Abstract Video recording of prey deliveries to nests is a new technique for collecting data on raptor diet, but no thorough comparison of results from traditional methods based on collections of prey remains and pellets has been undertaken. We compared data from these 3 methods to determine relative merits of different methods for assessing raptor diet as part of a study of the breeding-season diet of northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) in Southeast Alaska. We applied these methods to 5 nests during each of the northern goshawk breeding seasons of 1998 and 1999 and identified 1,540 prey from deliveries, 209 prey from remains, and 209 prey from pellets. The proportions of birds and mammals varied among techniques, as did relative proportions of prey groups and age groups. Prey remains and pellets gave the least-similar diet descriptions. Over 2-day intervals during which data were collected using all 3 methods, prey-delivery data gave more individual prey and prey categories than the 2 other sources of information. We found that prey were not directly tracked in either prey remains or pellets compared with prey delivery videography. Analysis of prey-delivery videography provided the most complete description of diet, and we recommend that studies attempting to describe diet use this technique, at least as part of their methodology.


IN A NUMBER of important areas of Newar social life notions of complementarity and status parity are accorded almost as much weight as are those of hierarchy and inequality.' I here suggest that though the kind of hierarchy that defines relations between the major sub-divisions of Newar society may be described as of the 'pure' caste variety, that is to say, based on clearly articulated notions of inherited ontological differences in human worth, within such sub-divisions hierarchy approximates more closely to that found typically in kin-based societies, that is to say, based on notions of differential seniority, age and achievement. Hierarchy of this latter kind, which derives primarily from the world of kinship and descent, differs fundamentally from the 'pure' hierarchy of the caste variety. Whereas the hierarchy of castes may be accurately described as a highly institutionalized form of both ontological and social inequality, the kin-based variety also incorporates notions of social equivalence and common ontology.


This authoritative compendium brings together the latest thinking of leading academics, actuaries, and insurance and development professionals in the microinsurance field. The result is a practical, wideranging resource that provides the most thorough overview of the subject to date. The book covers the many aspects of microinsurance in detail including product design, marketing, premium collection, and governance. It also discusses various institutional arrangements available for delivery including the community-based approach, insurance companies owned by networks of savings and credit cooperatives, and microfinance institutions. The roles of key stakeholders are also explored and the book offers insightful strategies for achieving the right balance between coverage, costs, and price. Protecting the Poor is essential reading for insurance professionals, practitioners, and anyone involved with offering insurance to low-income persons.


Biogeographical patterns of late Palaeozoic rugose coral genera are analysed for the Lower Carboniferous (Visean), early Lower Permian (Asselian/Sakmarian), late Lower Permian (Qixian) and early Upper Permian (Maokoan) of East Asia. Boundaries to the biotic regions are defined to coincide with tectonically significant suture zones to test rival hypotheses about the plate tectonic reconstruction of that region. Three numerical techniques are employed to cluster areas on the basis of shared endemic taxa; parsimony analysis of endemism, principal coordinates analysis and single linkage cluster analysis. Geographical variation in overall diversity is also considered. These results are compared with empirically derived patterns based on other groups of organisms. Major conclusions from this work are as follows, (i) During the Carboniferous and early Permian, the Cathaysian region (North and South China Blocks, Tarim Terrane, Kunlun Terrane, Qiangtang Terrane) formed one cohesive biotic region lying tropically or subtropically; it did not start to fragment until the Upper Permian, (ii) This region was biotically isolated from Central Asia at least during the Carboniferous and Lower Permian, (iii) The southern boundary to the Cathaysian region does not coincide with a single suture zone through time, nor is it sharply defined. Instead there appears to be a gradual faunal impoverishment southwards across the Tibetan Plateau. This implies that faunal ranges are controlled only by the prevailing global climatic regime and not by a geographical barrier, (iv) The Lhasa and Himalaya Terranes shared a similar fauna until the mid-Permian, when a marked faunal disjunction developed coincident with the Zangbo Suture, (v) For terrestrial floras, the barrier to biotic exchange between the North China Block and Angaraland started to break down in the late Permian. It follows that no major oceanic break ('Palaeotethys') can be recognized within the Cathaysian region during the late Palaeozoic on palaeontological evidence. This region then formed an integral part of the Gondwanaland craton, extending up into broadly tropical latitudes, and did not become separated from it until the late Lower Permian. The Tienshan-Yinshan Suture is the most likely site of 'Palaeotethys', which appears to have occupied a broadly equatorial latitude. Combined with evidence on the ages of the various Asian sutures, this raises significant problems for those who demand a large ocean in their Carboniferous to early Permian palaeogeographical reconstructions of this region.


Tips rule!Have you ever noticed that in just about every Mac book, the author will include a couple of tips in each chapter (you'll usually find them in the sidebar, or at the bottom of the page in a tinted box). Sometimes it's a shortcut, a faster way to do something, or a clever workaround that just makes your life easier. People really love those tips, but there's only one problem--there's never enough of them.That's why Scott Kelby, bestselling author and Editor-in-Chief of Mac Design magazine came up with the idea to create a book that's nothing but "sidebar" tips. That's right--this entire book, cover-to-cover is packed with nothing but those cool inside secrets, slick workarounds, undocumented shortcuts, and sneaky little tricks that will make you faster, better, and have more fun using Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger).Nothing but the tips!You're not going to find complicated descriptions on how to configure a network, how to partition a hard drive, or lines and lines of scary-looking UNIX code--instead this book is nothing but cool tips--and it's all written in Scott's casual, plain English style so you can start using these tips today. Plus, this book does the standard "sidebar tip" one better by including a clear screen capture with nearly every tip, so you can see exactly how it's all done.Not just tips. Killer tips!To be in this book, every tip has got to be a "Killer Tip" (the kind of tip that makes you nod and smile, then call all your Mac buddies to tune them up with your new-found power). Scott's a total "hip hound" (in fact, it was Scott who created the entire smash-bestselling "Killer Tips" book series), and he doesn't hold anything back--it's all here from the man who literally "wrote the book" on cool productivity tips.If you like doing things the easy way, if you like getting twice the work done in half the time, and if you get a kick out of knowing all the "inside secrets and undocumented shortcuts" that will wow your friends and coworkers, you're absolutely going to love this book.


Abstract  Halyomorpha halys (Stål), commonly known as the brown marmorated stink bug, is an invasive and economically damaging insect pest in U.S. agriculture. To date, H. halys has been found in 42 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The stink bug feeds on more than 300 plant species, many of which are important agricultural crops including apples, peaches, persimmons, blackberries, sweet corn, field corn, and soybeans. As a species that has the potential to cause significant economic damage, having H. halys colonies maintained in a laboratory setting for research purposes is critical. While cannibalism occurs in both predatory and phytophagous insects, only two phytophagous pentatomids have been reported to be cannibalistic. After observing cannibalistic oophagy within our H. halys colony, we sought to identify the effects of this behavior on the hatch rate of eggs. Laboratory-reared H. halys egg masses were exposed to either second- or fourth-instar H. halys nymphs for varying lengths of time, after which the proportion of eggs hatched was determined. Both the number of days an egg mass was exposed to nymphs and the age of the nymphs affected egg mortality and hatch rate. This knowledge is useful to researchers attempting to maintain healthy, stable populations of H. halys in laboratory colonies and aids in developing a more successful rearing protocol. Those managing a H. halys colony should be aware that cannibalism may occur in H. halys and take appropriate measures to minimize the impact of this behavior.


The Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium package has all the tools you need to create cool Web pages with interactive content, animations, 3D images, and more. Learn to use them all in Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium All-in-One For Dummies. Nine handy minibooks cover: Adobe Creative Suite Basics Photoshop CS4 Illustrator CS4 Dreamweaver CS4 Fireworks CS4 Soundbooth Flash CS4 Acrobat 9.0 Contribute CS4 They show you the fastest, easiest ways to use each tool and how to put the pieces together for a Web experience with wow. You can: Get a handle on the common commands and similarities among all the programs Edit images with Photoshop, adjust resolution and size, and explore 3D Work with vector tracing, create graphic styles and templates, and learn Illustrator shortcuts Learn how Dreamweaver CS4 lets you create interactive features without coding Create cool rollover effects and great graphics with Fireworks Use Soundbooth to add sound effects, create and edit audio tracks, and more Build Flash animations that allow for user interaction Collaboratively author, review, and publish content with Contributeyou dont even need to know HTML Youll discover whats new in the Photoshop workspace; how to create Web images, rollovers, image maps, and slices; how PDF files can save you money; how to manage your site with Contribute; and more. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium All-in-One For Dummies helps you get the most from this great software suite.


Racked with fever, virtually broke and earning a precarious living through sending back to London the plumes of beautiful birds, Wallace (1823-1913) ultimately became one of the most heroic and admirable of all scientist-explorers. Whether living with Hill Dyaks or hunting Orang-Utans or sailing on a junk to the unbelievably remote Aru islands, Wallace opens our eyes to a now long vanished world. "Great Journeys" allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.


The main aim of the present work was the investigation of the mechanism of the thresholdless hysteresis free electrooptical mode-V-shaped mode - in the chiral smectic C* phase of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystals. The present work was based on the assumption that the crucial factor for the V-shaped mode is a form of the electric field applied to the FLC layer. Such a specific electric field is the consequence of the dynamic voltage divider formed by the alignment/insulating layers and a FLC layer. To prove this hypothesis, experimental and computer modelling techniques were utilized. In the experiments we investigated a number of FLC mixtures which parameters (spontaneous polarization, viscosity, tilt angle, response time) are varied in a broad range. This was to demonstrate that the V-shaped mode is a general effect in FLC's and , namely, the dynamic voltage divider plays a crucial role. First, we demonstrated that the FLC cell is real dynamic voltage divider. For that purpose it was demonstrated that the capacitance of the FLC layer of the standard cell filled with the mixture Felix 015/000 (Clarian) decreases at more than 10 times upon the application of the external electric field, whereas other parameters (mainly resistivity of both of the layers) are constant. To confirm our assumption about the role of the dynamic voltage divider, we modelled its electrical parameters by attaching external elements a) the capacitor in series to modify the alignment layers capacitance and b) the parallel resistivity to modify the FLC layer conductivity. As a result, we observed the dramatic increase of the value of the inversion frequency. In addition the external capacitance allowed us to measure the voltage applied to the FLC layer. As it was expected, this voltage has a different form and amplitude than the total one. When we plotted the electrooptical response as a function of this voltage on one side and the total voltage on the other side we saw that the electooptical response is really thresholdless and hysteresis free, but only for the latter case. For the former one it has a typical hysteresis loop. It means that the V-shaped switching is rather apparent but not a real effect. The further investigations were implemented in order to understand the role of the parameters of the cell (FLC and alignment/insulating layers thickness) for the performance of the V-shaped mode. For that purpose, we fabricated the wedge FLC cell filled with FLC 438 and having the Al2O3 insulating layers. It was shown that the dependence of the inversion frequency on the FLC layer thickness had two distinguished regions: a) from 0.8 ?m to 1.8 ?m, this function went down as it was predicted by the Pikin theory, b) from 0.6 ?m to 0.8 ?m it increased, this can be explained by the local variation of the parameters of the cell. During the same time, the saturation voltage gradually decreases, which was also in accordance with Pikin's theory. Moreover, the computer modelling confirmed these experiments. The influence of the FLC conductivity on the V-shaped mode was investigated in detail. First, we selected the FLC mixture with low spontaneous polarization (Felix 015/000) and a thick commercially available EHC cell (2 ?m). According to any previous theory, the existence of the V-shaped under these conditions is impossible. After that, this mixture was doped with TCNQ at two different concentrations (0.01% and 1 %) and infiltrated in the cells. Our experiments showed that the inversion frequency for the strongly doped mixture is ten times higher than that for slightly doped one and it is equal to 26 Hz. This result proves that the conductivity of the FLC's plays a crucial role in the V-shaped switching.


Abstract Genomes and their precursor nucleotides are highly exposed to reactive oxygen species, which are generated both as byproducts of oxygen respiration or molecular executors in the host defense, and by environmental exposure to ionizing radiation and chemicals. To counteract such oxidative damage in nucleic acids, mammalian cells are equipped with three distinct enzymes. MTH1 protein hydrolyzes oxidized purine nucleoside triphosphates, such as 8-oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine triphosphate and 2-hydroxy-2′-deoxyadenosine triphosphate (2-OH-dATP), to the corresponding monophosphates. We observed increased susceptibility to spontaneous carcinogenesis in MTH1-null mice, which exhibit an increased occurrence of A:T→C:G and G:C→T:A transversion mutations. 8-Oxoguanine (8-oxoG) DNA glycosylase, encoded by the OGG1 gene, and adenine DNA glycosylase, encoded by the MUTYH gene, are responsible for the suppression of G:C to T:A transversions caused by the accumulation of 8-oxoG in the genome. Deficiency of these enzymes leads to increased tumorigenesis in the lung and intestinal tract in mice, respectively. MUTYH deficiency may also increase G:C to T:A transversions through the misincorporation of 2-OH-dATP, especially in the intestinal tract, since MUTYH can excise 2-hydroxyadenine opposite guanine in genomic DNA and the repair activity is selectively impaired by a mutation found in patients with autosomal recessive colorectal adenomatous polyposis.


Service function chaining (SFC) allows the instantiation of an ordered
set of service functions and subsequent "steering" of traffic through
them. Service functions provide an specific treatment of received
packets, therefore they need to be known so they can be used in a
given service composition via SFC. This document discusses the need
for service function discovery mechanisms and propose some solutions
for sfc-aware nodes to discover available service functions in fog
environments.


Einstein's general theory of relativity has withstood 100 years of testing and will soon be facing one of its toughest challenges. In a few years we expect to be entering the era of the first direct observations of gravitational waves. These are tiny perturbations of space-time that are generated by accelerating matter and affect the measured distances between two points. Observations of these using the laser interferometers, which are the most sensitive length-measuring devices in the world, will allow us to test models of interactions in the strong field regime of gravity and eventually general relativity itself. I apply the tools of Bayesian inference for the examination of gravitational wave data from the LIGO and Virgo detectors. This is used for signal detection and estimation of the source parameters. I quantify the ability of a network of ground-based detectors to localise a source position on the sky for electromagnetic follow-up. Bayesian criteria are also applied to separating real signals from glitches in the detectors. These same tools and lessons can also be applied to the type of data expected from planned space-based detectors. Using simulations from the Mock LISA Data Challenges, I analyse our ability to detect and characterise both burst and continuous signals. The two seemingly different signal types will be overlapping and confused with one another for a space-based detector; my analysis shows that we will be able to separate and identify many signals present. Data sets and astrophysical models are continuously increasing in complexity. This will create an additional computational burden for performing Bayesian inference and other types of data analysis. I investigate the application of the MOPED algorithm for faster parameter estimation and data compression. I find that its shortcomings make it a less favourable candidate for further implementation. The framework of an artificial neural network is a simple model for the structure of a brain which can "learn" functional relationships between sets of inputs and outputs. I describe an algorithm developed for the training of feed-forward networks on pre-calculated data sets. The trained networks can then be used for fast prediction of outputs for new sets of inputs. After demonstrating capabilities on toy data sets, I apply the ability of the network to classifying handwritten digits from the MNIST database and measuring ellipticities of galaxies in the Mapping Dark Matter challenge. The power of neural networks for learning and rapid prediction is also useful in Bayesian inference where the likelihood function is computationally expensive. The new BAMBI algorithm is detailed, in which our network training algorithm is combined with the nested sampling algorithm MULTINEST to provide rapid Bayesian inference. Using samples from the normal inference, a network is trained on the likelihood function and eventually used in its place. This is able to provide significant increase in the speed of Bayesian inference while returning identical results. The trained networks can then be used for extremely rapid follow-up analyses with different priors, obtaining orders of magnitude of speed increase. Learning how to apply the tools of Bayesian inference for the optimal recovery of gravitational wave signals will provide the most scientific information when the first detections are made. Complementary to this, the improvement of our analysis algorithms to provide the best results in less time will make analysis of larger and more complicated models and data sets practical.


Inter-cultural communication became especially important in Taiwan after the government decided to develop Taiwan into an Asian-Pacific economic center. This economic decree resulted in communication abilities becoming a primary expectation for all Taiwanese citizens. Knowing that, an appropriate place to begin to assess or improve the ability to communicate is to examine the educational system, and that review is the subject of this study. The researcher conducted a telephone survey that collected data from a random sample of 150 elementary English teachers throughout Taiwan to investigate teacher's practices and beliefs toward Elementary English Education in Taiwan. A fivepoint Likert-type scale was used to measure respondents' practices and beliefs. Data was analyzed using SPSS according to the seven preselected variables: teachers' qualifications and training, materials, teaching methods, assessment polices and practices, content/curriculum of English enclosures, environment, and culture. The open-ended questions revealed the survey participants found teachers hope to implement in the programs for increasing the number of qualified teachers, adding teacher qualification policies, and dividing students according to their English abilities. In addition, the teachers reflected that MOE made a smart move by implementing the program immediately upon realizing the importance of the English learning needs among elementary students.


The United States has engaged with Indigenous nations on a government-to-government basis via federal treaties representing substantial international commitments since the origins of the republic. The first treaties sent to the Senate for ratification under the Constitution of 1789 were treaties with Indigenous nations. Treaties with Indigenous nations provided the means by which approximately one billion acres of land entered the national domain of the United States prior to 1900, at an average price of seventy-five cents per acre – the United States confiscated or claimed another billion acres of Indigenous land without compensation. Despite subsequent efforts of American federal authorities to alter these arrangements, the weight of evidence indicates that the relationship remains primarily one of a nation-to-nation association. Integration of the history of federal relations with Indigenous nations with American foreign relations history sheds important new light on the fundamental linkages between these seemingly distinct state practices from the beginnings of the American republic.


Strongly fault secure logic networks are defined and are shown to include totally self-checking networks as a special case. Strongly fault secure networks provide the same protection against assumed faults as totally self-checking networks, and it is shown that when stuck-at faults are assumed a strongly fault secure network can be easily modified to form a totally self-checking network. A class of strongly fault secure networks is defined in terms of network structure. This structural definition of these "path fault secure" networks facilitates their design and implies other interesting properties. Finally, networks that are strongly fault secure with respect to single stuck-at faults are discussed. A large class of these networks is shown to be easily characterized, and network behavior under nonmodeled faults is considered.


OBJECTIVE: To perform a critical evaluation of the more recent H1 antihistamines and the various terms used to describe them, based on a review of evidence on their role in the treatment of allergic disorders. SOURCES: Original articles, reviews and consensus documents published from 1998 to 2006 and indexed in the MEDLINE and PubMed databases. Keyword: antihistamines. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS: Second-generation antihistamines differ from first-generation ones because of their elevated specificity and affinity for peripheral H1 receptors and because of their lower penetration of the central nervous system (CNS), having fewer sedative effects as a result. Whilst second-generation antihistamines are in general better tolerated than their predecessors, some adverse effects, principally cardiotoxicity, have been observed with some of them. Over the last 20 years, new compounds with different pharmacokinetic properties have been synthesized. The majority of these exhibit anti-inflammatory properties that are independent of their action on the H1 receptor. More recent improvements, generally in the form of active metabolites, led to the use of the term third-generation antihistamines. This term emerged spontaneously, with no clear definition of its meaning or clinical implications, creating great confusion among healthcare professionals. CONCLUSIONS: On the basis of the evidence on H1 antihistamines, none of them deserve the title"third-generation antihistamine." As the Consensus Group on New Generation Antihistamines concluded, to merit this definition, a new class of antihistamines would have to demonstrate distinct clinical advantages over existing compounds and fulfill at least three prerequisites: they should be free from cardiotoxicity, drug interactions and effects on the CNS.


Alastair Cook forced his way into the record books in 2006, becoming one of the few England players to score a hundred on debut. By going on to become the only Englishman to hit seven Test centuries before his twenty-third birthday, Alastair found himself in the company of the greatest players in cricketing history. Starting Out is Alastair's personal account of this speedy climb to stardom. Equally gifted at music, he opted for cricket as a schoolboy and the young left-hander broke record after record as he progressed to become the first-choice opener for Essex. Now an integral part of the England team with over forty caps, Alastair is perfectly placed to describe the highs and lows of life within the England cricket camp during one of the most exciting and turbulent periods of their history, both on and off the field. Updated to include the full story of the 2009 Ashes series, Starting Out amounts to a fascinating insight into life as one of the rising stars of English cricket.


Abstract In this paper we critically examine and seek to extend Philip Kitcher's Ethical Project to weave together a distinctive naturalistic conception of how ethics came to occupy the place it does in our lives and how the existing ethical project should be revised and extended into the future. Although we endorse his insight that ethical progress is better conceived of as the improvement of an existing state than an incremental approach towards a fixed endpoint, we nonetheless go on to argue that the metaethical apparatus Kitcher constructs around this creative metaethical proposal simply cannot do the work that he demands of it. The prospect of fundamental conflict between different functions of the ethical project requires Kitcher to appeal to a particular normative stance in order to judge specific changes in the ethical project to be genuinely progressive, and we argue that the virtues of continuity and coherence to which he appeals can only specify rather than justify the normative stance he favors. We conclude by suggesting an alternative approach for ethical naturalists that seems to us ultimately more promising than Kitcher's own.


Solving real-world problems using symbolic planning often requires a simplified formulation of the original problem, since certain subproblems cannot be represented at all or only in a way leading to inefficiency. For example, manipulation planning may appear as a subproblem in a robotic planning context or a packing problem can be part of a logistics task. In this paper we propose an extension of PDDL for specifying semantic attachments. This allows the evaluation of grounded predicates, the change of fluents and the calculation of durations by externally specified functions. Furthermore, we describe a general schema of integrating semantic attachments into forward-chaining planning systems and report on our experience of adding this extension to the planner Temporal Fast Downward. Finally, we present some preliminary experiments using semantic attachments.


Two-dimensional fluorescence, lasing, and stimulated Raman scattering images of a hollow-cone nozzle spray are observed. The various constituents of the spray, such as vapor, liquid ligaments, small droplets, and large droplets, are distinguished by selectively imaging different colors associated with the inelastic light-scattering processes.


Recent research into human origins has largely focused on deducing past events and processes from current patterns of genetic variation. Some human genes possess unexpectedly low diversity, seemingly resulting from events of the late Pleistocene. Such anomalies have previously been ascribed to population bottlenecks or selection on genes. For four species of matrilineal whale, evidence suggests that cultural evolution may have reduced the diversity of genes which have similar transmission characteristics to selective cultural traits, through a process called cultural hitchhiking. Cultural evolution is characteristic of human societies and so should be considered as a potential determinant of human genetic diversity. A stochastic simulation of gene and cultural dynamics in an array of hunter-gatherer tribes shows that cultural selection has the potential to severely reduce genetic diversity if: inter-tribe gene flows are reasonably low ( ~0.3–3%/generation; and fitness is changed more by cultural innovation within a tribe than cultural assimilation from neighboring tribes. Thus cultural hitchhiking may explain low diversity and short coalescence times in mitochondrial and, especially, Y-linked human genes.


The Staphylococcus aureus cidABC and lrgAB operons represent the founding members of a large, highly conserved family of genes that span multiple kingdoms of life. Despite the fact that they have been shown to be involved in bacterial PCD during biofilm development, very little is known about the molecular/biochemical functions of the proteins they encode. ABSTRACT The Staphylococcus aureus cidABC and lrgAB operons encode members of a well-conserved family of proteins thought to be involved in programmed cell death (PCD). Based on the structural similarities that CidA and LrgA share with bacteriophage holins, we have hypothesized that these proteins function by forming pores within the cytoplasmic membrane. To test this, we utilized a "lysis cassette" system that demonstrated the abilities of the cidA and lrgA genes to support bacteriophage endolysin-induced cell lysis. Typical of holins, CidA- and LrgA-induced lysis was dependent on the coexpression of endolysin, consistent with the proposed holin-like functions of these proteins. In addition, the CidA and LrgA proteins were shown to localize to the surface of membrane vesicles and cause leakage of small molecules, providing direct evidence of their hole-forming potential. Consistent with recent reports demonstrating a role for the lrgAB homologues in other bacterial and plant species in the transport of by-products of carbohydrate metabolism, we also show that lrgAB is important for S. aureus to utilize pyruvate during microaerobic and anaerobic growth, by promoting the uptake of pyruvate under these conditions. Combined, these data reveal that the CidA and LrgA membrane proteins possess holin-like properties that play an important role in the transport of small by-products of carbohydrate metabolism. IMPORTANCE The Staphylococcus aureus cidABC and lrgAB operons represent the founding members of a large, highly conserved family of genes that span multiple kingdoms of life. Despite the fact that they have been shown to be involved in bacterial PCD, very little is known about the molecular/biochemical functions of the proteins they encode. The results presented in this study reveal that the cidA and lrgA genes encode proteins with bacteriophage holin-like functions, consistent with their roles in cell death. However, these studies also demonstrate that these operons are involved in the transport of small metabolic by-products of carbohydrate metabolism, suggesting an intriguing link between these two seemingly disparate processes.


Research into interprofessional collaboration (IPC) has predominantly focused on health care and specialized care settings, but there is an increasing interest in interprofesssional 'teams around the child' in community-based settings. We conducted a realist synthesis of empirical studies into IPC between youth professionals, often in regular community settings, to explore barriers and facilitators of IPC. Included studies were coded with an elaborated scheme to chart the focus of studies and to identify moderators and context-mechanism-outcome configurations of IPC. Professional and normative integration was the main focus of the included studies. Most studies emphasized the challenges of IPC in practice, like unclear roles of self and others, lack of trust and inadequate communication. Other perceived barriers are exclud ing others in the planning of interventions, taking ownership of plans (vs. sharing) and different modes of communication. Interprofessional education, co-location of staff, acting as a mediator in the team, organising formal and informal meetings, conflict resolutions, self-sacrifice, and conceptualizing practice were perceived as facilitators of IPC. Future IPC research into community-based settings should include all professional stakeholders and the children and their families to evaluate outcomes at both interprofes sional and clinical level.


Expression of chiA and v-cath RNA and enzyme activity in wild-type Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) was compared with that of recombinant AcMNPV viruses reprogrammed for expression of the endogenous chiA. To establish a baseline for our recombinant AcMNPV studies, we compared, for the first time, the temporal expression profiles of both AcMNPV chiA transcription and translation simultaneously. The rate of intracellular chitinase accumulation during AcMNPV infection followed the same pattern observed for chiA transcription but was delayed by about 6 h. Replacement of 21 nucleotides containing the native late chiA and v-cath promoters with a selectable polh-EGFP cassette was sufficient to eliminate expression of both chiA and v-cath. Viruses were generated that express chiA from either the late p6.9 or very late polh promoters of AcMNPV, replacing the native chiA promoter. There was a marked difference in the temporal chiA transcription profiles from the native, p6.9 and polh promoters, resulting in respective specific activities of chitinase at 48 h p.i. of 62, 160 and 219 mU (mg lysate total protein)(-1). Based on temporal analysis of v-cath transcription by Northern blot, AcMNPV v-cath was transcribed from 9 h p.i. in Sf21 cells. However, expression of v-cath RNA or enzyme from a reconstructed v-cath promoter in the chiA-reprogrammed viruses was not detected at 48 h of virus replication. Reprogramming for increased chitinase (and putatively cathepsin) expression with native baculovirus promoters might provide a means for designing environmentally benign biological insecticides.


We develop and analyse a composite 'CT3D' tetrahedral element consisting of an ensemble of 12 four-node linear tetrahedral elements, coupled to a linear assumed deformation de-ned over the entire domain of the composite element. The element is designed to have well-de-ned lumped masses and contact tractions in dynamic contact problems while at the same time, minimizing the number of volume constraints per element. The relation between displacements and deformations is enforced weakly by recourse to the Hu–Washizu principle. The element arrays are formulated in accordance with the 'assumed-strain' prescription. The formulation of the element accounts for fully non-linear kinematics. Integrals over the domain of the element are computed by a -ve-point quadrature rule. The element passes the patch test in arbitrarily distorted con-gurations. Our numerical tests demonstrate that CT element has been found to possess a convergence rate comparable to those of linear simplicial elements, and that these convergence rates are maintained as the near-incompressible limit is approached. We have also veri-ed that the element satis-es the Babu@ ska–Brezzi condition for a regular mesh con-guration. These tests suggest that the CT3D element can indeed be used reliably in calculations involving near-incompressible behaviour which arises, e.g., in the presence of uncon-ned plastic Aow. Copyright ? 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


New legislation adopting a tough criminal stance on the crimes of corruption and bribery responds to the need for strengthening Chinese anti-corruption work. The ninth amendment to the Chinese Criminal Law Code, which adds life imprisonment without parole or commutation, has received broad support from all sectors of society. The aim of the amendment, as stated by the legislature, is to safeguard judicial fairness and prevent criminals convicted of the most serious corruption offences from having their prison sentences shortened through commutation. This stated legislative aim is not acceptable. Whether from the perspective of deterrence or alternative measures to the death penalty, the approach of adding life imprisonment without parole or commutation in order to punish the corrupt is not ideal. This article argues that, given the particular nature of crimes of corruption and given the disadvantages of life imprisonment without parole or commutation, restraint in the use of the death penalty does not mean that life imprisonment has to be used as an alternative measure. Moreover, the death penalty with a two-year reprieve is sufficient for realising retribution and prevention as aims of punishment.


Background: Latinas are disproportionately burdened with cervical cancer, with incidence rates of 11.5 per 100,000 and the second highest mortality rates of 4 per 100,000, yet they have the lowest participation rates in national cervical cancer screening programs. Psychosocial factors have been identified as one of the main barriers for low cancer screening rates among Latinas. In this study, we explored cultural cancer screening beliefs (CCSB), acculturation levels, past Pap screening behavior and intent to undergo Pap tests among Mexican farmworker women in South Georgia. Methods: We screened 252 Latinas using our eligibility criteria which specified 1) Mexican immigrant, 2) no Pap test in over 2 years, 3) 20 women who lived >10 years in the U.S. and 20 women who lived ≤10 years in the U.S, and 4) had a farmworker background. We recruited a quota sample of 40 Mexican immigrant women meeting eligibility criteria. We administered questionnaires to collect demographic information and Pap screening behaviors. We also used the Acculturation Scale for Mexican Americans (ASMA) to measure acculturation behaviors and the Cultural Cancer Screening Scale (CCSS) scale (20-item scale with 5 constructs).We assessed the internal consistency of the scales and constructs using Cronbach9s alphas. Differences between the groups of women given their prior screening behaviors or intent to undergo screening with respect to each of cultural cancer screening or acculturation scale measures, respectively, were assessed using the Kruskal-Wallis rank test. When the test was statistically significant, post-hoc pairwise comparisons were performed. Results: Out of 40 women, 7(18%) never had a Pap; 2 (5%) had it less than 3 years ago, and 31 (78%) had it more than three years ago. Thirty-two (80%) women expected to have their next Pap smear 1 yr. or less; 4 women (10%) >1 not more than 3 years; 1 (3%) woman reported that it was their first time getting a Pap smear, and 3 (8%) women did not respond. With the exception of sociocultural deterrents (alpha = 0.67), internal consistency of cancer screening fatalism (alpha = 0.94), symptomatic deterrents (alpha = 0.95), catastrophic disease expectations (alpha = 0.87), and negative beliefs about health professionals (alpha = 0.77) were high. Internal consistency of CCSS was 0.91. The estimated mean score for acculturation was 0.98 (SD =0.77; range: 0 – 2). Women who reported never having a Pap test compared to women who reported having their Pap test more than three years ago were more likely to consider health professionals performing screening examinations to not be trustworthy (mean ranks=32 and 18 respectively, p= 0.003). Women who reported never having a Pap test compared to women who reported having their Pap test more than three years ago were more likely to believe that health professionals inappropriately touch their patients during screening examinations (mean ranks 33 and 18, respectively; p = 0.001). Other associations were not statistically significant. The difference between the groups of women based on their intent to undergo future Pap tests and each of cultural cancer screening scale measures was not significant. No statistically significant associations were found between acculturation measures and past or intended screening behavior of women, respectively. Conclusions: The two psychosocial factors associated with lack of past screening behavior reflect the negative beliefs about health professionals among Mexican immigrant farmworker women. Despite variability in time spent living in the U.S. and scores on an acculturation scale, these variables were not related to past screening or intent to screen. Other factors, such as access to health care, discrimination, and transportation issues need to be explored in future studies to understand their relationship with low screening rates in Latina subpopulations such as low-income Mexican farmworkers. Citation Format: Lisa C. Watson, Yelena Tarasenko, Moya Alfonso, Claudia Reyes-Garcia, John S. Luque. Latina farmworkers: Relationships between Pap screening behaviors, acculturation, and cultural cancer screening scales. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Sixth AACR Conference: The Science of Cancer Health Disparities; Dec 6–9, 2013; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2014;23(11 Suppl):Abstract nr B54. doi:10.1158/1538-7755.DISP13-B54


The telling and understanding of stories is a universal part of human experience. If we could reproduce even part of the process inside a computer, it could expand the possibilities for human-computer interaction enormously. We argue that in order to do so, we need to model narrative at three levels of abstraction, in terms of physics, characters and plot. Taking four scenes from the children's story The Tale of Peter Rabbit, we describe some of the challenges they present for modeling this kind of "story-sense reasoning".


The Gothic Revival movement in architecture was intimately entwined with 18th- and 19th-century British cultural politics. By the middle of the 19th century, architects and theorists had transformed the movement into a serious scholarly endeavor, connecting it to notions of propriety and "truth," particularly in the domain of religious architecture. Simultaneously, reform within the Church of England had worked to widen the aesthetic and liturgical appeal of "correct" gothic forms. Coinciding with these developments, both architectural and religious, was the continued expansion of Britain's empire, including a renewed urgency by the English Church to extend its mission beyond the British Isles. In this groundbreaking new study, G. A. Bremner traces the global reach and influence of the Gothic Revival throughout Britain's empire during these crucial decades. Focusing on religious buildings, he examines the reinvigoration of the Church of England's colonial and missionary agenda and its relationship to the rise of Anglican ecclesiology, revealing the extraordinary nature and extent of building activity that occurred across the British world.


A Mossy Veil Land plants have two distinct generations: a haploid gametophyte responsible for producing the gametes, and a diploid sporophyte, that in most land plants is the dominant form observed. However, in mosses, a basal land plant, the primary biomass is composed of the haploid gametophyte. Sakakibara et al. (p. 1067; see the Perspective by Friedman) analyzed loss-of-function mutants of KNOX2 (class 2 KNOTTED1-LIKE HOMEOBOX) genes in the moss Physcomitrella patens. Mutant plants exhibit apospory, where fertilization apparently occurs, but the normal sporophyte phase is bypassed and instead a diploid structure resembling a haploid gametophyte is produced. The results suggest that KNOX2 regulates the alternation of generations by suppressing the haploid body plan in the diploid phase. A transcription factor enables land plants to alternate between haploid and diploid status in successive generations. [Also see Perspective by Friedman] Unlike animals, land plants undergo an alternation of generations, producing multicellular bodies in both haploid (1n: gametophyte) and diploid (2n: sporophyte) generations. Plant body plans in each generation are regulated by distinct developmental programs initiated at either meiosis or fertilization, respectively. In mosses, the haploid gametophyte generation is dominant, whereas in vascular plants—including ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms—the diploid sporophyte generation is dominant. Deletion of the class 2 KNOTTED1-LIKE HOMEOBOX (KNOX2) transcription factors in the moss Physcomitrella patens results in the development of gametophyte bodies from diploid embryos without meiosis. Thus, KNOX2 acts to prevent the haploid-specific body plan from developing in the diploid plant body, indicating a critical role for the evolution of KNOX2 in establishing an alternation of generations in land plants.


ABSTRACT A good knowledge of the seasonal variation during normal years is of fundamental importance for analyses of the effects of wars, famines, epidemics, or similar privations on births and deaths. In this study we consider data from the Åland Islands (Finland) for 1650–1950. During the period 1650–1793 there are subperiods with missing data for all parishes, and consequently the total data for the Åland Islands for this period have to be estimated using available data. For the period 1794–1950 the registered data seem to be complete and reliable, but the war year 1809 shows a marked deficit of births. During the last decades of the 19th century the number of births increases markedly and after that shows a strong decrease. After the 1930s births increase again. To allow seasonality comparisons between the Åland Islands as a whole and its subregions, we base our studies on seasonal indexes. There is a markedly decreasing temporal trend in the seasonal variation of births for the Åland Islands as a whole, but the general pattern remains mainly the same, having two peaks, one in March-April and one in September-October. For the period 1901–1950 the seasonal variation almost disappeared. The strength of the seasonal variation in births shows regional differences, but the general pattern is mainly the same. The outermost parish, Kökar, an isolate of its own, shows the strongest seasonal variation in births. The annual number of deaths shows some marked peaks, especially in the war year 1809. For both sexes there are marked peaks in 1809, indicating that the deaths were mainly caused by epidemic diseases rather than by killing in battles. For mortality a decreasing trend in the seasonal variation is observed during 1650–1750, but after 1751–1800 the strength of seasonality shows an increasing trend and a sinusoidal pattern.


Our general understanding and appreciation of the multifaceted protective actions of vitamin D have recently entered a new era. It is now becoming recognised that its most active molecular form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (also known as calcitriol), may offer protection against a variety of radiation- and otherwise-induced damages. As will be discussed, vitamin D carries out its protective actions by a host of mechanisms, among these being cell cycle regulation and proliferation, cellular differentiation and communication, Programmed Cell Death (PCD) (apoptosis and autophagy) and antiangiogenesis. As will be proposed and developed, vitamin D, with its preventative/ameliorating actions, should be considered among the prime (if not the primary) nonpharmacological agents that offer protection against sublethal low radiation damage and, in particular, against radiation-induced cancer.


Providing appropriate methods to facilitate the analysis of time-oriented data is a key issue in many application domains. In this paper, we focus on the unique role of the parameter time in the context of visually driven data analysis. We will discuss three major aspects - visualization, analysis, and the user. It will be illustrated that it is necessary to consider the characteristics of time when generating visual representations. For that purpose, we take a look at different types of time and present visual examples. Integrating visual and analytical methods has become an increasingly important issue. Therefore, we present our experiences in temporal data abstraction, principal component analysis, and clustering of larger volumes of time-oriented data. The third main aspect we discuss is supporting user-centered visual analysis. We describe event-based visualization as a promising means to adapt the visualization pipeline to needs and tasks of users.


Network Management, MIBs and MPLS: Principles, Design and Implementation is the definitive guide to managing and troubleshooting enterprise and service provider networks. This in-depth tutorial from networking expert Stephen Morris delivers clear and concise instruction on networking with MIBs, SNMP, MPLS, and much more. Coverage includes SNMPv3, network management software components, IP routing, HP Openview Network Node Manager, NMS software components, among other key techniques and tools for managing large network systems.


Authoritative interpretation of Scripture in the early church In the early church the Lord committed his message to his apostles and this was faithfully propagated by those appointed by the apostles and later by their successors, the bishops. The apostolic preaching, Scripture, the interpretation of Scripture and tradition was seen as the heritage of the church. The Church Fathers maintained that the true interpretation of Scripture was to be found in the church alone. The heretics used verses out of their context and emphasized isolated texts to the exclusion of others. They therefore did not have the skopos ekklesiastikos (Athanasius) or sensus scripturae (Hilary) and in this sense a much quoted text by Augustine and the famous dictum of Vincent of Lerins must be interpreted.


Background/Context How students develop a capacity to examine and imagine the past impacts how they think about the present and imagine the future. This study contributes to research about teachers' beliefs and practices about teaching United States history through cultural encounters and nontraditional historical narratives. Although there is a small but growing body of research concerning teachers' beliefs and practices regarding historical thinking and inquiry, little research exists on teachers' beliefs and practices about history teaching from a cultural encounters perspective. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The study examined teachers' perspectives of a professional development effort designed to promote their students' historical thinking within a cultural encounters curriculum. This curriculum emphasized the role of perspective and historical narrative. The research questions were: (1) What were the K–12 participants' specific examples of lessons and units related to historical cultural encounters? (2) How did they conceptualize their teaching for historical cultural encounters? (3) How did they begin to reconceptualize their views about a cultural encounters history curriculum? Research Design The study used a qualitative design to examine perceptions of 21 K–12 teachers. A conceptual framework about history teacher thinking and reconceptualization informed the design. Three forms of data— surveys, individual interviews, and lesson plans—were collected about teachers' perceptions of practice and their applications of those perceptions in their classrooms. The surveys were administered throughout the 3-year program cycle and at the final evening colloquium. Interviews were conducted with the 21 teachers approximately 3 months after the end of the project. Lesson plans that teachers constructed at different points in the professional development project were analyzed after its conclusion. Conclusions/Recommendations The teachers in this study were each situated differently in their perceptions of a cultural encounters approach to teaching history. Their conceptual frameworks toward history, grounded in their own professional knowledge and teaching expertise, were an important factor in how they reconceptualized their views of curriculum. In addition, their discussions of both intended and enacted teaching provided a forum within which to experiment and try to solve emergent challenges and dilemmas that grew from their perceived changes in their views of practice. As they examined and in some cases began to teach history through often-excluded historical stories and voices, they confronted in differing ways their own stories and narratives in relation to traditional U.S. history.


Abundant supplies of fresh water are obtained from deep artesian wells In all parts of Kleberg County. The water is derived from a stratum of sand, 10 to 150 feet thick, which usually has been referred to the Goliad sand but possibly may be at the base of the LIssie formation. The top of the sand Is reached at depths of around 400 feet In the western part of the county, 600 to 700 feet In the locality of Klngsville, and 1,250 to 1,450 feet In the eastern part of the county. Small supplies of fairly good water are obtained from shallow wells In very sandy areas in the eastern and southern parts of the county, but with this exception, so far as known, no good water has been obtained In the county either above or below the artesian fresh-water horizon. The fresh artesian water Is supplied by percolation from the outcrop of the water-bearing sands, which is many miles to the west In Jim Wells, Brooks, and Duval Counties. The estimated average replenishment from the outcrop to the wells of Kleberg County is 3,000,000 gallons a day. Available Information regarding most of the wells of the county Is given in the table of well records. Of the 43V wells listed 34 are not In use, and the water supplies from the others are used as follows: , Entirely for stock, 151; domestic use and stock, 241; public supply, 3; Industrial supply, 2; Irrigation, 4; railroad supply, 1; unrecorded, 1. About 80 are flowing wells In the southern and eastern parts of the county. It is concluded that the total withdrawal from those wells averages about 4,000,000 gallons a day. Some water is wasted, but the amount is not very great. There has been a general decline In the artesian head throughout the county. The largest decline has been in the western part of the county and In the vicinity of Klngsville, where the water level is now 15 to 45 feet below the surface in wells that once had a strong flow. Wells continue to flow in the southern and eastern parts of the county, but under less head than formerly. There was a small net loss in head in most parts of the county between the winters of 1932-33 and 1934-35, indicating that the decline is slowly continuing. Originally the artesian pressure In the fresh-water sands was much higher than the pressure In the overlying saltwater sands, but this relation has been reversed in the western part of the county and In the district around Klngsville, as a result of the decline in artesian head. Water obtained from the fresh-water horizon is comparatively fresh in the western and central parts of the county but contains a somewhat higher proportion of chlorides toward the Gulf. Samples obtained from about 100 wells, located for the most part in the central part of the county, showed a. higher chloride content than is normal for the freshwater beds in the area. These wells are believed in large part to be defective and to be admitting salt water. This was demonstrated and the leaks located in several wells that were tested. No evidence was found of salt-water contamination by percolation through the formations, however. The leaky wells should be repaired, If practicable, or sealed to prevent them from contaminating the fresh-water sand. The chances of leaks developing can be largely eliminated If the wells are properly drilled and provided with casing of good grade, and the casing is adequately seated.


Italian-style salami batter (formulated with pork shoulder) was inoculated with ca. 7.0 log CFU/g of either Salmonella or Listeria monocytogenes. Salami links (55-mm cellulose casings) were fermented at 30 degrees C for 24, 40, or 72 h and then dried to target moisture/protein ratios (MPRs) of 1.9:1 or 1.4:1. Links were sampled after fermentation (24, 40, and 72 h) and after combined fermentation-drying treatments (MPRs of 1.9:1 and 1.4:1 for all fermentation periods), and microbiological and proximate analyses were performed at each sampling. Pathogen populations were enumerated by direct plating on selective agar and by an injured-cell recovery method. When enumerated by the injured-cell recovery method, Salmonella populations were reduced by 1.2 to 2.1 log CFU/g after fermentation alone (24 to 72 h) and by 2.4 to 3.4 log CFU/g when fermentation was followed by drying. Drying to an MPR of 1.4:1 was no more effective than drying to an MPR of 1.9:1 (P > 0.05). When enumerated directly on selective media, Salmonella populations were reduced from 1.6 to 2.4 log CFU/g and from 3.6 to 4.5 log CFU/g for fermentation alone and fermentation followed by drying, respectively. L. monocytogenes populations were reduced by <1.0 log CFU/g following all fermentation and combined fermentation-drying treatments, regardless of the enumeration method. These results suggest that the Italian-style salami manufacturing process evaluated does not adequately reduce high pathogen loads. Processors may thus need to consider supplemental measures, such as raw material specifications and a final heating step, to enhance the lethality of the overall manufacturing process.


Now practicing with Kilpatrick & Cody in its Atlanta, Phyllis F. Granade prepared th article when she was Legal Consultant to the Medical College of Georgia Telemedicine Center. She has written on telemedicine for the Western Governors' association and has been published in Telemedicine Journal. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia and the University of South Carolina Law School. Co-author Jay H. Sanders is Executive Director of the Medical College of George Telemedicine Center, where he is a professor of medicine and surgery. He is a prominent scholar in the field of telemedicine and health care technology. TELEMEDICINE is the use of telecommunications technology to provide health care services to patients who are distant from a physician or other health care provider. While this may include the simple use of a telephone or fax machine, it is more frequently thought of as the use of the high tech--audio-visual equipment, electronic stethoscopes, high resolution cameras, etc.--linked by fiber optic cables between physicians and remote patients. Telemedicine now brings specialized, more affordable health care to underserved areas. In the near future, it will benefit society at large. At least 35 five states currently have telemedicine projects underway, and business within the private sector is burgeoning.(1) However, there are a number of legal impediments to implementing telemedicine on an interstate basis. The very nature of telemedicine lends itself to interstate usage, and in this manner specialists from across the nation provide advice to distant patients and their physicians. Because of the innovative nature of telemedicine, different in many ways from the traditional practice of medicine, new legal questions must be answered. Malpractice concerns are foremost to many telemedicine practitioners; they worry about their liability for advice rendered via telemedicine. These practitioners need to know the status of their relationship with these distant patients. Does the telemedicine practitioner form a physician-patient relationship with these patients that might provide grounds for a malpractice claim? Or does the patient's local physician retain complete control, as well as responsibility and potential liability, for the diagnosis and treatment of the patient? Because of the "cutting edge" nature of telemedicine, there are no cases directly on point at the present time. Instead, one must look at case law applicable to telemedicine by analogy. PHYSICIAN-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP The primary question to ask when any malpractice consideration arises is whether the physician and the patient established a physician-patient relationship. The existence of that relationship establishes a legal tie between the physician and patient. In effect, the patient has contracted with the physician to provide health care services. No written contract is necessary. The physician in turn owes the patient a duty of due care, and this duty entails that the physician must diagnose or treat the patient with the skill and care the patient would expect from his physician. The existence of a physician-patient relationship determines, whether a person receiving medical treatment can bring suit against the physician. If there is no relationship, then there is no duty. Courts continue to emphasize the necessity for the relationship to be established before malpractice can occur.(2) Without an agreement, written or implied, to provide services there is no relationship. To determine if the physician's treatment meets the legal standard of skill and expertise required, the physician's diagnosis and treatment are compared to the course of treatment another physician would provide. The old "community standard" is not the universal standard anymore, and many jurisdictions apply a national standard" of medical skill and knowledge.(3) The premise of the "national standard" is that all medical doctors throughout the United States should possess like skills and medical knowledge within their fields of practice. …


OBJECTIVES
We examined dental care utilization transition dynamics between 2004 and 2006 in the context of changing dental coverage status.

METHODS
We used data from the Health and Retirement Study for persons aged 51 years and older to estimate a multivariable model of dental care use transitions with controls for dental coverage and retirement transitions and other potentially confounding covariates.

RESULTS
We found that Americans aged 51 years and older who lost dental coverage between the 2004 and 2006 survey periods were more likely to stop dental care use between periods, and those who gained coverage were more likely to start dental care use between periods, than those without coverage in both periods.

CONCLUSIONS
Dental coverage transitions and status have a strong effect on transitions in dental care use. Given that retirement is a time when many experience a loss of dental coverage, older adults may be at risk for sporadic dental care and even stopping use, leading to worse dental and potentially overall health.


Abstract
The integration of cognitive radio with e-healthcare systems assisted by wireless body sensor networks (WBSNs) has been regarded as an enabling approach for a new generation of pervasive healthcare services, to provide differentiated quality of service requirements and avoid harmful electromagnetic interference to primary medical devices (PMDs) over the crowded radio spectrum. Due to the sharing spectrum bands with PMDs in e-healthcare scenario using cognitive WBSNs (CWBSNs), efficient transmit power control and optimization strategies for resource-constrained secondary wearable biosensors (SWBs) play a key role in controlling the inter-network interference and improving the energy efficiency. This paper investigates the problem of dynamic power optimization for SWBs in e-healthcare leveraging CWBSNs with practical limitations, e.g., imperfect spectrum sensing and quality of physiological data sampling. We develop a distributed optimization framework of dynamic power optimization via the theory of differential game, by jointly considering utility maximization and quality of physiological data sampling for every SWB, while satisfying the evolution law of energy consumption in SWB's battery. With the non-cooperation and cooperation relations for all SWBs in mind, we transform the differential game model into two subproblems, namely, utility maximization problem and total utility maximization problem. Utilizing Bellman's dynamic programming, we derive a non-cooperative optimal solution for power optimization as a Nash equilibrium point for the utility maximization problem posed by competitive scenario. By exploiting Pontryagin's maximum principle, a cooperative optimal solution is obtained for the total utility maximization problem, wherein all SWBs fully cooperate to obtain the highest total utilities. Building upon the analytical results, the actual utility distributed to each SWB is compared between the non-cooperative and cooperative schemes. Extensive simulations show that the proposed optimization framework is indeed an efficient and practical solution for power control compared with the benchmark algorithm.


The purpose of this document is to set out the technical details for the development of an application that can be used by mental health professionals for monitoring patients. In particular, to monitor the dosages and of patients being prescribed antipsychotic & mood stabilising drugs, by comparing inputted patient data against regulatory guidelines and allowances. The key aspect of this application is that it will allow for a centralised repository of vital patient information that can be accessed by relevant mental health professionals across the Irish health system when required. This is an important aspect of the application because there is currently no central repository in existence that Irish mental health professionals can query when they quickly require data on patients suffering from mental ilness. This application benefits both the patient and health care professional by providing a high level of interactivity that until now has not existed within the Irish mental health system. The combination of a graphical user interface that provides quick access to patient records and the ability to visualise complex data with the help of various chart types improves upon the workflow that currently exists.

The intended customers for this product will be the HSE and private mental health clinics within Ireland. Futhermore, this software application solves the issue of handwritten and decentralised record keeping, and allows for the HSE to more easily carry out audits of patient care within the Irish health system by providing the ability for hospital managers to export reports detailing prescriptions that exceed agreed upon dosing guidelines.

In the "Future Evolution" section of this report I detail the improvements I feel could be made to this concept in order to deliver an enterprise level application that solves the current problem within our health system.


This thesis focuses on archiving cultural legacy of Shona mbira dzaVadzimu in the context of kurova guva and dandaro practices. The study is informed by archive theory which provides insights on how to collect and archive tangible materials. Alongside the archive theory, the study also employs Shelemay's theory which discusses how traditions undergo change as they are transmitted from the past to the present and the role of ethnomusicologists in preserving legacies that are affected by the change. This theory assists in discussing the changes that have taken place in Shona kurova guva practices and how they have led to a decline in the sacred use of mbira dzaVadzimu.
 In order to collect empirical data about kurova guva and mbira dzaVadzimu, an ethnographic paradigm is employed in which participants are selected using purposive sampling technique from a population of all culture bearers, mbira maker and players, pastors and archivists in Gweru urban and Hwedza District. Face to face interviews, field notes, participant observation method and video recordings are used to solicit data about mbira dzaVadzimu and kurova guva ceremony. In this study I argue that while mbira dzaVadzimu has gained popularity within and outside Zimbabwe, the migration of mbira players from rural to urban together with the change in perceptions about mapira ceremonies like kurova guva by the Shona have subsequently led to the decline in the sacred use of the cultural legacy of mbira dzaVadzimu in the Shona cosmology. In order to preserve the legacy an applied action research is embraced to collect and archive tangible materials. The materials which include mbira dzaVadzimu, traditional drums, and hand shakers, traditional objects, still photographs, videos and transcribed mbira songs are preserved in an archive at Midlands State University.
 The study employs yet another type of archiving system in which intangible heritage of the cultural legacy of mbira dzaVadzimu, which include mbira pieces, skills of playing and making the instrument and indigenous knowledge about mbira dzaVadzimu are preserved in living people through mbira performances in matandaro ceremonies and workshops conducted during mbira conferences, symposium and formal teaching of mbira to
 students in schools as a way of transmitting the legacy to the young. The study recommends that government and non-governmental organizations should assist in funding the preservation of the cultural legacy of mbira dzaVadzimu. Annual mbira conferences, symposia and workshops should be organized to create an opportunity for the young to interact with culture bearers and scholars. Institutionalization of material culture through archiving should involve the owners of the materials by constantly allowing them to visit the archive and to explain the use of the materials to people who visit the archive.


This is a clear and concise guide to the life and work of the French intellectual Georges Bataille, best known as the author of the celebrated erotic novel, The Story of the Eye. Benjamin Noys introduces Bataille as a writer out of step with the dominant intellectual trends of his day - surrealism and existentialism - and shows that it was his very marginality that accounted in large part for his subsequent importance for the post-structuralists and the counterculture, in Europe and in the United States. Treating Bataille's work as a whole rather than focusing, as other studies have done, on aspects of his work (i.e. as social theory or philosophy), Noys' study is intended to be sensitive to the needs of students new to Bataille's work while at the same time drawing on the latest research on Bataille to offer new interpretations of Bataille's oeuvre for more experienced readers. This is the first clear, introductory reading of Bataille in English - challenging current reductive readings, and stressing the range of disciplines affected by Bataille's work, at a time when interest in Bataille is growing.


The contents of this project will cover the research and development of a Sensor Module that not only returns some original functions to the Pioneer Robot but also adds an array of more complex sensors. The aim of these sensors is to allow the Pioneer Robot and its remote operator to more accurately view and measure the immediate surroundings.

The development of a Human Machine Interface for the Sensor Module is also achieved in order for the remote operator to more easily understand and modify the properties of the Sensor Module. In line with the control philosophy of the Pioneer Robot, a network of microcontrollers will be used in order to co-ordinate the information required to achieve this goal.

The development of a reliable wireless communications interface between the Pioneer Robot is another important aspect of this project. The creation of this wireless link will allow the Robot to be used for demonstrative purposes by staff and students who do not possess an in-depth knowledge of the underlying electronics or microcontroller code.

The completed system will serve future students as a learning apparatus that can be modified to further their microcontroller knowledge and control system experience. The software and hardware that will be used in this project already exists at Murdoch, and will allow future students the opportunity to interact with more complex and intelligent sensors and networks while using familiar programs and programming languages.


In this paper, an efficient parallel multiplier and accumulator (MAC) unit based on Vedic mathematics is presented. Vedic mathematics utilizes the Urdhva-tiryagbhyam sutra for the multiplier design. The proposed MAC architecture enhances the speed of operation while reducing the gate area and power dissipation. We also achieve improved delay with the help of Vedic encoder followed by the removal of accumulator stage by parallelizing the intermediate results feeding the input. Such pipelining of the midway results, prior to the final adder, has the effect of combining the accumulator stage with the partial product stage of the multiplier. Further, the overall computation speed of MAC unit is elevated by the efficient use of higher order compressors in the merged partial product compression and accumulator (PPCA) architecture. The area, timing and power reports show that, the critical path delay of the proposed design is significantly reduced and it outperforms the existing designs. We report an absolute improvement of 20-30% and 7-18% respectively for the 4-bit and 8-bit Vedic MAC units, in terms of its total circuit power, critical path delay and cell area. The architecture was synthesized using standard 90nm CMOS library and implemented on Altera's Cyclone II series FPGA.


Standard sonata-form practice ca. 1800 was guided by a constellation of norms. One of these was the provision of full closure in the tonic in the recapitulation. In those infrequent cases when this norm was left unaccomplished, one may speak of a nonresolving recapitulation. Some of the most extreme examples are furnished by movements whose recapitulations end emphatically in a nontonic key. The locus classicus is Beethoven's Egmont Overture: the recapitulation of this F-minor piece is diverted to a solidly grounded D major, deferring normative tonal closure into an extended coda. Predecessors may be found in the slow movement of his Piano Trio in G, op. 1, no. 2, and the first movement of Mozart's Quartet in D Minor, K. 173. This article examines this procedure and its larger hermeneutic implications from a variety of angles, along the way introducing concepts of "Sonata Theory," a new mode of sonata analysis developed by the author. Also mentioned are some ramifications of the nonresolving recapitulation for nineteenth-century sonata deformations.


Stereotypic behaviour is characterised as repetitive, topographically invariant, rigid behaviour patterns, often displayed by captive, domestic and laboratory animals. The cause of these behaviours is thought primarily to be related to impoverished or species-atypical living environments, but recent research has outlined a neural phenotype, relating to basal ganglia dopamine physiology, which is common to several species. One species displaying the neural and associated behavioural phenotypes is the Horse. The purpose of this thesis was to explore, through behavioural assays, the behavioural phenotypes associated with endogenous basal ganglia dysfunction as a neural feature of equine oral stereotypy. In the first study, the behavioural effects of one aspect of the neural phenotype – downregualtion of dopamine transmission in the nigrostriatal pathways – were examined. Animals with the medial aspect of the dorsal striatum lesioned have been shown to exhibit learning differences in spatial navigation procedures. Employing two dry-maze procedures, stereotypic and control horses were required to locate food in different locations. No specific differences between the groups were found, but the stereotypic group were found to be less exploratory and tended to adopt 'habitual' response patterns. In the next studies, the behavioural effects of a further feature of the neural phenotype – upregulation of mesoaccumbens dopamine transmission – were examined. Chronic amphetamine exposure leads to a similar neural phenotype, and this offered an interesting hypothesis in the context of the endogenous change reported in stereotypic horses. A Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer task was initially employed, in which horses were first trained in a Pavolvian procedure, and subsequently trained to perform an instrumental response, reinforced by the same food as in the Pavlovian phase. In the transfer phase, the Pavlovian conditioned stimulus was introduced in the context of the instrumental responding. It was predicted that response rates would increase during the transfer phase; however, the results were inconclusive. In the third study, further behavioural effects of increased mesoaccumbens dopamine were tested by employing an instrumental choice procedure. Stereotypic horses and controls were trained to choose between two mutually-exclusive schedules of reinforcement, one associated with a short delay to gain food and one with a longer delay. Chronic amphetamine exposure leads to a decrease in sensitivity to delay, and it was demonstrated that stereotypic horses showed similar patterns, failing to choose the shorter schedule. Finally, increased dopamine transmission is known to enhance the rate at which learning shifts from planned-action to habit, and this was examined in stereotypic horses using a 'place-response' preparation. Evidence was found to support this hypothesis in two variations of this procedure. The latter findings suggested an imbalance of the constituent cells that form the striatum: the striosome and matrix components. Taking this in conjunction with the other findings, this imbalance may hold the key to identifying the aetiology of stereotypic behaviour.


We have studied the structural, magnetic, and electronic transport properties of (Sr0.9Ca0.1)3Ru2O7 using single crystals grown by a floating-zone technique. The structure analysis by Rietveld refinements reveals that the Ca substitution for Sr intensifies the structure distortion; the rotation angle of the RuO6 octahedron increases. This structure change tunes magnetic and transport properties dramatically. The magnetic ground state switches from an itinerant metamagnetic state for Sr3Ru2O7 to a nearly ferromagnetic state for (Sr0.9Ca0.1)3Ru2O7. The Fermi liquid behavior occurs in Sr3Ru2O7, but is suppressed in (Sr0.9Ca0.1)3Ru2O7. These results strongly suggest that lattice, spin, and charge degrees of freedom are strongly coupled in this system. The band width narrowing caused by the structure distortion should be responsible for the enhancement of ferromagnetic correlations and the change of transport properties.


The two tyrosine kinase receptors, c-kit and flt3, and their respective ligands KL and FL, have been demonstrated to play key and nonredundant roles in regulating the earliest events in hematopoiesis. However, their precise roles and potential interactions in promoting early lymphoid commitment and development remain unclear. Here we show that most if not all murine Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+) bone marrow (BM) cells generating B220(+)CD19(+) proB-cells in response to FL and interleukin-7 (IL-7) also have a myeloid potential. In contrast to FL + IL-7, KL + IL-7 could not promote proB-cell formation from Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+) cells. However, KL potently enhanced FL + IL-7-stimulated proB-cell formation, in part through enhanced recruitment of FL + IL-7-unresponsive Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+) progenitors, and in part by enhancing the growth of proB-cells. The enhanced recruitment (4-fold) in response to KL occurred exclusively from the Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+)flt3(-) long-term repopulating stem cell population, whereas KL had no effect on FL + IL-7-stimulated recruitment of Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+)flt3(+) short-term repopulating cells. The progeny of FL + IL-7-stimulated Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+) cells lacked in vitro and in vivo myeloid potential, but efficiently reconstituted both B and T lymphopoiesis. In agreement with this FL, but not KL, efficiently induced expression of B220 and IL-7 receptor-alpha on Lin(-/lo)Sca1(+)c-kit(+)flt3(+) cells. Thus, whereas KL appears crucial for recruitment of FL + IL-7-unresponsive candidate (c-kit(+)flt3(-)) murine stem cells, FL is essential and sufficient for development toward lymphoid restricted progenitors from a population of (c-kit(+)flt3(+)) multipotent short-term reconstituting progenitors.


The conventional Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Penman–Monteith (P-M) equation requires knowledge of the available energy to estimate reference evapotranspiration (ETo); however, it is common to ignore the minor energy components (MECs). This study was conducted to determine the effect of not including the MECs in the FAO P-M equation. Fifteen-min micrometeorological records of four sites (covered with corn, soybeans, and prairie) in central Iowa, USA, during the years 2007–2012 were investigated. The major/minor components of the energy equation were either measured or estimated by in-situ eddy covariance instruments. It was discovered that, on average, the MECs accounted for at least 13% of daily net radiation, leading to 27% decrease in daily ETo. Therefore, an equation is introduced to estimate MECs as a function of net radiation, air temperature, and Monin–Obukhov length; and another equation is regressed to roughly estimate daily MECs as a function of net radiation and day of the year. The findings in this study suggest a fundamental modification of FAO P-M formula by considering the inclusion of MECs in the energy term.


In flow between concentric rotating circular cylinders, it was shown by Taylor (1923) that instability may occur in the form of toroidal vortices spaced regularly along the axis. When the vortex motion occurs additional torque is required to keep the cylinders in motion at given speeds. Stuart (1958) used an energy-balance method, in the case when the annular gap is small compared with the radius, to estimate the additional torque and the associated finite amplitude attained by the vortices. He included the effect of distortion of the mean motion, but ignored the generation of harmonics of the fundamental mode and the distortion of the velocity associated with the fundamental mode. It is now known that these are not valid mathematical approximations and a rigorous perturbation expansion is developed here to remedy the deficiency. The analysis is valid for any gap width and any angular speeds of the containing cylinders, but requires the amplification rate of the disturbance to be small. Numerical results using a digital computer are obtained for the shape and amplitude of the vortices in three cases: (i) when the outer cylinder has twice the radius of the inner one and is kept at rest, (ii) when the gap is small and the cylinders rotate with nearly the same speeds, and (iii) when the gap is small and the outer cylinder is kept at rest. The equilibrium amplitude obtained in the last case is substantially the same as that found by Stuart. The results for cases (i) and (iii) give close agreement with the experimental values obtained by Taylor (1936) and Donnelly (1958) for the torque required to keep the inner cylinder rotating with constant speed while the outer one is at rest, for a certain range of speeds. In the small-gap problem it is shown that the equilibrium amplitude is almost proportional to 1 − m, where m is the ratio of the angular speeds of the outer and inner cylinders.


The Athenian recovery of Theseus' bones from Scyros is known through a number of literary accounts spanning several centuries. The tradition dates the recovery to the early fifth century and connects it to the Athenian statesman Cimon. Modern reconstructions tend to rely on the combination of different (and possibly conflicting) sources. An analysis of the evidence, however, shows that the story was built up over several centuries, as the various layers of the tradition date to different historical and cultural contexts: its core probably dates to the fourth century. Evidence for any fifth-century element is so scant that most of the story may be safely detached from its alleged historical context.


Student loan debt in the US stands at roughly $1 trillion, exceeding credit card debt. In recent years, private lending for undergraduates has skyrocketed to account for roughly 20% of all student loan dollars disbursed. At the same time, youth from low-income families are significantly less likely to attend college relative to their higher-income counterparts. This paper examines the nature of credit for education in the presence of uncertainty and problems of limited commitment by borrowers, moral hazard, and adverse selection. Efficient lending contracts, combined with insurance against adverse labor market outcomes, are considered in a variety of economic environments. We examine the importance of different incentive problems in US data to aid in the design of improved credit and insurance for human capital investment.


In this paper, the fast one-dimensional (1-D) algorithms and their hardware-sharing designs for the 1-D 2times2, 4times4, and 8times8 inverse transforms of H.264/AVC and the 1-D 8times8 inverse transform of AVS are proposed with the low hardware cost, especially for the multiple decoding applications in China. By sharing the hardware, the proposed 1-D hardware sharing architecture is realized by adding the offset computations, and it is implemented with the pipelined architecture. Thus, the hardware cost of the proposed sharing architecture is smaller than that of the individual and separate designs. With regular modularity, the proposed sharing architecture is suitable to achieve H.264/AVC and AVS signal processing by VLSI implementations.


No history of China, India, Persia or Russia can be fully understood without continual reference to central Asia. At the heart of the region lie the deserts and mountain range of Afghanistan that even today remain largely unexplored. Yet in the past Afghanistan saw the rise of great cities, empires and civilizations such as the Kushan in the first few centuries AD, the Ghaznavid in the 11th century, and the Timurid in the 15th. Despite bearing witness to ancient and more recent battles, the scarred landscape of Afghanistan is strewn with the monuments to illustrate this rich history: from the recently uncovered Ai Khanum in the north-east and the spectacular 12th century minarets at Jam in the mountains of the west, to the magnificent palatial complexes of the 11th century sultans at Lashkar Bazar in the south and what remains of the 5th and 7th century Buddhist world of Bamiyan in the Hindu Kush - notoriously destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. This book provides a general background to the history and cultural heritage of Afghanistan. It includes broad summaries of the history, architecture and archeology, together with a gazetteer of the main monuments and archeological sites.


Do exercise programmes prevent falls in elderly people? What are the most important components of effective exercise interventions?

Included studies evaluated exercise interventions for fall prevention in elderly people. Studies in which the control group received exercise or the intervention group received additional non-exercise interventions for >25% of the time were excluded. Outcome was the pooled incidence rate ratio (IRR) of falls, which allows for multiple falls per person.

Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, PubMed, Physiotherapy Evidence Database, SafetyLit, Prevention of Falls Network Europe, and Cochrane Bone, Joint, and Muscle Trauma Group's trial register (May 2007); and references were searched for published randomised controlled trials (RCTs). 44 RCTs (49 comparisons, n = 9603) met the selection criteria. …


Evaluating Treatment Environments describes how to assess the quality of psychiatric and substance abuse programs and how to use that information to monitor and improve these programs. Its aim is to identify environments that promote opportunities for personal growth, simultaneously enhancing both physical and psychological well-being. Although treatment programs are diverse, Moos asserts that a common conceptual framework can be used to evaluate them, and more emphasis should be placed on the process of matching personal and program factors and on the connections between such matches and patients' outcomes. The book is divided into three main parts. Part I focuses on hospital programs, using a sample of 160 programs throughout the United States. Part II evaluates community programs. Moos describes how to monitor and improve these programs, and assesses program implementation. Part III considers treatment environments, examining factors that shape the treatment environment, patients' satisfaction with and participation in program activities, patients' adaptation and community living skills, and patient-program congruence and the influence of treatment environments on patients with different levels of impairment. It also highlights the importance of the health care workplace and its impact on staff and the treatment environment. Treatment programs vary substantially in their policies and services, especially in what they expect of clients, rules about clients' daily life choices, and to what extent clients must be governed by the program, and whether or not the programs provide health and treatment services. Comparison studies are becoming more important as clients move more quickly from acute in-patient to community residential care. Moos stresses the need to pay special attention to how programs and services affect clients when conducting evaluations. Evaluating Treatment Environments will be a necessary addition to the libraries of mental health service professionals, as well as sociologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers.


Phenotypic variation in genetically identical malaria parasites is an emerging topic. Although antigenic variation is only part of a more global parasite strategy to create adaptation through epigenetically controlled transcriptional variability, it is the central mechanism enabling immune evasion and promoting pathogenesis. The var gene family is the best‐studied example in a wide range of clonally variant gene families in Plasmodium falciparum. It is unique in its strict selection of a single member for activation, a process termed monoallelic expression. The conceptual advances that have emerged from studying var genes show striking common epigenetic features with many other clonally variant gene families or even single‐copy genes that show a variegated expression in parasite populations. However, major mechanistic questions, such as the existence of a potential expression site and the identity of transcription factors or genetic elements driving singular gene choice, are still unanswered. In this review we discuss the recent findings in the molecular processes essential for clonal variation, namely silencing, activation, poising and switching. Integrating findings about all clonally variant gene families and other mutually exclusive expression systems will hopefully drive mechanistic understanding of antigenic variation.


Abstract: The effect of cyclic AMP on the gene expression of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) was studied in NG108‐15, mouse neuroblastoma and rat glioma hybrid cell lines. Addition of dibutyryl cyclic AMP to the culture medium increased both the ChAT mRNA level and ChAT activity twofold. Polymerase chain reaction analysis of the ChAT mRNA indicated that, among the multiple mRNA species, M‐type mRNA was transcribed most efficiently, with or without the addition of dibutyryl cyclic AMP. The 5'region of the mouse ChAT gene was ligated to the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene, and the expression of chloramphenicol acetyltransferase activity was determined by transfection analysis. Cyclic AMP derivatives enhanced the reporter gene expression in both transiently and stably transfected cells. DNA deletion analysis indicated that the intron region downstream of the M‐type exon is necessary for the cyclic AMP responsiveness, and that cyclic AMP derivatives increase ChAT gene transcription mainly from M‐type promoter. These results suggest that a cis‐acting DNA element that confers the cyclic AMP responsiveness of the ChAT gene is present in the intron downstream of the M‐type exon.


Regression with group-sparsity penalty plays a central role in high-dimensional prediction problems. Most of existing methods require the group structure to be known a priori. In practice, this may be a too strong assumption, potentially hampering the effectiveness of the regularization method. To circumvent this issue, we present a method to estimate the group structure by means of a continuous bilevel optimization problem where the data is split into training and validation sets. Our approach relies on an approximation scheme where the lower level problem is replaced by a smooth dual forward-backward algorithm with Bregman distances. We provide guarantees regarding the convergence of the approximate procedure to the exact problem and demonstrate the well behaviour of the proposed method on synthetic experiments. Finally, a preliminary application to genes expression data is tackled with the purpose of unveiling functional groups.


Abstract. Malaria is a geographically widespread infectious disease that is well known to be affected by climate variability at both seasonal and interannual timescales. In an effort to identify climatic factors that impact malaria dynamics, there has been considerable research focused on the development of appropriate disease models for malaria transmission driven by climatic time series. These analyses have focused largely on variation in temperature and rainfall as direct climatic drivers of malaria dynamics. Here, we further these efforts by considering additionally the role that soil water content may play in driving malaria incidence. Specifically, we hypothesize that hydro-climatic variability should be an important factor in controlling the availability of mosquito habitats, thereby governing mosquito growth rates. To test this hypothesis, we reduce a nonlinear ecohydrological model to a simple linear model through a series of consecutive assumptions and apply this model to malaria incidence data from three South African provinces. Despite the assumptions made in the reduction of the model, we show that soil water content can account for a significant portion of malaria's case variability beyond its seasonal patterns, whereas neither temperature nor rainfall alone can do so. Future work should therefore consider soil water content as a simple and computable variable for incorporation into climate-driven disease models of malaria and other vector-borne infectious diseases.


This article will summarize methods that can be used for threat analysis with applications for modeling threats generated by non-state adversaries. Traditionally, threat models focused on an adversary's capability to mount a specific attack and that adversary's intent to carry out such an attack. However, as explicated in this article, threat is best understood as the product of an adversary's capability, intent, and authority to engage a specific target by a particular attack mode. Furthermore, threat does not emerge from a clean room; rather, threat is strongly influenced by an adversary's culture and constituencies. Thus, any robust model of threat requires a cultural awareness of an adversary, and its intended audience. Examples of capability, intent, and authority will be provided in an effort to portray a robust threat profile. Specifically, this article will employ an al-Qaeda WMD threat as an example of the application of the threat assessment suggested.

Keywords:

threat;
capability;
intent;
authority;
fatwa;
cultural effect on threat


Efficient targeting of public programs is difficult when the cost or benefit to potential recipients is private information. This study illustrates the potential of self-selection to improve allocational outcomes in the context of a program that subsidizes tree planting in Malawi. Landholders who received a tree planting contract as a result of bidding in an auction kept significantly more trees alive over a three year period than did landholders who received the contract through a lottery. The gains from targeting on private information through the auction represent a 30 percent cost savings per surviving tree for the implementing organization.