Benoit B. Mandelbrot, who advanced the concept of power law scaling as a fundamental property of a broad range of natural processes and patterns in geophysics, economics, mathematics, and virtually all of science, died on 14 October 2010 in Cambridge, Mass., at the age of 85. Mandelbrot, known as the "father of fractal geometry," was a mathematician who developed the scaling concepts of self-similarity and self-affinity and found examples in spatial, temporal, and size patterns across a broad spectrum of disciplines. He coined the term "fractal" (from the Latin noun "fractus," meaning fragmented) for shapes and patterns that exhibit self-similarity, meaning that they are statistically scale independent. Such shapes are characterized by fractional power law exponents, between the integer (Euclidean) dimensions. He is best known through his books, including Les Objets Fractals: Forme, Hasard et Dimension; Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension; The Fractal Geometry of Nature; andMultifractals and 1/f Noise: Wild Self-Affinity in Physics [Mandelbrot, 1975, Mandelbrot 1977, Mandelbrot 1982, Mandelbrot 1999].


In this paper, evidence is presented for the important role played by language-internal variation in situations of contact-induced change. Such language-internal variation can function in two ways, through "frequential copying" on the one hand and "contact-induced exaptation" on the other. In frequential copying, an infrequently used construction in the recipient language can increase in frequency and ultimately even become the norm, if there is a similar construction in the model language. In contact-induced exaptation, constructional variants that differ in meaning from the default construction can provide the material basis for the grammaticalization of new constructions. This interplay of internal variation and external influence is exemplified with data from several northern Eurasian languages.


This Article focuses on my work in Illinois to use the Voting Rights Act1 (VRA) to improve minority representation at the local level, but the themes and findings are applicable across the country because many states have growing minority populations in the suburbs just outside of large city centers.2 These minority populations tend to be much less segregated than the minority communities in the cities,3 and so it is more difficult to use Section 2 of the VRA4 ("Section 2") to ensure both descriptive and substantive representation. I recommend the use of fair representation systems like ranked choice and cumulative voting (with multi-member districts) to improve minority representation in these decreasingly segregated areas. I introduce three case studies from Illinois to highlight the numerous burdens facing those that seek to reform their local government redistricting systems. I finish with some thoughts on how litigation and legislative advocacy may be used to promote fair representation systems in local government.


It has been widely observed in optimal control simulations and experiments that state preparation is surprisingly easy to achieve, regardless of the dimension N of the system Hilbert space. In contrast, simulations for the generation of targeted unitary transformations indicate that the effort increases exponentially with N. In order to understand such behavior, the concept of quantum control landscapes was recently introduced, where the landscape is defined as the physical objective, as a function of the control variables. The present work explores how the local structure of the control landscape influences the effectiveness and efficiency of quantum optimal control search efforts. Optimizations of state and unitary transformation preparation using kinematic control variables (i.e., the elements of the action matrix) are performed with gradient, genetic, and simplex algorithms. The results indicate that the search effort scales weakly, or possibly independently, with N for state preparation, while the search effort for the unitary transformation objective increases exponentially with N. Analysis of the mean path length traversed during a search trajectory through the space of action matrices and the local structure along this trajectory provides a basis to explain the difference in the scaling of the search effort with N for these control objectives. Much more favorable scaling for unitary transformation preparation arises upon specifying an initial action matrix based on state preparation results. The consequences of choosing a reduced number of control variables for state preparation is also investigated, showing a significant reduction in performance for using fewer than 2N-2 variables, which is consistent with the topological analysis of the associated landscape.


The Human Genome Project as well as sequencing of the genomes of other organisms offers a wealth of DNA targets for both therapeutic and diagnostic applications, and it is important to develop additional DNA binding motifs to fully exploit the potential of this new information. We have recently found that an aromatic dication, DB293, with an amidine-phenyl-furan-benzimidazole-amidine structure can recognize specific sequences of DNA by binding in the minor groove as a dimer [Wang, L., Bailly, C., Kumar, A., Ding, D., Bajic, M., Boykin, D. W., and Wilson, W. D. (2000) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97, 12-16]. The dimer binding is strong, highly cooperative and, in contrast to many closely related heterocyclic dications, has both GC and AT base pairs in the minor groove binding site. The aromatic heterocycle stacked dimer is quite different in structure from the polyamide-lexitropsin type compounds, and it is a dication while all lexitropsin dimers are monocations. The heterocyclic dimer represents only the second small molecule class that can recognize mixed sequences of DNA. To test the structural limits on the new type of complex, it is important to probe the influence of compound charge, chemical groups, and structural features. The effects of these compound molecular variations on DNA complex formation with several DNA sequences were evaluated by DNase I footprinting, CD and UV spectroscopy, thermal melting, and quantitative analysis with surface plasmon resonance biosensor methods. Conversion of the amidines to guanidinium groups does permit the cooperative dimer to form but removal of one amidine or addition of an alkyl group to the amidine strongly inhibited dimer formation. Changing the phenyl of DB293 to a benzimidazole or the benzimidazole to a phenyl or benzofuran also inhibited dimer formation. The results show that formation of the minor groove stacked-dimer complex is very sensitive to compound structure. The discovery of the aromatic dimer mode offers new opportunities to enhance the specificity and expand the range of applications of the compounds that target DNA.


Each year for a week in September, the eyes and ears of the library world turn toward one of the more prevalent issues that face libraries and librarians every day--the issue of intellectual freedom. This week is Banned Books Week, observed this year September 26 to October 3. For those not familiar with this event, here's a bit of background. Banned Books Week is observed the last week of September each year, and has been observed every year since 1982, after many inside the profession noticed a great surge in the number of book challenges in the United States. The event is jointly sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association (ALA), the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Association of American Publishers, and the National Association of College Stores, Why take the time to celebrate Banned Books Week? As teen and young adult librarians, we are on the front lines of intellectual freedom issues more than anyone else in our profession. Don't believe me? Let's take a look at the list of the ten most challenged books of 2007, according to ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF): 1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell 2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier 3. Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes 4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker 7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle 8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 9. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris 10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Any of these titles look familiar? I would think so; it is safe to say that at least seven of these books are in many YA collections across the country. For the most part, challenges to these (and many other) books are issued by parents concerned about what their children are reading. This, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing; we want to see parents who are concerned! What we don't want is that concern turning to outright fear. As Judy Blume so eloquently pointed out, "I believe that censorship grows out of fear, and because fear is contagious, some parents are easily swayed. Book banning satisfies their need to feel in control of their children's lives. This fear is often disguised as moral outrage. They want to believe that if their children don't read about it, their children won't know about it. And if they don't know about it, it won't happen." (1) I think it is important for us to remember not to overtly demonize most potential challengers. They are, after all, people just like us, and being concerned for our children's well-being is never wrong. Lauren Myracle, an author whose books are frequently challenged, spoke beautifully about this very notion when she spoke in Denver this past January at the Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF)'s author event. She responds to every angry and outraged e-mail she gets from parents, and many times finds that they are not quite as angry at her as it might, at first, seem (see link under "Resources" for the entire speech). At the same time, never forget that potential challengers are out there, and some are motivated by fervent religious or political beliefs. They are often highly organized and have the time and resources to back their agenda. Remember that having a clear and well-written collection development policy goes a long way towards deflecting most challenges. …


Those who believe that major world events result from planning are laughed at for believing in the "conspiracy theory of history." Of course, no one in this modern day and age really believes in the conspiracy theory of history--except those who have taken the time to study the subject.--Gary Allen, None Dare Call it Conspiracy 8 To some if you owned your own mind you were sick, but if you possessed an Atonist mind you were healthy.--Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo 24 ********** Published a year apart, Gary Allen's anti-Communist screed None Dare Call it Conspiracy and Ishmael Reed's gleeful Mumbo Jumbo seem to have little in common. Allen, a collaborator with the John Birch Society, writes a singularly paranoid work that more than one commentator finds reactionary, if not visibly anti-Semitic, in its coded language of "international bankers." Reed's work is a postmodern, freewheeling Black Arts celebration of the Harlem Renaissance and its supporting musical subculture. But despite differences in their content, both works share a common form; both feature a secret society that conspires to control history, and both establish fixed, knowing subjects, in Allen's words, "those who have taken the time to study the subject," and in Reed's words, "those who own their own minds." In supporting such fixed subjects, these narratives produce oppression in their form while decrying it in their content. Arguably, Reed's satirical use of the secret society conspiracy theory should challenge its ideological assumptions, but if, as Fredric Jameson argues, form itself retains ideological assumptions, form challenges the capacity of postmodern works to function as apolitical pastiche. Since the mid-eighties, a consistent question marks Reed criticism: how to reconcile the gleefully postmodernist "early" Reed with the bitterly anti-feminist "late" Reed. Famously, critics champion Reed as a fulfillment of a postmodern aesthetic project. Variously, they claim that Reed employs pastiche, destroys meta-narratives, deconstructs binaries and, in general asserts an aesthetic challenge to both modernism and late capitalism. Furthermore, as an African American postmodernist, Reed receives special attention, both as the realization of a specific African-derived aesthetic--what Henry Louis Gates describes as "Signifiyin" or James Snead identifies as "circular time"--and as a special racially rooted genre of postmodernism that avoids the movement's problematic, apolitical "dissolution of the individual" by rooting its critique in a "critically self-revising tradition" (Mikics 3-4). Linda Hutcheon, for example, notes: "Ishmael Reed's consistently parodic fiction clearly asserts not just a critical and specifically American 'difference' but also a racial one. And, on a formal level, his parodic mixing of levels and kinds of discourses challenges any notion of the different as either coherent and monolithic or original" (134). A short list of Reed's satirical targets in Mumbo Jumbo includes Afrocentrism, literary journals, Marxism, Warren Harding, and black power. Reed's later work, though, has fared less well critically. Robert Eliot Fox, for example, calls Reckless Eyeballing "an instance of the diminution of power his work of the 1980s has manifested, compared to his truly innovative work of the 1960s and 1970s" (78). Similarly, in his introduction to The Critical Response to Ishmael Reed, Bruce Allen Dick notes, "The criticism surrounding (Reckless Eyeballing) has caused many to overlook Reed's best fiction" (xxxi). Advocates for Reed's later work defend it through claims that it merely reflects the imbalanced gender roles of its time, or that Reed lodges a heavier critique against males, or that his characters, not Reed, exhibit misogyny. Patrick McGee provides a good example of this trend: "While all of (Reed's) books contain misogynist representations, they also negatively deconstruct machismo, patriarchy, and Western imperialism" (58). …


Heart and lung transplantation activity is frustrated by the lack of availability of donor organs. The haemodynamic, hormonal and inflammatory changes that follow brain stem death leads to donor organ injury. Appropriate donor management is essential to avoid further damage to already injured donor heart and lungs. Hormone replacement therapy with tri-iodothyronine and methylprednisolone in organ donors has been reported to increase the retrieval rate of heart and lungs with improved function. In a prospective, randomised, double blind, controlled trial the role of hormone replacement therapy and early donor management on the donor heart and lung function and their retrieval rate was studied. Heart donor Outcome Early donor management was associated with significant improvement in donor heart function. It may also increase the retrieval rate of hearts for transplantation. However, administration of hormones neither influenced the donor heart function nor the heart retrieval rate. Serial echocardiography guides in identifying suitable donor hearts for transplantation during intensive management. Lung donor outcomes Early donor management was associated with significant increase in lung retrieval rate for transplantation. Despite management donor lung function deteriorated following brain stem death. Hormone replacement therapy did not increase the lung retrieval rate or affect the donor lung function. However, methylprednisolone administration leads to significant reduction in progressive donor lung water accumulation. Measurement of thermodilution lung water index predicted ultimate lung suitability for transplantation and recipient outcome. Conclusion Early donor management is the cornerstone to improve the donor heart function and to increase the lung retrieval rate. It may also increase the heart retrieval rate. Serial transthoracic echocardiography may guide in identifying suitable hearts that respond to donor management.


Intracellular microelectrodes were used in conjunction with ion substitution, agonists and inhibitors of known transport processes and diuretic hormone (DH), to investigate the mechanisms whereby ions cross the basal and apical cell membranes of the Malpighian tubules of Locusta migratoria, and their endocrine control. Values for basal, apical and transepithelial potentials in control saline were -70.4 + 0.9 mV, -76.1 ± 1.5 mV and +5.5 ± 1.3 mV (lumen positive), respectively (n=73).Ion substitution experiments, involving K(^+), Na(^+) and CI(^-) in the bathing medium, indicated that the basal membrane is more permeable to K(^+) than Na(^+) and CI(^-). Ion flux studies suggest that CI(^-) entry across the basal membrane is not by direct cotransport with K(^+), nor Na(^+). Some CI(^-) entry also appears to be stimulated under conditions of high K(^+)(_o). Crude corpus cardiacum (CC) preparations with DH activity effected ca. 150% increase in tubular fluid secretion above basal secretion in vitro, and ca. 106% and 335% increase in net transepithelial Na(^+) and Cl(^-) movement from bathing medium to lumen above basal flux, respectively. Treatment of tubules with CC extract also resulted in a significant increase in levels of the intracellular second messengers, cAMP and the Ca(^2+)-mobilizing Inositol 1,4,5- trisphosphate. Ion substitution experiments using dibutyryl cAMP suggest that cAMP stimulates an apical cation pump, whilst having no effect on Cl(^-) conductance. Cytochemical localization and membrane separation techniques used in conjunction with biochemical analyses indicate the presence of (Na(^+)+K(^+))-ATPase on the basolateral membranes, and HCO(_3)- stimulated ATPase on both the basolateral and apical membranes. The results referred to above are discussed, and a hypothetical model is proposed to describe the endocrine control of ion movements across the two cell membranes mediated by changes in intracellular cAMP and Ca(^2+).


In a remote landscape near Bordeaux, Mona Kuhn owns a little house: simple, bare and even without electricity. Kuhn travels here each year to entertain family and friends as they drop by. "Bordeaux Series" contains portraits of these people dear to Kuhn made over the last four years, as well as landscape photographs. Kuhn photographs her subjects in the same room with a red fabric backdrop and a chair, so that the nudity of each sitter is the only indication of his or her idiosyncrasies. A sequel to "Kuhn's Native" (2009), "Bordeaux Series" is a sensual exploration of the contemporary nude.


Tools that aim to combat phishing attacks must take into account how and why people fall for them in order to be effective. This study reports a pilot survey of 232 computer users to reveal predictors of falling for phishing emails, as well as trusting legitimate emails. Previous work suggests that people may be vulnerable to phishing schemes because their awareness of the risks is not linked to perceived vulnerability or to useful strategies in identifying phishing emails. In this survey, we explore what factors are associated with falling for phishing attacks in a role-play exercise. Our data suggest that deeper understanding of the web environment, such as being able to correctly interpret URLs and understanding what a lock signifies, is associated with less vulnerability to phishing attacks. Perceived severity of the consequences does not predict behavior. These results suggest that educational efforts should aim to increase users' intuitive understanding, rather than merely warning them about risks.


This paper examines non-profit human service agency workers' discussions of their work with diverse clients. These conversations are understood within the competing social agendas of multiculturalism and assimilation, and they suggest how service providers may resist or perpetuate the social control of people of color. Findings revealed that people of color were often excluded from providers' notions of American identity. It was common for providers, both whites and people of color, to both wittingly and unwittingly describe pressures to assimilate their clients. Providers disagreed on the merits and consequences of these assimilation pressures, with some seeing harm done to themselves as well as their clients, and others defending the practice as in their clients' best interest. Other providers resisted pressures to assimilate clients into a white Northern European norm by breaking agency rules that were considered culturally insensitive or by engaging in self-reflection and adjustment-making in their own expectations and behaviors instead of changing their clients' ways


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To examine the feasibility and acceptability of using a decision aid with an interactive decision-making process in patients with solid tumors and their caregivers during cancer-related treatment.

RESEARCH APPROACH
A phenomenologic approach was used to analyze qualitative data, with a focus on the meaning of participants' lived experiences. Interviews were conducted by telephone or in person.

SETTING
Outpatient clinics at two regional cancer centers.

PARTICIPANTS
160 total individuals; 80 patients with newly diagnosed breast (n = 22), advanced-stage prostate (n = 19), or advanced-stage lung (n = 39) cancer, and their caregivers (n = 80).

METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
Twenty-seven of the 80 pairs engaged in audio recorded interviews that were conducted using a semistructured interview guide. Continuous text immersion revealed themes. Validity of qualitative analysis was achieved by member checking.

FINDINGS
Significant findings included three themes: (a) the decision aid helped patients and caregivers understand treatment decisions better, (b) the decision aid helped patients and caregivers to be more involved in treatment decisions, and (c) frequent contact with the study nurse was valuable.

CONCLUSIONS
Decision making was more complex than participants expected. The decision aid helped patients and caregivers make satisfying treatment decisions and become integral in a shared treatment decision-making process.

INTERPRETATION
Decision aids can help patients and their caregivers make difficult treatment decisions affecting quantity and quality of life during cancer treatment. The findings provide valuable information for healthcare providers helping patients and their caregivers make treatment decisions through a shared, informed, decision-making process.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSLATION
Decision aids can be helpful with treatment choices. Caregivers' understanding about treatment is just as important in the decision-making process as the patients' understanding. Incorporating decision aids that are delivered by healthcare providers or trained personnel has the potential to improve patients' decision satisfaction.


In Western society, the prevalence of a hypercaloric diet consisting of a high sugar intake and highly processed foods coincided with an exponential rise in diabetes and metabolic syndrome as well as cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Evidence emphasizing the unfavourable effects of 'irresponsible eating' is emerging in regards to the big three Western diseases … cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. Recent evidence has emerged supporting the connection between dietary intake and cognitive health, particularly in regards to the ageing population. A healthier diet during middle age years (B-vitamins, antioxidants, polyunsaturated fatty acids, etc.) was associated with better cognitive function later in life (Kesse-Guyot et al. 2012). In addition, higher polyphenol intake in the elderly was associated with better cognitive performance (Valls-Pedret et al. 2012). However, data on the effects of diet on learning, memory and cognition are scarce. Bowman et al. demonstrate a positive association between nutrient biomarker intake, cognitive function and brain volume (Bowman et al. 2012). Instead of providing additional data on a healthier diet and cognitive outcomes, the study by Agrawal and Gomez-Pinilla in a recent issue of The Journal of Physiology is one of the first to describe the negative consequence of a diet on learning and cognition (Agrawal & Gomez-Pinilla, 2012). The authors elegantly investigate the metabolic consequences of a high sugar intake coupled with a deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids on cognitive abilities and the potential association with insulin action and signalling mediators. As one might expect, the unhealthy diet (high fructose intake, low omega-3 fatty acids) was associated with lower cognitive scores and insulin resistance.

In the vasculature, insulin is a vasodilator and increases blood flow to promote glucose delivery to the muscle and other tissue beds. This vasodilator function is blunted in insulin resistant individuals and suggests that an impairment of insulin action is coupled to a decreased perfusion of the tissues (Barrett et al. 2009). Obviously, chronic hypoperfusion to any tissue bed induces a multitude of problems (atrophy, etc.) and may further reduce insulin sensitivity. The same insulin/blood flow coupling mechanism may also be present in the cerebral circulation. Agrawal & Gomez-Pinilla demonstrate that animals with the highest insulin resistance index also have the longest latency time on a learning and memory challenge. Accordingly, we might expect that the animals with the highest insulin resistance may demonstrate a lower cerebral blood flow, and therefore less brain plasticity. In other words, insulin resistance and impairment of the insulin receptor signalling cascade in the hippocampus may be accompanied by decreasing regional blood flow and reduced memory.

In humans, cerebral hypoperfusion is associated with lower cognitive function scores, and with dementia and lower brain volume (Rabbitt et al. 2006). Preventing or delaying the cognitive decline is of paramount importance with the expanding ageing population. The study by Agrawal & Gomez-Pinilla suggests that consuming omega-3 fatty acids and preventing insulin resistance may protect learning and memory ability with ageing. We might also suggest that maintaining optimum cerebral perfusion is also an important mechanism to preserve cognitive function. Along these lines, dietary interventions thought to improve peripheral perfusion or vascular function may also be operative in the brain. For example, the vasoprotective effects of a high nitrate diet shown in the periphery (Webb et al. 2008) and similar favourable changes in cerebral blood flow were recently reported after a high nitrate whole-food based dietary intervention (Presley et al. 2011). A similar case could be made for exercise interventions, which have parallel benefits on vascular function in the periphery and cerebral circulation, and are also associated with higher cognitive function scores. In summary, the study by Agrawal & Gomez-Pinilla provides mechanistic evidence linking poor dietary health and cognitive impairment. This observation is consistent with the idea that many important risk factors for cognitive decline with ageing have major effects on the vasculature. These risk factors include: diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, sleep apnoea and physical inactivity. How these risk factors might interact with other pathophysiological mechanisms that contribute to cognitive decline is poorly understood, but the good news is that they are modifiable and that lifestyle-related public health guidelines are almost certainly protective against age-related cognitive decline.


A multiband handset antenna combining a PIFA and multiple slots on a ground plane is presented. It is shown by means of simulations that the slots on the ground plane have a double function: to tune the ground plane resonance at low frequencies (f ¿ 900 MHz) and to act as parasitic radiators at high frequencies (f ¿ 1800 MHz). A prototype is designed and built featuring a behavior suitable for low frequencies (GSM850 and GSM900) and for high frequencies spanning from DCS1800 to Bluetooth, and including, for instance, PCS1900, UMTS2000, and other possible systems. Reflection coefficient, efficiency, and radiation patterns are measured and compared with a design without slots to prove the advantages of the slotted ground plane. The component effect is investigated to determine critical areas where the placement is not recommended. Besides, the effect of the slot of the ground plane on SAR is investigated, by discussing the effect of the ground plane and slot modes for two phone positions. The total antenna volume of the proposed design is 40 × 15 × 6 mm3.


About 16% of breast cancers fall into a clinically aggressive category designated triple negative (TNBC) due to a lack of ERBB2, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor expression1-3. The mutational spectrum of TNBC has been characterized as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)4; however, snapshots of primary tumors cannot reveal the mechanisms by which TNBCs progress and spread. To address this limitation we initiated the Intensive Trial of OMics in Cancer (ITOMIC)-001, in which patients with metastatic TNBC undergo multiple biopsies over space and time5. Whole exome sequencing (WES) of 67 samples from 11 patients identified 426 genes containing multiple distinct single nucleotide variants (SNVs) within the same sample, instances we term Multiple SNVs affecting the Same Gene and Sample (MSSGS). We find that >90% of MSSGS result from cis-compound mutations (in which both SNVs affect the same allele), that MSSGS comprised of SNVs affecting adjacent nucleotides arise from single mutational events, and that most other MSSGS result from the sequential acquisition of SNVs. Some MSSGS drive cancer progression, as exemplified by a TNBC driven by FGFR2(S252W;Y375C). MSSGS are more prevalent in TNBC than other breast cancer subtypes and occur at higher-than-expected frequencies across TNBC samples within TCGA. MSSGS may denote genes that play as yet unrecognized roles in cancer progression.


Background: The Center for Disease Control recommends case management begin at a blood lead level of 5 μg/dL, yet Indiana does not take action until a blood lead level of 10 μg/dL. Low levels of lead can cause irreversible neurological damage in children. The goal of this study was to design a scalable, low-cost Home Lead Test Kit to proactively find lead in homes.
Methods: Individuals were recruited through community partnerships, community lead testing events, and flyers. Qualitative data was recorded during home visits as participants used the kit. An x-ray fluorescence analyzer was used in the field and laboratory to analyze lead levels of samples. Results were blinded during the analysis.
Results: To date, 40 homes have been recruited, and 20 have been completed. The average completion time of the kit was 23.45 minutes.  Of the 8 pre-1950 homes 100% had elevated lead results, of the 7 1950-1978 homes 43% had elevated lead results, and of the 5 post 1978 homes 0% had elevated lead results.
Conclusion and Potential Impact: The study is ongoing. Preliminary results support the hypothesis that pre-1950 homes have a high risk of lead exposure, and post 1978 homes have minimal to no levels of lead. Feedback from study participants regarding kit usability has been positive. Future plans are to produce a kit to be scaled up in St. Joseph County with the goal of a statewide model. This kit may allow citizens to identify lead hazards to prevent children from lead exposure.


Recently intensified research on the mid-Carnian episode stimulated discussions about the mid-Carnian climate and a supposed humid climate shift. This basin-scale study on the Schilfsandstein, the type-example of the mid-Carnian episode, applied sedimentological, palynological and palaeobotanical proxies of the palaeoclimate to a large dataset of cored wells and outcrops. The results demonstrate the primary control of circum-Tethyan eustatic cycles on the Central European Basin where transgressions contributed to basin-scale facies shifts. The palaeoclimate proxies point to a uniform arid to semi-arid Carnian climate with low chemical weathering and high evaporation. Consequently, transgressions into the Central European Basin led to increased evaporation forcing the hydrological cycle. The increased runoff from source areas resulted in high-groundwater stages on lowlands characterized by hydromorphic palaeosols and intrazonal vegetation with hygrophytic elements. During lowstands, reduced evaporation and runoff led to increased drainage and desiccation of lowlands characterized by formation of vertisols, calcisols and gypsisols and zonal vegetation with xerophytic elements. The proposed model of sea-level control on the hydrological cycle integrates coeval and subsequent occurrences of wet and dry lowlands, hydromorphic and well-drained palaeosols, and intrazonal and zonal vegetations. Thus, the Schilfsandstein does not provide arguments for a humid mid-Carnian episode. Supplementary material: Datasets of Palynomorph Eco Group (PEG) and Macroplant Eco Group (MEG) analyses are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4182593


The Swiss Federal government finances are in an excellent shape: debt is small (and decreasing), and carries a low interest rate. This paper reviews the prospects for the Swiss finances drawing on the recent literature. We argue that the current policy of running surpluses and paying down the debt is inefficient, and propose three alternatives. First, as the interest rate on the debt is much lower than the GDP growth rate – a pattern that is not unusual – Switzerland could stabilize the debt to GDP ratio and run a primary deficit of abut CHF 2.6 billion (0.37% of GDP). Second, the low cost of debt implies that investments in education and infrastructure are more attractive than in the past. Third, Switzerland could use its implicit asset (the trust of investors) and set up a sovereign wealth fund financed by government debt. We estimate that a fund amounting to 10% of GDP could generate an annual revenue between CHF 0.7 to 2 billion (0.1% to 0.3% of GDP), though these estimates could be refined further.


The use of solar heating systems is a way of exploiting the clean and free energy from the sun. To optimize the energy gain from such a system, where the main input, the solar insulation, is an uncontrollable variable, good model of the system dynamics are required. Identification methods are often either highly specialized for the application or requires an extensive amount of data, especially when the dynamics studied are nonlinear. This paper shows that by application of a new recursive system identification technique, a small scale solar heating system can be modeled with very little data, without having to tailor the model structure to the application


SMT-based checking of refinement types for call-by-value languages is a well-studied subject. Unfortunately, the classical translation of refinement types to verification conditions is unsound under lazy evaluation. When checking an expression, such systems implicitly assume that all the free variables in the expression are bound to values. This property is trivially guaranteed by eager, but does not hold under lazy, evaluation. Thus, to be sound and precise, a refinement type system for Haskell and the corresponding verification conditions must take into account which subset of binders actually reduces to values. We present a stratified type system that labels binders as potentially diverging or not, and that (circularly) uses refinement types to verify the labeling. We have implemented our system in LIQUIDHASKELL and present an experimental evaluation of our approach on more than 10,000 lines of widely used Haskell libraries. We show that LIQUIDHASKELL is able to prove 96% of all recursive functions terminating, while requiring a modest 1.7 lines of termination-annotations per 100 lines of code.


Abstract As public schools in countries like the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand continue to suffer from the damaging effects of poorly conceptualized educational reforms, educators struggle to come up with alternatives with which to reclaim schools. While acknowledging the situational, contextual and temporal differences between these countries, this paper presents a rationale for reinserting the relational work of schools at the centre of a teacher development‐led form of recovery. The central claim advanced herein is that teacher development in schools must have a central and demonstrable concern with the primacy of relationships in teaching and learning. Schools and teachers have the collective capacity to reclaim the ground that has been severely eroded by managerialist and marketizing agenda that have been allowed to intrude on schools and subjugate the importance of relational forms of knowing. Placing students at the centre is crucial to creating the direction necessary for re‐establishing the relational complexity of schools.


Objectives To study the effects of abatacept on disease activity and on muscle biopsy features of adult patients with dermatomyositis (DM) or polymyositis (PM). Methods Twenty patients with DM (n=9) or PM (n=11) with refractory disease were enrolled in a randomised treatment delayed-start trial to receive either immediate active treatment with intravenous abatacept or a 3 month delayed-start. The primary endpoint was number of responders, defined by the International Myositis Assessment and Clinical Studies Group definition of improvement (DOI), after 6 months of treatment. Secondary endpoints included number of responders in the early treatment arm compared with the delayed treatment arm at 3 months. Repeated muscle biopsies were investigated for cellular markers and cytokines. Results 8/19 patients included in the analyses achieved the DOI at 6 months. At 3 months of study, five (50%) patients were responders after active treatment but only one (11%) patient in the delayed treatment arm. Eight adverse events (AEs) were regarded as related to the drug, four mild and four moderate, and three serious AEs, none related to the drug. There was a significant increase in regulatory T cells (Tregs), whereas other markers were unchanged in repeated muscle biopsies. Conclusions In this pilot study, treatment of patients with DM and PM with abatacept resulted in lower disease activity in nearly half of the patients. In patients with repeat muscle biopsies, an increased frequency of Foxp3+ Tregs suggests a positive effect of treatment in muscle tissue.


To quickly achieve good performance, reinforcement-learning algorithms for acting in large continuous-valued domains must use a representation that is both sufficiently powerful to capture important domain characteristics, and yet simultaneously allows generalization, or sharing, among experiences. Our algorithm balances this tradeoff by using a stochastic, switching, parametric dynamics representation. We argue that this model characterizes a number of significant, real-world domains, such as robot navigati on across varying terrain. We prove that this representational assumption allows our algorithm to be probably approximately correct with a sample complexity that scales polynomially with all problem-specific quantities including the state-space dimension. We also explicitly incorporate the error introduced by approximate planning in our sample complexity bounds, in contrast to prior Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) Markov Decision Processes (MDP) approaches, which typically assume the estimated MDP can be solved exactly. Our experimental results on constructing plans for driving to work using real car trajectory data, as well as a small robot experiment on navigating varying terrain, demonstrate that our dynamics representation enables us to capture real-world dynamics in a sufficient manner to produce good performance.


market-based control, trader agents, zip traders, auctions, genetic algorithms, BICAS This thesis describes the development of a market-based control (MBC) system used to allocate and balance computational tasks across a minimal simulated Utility Data Centre (UDC). Firstly, a reimplementation of the original ZIP trading-agent was developed and tested in a variety of basic markets. The reimplementation faithfully replicated the market equilibration behavior of the original system, and a evolutionary algorithm was then employed to successfully fine-tune the performance of the system. The MBC UDC simulation is then presented as the first of its kind based on ZIP trading agents and also being fully distributed and autonomous in its operation. Experiments indicate a successful proof-of-concept and an efficient computational load-balancing performance under different scenarios. Use of an evolutionary algorithm is then made to both further improve the market equilibration performance of the ZIP traders operating within the MBC simulation and to evolve the marketplaces they operate within. Thus this thesis presents the first ever (preliminary) results from using artificial evolution to automatically design the auction mechanism for an MBC system.


The study of accountability in public administration has developed largely in parallel to the study of accountability in the behavioral sciences. In an effort to bridge this divide, we present a systematic review of the experimental literature on accountability in the behavioral sciences and draw lessons for public administration. We summarize the findings of 266 experiments exploring the effects of accountability mechanisms, presented in 211 articles published between 1970 and 2016. These findings are organized in four broad themes: effects of accountability on decision-making, behavior, and outcomes; and effects of the specific characteristics of accountability mechanisms. The review shows numerous desirable effects of accountability on individual decision-making and behaviors. This is of high relevance to public administration studies on accountability as it sheds light on causal mechanisms and allows for a balanced perspective on positive and negative effects of various types of accountability mechanisms. It is however not always possible to translate findings from behavioral research directly to public administration settings. We discuss the meaning and value of our findings for public administration studies and develop an agenda for future behavioral research on public sector accountability.


For internal use by the librarians, a shared collection of articles re ideas about information literacy, library/librarians teaching, critical theory and libraries, research skills and disciplinarity, etc.


Low Female Labor Force Participation (FLFP) constitutes a foregone opportunity at both the macro and at the micro levels, potentially increasing the vulnerability of households and lowering the long-run development perspectives of a country. Most international organizations and national policy makers see low FLFP as a serious issue that needs to be addressed by adopting appropriate policies. We investigate the possible reasons of the remarkable stability of FLFP in a top-reforming upper-middle income country. Our goal is to in disentangle the different forces at work and to draw useful lessons for the design of participation-enhancing policies. Using data from a nationally representative Household Survey covering the period 2003-2015, we employ Blinder-Oaxaca (Blinder, 1973 and Oaxaca, 1973) type decomposition to decompose changes over time in FLFP levels into parts that are due to changes in observable factors versus changes in the strength of impact of these factors. This allows us to identify possible shifters of the FLFP rate and propose areas of special interest for policy making. We show that the stability of FLFP in Georgia during the period 2003-2013 is due to offsetting socio-economic changes taking place in the country, and that the increase in the last period covered by our dataset – 2013-2015 – can be attributed to the emergence of new labor opportunities for women. We conclude that, while useful, supply-side economic reforms are not sufficient to increase FLFP and need to be complemented by demand-side policies aiming at creating more and better work opportunities for women.


Pragmatic Encroachment (PE hereafter), sometimes called 'antiintellectualism,' is a denial of epistemic purism. Purism is the view that only traditional, truth-relevant, epistemic factors determine whether a true belief is an instance of knowledge. According to anti-intellectualists, two subjects S and S*, could be in the same epistemic position with regards to puristic epistemic factors, but S might know that p while S* doesn't if less is at stake for S than for S*. Motivations for rejecting purism take two forms: case-based and principle-based arguments. In considering both approaches, I argue that PE is best viewed as externalist about epistemic contexts. That is to say, I claim that what determines a subject's epistemic context is external to her mind.


Gas hydrates are crystalline solids consisting of three dimensional, hydrogen bonded water molecules (host), encapsulated with a guest molecule. [1] There are numerous possibilities for the molecules acting as the guests. The most common guests include methane, ethane, propane and carbon dioxide. They can be significantly problematic in the production of oil and gas. The 1930's marked the discovery, by Hammerschmidt, of the formation of hydrates in pipes. This formation can eventually cause a blockage in the pipeline, creating the risk of explosion, as the blockage may cause a high pressure and low pressure section of the pipe. This causes the hydrate to act as a high velocity solid which not only results in destruction to equipment but can also lead to loss of lives. [2] As the production of oil and gas moves to more extreme, hydrate favouring conditions, predominantly inhibition is the only viable option. Clathrate hydrate inhibitors are divided into three groups, thermodynamic inhibitors (THI), low dosage hydrate inhibitors (LDHI) and ionic liquids (IL). Ionic liquids have the potential to act as inhibitors but previous research has been restricted by the lack of design on the ionic liquids being experimented e.g ionic liquids chosen due to their commercial availability. There are many advantages to using ionic liquids, but in increasing their field application certain design criteria should be followed. The Ionic liquids used should be water soluble, form hydrogen bonds with water, relatively non-viscous, low toxicity, biodegradable and have minimal halogen content. The main aim of this work is to Design, Synthesise and Characterise ionic liquids within the criteria that will perform as hydrate inhibitors and to test the ionic liquids as both thermodynamic and kinetic inhibitors in the high pressure view cell and compare the performance with current commercial inhibitors.The initials experiments were performed to ensure the equipment was fully working and so the literature data for the blank test with no inhibitor and methanol 5 and 10 wt% were reproduced to verify thisAs can be observed from the graph, the literature data has successfully been repeated. This is also shows that the equipment is working and is operating to the desired needs of the project. Frequently imidazolium cations, particularly EMIM, are observed in the literature featuring ionic liquids as inhibitors. The next stage was to look at how effective these ionic liquids are, however, exchanging the halogen anion. The properties mentioned before suggest alcohol or ketone groups on the anion in order to maximise hydrogen bonding effectively increasing inhibition ability. This change would also help in making the ILs more environmentally friendly and lower the toxicity of them.


Abstract The thermal degradation process of some new polycarbonates is investigated from an experimental and theoretical point of view, in order to obtain insight into the microscopic aspects that influence the reaction mechanism and the process of thermolysis. In particular, attention is focussed on the influence of the type of substituents in the polymer chain on the degradation temperature. A series of novel polycarbonates were designed differing from each other by the groups attached at the α and β carbon atoms. Thermal behavior was characterized by thermogravimetrical analyses. The polymers undergo rapid and complete thermolysis at different degradation temperatures depending on the structure. The degradation products were separated by gas chromatography and analyzed by mass spectroscopy. The ratio of formed dienes in the product distribution depends on the heating rate. Furthermore, density functional theory calculations were performed on a series of model compound systems for the polycarbonates under study, in particular carbonate systems differing by the groups attached at the α and β carbons. The study proves that the thermal degradation route can be controlled by tailoring the polymer backbone structure. Moreover, ab initio calculations provide further insight into the microscopic ingredients that govern the degradation process and associated reaction rates.


This article contributes to studies in democratic theory and civic engagement by critically reflecting on the role of contemporary art for the transformation of the public sphere. It begins with a short assessment of the role of art during the Enlightenment, when the communicative function and the public role of art were most clearly articulated. It refers in particular to the analogies between aesthetic and political judgement in order to understand the emancipatory role of artistic production within a philosophical project centred on reason's capacity to liberate itself from the dogmatism of authority and from the errors of superstition, both elements considered crucial to the development of a functioning public sphere. The article then discusses the historical transformation of art following a number of philosophical and sociological critiques to a similar project of the Enlightenment and assesses the attempt of historical avant-gardes to appropriate this critique yet maintain art's emancipatory function in society. Having examined some problems raised by these attempts, the article turns to the analogies with contemporary artistic production. It examines the role of contemporary visual art in the public sphere and shows how the anti-rationalist theories articulated to reflect on contemporary works of art, and the works themselves, both fail to develop art's emancipatory role in society. Without rethinking artistic experience in a way that places emphasis on reason's capacity for critical and constructive self-understanding and without reconsidering art theory in a way that brings back the emphasis on the emancipatory role of rational communication, contemporary art, far from contributing to the revitalization of the public sphere, will contribute to its decline.


Second language anxiety has a debilitating effect on the oral performance of speakers of English as a second language. This article describes a research project concerning the conceptualization of second language speaking anxiety, the relationship between anxiety and second language performance, and the major reported causes of second language anxiety. The participants in this study were advanced English for academic purposes (EAP) students studying on intensive EAP courses immediately prior to entering Australian universities (N = 275). The second language speaking anxiety scale (SLSAS) was developed for the study. This instrument provided evidence for a dual conceptualization of anxiety reflecting both oral communication within and outside the language learning classroom. The scale was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. The analysis indicated second language speaking anxiety to be a significant predictor of oral achievement. Reported causes of anxiety were investigated through interviews. The results indicate that the most frequent source of anxiety was interacting with native speakers. Evidence for two types of anxious language learner emerged; retrieval interference and skills deficit. There was an indication from the study that English language learners from Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs), China, Korea and Japan were more anxious language learners than other ethnic groups.


The CDIO standards stress the importance of using a variety of examination methods for effective learning assessment as well as active learning methods to help the students develop skills in applying knowledge to new settings. Oral assessment methods in a more traditional form where students answer questions in oral form instead of in written seems to be underrepresented in practice as well as in the literature although it has many benefits in supporting active learning and reaching learning outcomes. The oral examination method has been used during ten years within the field of Industrial Engineering and Management at the School of Engineering at Jonkoping University in Sweden. The aim of this paper is to show how the oral assessment method has been successfully used in contributing to active learning in engineering education and lessons learned from this experience. The experience shows that by having students undertaking the assessment in groups, an active learning occasion is created by interaction between students as well as students and teacher. Through the design of the assessment the teacher has the opportunity to help the students to make connections between detailed knowledge and system understanding as well as among key concepts and to the application of knowledge to new settings. The assessment procedure also supports the teacher to discern the learning outcomes from each student. Further, the interaction between the teacher and the students during the assessment helps the teacher to capture what improvements need to be made in teaching and learning.


OBJECTIVE
To assess clotting times, coagulation factor activities, sterility, and thromboelastographic parameters of liquid plasma (LP), thawed fresh frozen plasma (FFP-T), and 2 novel formulations of freeze-dried plasma (FDP) stored refrigerated over 35 days.

SAMPLE
6 units of canine LP and FFP-T from a commercial animal blood bank and 5 units each of 2 formulations of canine FDP.

PROCEDURES
Prothrombin time; activated partial thromboplastin time; activities of coagulation factors II, V, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII; and thromboelastographic parameters were determined for each product on days 0 (baseline), 3, 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35. For each day, a sample of each product was also submitted for aerobic bacterial culture.

RESULTS
Small changes in coagulation factor activities and mild increased time to initial clot formation in LP and FFP-T were noted over the 35-day storage period. Activities of factor VIII in FDP1 and factor XII in FDP2 were < 50% at baseline but varied throughout. Compared with FFP-T, time to initial clot formation was increased and clot strength was preserved or increased for the FDPs throughout the study. One FDP had decreased pH, compared with other products. No plasma product yielded bacterial growth.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Liquid plasma and FFP-T would be reasonable to use when stored refrigerated for up to 35 days. Both FDP products showed variability in coagulation factor activities. Studies investigating the usefulness of these plasma products (FDPs) in dogs and the variable days of refrigerated storage (all products) are warranted. (Am J Vet Res 2020;81:964-972).


The current round of negotiations of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) represents a major initiative of economic reform. Initiatives for trade reform are far from new. A facilitative framework has been proposed that ranks policies according to their level of price distortion—the least distorting policies are favored over the more distorting. Policies that are regarded as highly distortionary are termed "red light policies"; those policies that are least distortionary and, therefore, most acceptable from an international prospective are "green light policies"; "yellow light policies" fall between these two extremes. This policy ranking scheme, at least in theory, is based on the degree of trade distortion each policy creates (Rausser and Nielson, 1990). In addition to the degree of trade distortion, the political sustainability of the reform policy should influence the ranking (Rausser and Irwin) 1989); a reform policy that is likely to be sustainable is more desirable than an equally distortionary policy that is not likely to be sustainable. We show that policies that promote diversification of ownership and mobility of the factors of production can reduce the incentive of agents to seek protectionist trade policies. Therefore, we argue that all use the same policies that promote the mobility of factors, and the diversification of ownership of immobile factors should be ranked above those that do not.


Screening compounds by computer modeling reveals endogenous signaling molecules and potential therapeutic avenues. Screening compounds for biological activity computationally has the potential to speed the rate of scientific discovery. One common approach is molecular dynamics simulation (MDS), which relies on structural models of the target and chemical models of the putative ligands. Possible configurations that enable the ligand to dock (associate) with the target are simulated until one or more with a biologically reasonable energy profile is found. In a real biological system, the molecules will not have an infinite opportunity to find just the right fit, so MDS interactions must be tested in a physiological context to determine if the docking interaction is biologically relevant and if the docked ligand affects the target's activity or function. In this week's issue, Wardman et al. used structural modeling and virtual molecule docking to identify candidate ligands for the G protein–coupled receptor GPR171. One of these, MS0015203, selectively bound to GPR171 and required GPR171 to stimulate a response in cultured cells and in mice. Mice receiving this drug by injection into the periphery ate more and had increased body weight, and both responses depended on GPR171. A pair of papers from the Archives illustrates additional applications of virtual screening to discover regulators of signaling processes. Corral-Lugo et al. used in silico docking screening to identify candidate molecules from plants that bound to the bacterial quorum–sensing regulator RhlR from the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Subsequent analysis with bacteria showed that the candidate compound, rosmarinic acid, stimulated RhlR activity, thereby functioning as a mimic of the bacterial quorum–sensing ligands. Identification of this molecular mimic has both agricultural and biomedical implications by enabling strategic disruption of bacterial communication. Matsoukas et al. performed a virtual screen of a chemical database (>5 million compounds) to identify candidate compounds that may function as immunosuppressants with fewer side effects than those of drugs that inhibit the catalytic activity of the phosphatase calcineurin. The authors screened for small molecules that bound to the same region of calcineurin to which the transcription factor NFAT binds, with the goal of identifying molecules that could selectively disrupt NFAT activation without affecting the activity of calcineurin for its other targets. The screen identified multiple candidates, which were further selected by in vitro analysis for their ability to displace NFAT from calcineurin-NFAT complexes without inhibiting the activity of the phosphatase. Four of the subset with desired in vitro activity blocked the expression of NFAT-dependent genes in human T cells and inhibited T cell proliferation in culture, suggesting that these may be good leads for further testing as immunosuppressants. J. H. Wardman, I. Gomes, E. N. Bobeck, J. A. Stockert, A. Kapoor, P. Bisignano, A. Gupta, M. Mezei, S. Kumar, M. Filizola, L. A. Devi, Identification of a small-molecule ligand that activates the neuropeptide receptor GPR171 and increases food intake. Sci. Signal. 9, ra55 (2016). [Abstract] A. Corral-Lugo, A. Daddaoua, A. Ortega, M. Espinosa-Urgel, T. Krell, Rosmarinic acid is a homoserine lactone mimic produced by plants that activates a bacterial quorum-sensing regulator. Sci. Signal. 9, ra1 (2016). [Abstract] M.-T. Matsoukas, Á. Aranguren-Ibáñez, T. Lozano, V. Nunes, J. J. Lasarte, L. Pardo, M. Pérez-Riba, Identification of small-molecule inhibitors of calcineurin-NFATc signaling that mimic the PxIxIT motif of calcineurin binding partners. Sci. Signal. 8, ra63 (2015). [Abstract]


The assessment of teachers' exposure to noise in primary schools was carried out on the basis of: questionnaire studies (covering 187 teachers in 3 schools), noise measurements at the teachers' workplaces, measurements of the school rooms acoustic properties (reverberation time and speech transmission index STI in 72 classrooms), analysis of statistical data regarding hazards and occupational diseases in the education sector. The studies have shown that noise is the main factor of annoyance in the school environment. Over 50% of questioned teachers consider noise as annoying and near 40% as very annoying or unbearable. A-weighted equivalent continuous sound pressure levels measured in classrooms, teacher rooms and common rooms are in the range of 58-80 dB and they exceed 55 dB (criteria of noise annoyance). The most frequently reported subjective feelings and complaints (over 90%) are: growth of psychical and emotional tension, irritation, difficulties in concentrating, hoarseness, cough. Noise in schools is also a harmful factor. High A-weighted equivalent continuous sound pressure levels ranging from 80 to 85 dB, measured in corridors during pauses and in sports halls, can cause the risk of hearing damage among PE teachers and persons oversensitive to noise. The latter concerns both teachers and pupils. High background noise levels (55-65 dB) force teachers to raise their voice. It can lead to the development of an occupational disease - chronic voice disorders due to excessive vocal effort lasting for at least 15 years. In the education sector 785 new cases of this disease were reported only in 2008. Poor acoustics in classrooms (reverberation time ranging from 0.8 to 1.7 s, STI<0.6 in 50% of classrooms) have an adverse influence on speech reception and make the teaching and learning processes difficult.


To characterize the phenotypic associations of driver genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we identify 11 consensus driver genes across six HCC cohorts and 1,494 samples in total. The consensus driver genes include TP53, CTNNB1, ALB, AXIN1, RB1, ARID1A, RPS6KA3, ACVR2A, NFE2L2, CDKN2A and HNF1A. Integrative analysis of driver mutations, copy number variations and transcriptomic data reveals that these are associated with majority (63%) of the mRNA transcriptome, but only a small fraction (9%) of miRNAs. Genes associated with TP53, CTNNB1, ARID1A and HNF1A mutations contribute to four most densely connected clusters of biological pathways. Phenotypically, these driver genes are significantly associated with patients' overall survival. Some driver genes are significantly linked to HCC gender and age disparities. CTNNB1, ALB and TP53 have higher relative risks (RR=1.2, 1.1 and 1.1) in males. Oppositely, AXIN1, which encodes axin-1, a component of the beta-catenin (encoded by CTNNB1) destruction complex has higher RR (1.6) in females. RB1 mutations are more frequent in younger patients (RR=1.3). This study consolidates a group of consensus driver genes in HCC, which collectively show vast impacts on the phenotypes. These driver genes may warrant as valuable therapeutic targets of HCC.


This paper describes a framework for generating easily verifiable code to solve convex optimization problems in embedded applications by transforming them into equivalent second-order cone programs. In embedded applications, it is critical to be able to verify code correctness, but it is also desirable to be able to rapidly prototype and deploy high-performance solvers for different problems. To balance these two requirements, we propose a code generation system that takes high-level descriptions of convex optimization problems and generates code that maps the parameters in the original problem to data in an equivalent second-order cone program, which is then solved by a single, external solver that can be verified once and for all. A novel aspect is that we restrict the parameters in the original problem to only appear in affine functions, which lets us map the parameters to problem data without performing any floating point operations. As a result, the generated code is lightweight, fast, and trivial to verify. The approach thus marries the benefits of high-level parser/solvers with custom, high-performance, high-reliability solvers for embedded applications.


Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have grown in popularity for research and education, overcoming challenges associated with fixed wing and ground robots. Unfortunately, extensive physical testing can be expensive and time consuming because of short flight times due to battery constraints and safety precautions. Simulation tools offer a low barrier to entry and enable testing and validation before field trials. However, most of the well-known simulators today have a high barrier to entry due to the need for powerful computers and the time required for initial set up. In this paper, we present OpenUAV, an open source test bed for UAV education and research that overcomes these barriers. We leverage the Containers as a Service (CaaS) technology to enable students and researchers carry out simulations on the cloud. We have based our framework on open-source tools including ROS, Gazebo, Docker, PX4, and Ansible, we designed the simulation framework so that it has no special hardware requirements. Two use-cases are presented. First, we show how a UAV can navigate around obstacles, and second, we test a multi-UAV swarm formation algorithm. To our knowledge, this is the first open-source, cloud-enabled testbed for UAVs. The code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/Open-UAV.


There are various reasons why architecture students should be involved in both the design and construction of small but full-size buildings. The projects described in this paper engage students in the full range of issues in the realization of a well-resolved design vision, from beginning the client relationship through to the completion of a small 10sq.m building on site. The projects benefit all involved, providing not just educational outcomes for the students, but useful facilities for community organizations. The paper describes the Timber Technology course at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland, where students design and construct shelters for schools. The shelters' timber parts are typically made by digitally controlled machinery. Different modes of learning are involved, including structural theory, design and construction. The paper examines how Multiple Intelligence Theory by Dr Howard Gardner of Harvard University explains the various learning experiences received by the students.


Concept cartoons can be used to diagnose misconceptions and stimulate discussion of basic concepts and phenomena. However, the teacher can also present a cartoon and then ask students to think of experiments to further investigate the phenomenon shown in the cartoon. Our experience is that students from age 9–18 very quickly come with creative ideas and start investigations. That is, of course, only the beginning. The teacher will have to follow the work of the students closely and help them to develop their investigation skills and critical thinking. In the workshop you will experience how to start an investigation with the cartoon and then we will focus on how to use formative assessment to improve the work of students.


Robust and distributionally robust optimization are modeling paradigms for decision-making under uncertainty where the uncertain parameters are only known to reside in an uncertainty set or are governed by any probability distribution from within an ambiguity set, respectively, and a decision is sought that minimizes a cost function under the most adverse outcome of the uncertainty. In this paper, we develop a rigorous and general theory of robust and distributionally robust nonlinear optimization using the language of convex analysis. Our framework is based on a generalized 'primal-worst-equals-dual-best' principle that establishes strong duality between a semi-infinite primal worst and a non-convex dual best formulation, both of which admit finite convex reformulations. This principle offers an alternative formulation for robust optimization problems that may be computationally advantageous, and it obviates the need to mobilize the machinery of abstract semi-infinite duality theory to prove strong duality in distributionally robust optimization. We illustrate the modeling power of our approach through convex reformulations for distributionally robust optimization problems whose ambiguity sets are defined through general optimal transport distances, which generalize earlier results for Wasserstein ambiguity sets.


Two ancient symbols—public opinion and the middle class— have nearly always been associated in some degree. Public opinion has stood, first of all, for participation in the government of a society. Such participation has raised the issue of the quality of opinion or the quality of the participation in the government of res populi. From the time of the Greeks at least, the middle class has been regarded by certain conservatives, or let us say, Aristotelians, as having moderate, intelligent, and balanced opinion. Though public opinion and the middle class idea have been often associated, they have each had different and divergent lines of emergence; different theoretical problems have been presented, and some of this development is to be outlined here. Yet at the tense moments of the eighteenth-century revolution, the French Revolution and its children, they were joined together in close doctrinal union at the height of an historical crisis.


"What is truth?" has long been the philosophical question par excellence. The Nature of Truth collects in one volume the twentieth century's most influential philosophical work on the subject. The coverage strikes a balance between classic works and the leading edge of current philosophical research. The essays center around two questions: Does truth have an underlying nature? And if so, what sort of nature does it have? Thus the book discusses both traditional and deflationary theories of truth, as well as phenomenological, postmodern, and pluralist approaches to the problem. The essays are organized by theory. Each of the seven sections opens with a detailed introduction that not only discusses the essays in that section but relates them to other relevant essays in the book. Eleven of the essays are previously unpublished or substantially revised. The book also includes suggestions for further reading. Contributors: Linda Martin Alcoff, William P. Alston, J.L. Austin, Brand Blanshard, Marian David, Donald Davidson, Michael Devitt, Michael Dummett, Hartry Field, Michel Foucault, Dorothy Grover, Anil Gupta, Martin Heidegger, Terence Horgan, Jennifer Hornsby, Paul Horwich, William James, Michael P. Lynch, Charles Sanders Pierce, Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, F.P. Ramsey, Richard Rorty, Bertrand Russell, Scott Soames, Ernest Sosa, P.F. Strawson, Alfred Tarski, Ralph C. Walker, Crispin Wright.


The interaction of incomplete markets and sticky nominal wages is shown to magnify business cycles even though these two features – in isolation – dampen them. During recessions, fears of unemployment stir up precautionary sentiments which induces agents to save more. The additional savings may be used as investments in both a productive asset (equity) and an unproductive asset (money). But even a small rise in money demand has important consequences. The desire to hold money puts deflationary pressure on the economy, which, provided that nominal wages are sticky, increases wage costs and reduces firm profits. Lower profits repress the desire to save in equity, which increases (the fear of) unemployment, and so on. This is a powerful mechanism which causes the model to behave differently from both its complete markets version, and a version with incomplete markets but without aggregate uncertainty. In contrast to previous results in the literature, agents uniformly prefer non-trivial levels of unemployment insurance.


The gamma unit is used to irradiate a target within the brain. During such a treatment many parameters, including the number of shots, the coordinates, the collimator size and the weight associated with each shot, affect the amount of dose delivered to the target volume and to the surrounding normal tissues. Hence it is not easy to determine an appropriate set of these parameters by a trial and error method. For this reason, we present here an optimization method to determine mathematically those parameters. This method is composed of two steps: firstly, a quasi-Newton method is used to deal with the continuous variables such as position and weight of shots; the result obtained at the end of this step then serves as the initial configuration for the next step, in which a simulated annealing method is applied to optimize all the aforementioned parameters. Application of the proposed methods to two examples shows that our optimization algorithm runs in a satisfactory way.


In this study, the authors introduce a highly efficient reversible data hiding system. It is based on dividing the image into tiles and shifting the histograms of each image tile between its minimum and maximum frequency. Data are then inserted at the pixel level with the largest frequency to maximise data hiding capacity. It exploits the special properties of medical images, where the histogram of their non-overlapping image tiles mostly peak around some grey values and the rest of the spectrum is mainly empty. The zeros (or minima) and peaks (maxima) of the histograms of the image tiles are then relocated to embed the data. The grey values of some pixels are therefore modified. High capacity, high fidelity, reversibility and multiple data insertions are the key requirements of data hiding in medical images. The authors show how histograms of image tiles of medical images can be exploited to achieve these requirements. Compared to the data hiding method applied to the whole image, the authors' scheme can result in 30-200% capacity improvement and still with better image quality, depending on the medical image content. Additional advantages of the proposed method include hiding data in the regions of non-interest and better exploitation of spatial masking.


This study addresses 5 unresolved issues in the neuropsychology of antisocial behavior using a community sample of 325 school boys in whom neurocognitive measures were assessed at age 16-17 years. Antisocial behavior measures collected from age 7-17 years were cluster analyzed and produced 4 groups: control, childhood-limited, adolescent-limited, and life-course persistent. Those on the lifecourse persistent path and also on the childhood-limited path were particularly impaired on spatial and memory functions. Impairments were independent of abuse, psychosocial adversity, head injury, and hyperactivity. Findings provide some support for the life-course persistent versus adolescent-limited theory of antisocial behavior and suggest that (a) neurocognitive impairments are profound and not artifactual and (b) childhood-limited antisocials may not be free of long-lasting functional impairment.


The reproductive cycles of the bivalves Ensis macha (Molina, 1782), Tagelus dombeii (Lamarck, 1818), and Mulinia edulis (King, 1831) were studied at six sites in southern Chile (38-43°S) from November 1996 to December 1997. Samples of E. macha came from three subtidal shallow depths; those of T. dombeii from two subtidal depths and one intertidal site; and samples of M. edulis originated in one subtidal shallow depth and one intertidal site. Thirty specimens were collected monthly for standard histological analyses. Water samples were also collected to determine salinity, temperature, and chlorophyll a content. In general, the reproductive cycles of the three species were characterized by long spawning periods, beginning during late spring-summer. In some cases, that period extended during autumn-winter until the following spring. The gonads of most of the populations showed quite short recovery periods, with the exception of populations located farther south, which needed more time to begin a new cycle. Comparison of subtidal versus intertidal populations showed that the gonad stages developed more slowly for the latter populations. The earlier results show that variability exists in the timing of gametogenic cycles of E. macha, T. dombeii, and M. edulis along the coast of southern Chile. No significant relationship was found between seasonal variability of reproductive stages and seasonal variability of water characteristics. Among these characteristics, water temperature and chlorophyll a content were the most important. Potential fecundity varied geographically in E. macha and T. dombeii, whereas, in general, no variability was observed in mean sizes of oocytes of the three species. These results must be taken into account when management plans are designed; thus, the timing of the gametogenic cycles of bivalves of economic importance must be studied along their full geographic ranges.


This is the only book in the After Effects market to focus exclusively on the creation of visual effects, and is a one-stop resource for anyone who wants in-depth explanations that demystify the realm of visual effects and how they were created, thanks to veteran author Mark Christiansen's friendly and accessible style. A thoroughly packed, informative read, this masterful guide focuses on explaining the essential concepts, features, and techniques that are key to creating seamless movie-quality visual effects. Readers will learn how to put After Effects to work to create the shots they need. Users who are comfortable with After Effects will find a helpful review of After Effects fundamentals--managing footage, viewing and editing layers, animating type, and more--so they can learn how to work smarter and more efficiently. Readers of all levels will learn core techniques for effects compositing: color matching, keying, rotoscoping, motion tracking, and emulating the camera. The final section of the book delves into creative explorations, demonstrating actual effects that readers might want to re-create. Readers will also find comprehensive coverage of all that's new in this upgrade. Throughout the book, beautiful full-color examples demonstrate what's possible, while the companion DVD offers plenty of sample footage and dozens of demos of the most useful After Effects plug-ins. .


Since its inception in the 1960s, probabilistic seismic‐hazard analysis (PSHA) (Cornell, 1968; McGuire, 2004, 2008) has emerged as the principal methodology for assessing the potential hazard posed by earthquake ground motion in a broad range of contexts. Seismic‐hazard analysis serves different needs coming from a wide spectrum of users and applications. These may encompass engineering design, assessment of earthquake risk to portfolios of assets within the insurance and reinsurance sectors, engineering seismological research, and effective mitigation via public policy in the form of urban zoning and building design code formulation.

End users of seismic‐hazard analyses from different sectors of industry may often have specific requirements in terms of the types of results and, as a consequence, in terms of the methodologies preferred for calculation. A large majority of studies for the analysis of structural and geotechnical systems require the calculation of a target response spectrum derived from PSHA results (e.g., Lin et al. , 2013). Often the calculation of uniform hazard spectra is performed in conjunction with a disaggregation analysis, which in the simplest cases highlights the combinations of magnitude and distances, providing the largest contributions to a specific level of hazard for a particular intensity measure type, such as the spectral acceleration for a period close to the fundamental elastic period of a structure (Bazzurro and Cornell, 1999; Pagani and Marcellini, 2007). In contrast, in the insurance sector it is more common to use stochastic methodologies (e.g., Weatherill and Burton, 2010; Musson, 2012) to produce multiple realizations of the likely earthquake activity that may be pertinent to a portfolio of assets. Monte Carlo–based methods can provide results in a form that offers a practical comparison with past events and can better account for the temporal and spatial variability of earthquake shaking occurring on a distributed set …


The ability to automatically convert natural language text into a knowledge base may open the door to great new opportunities, including question-answering on the Web, detection of trends and sentiments in social media, and perhaps even intelligent agents which understand our language. Today, however, there does not exist a system that can reliably convert text into a knowledge base, and the task turns out to be far more difficult than it appears. A key challenge is relation extraction – detecting semantic relationships between entities mentioned in text. Most successful approaches use supervised machine learning, but creating the required labeled training examples has proven too expensive for constructing Web-scale knowledge bases.
This dissertation shows that we can greatly reduce the amount of human effort necessary to create relation extractors by leveraging a richer set of user interactions, some of which use more accurate models of weak supervision from a database. Specifically, this dissertation presents (1) a weakly supervised technique based on multi-instance learning which allows relations to overlap, (2) a weakly supervised technique that allows learning from only a few instances per relation by dynamically inducing relation-specific lexicons, (3) an approach for developing extraction rules interactively, and (4) a technique which synergistically pairs weakly supervised relation extraction with extraction validation by an online community. Our proposed techniques make it possible to create a high-quality relation extractor in under one hour, moving us closer towards automatically constructing Web-scale knowledge-bases.


In this work a dynamic control allocation approach is presented for an automotive vehicle yaw stabilization scheme. The stabilization strategy consists of a high level module that deals with the vehicle motion control objective (yaw rate reference generation and tracking), a low level module that handles the braking control for each wheel (longitudinal slip control and maximal tire-road friction parameter estimation), and an intermediate level dynamic control allocation module that generates the longitudinal slip reference for the low level brake control module and commands front wheel steering angle corrections. The control allocation design is such that the actual torque about the yaw axis tends to the desired torque calculated form the high level module, with desirable distribution of control forces satisfying actuator constraints and minimal control effort objectives. Conditions for uniform asymptotic stability are given for the case when the control allocation includes adaptation of the tire-road maximal friction coefficients, and the scheme has been implemented in a realistic non linear multi body vehicle simulation environment. The simulation cases show that the yaw control allocation strategy stabilizes the vehicle in extreme maneuvers where the non linear vehicle yaw dynamics otherwise (without active braking or active steering) becomes unstable in the sense of over- or under steering. The control allocation implementation is efficient and suitable for low cost automotive electronic control units.


Angular correlations of heavy-flavour and charged particles in high-energy proton–proton collisions are sensitive to the production mechanisms of heavy quarks and to their fragmentation as well as hadronisation processes. The measurement of the azimuthal-correlation function of prompt D mesons with charged particles in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √ s = 13 TeV with the ALICE detector is reported, considering D0, D+, and D∗+ mesons in the transverse-momentum interval 3 < pT < 36 GeV/c at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5), and charged particles with pT > 0.3 GeV/c and pseudorapidity |η| < 0.8. This measurement has an improved precision and provides an extended transverse-momentum coverage compared to previous ALICE measurements at lower energies. The study is also performed as a function of the charged-particle multiplicity, showing no modifications of the correlation function with multiplicity within uncertainties. The properties and the transverse-momentum evolution of the nearand awayside correlation peaks are studied and compared with predictions from various Monte Carlo event generators. Among those considered, PYTHIA8 and POWHEG+PYTHIA8 provide the best description of the measured observables. The obtained results can provide guidance on tuning the genera-


Backscatter in a high-Q microresonator incoherently couples counterpropagating whispering-gallery modes. Coherent mode coupling between two co-resonant microresonators results in behavior analogous to electromagnetically induced transparency. Including backscatter in a numerical model of coupled-resonator induced transparency can lead to significant modification of this behavior and may explain some experimental observations.


The Cretaceous Fossil Bluff Group on Alexander Island, on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, contains a remarkably complete record of the evolution of a forearc basin. The latest (Aptian–Albian) stages in the basin history are recorded in a well-exposed succession at the southern end of the island, where a series of nunataks provide exposure of over a thousand metres of shallow marine and continental deposits. An abrupt facies shift from upper shoreface marine facies to braided fluvial deposits is interpreted as the record of regional uplift in the volcanic arc. This event coincides with the Palmer Land deformation event which may be related to a mid-Cretaceous mantle plume. A gradual reduction in depositional gradient and a return to shallow marine conditions towards the top of the exposed section is interpreted as a consequence of erosion of the arc and subsidence within the basin. Palaeocurrent data and facies distributions indicate that the continental deposits formed a fan-shaped wedge at least 30 km in diameter in the southern part of the forearc basin. Fossil plants indicate that the palaeoclimate was warm and humid throughout the period of deposition. Mapping and facies analysis of the upper part of the Fossil Bluff Group in southern Alexander Island has resulted in a revision of the stratigraphic terminology for the area. The Triton Point Member, formerly part of the Neptune Glacier Formation, has been raised to formation status and two members (the Citadel Bastion Member and the Coal Nunatak Member) and a Bed (the Upper Coal Nunatak Sandstone Bed) are defined here within the formation.


In Sweden, equestrian is the second largest sport for young girls in the age of 13-20 years, compared to the number of practitioners. For the last twenty years, more and more riders are interested in taking part in competitions. For children the most common is to start competing with a pony.
During the last ten years, some big changes have been introduced in the Swedish pony sport, particularly in show jumping. It all began in 2005 when a Swedish newspaper reported that children, competing in equestrian, had the possibility to win money. This fact was not accorded with the Swedish Sports Confederations guidelines for children and sports. As a result the Swedish Equestrian Federation decided to no longer approve for prize money in pony sports. In 2011 the rules for the Swedish Championship, in showjumping, changed to style judging for category B (the smallest ponies, ridden by the youngest children). And the allowed age for pony riders changed in 2015, from 18 to 20, splitting the riders in two groups based on age, up to 16 years and 17-20 years.
All these changes lead to a lot of discussions, often made public in media and most of the times held by the rider's parents. The fact that parents, and other adults, are committed and involved in their children's sports is important and a prerequisite. Without parents there would be no shows for the young riders. But sometimes the parent's vision does not comply with the young rider's vision. The aim of this study was to find out how young riders experience actions from parents and other adults involved in the pony sport.
Eight riders, in the age 15-20, all girls, with experience from show jumping, were interviewed. The interviews were based on focus groups, with four riders in each focus group. The interviews were held in familiar places for the riders, and the members of each focus group known each other before the interview.
The interests in horses are often an interest for the whole family. The riders appreciate that their parents are so involved in their sport, and that the common interest makes it possible for them to spend a lot of time together. But it can also be difficult to have their parents present during a show, for example when the parent gives feedback in the warm up or right after a bad performance. And sometimes the riders find it difficult to live up to their parents expectations. They can all tell one or two stories from different shows, where they have watched parents putting too much pressure on their children.
This is one of the first studies on parental involvement in equestrian. The result tells that it is not uncommon that young riders feel pressure from their parents. Even though more research on the subject is necessary to get a full picture on young riders experience on parental pressure.


We consider the role of preceding and following phonological context in the variable marking of monosegmental English plural and 3rd-person singular morphemes by African-American English speaking children (Study 1), and by younger children speaking a more mainstream variety of American English (Study 2). Results of both studies show that overt marking was favored in utterance-final contexts and with plurals, consistent with prior research findings. However, preceding consonant contexts favored the overt marking of the morphemes, contrary to prior research findings. We discuss these findings in terms of syllable organization and morphophonological complexity, and offer suggestions for future research to further delineate the specific contributions of phonological context to the overt marking of morphemes in child language.


Cross-domain sentiment analysis (CDSA) helps to address the problem of data scarcity in scenarios where labelled data for a domain (known as the target domain) is unavailable or insufficient. However, the decision to choose a domain (known as the source domain) to leverage from is, at best, intuitive. In this paper, we investigate text similarity metrics to facilitate source domain selection for CDSA. We report results on 20 domains (all possible pairs) using 11 similarity metrics. Specifically, we compare CDSA performance with these metrics for different domain-pairs to enable the selection of a suitable source domain, given a target domain. These metrics include two novel metrics for evaluating domain adaptability to help source domain selection of labelled data and utilize word and sentence-based embeddings as metrics for unlabelled data. The goal of our experiments is a recommendation chart that gives the K best source domains for CDSA for a given target domain. We show that the best K source domains returned by our similarity metrics have a precision of over 50%, for varying values of K.


A road curb detection algorithm for a 3D sensor, e.g. a dense stereo camera, is presented in this paper. The road curb detection is based on a digital elevation map. Different techniques and coordinate systems for mapping the height values are compared theoretically and by simulating a different quality of ego motion data. Furthermore we introduce a new approach of finding road curbs in an elevation map, which is based on a calculation of the most probable path. Using an elevation map the curb height can be calculated in an additional step. For evaluation we use highly accurate reference sensors and compare the detected curbs to a ground truth. Additionally we introduce a novel criteria to describe the quality of an elevation map and discuss the results. The road detection algorithm works in real-time and has a position accuracy of about 10 cm and an height error of about 1.5 cm.


This study was specifically designed to collect information on women's health and their experiences of violence in Jamaica. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to collect the data, including a household survey, in-depth interviews and focus group sessions. The household survey resulted in 1,340 respondents, with a household response rate of 85.5 percent and an individual response rate of 65.9 percent. The questionnaire covered, inter alia, general and reproductive health; attitudes towards gender roles; experiences with intimate partner violence; impacts and coping with intimate partner violence; and experiences with non-partner violence.


We report the first detailed optical and electrical characterizations of the nematic (N) phase of a banana liquid crystal, i.e., pretilt angle, and optical and dielectric anisotropies, and point out the difference from those of rodlike molecules. The pretilt angle measurements using a conventional crystal rotation method show that the pretilt angle is very small (less than 1°) even in cells with a polyimide film yielding a high pretilt angle like 8° for calamitic molecules. We also measured the birefringence Δn in the N phase as a function of temperature and estimated the orientational order parameter S. The medium shows a small negative dielectric anisotropy in the N phase and the anisotropy becomes large in the B2 phase mainly because of the tilt of the molecules from the layer normal.


MOTIVATION
We introduce GMAP, a standalone program for mapping and aligning cDNA sequences to a genome. The program maps and aligns a single sequence with minimal startup time and memory requirements, and provides fast batch processing of large sequence sets. The program generates accurate gene structures, even in the presence of substantial polymorphisms and sequence errors, without using probabilistic splice site models. Methodology underlying the program includes a minimal sampling strategy for genomic mapping, oligomer chaining for approximate alignment, sandwich DP for splice site detection, and microexon identification with statistical significance testing.

RESULTS
On a set of human messenger RNAs with random mutations at a 1 and 3% rate, GMAP identified all splice sites accurately in over 99.3% of the sequences, which was one-tenth the error rate of existing programs. On a large set of human expressed sequence tags, GMAP provided higher-quality alignments more often than blat did. On a set of Arabidopsis cDNAs, GMAP performed comparably with GeneSeqer. In these experiments, GMAP demonstrated a several-fold increase in speed over existing programs.

AVAILABILITY
Source code for gmap and associated programs is available at http://www.gene.com/share/gmap

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
http://www.gene.com/share/gmap.


A 68 year old male with a history of classical Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and precursor T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) received an allogenic stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor to treat his ALL. He developed acute graft-vs.-host-disease (GVHD) which was treated by increasing immunosuppressants. KS, which had been in remission for years, then recurred aggressively. Tapering immunosuppressants to treat the KS was not possible because of GVHD. Chemotherapy could not be used because of its adverse effect on the bone marrow so soon after transplant. The only option was to use antiviral therapy (cidofovir) to lower the level of HHV-8, the virus that is a causal factor in KS. Although HHV-8 levels were significantly reduced, new KS lesions continued to appear. The patient developed acute kidney injury after the third cidofovir infusion and died from renal and respiratory failure soon afterward. Post-mortem revealed extensive internal KS lesions involving multiple organs. Based on the experience with this patient, allogenic transplant using an unrelated donor has been found to be a questionable treatment modality for classical KS patients requiring treatment for another condition such as leukemias and lymphomas. Post-transplant immunosuppression is required to prevent GVHD, and if it occurs, immunosuppression may have to be increased. Aggressive KS developed in this patient under these conditions, and could not be controlled by tapering immunosuppressants. Although the risk of GVHD is lower for an allogenic transplant using a matched sibling instead of an unrelated donor, the risk of both GVHD and aggressive KS both developing may still be unacceptably high.Alternative treatment modalities for these patients might include continuing with chemotherapy and autologous transplant. These avoid GVHD and lower the need for long term immunosuppression, but have a much higher risk of relapse of the underlying malignancy. Still, they could be preferable to an allogenic transplant for such cases.