records of 600 patients with open globe injury were reviewed. Patients who underwent primary repair (as soon as possible) in Khatam-al-Anbia Eye Hospital, Mashhad, Iran, were included. Traumatic eye injuries were evaluated with respect to place of occurrence, age of patients, time interval between trauma and repair, damaged tissues, incidence of endophthalmitis, and its probable risk factors. Results: Endophthalmitis occurred in 25 patients (4.2%). The mean age of the patients was 23.5 year (SD=20.006). 76% of patients (456 cases) were males and 24% were females. 69.9% of injuries occurred in urban places (419 cases) and 181 cases were occurred in rural areas. Mean interval time between trauma and repair was 30.85 hour (SD=72.187), median was 9.5 hour, and 80.9% of cases repaired within first 24 hours. 32.3% of patients (193 cases) had traumatic cataract, vitreous prolapse occurred in 23.1% (139 cases), and 6.5% of cases (39 patients) had intraocular foreign body (IOFB). Sharp offending object and trauma in right eye were associated with significantly increased risk of endophthalmitis (P=0.009 and P=0.004 respectively), but age (P=0.336), gender (P=0.632), location in which trauma occurred [rural area (P=0.268)], vitreous prolapse (P=0.751) and IOFB (P=0.169) were not associated with statistically significantly increased risk of endophthalmitis. Intravitreous antibiotic had not been injected routinely. Endophthalmitis was more frequent in those who received intravitreal antibiotics, P=0.000. Conclusion: Incidence of endophthalmitis was 4.2%, which is comparable with previous studies. Trauma with sharp objects and right eye were associated with increased risk of endophthalmitis. Despite previous studies IOFB and rural areas did not increase the risk of endophthalmitis, possibly due to vitrectomy in these cases. Probably, because of short time interval between trauma and primary repair in most cases, lag to repair was not a risk factor for development of endophthalmitis. Intravitreous antibiotic was injected only in severely damaged eyes, therefore its prophylactic effect against endophthalmitis could not be evaluated in this study.


ABSTRACT A core set of autophagy proteins is required for gamma interferon (IFN-γ)-mediated clearance of Toxoplasma gondii in the mouse because of their control of several downstream effectors, including immunity-related GTPases (IRGs) and guanylate-binding proteins (GBPs). However, these effectors are absent (i.e., IRGs) from or nonessential (i.e., GBPs) in IFN-γ-activated human cells, raising the question of how these cells control parasite replication. Here, we define a novel role for ubiquitination and recruitment of autophagy adaptors in the strain-specific control of T. gondii replication in IFN-γ-activated human cells. Vacuoles containing susceptible strains of T. gondii became ubiquitinated, recruited the adaptors p62 and NDP52, and were decorated with LC3. Parasites within LC3-positive vacuoles became enclosed in multiple layers of host membranes, resulting in stunting of parasite replication. However, LC3-positive T. gondii-containing vacuoles did not fuse with endosomes and lysosomes, indicating that this process is fundamentally different from xenophagy, a form of autophagy involved in the control of intracellular bacterial pathogens. Genetic knockout of ATG16L or ATG7 reverted the membrane encapsulation and restored parasite replication, indicating that core autophagy proteins involved in LC3 conjugation are important in the control of parasite growth. Despite a role for the core autophagy machinery in this process, upstream activation through Beclin 1 was not sufficient to enhance the ubiquitination of T. gondii-containing vacuoles, suggesting a lack of reliance on canonical autophagy. These findings demonstrate a new mechanism for IFN-γ-dependent control of T. gondii in human cells that depends on ubiquitination and core autophagy proteins that mediate membrane engulfment and restricted growth. IMPORTANCE Autophagy is a process of cellular remodeling that allows the cell to recycle senescent organelles and recapture nutrients. During innate immune responses in the mouse, autophagy is recruited to help target intracellular pathogens and thus eliminate them. However, the antimicrobial mediators that depend on autophagy in the mouse are not conserved in humans, raising the issue of how human cells control intracellular pathogens. Our study defines a new pathway for the control of the ubiquitous intracellular parasite T. gondii in human cells activated by IFN-γ. Recruitment of autophagy adaptors resulted in engulfment of the parasite in multiple membranes and growth impairment. Although susceptible type 2 and 3 stains of T. gondii were captured by this autophagy-dependent pathway, type 1 strains were able to avoid entrapment. Autophagy is a process of cellular remodeling that allows the cell to recycle senescent organelles and recapture nutrients. During innate immune responses in the mouse, autophagy is recruited to help target intracellular pathogens and thus eliminate them. However, the antimicrobial mediators that depend on autophagy in the mouse are not conserved in humans, raising the issue of how human cells control intracellular pathogens. Our study defines a new pathway for the control of the ubiquitous intracellular parasite T. gondii in human cells activated by IFN-γ. Recruitment of autophagy adaptors resulted in engulfment of the parasite in multiple membranes and growth impairment. Although susceptible type 2 and 3 stains of T. gondii were captured by this autophagy-dependent pathway, type 1 strains were able to avoid entrapment.


Like many marine species with meroplanktonic larvae, the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) has a postlarval stage that moves from the oceanic plankton to inshore nurseries only under specific environmental conditions (i.e., at night, in the surface water layer, on the flood tide, and during new moon), presumably to avoid predation or to enhance onshore transport. Using field and mesocosm experiments, we compared predation on planktonic postlarvae swimming at night near the surface and bottom over coastal habitats along typical offshore–inshore transport paths and determined whether predation rates differed between lunar periods (new moon vs. full moon) and with prey density (i.e., predator encounter rates). We also measured predation on transparent (newly settled) and pigmented (nearing metamorphosis) postlarvae sheltering in coral reef, seagrass, and macroalgal habitats during the day. We measured predation on postlarvae swimming near the surface and bottom along typical offshore–inshore transport paths (i.e., coral reefs, coastal lagoon, and bay) by tethering postlarvae to floats that drifted on the nightly flood tide during new moon. To test the hypothesis that new‐moon transport of postlarvae may have evolved as a means to avoid higher predation under the bright full moon, we repeated the pelagic tethering experiments at the reef and in the bay during full moon. Mortality was highest over coral reefs regardless of lunar phase, but it was lower nearshore, especially in the bay near the surface and during new moon. Predation on benthic, recently settled transparent postlarvae and pigmented postlarvae (nearing metamorphosis) was also higher when tethered on the reef as opposed to vegetated habitats in the lagoon and bay. In experimental mesocosms, planktivorous fish were equally efficient at consuming postlarvae under new‐ and full‐moon conditions when postlarval density was high, as it is in the constricted water column over the reefs. However, when postlarvae were less dense, mortality was significantly lower during new moon. Collectively, these results indicate that several behavioral traits exhibited by postlarval spiny lobsters, including inshore migration during the darkest lunar phase, use of surface waters, and settlement in vegetated habitats, reduce their risk of predation, particularly in the shallow bay. No single behavioral strategy is universally advantageous across all coastal habitats, but combined, they are an effective means to reduce predation across heterogeneous environments that postlarvae must transit during recruitment.


The Stroke Minimization algorithm developed at the Princeton High Contrast Imaging Laboratory has proven symmetric dark hole generation using minimal stroke on two deformable mirrors (DM) in series. We extend the concept of minimizing DM actuation to achieve symmetric dark holes in broadband light. This requires simultaneously correcting both amplitude and phase aberrations over the bandwidth. Here we address the relationship of amplitude and phase aberrations with wavelength and the implication for wavefront control and design tolerances. This drives the number of deformable mirrors, their locations in the optical path, and design constraints on the deformable mirrors. Broadband suppression is achieved experimentally by using three wavelengths to define the bandwidth of correction in the optimization problem. This windowed approach to Stroke Minimization makes the optimization in wavelength tractable and allows for estimation only at a single wavelength which reduces the number of exposures required for correction. The output of the estimation algorithm is extended to the higher and lower wavelengths by establishing a functional relationship of the image plane electric field in wavelength. The accuracy of the functional relationship will ultimately bound the achievable bandwidth, therefore as a metric these results are also compared to estimating each wavelength separately.


English adjective comparison is increasingly the focus of corpus linguistic research, but it is much less studied in the variationist framework. These two traditions converge, however, in revealing robust variation between historical inflection ( happier/happiest ) and newer periphrasis ( more/most happy ). However, our understanding of the strategies for comparison comes from written genres. In contrast, very little is known about comparison in vernacular speech. Since periphrastic comparison emerged as a change from above, the lack of spoken evidence proves a critical gap in our knowledge. To address this gap, this paper examines comparison strategies in New Zealand English, drawing on the whole of the Origins of New Zealand English Archive (Gordon et al. 2007). Analysis of 1400 tokens reveals a striking result. Consistent with reports elsewhere, inflection is the preferred mode of comparison. However, consideration by lexical item reveals a system that is not, in fact, variable. Rather, across the history of this variety (speakers born 1851-1982), individual adjectives pattern one way (inflection) or the other (periphrasis); in speech, the form of comparison has consistently been lexically conditioned, and by extension, invariant. This paper explores a number of explanations (e.g. variation is genre-specific or variety-specific, or may only be visible in extremely large corpora), and ultimately concludes that in speech, historical variation resulted in the full 'regularization of a confused situation' (Bauer 1994:60).


The advent of creativity in the Malaysian institutes of higher education has brought significant changes to the role of assessment in higher education today. The impetus leads to major transformations especially in implementing suitable assessment approaches in the curriculum. With this in mind, a study was conducted to explore postgraduate students' perceptions of assessment and its influence on students' creativity. The conceptual framework for the present study was built based on the integration of convergent and divergent thinking (Guilford, 1950) as well as the Bloom's taxonomy (1956) that underpins the assessment approaches towards cultivating creativity. A mixed method research design was used to carry out the research which includes questionnaire surveys, interviews and document analysis. Participants involved a group of final year full-time postgraduate students (n=40) from three different programmes in the Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Shah Alam. Findings revealed that students generally have a positive attitude towards assessment as an integral aspect in the classroom. Students' perception was indicated the highest when it comes to the transparency of assessment (M = 4.114, SD = 0.648). However, students reported that they lack the flexibility when dealing with the preferred assessment. Interestingly, oral presentation is perceived to be one of the best assessment methods that could enhance creative ability, suggesting various ways that presentations could be carried out creatively. Finally, the analysis of documents involving the course information and grading matrix also confirmed the emphasis given to creativity in the existing curriculum. The implications of the study include the need for curriculum development which takes into account some of the best practices across different programmes to be implemented in postgraduate education as well as giving more emphasis on self-assessment and alternative assessment. Also, curriculum negotiation is another important practice that should be considered by the faculty. It is therefore recommended that existing courses be re-evaluated by including more variation to assessment tasks as well as showing appreciation for creative expression given by students. This study could benefit instructional leaders, adult learners and policy makers in deciding the potentials of classroom assessment towards developing creativity in higher education.


We derive variational formulations for thin elastic plates from bulk energies by dimensional reduction. The main feature is to consider a family of problems with internal constraints on normal deformations. Our approach consists of two stages. First we obtain an abstract variational convergence result. Then we study the integral representation of the limit functional.


We introduce a generic structure-from-motion approach based on a previously introduced, highly general imaging model, where cameras are modeled as possibly unconstrained sets of projection rays. This allows to describe most existing camera types (at least for those operating in the visible domain), including pinhole cameras, sensors with radial or more general distortions, catadioptric cameras (central or non-central), etc. We introduce a structure-from-motion approach for this general imaging model, that allows to reconstruct scenes from calibrated images, possibly taken by cameras of different types (cross-camera scenarios). Structure-from-motion is naturally handled via camera independent ray intersection problems, solved via linear or simple polynomial equations. We also propose two approaches for obtaining optimal solutions using bundle adjustment, where camera motion, calibration and 3D point coordinates are refined simultaneously. One is relatively straightforward, minimizing distances between 3D points and projection rays. The other minimizes reprojection error; the general imaging model does not provide analytical expressions for the reprojection error and its derivatives, which are desirable for efficient optimization. To achieve this, we propose to approximate the set of projection rays of a general non-central camera by several clusters of central rays, allowing us to formulate an analytical cost function. % that can be minimized using non-linear iteration. We present results for two cross-camera scenarios -- a pinhole used together with an omnidirectional camera and a stereo system used with an omnidirectional camera. Using ground-truth and 3D reconstruction results from classical techniques, we show that our generic algorithm is simple, general and accurate for extensions to various cross-camera and multi-camera scenarios.


I KNOW WHO I AM: A Caribbean Woman's Identity in Canada Yvonne Bobb-Smith Toronto: CSPI/Women's Press, 2003; 250 pp. In I Know Who I Am: A Caribbean Woman s Identity in Canada Yvonne Bobb-Smith is particularly interested in reminding us that many of us, as immigrants, and particularly as immigrant women, need to rethink how we use the experiences that have brought us from an objectivity of oppression to a subjectivity of change with responsibility. Immigrant women in general, and Caribbean women in particular, are generally constructed either as victims of an oppressive system or as looters of a well-intended and benevolent Canadian state. Yet it is often forgotten that immigrant and Caribbean women refuse to give in to these categorizations by becoming agents of resistance and by building alternative spaces of resistance where they and people "like them" feel at home. Specifically, many of these women have created an alternative women's movement outside white mainstream feminism. BobbSmith's book demonstrates how Caribbean-Canadian women seek to develop their own feminist spaces while at the same time working with men in their community in wider struggles. In order to resolve questions of home, resistance, identity, networking and independence Bobb-Smith uses a couple of different methodologies. In one, she interviews 45 women who emigrated to Canada from the Caribbean, and have been in Canada for more than 25 years, and uses their experiences and her own - to look at how they have constructed their identities in Canada. Using long citations from the women in their own voices, she let us hear how they see themselves, how they have experienced, and what the consequences are of, racism and sexism and how they have resisted. In another, she explores Caribbean women's identity throughout feminist research studies and creative writing. In analysing the writings of Jean Rhys, Joan Riley, Afua Cooper, Mahadi Das, Jamaica Kincaid, Ramabai Espinet, Dionne Brand, and Claire Harris - Caribbean women who are in Diaspora either in Canada, England or The United States - the author discovers what she calls the ethic of independence. This combination of interviews, feminist research and creative writing provides us with an integrative picture of Caribbean women's identity moving out of the victimization and oppression discourse to one of proactive resistance. Through this subjectivity, Bobb-Smith investigates how the 45 women see themselves as subjects and how notions of themselves are constructed as agents of social change. According to Bobb-Smith these notions of themselves are initially shaped at home. …


Originally published by Stevenson, Inc., this practical resource helps nonprofit organizations generate more endowment gifts. This resource provides step-by-step procedures to help build endowments, ideas and approaches to raise needed funds, actionable tips and techniques, and helpful charts, forms, and useful examples. Important topics covered include: * Annual endowment goals * Endowment FAQs * Endowed scholarships community engagement * Marketing endowment opportunities * Donor cultivation * Named gifts * Board member engagement * Exclusive donor clubs * Endowment agreements * Endowment-only campaigns * Methods for determining ask amounts * Employee naming gifts * Bequests * Matching gifts * Endowment ethics policies * Endowment ideas for beginners * Endowment brochures Please note that some content featured in the original version of this title has been removed in this published version due to permissions issues.


Sixty-four surface soil samples taken in the vicinity of Al Ain landfill were analysed for cadmium, chromium, copper, nickel, lead and zinc by inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy. Extraction techniques were used to establish the association of the total concentrations of the six metals in the soil samples with their contents in the exchangeable, carbonate, iron/manganese oxides, and residual fractions. In the investigated soils, the recorded concentrations were as follows: 0.043 mg kg-1 for cadmium, 19.1 mg kg-1 for chromium, 53.3 mg kg-1 for copper, 60 mg kg-1 for nickel, 13.7 mg kg-1 for lead, and 117 mg kg-1 for zinc. Cadmium, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc concentrations in the investigated soil samples reflect the natural background values in shale, whereas copper is slightly enriched. I-geo (geoaccumulation index) values of the metals in the soils under study indicate that they are uncontaminated with cadmium, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc, but contaminated to moderately contaminated with copper. Heavy metal contents in the sediments were found to be significantly influenced by different physico-chemical parameters. The effect of these parameters can be arranged in the following order: clay fraction > carbonate fraction > silt fraction > organic matter fractions. A sequential extraction procedure showed that the total concentrations of the heavy metals are largely bound to the residual phase (retained 71.4% of cadmium, 77.8% of chromium, 75% of copper, 47% of nickel, 62.8% of lead, and 75.8% of zinc). A likely sequence of mobility in the investigated soils is as follows: chromium > lead > nickel > cadmium > zinc > copper.


Advancement of electrocatalysts relies on the construction of both a highly efficient catalytic center and a highly conductive network support. Herein, we prepared a 3D interwoven structure with Pd atoms deposited on homogeneously bound MnO2 nanowires and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) (Pd/MnO2–CNT), allowing the combination of superior catalytic performance of atomic Pd incorporated in the metal oxide and the high conductivity of CNT. Using this nanocomposite, stable bifunctional oxygen reduction/evolution reaction (ORR/OER) was achieved. Pd/MnO2–CNT displayed a large Pd mass activity for ORR, which is two magnitudes higher than that of Pd/CNT and 5-fold higher than that of the state-of-the-art Pd-based electrocatalysts operated in alkaline medium. Application of this composite catalyst in Zn–air batteries generates significantly high efficiency and cycling stability. Experimental and theoretical studies revealed that MnO2 provided stronger electronic metal–support interaction than CNT. Pd single atoms doped in MnO2 work synergistically with the surrounding metal sites to activate molecular oxygen, and display optimized binding strength to reaction intermediates. Our strategy can be generalized to design new single atom electrocatalysts for numerous functionalities.


This article provides a general introduction to the specific challenges facing LGBT elders. In addition to the general burdens of aging, LGBT elders are disadvantaged by a number of LGBT-specific concerns, most notably: the legal fragility of their support systems, high levels of financial insecurity compounded by ineligibility for spousal benefits, and the continued prevalence of anti-LGBT bias on the part of their non-LGBT peers and service providers. Part I outlines the ways in which LGBT elders differ from their non-LGBT peers in terms of demographics and their reliance on "chosen family," as well as some of the particular issues confronting transgender elders. Part II turns to two issues that loom large in the lives of LGBT elders: the closet and the constant threat of anti-LGBT bias. It contends that pre-Stonewall history continues to inform the behavior and beliefs of LGBT elders, and that the prevalence of anti-LGBT bias and violence distorts their view of the aging process. Part III discusses the extent to which LGBT elders can use traditional estate planning tools to safeguard their interests. A brief conclusion summarizes the types of reforms that are necessary to ensure dignity and equity in aging regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. It argues that the limitations of existing planning tools should serve as a powerful reminder that many elder law issues require a wider lens and that the reach of elder law ultimately extends well beyond the finer points of estate planning and the spousal impoverishment rules. Aging in the U.S. is first and foremost a civil rights issue that implicates fundamental issues of justices and fairness. In this regard, the isolation and fear experienced by LGBT elders should strike a universal chord, as should their call for dignity and equity in aging.