The last two decades have witnessed the enactment of an array of defendant-friendly tort reforms, in turn prompting numerous constitutional challenges to them. Some state courts have been receptive to these challenges, but the likely prevailing view among them, and certainly the predominant view in the federal courts and the legal academy, is that such challenges amount to attempts to resurrect Lochner's misguided constitutionalization of mere common law. According to this view, modern tort reform measures are a textbook example of the sort of social and economic legislation to which highly deferential rational basis review ought to apply. This Article takes a fresh look at the issue of constitutional limits on tort reform. It argues that, as a matter of history, text, structure, and normative theory, the Fourteenth Amendment confers on individuals a "structural due process" right to a body of law that empowers them to seek redress against those who have committed legal wrongs against them. Corresponding to this right is a prima facie affirmative obligation on states to provide a law of redress. Recognition of this right and duty in turn warrants judicial review of defendant-friendly tort reforms that is more searching than rational basis analysis, and more sensitive to the underlying tort claim and the type of reform at issue, yet still leaves ample room for states to engage in responsible law reform. One broader ambition of this Article is to recover an intellectual tradition that views public and private law holistically - as integrated components of our constitutional frame of government - while also demonstrating that this way of thinking is not bound up with commitments to laissez faire, formalism, or judicial imperialism. It also outlines a political theory, inspired by Locke and Blackstone, which identifies the special characteristics and functions of a law for the redress of private wrongs, and thereby helps to explain why tort law has enjoyed, and perhaps should continue to enjoy, a central place within our legal system.


We investigate whether the gender composition of teams affect their economic performance. We study a large business game, played in groups of three, where each group takes the role of a general manager. There are two parallel competitions, one involving undergraduates and the other involving MBAs. Our analysis shows that teams formed by three women are significantly outperformed by any other gender combination, both at the undergraduate and MBA levels. Looking across the performance distribution, we find that for undergraduates, three women teams are outperformed throughout, but by as much as 10pp at the bottom and by only 1pp at the top. For MBAs, at the top, the best performing group is two men and one woman. The differences in performance are explained by differences in decision-making. We observe that three women teams are less aggressive in their pricing strategies, invest less in R&D, and invest more in social sustainability initiatives, than any other gender combination teams. Finally, we find support for the hypothesis that it is poor work dynamics among the three women teams that drives the results.


Reduced nitrate supply to the subarctic North Pacific (SNP) surface during the last ice age has been inferred from coupled changes in diatom-bound δ15N (DB-δ15N), bulk sedimentary δ15N, and biogenic fluxes. However, the reliability of bulk sedimentary and DB-δ15N has been questioned, and a previously reported δ15N minimum during Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1) has proven difficult to explain. In a core from the western SNP, we report the foraminifera-bound δ15N (FB-δ15N) in Neogloboquadrina pachyderma and Globigerina bulloides, comparing them with DB-δ15N in the same core over the past 25 kyr. The δ15N of all recorders is higher during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) than in the Holocene, indicating more complete nitrate consumption. N. pachyderma FB-δ15N is similar to DB-δ15N in the Holocene but 2.2‰ higher during the LGM. This difference suggests a greater sensitivity of FB-δ15N to changes in summertime nitrate drawdown and δ15N rise, consistent with a lag of the foraminifera relative to diatoms in reaching their summertime production peak in this highly seasonal environment. Unlike DB-δ15N, FB-δ15N does not decrease from the LGM into HS1, which supports a previous suggestion that the HS1 DB-δ15N minimum is due to contamination by sponge spicules. FB-δ15N drops in the latter half of the Bolling/Allerod warm period and rises briefly in the Younger Dryas cold period, followed by a decline into the mid-Holocene. The FB-δ15N records suggest that the coupling among cold climate, reduced nitrate supply, and more complete nitrate consumption that characterized the LGM also applied to the deglacial cold events.


Combining concrete policy-oriented modeling strategies of World War II with what was received as traditional neoclassical theory, in 1956 Robert Solow constructed a simple, clean, and smooth-functioning "design" model that served many different purposes. As a working object it enabled experimentation with long-run equilibrium growth. As an instrument of measurement it was applied to time series data. As a prototype it was supposed to feed into larger-scale econometric models that were, in turn, thought of as technologies for policy advice. Used as a teaching device, Solow's design became a medium of "spreading the technique," and one of the symbols for neoclassical macroeconomics that soon became associated with MIT.


We present a new model-based bundle adjustment algorithm to recover the 3D model of a scene/object from a sequence of images with unknown motions. Instead of representing scene/object by a collection of isolated 3D features (usually points), our algorithm uses a surface controlled by a small set of parameters. Compared with previous model-based approaches, our approach has the following advantages. First instead of using the model space as a regularizer we directly use it as our search space, thus resulting in a more elegant formulation with fewer unknowns and fewer equations. Second, our algorithm automatically associates tracked points with their correct locations on the surfaces, thereby eliminating the need for a prior 2D-to-3D association. Third, regarding face modeling, we use a very small set of face metrics (meaningful deformations) to parameterize the face geometry, resulting in a smaller search space and a better posed system. Experiments with both synthetic and real data show that this new algorithm is faster, more accurate and more stable than existing ones.


The aimed of this study was to determine the effect of Heat Moisture Treatment (HMT) method on the characteristics of local sweet potato starch. Sweet potato starch were isolated from three varieties, namely based on their flesh colour white, light yellow and purple.  The native sweet potato starch clasified into two groups; non HMT groups and HMT groups. The native sweet potato starch with HMT treatment  were adjusted to moisture content of 25% and exposed to HMT at 110°C for 3 h. The native and treated starches were characterized for starch physicochemical characteristics espescially total dietary fibre (TDF) which is increased significatly


Infections with protozoan and helminthic parasites affect multiple organs in the mammalian host. Imaging pathogens in their natural environment takes a more holistic view on biomedical aspects of parasitic infections. Here, we focus on selected organs of the thoracic and abdominopelvic cavities most commonly affected by parasites. Parasitic infections of these organs are often associated with severe medical complications or have health implications beyond the infected individual. Intravital imaging has provided a more dynamic picture of the host–parasite interplay and contributed not only to our understanding of the various disease pathologies, but has also provided fundamental insight into the biology of the parasites.


The Maui Nui complex of the Hawaiian Islands consists of the islands of Maui, Moloka'i, Lana'i, and Kaho'olawe, which were connected as a single landmass in the past. Aspects of volcanic landform construction, island subsidence, and erosion were modeled to reconstruct the physical history of this complex. This model estimates the timing, duration, and topographic attributes of different island configurations by accounting for volcano growth and subsidence, changes in sea level, and geomorphological processes. The model indicates that Maui Nui was a single landmass that reached its maximum areal extent around 1.2 Ma, when it was larger than the current island of Hawai'i. As subsidence ensued, the island divided during high sea stands of interglacial periods starting around 0.6 Ma; however during lower sea stands of glacial periods, islands reunited. The net effect is that the Maui Nui complex was a single large landmass for more than 75% of its history and included a high proportion of lowland area compared with the contemporary landscape. Because the Hawaiian Archipelago is an isolated system where most of the biota is a result of in situ evolution, landscape history is an important determinant of biogeographic patterns. Maui Nui's historical landscape contrasts sharply with the current landscape but is equally relevant to biogeographical analyses.


This study was designed to test the hypothesis that cyclin D1 overexpression is involved in the multistep process of gallbladder carcinogenesis and can be used to predict poor prognosis for patients with gallbladder carcinoma (GBC). Cyclin D1 expression was examined immunohistochemically in a series of specimens, including 8 normal epithelia, 8 benign adenomyoma lesions, 6 precancerous adenomas, and 37 carcinomas of the gallbladder. Four of the 6 (67%) adenomas and 15 of the 37 (41%) adenocarcinomas demonstrated cyclin D1 overexpression (>5% nuclear staining), whereas all normal epithelia and adenomyoma lesions were negative for cyclin D1. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that cyclin D1 overexpression was significantly related to decreased overall survival (P < 0.05) in patients with GBCs. The Cox proportional hazards model identified cyclin D1 overexpression as an independent prognostic marker for death (P = 0.024; risk ratio, 4.2; 95% confidence interval, 1.2-14.7). To test whether cyclin D1 overexpression is a critical event in gallbladder neoplasms, cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27Kip1 was introduced to ascertain how cyclin D1 affects clinical outcomes. Subsequently, neoplasms were divided into three groups on the basis of the combination of cyclin D1 expression and p27Kip1 status, which had been determined previously. Group 1 showed no abnormality in either cyclin D1 or p27Kip1 expression. Group 2 showed aberrant expression of one of the two proteins, whereas group 3 showed concurrent abnormalities in both proteins. Results indicated that overall survival was greatest in group 1, followed by a significant decrease in group 2 and a more precipitous decrease in group 3. In conclusion, cyclin D1 overexpression is an early event in gallbladder carcinogenesis and independently predicts decreased survival for patients with GBC.


Operation Warp Speed brought to market in the United States two mRNA vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna. Interim data suggested high efficacy for both of these vaccines, which helped legitimize Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. However, the exceptionally rapid movement of these vaccines through controlled trials and into mass deployment raises multiple safety concerns. In this review we first describe the technology underlying these vaccines in detail. We then review both components of and the intended biological response to these vaccines, including production of the spike protein itself, and their potential relationship to a wide range of both acute and long-term induced pathologies, such as blood disorders, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune diseases. Among these potential induced pathologies, we discuss the relevance of prion-protein-related amino acid sequences within the spike protein. We also present a brief review of studies supporting the potential for spike protein "shedding", transmission of the protein from a vaccinated to an unvaccinated person, resulting in symptoms induced in the latter. We finish by addressing a common point of debate, namely, whether or not these vaccines could modify the DNA of those receiving the vaccination. While there are no studies demonstrating definitively that this is happening, we provide a plausible scenario, supported by previously established pathways for transformation and transport of genetic material, whereby injected mRNA could ultimately be incorporated into germ cell DNA for transgenerational transmission. We conclude with our recommendations regarding surveillance that will help to clarify the long-term effects of these experimental drugs and allow us to better assess the true risk/benefit ratio of these novel technologies.


To identify the alternate host plants of the groundnut sucking bug (Rhyparochromus littoralis Dist.) an emerging field insect pest of groundnut in the Sudan Savannah Agro-ecological zone of Nigeria, field experiment was carried out over a period of five (5) years (2011 to 2016) in order to investigate the behavior of R. littoralis with the aim of developing a strategic control method for this insect pest.  The study established R. littoralis to be a seasonal pest of groundnut that manifests in high density during the months of September to November causing significant loss to cultivated groundnuts in the field and thereafter, disappears until another harvest period.  It was observed that, apart from groundnut, R. littoralis depended on other plants over-season for the sustenance of its life cycle, where it sucks sap from the plant, pods or fruits.  Prominent crops found to be a haven for the over-seasoning for this insect pest included, cowpea, maize, guinea corn and sesame, while a significant percentage were found under the bark-shelves of live-shea tree.  This study therefore recommended serious sanitation measures and good cultural practices of field maintenance to curb the rapid multiplication of this insect pest.

 Key words: Alternate host, strategy, over-seasoning, sucking bug, insects, population.


The strong interdependence between the developed and developing worlds surfaced with the recent economic downturn. Due to the global character of the economy, the downturn affected not only the North but also the South. In addition, the Official Development Assistance (ODA) is subject to a pro-cyclical trend in aid which falls when donors encounter recession. We attempt to answer the question of whether and how donors adjust aid budgets in response to various macroeconomic shocks. The main objective of the study is to explore the channels as well as behavioural consequences of unexpected financial shocks on aid budget adjustments in the short run. Crises are found to affect aid budgets and their trend through two channels: directly through lower revenues and indirectly by increasing fiscal costs through exchange rates and financial volatility. In addition, this relationship between aid and the donor economy is not solely economic as the donor's internal political orientation also plays an important role.


Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the immunosuppression of nuclear factorkappa B (NF-κB) by intragastric brazilein in spinal cord segments connected with injured sciatic nerve in mice. Methods: Healthy adult BALB/c mice underwent unilateral sciatic nerve interruption and anastomosis and then were treated with physiological saline (blank group), high dose, middle dose and low dose of brazilein in separate groups. The potential amplitude and motor nerve conduction velocity (MNCV) were measured. Myelin was assayed by immunohistochemical staining. NF-κB levels were detected by Western blotting and real-time PCR. Results: The potential amplitude and MNCV in the high and middle dose groups were significantly higher than in the low dose group and blank group. Myelin of the high dose and middle dose groups had more integrity. NF-κB was activated in spinal cord L4–6 connected with injured sciatic nerve. During the survival time of 12 h, 24 h, 3 d, 5 d and 1 w, NF-κB expression of the high dose group and the middle dose group were significantly lower versus the low dose and bland groups (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Brazilein can inhibit the immune activation of NF- κB in neurons in spinal cord L4–6 connected with injured sciatic nerve, which promotes nerve regeneration.


We present a new paradigm for Neural ODE algorithms, called ODEtoODE, where time-dependent parameters of the main flow evolve according to a matrix flow on the orthogonal group O(d). This nested system of two flows, where the parameter-flow is constrained to lie on the compact manifold, provides stability and effectiveness of training and provably solves the gradient vanishing-explosion problem which is intrinsically related to training deep neural network architectures such as Neural ODEs. Consequently, it leads to better downstream models, as we show on the example of training reinforcement learning policies with evolution strategies, and in the supervised learning setting, by comparing with previous SOTA baselines. We provide strong convergence results for our proposed mechanism that are independent of the depth of the network, supporting our empirical studies. Our results show an intriguing connection between the theory of deep neural networks and the field of matrix flows on compact manifolds.


Efforts to conserve endangered species of animal are, in some important respects, at odds with Buddhist ethics. On the one hand, being abstract entities, species cannot suffer, and so cannot be proper objects of compassion or similar moral virtues. On the other, Buddhist commitments to equanimity tend to militate against the idea that the individual members of endangered species have greater value than those of less-threatened ones. This paper suggests that the contribution of Buddhism to the issue of species conservation should not, however, be discounted. It argues, on the contrary, that Buddhist traditions, in reminding us of the moral significance of the suffering of individual animals, add an important dimension to debates concerning the ethical justification of efforts to conserve endangered species.


A large range of ingredients have been considered as potential replacements for
fish meal but grain legumes have attracted most attention in the past. The main
factors that limit the use of grain legumes in animal diets are the number of
antinutritional factors (ANFs) that may adversely affect animal performance. Due
to the high sensitivity of salmonids to ANFs and the importance of salmonid
production in Australia, salmonids have been used as reliable biological tools for
screening the most suitable Australian grain legumes.
In this study, the four most abundant Australian grain legumes: chick peas, faba
bean, field peas and lupin were targeted as potential alternatives to fish meal in
salmonid diets. Chemical, biological and immunological measurements were used
to assess their relative performance. The suitability of the four grains (raw and
processed) was tested with rainbow trout and the effects of body weight (small,
medium and large) and adaptation period on nutrient digestibility were evaluated.
Maximum inclusion of the most suitable grain legume (lupin) was determined and
the effects of exogenous enzymes on the nutrient utilization and fish performance
were also investigated.
The chemical composition and the digestibility of nutrients in lupin were most
suited for rainbow trout compared with the other three grains. Also the
concentrations of the two most important ANFs (trypsin inhibitor and phytic acid)
were lowest in lupin. The concentration of trypsin inhibitor significantly decreased
follwing the combination of both soaking and heating the grains. Fish body size did
not affect nutrient digestibility of the grains. Over the adaptation period in vivo dry
matter digestibility improved only for small fish size and in vivo crude protein
digestibility increased for small and medium fish size. In addition, during the
adaptation period in vivo crude protein digestibility was improved for the grains
that contained higher trypsin inhibition (chick pea and field pea). There was a poor
correlation relationship between in vitro and in vivo digestibility for processed
grains, however there was a significant relationship for the raw grains.
Lupin was selected as the most promising grain legume and the subject of further experiments. Due to the high concentration of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and
relatively low protein content of the whole grain, dehulling was applied to reduce
the NDF and increase the protein content. A dose response experiment was
conducted to establish the highest possible inclusion level of dehulled lupin (DL) in
rainbow trout diets. Fish performed well at up to 40% inclusion of DL in the diet.
However, growth and the energy efficiency ratio significantly decreased at 50%
inclusion of DL. It was concluded that the fish were unable to effectively utilize the
non-protein energy content of DL at this level of inclusion. Supplementation of the
diets that contained 50% DL with different exogenous enzymes: EnergexTm, Biofeed
plusTM and Alpha galactosidaseTm (separate or in a mixture) did not improve
energy utilization by fish. Surprisingly, the growth performance of the fish that
received 50% DL in the diet was marginally better than the group of fish that
received a fish meal based diet. This was partly related to higher feed intake (ad lib
vs set ration), but significantly better energy efficiency ratio suggested improved
use of the carbohydrate fraction of the lupin. The DL that was used in the two
experiments was from the same source but it had been stored under suitable
conditions for about nine months.
Having established the suitability of DL at 50% inclusion level in the rainbow trout
diet, the potential of DL as a fish meal replacement was tested for Atlantic salmon.
The effect of feeding at the most suitable time, based on the diel rhythm of feed
intake on nutrient utilization and growth performance was tested when the fish
received the diets that contained 30% DL. Fish were fed with the diets that
contained 40% and 45% crude protein both in the morning and in the afternoon or
diets that contained 40% crude protein in the morning and 45% crude protein in the
afternoon (mixed diets) and vise versa. Results did not show any effect of feeding
time on nutrient utilization. However, the growth of fish that received the mixed
diets was comparable to groups that received 45% crude protein diets.
The suitability of DL as a fish meal replacement for both rainbow trout and
Atlantic salmon was shown in the current study. Additional studies are needed to
improve the energy utilization and to minimize the dry matter waste of the diets
that contain high levels of DL.


The "big ideas" of geometry-shape, location, transformations and spatial visualisation-are the focus of this book. Sequential activities will enrich the curriculum and help students develop a strong sense of geometric concepts and relationships, leading them to experience the joy and wonder of geometry and other mathematics. The supplemental CD-ROM features interactive electronic activities, master copies of activity pages for students and additional readings for teachers.


Objectives To establish whether differences in early IQ explain why people with longer education live longer, or whether differences in father's or own educational attainment explain why people with higher early IQ live longer. Design Population based longitudinal study. Mortality risks were estimated with Cox proportional hazards regressions. Setting Malmö, Sweden. Participants 1530 children who took IQ tests at age 10 and were followed up until age 75. Results Own educational attainment was negatively associated with all cause mortality in both sexes, even when early IQ and father's education were adjusted for (hazard ratio (HR) for each additional year in school 0.91 (95% CI 0.85 to 0.97) for men and HR 0.88 (95 % CI 0.78 to 0.98) for women). Higher early IQ was linked with a reduced mortality risk in men, even when own educational attainment and father's education were adjusted for (HR for one standard deviation increase in IQ 0.85 (95 % CI 0.75 to 0.96)). In contrast, there was no crude effect of early IQ for women, and women with above average IQ had an increased mortality risk when own educational attainment was adjusted for, but only after the age of 60 (HR 1.60 (95 % CI 1.06 to 2.42)). Adding measures of social career over and above educational attainment to the model (for example, occupational status at age 36 and number of children) only marginally affected the hazard ratio for women with above average IQ (<5%). Conclusions Mortality differences by own educational attainment were not explained by early IQ. Childhood IQ was independently linked, albeit differently, to male adult mortality and to female adult mortality even when father's education and own educational attainment was adjusted for, thus social background and own social career seem unlikely to be responsible for mortality differences by childhood IQ. The clear difference in the effect of IQ between men and women suggests that the link between IQ and mortality involves the social and physical environment rather than simply being a marker of a healthy body to begin with. Cognitive skills should, therefore, be addressed in our efforts to create childhood environments that promote health.


Empirical analyses on the determinants of life satisfaction often include the impact of the number of children variable among controls without fully discriminating between its two (socio-relational and pecuniary) components. In our empirical analysis on the German Socioeconomic Panel we show that, when introducing household income without correction for the number of members, the pecuniary effect prevails and the sign is negative while, when we equivalise income with the most commonly adopted equivalence scales, the non pecuniary (socio-relational) effect emerges and the impact of the variable is positive and significant above a minimal scale elasticity threshold. We further reject slope homogeneity and show that the positive relational effect is stronger for males, below median income households and East Germans. We interpret these subsample split results as driven by heterogeneous opportunity costs. Our empirical results give rise to a paradox: why people have children if the overall (pecuniary plus relational) effect on life satisfaction is negative? We provide in the paper some interpretations consistent with our findings. Some of them are based on motivational complexity. This implies that demographic policies and the paradox are strictly connected. Effectiveness of tax/subsidies impacting on fertility crucially depends on whether the children paradox may be solved within the self-interested rationality paradigm.


Several studies have found a positive association between education and health. Confounding factors that a ect both education choices and health, such as (ob- served) parental background and (unobserved) intelligence, may play an important role in shaping this association. In this paper we estimate the impact of education on diseases in old age, accounting for this endogeneity. Our estimates are based on administrative data on men born in 1944–1947, who were examined for military service in the Netherlands between 1961–1965, linked to national death and medication use records. We assume medication use identifies diseases. We estimate a structural model, consisting of (i) an ordered probit model for the educational attainment, (ii) a Gompertz mortality model for survival up to old age, (iii) a probit model for medication use in old age and, (iv) a measurement system using IQ tests to identify latent intelligence. Educational choices, surviving up to old age and medication use all depend on observed individual factors and on latent intelligence. Based on the estimation results, we derive the impact of education on diseases in old age. Our empirical results reveal a strong effect of education on physical diseases, but low or no effect of education on depression and anxiety.


An examination of the origins and history of magistracy in England and Wales and the UK as the only lay judges in the world with the power to sentence people to prison. Article by Alan Lambert JP.


In this paper we progress a model that describes and explicates the systematic techniques of hostility and aggression that take the form of contemporary tribalism in technologyenabled communities. We argue that these practices are not mere artefacts of dysfunctional communication, but embody important rituals essential for maintaining and defining the boundaries between the contradictory social roles that are frequently found in online communities. Conflict therefore provides an alternative set of unifying principles and rationales for understanding social interaction within technologically enabled communities. We illustrate the importance of conflict through the analysis of dialogue from an Australianbased stock market forum concerning identity shape-shifting.


This paper investigates the patterns of inequality that have emerged in rural Bangladesh in the decade of the 2000s. Two findings stand out clearly –distribution of income has become more unequal over the decade, but, somewhat surprisingly, distribution of consumption has remained more or less unchanged despite widening income inequality. The main analytical task of the paper was to search for the underlying causes responsible for these two apparently contradictory trends. The root of widening income inequality was found to lie in the unequalising effects of foreign remittance, and to a lesser extent, that of income from self-employment in non-agricultural activities. These two sources of income were also the driving force behind rapid growth of the rural economy. This poses a trade-off between growth and equity, which the policymakers need to resolve – for example, by making foreign migration more affordable to people of small means. Our explanation of how consumption inequality remained stable in the face of widening income inequality turns on the consumption smoothing effect of microcredit. The hypothesis is that consumption inequality did not rise because people at the lower end of the income scale were able to enjoy higher levels of consumption at given levels of income thanks to the relaxation of liquidity constraint made possible by the rapid expansion of microcredit. The hypothesis was validated by examining the nature of consumption functions at the two ends of the decade.


In this chapter we present and discuss analyses of instrumental data from nine speakers of Jordanian Arabic. They show that the main articulatory and acoustic differences between plain and emphatic coronal consonants involve changes in the relative volumes and resonance frequencies of the buccal and pharyngeal chambers brought about by adjustments to the position of the tongue body, tongue root, hyoid bone, epiglottis, aryepiglottic folds and the larynx. Formant shifts in adjacent vowels show that F1 is raised and F2 lowered in the presence of an emphatic coronal compared to plain coronals, consistent with the constriction in the mid region of the oropharynx observable on our videofluoroscopic images and with the retraction of the epiglottis revealed by nasoendoscopy. We conclude that the articulatory configuration associated with emphatic coronals is pharyngealisation, but that it becomes uvularisation in the context of the high back /uː/ vowel through coarticulation.


Review of studies carried out on the use of bagasse ash for the improvement of deficient soils in Nigeria, with emphasis on lateritic and black cotton soils is presented. Although, the bagasse ash is mostly used as additive to the conventional soil stabilizers (cement and lime), the studies generally showed improvement in the geotechnical properties of the soils, either modified or stabilized with the ash. This showed the potentials of using this agricultural waste (bagasse ash) in the improvement of geotechnical properties of deficient soils, thus suggesting that using this material at large scale level in geotechnical engineering practice could help in the provision of stable and durable structures, reduce cost of soil improvement and also reduces environmental nuisance caused by the unused waste in Nigeria. Keywords—Bagasse ash, Black cotton soil, Deficient soil, Laterite, Soil improvement.


We performed zircon and apatite fission-track (FT) and muscovite Ar/Ar analyses of the Higher Himalayan Crystallines (HHC) including leucogranite along the southern slope of Mount Everest, E. Nepal. Seventeen samples are from the metamorphosed Yellow Band under the Qomolangma Detachment (QD; 8,300 m a.s.l.) down to the Main Central Thrust (MCT; 2000 m a.s.l.) near Jubing. In 17 km of the structural distance between QD and MCT, we found three stages of cooling history based on the relationship between zircon and apatite FT ages. First, rapid cooling zone at the topmost (QD to ~1.5 km below) of HHC has a simultaneity of zircon and apatite FT ages (15~14 Ma) indicating a cooling rate of >> 100 °C /m.y. This is supported by unimodal distributions of confined-track length in zircon. Second, slow cooling zone (1.5 to 7 km below from QD) has a significant difference of FT ages up to 10 million years among the two minerals from the same rock sample. A cooling rate of 12 °C / m.y. is given in this zone. The resulting broad and skewed track-length distributions in zircon support the slow cooling history. Third, relatively fast cooling zone (40-50 °C/ m.y.) corresponds to the lower half of HHC in which the 10 km-thick massif has constant zircon and apatite FT ages being 5-3 Ma and 1.5-0.8 Ma, respectively. The cooling pattern of the third zone cannot be explained by uplift. In other words, the exhumation of Mount Everest massif has occurred earlier at least than 5 Ma. From interpolation between muscovite Ar/Ar ages and apatite FT ages, ~250°C is estimated as the closure temperature for the retention of fission tracks in zircon at the cooling rate of 50 °C/m.y. In this presentation, we will show temporal changes of cooling profile since 15 Ma and discuss exhumation history of HHC in the Mount Everest massif.


Carbon doped InP/(InGa)As Heterostructure Bipolar Transistors (HBT) are of interest for today's (OC-768) and tomorrow's (OC-3072, 100 Gbit Ethernet, UMTS) communication standards. For a reliable fabrication of these complex radio frequency (opto-)electronic circuits, a quantitative InP process technology control is necessary starting at the level of device epi-layer stacks. In this paper the quantitative characterization of an InP/(InGa)As:C HBT is carried out by non-destructive X-ray analysis. Based on X-ray measurements in 004- and 002-reflection, a detailed analysis of complex device layer stacks is purposed. As a result, an automatic calculation of layer parameters, e.g. thickness and composition is possible, reducing the turnaround time for statistical process control (SPC).


This paper reports on the experimental evaluation of a Graspable User Interface that employs a "spacemultiplexing" input scheme in which each function to be controlled has a dedicated physical transducer, each occupying its own space. This input style contrasts the more traditional "time-multiplexing" input scheme which uses one device (such as the mouse) to control different functions at different points in time. A tracking experiment was conducted to compare a traditional GUI design with its time-multiplex input scheme versus a Graspable UI design having a space-multiplex input scheme. We found that the space-multiplex conditions out perform the time-multiplex conditions. In addition, we found that the use of specialized physical form factors for the input devices instead of generic form factors provide a performance advantage. We argue that the specialized devices serve as both visual and tactile functional reminders of the associated tool assignment as well as facilitate manipulation due to the customized form factors.


To address two challenging problems in infrared target tracking, target appearance changes and unpredictable abrupt motions, a novel particle filtering based tracking algorithm is introduced. In this method, a novel saliency model is proposed to distinguish the salient target from background, and the eigenspace model is invoked to adapt target appearance changes. To account for the abrupt motions efficiently, a two-step sampling method is proposed to combine the two observation models. The proposed tracking method is demonstrated through two real infrared image sequences, which include the changes of luminance and size, and the drastic abrupt motions of the target.


From the point of view of resolution, an existing thin layer may not be detected by seismic wavelets. By numerical experiment and using the reflectivity strength, it is illustrated that the existence of a thin layer with a thickness of less than one-eighth of the dominant '\Tavelength of the propa gating seismic wavelet can be detected. An observed seismic wavelet consists of sub surf ace reflectivity, i.e. the composite wavelets are a function of the separations of individual reflectivity alone. For a thin layer, the shape of a composite seismic wavelet is a func tion of layer thickness. Using plane wave theory and assuming no energy is dispersed, the authors calculate a synthetic seismogram for a geologically pinchout model based on an input Ricker wavelet. The calculated compos ite wavelets are then cross-correlated with the derivative of the input wave let. From Widess's (1973) studies, the resolvable ability of a seismic wave let is clearly defined and understood by the correlation. To examine the effects of the thickness of a thin layer on reflectivity strength, the Hilbert transform is then used to transfer synthetic wavelets. By destructive inter ference, reflectivity strength shows a minimum when the layer thickness is less than one-eighth of the dominant wavelength of the wavelet. The mini mum no longer occurs as the layer thickness exceeds the above criterion. This phenomenon of reflectivity strength on the layer thickness of a ''real'' thin layer can be considered as an indication of its existence.


The model of the energy ladder has been adopted by energy researchers to study household energy poverty and energy transition in the developing countries. However, this model has been widely criticized for placing more emphasis on householder's income and overlooking other critical factors. Consequently, several energy researchers have suggested an alternative model, the so-called energy-stacking model. This study observes that conclusions from proponents of both models need to be revisited, because they fail to capture the reality of households energy systems. In addition, this study critically observes that household energy for lighting has received little attention in these models' assumptions and discourses. These models were combined in this research to study household energy poverty and transition. This study goes on to explore household energy for lighting in more detail, focussing upon opportunities of using solar RETs for alleviating energy for lighting problems in the metropolitan and non-metropolitan zones of the study area, Kano State, Nigeria. This research adopts both quantitative and qualitative approaches informed by the pragmatic epistemological orientation of this study. The quantitative component evaluates the outcomes of a household energy survey (for both cooking and lighting). The results from this component were interpreted through existing and new models (ladder, stacking and integrated-'stack-ladder'). The context of the quantitative component is for both the metropolitan and the non-metropolitan of the study area. The qualitative component, in contrast, investigates the barriers to and opportunities for adopting solar RETs. This component adopts semi-structured interviews with key solar stakeholders. The findings from this research indicate that the characteristics of household energy were better represented with the alternative model presented in this study than either the energy ladder model or energy stacking model. Thus, this study argues that neither the model of the energy ladder nor the energy stacking have the capacity to capture of household energy usage in the developing countries such as Nigeria. The majority of the households are found to be energy poor for cooking across all zones of the study area, using mainly traditional classes of energy. In contrast, this study reveals that the majority of households across both zones rely on transitional and modern energy classes for lighting. The study reveals that there are drivers for solar RETs uptake, however, these drivers are being obstructed by a series of economic, technical and political barriers. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to the field of energy poverty and energy transition literature in many ways; theoretically, empirically and methodologically by challenging the established work in these fields. This thesis argues that the two conceptual models that have been widely used to explore energy poverty at the household energy level in developing countries can usefully be integrated as demonstrated in this study. It also emphasizes the importance of policy intervention and participation of all actors in addressing solar RETs' barriers for uptake.


This article focuses on the integration of immigrants in France as a demographic, economic, social and political process. It uses data from the 1992 INSEE-INED "Mobilite
Geographique et Insertion Sociale" survey (MGIS). Taking off from literature emphasizing
the multidimensional, segmented character of the process, an empirical typology is developed with which to test the relevance of various models. The classic assimilation hypothesis, which assumes the existence of a uniform convergence process, is shown to be validated
only in the case of immigrants from Spain. Other, more complex, segmented models seem to
characterize the various communities represented in the survey.


The paper gives a simplified version of a typical dynamic stochastic open economy general equilibrium models used to analyze optimal monetary policy. Then it outlines the chief modifications when dualism in labour and in consumption is introduced to adapt the model to a small open emerging market such as India. The implications of specific labour markets, and the structure of Indian inflation and its measurement are examined. Simulations give the welfare effects of different types of inflation targeting. Flexible CPI inflation targeting (CIT) without lags works best, especially if the economy is more open. But volatile terms of trade make the supply curve even steeper than in a small open economy despite specific labour markets and higher labour supply elasticity. Exchange rate intervention limits the volatility of the terms of trade and improves outcomes, making the supply curve flatter. As long as such intervention is required, domestic inflation targeting (DIT) continues to be more robust and effective. The welfare losses from the lags in CPI, which prevent the implementation of CIT, are low as long as the dualistic structure dominates. As the economy becomes more open, however, the loss from not being able to use CIT rises. The lags in CPI therefore need to be reduced, making its future use possible.


We present the 8th full focal plane simulation set (FFP8), deployed in support of the Planck 2015 results. FFP8 consists of 10 fiducial mission realizations reduced to 18 144 maps, together with the most massive suite of Monte Carlo realizations of instrument noise and CMB ever generated, comprising 104 mission realizations reduced to about 106 maps. The resulting maps incorporate the dominant instrumental, scanning, and data analysis effects, and the remaining subdominant effects will be included in future updates. Generated at a cost of some 25 million CPU-hours spread across multiple high-performance-computing (HPC) platforms, FFP8 is used to validate and verify analysis algorithms and their implementations, and to remove biases from and quantify uncertainties in the results of analyses of the real data.


Visual motion integration in area V1 is traditionally investigated with local stimuli drifting over many cycles within a fixed aperture. However, psychophysical studies have suggested that motion signals can be optimally integrated along the trajectory of a single, translating dot. High detection performance can be explained by the propagation of information between adjacent detector units (Verghese et al., 1999). Such propagation mechanism was proposed to take place within the retinotopic cortical map in area V1 where each local input along the trajectory will elicit a spread of activity that can pre-activate future locations. To test this hypothesis, we recorded single-unit responses (n=80 cells) in area V1 of 2 fixating monkeys when presented with a small bar (4°) always drifting along the same direction (rightward, 6.6°/s) but with three different trajectory lengths (1.5, 3 and 6°). We found in 47% of the neurons an anticipatory build-up of spiking activity for long motion paths, starting as far as 2-4° from the RF center. This activity was not due to eye movements and was abolished when the order of the stimulus sequence was randomized. To probe the origin of such anticipatory responses, we recorded both LFP signals using multi-electrode-arrays and sub-threshold synaptic activity using voltage-sensitive-dye-imaging (VSDI). LFP responses showed a very early anticipatory signal that could be attributed to a fast feedback signal from higher areas. The dynamics of VSD sub-threshold anticipatory responses matched the spatiotemporal properties of the horizontal connectivity underlying propagation of neural activity within V1 retinotopic maps. Thus, anticipatory spiking response in V1 neurons is probably subtended by a combination of intra and inter-cortical signals converging onto V1 cells. These results highlight the complex, predictive integration of visual motion in primate area V1. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


In tokamaks and stellarators, measurements of electromagnetic fluctuations in the presence of resonant particle drive, including fusion-produced alpha's, reveal the excitation of Alfven eigenmodes (AE), related under certain conditions to a degradation in the fast-particle confinement. The balance between the drive and the background damping is investigated using active diagnostic systems to excite and measure the AE spectrum in terms of frequencies and damping rates. At JET, saddle-coil antennae drive low toroidal mode number (n 1%) during the creation of the magnetic X-point. In the presence of resonant fast particles, information on the instability drive is obtained: low-n modes are found to be stable in the presence of NBI with upsilon(parallel to)/upsilon(A) P-thresh, with 2.5 MW < P-thresh < 5 MW; under these conditions, intrinsically driven TAE and EAE are clearly observed in the magnetic fluctuation spectra, with no measurable effect on the plasma performance.


From its initial concern with monuments, conservation—called historic preservation in the United States—has expanded its focus to include the setting of the monument, historic quarters, and districts, and more recently, cultural and historic landscapes. On the positive side, conservation has tempered the onslaught of capitalist development: many historic areas have been saved from demolition. But in the process, much of the everyday city has become a "monument"—insulated from change and evolution. From its inception, the idea of the historic city was constructed in opposition to the modern city, its ideological "other." These twin constructs have made it impossible to marry the concerns of development, stewardship, and sustainability. This essay argues that in order to move forward, we must understand the origins of the idea of the historic city—questioning, revising, and perhaps discarding the assumptions on which it is based. It proposes a working narrative of the idea of the historic city, drawing on the experience of Western Europe, French North Africa, and the United States.


ABSTRACT Bulgaria, Greece, and North Macedonia have demographically the largest and politically the most significant Turkish minorities in southeastern Europe. Yet the official recognition of Turkish ethnicity and language varies very significantly across these three neighbouring countries. This variation is particularly puzzling and counterintuitive if one considers a number of alternative explanations, all of which would predict different outcomes. The country with the highest level political recognition for Turkish language and ethnicity (North Macedonia) is not the one with the largest Turkish minority in absolute or relative terms, or the one with the highest Turkish minority representation in parliament, or the one that is a new or old EU member, or the ones that neighbour Turkey, the kin state of the minority. Through process tracing based on primary and secondary sources, we argue that a particular type of political polarization over identity among the ethnic majority, which we conceptualize as the 'nationhood cleavage,' facilitated the highest level of official recognition of the minority.


It has been hypothesized that a rearrangement between the delta recombining element (delta Rec) and a pseudo J alpha gene serves to delete the TCR-delta locus before rearrangement of the TCR-alpha genes. We have now sequenced a direct, site-specific rearrangement between the delta Rec element and a pseudo J alpha gene in a human leukemic stem- cell line. Putative "N-sequence" addition was noted at the site of recombination, suggesting that this event occurred at a time when the enzyme(s) involved in N-region addition were active in this cell. This provides support for the view that deletion of the TCR-delta locus is required before rearrangement of the TCR-alpha chain genes.


Browser extensions are remarkably popular, with one in three Firefox users running at least one extension. Although well-intentioned, extension developers are often not security experts and write buggy code that can be exploited by malicious web site operators. In the Firefox extension system, these exploits are dangerous because extensions run with the user's full privileges and can read and write arbitrary files and launch new processes. In this paper, we analyze 25 popular Firefox extensions and find that 88% of these extensions need less than the full set of available privileges. Additionally, we find that 76% of these extensions use unnecessarily powerful APIs, making it difficult to reduce their privileges. We propose a new browser extension system that improves security by using least privilege, privilege separation, and strong isolation. Our system limits the misdeeds an attacker can perform through an extension vulnerability. Our design has been adopted as the Google Chrome extension system.


Undoped, anion-doped (Sb, Bi), and cation-doped (Ca, Zn) solid solutions of Mg2Si0.4Sn0.6 have been prepared by a commercially feasible large-scale solid state synthesis method. The compositional and structural stability of the prepared samples are investigated by high resolution synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) in the potential application temperature range of 300–750 K. Quantitative compositional and structural information are extracted from the multi-temperature PXRD data by the Rietveld method. Detailed analysis of the PXRD data reveals an irreversible thermally induced partial conversion of Mg2Si0.4Sn0.6 into a discrete Sn-rich Mg2Si1−xSnx-phase in the undoped and anion-doped samples. On the other hand, the cation-doped samples only undergo very minor compositional and structural changes with increasing temperature, indicating a stabilizing effect of Ca and Zn on the Mg2Si0.4Sn0.6 solid solution. The structural instability of the undoped and anion-doped samples is corroborated by the measured electrical resistivity as function of temperature in the same temperature range, in which a clear difference is observed between values during initial heating and subsequent cooling. In contrast, the resistivity data of the cation-doped samples exhibit good repeatability for two thermal cycles, confirming that cation doping greatly improves the thermal stability. This work highlights the importance of conducting multiple temperature cycles in the measurement of physical properties combined with a thorough structural characterization in studies of thermoelectric materials.


The authors make a critical evaluation of the ethical aspects of research based on their experience as university teachers and members of Ethics Committees. They invite to the discussion on topics that they consider polemic. They begin by mentioning the regulatory role of the International and Local Ethical Norms and of the Ethics Committees. They comment on the position of South American bioethicists regarding the so-called ethical "double standard" and on the liberalization of the use of the placebo. They criticize the damage that the system of patents causes on low- resources patients, as well as the lack of interest in the development of new medications to treat neglected diseases or those diseases which are only prevalent in poor countries, and the excessive length of the Informed Consents. They finish giving their opinion about the distribution of the clinical trials among the researchers, the problems that affect the Ethics Committees and some contents of the Regulation of Clinical Trials of the National Institute of Health.


Patterned structures were created by exposing SiO2 sol-gel films containing nano-silicon particles to a Clark MXR CPA-2010 fs laser (387 nm). A refractive index variation of 0.2 was obtained, similar to that of polymer films, however in an entirely superior stability class (structural, chemical, thermal, radiation, etc). The useful optical range of refractive index modulation is beyond 800 nm, respectively near-IR. Material characteristics were investigated with atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman spectroscopy and spectro-ellipsometry measurements. Material properties were also investigated on different substrates in order to determine the influence of substrate type in laser processing.


This paper pretends to draw a brief review upon the ethical aspects of a prescription at a "micro" level, that is of the therapeutic relationship based on the Georgetown "theory of principles" and on the technical aspects of a correct prescription according to the lex artis , sustained on the so-called "evidence based medicine" and on the WHO's requests and publications. It then turns to the subject of the medical prescription as a problem of Public Health. It stops at its social impact and at the undue pressures that doctors must suffer in order to prescribe, especially those coming from the pharmaceutical industry. It also offers a juridical framework focused on the Human Rights' International Law. Universal access to medication should be reached -understood as a social good of fundamental importance- in order to attain the Right to Sanitary Assistance. Several ethical justifications that hold up this right are taken into account, especially Rawls' theory of justice


The incorporation of common organic wastes (e.g. compost, biosolids, recycled paper waste) into soil promotes contaminant removal and stabilization, and diverts waste from landfill or incineration. However, implementation is constrained by public perception, timescale, cost and the pollutant burden of the organic waste itself. In addition, the high nutrient content of most organic wastes can lead to low biodiversity value at restoration sites. These potential negative aspects are now being countered by the mixing of waste streams, thus providing a multifunctional solution to land remediation where pollutant removal is not the only long-term goal.


Early theorists (Freud and Darwin) speculated that extremely shy children, or those with anxious temperament, were likely to have anxiety problems as adults. More recent studies demonstrate that these children have heightened responses to potentially threatening situations reacting with intense defensive responses that are characterized by behavioral inhibition (BI) (inhibited motor behavior and decreased vocalizations) and physiological arousal. Confirming the earlier impressions, data now demonstrate that children with this disposition are at increased risk to develop anxiety, depression, and comorbid substance abuse. Additional key features of anxious temperament are that it appears at a young age, it is a stable characteristic of individuals, and even in non-threatening environments it is associated with increased psychic anxiety and somatic tension. To understand the neural underpinnings of anxious temperament, we performed imaging studies with 18-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) high-resolution Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in young rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys were used because they provide a well validated model of anxious temperament for studies that cannot be performed in human children. Imaging the same animal in stressful and secure contexts, we examined the relation between regional metabolic brain activity and a trait-like measure of anxious temperament that encompasses measures of BI and pituitary-adrenal reactivity. Regardless of context, results demonstrated a trait-like pattern of brain activity (amygdala, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, hippocampus, and periaqueductal gray) that is predictive of individual phenotypic differences. Importantly, individuals with extreme anxious temperament also displayed increased activity of this circuit when assessed in the security of their home environment. These findings suggest that increased activity of this circuit early in life mediates the childhood temperamental risk to develop anxiety and depression. In addition, the findings provide an explanation for why individuals with anxious temperament have difficulty relaxing in environments that others perceive as non-stressful.


Recent archaeological evidence supports the claim that the first system of writing and the first use of abstract numerical representation evolved from the clay token accounting system of ancient Mesopotamia. Writing and other abstract symbol systems have subsequently transformed human cognitive capacities within only few millennia, a time period too short for any substantial changes in our biologically-evolved brains. This paper uses Merlin Donald's theory of human cognitive and cultural evolution [in Origins of the Modern Mind; 1991] to identify the role played by ancient accounting in these evolutionary processes. Specifically, it is argued that this early accounting system paved the way for writing by instigating revolutionary cognitive structures for processing visual/symbolic artifacts and establishing a primitive but very powerful form of external memory (external to the brain). The paper also explores the role that accounting systems continue to play in the provision of "cognitive scaffolding" with...


There are two different modes of ideological mystification which should in no way be confused: the liberal-democratic one and the Fascist one. The first one concerns false universality: the subject advocates freedom/equality, not being aware of implicit qualifications which, in their very form, constrain its scope (privileging certain social strata: rich, male, belonging to a certain race or culture). The second one concerns the false identification of the antagonism and the enemy: class struggle is displaced onto the struggle against the Jews, so that the popular rage at being exploited is redirected from capitalist relations as such to the 'Jewish plot.' …


The increasing adoption of 3D capturing equipment, now also found in mobile devices, means that 3D content is increasingly prevalent. Common operations on such data, including 3D object recognition and retrieval, are based on the measurement of similarity between 3D objects. A common way to measure object similarity is through local shape descriptors, which aim to do part-to-part matching by describing portions of an object's shape. The Spin Image is one of the local descriptors most suitable for use in scenes with high degrees of clutter and occlusion but its practical use has been hampered by high computational demands. The rise in processing power of the GPU represents an opportunity to significantly improve the generation and comparison performance of descriptors, such as the Spin Image, thereby increasing the practical applicability of methods making use of it. In this paper we introduce a GPU-based Quasi Spin Image (QSI) algorithm, a variation of the original Spin Image, and show that a speedup of an order of magnitude relative to a reference CPU implementation can be achieved in terms of the image generation rate. In addition, the QSI is noise free, can be computed consistently, and a preliminary evaluation shows it correlates well relative to the original Spin Image.


The concern of chondrocyte-osteoblast transition in skeleton development has continued for more than one century. Even though many morphological and in vitro data clearly indicated osteoblast differentiation as an alternative fate choice of chondrocytes besides of undergoing apoptosis, absence of the solid in vivo observation led to this chondrocyte-osteoblast transition concept stagnant. Fortunately, the development of gene-manipulated strategy in biology assisted to resolve the century-problem by in vivo lineage tracing and the concept of chondrocyte-osteoblast transition was finally accepted until 2014, when three elegant studies published. These works done by three individual groups reached out similar conclusion about chondrocyte-osteoblast transdifferentiation in the process of endochondral bone formation. The acceptance of this concept shed light on skeletal biology and the endochondral ossification (EO) chapter of text book will be re-written with this finding. However, the different origins and the proposed functional discrepancy of skeletal osteoblasts also bring us to re-explain and think of previous data again. More in-depth studies will implement more curiosity on the underlying molecular mechanism of chondrocyte-osteoblast differentiation and the physiological function of chondrocyte-derived osteogenic cells in both skeleton homeostasis and bone marrow environment.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are often volume expanded and hypertensive. Few controlled studies have assessed the effects of a sodium-restricted diet (SRD) in CKD.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
We conducted a randomized crossover trial to evaluate the effect of SRD (target <2 g sodium per day) versus usual diet on hydration status (by bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy) and blood pressure (BP) between May of 2009 and May of 2013. A total of 58 adults with stage 3-4 CKD were enrolled from two academic sites: University of Michigan (n=37) and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (n=21); 60% were men, 43% were diabetic, 93% were hypertensive, and mean age was 61 years. Participants followed SRD or usual diet for 4 weeks, followed by a 2-week washout period and a 4-week crossover phase. During the SRD, dieticians provided counseling every 2 weeks, using motivational interviewing techniques.

RESULTS
Whole-body extracellular volume and calf intracellular volume decreased by 1.02 L (95% confidence interval [95% CI], -1.48 to -0.56; P<0.001) and -0.06 L (95% CI, -0.12 to -0.01; P=0.02), respectively, implying decreased fluid content on the SRD compared with usual diet. Significant reductions in urinary sodium (-57.3 mEq/24 h; 95% CI, -81.8 to -32.9), weight (-2.3 kg; 95% CI, -3.2 to -1.5), and 24-hour systolic BP (-10.8 mmHg; 95% CI, -17.0 to -4.6) were also observed (all P<0.01). Albumin-to-creatinine ratio did not change significantly and mean serum creatinine increased slightly (0.1 mg/dl; 95% CI, -0.01 to 0.2; P=0.06). No period or carryover effects were observed. Results were similar when analyzed from phase 1 only before crossover, although P values were modestly larger because of the loss of power.

CONCLUSIONS
In this randomized crossover trial, implementation of SRD in patients with CKD stage 3-4 resulted in clinically and statistically significant improvement in BP and hydration status. This simple dietary intervention merits a larger trial in CKD to evaluate effects on major clinical outcomes.


Quick and easy answers for common Windows 7 questions Windows 7 is the operating system used by millions of people around the world. This easy-to-use, compact guide offers visual learners tips, tricks, and techniques for working smarter and faster. The task-oriented approach presents straightforward task descriptions, succinct explanations, and full-color screen shots accompanied by step-by-step instructions for getting common tasks completed efficiently and quickly. Technology guru and consummate author Paul McFedries shares useful and unique techniques that will help you get the most from Windows 7. He shows you how to get more done in less time while still boosting your productivity. Plus, the small trim size encourages you to take this handy reference with you wherever you go so that you can find essential information any time, anywhere. Handy, convenient guide packed with full-color screen shots and step-by-step instructions helps visual learners become more proficient with Windows 7 Unexpected and useful techniques show you ways to get the most from Window 7's innovative new interface Straight-forward task descriptions address all the changes to Windows 7 in a quick and easily accessible format Good things come in small packages, and this pocket guide is packed with quick and easy solutions to common Windows 7 questions.


A biogenic emission scheme based on the Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) version 2.1 (Guenther et al., 2012) has been integrated into the ECHAM6-HAMMOZ chemistry climate model in order to calculate the emissions from terrestrial vegetation of 32 compounds. The estimated annual global total for the reference simulation is 634 Tg C yr−1 (simulation period 2000-2012). Isoprene is the main contributor to the average emission total accounting for 66 % (417 Tg C yr−1), followed by several monoterpenes (12 %), methanol (7 %), acetone (3.6 %) and ethene (3.6 %). Regionally, 5 most of the high annual emissions are found to be associated to tropical regions and tropical vegetation types. In order to evaluate the implementation of the biogenic model in ECHAM-HAMMOZ, global and regional BVOC emissions of the reference simulation were compared to previous published experiment results with the MEGAN model. Several sensitivity simulations were performed to study the impact of different model input and parameters related to the vegetation cover and the ECHAM6 climate. BVOC emissions obtained here are within the range of previous published estimates. The large range of 10 emission estimates can be attributed to the use of different input data and empirical coefficients within different setups of the MEGAN model. The biogenic model shows a high sensitivity to the changes in plant functional type (PFT) distributions and associated emission factors for most of compounds. The global emission impact for isoprene is about -9 %, but reaches +75 % for α-pinene when switching from global emission factor maps to PFT-specific emission factor distributions. The highest sensitivity of isoprene emissions is calculated when considering soil moisture impact, with a global decrease of 12.5 % when 15 the soil moisture activity factor is included in the model parameterization. Nudging ECHAM6 climate towards ERA-Interim reanalysis has impact on the biogenic emissions, slightly lowering the global total emissions and their interannual variability.


Lysine and threonine cause feedback inhibition to aspartokinase,
dihydropicolinate synthase, and homoserine dehydrogenase which result in
growth inhibition due to lack of methionine. This research was conducted to
study the effect of lysine, threonine and methionine on wheat seed
development and amino acid content. Wheat spikes were grown in liquid
media with three different concentrations of lysine, threonine or methionine.
Concentrations used were 1 mM lysine and threonine (L T) , 1 mM lysine,
threonine and methionine (LT M) and without lysine, threonine or methionine (0
L TM) . Spikes were cultured from anthesis for a period of 6 wk. Seed number
per spike, seed weight and amino acid composition were analyzed. No
significant effects on seed number per spike and seed weight were observed
for spikes cultured in 1 mM L T medium. Spikes cultured in 1 m M L T medium
had a significant reduction in. total concentration of ten amino acids. The
reductions in the 1 0 amino acids lead to a significant 13% reduction in protein
percentage. Inclusion of methionine with lysine and threonine overcame the
inhibitory effect of lysine and threonine on accumulation of 7 amino acids.
Addition of lysine, threonine and methionine also enhanced grain development
by increasing seed number per spike. Inclusion of methionine does not
overcome the significant reduction in total alanine, glutamate and glycine. It
did improve the concentration of cysteine, isoleucine and valine when
compared to the control.


The title compounds were synthesized by Sonogashira coupling reactions of appropriate Ru(II) complexes with the electron acceptors. Characterization was conducted in solution and in frozen matrixes. Finally, the title compounds were evaluated as dopants of sol-gel materials. It was found that the intramolecular quenching efficiency of 4-benzoyl-Nmethylpyridinium cation in solution depends on the solvent: photoluminescence is quenched completely in CH3CN, but not in methanol or ethanol. On the other hand, intramolecular emission quenching by 4-benzyl-N-methyl viologen is complete in all solvents. The difference between the two quenchers is traced electrochemically to the solvation of the 4-benzoyl-Nmethylpyridiniums by alcohol. In frozen matrixes or adsorbed on the surfaces of silica aerogel, both Ru(II) complex/electron acceptor dyads of this study are photoluminescent, and the absence of quenching has been traced to the environmental rigidity. When doped aerogels are cooled at 77 K, the emission intensity increases by 4, and the spectra shift to the blue, analogous to what is observed with Ru(II) complexes in solutions undergoing fluidto-rigid transition. However, in contrast to frozen solutions, the luminescent moieties in the bulk of aerogels kept at low temperatures are still accessible to gas-phase quenchers diffusing through the mesopores, leading to more sensitive platforms for sensors than other room-temperature configurations. Thus, the photoluminescence of our Ru(II) complex dyads adsorbed on aerogel is quenchable by O2 both at room temperature and at 77 K. Furthermore, it was also found that O2 modulates the photoluminescence of aerogels doped with 4-benzoylN-methylpyridinium -based dyads over a wider dynamic range compared with aerogels doped with either our viologen-based dyads or with Ru(II) tris(1,10-phenanthroline) itself.


The sprawling communities surrounding cities pose a paradox for wildlife. Suburban habitat, with parks, greenways, and planned open spaces, provide attractive habitat with abundant resources for some wildlife species. Yet the landscape is dominated by human activities and disturbances. Species with little tolerance for human disturbance and habitat changes have difficulty maintaining their populations in suburban environments. Yet more adaptable species flourish in suburban areas where there are less predators, increased food resources, and abundant habitat for cover and raising young. The resulting overabundant wildlife populations pose increasing problems for biologists, wildlife damage practitioners, and the public. Management of urban and suburban wildlife requires not only sound ecological studies, but also an understanding of public attitudes and interests. Human value systems, including politics, economics, health and safety, and cultural differences, are central to the management and control of wildlife species in urban/suburban areas. Even among the best studied and managed species, we need better information on the relationship between human attitudes, management strategies, habitat conditions, and sustainable wildlife populations. This paper places the issues of wildlife damage management within the larger context of suburban wildlife conservation and management. Wildlife control is part of a bigger picture of overabundant wildlife populations, habitat conditions, and human dimensions. I discuss a conceptual model for suburban wildlife management that includes inputs from both ecological and sociological data and outputs measured by changing wildlife populations. The model is illustrated with data from the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Massachusetts.


Economists have tried to uncover stylized facts about people's expectations, testing whether such expectations are rational. Tests in the early 1980s suggested that expectations were biased, and some economists took irrational expectations as a stylized fact. But, over time, the results of tests that led to such a conclusion were reversed. In this paper, we examine how tests for bias in expectations, measured using the Survey of Professional Forecasters, have changed over time. In addition, key macroeconomic variables that are the subject of forecasts are revised over time, causing problems in determining how to measure the accuracy of forecasts. The results of bias tests are found to depend on the subsample in question, as well as what concept is used to measure the actual value of a macroeconomic variable. Thus, our analysis takes place in two dimensions: across subsamples and with alternative measures of realized values of variables.


ABSTRACT The consistent growth of homeschooling in recent decades can be considered a reflection of public criticism of the education system. This criticism has given rise to alternative education methods; homeschooling is one of the most radical examples. In light of the increasing scope of homeschooling and its significant implications, it is important to understand its origins. However, the research on the attitudes of parents who choose homeschooling has not considered the role of personality of parents in their attitudes. The purpose of the present research was to examine the contribution of socioeconomic and personality traits of parents to their attitudes, focusing on neuroticism, openness to experience, and anxiety and avoidance attachment styles. The findings indicated that parents' personality contributed significantly to the explanation of their attitudes; in some cases, this contribution was mediated by their socioeconomic traits.


Recently Tchamkerten et al. proposed a mathematical formulation of the problem of joint synchronization and error-correction in noisy channels. A variation of their formulation in this paper considers a strengthened requirement that the decoder estimate both the message and the location of the codeword exactly. It is shown that the capacity region remains unchanged and that the strong converse holds. The finite blocklength regime is investigated and it is demonstrated that even for moderate blocklengths, it is possible to construct capacity-achieving codes that tolerate exponential level of asynchronism and experience only a rather small loss in rate compared to the perfectly synchronized setting; in particular, the channel dispersion does not suffer any degradation due to asynchronism.


Objective: To study the construction and modifications of siRNA with CXCR2 (chemokine receptor expression 2) and to evaluate its treatment effect in a rabbit animal model infected with syphilis on the testicle and eye.
Methods: The synthetic CXCR2-siRNA was linked with the pDC316-EGFP-U6 plasmid by ligase, and then this reconstruction plasmid was modified with cholesterol. After establishment of the animal model by Treponema pallidum (TP) for rabbits' testicles and eyes, intervention by the plasmid with CXCR2- siRNA was utilized and its effects were evaluated.
Results: The recombinant plasmid was detected by agarose gel electrophoresis, and it was the right size and concentration of 285 ng/μl by UV spectrophotometer. After 28 days of treatment, there was no difference between the control group and empty plasmid control group in its treatment effect (P>0.05). However, the effect of the recombinant plasmid was obvious, with a statistical significance (P<0.01). There were significant differences between the three groups in chancre, testis swelling, orchitis, fur damage, lymphadenitis and TP in the testis by microscopy. However, there was no difference in the rabbits' serum syphilis antibody level by the Treponema pallidum Particle Hemagglutination Assay (TPHA). EGFP (Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein) was observed by fluorescence microscopy, and the cellular ratio with the green fluorescent protein was 10%. There was a high efficiency of transfection for the recombinant plasmid with CXCR2-siRNA.
Conclusion: The modified recombinant plasmid clearly interfered with the in vivo replication of syphilis.


What is it to be big? What is it to be small? And what is it to be global? Common sense, including a good deal of the common sense underlying network metaphors for complex globality, involves the assumption that the global is large, that it includes the (smaller) local, and that to understand it we need to adopt a holistic approach in which we look up to explore emergent complexities, and so obtain a provisional overview of the whole. In this paper I argue, following Chunglin Kwa, that this is a particular and romantic method for imagining complexity. I then follow Kwa by considering a baroque alternative. Instead of looking up, this looks down and discovers limitless internal complexity within, which is materially heterogeneous, specific, and sensuous. In this monadology there are no limits to complexity within, but neither is there any possibility of modeling and knowing that complexity in full. There is no overview and neither is there any assumption of coherence. In this way of thinking the global lies within each site and is small, sensuous, specific, heterogeneous, noncoherent, and cannot be more than patchily modeled.


The current investigation examines the communicative hallmarks of successful chaplaincy work as articulated by professional chaplains providing spiritual care at the end-of-life. Data grounded in qualitative interviews with 32 chaplains of various denominations and lengths of service reveals a challenge in gauging success when working with dying patients and families. Chaplains reported nonverbal hallmarks of success consist of (a) intrapersonal sense of accomplishment, (b) progress in fulfilling patient needs, and (c) meaningful connection with patients. Verbal hallmarks of success include (a) patient affirmation, (b) family affirmation, and the (c) chaplain being asked to participate in religious rites. In practice, the authors conjecture, chaplains assess professional competency in the self, patient, and family domains. Implications and future directions are discussed.


I. INTRODUCTION Most developing economies that undergo the process of financial liberalisation have banking systems that are burdened by a large proportion of bad loans and risky credits. The most common cause of bad loans is directed lending to preferred individuals or favoured sectors of the economy. These loans have created several problems for financial sectors and have seriously hindered the growth of developing economies. State-owned banks (SOBs) rely on government interventions to protect them against their large risk exposures to the enterprises to which they have lent. That weakens their bargaining power and ability to control borrowers. Over the last three decades, banking crises have become more prominent for both developed and developing countries. Caprio and Klingebiel (1996, 1997 and 1999), for example, have identified over eighty-six separate episodes of large-scale bank insolvency across a wide range of developed and developing countries in the 80s and 90s while Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999) report 102 banking or currency crises from 1970 to 1995 among a sample of 20 industrialized and developing countries. Between 1999 and 2001 Turkey experienced systemic financial difficulties punctuated by a series of banking and currency crises--June-December 1999, November 2000, and February 2001--that wiped out the capital of the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) banks, decimated the equity of the other public and private banks, and necessitated a bailout by the International Monetary Fund. Over this period, 22 private banks were seized by the regulator, the Banking Regulation and Supervisory Agency (BRSA), and several state banks were reorganized. By the end of 2001 the BRSA had injected over USD 42 billion into the banking sector and Turkey's gross domestic product stood 5.5% lower then in 1998. The Pakistani financial system has been in a transitional period from a predominantly administered system to a market oriented one since the early 1980s. The Pakistani banking system, in particular, faced a number of bottlenecks that were similar to those of other countries of comparable development like India, Bangladesh and even Turkey. A fundamental problem was the large volume of non-performing loans (NPLs) that have accumulated since the nationalization of the banking system in the 1970s. This paper contributes to the literature on non-performing bank loans in developing countries by investigating the behaviour of credit managers in Turkey and Pakistan who actually make the lending decisions. The study identifies factors that contributed to an increase in NPLs in large state-owned commercial banks over the period 1999-2001 and 1996-1998 in Turkey and Pakistan respectively. A major feature of the paper is the use of survey methodology to obtain primary data. We had face-to-face interviews with 110 senior credit managers in the four major commercial banks in Turkey and 100 credit managers in five large state-owned commercial banks of Pakistan. Then we use the application of the ordered probit model for analysing the survey data. The paper is divided into five sections. The second section gives a brief background of the subject and the literature review. The third section gives the details of the Turkish and the Pakistani Banking sector. The fourth section contains the methodology used and the fifth section contains the empirical results. Finally, the last section concludes with a short summary. II. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Surveys have been employed by previous studies, but none of them used it for examining the causes of bank failures and banking crises. For example, Royal and Althauser (2002) use surveys across different levels of an organization to determine key indicators and performance drivers in the investment banking industry. In the same way, Bassi et al. (2001) employ surveys and interviews to test their hypotheses regarding the positive relationship between sophisticated use of human capital and firms' financial performance. …


Advertising in the Ramadan is at peak in Pakistan and other Muslim countries. It now resembles other festival theme based advertising. In view of the lack of the studies on the issue, this study has adopted the constructs commonly used in measuring attitude towards advertising. The adapted questionnaire was administered to a population of 320, and the valid sample size was 303. After ascertaining normality, validity, and reliability, initially overall model was tested through multiple regressions. Subsequently, hypotheses were tested separately through simple regression. The study found that entertainment, information, credibility and good for the economy and irritation positively influence consumers' attitude towards advertising. The study validates all the results, except irritation. This relationship is positive in this study but is inconsistent with earlier studies that found a negative relationship between irritation and attitude. The media industry will benefit from the finding of this study in developing right communication strategy on Ramadan Theme advertising. This study has not explored the effects of demographic factors and the moderating effect of different media, which could be incorporated in future research.


The labor of black workers has been crucial to economic development in the United States. Yet because of racism and segregation, their contribution remains largely unknown. Spanning the 1930s to the present, "Black Workers Remember" tells the hidden history of African American workers in their own words. It provides striking firsthand accounts of the experiences of black southerners living under segregation in Memphis, Tennessee. Eloquent and personal, these oral histories comprise a unique primary source and provide a new way of understanding the black labor experience during the industrial era. Together, the stories demonstrate how black workers resisted racial apartheid in American industry and underscore the active role of black working people in history. The individual stories are arranged thematically in chapters on labor organizing, Jim Crow in the workplace, police brutality, white union racism, and civil rights struggles. Taken together, the stories ask us to rethink the conventional understanding of the civil rights movement as one led by young people and preachers in the 1950s and 1960s. Instead, we see the freedom struggle as the product of generations of people, including workers who organized unions, resisted Jim Crow at work, and built up their families, churches, and communities. The collection also reveals the devastating impact that a globalizing capitalist economy has had on black communities and the importance of organizing the labor movement as an antidote to poverty. Michael Honey gathered these oral histories for more than fifteen years. He weaves them together here into a rich collection reflecting many tragic dimensions of America's racial history while drawing new attention to the role of workers and poor people in African American and American history.


Made in England is a book by frame builders, about frame builders. It takes a unique look at the world of bespoke frame building by showcasing the artisans in England who craft these bicycle frames. The authors, Matthew Sowter and Ricky Feather, travelled around the country along with talented photographer Kayti Peschke, to interview the people who are leading this industry. Each artisan shares their methods, their passion, their skills and their quirks. Through these intimate conversations they express what makes them unique in this international art. The book showcases exquisite photography of the frame builders and their working environment, contrasting the raw, rough workshops with sleek images of the beautifully finished final products.


Poverty is associated with the higher cancer rates, cancer risk factors like tobacco used and obesity, and lack of access to cancer screening and the treatment. Breast cancer may be caused by the occurrence of malignant tumors, is one of the structures of composing the organs, which is formed due to uncontrolled reproduction of cells that went through a complex process of transformation and may evolve by direct extension or through metastatic dissemination. The main symptoms are palpable nodes and deformations especially the cambers or retractions in the breast part. Constitutional symptoms such as asthenia, fever and weight loss may also compose a clinical condition. People with lower socio economic status have high cancer deaths than those with higher socio economic status, regardless of the demographic factors which includes race/ethnicity. Only small things can be known about the breast cancer among economically disadvantaged women, except the two generally accepted facts, low income women are likely to be diagnosed more with the later stage of the disease and have higher mortality rates. Being uninsured may lead to health services, and thereby creating delays or even the absence of screening, diagnostic and also the treatment services. Lack of access may account for women diagnosed when the cancer is advanced, reducing the women's chances of survival.


SUSTAINABLE EMERGENCIES: THE PARADOX OF COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT OF ACUTE MALNUTRITION PROGRAMS Kelly Delaney, RN, MS, PHD Alison Buttenheim, PHD, MBA In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally endorsed the community management of acute malnutrition protocol as the preferred method of treatment for the approximately 13 million acutely malnourished children in the world (Collins, 2007; WHO, 2008). This protocol reflected a change in treatment strategies from the hospital to the community. Health care providers who respond to nutrition emergencies (referred to as emergency nutrition workers for the purpose of this study) were tasked with understanding the complex nature of a community's structure and culture, in addition to providing medical treatment for acutely malnourished children. To implement the WHO protocols successfully, emergency nutrition workers must be able to translate international standards into a culturally and contextually appropriate emergency nutrition program. This qualitative descriptive study describes the experience of emergency nutrition workers regarding community participation in program assessment, design, and implementation following declaration of a nutrition emergency. There is a lack of understanding concerning what personal and professional beliefs and structures influence how emergency nutrition workers interpret their environment and define the community structure they are working within when developing assessment and implementation strategies. Bronfrenbrenner's (1977) social ecology theoretical framework was utilized to guide a review of literature concerning environmental influences that may affect community participation during emergency nutrition programs. In the study, a cross-sectional qualitative descriptive design was utilized in a deterritorialized setting. English speaking emergency nutrition workers who responded to a nutrition emergency as an employee of an international non-governmental organization in the previous twelve months were recruited through a maximum variation, purposeful sampling technique. Participants were recruited through professional networks, NGO headquarters, and an online professional forum until saturation is reached. Semi-structured interviews conducted by the researcher were the primary form of data collection for this study. Interviews were conducted over the Internet using voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) technology. Directed content analysis was utilized for data analysis. The study results included an identification of five themes that influence the ways in which an emergency nutrition worker engages with local communities during Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programs: (1) Dimensions of Community in CMAM; (2) Learning Through Field Experience; (3) Partnerships for Success; (4) Disconnects in Funding Priorities; and (5) Sustainability in Emergencies. Degree Type Dissertation This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/850 Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Nursing First Advisor Alison Buttenheim Subject Categories Nursing This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/850


This thesis argues that the Italian Nobel Prize winning author, Luigi Pirandello, far from being merely a rather cerebral writer with a philosophical bent, as he has been called by many of his critics, should in fact be recognised to occupy a place within what is often referred to as the field of Contemporary Continental Philosophy, as a "pre-existentialist" or an existentialist avant la let tre. The idea of so categorising him is not new, but no systematic examination of the entire corpus of his works has ever been attempted from a purely philosophical point of view in order to draw from them a coherent and comprehenisive philosophy. In the field of philosophy, at least in the Anglo-Saxon world, Luigi Pirandello remains unstudied. This thesis deals with such existentialist themes as freedom, responsibility, anguish, the absurd, bad faith, the nature of reality, the self and the relation of the self to others. Pirandello's views in these areas are compared with those of the recognised existentialist philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, in order to attempt to prove a similarity great enough to enable Luigi Pirandello to be classed as an existentialist avant 2a Jet tre.


The ongoing global economic crisis has punished Asian economies severely, despite the fact that its origins derive from outside the region. The global economic crisis was transmitted through real and financial channels, underscoring how vulnerable the region is to external shocks. This paper explores the microeconomic origins of the financial crisis and endeavors to ascertain how crises might be mitigated in the future through better regulation, supervision, and institution-building. Moreover, it makes the case for closer economic cooperation in order to internalize key externalities associated with modern global finance. This cooperation, in turn, should take place at the appropriate level, with incentives for cooperation at the global, regional, and subregional levels. It explores the potential for the creation of an Asian Financial Stability Board and deepening other initiatives in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)+3 and ASEAN forums. However, it stresses that the most important financial reforms in Asia will need to take place at the national level.


This study employed a developmental psychopathology framework to examine the relationship between familism and depressive symptoms across relational contexts in adolescence. Familism, a core cultural value for Latinos, is characterized as a strong attachment to family, reciprocated loyalty and obligation, a subjugation of self to one's family, and maintenance of respect for parental desires and expectations. The majority of research on familism finds that it predicts fewer depressive symptoms in adolescence. However, recent findings suggest that under some circumstances familism may not be protective. The current study extends past research by examining whether maternal depressive symptoms, maternal warmth and support, and peer and teacher support moderate the relationship between familism and depressive symptoms. One hundred and seventy-six Latino adolescents (52.9% female) in 7th- 10th grades and seventy-four of their mothers participated in this study. Overall, familism was associated with fewer adolescent depressive symptoms, even in the context of maternal depressive symptoms. However, maternal warmth and support moderated the relationship between familism and adolescent depressive symptoms such that familism was only protective at high levels of maternal warmth and support. Peer and teacher support was also a moderator. Only at moderate to high levels of peer and teacher support was familism related to fewer adolescent depressive symptoms. In the context of high peer and teacher support, adolescents reported low depressive symptoms regardless of familism. Thus, familism is a multidynamic construct conferring protective effects in most contexts, but failing to be protective in some contexts.


Cellular networks (e.g., 3G) are currently facing severe traffic overload problems caused by excessive traffic demands. Offloading part of the cellular traffic through other forms of networks, such as Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) and WiFi hotspots, is a promising solution. However, since these networks can only provide intermittent connectivity to mobile users, utilizing them for cellular traffic offloading may result in a nonnegligible delay. As the delay increases, the users' satisfaction decreases. In this paper, we investigate the tradeoff between the amount of traffic being offloaded and the users' satisfaction. We provide a novel incentive framework to motivate users to leverage their delay tolerance for cellular traffic offloading. To minimize the incentive cost given an offloading target, users with high delay tolerance and large offloading potential should be prioritized for traffic offloading. To effectively capture the dynamic characteristics of users' delay tolerance, our incentive framework is based on reverse auction to let users proactively express their delay tolerance by submitting bids. We further illustrate how to predict the offloading potential of the users by using stochastic analysis for both DTN and WiFi cases. Extensive trace-driven simulations verify the efficiency of our incentive framework for cellular traffic offloading.


Shadoo protein (Sho) was described in 2003 as the newest member of Prion protein superfamily [1]. Sho has similar structural motifs like prion protein (PrP) that is known for its central role in transmissible spongiform enchephalopathies. Although a great number of functions have been proposed, the exact physiological function of PrP is not known yet. Investigation of the function and localization of Sho may help us to understand the function of the Prion protein superfamily. Analyzing the subcellular localization of YFP-tagged forms of Sho, we detected the protein in the plasma membrane and in the nucleus of various cell lines. To reveal the localization of the endogenous protein we generated antibodies against Shadoo as well as employed commercially available anti-Shadoo antibodies: i) EG62 anti-mouse Shadoo antibody generated by Eurogentec Ltd.; ii) S-12 anti-human Shadoo antibody by Santa Cruz Biotechnology Inc.; iii) R-12 anti-mouse Shadoo antibody by Santa Cruz Biotechnology Inc.; iv) SPRN antibody against human Shadoo by Abgent Inc. We carried out immunocytochemistry on non-transfected HeLa, Zpl 2-1, Zw 3-5, GT1-1, GT1-7 and SHSY5Y cells as well as on YFP-Sho, Sho-YFP, and YFP-GPI transfected HeLa cells. Their specificity (in antibody-peptide competition assay) and co-localization (with the YFP signal) were assessed. Keywords—Shadoo, prion protein, immunocytochemistry, antibody-peptide competition assay, antibody.