Semaphorin 3A (Sema3A), which acts as a guidance cue to developing neurons, collapses and repels growth cones by regulating cytoskeletal dynamics, an effect that depends on intra-axonal mRNA translation. Wu et al. used in situ hybridization to screen axons in embryonic rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) explants and found that they contained transcripts for RhoA, a small guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) implicated in regulating cytoskeletal organization. The presence of axonal RhoA mRNA, which was also found in other types of developing neurons, was confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). When expressed in DRG explants, transcripts that encoded destabilized enhanced green fluorescent protein (dEGFP) and contained the RhoA 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) were targeted to axons and growth cones. Sema3A treatment enhanced RhoA abundance in the growth cones of severed axons, an effect that was blocked by inhibiting protein translation. Inactivation of RhoA with the Clostridium botulinum C3 exoenzyme, or treatment with small interfering RNA (siRNA) directed against the RhoA 5′UTR, inhibited Sema3A-mediated growth cone collapse. Whereas expression of constructs that contained RhoA and dEGFP coding sequences and the RhoA 3′UTR (and were thus targeted to axons) restored Sema3A-mediated growth cone collapse to neurons in which endogenous RhoA was knocked down with siRNA, expression of RhoA-dEGFP constructs that lacked the RhoA 3′UTR did not. Moreover, expression of a construct that enabled translation of RhoA from an internal ribosomal entry site restored Sema3A-mediated growth cone collapse to axons treated with rapamycin (which inhibits cap-dependent translation). Thus, local translation of RhoA appears to play a critical role in the regulation of growth cone collapse by Sema3A. K. Y. Wu, U. Hengst, L. J. Cox, E. Z. Macosko, A. Jeromin, E. R. Urquhart, S. R. Jaffrey, Local translation of RhoA regulates growth cone collapse. Nature 436, 1020-1024 (2005). [PubMed]


BACKGROUND
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is one of the most common haematological malignancies in young adults and, with cure rates of 90%, has become curable for the majority of individuals. Positron emission tomography (PET) is an imaging tool used to monitor a tumour's metabolic activity, stage and progression. Interim PET during chemotherapy has been posited as a prognostic factor in individuals with HL to distinguish between those with a poor prognosis and those with a better prognosis. This distinction is important to inform decision-making on the clinical pathway of individuals with HL.

OBJECTIVES
To determine whether in previously untreated adults with HL receiving first-line therapy, interim PET scan results can distinguish between those with a poor prognosis and those with a better prognosis, and thereby predict survival outcomes in each group.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL and conference proceedings up until April 2019. We also searched one trial registry (ClinicalTrials.gov).

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included retrospective and prospective studies evaluating interim PET scans in a minimum of 10 individuals with HL (all stages) undergoing first-line therapy. Interim PET was defined as conducted during therapy (after one, two, three or four treatment cycles). The minimum follow-up period was at least 12 months. We excluded studies if the trial design allowed treatment modification based on the interim PET scan results.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We developed a data extraction form according to the Checklist for Critical Appraisal and Data Extraction for Systematic Reviews of Prediction Modelling Studies (CHARMS). Two teams of two review authors independently screened the studies, extracted data on overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and PET-associated adverse events (AEs), assessed risk of bias (per outcome) according to the Quality in Prognosis Studies (QUIPS) tool, and assessed the certainty of the evidence (GRADE). We contacted investigators to obtain missing information and data.

MAIN RESULTS
Our literature search yielded 11,277 results. In total, we included 23 studies (99 references) with 7335 newly-diagnosed individuals with classic HL (all stages). Participants in 16 studies underwent (interim) PET combined with computed tomography (PET-CT), compared to PET only in the remaining seven studies. The standard chemotherapy regimen included ABVD (16) studies, compared to BEACOPP or other regimens (seven studies). Most studies (N = 21) conducted interim PET scans after two cycles (PET2) of chemotherapy, although PET1, PET3 and PET4 were also reported in some studies. In the meta-analyses, we used PET2 data if available as we wanted to ensure homogeneity between studies. In most studies interim PET scan results were evaluated according to the Deauville 5-point scale (N = 12). Eight studies were not included in meta-analyses due to missing information and/or data; results were reported narratively. For the remaining studies, we pooled the unadjusted hazard ratio (HR). The timing of the outcome measurement was after two or three years (the median follow-up time ranged from 22 to 65 months) in the pooled studies. Eight studies explored the independent prognostic ability of interim PET by adjusting for other established prognostic factors (e.g. disease stage, B symptoms). We did not pool the results because the multivariable analyses adjusted for a different set of factors in each study. Overall survival Twelve (out of 23) studies reported OS. Six of these were assessed as low risk of bias in all of the first four domains of QUIPS (study participation, study attrition, prognostic factor measurement and outcome measurement). The other six studies were assessed as unclear, moderate or high risk of bias in at least one of these four domains. Four studies were assessed as low risk, and eight studies as high risk of bias for the domain other prognostic factors (covariates). Nine studies were assessed as low risk, and three studies as high risk of bias for the domain 'statistical analysis and reporting'. We pooled nine studies with 1802 participants. Participants with HL who have a negative interim PET scan result probably have a large advantage in OS compared to those with a positive interim PET scan result (unadjusted HR 5.09, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.64 to 9.81, I² = 44%, moderate-certainty evidence). In absolute values, this means that 900 out of 1000 participants with a negative interim PET scan result will probably survive longer than three years compared to 585 (95% CI 356 to 757) out of 1000 participants with a positive result. Adjusted results from two studies also indicate an independent prognostic value of interim PET scan results (moderate-certainty evidence). Progression-free survival Twenty-one studies reported PFS. Eleven out of 21 were assessed as low risk of bias in the first four domains. The remaining were assessed as unclear, moderate or high risk of bias in at least one of the four domains. Eleven studies were assessed as low risk, and ten studies as high risk of bias for the domain other prognostic factors (covariates). Eight studies were assessed as high risk, thirteen as low risk of bias for statistical analysis and reporting. We pooled 14 studies with 2079 participants. Participants who have a negative interim PET scan result may have an advantage in PFS compared to those with a positive interim PET scan result, but the evidence is very uncertain (unadjusted HR 4.90, 95% CI 3.47 to 6.90, I² = 45%, very low-certainty evidence). This means that 850 out of 1000 participants with a negative interim PET scan result may be progression-free longer than three years compared to 451 (95% CI 326 to 569) out of 1000 participants with a positive result. Adjusted results (not pooled) from eight studies also indicate that there may be an independent prognostic value of interim PET scan results (low-certainty evidence). PET-associated adverse events No study measured PET-associated AEs.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
This review provides moderate-certainty evidence that interim PET scan results predict OS, and very low-certainty evidence that interim PET scan results predict progression-free survival in treated individuals with HL. This evidence is primarily based on unadjusted data. More studies are needed to test the adjusted prognostic ability of interim PET against established prognostic factors.


Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) is a simple electronic device used to record votes in place of ballot papers and boxes which were used earlier in conventional voting system. Fundamental right to vote or simply voting in elections forms the basis of democracy. All earlier elections be it state elections or centre elections a voter used to cast his/her favorite candidate by putting the stamp against his/her name and then folding the ballot paper as per a prescribed method before putting it in the Ballot Box. This is a long, time-consuming process and very much prone to errors. This situation continued till election scene was completely changed by electronic voting machine. No more ballot paper, ballot boxes, stamping, etc. all this condensed into a simple box called ballot unit of the electronic voting machine. Because biometric identifiers cannot be easily misplaced, forged, or shared, they are considered more reliable for person recognition than traditional token or knowledge based methods. So the Electronic voting system has to be improved based on the current technologies viz., biometric system. This article discusses complete review about voting devices, Issues and comparison among the voting methods and biometric EVM.


The lithostratigraphic KPg boundary separating the underlying Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation from overlying strata of the Paleogene Fort Union Formation in north-central Montana is delineated at the lowermost coal (Z-coal) at the base of the Fort Union. Since meandering stream floodplain coals record deposition in areally-restricted, meanderbelt environments, the lithostratigraphic KPg boundary is diachronous. To test this assertion, a chronostratigraphic framework, developed using radiometrically dated (Ar-Ar) ash horizons, is utilized to examine the physical stratigraphic relations between strata of the uppermost Hell Creek and lowermost Fort Union Formations. The uppermost (3m) Hell Creek Formation consists of massive mudrock with sporadic coal stringers. The lowermost (3m) Fort Union Formation consists of massive mudrocks with the discontinuous Z-coal at its base. No sedimentary structures are present. Three ash horizons, distinguished in the field by color and mineralogy, were used to establish correlations. The lower and middle ashes have been dated at 65.00 ± 0.05 Ma and 64.95 ± 0.05 Ma, respectively (Swisher et al., 1993). Six sites are studied. From east to west, these are: Mossbrucker, Lerbekmo, Pearl, Bone Hollow, Hell's Hollow, and Nirvana. Each site was trenched 3 meters above and below the Z-coal and lithofacies described every centimeter. The lithostratigraphic boundary at Lerbekmo is 55cm below the chronostratigraphic framework, 56 cm below at Mossbrucker, 9 cm above at Pearl, 258 cm below at Nirvana, and was not preserved at Bone Hollow and Hell's Hollow. Wheeler diagrams of these sections suggest the Z-coal is stratigraphically lower in the west and higher in the eastern sections. These observations demonstrate that the lithostratigraphic KPg boundary is diachronous implying portions of the Hell Creek are Paleogene in age and portions of the Fort Union Cretaceous in age. Furthermore, this demonstrates that lithostratigraphy provides insufficient constraints on determining chronostratigraphic position. Localized lithostratigraphic correlations of the terrestrial sections are also complicated by subtle diastems. Since floodplain deposition is centralized in the floodplain trough (Pizzuto et al., 2008) and a single flood event has limited areal extent (Aalto et al., 2003), the precision of lithostratigraphic correlations is limited without a chronostratigraphic framework of isochronous event beds.


Owing to the rapidly growing multimedia content available on the Internet, extractive spoken document summarization, with the purpose of automatically selecting a set of representative sentences from a spoken document to concisely express the most important theme of the document, has been an active area of research and experimentation. On the other hand, word embedding has emerged as a newly favorite research subject because of its excellent performance in many natural language processing (NLP)-related tasks. However, as far as we are aware, there are relatively few studies investigating its use in extractive text or speech summarization. A common thread of leveraging word embeddings in the summarization process is to represent the document (or sentence) by averaging the word embeddings of the words occurring in the document (or sentence). Then, intuitively, the cosine similarity measure can be employed to determine the relevance degree between a pair of representations. Beyond the continued efforts made to improve the representation of words, this paper focuses on building novel and efficient ranking models based on the general word embedding methods for extractive speech summarization. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed methods, compared to existing state-of-the-art methods.


Research articles disseminate the knowledge produced by the scientific community. Access to this literature is crucial for researchers and the general public. Apparently, "bibliogifts" are available online for free from text‐sharing platforms. However, little is known about such platforms. What is the size of the underlying digital libraries? What are the topics covered? Where do these documents originally come from? This article reports on a study of the Library Genesis platform (LibGen). The 25 million documents (42 terabytes) it hosts and distributes for free are mostly research articles, textbooks, and books in English. The article collection stems from isolated, but massive, article uploads (71%) in line with a "biblioleaks" scenario, as well as from daily crowdsourcing (29%) by worldwide users of platforms such as Reddit Scholar and Sci‐Hub. By relating the DOIs registered at CrossRef and those cached at LibGen, this study reveals that 36% of all DOI articles are available for free at LibGen. This figure is even higher (68%) for three major publishers: Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley. More research is needed to understand to what extent researchers and the general public have recourse to such text‐sharing platforms and why.


Psychological sense of community is defined as feelings of belongingness and a shared belief that community members will meet one another's needs. Psychological sense of community has four dimensions: membership, influence, needs fulfillment, and emotional connection. In this study, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the first and second-order factor structure of the brief sense of community scale (BSCS) between male and female Hispanic/Latinx adolescents from an urban community (N = 947). To help validate the BSCS model, the second-order factor model was tested with regression to predict the measures of intrapersonal psychological empowerment and ethnic identity, as constructs conceptually related to psychological sense of community. Findings support that: (1) psychological sense of community can be measured through the BSCS and as a four-factor model among Hispanic/Latinx youth, supporting McMillan and Chavis's (1986) original theoretical discussions; (2) while no differences between genders were present at the model-level, there was path-specific variation; and (3) intrapersonal psychological empowerment and ethnic identity were associated with psychological sense of community.


In this article, I seek to interrogate the visibility of queer girls in contemporary
cinema. I demonstrate how queerness has long been associated with a
passing phase of adolescent development in the teen media sphere. I reflect on the
nuanced relationships between queerness and girlhood in four contemporary US
independent queer films, arguing that Pariah (2011), Mosquita y Mari (2012),
First Girl I Loved (2016), and Princess Cyd (2017) are representative of a new wave
of queer girlhood on screen. Rejecting the pervasive tropes of coming out as coming
of age and just a phase, these films use queer girlhood to challenge linear models
of girlhood.


A desirable property of autonomous agents is the ability to both solve long-horizon problems and generalize to unseen tasks. Recent advances in data-driven skill learning have shown that extracting behavioral priors from offline data can enable agents to solve challenging long-horizon tasks with reinforcement learning. However, generalization to tasks unseen during behavioral prior training remains an outstanding challenge. To this end, we present Few-shot Imitation with Skill Transition Models (FIST), an algorithm that extracts skills from offline data and utilizes them to generalize to unseen tasks given a few downstream demonstrations. FIST learns an inverse skill dynamics model, a distance function, and utilizes a semi-parametric approach for imitation. We show that FIST is capable of generalizing to new tasks and substantially outperforms prior baselines in navigation experiments requiring traversing unseen parts of a large maze and 7-DoF robotic arm experiments requiring manipulating previously unseen objects in a kitchen.


The concept of Advanced Flag-Shaped (AFS) systems, in which alternative forms of energy dissipations (yielding, friction or viscous/visco-elastic damping) are combined in series and/or in parallel together with re-centering elements (un-bonded post-tensioning tendons or Smart memory alloy(SMA) elements), has been previously introduced by the authors. Based on numerical analyses on SDOF-systems, the unique combination of friction or hysteretic dampers in series with viscous dampers, further combined in parallel with re-centering and hysteretic dissipation elements, has been shown to be very effective in controlling both force and displacement responses for either far-field and near-fault ground motions. Experimental validation of the effectiveness of the systems based on shake-table testing on wall systems is presented in a companion paper. In this contribution, the concept of AFS systems is extended to MDOF systems. Preliminary suggestions for a simplified design procedure for AFS connection systems are given within the framework of a Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) approach. Using case-study prototypes of five-storey moment-resisting frame, incorporating four different connection systems, a comparative MDOF study is carried out by the means of non-linear time-history analyses using suites of far-field and nearfault earthquake excitations. The non-linear time history analysis results for both far-field and near-fault earthquakes provided satisfactory validation of the design procedure, though being, as expected, on the conservative side when dealing with velocity-dependent dissipating systems. As per the results of SDOF systems, AFS systems appear to be capable of providing beneficial attribute to the response of a MDOF system, particularly when dealing with velocity-pulse earthquake record, typical of a near-field event. In addition to providing reduction of peak displacement/drift response and a negligible residual deformation, floor accelerations and column shears due to the higher mode effects are also lessened. In the global performance matrix, AFS systems would achieve a much higher performance level in comparison to the conventional systems. There is however, less than expected contribution from the excitation velocity on dampers' energy dissipation up the building heights. Based on these results, an approximation for the velocity-dependent devices' velocities at a given storey is proposed. In conclusion, a brief discussion on limits and potentials for the practical implementation of AFS systems is given, along with anticipation of ongoing and further investigations.


Part 1 of the National BIM Standard (NBIMS) lays out the generic guidelines for developing specialized model views, defined in terms of industry foundation classes (IFC), for various exchanges. These model views are typically applicable to specific design or construction processes, or specific construction technologies. Various efforts have begun to develop such specialized model views. One of these pioneering projects has completed a model view definition for the planning, design, documentation, construction and fabrication phases of precast/prestressed concrete construction. In doing so our team had to deal with a range of issues stemming from the breadth and depth of the information exchanges. This paper presents the challenges experienced in compiling a BIM standard for precast/prestressed concrete. We discuss acquiring exchange requirements (ERs) from a diverse set of industry participants, rationalizing and formalizing them into information delivery manual (IDM), and finally developing model view definitions (MVDs) with specific IFC implementations that respond to the initial requirements. The model views are defined using information "concepts". Each concept is then detailed with IFC 2x4 entities and relationships, which rigorously define how the concepts are to be implemented in ISO STEP EXPRESS-language functions. We propose several approaches for dealing with the breadth and the depth of information exchanges during the IDM and MVD development that allow for logical breakdown of the processes and the data types. Additionally we examine specific challenges that pertain to the fabrication and construction of precast concrete. We generalize the lessons learned in three different categories according to the NBIMS process phases: requirements development, model view definitions and implementation specifications.


The paper looks at the evolution of industry in Uganda examining drivers and constraints since the pre-colonial period in the 1940s to date. It is argued that the state played a central role in industrialization during the pre-colonial and immediate post-colonial period. The paper further looks at industrialisation during the liberal phase. The current structure, size and distribution of industry are discussed in light of the laissez fair paradigm. The non-direct interventionist policy to industrialization has not been adequate to propel industrial development in Uganda. State withdrawal from direct involvement in industrial development was prematurely done and should be revisited.


In To the End of the Land, a compulsory connection is made between the space of the land of Israel, Jewish national identity, and death. Reading this essentially popular novel, we may understand the way the Akedah myth is taken for granted in Israel, threaded as it is through Israeli consciousness. The implications of Grossman's use of the Akedah go beyond the reciprocal relations between the citizen and the sovereign power. The excessive emotional manipulation of the reader obtains from the transposition of the Akedah myth from the father to the mother. Grossman overplays the relation between nationalism and the Akedah myth by foregrounding the concern of a mother for her son. This is the perfect device to achieve total identification with Israelihood. Via the strongest and most understandable of emotions, the complex emotion of motherhood, Grossman struggles to revive the Akedah myth with its shocking, double meanings, and demands the unquestioning re-conscription of the myth to the good of nationalism.


This article discusses yoga as a potential tool for children to deal with stress and regulate themselves. Yoga provides training of mind and body to bring emotional balance. We argue that children and young people need such tools to listen inward to their bodies, feelings, and ideas. Yoga may assist them in developing in sound ways, to strengthen themselves, and be contributing social beings. First, we address how children and young people in today's world face numerous expectations and constant stimulation through the Internet and other media and communication technologies. One reason why children experience stress and mental health challenges is that globalization exposes the youth all over the world to various new demands, standards, and options. There is also increased pressure to succeed in school, partly due to increased competition but also a diverse range of options available for young people in contemporary times than in the past. Our argument also partially rests on the fact that modern society offers plenty of distractions and unwelcome attractions, especially linked to new media technologies. The dominant presence of multimedia devices and the time spent on them by children are clear indicators of the shift in lifestyles and priorities of our new generation. While these media technologies are valuable resources in children and young people's lives for communication, learning, and entertainment, they also result in constant competition for youngster's attention. A main concept in our article is that yoga may help children and young people cope with stress and thus, contribute positively to balance in life, well-being, and mental health. We present research literature suggesting that yoga improves children's physical and mental well-being. Similarly, yoga in schools helps students improve resilience, mood, and self-regulation skills pertaining to emotions and stress.


Cambodia has a dire shortage of lawyers, commonly attributed to the murder of nearly all its legal professionals by the Khmer Rouge. Fewer than fifteen lawyers survived the brutal regime's targeting of intellectuals and professionals and remained in the country when the regime fell in 1979. The atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, however, do not explain the continuing severity of the shortage of lawyers and legal services in Cambodia. Today, hundreds of Cambodian students receive undergraduate and graduate degrees in law each year but cannot become practicing attorneys without paying a $15,000 bribe to pass Cambodia's bar exam. Only 35 to 70 candidates pass (in years that a bar exam is held at all) and can thus enroll the Lawyer Training Center, which has a monopoly on the training required for admission to practice law. The resulting dearth of lawyers deprives poor and rural populations of access to counsel in a country where the authoritarian government and elites allied with it make selective use of the law to maintain power.This Article argues the lawyer shortage is an under-recognized aspect of the failure of the international community's considerable efforts to build the rule of law in Cambodia, and a further example of problems scholars have identified in the dominant approach to building democracy in developing and post-conflict countries. Examining one element of what Stephen Golub has termed the "rule-of-law orthodoxy" — efforts to improve the skills and knowledge of lawyers in developing and transitioning legal systems — this Article argues the efforts of the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative risk empowering and legitimizing a protectionist Bar Association with a history of corruption and intimidation of those who challenge the government. More broadly, the Cambodian example raises questions about USAID-funded rule of law programs throughout the world that promote U.S.-style adversarial legal systems and lawyer monopolies.


This study investigated the relationship between the hydrological response of a river basin to anticipated urbanisation and its subbasin characteristics by applying a hydrological model (HSPF) with land use scenarios generated by an urban growth model (LEAM). The hydrological model was set up and run for the Kishwaukee River basin in northeastern Illinois, USA. The results show that the subbasin size and imperviousness were found to be more correlated to runoff changes than slope. However, no basin characteristics have significant relationships with percent changes in any hydrological variables due largely to the effects of upstream subbasins. When the effects of upstream subbasins are excluded, it becomes clear that the subbasin size is negatively correlated with percent changes in total runoff, storm flow and peak flow. The percent change in impervious land is positively related to the percent changes in storm flow and peak flow, but the relationship itself is dependent on the initial imperviousness level. The geographical pattern of the basin response implies that it requires more targeted measures to mitigate negative hydrological impacts.


The main objective of this study is to examine the achievement of listed telecommunication company before and after the implementation of cost-basic-interconnection. Further more, another objective is to examine empirically the efficiency of the telecommunication company before and after the implementation of cost-basic-interconnection. Variables that used to performance measurement are financial ratios. These ratios are: (1) liquidity ratio, that is current ratio (2) solvability, including leverage ratio, and (3) profitability ratios, such as gross profit margin, operating profit margin, total assets turnover, return on investment, and return on equity. Then the author uses data envelopment analysis to measure technical efficiency. This measurement used to know efficiency interconnection cost from the telecommunication company. The author uses window period two years before and two years after the implementation of interconnection basic cost. A four telecommunication companies are taken by the author as a sample. Wilcoxon signed rank is utilized to test the ratios individually. Moreover, Wilks – Lambda – Mannova test is used to test the ratios simultaneously. The finding of this research indicates that the efficiency of the telecommunication industry companies before and after the implementation of interconnection basic cost is statistically different. This result is not consistent with the prior research who took banking sector as a sample. In terms of testing the financial ratios individually, the achieved of the telecommunication industries are not significantly different in all ratios. Contrast, interconnection cost decline after interconnection basic cost. So did, the telecommunication industry are decline too.


Results from laboratory experiments on conservative density current confluence are reported. Hydraulic characteristics and morphodynamic consequences of the confluence of two continuous release density currents in a horizontal, 45° asymmetrical junction are examined and compared to those of terrestrial subaerial river junctions. It was observed that density current confluence is markedly different than those in river junctions primarily due to the ease of the dense fluid to convect into the ambient fluid in the junction zone. Upward convection in the junction resulted in low horizontal velocity and shear stresses on the bed of the junction zone, followed by replunging to the layer of neutral buoyancy downstream of the junction where acceleration occurs. In the downstream reach was a distinctive erosional pattern similar to central scouring seen in river junctions but starting at the downstream junction point rather than at the upstream junction point. It was found that terrestrial river models match well with the density current case in terms of maximum velocity downstream of the junction, backwater effect, scour face protrusion into the downstream reach, and maximum scour orientation. Poor matching was found in terms of separation zone dimensions and shape, streamline deviation angle on the junction line, and maximum scour depth.


Surround systems are typically based on fixed-directivity loudspeakers pointing towards the listener. Laitinen et al. showed for a variable-directivity loudspeaker that directivity control can be used to influence the distance impression of the reproduced sound. As we have shown in a listening experiment, using beam-controlling loudspeakers, stable auditory events at directions additional to the loudspeaker positions can be created by exciting specific wall reflections. We use these two effects to enable distance control and increase the number of effective surround directions in two different surround setups. We present IIR filter design derived from a physical model, which achieves low frequency beam-control for our novel cube-shaped 4-channel loudspeakers.


Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59–98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is −6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller.


Using data from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey and high-resolution simulations of Virgo cluster-like halos, we determine the stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) for subhalos, using the technique of abundance matching. The subhalo SHMR differs markedly from its field galaxy counterpart, regardless of how the subhalo mass is defined (mass at z = 0, mass at infall, or maximum mass while in the field). The slope of the relation at low mass (M?<10 10 M ) is in all cases steeper than the same for the field. We find conflicting indicators of whether this difference in slope indicates an increasing or decreasing dark-to-stellar ratio; further modelling is required to reach a definitive conclusion. We also find evidence for the existence of a measurable age gradient in velocity, such that older subhalos have lower velocities than their younger peers. This opens the possibility that good quality redshifts of the lower mass galaxies of the Virgo cluster might provide additional constraints on the SHMR at high redshift and its evolution. Finally, we investigate the degree to which mergers, particularly major mergers, cause mixing of old and new material in halos, which has implications for the robustness of any implied radial age gradient. We find only a slight increase in mixing for major mergers over minor mergers, and little evidence for any large amount of mixing being induced by mergers of any ratio.


One of the long-standing questions in biology and machine learning is how neural networks may learn important features from the input activities with a delayed feedback, commonly known as the temporal credit-assignment problem. The aggregate-label learning is proposed to resolve this problem by matching the spike count of a neuron with the magnitude of a feedback signal. However, the existing threshold-driven aggregate-label learning algorithms are computationally intensive, resulting in relatively low learning efficiency hence limiting their usability in practical applications. In order to address these limitations, we propose a novel membrane-potential driven aggregate-label learning algorithm, namely MPD-AL. With this algorithm, the easiest modifiable time instant is identified from membrane potential traces of the neuron, and guild the synaptic adaptation based on the presynaptic neurons' contribution at this time instant. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm enables the neurons to generate the desired number of spikes, and to detect useful clues embedded within unrelated spiking activities and background noise with a better learning efficiency over the state-of-the-art TDP1 and Multi-Spike Tempotron algorithms. Furthermore, we propose a data-driven dynamic decoding scheme for practical classification tasks, of which the aggregate labels are hard to define. This scheme effectively improves the classification accuracy of the aggregate-label learning algorithms as demonstrated on a speech recognition task.


People in the Appalachian Mountains have an increased prevalence in poverty, low educational attainment, and low employment opportunities that are associated with poor health outcomes. Also, the Appalachian Mountain people suffer stigmas that have been propagated since the late 1890s. However, much of the research has been an etic focus and the emic focus is limited. A qualitative study of emic care explored the ways people in the Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina assured wellbeing. Leininger's Culture of Care model was used to guide the study and discover emic ways of wellbeing. The sample included 21 persons between the ages of 25 and 70 years old, persons who had lived in Western North Carolina (WNC) for 15 years of more and who had generational roots to Appalachia. Individual interviews were conducted in homes, at workplaces and in community settings after consent was obtained. Audiotapes were transcribed verbatim and analyzed through multiple levels to ensure trustworthiness, credibility and validity of findings. Emic themes were identified and included Communal Caring Relationships, Spirituality, Place Matters, Grandmothers Caring, and Etic Care. Specific actions and situations within each theme were reported. For example, the Place Matters theme included participants relating their ingestion of healthy diet of fresh fruits and vegetables from the garden or locally grown (the land). Enjoying the outdoors was related to physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Spirituality was found to be a major component in a sense of wellbeing, and was described by participants as going to church, not going to church and the old ways. The use of wild crafted herbs and home remedies occurred by the participants in this study. Leininger's theory and model were useful in guiding the study, as were Spradley's ethnographic interview guidelines. The well-being discussed by participants provides the emic sense of wellbeing in the Appalachian culture. However, the model was not fully supported in terms of participants' discussion of challenges or barriers to wellbeing. Rather, the researcher was able to classify participant responses within the areas of physical, spiritual, and mental well-being. Perhaps this is another indication of how etic perspectives focus much of the perceived Appalachian and non-emic health. The findings provide an understanding of well-being and health that can guide future.


The 1990s witnessed tremendous growth in the assets of international mutual funds. This growth is likely to continue as more investors seek the diversification benefits of foreign assets, which have relatively low correlations with domestic stock portfolios. Investors may also be attracted to international funds in the popular belief that such funds can earn abnormally high returns because of the relative inefficiency of these markets. But there is little evidence that this notion is valid. ; This article sets the stage for investigating whether exploitable foreign market inefficiencies exist by studying the performance of a large sample of international open-end mutual funds during the 1990s. The analysis sorts funds into thirty-two categories and then applies four commonly used performance measures to characterize the funds' return distributions. ; The results show that a large percentage of well-diversified international funds outperform their passive benchmarks in a statistically significant manner, but regional and country funds do not. In addition, emerging markets funds exhibit volatilities that are generally higher than those of developed market funds but do not exhibit significantly higher average or abnormal returns. ; These findings indicate that the attractiveness of emerging markets investment should be revisited in more detail. The author suggests that the next step is to formulate data tests that can disentangle competing models of international capital markets and thus identify the underlying factors driving the results.


Based on the observation that "interdisciplinarity" is the essential nature of C. S. Lewis's religious narratives created by twofold enterprise—imaginative writing and Christian apologetics, this thesis aims to undertake a comprehensive reception of Lewis's works by considering carefully the inter-mixture of literary art and Christian apologetics within the texts and the relevance of the reader's role to the textual experience. In other words, the whole study is oriented to combine literary analysis, apologetic reading and "hermeneutical" reflection upon the encounter between reader and text. The purpose in general is to demonstrate that Lewis's literary world remains artistically engaging, religiously meaningful and existentially significant to the readers beyond his time.

The main part of the thesis presents a practice of close reading and multi-faceted discussion of five texts of Lewis, including: The Pilgrim's Regress (an allegorical account of a modern man's conversion), The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce (theological fantasies concerning interaction between subjective being and objective reality), Till We Have Faces (a mythic novel about the correlation between self-knowledge and religious experience), and A Grief Observed (a first-person narrative of an inward journey of coming to terms with grief and faith). Varied in literary modes of expression, these texts are read in terms of one common theme about the inter-related problem of faith and self. More specifically, they are treated as works of "literary apologetics"—written to manifest and tackle in an "existentialist" manner the alienated or disrupted relationship between the human self and religious / Christian faith.

In the concluding section, the discussion is moved from interpreting the texts to revisiting C. S. Lewis's mind and rethinking the proper mindset for Lewis's readers. This part of the discussion is intended firstly to re-estimate the enterprise of C. S. Lewis as a Christian thinker and literary writer through connecting and comparing his ways of thinking and reading with contemporary theologians and hermeneutical thinkers, particularly Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Ricoeur, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Such association between Lewis and the contemporary trends of hermeneutics leads to the conclusion that C. S. Lewis is indeed an intellectually defensible thinker as well as literary figure in and even beyond his time. Moreover, it helps to fulfill the second objective of this final discussion, which is also the chief goal of the whole thesis, namely, to shed light on an appropriate way of reading C. S. Lewis.

Methodologically, this research is done on a cross-disciplinary basis in terms of a multiplicity of theoretical ideas concerning such topics as literary tropes, figures of speech, the psychology of religion, literary theory and (Kierkegaard's) existentialist philosophy of irony, and hermeneutics. Illuminated by these miscellaneous tools of interpretation, the whole research looks to attest to the claim that the genuine experience of Lewis's texts is not gained through simply appreciating the art of expression or digging out the underlying ideas of Christian apologetics, nor does it rest upon the response of the reader alone, but must rely on the co-working and interplay of all these three aspects of experience.


We have used counterpropagating radiation from a diode laser to cool and stop a beam of cesium atoms. The laser frequency was chirped to keep it in resonance with the slowing atoms. The same laser was used to probe the resulting velocity distributions. We have cooled more than 1010 atoms/sec to a temperature of 1 K. This is an extremely simple and inexpensive way to manipulate atomic velocities and has a wide range of possible applications.


This article deals with a process of designing an inexpensive device for automated scanning of people and large objects. The attention is paid to selection of technical solution of individual system components, from construction to calculation for motors of individual movement axes. The result is a device that allows automated digitization of objects with up to two metres of height, using simple and affordable hand-held scanners.


Abstract Preterm birth (< 37 completed weeks of gestation) is the largest direct cause of neonatal mortality, accounting for an estimated 27% of the 4-million neonatal deaths every year. Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is a type of care for preterm and premature infants whereby the infant is placed in an upright position against the parent's chest, with early skin-to-skin contact between the parent and infant. Mothers who practise KMC exhibit less maternal stress and fewer symptoms of depression, and have a better sense of the parenting role and more confidence in meeting their babies' needs than those who don't. Despite the apparent feasibility of KMC, currently, only a few preterm babies in low-income countries have access to this intervention. Knowledge of the effectiveness and safety of KMC in the community and home setting, and its effects on growth, is still incomplete. Only one study has examined KMC initiation at home. There is an immense need for the promotion of research to improve the delivery of existing cost-effective interventions in low-resource settings and to address key gaps in knowledge. KMC improves growth in low birthweight and preterm infants, and has a significant role to play in protecting them from hypothermia and sepsis, as well as promoting exclusive breastfeeding. KMC helps to reduce neonatal mortality, and inculcates confidence and a better sense of parenting in mothers with regard to their babies' needs.


We explore marketplace design in the context of a business-to-business platform specializing in liquidation auctions. Even when the platform's aggregate levels of supply and demand remain fixed, we establish that the platform's ability to use its design levers to manage the availability of supply over time yields significant value. We study two such levers, each using the platform's availability of supply as a means to incentivize participation from buyers who decide strategically when/how often to participate. First, the platform's listing policy sets the ending times of incoming auctions (hence, the frequency of market clearing). Exploiting a natural experiment, we illustrate that consolidating auctions' ending times to certain weekdays increases the platform's revenues by 7.3% mainly by inducing a higher level of bidder participation. The second lever is a recommendation system that can be used to reveal information about real-time market thickness to potential bidders. The optimization of these levers highlights a novel trade-off. Namely, when the platform consolidates auctions' ending times, more bidders may participate in the marketplace (demand-side competition); but ultimately auctions for substitutable goods cannibalize one another (supply-side competition). To optimize these design decisions, we estimate a structural model that endogenizes bidders' dynamic behavior, that is, their decisions on whether/how often to participate in the marketplace and how much to bid. We find that appropriately designing a recommendation system yields an additional revenue increase (on top of the benefits obtained by optimizing the platform's listing policy) by reducing supply-side cannibalization and altering the composition of participating bidders. This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.


Dependence of the microwave effect on modulation parameters (pulse width, duty ratio, and peak intensity) was studied in an isolated frog auricle preparation. The rate and amplitude of spontaneous auricle twitches were measured during and after a 2 min exposure to 915 or 885 MHz microwaves and were compared to preexposure values. The studied ranges of modulation parameters were: pulse width, 10(-6)-10(-2) s; duty ratio, 7:100000, and peak specific absorption rate, 100-3000 W/kg. Combinations of the parameters were chosen by chance, and about 400 various exposure regimes were tested. The experiments established that no regime was effective unless the average microwave power was high enough to induce preparation heating (0.1-0.4 degree C). The twitch rate instantly increased, and the amplitude decreased, as the temperature rose; similar changes could be induced by equivalent conventional heating. The data provide evidence that the effect of short-term microwave exposure on the isolated heart pacemaker and contractile functions depends on pulse modulation just as much as modulation determines the average absorbed power. These functions demonstrated no specific dependence on exposure parameters such as frequency or power windows.


Efforts to address HIV/AIDS have brought new opportunities and resources to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) activism in many parts of the developing world. However, increased attention in terms of both political opportunities and economic resources is uneven across the diverse population of LGBT peoples and activists. Lesbian activists have reaped far fewer benefits than their gay men counterparts. Building on existing approaches to movement visibility and invisibility, we posit a 'political economy of in/visibility' to analyse lesbian activism in China and Myanmar, where activists face particularly restrictive political and economic conditions. Rather than focus on visibility as a movement pre-condition, objective or strategy, we examine the sources of in/visibility and their interactions with activists' agency; in/visibility emerges from political and economic conditions, but is continuously reshaped by activists who negotiate them. We demonstrate that, despite challenges, lesbian activists respond in ways that help advance LGBT rights advocacy broadly, sometimes even with tactics that their more visible gay counterparts avoid. These interactions subsequently influence the conditions that shape in/visibility. Investigating the political economy of in/visibility, therefore, has significant implications for understanding not only lesbian activism, but also LGBT advocacy and collective mobilization, especially under politically and economically restrictive conditions.


Hedge fund managers differ in ability and investors want to distinguish good ones from bad. Via the design of their investment strategies, better fund managers want to ease this inference problem while worse fund managers want to complicate it. We impose only the minimal restrictions on the nature the investment strategies that, on average, returns reflect the hedge fund manager's ability and that returns be bounded from below, and solve for the set of equilibria that emerge. We then show that under a variety of equilibrium refinements, a unique equilibrium obtains. In this equilibrium, investors set a cutoff standard for providing capital to a hedge fund: and invest if and only if returns exceed this cutoff. This induces less able hedge fund managers to adopt risky investment strategies that maximize the probability of meeting this cutoff by risking large losses if they fail. Over time, as investors learn about a hedge fund manager's ability and less able hedge fund managers are stochastically weeded out, investors set less demanding re-investment standards. Our economy reconciles many facts regarding hedge fund performance. For example, in a regression with fixed hedge fund manager effects, returns of more experienced hedge fund managers decline, even though the expected profits of investors rise with the hedge fund manager's experience; more experienced hedge funds deliver less volatile returns; persistence of returns is greater for better hedge funds; hedge fund failure rates are initially very high, but fall sharply with hedge fund manager experience; returns of exiting hedge funds are substantially worse than historical returns; and the longer is an investor's horizon, the lower is the expected return of the hedge funds in which he invests.


In an environment where economic structures break, variances change, distributions shift, conventional policies weaken and past events tend to reoccur, economic agents have to form expectations over different regimes. This makes the regime-switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (RS-DSGE) model the natural framework for analyzing the dynamics of macroeconomic variables. We present efficient solution methods for solving this class of models, allowing for the transition probabilities to be endogenous and for agents to react to anticipated events. The solution algorithms derived use a perturbation strategy which, unlike what has been proposed in the literature, does not rely on the partitioning of the switching parameters. These algorithms are all implemented in RISE, a flexible object-oriented toolbox that can easily integrate alternative solution methods. We show that our algorithms replicate various examples found in the literature. Among those is a switching RBC model for which we present a third-order perturbation solution.


Localization of mRNA has emerged as a fundamental mechanism for generating polarity during development. In vertebrates, one example of this phenomenon is Vg1 RNA, which is localized to the vegetal cortex of Xenopus oocytes. Vegetal localization of Vg1 RNA is directed by a 340-nt sequence element contained within its 3' untranslated region. To investigate how such cis-acting elements function in the localization process, we have undertaken a detailed analysis of the precise sequence requirements for vegetal localization within the 340-nt localization element. We present evidence for considerable redundancy within the localization element and demonstrate that critical sequences lie at the ends of the element. Importantly, we show that a subelement from the 5' end of the Vg1 localization element is, when duplicated, sufficient to direct vegetal localization. We suggest that the Vg1 localization element is composed of smaller, redundant sequence motifs and identify one such 6-nt motif as essential for localization. These results allow insight into what constitutes an RNA localization signal and how RNA sequence elements may act in the localization process.


Extracted from text ... 26 - IMIESA SEPTEMBER 2005 The role of geospatial information systems (GIS) in engineering and environmental problem solving, with specific reference to economic elements and
the adoption of
the technology and preconditions necessary for its effective implementation, is a key topic for engineers this year. In a paper presented by Professor Prvoslav Marjanovic and Richard Weinmann of
the Sasol Centre for Innovative Environmental Management (SCIEM) of
the University of Witwatersrand,
the potential of GIS as a tool to support engineering problem-solving is thoroughly examined. Application of GIS provides significant opportunities for improvement in both ..


Multitier programming languages reduce the complexity of developing distributed systems by developing the distributed system in a single coherent code base. The compiler or the runtime separate the code for the components of the distributed system, enabling abstraction over low level implementation details such as data representation, serialization and network protocols. Our ScalaLoci language allows developers to declare the different components and their architectural relation at the type level, allowing static reasoning about about distribution and remote communication and guaranteeing static type safety across components. The compiler splits the multitier program into the component-specific code and automatically generates the communication boilerplate. Communication between components can be modeled by declaratively specifying data flows between components using reactive programming.
In this paper, we report on the implementation of our design and our experience with embedding our language features into Scala as a host language. We show how a combination of Scala's advanced type level programming and its macro system can be used to enrich the language with new abstractions. We comment on the challenges we encountered and the solutions we developed for our current implementation and outline suggestions for an improved macro system to support the such use cases of embedding of domain-specific abstractions.


The Old Testament contains a number of interesting poetic references to God's conflict with a dragon, called by names such as Leviathan, Rahab or the twisting serpent, and with the sea. In this original contribution to the background and understanding of the Old Testament Dr Day undertakes a detailed and thorough examination of these allusions. Building on the discovery of the Ugaritic texts, he demonstrates a source for these references within Canaanite mythology. His study further explores the associations of the imagery. Sometimes in the Old Testament the dragon is associated with the creation of the world, or it becomes a symbol of a foreign nation, and in some references it is associated with divine conflict at the end of time.


The Semantic Web is now gaining momentum due to its efforts to create a universal medium for the exchange of semantically tagged data. The representation and querying of semantic data have been made by means of directed labelled graphs using RDF and SPARQL, standards which have been widely accepted by the scientific community. Currently, most implementations of RDF/SPARQL are based on relational database technology. But executing complex queries in these systems usually is rather slow due to the number of joins that need to be performed. In this article, we describe an indexing method using materialized SPARQL queries as indexes on RDF data sets to reduce the query processing time. We provide a formal definition of materialized SPARQL queries, a cost model to evaluate their impact on query performance, a storage scheme for the materialization, and an algorithm to find the optimal set of indexes given a query. We also introduce different approaches to integrate materialized queries into an existing SPARQL query engine.


Many genetic variants have been linked to familial or sporadic Parkinson's disease (PD), among which those identified in PARK16, BST1, SNCA, LRRK2, GBA and MAPT genes have been demonstrated to be the most common risk factors worldwide. Moreover, complex gene-gene and gene-environment interactions have been highlighted in PD pathogenesis. Compared to studies focusing on the predisposing effects of genes, there is a relative lack of research investigating how these genes and their interactions influence the clinical profiles of PD. In a cohort consisting of 2,011 Chinese Han PD patients, we selected 9 representative variants from the 6 above-mentioned common PD genes to analyze their main and epistatic effects on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and the Hoehn and Yahr (H-Y) stage of PD. With multiple linear regression models adjusting for medication status, disease duration, gender and age at onset, none of the variants displayed significant main effects on UPDRS or the H-Y scores. However, for gene-gene interaction analyses, 7 out of 37 pairs of variants showed significant or marginally significant associations with these scores. Among these, the GBA rs421016 (L444P)×LRRK2 rs33949390 (R1628P) interaction was consistently significant in relation to UPDRS III and UPDRS total (I+II+III), even after controlling for the family-wise error rate using False Discovery Rate (FDR-corrected p values are 0.0481 and 0.0070, respectively). Although the effects of the remaining pairs of variants did not survive the FDR correction, they showed marginally significant associations with either UPDRS or the H-Y stage (raw p<0.05). Our results highlight the importance of epistatic effects of multiple genes on the determination of PD clinical profiles and may have implications for molecular classification and personalized intervention of the disease.


In this thesis, we use mathematical models to study the problems about the evolution of hosts and parasites. Firstly, we study a within-host age-structured model with mutation and back mutation which is in the form of partial differential equations with doubleinfections by two strains of viruses. For the case when the production rates of viruses are gamma distributions, the PDE model can be transferred into an ODE one. Then, we analyze our model in two cases: one is without mutation, and the other is with mutation. In the first case, we prove that the two strains of viruses without mutation would die out if both of the individual reproductive numbers are less than one; otherwise, their evolution will comply with competitive exclusion principle meaning that the stronger one will survive finally. In the second case, we verify that they can coexist under some specific conditions in the sense that there exists a coexistence equilibrium which is globally asymptotically stable. Secondly, we explore the viral evolutionary strategies by using a within-host model under body immune response. We consider two types of trade-offs involving the viral production rate, the host death rate caused by infection (i.e., virulence), and the transmission rate. By choosing appropriate fitness, we show that the evolutionary and convergent stability of an evolutionary singular strategy can ne affected by the shapes of the trade-off functions. We also find that the evolutionary branching may occur at the singular strategy for some special trade-off functions. The results imply that the immune response has an important effect on viral evolution. Finally, two classes of trade-off functions are specified which yield some more detailed information on the virus evolutionary strategies. Thirdly, we investigate the cost of immunological up-regulation caused by infection in a between-host transmission dynamical model with superinfection, which describes disease transmission between a single host and two parasites. After introducing mutant hosts to original model, we explore this problem in two cases: (A) monomorphic case; (B) dimorphic case. For (A), mutant hosts have two possible infections: one is by parasite 1; the other is by parasite 2. In each of these two cases, we identify an appropriate fitness for the invasion of the mutant hosts by analyzing the local stability of the mutant free equilibrium. Then, We consider the trade-off between the production rate of infected hosts and their recovery rate. By employing the adaptive dynamical approach, we analyze the evolutionary stability and convergence stability of this singular point, leading to some the conditions for continuously stable strategy, evolutionary branching point and repeller. For (B), we define a new fitness to measure the invasion of mutant hosts with parasite 1 and 2 by the same method. When the trade-off function is chosen to be linear, we are able to obtain conditions for isoclinic stability and absolute convergence stability through simulations. We find that although immune response is benign to hosts, the host evolution would not favor high degree of immunological up-regulation, implying that an intermediate degree of immunological response will be helpful to the host evolution. Moreover, superinfection would help weaker virulent parasite exist in hosts.


We experimentally study the emergence of networks under a known external threat. To be more specific, we deal with the question if subjects in the role of a strategic Designer are able to form safe and efficient networks while facing a strategic Adversary who is going to attack their networks. This investigation relates theoretical predictions by Dziubinski and Goyal (2013) to actual observed behaviour. Varying the costs for protecting nodes, we designed and tested two treatments with different predictions for the equilibrium network. Furthermore, the influence of the subjects' farsightedness on their decision-making process was elicited and analysed. We find that while subjects are able to build safe networks in both treatments, equilibrium networks are only built in one of the two treatments. In the other treatment, predominantly safe networks are built but they are not efficient. Additionally, we find that farsightedness -as measured in our experiment- has no influence on whether subjects are able to build safe or efficient networks.


IN SEPTEMBER 1999, THE UNITED STATES OFFERED NORTH KOREA A DEAL: DOLLARS for disarmament. In exchange for North Korea freezing its missile development program, the U.S. would lift the economic sanctions that have prevented trade between the two countries for the past 50 years. Shortly before the June 2000 summit between the two Korean leaders, the U.S. finally followed through on its promise to ease sanctions. Despite a nascent detente on the Korean peninsula, however, the U.S. refuses to retire its East Asian containment policy. In other words, although the Clinton administration indicated a willingness to help North Korea enter the global market, the U.S. has refused to remove any of the weapons or troops that currently threaten North Korea. This combination of militarism and neoliberal engagement exemplifies U.S. relations toward East Asia more generally. [1] The U.S. struggles to maintain the Cold War in Asia on the basis of 100,000 troops, considerable hardware, and sizable contributions from Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. At the same time, particularly in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the U.S. government has consistently pushed for neoliberal reforms that involve the privatization of state assets, the lowering of barriers to trade, and the elimination of restrictions on the transnational movement of capital. In some cases, U.S. economic and military objectives have overlapped, and the U.S. State Department and the Commerce Department have worked hand in hand. Conventional arms sales, high-tech research programs, and lowered trade barriers have accomplished both objectives of greater market access for U.S. businesses and stronger allied military postures against perceived enemies. Yet globalization and U.S. militarism do not always mix well in East Asia. Certain military imperatives, such as a regional missile defense system, have driven wedges between countries that neoliberals want to unite through free trade. Moreover, certain economic trends, such as the deregulation of financial markets, have weakened some of the very countries that U.S. troops and battleships are pledged to protect. Herein lies the central problem for U.S. policy toward East Asia: the tension between core military and economic objectives. U.S. military strategy in the region depends on the maintenance of the Cold War, with North Korea, China, or a set of new "threats" substituting for the Soviet Union. U.S. economic strategy, although initially forged in the crucible of the Cold War, is increasingly dependent on breaking down ideological divisions in the region. The U.S. is thus Janus-faced: simultaneously looking backward to the Cold War and forward to the single global capitalist market. In terms of international relations theory, this conflict pits Realists, and their concern with balance of power, against Liberals, and their belief that trade will foster greater interdependence (Buzan and Segal, 1994: 3) [2] In the 19th century, colonial powers practiced gunboat diplomacy to impose their wills on recalcitrant countries in Asia. In the 21st century, the U.S. has helped to create a very different method of forcing countries to adopt certain economic and political structures. Call it gunboat globalization, where the gunboats are supplied by several countries and the globalization is carried out by a multiplicity of actors. With gunboat globalization, the U.S. is attempting to combine Realist and Liberal tendencies into new forms of multilateralism in East Asia that simultaneously reinforce and obscure U.S. dominance. Guns Versus Barter Since World War II, the U.S. government position on security in the Pacific region has been "peace through hegemony." According to the view held by successive presidents, Pentagon officials, and State Department spokespeople -- U.S. troops, bases, and the Seventh Fleet act as a buffer separating the conflict-disposed countries of the region from one another. …


The aim of this study was to analyze the epidemiologic impact produced by Direct Observed Treatment Strategy (DOTS) application regarding to its success in the 51h Sanitary Region during the year 2 003. The cure was evaluated by a cohort study comparing two groups. Group 1: Districts in which DOTS were applied in 65% or more TB patients; group 2: Districts applying DOTS in 64% or less, or without its implementation. The global mortality was analyzed on HIV (-) as well as on HIV (+) patients in both groups. In Municipalities where DOTS strategy was applied in >65% of notified cases, the treatment success was 85.7%; the cure rate of bacteriological confirmed pulmonary disease was 86.2% and non-adherence was proved in 8.8% of cases. When DOTS was applied in equal or less than 64% of the cases, the global cure reached 67.6%; in confirmed pulmonary disease it was 68.1%, and non-adherence was proved in 21.8% of cases. Global mortality due to TB was 5.2%; 22.3% in HIV (+) and 4.1% in HIV (-). While In group 1, the cure rate of co-infected TB/HIV patients was 55.2%, non-adherence was 6.9%, in group 2 these figures were 46.4% and 19.7% respectively. Mortality rate in HIV (+) patients was 31.0% in group 1, and 16.1% in group 2. These results show that DOTS application proved to be an efficient tool to cure most of the patients, reaching the proposed goal of 85%, therefore reducing the risk of illness in the community.


The Government of the Republic of Korea has made great efforts to improve its regulatory management system and to realise regulatory reform since the economic crisis of the late 1990s. Section 1 of this paper explores the evolution of regulatory reform and reviews the coherence of the regulatory management system in the Republic of Korea. Sections 2 and 3 explore how this system was applied in two case studies of regulatory change: Section 2 on golf course regulation and Section 3 on the restriction of opening hours of food services businesses.


The necessity of having an effective computer-aided decision support system in the housing construction industry is rapidly growing alongside the demand for green buildings and green building products. Identifying and defining financially viable low-cost green building materials and components, just like selecting them, is a crucial exercise in subjectivity. With so many variables to consider, the task of evaluating such products can be complex and discouraging. Moreover, the existing mode for selecting and managing, often very large information associated with their impacts constrains decision-makers to perform a trade-off analysis that does not necessarily guarantee the most environmentally preferable material. This paper introduces the development of a multi-criteria decision support system (DSS) aimed at improving the understanding of the principles of best practices associated with the impacts of low-cost green building materials and components. The DSS presented in this paper is to provide designers with useful and explicit information that will aid informed decision-making in their choice of materials for low-cost green residential housing projects. The prototype MSDSS is developed using macro-in-excel, which is a fairly recent database management technique used for integrating data from multiple, often very large databases and other information sources. This model consists of a database to store different types of low-cost green materials with their corresponding attributes and performance characteristics. The DSS design is illustrated with particular emphasis on the development of the material selection data schema, and application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) concept to a material selection problem. Details of the MSDSS model are also discussed including workflow of the data evaluation process. The prototype model has been developed with inputs elicited from domain experts and extensive literature review, and refined with feedback obtained from selected expert builder and developer companies. This paper further demonstrates the application of the prototype MSDSS for selecting the most appropriate low-cost green building material from among a list of several available options, and finally concludes the study with the associated potential benefits of the model to research and practice.


We have developed an efficient electron beam (e-beam) source, a microcolumn, that can be used as a source module for of microscopy and its applications. To obtain a low operating voltage, a very sharp cold field electron emitter was developed by electrochemically etching a tungsten wire. Laser diffraction was used for the fabrication of high-quality electron lenses and for their precise alignment. The measurement of the e-beam currents, and SEM images captured by the microcolumn confirmed the potential of the device as a very good e-beam source.


Abstract. This study investigates the effects of the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009 on surface ozone and other photo-oxidants over China. A box model was used to study the sensitivity of ozone to the limb darkening effect during an eclipse event, and to show that the impact on ozone is small (less than 0.5 %). In addition, the regional model WRF-Chem was applied to study the effects of the eclipse on meteorological and chemical parameters, focusing on different regions in China. Chemical and meteorological observations were used to validate the model and to show that it can capture the effects of the total solar eclipse well. Model calculations show distinct differences in the spatial distributions of meteorological and chemical parameters with and without the eclipse. The maximum impacts of the eclipse occur over the area of totality, where there is a decrease in surface temperature of 1.5 °C and decrease in wind speed of 1 m s −1 . The maximum impacts on atmospheric pollutants occur over parts of north and east China where emissions are greater, with an increase of 5 ppbv in NO 2 and 25 ppbv in CO and a decrease of 10 ppbv in O 3 and 4 ppbv in NO. This study also demonstrates the effects of the solar eclipse on surface photo-oxidants in different parts of China. Although the sun was obscured to a smaller extent in polluted areas than in clean areas, the impacts of the eclipse in polluted areas are greater and last longer than they do in clean areas. In contrast, the change in radical concentrations (OH, HO 2 and NO 3 ) in clean areas is much larger than in polluted areas mainly because of the limited source of radicals in these areas. The change in radical concentrations during the eclipse reveals that nighttime chemistry dominates in both clean and polluted areas. As solar eclipses provide a natural opportunity to test more thoroughly our understanding of atmospheric chemistry, especially that governed by photolysis, a comprehensive experimental campaign during a future solar eclipse is highly desirable.


The "Promethean shame" (Gunther Anders) is propitious to understand the collective sensibility which accompanied the deliquescence of Enlightenment humanism. After two critical events over twentieth century (extermination camps and Hiroshima), we attend two main "escape way". The first concerns the self-engineering; the second the becoming-animal as "absolute deterritorialization". In hollow of this "imaginative tension" we can catch the new imaginary of humanity growing from modern values debris. In this article it will be question of exploring imaginary relating to these "escape way", on the one hand the becoming-thing of humanity (for example the video game NieR Automata), on the other hand, the becoming-animal of humanity (for example the fur fandom). We propose a sociological analysis of saturation of Enlightenment humanism and ways in which it tries to persist through the absorption of non-human.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
The US Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that all adults ages 50 and over be screened for colorectal cancer. Colonoscopy is the most accurate screening procedure, but the feasibility of colonoscopy as a screening tool is limited by the number of physicians trained to perform it. This study determined the current state of colonoscopy training in US family medicine residency programs.

METHODS
We surveyed program directors of all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-approved family medicine residency programs regarding colonoscopy training.

RESULTS
The response rate was 94% (426 of 455). Forty-eight percent (n=201) of directors reported that their program offered colonoscopy training, but only 18% (n=75) of all respondents had actually trained one or more residents to do colonoscopies. Nationally, the mean number of colonoscopies performed per resident was 42.6 +/- 3.9. Regional differences were reported; residents trained in the western United States performed a mean of 69.8 +/- 12.8 colonoscopies per resident. Gastroenterologists in hospital-based gastroenterology suites trained approximately 75% of family medicine residents. Fifteen percent (n=64) of directors reported that 133 (4%) of their July 2002 graduates sought credentials to perform colonoscopy.

CONCLUSIONS
Only a minority of family medicine graduates seek credentials to perform colonoscopy, and significant regional differences in training exist.


Purpose: RH1 is a newly developed bioreductive agent, and its bioactivation is mediated by the enzyme DT-diaphorase (DTD). We have shown previously that RH1 is highly cytotoxic against cells expressing high DTD, using the p53-mutated MDA231 human breast cancer cell line transfected with the DTD gene (D7 cells). We now report that both RH1 and -irradiation cause D7 cells to arrest in the G2/M cell cycle phase and undergo polyploidy. The latter is a way of p53-mutated cells responding to DNA-damaging agents. Only a small proportion of the polyploid cells are clonogenic, hence polyploidy may contribute to the reproductive failure of the cells after RH1 and irradiation. Thus, we investigated the effect of RH1 and -irradiation on the formation of polyploid cells and a sub-G1 population (as a measure of apoptosis) in relation to the G2/M cell cycle block. Methods and Materials: MDA231 D7 cells were treated using a range of RH1 doses. The cells were irradiated using 2 Gy or 5 Gy -rays either as a single dose or in combination with RH1. An IC90 dose (dose to kill 90% of the cells) of RH1 was administered for 3 h followed by irradiation after a further 24 h. Subsequent changes in cell cycle and polyploidy (DNA content in excess of that of G2/M cells) were examined. Results: Treatment of D7 cells with the RH1 resulted in 60 –70% of cells arrested in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle by 24 h, which decreased to control levels by 48 h. Irradiation with 2 Gy and 5 Gy caused a similar G2/M block at 12–24 h, which was followed by a sharp decline at 24 – 48 h. In contrast, the same dose of radiation combined with RH1 held the cells in the G2/M phase up to 48 h, and this pattern reached pretreatment levels at 72–96 h. Most control cells were found to contain a small number of spontaneously arising polyploid cells. The development of polyploid cells was evident from 12 h after all treatments and showed a significant increase at 48 h and subsequently. As opposed to this, apoptosis measured by the sub-G1 cell population in DNA analyses showed a tendency to increase according to the elapsed time for each group of treatments. Single treatments with RH1 caused a significant increase in the apoptotic population between 48 and 120 h. The first significant increase in apoptosis was observed at 48 h for 5 Gy, 2 Gy RH1, and 5 Gy RH1 treatments, and showed a tendency to increase further at later times, but the 2 Gy dose gave an earlier apoptotic peak at 24 h, which decreased to 96 h. The addition of RH1 to the irradiation did not increase the formation of polyploid cells or apoptosis compared with radiation alone (2 Gy vs. RH1 2G y or 5G y vs. RH1 5 Gy). The higher dose of irradiation (5 Gy vs. 2 Gy) resulted in a significantly higher proportion of polyploid cells (but not of apoptotic cells) when used alone or in combination (5 Gy RH1 vs. 2 Gy RH1). Conclusions: Both RH1 and -irradiation, individually and in combination, showed a significant G2/M block in MDA231 D7 breast cancer cells. The formation of polyploid cells was dependent more on the radiation dose rather than on the pretreatment with RH1. The polyploid cell population was observed after the G2/M cell cycle phase arrest, and it preceded the late increase of the apoptotic cell population. The role of polyploidy in cell reproductive failure in the total cell population is not known, but it appears to contribute to cytotoxicity in cells released from the G2/M cell cycle phase block. © 2004 Elsevier Inc.


Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory, and destructive polyarthritis with numerous autoimmune features and the potential for extra-articular and systemic complications. Its etiology is still unknown but much progress has occurred in defining important mechanistic components of RA, leading to significant advances in its treatment. RA is a multifactorial and multistage disease, beginning with preclinical autoimmunity that arises in a genetically predisposed individual who encounters one or more environmental triggers, progressing to the clinical appearance of inflammation in joints and sometimes in other organs, and leading (if effective treatment is unavailable) to destruction of the articular cartilage and adjacent bone. This chapter will consider historical, epidemiologic, genetic, environmental, autoimmune, and inflammatory aspects of the development and progression of RA. Epidemiology and Historical Aspects of RA


The impact of ownership on organizational performance has attracted the interest of a large number of scholars. The empirical research predominately focuses on the impact of ownership structures on organizational performance, and to a lesser extent on the relationship between ownership type and performance. The relationship between ownership and other organizational factors has received little attention. In this article we examine the relationship between independent and subsidiary plants/operating units and leadership style, culture, emphasis on dimensions of the strategy making process, barriers to the implementation of strategy and a matrix of performance measures. Overall we found that independent firms performed better along some but not all dimensions of performance. In addition, they placed less emphasis on dimensions of the strategy making process, faced more implementation barriers, and were more likely to have a transformational style of management. We found differences along dimensions of culture, but no significant difference in cultural strength.


The Jettison Engineering Trajectory Tool (JETT) performs the jettison analysis function for any orbiting asset. It provides a method to compute the relative trajectories between an orbiting asset and any jettisoned item (intentional or unintentional) or sublimating particles generated by fluid dumps to assess whether an object is safe to jettison, or if there is a risk with an item that was inadvertently lost overboard. The main concern is the interaction and possible recontact of the jettisoned object with an asset. This supports the analysis that jettisoned items will safely clear the vehicle, ensuring no collisions. The software will reduce the jettison analysis task from one that could take days to complete to one that can be completed in hours, with an analysis that is more comprehensive than the previous method. It provides the ability to define the jettison operation relative to International Space Station (ISS) structure, and provides 2D and 3D plotting capability to allow an analyst to perform a subjective clearance assessment with ISS structures. The developers followed the SMP to create the code and all supporting documentation. The code makes extensive use of the object-oriented format of Java and, in addition, the Model-View-Controller architecture was used in the organization of the code, allowing each piece to be independent of updates to the other pieces. The model category is for maintaining data entered by the user and generated by the analysis. The view category provides capabilities for data entry and displaying all or a portion of the analysis data in tabular, 2D, and 3D representation. The controller category allows for handling events that affect the model or view(s). The JETT utilizes orbital mechanics with complex algorithms. Since JETT is written in JAVA, it is essentially platform-independent.


We present a theoretical analysis of active learning with more realistic interactions with human oracles. Previous empirical studies have shown oracles abstaining on difficult queries until accumulating enough information to make label decisions. We formalize this phenomenon with an "oracle epiphany model" and analyze active learning query complexity under such oracles for both the realizable and the agnos- tic cases. Our analysis shows that active learning is possible with oracle epiphany, but incurs an additional cost depending on when the epiphany happens. Our results suggest new, principled active learning approaches with realistic oracles.


Gum Tragacanth (GT) obtained from Astragalus Gossypinus is one of the most widely used natural gums which has found applications in many areas because of its attractive features such as biodegradability, nontoxic nature, natural availability, moisture absorption and creating a network of Hydrocolloid. It also has maintenance and delivery of drugs, higher resistance to microbial attacks and long shelf-life properties. In present study, preparation nanofibers of 50 wt% Bassorin (extracted from Gum Tragacanth) has been mixed by 50 wt% Poly Ethylene Oxide and 0.01 wt% Ofloxacin (Ba/PEO/Ofx) for Electrospinning. Nanofibers coated on cotton gauze. The properties of Bassorin and produced nanofibers were examined via XRD, FTIR and SEM microscopy. The Antibacterial of nanofibers activity against Staphylococcus aureus as gram positive bacteria and Escherichia coli as a gram-negative bacteria also were investigated. Nanofibers are capable of absorbing wound's exocrine liquid easily due to their high specific area of nanofibers which 4 to 5% more than cotton gauzes without nanofibers. When it is turned to gel by moisture sorption, the release of loaded Ofloxacin would be enhanced. The Antibacterial assay showed the cotton gauze coated with Ba/PEO/Ofx nanofibers could inhibit about 90% growth both bacterial strain on burn wound. Also, the therapeutic effect of nano-bassorin in restoring superficial second-degree burns in rats showed an accelerated effect on wound healing. Based on the results of this study, it is possible to use cotton gauzes coated with bassorin nanofibers as a suitable candidate for the treatment of second-degree superficial burns.


Regarding late morbidity, hyposalivation is one of the most frequently reported radiation-induced side effects which has a negative impact on health-related quality of life [1;2]. Besides the subjective sensation of a dry mouth (xerostomia), saliva also plays a major role in speech, taste perception, mastication, bolus formation, swallowing, rinsing the mouth, clearing and diluting food detritus and bacterial matter, and mucosal protection [3;4]. In this thesis we investigated the role and the mechanisms of pilocarpine treatment during radiotherapy in the prevention and reduction of radiation-induced hyposalivation.


Abstract : This thesis presents the development and evaluation of a distributed agent based system using reputation based trust and game theoretic techniques to improve the defense of the future smart grid from cyber-attack and equipment malfunctions. Future smart grid capabilities promise to leverage network technologies to revolutionize the production, transmission, distribution and consumption of electrical power. However, the internet like communication also increase the power grid's vulnerability to cyber-attack. This thesis uses simulation linking power systems with communication networks to demonstrate the benefits of a Distributed Decision Making Communication Enable Special Protection System (SPS) using reputation based trust and game theory to protect the power grid from malicious and non-malicious malfunctions. The simulations show that a distributed approach to SPS load shedding successfully maintains power grid stability after an electrical disturbance while using reputation based trust to defend the load shedding from cyber-attack and equipment malfunction. Additional simulations demonstrate the application of game theory to defend the SPS load shedding process when available resources prevent the monitoring and defense of every part of the power grid. The demonstrated capability increases the resiliency of the power grid by preventing uncontrolled blackouts through detection and mitigation of attacks, improving the system's reliability.


Aims: To determine the characteristics of "non-responders" to intravitreal bevacizumab treatment in choroidal neovascularisation (CNV). Methods: Forty-three patients with visual loss due to neovascular age-related macular disease (ARMD) (44 eyes) underwent intravitreal injections of 1.25 mg (0.05 ml) bevacizumab and were followed up every 4 weeks for 2, 3 or 6 months. Re-injection was performed when persistent leakage of the CNV was determined by fluorescein angiography and retinal oedema was assessed by optical coherence tomography (OCT). Non-responders were defined as those patients having reduced or stable visual acuity at the last follow-up. Results: 45% of the patients were non-responders. In this group the initial CNV size was significantly larger than in the responders. Initial reading ability was significantly lower in non-responders, but the initial foveal oedema was similar in both groups. Gains in mean visual acuity and reading ability were independent of lesion type. The proportion of non-responders to responders in the different lesion type groups was equally distributed. Only patients with the classic type of CNV seemed to respond better. Conclusions: In this study initial reasons for non-responders to intravitreal bevacizumab treatment in CNV are given. The efficiency of bevacizumab depends on initial lesion size and initial reading ability, but is independent of the amount of intraretinal and subretinal fluid. There was no general ineffectiveness of bevacizumab with any particular lesion type.


Dialogue promises a natural and effective method for users to interact with and obtain information from computer systems. Statistical spoken dialogue systems are able to disambiguate in the presence of errors by maintaining probability distributions over what they believe to be the state of a dialogue. However, traditionally these distributions have been derived using generative models, which do not directly optimise for the criterion of interest and cannot easily exploit arbitrary information that may potentially be useful. This thesis presents how discriminative methods can overcome these problems in Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) and Dialogue State Tracking (DST). A robust method for SLU is proposed, based on features extracted from the full posterior distribution of recognition hypotheses encoded in the form of word confusion networks. This method uses discriminative classifiers, trained on unaligned input/output pairs. Performance is evaluated on both an off-line corpus, and on-line in a live user trial. It is shown that a statistical discriminative approach to SLU operating on the full posterior ASR output distribution can substantially improve performance in terms of both accuracy and overall dialogue reward. Furthermore, additional gains can be obtained by incorporating features from the system's output. For DST, a new word-based tracking method is presented that maps directly from the speech recognition results to the dialogue state without using an explicit semantic decoder. The method is based on a recurrent neural network structure that is capable of generalising to unseen dialogue state hypotheses, and requires very little feature engineering. The method is evaluated in the second and third Dialog State Tracking Challenges, as well as in a live user trial. The results demonstrate consistently high performance across all of the off-line metrics and a substantial increase in the quality of the dialogues in the live trial. The proposed method is shown to be readily applied to expanding dialogue domains, by exploiting robust features and a new method for online unsupervised adaptation. It is shown how the neural network structure can be adapted to output structured joint distributions, giving an improvement over estimating the dialogue state as a product of marginal distributions.


We present the extension of the effective field theory framework to the mildly non-linear scales. The effective field theory approach has been successfully applied to the late time cosmic acceleration phenomenon and it has been shown to be a powerful method to obtain predictions about cosmological observables on linear scales. However, mildly non-linear scales need to be consistently considered when testing gravity theories because a large part of the data comes from those scales. Thus, non-linear corrections to predictions on observables coming from the linear analysis can help in discriminating among different gravity theories. We proceed firstly by identifying the necessary operators which need to be included in the effective field theory Lagrangian in order to go beyond the linear order in perturbations and then we construct the corresponding non-linear action. Moreover, we present the complete recipe to map any single field dark energy and modified gravity models into the non-linear effective field theory framework by considering a general action in the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner formalism. In order to illustrate this recipe we proceed to map the beyond-Horndeski theory and low-energy Hořava gravity into the effective field theory formalism. As a final step we derived the 4th order action in term of the curvature perturbation. This allowed us to identify the non-linear contributions coming from the linear order perturbations which at the next order act like source terms. Moreover, we confirm that the stability requirements, ensuring the positivity of the kinetic term and the speed of propagation for scalar mode, are automatically satisfied once the viability of the theory is demanded at linear level. The approach we present here will allow to construct, in a model independent way, all the relevant predictions on observables at mildly non-linear scales.


Production of soybeans and consumption of soy products is increasing worldwide mainly due to acclaimed health benefits. Processing can alter soybean sensory appeal, nutritive value and potentially affect consumer health. This review of the literature examines these issues. Despite potential changes in nutritive value during processing, soy foods processing below 100oC for short periods, may not adversely affect nutritive value. However, heat inactivation of trypsin inhibitors, denaturation of soybean globulins and haemagglutenins, increases soy protein bioavailability. Excessive heating can impair nutritive value by making lysine unavailable, as serine, cystine and cysteine are converted to a dehydroprotein intermediate that reacts with lysine to form lysinoalanine. Tryptophan and methionine are also lost during excessive heating. The acylation reaction catalyzed by alkali, generates lysinoalanine, an unavailable and potentially toxic compound. In rats, ingestion of lysinoalanine results in diarrhoea, pancreatic hyperplasia, and loss of hair. At levels present in foods, protein-bound lysinoalanine does not cause nephrotoxicity in humans. Heat treatments at alkaline pH result in destruction of arginine, which is converted to ornithine, urea, citrulline and ammonia, while cysteine is converted into dehydroalanine. Serine, threonine and lysine are also reduced at alkaline pH. These conditions may be present during alkali refining of soy oil. Carbohydrates with free reducing groups react with carbonyl groups on proteins as part of the Maillard reaction. Heat treatments at alkaline pH and above 200oC cause isomerization of amino acids, leading to formation of racemic mixtures of L and D forms. Since D isomers have reduced bioavailability and some including D-proline are reported to be toxic, racemization of an essential amino acid reduces its nutritional value. Changes in lipids include oxidation, loss of lipid-soluble vitamins and change of fatty acids from cis to trans isomers. Autoxidation of unsaturated fatty acids initiates free radical formation leading to destruction of unsaturated fatty acids, with potential reduction of essential fatty acid content. Oxidized lipid-protein interaction products are important precursors of atherosclerotic plaques in vivo. Carotenoids are lost on bleaching, thereby reducing Vitamin A potential. Vitamin E is lost during oil refining. Roasting and toasting have no effect on soy isoflavones, but organic solvents remove them, while fermentation increases their bioavailability. Dehulling reduces total mineral content but most soy minerals follow protein or meal, while sodium and potassium are lost in wash water. To minimize adverse changes, minimal washing, fermentation, reduction of hydrogenation temperature and thermal processing below 100oC for short periods, are recommended.