Summary Longleaf pine (Pinus palustrisMill.) ecosystems once occupied over 36 million hectares in the southeastern United States' lower coastal plain. These fire-dependent ecosystems dominated a wide range of coastal plain sites, including dry uplands and low, wet flatlands. Today, less than 1.3 million hectares remain, but these ecosystems represent significant components of the Region's cultural heritage, ecological diversity, timber resources, and present essential habitat for many animal and plant communities. Fire was an essential component of the original longleaf pine ecosystems. The landscapes were characterized by open stands of mature longleaf pine with a savanna-like understory that were biologically diverse. Recent improvements in the technology to artificially regenerate longleaf pine has stimulated interest in restoring longleaf pine on many sites. Long-term studies show that the frequent use of fire hastens initiation of height growth, reduces undesirable competing vegetation, and stimulate...


Although religious history has traditionally concerned itself with the transcendent dimension in human life, and social history with the mundane, the latter approach can also be used to illuminate the ways in which religion works itself out on the social plane. In fact, it might be argued that inquiries of this sort should occupy a prominent place on the agenda of any social and religious history of the Jews. Among historians of the Annales school, for whom the study of material life was long considered the backbone of historical inquiry, there has been a discernible move in recent years toward the study of religious life, especially in its popular forms. Whereas, for example, previous volumes in the valuable Johns Hopkins series of "Selections from the Annales" were devoted to such topics as food and drink in history, the one published in 1982 was entitled, significantly, Ritual, Religion and the Sacred.


Background and Aim: Nowadays using herbal medicine is common among people. A large number of patients who take pharmaceuticals also use herbal medicine without knowing anything about the interaction between them. The present study was carried out to determine the effect of consuming garlic before anesthesia on the process of anesthesia with Halothane and Thiopental in male mice. Materials and Methods: In this study 24 mice with the average weight of 30±5 gr were divided into 4 groups (6 in each). Two groups of the animals received 40mg/kg of garlic concentrate intraperitoneally in the morning and in the afternoon for three successive weeks and after a two days' rest one of the groups were injected with halothane and the other one received pentobarbital. Simultaneously, the remaining two groups were injected with physiologic saline intraperitoneally and under the same condition. After anesthesia, four variables namely induction (A), duration (B), recovery (C) and heart rate (D) were assessed. The obtained data was analysed by means of SPSS software (12.0) and statistical t-test; and P (cid:23) 0.05 was taken as the significant level. Results: In the former 2 groups which had been injected with "Halothane" and "Halothane+garlic" there was a significant difference in the variables A (P<0.001), C (P<0.001) and D (P<0.05). In the latter 2 groups injected with "Pentobarbital" and "Pentobarbital + garlic" there was a significant difference in all the four variables (P<0.05). Conclusion: Regarding the findings of this study and applying them to humans, positive and negative effects of simultaneous use of garlic together with anesthetic drugs must be taken into account. Thus, the dose of the drugs must be determined more accurately.


Contemporary research in the field of evolutionary developmental biology, or 'evo-devo', has to date been predominantly devoted to interpreting basic features of animal architecture in molecular genetics terms. Considerably less time has been spent on the exploitation of the wealth of facts and concepts available from traditional disciplines, such as comparative morphology, even though these traditional approaches can continue to offer a fresh insight into evolutionary developmental questions. The Development of Animal Form aims to integrate traditional morphological and contemporary molecular genetic approaches and to deal with post-embryonic development as well. This approach leads to unconventional views on the basic features of animal organization, such as body axes, symmetry, segments, body regions, appendages and related concepts. This book will be of particular interest to graduate students and researchers in evolutionary and developmental biology, as well as to those in related areas of cell biology, genetics and zoology.


New York State's death penalty statute is constitutionally flawed in many respects. It violates the state and federal prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and provides unrestricted prosecutorial discretion to pursue the death penalty. This standardless and unfettered discretion creates the risk of arbitrary or discriminatory application of capital punishment.


Linked Data sets are an ever-growing, invaluable source of information and knowledge. However, the wide adoption of this large amount of interlinked structured data is still held back by some nontrivial obstacles. The one we tackle in this article is the difficulty users have in getting started with their work on Linked Data sources. In fact, querying, and in general dealing with such datasets, requires a deep knowledge about their specific classes, instances and properties. We believe that an entry point that eases the access to such information would significantly reduce the barriers around this technology and foster its promotion. Linked Data Maps is a method for representing RDF graphs as interactive, map-like visualizations, based on our previous work focused on the visual exploration of DBpedia. The approach is extended to deal with a wider range of Linked Data sets, and tested with a user evaluation study on two distinct RDF graphs.


Using conventional coupled-mode theory, a set of coupled-mode equations are formulated for single-helix chiral fiber long-period gratings. A helical-core fiber is analyzed as an example. The analysis is simple in mathematical form and intuitive in physical concept. Based on the analysis, the polarization independence of mode coupling in special fiber gratings is revealed. The transmission characteristics of helical-core fibers are also simulated and discussed.


This article will investigate the ways in which disability, meant both as a
scientific field of enquiry and as a real-life issue our society is called to confront with,
affects tourism and translation not only at the level of practice but also at a theoretical
and methodological level. By assuming disability as a concern for all in everyday life, this
issue takes on an urgency that triggers thought and action as few other social and
cultural topics do nowadays.
Hence, the article will provide a preliminary—and by no means exhaustive—
overview of the historical representation of disability and analyse its impact on both
Tourism and Translation Studies. No empirical case study will be presented to explore
this impact, as the article aims instead to go beyond specific investigations of the
strategies applied to cater for the needs of people with disabilities, which are in fact
flourishing in Tourism and Translation Studies. However salutary this development may
be considered, there is a need to enlarge the spectrum of enquiry beyond the specificity
of case studies, and investigate the complex interplay between practice and theory in
the fields of Disability, Tourism and Translation Studies


The article reviews the progress in the chemistry of the steroids that was published between January and December 2002. The reactions and partial synthesis of estrogens, androgens, pregnanes, cholic acid derivatives, cholestanes and vitamin D analogues are covered. There are 160 references.


Catastrophes or disasters may be defined as natural or man-made events of significant magnitude causing disruption such that survivors feel deprived of normal social help. In American law, catastrophic harm includes the mass of individual losses suffered by individuals, businesses, and entities of all kind, also including environmental harm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), created in 1979, coordinates the response to disasters occurring in the United States while it administers prevention and organizes relief efforts. However, the system does not work top-down, since local and state governments bear the initial responsibility as first respondents. Local or state failure can cause the system not to be reactive enough, explaining the slow response after Hurricane Katrina. Non-desirable risks tend to concentrate in earthquake, flood, or hurricane prone areas, making such risks uninsurable. Significant efforts are made at state and federal level to make catastrophic risk insurable, pooling risks and sometimes creating compensation funds, especially in the case of nuclear and terrorist risks. Rather than disrupting the market, state or federal intervention tend to create proper conditions for a market to exist where none could otherwise prosper, whilst in best cases encouraging disaster mitigation. Given the weakness of the American welfare system by comparison to other developed countries, victims are more prone than elsewhere to look for a tortfeasor and sue. The jury system, the practice of contingent fee and the availability of class actions make American tort law a powerful pro-plaintiff system and tort law has a large impact wherever defendants can be identified. Insured victims tempted to sue are rarely overcompensated. Sophisticated solutions have been devised for the assessment of environmental damage when caused by oil pollution. Sovereign immunity may bar mass tort litigation against the federal government, for instance, for the failed flood control levees in New Orleans, but history proves that the Corps of Engineers made good proposals but had to comply with wrong political decisions.


Of the estimated 12 million refugees in the world, more than 7 million have been confined to camps, effectively "warehoused," in some cases, for 10 years or more. Holding refugees in camps was anathema to the founders of the refugee protection regime. Today, with most refugees encamped in the less developed parts of the world, the humanitarian apparatus has been transformed into a custodial regime for innocent people. Based on rich ethnographic data, Rights in Exile exposes the gap between human rights norms and the mandates of international organisations, on the one hand, and the reality on the ground, on the other. It will be of wide interest to social scientists, and to human rights and international law scholars. Policy makers, donor governments and humanitarian organizations, especially those adopting a "rights-based" approach, will also find it an invaluable resource. But it is the refugees themselves who could benefit the most if these actors absorb its lessons and apply them. Guglielmo Verdirame is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He is also the author of a forthcoming book on the accountability of the United Nations. Barbara Harrell-Bond, Founding director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, has, after retirement, been Visiting Professor at Makerere University and at the American University in Cairo. In 1996, she received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Anthropological Association. She is the author of Imposing Aid (Oxford, 1986).


Background: The precise clinical description of skin lesions observed in some patients with hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) can be extremely difficult. Objective: Establishing a validated glossary of terms allowing the best possible description of lesions observed in HS patients. Material and Methods: Five international experts of HS were to assess a series of 25 photos representing typical lesions of this disorder. For each photo, the experts were asked whether naming of the lesions was possible or not and, if yes, by using which noun. Agreement of their responses was calculated using Fleiss's kappa index. Using a Delphi strategy, photos with disagreement were discussed, and photos were reevaluated on the next day. In case of agreement on the impossibility of naming some clinical situations, new terms, to be included into the glossary, were agreed upon. Results: After the first round of photos, agreement between the experts was poor with a kappa index of only 0.33 (95% CI 0.22-0.46). After extensive discussion of cases with disagreement, the kappa index increased on day 2 to 0.75 (95% CI 0.60-0.87), allowing to conclude on good interobserver agreement on terminology. Furthermore, a few clinical situations were identified in which naming with established semantics is so far not possible. For these situations, the terms 'multicord', 'multipore', 'multitunnel' and 'retraction' were defined. Discussion: This is the first validation of clinical terms used to describe lesions in patients with HS. This should be helpful in better defining the clinical phenotypes observed in this disorder.


This paper investigates the many-to-one throughput capacity (and by symmetry, one-to-many throughput capacity) of IEEE 802.11 multihop networks, in which many sources send data to a sink. An example of a practical scenario is that of a multihop mesh network connecting source and relay nodes to an Internet gateway. In the trivial case where all source nodes are just one hop from the sink, the system throughput can approach Ls, where Ls is the throughput capacity of an isolated link consisting of just one transmitter and one receiver. In the nontrivial case where some source nodes are more than one hop away, one can still achieve a system throughput of Ls by sacrificing and starving the non-one-hop source nodes-however, this degenerates to an unacceptable trivial solution. We could approach the problem by the following partitioning: preallocate some link capacity aLs (0 les a les 1) at the sink to the one-hop source nodes and then determine the throughput for the source nodes that are two or more hops away based on the remaining capacity L = (1 - a)Ls. The throughput of the one-hop nodes will be around aLs. This paper investigates the extent to which the remaining capacity L can be used efficiently by the source traffic that is two or more hops away. We find that for such source traffic, a throughput of L is not achievable under 802.11. We introduce the notion of "canonical networks,rdquo a general class of regularly structured networks that allow us to investigate the system throughput by varying the distances between nodes and other operating parameters. When all links have equal length, we show that 2L/3 is the upper bound for general networks, including random topologies and canonical networks. When the links are allowed to have different lengths, we show that the throughput capacity of canonical networks has an analytical upper bound of 3L/4. The tightness of the bound is confirmed by simulations of 802.11 canonical networks, in which we obtain simulated throughputs of 0.74L when the source nodes are two hops away and 0.69L when the source nodes are many hops away. We conjecture that 3L/4 is also the upper bound for general networks. Our simulations show that 802.11 networks with random topologies operated with AODV routing typically achieve throughputs far below 3L/4. Fortunately, by properly selecting routes near the gateway (or by properly positioning the relay nodes leading to the gateway) to fashion after the structure of canonical networks, the throughput can be improved by more than 150 percent: indeed, in a dense network, deactivating some of the relay nodes near the sink can lead to a higher throughput.


An unusually fast method of superposing two sets of atomic coordinates for related molecular structures by least squares is described. It exploits the special nature of the problem and uses the method of conjugate gradients. The calculation takes about 0.003 s and is fast enough to be used in on-line graphics systems.


We use very long baseline interferometry to measure the proper motions of three black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs). Using these results together with data from the literature and Gaia DR2 to collate the best available constraints on proper motion, parallax, distance, and systemic radial velocity of 16 BHXBs, we determined their three-dimensional Galactocentric orbits. We extended this analysis to estimate the probability distribution for the potential kick velocity (PKV) a BHXB system could have received on formation. Constraining the kicks imparted to BHXBs provides insight into the birth mechanism of black holes (BHs). Kicks also have a significant effect on BH–BH merger rates, merger sites, and binary evolution, and can be responsible for spin–orbit misalignment in BH binary systems. 75 per cent of our systems have potential kicks $\gt 70\, \rm {km\,s^{-1}}$. This suggests that strong kicks and hence spin–orbit misalignment might be common among BHXBs, in agreement with the observed quasi-periodic X-ray variability in their power density spectra. We used a Bayesian hierarchical methodology to analyse the PKV distribution of the BHXB population, and suggest that a unimodal Gaussian model with a mean of 107 $\pm \,\,16\, \rm {km\,s^{-1}}$ is a statistically favourable fit. Such relatively high PKVs would also reduce the number of BHs likely to be retained in globular clusters. We found no significant correlation between the BH mass and PKV, suggesting a lack of correlation between BH mass and the BH birth mechanism. Our python code allows the estimation of the PKV for any system with sufficient observational constraints.


For investigations of pressure distributions on wind tunnel model surfaces with high spatial resolution, new experimental techniques such as Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) are required. Using this non-intrusive optical pressure measurement technique, spatial structures and/or rapid temporal or spatial changes of aerodynamic phenomena (transition from laminar to turbulent flow, shocks on pitching airfoils in transonic flows, coherent structures etc.) can be investigated. Recently an increasing number of scientists and engineers has started to utilise the PSP technique to investigate pressure distributions in transonic, low speed, hypersonic and cryogenic wind tunnels, as well as in turbo machines. The PSP technique has also evolved from the measurement of steady state pressures to include both periodic and unsteady phenomena to study the instantaneous structure of pressure fields in various areas of fluid mechanics. This course, which is the eighth one on PSP organized by DLR Gottingen, Germany, will concentrate on both measurement techniques and aspects of the theory of PSP relevant to applications. In addition to lectures on the fundamental aspects of Pressure Sensitive Paint Systems, emphasis is placed on the presentation of practical and reliable solutions for problems faced during the implementation of the technique in wind tunnels and other test facilities. During practical sessions in the course, the participants will have the opportunity of carrying out experiments in small groups on PSP/TSP characterisation, coating technique, and the recording and evaluation of PSP/TSP data. Recent developments of the PSP/TSP technique will be discussed and demonstrated. In addition the application of Temperature Sensitive Paint (TSP), which is from the technical point of view very similar to PSP will be part of this course.


This research aims to make the sense effect generated by observing some content shared through Instagram Stories intelligible, as well as to investigate the phenomenon of the so-called 'influencer'. Starting from some case studies, we bring out the effectiveness of the text (Marsciani 2017) and reflect on the different roles that these figures can play, as well as on the interactions that can be established within the community. Through an ethno- and socio-semiotic approach to observation and interpretation, some reconsiderations of the actors involved in the practices of influencer-platform-community interactions have emerged. This activates a process of mutual realization and allows influencers to create networks of subjects that cooperate for mutual adjustment (Landowski 2005) through Instagram Stories. We also want to develop an additional layer of analysis by focusing on the emerging phenomenon of divulgers. Starting from scientists and science communicators, such as Dario Bressanini (@dario.bressanini) and Beatrice Mautino (@divagatrice), we want to investigate how these figures can lead to a subversion of social networking services (SNS), which are used to create intermediate projects. This allows a mainstream and very heterogeneous audience to access contents that are normally available only to experts and niche audiences


Author(s): Barbose, GL; Darghouth, NR; LaCommare, KH; Millstein, D; Rand, J | Abstract: Berkeley Lab's Tracking the Sun report series is dedicated to summarizing installed prices and other trends among grid-connected, distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States. The present report, the 11th edition in the series, focuses on systems installed through year-end 2017, with preliminary trends for the first half of 2018. As in years past, the primary emphasis is on describing changes in installed prices over time and variation in pricing across projects based on location, project ownership, system design, and other attributes. New to this year, however, is an expanded discussion of other project characteristics in the large underlying data sample. Future editions will include more of such material, beyond the report's traditional focus on installed pricing. The trends described in this report derive primarily from project-level data reported to state agencies and utilities that administer PV incentive programs, solar renewable energy credit (SREC) registration systems, or interconnection processes. In total, data were collected and cleaned for more than 1.3 million individual PV systems, representing 81% of U.S. residential and non-residential PV systems installed through 2017. The analysis of installed pricing trends is based on a subset of roughly 770,000 systems with available installed price data. Key findings from this year's report include the following: -Installed Prices Continued to Fall through 2017 and into 2018. National median installed prices in 2017 were $3.7 per watt (W) for residential systems (a $0.2/W or 6% decline from the prior year), $3.1/W for small non-residential systems (a $0.4/W or 11% decline), and $2.2/W (a $0.1/W or 5% decline) for large non-residential systems. Data for the first half of 2018 show an additional drop of $0.1/W for residential and small non-residential systems, and effectively no change for large non-residential systems. These recent trends are generally consistent with the pace of price declines since 2014, and mark a slowing from the years immediately preceding (2009-2013) when prices fell by roughly $1/W per year. -Installed Prices Vary Widely Across Individual Projects. Among residential systems installed in 2017, 20% were priced below $3.0/W (the 20th percentile value) while another 20% were above the 80th percentile at $4.5/W. Non-residential systems also exhibit wide spreads, albeit shifted downward, from $2.4/W to $4.1/W for small non-residential and from $1.8/W to $2.8/W for large non-residential projects. These pricing spreads have persisted over time and are both reflective of the heterogeneity in PV systems and markets, as well as suggestive of the potential for further price declines. -Pronounced Pricing Disparities Exist Across States. State-level median installed prices in 2017 ranged from $2.6/W to $4.5/W for residential systems, from $2.2/W to $4.0/W for small non-residential systems, and from $2.1/W to $2.4/W for large non-residential systems. Three of the largest state markets (California, Massachusetts, and New York) are relatively high-priced, pulling overall U.S. median prices upward. These cross-state pricing differences reflect both idiosyncratic features of particular states as well as more-fundamental differences related to market and policy conditions. -Installed Pricing Variation Also Reflects Differences in System Design, Installer, and Customer Characteristics (among other factors). Significant pricing differences were also observed across system sizes within each customer segment (with median prices ranging from $3.2/W to $4.5/W across residential systems of varying size, and from $2.1/W to $3.7/W across non-residential systems), between third-party owned (TPO) and host-owned residential systems ($3.3/W vs. $3.8/W), across residential installers ($2.1/W to $9.6/W for host-owned systems and $1.1/W to $5.1/W for TPO systems), between residential new construction and retrofit systems in California ($2.3/W vs. $3.9/W), between large non-residential systems at commercial sites and tax-exempt customer sites ($2.1/W vs. $2.6/W), and between systems with standard vs. premium efficiency modules ($3.6/W vs. $4.2/W among residential systems). A public version of the underlying dataset can be downloaded at https://emp.lbl.gov/tracking-the-sun.


The increasingly cross-generational use of personal technology portrays families each absorbed in individual devices. Tablets potentially support multi-user working but are currently used as personal devices primarily for consumption, or individual or web-based games. Could tablets support creative co-located groupwork in families and how does such creative work differ from the same task on paper? We designed and evaluated an app requiring individual and group co-creation in families. 262 family groups visiting a science fair played the collaborative drawing game on paper and iPads. Group creations were rated significantly more original and cohesive on iPads than paper. Detailed video analysis of seven family groups showed how tablets support embodiment and use of digital traces, and how the different media sustain individual and shared actions at different stages in the creative process. We sketch out implications for ownership and 'scrap computers': going beyond personally-owned devices and developing collaborative apps to support groupwork with tablets.


While humans can separate a sound of interest amidst a cacophony of contending sounds in an echoic environment, machine-based methods lag behind in solving this task. This thesis thus aims at improving performance of audio separation algorithms when they are informed i.e. have access to source location information. These locations are assumed to be known a priori in this work, for example by video processing.
Initially, a multi-microphone array based method combined with binary
time-frequency masking is proposed. A robust least squares frequency invariant data independent beamformer designed with the location information is
utilized to estimate the sources. To further enhance the estimated sources, binary time-frequency masking based post-processing is used but cepstral domain smoothing is required to mitigate musical noise.
To tackle the under-determined case and further improve separation performance
at higher reverberation times, a two-microphone based method
which is inspired by human auditory processing and generates soft time-frequency masks is described. In this approach interaural level difference,
interaural phase difference and mixing vectors are probabilistically modeled in the time-frequency domain and the model parameters are learned
through the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. A direction vector is estimated for each source, using the location information, which is used as
the mean parameter of the mixing vector model. Soft time-frequency masks are used to reconstruct the sources. A spatial covariance model is then integrated into the probabilistic model framework that encodes the spatial
characteristics of the enclosure and further improves the separation performance
in challenging scenarios i.e. when sources are in close proximity and
when the level of reverberation is high.
Finally, new dereverberation based pre-processing is proposed based on the cascade of three dereverberation stages where each enhances the twomicrophone
reverberant mixture. The dereverberation stages are based on amplitude spectral subtraction, where the late reverberation is estimated and suppressed. The combination of such dereverberation based pre-processing and use of soft mask separation yields the best separation performance. All methods are evaluated with real and synthetic mixtures formed for example from speech signals from the TIMIT database and measured room impulse responses.


Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant carbon source and it is a base of the whole biorefinery concept. Levoglucosan (1,6-anhydro-β-D-glucopyranose) (LG) is an anhydrous sugar formed as a major product during pyrolysis of cellulose. LG might be a promising chemical platform. It can be converted to different high added-value chemicals such as levoglucosenone, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural and styrene directly or through a glucose intermediate via chemical, catalytic and biochemical processes. In this critical review we focus not only on the pyrolytic methods for the synthesis of levoglucosan, but above all also on the recent scientific progress in the chemical and biochemical transformation of levoglucosan to highly valued compounds. The catalytic performances of the heterogeneous and enzymatic catalytic systems used for different reactions of LG conversion are reviewed. Specific properties of the active sites, roles of additives, and solvents and conditions are discussed in detail. We conclude on recommendations to further improve LG conversion to high added-value products.


Little is known about how students learn when using computer-assisted modular curriculum, if such curriculum truly promotes self-regulated learning, or if the cognitive principles of teaching and learning are integrated throughout the design of the modules. The purpose of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of student cognitive responses to learning with computer-assisted modular curriculum, based on the Phases and Subprocesses of Self-Regulation. This triangulation mixed methods case study connected qualitative and quantitative data derived from curriculum content analysis, student course evaluations, participant observations, and interviews. Thirty-six middle school students enrolled in an agricultural education course designed with computer-assisted modules served as the case study group. Data were transcribed, coded, and analyzed, leading to the emergence of six common themes. Overall, the design and content of the computer-assisted modules lack integral principles of teaching and learning. Participants prefer a mix of traditional and computer-assisted instruction because of the variety of instruction, opportunities for social learning, and the hands-on activities. When integrated properly, computer-assisted modules do not inhibit interactions among the teacher and the students. The activities associated with the modules do not encourage self-regulatory processes. However, self-regulation is innate and students engage in self-regulation at different levels during the learning experience. Despite intrinsic interest or value for a particular topic, participants felt it was always important to pay attention in school. Thus, when learning with computer-assisted


Corals live in close association with bacterial communities, but the nature of the relationship is still poorly understood. In this study, three scleractinian coral species, Galaxea fascicularis, Pavona cactus and Turbinaria reniformis were incubated under different laboratory conditions, and the composition of the bacterial community associated with their tissue or skeleton was compared between species or between species and seawater using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) excreted and the mucus glycoconjugate composition were also determined for each species. The aim of the study was to assess if the bacterial community composition was species-specific or linked either to the seawater composition, or to the quality and quantity of carbon released by each coral. Results obtained showed that DOC release was significantly different (P , 0.0001) for the three species, with the highest excretion rate for G. fascicularis. Also, the mucus of G. fascicularis and P. cactus mainly contained galactose and glucose whereas the mucus of T. reniformis contained more glucose and xylose. Cluster analyses of microbial community composition showed that the bacterial community was species-specific in the coral tissue but not in the skeleton, in all conditions. It remained specific when corals were incubated in the same or in different aquaria, and under different seawater renewal rates. Since DOC release rates and bacterial composition were both different according to the coral species considered, a link might be suggested between the two parameters. Sequencing of DGGE bands indicated that some bacterial phylotypes were consistently retrieved in all samples of a given species.


Abnormalities in l-glutamic acid (glutamate) and GABA signal transmission have been postulated to play a role in depression, but little is known about the underlying molecular determinants and neural mechanisms. Microarray analysis of specific areas of cerebral cortex from individuals who had suffered from major depressive disorder demonstrated significant down-regulation of SLC1A2 and SLC1A3, two key members of the glutamate/neutral amino acid transporter protein family, SLC1. Similarly, expression of l-glutamate-ammonia ligase, the enzyme that converts glutamate to nontoxic glutamine was significantly decreased. Together, these changes could elevate levels of extracellular glutamate considerably, which is potentially neurotoxic and can affect the efficiency of glutamate signaling. The astroglial distribution of the two glutamate transporters and l-glutamate-ammonia ligase strongly links glia to the pathophysiology of depression and challenges the conventional notion that depression is solely a neuronal disorder. The same cortical areas displayed concomitant up-regulation of several glutamate and GABAA receptor subunits, of which GABAAα1 and GABAAβ3 showed selectivity for individuals who had died by suicide, indicating their potential utility as biomarkers of suicidality. These findings point to previously undiscovered molecular underpinnings of the pathophysiology of major depression and offer potentially new pharmacological targets for treating depression.


Ocular tissue damage because of exposure to visible light has been demonstrated by the results of human and animal studies. The short-wavelength visible light between 430 nm to 500 nm (blue light) is especially associated with retina damage. Recently, new powerful sources and relatively inexpensive blue energy of LED (light emitting diodes) family lamps in home illumination are available. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of illumination source from the low-powered and the conscious spectrum source of LED family lamps on retina tissues. The illumination source of LED family lamps was analyzed from 300 nm to 800 nm using an UV- visible spectrophotometer. In animal experiments, young adult mice were assigned to expose to family LED light for 2h every day ranging 2 to 4 weeks or light environment using LED family lamps for 39 weeks. After LED light treatment, sections of eyes were stained with hematoxylin and examined using histopathology. The data clearly demonstrated irradiation of the white LED is above 400 nm and is not within the ultraviolet light region. However, the analysis of spectrum distribution demonstrated that the family LED lighting exhibited power-peak at 450 nm is within the blue light region. Histological results showed that the photoreceptor layer is significantly reduced in thickness after 4 weeks of LED exposure 2h every day or LED illuminated environment. This study provides important data regarding the efficacy and safety of LED light in family illumination. It is impossible to consider these degenerative changes are related unavoidably part of their mechanism of action or an avoidable toxic effect. (Mei-Lin Peng, Cheng-Yu Tsai, Chung-Liang Chien, John Ching-Jen Hsiao, Shuan-Yu Huang, Ching-Ju Lee, Hsiang-Yin Lin, Yang-Cheng Wen, Kuang-Wen Tseng. The Influence of Low-powered Family LED Lighting on Eyes in Mice Experimental Model. Life Science Journal. 2012;9(1):477-482) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 72


Research in knowledge representation has led to the development of so-called terminological logics, the purpose of which is to support the representation of the conceptual and terminological part of Arti(cid:12)cial Intelligence applications. Independently, in computational linguistics, so-called feature logics have been developed which are aimed at representing the semantic and syntactic information natural language sentences convey. Since both of these logics rely mainly on attributes as the primary notational primitives for representing knowledge, they can be jointly characterized as attributive description formalisms. Although the intended applications for terminological logics and feature logics are not identical, and the computational services of systems based on the respective formalisms are quite di(cid:11)erent for this reason, the logical foundations turn out to be very similar { as we pointed out elsewhere. In this paper, we will show how attributive description formalisms relate to \the rest of the world." Recently, a number of formal results in the area of attributive description formalisms have been obtained by exploiting other research (cid:12)elds, such as formal language theory, automata theory, and modal logics. This connection between these di(cid:11)erent (cid:12)elds of formal research will be highlighted in the sequel.


We study how higher capital requirements introduced at the supranational level affect the regulatory capital of banks across countries. Using the 2011 EBA capital exercise as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that treated banks exploit discretion in the calculation of regulatory capital to inflate their capital ratios without a commensurate increase in their book equity and without a reduction in bank risk. Regulatory capital inflation is more pronounced in countries where credit supply is expected to tighten, suggesting that national authorities forbear their domestic banks to meet supranational requirements, with a focus on short-term economic considerations.


Any implant or prosthesis replacing a function or functions of an organ or group of organs should be biologically and sensorily integrated with the human body in order to increase their acceptance with their user. If this replacement is for a human hand, which is an important interface between humans and their environment, the acceptance issue and developing sensory-motor embodiment will be more challenging. Despite progress in prosthesis technologies, 50–60% of hand amputees wear a prosthetic device. One primary reason for the rejection of the prosthetic hands is that there is no or negligibly small feedback or tactile sensation from the hand to the user, making the hands less functional. In fact, the loss of a hand means interrupting the closed-loop sensory feedback between the brain (motor control) and the hand (sensory feedback through the nerves). The lack of feedback requires significant cognitive efforts from the user in order to do basic gestures and daily activities. To this aim, recently, there has been significant development in the provision of sensory feedback from transradial prosthetic hands, to enable the user take part in the control loop and improve user embodiment. Sensory feedback to the hand users can be provided via invasive and non-invasive methods. The latter includes the use of temperature, vibration, mechanical pressure and skin stretching, electrotactile stimulation, phantom limb stimulation, audio feedback, and augmented reality. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the non-invasive methods, performs their critical evaluation, and presents challenges and opportunities associated with the non-invasive sensory feedback methods.


The goal of this paper is to develop the theory of Deligne-Beilinson cohomology of affine groups with a mixed Hodge structure. The motivation comes from Hodge theory and the study of motives, where such groups appear. Several of Francis Brown's period computations (arXiv:1407.5167) are interpreted as elements of the DB cohomology of the relative unipotent completion of $SL_2(Z)$ and their cup products. The results in this paper are used in arXiv:1403.6443 where they are used to prove that Pollack's quadratic relations are motivic.


Abstract A 370,000-year paleoecological history of fire spanning four glacial cycles provides evidence of plant migration in response to Andean climate change. Charcoal, an indicator of fire, is only occasionally observed in this record, whereas it is ubiquitous in Holocene-aged Andean records. Fire is a transformative agent in Amazonian and Andean vegetation but is shown to be rare in nature. As humans promote fire, fire-free areas become microrefugia for fire-sensitive species. A distinction is drawn between microrefugia resulting from fire-free zones and those caused by unusual climatic conditions. The importance of this distinction lies in the lack of warmer-than-modern microrefugia aiding upslope migration in response to warming, whereas fire-free microrefugia support tree species above modern tree line or in areas of Amazonia least used by humans. The synergy between fire, deforestation, and climate change could promote a state-change in the ecosystem, one where new microrefugia would be needed to maintain biodiversity. Past tipping points are identified to have occurred within ca. 1°C–1.5°C of modern conditions. The recent climatic instability in both Amazonia and the Andes is viewed in the context of ecological flickering, while the drought-induced and fire-induced tree mortality are aspects of critical slowing down; both possibly portending an imminent tipping point.


Sentencing disparity among similar offenders has increased at a disconcerting rate over the last decade. Some judges issue sentences twice as harsh as other judges on the same court, so a defendant's sentence often depends substantially on which judge is randomly assigned to the defendant's case. The old mandatory sentencing guidelines repressed disparity but only by causing unwarranted uniformity. The advisory guidelines swing the pendulum toward the opposite extreme, and this problem promises to grow worse as the lingering effects of the old regime diminish.
This Article proposes a system — data-driven appellate review — to curb sentencing disparity without re-introducing unwarranted uniformity. In a system where sentencing judges possess significant discretion, only meaningful appellate review can restrain the tendency for sentencing practices to deviate substantially between judges. Discretionary sentencing decisions are currently reviewed for abuse of discretion, which leads some judges to issue much harsher or much more lenient sentences than other judges. Congress can mitigate this problem of inter-judge disparity by changing the standard of review, creating a rebuttable presumption that outlier sentences among similar offenders are unreasonable. The data the U.S. Sentencing Commission collects on over 70,000 criminal cases annually can be used to define categories of similar offenders. Culling outlier sentences through data-driven appellate review would increase judicial awareness of sentences issued by peer judges, restricting inter-judge disparity without incurring unwarranted uniformity.


Following the push for reform during the popular uprising in 2011, authoritarianism is once again dominating domestic politics and power relations in the MENA region. Drawing on data collected during field trips to Cairo, Tehran, Beirut and Kuwait city, the authors of this MENARA report analyse three distinct ways in which political leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran have stood their grounds since 2011 by. The report shows that the region's autocratic leaders have adopted highly distinct strategies to cope with the challenges they have been confronted with internally – including strategies of "restoration", of "transformation" and of "adaptation". The report ends by suggesting that European leaders, in spite of their limited leverage and resources, have a longterm strategic interest in fostering alternative forms of political regimes in the MENA region.


The Web Observatories are becoming common Internet practice. They are web sites targeting a community of practitioners, scientists or generally individuals within the context of a focused organization. Their goal is to inform, educate, facilitate the interaction and boost the collaboration of community members. Various existing technologies can be deployed for this purpose. Still, their integration into a coherent informational and collaborative environment remains largely ad hoc. In this paper we attempt to elucidate the concept "web observatory" and identify its characteristics and practices.


This qualitative study explores the intra-bush and post-bush experiences of formerly abducted child mothers (FACM) in Northern Uganda. Critical events in the lives of young women who were abducted as young girls to join rebel soldiers in the recent civil war are examined. These critical events include sexual violation, training and participation in battles as child soldiers, motherhood, intra-bush trauma and, escape or release. The study also explores how the young women coped with life in the post-bush society they had rejoined. I examine approaches, resources and opportunities for the rehabilitation of returning FACM, their resettlement process and reintegration. The methodology borrows from narrative analysis, phenomenology and grounded theory with the main methods being in-depth interviews with FACM and key informants as well as focus groups with community members and agency staff. Structuration theory, African feminist theories, child rights discourse and a conceptual framework focusing on rehabilitation, resettlement and reintegration are utilized as lenses through which the experiences of the young women are viewed.

Findings suggest that while the FACM demonstrated considerable agency in managing the challenges they came across both in the bush and in the post-bush periods, this agency was significantly curtailed by social structures. The young women's experiences, both in captivity and post-captivity were influenced by structural factors which were embedded within social systems and relationships. These factors formed the context for the lived realities of the young women which were in turn impacted by gender and culture. The FACM had to assume a multiplicity of roles and identities as girls, mothers, ‗wives', fighters, which interconnected with individual agency. This contributed to the strengths and resilience the young women possessed and also led to non-compliance with traditional cultural practices in some instances making reintegration more difficult.

The main contributions of the study are: in its demonstration that some African cultural traditions have points of convergence with the promotion of children rights; in increasing understanding of the role of patriarchal and matriarchal power in social life; and in the revelation of the agency of the young women and their resistance to structural violence, although this agency was not adequate for protection from abuse. The study isolates not only individual but social agency which can be utilized to support rehabilitation, resettlement and reintegration planning. It raises the significance of the quality of personal relationships in carrying out interventions for FACM, sheds lights on the issues surrounding social rejection of the young women, where this occurs, and argues for interventions that build on their strengths and considers not only post-bush but intra-bush experiences.


Genetically engineered corn plants can reduce pest damage on neighboring, unmodified plants. Genetically engineered crops represent one of the most controversial and rapidly adopted technologies in the history of agriculture. First grown commercially in 1996, transgenic crops covered 135 million hectares (ha) in 25 countries during 2009 (1). To reduce reliance on insecticide sprays, corn and cotton have been genetically engineered to make insecticidal proteins derived from the common bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These Bt toxins kill some devastating insect pests, but unlike broad-spectrum insecticides, they do little or no harm to most other organisms, including people (2). Many pests have rapidly evolved resistance to insecticides, however, spurring concerns that adaptation by pests could quickly reduce the efficacy of Bt crops and the associated environmental, health, and economic benefits (3–7). On page 222 of this issue, Hutchison et al. (8) rein in some of those concerns, documenting a landmark case in which Bt corn has remained effective against a major pest for more than a decade, yielding billions of dollars of estimated benefits to farmers in the midwestern United States.


Identifying the malicious traffic flows in Internet of things (IOT) is very important to monitor and avoid unwanted errors or the unwanted flows in the network. So, for a security to this network various machine learning algorithms (ML) has been introduced by various analyst to avoid this flow of error in the network. But, owing to the unsuitable selection of features, the ML models which introduced previously suffer from misclassify errors. So, there arises a need to study the problem of feature selection more depth to predict the accurate traffic flow observation in the network. To overcome this problem, a new structure in machine learning (ML) is introduced. So, for thisa novel features selection metric CorrAUC is suggested. So, based on this metric approach, a new feature selection algorithm CorrAUC is develop and design, it is based on wrapper technique to get features accurately by filtering to predict flow of traffic is suggested. Then, we applied multicriteria decision method called VIKOR which is used for validating the features selected for recognition the flow of traffic errors in the network. We estimate our approach by using the NSL-KDD dataset and three different ML algorithms.


The combustion of petroleum-based fuels contributes to increases in atmospheric CO 2 , contributing to climate change. As other sectors electrify, current battery technology makes this impractical for the aviation industry. The fastest pathway to reducing the carbon contributions of aviation is to create low or no net carbon-emitting drop-in petroleum alternatives. This research explores 3 potential sorghum derived jet fuel molecules from 4 different production routes, hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA), and Jet A, to identify how blends including these fuels could offer improved performance (MJ/kg, MJ/L) and improved emissions (gCO2/MJ) while minimizing costs. Different applications will value each target metric differently. This research utilizes the Jet Fuel Blend Optimizer (JudO) to create a 4-dimensional Pareto front across potential solutions. The molecules considered will not offer reduced cost compared to conventional jet fuel (Jet A), but they can be utilized to create blends with higher specific energy, greater energy density, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Considerations including carbon credits, the sale of byproducts, and the valuation of improved performance will make the proposed molecules more commercially viable. At the lowest region of GHG solutions, coupled with equivalent LCFS approximations, JudO determined blends that could achieve as high as 69% overall carbon reductions at a premium of $0.34/L.


Critics of intelligence tests-writers such as Robert Sternberg, Howard Gardner, and Daniel Goleman-have argued in recent years that these tests neglect important qualities such as emotion, empathy, and interpersonal skills. However, such critiques imply that though intelligence tests may miss certain key noncognitive areas, they encompass most of what is important in the cognitive domain. In this book, Keith E. Stanovich challenges this widely held assumption. Stanovich shows that IQ tests (or their proxies, such as the SAT) are radically incomplete as measures of cognitive functioning. They fail to assess traits that most people associate with "good thinking," skills such as judgment and decision making. Such cognitive skills are crucial to real-world behavior, affecting the way we plan, evaluate critical evidence, judge risks and probabilities, and make effective decisions. IQ tests fail to assess these skills of rational thought, even though they are measurable cognitive processes. Rational thought is just as important as intelligence, Stanovich argues, and it should be valued as highly as the abilities currently measured on intelligence tests.


abstract:Twin gate towers (que) were a characteristic feature of urban and palatial architecture in Chinese cities from the Warring States period onward. Although they initially served the practical military purpose of strengthening the defensive characteristics of gates in the city walls, they rapidly acquired symbolic significance through their association with political power. This article examines the development of twin towers from the Warring States period to the Eastern Han dynasty, showing how their ability to define political or sacred space was adapted to a variety of different social, political, and religious contexts, from city walls and palaces to imperial shrines and tombs. After the First Qin Emperor and Emperor Wu of the Han erected twin towers at the palaces they built in their pursuit of immortality, twin towers also became signifiers of the celestial realm. Finally, in the Eastern Han dynasty, the newly prominent merchant and local gentry classes who rose to assume political and administrative roles in the government adopted the architectural vocabulary of twin towers by constructing smaller-scale stone mimics at their own family tombs, appropriating the imperial prestige of this form to flaunt their social and financial success and construct their own identities as local elites. By examining this long historical development, I show how a functional element of urban architecture could acquire new symbolic meanings as different social and political actors adapted it to serve a wide variety of ends.


This paper examines the relationship between home-based work and persistent poverty in certain parts of South and South East Asia; the question of inter-generational poverty in the families of home-based workers; and the possibility of using social protection and other related policies as a means of helping to alleviate poverty and vulnerability among homebased workers.It looks at those elements that cause some home-based women workers and their children to remain in a situation of persistent poverty and vulnerability, and considers the contributing factors that allow others to attain some degree of security. Issues such as gender, social exclusion and economic trends are amongst the factors that can work against the well-being of home-based workers. In terms of trying to create effective policies to deal with chronic poverty among informal workers, the paper explores some of the elements that make it possible to move from a condition of institutional neglect to one of institutional support.This Working Paper draws on recent analyses and case studies carried out by researchers associated with two closely-tied networks of home-based workers in South Asia and South East Asia: HomeNet South East Asia and HomeNet South Asia, the latter in association with the Institute of Social Studies Trust (ISST). These two studies are very detailed and cover a wide range of issues, including an analysis of specific indigenous, local and national social protection schemes, as well as the influence of such considerations as local cultures and religions as they relate to the needs and coping strategies of different groups of home-based workers. This paper draws on only a small portion of the total findings of the HomeNet studies, focusing on their implications for the persistence of poverty over time.


Purpose: To estimate the delivered dose after each fraction of treatment as well as the delivered accumulative dose distribution. The goal of this project is to develop an automatic verification system using daily images and machine log files. Methods: First, we perform deformable registration from CT to CBCT and correct CBCT artifacts and CT numbers. Due to the limitation of the current scanning protocol, CBCT may not cover the whole treatment region needed for dose reconstruction. In that case, we use deformed CT for dose calculation which has correct CT number as well as daily patient geometry within whole treatment region. With machine log files, we generate actually delivered fluence maps at all delivery angles for that fraction. Then a GPU‐based Monte Carlo dose calculation package, gDPM, is employed to get delivered fractional dose on deformed CT or corrected CBCT. To compare the planned dose with the delivered dose, the delivered dose on new daily image is transferred back to the original CT geometry using the deformation vector fields obtained in the first step. This procedure is employed for each fraction to get the accumulative dose on original CT.Results: We demonstrate this treatment verification system on VMAT patients. We plot the DVHs for delivered and planned dose distributions and summarize the absolute errors in dose matrix report. Conclusions: We have proposed a procedure to estimate the delivered fractional and accumulative patient doses in IMRT and VMAT. If big errors are observed in the dose matrix report, then a warning should be sent out to responsible personnel, so the error can be indentified and corrected promptly.


Daxx, a multifunctional protein with a diverse set of proposed functions, is ubiquitously expressed and highly conserved through evolution. A primarily nuclear protein, Daxx is able to regulate apoptosis, transcription, and cellular proliferation. Despite many studies into the function of Daxx, its precise role in the cell remains enigmatic. Herein, evidence is presented to expand upon the known anti-apoptotic function of Daxx, to establish Daxx as a novel molecular chaperone, and to further its repertoire of transcriptional targets. As an apoptotic inhibitor, Daxx is known to regulate p53 by stabilizing its main negative regulator, Mdm2, via formation of a ternary complex between Daxx, Mdm2, and Hausp. The present study reveals that DNA damage-induced phosphorylation of Daxx is an important step in the disruption of the Daxx-Mdm2-Hausp complex, allowing for p53 activation. A novel activity for Daxx is presented whereby it is able to modulate protein folding in vitro and in vivo. Daxx can refold and reactivate denatured substrates using its paired amphipathic helical and acid-rich domains. This finding was extended to p53, where Daxx was able to solubilize misfolded p53 both in vitro and in vivo. Further, this finding may provide a biochemical rationale as to the varied functionality of Daxx in the cell. Finally, a novel transcriptional target, Cdk6, is described for Daxx. Microarray analysis indicated that Cdk6 is a strongly downregulated gene upon Daxx silencing. Depletion of Daxx in various cancer and primary cell lines led to a decrease in Cdk6 protein levels. Additionally, Daxx can affect transcription of Cdk6, and chromatin immunoprecipitation reveals that Daxx binds to the Cdk6 promoter. Together, these results indicate that Daxx has potential functional plasticity and is involved in an array of cellular functions; in fact, cellular homeostasis relies on the proper execution of multiple biological processes. Elucidation of the biology of Daxx would not only provide insight into the regulation of these processes, but may also establish Daxx as a relevant therapeutic target. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Pharmacology First Advisor Xiaolu Yang


Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is discussed controversially, especially in the context of evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM). This paper provides an overview of the principles and aims of EBVM and the currently available scientific data on CAM therapies. To sum up, short rigorous research data concerning the efficacy and safety of CAM is presented. Moreover, possible research strategies with regard to important aspects of CAM are discussed.


After axonal injury, chromatolysis (fragmentation of Nissl substance) can occur in the soma. Electron microscopy shows that chromatolysis involves fission of the rough endoplasmic reticulum. In CNS neurons (which do not regenerate axons back to their original targets) or in motor neurons or dorsal root ganglion neurons denied axon regeneration (e.g., by transection and ligation), chromatolysis is often accompanied by degranulation (loss of ribosomes from rough endoplasmic reticulum), disaggregation of polyribosomes and degradation of monoribosomes into dust‐like particles. Ribosomes and rough endoplasmic reticulum may also be degraded in autophagic vacuoles by ribophagy and reticulophagy, respectively. In other words, chromatolysis is disruption of parts of the protein synthesis infrastructure. Whereas some neurons may show transient or no chromatolysis, severely injured neurons can remain chromatolytic and never again synthesize normal levels of protein; some may atrophy or die. Ribonuclease(s) might cause the following features of chromatolysis: fragmentation and degranulation of rough endoplasmic reticulum, disaggregation of polyribosomes and degradation of monoribosomes. For example, ribonucleases in the EndoU/PP11 family can modify rough endoplasmic reticulum; many ribonucleases can degrade mRNA causing polyribosomes to unchain and disperse, and they can disassemble monoribosomes; Ribonuclease 5 can control rRNA synthesis and degrade tRNA; Ribonuclease T2 can degrade ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum and RNA within autophagic vacuoles; and Ribonuclease IRE1α acts as a stress sensor within the endoplasmic reticulum. Regeneration might be improved after axonal injury by protecting the protein synthesis machinery from catabolism; targeting ribonucleases using inhibitors can enhance neurite outgrowth and could be a profitable strategy in vivo. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2018


Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC) are affected by global environmental change because they directly rely on their immediate environment for meeting basic livelihood needs. Therefore, safeguarding and restoring ecosystem resilience is critical to support their well‐being. Based on examples from the literature, we illustrate how IPLC participate in restoration activities maintaining traditional practices, restoring land degraded by outsiders, and joining outside groups seeking to restore ecosystems. Our review also provides examples of how Indigenous and Local Knowledge can be incorporated in the planning, execution, and monitoring of restoration activities. However, not all restoration initiatives engaging IPLC are beneficial or successful, and the factors that lead to success are not fully known. While local involvement in restoration projects is often mentioned as an element of success, this is primarily associated to projects that actively involve IPLC in codesigning restoration activities affecting their territories, ensure both short‐term direct benefits to IPLC and long‐term support of the maintenance of restored areas, and recognize IPLC local traditions and customary institutions. Based on these examples, we argue that IPLC should be a more important focus in any post‐2020 CBD agenda on restoration.


We live in turbulent times. Our epoch is characterized by startling advances W on the one hand and conditions of extreme socioeconomic retrogression and distress on the other. Social development is severely uneven and yet deeply intertwined. This has created unexpected convulsions which are exploding across the planet. Both a consequence and a cause of this turbulence is a resurgence of religion. Religious fundamentalism has appeared at the turn of the century as a prominent tendency, a habit of mind found within religious communities and paradigmatically embodied in certain representative individuals and movements. It manifests itself as a strategy by which beleaguered believers attempt to preserve their distinctive group identity. Feeling this identity to be at risk in the contemporary era, the believers fortify it by selective retrieval of doctrines, beliefs, and practices from a sacred past. This selection is carefully done so that it is not only appealing to the audience but also readily acceptable. While selective retrieval claims only to be restoring the ancient ways, in fact fundamentalist movements pick and choose carefully among inherited doctrines and practices, as well as cloaking innovations in the garments of antiquity. These retrieved fundamentals are refined, modified, and sanctioned in a spirit of pragmatis m: they are to serve as a bulwark against the encroachment of outsiders who threaten to draw the believers into a syncretistic religious or irreligious cultural milieu. The problem of fundamentalism knows no borders, and it is a common enemy of humanity. For many, "fundamentalism conjures up images of mobs shouting 'death to America,' embassies in flames, assassins and hijackers threatening innocent lives, hands chopped off, and women oppressed."(2) The inquisitive observer must ask not only "how effective have fundamentalist movements been in influencing their own adherents," but also "how much impact have they exercised in the lives of non-fundamentalists. In cases in which the state is fundamentalist (Iran, Sudan) or has been influenced by fundamentalist sociopolitical agendas (Egypt, Israel), the fundamentalism of the enclave is encouraged or even empowered to spill over its natural boundaries and permeate the larger society. The impact in these instances is of a different order than in a society that successfully marginalizes fundamentalists within it, as does the scientific establishment in the United States or the political establishment in Japan. (4) Among the many dreams of both the British masters who quit the Indian subcontinent in 1947, and Mahatma Gandhi and his followers who forced the colonial power out, none was perhaps dearer to their hearts than the desire for the foundation of secular democracies in South Asia that were free from the turmoil of caste and religious violence. But from the very dawn of independence, sectarian rivalries have undermined that aspiration. Partition was followed by the two-way exodus of Hindus and Muslims and the communal carnage that took the lives of thousands of innocent victims. Since then, most nations of South Asia have constantly been plagued by increasingly violent political turmoil due to a growing intolerance toward their minorities. Regional experts now fear that religious fundamentalism and militancy are not only destroying South Asia's ethnic diversity, but also are putting the region's political secularism in danger of collapse. Hindu extremists in India, Tamil militants in Sri Lanka, and Islamic fundamen talists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh pose a threat to the region's secular fabric. Indian experience with fundamentalism has been bloody and traumatic. Mahatma Gandhi, before he could fully savor the fresh air of independent India, fell victim to a Hindu fundamentalist's bullets. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguard in the aftermath of the Sikh fundamentalist movement that swept through the vibrant state of Punjab in the early 1980s. …


Life-style modification has been recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program as the first approach to reduce serum lipid values and the risk for coronary heart disease. Presented are data from 4587 adults who attended a 3-week residential, life-style modification program consisting of a high-complex-carbohydrate, high-fiber, low-fat, and low-cholesterol diet combined with daily aerobic exercise, primarily walking. Total cholesterol values were reduced by 23%, from 6.06 to 4.66 mmol/L (234 to 180 mg/dL). Low-density cholesterol (LDL-C) values were also reduced by 23%, from 3.9 to 3.0 mmol/L (151 to 116 mg/dL), with most of the change occurring during the first 2 weeks. Male subjects showed a greater reduction in total cholesterol (24.4% vs 20.8%) and LDL-C (25% vs 19.4%) values compared with female subjects. Follow-up studies for 18 months on a small group showed that, in most cases, continued compliance with the program maintained total cholesterol values well below 5.18 mmol/L (200 mg/dL), the level recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program. High-density cholesterol (HDL-C) was reduced by 16%, but the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL-C was reduced by 11%. Female subjects showed a greater drop in HDL-C values than did male subjects (19.4% vs 11.6%). Serum triglyceride values were reduced by 33%, from 2.29 to 1.54 mmol/L (200 to 135 mg/dL); again, male subjects showed a greater reduction than the did female subjects (37.9% vs 22.5%). Body weight was also significantly reduced, 5.5% for male subjects and 4.4% for female subjects. These results show that most adults can significantly reduce serum lipid values and the risk for atherosclerosis and its clinical sequelae through life-style modification consisting of diet and exercise.


The present thesis addressed the question of what causes sex differences in children's play behavior.In Study I, it was found that mothers have rather sex-stereotyped expectations for how their 1- and 3-year-old children will behave at the age of five, as regards sex-typed activities. The parents' wishes, however, were less stereotyped, even if they differed significantly depending on the sex of the child. In Study II, where girls and boys at 1, 3, and 5 years of age were studied, and Study III, where girls and boys at 6, 9, 12 months of age were studied, in two different structured play situations, sex differences in toy play were observable already at the age of 12 months. In Study IV, the play behavior of girls affected by congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAB) was studied. Their play was compared with that of non-affected girls. A clear dose-response relationship was found between prenatal androgen levels (genotype) and toy preferences. Parents' participation did not affect the children's play; A questionnaire showed that although parents of girls with CAH expected and described more masculine interests, their wishes were not different from those of parents of non-affected girls.The results are discussed in terms of how biology can affect such specific behaviors as toy play. It is suggested that evolution has provided the biological base for the observed sex differences, and probably for general sex differences between girls and boys, and women and men.


This paper describes a novel approach for recovering the structure and motion of a rigid textured surface from an image sequence. Camera focal length is also recovered, yielding metric estimates of the structure without the need for pre-calibration. The key innovation is the use of local \em affine flow parameters as the measurements within an extended Kalman filter (EKF) estimation framework, in contrast to feature correspondences or optical flow used in previous approaches. This enables surface normals to be recovered in addition to depth, unlike a feature correspondence scheme, but without the computational limitation of an optical flow approach. The method is based on equating the affine parameters to a local linearisation of the 2-D motion field and using the EKF to provide recursive estimates of the 3-D structure and motion. Experiments on both synthetic and real sequences demonstrate that the approach has considerable potential.


The most critical period of ideological conflict over Cymbeline and its heroine occurred during the middle decades of the twentieth century. In these years, theatrical practice explored the irony, political interrogation, and metatheatrical enquiry issuing from a belief in the person as possessing sovereignty over cultural production. However, critics, audiences, and reviewers resisted this trend, adhering instead to a traditionalist view of the play as a national romance. This view dismissed the idea of reflexive persons, independent from the force of cultural influence, and focused instead on England's need to utilize the play in restoring a national self-image as glorious and unified after the devastation of the First and Second World Wars.


OBJECTIVES
An earlier study found a relationship between occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs and ectopic pregnancy. The present investigation aimed at confirming this finding in a larger and specifically planned study and at analyzing the relationship between ectopic pregnancy and other chemical or physical agents in the hospital work environment.

METHODS
A case-referent study (140 cases and 279 referents) was carried out in 1995 in a population of women working in hospitals throughout France. The sample size was computed to have an 80% statistical power to detect a 2-fold increased risk of ectopic pregnancy (odds ratio 2). Information was collected about past and present work conditions (exposures to antineoplastic drugs, solvents, disinfectants, anesthetic gases and ionizing radiation), and known risk factors of ectopic pregnancy. Multivariate analysis was performed using logistic regression.

RESULTS
No significant association between occupational exposure and ectopic pregnancy was found, either when past exposure was considered or when exposure was considered within the 3 months before conception. The relationships remained nonsignificant after adjustment for job category and for the known risk factors of ectopic pregnancy.

CONCLUSIONS
It was concluded that the results of this study should be interpreted as an absence of relationship between exposure to chemical or physical agents and ectopic pregnancy.


Lone-actor terrorism is a growing threat in Western European countries as the numbers of lone-actor terrorist attacks have multiplied over the last 15 years. However, knowledge on this type of terrorism is insufficient. This current study evaluates whether there are any common personal, social, psychological, and operational characteristics among lone-actor terrorists (LATs) and whether any profile can be drawn in regard to a lone-actor terrorist. The authors identified 36 LATs between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2016, in Western European countries through the Global Terrorism Database. The study profiled these LATs regarding their sociodemographic characteristics, attack characteristics, method of radicalization, ideology, modus operandi, and typology. Findings of this study show that lone-actor terrorism in Western Europe has undergone new changes, and although there is no single unique profile for LATs, there are common characteristics that warrant further studies. (Less)


Winner of: 2013 Science Communication Award, American Institute of Physics Max the Dog and a young girl named Tori take the first trip to the Moon since the Apollo era, and their trip proves so inspiring to people back on Earth that all the nations of the world come together to build a great Moon colony. From the colony, the views of Earth make everyone realize how small and precious planet Earth is. Along the way, the story sets the stage for more sophisticated science, featured in the 19 "Big Kid Box" sidebars that have been fully updated in this new edition, which cover topics including "Phases of the Moon," "Wings in Space?," and "Frisbees and Curve Balls on the Moon"--all thoughtfully explained so that grown-ups and children can learn together about science. Behind-the-scenes science lessons with activities round out this entertaining and educational picture book, the new edition of which is designed to accompany the new Max Goes to the Moon planetarium show, coming soon to planetariums around the world.


Brillouin-scattering Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (BOTDR) is a viable technology for simultaneous, distributed strain and temperature measurements for miles-long transportation structures. It is a promising tool to ensure the smooth operation and safety of bridge structures that are key links in surface transportation networks or between various transportation modes, for example, from airport to train station. Currently, telecom-grade optical fibers are widely used in civil engineering for strain and temperature measurements. These fibers are very fragile and easy to break during installation and measurement. In order to understand the ultimate behavior of structures, more rugged optical fibers such as carbon/polyimide coated fibers were recently proposed. One laboratory study on two single fibers indicated that new carbon/polyimide coated fibers can sustain a maximum strain of up to 4%, which can survive any local crack in concrete members or buckling in steel members once they are installed on the structural members. This project aimed to characterize the ruggedness and signal loss of various packaged optical fibers and validate their performance as sensors. Among the tested optical fibers, bare single-mode fibers (SMF-28) with uncoated anchoring have the lowest shear strength and the lowest ultimate strain under tension, and are thus not suitable to apply in harsh environments. Polyimide-coated optical fibers have the highest shear strength and the highest ultimate strain under tension, making them the best candidate for civil infrastructure applications. Both glass fiber reinforcing polymer (GFRP) and carbon coated optical fibers are sufficiently rugged to be applied to civil infrastructure.


Motivated by the many real-world applications of reinforcement learning (RL) that require safe-policy iterations, we consider the problem of off-policy evaluation (OPE) -- the problem of evaluating a new policy using the historical data obtained by different behavior policies -- under the model of nonstationary episodic Markov Decision Processes (MDP) with a long horizon and a large action space. Existing importance sampling (IS) methods often suffer from large variance that depends exponentially on the RL horizon $H$. To solve this problem, we consider a marginalized importance sampling (MIS) estimator that recursively estimates the state marginal distribution for the target policy at every step. MIS achieves a mean-squared error of $$ \frac{1}{n} \sum\nolimits_{t=1}^H\mathbb{E}_{\mu}\left[\frac{d_t^\pi(s_t)^2}{d_t^\mu(s_t)^2} \mathrm{Var}_{\mu}\left[\frac{\pi_t(a_t|s_t)}{\mu_t(a_t|s_t)}\big( V_{t+1}^\pi(s_{t+1}) + r_t\big) \middle| s_t\right]\right] + \tilde{O}(n^{-1.5}) $$ where $\mu$ and $\pi$ are the logging and target policies, $d_t^{\mu}(s_t)$ and $d_t^{\pi}(s_t)$ are the marginal distribution of the state at $t$th step, $H$ is the horizon, $n$ is the sample size and $V_{t+1}^\pi$ is the value function of the MDP under $\pi$. The result matches the Cramer-Rao lower bound in \citet{jiang2016doubly} up to a multiplicative factor of $H$. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first OPE estimation error bound with a polynomial dependence on $H$. Besides theory, we show empirical superiority of our method in time-varying, partially observable, and long-horizon RL environments.


Several previous studies have detected positive trends in flood flows in German rivers, among others, at Rhine gauges over the past six decades. The presence and detectability of the climate change signal in flood records has been controversially discussed, particularly against the background of massive river training measures in the Rhine. In the past the Rhine catchment has been heavily trained, including the construction of the Rhine weir cascade, flood protection dikes and detention basins. The present study in- vestigates the role of river training on changes in annual max- imum daily flows at Rhine gauges starting from Maxau down to Lobith. In particular, the effect of the Rhine weir cas- cade and of a series of detention basins was investigated. By homogenising the original flood flow records in the period from 1952 till 2009, the annual maximum series were com- puted that would have been recorded had river training mea- sures not been in place. Using multiple trend analysis, rela- tive changes in the homogenised time series were found to be from a few percentage points to more than 10 percentage points smaller compared to the original records. This effect is attributable to the river training measures, and primarily to the construction of the Rhine weir cascade. The increase in Rhine flood discharges during this period was partly caused by an unfavourable superposition of the Rhine and Neckar flood waves. This superposition resulted from an accelera- tion of the Rhine waves due to the construction of the weir cascade and associated channelisation and dike heightening. However, at the same time, tributary flows across the entire Upper and Lower Rhine, which enhance annual maximum Rhine peaks, showed strong positive trends. This suggests the dominance of another driver or drivers which acted alongside river training.


BACKGROUND & AIMS
Visceral mechanoreceptors are critical for perceived sensations and autonomic reflex control of gastrointestinal function. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying visceral mechanosensation remain poorly defined. Degenerin/epithelial Na+ channel (DEG/ENaC) family ion channels are candidate mechanosensory molecules, and we hypothesized that they influence visceral mechanosensation. We examined the influence of the DEG/ENaC channel ASIC1 on gastrointestinal mechanosensory function, on gastric emptying, and on fecal output. We also compared its role in gastrointestinal and somatic sensory function.

METHODS
To assess the role of ASIC1 we studied wild-type and ASIC1-/- mice. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blot analysis determined expression of ASIC1 messenger RNA and protein in vagal and spinal sensory ganglia. Colonic, gastroesophageal, and cutaneous afferent fibers were characterized by functional subtype and their mechanical stimulus-response relationships were determined. Gastric emptying was determined by using a 13CO2 breath test. Behavioral tests assessed somatic mechanical and thermal sensitivity.

RESULTS
ASIC1 was expressed in sensory ganglia and was lost after disruption of the ASIC1 gene. Loss of ASIC1 increased mechanosensitivity in all colonic and gastroesophageal mechanoreceptor subtypes. In addition, ASIC1-/- mice showed almost double the gastric emptying time of wild-type mice. In contrast, loss of ASIC1 did not affect function in any of the 5 types of cutaneous mechanoreceptors, nor did it affect paw withdrawal responses or fecal output.

CONCLUSIONS
ASIC1 influences visceral but not cutaneous mechanoreceptor function, suggesting that different mechanisms underlie mechanosensory function in gut and skin. The role of ASIC1 is highlighted by prolonging gastric emptying of a meal in ASIC1-/- animals.


We present measurements of the femtosecond nonlinear response of fiber waveguide materials, obtained with spectrally resolved two-beam coupling. This simple but sensitive technique provides all the parameters that characterize the third-order nonlinear optical response, including the dynamics. Measurements are made with nanojoule-energy pulses from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser and a few millimeters of waveguide preform, without the need for drawing fiber.


This full-day tutorial draws on previous experiences of two EU-funded projects (distance education and intercultural learning over the Internet), a distance education programme delivered to eight locations in five countries from Europe, Asia and Africa, the coordination of a 16-partner think-tank consortium for the study of cognitive systems and the international workshop on e-Learning Online Communities.

Both in EU and the US we are witnessing an attempt for the simultaneous development of courses and learning materials specifically designed for global students alongside the e-learning technologies and pedagogical tools required to support them. The benefits of these efforts primarily result in the professional development of e-learning practitioners and researchers including designers of courses, developers of learning content, tutors and trainers involved in distance education, programme administrators, and managing personnel of institutions teaching overseas.

E-learning developers, trainers, tutors and managers, aim on advancing their e-tutor skills as their role is crucial in facilitating distance learners undertaking bilateral online programmes internationally. This enables such e-learning professionals to provide competent support of students through a variety of e-services and web applications.

Furthermore, diversity management skills are highly needed for improving mutual learning, trust and confidentiality. Cultural awareness is needed to provide better market opportunities, for fostering the competitiveness of content and language players on the global network. In the European Union's rich cultural diversity, values, attitudes and beliefs vary so much as to cause problems without proper intercultural and multicultural awareness. Worldwide, there is a great need for citizens to have a better understanding of the level of their own intercultural and multicultural competence.

The ICT evolution of the past two decades leading to the proliferation of the World Wide Web was the primary factor for Online Communities to transform from a social interaction medium to virtual environments with commercial value. The increased popularity of Online Communities triggered the diversification of the community building process depending on those aspects forming the core of a community and enticing Internet users to become members; hence the birth of online communities focusing on education. Currently several institutions have created e-Learning Online Communities and there is early evidence of their future success.


Numbers permeate modern political communication. While current scholarship on framing effects has focused on the persuasive effects of words and arguments, this article shows that framing of numbers can also substantially affect policy preferences. Such effects are caused by ratio bias, which is a general tendency to focus on numerators and pay insufficient attention to denominators in ratios. Using a population-based survey experiment, I demonstrate how differently framed but logically equivalent representations of the exact same numerical value can have large effects on citizens' preferences regarding salient political issues such as education and taxes. Furthermore, the effects of numerical framing are found across most groups of the population, largely regardless of their political predisposition and their general ability to understand and use numerical information. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of framing effects and the role played by numbers in public opinion formation.


BACKGROUND
Marginal donors exposed to the full array of effects induced by brain death are characterized by low success rates after transplantation. This study examined whether organs from marginal brain dead animals show any change in organ function or tissue activation making them eventually more susceptible for additional damage during preservation and transplantation.

METHODS
To study this hypothesis we first focused on effects of brain death on donor organ quality by using a brain death model in the rat. After induction of brain death, Wistar rats were ventilated for 1 and 6 hr and then killed. Sham-operated rats served as controls. Organ function was studied using standard serum parameters. Tissue activation of liver and kidney was assessed by staining of immediate early gene products (IEG: FOS, JUN), and inflammatory markers; cell adhesion molecules (Intercellular adhesion molecule-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1), leukocyte infiltrates (CD45, T cell receptor, CD8, CD4), and MHC class II.

RESULTS
During brain death progressive organ dysfunction was observed that coincided with a significant increase in activation of immediate early genes, intercellular adhesion molecule-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, CD45, and MHC class II versus nonbrain dead controls. In liver tissue also the markers for T cell receptor and CD8 significantly increased.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that an immune activation with increased endothelial cell activation and immediate early gene expression occurs in marginal donors after brain death induction. We suggest that brain death should not longer be regarded as a given nondeleterious condition but as a dynamic process with potential detrimental effects on donor organs that could predispose grafts for increased alloreactivity after transplantation.


This is an excellent paper. A really good use of combining diagnostics to quantify the effects of different processes in cyclones and find out useful information about differences between cyclone environments when different physical processes are more important. While I have some corrections on the presentation of the results, the scientific results of this paper are relevant and interesting and definitely worthy of publication.


Private online platforms have an increasingly essential role in free speech and participation in democratic culture. But while it might appear that any internet user can publish freely and instantly online, many platforms actively curate the content posted by their users. How and why these platforms operate to moderate speech is largely opaque.
This Article provides the first analysis of what these platforms are actually doing to moderate online speech under a regulatory and First Amendment framework. Drawing from original interviews, archived materials, and internal documents, this Article describes how three major online platforms — Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — moderate content and situates their moderation systems into a broader discussion of online governance and the evolution of free expression values in the private sphere. It reveals that private content-moderation systems curate user content with an eye to American free speech norms, corporate responsibility, and the economic necessity of creating an environment that reflects the expectations of their users. In order to accomplish this, platforms have developed a detailed system rooted in the American legal system with regularly revised rules, trained human decisionmaking, and reliance on a system of external influence.
This Article argues that to best understand online speech, we must abandon traditional doctrinal and regulatory analogies and understand these private content platforms as systems of governance. These platforms are now responsible for shaping and allowing participation in our new digital and democratic culture, yet they have little direct accountability to their users. Future intervention, if any, must take into account how and why these platforms regulate online speech in order to strike a balance between preserving the democratizing forces of the internet and protecting the generative power of our New Governors.


Background Symptoms of maternal postnatal depression are associated with an increased risk of adverse effects on child development. However, some children exposed to postnatal depression have outcomes similar to unexposed children, and can be referred to as resilient. This study aimed to determine the mechanisms of resilience in children exposed to depressive symptoms postnatally. Method Data are from a prospective cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Self-report questionnaire data were collected during pregnancy and the child's first 2 years regarding maternal views of parenting and her perception of the child. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) was completed postnatally at 8 months and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) at age 11 years. Exposed children who scored above the median score of non-exposed children were defined as resilient. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the development of resilience. Results From the core ALSPAC cohort, 1,009 children (6.9%) were exposed to maternal depression at 8 months postnatally. The SDQ total difficulties scores at 11 years of age indicated that 325 (32.2%) were resilient, 684 were non-resilient. Maternal positive feelings about parenting and child non-verbal communication at 15 months increased the likelihood of later resilience. Conclusions In this study, resilience was associated with two factors: the child's nonverbal communication at 15 months and by maternal positive feelings about parenting. Early intervention to support mother-child interaction and foster child development in women identified with postnatal depressive symptoms may benefit later child resilience.


We aim to simulate the bootstrap current for a MAST-like spherical tokamak using two approaches for magnetic equilibria including externally caused 3D effects such as resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs), the effect of toroidal ripple, and intrinsic 3D effects such as non-resonant internal kink modes. The first approach relies on known neoclassical coefficients in ideal MHD equilibria, using the Sauter (Sauter et al 1999 Phys. Plasmas 6 2834) expression valid for all collisionalities in axisymmetry, and the second approach being the quasi-analytic Shaing–Callen (Shaing and Callen 1983 Phys. Fluids 26 3315) model in the collisionless regime for 3D. Using the ideal free-boundary magnetohydrodynamic code VMEC, we compute the flux-surface averaged bootstrap current density, with the Sauter and Shaing–Callen expressions for 2D and 3D ideal MHD equilibria including an edge pressure barrier with the application of resonant magnetic perturbations, and equilibria possessing a saturated non-resonant 1/1 internal kink mode with a weak internal pressure barrier. We compare the applicability of the self-consistent iterative model on the 3D applications and discuss the limitations and advantages of each bootstrap current model for each type of equilibrium.


The Late Triassic is enigmatic in terms of how terrestrial life evolved: it was the time when new groups arose, such as dinosaurs, lizards, crocodiles and mammals. Also, it witnessed a prolonged period of extinctions, distinguishing it from other great mass extinction events, while the gradual rise of the dinosaurs during the Carnian to Norian remains unexplained. Here we show that key extinctions during the early Norian might have been triggered by major sea‐level changes across the largest delta plain in Earth's history situated in the Triassic Boreal Ocean, northern Pangea. Fossil and rock records display extensive marine inundations with floral turnover, demonstrating how susceptible widespread low‐gradient delta plains were to transgressions. Landward shoreline translocation implies decrease in important coastal regions and ecological stress on the dominant Archosauria, thriving in these habitats, and we argue that these unique geological factors played an important role in dinosaurs gradual rise to dominance.


OBJECTIVE. Our objective in this report was to describe the epidemiologic features of and workload associated with pediatric admissions to 12 US Army military hospitals deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. METHODS. The Patient Administration Systems and Biostatistics Activity database was queried for all local national patients <18 years of age who were admitted to deployed Army hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq between December 2001 and December 2004. RESULTS. Pediatric admissions during the study period were 1012 (4.2%) of 24227 admissions, occupying 10% of all bed-days. The median length of stay was 4 days (interquartile range: 1–8 days). The largest proportion of children were 11 to 17 years of age (332 of 757 children; 44%), although 45 (6%) of 757 children hospitalized were <1 year of age. The majority (63%) of pediatric patients admitted required either general surgical or orthopedic procedures. The in-hospital mortality rate for all pediatric patients was 59 (5.8%) of 1012 patients, compared with 274 (4.5%) of 6077 patients for all adult non-US coalition patients. CONCLUSIONS. Pediatric patients with injuries threatening life, limb, or eyesight are part of the primary responsibility of military medical facilities during combat and have accounted for a significant number of admissions and hospital bed-days in deployed Army hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Military medical planners must continue to improve pediatric medical support, including personnel, equipment, and medications that are necessary to treat children injured during combat operations, as well as those for whom the existing host nation medical infrastructure is unable to provide care.