ObjectiveTo detect presence of circulating Rift Valley Fever virus (RVFv) in animals of Western and Central Uganda following its confirmation in humans.To establish and communicate reliable information using the one health platformSignificnce:Although in E. Africa RVF was initially detected and known to be a disease endermic in Kenya, the people in Uganda were still hesitating wether the disease is already in existence. Following its first detection in 2016 in Humans there was need to carry out an investigation in the hot spot areas of the human infection to get the real picture and to inform the policy makers for informed decisions.IntroductionRift Valley fiver is viral zoonotic disease which was investigated and reported in Uganda in 20101. For some time now people are not aware whether the disease was still circulating or emerged in animals reared as a result of the inter country trade by the community of the cattle corridor in Uganda, since the last reports in 19682. The increase in the number of disease outbreaks in some parts of central and western Uganda from 2016 to date and the number of human patients investigated, diagnosed and confirmed with RVF by Ministry Of Health (MOH) under the one health program, has placed the disease to be among the top re-emerging diseases in the country3&4 and number 5 of the Multisectoral prioritization of zoonotic diseases in Uganda, 2017 under One Health perspective6.MethodsRift valley Fever was investigated in cattle, goats and sheep of Gomba,Mityana, Kiboga and Kiruhura in Central and Western Uganda. This followed 2 people that had been confirmed with RVF in 20161 Samples were aseptically collected from hot places from 543 victim's animals including those of the neighbouring areas covering the victims routes of movement plus those areas where people were still sick and where death had reportedly occurred. Samples were then delivered to NADDEC laboratory from where tests were conducted.ResultsSamples were screened using a competition IgG ELISA, then IgM ELISA to capture the recently infected animals. The positive samples from the IgM ELISA were then confirmed using RT-PCR; 169/543 (31%) tested positive to IgG screening ELISA indicating exposure to RVF. The actual infection was found to be 13% (22/169) with IgM ELISA and 3/22 (13.6%) with RT-PCR.ConclusionsZoonotic diseases continue to be a public health burden to the people of Uganda. Considering some people's behavior of eating the sick and dead animals, has posed a difficult situation to combat the ailment which has resulted in negative socioeconomic impacts, affecting the national policies that range from health security to control of diseases. Uganda has however developed capacity to investigate, test and confirm RVF disease. Since exposure was found in all animal species, detailed active surveillance plan and procedures have been set up to investigate any additional cases in animals to reduce chances of spread to humans and to cub international spread and also to determine the magnitude of exposure.References1 Nabukenya, Investigation and response to Rift Valley Fever and Yellow Fever outbreaks in humans in Uganda, 20162 Nyakarahuka L.prevalence and risk factors of Rift valley in humans and animals from kabale, 20163 Wang LF, Crameri G.Emerging zoonotic viral diseases.Rev Sci Tech Int Epiz.2014;33Institute of Medicine (U.S.), Committee on Achieving Sustainable Global Capacity for surveillance and4 Response to Emerging Diseases of Zoonotic Origin, Keusch G. Sustaining global surveillance and response to emerging zoonotic diseases, 20095 Musa Sekamatte, Vikram K.Multisectoral prioritization of zoonotic diseases in Uganda, 2017, A One Health perspective6 Munyua P, Bitek A, Osoro E, Pieracci EG, Muema J,Mwatondo A,et al, Prioritization of Zoonotic Diseases in Kenya,2015. PLOS ONE. 2016;11:e0161576. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161576 PMID:27557120


This paper examines the historiography of the Front de Liberation Quebecois within the context of three frameworks, each used to devaluate the FLQ, the idea of separation, its potential support and most importantly, the perspectives of historians who oppose these frameworks. Through an examination of the literature, the FLQ are framed as an attack on British liberalism, an attack on Canadian Unity, or violent in a political climate where such actions were unjustifiable. These understandings work cooperatively together to de-legitimize alternative views on FLQ history, and Quebec independence. I will examine also the benefits in studying the FLQ outside of the tensions of separation and the potential for future study in the history of the FLQ.


The idea of concentrating solar energy to increase the output power of photovoltaic (PV) collectors is an area that has received significant attention in recent years. In this study, a design model for a V-trough concentrating PV solar collector by using one and two plane reflectors is theoretically analyzed and validated with experimental measurements data. The angle between the PV collector and reflector and the tilt of PV collector are fixed at 120 and 60, respectively. Variation of the total solar radiation received by the PV collector without reflector for horizontal surface, for normal incidence, with tilt angle 60, with one reflector and with two reflectors for a selected day in 15-January during the time period from 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM in Baghdad city for different view factor between the PV collector and reflector (Fr-c) is studied. The results indicated that the total solar radiation at solar noon for Fr-c=0.21 is 1265 W/m when using two reflectors, in other words 61% enhancement. On the other hand, there is 120% enhancement of two reflectors system in comparison with horizontal surface without reflector. The Isc at solar noon increase from 0.16 A for PV collector without reflector to 0.22 A with one reflector which represent 37.5% enhancement and to 0.3 A with two reflectors which represent 87.5% enhancement, while the open circuit voltage (VOC) increase from 8.35 volt for PV collector without reflector to 8.43 volt with one reflector and to 8.4 volt with two reflectors.


'positions in the sequence correctly recalled' draws on research into the way we construct and learn sequences in response to changing environmental stimuli. Rather than responding to a sequence of triggers to generate a sequence (event 1 triggers event 2, event 2 triggers event 3 etc.), research suggests that actors have plans for behaviour based on predisposition. In this piece, players construct sequences of events from a limited choice of available material, altering such sequences by addition and subtraction of material, as well as through error and individual choice.
'positions in the sequence correctly recalled' was commissioned by asamisimasa and first performed at hcmf// on 25 November 2014.


Acidic and catalytic properties of bimetallic catalysts based on ZSM-5 zeolite modified with copper, cobalt and boron in the conversion of straight-run gasoline fraction of gas condensate were studied in a flow-through unit at atmospheric pressure, in the absence of hydrogen in the temperature range 350-4300C. It has been established that the introduction of modifiers (Cu, Co, B) into the zeolite leads to a sig-nificant decrease in the strength and concentration of acid sites. An increase in the copper concen-tration in the zeolite to 3.0 wt.% leads to a decrease in the concentration of strong acid sites from 542 to 332 mmol/g. The introduction of 2% Cu/HZSM-5 into the catalyst composition of the second modifier Co in an amount of up to 1.5 wt.% reduces the concentration of strong acid sites to 242 mmol/g. With the additional modification of the bimetallic catalyst 1.0% Co 2% Cu/HZSM-5 with boron in an amount of 0.5-1.5 wt.%, the concentration of strong acid sites further decreases to 112-198 mmol/g. On unmodified zeolite HZSM-5, which has strong acid sites, cracking and aromatization of hydro-carbons mainly take place. Isomerization of n-paraffin hydrocarbons that make up the gas conden-sate is not significant. As a result of the modification of HZSM-5 with copper in the amount of 1.0-3.0 wt. %.There is a significant increase in the catalyzate content of high-octane components: iso-paraffinic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Modification of the catalyst with 2% Cu/HZSM-5 Co in an amount of 0.5-1.0 wt.% increases its isomerizing activity, and additional modification with boron (0.5-1.5 wt.%) leads to an increase in the yield of liquid products. The relationship between the acid-ic and catalytic properties of modified catalysts has been established. The effect of increasing the isomerizing and aromatizing activity of the modified catalysts is associated with the nature, concen-tration of the modifier, and the ratio of weak and strong acid sites. The isomerizing and aromatizing activity of the catalyst is controlled by the nature and concentration of the modifier. The bimetallic catalyst 1.0% Co 2.0 Cu% 1.0% B/HZSМ-5 exhibits the highest activity in upgrading straight-run gasoline fraction of gas condensate, which makes it possible to obtain a gasoline component with an octane number of 86.5 according to IM at 3800C and a yield of 77.8 wt.%.


A specific multi-phosphopeptide enrichment method is presented to complement current phosphopeptide isolation strategies that normally bias mass spectrometry analysis towards the detection of mono-phosphopeptides. An adsorption model is developed that shows how the physical parameters of adsorption such as specific surface area, adsorption time, etc. control the extraction of mono- and multi-phosphorylated peptides on oxide materials such as alumina. Commercial alumina particles, alumina supported on aluminium particles and alumina on aluminium foils were used to enrich multi-phosphopeptides. The synthesized phosphopeptides and tryptic digests of casein and milk were employed as samples to validate the adsorption simulation. Both experimental and theoretical results show how the selective enrichment of multi-phosphopeptides can be achieved when using extractors with a high specific affinity for phosphate groups but with a relatively small loading capacity or specific surface area. We also show that a commercial aluminium foil represents an ideal substrate to enrich multi-phosphorylated peptides for laser desorption ionisation mass spectrometry.


Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) is one of the major fruit vegetables in Nigeria. In view of its seasonal availability and the need to make it available all-year round, effort must be made to increase efficiency of its production especially during the dry season. A study was therefore carried out to examine the economics of dry season tomato production in Kwara state, Nigeria. It estimated the costs and returns and assessed the technical efficiency of dry season tomato production. A two-stage random sampling technique was used to select 105 respondents for the study. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Major tools of analysis used for the study were the gross margin analysis and the stochastic frontiers model. Results of the study showed that a gross margin of N 18,956.75/ha (US$ 120.74/ha) was realized from dry season tomato production. Furthermore, the result of the stochastic frontier model shows that age, education status of the farmers and access to credit had significant effect on the efficiency of dry season tomato production. This study therefore highlights the need for government to invest in public education and to make credit available to farmers as a way of reducing the burden of high cost of production.


China's historic economic expansion is driven by fossil fuels, which increase its emissions of both local air pollutants and greenhouse gases dramatically. Clearing the Air is an innovative, quantitative examination of the national damage caused by China's degraded air quality, conducted in a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary U.S.-China collaboration. Its damage estimates are allocated by sector, making it possible for the first time to judge whether, for instance, power generation, transportation, or an unexpected source such as cement production causes the greatest environmental harm. Such objective analyses can help China reset policy priorities. Clearing the Air uses this information to show how appropriate "green" taxes might not only reduce emissions and health damages but even enhance China's economic growth. It also shows to what extent these same policies could limit greenhouse gases, suggesting that wealthier nations have a responsibility to help China build environmental protection into its growth. Clearing the Air is written for a diverse audience, providing a bridge from underlying research to policy implications, with easily accessible overviews of issues and summaries of the findings for nonspecialists and policymakers followed by more specialized, interlinked studies of primary interest to scholars. Taken together, these analyses offer a uniquely integrated assessment that supports the book's economic and policy recommendations.


Coagulation removal of algae in raw water could be significantly affected by humic acid (HA). A series of jar-tests were conducted to investigate the coagulation performance with polyaluminum chloride and floc properties of Microcystis aeruginosa , a unicellular cyanobacteria, in the presence of HA. Meanwhile the coagulation mechanism was explored through the measurement of zeta potential of the supernatant. The results showed that an optimal removal efficiency of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) was obtained at pH 8.0 with a low concentration of HA (2 mg/L) and at pH 6.0 with a high concentration of HA (8 mg/L). The floc structure was more compact and bigger-sized and the calculated fractal dimension ( D f) was larger at maximum coagulation efficiency. The variation of D f was consistent with that of Chl-a removal efficiency under the same coagulation conditions. Charge neutralization was inferred to be the dominant mechanism to remove algal cells with low concentration of HA, while charge neutralization, gathering and the bridging process worked together to remove algal cells with a high concentration of HA. These results provide insight on how to achieve an optimal removal efficiency of algae in the presence of different concentrations of HA in water treatment.


Our paper aims at capturing the distribution of negative polarity items (NPIs) within lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG). The condition under which an NPI can occur in a sentence is for it to be in the scope of a negation with no quantifiers scopally intervening. We model this restriction within a recent framework for LTAG semantics based on semantic unification. The proposed analysis provides features that signal the presence of a negation in the semantics and that specify its scope. We extend our analysis to modelling the interaction of NPI licensing and neg raising constructions.


Malacological surveys on the abundance of molluscan fauna were carried out in freshwater habitats at the 2 main rivers of southeastern Nigeria: River Niger and Cross River basins. A total of 19 species of gastropods were found, 13 of which are pulmonates and 6 prosobranchs. The distribution of the species varied between the habitats, with high densities recorded in patches within the habitats. Infected snails were collected mainly from portions of the habitats that are accessible. Trematode cercariae types and infection rates were recorded for each snail species. Seasonal patterns of both snail types and their trematode infection at various developmental stages are discussed.


In A COMMON LAW FOR THE AGE OF STATUTES, Judge Calabresi observes that we are choking on obsolete statutes. Due largely to legislative inertia, these statutes have not been rewritten. To solve this problem, Judge Calabresi argues that we should grant courts a new power to update statutes. However, his proposal has been attacked on the ground that the proposal violates separation of powers; the proposal authorizes the courts to make the very type of policy judgment that the enacting legislature made in the first instance. At least in some cases, courts can solve the problem of obsolescent legislation without asserting the general updating power proposed by Judge Calabresi. The courts should rely more heavily on the concept of interpretative intention: the intention that a person would have had if he or she had anticipated a development. Part I describes the acceptance of the notion of interpretative intention in both philosophy and other legal contexts. Part II demonstrates the democratic legitimacy of employing the concept in statutory interpretation. Part III details the circumstances that should concur before a court invokes the concept of interpretative intention.


. Domain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSML) play a key role in model-driven development. There are many approaches how to create a DSML. Recent trends in domain-specific modeling languages and issues of creating and using UML profiles are discussed in this paper. Then we present a novel approach for defining a full-featured DSML based on a UML profile and its customization instead of heavyweight metamodeling. This approach was implemented in MagicDraw UML tool and already successfully accepted by its users. Also, MagicDraw UML developers themselves applied it for creating SysML, DoDAF and UPDM modeling environments. The main benefit of this approach is that it allows a DSML modeler to reuse powerful features of already existing tools. We propose a seven-step DSML development process and illustrate it by an example demonstrating creation of a DSML for modeling organization structures. We also discuss benefits of taking the presented approach and some ideas for future enhancements based on the feedback of users.


My thesis makes three claims. First, the courts set aside contracts ('transaction avoidance') because they are substantively unfair, or unfair because of their content or outcome. In some cases, the courts try to disguise this by using the language of procedural fairness to justify transaction avoidance, ie, they say that they are setting contracts aside because of some defect in the way they were entered, usually lack of the promisor's consent caused by her incapacity or the reprehensible conduct of the promisee. However, the cases show that contracts are set aside even though there is no lack of consent. The courts try to dress these cases up in the language of procedural fairness because of freedom of contract. Freedom of contract is the most widely cited objection to substantive fairness, or judicial interference with contract for content-dependent reasons. However, I argue, and this is my second claim, that freedom of contract is not necessarily incompatible with substantive fairness. My third claim is that the existing cases of substantive fairness are morally justified by my theory of autonomy harms. According to it, a good life is an autonomous life. Substantive fairness is justified by the need to protect parties and society more generally from contracts which harm autonomy. The courts implicitly set aside contracts on content-based grounds because they cause five kinds of autonomy harm. These are, harm to: future freedom; threshold wealth; planning; valuable social forms; and the practice of undertaking voluntary obligations. I conclude that the courts should stop disguising cases of substantive fairness, and explicitly adopt autonomy harms and the taxonomy of the law it offers. This would make the legal system more transparent, and easier to criticise and reform.


People have many creative ideas, but only a few of these ideas are realized and lead to innovation. Good ideas often fail because they are not shared between innovators and stakeholders, hence are unlikely to be realized. Consequently, many opportunities are missed to excite customers and to gain a competitive advantage. This paper proposes an innovation process that uses online social networks to lower the hurdle to sharing ideas. The process leverages diffusion effects of social networks while supporting the generation, evaluation, consolidation, and implementation of innovative ideas with lightweight activities. The process is illustrated and discussed using an application example. Although we are focusing on innovation regarding software-intensive systems, we foresee that the discussed process has the potential to be applied to other domains as well.


In recent years, the large-scale, untargeted studies of the compounds that serve as workers in the cell (proteins) and the small molecules involved in essential life-sustaining chemical processes (metabolites) have provided insights into a wide array of fields, such as medical diagnostics, drug discovery, personalised medicine and many others. Measurements in such studies are routinely performed using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) instruments. From these measurements, we obtain a set of peaks having mass-to-charge, retention time (RT) and intensity values. Before further analysis is possible, the raw LC-MS data has to be processed in a data pre-preprocessing pipeline. In the alignment step of the pipeline, peaks from multiple LC-MS measurements have to be matched. In the identification step, the identity of unknown compounds in the sample that generate the observed peaks have to be assigned. Using tandem mass spectrometry, fragmentation peaks characteristic to a compound can be obtained and used to help establish the identity of the compound. Alignment and identification are challenging because the true identities of the entire set of compounds in the sample are unknown, and a single compound can produce many observed peaks, each with a potential drift in its retention time value. These observed peaks are not independent as they can be explained as being generated by the same compound.

The aim of this thesis is to introduce methods to group these related peaks and to use these groupings to improve alignment and assist in identification during data pre-processing. Firstly, we introduce a generative model to group related peaks by their retention time. This information is used to influence direct-matching alignment, bringing related peak groups closer during matching. Investigations using benchmark datasets reveal that improved alignment performance is obtained from this approach. Next, we also consider mass information in the grouping process, resulting in PrecursorCluster, a model that performs the grouping of related peaks in metabolomics by their explainable mass relationships, RT and intensity values. Through a second-stage process that matches these related peak groups, peak alignment is produced. Experiments on benchmark datasets show that an improved alignment performance is obtained, while uncertainties in matched peaksets can also be extracted from the method. In the next section, we expand upon this two-stage method and introduce HDPAlign, a model that performs the clustering of related peaks within and across multiple LC-MS runs at once. This allows for matched peaksets and their respective uncertainties to be naturally extracted from the model. Finally, we look at fragmentation peaks used for identification and introduce MS2LDA, a topic model to group related fragmentation features. These groups of related fragmentation features potentially correspond to substructures shared by metabolites and can be used to assist data interpretation during identification. This final section corresponds to a work in progress and points to many interesting avenues for future research.


We introduce COT-GAN, an adversarial algorithm to train implicit generative models optimized for producing sequential data. The loss function of this algorithm is formulated using ideas from Causal Optimal Transport (COT), which combines classic optimal transport methods with an additional temporal causality constraint. Remarkably, we find that this causality condition provides a natural framework to parameterize the cost function that is learned by the discriminator as a robust (worst-case) distance, and an ideal mechanism for learning time dependent data distributions. Following Genevay et al.\ (2018), we also include an entropic penalization term which allows for the use of the Sinkhorn algorithm when computing the optimal transport cost. Our experiments show effectiveness and stability of COT-GAN when generating both low- and high-dimensional time series data. The success of the algorithm also relies on a new, improved version of the Sinkhorn divergence which demonstrates less bias in learning.


A novel feedback-based handoff scheme, which makes use of information fed back from the mobile, is presented. The proposed scheme attains fast handoff, with relatively small buffer requirements at both the base station and the mobile terminal. The signaling involved in the handoff scheme is described in detail. Simulation results obtained using the OPNET Modeler/Radio package are presented.


Significance Conventional therapies for the treatment of anxiety disorders are aversive, and as a result, many patients terminate treatment prematurely. We have developed an unconscious method to bypass the unpleasantness in conscious exposure using functional magnetic resonance imaging neural reinforcement. Using this method, participants learn to generate brain patterns similar to the multivariate brain pattern of a feared animal. We demonstrate in a double-blind placebo-controlled experiment that neural reinforcement can lead to reliable reductions in physiological fear responses. Crucially, this intervention can be achieved completely unconsciously and without any aversive reaction. Extending our approach to other forms of psychopathologies, such as posttraumatic stress disorders, might eventually provide another means of intervention for patients currently receiving insufficient exposure treatments. Can "hardwired" physiological fear responses (e.g., for spiders and snakes) be reprogramed unconsciously in the human brain? Currently, exposure therapy is among the most effective treatments for anxiety disorders, but this intervention is subjectively aversive to patients, causing many to drop out of treatment prematurely. Here we introduce a method to bypass the subjective unpleasantness in conscious exposure, by directly pairing monetary reward with unconscious occurrences of decoded representations of naturally feared animals in the brain. To decode physiological fear representations without triggering excessively aversive reactions, we capitalize on recent advancements in functional magnetic resonance imaging decoding techniques, and use a method called hyperalignment to infer the relevant representations of feared animals for a designated participant based on data from other "surrogate" participants. In this way, the procedure completely bypasses the need for a conscious encounter with feared animals. We demonstrate that our method can lead to reliable reductions in physiological fear responses, as measured by skin conductance as well as amygdala hemodynamic activity. Not only do these results raise the intriguing possibility that naturally occurring fear responses can be "reprogrammed" outside of conscious awareness, importantly, they also create the rare opportunity to rigorously test a psychological intervention of this nature in a double-blind, placebo-controlled fashion. This may pave the way for a new approach combining the appealing rationale and proven efficacy of conventional psychotherapy with the rigor and leverage of clinical neuroscience.


The moment the growing seedling emerges, the Sun acts as both power and poison. Precursors of chlorophyll lie ready to be converted to functioning chlorophyll, but the precursor form can do more harm than good if exposed to light. Huq et al. have now identified a transcription factor, PIF1, that interacts with light-sensing phytochromes and regulates chlorophyll biosynthesis. PIF1 negotiates the balance between chlorophyll synthesis and the sensing of light such that emergent seedlings become photoautotrophic before they would otherwise burn up. E. Huq, B. Al-Sady, M. Hudson, C. Kim, K. Apel, P. H. Quail, PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 1 is a critical bHLH regulator of chlorophyll biosynthesis. Science 305, 1937-1941 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A series of experiments were conducted to examine protein digestion in the young bird and the physiological changes that affect protein digestion as the bird matures. Trial one determined the effect of age on pH of the gastrointestinal tract. The results showed that the pH of the proventriculus and gizzard decreases with age suggesting that gastric acid secretion increases proportionally with age and this may impact protein digestion. Experiment two examined the effect of age on ileal amino acid (AA) digestibility of feed ingredients. AA digestibility increased from 5 to 21 d and the degree of improvement differed among ingredients and specific AA. This finding coupled with the low AA content of some ingredients demonstrates the importance of using appropriate nutrient digestibility values for young birds when formulating pre-starter and starter diets. Experiment three determined the acid binding capacity (ABC) of feed ingredients and the effect of formulating diets based on ABC on diet ABC, gastrointestinal pH and performance. The research confirmed dramatic differences in ABC among ingredients and that diets could be formulated on the basis of ingredient ABC. However, the range in diet ABC was less than predicted suggesting interactive effects among ingredients. Intestinal pH was reduced however broiler performance was not improved when diets low in ABC were fed. Experiment four examined the effect of diet acidification with HCl on diet ABC, gastrointestinal pH, ileal amino acid digestibility and broiler performance. Improvements in performance and reductions in mortality were observed when broilers were fed acidified diets. Adding acid to diets did not improve AA digestibility and therefore was not the reason for improved performance indicating an alternative mechanism of action. It is concluded that acid production by the proventriculus of young birds is low and increases with age however this does not impact protein digestion. Methods of improving performance of broiler chickens may include diet acidification however this is not the effect of remedying the low acid production by young birds. Therefore, alternative mechanisms are positively affecting broiler performance.


Objective: Vulnerability of healthcare facilities (HCF's) in Malaysia due to flooding from climate change impacts is understudied. This study aims to identify the flood prone government HCF's due to climate change.
Methods: Projection of 100-year Return Period riverine flooding at baseline or current condition, 2030 and 2050 was done through hydrodynamic modelling. The location of government HCF's in terms of longitude, latitude and elevation was determined by using the Geographic Information System and later overlaid with the flood maps produced by the National Hydraulic Research Institute of Malaysia (NAHRIM). Projection of the 15 most vulnerable river basins in Peninsular Malaysia was done based on IPCCC SRES-AR4.
Results: The river basin flood extent map projections were done at Baseline, 2030 and 2050 associated with 100-year Return Period for Flood Depth Levels (FDL) of 0.01m-0.50m, 0.50-1.2m and >1.2m, respectively. The HCF's were categorized as Community Health Clinics (CHC's), Primary Health Clinics (PHC's) and Hospitals. A total of 1268 CHC's, 520 PHC's and 82 Hospitals were included in this study. HCF's in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan were excluded. At Baseline, 23 CHC's, 9 PHC's and 1 hospital were projected to be flooded at Flood Depth Level (FDL) of 0.01-0.5m. FDL of 0.5-1.2m estimated 31 CHC's, 7 PHC's and 1 Hospital and FDL>1.2m estimated 54 CHC's and 9 PHC's being flooded. According to projections at 2030, FDL of 0.01-0.5m estimated 31 CHC's, 9 PHC's and 1 Hospital being flooded and FDL of 0.5-1.2m estimated 33 CHC's, 9 PHC's and 1 Hospital being affected.  FDL of >1.2m estimated 153 CHC's, 9 PHC's and 1 Hospital being affected. Flood projections at 2050 with FDL 0.01-0.5m estimated 24 CHC's, 9 PHC's and 1 Hospital being affected and FDL of 0.5m-1.2m affected 37 CHC's, 7 PHC's and 2 Hospitals. FDL>1.2m estimated 154 CHC's, 51 PHC's and 8 Hospitals being affected.
Conclusion: This study enables stakeholders to assess vulnerability of flooding and plan adaptation measures necessary in anticipation of the impact of climate change on riverine flooding in Malaysia.


This paper discusses emerging creative practices that involve interacting with generative computational systems, and the effect of such cybernetic interactions on our conceptions of creativity and agency. As computing systems have become more powerful in recent years, real time interaction with intelligent computational processes and models has emerged as a basis for innovative creative practices. Examples of these practices include interactive digital media installations, generative art works, live coding performances, virtual theatre, interactive cinema, and adaptive processes in computer games. In these types of activities computational systems have assumed a significant level of agency, or autonomy, that provoke questions about shared authorship and originality that are redefining our relationship with technologies and prompting new questions about human capabilities, values and the meaning of productive activities.


Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. We evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor explain these facts using the 1973-2001 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that women are less likely to take tenure track positions in science, but the gender gap is entirely explained by fertility decisions. We find that in science overall, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor after controlling for demographic, family, employer and productivity covariates and that in many cases, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor even without controlling for covariates. However, family characteristics have different impacts on women's and men's promotion probabilities. Single women do better at each stage than single men, although this might be due to selection. Children make it less likely that women in science will advance up the academic job ladder beyond their early post-doctorate years, while both marriage and children increase men's likelihood of advancing.


AIMS
This study aimed to evaluate infection control (IC) practices among Jordanian registered nurses (RNs) working in intensive care unit (ICU) settings.

BACKGROUND
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends periodic assessment of IC practices for health care workers as an effective strategy to control infections.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional descriptive design.

METHODS
A stratified, cluster random sampling technique was used. The sample consisted of ICU RNs from all major health care service providers and from all geographical areas in Jordan. The IC-Practices Tool (Cronbach α = 0·88) a self-report instrument was used.

RESULTS
A total of 21 hospitals participated in the study, of which, 8 were governmental, 7 military, 4 private and 2 university-affiliated. The final sample consisted of 247 RNs from 56 critical care units. Of the total sample, 36% of RNs were from governmental hospitals. Of the total sample, 51% were female with a mean age of 28·5 years (SD = 5·2), and 54·7% worked in general ICUs. The mean overall IC practice score was 122·6 (SD = 13·2). Nurses who reported that they had been trained about IC procedures in their hospital scored higher on the IC practice scale (M = 124·3, SD = 12·3) than nurses who never received any IC training in the hospital (M = 117·3, SD = 14·6, p < 0·001).

CONCLUSION
This study demonstrated the importance of conducting IC educational programmes as an effective strategy to increase staff compliance with standard IC practices.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Educational role of IC nurse is important to enhance RNs compliance with standard IC practices.


Medical systematic review query formulation is a highly complex task done by trained information specialists. Complexity comes from the reliance on lengthy Boolean queries, which express a detailed research question. To aid query formulation, information specialists use a set of exemplar documents, called 'seed studies', prior to query formulation. Seed studies help verify the effectiveness of a query prior to the full assessment of retrieved studies. Beyond this use of seeds, specific IR methods can exploit seed studies for guiding both automatic query formulation and new retrieval models. One major limitation of work to date is that these methods exploit 'pseudo seed studies' through retrospective use of included studies (i.e., relevance assessments). However, we show pseudo seed studies are not representative of real seed studies used by information specialists. Hence, we provide a test collection with real world seed studies used to assist with the formulation of queries. To support our collection, we provide an analysis, previously not possible, on how seed studies impact retrieval and perform several experiments using seed study based methods to compare the effectiveness of using seed studies versus pseudo seed studies. We make our test collection and the results of all of our experiments and analysis available at http://github.com/ielab/sysrev-seed-collection.


Abstract Micrometric and nanometric illite-rich size fractions of claystones, bentonites and shales were exchanged with alkylammonium cations that have the specificity of stoichiometrically replacing K in trioctahedral mica interlayers. The purpose of the study was a separate evaluation of the K-Ar ages of potentially dioctahedral residual particles not affected by alkylammonium leaching and of potentially trioctahedral illites that were exchanged by the organic molecules. The K-Ar ages of micrometric size fractions from an Estonian Blue Clay sample collected next to another studied previously show that, even if identical in their mineralogical characteristics, the fractions contain variable amounts of trioctahedral particles that are of different origins. The alkylammonium treatment modifies slightly, within analytical uncertainty, the K-Ar ages of the <0.1 and 0.1–0.4 μm size fractions from, respectively, 464 ± 13 and 530 ± 14 Ma before organic exchange to 480 ± 11 and 546 ± 12 Ma after. The K-Ar ages of alkylammonium exchanged nanometric size fractions from the rim and centre of a thick Upper Cretaceous bentonite bed in Montana suggest that trioctahedral illite-rich particles mineralogically and chemically homogeneous and about 30 Ma old precipitated next to older dioctahedral particles of ~60–65 Ma. The untreated mixtures consist of two generations of authigenic illite having apparently different di/trioctahedral layerings. The same type of authigenic di/trioctahedral illite layering could be demonstrated for nanometric illite particles of a bentonite bed from the East Slovak Basin, one size fraction appearing to even consist of a pure trioctahedral illite as the alkylammonium exchange emptied completely the illite interlayers. The nearby shale level consisted of detrital illite particles that were found to be of different ages, di/trioctahedral layerings and therefore varied origin. K-Ar ages of alkylammonium exchanged micrometric to nanometric illite and illite-smectite mixed layers, either increasing or decreasing, appear to outline variable di/trioctahedral layering assemblages or independent particle mixtures resulting from a more complex smectite illitization process than the conventionally assumed homogeneous reaction. It could record changing chemical compositions of the interacting pore fluid during crystallization, even when illitization progressed slowly. Similar ages before and after alkylammonium exchange suggest a constant chemical composition and therefore an homogeneous dioctahedral crystal structure. Alternatively, a changing chemical composition of the fluids during illitization is potentially recorded by variable K-Ar ages of the alkylammonium-leached illite resulting from differentiated ion exchanges.


Abstract The National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color (NASCC) survey was developed to supplement existing national data sets that collect data on household wealth in the United States, but rarely collect data that is disaggregated by specific national origin. This paper begins with an examination of the importance of differentiating wealth and income, followed by a second section summarizing the methodology, and a third part analyzing the wealth position of various communities of color. For the first time, we are able to demonstrate differences in wealth across multiple Asian ethnic groups. The NASCC findings reveal that major disparities in wealth accumulation exist across certain racial and ethnic groups.


The analysis of Internet-scale Information-centric networks, and of cache networks in general, poses scalability issues like CPU and memory requirements, which can not be easily targeted by neither state-of-the-art analytical models nor well designed event-driven simulators. This demo focuses on showcasing performance of our new hybrid methodology, named ModelGraft, which we release as a simulation engine of the open-source ccnSim simulator: being able to seamlessly use a classic event-driven or the novel hybrid engine dramatically improves the flexibility and scalability of current simulative and analytical tools. In particular, ModelGraft combines elements and intuitions of stochastic analysis into a MonteCarlo simulative approach, offering a reduction of over two orders of magnitude in both CPU time and memory occupancy, with respect to the purely event-driven version of ccnSim, notably one of the most scalable simulators for Information-centric networks. This demo consists in gamifying the aforementioned comparison: we represent ModelGraft vs event-driven simulation as two athletes running a 100-meter competition using sprite-based animations. Differences between the two approaches in terms of CPU time, memory occupancy, and results accuracy, are highlighted in the score-board.


Corals combine photosynthesis and calcification in an intricate and delicately balanced relationship to form large biomineralized structures that are dominant features of tropical coastlines worldwide. Coral reefs have great scientific and economic importance but have recently experienced widespread decline attributed to increasing anthropogenic pressure on reef systems. Physical damage events, such as ship groundings, when coupled with existing nutrient stress and changing global climate present a poor outlook for successful natural recovery of reef communities. The main goal of the proposed research is to better understand how environmental factors, both local and global, affect the coral holobiont and influence overall coral fitness. The target species of this research, Montastraea cavernosa and Porites astreoides, are important and widespread Caribbean reef-builders. While it has been shown that nutrient and pCO2 stress affect coral growth and calcification, study of specific effects on coral tissue and reproductive success has not received significant attention in the literature despite considerable current interest. This study addresses this data gap in quantitatively examining the effect of elevated nutrients and pCO2 on 1) P. astreoides recruit survivorship, development, early calcification, and symbiotic zooxanthellae morphology; 2) M. cavernosa and P. astreoides wound regeneration, tissue characteristics over time at the histological and ultrastructural level, and trends in symbiotic zooxanthellae morphology; and 3) survival, growth and histological/ultrastructural characteristics of M. cavernosa and P. astreoides fragments transplanted to the field and in the laboratory. Histological and ultrastructural observations from corals transplanted to the field are then compared to ex-situ laboratory experimental corals. In the fleshy and large-polyped faviid M. cavernosa, healing of a linear wound was characterized by granulation of new tissue across the wound site, facilitated by coalescent granular amoebocytes. The wound healing strategy of this species appears to progress with wound closure and re-epithelialization before calcification resumes, as actively calcifying calicodermis was generally not observed at the healing front. Tissue regeneration in the small-polyped P. astreoides was characterized by formation of multiple islands of eosinophilic healing fronts along the depth of the wound track, and an accumulation of granular amoebocyte cells in regenerating tissue. The wound healing strategy of this species appeared to result in re-epithelialization of exposed body wall without necessarily closing the wound. Elevated pCO2 significantly reduced survivorship in P. astreoides recruits, and both nutrient enrichment and elevated pCO2 significantly reduced wound regeneration rate in M. cavernosa and P. astreoides. In both species, phosphate enrichment had the greatest deleterious effect on wound repair. A significant application of this study is the identification of possible zooxanthellar morphological indices of elevated nutrients and ocean acidification. The similarity in starch, lipid and uric acid accumulation patterns in Symbiodinium sp. from P. astreoides recruits and coral fragments of both species indicate a correlation between these anthropogenic stressors and the intracellular accumulation of excess carbon and nitrogen by the symbiont. Zooxanthellar carbon accumulation, in the form of starch and/or lipid, was the greatest under elevated nitrate. Zooxanthellar nitrogen accumulation, in the form of uric acid, was the greatest under elevated CO2. Comparison of zooxanthellar metrics between the field corals (P. astreoides, and M. cavernosa) and ex-situ corals and recruits indicated that carbon accumulation in Symbiodinium from field corals was consistently significantly less than in the ex-situ experimental P. astreoides recruits and M. cavernosa fragments exposed to elevated nitrate. This indicates that the field corals were likely not exposed to elevated nitrate at the time of collection. Both M. cavernosa and P. astreoides adults in the field accumulated significantly less uric acid than their counterparts in the tissue repair experiment, indicating that the field corals were exposed to higher pH and lower CO2 than the ex-situ corals. These results suggest that the field corals were not exposed to nutrient concentration profiles similar to the experimental treatments, particularly elevated nitrate. However, histological metrics indicated that the transplanted corals were subjected to increasing sedimentation stress over time. Overall, nitrate was found to affect recruits and adults on a similar scale, while phosphate and pCO2 affected carbon and nitrogen storage more in recruits compared to adults. While nutrients and pCO2 had no mechanistic effect on regeneration at histological level, ultrastructural metrics indicate an impact on the mutualistic energy exchange between the symbiotic partners, partially decoupling symbiosis. Effects were generally found to be greater in P. astreoides compared to M. cavernosa, and the unique life history strategy of the subject species and differences in their endosymbiont physiology reveal distinct responses to elevated nutrients and pCO2. Although the laboratory findings were not necessarily applicable to field observations, they provide insight into factors that may influence fragment success in the field. Quantitative assessment of the effect of elevated nutrients and pCO2 is thus useful in management decisions involving water quality standards, and is essential in the prediction of future coral condition and resilience.


As we reel from the effects of a recent financial disaster, it is apparent that there is a significant gap in corporate governance and accountability for management. One reason why we have experienced this financial cataclysm is the inability of shareholders to do the "shareholder job." Shareholders, as the putative owners of corporations, hold a venerated place in corporate governance. They are responsible for electing directors and monitoring management as well as valuing companies through trades in a vigorous market. The shareholder collective action problem and resulting rational apathy have kept shareholders from effectively fulfilling their role in corporate governance. Individual shareholders have interests that differ and, sometimes, financial interests at odds with those of the corporation. Even if the collective action problem could be overcome and some shareholders decided to take a more active role in corporate affairs, their decisions might not align with those of the rest of the shareholder class. Shareholder powers have always been weak, but, because of the enduring collective action problem, they are now virtually meaningless. This article suggests a solution to the shareholder collective problem. It proposes the use of an "equity trustee," or shareholder representative, to serve as a sophisticated party to perform the shareholder job. An equity trustee would represent the equity interest as a whole, overcoming the diverging interests of individual shareholders, to do the shareholder job of monitoring management and remaining informed about corporate affairs in a manner designed to further the goal of long-term corporate wealth maximization. The use of an equity trustee may also provide a solution to some of the market failures that led to the recent financial crisis such as an unhealthy focus on short-term increases in stock price and the seeming entrenchment of corporate officers and directors. Effective performance of the shareholder job may significantly improve corporate governance and accountability. ∗ Assistant Professor, Florida State University College of Law. For very helpful comments and conversations about the equity trustee idea, I am grateful to Robert Ahdieh, Jill Fisch, Brian Galle, Andrew Gold, Andrew Hessick, Jonathan Macey, Gregg Polsky, Larry Ribstein, Amanda Rose, and David Skeel as well as participants at workshops at the College of William and Mary School of Law, the University of Illinois College of Law, the University of Iowa College of Law, and the Florida State University College of Law. For excellent research assistance, I thank Abby Van Harpen and Aveed Majd.


Narrative generation systems can be classified on a spectrum from strong autonomy to strong story. Systems on the strong autonomy side treat characters as fully independent agents but may struggle to meet the author's requirements, while those on the strong story side direct character behaviors centrally but may struggle to create the illusion of character believability. In this paper, we use benchmark story generation problems as a framework to compare the spaces of stories that could be generated by prototypical strong story and strong autonomy systems. Comparing the relative solution densities of these spaces helps us quantify how common certain desirable narrative properties are. This can be informative for system designers when deciding, for instance, whether to strictly enforce all desired properties or to generate and filter from a broader class of solutions.


Two dynamically and statistically downscaled precipitation scenarios for Sweden are compared with respect to changes in the mean. The dynamically downscaled scenarios are generated by a 44 km version of the Rossby Centre regional climate model (RCM). The RCM is driven by data from 2 global greenhouse gas simulations sharing a 2.6°C global warming, one made by the HadCM2 and the other by the ECHAM4 general circulation model (GCM). The statistical downscaling model driven by the same GCMs is regression-based and incorporates large-scale circulation indices of the 2 geostrophic wind components (u and v), total vorticity (ξ) and large-scale humidity at 850 hPa (q 850) as predictors. The precipitation climates of the GCMs, RCMs and statistical models from the control runs are compared with respect to their ability to reproduce the observed seasonal cycle. Great improvements in the simulation of the seasonal cycle by all the downscaling models compared to the GCMs significantly increase the credibility of the downscaling models. The precipitation changes produced by the statistical models result from changes in all predictors, but the change in ξ is the greatest contributor in southern Sweden followed by q850 and u, while changes in q850 have greater effects in the northern parts of the country. The temporal and spatial variability of precipita- tion changes are higher in the statistically downscaled scenarios than in the dynamically downscaled ones. Comparisons of the 4 scenarios show that the spread of the scenarios created by the statistical model is on average larger than that between the RCM scenarios. The relatively large average spread is mainly due to the large differences found in summer. The seasonally averaged difference of the dynamical and statistical scenarios for the ECHAM4-based downscaled scenarios is 12%, and for the HadCM2 downscaled scenarios 21%. The differences in annual precipitation change are smaller, on average 4.5% among the HadCM2-based downscaled scenarios, and 6.9% among the ECHAM4-based downscaling scenarios.


Semiconducting polymer dots (Pdots) are small nanoparticles consisting primarily of fluorescent pi-conjugated polymers which show superior optical properties for biological imaging and biosensors. It is necessary to explore systematically the toxicity of Pdots on animals before extensive biomedical applications. The reproductive system is very sensitive to the external invasion and essential for species reproduction as well. In this work, we used the pregnant mice to investigate the reproductive toxicity of Pdots. The changes in body weight of each maternal mouse were recorded every two days. The main organs were collected and analyzed as soon as all the pregnant mice were sacrificed on the 15th embryonic day. Distributions of Pdots on maternal major organs and tissues were examined in frozen tissue sections. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was performed to investigate the histopathological changes of maternal organs. The blood chemistry test was applied to study the effects of Pdots on organ functions. Female hormones were evaluated by immunoassays. The amniotic fluid was inspected for assessing their penetration ability of Pdots. Levels of placenta growth related factors were detected by RT-PCR to evaluate the function of placenta. These results showed that Pdots were mainly accumulated in liver and spleen, and no apparent impact was observed on maternal body weight and organs coefficients. Histopathological images also showed normal tissue morphology compared with the untreated group. The female hormones levels did not show significant difference among the three groups as well. Trace amount of Pdots could get into the amniotic fluid but did not change the placental functions and the early development of fetus. Our results demonstrated that Pdots have excellent biocompatibility and no reproductive toxicity under the dosages used in this work, which means that Pdots have great potential in preclinical applications in the future.


Clay-bearing rocks disintegrate at varying rates, due to slaking, when exposed to moisture. This research aims to develop a durability classification of clay-bearing rocks based on particle size distribution of slaked material, quantified in terms of disintegration ratio (D R ). D R is the ratio of the area under the particle size distribution curve of slaked material for a sample, upon completion of the standardized slake durability index test, to the total area encompassing all particle size distribution curves of the samples tested. Although second-cycle slake durability index (Id 2 ) is the most frequently used parameter for classifying the slaking behavior of clay-bearing rocks, it does not consider the range of particle sizes in the slaked material after the test. Compared to Id 2 , D R accounts for all particle sizes present in the slaked material and provides a better measure of the degree of slaking. The slake durability index test was used to investigate the slaking behavior of samples from 20 different clay-bearing rocks, and Id 2 and D R values were determined for all samples. Id 2 showed a nonlinear relationship with D R . The relationship was used to develop a durability classification, based on disintegration ratio, as follows: low durability: D R = 0 to 0.20; medium durability: D R = 0.20 to 0.65; medium-high durability: D R = 0.65 to 0.85; and high durability: D R = 0.85 to 1.00. In order to use this classification, one needs to perform a sieve analysis on material left after the slake durability test and determine D R .


The project aims to develop innovative ceramic tiles containing more than 70 wt% of recycled materials from urban and industrial wastes. The specific objectives are related to: contribution to sustainable waste management by recovery of the amount of soda lime glass (SLG) cullet waste that today is not re-introduced in glassware (about 30% of the total glass waste); reduction of the use of natural resources thanks to: the use of SLG, coming from urban collection, and the reuse of green scrap tiles, generated during the industrial process; improvement of the environmental performances of the ceramic tiles sector by reducing CO2 emissions, energy consumption and methane use. The combination of these different wastes with natural clays enables the production of innovative ceramic tiles with similar or improved mechanical properties respect to the traditional ones. The productive cycle is similar apart two main innovation aspects concerning the body mix preparation (more than 70wt% of recycled wastes in substitution of natural raw materials with the possibility to define 100% waste-based innovative body mixes) and the firing cycle (the maximum sintering temperature is reduced).


The historiography of the principle of energy conservation has concentrated on the formulation of the law by a few individual scientists. This paper turns to the employment of energetic considerations, examining the uses of related arguments in scientific reasoning before the formulation of a well-defined principle. It shows that conceptual ambiguity and a limited formal realm of validity did not prevent the successful employment of such notions to generate novel scientific results. From the late 1810s to the 1840s, researchers including Fresnel, Ampère, Carnot, Roget, Faraday, and Liebig invoked proto-energetic arguments to address particular problems concerning wave optics, electromagnetism, theory of electric batteries, heat motors, and animal heat. Thereby they extended the realm of applicability of arguments based on the conservation of "power" beyond non-frictional mechanical systems, where the conservation of the living forces (vis viva) was accepted in the early nineteenth century; they also furnished scientists a theoretical toolkit with a new powerful method. Their development of proto-energetic arguments as tools for reasoning was an important historical process in itself, which together with other developments led to the emergence of "energy physics." This history, thus, exemplifies the important role played by practices of reasoning in the formation of scientific laws and principles.


In recent years there has been considerable research into the selection of near-optimal arrays of electrode configurations that enhance the resolution of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) images. Several algorithms have been developed that select resistivity measurements based on their contribution to the cumulative sensitivity of the array (Furman et al., 2004; Hennig and Weller, 2005) or its model resolution matrix (Stummer et al. , 2004; Wilkinson et al., 2006a; 2006b). Homogeneous subsurface resistivity distributions were assumed for these studies, although better results can be obtained using the same algorithms if the resistivity distribution is known a priori (Anthansiou, 2006). When compared to standard arrays, such as dipole-dipole or Wenner-
Schlumberger, optimised arrays can substantially improve the resolution of the ERT image for the same number of measurements (Wilkinson et al., 2006b). The driver for researching array optimisation techniques has been the development of computer controlled ERT systems that can address arbitrary combinations of current and potential electrodes. Unfortunately all the published optimisation algorithms share a problem that is likely to impede their
wider use: the arrays that they produce are inherently 'single channel' (SC). Since they do not take advantage of the multichannel (MC) capability of
modern ERT instruments, the optimised arrays that they produce are rather inefficient to use compared to many standard arrays that are well suited to MC operation. However, we have developed a simple extension that constrains our previous algorithm to choose near-optimal configurations that also fit well into a MC measurement scheme. This extension could easily be adapted to work with the other optimisation schemes cited above.


We used AFM to investigate the interaction of polyelectrolytes such as ssDNA and dsDNA molecules with graphene as a substrate. Graphene is an appropriate substrate due to its planarity, relatively large surfaces that are detectable via an optical microscope, and straightforward identification of the number of layers. We observe that in the absence of the screening ions deposited ssDNA will bind only to the graphene and not to the SiO(2) substrate, confirming that the binding energy is mainly due to the π-π stacking interaction. Furthermore, deposited ssDNA will map the graphene underlying structure. We also quantify the π-π stacking interaction by correlating the amount of deposited DNA with the graphene layer thickness. Our findings agree with reported electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) measurements. Finally, we inspected the suitability of using a graphene as a substrate for DNA origami-based nanostructures.

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/161608/files/Langmuir 26 18078 (2010) Husale - ssDNA Binding Reveals the Atomic Structure of Graphene.pdf


Background: Multiple class I and II HLA associations have been described in association with nevirapine (NVP) hypersensitivity reaction (HSR) phenotypes. We tested the hypothesis that peptide binding (PB) properties may be shared between these alleles. Methodology: HLA-A,-B-,-C, -DR typing was performed on stored DNA from a retrospective case controlled analysis of NVP HSR (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00310843) using the 454 FLX platform. Univariate and multivariate analyses stratified for race were performed according to HLA class I/II alleles, HLA supertypes and HLA alleles according to PB (Sidney J, Lund O), Kir ligand groupings and HLA B/C haplotypes for cutaneous and hepatitis phenotypes of NVP HSR. In silico modelling to simulate HLA binding to NVP was performed with the highest ranked candidates. Results: HLA -A,-B,-C and -DR typing resolved to four digits (794 samples (controls =524, cutaneous NVP HSR cases =170, hepatitis NVP HSR cases = 100)). Multivariate analysis of cutaneous NVP HSR in Southeast Asians (SEA) associated DR4 supertype(OR=2.9, p=0.015) and alleles with HLA-35/18 PB properties(OR=6.4, p=0.002). HLA-DRB1*01:02 was associated with hepatitis NVP HSR in Caucasians (OR=2.7,p=0.01) whereas carriage of alleles of the PB B46 were protective (OR=0.3, p=0.04). HLA-C*04:01 was associated with cutaneous NVP HSR, including SJS/TEN across all races (p<0.0001, Mantel-Haenszel test; Caucasians: OR=2.8 [1.3-5.9], p=0.009; African Americans: OR=4.0 [1.4-13.0], p=0.02; SEA: OR=9.0 [3.2-24.9], p<0.0001). However, haplotype analysis of HLA-B/C showed pairing of HLA-C*04:01 with HLA-B alleles with B35 and B18 like PB (HLA-B*35:01,B*35:05,B*35:08,B*53:01,B*18:01,B*18:02, B*44:02,B*4403), and this effect was strongest in SEA where carriage of HLA-C*04:01 when paired with the HLA-B alleles(OR=11.8,p=0.0003) was more strongly associated with cutaneous NVP HSR than HLA-C*04:01 carried alone(OR=4.8,p=0.047). This suggests that risk of cutaneous NVP HSR attributed to carriage of HLA-C*04:01 may be enhanced by HLA-B alleles which are in strong linkage disequilibrium. An in silico and peptide binding model both suggest that NVP non-covalently binds in the F pocket of HLA-B*35:05 and near the B pocket of HLA-C*04:01. In multivariate analyses, Kir ligand groupings Bw4/Bw6 and C1/C2 did not significantly contribute to the modelling of associations with cutaneous hypersensitivity or hepatitis. Conclusions: Cutaneous and hepatitis phenotypes of NVP HSR associate with different HLA-B and DR-alleles respectively that share PB characteristics.The pairing of these HLA-B alleles with HLA-C*04:01 appears important for the development of cutaneous NVP HSR, providing a testable model for the immunopathogenesis of NVP HSR.


Back-beveled transition welds for joining unequal wall thickness are often used in gas and oil transmission pipelines, as recommended in the pipeline codes and standards, such as CSA Z662, ASME B31.8, and ASME 31.4. However, one North American pipeline operator has successively utilized a counterbore-tapered design for transition of unequal wall thicknesses for over 30 years. The design philosophy of the counterbore-tapered joint is to reduce the stress concentrations in the heat affected zone, facilitate the welding of unequal wall thickness and NDT while achieving better quality, reliability, and productivity.By conducting a comparative finite element analysis of the two joint designs, the present study evaluated the pressure containment capacities, the stress concentration factors, the stress intensity factors, and the limit loads of plastic collapses for both the counterbore-tapered and the back-beveled designs. The effect of a key design parameter, the counterbore length, on the integrity of the counterbore design was also examined.The results of the comparative analysis showed that compared to the back-beveled joint, when the pipe materials of unequal wall thickness have the same strength, the counterbore-tapered joint has the same pressure containment capacity as the back-beveled joint. The back-bevel design offers lower stress concentration factor, lower stress intensity factor, and higher limit load of plastic collapse than the back-beveled design.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Vouchers are meant to increase competition and consumer choice in public service markets. Using the example of training vouchers for the unemployed in the USA and Germany, we show, however, that deficits, both on the demand and the supply side of the market, create problems with preference alignment and market formation. Information asymmetries undermine choice by the unemployed and reduce government control over the training system. Ironically, restrictions meant to compensate for these information deficits further inhibit competitive market formation. Evaluation data on training vouchers from both countries show that voucher systems do not increase choice, but weaken the partnerships public employment agencies previously had with training providers, and may lead to a shortage of high-quality and specialized training, as well as creaming in the selection of training participants. Theoretical justification for vouchers is based on the notion of choice and consumer sovereignty. Using this framework to analyse the changed relationship between government, private training providers, and jobseekers, we challenge the efficacy of vouchers as a delivery mechanism in complex public service markets such as job training.


Context. New generations of instruments provide, or are about to provide, pan-chromatic images of debris discs and photometric measurements, that require new generations of models, in particular to account for their collisional activity. Aims. We present a new multi-annulus code for the study of collisionally evolving extended debris discs. We first aim to confirm and extend our preliminary result obtained for a single-annulus system, namely that the size distribution in realistic debris discs always departs from the theoretical collisional "equilibrium" $\mathrm dN \propto R^{-3.5} \mathrm dR$ power law, especially in the crucial size range of observable particles ($R\la 1\,$cm), where it displays a characteristic wavy pattern. We also study how debris discs density distributions, scattered light luminosity profiles, and Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) are affected by the coupled effect of collisions and radial mixing due to radiation pressure affected small grains. Methods. The size distribution evolution is modeled over 10 orders of magnitude, going from μ m-sized grains to 50 km-sized bodies. The model takes into account the crucial influence of radiation pressure-affected small grains. We consider the collisional evolution of a fiducial, idealized $a = 120$ AU radius disc with an initial surface density $\Sigma(a) \propto a^{\alpha}$. Several key parameters are explored: surface density profile, system's dynamical excitation, total dust mass, collision outcome prescriptions. Results. We show that the system's radial extension plays a crucial role and that the waviness of the size distribution is amplified by inter-annuli interactions: in most regions the collisional and size evolution of the dust is imposed by small particles on eccentric or unbound orbits produced further inside the disc. Moreover, the spatial distribution of all grains $\la$1 cm departs significantly from the initial profile in $\Sigma(a) \propto a^{\alpha}$, while the bigger objects, containing most of the system's mass, still follow the initial distribution. This has consequences on the scattered-light radial profiles which get significantly flatter. We propose an empirical law to trace back the distribution of large unseen parent bodies from the observed profiles. We also show that the the waviness of the size distribution has a clear observable signature in the far-infrared and at (sub-)millimeter wavelengths. This suggests a test of our collision model, which requires observations with future facilities such as Herschel, SOFIA, SCUBA-2 and ALMA. Finally, we provide empirical formulae for the collisional size distribution and collision timescale which can be used for future debris disc modeling.


Canola (Brassica napus L) production has gained renewed interest in Washington State over the past few years, primarily for the purpose of producing biofuel. Plants were observed to be showing symptoms of Rhizoctonia root rot and postemergence damping-off. In many cases, this was due to Rhizoctonia solani AG-2-1, which was previously documented (4). However, additional plants were occasionally observed that were stunted and had reduced vigor, but lacked the distinctive severe stem damage and postemergence damping-off, which are both symptoms of infection with R. solani AG-2-1. Isolates of R. solani AG-10 were collected from symptomatic plants or baited from root zone soil at various dryland production locations in eastern Washington, including sites near Colfax, Pullman, and Walla Walla. Initial identification was determined by quantitative (Q)-PCR using R. solani AG-10 specific primers (3). The identity was verified by sequencing random isolates identified by Q-PCR (GenBank Accessions Nos. JQ068147, JQ068148 and JQ068149). All sequenced isolates had 99% identity to previously reported isolates of R. solani AG-10. Six isolates were chosen to test pathogenicity on canola plants in the greenhouse. Sterilized oats were inoculated with each of six isolates of R. solani AG-10 and grown for 4 weeks. The soil was infested with ground oat inoculum (1% wt/wt) and spring canola cv. Sunrise was seeded into 3.8 × 21-cm containers. After 3 weeks of incubation at 15°C, plants were harvested and assessed. Emergence was reduced in the infested soil with 73 to 93% (average 81%) emergence compared with 100% emergence in the noninfested soil. There was no evidence of postemergence damping-off. However, all six isolates of R. solani AG-10 significantly reduced the plant height and top dry weights compared with the noninfested controls. The plant height in infested soil was 28 to 42% (average 34%) shorter and top dry weights were 37 to 70% (average 54%) lower than in noninfested soil. Roots of infected plants had a light brown discoloration along with reduced length and fewer lateral roots. Additional host plants were tested, including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), pea (Pisum sativum L.), chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), and lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.). There was no significant reduction in plant height or plant dry weight for any of these hosts. R. solani AG-10 was previously found to be weakly virulent on canola and other cruciferous hosts in Australia (1,2). To our knowledge, this is the first report of R. solani AG-10 causing disease on canola in Washington State. Reference: (1) R. K. Khangura et al. Plant Dis. 83:714, 1999. (2) G. C. MacNish et al. Australas. Plant Pathol. 24:252, 1995. (3) P. A. Okubara et al. Phytopathology 98:837, 2008. (4) T. C. Paulitz et al. Plant Dis. 90:829, 2006.


Organ transplantation dates back to the ancient times and since then it has become one of the important developments in modern medicine; saving the lives, as well as improving the quality of life of many patients. As the demand for organ transplantation far exceeds the organ availability, the transplant program is often saddled with complex legal and ethical issues. This review article highlights the legal and ethical issues that might arise regarding organ transplantation and appraises the existing legal frame work governing organ transplantation in Nigeria. Information on legal, cultural, religious and medical ethical issues regarding organ transplantation in Nigeria was obtained by searching the PubMed and Google Scholar, conference proceedings, seminar paper presentations, law library and other related publications were collated and analyzed. In decision making for organ transplantation, the bioethical principles like autonomy, beneficence and justice must be employed. It was believed by Catholic theologians that to mutilate one living person to benefit another violates the principle of Totality. Among Muslim scholars and researchers, there are those who throw legal support as to its permissibility while the other group sees it as illegal. Organ/tissues transplantation is considered a medical intervention that touches on the fundamental rights of the donor or the recipient. Where there is an unlawful infringement of the right of such persons in any way may be regarded as against Section 34 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution dealing with right to dignity of the human person. Worldwide, the researchers and government bodies have agreed on informed consent for organ/tissue donation and for recipient should be obtained without coercion before embarking on such medical treatment Worldwide organ transplantation has become the best medical treatment for patients with end stage organ failure. However, there is no law/legislation backing organ/tissues transplantation in Nigeria. The government should take measures to combat transplantation tourism and the problem of national and international trafficking in human tissues and organs, ethics commission and National Transplant registry should be established in order to monitor and regulate the programme in the country.


The capacity and commitment of Uganda to govern its oil in developmental ways has generally been discussed through a 'new institutionalist' prism that focuses on the dangers of the 'resource curse'. This paper argues that the developmental potential of oil in Uganda can be more insightfully understood through a political settlements framework which goes beyond a focus on institutional form to examine deeper forms of politics, power and ideas. Drawing on in-depth primary research, we focus in particular on the extent to which the interplay of interests and ideas within the ruling coalition in Uganda has enabled it to protect its national interest during negotiations with international oil companies. However, our reading of the underlying dynamics within Uganda's political settlement suggests that the impressive levels of elite commitment and bureaucratic capacity displayed to date are unlikely to withstand the intensified pressures that will accompany the commencement of oil flows.


This article introduces new ground‐motion prediction equations (GMPE) for central and eastern North America that represents an alternative, more physically justified approach to ground‐motion attenuation modeling than my previous Graizer (2016) G‐16 model. The new model has a bilinear slope of ∼ R −1 within 70 km from the fault (confirmed by empirical data) with a slope of ∼ R −0.5 at larger distances corresponding to the geometrical spreading of body and surface waves. This new (G‐16v2) model is based on the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA)‐East database for the horizontal peak ground acceleration and 5% damped pseudospectral acceleration RotD50 component (Goulet et al. , 2014) and also on comparisons with western United States data and ground‐motion simulations. Based on data, I estimated the average slope of the distance attenuation within the 50–70 km distance from the fault to be ∼−1.0 at most of the frequencies supporting regular geometrical spreading of body waves. Multiple inversions are performed to estimate apparent (combination of intrinsic and scattering) attenuation of response spectral acceleration (SA) amplitudes from the NGA‐East database for incorporation into the GMPE. These estimates demonstrate a difference between classical seismological Q ( f  ) and the above‐mentioned attenuation factor that I recommend calling Q SA( f  ). Based on residuals, I adjusted previously developed site correction (Graizer, 2016) that was based on multiple runs of representative V S 30 (time‐averaged shear‐wave velocity in the upper 30 m of the geological material) profiles through SHAKE‐type equivalent‐linear codes. Site amplifications are calculated relative to the hard‐rock definition used in nuclear industry ( V S =2800  m/s). These improvements resulted in a modest reduction in total ( σ ) and within‐event (![Graphic][1] ) logarithmic standard deviations in the new G‐16v2 relative to G‐16 model. The number of model predictors is limited to a few measurable parameters: moment magnitude M , closest distance to fault rupture plane R rup, V S 30, and apparent attenuation factor Q SA( f  ). The model is applicable for the stable continental regions and covers the following range: 4.0≤ M ≤8.5, 0≤ R rup≤1000  km, 450≤ V S 30≤2800  m/s, and frequencies 0.1≤ f ≤100  Hz.

 [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif


Each railroad covered by 49 CFR 228.407 must perform an analysis of the work schedules of its train employees who are engaged in commuter or intercity rail passenger transportation and identify those schedules that, if worked by such a train employee, may be at risk for a level of fatigue at which safety may be compromised. A level of fatigue at which safety may be compromised, the fatigue threshold, shall be determined by procedures that use a scientifically valid, biomathematical model of human performance and fatigue. This document describes the criteria and procedures that the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will use for certifying the scientific validity of a biomathematical model and for determining a fatigue threshold in a biomathematical model. This document also identifies specific such models that are acceptable. Furthermore, it describes the procedures that must be used both to analyze work schedules and to report FRA those schedules that are at risk for exceeding the fatigue threshold.


In this book Boris Kagarlitsky offers a trenchant analysis of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the transformation of a section of the old nomenklatura into a new possessing and ruling elite. Kagarlitsky shows that Western commentators have been misled by the street theatre of events like the bungled coup of August 1991 into supposing that a fundamental break has been made with the confused politics and economics of the late Soviet period. He analyses the ill-considered and self-interested attempts made by the nomenklatura to privatize assets and inaugurate a free-market economy, finding an essential continuity between the plans of Gorbachev's and Yeltsin's advisers. He reveals, too, how the new Russian President has displayed a greater capacity to assert dictatorial powers than did the last General Secretary, a tendency which has brought him into repeated conflict with elected bodies. Boris Kagarlitsky is himself a Socialist member of the Moscow Soviet and one of the founders of Russia's new Party of Labour. The Disintegration of the Monolith furnishes both a memorable indictment of the greed and irresponsibility of Russia's new/old rulers and a fascinating account of the slow but unmistakeable awakening of forces of resistance as the peoples of Russia and the other states of the former Soviet Union confront the hyper-inflation, shortages, unemployment and general havoc wreaked by the free-market experiment. Kagarlitsky describes the gradual emergence of a new Russian trade unionism, but warns that popular discontent is also being exploited by nationalist demagogues, such as the leader of Russia's new Liberal Party. For those seeking to understand what has changed in Russia - and what has remained the same - The Disintegration of the Monolith is required reading.


In this thesis, two areas of goodness-of fit are discussed and new methodology proposed. In the first, Bayesian methods are introduced to provide a narrow band of alternative continuous distributions when the distribution tested is uniform or normal. A particular use of Bayesian methods allows consideration of the problem of testing the distribution of latent (unobserved) variables when these are connected by a known relationship to a set of observed variables. The technique is used to advance an interesting procedure introduced in Geology by Krumbein and for a modern example, to test the distribution of the frailty term (random effects) in a Cox Proportional Hazards (PH) model. The second part of the thesis deals with discrete data with particular emphasis on applying Cramér-von Mises statistics. Tests are proposed for K samples in an ordered contingency table. Finally, the K sample procedure is applied to testing the fit of the binary regression model to longitudinal (correlated) data using Generalized estimating equations. A common thread throughout the thesis is the use of the Cramér-von Mises statistics or closely related statistics for testing.


Scholars have wondered why Rabelais dedicated his Third Book (1546) to Marguerite de Navarre, since the book is filled with ridicule of women. In attempting to discover why Rabelais might have done this, the following essay suggests that he and Marguerite shared an interest in marriage, and in particular, they both opposed clandestine marriage, then under discussion by the Council of Trent. In exploring the treatment of clandestine marriage in the Third Book and the Heptameron, it becomes evident that both authors were familiar with the apocryphal book of Tobit, a favorite of evangelical reformers who saw there justification for their own condemnation of such marriages. Rabelais in fact may be admitting shared reformist sentiments in his mysterious dedication to the Queen of Navarre.


Abstract: Most applications of game theory assume equilibrium, justified by presuming that learning will have converged to one; or in settings where that is implausible, that equilibrium approximates people's strategic thinking without learning. Yet recent experimental work suggests that initial responses to many kinds of games deviate systematically from equilibrium, and that certain nonequilibrium models can then out-predict equilibrium models of thinking. Even when learning converges to equilibrium, such nonequilibrium models of initial responses allow better prediction of history-dependent limiting outcomes. This paper reviews recent theoretical and empirical work on nonequilibrium models of strategic thinking and illustrates their applications in economics.


Entrepreneurs should be acclimating and take on themselves to upturns and downturns in market. Entrepreneurs must be opportunists. Entrepreneurship has a key role in economic development and brings remarkable changes in the economy of a nation. The aim of this paper is to show the literature review of the significant articles in the reference of entrepreneurial education and which are published between 2015 to 2020. A scan of literature review reveals some challenges and opportunities an entrepreneur face. Entrepreneurs find out the possibilities of realizing the ventures, collect and merge the needed resources, a needed plan and do things according to time and in a flexible manner. In this study, an effort has been made to study those elements that affect development of entrepreneurship in the wake of changing the business structure in Indian perspective.


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: A super-extended lymph node dissection (sePLND) might be indicated in selected cases of oncological high risk prostate cancer patients. The sePLND template extends the ePLND template cranially along the common iliac vessels up to the aortic and caval bifurcation. This video demonstrates a standardised and simplified robot-assisted sePLND. METHODS: Robot-assisted sePLND and radical prostatectomy was performed in 15 prostate cancer patients in our institution with a risk for lymph-node invasion of 30% or higher (Briganti 2017 - Nomogram). Our 5-steps technique continues seamlessly after having performed a complete ePLND including the obturator region, internal and external iliac arteries and commune iliac arteries up to the ureteral crossing on both sides: (I) Right boundary: Starting by gentle mobilisation of the sigma to the right side and opening of the retrosigmoideal space by caudocranial incision of the parietal peritoneum along the right common iliac vessels, the right boundary is dissected retrogradely along the adventitia of the right common iliac artery and medial aspect of the common iliac vein up to the aortic and caval bifurcation. (II) Cranial boundary: The lymphatic tissue up to the aortic and caval bifurcation is being dissected using cautery and sharp dissection. (III) Left boundary: The Prograsp Forceps is used to pivot the Sigma to the patient's left side and lift it towards the anterior abdominal wall. Thereafter, the incision of the adventitia of the common iliac vessels on the left side is performed antegradely until the ureter-crossing is reached. (IV) Ventral boundary: The lymphatic block is being dissected from the peritoneum covering the ventral surface of the template. (V) Dorsal boundary: Starting from the aortic and caval bifurcation, the tissue-monoblock is being dissected craniocaudally from its dorsal boundary, clearing all prevertrebral lymph nodes until the promontorium is reached and the monoblock is being extracted in toto. RESULTS: Median lymph node count was 23.5 (IQR 15.25-33) with 11 of 15 patients bearing positive nodes (73.3%). Median duration of sePLND (including ePLND) was 168 minutes (Range 132-202). One grade IIIa complication (infected lymphocele) and one grade IV complication (pulmonary embolism) occured. CONCLUSIONS: This technique is safe and reproducible while offering a good overview of the sePLND template. It permits complete removal of the entire lymphatic tissue as a single monoblock and therefore reduces the risk of spreading single lymphatic nodes in the abdominal cavity. Source of Funding: none


Nutrient compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus were investigated in streams and rivers sampled as part of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. Nutrient data were collected in 20 NAWQA study units during 1992-95, 16 study units during 1996-98, and 15 study units during 1999-2001. To facilitate comparisons among sampling sites with variable sampling frequency, daily loads were determined by using regression models that relate constituent transport to streamflow and time. Model results were used to compute mean annual loads, yields, and concentrations of ammonia, nitrate, total nitrogen, orthophosphate, and total phosphorus, which were compared among stream and river sampling sites. Variations in the occurrence and distribution of nutrients in streams and rivers on a broad national scale reflect differences in the sources of nutrient inputs to the upstream watersheds and in watershed characteristics that affect movement of those nutrients. Sites were classified by watershed size and by land use in the upstream watershed: agriculture, urban, and undeveloped (forest or rangeland). Selection of NAWQA urban sites was intended to avoid effects of major wastewater-treatment plants and other point sources, but in some locations this was not feasible. Nutrient concentrations and yields generally increased with anthropogenic development in the watershed. Median concentrations and yields for all constituents at sites downstream from undeveloped areas were less than at sites downstream from agricultural or urban areas. Concentrations of ammonia, orthophosphate, and total phosphorus at agricultural and urban sites were not significantly different; however, concentrations of nitrate and total nitrogen were higher at agricultural than at urban sites. Total nitrogen concentrations at agricultural sites were higher in areas of high nitrogen input or enhanced transport, such as irrigation or artificial drainage that can rapidly move water from cropland to streams (Midwest, Northern Plains, and western areas of the United States). Concentrations were lower in the Southeast, where more denitrification occurs during transport of nitrogen compounds in shallow ground water. At urban sites, high concentrations of ammonia and orthophosphate were more prevalent downstream from wastewater-treatment plants. At sites with large watersheds and high mean-annual streamflow ("large-watershed" sites), concentrations of most nutrients were significantly less than at sites downstream from agricultural or urban areas. Total nitrogen concentrations at large-watershed sites were higher in Midwest agricultural areas and lower in the Western United States, where agricultural and urban development is less extensive. Total phosphorus concentrations at large-watershed sites were higher in areas of greater potential erosion and low overall runoff such as the arid areas in the West. Although not as distinct as seasonal patterns of streamflow, geographic patterns of seasonally high and low concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus were identified in the data. Seasonal patterns in concentrations of total nitrogen generally mirror seasonal patterns in streamflow in the humid Eastern United States but are inverse to seasonal patterns in streamflow in the semiarid interior West. Total phosphorus concentrations typically have the opposite regional relation with streamflow; high concentrations coincide with high streamflows in the interior West. In the NAWQA Program, sites downstream from relatively undeveloped areas were selected to provide a baseline for comparison to sites with potential effects of urban development and agriculture. Concentrations of nitrate, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus at NAWQA undeveloped sites were found to be greater than values reported by other studies for conditions of essentially no development (background conditions). Concentrations at NAWQA undeveloped sites represent conditions of relatively little development and provide insight in comparison to developed areas but should not, in general, be considered to represent background status. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed nutrient criteria to assist States in setting regional waterquality standards. Regional criteria were exceeded by total nitrogen concentrations at 72 percent of NAWQA undeveloped sites and by total phosphorus concentrations at 89 percent of these sites. Exceedances were even more extensive at sites with greater anthropogenic development upstream. The nitrogen criteria were exceeded at 96 percent of NAWQA sites classified as agricultural, urban, or mixed land use, and the phosphorus criteria were exceeded at 97 percent of these sites. Nationally, outflow loads of all nutrient constituents were strongly correlated to nonpoint-source inputs in the upstream Nutrients in Streams and Rivers Across the Nation — 1992–2001 By David K. Mueller and Norman E. Spahr 2 Nutrients in Streams and Rivers Across the Nation — 1992–2001 watershed. The variation in input mass explained at least 69 percent of the variation in loads. Correlations between nonpoint-source input rates and outflow yields were not quite as good; variation in input rates explained only about 22-45 percent of the variations in nutrient yields. Estimation of nutrient outflow, on the basis of these correlations, likely could be improved if nationally consistent data were available for additional watershed characteristics.


In this article, I look at how comics aimed at young readers can serve to disrupt normative notions, gendered binaries, and fixed designations through featuring, or focusing on, queer girlhoods. In doing so I consider two contemporary series, Ms. Marvel and Lumberjanes. I contextualize these titles against aspects of the publishing of comics, before analyzing some of the narratives and characters in the texts in relation to queer girlhoods. I conclude that the comics offer different approaches and, therefore, differentiated reading experiences for the young readers who engage with them, but that they also form part of a wider grouping of titles that offer diverse images of young people embracing affiliations going beyond family and nation.


Most state and local retirement plans strive for full funding, at least by actuarial standards. Funding measured at market values fluctuates and often falls short. A common argument for full funding is that pensions are a form of deferred compensation that does not justify a debt. The paper examines public finance, political economy, and financial market issues that bear on optimal funding, broadly and in a series of models. In a model where most taxpayers hold debt and face intermediation costs, returns on pension assets are less than taxpayers' cost of borrowing. Pension funding is costly and hence zero funding is optimal. The model also implies that unfunded pension promises are properly discounted at a rate strictly greater than the government's borrowing rate. If pension funds serve as collateral, funding can be warranted despite the cost. This is shown in a model with legal ambiguity and default risk. Except in special cases, the optimal funding ratio is less than full funding.


Groundwater is a commodity that is used by the majority of residents of Watauga County, North Carolina (NCDENR 2001; NC Cooperative Extension 2001). The fractured bedrock aquifers that house the water that these residents access by wells have long been known to be highly heterogeneous and thus problematic at times for locating ideal areas to drill productive wells. In 1967, the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) published a paper written by Harry LeGrand (LeGrand 1967) that predicatively modeled groundwater availability for the Blue Ridge and Piedmont Provinces in North Carolina. The model used various categories oftopographic position and regolith thickness to assess how productive (in gallons per minute) a potential site would be. The language used for describing LeGrand's (1967) topographic categories is familiar but vague. This study uses digital elevation model (DEM) derived surfaces to quantify and replicate LeGrand's (1967) topographic categories in the Geographic Information System (GIS) environment and to test the model against a database of wells in Watauga County.


Summary
Herbivores face various nutritional challenges in their life cycles, challenges that may become increasingly acute under ongoing environmental changes.
Here, focusing on calcium, phosphorus and nitrogen, we used nutritional geometry to analyse individual-based data on foraging and extraction efficiencies, and combined these with data on reproduction and migratory behaviour to understand how a large herbivorous carnivore can complete its life cycle on a narrow and seemingly low quality bamboo diet.
Behavioural results showed that pandas during the year switched between four main food categories involving the leaves and shoots of two bamboo species available. Nutritional analysis suggests that these diet shifts are related to the concentrations and balances of calcium, phosphorus and nitrogen. Notably, successive shifts in range use and food type corresponded with a transition to higher concentrations and/or a more balanced intake of these multiple key constituents.
Our study suggests that pandas obligatorily synchronize their seasonal migration and reproduction with the disjunct nutritional phenologies of two bamboo species. This finding has potentially important implications for habitat conservation for this species and, more generally, draws attention to the need for understanding the nutritional basis of food selection in devising management plans for endangered species.


Seven commonly used disinfectants abbreviated as A, B, C, D, E, F and G (A is, Glutaraldehyde and Coco – benzyl dimethyl ammonium chloride; B is, Didecyldimethyl ammonium bromide 50% w\\v; C is, Sodium hypochlorite; D is, pine disinfectant and antiseptic; E is, chloroxylenol; F is, phenol and that for disinfectant G is, cresol and soap solution) were evaluated for their effectiveness in disinfecting coops and premises of indigenous chickens and ducks. Bacterial isolates from 14 samples (each sample comprising of a pharyngeal and a cloacal swab from one bird pooled together) from village chickens and ducks were used in this study. The isolates were taken to represent microorganisms in the birds\' environment. Results showed that effectiveness amongst the disinfectants varied markedly. Two disinfectants were very effective (sensitivity of 80% and 60% respectively), three were moderate (30% sensitivity, each) and two were ineffective. Some of them were effective only at a concentration higher than that recommended by the manufacturer. For effective disinfection occasional sensitivity testing is therefore recommended. The Kenya Veterinarian Vol. 29 2005: pp. 113-118