This study characterizes the spatial and temporal distribution of chlorophyll a (Chl a) and sea surface temperature (SST) in the Interior Sea of Chiloe in Chile at a moderate spatial resolution using SeaWiFS and MODIS‐Aqua time series data from the Goddard Earth Science (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) imported into the GES DISC Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis System ('Giovanni'). The Interior Sea of Chiloe is home to Chile's salmon farming industry, the world's second largest salmonid producer. This study undertakes the characterization of the main patterns of spatial and temporal variability of Chl a and SST in the Interior Sea of Chiloe using a continuous set of time series ocean colour and SST data. Both Chl a and SST exhibit a marked spatial and temporal distribution, with values being significantly higher in the northern area (41.4–42.7° S; total area 41.4–43.5° S) and during the spring–summer period. Peak Chl a concentrations tend to occur in a temporal interval from October to April (austral spring–austral autumn), whereas monthly averaged peak SST values occur consistently in the month of February (austral summer). Chl a concentrations exhibit strong interannual variations, with monthly averaged peak Chl a concentrations experiencing a twofold increase between the year with the lowest and highest Chl a peak concentration in the time series. Results suggest that at the present scale of analysis two spatial domains can be distinguished, regarding the differential behaviour of SST and Chl a in the northern and southern areas of the Interior Sea of Chiloe. The concurrent analysis of Chl a time series data with accumulated rainfall time series data as a proxy of solar radiation, on the other hand, supports previous hypothesis suggesting solar radiation to be a limiting factor for phytoplankton development in the Interior Sea of Chiloe. The role of geomorphological factors on pattern formation and the results presented in this study in relation to results from seasonal oceanographic cruises in the area are briefly discussed.


Results from a number of recent studies suggest that nativelike adult second language (L2) learners possess a high degree of language learning aptitude, the positive effects of which may have compensated for the negative effects of a critical period in these learners. According to the same studies, child learners seem to attain a nativelike command of the L2 regardless of high or low aptitude, which has led researchers to conclude that this factor plays no role in early acquisition. The present study investigates the L2 proficiency and language aptitude of 42 near-native L2 speakers of Swedish (i.e., individuals whom actual mother-tongue speakers of Swedish believe are native speakers). The results confirm previous research suggesting that a high degree of language aptitude is required if adult learners are to reach a L2 proficiency that is indistinguishable from that of native speakers. However, in contrast to previous studies, the present results also identify small yet significant aptitude effects in child SLA. Our findings lead us to the conclusions that the rare nativelike adult learners sometimes observed would all turn out to be exceptionally talented language learners with an unusual ability to compensate for maturational effects and, consequently, that their nativelikeness per se does not constitute a reason to reject the critical period hypothesis.


The host immune response limits the duration of expression of adenovirally transduced genes and precludes long‐term gene expression upon re‐administration of the virus. In this study we wished to evaluate whether short‐term immunosuppression of the host, at the time of recombinant virus administration, would allow expression of the therapeutic gene product upon virus reinjection. Gunn rats were used as recipients of recombinant adenoviruses expressing human BUGT (Ad‐hBUGT) or E. coli β‐galactosidase (Ad‐LacZ). Rats were treated with FK506 (1‐1.5 mg/kg, per OS daily) for three days beginning 24 hours before each virus injection. Control groups did not receive any immunosuppressant. The serum bilirubin level was reduced from 7.1 ± 0.75 mg/dL to 2.0 ± 0.7 mg/dL within two days of viral injection in both FK506 treated and control groups, and then gradually increased in 6 weeks. FK506‐treated rats had low or undetectable antibody titers against the recombinant adenovirus and minimal or no cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response against adenovirus‐infected cells. The tolerized rats received two subsequent injections 42 and 98 days after the first injection, which reduced the bilirubin levels again to 2.0 ± 0.56 and 2.2 ± 0.61 mg/dL, respectively. In contrast, control rats developed high titer neutralizing antibodies and a CTL response, and their serum bilirubin levels were not reduced following subsequent injections. We conclude that short‐term FK506 treatment around the time of virus administration prevents the host immune response, permitting long‐term gene therapy by repeated administration of the recombinant virus.


The atomic-iodine hyperfine structure is shown to produce anomalous dispersion effects on its hyperfine laser transition at 1.315 μm whenever reasonable small-signal gains are available (~1% cm). This dispersion effect is linearly dependent on the iodine inversion density. Such an anomalous dispersion effect may produce strong phase-induced mode–media interactions for all the lower-gain iodine hyperfine transitions in any low pressure (<50 Torr) atomic-iodine laser. Fortunately, the highest-gain hyperfine transition, F′ = 3 → F″ = 4, has the smallest amount of additional phase shift (or refractivity) introduced by this anomalous dispersion. All the other transitions experience much larger anomalous dispersion effects. This condition should act as an internal frequency discriminator, forcing the iodine to lase on the highest-gain hyperfine transition.


Reliable and robust quantification of signal intensities is a critical step in microarray-based biomedical studies. However, traditional techniques for microarray image processing would face significant challenges if the number of pixels used for the quantification of the local background and the foreground decreases dramatically. We have developed a new method, ELB-Q, which, by design, is well suited for the image quantification of microarrays with very high density of spot layout (large number of spots arranged in unit area). In ELB-Q, a large extended local background (ELB) inter spot region excluding those ldquonoise of the backgroundrdquo pixels is used for estimating the local background, and the quantification of spot intensities (mean and median) in the putative target spot regions is performed after further excluding background pixels in these areas based on the cutoff values established during the ELB calculation. ELB-Q takes advantage of the abundant spatial information around each spot of interest, makes no assumption of the shape and size of the spots, and needs no sophisticated adjustment. We show results of image processing using ELB-Q on both the simulated data and real DNA microarrays, which compare favorably in robustness and accuracy against those obtained with Gene Pix Pro 6.0 (Axon Instruments, 1999) and the Markov random field (MRF) modeling approach (O. Demirkaya , Bioinformatics, vol. 21, pp. 2994-3000, 2005). The ELB-Q software is developed in Matlab, and is available upon request.


This paper describes Team and Collective Training Needs Analysis (TCTNA), which is a novel approach to the identification of training requirements and the specification and evaluation of training environments appropriate to team and collective training. Our defence forces face operating environments of ever-increasing complexity, whilst current budgetary and environmental pressures necessitate increasing reliance being placed on synthetic training environments. The challenge to the training community is to ensure that training environments are correctly specified so that effective training environment options can be selected. Whilst the principles of Needs Analysis/Front End Analysis have a well established tradition within NATO Forces, the underpinning analytical techniques are predominantly focused on individual training. In the published literature there are relatively few techniques that address the issues of team and collective training. The first part of the paper describes the architecture of the TCTNA method and its underpinning model of team training. The second part of the paper demonstrates how analytical techniques from the human factors and software engineering domains can be adapted and integrated with some new representations to implement this approach, illustrated with a case study from maritime local area surface defence.


Utility ratemaking proceedings at public utility commissions across the country are becoming the new battleground in the transition to clean energy. While technology has made alternative energy sources and strategies like demand response cheaper and more readily available, utility operating and revenue models – and the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern them – have not kept pace. Despite the emergence of performance-based regulatory models that incent the deployment of private capital vs. rate based assets (potentially disrupting the entire monopoly construct), current regulatory structures continue to maintain the status quo of increasing revenues and profits for incumbent utilities based on the traditional monopoly model. Even the NY REV proceeding, which is arguably the most progressive performance-based model currently under consideration in the U.S., specifically allows for the continued protection of incumbent utility revenues and profits in the name of maintaining financial outlooks, credit ratings and access to the capital necessary to build the capabilities required to enable the transition.
One way utilities have been attempting to ensure continued revenue and profits into the future is by increasing capital investment. Rate-based capital deployed by regulated utilities has doubled in the last decade. This spending is then recouped from ratepayers through ratemaking proceedings.
An examination of both historical and recent rate cases demonstrates that utilities, public staff and utility commissions continue to play a game in which each party is able to demonstrate that they are meeting their own objectives and that utility investments and the rates necessary to support them are prudent. One way this occurs is through settlements that transpire between public staff and utilities during ratemaking proceedings: the utility asks for a rather large increase; public staff says that the request is too high and would be too expensive for the public; the utility and public staff negotiate to somewhere around half of what the utility requested and present this to the commission; and the commission approves the new utility rate case. This way, the utilities get an increase in profits, public staff can claim they are working for the public interest, commissioners claim they are doing their jobs, and the ratepayers continue to pay more.
This paper begins with a discussion of regulatory capture – necessary for the "game" – and a structure of how prudent investment theory, regulated vs. restructured markets, and ratemaking continue to enable this capture. In order to quantify this "game" between regulated utilities and regulators, this paper presents an empirical study of investor-owned utility rate cases, specifically looking at the increases (percentage-wise) that utilities requested, and what they were finally granted by PUCs. For a subset of the data set where public staff recommendations are publicly available, a comparison between what public staff recommended, what was requested, and what was approved by the PUC is also presented. After reviewing the empirical findings, the article poses a specific question: should normal negotiation tactics – where the solution is to meet in the middle – apply to regulated monopolies? I posit the answer is no, and discuss potential changes to the current regulatory framework to stop this "game" by examining the process and outcomes through regulatory negotiation theory. Market solutions certainly could be one potential solution; additional judicial oversight is another. Competitive markets are being tried in states like New York and California. However, absent prompting from regulators, it is unlikely that utilities and the financial markets that support them will readily accept any change that leads to lower returns without adequate protections. However, to transition to a low-carbon future, it will become imperative to change utility – and regulator – behavior.


By drawing upon existing literature on Islamic radicalisation, this article empirically explores why some Norwegian Muslims come to accept the use of violence in the name of Islam. Based on primary internet research and interviews with individuals who either call for violent jihad, or who have travelled to Syria to engage in armed struggle, this study identifies several complaints and grievances which may result in individuals adopting extreme positions. These grievances relate to Norwegian and Western foreign policies, feelings of being alienated and stigmatised in the public debate, a sense of not belonging, actual or perceived discrimination, and socio-economic deprivation. Interestingly, the findings in this study suggest that these factors are not significantly different in Norway than in other European countries facing the general trend of Islamic radicalisation. Rather, the ideological positions and statements identified in the data collection reflect the broader literature on the radicalisation of young Muslims living in Europe. In line with theories of Wiktorowicz (2005) and Roy (2004), this article therefore argues that Norwegian Muslims may become attracted to militant Salafism because it responds to their individual grievances, and provides an alternative worldview that offers meaning, community and justice based on shared religion and ideology.


Written in clear, concise language and designed for an introductory applied energy course, Applied Energy: An Introduction discusses energy applications in small-medium enterprises, solar energy, hydro and wind energy, nuclear energy, hybrid energy, and energy sustainability issues. Focusing on renewable energy technologies, energy conversion, and conservation and the energy industry, the author lists the key aspects of applied energy and related studies, taking a question-based approach to the material that is useful for both undergraduate students and postgraduates who want a broad overview of energy conversion. The author carefully designed the text to motivate students and give them the foundation they need to place the concepts presented into a real-world context. He begins with an introduction to the basics and the definitions used throughout the book. From there, he covers the energy industry and energy applications; energy sources, supply, and demand; and energy management, policy, plans, and analysis. Building on this, the author elucidates various energy saving technologies and energy storage methods, explores the pros and cons of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources, and examines the various types of applications of alternative energies. The book concludes with chapters on hybrid energy technology, hybrid energy schemes, other energy conversion methods, and applied energy issues. The book takes advantage of practical and application-based learning, presenting the information in various forms such as essential notes followed by practical projects, assignments, and objective and practical questions. In each chapter, a small section introduces some elements of applied energy design and innovation, linking knowledge with applied energy design and practice. The comprehensive coverage gives students the skills not only to master the concepts in the course, but also apply them to future work in this area.


Alexandra Pelosi, creator of the Emmy award-winning film "Journeys with George" and of "Diary of a Political Tourist," makes her literary debut with an intimate look at the frenzied and grueling underbelly of presidential campaigning and the puppet role of the media. Pelosi went along on the campaign trail in order to, as she puts it, "document the absurd hazing rituals that our presidential candidates have to go through." With this savvy, well-connected, and fearless guide, it's a rollicking, breakneck journey unlike any other. Pelosi's one-on-one time with the 2004 presidential candidates affords an up-close perspective on the highs and lows of campaign life: the genuine thrill of seeing America, the unrelenting grind of endless campaign stops, the hope and heartache of poll results. While the candidates try to stick to tightly constructed scripts, Pelosi's nonnetwork angle makes for revealing portraits of the men who wanted to be president. But even more, Pelosi's approach reveals fundamental flaws in the media's election coverage. A former member of the campaign press corps, she turns her gimlet eye on the media, which are busy enacting their own election-time rituals: "Every election cycle journalists defy the theory of evolution, living sequestered on a bus, with no sleep, few showers, and tons of junk food, going town-to-town listening to the same speech over and over. You're stuck in this dysfunctional relationship between the news organization that has you there to do their bidding and the campaign that is trying to co-opt you." And herein lies Pelosi's driving point: politicians and journalists don't trust each other, and so, in election coverage and in politics in general, the press is utterly hamstrung. Since the candidates never say anything unscripted and the journalists have to make nice in order to maintain access, modern presidential campaigns have become little more than media events. Politicians and journalists alike are going through the motions, and the voters have no idea who the candidates really are. But Pelosi says the public are not fools: "Everyone knows that the media do not give them an accurate portrait of a person." No wonder people are apathetic. But whose fault is it? Are the candidates driving people away from the political process, or are the media keeping them out? Probing, insightful, and lively, "Sneaking into the Flying Circus" exposes the election process for what it is: a three-ring gala production that comes to town every four years. As a nation and an audience, we're often willing to suspend disbelief -- and we often can't resist when the clowns try to get us in on the act. It is, after all, the greatest show on earth.


Breast radiation therapy is associated with some risk of lung toxicity as well as cardiac toxicity for left-sided cases. Radiation doses to the lung and heart can be reduced by using the deep inspiration breath hold (DIBH) technique, in which the patient is simulated and treated during the deep inspiration phase of the breathing cycle. During DIBH, the heart is usually displaced posteriorly, inferiorly, and to the right, effectively expanding the distance between the heart and the breast/chest wall. As a result, the distance between the medial treatment field border and heart/lung is increased. Also, in a majority of DIBH patients, the air drawn into the thoracic cavity increases the total lung volume. The DIBH was discussed by an AAPM Task Group 10 years ago in the AAPM TG 76 report. However, DIBH is still not the standard of care in many clinics, which may be partially due to challenges associated with its implementation. Therefore, this seccion will focus primarily on how to clinically implement four different DIBH techniques: (1) Active Breathing Control, (2) Spirometric Motion Management, (3) 3D Surface Image-Guided, and (4) Self-held Breath Control with Respiratory Monitoring and Feedback Guidance.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the physical displacement of the heart and the change in lung volume during DIBH and discuss dosimetric consequences of those changes. 2. Provide an overview of the technical aspects. 3. Describe work flow for patient simulation and treatment. 4. Give an overview of commissioning and routine. 5. Provide practical tips for clinical implementation.


This paper introduces the used of reed switch to detect the chess pieces that played on the electronic chessboard. During the tournament, audiences are not allowed to watch the game too close with all chess players to avoid the chess players lost their concentration. Hence, a system that can automatically project the chess players' game is needed. This digital electronic chessboard can display the chess game on the computer screen with integration to other components such as microcontroller, chess clock and software application. The result showed that the reed switch could be one of the solutions to reduce the expensive sensor cost of existing digital electronic chess set.

 Key words: Reed switch; digital electronic hessboard; electronic chess set; microcontroller


The essays collected in this new volume reveal Isaiah Berlin at his most lucid and accessible. He was constitutionally incapable of writing with the opacity of the specialist, but these shorter, more introductory pieces provide the perfect starting-point for the reader new to his work. Those who are already familiar with his writing will also be grateful for this further addition to his collected essays. The connecting theme of these essays, as in the case of earlier volumes, is the crucial social and political role--past, present and future--of ideas, and of their progenitors. A rich variety of subject-matters is represented--from philosophy to education, from Russia to Israel, from Marxism to romanticism--so that the truth of Heine's warning is exemplified on a broad front. It is a warning that Berlin often referred to, and provides an answer to those who ask, as from time to time they do, why intellectual history matters. Among the contributions are "My Intellectual Path," Berlin's last essay, a retrospective autobiographical survey of his main preoccupations; and "Jewish Slavery and Emancipation," the classic statement of his Zionist views, long unavailable in print. His other subjects include the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico, Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, G.V. Plekhanov, the Russian intelligentsia, the idea of liberty, political realism, nationalism, and historicism. The book exhibits the full range of his enormously wide expertise and demonstrates the striking and enormously engaging individuality, as well as the power, of his own ideas. "Over a hundred years ago, the German poet Heine warned the French not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization."--Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty, 1958


In 1993, the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 151 drilled at 7 sites in the Nordic Seas and the adjacent Arctic Ocean to study the Cenozoic paleoceanography and paleoclimate evolution (Myhre et al. 1995). On Yermak Plateau, the northernmost ODP sites to date were drilled and more than 1200 meters of glacial marine sediments of Pleistocene and Pliocene age were obtained in 10 holes (Myhre et al. 1995). Two shallow water drill holes from sites 910 and 911 that are today located in the path of relatively warm North Atlantic waters transported in the Svalbard branch of the Westspitsbergen Current into the Arctic Ocean were selected for a detailed study. Magnetostratigraphic, stable isotope and biostratigraphic age control suggests that Holes 910A and 911A provide an almost complete stratigraphic record of the last 3.5 Ma (Myhre et al. 1996). In particular, Hole 910A is unique compared to other Quaternary marine sequences from the Arctic Ocean because of a relatively well-constrained stable oxygen and carbon isotope stratigraphy for the last 650.000 years (Flower 1997). Therefore, Holes 910A and 911A are important sites to improve the Plio-/Pleistocene chronostratigraphy of the Eastern Arctic Ocean, and to reconstruct the paleoenvironmental history in the past 3.5 Ma. Furthermore, these holes may form stratigraphic reference sections for new holes to be drilled in the Central Arctic Ocean in the frame of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).A multi-proxy study was started in summer 2003 to establish a dinoflagellate cyst stratigraphy for Plio-/Pleistocene sediments of the eastern Arctic Ocean that will be calibrated versus a revised stable oxygen isotope stratigraphy. Furthermore, the variability of sea-surface conditions and its interaction with the discharge of freshwater from Eurasia and the growth and decay of the northern Barents Sea ice sheets since the Pliocene will be reconstructed. Various micropaleontological, sedimentological and organic geochemical methods are applied on the same sample set to reveal the synchroneity/ asynchroneity of changes in the surface water regime and changes in the sediment supply and source areas. In the first year of the project, the studies focussed on the Pleistocene sediments of Hole 910A that has an average sedimentation rate of 2 to 4 cm/k.y. (Flower 1997).A preliminary dinoflagellate cyst biostratigraphy is based on a first set of 80 out of ca. 220 samples from the uppermost 20 meters of Hole 910A, and the results of a low-resolution study on Hole 911A by Matthiessen & Brenner (1996). Most samples of Hole 910A are productive but contain only few specimens of a small number of taxa. The presence of delicate spherical brown cysts indicates that preservation is generally good. Age-diagnostic species were not found in the Pleistocene and the ubiquitous species have long stratigraphic ranges (e.g. Rochon et al. 1999). The freshwater algae Pediastrum is present in a number of samples suggesting some freshwater supply from the Laptev and Kara seas during certain intervals.The coarse sand fraction (250 to 2000µm) and the number of gravel particles (>2mm/10g) that characterise supply by icebergs do not show much variability, except for a pronounced maximum in marine isotope stage 2 that is probably related to the last glacial maximum. Minor fluctuations of the gravel content might be related to glacial/interglacial transitions and the onset of glaciations.Mineralogical and geochemical parameters show some variability in the Pleistocene siliciclastic sediments of Hole 910A. Carbonate contents are principally low and range usually between 0 and 4%. The terrigenous minerals dolomite and siderite clearly dominate in most samples showing that only a rather small portion of bulk carbonate is of biological origin. Small fluctuations are obviously not related to glacial/interglacial cycles. Maximum values of 8 to 10% were measured in samples from MIS 2. Rock eval pyrolysis revealed that total organic carbon contents are predominately of terrestrial origin, and are obviously inversely correlated with carbonate contents.ReferencesFlower, B.P. 1997: Overconsolidated section on the Yermak Plateau, Arctic Ocean: Ice sheet grounding prior to ca. 660 ka? Geology 25, 147-150.Matthiessen, J. & Brenner, W. 1996: Dinoflagellate cyst ecostratigraphy of PliocenePleistocene sediments from the Yermak Plateau (Arctic Ocean, Hole 911A). In: Myhre, A.M., Thiede, J., Firth, J.V. et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program Scientific Results 151, 243-253. Ocean Drilling Program, College Station.Myhre, A.M., Thiede, J., Firth, J.V. et al. 1995. Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Initial Reports 151, 915pp. Ocean Drilling Program, College Station.Myhre, A.M., Thiede, J., Firth, J.V. et al. 1996: Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results 151, 685pp. Ocean Drilling Program, College Station.Rochon, A., de Vernal, A., Turon, J.-L., Matthiessen, J. & Head, M.J. 1999: Distribution of dinoflagellate cysts in surface sediments from the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent basins in relation to sea-surface parameters. American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists Contribution Series 35, 146pp. American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists,Dallas.


Finding a vertex subset in a graph that satisfies a certain property is one of the most-studied topics in algorithmic graph theory. The focus herein is often on minimizing or maximizing the size of the solution, that is, the size of the desired vertex set. In several applications, however, we also want to limit the "exposure" of the solution to the rest of the graph. This is the case, for example, when the solution represents persons that ought to deal with sensitive information or a segregated community. In this work, we thus explore the (parameterized) complexity of finding such secluded vertex subsets for a wide variety of properties that they shall fulfill. More precisely, we study the constraint that the (open or closed) neighborhood of the solution shall be bounded by a parameter and the influence of this constraint on the complexity of minimizing separators, feedback vertex sets, $\mathcal{F}$-free vertex deletion sets, dominating sets, and the maximization of independent sets.


Summary
Between 10 July and 23 October 1966 an epidemic of dengue hemorrhagic fever occurred on an island in the Gulf of Thailand. Fourteen cases of dengue-shock syndrome (with one death) and 20 of hemorrhagic-fever syndrome due to dengue occurred. An additional 65 cases of less severe dengue were seen. The 99 patients ranged in age from 1 to 15 years, with a median of 6.7 years; the female-to-male ratio was 55:44. The attack rate for the age group under 15 was 0.75% for the island as a whole, but reached 14% in one village. Dengue virus types 1, 2, or 3 were isolated from a total of 25 patients.
Patients were categorized clinically and, independently, by serologic response to dengue. The syndromes of undifferentiated fever, dengue fever, and hemorrhagic fever were not found to be uniformly associated with dengue virus. Shock syndrome as defined was seen only in association with dengue and appeared to be a specific manifestation in the epidemiologic context cited. The median age in cases of mild illness was lower than that for either hemorrhagic fever or shock syndromes. The data presented are consistent with the hypothesis that the dengue-shock syndrome is due to an immunologic phenomenon associated with a second, or subsequent, dengue infection.


The current study offers a new case of an iconic relationship amongst different modalities of cognition, going beyond traditional studies of sound symbolism. We report experiments that show that particular types of personalities can be iconically related to particular types of sounds and shapes. Two experiments show that "inaccessible types of personality" are iconically associated with a class of sounds called "obstruents" as well as with angular shapes. The first connection – the one between personalities and sounds – adds to the large body of literature on sound symbolism. The second connection – the link between personalities and shapes – goes beyond the traditional cases of sound symbolism, instantiating a case of trans-modal iconic projection from one cognitive modality to another.


Background: There is increasing interest in the role of indirect bronchial challenges because clinical studies have shown that indirect airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) reflects underlying airway inflammation better than direct AHR. Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) appears to be a useful clinical tool for assessing airway inflammation noninvasively. We examined whether FeNO is more closely related to AHR to indirect stimuli than AHR to direct stimuli in children with mild to moderate asthma. Methods: Fifty-nine asthmatic children aged 6-16 years without rhinitis, underwent spirometry, FeNO measurement and blood tests for serum total IgE, blood eosinophil count and serum eosinophil cationic protein (ECP). All subjects underwent methacholine and adenosine 5-monophosphate (AMP) challenge tests at intervals of 3 days. Results: In a univariate linear regression analysis, FeNO was significantly associated with both PC20 AMP (R2 = 0.341, p < 0.001) and PC20 methacholine (R2 = 0.188, p = 0.001). After adjustment for age, sex, serum total IgE and blood eosinophil count, the association between FeNO and PC20 AMP (β = -1.98, p = 0.001) was more robust than that between FeNO and PC20 methacholine (β = -0.87, p = 0.081). The significant correlation between FeNO and PC20 AMP was observed in the steroid-naïve group (β = -2.48, p = 0.001), but not in the steroid-treated group (β = 0.88, p = 0.463). Conclusions: FeNO levels were more closely associated with PC20 AMP than with PC20 methacholine. This relationship could only be seen in the steroid-naïve subjects. These results suggest that FeNO levels in children with asthma may be more closely related to indirect AHR than to direct AHR.


This study identifies the factors which influence user participation in community-based rural water supply schemes in north Kerala, using primary data. To capture the rate of participation, two forms of indices were constructed: one to measure attendance in group meetings, and the other to measure their influence on decisions. The relative importance of factors such as locality, group and household characteristics that affect participation were analysed using linear regression models. Of the three sets of factors, it was found that household characteristics were the most influential. The analysis shows that males actively participated in group meetings. Level of education and involvement of households in other local organizations were the other major factors affecting participation.


This submission by the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) strongly endorses establishment in national legislation in Australia of a cause of action for serious invasion of an individual's privacy. It is appropriate to describe the action as an action in tort, or a 'privacy tort'. The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) is Australia's leading privacy advocacy organisation. This submission is in response to the proposals in ALRC Discussion Paper 80: Serious Invasions of Privacy. Key submissions made by the APF are as follows: (i) The most effective structure of a cause of action is that which is consistent with an intentional tort; consisting of elements that a plaintiff must satisfy with countervailing defences available to any putative defendant. There should be no requirement for the court to undertake a balancing exercise as an essential element in determining whether the plaintiff can, on his or her own case, succeed or not. (ii) The cause of action for a 'serious invasion of privacy' should additionally be described as an 'interference with privacy' for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). (iii) The focus of the tort should be upon the intrusion into a plaintiff's seclusion or private affairs (including by unlawful surveillance) and/or the misuse or disclosure of private information about the plaintiff. (iv) There is no sound legal or policy basis for limiting the scope of the action to either intentional or reckless acts rather than incorporating negligent acts. (v) There is potential for an undesirable downward ratchet effect in the concept of "reasonable expectations": the lack of a practical remedy enables continuation of an intrusive practice without restraint, which practice reduces the level of protection that would be "reasonably expected", which in turn reduces the scope of the tort over time. (vi) The fourth proposed element of the tort, that it is only available where the invasion of privacy is 'serious', is both unnecessary and arbitrary. (vii) There is little utility in incorporating a balancing exercise of the plaintiff's privacy interest against freedom of expression or other broader public interest, the fifth element of the proposed cause of action. (viii) Federal, State and Territory courts should have jurisdiction to hear a serious invasion of privacy action. However, there are very strong reasons for providing the option to complainants/plaintiffs to take a 'serious invasion of privacy' complaint to the Privacy Commissioner. A new sub-section 13(6) should be added to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth): '(6) A serious invasion of privacy under the [title of new Commonwealth Act] is an interference with the privacy of an individual,' together with such limited consequential changes (if any) as are necessary to make the Privacy Act consistent with the new statutory action and the [title of new Commonwealth Act]. (ix) There may be a case for clarifying the law of breach of confidence even if a statutory tort were to be introduced, but some of the ALRC's proposals are not justifiable. (x) While it is important to remove inconsistencies and promote uniformity in the the current State and Territory surveillance device and workplace surveillance laws, this must not be at the expense of reducing the level of protection of Australians against unjustified surveillance. Proposed uniform laws should apply to all existing and emerging technologies that are capable of monitoring and recording the activities of people and their data. Surveillance device laws should incorporate a mechanism for awarding compensation, or other forms of relief, to victims of unauthorised surveillance. (xi) The public interest activities of responsible journalists in investigating and reporting on matters of public interest, such as uncovering corruption, do not require a broad or vague exception for journalists. (xii) The ALRC proposal is desirable that a new APP (Australian Privacy Principle) be inserted into the Privacy Act to require an APP entity to provide a simple mechanism for an individual to request the destruction or de-identification of personal information that was provided to an APP entity by the individual. A regulator should be so empowered, preferably the Privacy Commissioner with a right of appeal to the AAT (Administrative Appeals Tribunal). (xiii) The definition of "personal information" in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) should be amended so as to confirm that the information will remain personal information, despite any steps to anonymise it, if there is any significant possibility that it may be re-identified in future.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the long-term outcomes, health care utilization, and risk factors for complications after bariatric surgery.

BACKGROUND
With the burgeoning problem of obesity and the consequential rise in bariatric surgery, uncertainty remains as to whether this has been matched by a reduction in long-term health care utilization.

METHODS
A population-based linked-data cohort study, utilizing a comprehensive set of data, including detailed comorbidity and complications, of each individual who had undergone bariatric surgery between 2007 and 2011 in Western Australia. Records were obtained via data linkage through the Western Australian Department of Health Data Linkage Unit. Every patient was followed for a minimum of 12-months after surgery or until death.

RESULTS
A total of 12062 patients underwent bariatric surgery during the study period with a mean follow-up period of 41 months. Hospitalization rates after bariatric surgery were substantially reduced for all-cause (361 vs 501 per 1000 patient-years, P = 0.002) and diabetes mellitus-related (7 vs 31 per 1000 patient-years, P < 0.001) diagnoses when compared with hospitalization rates before bariatric surgery. Complications occurred in 2171 (18.0%) patients during the follow-up period. Patient age, sex, open surgical procedures, and Charlson Comorbidity Index were associated with an increased risk of complications, with age the most important and accounting for 77% of the variability in the risk of complications. Long-term all-cause mortality rate after surgery was extremely low (0.54 deaths per 1000 patient-years).

CONCLUSIONS
When measured against long-term safety outcomes, bariatric surgery has low mortality and morbidity associated with a significant reduction in subsequent hospitalizations.


For quite some time, debate has raged about what the human race can and should do with its knowledge of genetics. We are now nearly 60 years removed from the work of Watson and Crick who determined the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), yet our opinions as how best to employ scientific knowledge of the human genome, remain as diverse and polarised as ever. Human judgment is often shaped and coloured by popular media and culture, so it should come as no surprise that box office movies such as Gattaca (1997) continue to play a role in informing public opinion on genetics. In order to perform well at the box office, movies such as Gattaca take great liberty in sensationalising (and even distorting) the implications that may result from genetic screening and testing. If the public's opinion on human genetics is strongly derived from the box office and popular media, then it is no wonder that the discourse on human genetics is couched in the polar parlances of future utopias or future dystopias. When legislating in an area like genetic discrimination in the workforce, we must be mindful of not overplaying the causal link between genetic predisposition towards a disability and an employee's ability to perform the inherent requirements of their job. Genetic information is ultimately about people, it is not about genes. Genetic discrimination is ultimately about actions, it is not about the intrinsic value of genetic information.


Semisupervised clustering algorithms partition a given data set using limited supervision from the user. The success of these algorithms depends on the type of supervision and also on the kind of dissimilarity measure used while creating partitions of the space. This paper proposes a clustering algorithm that uses supervision in terms of relative comparisons, viz., x is closer to y than to z. The proposed clustering algorithm simultaneously learns the underlying dissimilarity measure while finding compact clusters in the given data set using relative comparisons. Through our experimental studies on high-dimensional textual data sets, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves higher accuracy and is more robust than similar algorithms using pairwise constraints for supervision.


From many counts, the natural disaster in Uttarakhand caused by torrential rains in 2013 that had drawn serious attention of policymakers needs an appropriate framework of analysis to account the economic losses incurred. More so because such losses have several implications for the growth of the regional economy on account of its inter-linkages in the production, consumption and distribution processes. The present study adopts a loss assessment framework in four hard hit districts of Uttarakhand and assesses the economic loss of affected districts through both direct and indirect economic loss assessment methods. Apart from this, the present study has tried to capture the gender and the caste differentiated impact of disasters in case of Uttarakhand, to identify the most vulnerable sections and to suggest appropriate measures to reduce their vulnerability in the event of a disaster. JEL Classification – A1, C4, C8, D6, Q0


Investigations were carried out with the aim of producing L-glutamic acid from Brevibacterium sp. by utilizing a locally available starchy substrate, cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz). Initial studies were carried out in shake flasks, which showed that even though the yield was high with 85-90 DE (Dextrose Equivalent value), the maximum conversion yield (~34%) was obtained by using only partially digested starch hydrolysate, i.e. 45-50 DE. Fermentations were carried out in batch mode in a 5 L fermenter, using suitably diluted cassava starch hydrolysate, using a 85-90 DE value hydrolysate. Media supplemented with nutrients resulted in an accumulation of 21 g/L glutamic acid with a fairly high (66.3%) conversation yield of glucose to glutamic acid (based on glucose consumed and on 81.74% theoretical conversion rate). The bioreactor conditions most conducive for maximum production were pH 7.5, temperature 30°C and an agitation of 180 rpm. When fermentation was conducted in fed-batch mode by keeping the residual reducing sugar concentration at 5% w/v, 25.0 g/L of glutamate was obtained after 40 h fermentation (16% more the batch mode). Chromatographic separation by ion-exchange resin was used for the recovery and purification of glutamic acid. It was further crystallized and separated by making use of its low solubility at the isoelectric point (pH 3.2).


The present study was conducted to observe the efficacy of water treatment on sorghum grain and to determine its optimum inclusion in broiler diets. Sorghum grain was treated with water and dried. Seven isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets were prepared, using raw and treated sorghum, and designated diets A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Diet A, containing 0% sorghum, was kept as control. In diets B, C and D, raw sorghum was used at levels of 10%, 20% and 30%, respectively, while in diets E, F and G, treated sorghum was used at the same levels. Two hundred and ten day-old chicks were randomly divided into 21 experimental units of 10 chicks each. These experimental units were randomly allocated to seven treatments. It was observed that water treatment reduced the tannin contents of sorghum. Birds fed diets A, E and F showed the best weight gains, and diet G showed a better weight gain than diets B, C and D. The best feed efficiency was observed in chicks fed diets with treated sorghum compared with those fed raw sorghum. There was no significant effect of treated or raw sorghum on the weight of the internal organs. The study revealed that tannin contents in sorghum grain can be reduced with water treatment and that this treated sorghum can be used in broilers' diet up to the level of 20% to obtain efficient broiler production. Keywords: Water treatment, tannin, birds, performance


A Memoir, by Elizabeth Alexander "It is hard to find the right words to do justice to this very special book. Yes, it is by one of our greatest contemporary poets, Elizabeth Alexander, who wrote 'Praise Song for the Day' for President Obama's first inauguration, so the language is gorgeous. And yes, it is a memoir of losing her husband at a young age and so it is, in parts, gut-wrenchingly sad. And yes, it is an ode to an extraordinary man we come to feel we know as an artist, chef, father, friend, and lover. But, above all, it is as beautiful a love story as I have ever read, and it lifts readers up and gives us hope and makes us believe. I will urge it on everyone I know."


Development of Exserohilum monoceras as a potential bioherbicide for
controlling barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) was investigated in this
study. An isolate of indigenous fungus E. monoceras was isolated from
diseased Echinochloa crus-galli in Tanjong Karang, Selangor and was
evaluated in the laboratory and greenhouse as a potential bioherbicide. This
fungus was found to be highly pathogenic to Echinochloa crus-galli seedlings
inoculated with 2.1 X lo6 conidialml. The disease symptom appeared 24 h after
inoculation as discrete eyespot symptoms with extensive necrosis on the
leaves. The lesions did not coalesce, but the leaves and entire plants turned
completely necrotic and died. The fungus grew and sporulated well on V8 (half
strength) agar with optimum temperature for growth of 30°C. Although most of
Exserohilum spp were reported as pathogen to member of Poaceae, but E.
mo-eras has a narrow host range, which includes several weedy grasses.
Corn, rice and sugarcane showed resistant reaction while dicots were immune.
The pathogen penetrated plant surfaces by direct penetration through formation
of appressoria randomly on surfaces of E. crus-galli 8 h post inoculation. The
appressorium being usually bulbous or cylindrical often ends with the formation
of extensive secondary hyphae. The fungus penetrated the cuticle cell wall and
grew intra and intercellularly within the tissues. On rice leaves, the fungus grew
and penetrated the leaf surface. The fungus did not produce extensive hyphae
in rice. The fungus grew on tomato and chili but could not penetrate the cell wall
as indicated by lysing of the conidia and germ tubes 8 h post inoculations. The
inability of the germinating conidia to penetrate and to progress indicated that
tomato and chili are not compatible hosts for this fungus. The level of disease
severity on E. crus-galli was linearly related to the conidial concentration of E.
monoceras with conidia concentration at lo6 conidia per milliliter resulting in
100% control of the seedlings. Although humidity is the main concern for most
mycoherbicides, E. monoceras provided good control of E. crus-galli under
mini-plot trials. The fungus reduced competitive ability of E. crus-galli. The
results demonstrate the potential of E. monoceras as a bioherbicide to control
Echinochloa crus-galli. Additional further research on molecular aspects, mass
conidia production, carrier formulation and amendments may further enhance
the field efficacy of the pathogen.


The project SEAValue proposes to develop a first integrate approach to valuation of the Sea of Azores from economic view analyses.The project aims the estimation of the contribution of the sea, namely, maritime sector and marine ecosystem services, and their benefits for the sustainable development of the Autonomous Region of Azores through a responsive and effective decision support process.Nowadays, the world context of the sustainable ocean governance is one of the paradigms that the Azores Autonomous Region should address, in particular, due to the geographical position in the core of the Atlantic area and its geopolitical implicit factors. The extension of the Portuguese EEZ would raise new challenges and responsibilities to sea management. Different governance transversal issues as legal, planning, conservation, economic and their scales of articulation into local, national, European and international level, need a coherent governance framework. Estimate the value, specially the economic value, bring the awareness of the benefits that sea offers to Azores. Furthermore it would enhance the decision support process through define of strategic options for the development of public policy of the Region. The multidisciplinary research of the project from Governance, Economy and Environmental Planning approach provides integrate and holistic vision of the Sea and would project outputs as tools and options for operational decisions.


ABSTRACT We compared the in vitro pharmacodynamics of amphotericin B, itraconazole, and voriconazole against Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Scedosporium species with a combination of two non-culture-based techniques: the tetrazolium salt 2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5-[(sulfenylamino)carbonyl]-2H-tetrazolium-hydroxide) (XTT) colorimetric reduction assay, and fluorescent microscopy with the cellular morbidity dye bis-(1,3-dibutylbarbituric acid) trimethine oxonol (DiBAC) to directly visualize hyphal damage. Amphotericin B exhibited species-specific concentration-dependent activity, with 50% effective concentrations (EC50s) ranging from 0.10 to 0.12 mg/ml for A. fumigatus, 0.36 to 0.53 mg/ml for A. terreus, 0.27 to ≥32 mg/ml for F. solani, 0.41 to 0.55 mg/ml for F. oxysporum, and 0.97 and 0.65 mg/ml for S. apiospermum and S. prolificans, respectively. Similarly, itraconazole inhibited the growth of A. fumigatus and A. terreus isolates with MICs of <1 mg/ml (EC50 0.03 to 0.85 mg/ml) and S. apiospermum, but was not active against Fusarium species or S. prolificans. Voriconazole effectively inhibited the growth of Aspergillus, Fusarium, and S. apiospermum (EC50 0.10 to 3.3 mg/ml) but had minimal activity against a multidrug-resistant isolate of F. solani or S. prolificans. Hyphal damage visualized by DiBAC staining was observed more frequently with voriconazole and amphotericin B versus itraconazole. These data highlight the species-specific differences in antifungal pharmacodynamics between mold-active agents that could be relevant for the development of in vitro susceptibility breakpoints and antifungal dosing in vivo.


Epidemiological studies have borne out the association between psychotic disorders and autoimmune disease, while the immunogenetic contribution in psychosis is largely dominated by the major histocompatibility complex genetic diversity. On the other hand, demyelinating diseases, like multiple sclerosis, are characterized by a large array of invading immune cells that degrade the myelin sheath, the myelin producing oligodendrocytes and the nerve itself. Schizophrenia has been proposed to be a dysconnectivity syndrome, and numerous lines of evidence implicate myelin and oligodendrocyte function as critical processes that could affect neuronal connectivity. Disruption in myelination and dysmyelination-induced delays in information processing can produce phenocopies of psychosis similar to schizophrenia. Rethinking the clinical and pathophysiological similarities between de- or dysmyelination diseases and psychosis, we may consider that the dysconnectivity syndrome of psychosis represents the phenomenological and behavioral result of a multiple-faces dysmyelination disorder, which is based on a lifelong immunogenetic dysregulation process.


Abstract Chronically haemodialysed end-stage renal disease patients are at high risk of morbidity arising from complications of dialysis, the underlying pathology that has led to renal disease and the complex pathology of chronic kidney disease. Anaemia is commonplace and its origins are multifactorial, involving reduced renal erythropoietin production, accumulation of uremic toxins and an increase in erythrocyte fragility. Oxidative damage is a common risk factor in renal disease and its co-morbidities and is known to cause erythrocyte fragility. Therefore, we have investigated the hypothesis that specific erythrocyte membrane proteins are more oxidised in end-stage renal disease patients and that vitamin C supplementation can ameliorate membrane protein oxidation. Eleven patients and 15 control subjects were recruited to the study. Patients were supplemented with 2 × 500 mg vitamin C per day for 4 weeks. Erythrocyte membrane proteins were prepared pre- and post-vitamin C supplementation for determination of protein oxidation. Total protein carbonyls were reduced by vitamin C supplementation but not by dialysis when investigated by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Using a western blot to detect oxidised proteins, one protein band, later identified as containing ankyrin, was found to be oxidised in patients but not controls and was reduced significantly by 60% in all patients after dialysis and by 20% after vitamin C treatment pre-dialysis. Ankyrin oxidation analysis may be useful in a stratified medicines approach as a possible marker to identify requirements for intervention in dialysis patients.


This Article is part of the University of Miami Law Review's Leading from Below Symposium. It canvasses prisoners' lawyers' strategies prompted by the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"). The strategies comply with the statute's limits yet also allow U.S. district courts to remain a forum for the vindication of the constitutional rights of at least some of the nation's millions of prisoners. After Part I's introduction, Part II summarizes in several charts the PLRA's sharp impact on the prevalence and outcomes of prison litigation, but demonstrates that there are still many cases and situations in which courts continue to play a role. Part III looks at three methods by which plaintiffs and defendants can jointly obtain injunctive-type relief in prison cases—by crafting stipulations that comply with the PLRA's constraints, by structuring the relief as a conditional dismissal, or by setting up the possibility of state-court enforcement. Part IV examines plaintiffs' coping methods for the PLRA's provisions that ease the path to termination of decrees, whether litigated or by consent. Two types of preparation for a termination motion have emerged: First, the parties sometimes agree to stretch out the remediation period more than the PLRA's default two years. Second, plaintiffs have worked to ensure that they are collecting sufficient information to inform their potentially hurried response to a termination motion. It is my hope that the examples presented below can help counsel and judges in prisoners' rights cases thread the needle that the PLRA presents. More theoretically, the examples demonstrate that litigation tactics and procedures are dynamic—that rule changes affect the parties' bargaining positions but rarely eliminate bargaining altogether.


In recent years, recommendation algorithms have become one of the most active research areas driven by the enormous industrial demands. Most of the existing recommender systems focus on topics such as movie, music, e-commerce etc., which essentially differ from the TV show recommendations due to the cold-start and temporal dynamics. Both effectiveness (effectively handling the cold-start TV shows) and efficiency (efficiently updating the model to reflect the temporal data changes) concerns have to be addressed to design real-world TV show recommendation algorithms. In this paper, we introduce a novel hybrid recommendation algorithm incorporating both collaborative user-item relationship as well as item content features. The cold-start TV shows can be correctly recommended to desired users via a so called space alignment technique. On the other hand, an online updating scheme is developed to utilize new user watching behaviors. We present experimental results on a real TV watch behavior data set to demonstrate the significant performance improvement over other state-of-the-art algorithms.


Including an array of distinguished contributors, this novel book fills a gap in the literature by addressing an important, yet under-researched, issue in the field of sports economics. It places great emphasis on the notion that sport is a significant component for improving the happiness, health and well-being of citizens, communities and society as a whole. In so doing, it addresses whether, in an environment of increasing pressure on public spending, governments should continue to subsidize sporting activities at the expense of other public resources.


Cross-border insolvency law scholars have devoted much attention to theoretical questions of international system design. There is a general consensus in the literature that the ideal system would be a universalist system in which cross-border insolvencies would be administered in a single forum under a single governing law But scholars have paid less systematic attention to how a universalist system can be implemented in the real world by institutional actors such as legislatures and judges. This article seeks to redress the balance by discussing the reception of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency in the United States and the United Kingdom and exploring the role that judges play in harmonizing cross-border insolvency law.
As the Model Law is choice-of-law neutral, domestic enactments typically contain no express choice-of-law rules. Universalists urge judges to take their cue from modified universalism and interpret Model Law enactments in a manner that approximates to universalism's ideal "one court, one law" approach. But comparative analysis of Anglo-American judicial practice reveals that the contours of modified universalism are contested. "Modified universalism" as it is understood in the United States implies that judges should presumptively defer to the law of the foreign insolvency proceeding (lex concursus). American universalists tend therefore to favor a strong, centralizing version of modified universalism. By contrast, British modified universalism has a forum law (lex fori) choice-of-law orientation. British modified universalism supports effective coordination of insolvency proceedings with one court having a primary coordinating role. But it lacks any commitment to a centralizing lex concursus rule in the absence of statutory mandate.
Framed by reference to this account of the Model Law's Anglo-American reception, the article argues that modified universalism offers no convincing theory of how a universalist system is to be institutionalized in practice in the absence of more and harder law, the province of legislatures. Competing versions of modified universalism cannot support an interpretive methodology capable of yielding global judge-made rules of private international law that would address the Model Law's choice-of-law indeterminacy.


OBJECTIVE
A novel antithrombotic agent, lumbrokinase, was evaluated in this pilot study for its efficacy in the treatment of symptomatic stable angina.

DESIGN
This was a single-armed cohort study.

SETTINGS
The study was conducted at the National Cardiovascular Center, Harapan Kita, Jakarta, Indonesia.

SUBJECTS
The study comprised 10 patients who had coronary artery disease and stable angina and who consented to the trial.

INTERVENTION
Patients were treated with oral lumbrokinase for 30 consecutive days in addition to their standard medical therapy.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Stress technetium-99m sestamibi myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) was performed before and at the conclusion of the active treatment period. The degree and extent of inducible ischemia observed on the myocardial perfusion images were evaluated using the previously validated semiquantitative indices (Summed Stress Score and Summed Difference Score).

RESULTS
Following active treatment, the mean Summed Stress Score and Summed Difference Score deceased by 39% and 37%, respectively. The anginal symptom was ameliorated in 6 of 10 patients. No adverse reaction including major or minor bleeding was observed.

CONCLUSIONS
This paper represents the first description of the use of oral lumbrokinase in the treatment of chronic coronary artery disease with objective assessment using MPI. Oral lumbrokinase improves regional myocardial perfusion in patients with stable angina.


The authors present an atypical case of partial hydatidiform mole (PHM). Woman, 36 years old, who went to the emergency room for abdominal pain associated with eleven-week pregnancy. Echography revealed the presence of hyper stimulated ovaries leading to diagnosis of spontaneous Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). Blood sample revealed high levels of hCG (1422000 U/L), which associated with the ultrasound finding of placenta with vesicular areas, led to the suspicion of PHM. With this suspicion and the high value of nuchal translucency, amniocentesis was performed, confirming the diagnosis of PHM – 69, XXX. The pregnant, with history of hypothyroidism, presented analytic hyperthyroidism which is rare in this clinical situation. The medical termination of pregnancy resolved this pathologic situation and also hyperthyroidism condition. Hydatidiform mole, with increased levels of hCG, is one of the three possible mechanisms for spontaneous OHSS.


A terrorist attack using an improvised nuclear device is one of the most serious dangers facing the United States. The work presented here is part of an effort to improve nuclear deterrence by developing a methodology to attribute weapons-grade plutonium to a source reactor by measuring the intrinsic physical characteristics of the interdicted plutonium. In order to demonstrate the developed methodology, plutonium samples were produced from depleted uranium dioxide (DUO2) surrogates irradiated in a fast-neutron environment. In order to replicate the neutron flux in a fast-neutron-spectrum reactor and obtain experimental samples emulating weapons-grade plutonium produced in the blanket of a fast breeder reactor, DUO2 samples were placed in a gadolinium sheath and irradiated in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Previous computational work on this topic identified several fission products that could be used to distinguish between reactor types (fast and thermal reactors), specifically: 137Cs, 134Cs, 154Eu, 125Sb, 144Ce, 85Rb, 147Pm, and 150Sm along with the plutonium isotopes. Simulations of the fast neutron irradiation of the DUO2 fuel surrogates in the HFIR were carried out using the Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNPX 2.7. Comparisons of the predicted values of plutonium and fission product concentrations to destructive and nondestructive assay measurements of neutron-irradiated DUO2 surrogates are presented here. The agreement between the predictions and gamma spectroscopic measurements in general were within 10% for 134Cs, 137Cs, 154Eu, and 144Ce. Additional experimental results (mass spectroscopy) agreed to within 5% for the following isotopes: 85Rb, 147Pm, 150Sm, 154Eu, 148Nd, 144Ce, and 239Pu. Two indicator isotopes previously suggested to differentiate between the reactor types were ruled out for use in the attribution methodology; 125Sb was ruled out due to the difficulty in accurately predicting its concentration, and 242Pu was ruled out because of its low content in weapons-grade plutonium.


Satellite-based passive microwave remote sensing typically involves a scanning antenna that makes measurements at irregularly spaced locations. These locations can change on a day to day basis. Soil moisture products derived from satellite-based passive microwave remote sensing are usually resampled to a fixed Earth grid that facilitates their use in applications. In many cases the grid size is finer than the actual spatial resolution of the observation, and often this difference is not well understood by the user. Here, this issue was examined for the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) enhanced version of the passive-based soil moisture product, which has a grid size of 9-km and a nominal spatial resolution of 33-km. In situ observations from core validation sites were used to compute comparison metrics. For sites that satisfied the established reliability and scaling criteria, the impact of validating the 9-km grid product with in situ data collected over a 9-km versus a 33-km domain was very small for the sites studied (0.039m/m unbiased root mean square difference for the 9-km case versus 0.037m/m for the 33-km case). This result does not mean that the resolution of the product is 9-km but that for the conditions studied here the soil moisture estimated from in situ observations over 9-km is a close approximation of the soil moisture estimated from in situ observations over the 33-km resolution. The implication is that using the enhanced SMAP product at its grid resolution of 9-km should not introduce large errors in most applications.


Pathogen expulsion from the gut is an important defense strategy against infection, but little is known about how interaction between the intestinal microbiome and host immunity modulates defecation. In Drosophila melanogaster, dual oxidase (Duox) kills pathogenic microbes by generating the microbicidal reactive oxygen species (ROS), hypochlorous acid (HOCl) in response to bacterially excreted uracil. The physiological function of enzymatically generated HOCl in the gut is, however, unknown aside from its anti-microbial activity. Drosophila TRPA1 is an evolutionarily conserved receptor for reactive chemicals like HOCl, but a role for this molecule in mediating responses to gut microbial content has not been described. Here we identify a molecular mechanism through which bacteria-produced uracil facilitates pathogen-clearing defecation. Ingestion of uracil increases defecation frequency, requiring the Duox pathway and TrpA1. The TrpA1(A) transcript spliced with exon10b (TrpA1(A)10b) that is present in a subset of midgut enteroendocrine cells (EECs) is critical for uracil-dependent defecation. TRPA1(A)10b heterologously expressed in Xenopus oocytes is an excellent HOCl receptor characterized with elevated sensitivity and fast activation kinetics of macroscopic HOCl-evoked currents compared to those of the alternative TRPA1(A)10a isoform. Consistent with TrpA1's role in defecation, uracil-excreting Erwinia carotovora showed higher persistence in TrpA1-deficient guts. Taken together, our results propose that the uracil/Duox pathway promotes bacteria expulsion from the gut through the HOCl-sensitive receptor, TRPA1(A)10b, thereby minimizing the chances that bacteria adapt to survive host defense systems.


The mechanics and kinematics of accelerational undulatory locomotion by the chaetognath Sagitta elegans (Verrill, 1873) are studied with a combination of highspeed cinematography (200framess−1) and mathematical modeling. The model is constructed such that it predicts body velocity for an organism starting from rest and accelerating rapidly by swimming with prescribed wave kinematics. The speed of the undulatory propulsive waves and the number of these waves on the body is highly conserved across 11 individuals, while the wave amplitude is positively related to distance traveled in the first 65 ms of swimming. There is excellent agreement between these data and predictions of body translations that are based on a mathematical model for this mode of locomotion. The model also shows that instantaneous forces generated by the undulating body are much larger than average forces and consist of non-trivial inertial terms, even for such small organisms. The model also shows that the distance traveled over a fixed time interval is limited by the maximum muscle stress that can be physiologically generated. Peak instantaneous force represents a mechanical upper boundary to thrust production and, hence, a limit to performance.


Binding of the enzyme that synthesizes lysophosphatidic acid to integrins allows the production of this signaling molecule at its site of action. Production of the bioactive lipid lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), which regulates endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cell function and contributes to platelet activation, is mediated by the secreted enzyme autotaxin (ATX) through the hydrolysis of lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC). LPA production is greater in platelet-rich plasma relative to platelet-poor plasma, and thrombocytopenia caused by an antibody that recognizes platelets or by a small-molecule inhibitor of the platelet fibrinogen receptor integrin αIIbβ3 is associated with reduced circulating LPA. Fulkerson et al. found that the production of LPA by platelets stimulated with thrombin was blocked by inhibition of ATX activity and was enhanced by the addition of recombinant ATX. Furthermore, using a catalytically inactive form of ATX (ATX-T210A) to avoid complications due to stimulation of the platelets by the produced LPA, binding of platelets to ATX-coated dishes was inhibited by the absence of conditions that blocked activation of β1- or β3-containing integrins. Forced expression of β3 integrin in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells in the presence of an integrin activator (Mn2+) promoted binding of these cells to ATX. Saturable binding of radiolabeled ATX was also detected on platelets in suspension, and ATX binding was reduced by the addition of fibrinogen or echistatin, a peptide that competitively inhibits ligand binding to integrins. ATX or the catalytically inactive mutant reduced platelet adhesion in response to an agonist, whereas platelet adhesion was enhanced by the addition of fibrinogen. Catalytically inactive ATX prevented this fibrinogen-mediated enhancement, consistent with competition of these two molecules for the same receptor. At low concentrations of fibrinogen, wild-type ATX promoted adhesion and spreading of platelets. Mutational analysis identified the SMB (somatomedin B-like) 2 domain, and binding of peptide fragments containing only the two SMB domains to CHO cells expressing β3 integrin showed that these domains were necessary and sufficient for binding. Finally, integrin activation of the integrin-expressing CHO cells promoted ATX activity, and this was further enhanced if the cells were pretreated with phospholipase A2 to increase the production of the ATX substrate LPC. The enhanced production of LPA was not detected in the presence of integrin-blocking antibodies or the use of mutant forms of ATX that could not bind integrin. Thus, the authors propose that by binding to activated integrins, ATX is recruited to platelets and cells, where it locally produces the signaling molecule LPA. Z. Fulkerson, T. Wu, M. Sunkara, C. Vander Kooi, A. J. Morris, S. S. Smyth, Binding of autotaxin to integrins localizes lysophosphatidic acid production to platelets and mammalian cells. J. Biol. Chem. 286, 34654–34663 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The identification of barbituric acids by the x-ray powder diffraction method is discussed from the practical point of view. Data are presented showing the advantage of preparing the p-nitrobenzyl derivative whenever identification of the isolated free acid is either doubtful or considered impossible. A detailed account of the experimental micro technique is given and the applicability of the technique to pharmaceutical products as forensic specimens is discussed.


ABSTRACT Using a grounded theory approach, this study explores the ways a diverse group of pre-service student caregivers, new to teaching and caring for infants, come to understand notions of 'love' during an infant practicum course in the United States. Through analysing weekly dialogue journals and course assignments produced by each of the 8 participants, we captured their unique and complex experiences of love and care in the infant room. Results revealed that for love and trust between student caregivers and babies to evolve, caregivers need to acknowledge babies as unique individuals, and commit to getting to know and understand them in depth. Further, student caregivers develop intimate caregiving connections and loving relationships with babies through shared time and space. Loving care for babies became an integral experience and an essential pedagogical tool for student caregivers as they developed their professional identities. Our exploration of the deep and complex connections between love, care, and education in childcare, which have been for the most part overlooked, silenced, or simply ignored, has important implications for re-envisioning the notion of love in non-familial infant care.


We study plug-in estimators of conditional expectations and probabilities, and we provide a systematic analysis of their rates of convergence. The plug-in approach is particularly useful in this setting since it introduces a natural link to VC- and empirical process theory. We make use of this link to derive rates of convergence that hold uniformly over large classes of functions and sets, and under various conditions. For instance, we demonstrate that elementary conditional probabilities are estimated by these plug-in estimators with a rate of n˛1=2 if one conditions with a VC-class of sets and where ˛ 2 Œ0; 1=2/ controls a lower bound on the size of sets we can estimate given n samples. We gain similar results for Kolmogorov's conditional expectation and probability which generalize the elementary forms of conditioning. Due to their simplicity, plug-in estimators can be evaluated in linear time and there is no up-front cost for inference


Designing creative learning environments supported by new technologies involves the development of new literacies for both teachers and learners. One way to do this is to frame teaching and learning around building authentic learning communities. The role of the teacher then becomes creating ecologies where communities can interact, and seeding this interaction via triggering events, while the role of the learner becomes that of content creator and active participant. In this paper we propose and illustrate a framework that links the use of the SubstitutionAugmentation-Modification-Redefinition framework (SAMR) framework and the conception of three levels of creativity to trigger transformative curriculum design using mobile social media as a catalyst. A case study provides a practical example of using our mobile social media framework to explore transformative curriculum design both from the perspective of teacher and learner.


Objective: A majority of the diabetic patients experience sexual dysfunction. The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of allantoin on sexual dysfunction in diabetic rats. Methods: Streptozotocin-induced diabetic Wistar rats were divided into 3 groups: diabetic control group, diabetes + allantoin 100 mg/kg and diabetes + allantoin 200 mg/kg. Diabetic rats were treated with allantoin for 6 weeks and were assessed for its effect on sexual behavior, blood pressure, sperm count, sperm morphology, and levels of glycosylated hemoglobin, serum testosterone, and nitrite. Effects of treatment on diabetic rats were compared with diabetic control rats and normal healthy rats. Results: Diabetes decreased sexual behavior, sperm count and levels of serum testosterone and nitrite while increased blood pressure, the level of glycosylated hemoglobin and sperm defects in comparison to healthy rats. After a 6-week treatment period, there was a significant decrease in glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) and blood pressure in the allantoin treatment groups when compared to diabetic control. Also, the rats treated with allantoin performed significantly well in sexual behavioural studies with a significant increase in body weight, sperm count, and levels of serum testosterone and nitrite compared to diabetic control. Conclusion: Oral administration of allantoin improves sexual function in diabetic rats by improving glycemic control and maintaining blood pressure. It also improves sexual function in diabetic rats by preventing the reduction in levels of nitrite and serum testosterone. Key words: Sexual dysfunction in diabetes, Allantoin, Testosterone, Blood pressure, Sperm count.


The paper theoretically and empirically explores the relationship between work intensity and well-being. It first develops a well-being composite index that takes into account not only money based income, but also those aspects of individual capabilities and functioning that are not necessarily acquired through market participation such as the person's educational attainment and work intensity. The study focuses on two categories of informal home-based workers: 1) those who are self-employed and work in their own business and 2) those who are paid by others and work as subcontracted homeworkers. Using time use data collected among these workers, the paper demonstrates how time use patterns can serve as crucial indicators of quality of life. Empirical tests are then conducted to examine the effect of time and work intensity aspects on the well-being of homebased workers, majority of whom have low wage rates and/or work with no labor protection. For women workers, combining both paid market work and unpaid domestic work has become a necessity, creating a higher incidence of work intensity, and hence lower quality of life than among men homebased workers. We also found that the well-being level of self employed workers to be better than subcontracted workers. The well-being index developed in the paper provides a useful indicator for use by policymakers, researchers and advocacy groups in the way that it allows for comparability and for identifying those who need the most assistance. A better understanding of the factors that promote or lower well-being can enable policymakers to target vulnerable individuals or households. It also helps them to design more effective programs and economic and social policies that enhance the well-being of these individuals.


Multiple antenna transceivers combined with MIMO signal processing offer the potential for increased data rates and/or range in wireless systems. This paper presents a fully integrated 5-GHz 2x2 MIMO WLAN transceiver RFIC implemented in 90-nm CMOS. The paper identifies the key MIMO integration issues and proposes techniques to optimize MIMO performance. It is shown that crosstalk between the multiple transceivers residing on the same die can degrade MIMO performance and has to be carefully minimized, especially when power amplifiers are integrated on-die. A shared LO generation and distribution network is designed to maximize MIMO phase noise immunity without introducing undesired crosstalk. The fabricated MIMO receiver achieves a sensitivity of -63 dBm while receiving 108 Mb/s in MIMO spatial multiplexing mode in the presence of a 25-ns Rayleigh fading channel. The sensitivity of a single receiver in the presence of AWGN noise is -76 dBm. Linearized 3.3-V 5-GHz power amplifiers with P 1dB = 20.5 dBm deliver an average power of +13 / + 16 dBm each, in MIMO/SISO modes respectively (EVM = -27/ - 25 dB). The measured performance demonstrates the effectiveness of the isolation techniques employed. The system in a package includes an 18 mm 2 die and microstrip front-end matching networks implemented on a flip-chip package.


Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 209 pp. $104.95. Ever since the demise of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, relationships between the successor states of the Middle East have been chronically volatile. Today, too, alliances and alignments continue to shift, in response to both external concerns and domestic pressures. For Israel, one fortunate result is that she almost never has to worry about a united coalition of all her potential foes. Rather, she can distinguish real "threats" from potential "risks" and accordingly base her strategic planning on a variety of possible scenarios, involving different combinations of enemies, by-standers and partners. Anthony H. Cordesman's latest study analyzes what those combinations now might be, and then goes on to itemize the balance of forces in each case. His book is therefore somewhat oddly mistitled. Fundamental to its argument is that there exists no such thing as a single "Arab-Israeli Military Balance," at either the conventional or the nonconventional levels. Instead, Cordesman insists (p. 625), there are "many possible `balances,' each tied to different problems and potential sources of conflict that can suddenly escalate into crisis or conflict.... Focusing on one possible contingency, or balance, at the expense of the others ignores real-world uncertainties affecting the region." Cordesman guides us through this maze of possibilities with his customary mastery. One of the best-informed and most prolific writers on contemporary near eastern military affairs, he is completely in command of his subject. He has read widely (in English) and has supplemented the leads thereby obtained by acute personal observation and individual interviews with several key military figures in the region. His text perches upon almost 1100 footnotes and a dozen pages of bibliographical references. The only faults are minor: the maps are useless (and in one case, on p. 494, misplaced); occasional repetitions (e.g., the descriptions of the death of Brig.-Gen. Erez Gerstien on pp. 416, 418); and some retention of summary notes of interviews where a synoptic analysis might have been more elegant (pp. 202-5). Overall, however, the book is a triumph -- especially of organization. Its opening chapters overview recent Arab and Israeli military acquisitions and arms transfers, and then proceed to a panoramic comparison of Arab and Israeli forces by service and country. Subsequent chapters analyze individual dyads (Israel-Palestinians; Israel-Syria; Israel-Lebanon; Israel-Jordan; Israel-Egypt) and a number of possible "worst case" scenarios. These include: (a) a conventional war between Israel and all of her immediate neighbours; (b) large-scale fighting between Israel and an alliance of more distant foes (Lybia, Iran, Iraq); and (c) the possible resort -- in any of these situations -- to various weapons of mass destruction, with the specter of a nuclear confrontation of one sort or another lurking in the background. Although Cordesman is not addicted to number-crunching, he certainly supplies substantive fare to those who are. Numerous tables and charts provide comprehensive inventories of the region's armed forces and their arsenals, and detailed audits of the financial burdens that their maintenance has imposed on each national economy over recent decades. Nevertheless, Cordesman does not assume that the figures "speak for themselves. …


Paolo Soleri's arcology model (architecture + ecology addresses issues of sustainability by advocating living in a balanced relationship between urban morphology and performance within dense, integrated and compact structures. Within these structures material recycling, waste reduction and the use of renewable energy sources are adopted as part of a sustainable strategy aimed at reducing the flow of resources and energy through the urban system. Today, as governments, eager to deliver major environmental improvements, press on with as yet untried and largely untested 'centrist' policies of urban living, there is a need to research relevant models of the 'compact city' approach. Issues involved with the intensification in the use of space, higher residential densities, centralisation, compactness, the integration of land uses and aspects of self-containment need to be examined. Over the last ten years, as the criteria of sustainability have become more widely accepted and understood, the relevance of the Soleri's urban model has become clearer. Arcosanti, begun in 1970, offers a laboratory for testing the validity of Soleri's ideas. This paper examines arcology and Arcosanti within the context of sustainability. Since the energy crisis of the mid 1970s, efforts at Arcosanti have been directed toward the definition and testing of various architectural effects on a community-wide scale that could offer a response to many of today's environmental problems. But progress is painstakingly slow. Lacking the level of funding and resources that would enable it to be convincing, Arcosanti now represents not so much a specific prototypal solution, but an activist-engaged strategy that advocates the possibility of building our dreams and visions. In a world plagued by so many problems and so few alternatives, it nevertheless continues to offer a beacon of hope on the threshold of a new millennium.


BACKGROUND
Spinal cord injury is nowadays still a challenging disease, and a treatment option aimed at the primary site of injury does not currently exist. Therefore, the management of acute spinal cord injury has recently focused on the reasons behind the aggravation of the initial insult through secondary mechanisms, and the search for pharmacological treatment protocols is generally aimed at reducing and minimizing the neural injury and neurological sequela. The secondary spinal cord injury usually develops following a primary lesion induced by spinal cord contusion and the emergence of apoptotic cells has been found to play an important role in the development of secondary injury. We propose that huperzine A may induce a significant reduction in the number of apoptotic cells because it possesses the ability to protect cells against glutamate, ischemia and staurosporine-induced cytotocity and apoptosis.

METHODS
Huperzine A was administered intraperitoneally to male Wistar Albino rats (220-340 g of body weight) after moderate static clip compression (70 g for 60 s) of the spinal cord at T7 level. Neurological functions were assessed using the Basso-Beattle-Breshanan (BBB) motor rating scale until 3th and 7th days before perfusion, following which the spinal cord was harvested for histopathological examinations and apoptotic cell counts.

RESULTS
Histopathological evaluations of the spinal cord of the control, trauma and huperzine A treated groups were evaluated. Control group showed normal neuronal and vascular structures of the spinal cord. However, in both trauma groups 3rd- and 7th-day perfusion showed extensive cavitation and hemorrhage, areas of necrosis and edema in gray matter, and degeneration in motor neurons along with patchy areas of necrotic and apoptotic cells. In the group treated with huperzine A, an increased number of normal cells was observed, along with a lower number of necrotic cells, with a significant reduction in the apoptotic cells (P<0.01). The administration of huperzine A improved post-trauma motor performance. Furthermore, BBB scores of all groups showed that there was an improvement of locomotor abilities in the treatment group as compared with the control.

CONCLUSIONS
When compared with controls, huperzine A treatment demonstrates a significant reduction in the number of apoptotic cells. In addition, the group treated with huperzine A showed significant and appreciable neurological improvement in rats.


Fairy tales, ghost stories, detective fiction and comedies of manners - the stories collected in this volume made Oscar Wilde's name as a writer of fiction, showing breathtaking dexterity in a wide range of literary styles. Victorian moral justice is comically inverted in 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' and 'The Canterville Ghost', and society's materialism comes under sharp, humorous criticism in 'The Model Millionaire', while 'The Happy Prince' and 'The Nightingale and the Rose' are hauntingly melancholic in their magical evocations of selfless love. These small masterpieces convey the brilliance of Wilde's vision, exploring complex moral issues through an elegant juxtaposition of wit and sentiment.


With the Web 2.0 paradigm, users play the active roles in producing Web contents at online forums, wiki, blogs, social networks, etc. Among these users contributed contents, many of them are opinions about products, services, or political issues. Accordingly, extracting the comparative relations about products or services by means of opinion mining techniques could generate significant business values. From the producers' perspective, they could better understand the relative strength or weakness of their products, and hence developing better products to meet the consumers' requirements. From the consumers' perspective, they could exercise more informed purchasing decisions by comparing the various features of certain kind of products. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a novel Support Vector Machine (SVM) based comparative relation map generation method for automatic product features analysis based on the sheer volume of consumer opinions posted on the Web. The proposed method has been empirically evaluated based on the consumer opinions crawled from the Web recently. Our initial experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method is promising, and the precision can achieve 73.15%.


Purpose To share experiences by discussing the necessity, the challenges and the used (implementation) strategies on integrated care. Context Integrated care and chronic care by SGE will be described. SGE delivers with 260 professionals integrated primary healthcare, based on protocols, standards and disease programs for 80,000 people. There is a formalized and structural cooperation with hospitals, their specialists, social services and other organizations. Because half of all the people with chronic illness have multiple conditions, SGE has taken interest in changing the management of diseases, such as heart failure, COPD, diabetes, depression. Deficiencies in current management and the transformation of health care from reactive to proactive are discussed. Approaches, methods and tools used by SGE are focused on. For example: the transition with the Chronic Care Model. This model summarizes the basic elements for improving health care in health systems at the community, organizations, practice and patient levels. Issues like implementation of chronic care programs and how SGE cooperates with the Maastricht University for evaluating outcomes of effectiveness of integrated care by SGE come up for discussion. Data source 1. Kodner DL, Spreeuwenberg C. Integrated care: meaning, logic applications and implications, a discussion paper. Int J Integr Care 2002 Oct–Dec;2:e12. 2. Glasgow RE, Davis C, Bonomi AE, Provost L, McCulloch D, Carver P, Sixta C. Quality improvement in chronic illness care: a collaborative approach. Jt Comm J Qual Improv 2001;27:63–80. 3. Pater L, Dubbeldam S, Verweijen M. Implementeren, het speelveld in de praktijk. Lemma 2005. 4. Grol R, Wensing M, Eccles M. Improving patient care, the implementation of change in clinical practice. Butterworth-Heinemann 2004. Preliminary conclusion The multi-problem patients do need a change in health systems. Despite everything already done, there is still a long way to go. Local, national and international collaborations and networks therefore are a must. Discussion Is the Chronic Care Model the model to make integrated care for frail elderly, patients with chronic care or long term care needs possible? The do's and the dont's in implementing integrated care.


We investigate experimentally and numerically the nonlinear propagation of intense Bessel–Gauss vortices in transparent solids. We show that nonlinear Bessel–Gauss vortices preserve all properties of nonlinear Bessel–Gauss beams while their helicity provides an additional control parameter for single-shot precision micro structuring of transparent solids. For sufficiently large cone angle, a stable hollow tube of intense light is formed, generating a plasma channel whose radius and density are increasing with helicity and cone angle, respectively. We assess the potential of intense Bessel vortices for applications based on the generation of hollow plasma channels.


Abstract. We have developed a new nested-grid mercury (Hg) simulation over North America with a 1/2° latitude by 2/3° longitude horizontal resolution employing the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model. Emissions, chemistry, deposition, and meteorology are self-consistent between the global and nested domains. Compared to the global model (4° latitude by 5° longitude), the nested model shows improved skill at capturing the high spatial and temporal variability of Hg wet deposition over North America observed by the Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) in 2008–2009. The nested simulation resolves features such as higher deposition due to orographic precipitation, land/ocean contrast and and predicts more efficient convective rain scavenging of Hg over the southeast United States. However, the nested model overestimates Hg wet deposition over the Ohio River Valley region (ORV) by 27%. We modify anthropogenic emission speciation profiles in the US EPA National Emission Inventory (NEI) to account for the rapid in-plume reduction of reactive to elemental Hg (IPR simulation). This leads to a decrease in the model bias to −2.3% over the ORV region. Over the contiguous US, the correlation coefficient (r) between MDN observations and our IPR simulation increases from 0.60 to 0.78. The IPR nested simulation generally reproduces the seasonal cycle in surface concentrations of speciated Hg from the Atmospheric Mercury Network (AMNet) and Canadian Atmospheric Mercury Network (CAMNet). In the IPR simulation, annual mean gaseous and particulate-bound Hg(II) are within 140% and 11% of observations, respectively. In contrast, the simulation with unmodified anthropogenic Hg speciation profiles overestimates these observations by factors of 4 and 2 for gaseous and particulate-bound Hg(II), respectively. The nested model shows improved skill at capturing the horizontal variability of Hg observed over California during the ARCTAS aircraft campaign. The nested model suggests that North American anthropogenic emissions account for 10–22% of Hg wet deposition flux over the US, depending on the anthropogenic emissions speciation profile assumed. The modeled percent contribution can be as high as 60% near large point sources in ORV. Our results indicate that the North American anthropogenic contribution to dry deposition is 13–20%.


CSR is a potent tool in achieving the social and environmental goals of a nation by collaborating partnership with corporations in combating developmental challenges in emerging economies like India. The State Government in India can provide big leap to government developmental programs if they can muster wholehearted support from corporates for implementing social welfare and awareness programmes. This paper makes a special reference to the Cleanliness drive "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA)", wherein Indian Government identified that the ambit of SBA is vast and utilized the funds and expertise of corporate through CSR to collaborate in implementing programmes such as the construction of toilets, sewage treatment, river cleaning and so forth. This paper is analytical and descriptive in explaining how government and corporates together can shape social demographics of India through CSR by leveraging the value and resources of corporate and utilizing the governmental expertise in identifying the social gaps and accordingly formulating the plans for development to create high impact outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of CSR in the government development plan in India. It explores the intersection of corporate social responsibility efforts and public policy. This qualitative research is based on extant literature on CSR and detailed interviews with government and agencies like NGOs, social enterprises which are involved at the level of identifying corporate partners and implementing social campaigns.


A new commercially molecularly imprinted polymer dedicated to the specific solid phase extraction of catecholamines and metanephrines has been tested for the extraction of neurotransmitters in serum samples. A protocol was developed especially for several aminergic neurotransmitters and metabolites (dopamine, 3-methoxytyramine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, normetanephrine, and serotonine). The serum was diluted in water (1/10, v/v), loaded on a cartridge filled with molecularly imprinted polymer and washed successively with water, methanol-water (15/85, v/v), and methanol. Analytes were then eluted with methanol-acetic acid (99/1, v/v). No matrix peak was observed on the chromatograms obtained by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with ultra-violet detection (281 nm). High selectivities were observed between imprinted and nonimprinted polymers. Extraction recoveries ranged from 64–98% (RSD <6%, n = 4) depending on the type of analytes and linearity was assessed in the 0.30–0.90 µM concentration range by least squares regression (r2 > 0.991). Then, large volumes of sample (8–40 mL) were loaded on the cartridge to evaluate the binding capacity of the cartridge. Increasing loaded sample volumes induced a decrease in extraction recovery, particularly for hydrophilic compounds. For a given elution recovery, higher preconcentration factors were achieved (∼55) for less hydrophilic compounds (sample volume of 40 mL).