OBJECTIVE
We aimed to assess the use of noninvasive ventilation devices in patients with prolonged weaning following tracheotomy.

METHODS
We performed a retrospective observational study using data collected from the clinical records of tracheotomized patients diagnosed with prolonged weaning. The participants were hospitalized in the adult intensive care unit of Moinhos de Vento Hospital, Porto Alegre (RS) between December 2007 and December 2008.

RESULTS
In the data collection period, 1,482 patients were admitted to the intensive care unit. In total, 126 patients underwent tracheotomies, and 26 of these patients met the inclusion criteria for participating in the study. The average age of the patients in our sample was 73 ± 12 years. In our sample, 57.7% of the participants were female, and 80.8% were admitted as a result of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. After the tracheotomy, the patients remained under mechanical ventilation for an average of 29.8 days. After the initiation of the experimental protocol, the tracheotomized patients remained under ventilation for an average of 53.5 days on a portable noninvasive device connected to the tracheotomy. There were three possible outcomes for the patients. They were discharged, were weaned from the noninvasive ventilation, or died in the intensive care unit or hospital ward. In total, 76.9% (20/26) of the patients were discharged from the intensive care unit, and 53.8% (14/26) of the patients were discharged from the hospital.

CONCLUSION
The use of noninvasive portable ventilators connected to the tracheotomy may represent an alternative for discontinuing ventilationand discharging tracheotomized patients with prolonged ventilatory weaning from intensive care unit.


HUNKIN-CONKEY CONSTRUCTION CO., noted contractor for public works throughout the U.S., began in 1900 when Samuel and William Hunkin, who had been in Cleveland's building trades since 1870, formed a partnership as the Hunkin Bros. The firm was incorporated in 1903. A nephew, Guy E. Conkey, was put in charge of the Cleveland operation after Sam Hunkin was killed and Wm. Hunkin left the city to oversee the rebuilding of San Francisco following the earthquake of 1905. In 1907 the firm name was changed to the Hunkin-Conkey Construction Co. The Hunkins bought out the Conkeys in 1948. In 1970 Hunkin-Conkey was the nation's 11th largest construction firm, averaging $40 million in contracts annually and employing 2,000 people (500 in Greater Cleveland). The company had an excellent reputation for competence, speed, and a creative approach to engineering, specializing in building BRIDGES, breakwaters, docks, roads, factories, and hospitals. Its local projects included DETROIT-SUPERIOR BRIDGE, CLEVELAND MUNICIPAL STADIUM, NASA LEWIS RESEARCH CENTER, and LAKEWOOD HOSPITAL. Among the company's national projects were the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the Minnesota taconite plant of the Reserve Mining Co. The company, which had its offices in the Hunkin Bldg. at 1919 E. 13th St., was a casualty of the 1970s recession, rising labor costs, the maze of red tape involved in contracting for public works, and litigation over several of its major projects. Hunkin-Conkey Construction Co. closed in 1974 after more than 70 years of operation.


This thesis uses Quentin Skinner's study of rhetoric to interrogate the origins of the modern political imaginary in Canada between 1910 and 1945. The Dominion taxing power was the object of a sustained rhetorical critique in the early 20th century, in which the Liberal and Conservative party identities, built around the protective tariff in the post-Confederation era, were slowly weakened and supplemented with a new representation of difference: the left-right spectrum. Beginning in 1910 with the Grain Growers' Guide, the nationalist resonances of the Dominion tariff were cast as duplicitous
distractions from exploitation and fiscal inefficiency. During the First World War, this characterization of the tariff and the political differences it produced became tied to demands for 'conscription of wealth,' as the basis of a fairer and more democratic political culture. A species of what Ian McKay calls a "people's enlightenment," this critique resulted in the first Dominion income tax, the Income War Tax of 1917. A Dominion income tax introduced the new possibility of transferring income that had been taxed progressively from one region to another. The catastrophic economic
depression of the 1930s exposed the weakness of the tariff as a fiscal instrument; a more powerful Dominion income tax was cast as the necessary solution to the crisis, and was duly introduced in 1941 and 1942. With these changes, income taxation became a universal burden and the possible basis for large-scale Dominion social programs like the Family Allowances – a combination that Shirley Tillotson calls "the citizenship of contribution." In recognition of this new possibility, party programs for the redistribution of income were aligned on a left-right spectrum. The displacement of the old
party system and the establishment of the new spectrum were both examples of what is here termed political modernism, creating a new and modern political imaginary for a democratic politics of redistribution.


Neuroimaging provides robust evidence to demonstrate the functional and structural deficits in childhood and adult survivors of child maltreatment. These deficits mirror the neurocircuitry involved in parenting. Despite this, research into the mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of abuse fails to acknowledge the contribution of brain development on future parenting ability. A discussion of the cognitive, social, and emotional deficits of child and adult survivors of childhood maltreatment is presented. This is followed by a critical overview of how current parenting interventions fail to take into account the neuropsychological mechanisms behind the intergenerational transmission of abuse. A conceptual model of the neuropsychological transmission of childhood maltreatment is presented. This model will allow child welfare practitioners to gain a greater understanding of the specific deficits of individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment and how parenting interventions may be enhanced for this population. This represents one step forward in breaking the cycle of the intergenerational transmission of childhood maltreatment.


The power sector reform experiences of developing countries vary greatly. To help explain this from a political economy perspective, this paper reviews several dozen statistical analyses, multi-country case studies, and development practice publications. The frame of reference is the model of market-oriented reforms that became a global norm in the 1990s. Findings are organized in terms of the history, theory, motives, processes and outcomes of reforms. Market orientation emerged around the 1980s as part of a shift in economic theory and policy away from state control, and was expected to improve efficiency and investments. Reform advocates never took political economy issues into full consideration. Yet, policy makers have had sociopolitical as well as technical motives for reform, such as crisis response. International norms and competition for foreign investment and trade pulled governments to model reforms, while development partners pushed them as a condition of aid. Reform implementation has been characterized by strong tensions among different public and private interests. Concretely, 1990s model reforms were based on a logic of depoliticizing pricing and investment decisions; often placing policy makers in a conflict of interest situation. Thus, the political costs and risks of reform have often exceeded the benefits perceived by local decision makers, especially as reforms did not generally result in immediate benefits for citizens. In practice, incremental, inclusive processes may be better than quick and stealthy reforms that sidestep stakeholders' concerns. While there was limited evidence of efficacy at the time the reforms were implemented, ex post the outcomes of reforms are ambiguous, as improvements in some areas have been offset by negative results elsewhere. For increasing access to electricity and clean energy, 1990s model reforms may help, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient, nor did they focus on these objectives. In conclusion, the success or failure of policy prescriptions such as 1990s model reforms are contingent on dynamic, context-specific institutions as well as factors beyond the sector. More work is needed on integrated, flexible approaches to think and work politically in the sector, and to account for new technology and diverse sector development objectives.


Lending to emerging market economies (EMEs) through bond purchases has surged since 2009. What are the risks of a sudden stop? Bond mutual funds may curtail credit through two channels. The first is redemptions by ultimate investors. The second is additional discretionary sales by fund managers, over and above any sales implied by redemptions. In an empirical analysis of EME bond funds, we find that discretionary sales tend to reinforce the sales due to investor redemptions, and that 100 dollars' worth of bond sales due to investor redemptions is accompanied by roughly 10 dollars' worth of discretionary bond sales. We also find that 100 dollars' worth of EME international bond sales is associated with around 4 dollars' worth of valuation losses. Finally, a 1 percentage point increase in the yield of local currency bonds is associated with a 10% decline in the dollar value of bond holdings.


We demonstrate a multiple-channel, mode-locked, all-solid-state Cr:forsterite laser. By inserting an etalon into the laser cavity, we have generated 12 phase-locked channels with 9-19-ps pulse width near 1230 nm with 280-mW average output power from a single laser oscillator. By tuning the etalon bandwidth we can shorten the pulse width in a specific channel to 1.8 ps.


The effect of isothermal ageing of β-Cu-Al-Ni alloys at low temperatures (473K and 573K) on the martensitic transformation has been studied using differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy. Three single crystals with different Al content (13.5, 13.6 and 13.8 wt%) and the same Ni concentration (4%) were used. Before ageing, the samples were annealed at 1070K and quenched to room temperature. The transformation temperatures remained nearly constant during the initial stages of ageing and started to increase noticeably after a given ageing time, which is shorter in the samples with higher Al content. For the alloy with highest Al content, the Ms decreased slightly at the beginning of ageing at 473K. The transformation to two coexisting martensitic structures, β' (18R) and γ' (2H) has been observed. The proportion of each one changes with the composition and ageing, the γ' phase being promoted for increasing ageing times and temperatures. A good correlation exists between the initial ageing stage, in which there is no evolution of transformation temperatures, with the coexistence of the two martensites. The formation of the two kinds of martensites is related to the short range reordering processes taking place during ageing, specially of as quenched next nearest neighbours disordered Cu-Al pairs. The results would indicate that the disordered Cu-Al pairs stabilize the β' martensite and when these pairs recover the correct positions, the γ' becomes the stable martensite. The high increase of transformation temperatures with ageing at 573K is related to two different precipitation processes observed.


The direct and efficient conversion of alcohols into amines is a pivotal transformation in chemistry. Here, we present an artificial, oxidation-reduction, biocatalytic network that employs five enzymes (alcohol dehydrogenase, NADP-oxidase, catalase, amine dehydrogenase and formate dehydrogenase) in two concurrent and orthogonal cycles. The NADP-dependent oxidative cycle converts a diverse range of aromatic and aliphatic alcohol substrates to the carbonyl compound intermediates, whereas the NAD-dependent reductive aminating cycle generates the related amine products with >99% enantiomeric excess (R) and up to >99% conversion. The elevated conversions stem from the favorable thermodynamic equilibrium (K'eq = 1.88 × 1042 and 1.48 × 1041 for the amination of primary and secondary alcohols, respectively). This biocatalytic network possesses elevated atom efficiency, since the reaction buffer (ammonium formate) is both the aminating agent and the source of reducing equivalents. Additionally, only dioxygen is needed, whereas water and carbonate are the by-products. For the oxidative step, we have employed three variants of the NADP-dependent alcohol dehydrogenase from Thermoanaerobacter ethanolicus and we have elucidated the origin of the stereoselective properties of these variants with the aid of in silico computational models.


The physical resource assignment problem in dynamic optical networks, often referred to as the routing and wavelength assignment problem, is very important for the development of optical transport networks. Research has been done to optimize this operation so that the overall connection blocking can be minimized. Traffic grooming adds another dimension to this problem by introducing opportunities for multiplexing low-bit-rate traffic into a high-bit-rate stream. The ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is a metaheuristic method that is inspired by the foraging behavior of ants and has been widely implemented in solving discrete optimization problems. This paper proposes an ACO to solve the grooming, routing, and wavelength assignment problem. Unlike previous work, our work includes considerations of mixed line rate, physical impairments, and traffic grooming functionality. Comprehensive simulation tests show how variations on the ACO algorithms' implementation affect performance. A comparison is made between this distributed algorithm and a centralized algorithm that we propose, a grooming adaptive shortest path algorithm (GASP). Although GASP shows better efficiency in terms of blocking probability, ACO shows great robustness and adaptivity to varying network and traffic conditions.


The explosive growth of the Internet saw a corresponding expansion of information exchange dwarfing the very modest designs of early networking elements. With increasing dependence on this exciting medium the number of users has increased manifold. The exponential growth in the services that needed to be supported has spurred traffic volumes, resulting in the need for huge bandwidth and faster communication. Network infrastructures had to keep pace with these rapid developments but were unfortunately saddled with severe bottlenecks that the only solution was costly upgrades. Routers, the mainstay of the Internet had to cope with a wide range of protocols. They have undergone several design modifications over the decades. A router essentially must perform two fundamental tasks-compute best routes and forward data packets. The evolution of routers is often described in terms of three generations of architectures. From the first generation with single CPUs and multiple interface cards with a shared bus, the routers evolved to the third generation with a switch fabric. Reservation signaling protocols have become an indispensable part of the Internet service. Resource reservation protocols were originally designed to signal end hosts and network routers to provide quality of service (QoS) to individual real-time flows. Recently, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been using the same signaling mechanisms to set up provider-level Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in the form of MPLS Label Switched Path (LSP). Traditional IP router architectures cannot scale to meet these demands, forcing architects to explore alternative designs. However, due to rapid growth of the Internet, the architecture of the third generation routers are not able to meet the expected amount of traffic (i.e., multiple terabits or petabits per second). This development results in emergence of next generation routers with large switching capacity and high speed interfaces. The traditional centralized software model, where the control card is solely responsible for all routing and management operations is not able to efficiently utilize the new hardware platform architecture of line cards. Distributed architecture is one of the promising trends allowing routers to improve their robustness, scalability and resiliency. In this thesis path calculation and memory resources are proposed to be available on both control and line card in order to perform routing and forwarding tasks. We investigate the ability to reallocate components of the current MPLS/RSVP-TE architecture on to the line cards in order to share the load between the control card and line card. This allows significant improvement in scalability, resiliency and robustness of the system. New mechanisms for message exchange, synchronization, table and session management, and storage are developed. Performance evaluations in terms of CPU consumption, memory requirements, load balancing and bandwidth utilization for both centralized and the proposed distributed software architectures indicate that the processing time and memory utilization are significantly reduced


Abstract Scholarship on Chinese governance has examined a range of factors that help to explain the resilience of authoritarianism. One understudied aspect of regime resilience and institutionalization has been the growing importance of supervision by a range of party-state entities. Examining court–media relations in China demonstrates that "competitive supervision" is an increasingly important tool for increasing state responsiveness and improving accountability. Court–media relations suggest that China is seeking to develop novel forms of horizontal accountability. Placing such relations in a broader institutional context also helps to explain why common paradigms used to analyse them may be inapplicable in China.


In today's world, social media provides a valuable platform for conveying expressions, thoughts, point-of-views, and communication between people, from diverse walks of life. There are currently approximately 2.62 billion active users' social networks, and this is expected to exceed 3 billion users by 2021. Social networks used to share ideas and information, allowing interaction across communities, organizations, and so forth. Recent studies have found that the typical individual uses these platforms between 2 and 3 h a day. This creates a vast and rich source of data that can play a critical role in decision-making for companies, political campaigns, and administrative management and welfare. Twitter is one of the important players in the social network arena. Every scale of companies, celebrities, different types of organizations, and leaders use Twitter as an instrument for communicating and engaging with their followers. In this paper, we build upon the idea that Twitter data can be analyzed for crowd source sensing and decision-making. In this paper, a new framework is presented that uses Twitter data and performs crowd source sensing. For the proposed framework, real-time data are obtained and then analyzed for emotion classification using a lexicon-based approach. Previous work has found that weather, understandably, has an impact on mood, and we consider these effects on crowd mood. For the experiments, weather data are collected through an application-programming-interface in R and the impact of weather on human sentiments is analyzed. Visualizations of the data are presented and their usefulness for policy/decision makers in different applications is discussed.


Summer stormflow from a 1.57 km2 headwater basin in southern Ontario, Canada, which contained a 0.31 km2 valley-bottom, treed spring-fed swamp, was examined in 1987 and 1988. A large and annually constant groundwater flux emerged in the swamp, producing permanent saturated areas and a series of surface streamlets. The streamlets play a significant role in the production of an overland flow component of storm runoff. Stormflow volume produced by the basin was very small (runoff coefficients less than 0.01), but because of the well developed surface 'streamlet' system stormflow response and recession were rapid. Stormflow yield was equivalent to the depth of precipitation incident on the surface streamlets and stormflow volume was directly proportional to the volume of rain, indicating the size of the saturated zone was constant and not influenced by the storm rainfall. There was no evidence of groundwater being a major contributor to storm runoff. However, because groundwater controls the development of the surface streamlets and swamp saturation, seasonal groundwater hydrology and storm surface hydrology are inseparable.


In 2007 the Tidgrove key was found during excavations near Kingsclere, Hampshire. A residence of Henry II, the site highlighted a complex that included a series of buildings, including a large cellar. At the foot of this structure lay a heavily corroded key. A new CT scanner at the University of Southampton revealed wire inlay over the shaft, and the fine cutting of the wards. Earlier this year, the Archaeological Computing Research Group at Southampton began to work on virtually reconstructing this artefact and how it may have been used


We hypothesized that postexercise rehydration using a hypotonic electrolyte solution will increase the rate of recovery of whole body hydration, and that this is associated with increased muscle glycogen and electrolyte recovery in horses. Gluteus medius biopsies and jugular venous blood were sampled from six exercise-conditioned Standardbreds on two separate occasions, at rest and for 24 h following a competitive exercise test (CET) designed to simulate the speed and endurance test of a 3-day event. After the CETs, horses were given water ad libitum, and either a hypotonic commercial electrolyte solution (electrolyte) via nasogastric tube, followed by a typical hay/grain meal, or a hay/grain meal alone (control). The CET resulted in decreased total body water and muscle glycogen concentration of 8.4 +/- 0.3 liters and 22.6%, respectively, in the control treatment, and 8.2 +/- 0.4 liters and 21.9% in the electrolyte treatment. Electrolyte resulted in an enhanced rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis and faster restoration of hydration (as evidenced by faster recovery of plasma protein concentration, maintenance of plasma osmolality, and greater muscle intracellular fluid volume) during the recovery period compared with control. There were no differences in muscle Na, K, Cl, or Mg contents between the two treatments. It is concluded that oral administration of a hypotonic electrolyte solution after prolonged moderate-intensity exercise enhanced the rate of muscle glycogen resynthesis during the recovery period compared with control. It is speculated that postexercise dehydration may be one key contributor to the slow muscle glycogen replenishment in horses.


This resource bulletin describes the principal findings of the sixth inventory of Florida's forest resources. Data concerning the extent and condition of forest land, as well as associated timber inventory, growth, and removal volumes are presented and analyzed. In accordance with the Forest and rangeland renewable resources planning act of 1974, information on nontimber commodities were also collected, but evaluations of these data will be conducted separately.


Infectious pathogens have been linked to the genesis of malignancy in a variety of different settings. Initial studies in virology led to the important discovery of key genetic alterations underlying common malignancies, and further, lent support to the notion that malignancy can be promoted by the process of viral infection and cellular transformation. In this review, we summarize a series of hematologic malignancies with derivations from and associations with infectious organisms. Among these are a variety of lymphomas, including Hodgkin's lymphoma (Hodgkin's disease), Burkitt lymphoma, and a host of other non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Through innovative and ground-breaking studies, some of these malignancies have been directly linked to viral infection, such as the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), while others have been merely associated with infection through epidemiologic studies and case-reports. Some malignancies have been demonstrated to be caused by viral infection, such as adult T-cell leukemia and lymphoma (ATLL), which is caused by the human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I), in certain endemic area. In the future, additional malignant states may be found to be associated with infectious etiology, which could allow for novel approaches to prevention and treatment.


This paper contributes to our understanding of managers' motivations for initiating the sale of their company. Using a sample of 1098 publicly-listed US target firms with completed deals, we show that deals initiated by the target firm rather than by outside bidders have higher CEO ownership. Furthermore, CEOs are motivated to offer their firms for sale also by higher golden parachutes, stock and stock option grants prior to takeovers. Our results suggest that motivated CEOs participate actively in deal negotiations, rather than being bribed not to resist the deal. In target-initiated deal firms, CEO ownership and equity grants are also positively correlated with takeover premiums.


The introduction of 40-slice CT scanners has opened up new possibilities for CT angiography of the supra-aortal vasculature. Imaging can be performed with even thinner slices, and more rapidly, than on 16-slice systems, and images have higher resolution. Conventional protocols for imaging the brain and its arterial supply must be adjusted to profit from these parameters.


Two empirical generalizations about speciation remain unexplained: the tendency of the heterogametic sex to be sterile or inviable in F1 hybrids (Haldane's rule), and the tendency of the X chromosome to harbor the genetic elements that cause this sex bias in hybrid fitness. I suggest that divergence of meiotic drive systems on the sex chromosomes can explain these observations. The theory follows from two simple facts. First, sex chromosomes are particularly susceptible to the forces of meiotic drive. Second, divergence of meiotic drive systems can cause hybrid sterility and in viability. The main objection to the theory is that meiotic drive is apparently rare, whereas the observed pattern of hybrid fitness is widespread. I answer this objection by showing that divergence of meiotic drive systems can explain the two generalizations even if large departures from Mendelian segregation are rarely observed.


The Lima coast is highly affected by anthropogenic effluents from wastewater from contaminated urban rivers that flow into the coast. The objective of this study was to investigate the resistance to mercury and antibiotics, and the transfer of resistance to mercury by conjugative plasmids in 55 strains of Escherichia coli isolated of surface seawater from coastal Lima, Peru. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) was determined for various antibiotics and for mercury in the isolated strains. To confirm the plasmid resistance to mercury, the curing was carried out with 10% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The plasmid transfer assay by conjugation was performed using the E. coli DH5α as recipient strain only with the strains that showed sensitivity to mercury after curing. The extraction of the resistance plasmids was carried out only in the transconjugant strains resistant to mercury. 41 (74.5%) strains were resistant to mercury (HgR), with MICs between 30 μM (8.25 ppm) and 300 μM (82.5 ppm), of these, 33 were HgR by plasmids and of this last group, 14 were also resistant to antibiotics. Only 6 strains had conjugative plasmids with mercury resistance, showing a transconjugation frequency between 9.41x10-4 and 4.76x10-2%. The high prevalence of HgR in E. coli strains isolated from the coast of Lima could be a public and environmental health problem. In this sense, congugative plasmids can contribute to the spread of mercury and/or resistance to antibiotics among bacterial communities in marine environments.


Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are causing ocean acidification and ocean warming; however, the synergistic effects of these stressors on giant clams are completely unknown. Juveniles of the fluted giant clam, Tridacna squamosa Lamarck, 1819, were exposed to present-day control seawater (416 μatm pCO2) and seawater treated with CO2 to simulate ocean conditions predicted for the next 50–100 years (622 μatm pCO2 and 1019 μatm pCO2). These CO2 treatments were cross-factored with seawater temperatures of ~28.5 °C, ~30.0 °C and ~31.5 °C. The majority of mortality occurred between 40 and 60 days. Survival of juveniles decreased with increasing pCO2 and decreased with increasing seawater temperature. The combination of the highest pCO2 and both the moderate and highest seawater temperatures resulted in the lowest survival of <20 % indicating survival of T. squamosa could be reduced considerably at ocean conditions predicted to occur around the end of this century.


Structure and floristic composition of a temperate forest of the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO), in the state of Durango, Mexico, were analyzed in order to characterize the different plant strata. The study area is located at El Durangueno Ranch, with vegetation representative of the eastern slopes of the SMO. The area includes 3 dominant vegetation types: oak-pine forest, pine-oak forest and grassland. Floristic composition corresponds to semidry temperate forests and in smaller proportion to humid temperate forests of northern Mexico. Structural characteristics indicate that the sites present great heterogeneity, 26 species of grasslands, 31 in the oak-pine and 22 in the pine-oak, with the stratum under which presented more species 76. The trees are medium sized and the densities are similar to other sites of this mountain range. Oak-pine forests have the highest values of diversity and were similar to those registered in other areas of the SMO. There are 12 species endemic to Mexico, from which 6 are endemic to the SMO, and Psacalium cronquistiorum B.L. Turner (Asteraceae) is endemic of Durango. Seven species are included in the Red list of the IUCN. Grasslands have high floristic richness, combining species typical of the grasslands of lower elevations with species of temperate forests. Although there is no reference to fires in the forests of the area, the wide distribution of Quercus striatula scrub may indicate disturbance attributed to fires in the recent past.


Summary: The Commission argues that the criminal law needs to be used to punish offences in breach of Community law protecting the environment. The Commission believes that only by using the criminal law can the implementation deficit effectively be remedied. In this article the author argues that this duty towards criminal enforcement seems ineffective and can potentially even be counter productive. The traditional model for implementation of European legislation is still that European environmental law will draft the norms, but that Member States remain free in their choice of the implementation techniques. European legislation and case law has reacted in various ways with effective remedies to cope with the implementation deficit. However, the idea has never been that the implementation deficit would be cured by forcing Member States to impose a specific type of sanction. This would remove the traditional freedom to choose the correct implementation instrument by the Member State and in that sense it seems non-European. Moreover, the argument that the criminal law would be necessary to guarantee a correct implementation of European environmental law seems to neglect all the instruments that European law has developed so far to force Member States towards compliance. The author opines that the Commission, at least in the directive it proposed in 2001, neglected the important question of a correct theoretical foundation for a European intervention in the area of environmental criminal law. This contribution does not aim to provide a formal institutional-legal basis for a European environmental criminal law, but rather critically addresses whether such a European environmental criminal law would anyway be necessary. The focus is mostly on the proposal for a directive presented by the Commission in 2001. If the European Court of Justice were to adopt arguments concerning the lack of competence of the Council we may assume that one day the initiative taken by the Commission in 2001 will be continued.


There is considerable evidence for the effectiveness of mind–body interventions (MBIs) in improving mental and physical health, but the molecular mechanisms of these benefits remain poorly understood. One hypothesis is that MBIs reverse expression of genes involved in inflammatory reactions that are induced by stress. This systematic review was conducted to examine changes in gene expression that occur after MBIs and to explore how these molecular changes are related to health. We searched PubMed throughout September 2016 to look for studies that have used gene expression analysis in MBIs (i.e., mindfulness, yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, relaxation response, and breath regulation). Due to the limited quantity of studies, we included both clinical and non-clinical samples with any type of research design. Eighteen relevant studies were retrieved and analyzed. Overall, the studies indicate that these practices are associated with a downregulation of nuclear factor kappa B pathway; this is the opposite of the effects of chronic stress on gene expression and suggests that MBI practices may lead to a reduced risk of inflammation-related diseases. However, it is unclear how the effects of MBIs compare to other healthy interventions such as exercise or nutrition due to the small number of available studies. More research is required to be able to understand the effects of MBIs at the molecular level.


To evaluate the effect of different soil amendments on the yield and nutrient uptake of Salsola plant in the dry bed of Urmia Lake, an experiment was set up as a randomized complete block design with eight treatments and three replications in the 2013-2014 time period. These treatments included mycorrhiza usage, sand in the seed bed, plastic in the depth of 70 cm, plastic in the depth of 70 cm + Mycorrhiza, application of animal manure to improve the soil pH, sand + Mycorrhiza, treatments, animal manure + mycorrhiza, and control without consuming any materials. The results of data variance analysis indicated the difference between treatments in terms of quantitative and qualitative studied traits. Comparison of means by Tukey method showed that the effects of all treatments on the grain yield, 1000 grain weight, harvest index, and absorption of micro nutrient and macro nutrient elements in the grain were significant. Mean comparison also showed that the highest grain yield belonged to animal manure and animal manure +Mycorrhiza fertilizer treatments, while the least one its belonged to plastic and sand treatments. Also, the nutrients absorbed in the animal manure and animal manure + mycorrhiza treatments were more than those in others. Overall, Salsula plant can be planted in a lake bed and livestock manure and mycorrhiza can be used to improve the yield.


We study the causal effect of social media on ethnic hate crimes and xenophobic attitudes in Russia using quasi-exogenous variation in social media penetration across cities. Higher penetration of social media led to more ethnic hate crimes, but only in cities with a high pre-existing level of nationalist sentiment. Consistent with a mechanism of coordination of crimes, the effects are stronger for crimes with multiple perpetrators. We implement a national survey experiment and show that social media persuaded young and low-educated individuals to hold more xenophobic attitudes, but did not increase respondents' openness to expressing these views. Our results are consistent with a simple model of social learning where penetration of social networks increases individuals' propensity to meet like-minded people.


Unsupervised domain adaptive classifcation intends to improve the classifcation performance on unlabeled target domain. To alleviate the adverse effect of domain shift, many approaches align the source and target domains in the feature space. However, a feature is usually taken as a whole for alignment without explicitly making domain alignment proactively serve the classifcation task, leading to sub-optimal solution. In this paper, we propose an effective Task-oriented Alignment (ToAlign) for unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA). We study what features should be aligned across domains and propose to make the domain alignment proactively serve classifcation by performing feature decomposition and alignment under the guidance of the prior knowledge induced from the classifcation task itself. Particularly, we explicitly decompose a feature in the source domain into a task-related/discriminative feature that should be aligned, and a task-irrelevant feature that should be avoided/ignored, based on the classifcation meta-knowledge. Extensive experimental results on various benchmarks (e.g., Offce-Home, Visda-2017, and DomainNet) under different domain adaptation settings demonstrate the effectiveness of ToAlign which helps achieve the state-of-the-art performance. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/microsoft/UDA


This article was a response to the publication on 5 January 2009 of the American Design Communities' Redesigning America's Future: 10 Design Policy Proposals for the United States of America's Economic Competitiveness and Democratic Governance. Analysis is made of the extent to which self-confident, yet historically very familiar, assertions about the capacity of design to engender real change in national and international settings stand up to serious scrutiny. It is argued that such reiteration is more a reflection of an underlying desire to effect transformation than any comprehensive articulation of a series of well-researched arguments that would, in reality, engender significant change. Indeed, if the document's propositions show little that is new, those designers, design historians and others with a longitudinal perspective of design activity and policy making may see these 'Design Policy Proposals' as reminiscent of the 'Emperor's new clothes' or, if viewed more positively, their recycled equivalents.

The fact that the title 'American Design Council', a trademark owned by the AIGA (until 2006 the American Institute of Graphic Arts), was envisaged as 'a unified body representing all U.S. design bodies to be 'revitalized as a collective voice for the design community' was perhaps one of the reasons why the American Design Communities' traditional, conservative and innocuous proposals were largely framed in twentieth century thinking. As such they emphasized the priorities of the design profession rather than those of society as a whole. In fact, at the original National Design Policy Summit in Washington DC on 11-12th November 2008, the Ten Principles of Design's Necessity used to frame discussions were 35 years old, echoing down the decades from the First Federal Design Assembly of 1973. They reappeared in the 5 January 2009; report on Redesigning America's Future and again in the more action-based Report of the U.S. National Design Policy Summit of 19 January. Albeit with greater acknowledgment of the significance of the environment and citizen-centred design, both 2009 documents lacked the bite or authority of those of many external international design organizations that were more fully engaged with the needs of the new millennium. The U.S. Summit's key participants responsible for drafting the policy proposals amounted to seven representatives from design professional organizations, four representatives of design and design education accreditation bodies and four representatives drawn from US federal agencies, a questionable cross-section for devising an attractive or effective design policy reflecting the aspirations of American society as a whole. Although some acknowledgement of the work of other design promotion organizations around the world was acknowledged in the documentation for the November 2008 Washington DC Design Summit, there was little obvious influence in the ensuing Design Policy Proposals, other than a commitment to commission the equivalent of the British Cox Review of Creativity in Business (2005), published by the Design Council. This is carefully analyzed in this article, both in the context of emergent policies for the cultural and creative industries in Britain in the previous decade and also the suggestion that a number of Cox's findings were, in a number of respects, outdated by the time of their publication. Indeed, this article makes extensive references in tabular form to the exponential increase of state-sponsored design promotional organizations outside the USA over the past 60 years in general, and over the last decade in particular.

Much is also done in the article to set these somewhat insular US Federal design initiatives within the context of a global agenda, such as that pursued by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICOGRADA), which had established the International Design Alliance (IDA) in 2003.


Anomalous hollow electron beams have been recently observed in the Duke storage ring. With a single bunch beam in a lattice with a negative chromaticity, a hollow beam can be created. This beam consists of a solid core beam inside and a large ring beam outside. In this paper, we report the measurements of the hollow beam phenomenon, including its distinct image pattern and spectrum signature, and its evolution with time. By capturing the post-instability bursting beam, the hollow beam is a unique model system for studying transverse instabilities, in particular, the interplay of the wakefield and lattice nonlinearity. The hollow beam can also be used as a tool to study linear and nonlinear particle dynamics in the storage ring.


Summary form only given. Micromachined electro-mechanical systems(MEMS), also called microfabricated systems (MS), have evoked great interest in the scientific and engineering communities. This is primarily due to several advantages that MEMS offer: orders of magnitude smaller size, better performance than other solutions, possibilities for batch fabrication and cost-effective integration with electronics, virtually zero dc power consumption and potentially large reduction in power consumption, etc. The application domains cover microsensors and actuators for physical quantities (MEMS), of which MEMS for automobile and consumer electronics forms a large segment; microfabricated subsystems for communications and computer systems (RF-MEMS and MOMS); and microfabricated systems for chemical assay (microTAS) and for biochemical and biomedical assay (bioMEMS and DNA chips). This tutorial gives an introduction to these exciting developments and the technology and design approaches for the realization of these integrated systems. The tutorial gives an overview of the area, highlights some of the challenges and outlines the scope of the tutorial. It would be followed with an introduction to the design of microsensors, such as the pressure sensor and the accelerometer, that began the MEMS revolution.


Photography is one of the principal filters through which we engage the world. The contributors to this volume focus on Walter Benjamin's concept of the optical unconscious to investigate how photography has shaped history, modernity, perception, lived experience, politics, race, and human agency. In essays that range from examinations of Benjamin's and Sigmund Freud's writings to the work of Kara Walker and Roland Barthes's famous Winter Garden photograph, the contributors explore what photography can teach us about the nature of the unconscious. They attend to side perceptions, develop latent images, discover things hidden in plain sight, focus on the disavowed, and perceive the slow. Of particular note are the ways race and colonialism have informed photography from its beginning. The volume also contains photographic portfolios by Zoe Leonard, Kelly Wood, and Kristan Horton, whose work speaks to the optical unconscious while demonstrating how photographs communicate on their own terms. The essays and portfolios in Photography and the Optical Unconscious create a collective and sustained assessment of Benjamin's influential concept, opening up new avenues for thinking about photography and the human psyche.

Contributors. Mary Bergstein, Jonathan Fardy, Kristan Horton, Terri Kapsalis, Sarah Kofman, Elisabeth Lebovici, Zoe Leonard, Gabrielle Moser, Mignon Nixon, Thy Phu, Mark Reinhardt, Shawn Michelle Smith, Sharon Sliwinski, Laura Wexler, Kelly Wood, Andres Mario Zervigon


This thesis is made up of several studies of boundaries occurring in colloidal hard sphere crystals and phase separated colloid-polymer mixtures. These boundaries can be studied on the particle level, in real space and in real time by confocal microscopy. A general introduction on the experimental systems and on confocal microscopy is given in Chapter 1. This thesis consists of four main parts. The first part deals with stacking disorder in hard sphere crystals. The second part deals with geometrically frustrated hard sphere crystals. The third part describes the statistics of Brownian interface fluctuations in phase-separated colloid-polymer mixtures. The final part of this thesis deals with the transport of particles through such an interface. In the first part of this thesis we study stacking disorder in hard sphere crystals. Due to the small difference in free energy between the hexagonal close packed (HCP) and face centered cubic (FCC) crystal configurations, both structures can coexist within these crystals. As a result the crystals are often made up of a random combination of ABA and ABC type stacking sequences of hexagonal layers. Chapters 2 and 3 describe in-plane stacking disorder in hard sphere crystals. Here, we show that stacking can change as well within a hexagonal layer, both via abrupt transitions through line-defects (Chapter 2) and via continuous transitions through lattice deformations (Chapter 3). Therefore the hexagonal layers are made up of multiple islands of FCC or HCP stacking type. In Chapter 3 the relation between lattice vacancies and stacking transitions is investigated as well. Due to the osmotic pressure imbalance, particles are pushed slightly toward the vacancy. Furthermore, in areas where lattice deformations occur due to stacking transitions, the vacancy concentration is much higher, allowing the accommodation of lattice deformations. Chapter 4 describes the relation between grain size and typical stacking island dimension. Using methods to distinguish both the stacking type and the stacking direction, we are able to identify the typical island dimension. The fraction of FCC type particles determines the relative size of FCC and HCP type islands, which we can relate to lateral islands with an A, B or C type lateral position through simulations. The second part of this thesis describes how geometry affects hard sphere crystals and crystallization. Chapter 5 describes the crystallization of hard spheres near large, nearly immovable objects: much larger spheres, which are in a way the simplest conceivable impurities or dopants. Crystal nucleation, the initial formation of sufficiently large crystals may be facilitated if the curvature of the dopant is sufficiently low. The subsequent crystal growth of these small crystals is retarded by the presence of impurities, but due to their high curvature, small impurities slow the crystal growth much more down than larger ones. Chapter 6 deals with the obtained crystal structure after crystallization has completed. We introduce a frustration length which quantifies the extent of lattice distortion depending on the size of the dopants. If the dopants are sufficiently close, we show that grain boundaries may form in between directly, which is a result of the delayed growth process in between the impurities. Whether the frustration lengths persist in the sample or slowly anneal out on time depends on the impurity spacing. Chapter 7 compares lattice frustration by two methods: 1) the insertion of impurities and 2) a polygonal particle shape. Both sources of lattice frustration induce polycrystallinity. The third part of this thesis concerns the liquid-liquid interface of phase separated colloid polymer mixtures. Such interfaces are characterised by large interface fluctuations due to the low interfacial tension. Experiments and theory on the residence time of a certain fluctuation above a certain height and the related waiting time in between such heights are presented in Chapter 8. In the final part of this thesis the transport of rigid spheres through such a fluctuating interface is presented. In Chapter 9 we compare the approach of droplets and spheres to a deformable interface. The similarity of the problems shows that the approach of the sphere already captures much of the physics of the more complicated approach of a droplet. The transport of rigid spheres through interfaces is the subject of Chapters 10 and 11. We distinguish between low Bond numbers (Chapter 10) and high bond numbers (Chapter 11), which respectively represent the limits of dominant interfacial tension and gravity. The low Bond number transport configuration is characterized by a draining film in between the sphere and the interface. In the meantime the interface deforms up to maximally about half the sphere's diameter. When the sphere is sufficiently close, it is wetted by the interface and dragged through it, before it starts sedimenting away again. The high Bond number transport configuration is characterized by a thin film of gas which persists around the sphere, while the interface deforms more than half a sphere's diameter. Depending on the Bond number, two scenarios may be observed. At moderate Bond numbers the sphere leaves a V-shaped interface behind. At even higher Bond numbers, the sphere drags a column of material of the phase it was originally in behind it that eventually breaks up through a Rayleigh-Plateau instability.


Let G be an arbitrary finite group and fix a prime number p. The McKay conjecture asserts that G and the normalizer in G of a Sylow p-subgroup have equal numbers of irreducible characters with degrees not divisible by p. The Alperin-McKay conjecture is version of this as applied to individual Brauer p-blocks of G. We offer evidence that perhaps much stronger forms of both of these conjectures are true.


Objectives To systematically describe the characteristics and techniques of prevention programmes for children of parents with mood/anxiety disorders. In addition, recruitment approaches and difficulties were identified and a meta‐analysis was conducted to examine the efficacy of these prevention programmes. Methods Randomized controlled trials assessing the efficacy of a prevention programme for children (6–25 years) of parents with mood and/or anxiety disorders were included. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, PsychINFO, and CENTRAL from the earliest record to March 2019. In addition, programme manuals of identified prevention programmes were requested for a content analysis. Results Twenty‐two articles containing eight unique prevention programmes involving 1,325 subjects were identified. Programmes varied in the number and types of techniques, but all provided psychoeducation. Results suggested that recruitment via clinicians was more successful than recruitment via health maintenance organization databases. In a meta‐analysis, a significant risk difference was found in favour of prevention programmes on the risk of developing a depressive/anxiety disorder in offspring at short‐term (9–18 months follow‐up; RR = 0.37, 95% CI [0.21; 0.66]) and long‐term follow‐up (24 months or longer follow‐up; RR = 0.71, 95% CI [0.57; 0.87] and on symptom levels in offspring at post‐intervention (SMD = −0.19, 95% CI [−0.36; −0.02]) and at 12‐months follow‐up (SMD = −0.31, 95% CI [−0.57; −0.06]). Conclusions The prevention programmes combined psychoeducational elements with skills training and/or cognitive‐behavioural therapy elements. The recruitment process and the content of these programmes are sometimes insufficiently described. Nevertheless, they appear to be effective, indicating a need to further examine how these programmes exactly work and for whom. Practitioner points Preventive interventions for children of parents with mood/anxiety disorders appear to be effective in preventing these disorders in offspring. Available preventive intervention programmes focus mostly on psychoeducation, cognitive‐behavioural therapy, and family processes. More effort should be made into describing preventive interventions so that they can be easily implemented by practitioners. Studies should further examine why and for whom preventive interventions for children of parents with mood/anxiety disorders are effective.


The boundaries and contours of design sciences continue to undergo definition and refinement. In many ways, the sciences of design defy disciplinary characterization. They demand multiple epistemologies, theoretical orientations (e.g. construction, analysis or intervention) and value considerations. As our understanding of this emerging field of study grows, we become aware that the sciences of design require a systemic perspective that spans disciplinary boundaries. The Doctoral Consortium at the Design Science Research Conference in Information Sciences and Technology (DESRIST) was an important milepost in their evolution. It provided a forum where students and leading researchers in the design sciences challenged one another to tackle topics and concerns that are similar across different disciplines. This paper reports on the consortium outcomes and insights from mentors who took part in it. We develop a set of observations to guide the evolution of the sciences of design. It is our intent that the observations will be beneficial, not only for IS researchers, but also for colleagues in allied disciplines who are already contributing to shaping the sciences of design.


Asset price bubbles build and burst today much as they have since modern capital markets first evolved some 300 years ago. In recent decades, although the real economy has become less volatile, the financial markets have not; they remain volatile and unpredictable. Exploring the driving forces behind market volatility provides investors a basis for an effective response in dealing with market risk. Markets are, in effect, complex adaptive systems. They are composed of a great number of decentralized decision makers who are continually digesting information and interacting in unanticipated and nonlinear ways. That markets are complex adaptive systems has critical implications for how we think about and manage investment risk. In risk management, we must focus on the market mechanisms driving capital markets to higher volatility, including the emotions of investors, complexity of adaptive markets, and advances in technology and mathematical modeling. Improving risk management means finding new tools to measure the interconnectedness of markets plus the total amount of systemic risk, leverage, and liquidity in the markets. With improvements in risk management, investors and regulators will be better equipped to mitigate the market volatility that often culminates in financial market instability.


Supernovae Type Iax (SNe Iax) are less energetic and less luminous than typical thermonuclear explosions. A suggested explanation for the observed characteristics of this subclass is a binary progenitor system consisting of a CO white dwarf primary accreting from a helium star companion. A single-degenerate explosion channel might be expected to result in a dense circumstellar medium (CSM), although no evidence for such a CSM has yet been observed for this subclass. Here we present recent Spitzer observations of the SN Iax 2014dt obtained by the SPIRITS program nearly one year post-explosion that reveal a strong mid-IR excess over the expected fluxes of more normal SNe Ia. This excess is consistent with 10−5 M ⊙ ?> of newly formed dust, which would be the first time that newly formed dust has been observed to form in a Type Ia. The excess, however, is also consistent with a dusty CSM that was likely formed in pre-explosion mass-loss, thereby suggesting a single degenerate progenitor system. Compared to other SNe Ia that show significant shock interaction (SNe Ia-CSM) and interacting core-collapse events (SNe IIn), this dust shell in SN 2014dt is less massive. We consider the implications that such a pre-existing dust shell has for the progenitor system, including a binary system with a mass donor that is a red giant, a red supergiant, or an asymptotic giant branch star.


Relational similarity can be defined as the similarity between two semantic relations R and R' that exist respectively in two word pairs (A,B) and (C,D). Relational search, a novel search paradigm that is based on the relational similarity between word pairs, attempts to find a word D for the slot ? in the query {(A,B), (C,?)} such that the relational similarity between the two word pairs (A, B) and (C, D) is a maximum. However, one problem frequently encountered by a Web-based relational search engine is that the inherent noise in Web text leads to incorrect measurement of relational similarity. To overcome this problem, we propose a method for verifying a relational search result that exploits the symmetric properties in proportional analogies. To verify a candidate result D for a query {(A, B), (C, ?)}, we replace the original question mark by D to create a new query {(A,B),(?,D)} and verify that we can retrieve C as a candidate for the new query. The score of C in the new query can be seen as a complementary score of D because it reflects the reliability of D in the original query. Moreover, transformations of words in proportional analogies lead to relational symmetries that can be utilized to accurately measure the relational similarity between two semantic relations. For example, if the two word pairs (A,B) and (C, D) show a high degree of relational similarity then the two word pairs (B,A) and (D,C) also have a high degree of relational similarity. We apply this idea in relational search by using symmetric queries such as {(B, A), (D, ?)} to create six queries for verifying a candidate answer D to improve the reliability of the verification process. Our experimental results on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) analogy benchmark show that the proposed method improves the accuracy of a relational search engine by a wide margin.


This work presents a scenario in which machine learning (ML) adds value to the usability of an SMA actuator. The considered actuator is a locking device which is actuated by two antagonistically arranged SMA wires. The wires are activated using joule heating. The actuator is operated in aircraft interiors at ambient temperatures between −20°C and 70°C. Preliminary work has shown that the locking device can only be reliably operated in a temperature range from approx. 4°C to 40°C without adjusting the activation parameters. Below these temperatures, the wires must receive more heating energy to actuate the device. Above 40°C, the heating energy must be decreased. Otherwise, the wires could be severely damaged. Currently, a temperature sensor and thus an additional component is required for temperature detection. It is known from literature review and from our preliminary work that the characteristic course of electrical resistance during activation of SMA wires depends, among other things, on the ambient temperature. Therefore, it is possible to eliminate the temperature sensor and determine the ambient temperature by monitoring the electrical resistance during activation of the actuator wires. However, the resistance is additionally influenced by the state of wear which in turn is influenced by the actuator-specific load case and the activation frequency. Thus, temperature detection using monitoring the electrical resistance during activation is difficult to generalize beyond a specific load case. In this paper, the authors examined whether an ambient temperature between −20°C and 75°C can be correctly matched to a 5°C interval using a neural network trained with data from the course of the resistance and taking into account the state of wear for a specific actuator. To generate the necessary data, the actuator is operated in a climatic chamber until one of the wires breaks. The ambient temperature is varied between the two end temperatures. This test was carried out twice in total. A neural network was trained to test whether the ambient temperature of the wires can be determined. This procedure worked within the experiments. In a second step, the network was trained with data from experiment 1 to determine the ambient temperatures of experiment 2 and vice versa. This did not lead to a satisfactory result. Two different persons installed the wires in the actuator for the two different experiments. Therefore it can be concluded, that the installation of the actuator wires has a considerable influence on the applicability of machine learning in this scenario.


Al(OH)3 is the most common adjuvant in human vaccines, but its mode of action remains poorly understood. Complement involvement in the adjuvant properties of Al(OH)3 has been suggested in several reports together with a depot effect. It is here confirmed that Al(OH)3 treatment of serum depletes complement components and activates the complement system. We show that complement activation by Al(OH)3 involves the three major pathways by monitoring complement components in Al(OH)3-treated serum and in Al(OH)3-containing precipitates. Al(OH)3 activation of complement results in deposition of C3 cleavage products and membrane attack complex (MAC) and in generation of the anaphylatoxins C3a and C5a. Complement activation was time dependent and inhibited by chelation with EDTA but not EGTA+Mg2+. We thus confirm that Al(OH)3 activates the complement system and show that the alternative pathway is of major importance.


A quantitative general equilibrium model is a useful tool primarily for two types of studies. One type is studies with a time horizon two or more decades into the future. In such studies, a model of this type can highlight various features of future economic conditions by delineating a number of resource allocations, each consistent with full equilibrium on product and factor markets. A second field of application is comparisons between actually observed resource allocations and hypothetical equilibrium allocations.

In this report a quantitative general equilibrium model of an open economy is developed and applied on Swedish data. In addition to the foreign trade flows, the model emphasizes the energy flows in the economy. The model is solved in a two-step procedure which is reiterated until a full equilibrium is reached. In the first step, technological coefficients and output prices are determined on the basis of initial values on factor prices. Then the excess demands on factor markets at product market equilibrium are determined. After that the initial factor prices are adjusted and the process repeated.

The report also contains some preliminary results, as well as a brief discussion of future directions of research in this field.


A major source of errors in fingerprint recognition systems is poor quality of fingerprints. Local quality of fingerprints plays an important role in these systems to ensure high recognition performance. Recently an improved fingerprint matching method is proposed to use minutiae information encoded by Minutia Cylinder-Code (MCC) together with cylinder quality measures as local quality measures associated to each MCC descriptor. In this paper, we present our work where we have taken the advantage of a varying quality data set of synthetic fingerprint images in order to improve the pre-selection of MCC pairs using local quality measures. Since ground truth minutiae information is available for the synthetic fingerprints, we could create a large set of genuine/impostor minutiae as well as genuine/impostor MCC pairs. Subsequently a 2-class (genuine vs. impostor) classification model is proposed to modify the local similarity scores using two quality related local features, namely the cylinder quality measures and the number of extracted minutiae in the cylinders. Our experiments on synthetic and real data show that the local similarity scores modified through the proposed approach improve the pre-selection as well as global matching performance.


Biosensors, and in particular glucose and lactate sensors, are being widely developed and a few have been registered for continuous and semi-continuous use. Three glucose sensors, a transcutaneous sensor (GlucoWatch), a needle sensor (MiniMed) and microdialysis sensor (GlucoDay) have recently been evaluated among diabetes patients. The precise relationship between the biosensor signal and blood glucose is still a problem. For example, the utility of the subcutaneously placed needle sensor to detect nocturnal hypoglycaemia has been shown to be limited. The best subcutaneous site for placing the sensor needs to be systematically investigated. The three types of sensors have only been tested for a 3-5 day period. The utility of the microdialysis (separate from a direct link to biosensors) sensors among diabetes patients was established over a 3-week period following subcutaneous implantation. Furthermore, biosensors are being developed to monitor lactate in preterm babies, and patients with ischaemia, sepsis, or threatened organ damage (e.g. heart and brain infarction). In view of the current progress it is expected that within 5 years biosensor technology will have developed far enough to be used in the management of diabetes and in intensive care units.


Legumes such as common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris L. are climate-smart protein sources which can be part of sustainable agriculture and eating habits to increase the resilience in our food system. Common bean cultivation in Sweden is expanding to new and larger areas where common bean has not been grown before, and it is currently unclear whether farmers should be recommend to inoculate with efficient rhizobia when sowing common bean on fields where the crop has not been grown before.

To evaluate the need for inoculation, this study has examined root nodulation of common bean plants cultivated on fields with and without a recent history of common bean cultivation. Farmer's fields on the two Swedish islands Oland and Gotland were used for the investigations and a farmer survey was conducted to collect information about the fields. Soil pH, root nodules and plant biomass were measured at pod fill and pods as well as residual plant biomass were measured at full maturity.

There was a clear difference in presence of root nodules between the two types of fields. Both root nodule abundance and proportion of active root nodules per plant with root nodules were significantly higher on fields with a recent history of common bean cultivation than on fields where common bean was not cultivated for at least 20 years. However, neither aboveground biomass weight at pod fill, nor pod weight at maturity were significantly correlated with number of root nodules or proportion of active root nodule.

These results emphasize the importance of giving recommendations to inoculate common bean seeds with the right species of rhizobium bacteria before sowing, when cultivating common bean on a field for the first time. An additional recommendation might be to decrease the amount of nitrogen fertilization of common bean, since common bean plants grew well even with a very low abundance of root nodules and where many of them were inactive, indicating that soils contained enough plant-available nitrogen for plant growth without help of nitrogen fixation. However, further investigations are needed before to give firm recommendations on reduced nitrogen fertilization of common bean.


Designing and optimizing high frequency, ultra-efficient converters requires detailed knowledge of the behavior and parasitic parameters for both active and passive components. Recently, wide bandgap transistors have enabled simultaneous increases in both switching frequency and efficiency due to higher maximum operating junction temperature limits, lower dc on-state resistance, and reduced parasitic inductances and capacitances. Yet, the early acceptance of gallium-nitride (GaN) transistors was plagued by detrimental dynamic on-state resistance effects. This non-linear, second-order phenomenon for GaN devices is characterized by an increase in on-state resistance with increasing voltage and temperature stress. While device manufacturers have made significant improvements compared to early generation devices, experimental evidence for a survey of commercial GaN transistors highlights that significant increase in on-state resistance with voltage and temperature stress still exists. This new method for measuring dynamic on-state resistance has the promise to shed new light on the dynamic on-state resistance limitations of GaN devices due to the independent control of drain current, voltage stress, pulse-width for device conduction time, and package temperature. Based on a survey of low voltage GaN transistors, two metrics are proposed not only to quantify the dynamic on-state resistance performance of a specific device, but also to facilitate a fair comparison between different GaN device technologies.


Cannabinoids are a class of chemical compounds with a wide spectrum of pharmacological effects, mediated by two specific plasma membrane receptors (CB1 and CB2). Recently, CB1 and CB2 expression levels have been detected in human tumors, including those of brain. Cannabinoids-endocannabinoids exert anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, anti-invasive, anti-metastatic and pro-apoptotic effects in different cancer types, both in vitro and in vivo in animal models, after local or systemic administration. We present the available experimental and clinical data, to date, regarding the antitumor action of cannabinoids on the tumorigenesis of gliomas.


It is claimed that robots, algorithms and artificial intelligence are going to destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale. These developments, unlike past bouts of technical change, threaten rapidly to affect even highly-skilled work and lead to mass unemployment and/or dramatic falls in wages and living standards, while accentuating inequality. As a result, we are threatened with the 'end of work', and should introduce radical new policies such as a robot tax and a universal basic income. However the claims being made of massive job loss are based on highly contentious technological assumptions and are contested by economists who point to flaws in the methodology. In any case, 'technological determinism' ignores the engineering, economic, social and regulatory barriers to adoption of many theoretically possible innovations. And even successful innovations are likely to take longer to materialise than optimists hope and pessimists fear. Moreover, history strongly suggests that jobs destroyed by technical change will be replaced by new jobs complementary to these technologies – or else in unrelated areas as spending power is released by falling prices. Current evidence on new types of job opportunity supports this suggestion. The UK labour market is currently in a healthy state and there is little evidence that technology is having a strongly negative effect on total employment. The problem at the moment may be a shortage of key types of labour rather than a shortage of work. The proposal for a robot tax is ill-judged. Defining what is a robot is next to impossible, and concerns over slow productivity growth anyway suggest we should be investing more in automation rather than less. Even if a workable robot tax could be devised, it would essentially duplicate the effects, and problems, of corporation tax. Universal basic income is a concept with a long history. Despite its appeal, it would be costly to introduce, could have negative effects on work incentives, and would give governments dangerous powers. Politicians already seem tempted to move in the direction of these untested policies. They would be foolish to do so. If technological change were to create major problems in the future, there are less problematic policies available to mitigate its effects – such as reducing taxes on employment income, or substantially deregulating the labour market.


State-of-the-art models are now trained with billions of parameters, reaching hardware limits in terms of memory consumption. This has created a recent demand for memory-efficient optimizers. To this end, we investigate the limits and performance tradeoffs of memory-efficient adaptively preconditioned gradient methods. We propose extreme tensoring for high-dimensional stochastic optimization, showing that an optimizer needs very little memory to benefit from adaptive preconditioning. Our technique applies to arbitrary models (not necessarily with tensor-shaped parameters), and is accompanied by regret and convergence guarantees, which shed light on the tradeoffs between preconditioner quality and expressivity. On a large-scale NLP model, we reduce the optimizer memory overhead by three orders of magnitude, without degrading performance.


This paper analyzes the receiver's ability to differentiate between multiple users in ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio (IR) during the initial synchronization phase after a cold start, i.e., when the receiver is not yet synchronized with the user of interest. Because of multiple access interference (MAI), the receiver may combine the pulses of other users in a partially coherent way. In this case, the receiver should be able to reject all the interfering users in order to synchronize with the user of interest. For pseudo-random time-hopping (TH) spreading codes, the expected performance of the receiver to differentiate between the user of interest and the interfering users is analyzed and some relations with the code properties are shown. Numerical results for a multipath propagation channel and MAI are provided.


1. Successful seed dispersal by animals is assumed to occur when undamaged seeds arrive at a favourable microsite. Most seed removal and dispersal studies consider only two possible seed fates, predation or escape intact. Whether partial consumption of seeds has ecological implications for natural regeneration is unclear. We studied partial consumption of seeds in a rodent-dispersed oak species.

2. Fifteen percent of dispersed acorns were found partially eaten in a field experiment. Most damage affected only the basal portion of the seeds, resulting in no embryo damage. Partially eaten acorns had no differences in dispersal distance compared to intact acorns but were recovered at farther distances than completely consumed acorns.

3. Partially eaten acorns were found under shrub cover unlike intact acorns that were mostly dispersed to open microhabitats.

4. Partially eaten acorns were not found buried proportionally more often than intact acorns, leading to desiccation and exposure to biotic agents (predators, bacteria and fungi). However, partial consumption caused more rapid germination, which enables the acorns to tolerate the negative effects of exposure.

5. Re-caching and shrub cover as microhabitat of destination promote partial seed consumption. Larger acorns escaped predation more often and had higher uneaten cotyledon mass. Satiation at seed level is the most plausible explanation for partial consumption.

6. Partial consumption caused no differences in root biomass when acorns experienced only small cotyledon loss. However, root biomass was lower when acorns experienced heavy loss of tissue but, surprisingly, they produced longer roots, which allow the seeds to gain access sooner to deeper resources.

7.Synthesis. Partial consumption of acorns is an important event in the oak regeneration process, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Most acorns were damaged non-lethally, without decreasing both dispersal distances and the probability of successful establishment. Faster germination and production of longer roots allow partially eaten seeds to tolerate better the exposure disadvantages caused by the removal of the pericarp and the non-buried deposition. Consequently, partially consumed seeds can contribute significantly to natural regeneration and must be considered in future seed dispersal studies.


This work dealt with Historical overview, Structure,Administration, Functions of Indian Police in detail while addressing the areas where Indian police is lacking today and possible solutions to work over these dry patches. It attracts serious attention of academicians carrying research work on Indian police and laws related and clashing with it. Author have tried to give unified structure of Indian Police which is a state subject in Indian constitution, hence every state having different administration of the same. Suggestions have been given to address serious problems like corruption,lacking accountability, non-adherence to human rights, upgrading infrastructure according to present times and need of community policing in Indian police; giving whole new and fresh angle of study to problems which grew manifolds since inception of this institution which is backbone of law enforcement in every democratic country.


The purpose of this short essay is to investigate how the concepts of evangelization and catechesis represent two related and mutually supportive tasks for the Church of the 21 st century. The topic will be approached through three principal lenses: 1) through Biblical Scriptures and the experiences of the early Christian Church; 2) as the distinction and relationship between evangelization and catechesis may have been understood by John Baptist de La Salle; and, 3) as the interplay between evangelization and catechesis is understood today through Papal teachings. The methodology employed in this study argues that by learning from past historical periods, we might apply the lessons analogously to our own circumstances. The apparent blurring of lines that exists today between evangelization and catechesis seems actually to be rooted in the past experiences of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The tension between the terms actually is both a healthy and life-giving paradox, as evangelization and catechesis are efforts that must be experienced together to do justice to the task of expanding the Gospel in the 21 st century.


As the current endless crisis clearly proves, world financial markets are closely interconnected. In order to provide a legal backdrop, a soft-law body, named the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), was established and tasked with encouraging an efficient flow of capital. Funded as a Pan-American, and subsequently world-wide, forum more than thirty years ago, IOSCO is a multilateral regulatory network whose members are the public regulators of more than ninety percent of the world's securities and futures markets. It is devoted to promoting common and efficient regulations, setting the floor for the exchange of information between its members, improving the effective surveillance of international securities transactions, and increasing the mutual assistance necessary for the integrity of global financial markets, valued at over $800 trillion. IOSCO is now the primary institution through which international standards, memoranda, and guidelines concerning the securities markets are promulgated. This paper examines the way this relatively hidden organisation works by trying to figure out its regulatory role in the international financial arena.


Introduced Lake Trout Salvelinus namaycush threaten native Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri in Yellowstone Lake, Yellowstone National Park. Gill nets have been used to suppress subadult and adult Lake Trout since 1995. Because survival of embryonic and larval life history stages can have profound effects on population dynamics of Lake Trout, suppression at those stages, especially if used in concert with intensive gill netting of older fish, could enhance suppression efforts. Therefore, I conducted controlled laboratory and field experiments to systematically evaluate the effects of a variety of candidate chemical (sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, gelatin, and liquid and powdered rotenone), biological (carcass and carcass analog), and physical (sediment) suppression methods on different developmental stages of Lake Trout embryos and larvae. Liquid and powdered rotenone applications, fish carcass and carcass analog exposures, and sediment deposition significantly increased embryo mortality in laboratory experiments. Sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, and gelatin applications were not effective. In-situ exposure to ground carcass material in Yellowstone Lake resulted in 100% embryo mortality in 14 and 28 kg/m2 biomass treatments; sediment deposition caused 97% embryo mortality among overwintering incubators. Embryo mortality was probably caused by hypoxic conditions within substrates. Embryo suppression methods differed in their effectiveness, rate at which mortality was achieved, and ease of application. These differences, as well as Lake Trout spawning site characteristics such as depth, contour, fetch, substrate size, interstitial depth, isolation, and presence of non-target organisms ultimately determine which embryo suppression method will be most applicable in a given situation. Nevertheless, implementation of successful embryo suppression techniques evaluated in this study could be used to increase mortality of Lake Trout in Yellowstone Lake. Incorporating effective embryo suppression in an Integrated Pest Management approach has the potential to provide more effective Lake Trout suppression in the long term. 1 EVALUATION OF EMBRYO SUPPRESSION METHODS FOR NONNATIVE LAKE TROUT IN YELLOWSTONE LAKE, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING, USA.


The mass transfer of the guest molecules in nanoporous host materials, in particular in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), is among the crucial features of their applications. By using thin surface-mounted MOF films in combination with a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), the diffusion of ferrocene vapor and of ethanolic and hexanic ferrocene solution in HKUST-1 was investigated. For the first time, liquid- and gas-phase diffusion in MOFs was compared directly in the identical sample. The diffusion coefficients are in the same order of magnitude (~10−16 m2·s−1), whereas the diffusion coefficient of ferrocene in the empty framework is roughly 3-times smaller than in the MOF which is filled with ethanol or n-hexane.


Abstract Twenty years ago, the main barriers to successful cancer pain management were poor assessment by physicians, and patients' reluctance to report pain and take opioids. Those barriers are almost exactly the same today. Cancer pain remains under-treated; in Europe, almost three-quarters of cancer patients experience pain, and almost a quarter of those with moderate to severe pain do not receive any analgesic medication. Yet it has been suggested that pain management could be improved simply by ensuring that every consultation includes the patient's rating of pain, that the physician pays attention to this rating, and a plan is agreed to increase analgesia when it is inadequate. After outlining current concepts of carcinogenesis in some detail, this paper describes different methods of classifying and diagnosing cancer pain and the extent of current under-treatment. Key points are made regarding cancer pain management. Firstly, the pain may be caused by multiple different mechanisms and therapy should reflect those underlying mechanisms – rather than being simply based on pain intensity as recommended by the WHO three-step ladder. Secondly, a multidisciplinary approach is required which combines both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment, such as psychotherapy, exercise therapy and electrostimulation. The choice of analgesic agent and its route of administration are considered, along with various interventional procedures and the requirements of palliative care. Special attention is paid to the treatment of breakthrough pain (particularly with fast-acting fentanyl formulations, which have pharmacokinetic profiles that closely match those of breakthrough pain episodes) and chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain, which affects around one third of patients who receive chemotherapy. Finally, the point is made that medical education should place a greater emphasis on pain therapy, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.


A survey of crude plant extracts for DNA polymerase beta inhibitors resulted in the identification of a methyl ethyl ketone extract prepared from Knema elegans that strongly inhibited the enzyme. Subsequent bioassay-guided fractionation of the extract, using an assay to monitor the activity of DNA polymerase beta, led to the isolation of two potent inhibitors, (+)-myristinins A (1) and D (2), which are known flavans having unusual structures. (+)-Myristinins A and D exhibited IC50 values of 12 and 4.3 microM, respectively, as inhibitors of DNA polymerase beta in the presence of bovine serum albumin (BSA), and 2.7 and 1.2 microM in the absence of BSA. As such, they are the most potent DNA polymerase beta inhibitors reported to date. Compounds 1 and 2 potentiated the cytotoxicity of bleomycin toward cultured P388D1 cells, reducing the number of viable cells by at least 30% when employed at 9 microM concentration for 6 h in the presence of an otherwise nontoxic concentration of bleomycin (75 nM). Principles 1 and 2 also induced strong Cu2+-dependent DNA strand scission in a DNA cleavage assay. Accordingly, 1 and 2 exhibit two activities, namely, DNA polymerase beta inhibition and DNA damage.


Abstract Commercialization of sweetpotato vines is persistent if multipliers show evidence of superiority of their vines. This study aimed at evaluating the effects of net tunnel source and of pathogen-tested planting material compared to "apparently" healthy vines on yield and health status at three defined environments in Northern Ghana during the rainy season of 2015. Sweetpotato virus disease (SPVD) and weevils were considered. Four varieties were investigated, the pathogen-tested vines of Dadanyuie, Bohye and Ligri, and "apparently" healthy vines of Apomuden from the negative selection technique. All planting materials taken from the net tunnel and open field were from the same location. Eight treatment combinations were arranged in a RCBD with 3 replicates. Planting distance was 0.30 m x 1 m. Weeding was done and fertilizer was applied as necessary. General and three-way analysis of variance were computed using Genstat. Highly significant differences were found among varieties and trial sites for plant establishment, foliage yield, root yield, weevil, and SPVD. The two sources were not significantly different. For varieties across sites, net tunnel source was better than open field. The apparently healthy vines might be effective as pathogentested vines. Net tunnels may have a distinct advantage for multiplication and maintenance.


Doctor | Living With Glaucoma | Resource Guide Lifestyle Changes to Manage Glaucoma by Mary Calvagna, MS En Español (Spanish Version) Although there are no specific lifestyle measures to help treat glaucoma, the Glaucoma Research Foundation suggests a couple of general tips to improve your overall health, which may have an effect on your disease. General Guidelines Eat a healthful diet Exercise regularly New research suggests that cholesterol lowering medications may reduce the risk of open-angle glaucoma. The most benefit was observed for people who already have evidence of cardiovascular disease. Eat a Healthful Diet Although no conclusive studies have shown a link between glaucoma and diet, the Glaucoma Research Foundation suggests that eating a healthful diet will benefit your general health and help your body fight disease. Some of the vitamins and minerals important to general eye health include the minerals zinc and copper; the antioxidant vitamins C, E, and A; beta-carotene; lutein; and other nutrients. There is no evidence that any of these nutrients specifically help prevent or treat glaucoma. Certain herbal supplements, such as gingko biloba, have been shown to possibly help in glaucoma. Talk to your doctor about which supplements may be useful for you. Exercise Regularly There is some preliminary evidence that links regular exercise with a reduction in eye pressure. In addition, regular exercise can help you manage other possible risk factors, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. However, people with certain forms of glaucoma may experience an increase in eye pressure after strenuous exercise. It is important that you talk with your doctor before beginning any type of exercise program. REFERENCES: The Glaucoma Foundation website. Available at: http://www.glaucomafoundation.org/ . Song J, Deng PF, Stinnett SS, Epstein DL, Rao PV. Effects of cholesterol-lowering statins on the aqueous humor outflow pathway. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2005;46(7):2424-2432.


Cymbidium sinense cultivars exhibit an incredible range of diversity in the foliar morphology as well as the range of flower colors and shapes, which make them more popular among horticultural plants with great economic value. Understanding the genetic diversity and population structure in target populations will be of great importance for germplasm collection, breeding improvement and conversation of this species. In this study, Inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers were used to assess the genetic diversity and population structure of 151 C. sinense cultivars collected from China and Japan. C. sinense cultivars exhibited moderate levels of genetic diversity (H = 0.24, I = 0.38, Ppl = 100%) and genetic differentiation (Gst = 0.17) with gene flow estimate Nm of 2.4 among six geographical groups. With neighbor joining (NJ) analysis, 151 cultivars were clustered into seven main groups, and approximately related to their geographical distribution. Population structure analysis revealed six subpopulations, generally consistent with NJ-clustering. The results in our study suggest that different provenance collection and in situconversation are important for C. sinense conservation and genetic improvement.

 Key words: Cymbidium sinense, DNA polymorphism, genetic diversity, inter-simple sequence repeat, population structure.


Objective
A direct comparison of endovascular versus microsurgical treatment of ruptured middle cerebral artery (MCA) aneurysms in randomized trials is lacking. As endovascular treatment strategies continue to evolve, the number of reports of endovascular treatment of these lesions is increasing. Herein, the authors report a detailed post hoc analysis of ruptured MCA aneurysms treated by microsurgical clipping from the Barrow Ruptured Aneurysm Trial (BRAT).

Methods
The cases of patients enrolled in the BRAT who underwent microsurgical clipping for a ruptured MCA aneurysm were reviewed. Characteristics of patients and their clinical outcomes and long-term angiographic results were analyzed.

Results
Fifty patients underwent microsurgical clipping of a ruptured MCA aneurysm in the BRAT, including 21 who crossed over from the endovascular treatment arm. Four patients with nonsaccular (e.g., dissecting, fusiform, or blister) aneurysms were excluded, leaving 46 patients for analysis. Most (n = 32; 70%) patients presented with a Hunt and Hess grade II or III subarachnoid hemorrhage, with a high prevalence of intraparenchymal blood (n = 23; 50%), intraventricular blood (n = 21; 46%), or both. At the last follow-up (up to 6 years after treatment), clinical outcomes were good (modified Rankin Scale score 0–2) in 70% (n = 19) of 27 Hunt and Hess grades I–III patients and in 36% (n = 4) of 11 Hunt and Hess grade IV or V patients. There were no instances of rebleeding after the surgical clipping of aneurysms in this series at the time of last clinical follow-up.

Conclusions
Microsurgical clipping of ruptured MCA aneurysms has several advantages over endovascular treatment, including durability over time. The authors report detailed outcome data of patients with ruptured MCA aneurysms who underwent microsurgical clipping as part of a prospective, randomized trial. These results should be used for comparison with future endovascular and surgical series to ensure that the best results are being achieved for patients with ruptured MCA aneurysms.


Type II Diabetes (T2DB) is one of the worldwide problems characterized by ineffective insulin signal transduction as a result of insulin resistance and impaired glucose homeostasis. Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B (PTP1B), an enzyme in phosphatase family that share a conserved structure in their catalytic domain, is a major regulator of the signal transduction. The enzyme functions by dephosphorylation of insulin receptor and insulin receptor substrate. Genetic and experimental evidences suggested that the enzyme is an attractive drug target for Type II Diabetes. Many research groups have attempted to develop inhibitors of PTP1B. However, none of them has made it to the drug market due to inefficiency to function. Development of PTP1B inhibitor has proven rather difficult owing to three main challenges, i.e. potency, selectivity, and cell permeability. Here, we report a novel strategy that possibly overcomes those main challenges. I describe the development of potential exo-affinity labeling agents targeting PTP1B function, investigation of potency of the agents which were are reported as IC50 values, as well as kinetics study of those compounds against the enzyme.


IL-12 and IL-4 direct T cell development toward Th1 and Th2 phenotypes, respectively. While IFN-gamma and IFN-alpha have been reported to regulate Th1 development as well, the mechanism and cellular locus of their effects are unclear. In this study, we use a TCR-transgenic system to examine the actions of these cytokines on CD4+ T cell phenotype development. We find that neither IFN-gamma nor IFN-alpha can induce Th1 development alone. However, IFN-gamma can significantly augment IL-12 priming for subsequent IFN-gamma production by T cells. Interestingly, lymphocyte endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1bright (naive) T cells require IFN-gamma during primary activation for maximal IL-12-induced Th1 development, whereas lymphocyte endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1dull (memory) T cells do not. IFN-alpha only partially substitutes for IFN-gamma in promoting IL-12-induced Th1 development. When the endogenous IFN-gamma present in primary T cell cultures is neutralized, IFN-alpha treatment augments IL-12-induced effects on inhibition of subsequent IL-4 production, but fails to significantly enhance IL-12 priming for subsequent IFN-gamma production. Thus, our data suggest that IFN-gamma provides a direct costimulatory signal to T cells to up-regulate IL-12-induced Th1 development and may operate by inducing IL-12 responsiveness in naive T cells.


Information about past volcanic impact on climate is mostly derived from historic documentary data and sulfate depositions in polar ice sheets. Although these archives have provided important insights into the Earth's volcanic eruption history, the climate forcing and exact dating of many events is still vague. Here we apply a new method of break detection to the first millennium-length maximum latewood density reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures to develop an alternative record of large volcanic eruptions. The analysis returns fourteen outstanding cooling events, all of which agree well with recently developed volcanic forcing records from high-resolution bipolar ice cores. In some cases, however, the climatic impact detected with our new method peaks in neighboring years, likely due to either dating errors in the polar ice cores or uncertainty in the interpretation of atmospheric aerosol transport to polar ice core locations. The most apparent mismatches between forcing and cooling estimates occur in the 1450s and 1690s. Application of the algorithm to two additional and recently developed reconstructions that blend maximum latewood density and ring width data reproduces twelve of the detected events among which eight are retrieved in all three of the dendroclimatic reconstructions. Collectively, the new estimates of volcanic activity with precise age control provide independent evidence for forcing records during the last millennium. Evaluating the cooling magnitude in response to detected events yields an upper benchmark for the volcanic impact on climate. The average response to the ten major events in the density derived reconstruction is −0.60 °C ± 0.13 °C. Other last millennium temperature records from proxies and model simulations reveal higher cooling estimates, which is, to some degree, related to the very different high frequency variance in these timeseries.


Substance use and abuse are often associated with police work and exposure to trauma. A detailed description is provided on the extent of substance use and the effects thereof on a sample of 217 police officials. Substance use was assessed with the World Health Organisation's Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening, and exposure to trauma with the Post-Traumatic Diagnostic Scale. Alcohol (41% of respondents) and tobacco (28% of respondents) are the substances used most frequently. 18% of the respondents admit to experiencing problems related to alcohol use and 27% wish to minimise consumption or stop using it. The figures for tobacco use are 14% and 22%. Exposure to trauma results in an increased use of substances such as alcohol and tobacco products and the uptake of less socially accepted substances, such as cocaine, although the numbers for such uptake were small. Recommendations are made regarding the management of substance use in the police.