Studying the Milky Way disk structure using stars in narrow bins of [Fe/H] and [α/Fe] has recently been proposed as a powerful method to understand the Galactic thick and thin disk formation. It has been assumed so far that these mono-abundance populations (MAPs) are also coeval, or mono-age, populations. Here we study this relationship for a Milky Way chemodynamical model and show that equivalence between MAPs and mono-age populations exists only for the high-[α/Fe] tail, where the chemical evolution curves of different Galactic radii are far apart. At lower [α/Fe]-values an MAP is composed of stars with a range in ages, even for small observational uncertainties and a small MAP bin size. Due to the disk inside-out formation, for these MAPs younger stars are typically located at larger radii, which results in negative radial age gradients that can be as large as 2 Gyr kpc−1. Positive radial age gradients can result for MAPs at the lowest [α/Fe] and highest [Fe/H] end. Such variations with age prevent the simple interpretation of observations for which accurate ages are not available. Studying the variation with radius of the stellar surface density and scale height in our model, we find good agreement to recent analyses of the APOGEE red-clump (RC) sample when 1–4 Gyr old stars dominate (as expected for the RC). Our results suggest that the APOGEE data are consistent with a Milky Way model for which mono-age populations flare for all ages. We propose observational tests for the validity of our predictions and argue that using accurate age measurements, such as from asteroseismology, is crucial for putting constraints on Galactic formation and evolution.


The United Kingdom Department for International Development
(DFID), runs a Knowledge and Research (KaR)
programme in which it is recognised that knowledge generation
and dissemination are key to the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals; a principle which is stated
in several DFID documents including Target Strategy Papers
(DFID, 2000). The DFID KaR programme is based in
London and commissions research into development problems
which cut across geographical boundaries. The DFID
KaR is divided into four programmes: research into rural
livelihoods; health and population; social development;
and infrastructure and urban development. Each programme
commissions its research separately through a
number of ways including annual calls for proposals and
some individually commissioned researches. Two of these
programmes, Health and Population and Rural Livelihoods
sub-contract their research management to various
organisations. As a result, they both have a number of small
sectoral research programmes.
DFID commissioned the Water, Engineering and Development
Centre (WEDC) of Loughborough University, and
Information Training and Development (ITAD) in September
2001, to carry out an evaluation of the dissemination
of outputs of its KaR programme. The aim of this paper is
to highlight the main issues that arose out of this evaluation
and discuss how these impact on research dissemination.


The Russian Internet Research Agency's (IRA) online interference campaign in the 2016 U.S. presidential election represents a turning point in the trajectory of democratic elections in the digital age. What can we learn about how the IRA engages U.S. audiences, ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election? We provide the first in-depth analysis of the relationships between IRA content characteristics and user engagement on Facebook and Instagram around the 2016 election. We find that content targeting right-wing and non-Black marginalised groups had the strongest positive association with engagement on both Facebook and Instagram, in contrast to findings from the IRA campaign on Twitter and to some previous commentary in the media. Higher engagement was associated with posting later in the 2015-2017 period and using less text on both platforms, using negative wording and not including links on Facebook, and using fewer hashtags on Instagram. The sub-audiences and sub-issues associated with most engagement differed across the platforms.


We report biotype identifications and susceptibility to insecticides of whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) collected from cotton, vegetables, melons and ornamental plans during the 2005 season. No major problems with field performance of insecticides against whiteflies were confirmed in 2005 in Arizona. Whitefly resistance to pyriproxyfen did not increase, relative to levels recorded in 2004. However, we detected pyriproxyfen resistance in all Arizona whitefly samples tested. A single sample collected from cotton in Holtville, CA, had no detectable resistance to pyriproxyfen. Samples from cotton in Buckeye, Coolidge, Scottsdale, and Stanfield, Arizona had the highest levels of resistance, with > 31-45% of eggs surviving diagnostic concentration bioassays of 0.1 ug/ml pyriproxyfen. Whitefly susceptibility to buprofezin (Applaud®/Courier®) has not changed significantly since 1997. Resistance to synergized pyrethroids (e.g., Danitol® + Orthene®) has decreased strikingly on a statewide basis since 1995, though unacceptably high frequencies of resistant whiteflies were detected in some 2005 collections from all commodities sampled. Whiteflies collected from Arizona cotton, melons, and vegetables continued to be highly susceptible to imidacloprid (Admire®/Provado®). One whitefly collection from poinsettias in Phoenix (05-39) was substantially less susceptibile to imidacloprid, and the related neonicotinoid insecticides, acetamiprid, and thiamethoxam. Regression analysis yielded a significant correlation for whitefly susceptibility to acetamiprid and thiamethoxam. Whiteflies from cotton that were least susceptibile to acetamiprid were also significantly less susceptible to thiamethoxam (Actara®/Centric®/Platinum®). The most worrisome of our 2005 findings was that 6 out of 13 samples of whitefly-infested poinsettias collected from retail stores in metropolitan Tucson and Phoenix consisted of only the Q biotype of Bemisia tabaci. The plants were infested with very low whitefly numbers and thus we were unable to establish them in laboratory cultures to evaluate their resistance status. The Q biotype is native to Spain and was first detected in the US by our group in 2004 on a sample taken from poinsettias. The Q biotype strain we detected in 2004 was highly resistant to a broad range of insecticides used to manage whiteflies in Arizona. None of the 26 field collections evaluated in 2005 was the Q biotype.


In order to measure and monitor scour depth variations including deposition process, a scour monitoring system was developed in the authors' previous study. An instrument with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors was designed together with a reliable sensor protection measure, of which the performance was tested in the laboratory. The principal is to sense the scour depth variations and deposition process by identifying the locations of emerging FBG sensors from the riverbed. In the present paper, the proposed system was applied on a field bridge with a critical scour history. Two test piles were manufactured and each was assembled with six standard 3ft-long segments. The two test piles were then installed besides two piles of the field bridge, respectively. Finally, the long-term monitoring has been conducted to test the long-term stability of this scour monitoring system and meanwhile to evaluate the scour condition of the bridge foundation. Up till now, the measured sensor responses have verified the functionality of the proposed system. The estimated scour depths based on the sensor data till now match qualitatively well with the actual scour depths observed on the bridge site and the concept of the scour monitoring design has been confirmed. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/364


Smart systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and consequently transforming our lives. The level of system autonomy plays a vital role in the development of smart systems as it profoundly affects how people and these systems interact with each other. However, to date, there are very few studies on human interaction with such systems. This paper presents findings from two field studies where two different prototypes for automating energy tariff-switching were developed and evaluated in the wild. Both prototypes offer flexible autonomy by which users can shift the system's level of autonomy among three options: suggestion-only, semi-autonomy, and full autonomy, whenever they like. Our findings based on thematic analysis show that flexible autonomy is a promising way to sustain users' engagement with smart systems, despite their occasional mistakes. The findings also suggest that users take responsibility for the undesired outcomes of automated actions when delegation of autonomy can be adjusted flexibly.


Social capital is often place-specific while schooling is portable, so the prospect of migration may reduce the returns to social capital and increase the returns to schooling. If social capital matters for urban success, it is possible that an area can get caught in a bad equilibrium where the prospect of out-migration reduces social capital investment and a lack of social capital investment makes out-migration more appealing. We present a simple model of that process and then test its implications. We find little evidence to suggest that social capital is correlated with either area growth or rates of out-migration. We do, however, find significant differences in the returns to human capital across space, and a significant pattern of skilled people disproportionately leaving declining areas. For people in declining areas, the prospect of out-migration may increase the returns to investment in human capital, but it does not seem to impact investment in social capital.


Derivatives of 4,4'-azobis-4-cyanopentanoic acid were prepared using its diacid chloride and various hydroxyl and amino compounds. The objective was to obtain substances that would act both as initiators for different modes of free-radical polymerisation and also as stabilisers for emulsion polymerisation reactions carried out in the absence of added conventional surfactant. During the preparation of the above compounds, it was discovered that 4,4'-azobis-4-cyanopentanoyl chloride appears to exist in two different forms called I and II. These forms yielded two different forms of esters when reacted with straight-chain aliphatic alcohols. These esters are called 'esters A' and 'esters B', respectively. Surprisingly, the esters A were found to act as effective initiator/stabilisers for the emulsion polymerisation of styrene in the absence of conventional surfactant. Unfortunately, during the course of the investigation, it was suddenly found to be impossible to prepare further batches of acid chloride I, and most subsequent attempts to prepare acid chloride I met with failure. The efforts which had been made to try to prepare acid chloride I and to elucidate possible structural differences between I and II that might account for the observed phenomena are described in detail.

The rest of this work is concerned with the study of the behaviour of esters derived from acid chloride II and a range of fatty-alcohol ethoxylates. Results are given for the use of these derivatives as both initiators and stabilisers for the emulsion polymerisation of styrene in the absence of added conventional surfactant. The effects of temperature, initiator concentration and the total volume of water upon the rate of polymerisation were studied. Also, the effects of these variables upon the shapes of the conversion-versus-time curves obtained when the esters were used as initiator/stabilisers were investigated. The surfactant properties of some of the initiator/stabilisers have also been investigated. The kinetics of the decomposition of these initiator/stabilisers is also included.


ARL's recent flight demonstration represents a novel onboard recorder and integration technique that allowed for the first-ever recorded simultaneous measurement of both leeward and windward pressure and ground-based aerodynamic range correlation. Wake flow pressure measurement represents a critical state previously elusive to researchers except for wind tunnels hampered by sting effects or computational fluid dynamics predictions using unverified turbulence models. This paper describes the advancements necessary to further the state-of-the-art capabilities toward readily available and cost-effective research tools and diagnostics. These measurement techniques demonstrate a unique capability to validate models used to design future missions to Mars or the next guided swarm of munitions.


In this paper, I have outlined the underlying factors that led to budget surpluses in the postKeynesian era, specifically focusing on the United States during fiscal years 1998 to 2001. During this period, Mr. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the president of the United States. Prior to these budget surplus years, the United States ran budget surpluses during 1969. This paper presents the history and analysis of incentives of different actors in a political economy and relates that to various budget related legislative and economic events that took place prior and during 1998 to 2001 period, primarily focusing on the actions of the Congress, the President, and reactions of the citizens (voters). President Clinton along with his party went above and beyond the basic fundamentals of Public Choice theory and successfully lifted the nation suffering from structural deficits. In doing so, the Democratic Party suffered significant political losses. In a democracy, it is the citizens who elect their representatives; therefore they are responsible for maintaining their nations financial strength. Returning to the pre-Keynesian precepts is the solution for getting rid of the current nation's debt, which has accumulated to an enormous amount of 103.3% of nation's GDP. It is the responsibility of the voters to give politicians the incentives to return to the pre-Keynesian precepts of fiscal conservatism.


Despite the fact that in a general logistics context, value-adding services (VAS) have been acknowledged in various publications, there is a dearth of available empirical works that have particularly investigated the competitive capacity of these services in the formulation of port strategy. Hence, the development of models that are useful to understanding and assessing the capacity of value-adding services in port strategies is necessary to bridge this knowledge gap.

In the context of this study, value-adding services are defined as customised and additional services which complement the core or main offerings of a firm.

A critical realist approach to research was deployed. Questionnaires were used to survey port users, while in-depth interviews were carried out with port management of the multiple case study ports. The case study ports were Rotterdam (The Netherlands), PD Teesport (United Kingdom), Damietta (Egypt) and Apapa (Nigeria) ports. Ten key value-adding services were identified. The research showed that value-adding services may provide a useful input into the competitive strategy of attracting and retaining port users to a port. The services were found to offer opportunities for the diversification of business for port authorities and port operators.

Original contributions of the study include that it brings to the maritime logistics body of knowledge an understanding of the importance of the different value-adding services, principally based on port users" assessment. In sequence, the most important value-adding services were transport service, warehousing, water supplies and technical support, whilst the least important services were canteen/catering and advertising support services. Hitherto, there is no published study that has provided insight into the importance port users attach to various value-adding services.

In port strategy formulation by the deployment of value-adding services, there is a stage in which dynamism sets in and the uniqueness of the services tend to wear-off, requiring concerted rejuvenation to sustain the potential of value-adding services in competitive strategies. The main challenging issues to port management in the deployment of value-adding services in strategy were found to be concerned with legislation, availability of traffic (cargo and vessel), duration of contracts, adequate land and space availability.

The study also developed models, one to stimulate theoretical understanding of port value-adding services, the other to facilitate informed decision-making on the viability of offering value-adding services in ports.


This paper explores the combined effects of boosting, intake air temperature, trapped residual gas fraction, and dilution on the Maximum Pressure Rise Rate (MPRR) in a boosted single cylinder gasoline HCCI engine with combustion controlled by negative valve overlap. Dilutions by both air and by cooled EGR were used. Because of the sensitivity of MPRR to boost, the MPRR constrained maximum load (as measured by the NIMEP) did not necessarily increase with boosting. At the same intake temperature and trapped residual gas fraction, dilution by recirculated burn gas was effective in reducing the MPRR, but dilution by air increased the value of MPRR. The dependence of MPRR on the operating condition was interpreted successfully by a simple thermodynamic analysis that related the MPRR value to the volumetric heat release rate.


The aim of this thesis is to advance an understanding of the author's corpus of tragic plays, eight in total. Chapter One explores continuities and changes in Galvez's critical
fortunes in the last two hundred years. Chapter Two examines the author's commitment to write tragedy in the light of notions of the genre in eighteenth-century Spain, situating
Galvez's innovation and experimentation with generic constants both ancient and modern in the context of the contemporary debate on theatre. The remaining eight chapters are dedicated to analyses of aesthetic, structural and
thematic elements of each play: Afi-Bek, set in Mameluke Egypt, whose ensemble cast of characters and uncompromising portrayal of cruelty and barbarity perplexed contemporary critics; Safil, which dramatised the final hours in the life of this Biblical figure in the uni-personal melologo format; Safo, which depicted the Greek poet's passionate yet solemn act of suicide; Florinda, which interrogated the legend of the Moorish Conquest of Spain; Blanca de Rossi, in which elements of the emergent Gothic style animated the familiar
tragic dilemma between public duty and personal honour;
Amnon, which recast the Biblical story of Amnon and Tamar and engaged with earlier treatments by Calderon de la Barca and Tirso de Molina; Zinda which addressed issues of slavery, colonialism and nationhood, drawing on elements and techniques associated with sentimental comedy; La delirante, in which Galvez approached the historical account of the rivalry between Tudor and Stuart, through the character of Leonor, Mary Stuart's daughter. The systematic analysis of these plays reveals Galvez as a self-conscious and skilful tragedian, able to fuse the conventions of ancient models of tragedy with the devices of new dramatic and literary forms to create a body of tragic writing which is at once experimental, innovative and essentially classicising.


A systematic study of the Raman spectra of Pb(Zr1-xTix)O-3 (PZT) ceramics has been performed in a broad temperature interval (10-600 K) and a broad Ti/Zr concentration range around the morphotropic phase boundary (x = 0.25-0.70). The number of the spectral components was estimated by a standard fitting procedure with damped harmonic oscillators as well as by counting the number of peaks and shoulders with the help of a purposely designed mathematical analysis based on frequency derivatives of the Raman spectra. This last method proves to be very useful to study Raman spectra of disordered materials. For the case of PZT, the comparison with the Raman modes of PbTiO3 allows us to assign the phonon bands on both sides of the morphotropic phase boundary, and the crossover from the tetragonal to rhombohedral phase spectra is clearly visible. However, there are no indications of a systematic splitting of the E-symmetry modes into monoclinic A'-A '' doublets in the morphotropic samples. Detailed adjusting of the response function to the spectrum requires to assume additional Raman-active modes, but this holds for a much broader concentration range than that of the anticipated monoclinic phase. In particular, the lowest frequency transverse optic mode of E-symmetry (soft mode of the ferroelectric phase transition) is split into two components, a THz frequency anharmonic (central modelike) component and a resonant component (at omega similar to 80 cm(-1)), both related to the same normal coordinate. The additional Raman band appearing in this frequency range (omega similar to 65 cm(-1)) at low temperatures is rather associated with the antiphase tilt vibrations of the oxygen octahedra.


Transcription of genes is controlled by specific factors at each promoter and by a general state of activation or silencing in the surrounding chromatin. In the course of studying chromatin silencing in the plant Arabidopsis, Bäurle et al. noticed a defect in flowering. It seems that some of the genes already known to control flowering time, including FCA and FPA, also function to modify chromatin involved in other processes outside of flowering regulation. Haploid female gametophytic development and embryonic development seem to be particularly susceptible to failure of the chromatin-modification functions of FCA and FPA. Hence, FCA and FPA proteins are localized in the nucleus and are required for efficient silencing of a number of loci by mechanisms that seem to vary with different loci. I. Bäurle, L. Smith, D. C. Baulcombe, C. Dean, Widespread role for the flowering-time regulators FCA and FPA in RNA-mediated chromatin silencing. Science 318, 109-112 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A spectroheliograph dedicated to the observation of the solar disk in the extreme-ultraviolet OV spectral line at 62.97 nm is described. As demonstrated in the Skylab SO-82A spectroheliograph [Appl. Opt. 16, 870 (1977)], this line is uniquely suited to characterize solar plasma in the important 250, 000 K temperature regime. No multilayer coating or suitable filter is yet available to select this wavelength, so an optical design based on a double spectrograph with a spatial filter to remove the unwanted radiation has been developed. Analysis of the optical design shows that this instrument can obtain a 1 arcsec spatial resolution (two pixels) with a relatively high image-acquisition cadence. A preliminary tolerance analysis has been performed. A simple method of instrument alignment in visible light is also described.


We consider mechanisms for online deadline-aware scheduling in large computing clusters. Batch jobs that run on such clusters often require guarantees on their completion time (i.e., deadlines). However, most existing scheduling systems implement fair-share resource allocation between users, an approach that ignores heterogeneity in job requirements and may cause deadlines to be missed. In our framework, jobs arrive dynamically and are characterized by their value and total resource demand (or estimation thereof), along with their reported deadlines. The scheduler's objective is to maximize the aggregate value of jobs completed by their deadlines. We circumvent known lower bounds for this problem by assuming that the input has slack, meaning that any job could be delayed and still finish by its deadline. Under the slackness assumption, we design a preemptive scheduler with a constant-factor worst-case performance guarantee. Along the way, we pay close attention to practical aspects, such as runtime efficiency, data locality and demand uncertainty. We evaluate the algorithm via simulations over real job traces taken from a large production cluster, and show that its actual performance is significantly better than other heuristics used in practice. We then extend our framework to handle provider commitments: the requirement that jobs admitted to service must be executed until completion. We prove that no algorithm can obtain worst-case guarantees when enforcing the commitment decision to the job arrival time. Nevertheless, we design efficient heuristics that commit on job admission, in the spirit of our basic algorithm. We show empirically that these heuristics perform just as well as (or better than) the original algorithm. Finally, we discuss how our scheduling framework can be used to design truthful scheduling mechanisms, motivated by applications to commercial public cloud offerings.


Skim milk fermented by Lactobacillus casei subsp. casei R-68 is expected to produce fermented milk with more complete nutritional value and health benefits. This study used a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 5 treatments and 4 replications thus obtaining 20 experimental units. The data obtained were statistically analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). If the F count is greater than or equal to F table then continued with DNMRT test at 5% level. The results show that the addition of skim milk significantly affected the taste, color and consistency of probiotic fermented milk. Score for overall acceptance test indicated that the panelists were "rather like to like" for probiotik fermented milk. The best treatment based on the sensoric evaluation was SS15 (addition 15% concentration of skim milk)


Property law generally develops gradually, with doctrine slowly accreting in the interstices of daily conflict and the larger culture of property likewise emerging at a glacial pace. In times of crisis, however, fundamental questions about the nature of ownership and the balance between the individual and the state instantiated in the structure of property rise rapidly to the surface. Our current economic crisis - the deepest since the Great Depression - is no exception. This economic crisis, more than many in our history, began with property, sparked in no small measure by structural flaws in the residential market and an ownership society that advocated risk-taking with insufficient heed for consequences. Property has likewise played a palpable role in the still-emerging policy response, with concerns about creeping socialism and fears of nationalization shaping regulatory design. As a result, this crisis has unsettled long-stagnant tensions in property theory. It is providing a vivid reminder of the interconnected nature of property while recalibrating the role of property as a repository for risk and reward. These conceptual shifts have brought the state's role in shaping property to the fore, starkly - albeit perhaps temporarily - placing great weight on the public, communitarian, and even punitive aspects of the nature of property. This crisis thus provides a powerful window to assess the current state of our property discourse and begin to glean lessons about the directions in which property may evolve in the aftermath. Although scholars have begun to grapple with the causes and some of the particular consequences of the current crisis, there has been relatively little theoretical engagement with the role of property norms in the origins of, and in the regulatory response to, the crisis. By identifying the intersection of crisis and property theory with greater clarity, this Article lays the groundwork for normative efforts moving forward. It holds broader lessons as well for understanding the contingent nature of legal change and the structure of one of our most foundational social institutions.


Surface mechanical properties such as adhesion and friction can be controlled by creating a rippled surface. In this paper, we present numerical and experimental studies on adhesive contact between a rippled surface and a rigid spherical indenter. In our numerical method, surface interaction is modeled using Lennard-Jones potential with Derjaguin's approximation. We also carry out a systematic experimental investigation by measuring the adhesion between a spherical glass indenter and rippled polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) strips with varying amplitudes. With increasing ripple amplitude, our experimental results show a monotonic decrease in pull-off force, transition from full to partial contact, and pressure-sensitive adhesion. Our numerical simulation captures all the salient features of the experimental results remarkably well.


Cystic Fibrosis results from mutation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. The gene was identified in 1989, but more than 20 years later, the regulatory mechanisms controlling its complex expression are still not fully understood. Though the promoter binds transcription factors and drives some aspects of CFTR gene expression, it cannot alone account for tissue specific control. This implicates other distal cis-acting elements in cell-type-specific regulation of CFTR expression. Several of these elements, including intronic enhancers and flanking insulators, were identified within or near the CFTR locus. Here we summarize the known regulatory mechanisms controlling CFTR transcription, including those acting through elements in the promoter and others elsewhere in the locus. A special focus will be elements that contribute to tissue specific regulation of expression.


Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a drastic disability that leads to spinal cord impairment. This study sought to determine the effects of bone marrow stem cells (BMSCs) on caspase-3 levels after acute SCI in mice. Forty-two mice were randomly divided into 3 groups: control (2 subcategories), subjected to no intervention; sham (3 subcategories), subjected to acute SCI; and experimental (2 subcategories), subjected to SCI and cell transplantation. In the experimental group, 2×105 BMSCs were injected intravenously 1 day after SCI. The mesenchymal property of the cells was assessed. The animals in the 3 groups were sacrificed 1, 21, and 35 days after the induction of injury and caspase-3 levels were evaluated using a caspase-3 assay kit. The obtained values were analyzed with ANOVA and Tukey tests using GraphPad and SPSS. Based on the assessments, the transplanted cells were spindle-shaped and were negative for the hematopoietic markers of CD34 and CD45 and positive for the expression of the mesenchymal marker of CD90 and osteogenic induction. The caspase-3 levels showed a significant increase in the sham and experimental groups in comparison to the control group. One day after SCI, the caspase-3 level was significantly higher in the sham group (1.157±0.117) than in the other groups (P<0.000). Twenty-one days after SCI, the caspase-3 level was significantly lower in the experimental group than in the sham group (0.4±0.095 vs. 0.793±0.076; P˂0.000). Thirty-five days following SCI, the caspase-3 level was lower in the experimental group than in the sham group (0.223±0.027 vs. 0.643±0.058; P˂0.000). We conclude that BMSC transplantation was able to downregulate the caspase-3 level after acute SCI, underscoring the role of caspase-3 as a marker for the assessment of treatment efficacy in acute SCI.


A procedure of testing the \(f(R)\)-theory of gravity is discussed. The latter is an extension of the general theory of relativity (GR). In order this extended theory (in some variant) to be really confirmed as a more precise theory it must be tested. To do that we first have to solve an equation generalizing Einstein's equation in the GR. However, solving this generalized Einstein's equation is often very hard, even it is impossible in general to find an exact solution. It is why the perturbation method for solving this equation is used. In a recent work \cite{Ky:2018fer} a perturbation method was applied to the $f(R)$-theory of gravity in a central gravitational field which is a good approximation in many circumstances. There, perturbative solutions were found for a general form and some special forms of \(f(R)\). These solutions may allow us to test an \(f(R)\)-theory of gravity by calculating some quantities which can be verified later by the experiment (observation). In \cite{Ky:2018fer} an illustration was made on the case \(f(R)=R+\lambda R^2\). For this case, in the present article, the orbital precession of S2 orbiting around Sgr A* is calculated in a higher-order of approximation. The $f(R)$-theory of gravity should be also tested for other variants of $f(R)$ not considered yet in \cite{Ky:2018fer}. Here, several representative variants are considered and in each case the orbital precession is calculated for the Sun--Mercury- and the Sgr A*--S2 gravitational systems so that it can be compared with the value observed by a (future) experiment. Following the same method of \cite{Ky:2018fer} a light bending angle for an $f(R)$ model in a central gravitational field can be also calculated and it could be a useful exercise.


In Moral Failure, Lisa Tessman argues against two principles of moral theory, that ought implies can and that normative theory must be action-guiding. Although Tessman provides a trenchant account of how we are thrust into the misfortune of moral failure, often by our very efforts to act morally, and although she shows, through a discussion well-informed by the latest theorizing in ethics, neuroethics, and psychology, how much more moral theory can do than provide action-guiding principles, I argue that the two theses of moral theory that she disputes remain indispensable for ethical theory.


Since the introduction of the ring-learning with errors problem, the number theoretic transform (NTT) based polynomial multiplication algorithm has been studied extensively. Due to its faster quasilinear time complexity, it has been the preferred choice of cryptographers to realize ring-learning with errors cryptographic schemes. Compared to NTT, Toom-Cook or Karatsuba based polynomial multiplication algorithms, though being known for a long time, still have a fledgling presence in the context of post-quantum cryptography.In this work, we observe that the pre- and post-processing steps in Toom-Cook based multiplications can be expressed as linear transformations. Based on this observation we propose two novel techniques that can increase the efficiency of Toom-Cook based polynomial multiplications. Evaluation is reduced by a factor of 2, and we call this method precomputation, and interpolation is reduced from quadratic to linear, and we call this method lazy interpolation.As a practical application, we applied our algorithms to the Saber post-quantum key-encapsulation mechanism. We discuss in detail the various implementation aspects of applying our algorithms to Saber. We show that our algorithm can improve the efficiency of the computationally costly matrix-vector multiplication by 12−37% compared to previous methods on their respective platforms. Secondly, we propose different methods to reduce the memory footprint of Saber for Cortex-M4 microcontrollers. Our implementation shows between 2.6 and 5.7 KB reduction in the memory usage with respect to the smallest implementation in the literature.


Copyright © 2020 Phcog.Net. This is an openaccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. ABSTRACT Introduction: The use of medicinal plants have been increasing progressively around the world and been associated with decreasing Total Cholesterol (TC) and Low-Density LipoproteinCholesterol (LDL-C) and, increasing High-Density Lipoprotein-Cholesterol (HDL-C) in humans. Ilex paraguariensis, known as yerba mate, is rich in bioactive compounds, especially chlorogenic acid has been shown as one of the major contributor to hypocholesterolemic. This review aimed to demonstrate if Ilex paraguariensis supplementation is more effective than placebo on lipid profile in randomized placebo-controlled trial. Methods: A careful search was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, SciELO, Scopus and Cochrane Library, published until May 2020. The following keywords of Medical Sub Headings (MeSH) were used as search terms: ("yerba mate" OR "Ilex paraguariensis") AND ("dyslipidemia" OR "hyperlipidemia") AND ("clinical trial" OR "Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)" OR "randomly"). Results: The literature search identified 149 "Ilex paraguariensis x clinical trials", 16 full-text assessed. After, following the inclusion and exclusion criteria, only 3 studies were chosen to qualitative and quantitative synthesis. The study showed that Ilex paraguariensis could improve HDL-C, but with no differences in TC and triglycerides, comparing to placebo-controlled group. Conclusion: The three included clinical trials have demonstrated high quality, low bias and HDL-C statistically different. To validate the last result, more clinical trials interventions are necessary, Although TC and triglycerides did not demonstrated differences statistically and increasing HDL-C may improve or protect the metabolism of lipid profile, after been supplemented by Ilex paraguariensis, compared to placebo-controlled trial.


The reliability and validity of the self-report questionnaire How I Think (HIT), designed to assess self-serving cognitive distortions related to antisocial behavior, was tested among Swedish offender and nonoffender adults and adolescents (N = 364). The results showed self-serving distortions to be more common among offenders and to predict self-reported antisocial behavior when tested among adults. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed, in contrast to earlier findings, that the underlying structure of the HIT was best explained by a three-factor solution with one major cognitive factor, referred to as "criminal mind." It was concluded that the HIT, after further examination of its structural and divergent validity, could be used as a measure of criminal thinking in adults as well as in adolescents.


The business world has changed dramatically over the last decade to address the reality of globalisation in the sphere of business. However, most universities have remained intact as local universities servicing local needs of citizens studying at their closest universities. For instance, a small number of universities have managed to attract students from other provinces, countries and regions. The question arises: to what extent have universities in South Africa embraced to the reality of globalisation? Are higher education institutions preparing students to work globally, or do they still function as institutions operating with a local mindset for a local market? Although South African universities have been widely criticised for not producing graduates meeting the needs of the local economy, these institutions are now challenged to prepare students for global markets. Only one local university achieved a ranking in the top hundred universities in the world according to the latest international ranking of universities. This reality poses several challenges for universities, for example, globalising curriculum to meet global needs and realities, as well as sourcing more academics from different parts of the world to infuse a global focus in the development and delivery of a global curriculum. Similarly, local universities are expected to play a key role in the socio-economic transformation of South Africa, while being challenged to meet international standards. This dichotomy places severe strain on the resources of universities, of which many may not be ready to compete globally, especially in the light of the rapid growth of private higher education, and big business, resorting to corporate universities to meet their needs. This paper seeks to determine the impact of globalisation on higher education with specific recommendations for achieving a balance between global and local higher education needs and realities.


The study aimed to identify the problems that are associated with starting and running small business enterprise in Nigeria, in comparison with Swedish small business enterprises and determine the ranking of these problems. In caring out the study, a qualitative research method was used. The most important method data was sourced by primary data using interviews, utilizing a questionnaire and by secondary data using literatures collected from books, journals, past research work and electronic web. The researchers also used purposive sampling technique to select some of the top ranking personnel in Premier Bakeries, Booms Nig, Cafe Master Hans and Marianne Bageri. The analytical strategy used was in relying on theoretical propositions. On the basis of the analysis of data collected during the interview, the study revealed that small business managers in developing countries such Nigeria face many problems when compared with developed country like Sweden. The problem facing Nigerian small business managers are ranked as follows: lack of finance in starting and developing business, poor infrastructures, inappropriate legislation, competition, lack of managerial skills; further problems are corruption and inflation. Small business managers in Sweden are face with the problems of high increase of work absente due to cases of sicknesses by personnel and the effect of the weather on business. The study concluded with some recommendations on the need of the developing countries to emulate from developed nations in creating enabling environment that will promote and sustain the growth and development of small businesses.


Background: Modified radical mastectomy (MRM), as a surgical treatment in breast cancer patients, may lead to important complications with significant morbidities including seroma formation. In this study, we used topical phenytoin to evaluate its impact on breast and axillary wound drainage and seroma formation after MRM.Methods: In a double-blinded randomized clinical trial, patients with breast cancer who were candidates for modified radical mastectomy (MRM) were enrolled. The patients were randomly assigned to two groups using a simple randomization method. Group A received topical phenytoin 1% solution for the irrigation of the mastectomy wound during the MRM procedure while group B (control group) underwent wound irrigation with normal saline solution. In addition to demographic data, postoperative variables including daily drainage of breast and axillary drains, drain removal days, and possible complications including seroma formation and their management were recorded.Results: Except for daily drainage recorded on the fifth postoperative day, the drainage of both axillary and breast drains were significantly different between group A and B in the following days. Compared to group B, axillary drains could be removed significantly earlier in group A. In regard to the breast drains, they were removed earlier in group A with no statistically difference compared to group B, the difference was not statistically significant. Seroma was detected in 7(8.3%) patients, 3 patients in group A and 4 patients in group B, with no significant differences between the two groups. All the patients underwent repeated aspirations.Conclusions: Our findings showed that topical irrigation of the surgery site with phenytoin was effective in reducing axillary surgical wound drainage.


The trend toward higher bit rates in lightwave communications has increased interest in dispersion-shifted fiber (DSF) to minimize dispersion penalties. In addition, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is being used to gain even greater capacity, and broad bandwidth erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are extending link distances between signal regeneration. Taken together, these techniques can result in severe performance degradation due to four-wave mixing (FWM). Several different ways of reducing the FWM degradation in WDM systems have been proposed, but all of the approaches increase system complexity and make it difficult to add channels to the system. We show that wavelength-coded multiplexing can provide multiple channels on a simple fiber link while significantly reducing four-wave mixing interference compared to a WDM system. The FWM spectrum is symmetric and use of an antisymmetric code cancels the interference. Wavelength-coded multiplexing is also known as spectral code-division multiplexing (SCDM). We have calculated the error probability in the SCDM system considering only shot noise, thermal noise and FWM crosstalk, all of which are assumed to have a Gaussian distribution. For comparison, we also derived an expression for the error probability in a WDM system.


My research is an examination of the scope of contemporary urban design and planning tools and processes which can act as alternative qualitative methodologies for the renewal of urban conditions at multiple scales through adaptive methods embracing change, stresses and shocks affecting societies and the city as a growing epicentre of human inhabitation and complex systems. With growing urbanisation, the question of what constitutes liveable urbanism across urban territories is a critical one.

Addressing the lack of unified and culturally aware analysis of the evolution in urban design and planning practice being applied in various contexts across the developed and developing world, I have, through my own international research programme over more than 15 years, traced their potentials for incubating renewal through a collection of published outputs, each with their own approach: a book, essays for the media and for exhibition catalogues and a webzine.

Through examination I have learned about the capacities of tools and processes to break with silo thinking and damaging legacies of the past, and to adapt, or to forge new instrumentalities in ways that are context-responsive and situational. My focus has been on studying largely ongoing, phased projects, so this is a work in progress. This self-appointed intellectual mandate for comparative urbanism has required a form of evaluation that includes consideration of the use and mis-use of history and old rules, operational narratives and contestory factors, enquiry into assumptions made, responsibilities claimed, and objectives combining issues of determination (of plans, by their clients) and self-determination (of communities).

I have striven to show how the recognition of planning baggage and the emptying out of its tactics, is, in diverse ways, creating space for alternative behaviors in the form of new, potentially more socially equitable and responsive patterns of operation, engaging and reusing resources. I have learned that new hybrid processes of top down and bottom up planning, and interest in engaging with multi-modal approaches with their relative novelty and unprecedented forms of complexity, represent major challenges to long-held beliefs about planning's role in society and the typical relationships between planner and those planned for. They foster a sense of the symbiotic relationships, interdependencies, alliances and self-determination cities need to generate their futures in socially equitable and resilient ways.

My body of research will help inform and contribute methodologies and concepts to future outputs on related themes concerning urban design and planning's role and identity, including issues of Urbanista.org, my webzine. The wider implications of my research are also that institutions involved in land use of all kinds accordingly need to carry a responsibility to adopt a higher commitment to the value of and need for adaptive instruments of civic urban order.


We consider the problem of learning to repair programs from diagnostic feedback (e.g., compiler error messages). Program repair is challenging for two reasons: First, it requires reasoning and tracking symbols across source code and diagnostic feedback. Second, labeled datasets available for program repair are relatively small. In this work, we propose novel solutions to these two challenges. First, we introduce a program-feedback graph, which connects symbols relevant to program repair in source code and diagnostic feedback, and then apply a graph neural network on top to model the reasoning process. Second, we present a self-supervised learning paradigm for program repair that leverages unlabeled programs available online to create a large amount of extra program repair examples, which we use to pre-train our models. We evaluate our proposed approach on two applications: correcting introductory programming assignments (DeepFix dataset) and correcting the outputs of program synthesis (SPoC dataset). Our final system, DrRepair, significantly outperforms prior work, achieving 68.2% full repair rate on DeepFix (+22.9% over the prior best), and 48.4% synthesis success rate on SPoC (+3.7% over the prior best).


We fabricated optical microfiber knot resonators from thin tapered fibers (diameter down to 1 μm) linked to untapered fiber at both ends. We demonstrated a finesse of about 100, over twice as high as previously reported for microfiber resonators. Low-loss encapsulation of microfiber knot resonators in hydrophobic silica aerogel was also investigated.


Applications, deployed over a wide area network (WAN) which may connect across metropolitan, regional or national boundaries, suffer performance degradation owing to unavoidable natural characteristics of WANs such as high latency and high packet loss rate. WAN optimization, also known as WAN acceleration, aims to accelerate a broad range of applications and protocols over a WAN. In this paper, we provide a survey on the state of the art of WAN optimization or WAN acceleration techniques, and illustrate how these acceleration techniques can improve application performance, mitigate the impact of latency and loss, and minimize bandwidth consumption. We begin by reviewing the obstacles in efficiently delivering applications over a WAN. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive survey of the most recent content delivery acceleration techniques in WANs from the networking and optimization point of view. Finally, we discuss major WAN optimization techniques which have been incorporated in widely deployed WAN acceleration products - multiple optimization techniques are leveraged by a single WAN accelerator to improve application performance in general.


We investigated the seasonal changes in macroinvertebrate reference communities in four Mediterranean stream types (temporary, evaporite calcareous at medium altitude, siliceous headwaters at high altitude, and cal- careous headwaters at medium and high altitudes) and the interannual changes in the two headwaters stream types in Spain. Eighty-eight seasonal reference sites distributed into 23 basins were sampled on three occasions (spring, summer and autumn of 2003), and 18 interannual reference sites distributed in 6 basins were sampled in the autumn of 2003, 2004 and 2005 to examine this temporal variability. Interannual reference sites were a subset of seasonal reference sites. The analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) performed on Bray-Curtis similarity distances, using pres- ence-absence data, showed no seasonal or interannual changes in the macroinvertebrate communities. The infl uence of seasonal and interannual variability was also tested in all the stream types using 18 macroinvertebrate metrics classifi ed as richness, index, multimetric index, tolerance/intolerance and diversity. ANOVAs showed no seasonal differences in any of the studied metrics for temporary and evaporite calcareous at medium altitude and most of the metrics in the two headwaters stream types. This suggests the suitability of using a single season approach for the biomonitoring purposes of these metrics. Conversely, the seasonal differences detected in the metrics related with EPT (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera) and OCH (Odonata, Coleoptera and Heteroptera) taxa in calcareous headwaters indicate possible differences in the relative presence of macrohabitats (riffl es and pools) as a result of fl ow variation. No interannual changes were detected in any of the metrics except EPT/OCH in siliceous headwaters. However, the large variability in the annual rainfall in this study area suggests that this three-year study period may be too short to assess the effect of climatic variations on the ecological status assessment. In general, the lower temporal variability (measured as seasonal and interannual coeffi cients of variation) of the taxon richness metric (S) and the two studied indices (IBMWP and IASPT), compared with the other metrics, make them a priori robust indicators to assess ecological status in Mediterranean streams.


Aluminium-Silicon alloys are being increasingly considered for manufacture of wear prone components in automobile and aircraft industries owing to their light weight, superior corrosion resistance and high thermal conductivity, besides their amenability to processing methods such as casting. However, poor tribological characteristics have hampered industrial adoption of the above class of alloys. In principle, the tribological properties of these alloys can be improved by refining the microstructure by laser remelting techniques. Recently, Nd:YAG lasers have been used for processing of reflective materials such as Aluminium, as these lasers have better absorptivity compared to the CO2 lasers. The present study investigates the microstructural characteristics and improvements in sliding wear resistance that can result from surface melting of Al-Si alloys using a 400 W pursed Nd:YAG laser. Three different Al-Si alloys with varying Si content 5%, 12.5% and 20% have been investigated in the present study. The microstructures of the transverse cross sections of the treated samples were examined in detail and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies carried out to ascertain changes in phase constitution. The surface melting and subsequent rapid solidification was found to cause considerable refinement of the microstructure, which in turn increased the hardness in the treated layer compared with that of bulk. The effect of laser beam scan speed on microhardness of the treated samples was evaluated. Dry sliding wear tests were conducted on treated and untreated samples of Al-12Si using a pin-on disc tribometer. The volume wear rates determined in case of the treated and untreated samples are discussed in the paper. The results have also been correlated with the morphological and microstructural characteristics noted in the laser treated specimens. Copyright © 2004 by Society for Advancement of Heat Treatment & Surface Engineering (SAHTSE).


AND BENEFITS Abstract: Value engineering is a technique that wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) currently use, when required, to analyze cost reduction and performance optimization opportunities. The research explores the potential to address energy efficiency during value engineering analyses of WWTFs. The research identifies the Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE) International as the primary value engineering standards and certification organization and shows the six-step SAVE process for conducting value engineering analyses. A survey of WWTFs identifies four WWTFs that conduct value engineering analyses using the SAVE process. Then, the research reviews the analyses to determine their effectiveness in addressing process energy efficiency opportunities. While the SAVE value engineering process does not require identification of energy efficiency opportunities, the analyses conducted by the WWTFs do identify such opportunities. Based on survey results, WWTFs only conduct value engineering analyses when required, primarily because of the cost and time commitment. The research presents barriers to conducting value engineering analyses and discusses possible mitigation pathways. Pathways include 1) steps the State Revolving Fund can take, 2) development of a national value engineering standard that regulatory agencies can incorporate into wastewater system design requirements, and 3) development of WWTF-oriented energy efficiency training materials to add to SAVE's value engineer certification training. Value engineering is a technique that wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) currently use, when required, to analyze cost reduction and performance optimization opportunities. The research explores the potential to address energy efficiency during value engineering analyses of WWTFs. The research identifies the Society of American Value Engineers (SAVE) International as the primary value engineering standards and certification organization and shows the six-step SAVE process for conducting value engineering analyses. A survey of WWTFs identifies four WWTFs that conduct value engineering analyses using the SAVE process. Then, the research reviews the analyses to determine their effectiveness in addressing process energy efficiency opportunities. While the SAVE value engineering process does not require identification of energy efficiency opportunities, the analyses conducted by the WWTFs do identify such opportunities. Based on survey results, WWTFs only conduct value engineering analyses when required, primarily because of the cost and time commitment. The research presents barriers to conducting value engineering analyses and discusses possible mitigation pathways. Pathways include 1) steps the State Revolving Fund can take, 2) development of a national value engineering standard that regulatory agencies can incorporate into wastewater system design requirements, and 3) development of WWTF-oriented energy efficiency training materials to add to SAVE's value engineer certification training. Benefits:  Documents WWTFs' current use of value engineering only when required by regulatory organizations and presents possible pathways to promote this practice for energy efficiency.  Documents that WWTFs identify energy efficiency opportunities during value engineering analyses, though energy efficiency is not the focus of value engineering analysis.  Presents a pathway through SAVE to add WWTF-oriented energy efficiency training materials to their value engineer certification training.  Discusses a pathway to promote wastewater system value engineering through a national standard.


OBJECTIVE
To understand the existing food beliefs regarding hot, cold and badi (gas-producing) properties of different food items and also to assess whether there is any relationship with education of women and these beliefs.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional study.

PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY
Community Health Center (CHC), The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi from July to September 2000.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS
Four hundred adult female respondents, who came to CHC as a patient or as an attendant, were interviewed after taking verbal consent. A self-administered pre-coded and pre-tested questionnaire was filled by the respondent. Descriptive frequencies and cross tabulation were computed to assess the existing food beliefs. Chi-square test was used to assess the association between education level of women and belief regarding these food items.

RESULTS
More than three-fourth of respondents were literate. The percentages of respondents saying that certain foods were hot, cold and badi were 71%, 55% and 80% respectively. Meat, either beef or mutton, fish, egg, chicken, was perceived as hot by majority of the respondents. Majority of vegetables was perceived as cold foods in our study. The other foods like rice, yogurt, banana, watermelon, milk and cold drink were also thought to be cold by many of the respondents. Cabbage, cauliflower, potato, rice, gram and mash pulses (chane and mash-ki-dal) were highly rated as badi foods. Level of education of women didn t show any statistically significant difference in keeping beliefs regarding hot, cold and badi properties of food items.

CONCLUSION
A significant concept of different properties of food exists in our culture. We recommend future studies to explore scientific basis for classifying hot, cold or badi foods and also to look into its impact on health by their restriction based on their beliefs.


Residual motion of the arm cavity mirrors is expected to prove one of the principal impediments to systematic lock acquisition in advanced gravitational-wave interferometers. We present a technique which overcomes this problem by employing auxiliary lasers at twice the fundamental measurement frequency to pre-stabilise the arm cavities' lengths. Applying this approach, we reduce the apparent length noise of a 1.3 m long, independently suspended Fabry-Perot cavity to 30 pm rms and successfully transfer longitudinal control of the system from the auxiliary laser to the measurement laser.


A three-layer Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model was developed to forecast air pollution levels. The subsequent SO2 concentration (24-hour averaged) being the output parameter of this study was estimated by seven input parameters such as preceding SO2 concentrations (24-hour averaged), average daily temperature, sea-level pressure, relative humidity, cloudiness, average daily wind speed and daily dominant wind direction. After Backpropagation training combined with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the proposed model predicted subsequent SO2 values based on measured data. ANN testing outputs were proven to be satisfactory with correlation coefficients of about 0.770, 0.744 and 0.751 for the winter, summer and overall data, respectively.


The transition to democracy in South Africa was one of the defining events in twentieth-century political history. The South African women's movement is one of the most celebrated on the African continent. Shireen Hassim examines interactions between the two as she explores the gendered nature of liberation and regime change. Her work reveals how women's political organizations both shaped, and were shaped by the broader democratic movement. Alternately asserting their political independence and giving precedence to the democratic movement as a whole, women activists proved flexible and remarkably successful in influencing policy. At the same time, their feminism was profoundly shaped by the context of democratic and nationalist ideologies. In reading the last twenty-five years of South African history through a feminist framework, Hassim offers fresh insights into the interactions between civil society, political parties, and the state. Hassim boldly confronts sensitive issues such as the tensions between autonomy and political dependency in feminists' engagement with the African National Congress (ANC) and other democratic movements, and black-white relations within women's organizations. She offers a historically informed discussion of the challenges facing feminist activists during a time of nationalist struggle and democratization.


Neuroinflammation has a key role in the pathogenesis of perinatal brain injury. Caffeine, a nonspecific antagonist of adenosine receptors (ARs), is widely used to treat apnea of prematurity and has been linked to a decrease in the incidence of cerebral palsy in premature infants. The mechanisms explaining its neuroprotective effect have not yet been elucidated. The objective of this study was to characterize the expression of adenosine and ARs in two neonatal rat models of neuroinflammation and to determine the effect of A2aR blockade on microglial activation assessed through inflammatory cytokine gene expression. We have used two rat models of microglial activation: the gestational low protein diet (LPD) model, associated with chronic brain injury, and postnatal ibotenate intracerebral injections, responsible for acute excitotoxicity injury. Adenosine blood levels have been measured by Tandem Mass Spectrometry. The expression of ARs in vivo was assessed using qPCR and immunohistochemistry. In vivo models have been replicated in vitro on primary microglial cell cultures exposed to A2aR agonist CGS-21680 or antagonist SCH-58261. The effects of these treatments have been assessed on the M1/M2 cytokine expressions measured by RT-qPCR. LPD during pregnancy was associated with higher adenosine levels in pups at postnatal day 1 and 4. A2aR mRNA expression was significantly increased in both cortex and magnetically sorted microglial cells from LPD animals compared to controls. CD73 expression, responsible for extracellular production of brain adenosine, was significantly increased in LPD cortex and sorted microglia cells. Moreover, CD73 protein level was increased in ibotenate treated animals. In vitro experiments confirmed that LPD or control microglial cells exposed to ibotenate display an increased expression, at both protein and molecular levels, of A2aR and M1 markers (IL-1β, IL-6, iNOS, TNFα). This pro-inflammatory profile was significantly reduced by SCH-58261, which reduces M1 markers in both LPD and ibotenate-exposed cells, with no effect on control cells. In the same experimental conditions, a partial increased of M1 cytokines was observed in response to A2aR agonist CGS-21680. These results support the involvement of adenosine and particularly of its receptor A2aR in the regulation of microglia in two different animal models of neuroinflammation.


The continued use of animal serum as an important component in biotechnology manufacturing processes has raised questions regarding both the reliability of geographic origin and possible adulteration of product. The International Serum Industry Association (ISIA) has implemented a traceability certification program designed to demonstrate traceability from slaughterhouse or abattoir to the end-user. This is based on an audit performed by an independent, approved third-party auditor according to an approved audit plan, using a detailed audit checklist. Recent advances have led to the development of a complementary testing program to determine geographic origin of material. The methodology described in this paper differentiates fetal bovine serum from newborn calf serum on the basis of biochemical composition. A Method for Differentiating Fetal Bovine Serum from Newborn Calf Serum


In today's dynamic marketplace, companies are under strong pressure to introduce new products for long-term survival with their competitors. Besides, every company cannot cope up progressively or immediately with the market requirements due to knowledge dynamics being experienced in competitive milieu. Increased competition and reduced product life cycles put force upon companies to develop new products faster. In response to this pressing need there should be some new approach compatible in flexible circumstances. This paper presents a solution based on the Stage-Gate system, which is closely linked with virtual team approach. Virtual teams can provide a platform to advance the knowledge-base in a company and thus to reduce time-to-market. This article introduces conceptual product development architecture under a virtual-team umbrella. The paper describes all the major aspects of new product development (NPD), NPD process and its relationship with virtual team, Stage-Gate system and finally presents a modified Stage-Gate system. It also provides the guidelines for the successful implementation of virtual team in new products development.


In this paper, we try to point out some important weaknesses of the contemporary French socialeconomic model, focusing on relevant elements of comparison with Nordic countries. In doing so, we rely on the idea that large and small countries differ in terms of growth and governance strategies. Hence, while the "Nordic model" can be a good revelatory of some of France's major problems, it is also an ambiguous template for reform. The paper starts by examining the question of growth strategy (macroeconomic management and structural reforms), then goes on to investigate governance strategy (trust, confidence, governance quality) and finally explores the issues of diversity and integration policy.


Research on embodied cognition has shown that action and language are closely intertwined. The present study seeks to exploit this relationship, by systematically investigating whether motor activation would improve eight-to-nine year old children's learning of vocabulary in their first language. In a within-subjects paradigm, 49 children learned novel object manipulation, locomotion and abstract verbs via a verbal definition alone and in combination with gesture observation, imitation, or generation (i.e., enactment). Results showed that learning of locomotion verbs significantly improved through gesture observation compared to verbal definitions only. For learning object-manipulation verbs, children with good language skills seemed to benefit from imitation and enactment, while this appeared to hinder children with poor language skills. Learning of abstract verbs was not differentially affected by instructional condition. This study suggests that the effectiveness of observing and generating gestures for vocabulary learning may differ depending on verb type and language proficiency.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To explore linkages among empathic responding by informal caregivers with the physical symptom experiences and psychological distress of patients with ovarian cancer.

DESIGN
Preliminary, descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional.

SETTING
Psychosocial oncology support group in Canada.

SAMPLE
Convenience sample of 13 women with stage I-IV ovarian cancer with the majority diagnosed with disease recurrence.

METHODS
Data were collected on a single telephone call using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Empathic Responding Scale, the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale, and the Dyadic Perspective-Taking Scale. Analysis included a correlation of variables.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Empathic responding, physical symptom experiences, and psychological distress.

FINDINGS
Preliminary findings provided partial support for linkages among the perceived empathic behaviors of informal caregivers and the psychological distress and physical symptom experiences of patients with ovarian cancer. Patients who were more depressed reported elevated symptom experiences. Patients also reported more anxiety and depression when they perceived that their informal caregivers were engaging in less empathic behaviors toward them.

CONCLUSIONS
The empathic behavior of informal caregivers toward patients appeared to be related to lower levels of anxiety and depression in patients with end-stage ovarian cancer.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Clinicians need to be aware that anxiety and depression in patients with ovarian cancer appear to be related to the patients' physical symptom experiences and the degree of empathic support the patients perceive from their informal caregivers. This has implications for clinical assessment of patients' anxiety and depression, physical symptoms, and available empathic social support.


Nowadays the concepts and infrastructures of Cloud Computing are becoming a standard for several applications. Scalability is not only a buzzword anymore, but is being used effectively. However, despite the economical advantages of virtualization and scalability, some factors as latency, bandwidth and processor sharing can be a problem for doing Parallel Computing on the Cloud. We will provide an overview on how to tackle these problems using the BSP (Bulk Synchronous Parallel) model. We will introduce the main advantages of CGM (Coarse Grained Model), where the main goal is to minimize the number of communication rounds, which can have an important impact on BSP algorithms performance. We will also briefly present our experience on using BSP in an opportunistic grid computing environment. Then we will show several recent models for distributed computing initiatives based on BSP. Finally we will present some preliminary experiments presenting the performance of BSP algorithms on Clouds.


Chinese local governments wield their enormous political power and administrative capacity to provide "special deals" for favored private firms. We argue that China's extraordinary economic growth comes from these special deals. Local political leaders do so because they derive personal benefits, either political or monetary, from providing special deals. Competition between local governments limits the predatory effects of special deals.


The impact of load carriage on dynamic postural stability affects the survivability of the Warfighter by influencing performance capabilities and injury incidence. Further, sex may interact with the relationship between load carriage and dynamic postural stability to further compromise survivability. PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of load carriage magnitude on dynamic postural stability of men and women and its relationship to jumping ability. METHODS: 32 subjects (16 men, 16 women) were investigated for maximum jump height and dynamic postural stability. Dynamic postural stability was assessed by subjects jumping a horizontal distance of 40% their height over a 30cm hurdle, landing on one leg on a force plate (sample rate = 1200 Hz). 3 trials were completed for 3 load conditions: +0, +20 and +30% body weight (BW). Dynamic postural stability was determined from ground reaction force data during landings, by calculation of the dynamic postural stability index (DPSI). Maximum jump height was assessed by subjects performing 3 countermovement jumps (sample rate = 1000 Hz). Two-way repeated measures ANOVA were used to compare mean DPSI scores between sexes and conditions (α = 0.05). Pearson's Correlation Coefficients were used to determine the relationship between jump height and change in DPSI scores between conditions (α = 0.05). RESULTS: Load condition significantly affected DPSI (F = 100.304, p = 0.001). DPSI scores increased between the 0% (0.359 ± 0.041), 20% (0.396 ± 0.034) and 30% (0.420 ± 0.028) BW load conditions. No significant effect of sex on DPSI was found (F = 0.131). No significant sex by load interaction on DPSI was found (F = 0.393). No significant correlations were found between jump height and change in DPSI scores between conditions. CONCLUSION: Increased load was found to negatively affect dynamic postural stability, most likely as a result of modifying the demands of the task. Therefore, the dynamic postural stability of men and women changes comparably in response to increased load carriage magnitude. Future research should focus on the effects of load on dynamic postural stability under higher loads and during more military-specific tasks.


Antibiotic resistance is continuously increasing and has a tremendous impact on human and animal well-being. Attractive alternatives to conventional antibiotics are host defense peptides (HDP), such as chicken cathelicidin-2 (CATH-2) and porcine proline-rich PR-39. HDPs are small cationic molecules and key players of the innate defense system. HDPs have a broad-range antibacterial activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Furthermore, HDPs are able to boost the innate immune system and possess immunomodulatory properties by i.e. causing chemotaxis, endotoxin inhibition, cell differentiation and triggering cytokine production. The aim of this thesis was to deepen our knowledge on the antibacterial mode of action of CATH-2 and obtain first insights on the (possibly) immunomodulatory effects of this peptide in vivo. In addition, PR-39 and its truncated versions were tested for their antibacterial and immunomodulatory activities. The antibacterial mode of action of CATH-2 was tested against Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), based on a variety of different microscopic and biochemical methods. The membrane was shown to be an important target of the peptide, as the peptide caused binding and permeabilization. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrated that CATH-2 induces dose-dependent morphological changes. Interestingly, sub-minimal inhibitory concentrations (sub-MIC) of the peptide resulted in intracellular changes (relocalization of DNA and ribosomes), whereas MIC values had detrimental effects on the bacterial membranes. Immunogold labelling of these electron microscopy sections demonstrated that at low concentrations CATH-2 already translocated intracellularly without visible membrane permeabilization. Additional time killing studies demonstrated that most effects occurred already within the first minutes after incubation, highlighting the rapid actions of the peptide. CATH-2 is known to have immunomodulatory properties in vitro (LPS inhibition, DNA uptake in endosomes of macrophages). Our zebrafish studies demonstrated that CATH-2 yolk-injection of 0.2 to 1.5 hour post-fertilized (hpf) embryos resulted in a 30 % increase of phagocytic cells. A novel approach was developed combining peptide pre-injection in 0.2 to 1.5 hpf embryos and additionally challenge the same embryos at 28 hpf with Salmonella. This prophylactic treatment showed that low CATH-2 concentrations cause partial protection in zebrafish embryos by boosting the innate immune system. PR-39 is a known antibacterial and immunomodulatory peptide. Our study focused on PR-39 truncations in order to seek for core elements of the peptide, which are important for their biological function. The N-terminal truncations demonstrated to have similar antibacterial activity compared to the full-length peptide; however, in the presence of salt these peptides lost their activity. With respect to the immunomodulatory properties only the mature PR-39 peptide induced IL-8 and TNF-α production. The work in this thesis presents unique approaches to study the mechanism of action of host defense peptides. The methods used in these studies can be a new starting point in unravelling the biological features of (antimicrobial) HDPs. The exact antibacterial mode of action and immunomodulatory functions for CATH-2 and PR-39 have not been revealed yet; however, the obtained results advance our understanding and are essential to develop anti-infectives based on HDPs.


We study the morphology of a fluid membrane in spherical confinement. When the area of the membrane is slightly larger than the area of the outer container, a single axisymmetric invagination is observed. For higher area, self-contact occurs: the invagination breaks symmetry and deforms into an ellipsoid-like shape connected to its outer part via a small slit. For even higher areas, a second invagination forms inside the original invagination. The folding patterns observed could constitute basic building blocks in the morphogenesis of biological tissues and organelles.


Maternal care was assessed in 10 litters from different breeds of domestic dog living in a home environment. Subjects were divided into two groups; a primiparous group (5 mothers, 32.4±22.3 months old; 5.0±1.6 puppies per litter) and a multiparous group (5 mothers, 74.4±10.0 months old, 6.6 ±1.7 puppies per litter). Mothers and puppies were videoed for 15 minutes each day, in the morning, from day 1 to 21 after the birth. Videos were analysed on a second-by-second basis, observing each mother-puppy couple and using an ethogram of mother-puppy interaction behaviours adapted from Rheingold (1963). The median total amount each interaction behaviour (during the 21 day period) was compared between primiparous and multiparous groups (Mann Whitney test). Levels of each interaction behaviour were also compared between the groups at three timepoints (day 1, 10 & 19) to investigate changes in maternal behaviour during the three weeks of obser - vation (Mann Whitney test ). Within-group changes in interaction behaviours were evaluated for the same time points (Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Total contact between mother and pup was significantly higher during the 21 day period in multiparous mothers, and remained consistent between timepoints. In primiparous mothers there was a statistically significant increase in contact over time that, at day 19, led to a statistically higher value compared to multiparous mothers (p=0.042; U=283.000). Primiparous mothers showed a significant increase in nursing behaviour during the analysed period, and when com - pared with multiparous mothers, were found to spend significantly more time nursing their puppies at day 19 (p=0.002;U=212.000). The amount of licking of the anogenital area was found to be significantly higher in primiparous mothers over the 21-day period, and increased significantly from day 1 to day 19. When compared with multiparous mothers, primiparous mothers were found to spend significantly more time licking the anogenital area of their puppies at day 19 (p=0.001; U=199.500). In summary, in primiparous mothers there was a marked increase in licking the anogenital area, nursing and staying in contact with the puppies from day 1 to 21, which led at the end of the third week to a higher quantity of maternal care com - pared to multiparous mothers; whilst in multiparous mothers there was a tendency towards constant maternal care. These preliminary results suggest interesting differences in maternal behaviour between primiparous and multiparous bitches.


To meet energy-efficient performance demands, the computing industry has moved to parallel computer architectures, such as chip multiprocessors (CMPs), internally interconnected via networks-on-chip (NoC) to meet growing communication needs. Achieving scaling performance as core counts increase to the hundreds in future CMPs, however, will require high performance, yet energy-efficient interconnects. Silicon nanophotonics is a promising replacement for electronic on-chip interconnect due to its high bandwidth and low latency, however, prior techniques have required high static power for the laser and ring thermal tuning. We propose a novel nano-photonic NoC (PNoC) architecture, LumiNOC, optimized for high performance and power-efficiency. This paper makes three primary contributions: a novel, nanophotonic architecture which partitions the network into subnets for better efficiency; a purely photonic, in-band, distributed arbitration scheme; and a channel sharing arrangement utilizing the same waveguides and wavelengths for arbitration as data transmission. In a 64-node NoC under synthetic traffic, LumiNOC enjoys 50% lower latency at low loads and ~40% higher throughput per Watt on synthetic traffic, versus other reported PNoCs. LumiNOC reduces latencies ~40% versus an electrical 2-D mesh NoCs on the PARSEC shared-memory, multithreaded benchmark suite.


The Effect of Periodontal Therapy on Atherosclerosis in Cardiovascular Disease: Clinical, Biochemical, Microbiological and Experimental Study
Objective: The goal of the present study is to assess the effect of periodontal therapy on atherosclerotic changes of cardiovascular patients, in terms of lipid profile and microbiological investigation. It is also to assess the impact of oral inoculation and atheroma with the periodontal pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis on atherogenesis in hypercholesterolemic mice.
Methods: The study comprises of two parts. Part I: a total of thirty subjects with age range 40-65 were selected for this study and these subjects were divided into three groups. Group (I) periodontitis, group (II) periodontitis with cardiovascular disease and group (III) cardiovascular disease. Part II: fifteen mice were divided into two groups. Group (Ι) (study group) with 10 mice and control group (II) included 5 mice. Group (Ι) had undergone high lipid diet and topical application of P. gingivalis bacteria three times a week for one month while the control group received low diet only.
Results: The clinical results of both group (I) and group (II) showed the clinical parameters: popliteal-brachial index (PBI), probing pocket depth (PPD) and clinical attachment level (CAL) were statistically significant difference in clinical parameters after four weeks of treatment. Microbiologically, results of microbial evaluation showed that, P. intermedia and P. gingivalis count decreased significantly after treatment in both group (I) and group (II). Pathologically, results of lipid profile evaluation showed that, TG, LDL, HDL and cholesterol levels decreased significantly after treatment in both group (I) and group (II). Experimental results showed that the total cholesterol level was significantly higher in study group after one month of high lipid diet and topical application of P. gingivalis. In addition, after the heart and aorta were obtained, they were observed for atherosclerotic lesion. The obtained tissue was grinded and cultured on BHI broth aerobically then subculture was done on brain heart infusion agar (Oxoid) supplemented with 5.0 μg/ ml hemin for detection of P. gingivalis. The P. gingivalis was isolated from four atherosclerotic lesions out of ten in the study group while was not detectable in the control group.
Conclusion: Non-surgical periodontal treatment in chronic periodontitis patients could cause significant changes in lipid levels and help in preventing any systemic complications due to the elevated lipid levels. The presence of periodontal bacteria in atheromatous plaques was confirmed by this investigation and, there is correlation between periodontitis bacteria and microorganisms involved in the atherosclerotic lesions.


: The architecture and development of the burrows of the endobenthic shrimp Callianassa subterranea from the central North Sea were studied in sediment-filled containers and thln cuvettes in the laboratory. Three-dimens~onal burrows of 81 shrlmps were used to describe the 3-dimensional bur-row architecture. In total, 41 shrimps made 2-dimensional burro\vs in cuvettes tailored to their body widths. Development of 8 burrows over time was registered by regularly mapping burrow outllnes and sediment surface levels. Excavation velocities and sed~ment expulsion rates were denved from changes in the burrow outlines and sediment surface levels on the maps The total tunnel length increased at a rate of 23.4 + 6 0 mm h-' durlng the initial stage of bul-row development. The length ~ncl-ease levelled off during the completion of the first and second U-tubes to 5.6 r 1.8 mm h-' In~tial sediment expulsion rates up to 15 0 cm3 d.' were established. The average sedim~.nt expulsion rate was 1.080 t 0.096 cm" d.' Extrapolation to a yearly dry welght (dry I\?) sediment turnover, including population density and water temperature effects, resulted in an estimate of 15.5 + 2.7 kg dry wt m-' yr-l, equivalent to d 1.2 cm layer. Samples of burrow lining, expelled sediment and unprocessed sediment did not show changes in grain size distributions or organic content due to manipulation or processing by C. subterranea. Burrow development experiments carried out in enriched seawater systems did not reveal consistent effects of particulate organic matter (POM) on sediment expulsion rates or on the composition of processed or unprocessed


The employment of physiological measurements to perform on-line assessment of operators' mental states is crucial in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI) researches and is still an open topic to the best of our knowledge. In order to progress towards systems that would dynamically adapt to operators' mental states, a first step is to determine an adequate protocol that elicits variations in engagement. To this purpose, this work focuses on analyzing operator's physiological data streams recorded during a human-robot mission executed in a original virtual environment [Drougard17]. In detail, the conceived mission consists in a mutual cooperation of a firefighter robot and its human operator to extinguish fires. A high level of complexity is obtained by the number and the random nature of events to be handled during the mission. As an example, guiding the robot, managing its water tank level and taking care of its electric charge are all tasks to be accomplished simultaneously, which can randomly be assigned to autonomous or manually operative mode. In addition to that, an extra task consisting in keeping an adequate level of an external water tank to allow robot refill is assigned only to the human operator for continuously soliciting his attention. Anyone can experience this mission by visiting the website robot-isae.isae.fr set up to collect a large amount of behavioral data by crowdsourcing. The mission is accomplished through a remote human-machine interface made of controllers and a screen displaying different areas corresponding to each task. Figure 1 shows the graphical user interface, with the 5 areas of interest (AOIs). The control station is equipped with sensing devices for human data collecting. The sensing devices which allows for human data collection are an eye-tracker (SMI), located on the bottom bar of the display and a portable bluetooth electrocardiograph (eMotion Faros 360). A specific procedure for the experiment has been defined to guarantee a statistical significance of the recorded dataset. In detail, each different human operator has to complete at least three times a ten minutes mission aiming to the best score in terms of fires extinguished. An absolute resting is imposed between missions to get a baseline for the cardiac activity. The data are collected on 17 participants of mixed sex (9 females) with average age 28.5 (S.D. = 4.52). The number and the duration of fixations per area of interest are extracted from the eye-tracker. The length of inter-beat intervals, the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and instant Heart Rate Variability (IHRV) are computed from the ECG. Preliminary results show a lower HRV and IHRV during the mission than during the rest session: Student and Wilcoxon statistical tests ensure a difference at least equal to 6 (p<0.05). This evidence, according to the literature, highlights that the created mission succeeded in engaging the participants. The impact of each mode of operation (manual/autonomous) on the human markers is also observed and analyzed. Contrarily to expectations the operator results more engaged (lower HRV) during autonomous than manual mode (p<0.05). This is in accordance with the tasks' difficulty. In fact, when the autonomous mode takes over, the human priority is the only task that he has to accomplish by himself (external tank filling), which is also designed to be the hardest one. This is confirmed by IHRV that in average is greater during manual mode. Moreover, finding that HRV and IHRV behaving in the same way, a real-time Human-Robot team supervision application can be foreseen. The effect of the current mode of operation is observable also on the number and durations of fixations on the two main AOIs: video streamed from the robot and external water tank level. The first attracts the operator attention mainly when in manual mode, the second when in autonomous mode (p<0.05). Spearman correlations of data sample per second confirm previous results. Indeed, markers on these AOIs are correlated with the mode of the robot (rho=0.22, p<0.05) as well as IHRV (rho=0.03, p<0.05). Several kind of correlation have been identified analyzing the recorded dataset, of which the most significant to describe the human operator engagement are found to be:
the number and durations of fixations on AOIs corresponding to the two main tasks are negatively correlated (rho=-0.6, p<0.05) which describes the fact that the human tends to switch attention mainly between these two tasks; the correlation of IHRV marker to the markers on the AOIs (tank: rho=0.1, p<0.05; video: rho=-0.06, p<0.05) demonstrates that the main tasks are perceived as so from the human operator, while its correlation to the remaining mission time (rho=0.05, p<0.05) expresses a higher engagement as the mission progresses. Moreover, IHRV is also negatively correlated to performance indexes as the number of extinguished fires (rho=-0.07, p<0.05) and the external tank level (rho=-0.14, p<0.05) meaning that the human operator has higher engagement level when successfully accomplishing the mission. The outcomes of the proposed research confirm that human-robot interaction mission implies mental states variation that corresponds to levels of engagement. The demonstrated link between the sampled correlations and the global statistical analyses, returning relevant information on the human operator behavior, validates the possibility of using these markers for on-line applications. The effect of the alternation of manual and autonomous mode during the mission has been quantified on the markers and paves the way for automatic tasks allocation by a decisional system based on physiological data classification.
Finally, the results obtained through these experiments demonstrate the validity of the overall approach proposed and the designed virtual environment. Further statistical analyses and the employment of additional physiological measurements such as electroencephalogram (EEG) are foreseen for the next future.


Summary 1. Blood flow resistance was studied in two peripheral vascular beds in 15 patients with previous malignant hypertension and in a matched group of patients with treated 'benign' hypertension and in matched control subjects. Studies were made during rest and after the induction of maximal vasodilatation. 2. In the hand (representing mainly a skin vessel bed), both hypertensive groups had significantly higher resistance at maximal dilatation than the normotensive group (2-5 and 2.5 units respectively as compared with 1-9 units, P < 0.01). 3. In the calf muscle vascular bed the patients with previous malignant hypertension had the most severe changes. Resistance at maximal dilatation was 2.4 units as compared with 1.9 units in the group with 'benign' hypertension (P < 0.05) and 1.6 units in the control group (P < 0.001 and P < 0.05 respectively). 4. These findings indicate structural changes in the resistance vessels of both hypertensive groups, which means that, in spite of substantial long-term lowering of blood pressure, arteriolar vascular changes remain. Accordingly, these changes may not be entirely reversible. The degree of reversibility also appears to be different in the two vascular beds studied.


Eclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy and a leading cause of maternal death. The primary explanation for eclampsia is that it represents a form of hypertensive encephalopathy (HTE) with neurological symptoms including headaches, nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances, and seizures. The etiology of HTE involves an acute increase in arterial blood pressure that exceeds the autoregulatory capacity of the brain leading to forced dilatation of cerebral vessels, decreased cerebrovascular resistance, hyperperfusion, blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption, and vasogenic cerebral edema formation. Due to the central role of the cerebral circulation in mediating these symptoms, a better understanding of how pregnancy affects the cerebral circulation is important to the treatment and prevention of eclampsia. A central goal of this dissertation was to determine pregnancy's effect on cerebral blood flow (CBF) autoregulation, edema formation, and BBB permeability during acute hypertension. Women with eclampsia often seize at lower blood pressures than HTE patients. We hypothesized that pregnancy may predispose the brain to eclampsia by lowering the pressure of autoregulatory breakthrough and enhancing cerebral edema formation. Using an in vivo model of HTE, we found that the pressure of autoregulatory breakthrough was not different between nonpregnant (NP) and late-pregnant (LP) rats; however, cerebral edema formation was significantly increased only in LP animals. Nitric oxide synthase inhibition significantly increased the upper limit of autoregulation in both NP and LP animals and attenuated cerebral edema formation in LP animals. BBB permeability during acute hypertension was not different between these groups. Magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) is widely used to treat eclampsia despite an unclear mechanism of action. A second goal of this dissertation was to determine the cerebrovascular effects of MgSO4 during pregnancy. Specifically, we investigated the effect of MgSO4 on in vitro resistance artery vasodilation and in vivo BBB permeability during acute hypertension. We hypothesized that dilation to MgSO4 would be greater in mesenteric than cerebral vessels. MgSO4 elicited concentration-dependent vasodilation in all arteries, as determined by measuring lumen diameter of isolated and pressurized arteries, however, mesenteric arteries were considerably more sensitive than cerebral arteries. In addition, there was no effect of pregnancy on MgSO4 sensitivity in mesenteric arteries, whereas pregnancy decreased sensitivity to MgSO4 in cerebral arteries. We further hypothesized that MgSO4 would decrease BBB disruption during acute hypertension, thereby protecting the brain in eclampsia. Using an in vivo model of HTE, we showed that MgSO4 treatment decreased BBB permeability during acute hypertension in LP rats, with the greatest effect observed in the posterior cerebrum. In conclusion, this dissertation determined CBF autoregulation and cerebral edema formation during pregnancy, and also the effect of MgSO4 on cerebral resistance artery vasodilation and BBB permeability during acute hypertension in LP rats. Although pregnancy did not influence autoregulatory breakthrough, cerebral edema formation was enhanced in LP animals and this may potentiate neurological symptoms in eclampsia. In addition, MgSO4-induced cerebral vasodilation is likely not a primary mechanism of eclampsia treatment, rather MgSO4 may limit edema formation by attenuating BBB permeability during hypertension.


This thesis examines how technology underpins our modern understanding of self and other as political actors. My paper begins by accepting as a basis the phenomenological approach to fundamental ontology and technology put forward by Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Heidegger, I contend that man and his world have been enframed. Following this, I venture to pinpoint why man have been delivered to this technological destiny. In the third chapter, I examine the polis/oikos distinction, and reason that political action in a world given over to technology is that which exposes, disrupts, and resists the parameters of thought and action determined by technopower. In the final chapter, I examine how modern political institutions stifle the possibility of politically acting. I conclude by determining that all true political action in the modern age must take place over - and against - technology.