ABSTRACT Parkour is a relatively new sport, and so there has not yet been much published research relating to parkour, or more specifically, parkour coaching. There is a large body of knowledge relating to how sport coaches learn to coach, but such research has examined regulated sports; that is, sports with national governing bodies. In North America, where this study was conducted, parkour does not have any national governing bodies, rendering it unregulated. When asked how they learned to coach, parkour coaches from this study described the influences of various sources of learning: parkour coaching experience, previous leadership experience, experience as an athlete in parkour and other sports, other parkour coaches, non-parkour coaches, parkour coach education programmes, school, reflection, and the Internet. It will be interesting to see how the specific influences of these sources might change in the future if parkour in North America becomes regulated.


Incorporation of AMPA-type glutamate receptors containing the GluR1 subunit into the postsynaptic membrane is associated with long-term potentiation (LTP), a form of synaptic plasticity that may underlie some forms of memory. The trafficking of GluR1-containing receptors to the cell surface is regulated by multiple interactions that occur with the C-terminal domain (CTD), including interactions with kinases that phosphorylate the CTD. Phosphorylation of Ser845, reportedly mediated by the adenosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cAMP)-regulated enzyme protein kinase A (PKA), appears to be required for GluR1 synaptic insertion. Serulle et al. provide evidence that Ser845 can also be phosphorylated by guanosine 3′,5′-monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase II (cGKII), thereby providing a mechanism for nitric oxide signaling downstream of NMDA-type glutamate receptors to increase synaptic strength and contribute to LTP. cGKII was identified in a modified yeast two-hybrid screen for proteins that interacted with the CTD of GluR1. In vitro binding studies suggested that activation of cGKII (binding to the cGMP analog 8-Br-cGMP) increased its interaction with the GluR1 CTD. In lysates from rat brain, cGKII and GluR1 were present in the same subcellular fraction and coimmunoprecipitated. In cultured hippocampal neurons, endogenous cGKII and GluR1 colocalized and coimmunoprecipitated. The interaction was enhanced when the cells were (i) exposed to 8-Br-cGMP to stabilize cGKII in the active conformation, (ii) exposed to glycine to induce a chemical form of LTP (chemLTP) that involves activation of NMDA receptors and activation of nitric oxide synthase and soluble guanylate cyclase (the enzyme that produces cGMP), or (iii) exposed to a nitric oxide donor. In vitro kinase assays demonstrated that the GluR1 CTD was phosphorylated by cGKII at Ser845, the same site phosphorylated by PKA. In cultured neurons, chemLTP also triggered phosphorylation of GluR1 at Ser845, and this was blocked by the presence of an NMDA receptor antagonist or cGKII inhibitor. Both cAMP analogs and cGMP analogs increased the abundance of GluR1 at the surface of hippocampal neurons but did not induce LTP. The chemLTP condition stimulated an increase in synaptic GluR1 and induced LTP, which was measured as a sustained increase in miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents. The interaction of GluRI with PKA is indirect, requiring the PDZ scaffolding protein SAP97. The interaction with cGKII appears to be direct and involves Arg837 and does not require SAP97 as a mediator. With mutants either lacking the SAP97 binding region or containing a point mutation at Arg837, the authors demonstrated that the cAMP- and cGMP-mediated GluR1 trafficking and phosphorylation pathways were independent. In hippocampal mouse slices, pharmacological inhibitors of the NO to cGMP pathway or expression of a dominant-negative fragment of the cGKII that disrupted the interaction between cGKII and GluR1 inhibited LTP in response to tetanic stimulation. Thus, it appears that both cAMP and cGMP pathways converge on Ser845 to regulate GluR1 trafficking. Y. Serulle, S. Zhang, I. Ninan, D. Puzzo, M. McCarthy, L. Khatri, O. Arancio, E. B. Ziff, A GluR1-cGKII interaction regulates AMPA receptor trafficking. Neuron 56, 670-688 (2007). [PubMed]


Objectives:To compare perioperative outcomes of laparoscopic left-sided pancreatectomy (LLP) with traditional open left-sided pancreatectomy (OLP) in a multicenter experience. Summary and Background Data:LLP is being performed more commonly with limited data comparing results with outcomes from OLP. Methods:Data from 8 centers were combined for all cases performed between 2002–2006. OLP and LLP cohorts were matched by age, American Society of Anesthesiologists, resected pancreas length, tumor size, and diagnosis. Multivariate analysis was performed using binary logistic regression. Results:Six hundred sixty-seven LPs were performed, with 159 (24%) attempted laparoscopically. Indications were solid lesion in 307 (46%), cystic in 295 (44%), and pancreatitis in 65 (10%) cases. Positive margins occurred in 51 (8%) cases, 335 (50%) had complications, and significant leaks occurred in 108 (16%). Conversion to OLP occurred in 20 (13%) of the LLPs. In the matched comparison, 200 OLPs were compared with 142 LLPs. There were no differences in positive margin rates (8% vs. 7%, P = 0.8), operative times (216 vs. 230 minutes, P = 0.3), or leak rates (18% vs. 11%, P = 0.1). LLP patients had lower average blood loss (357 vs. 588 mL, P < 0.01), fewer complications (40% vs. 57%, P < 0.01), and shorter hospital stays (5.9 vs. 9.0 days, P < 0.01). By MVA, LLP was an independent factor for shorter hospital stay (P < 0.01, odds ratio 0.33, 95% confidence interval 0.19–0.56). Conclusions:In selected patients, LLP is associated with less morbidity and shorter LOS than OLP. Pancreatic fistula rates are similar for OLP and LLP. LLP is appropriate for selected patients with left-sided pancreatic pathology.


In this paper, the focus is on emergency exercises between the police, rescue services and ambulance. By practising, it is assumed that the conditions improve for a quick normalisation after an incident. The purpose of this paper is to identify whether the exercises are designed after organic action logic and therefore can be assumed to strengthen the ability to handle emergencies. Data have been collected at two large, regional, full-scale exercises (2008 and 2012). Data collection has been done through observations and document studies. The study shows that mechanistic behaviour is quite prevalent in the two studied exercises. They are time consuming and put little emphasis on practising organic behaviour. Too complex exercise scenarios contribute to a low tempo, long waiting periods and slow implementation. To succeed, the exercises need to have a non-linear time sequence and limited scenarios that invite participants to focus on organisational interfaces.


The motivation for the creation of PIT metal gate PMOS process transistors was to investigate and prove the work function of molybdenum can be changed through reactive sputtering and thermal processing. The existing PIT metal gate PMOS process was adapted to form Molybdenum and Molybdenum-Nitride PMOS transistors. Processing of the molybdenum films affected the final composition of the gate electrode and ultimately its work function. Through theoretical and real analysis, the work functions of Mo and MoN gates were extracted and compared with one another as well as to Al. Examination of the extracted work functions revealed the presence of other phenomena accountable for l.5-2.OV shift in Vt from one gate type to another. While no single mechanism is identified as the source of extra charge, contamination of the Mo/Si02 interface, oxidation of the Mo, work function difference, or some combination of all three are likely to explain the shifts in threshold voltages. Index Terms — Work function, PMOS, Amorphization


PURPOSE
To examine the waveform characteristics of 37 subjects with manifest latent nystagmus (MLN) and determine the manner in which visual feedback influences the nature of the waveform.

METHODS
Binocular recordings of the eye movements of all subjects were undertaken using an infrared tracking system. Subjects viewed the target binocularly and monocularly in primary gaze. The effect of visual feedback on the nature of the MLN waveform was examined by either removing the fixation target or by progressively stabilizing the target in relation to the retina. This progressive stabilization was achieved by feeding back the eye movement signal to move an otherwise stationary target.

RESULTS
Four types of MLN were distinguished on the basis of the fixation characteristics seen during binocular and monocular viewing. First, under binocular viewing conditions, subjects could theoretically exhibit stable fixation (type 1 MLN). In addition, three other MLN types were recorded during binocular fixation: conjugate horizontal square-wave jerks (type 2 MLN), conjugate torsional nystagmus (type 3 MLN) and conjugate horizontal jerk MLN waveforms (type 4 MLN). Monocular viewing always gave rise to a conjugate horizontal jerk MLN waveform for each of the four types of MLN. More than 80% of the subjects exhibited either type 3 or type 4 MLN, both of which conform with previous classic descriptions of MLN. Much less common was type 2 MLN. Type 1 MLN (conventionally referred to as a latent nystagmus) appeared to be a rare occurrence. In addition to the two classic linear and decelerating MLN slow phases, four additional slow-phase shapes with either saccadic or pendular elements were recorded and described. Removing visual feedback generally reduced the mean slow-phase velocity and the number of fast phases. For each subject some variability of the slow-phase class was documented from session to session.

CONCLUSIONS
Four types of MLN have been described. Their differences are based on their binocular oculomotor behavior, and it is proposed that type 1 MLN and type 4 MLN represent the absolute states and types 2 and 3 the intermediate levels of the MLN spectrum. All types of MLN appear to be strongly visually driven and are largely dependent on the attentional state of the subject and the target conditions. Six different classes of slow phase were found among the four MLN types. The introduction of visual feedback had an immediate effect on the subsequent slow phase or fast phase. It is likely that adaptation mechanisms are in play after a period of visual feedback.


This correspondence addresses the problem of exact recovery of higher order moments of unquantized signals from those of their quantized counterparts, in the context of nonsubtractive dithered quantization. It introduces a new statistical characterization of the dithered quantizer in the form of a pth-order moment-sense input/ouput function h/sub p/ (x). A class of signals for which the solution to the exact moment recovery problem is guaranteed is defined, and some of its key properties are stated and proved. Two approaches to this problem are discussed and the practical gains accruing from the 1-bit implementation of the second approach are highlighted. Finally, a fruitful extension of this work to the exact recovery of cumulants is briefly pointed out.


BACKGROUND
No regulations govern placebo composition. The composition of placebos can influence trial outcomes and merits reporting.

PURPOSE
To assess how often investigators specify the composition of placebos in randomized, placebo-controlled trials.

DATA SOURCES
4 English-language general and internal medicine journals with high impact factors.

STUDY SELECTION
3 reviewers screened titles and abstracts of the journals to identify randomized, placebo-controlled trials published from January 2008 to December 2009.

DATA EXTRACTION
Reviewers independently abstracted data from the introduction and methods sections of identified articles, recording treatment type (pill, injection, or other) and whether placebo composition was stated. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Most studies did not disclose the composition of the study placebo. Disclosure was less common for pills than for injections and other treatments (8.2% vs. 26.7%; P = 0.002).

LIMITATION
Journals with high impact factors may not be representative.

CONCLUSION
Placebos were seldom described in randomized, controlled trials of pills or capsules. Because the nature of the placebo can influence trial outcomes, placebo formulation should be disclosed in reports of placebo-controlled trials.


Classic entrenchment-based contraction is not applicable to many useful logics, such as description logics. This is because the semantic construction refers to arbitrary disjunctions of formulas, while many logics do not fully support disjunction. In this paper, we present a new entrenchment-based contraction which does not rely on any logical connectives except conjunction. This contraction is applicable to all fragments of first-order logic that support conjunction. We provide a representation theorem for the contraction which shows that it satisfies all the AGM postulates except for the controversial Recovery Postulate, and is a natural generalisation of entrenchment-based contraction.


Programming is traditionally considered to be an activity which aims only to produce a software artefact as its primary goal. With this view programming languages are simply the notations which define these artefacts. This paper examines the relationships between internal representations (mental models) and external representations (notations and other forms) arguing that program code behaves as an external representation in a similar way to mathematical or logical notations but with the added property that code can be executed and its notational consequences observed. Furthermore some environments allow program operation to be manipulated at run-time; we propose that these systems also operate as external representations and that programming language statements and their run-time environments can thereby be utilised as reasoning systems to promote the exploration and discovery of new understandings. In this context we consider NetLogo as a framework for reasoning about complex and emergent systems, evaluating its suitability from a representational perspective.


Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death worldwide due to an infectious agent. Data have accumulated over decades suggesting that variability in human susceptibility to TB disease has a genetic component. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play a critical role in initiating the innate immune response to many pathogens in mouse models, but little is known about their role in human infections. Human TLRs have been reported to recognize mycobacterial antigens and initiate an immune response. We tested the hypothesis that amino acid-altering polymorphisms in five TLRs were associated with susceptibility to TB disease using a population-based case-control study with 1,312 adult TB patients and controls. Full-coding region sequencing of the five TLR genes in all 1,312 subjects yielded a data set in excess of 16 Mb. Rare nonsynonymous polymorphisms in TLR6-TLR1-TLR10 were significantly overrepresented among African-American TB cases compared with ethnically-matched control subjects. Common nonsynonymous polymorphisms in TLR6-TLR1-TLR10 also were significantly associated with TB disease in certain ethnic groups. Among African Americans, homozygotes for the common-variant haplotype TLR1-248S, TLR1-602I, and TLR6-249S had a significantly increased TB disease risk. A transmission/disequilibrium test on an independent sample found that the TLR1-248S variant was preferentially transmitted to diseased children, thereby confirming disease association. These results are consistent with recent reports implicating TLR1 variants, including TLR1-602, in significantly altered innate immune responses. Also consistent with disease association, rare TLR6 variants were defective in their ability to mediate NF-κB signal transduction in transfected human cells. Taken together, the data suggest that variant TLRs contribute to human susceptibility to TB disease. Extensive full-exon resequencing was critical for revealing new information about the role of TLRs in human-pathogen interactions and the genetic basis of innate immune function.


INTRODUCTION: Recent studies have identified QKI-RAF1 and SRGAP3-RAF1 as CRAF (or RAF1) fusions in pediatric low-grade gliomas (PLGGs). CRAF fusions, like BRAF fusions are activating mutations driving the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. Our previous findings suggest effective inhibition of BRAF fusion driven tumors using second-generation RAF inhibitor, PLX8394 and downstream MEK inhibitors (MEKi). We sought to investigate the mechanistic basis of response of CRAF fusions to clinically relevant RAF inhibitors and downstream pathway inhibitors, studying effect on CRAF dimerization profiles. METHODS: Heterologous cell model systems with stable expression of CRAF fusions were generated and used for testing downstream signaling pathways via immunoblotting. Soft agar assays and flank xenografts in immuno-compromised mice were used to characterize the oncogenic properties of CRAF fusions. Pathway activation and oncogenicity were further assessed in the presence of first - and second-generation RAF inhibitors, PLX4720 and PLX8394 respectively, MEKi, and mTOR inhibitors as single agents or in combination. Myc- and Flag-tagged constructs of CRAF fusions were used in co-immunoprecipitation assays to assess dimerization profiles of CRAF fusions with or without inhibitors. RESULTS: CRAF fusions activated the MAPK and PI3K pathways. CRAF fusions can homo-dimerize as well as hetero-dimerize with full-length BRAF, CRAF and the N-terminal fusion partner protein. Compared to BRAF fusions, CRAF fusions were not found to be responsive to any RAF inhibitors tested, including the paradox breaker PLX8394. We found that while PLX8394 decreased BRAF fusion-mediated dimerization, dimerization of CRAF fusion is unaffected. Clinically relevant MEKi AZD6244 and GSK1120212 both suppressed CRAF fusion driven pathways and growth in vitro but in mice flank xenografts, GSK1120212 partially inhibited CRAF fusion driven tumors. Since the CRAF fusions also activate the PI3K pathway, combinatorial targeting using MEKi and mTOR inhibitor, GSK1120212 and RAD001 respectively, was found to show robust tumor inhibition in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that CRAF fusions do not respond to RAF inhibitors, show partial response to single-agent MEKi, and respond robustly to combinatorial targeting of both MAPK and PI3K pathways via GSK1120212 and RAD001. Since PLX8394 does not affect CRAF fusion mediated dimerization, this provides a mechanistic basis for unresponsiveness to RAF inhibitors. Additionally, the N-terminal fusion partner also contributes to dimerization of CRAF fusions. Therefore, CRAF fusions are distinct from BRAF fusions in terms of responsiveness to targeted therapies due to dimerization profiles. These findings suggest molecular classification of PLGGs prior to treatment and provide preclinical rationale for combination therapy of CRAF fusion expressing PLGGs. Citation Format: Payal Jain, Tamara Fierst, Amanda Silva, Jake Budlow, Harry Han, Phillip B. Storm, Angela Waanders, Adam Resnick. Pediatric low-grade gliomas with CRAF fusions respond differentially to targeted therapeutics based on their dimerization profiles. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4375.


We aim at accelerating super-resolution (SR) networks on large images (2K-8K). The large images are usually decomposed into small sub-images in practical usages. Based on this processing, we found that different image regions have different restoration difficulties and can be processed by networks with different capacities. Intuitively, smooth areas are easier to super-solve than complex textures. To utilize this property, we can adopt appropriate SR networks to process different sub-images after the decomposition. On this basis, we propose a new solution pipeline – ClassSR that combines classification and SR in a unified framework. In particular, it first uses a Class-Module to classify the subimages into different classes according to restoration difficulties, then applies an SR-Module to perform SR for different classes. The Class-Module is a conventional classification network, while the SR-Module is a network container that consists of the to-be-accelerated SR network and its simplified versions. We further introduce a new classification method with two losses – Class-Loss and Average-Loss to produce the classification results. After joint training, a majority of sub-images will pass through smaller networks, thus the computational cost can be significantly reduced. Experiments show that our ClassSR can help most existing methods (e.g., FSRCNN, CARN, SRResNet, RCAN) save up to 50% FLOPs on DIV8K datasets. This general framework can also be applied in other low-level vision tasks.


In March 2010, the Irish government announced that the age at which the state pension is paid would be raised to 66 in 2014, 67 in 2021 and 68 in 2028. One typical objective of such policy reforms is to provide an incentive for later retirement. The question we address in this paper is whether the expected retirement ages of Irish individuals aged 50 to 64 changed as a result of the policy announcement. The data we use are from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Our findings show that there was no noticeable break in expected retirement ages before and after 3 March, 2010 (the day on which the policy announcement was made). Also during 2010, the economic news became increasingly bad as the full scale of the fiscal and banking crises in Ireland emerged. The data suggest that there was a reduction in the proportion of people planning to retire at age 65 after 30 September, 2010, the day that the full scale of the banking crisis emerged.


Here is a lively history of modern physics, as seen through the lives of thirty men and women from the pantheon of physics. William H. Cropper vividly portrays the life and accomplishments of such giants as Galileo and Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford and Albert Einstein, right up to contemporary figures such as Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and Stephen Hawking. We meet scientists, all geniuses, who could be gregarious, aloof, unpretentious, friendly, dogged, imperious, generous to colleagues, or contentious rivals. Cropper also offers vivid portraits of their great moments of discovery, their bitter feuds, their relations with family and friends, their religious beliefs and education. In addition, since scientists in a particular field often inspire those who follow, Cropper has grouped these biographies by discipline mechanics, thermodynamics, particle physics, and so on each section beginning with a historical overview. Marie Curie and Ernes Our understanding of the physical world has increased dramatically in the last four centuries, starting with Galileo and his telescope and stretching to Stephen Hawking's work on black holes and cosmology. With Great Physicists, readers can retrace the footsteps of the men and women who led the way. t Rutherford and Albert


We describe a learning-based approach to hand-eye coordination for robotic grasping from monocular images. To learn hand-eye coordination for grasping, we trained a large convolutional neural network to predict the probability that task-space motion of the gripper will result in successful grasps, using only monocular camera images independent of camera calibration or the current robot pose. This requires the network to observe the spatial relationship between the gripper and objects in the scene, thus learning hand-eye coordination. We then use this network to servo the gripper in real time to achieve successful grasps. We describe two large-scale experiments that we conducted on two separate robotic platforms. In the first experiment, about 800,000 grasp attempts were collected over the course of two months, using between 6 and 14 robotic manipulators at any given time, with differences in camera placement and gripper wear and tear. In the second experiment, we used a different robotic platform and 8 robots to collect a dataset consisting of over 900,000 grasp attempts. The second robotic platform was used to test transfer between robots, and the degree to which data from a different set of robots can be used to aid learning. Our experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves effective real-time control, can successfully grasp novel objects, and corrects mistakes by continuous servoing. Our transfer experiment also illustrates that data from different robots can be combined to learn more reliable and effective grasping.


Objective To appraise the clinical effects of enteral nutrition at the initial stage of severe burn patients, and Summarize nursing points in the process of enteral nutrition. Methods 39 severe burning cases were collected in Burn Surgery during July 2008 to August 2010, and take the methods of continuous infusion by gravity in early enteral nutrition. Including the bearing to enteral nutrition, the patients'nourishment,the occurrence rate of complication, the time of wound healing and the cure rate were observed. Results In 39severe burning cases, no one occurred fluid and electrolyte disturbance, aspiration and stress ulcer. The increase of bodyweight and the level of serum albumin was high, the rate of complications was low, and the time of wound healing was short. Conclusion The early enteral nutrition after burn injury was more effective to reduce the hypermetabolism response. Early enteral nuzrition in severe burned patients could improve the patients'nourishment, reduce the rate of complications and prompt their recovery earlier.

Key words:
Severe burn injury; Early enteral nutrition; Nursing


Book synopsis: Provides a comprehensive treatment of thinking and reasoning, authored by top researchers in each field
Includes in-depth analysis of inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning; variable aspects of thinking and reasoning across the human lifespan; and methods of teaching people to think more effectively
Thinking and reasoning, long the academic province of philosophy, have over the past century emerged as core topics of empirical investigation and theoretical analysis in the modern fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. Formerly seen as too complicated and amorphous to be included in early textbooks on the science of cognition, the study of thinking and reasoning has since taken off, brancing off in a distinct direction from the field from which it originated.

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning is a comprehensive and authoritative handbook covering all the core topics of the field of thinking and reasoning. Written by the foremost experts from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience, individual chapters summarize basic concepts and findings for a major topic, sketch its history, and give a sense of the directions in which research is currently heading. Chapters include introductions to foundational issues and methods of study in the field, as well as treatment of specific types of thinking and reasoning and their application in a broad range of fields including business, education, law, medicine, music, and science. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students working in developmental, social and clinical psychology, philosophy, economics, artificial intelligence, education, and linguistics.
Readership: Readership for this volume includes advanced undergraduates, graduate students, professors and researchers in the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, education, developmental psychology, linguistics, experimental psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy.


Column height predictions are often displayed as attributes on fault-plane profiles. However, fault-plane profiles are difficult to interpret when derived from multiple faults that bound a trap. An automated approach, termed Trap Analysis, permits the rapid analysis of column height predictions using the deterministic fault-seal analysis method. For column height predictions to be meaningful, all faults that contribute to the sealing of hydrocarbons within a trap must be analysed as one coherent structural element. Hydrocarbon column height data at key reservoir juxtapositions on all faults that bound a trap are simultaneously interrogated to derive the unique location of the weakest point on the fault seal, termed Fault Leak Point (FLP). The FLP is trap-critical if it supports a column with a contact that is shallower than the trap's structural spill point. The Trap Analysis approach enables sensitivity studies to be routinely undertaken. The predicted weakest point on a fault seal, and hence, the column height supported at that point, can depend on the calibration used to transform shale gouge ratio (SGR) to threshold capillary pressure, and on the density contrast between the buoyant and water phases.


Philosophers from Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein to the recent realists and antirealists have sought to answer the question, What are concepts? This book provides a detailed, systematic, and accessible introduction to an original philosophical theory of concepts that Christopher Peacocke has developed in recent years to explain facts about the nature of thought, including its systematic character, its relations to truth and reference, and its normative dimension. Particular concepts are also treated within the general framework: perceptual concepts, logical concepts, and the concept of belief are discussed in detail. The general theory is further applied in answering the question of how the ontology of concepts can be of use in classifying mental states, and in discussing the proper relation between philosophical and psychological theories of concepts. Finally, the theory of concepts is used to motivate a nonverificationist theory of the limits of intelligible thought. Peacocke treats content as broad rather than narrow, and his account is nonreductive and non-Quinean. Yet Peacocke also argues for an interactive relationship between philosophical and psychological theories of concepts, and he plots many connections with work in cognitive psychology.


River restoration has become a common measure to repair anthropogenically-induced alteration of fluvial ecosystems. The inherent complexity of ecohydrologic systems leads to limitations in understanding the response of such systems to restoration over time. Therefore, a significant effort has been dedicated in the recent years worldwide to document the efficiency of restoration actions and to produce new effective guidelines that may help overcoming existing deficiencies. At the same time little attention was paid to illustrate the reasons and the use of certain monitoring and experimental techniques in spite of others, or in relation to the specific ecohydrologic process being investigated. The purpose of this paper is to enrich efforts in this direction by presenting the framework of experimental activities and the related experimental setup that we designed and installed in order to accomplish some of the research tasks of the multidisciplinary scientific project RECORD (Restored Corridor Dynamics). Therein, we studied the morphodynamic evolution of the restored reach of the River Thur near Niederne-unforn (Switzerland), also in relation to the role of pioneer vegetation roots in stabilizing the alluvial sediment. In this work we describe the methodology chosen for monitoring the river morphodynamics, the dynamics of riparian and of in-bed vegetation and their mutual interactions, as well as the need of complementing such observations with experiments and with the hydraulic modeling of the site. We also discuss how the designed installation and the experiments integrate with the needs of other research groups within the project, in particular providing data for a number of investigations thereby including surface water and groundwater interactions, soil moisture and vegetation dynamics.


Background Classic ecological approaches can reveal only glimpses of the behavioral spectrum of a longlived migratory species. Genetic analysis has the potential to inform the migratory behavior and reproductive habits of animals that are difficult or impossible to observe in the wild. Although studied primarily as juveniles at seasonal feeding aggregations, whale sharks are believed to be capable of extensive migrations. The frequency and magnitude of these movements is unknown, as is the degree to which they mediate gene flow between populations. Recent studies have asked whether the sharks observed at different aggregation sites show evidence of genetic structure, or whether they constitute a single breeding population. We published a preliminary study in 2009, based on microsatellite analysis of animals from numerous globally distributed aggregation sites, with a finding of minimal genetic differentiation. Approach Our genetic study is ongoing, and now encompasses hundreds of whale sharks representing all major aggregations worldwide. Other groups have also performed genetic analyses of whale shark population structure, focusing on both regional and global scales. Particularly for studies using microsatellite markers, direct comparisons across laboratories and platforms are not possible. Synthesizing the overall conclusions from aggregate genetic studies, however, provides additional power to understand species behaviors. Results Initial analysis of broadly distributed whale sharks found only low levels of genetic differentiation across geographically distinct populations. While sharks from the Western Atlantic Ocean showed slightly greater differentiation from Pacific/Indian Ocean animals than these populations did from each other, this result was not statistically significant. An expanded data set has now provided stronger analytical resolution between populations, revealing subtle yet statistically significant levels of genetic differentiation of Atlantic sharks. Conclusions Our previous analysis suggested gene flow between whale shark populations at a level sufficient to normalize genetic differentiation. Combined with satellite tracking and other data, these results confirmed that whale sharks can and do migrate between oceans. An expanded study, however, along with data published by other groups, now indicates reduced mixing between Western Atlantic and Indian/Pacific sharks. A significant body of evidence therefore indicates that whale sharks do not have strong population structure, nor do they represent a single panmictic population. Rather they occupy a more biologically realistic intermediate, with varying degrees of isolation by distance and by ecological features. Future genetic characterization should focus on the addition of yet unstudied whale shark populations, on building a robust mitochondrial haplotype dataset with broad applicability, and on technical standardization that could allow comparisons between microsatellite data sets across laboratories and platforms.


What is the impact on firms f innovative activities of the removal of barriers to trade? Does the increase in competition arising from trade reforms lead to increases in innovation? This paper attempts to examine the link between trade liberalization and innovation, using firm panel data on the Philippine manufacturing industry. With the framework of Impulliti and Licandro (2009, 2010) as guide, a two-stage approach is tested, where trade and innovation are linked via competition. A reduction in tariffs leads to an increase in competition as price cost margins fall due to the increase in the number of players in the domestic market. With the reduction in price cost margins, profits fall and the productivity threshold above which firms can operate profitably increases. This forces inefficient firms out of the market and resources are reallocated from exiting firms to the higher productivity surviving firms, which innovate at a faster pace. The results show that trade liberalization, has significant positive impact, through competition, on innovation. Given the crucial role of competition in the relationship between trade liberalization and innovation, it is important for the government to maintain the contestability of markets. The presence of trade barriers or government regulations that limit market entry can create inefficiencies leading to reduced long-term growth. These weaken competition and prevent structural changes from taking place, resulting in resources being tied to low-productivity industries. Weak competition reduces the pressure on firms to adopt new technology or innovate, resulting in low growth of productivity and a loss of competitiveness. Despite two decades of implementing liberalization policy, competition and productivity growth remained weak in the Philippines, not only due to the presence of structural and behavioral barriers to entry, but also to the country fs inadequate physical and institutional infrastructure. Due to the fundamental weakness of competition in many major economic sectors, the gains from liberalization remained limited, which slowed down the country fs economic growth.


Gaining and sustaining the competitive advantage in today turbulent environment is an obsession of corporate managers. Manufacturing firms while investing in R & D, worry about the innovations driven from these researchers and their effect on the firm's position in market. In other words, balance between innovation exploration and innovation exploitation (innovation ambidexterity) and its effect on firm's competitive advantage is an important question of such firms. What is missed in many researches is the effect of strategic leadership on the relationship between innovation ambidexterity and competitive advantage that this research tries to fill this gap. This paper investigates the effect of strategic leadership (transformational and transactional leadership) on innovation ambidexterity capability (innovation exploration and innovation exploitation) and effect of this capability on competitive advantages (price advantage, service differentiation advantage and customer concentration advantage) of manufacturing firms in Kerman. The results show transactional leadership has an impact on innovation exploration, both transactional and transformational leadership has an impact on innovation exploitation. Both innovation exploitation and exploration have an impact on service differentiation advantage but innovation exploitation has an impact on price and customer concentration advantage.


Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are advanced class of composite materials which can be used as the thermal barrier to protect inner components from the outside high temperature environment. In FGMs, the volume fraction of each constituent can be tailored made across the thickness for desired applications. In this work, the simulation of FGMs in pipes is considered. Despite the wide application of pipes in machinery, those pipes would suffer from many safety problems, such as thermal stress, cavitation, fracture etc. Application of FGMs to the piping systems could lead to some new solutions accounting for safety measures and higher service life. However, the complex phenomena within the fluid structure interaction are hard to describe with the theoretical solution. The visualization of results from simulation will be helpful in understanding the distribution of kinds of physical quantities within the concerned model. For the simulation, FGMs are modeled as the layered structure in the standard finite element method (FEM) package based on FGM constituent law. The free vibration of the FG pipe is simulated and the accuracy of layered model is verified by numerical calculations. Further, based on the layered model, conjugate heat transfer simulations in a heat exchanger with FGMs are conducted.


It has long been observed that there is a correlation between the physical qualities of a watercourse and the linguistic qualities of its name; for instance, of two river-names, one having the linguistic quality of river as its generic element, and one having burn, one would expect the river to be the longer of the two. Until now, a phenomenon such as this had never been formally quantified. The primary focus of this thesis is to create, within a Scottish context, a methodology for elucidating the relationship between various qualities of hydronyms and the qualities of the watercourses they represent. The area of study includes every catchment area which falls into the sea from the River Forth, round the east coast of Scotland, up to and including the Spey; also included is the east side of the River Leven / Loch Lomond catchment area. The linguistic strata investigated are: Early Celtic, P-Celtic, Gaelic and Scots. In the first half of the introduction scholarly approaches to toponymy are discussed, in a Scottish and hydronymic context, from the inception of toponymy as a discipline up to the present day; the capabilities and limitations of these approaches are taken into consideration. In the second half the approaches taken in this thesis are outlined. The second chapter explains and justifies in more detail the methodology and calculus used in this thesis. The subsequent chapters examine the following linguistic components of a hydronym: generic elements, linguistic strata, semantics and phonological overlay. In each of these chapters the methodology is harnessed as an analytical tool to generate new findings for hydronymic research. The conclusion consists of a summary of the findings and a review of the performance of the calculus. It emerges that these analytical tools are of use to the field of toponymy in two ways. Firstly, they formalise and challenge previously unquantified statements made in the field of toponymy. Secondly, they elucidate hitherto unnoticed phenomena. It is suggested that in the future this methodology be applied to other datasets (particularly hill-names) and to other regions in Scotland and the world at large.


Competition agencies around the world, including in Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea, and the United States (at least prior to the current administration), have taken the unwarranted position that antitrust enforcement involving standard-essential patents (SEPs) upon which a patent holder has made an assurance to license on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms should be subject to special rules or unique presumptions and burdens of proof. Recently, this approach has manifested itself in contentions (and in the case of the Korea Fair Trade Commission, an administrative decision) that it is somehow "unfair" (and therefore unlawful) for a SEP holder to license its patents, including both SEPs and non-SEPs, on a portfolio basis. This is because, as the contention goes, the SEP holder is either unfairly forcing implementers to license more than they desire or evading its FRAND assurance through package licensing. This article explains that neither of these are economically sound theories of harm, particularly in jurisdictions like the United States that do not punish the mere extraction of monopoly profits, but instead focus on the unlawful acquisition or maintenance of monopoly power. We set forth the mainstream alternative theories of harm — namely leveraging and monopoly maintenance — and apply them to common portfolio licensing practices of SEP holders, particularly those in the SEP-intensive telecommunications sector. We also address allegations that a vertically-integrated SEP holder's decision to license at the end-user device level amounts to de facto bundling, relying on a recent paper by Dr. Jorge Padilla and Koren W. Wong-Ervin. In that paper, the authors show through a simple model that a vertically integrated firm's de facto bundling of a component and its SEP portfolio will not result in foreclosure of the component market if: (i) the vertically integrated SEP holder does not assert its patents at the component level, and (ii) it licenses its SEP portfolio to end-device manufacturers on FRAND terms irrespective of whether they source components from its own subsidiary or from the non-integrated rival.


Abstract Objective To systematically examine the design, reporting standards, risk of bias, and claims of studies comparing the performance of diagnostic deep learning algorithms for medical imaging with that of expert clinicians. Design Systematic review. Data sources Medline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and the World Health Organization trial registry from 2010 to June 2019. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Randomised trial registrations and non-randomised studies comparing the performance of a deep learning algorithm in medical imaging with a contemporary group of one or more expert clinicians. Medical imaging has seen a growing interest in deep learning research. The main distinguishing feature of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in deep learning is that when CNNs are fed with raw data, they develop their own representations needed for pattern recognition. The algorithm learns for itself the features of an image that are important for classification rather than being told by humans which features to use. The selected studies aimed to use medical imaging for predicting absolute risk of existing disease or classification into diagnostic groups (eg, disease or non-disease). For example, raw chest radiographs tagged with a label such as pneumothorax or no pneumothorax and the CNN learning which pixel patterns suggest pneumothorax. Review methods Adherence to reporting standards was assessed by using CONSORT (consolidated standards of reporting trials) for randomised studies and TRIPOD (transparent reporting of a multivariable prediction model for individual prognosis or diagnosis) for non-randomised studies. Risk of bias was assessed by using the Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomised studies and PROBAST (prediction model risk of bias assessment tool) for non-randomised studies. Results Only 10 records were found for deep learning randomised clinical trials, two of which have been published (with low risk of bias, except for lack of blinding, and high adherence to reporting standards) and eight are ongoing. Of 81 non-randomised clinical trials identified, only nine were prospective and just six were tested in a real world clinical setting. The median number of experts in the comparator group was only four (interquartile range 2-9). Full access to all datasets and code was severely limited (unavailable in 95% and 93% of studies, respectively). The overall risk of bias was high in 58 of 81 studies and adherence to reporting standards was suboptimal (<50% adherence for 12 of 29 TRIPOD items). 61 of 81 studies stated in their abstract that performance of artificial intelligence was at least comparable to (or better than) that of clinicians. Only 31 of 81 studies (38%) stated that further prospective studies or trials were required. Conclusions Few prospective deep learning studies and randomised trials exist in medical imaging. Most non-randomised trials are not prospective, are at high risk of bias, and deviate from existing reporting standards. Data and code availability are lacking in most studies, and human comparator groups are often small. Future studies should diminish risk of bias, enhance real world clinical relevance, improve reporting and transparency, and appropriately temper conclusions. Study registration PROSPERO CRD42019123605.


Determination of low levels of chemicals unintentionally present in foods (trace
contaminants) often requires extensive wet chemistry extraction and clean-up
regimes prior to instrumental analysis and this is usually the bottleneck in
analysis. In order to determine if levels pose a human health risk, rapid
reliable methods are required that can unequivocally identify and quantify
contaminants at trace levels. In particular, current methods for targeted food
taint analysis have long extraction times and rapid screening methods such as
direct headspace, do not provide the sensitivity required.
In order to address the issues raised above, this study set out to review all
aspects of sample preparation and the applicability of each technique for the
determination of trace organic contaminants in foods. Following the review,
solid-phase dynamic extraction (SPDE) was evaluated for the determination of
example food contaminants furan and the BTEX compounds (benzene,
toluene, ethyl benzene and 0, rn, and p-xylene). Stir bar sorptive extraction
(SBSE) was also evaluated for the determination of furan, benzene and
toluene. A SBSE method for the determination of furan in food and beverages
was developed which gave the advantage of extraction at ambient
temperature, (thus minimising potential formation) and was comparable to
direct static headspace in performance and sensitivity.
The use of SBSE was then evaluated for use as a generic screening method
for compounds known to cause taints in foods. Twenty example compounds
were chosen based on previously reported taints from a range of origins and
included those most commonly investigated (such as halogenated phenols
and anisoles). The optimised SBSE method was compared to the more
established techniques, direct static headspace and steam distillation
extraction using Likens Nickerson apparatus. The SBSE method provided an
increase in sensitivity for most compounds and further improvements were
demonstrated for more targeted analysis, using a GC-MS, GC-MS/MS and
GC-HRMS instrumentation.


Assessments of the Antarctic contribution to future sea level rise have generally focused on ice loss in West Antarctica. This focus was motivated by glaciological and oceanographic observations that showed ocean warming was driving loss of ice mass from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Paleoclimate studies confirmed that ice discharge from West Antarctica contributed several meters to sea level during past warm periods. On the other hand, the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) was generally considered to be relatively stable because of being largely grounded above sea level and therefore protected from ocean heat flux. However, recent studies suggest that a large part of the EAIS is grounded well below sea level and that the EAIS also retreated and contributed several meters to sea level rise during past warm periods. We use ocean observations from three ice shelf systems to illustrate the variety of ocean-ice shelf interactions taking place in East Antarctica and to discuss the potential vulnerability of East Antarctic ice shelves to ocean heat flux. The Amery and the Mertz are "cold cavity" ice shelves that exhibit relatively low area-averaged basal melt rates, although substantial melting and refreezing occurs beneath the large and deep Amery Ice Shelf. In contrast, new oceanographic measurements near the Totten Ice Shelf show that warm water enters the sub-ice-shelf cavity and drives rapid basal melting, as is seen in West Antarctica. Totten Glacier is of particular interest because it holds a marine-based ice volume equivalent to at least 3.5 m of global sea level rise, an amount comparable to the entire marine-based WAIS, and recent glaciological measurements show the grounded portion of Totten Glacier is thinning and the grounding line is retreating. Multiple lines of evidence support the hypothesis that parts of the EAIS are more dynamic than once thought. Given that the EAIS contains a volume of marine-based ice equivalent to 19 m of global sea level rise, the potential for ocean-driven melt to destabilize the marine-based ice sheet needs to be accounted for in assessments of future sea level rise.


Tungsten is a candidate material for plasma facing components for a fusion reactor. Although many studies on hydrogen behavior in tungsten have been carried out, there is insufficient database for a tungsten re-deposition layer. We have made a tungsten re-deposition layer by a sputtering method using a hydrogen and deuterium RF plasma and have investigated hydrogen retention in the layer and the distribution of the layer in the vacuum chamber. The amount of deposited tungsten increased 2.4 times with varying RF power from 100 W to 250 W. It was found from the SEM observation on the cross section that the formed layer has a columnar structure. At high energy (RF power: 250W), a lot of blisters were observed on the surface. The ratio of hydrogen atoms to tungsten atoms (H/W) in the layer was observed to be 0.1 ~ 0.4 with varying RF power. These values of hydrogen retention were much larger than that for absorption into tungsten. Tritium inventory in a D-T fusion reactor may become larger than expected by the formation of tungsten redeposition layer.


In this work we address the task of semantic image segmentation with Deep Learning and make three main contributions that are experimentally shown to have substantial practical merit. First, we highlight convolution with upsampled filters, or 'atrous convolution', as a powerful tool in dense prediction tasks. Atrous convolution allows us to explicitly control the resolution at which feature responses are computed within Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. It also allows us to effectively enlarge the field of view of filters to incorporate larger context without increasing the number of parameters or the amount of computation. Second, we propose atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) to robustly segment objects at multiple scales. ASPP probes an incoming convolutional feature layer with filters at multiple sampling rates and effective fields-of-views, thus capturing objects as well as image context at multiple scales. Third, we improve the localization of object boundaries by combining methods from DCNNs and probabilistic graphical models. The commonly deployed combination of max-pooling and downsampling in DCNNs achieves invariance but has a toll on localization accuracy. We overcome this by combining the responses at the final DCNN layer with a fully connected Conditional Random Field (CRF), which is shown both qualitatively and quantitatively to improve localization performance. Our proposed "DeepLab" system sets the new state-of-art at the PASCAL VOC-2012 semantic image segmentation task, reaching 79.7 percent mIOU in the test set, and advances the results on three other datasets: PASCAL-Context, PASCAL-Person-Part, and Cityscapes. All of our code is made publicly available online.


A theory is presented for the adjustment of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and global pycnocline to a sudden and sustained change in wind forcing. The adjustment timescale is controlled by the mesoscale eddy diffusivity across the ACC, the mean width of the ACC, the surface area of the ocean basins to the north, and deep water formation in the North Atlantic. In particular, northern sinking may have the potential to shorten the timescale and reduce its sensitivity to Southern Ocean eddies, but the relative importance of northern sinking and Southern Ocean eddies cannot be determined precisely, largely due to limitations in the parameterization of northern sinking. Although it is clear that the main processes that control the adjustment timescale are those which counteract the deepening of the global pycnocline, the theory also suggests that the timescale can be subtly modified by wind forcing over the ACC and global diapycnal mixing. Results from calculations with a reduced-gravity model compare well with the theory. The multidecadal-centennial adjustment timescale implies that long observational time series will be required to detect dynamic change in the ACC due to anthropogenic forcing. The potential role of Southern Ocean mesoscale eddy activity in determining both the equilibrium state of the ACC and the timescale over which it adjusts suggests that the response to anthropogenic forcing may be different in coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models that parameterize and resolve mesoscale eddies.


The vascular endothelium is a dynamic cell monolayer located at the interface of the vessel wall and bloodstream, where it regulates the physiological effects of humoral and hemodynamic stimuli on vessel tone and remodelling. Hemodynamic forces are of particular interest and include shear stress, the frictional force generated by blood as it drags against the endothelium, and cyclic strain, transmural pressure due to the pulsatile nature of blood flow. Both forces can profoundly modulate vascular endothelial metabolism and function and, within normal physiological ranges, typically impart an atheroprotective effect which disfavours pathological remodelling of the vessel wall. Changes to arterial wall architecture (i.e. remodelling) are a key feature of vascular diseases (e.g. atherosclerosis) and often stem from disruption of normal blood flow patterns, leading to vascular endothelial dysfunction and dysregulation of the underlying smooth muscle cell layer. The focus of the PhD project was to investigate hemodynamic challenge of vascular endothelial cells impacts smooth muscle cells. In order to assess the hemodynamic challenge of vascular endothelial cells, shear stress and cyclic strain were applied to BAECs. Both forces resulted in morphological realignment of cells along with a clear realignment for the actin cytoskeleton in the direction of flow. Furthermore, ZO-1 localisation also increased at the cell-border. We next investigated how hemodynamic challenge of vascular endothelial cells putatively impacts vascular smooth muscle cell growth properties. Four experimental models were employed namely; laminar shear stress, turbulent shear stress, pulsatile shear stress with co-culture and cyclic strain using in vitro hemodynamic modelling. Laminar shear stress, pulsatile shear stress with co-culture and cyclic strain of endothelial cells resulted in a decrease in BASMC proliferation with a parallel increase in apoptosis. Turbulent shear resulted in the opposite effect caused a slight increase in BASMC proliferation with no effect on apoptosis. This indicated that physiological forces impart an atheroprotective effect. In the hemodynamic models, BAECs and BASMCs were not in physical contact. This suggested that BAECs secreted factor(s) acting directly on the BASMC (or indirectly) on the BAECs were responsible for these effects. As the BAECs and BASMCs were not in physical contact this suggested that BAECs secreted factor(s) acting directly on the BASMC (or indirectly) on the BAECs were responsible for these effects. To investigate the endothelial signalling pathways and effectors putatively mediating these effects specific pharmacological inhibitors were employed. The results revealed that an integrin-Rac1 pathway possibly upstream of NO production may be mediating this endothelial regulatory response under LSS. We investigated the impact of LSS-derived BCM on the expression of cell cycle associated genes within the smooth muscle cells both single gene- and microarray-based RealTime PCR methodologies. Our results highlighted key CDK, cyclins and other cell cycle regulatory proteins. This study confirms the importance of hemodynamic challenge on the endothelium and the putative interactions between endothelial and smooth muscle cells in vascular remodelling.


Background: The effect of latitude on maternal and infant vitamin D status during lactation is presumed to be strongly associated with higher rates of deficiency in those living at higher latitudes, yet with lifestyle changes, this conclusion may no longer be correct. Objective: To ascertain if higher latitude adversely affects the vitamin D status of lactating women and their fully breastfeeding infants. Study Design/Methods: Fully breastfeeding women and their infants were eligible for participation in this study as part of a larger prospective vitamin D supplementation trial. Women were recruited from two sites of differing latitude: Charleston, SC at 32˚N and Rochester, NY at latitude 43˚N. Maternal and infant baseline vitamin D status, intact parathyroid hormone (IPTH), serum calcium and phosphorus as a function of site/latitude were measured. The primary outcome was maternal and infant total circulating 25(OH)D at baseline by center/latitude, and the secondary outcome was the percent of women and infants who had achieved a baseline concentration of at least 20 ng/mL, meeting the Institute of Medicine's definition of sufficiency at 4 to 6 weeks postpartum. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS version 9.3. Results: Higher latitude adversely affected vitamin D status only in lactating Caucasian women. African American and Hispanic women and infants living in Rochester compared to Charleston had improved vitamin D status, an effect that was no longer significant when controlling for socioeconomic factors and season. Overall, there was a significant vitamin D deficiency at baseline in lactating mothers, and a far greater deficiency in their infants. Maternal baseline 25(OH)D concentration remained positively associated with being Caucasian, BMI and summer months. Breastfeeding infant vitamin D status mirrored maternal status and remained positively associated with being Caucasian and summer months. Those infants who had been on a vitamin D supplement at the time of enrollment in the study had markedly improved vitamin D status compared to those infants not on supplement, but represented a significant minority of the cohort. Conclusions: There was a significant vitamin D deficiency among a cohort of women and their infants living at two diverse latitudes—Charleston, SC and Rochester, NY. Given the higher rate of vitamin D deficiency among African American and Hispanic women and their infants living at a lower latitude, conclusions about vitamin D status based on latitude alone may be faulty.


ABSTRACT Phylogenetic analyses of cytochrome-b sequence data from 13 of the 15 currently recognized species of New World porcupines were used to test competing taxonomic hypotheses and to explore scenarios of morphological evolution and biogeography. Consistent with previous studies, the monophyly of Erethizontidae (Chaetomys + Erethizon + Coendou) and the monophyly of Erethizontinae (Erethizon + Coendou) were both strongly supported. However, cytochrome- b sequence data provide no support for the reciprocal monophyly of Coendou, "Echinoprocta," and "Sphiggurus" as those taxa were previously recognized by authors. All of the erethizontid species recognized in recent revisionary work and represented by multiple sequences in this study were recovered as monophyletic groups. Maximum-likelihood (ML) analyses of these data recovered the following phylogeny for 11 species of Coendou: ((melanurus (ichillus (pruinosus + vestitus))) ((spinosus (bicolor + nycthemera)) (prehensilis (mexicanus (quichua + rufescens))))). Ancestral-state reconstructions based on the ML topology suggest that several morphological characters emphasized in past erethizontid classifications (size, nasofrontal sinus inflation, and long fur) have evolved homoplasiously Maximum-likelihood inference of geographic range evolution suggests that the last common ancestor of living erethizontids was a cis-Andean species, and that most subsequent cladogenesis was also cis-Andean; however, at least two trans-Andean dispersal events are plausibly indicated, as well as two separate invasions of Andean landscapes. Among the most remarkable results of this study are almost-identical sequences of Coendou prehensilis from localities spanning 27° of latitude and 25° of longitude; we speculate that a trophic-niche shift might have allowed rapid range expansion of this species, which accounts for almost all known cases of geographic range overlap and sympatry in the genus Coendou.


PURPOSE
Cultured rabbit nonpigmented ciliary epithelium (NPE) transports ascorbic acid (ASC) inward through a sodium-dependent mechanism. This study was conducted to test whether Na-K transport is activated to export the additional sodium, which enters the cell in cotransport with ASC.

METHODS
Studies were conducted using a cell line derived from rabbit NPE. ASC uptake was measured using [14C]ascorbic acid. The ouabain-sensitive potassium (86Rb) uptake rate was measured as an index of active Na-K transport. Cellular sodium was measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry or SBFI fluorescence.

RESULTS
In the presence of 200 microM ASC, ouabain-sensitive potassium (86Rb) uptake rate increased approximately 70%; lesser concentrations of ASC produced lesser increases. Phloridzin (100 microM) inhibited ASC uptake and inhibited the stimulatory effect of external ASC on 86Rb uptake. Dehydroascorbic acid (DHA) did not increase 86Rb uptake. Neither DHA nor ASC altered the Na,K-ATPase activity measured in isolated membrane material. External ASC appeared to stimulate active sodium transport through a mechanism involving an increase of cytoplasmic sodium. In the presence of 200 microM ASC, cellular sodium increased approximately 26%; studies with cells, sodium loaded by nigericin treatment, suggested that this sodium increase could account for the degree of 86Rb uptake stimulation observed in ASC-treated cells. However, the cellular sodium increase could not be explained simply on the basis of sodium entry through the ASC transporter. An additional sodium-entry pathway seemed to be activated in cells that accumulated ASC. Dimethylamiloride (DMA) abolished both the cellular sodium increase and the 86Rb uptake stimulation caused by ASC. DMA did not prevent ASC uptake.

CONCLUSIONS
ASC significantly stimulated active Na-K transport in cultured NPE. The mechanism appeared to involve activation of a DMA-sensitive sodium entry pathway, which caused cytoplasmic sodium concentration to increase.


We characterize U.S. monetary policy within a generalized Taylor rule framework that accommodates uncertainties about the duration of policy regimes and the specification of the rule, in addition to the standard parameter and stochastic uncertainties inherent in traditional Taylor rule analysis. Our approach involves estimation and inference based on Taylor rules obtained through standard linear regression methods, but combined using Bayesian model averaging techniques. Employing data that were available in real time, the estimated version of the "meta" Taylor rule provides a flexible but compelling characterization of monetary policy in the United States over the last 40 years.


Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faced a daunting task that he never imagined he would have to face when he was elected two years ago. Australia at that time was poised to enter its 17th year of uninterrupted growth. Commodity exports were booming, largely driven by China's insatiable appetite for raw materials. Then the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, brewing challenges for the world's biggest exporter of coal and iron ore. Prime Minister Rudd pushed for massive stimulus packages to revive domestic consumption and demand. Yet as an economy heavily dependent on trade, tumbling commodity prices brewed difficult times for Australia's trade deficit and its persistent large current account deficit. What was in hold for Australia's deficit, which had been in the red all but four years since 1950? In addition, how should policymakers address the intense concerns regarding China's growing interest in Australia the form of direct investments, particularly in Australia's prized natural resources sector?


The 2016 election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States promised to usher in sweeping changes to the federal government's policy priorities, largely at the expense of environmental and social safety. Climate change mitigation efforts will likely slow as a result of renewed federal support and an enabling regulatory environment for the fossil fuel industry, as well as diminished international cooperation. Yet the scientific community has yet to explicitly assess the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions impacts of the Trump Administration's proposals to increase defense and homeland security spending by $90 billion and cut other non-defense spending by $63 billion over fiscal years 2017 and 2018. This paper uses environmentally extended input-output analysis to estimate how these budget changes would result in changes in emissions if implemented exactly as described in official documents from the executive branch of the U.S. government. Our results suggest an increase of more than 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions over two years relative to a counterfactual scenario without the new budget proposals. We argue that our analysis grossly underestimates the complete, long-term climate impacts of the analyzed expenditure shifts because of several methodological limitations. Regardless, the federal government budget changes proposed by the Trump Administration represent a momentous stride in a dangerous direction with respect to the future functioning of the global climate system.


This paper considers the influence of Russia's transition from communism to capitalism on women's gender identity and self-perception as expressed in their beautification practices. I examine women's daily beauty rituals as a form of self-surveillance and the internalisation of social norms, and as practically applied to oneself, in the context of an increasingly consumption-oriented society. For the analysis of these practices in the context of an emergent consumer culture in the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s, I employ Michel Foucault's notion of surveillance of self and others through the gaze and Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus and cultural capital in its embodied state. I argue that women as social agents turn a disempowering experience of their bodies as the-body-for-other into a supposedly empowering experience when they reapply to other women beauty norms that they accept and apply to themselves. An experience of gaining power and control comes from the belief that through beautification they have managed to reshape their bodies to match current ideals of feminine beauty and secured their main cultural capital, beauty. But critical gazes and comments directed to other women are a selfreassurance of fitting in to the normative femininity rather than an imposition of influence over the other. In short, despite cultural representations of female beauty as a high valued quality, beauty-power is illusory in a sense that it has no effect on masculine privilege, characteristic of current gender relations.


ABSTRACT Optical constants of vacuum evaporated thin films in the Se90−x Te10Sn x (x = 0, 2.5, 5 and 7.5 at %) system were calculated from reflectance and transmittance data in the wavelength range of 300–2500 nm using Murmann's equations. The maximum value of refractive index increased and suffered a shift towards the short wavelength as the Sn content increases this behavior can be attributed to increasing the values of cross-linking chains density and decrease tailing. The variations in the real and the imaginary parts of the dielectric constant, the dissipation factor tan(δ), the optical conductivity, the volume, and surface energy loss functions with photon energy have also been reported. The normal dispersion of the refractive index is discussed regarding the single oscillator Wemple-DiDomenico model from which the dispersion parameters were determined. The single oscillator energy, the dispersion energy, the high-frequency dielectric constant, the ratio of free charge carrier concentration to the effective mass, plasma frequency, single oscillator strength and its position are then estimated as a function of alloy composition. It is interesting to note that the increase of Sn content on the parent Se90Te10 is connected to the decreasing covalent nature of the structure. Besides, the presence of such a sharp absorption edge in transmission spectra recommends Se90−x Te10Sn x thin films as a good optical filter material.


Recent typological and areal studies of demonstratives, such as Himmelmann (1997), Diessel 1999, 2006), Dixon (2003), Guldemann (2008) and Krasnoukhova (2012), have contributed extensively to our knowledge of possible deictic systems. What is notably absent from these descriptions, however, are demonstratives expressing the semantic dimensions MANNER, QUALITY and DEGREE in addition to their deictic components. As a result of this neglect, the relevant demonstratives (e.g. German so , Ital. cosi , Finn. nain , noin , niin , Jap. koo , soo , aa ) are frequently analyzed only in an atomistic fashion as isolated particles, without relating them to existing systematic analyses of demonstratives. The first goal of this cross-linguistic study is to provide a general analysis of such demonstratives, which includes their morphological properties (simplex or composite), their syntactic behavior as members of various categories and their semantic properties of combining two dimensions of meaning, viz. a deictic dimension (proximal, medial, distal, visible, etc.) and a content dimension in terms of the ontological categories 'manner', 'quality' and 'degree'. In the second and major part of this paper I will discuss another neglected aspect of the relevant demonstratives, viz. their role in processes of grammaticalization and thus in the genesis and development of various grammatical categories. Starting out from the well-known extensions from exophoric to anaphoric and cataphoric, these demonstratives also develop into propositional anaphors, comparative markers, adverbial connectives, as well as quotative, exclamative and approximative markers in a wide variety of languages.


African elephants ( Loxodonta africana ) are ecosystem engineers in that they substantially alter the environment through their unique foraging and feeding habits. At high densities, elephants potentially have negative impacts on the environment, specifically for large trees. Because of this, recent increases of elephants in the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) on the western boundary of the Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa, have caused concern regarding the survival of several tree species. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of wrapping protective wire netting around the trunk of the tree for preventing and reducing bark stripping, branch breaking, and felling by elephants. We assessed 2668 trees – 1352 Sclerocarya birrea (marula), 857 Acacia nigrescens (knobthorn), and 459 Lannea schweinfurthii (false marula) – for elephant impact in the APNR, 1387 (52%) of which had previously been wrapped in protective wire netting (789, 548 and 50, respectively). Wire netting was effective in reducing the severity of bark stripping and the relative proportion of trees that were bark stripped. In addition, wire netting had an effect on the level of impact, with a higher relative frequency of wire-net-protected trees found in lower impact categories compared with unprotected trees. Since tree mortality has been attributed to high levels of elephant impact, the use of wire netting could serve to maintain individual trees or populations particularly vulnerable to elephant impact in areas with locally high densities of elephants. Conservation implications: Since wire netting is a relatively low cost and ecologically unobtrusive strategy, it could be used to reduce elephant impact in problem areas. This method focuses on protecting trees rather than some other strategies such as environmental manipulation, translocation, contraceptives, and culling that instead focus on reducing elephant numbers. Keywords: Elephant impact; bark stripping; large trees; wire netting; mitigation measures


AltikAt, S., 2013. Effects of strip width and tractor forward speed on sowing uniformity of maize and sunflower. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 19: 375-382 A two year field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of strip width and tractor forward speed on sowing uniformity of maize and sunflower. Being equipped to achieve purpose of this study, a row crop rotary hoe with C-type blades was used to obtain different strip widths. During the experiment, the field area was tilled in 22.5, 30 and 37.5 cm wide strips, respectively; these widths were obtained by changing the positions of flanges and blade connections of the rotary hoe. The rotary hoe was operated at a constant rotor rotation speed of 370 min-1, in a tillage depth of 10 cm and at 3 different tractor forward speeds (1.8, 3.6 and 5.4 km h-1 ) in order to get various soil fragmentation values. Because of increasing the forward speed during the tillage, coefficient variations of sowing depth uniformity, intra and inter-row seed distribution uniformity and seed distribution area for both maize and sunflower seeds decreased. The precision of the distribution of the seeds along the length of the row for the forward speeds was well below 29%; and therefore, it was acceptable for both maize and sunflower seeds. However, the strip width did not have a significant effect on the sowing performance parameters. Tractor forward speed became effective on soil fragmentation, and accordingly the distribution of smaller soil particles decreased with the increase in the speed. This study demonstrated that the most acceptable tractor forward speed for the strip tillage method in terms of the sowing uniformity parameters was 1.8 km h-1 for all of the experiment years.


OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the current cost-effectiveness evidence on adherence-enhancing interventions (AEIs) was of sufficient quality to aid in decision-making regarding medication adherence policies. DATA SOURCES: A computerized search of Embase, MEDLINE, Cinahl, Econlit, NHSEED, Psychlit, EPIC, and Cochrane databases (1980–April 2004) was performed. English-language human subject articles were identified using the key words compliance, adherence, concordance, patient assistance, therapeutic alliance, costs, economics, efficiency, resource use/utilization, cost-of illness, cost-effectiveness, cost-minimization, cost-utility, and cost-benefit. STUDY SELECTION AND DATA EXTRACTION: Studies that appeared to assess the cost-effectiveness of medication AEIs were included. Methodologic rigor was assessed using 15 minimum quality criteria. DATA SYNTHESIS: We found 45 comparative studies in 43 publications. Asthma (14 studies) and psychiatric illness (12 studies) were most commonly investigated. In 33 studies, interventions were educational, 18 had multiple components, and 23 did not appear to be linked to proven reasons for nonadherence. Reporting of adherence and outcome results was often unclear. Cost data were poorer quality than outcome data, using average or estimated costs and omitting some cost elements. Nine studies carried out incremental economic analysis. No study met all quality criteria. CONCLUSIONS: We were not able to make definitive conclusions about the cost-effectiveness of AEIs due to the heterogeneity of the studies found and incomplete reporting of results. Important policy decisions need to be made about nonadherence; however, they are currently being made in a vacuum of adequate information. AEIs must be based on reasons for nonadherence and be evaluated using accepted clinical and economic quality criteria.


Proponents of baby sign claim improvements in child-caregiver interactions and reductions in parental stress as benefits of implementing baby sign. Due to research contradicting the claims, and to the rise in daycare attendance, the current study investigated the effects of a baby sign workshop on the stress perception of daycare providers. A pre-test post-test between groups design with 20 participants was conducted using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10) and a workshop-specific descriptive survey as measures. The difference between the post-test stress levels of experimental and control groups approached significance, as did the differences between pre-test and post-test results for the experimental group. Over half of experimental group participants experienced reduced stress scores, and improved provider-child interactions.


In the 1990s, considerable changes have taken place concerning the naturalization of foreigners in the city of Zurich. With the steady increase in the number of applications the administration had to deal with and with a shortage of both staff and financial means, administrative procedures were tightened, more clearly structured and professionalized. As a result of the continuous systematization of these procedures, the criteria applied to applications have changed profoundly. Principally, the conditions applicants have to meet have been quantified and made more objective. The conservative parties oppose this process of liberalizing naturalization. At the same time, left parties in the city parliament have made several attempts to revise the outmoded legal requirements for access to citizenship. When the city parliament treats applications, discussions have an increasing tendency to turn into basic debates on access to citizenship: both left-wing and right-wing parties take the opportunity to express their general views on immigration and the integration of foreigners. In the political arena, issues concerning naturalization, immigration and integration are inter-mingled. Arguments about applications as well as about naturalization law and regulations take place in a hostile political climate and the work of the administration and the naturalization committee of the city parliament is becoming increasingly difficult. Although all political parties agree that the situation is unbearable, the possibilities for securing a majority around proposed solutions are becoming increasingly remote.


Abstract Objective To assess clinical and radiographic risk factors for intraoperative aneurysm rupture (ioAR) during surgical clipping after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) and to analyze its influence on patient outcome. Methods Patient selection was based on a retrospective analysis of our prospective subarachnoid hemorrhage patient database including consecutive patients between January 2008 and August 2012 with aSAH undergoing microsurgical clipping. Demographic data, cardiovascular risk factors, preoperative radiologic aneurysm characteristics, as well as timing of surgery and preoperative severity grades (Hunt and Hess [HH], Fisher, World Federation of Neurological Societies [WFNS]), were collected from hospital charts and surgery videos and compared between patients with and without ioAR. Results Of 100 patients (38 men, 62 women) with a median age of 57.4 years (range: 23–85 years), ioAR occurred in 34 cases (34%). Univariate analyses showed that severity grades were significantly higher in the ioAR group (Fisher p = 0.012; HH p = 0.002; WFNS p = 0.023). IoAR was significantly associated with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) (23% versus 47%; p = 0.013) and the spot sign as an indicator of active bleeding within the ICH (0% vs 44%; p = 0.007). Multivariate analysis showed that HH was the only significant predictor of ioAR (p = 0.03; odds ratio: 2.3; 95% confidence interval, 1.1–5.0). With a mean follow-up of 17.6 months ( ± 16.6), Glasgow Outcome Scale score, mortality rate (12% versus 15%; p = 0.82), delayed cerebral ischemia (36% versus 38%; p = 0.51), and shunt dependency (32% versus 44%; p = 0.23) were comparable between the non-ioAR and ioAR group. Conclusions Initial clinical status and spot sign were associated with ioAR during microsurgical clipping of ruptured aneurysms. However, there was no difference regarding clinical outcome and complications of the two groups.


Previous research studies have reported that spectral compression of the surface Electromyogram (SEMG) towards lower frequencies is associated with onset of localized muscle fatigue. One reason for this spectral compression has been attributed to motor unit synchronization in literature. According to this, motor units are pseudo randomly excited during muscle contraction, and the recruitment pattern changes during the onset of muscle fatigue, such that the firing of motor units becomes more synchronized. While this theory is widely accepted, there is little experimental proof of the phenomenon. This paper has used source dependence properties and measures developed in research related to independent component analysis (ICA) to test for synchronization. This paper has also determined that the global matrix can be used as a measure for estimating localized muscle fatigue during cyclic movements.


"The millennial generation's most celebrated literary achievement." Al-Ahram Weekly "The first glimmer of hope for a true fictional renaissance an instantly rewarding read embraced by an unprecedented range of literary figures" The Daily Star "What is madness?" asks the narrator of Ahmed Alaidy's jittery, funny, and angry novel. Assuring readers that they are about to find out, the narrator takes us on a journey through the insanity of present-day Cairo in and out of minibuses, malls, and crash pads, navigating the city's pinball machine of social life with tolerable efficiency. But lurking under the rocks in his grouchy, chain-smoking, pharmaceutically-oriented, twenty-something life are characters like his elusive psychiatrist uncle with a disturbing interest in phobias. And then there's Abbas, the narrator's best friend who surfaces at critical moments to drive our hero into uncontrollably multiplying difficulties. For instance, theres the ticklish situation with the simultaneous blind-dates Abbas has set up for him on different levels of a coffee-shop in a Cairo mall with two girls both called Hind. With friends like Abbas, what paranoiac needs enemies?


This paper scrutinizes the recent proposal made by Lassiter (2008) that the dichotomy between Chomskyan internalism and Dummett-type externalism is misguided and should be overcome by an approach that incorporates sociolinguistic concepts such as speakers' dispositions to defer. We argue that Lassiter's arguments are flawed and based on a serious misunder-standing of the internalist approach to the study of natural language, failing to appreciate its methodological nature and conclude that Lassiter's socio-linguistic approach is just another instance of externalist attempts with little hope of scientific achievement.


At the present day cultural diplomacy plays a rather important role in the development of international relations and world politics. This concept is receiving increasing attention from various countries, international and non-governmental organizations and other actors. This trend exists due to a number of reasons, such as the desire of states to create a positive image of their country, the expansion of international cooperation, changes in the global and domestic political situation, the protection of national interests, the prevention of conflicts between states, etc. Cultural diplomacy, beyond historical precedents, consists of a relatively new practice of a country's foreign policy, which has traditionally focused on trade and security and defense issues. It is true that in European countries there are institutions of cultural foreign relations since the beginning of the century, but in the last decade the issues, related to the projection of the international image of countries, have become more important.


This book provides professionals with an easy reference resource for successfully implementing a performance management system in a multinational company. Providing research-based strategies for reconciling the global-local dilemma is the focus of the book. The authors explore principles drawn from extensive research in human resources and cross-cultural management. They focus on the critical process of defining, measuring, and rewarding performance in multinational organizations, emphasizing the importance of managing a workforce effectively in today's highly competitive, globalized environment. A real-world case study is woven throughout the book to illustrate further the challenges organizations face when developing strategies, facilitating equivalent and consistent treatment, and contributing to the global mobility of talent. Rewarding Performance Globally will benefit senior-level HR professionals, and will also interest students of international management, human resource management, and cross-cultural management.


The present study was carried out from May 2001 to August 2001 to investigate the diversity, distribution and environmental interactions of mangrove crabs in the Kadolkele mangrove ecosystem associated with the Negombo estuary in the west coast of Sri Lanka. The data on diversity and abundance of crabs, salinity, pH, organic carbon content, moisture and temperature of the soil, ambient air temperature and floral species of mangrove were collected from three 10 m x 50 m belt transects laid perpendicular to the shore. Of the six species of crabs found in the study area, five were identified up to species level. They were Episesarma versicolor , Sesarma smithii , Sesarma guttatum , Metopograpsus thukuhar and Metopograpsus messor . This is the first record of Metopograpsus thukuhar and Sesarma guttatum in Sri Lanka. Diversity of crabs decreased with the increasing distance from the lagoon but the number of crabs present did not vary significantly (p > 0.05). The distribution of the crabs varied with the increasing distance from the lagoon. S. smithii and M. messor were distributed throughout the 50 m distance while M. thukuhar and the unidentified species were restricted to 0-20 m and 0-10 m from the lagoon respectively. E. versicolor and S. guttatum were found towards the landward side (25 - 50 m). The distribution of S. smithii showed a positive correlation (p M. thukuhar , S. guttatum and E. versicolor showed negative correlations (p E. versicolor showed a positive correlation with soil organic carbon content (p M. thukuhar showed a negative correlation with soil pH while S. guttatum and S. smithii showed a positive correlation (p M. thukuhar and unidentified juvenile crabs were found restricted to Rhizophora/Bruguiera zone, while E. versicolor and S. guttatum were confined to the Avicennia /Lumnitzer a zone. DOI: 10.4038/sljas.v13i0.2210 Sri Lanka J. Aquat. Sci. 13 (2008): 109-121


The spin-state orderings in nine Fe(II) and Fe(III) complexes with ligands of diverse ligand-field strength were investigated with multiconfiguration pair-density functional theory (MC-PDFT). The performance of this method was compared to that of complete active space second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) and Kohn-Sham density functional theory. We also investigated the dependence of CASPT2 and MC-PDFT results on the size of the active-space. MC-PDFT reproduces the CASPT2 spin-state ordering, the dependence on the ligand field strength, and the dependence on active space at a computational cost that is significantly reduced as compared to CASPT2.


The summer months are often thought to be a quiet and peaceful time in academic libraries, a time to catch up from the frenzy of the fall and spring semesters. Since there are fewer students on campus, one might think there should be less to do. However, this was far from the case this summer at Access Services in the Mary Livermore Library. New shelving and the shifting of thousands of volumes, as well as the change in the Library's name, were just the beginning of the many transformations and modifications that took place over the summer months. Changes were also made to expand and improve our existing services to benefit both library patrons and staff.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a collective term used for oxygen containing free radicals, depending on their reactivity and oxidizing ability. ROS participate in a variety of chemical reactions with biomolecules leading to a pathological condition known as oxidative stress. Antioxidants are employed to protect biomolecules from the damaging effects of such ROS. In the beginning, antioxidant research was mainly aimed at understanding free radical reactions of ROS with antioxidants employing biochemical assays and kinetic methods. Later on, studies began to be directed to monitor the ability of anti-oxidants to modulate cellular signaling proteins like receptors, secondary messengers, transcription factors, etc. Of late several studies have indicated that antioxidants can also have deleterious effects on human health depending on dosage and bio-availability. It is therefore, necessary to validate the utility of antioxidants in improvement of human health in order to take full advantage of their therapeutic potential.


Although elevated temperature drawing of wire has been an industrial process for a number of years it has not been investigated systematically and many facets of the process have not been understood. Consequently a continuous in-line heat treatment draw process was developed. The technique of drawing mild steel, medium carbon steel and M2 'high speed' steel wires up to 700°C and about 45% area of reduction was established. The mechanics of wire drawing at elevated temperatures has been studied in depth theoretically and practically. An upper bound solution was derived, and solved numerically, to establish the draw stress and other data, for a range of variables. The stress, strain, strain rate and temperature were related mathematically by the power law and the velocity-modified temperature respectively. This enabled the flow stress distribution in the deformation zone to be calculated, after taking into consideration the temperature rise due to deformation and frictional work. Based on the flow stress distribution, a mean flow stress was calculated and used in the upper bound solution. Adiabatic conditions were assumed to prevail. A special computer program was written to plot the strain, strain rate, temperature and flow stress distributions. The effects of draw temperature, area of reduction and lubricant were investigated experimentally. For a constant draw speed of 20 ft min -1, the strain-ageing region was found in the approximate temperature range of 200 - 400 C. In general, the experimental draw stresses required at elevated temperatures were lower than those developed in cold drawing. The experimental and theoretical results for medium carbon-steel were in satisfactory agreement, except for draw temperatures of 600°C and above. The results of mild steel and M2 'high speed' steel could not be verified theoretically due to a lack of suitable stress-strain data but such evidence as is available leads to the conclusion that the theory is in agreement with the experimental results


BACKGROUND
To learn more about how people who did not volunteer for testing react to information about HIV infection, we assessed short-term behavior changes in HIV-positive blood donors.

METHODS
Blood donors who were notified at the New York Blood Center that they were HIV positive were asked to participate in a study. A nurse elicited a medical history, performed a limited medical examination, and asked participants to complete a questionnaire that included questions about drug use, sexual behavior, and psychological characteristics. Participants were asked to return in 2 weeks to complete another questionnaire.

RESULTS
Many fewer men and women reported engaging in unsafe sexual behaviors in the 2 weeks preceding the follow-up visit than had reported such behaviors prior to notification. These changes were greater than those other investigators have reported, but about 40% of the participants still reported unsafe sexual activity at the follow-up interview.

CONCLUSIONS
To make nonvolunteer screening programs for HIV infection more effective in reducing the spread of HIV infection, we need to learn more about how to help people change their high-risk behaviors.


Diabetic nephropathy (DN) occurs in around 40% of those with diabetes. Proteinuria is the main characteristic of DN and develops as a result of increased permeability of the glomerulus capillary wall and/or decreased proximal tubule endocytosis. The goal of this work was to evaluate renal function and the expression of megalin, cubilin, CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator), and ClC‐5 in the proximal tubule and renal cortex of rats with type 1 diabetes. Male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to control (CTRL) and diabetic (DM) groups for 4 weeks. Renal function was assessed in 24‐h urine sample by calculating clearance and fractional excretion of solutes. The RNA and protein contents of ClC‐5, CFTR, megalin, and cubilin were determined in the renal proximal tubule and cortex using real‐time polymerase chain reaction and western blotting techniques, respectively. The results showed higher creatinine clearance and higher urinary excretion of proteins, albumin, and transferrin in the DM group than in the CTRL group. Furthermore, the renal cortex and proximal tubule of diabetic animals showed downregulation of megalin, cubilin, ClC‐5, and CFTR, critical components of the endocytic apparatus. These data suggest dysfunction in proximal tubule low‐molecular‐weight endocytosis and protein glomerulus filtration in the kidney of diabetic rats.


Environmental chemicals (e.g., lead, pesticides, flame retardants) accumulate in all human bodies and have the potential to affect the health of men and women, adults, and children. This article advances "precautionary consumption"—the effort to mediate personal exposure to environmental chemicals through vigilant consumption—as a new empirical site for understanding the intersections between maternal embodiment and contemporary motherhood as a consumer project. Using in-depth interviews, I explore how a group of 25 mothers employ precautionary consumption to mediate their children's exposure to chemicals found in food, consumer products, and the home. Most of the mothers in the study situate their children's chemical "burdens" within their own bodies and undertake the labor of precautionary consumption as part of a larger and commodity-based motherhood project. In actively expanding the sphere of responsible motherhood to include managing children's body burdens, these mothers navigate multiple and overlapping contexts that hold women accountable for children's futures and value the agency of the proactive consumer. Yet, as the sphere of responsible mothering expands, women without financial resources, time, and family stability are pushed to the margins of normative motherhood.