Background: Cerebral palsy is a condition marked by impaired muscle coordination, typically caused by damage to the brain before or at birth. Poor growth and malnutrition are important secondary health conditions impacting the health of children with CP.
Objectives: To evaluate the nutritional status of children with CP in general and to assess the relationship between disease complication and malnutrition, the severity of malnutrition and the severity of the disease, in specification.
Results: Out of the 119 studied patients 84.9% were underweight for weight per age while only 2.5% were overweight with the remaining subjects within the normal range, also most of the patients who have delayed growth (81.5%) and feeding difficulty (78.2%) were underweight. These symptoms were found among the studied group; chewing, swallowing and suckling difficulties, aspiration, vomiting, seizures and dental caries. It was observed that malnutrition is more prevalent in CP patients with associated medical complications, in patients suffering from chest infection, aspiration pneumonia and the majority of patients with seizures were under weight, implementing a positive relationship between disease status and nutritional status. Regarding the route of feeding 21% were on NGT feeding, 12% on gastrostomy tube feeding and 58% consumed food orally, additionally more than half were totally dependent on feeding (58.8%) while only 3.4% partially dependent which might have worsened their nutritional/ medical status. Reasons of hospital admission were also studied and 31.1% regular follow up, 23.5% chest infection, 17.6% seizures, 5% pneumonia and 22.7% due to other various reasons such as fever.
Conclusion: Malnutrition is significantly prevalent among CP children in MCH in Almadinah Almunawarah, KSA and more focus has to be paid regarding the nutritional status of these children, furthermore this is considered the first study in Saudi Arabia to examine the relationship between CP and malnutrition. Thus, hospitals that apply the recommended approach derived from this result will be able to improve CP patient life quality and prevent further disease complications.


People spontaneously produce gestures when they solve problems or explain their solutions to a problem. In this chapter, we will review and discuss evidence on the role of representational gestures in problem solving. The focus will be on our recent experiments (Chu & Kita, 2008), in which we used Shepard-Metzler type of mental rotation tasks to investigate how spontaneous gestures revealed the development of problem solving strategy over the course of the experiment and what role gesture played in the development process. We found that when solving novel problems regarding the physical world, adults go through similar symbolic distancing (Werner & Kaplan, 1963) and internalization (Piaget, 1968) processes as those that occur during young children's cognitive development and gesture facilitates such processes.


Liquid flow in foams mostly proceeds through Plateau borders where liquid content is the highest. A sufficiently thick (~180 µm) free liquid film is a reasonable model for understanding of electrokinetic phenomena in foam Plateau borders. For this purpose, a flow cell with a suspended free liquid film has been designed for measurement of electrokinetic flow under an imposed electric potential difference. The free liquid film was stabilised by either anionic (sodium lauryl sulfate (NaDS)) or cationic (trimethyl(tetradecyl) ammonium bromide (TTAB)) surfactants. Fluid flow profiles in a stabilised free liquid film were measured by micron-resolution particle image velocimetry (µ-PIV) combined with a confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) setup. Numerical simulations of electroosmotic flow in the same system were performed using the Finite Element Method. The computational geometry was generated by CLSM. A reasonably good agreement was found between the computed and experimentally measured velocity profiles. The features of the flow profiles and the velocity magnitude were mainly determined by the type of surfactant used. Irrespective of the surfactants used, electroosmotic flow dominated in the midfilm region, where the film is thinnest, while backflow due to pressure build-up developed near the glass rods, where the film is thickest.


Among development assistance agencies, the World Bank has led the way in policies to mitigate the impact of large-scale engineering projects on local populations, particularly in the building of dams. Since the 1980s the Bank has implemented guidelines for policies with respect to displacement, social infrastructure and services, environmental effects, resettlement, compensation, and the restoration of income for those affected. Having learned from the failures of past resettlement programs, the Bank has endeavored to function as a responsible and caring agency. This volume builds upon earlier studies and field work to offer a broad look at dam-building projects in six countries and to review the outcomes of Bank policy, learn from experience, and assess outside criticism. The book covers representative dam projects in India, Thailand, Togo, China, Indonesia, and Brazil. Each project was undertaken after Bank resettlement guidelines had been implemented. The widely ranging results in each country are assessed. In the areas of compensation for acquired land, relocation, infrastructure and services, the contributors note satisfactory levels of improvement or positive trends. Governments are moving towards acceptance of the idea that displaced families should be paid the real value of their lost assets. Relocation processes are now keeping pace with water movement caused by dam building, and health, education, utilities, and roads are better than before the resettlement. Other results have been less positive. The impact on incomes of those involuntarily resettled has been harsh in some locations. Resettler dissatisfaction has been intense, notably in those countries where the national economies are not experiencing strong growth. The Bank's performance itself has been uneven. There have been lapses in appraisal and monitoring during the projects and insufficient follow-through support for resettlement operations after the completion of loan and credit disbursements. In addition to its case by case analysis of countries and projects, the book includes detailed lessons and recommendations to strengthen resettlement policy and practice. Involuntary Resettlement will be of interest to economists, sociologists, and professionals working in regional development policy. Robert Picciotto is director general of Operations Evaluation at the World Bank. Warren van Wicklin is task manager and evaluator at the Operations Evaluation department of the World Bank.


This article approaches the debate between lexicalist and syntactic accounts on derivational morphology from a semantic viewpoint. It is argued that the debate between lexicalist and syntactic accounts on event nominalizations may not be solved without thoroughly investigating the different semantic components potentially influencing the characteristics of the derivatives, i.e. the semantics of the nominalization procedure as such, the meaning of the derivational bases and the meaning of the nominalization suffixes. Concentrating on the latter component, the article finally presents a semantic analysis of the French nominalization suffixes - ment and - age, in order to reveal the significance of the nominalization suffixes for the debate concerning the proper treatment of event nominalizations.


Logit models are used to predict financial literacy using the 2003 ANZ Survey of Adult Financial Literacy in Australia. Financial literacy is defined in terms of mathematical ability and the understanding of financial terms. Factors examined include gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, education, income, savings and debt. Financial literacy is found to be highest for persons aged between 50 and 60 years, professionals, business and farm owners, and university/college graduates. Literacy is lowest for the unemployed, females, and those from a non-English speaking background with a low level of education.


How children rate vegetables may be influenced by the preparation method. The primary objective of this study was for first grade students to be involved in a cooking demonstration and to taste and rate vegetables raw and cooked. First grade children of two classes (N= 52: 18 boys and 34 girls (approximately half Hispanic) that had assented and had signed parental consent participated in the study. The degree of liking a particular vegetable was recorded by the students using a hedonic scale of five commonly eaten vegetables tasted first raw (pre-demonstration) and then cooked (post-demonstration). A food habit questionnaire was filled out by parents to evaluate their mealtime practices and beliefs about their child's eating habits. Paired sample t-tests revealed significant differences in preferences for vegetables in their raw and cooked states. Several mealtime characteristics were significantly associated with children's vegetable preferences. Parents who reported being satisfied with how often the family eats evening meals together were more likely to report that their child eats adequate vegetables for their health (p=0.026). Parents who stated that they were satisfied with their child's eating habits were more likely to report that their child was trying new foods (p<.001). Cooking demonstrations by nutrition professionals may be an important strategy that can be used by parents and teachers to promote vegetable intake. It is important that nutrition professionals provide guidance to encourage consumption of vegetables for parents so that they can model the behavior of healthy food consumption to their children.


Biosecurity might be crudely defined as making life safe. As this collection of papers
will show, who does this work, on behalf of what or for whom, and with what kind of
resources and results, vary widely. Some biosecurity practices are seemingly mundane
but with broad consequences (like the use of disinfectants at farm gates to halt the
movement of foot and mouth viruses). Some practices take us to a world of high-
technology surveillance and cutting-edge science (like theWorld Health Organization's
Centre for Strategic Health Operations, SHOC). All of the cases involve attempts to
monitor, regulate, and/or halt the movements of various forms of life. Sometimes the
focus is on animals or plants; often it is microbes. Sometimes the concern is triggered
by disasters or `accidents' (Law, 2006); at other times the cause for concern is a form
of warfare or terrorism. Anticipation and preparedness for such events become part of
the affective register of biosecurity. Sometimes the life that is to be made safe is
seemingly straightforward (the sheep and cattle on a farm, for example, or the human
population of a city where SARS is present), but often this apparent simplicity hides a
more complex question over ways of life (particular kinds of agricultural and economic
practice, or gaping inequalities in life styles between the healthy and the diseased).
In short, biosecurity is as complex as life itself, and its practices give relief to certain
problematics while managing to shield others from view. This collection of papers,
which has arisen from a special conference session and has evolved through further
discussions and readings, addresses the problematic of biosecurity (see the formative
statement by Collier et al, 2004)


Environmental Education (EE) has become increasingly important in Australian public and governmental discourse in the past decade. In its most recent national environmental education statement (2005: 7) the Department of Environment and Heritage lays out a new model of sustainability education that is "about," "in," and "for" the environment. This governmental framework includes variety of programs for school children in and out of the classroom. Within the realm of EE, sense of place has re-emerged as an important issue. The study of place fosters a sense of wonder and appreciation for the environment in children and leads to concrete, transformative action later in life (Wilson 1997). Among the range of techniques used to teach environmental education issues, storytelling can be powerful because it allows people to share ideas and helps students make meaning out of their surroundings. Given the importance of environmental education and, more importantly, sense of place in education, as well as the usefulness of literature to teach environmental topics, the goal of this project is to create a storybook about sense of place for children ages six to eight. The book will not only entertain children but inspire them to connect with and think about their own community as well. Four methods were used to collect the information necessary to write the children's book: analysis of theoretical writings on sense of place, qualitative content analysis, participant observation of environmental education centers' (EECs) programs and research on how to write a children's book. The last week of data collection was spent creating, writing and developing a layout for the final book. Content analysis and participant observation reveal the issues discussed most frequently with primary school children as: Australian native species, life cycles, invasive species, conservation, Aboriginal use of the land, change and growth, respect for culture and wonder and discovery of nature. The most common techniques used by educators and authors to convey environmental issues are repetition, metaphor, descriptive language, facts, unusual names/words, suspense and the use of all the senses. Furthermore, research on sense of place reveals that it involves the relationship between a person and their beliefs and actions and the built and natural environment around them. The final product, "Something Fishy" uses characters and techniques similar to those found in the books reviewed for the content analysis. However, the setting and approach to sense of place are somewhat different, with "Something Fishy" emphasizing community and relationships rather than the natural environment. Topic Codes: Environmental Education 232 Elementary Education 210 Literature: General 307


A flood hydrograph for an ungaged stream site can be estimated from a mean dimensionless hydrograph and estimates of instantaneous peak discharge (Q) and total storm runoff volume (V). However, the time base of the resulting flood hydrograph can be inversely related to the magnitude of the peak discharge if estimates of runoff volume were defined using ordinary least-squares regression relations of the form V=f(Q). Such an inverse relation is not hydrologically consistent. The problem can be solved in several ways. Redefining the relation between V and Q using an alternative model that preserves the variance in V generally will produce exponents for Q that are near 1. The resulting estimated flood-hydrograph volumes will nearly match the original volumes near the mean of the logarithms of V and Q, but will differ as volumes and peak discharges depart from the mean values. The difference will depend on how much the original exponent of Q differed from 1. Another solution is to simply hold T', the multiplier needed to expand the time base of a mean dimensionless hydrograph into the time base of an estimated flood hydrograph, constant. That solution is a questionable approach if basins vary either in size, shape, or slope. A third solution is to define T' as a function of time to peak, Tp. Flood volume then depends only on Q, Tp, and the dimensionless hydrograph, thereby removing the need to define a relation for estimating volume.


The contribution analyses a specific role and character of electronic signatures and electronic acts in electronic tools which are used in public procurement. It describes a complete new legal regulation of electronic tools and acts taken electronically in awarding public contracts (Decree No. 9/2011 Coll.) that is in effect from 1st July 2011 and brings a lot of questions. The questions are connected with a new terminology, e.g. what does it mean "secured document" or if it possible to use handwritten signature or only electronic signature or what are processes of sending and receiving internal data reports of contracting authority? Because of many questions there is still poor will of using online public procurement and it could become less and less popular. The situation is far away from the aims of the Ministerial Declaration approved on 24 November 2005 in Manchester, United Kingdom and i2010 eGovernment Action Plan: Accelerating eGovernment in Europe for the Benefit of All made on 25th March 2006 that stated: "By 2010 at least 50% of public procurement above the EU public procurement threshold will be carried out electronically." In the Czech Republic there are only 18% of contracting entities using e-tenders (further see Report on performance of National Plan for the Introduction of Electronic Public Procurement 2006 – 2010 at http://www.portal-vz.cz/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=b4ee2397-f719-4237-a030-9e13a7d5a1b8)


My dissertation links two popular revolts in Seville, in 1520-1 and 1652, both of which had as their focus the artisan parish of Omnium Sanctorum, in the Feria district of the city. The first was a local echo of the great Comunero Revolt, while the second was arguably the most serious political uprising in the Crown of Castile after 1520. The symmetry between these events, alongside the fact that La Feria—as it was popularly known—was the most likely source of urban unrest throughout this period, demands a study of the specific local conditions that enabled, structured or defused popular protest in early modern Spain's greatest metropolis. The two central chapters of this dissertation examine, firstly, the meaning and nature of neighbourhood community—including its importance in the articulation of collective action—and, secondly, the silk guild's (Arte de la Seda) petitioning and ideological framework in the seventeenth century (as most of the rebels in 1652 were silk workers). I also discuss the production of memory—the ways in which sixteenthand seventeenth-century urban historians dealt with the subject of popular uprisings—as well as the role of the asistentes (royal governors) of Seville, above with regard to food provisioning, its relation to concepts of justice and politics. This dissertation thus brings together several lines of inquiry, each with its own particular trajectory and set of concerns, yet bearing direct relation to the questions posed here—the literature on revolt and rebellion in early modern Europe, on Spanish and Mediterranean cities, on the nature and uses of written memory, on urban neighbourhoods and popular politics, on guilds and artisans (above all silk workers), and finally the seventeenth-century 'crisis.' At the confluence of these kindred streams is a more complete understanding of the nature and mechanisms of urban revolt, the popular role in the governance of the city and the kingdom, but also of self-perceptions and alternative visions of the civic Republic nurtured by those who were not meant to have an opinion on such matters. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Antonio Feros


This paper puts forward a conception of specialised literary criticism, more specifically deconstructive readings, as a mode of communicative interaction which can be described through a pragmalinguistic account. Schleiermacher's conception of the hermeneutic circle provides an adequate bridge between literary criticism and speech production, once we attend to the possible developments of the theory of the hermeneutic circle understanding it as both a temporal process, and an interactional one. This paper, therefore, presents for the purpose of comparison several critical conceptions originating in different schools and dealing with a range of objects of study in criticism. The comparison yields a common element whose outline becomes gradually visible as we proceed, as each of these conceptions (hermeneutics, deconstruction, modernist aesthetics, pragmalinguistics...) brings out aspects which are implicit in the others. This exercise might be compared to the drawing of lines between stars to form a constellation, allowing us to see a previously invisible figure. The lines in constellations may seem too insubstantial as a term of comparison, but the paper will go some length towards the deconstruction of the clear-cut opposition between what is substantial and what is constructed by the imagination, at least as far as the field of interpretive theory is concerned. The thread connecting the critical approaches examined here is the retrsopective rereading of a narrative and its hermeneutic consequences. These consequences might be summarized by saying that the passing of time alters everything, even the past itself, once so safely stored.


"This body of research not only passes academic muster but is the best guidepost in existence for activists who are trying to use the ballot initiative process for larger policy and political objectives."--Kristina Wilfore, Executive Director, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and Foundation"Educated by Initiative" moves beyond previous evaluations of public policy to emphasize the educational importance of the initiative process itself. Since a majority of ballots ultimately fail or get overturned by the courts, Smith and Tolbert suggest that the educational consequences of initiative voting may be more important than the outcomes of the ballots themselves. The result is a fascinating and thoroughly-researched book about how direct democracy teaches citizens about politics, voting, civic engagement and the influence of special interests and political parties. Designed to be accessible to anyone interested in the future of American democracy, the book includes boxes (titled "What Matters") that succinctly summarize the authors' data into easily readable analyses.Daniel A. Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida.Caroline J. Tolbert is Associate Professor of Political Science at Kent State University.


The hydrogels from 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1propansulfonic acid (AMPS), 2-acrylamido glyconic acid (AAGA), N-vinyl imidazole (VI), and sulfopropylmethacrylate (SPM) that can absorb metal ions such as Co, Ni, Rh, Ru ve Pt from aqueous media were used in the preparation of homo or copolymeric hydrogels and their organic-inorganic composites with tetraethoxy silane (TEOS), tertamethoxysilane (TMOS) and vinyltriethoxysilane (VTEOS), or vinyltrimethoxyilane (VTMOS) as hydrogel-silica composites. The prepared hydrogel and their silica composites were used as template in Cu, Ag, Co, Ni, Fe etc, and magnetic ferrite particle preparation. The prepared hydrogel metal composites were used as a smart catalyst system with controllable porosity for the production of hydrogen in the hydrolysis of different hydrites such as NaBH4 is a novel concept and a smart approach.


The sphenoid sinus is deeply seated in the skull and is the most inaccessible paranasal sinus intimately related to numerous vital neural and vascular structures. This work
determines the incidence of the anatomical variations of sphenoid sinus reviewed by the CT scan and their impact on related neurovascular structures, for the safe removal
of intersphenoidal and pituitary lesions and the Endoscopic Endonasal Transsphenoidal Aproach (EETA) to treat sellar, parasellar,and suprasellar tumours. The CT scan of 80
patients were reviewed regarding the different anatomical variations of the sphenoid sinus: degree of pneumatisation, protrusion of internal carotid artery (ICA) and optic
nerve (ON), and dehiscence of the walls of ICA and ON, and the septation pattern. We found 42 cases showing protrusion and 13 cases with dehiscence of bony wall on ICA.
51 cases showing protrusion and 18 cases showing dehiscence on bony wall of optic nerve. Regarding the pneumatisation of sphenoid sinus, the major type found were of sellar in 62.5%, 25% of cases with presellar, and 15% were of post sellar pneumatisation. The different anatomical configuration of sphenoid sinus is important for
adequate treatment of its disease.


100% nitro–nitrito linkage isomerism is reported in single-crystals of the Pd(II)–nitrite system [Pd(Bu4dien)(η1-O2)]BPh4 (Bu4dien = N,N,N′,N′-tetrabutyldiethylenetriamine, BPh4 = tetraphenylborate). Complete conversion to a metastable endo-nitrito-(η1-NO) isomer is achieved after just 15 min irradiation with 400 nm LED light. The system is entirely metastable below 240 K, while pseudo-steady-state photocrystallographic experiments confirm that the excited state isomer is retained, at substantial conversion levels, under continuous illumination until 260 K. These results show promise for new linkage isomer systems, based on heavier transition metal centres, which display full functionality under near-ambient conditions.


Cloud computing is an emerging practice that offers more flexibility in infrastructure and reduces cost than our traditional computing models. Cloud providers offer everything from access to raw storage capacity resources to complete application services. The services that are provided by the cloud can be accessed from anywhere and data flows from one place to another. Since data is moving via network, there are chances of data loss. So we need to keep multiple copies of data and thus data replication is one of the main issues in cloud computing. In this paper we have implemented automatic replication of data from local host to cloud environment. Data replication is implemented by using HADOOP which stores the data at various nodes. If one node goes down then data can be retrieved from other node seamlessly.


Environmental law and policy conflicts seem to have entered a new phase. The emergence of complex problems such as climate change and of complex technologies such as hydraulic fracturing and genetic modification have created new political and legal schisms that no longer break down predictably along "pro-environment" versus "pro-business" lines. Rather, a new era of skepticism seems to be taking hold in which antagonists spar over the epistemic legitimacy of certain claims made in support of a policy position. Environmental law and policy conflicts thus divide antagonists into two camps: self-styled positivists – scientists (physical, chemical, biological, and social) and environmental postmodernists, who seek to undermine the legitimacy of the positivists.Environmental postmodernists urge us to take a skeptical look at the claims of self-styled positivists, because they suspect their epistemic claims are part of an attempt to gerrymander environmental law. Some environmental postmodernists challenge the use of cost-benefit analysis, and others are climate skeptics, who contest the prevailing concern over global climate change. These new schisms produce strange bedfellows, but environmental postmodernists share a common objective of creating doubt and skepticism.I argue that environmental postmodernism can make a contribution: it can highlight dangerous policy situations in which a concentration of esoteric information can generate a power imbalance, and it can highlight the usefulness of transparency measures aimed only making information more publicly accessible and otherwise broadening process inputs. If this is the upshot of environmental postmodernism, it will have articulated a policy means of power diffusion, and therefore gone beyond the failures of Twentieth-century, post-structuralist postmodernism.


Rising demand for parking at suburban transit stations, such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District in California, necessitates strategies to manage traveler demand. To better manage parking supply, researchers implemented a smart parking field test at the Rockridge BART station from 2004 to 2006 to evaluate the effects of smart parking technologies (changeable message signs (CMSs), Internet reservations and billing, mobile phone and personal digital assistant communications, and a wireless parking lot counting system) on transit ridership and response to service pricing. Researchers employed expert interviews, Internet surveys, focus groups, and parking reservation data to conduct this analysis. Survey data indicated that the field test increased BART trips and resulted in 9.7 fewer miles per participant per month on average. Key lessons learned include that it would have been beneficial to anticipate additional time for project scoping and permitting, and fixed wayfinding signs were beneficial in both directing vehicles from the highway to the smart parking lot and addressing resident concerns about increased traffic. Additionally, the majority of participants continued to use the service when fees were implemented. However, the CMSs were not widely employed in users' decision-making processes in this application. Finally, the wireless counting system worked well, with the exception of the in-ground sensors, which were prone to miscounts. This paper provides an overview of the project and key literature, behavioral effects of the field test, and lessons learned.


The right to free speech is meaningless without some place to exercise it. But constitutional scholarship generally overlooks the role that judicial doctrine plays in ensuring the availability of spaces for speech. Indeed, scholarship generally characterizes doctrines that are concerned with speech spaces, such as public forums and Internet forums, as "exceptions" to "standard" First Amendment analysis. In response to normative arguments that the First Amendment should be concerned with ample speech spaces, many scholars simply respond with a descriptive claim about what doctrine currently is: they claim that the concern for spaces is only peripheral, "exceptional," and at odds with "standard" First Amendment understandings. By overlooking or marginalizing decisions about speech spaces, as well as relying on this descriptive characterization of doctrine to reject normative arguments, scholarship has failed to recognize the logic underlying important doctrinal areas and has failed to explore what these doctrines reveal about the First Amendment's core normative underpinnings. This Article adopts a different approach. Rather than making the descriptive assumption that free speech doctrine is unconcerned with spaces, this Article identifies and interprets the Court's role in ensuring, requiring, or permitting government to make spaces available for speech. This Article identifies five persistent judicial principles across a range of physical and virtual spaces. These principles are evident in precedent and practice that either require or permit government to ensure spaces for speech — in order to promote particular, substantive speech goals. Further, rather than quarantining these speech principles as exceptions to the "standard" analysis, this Article explores the significance of these principles for "core" speech doctrine and theory. The resulting analysis poses fundamental challenges to conventional wisdom about the First Amendment and the normative principles generally believed evident in doctrine. This Article provides timely guidance for legislators and judges, as it should inform statutory and constitutional decisions for shaping access to the technology enabled virtual spaces increasingly central to Americans' discourse, to our liberty, and to our democracy.


Indian tribes in the United States are separate sovereigns with inherent self-governing authority. As a result, the Bill of Rights does not directly bind the tribes, and criminal defendants in tribal courts do not enjoy the protection of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. In United States v. Ant, a defendant-without the legal assistance that a state or federal court would have provided-pled guilty to criminal charges in tribal court. Subsequently, the defendant faced federal charges arising out of the same events that led to the tribal prosecution. The Ninth Circuit in Ant barred the federal prosecutor from using the defendant's prior uncounseled tribal court guilty plea as evidence in the federal proceeding, explaining that doing so would violate the Sixth Amendment. This Note argues that Ant is no longer good law. First, Ant's legal foundation is weak, especially in light of subsequent developments in Sixth Amendment jurisprudence. Second, Ant is poor policy because excluding tribal court guilty pleas from state and federal proceedings undermines tribal self-governance. Even though governments must protect the rights of individual criminal defendants, supporting tribal authority will ultimately lead to decreased violence on Indian land and increased consistency with federal legislation.IntroductionOn October 27, 1986, Keri Lynn Birdhat, an Indian woman, was found dead on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.1 Seven weeks later, Northern Cheyenne tribal police arrested Francis Floyd Ant, Birdhat's uncle, and he confessed to killing Birdhat.2 Lacking jurisdiction to charge Ant with homicide,3 the tribe charged Ant with assault and battery.4 Ant entered a guilty plea at his tribal court arraignment and served a sixmonth prison sentence.5 He did not have the assistance of counsel during tribal court proceedings.6The United States indicted Ant on January 7, 1987, charging Ant with voluntary manslaughter in connection with Birdhat's death.7 Shortly thereafter, Ant filed a motion to suppress his tribal court guilty plea in federal court.8 Pointing to the Sixth Amendment, Ant argued that using his uncounseled tribal court guilty plea as evidence in federal court would deprive him of his constitutional right to counsel.9 In response, the district court first ruled that the tribal court proceedings that resulted in Ant's guilty plea were valid.10 The court then explained that respect for the Northern Cheyenne tribal judicial system required it to admit Ant's guilty plea as evidence.11 On this basis, the court denied Ant's motion.12Ant appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the decision of the district court. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the district court with respect to the initial validity of Ant's tribal court guilty plea.13 Although the Sixth Amendment requires state and federal courts to provide attorneys for indigent criminal defendants facing imprisonment,14 neither Northern Cheyenne tribal law nor U.S. federal law required the tribal court to provide counsel to Ant.15 Thus, Ant's tribal court guilty plea, despite Ant's lack of legal representation, was consistent with tribal law, federal law, and the Constitution.16However, the Ninth Circuit departed from the district court's judgment regarding the use of Ant's tribal court guilty plea in federal court. According to the Ninth Circuit, Ant would have been entitled to counsel in the assault and battery proceeding if it had taken place in federal court rather than in tribal court.17 Therefore, notwithstanding the initial legitimacy of Ant's uncounseled tribal court guilty plea, admitting Ant's plea as evidence in a subsequent federal proceeding would have violated the Constitution.18For almost twenty-two years, no federal court seriously questioned the Ninth Circuit's decision in United States v. Ant.19 In July 2011, however, two circuit court decisions raised significant doubts about Ant's status as good law. …


INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE
Wnt-1 signaling pathway protein 1 (WISP-1) and complement-C1q TNF-related protein 1 (CTRP1) are adipokines with possible opposite effects in regulating insulin sensitivity. The study investigated the correlation between circulating WISP-1 and CTRP1 in non-diabetic patients. Correlations between adipokines concentrations and biochemical and anthropometric parameters were also studied.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The cross-sectional study enrolled 107 adult patients without diabetes. Patients with obesity accounted for 52.3% of the study group. Clinical, anthropometric, and laboratory data, including serum levels of WISP-1 and CTRP1, were obtained.

RESULTS
The moderate positive correlation between serum WISP-1 and CTRP1 concentrations was observed (p<0.000001, r=0.49). The correlation was more substantial in non-obese patients than in the obese group (r=0.66 and r=0.36, respectively; p<0.01). Circulating CTRP1 correlated positively with fasting insulin, Homeostatic Model Assessment for Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR), total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol (p<0.05). WISP-1 level correlated with total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol concentrations (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in WISP-1 and CTRP1 concentrations between the groups with and without insulin resistance. The concentrations of WISP-1 and CTRP1 were significantly higher in females than in males (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS
WISP-1 and CTRP1 may represent interrelated factors that antagonistically affect insulin resistance.


A new land cover database of Greater Mesoamerica has been prepared using moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS, 500 m resolution) satellite data. Daily surface reflectance MODIS data and a suite of ancillary data were used in preparing the database by employing a decision tree classification approach. The new land cover data are an improvement over traditional advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) based land cover data in terms of both spatial and thematic details. The dominant land cover type in Greater Mesoamerica is forest (39%), followed by shrubland (30%) and cropland (22%). Country analysis shows forest as the dominant land cover type in Belize (62%), Cost Rica (52%), Guatemala (53%), Honduras (56%), Nicaragua (53%), and Panama (48%), cropland as the dominant land cover type in El Salvador (60.5%), and shrubland as the dominant land cover type in Mexico (37%). A three-step approach was used to assess the quality of the classified land cover data: (i) qualitative assessment provided good insight in identifying and correcting gross errors; (ii) correlation analysis of MODIS- and Landsat-derived land cover data revealed strong positive association for forest (r2 = 0.88), shrubland (r2 = 0.75), and cropland (r2 = 0.97) but weak positive association for grassland (r2 = 0.26); and (iii) an error matrix generated using unseen training data provided an overall accuracy of 77.3% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.73608. Overall, MODIS 500 m data and the methodology used were found to be quite useful for broad-scale land cover mapping of Greater Mesoamerica.


This contribution describes some important principles that should be used when establishing terminological ontologies, and demonstrates that these principles may be used both for terminological ontologies, i.e. domain-specific ontologies, and for general language ontologies such as WordNet. In doing this, the paper argues that the principles for building ontologies should not allow indeterminacy in the resulting ontologies. The principles described here have been developed in the research and development project CAOS – Computer-Aided Ontology Structuring. CAOS is a joint research project carried out by Bodil Nistrup Madsen, Hanne Erdman Thomsen and Carl Vikner, Department of Computational Linguistics, Copenhagen Business School. The descriptions of the principles of CAOS and the examples used originate from joint papers.


We studied DNA repair by injecting plasmids containing random pyrimidine dimers into Xenopus oocytes. We demonstrated excision repair by recovering plasmids and analyzing them with T4 UV endonuclease treatment and alkaline agarose gel electrophoresis. The mechanism for excision repair of these plasmids appears to be processive, rather than distributive, since repair occurs in 'all or none' fashion. At less than 4-5 dimers/plasmid, nearly all repair occurs within 4-6 hours (approximately 10(10) dimers repaired per oocyte); the oocyte, therefore, has abundant repair activity. Specific antibodies and inhibitors were used to determine enzymes involved in repair. We conclude that DNA polymerase alpha (and/or delta) is required because repair is inhibited by antibodies to human DNA polymerase alpha, as well as by aphidicolin, an inhibitor of polymerases alpha (and/or delta). Repair was not inhibited by hydroxyurea, cytosine beta-D-arabinofuranoside, or inhibitors of topoisomerase II (novobiocin). Oocyte repair does not activate semi-conservative DNA replication, nor is protein synthesis required. Photoreactivation cannot account for repair because dimer removal is independent of exogenous light.


The English and Scottish youth justice systems share a commitment to preventive as opposed to retributive goals, but pursue them in sharply contrasting ways. In Scotland, a unified welfare-based system, committed to the prevention of harm to children, encompasses children who offend and children in social jeopardy. It uniquely and radically separates functions between the courts as factual and legal arbiters and children's hearings as treatment tribunals. A correctionalist system, committed to the prevention of offending, has emerged in England. It repudiates earlier views that young offenders should be left to "grow out of crime" with minimal state intervention. Subsidiary goals include responsibilization (of offenders and parents), reparation, and case-processing efficiency. It is characterized by much institutional innovation, including introduction of multiagency youth offending teams. This "joined up" approach stops short of encompassing "care" and "offense" cases within the same jurisdiction as Scotland does. The systems' philosophical differences are reflected in many contrasting operational practices. Political devolution in Scotland has introduced turbulence into the Scottish system; that and the newness of the English system make it difficult to predict future developments.


Abstract. This paper presents and discusses the first results regarding selection, analysis, preparation and eventual integration of a number of energy-related datasets, chosen in order to enrich a CityGML-based semantic 3D city model of Vienna. CityGML is an international standard conceived specifically as information and data model for semantic city models at urban and territorial scale. The still-in-development Energy Application Domain Extension (ADE) is a CityGML extension conceived to specifically model, manage and store energy-related features and attributes for buildings. The work presented in this paper is embedded within the European Marie-Curie ITN project "CINERGY, Smart cities with sustainable energy systems", which aims, among the rest, at developing urban decision making and operational optimisation software tools to minimise non-renewable energy use in cities. Given the scope and scale of the project, it is therefore vital to set up a common, unique and spatio-semantically coherent urban data model to be used as information hub for all applications being developed. This paper reports about the experiences done so far, it describes the test area in Vienna, Austria, and the available data sources, it shows and exemplifies the main data integration issues, the strategies developed to solve them in order to obtain the enriched 3D city model. The first results as well as some comments about their quality and limitations are presented, together with the discussion regarding the next steps and some planned improvements.


Abstract Successful prevention of cyberbullying depends on the adequate detection of harmful messages. Given the impossibility of human moderation on the Social Web, intelligent systems are required to identify clues of cyberbullying automatically. Much work on cyberbullying detection focuses on detecting abusive language without analyzing the severity of the event nor the participants involved. Automatic analysis of participant roles in cyberbullying traces enables targeted bullying prevention strategies. In this paper, we aim to automatically detect different participant roles involved in textual cyberbullying traces, including bullies, victims, and bystanders. We describe the construction of two cyberbullying corpora (a Dutch and English corpus) that were both manually annotated with bullying types and participant roles and we perform a series of multiclass classification experiments to determine the feasibility of text-based cyberbullying participant role detection. The representative datasets present a data imbalance problem for which we investigate feature filtering and data resampling as skew mitigation techniques. We investigate the performance of feature-engineered single and ensemble classifier setups as well as transformer-based pretrained language models (PLMs). Cross-validation experiments revealed promising results for the detection of cyberbullying roles using PLM fine-tuning techniques, with the best classifier for English (RoBERTa) yielding a macro-averaged ${F_1}$-score of 55.84%, and the best one for Dutch (RobBERT) yielding an ${F_1}$-score of 56.73%. Experiment replication data and source code are available at https://osf.io/nb2r3.


Spurred by the increased interest in applying "risk control" techniques in an asset allocation context, we offer a practitioner's review of techniques that have been newly proposed or revived from academic history. We discuss minimum variance, "1/N" or equal-weighting, maximum diversification, volatility weighting and volatility targeting – and especially equal risk contribution or "risk parity", a concept that has become a real buzz word. We start from a taxonomy of risk control techniques. We discuss their main characteristics and their pluses and minuses and we compare them against each other and against the maximum Sharpe Ratio criterion. We illustrate their implications by means of an empirical example. We also highlight some key papers from the vast and still growing literature in this field. All in all, we aim to provide a practical and critical guide to risk control strategies. It may help to demystify risk control techniques, to appreciate both the "forest" and the "trees", and to judge these techniques on their potential merits in practical investment applications.


The current stage of reforming the Ukrainian national school is characterized by a complication of the content of education, an increase in the amount of information and a reduction in the time allotted for its learning. Today, the development of education as a system must be realized through systemic knowledge, which is necessary for forming holistic and systemic thinking. This knowledge can be obtained through the integration of the humanities and fundamental disciplines and should be guided by the global level of science development. This approach contributes to the formation of holistic ideas about the world and a human as a whole. These ideas are outlined by the author in the article. The search for ways to improve the education system at school has helped revive the notion of integration of learning, which is gradually being implemented in primary school practice. The purpose of the article is to analyze the main aspects of an integrated approach to teaching at elementary school and to reveal the pedagogical value of thematic days. At the moment, the main task of education in the 21st century is to improve, develop and shape attention, imagination, thinking and memory. However, in general, today's level of the development of education in Ukraine does not give an opportunity to fully fulfill the function of the key resource of the socioeconomic development of the country and increase the welfare of citizens. The prestige of education and science in society remains low nowadays. Today, in Ukraine different legislative and regulatory acts provide the implementation of cardinal changes aimed at "a comprehensive development of a person as a personality and the highest value of society, shaping his or her talents, mental and physical abilities, upbringing high moral qualities, forming the citizens capable of a conscious public choice, enrichment on this basis of intellectual, creative, cultural potential of the nation, raising the educational level of the people, providing the national economy with qualified specialists. Ukraine recognizes education as a priority area of socio-economic, spiritual and cultural development of society" [7, p. 65].


The problem of drop formation and pinch-off from a capillary tube under the influence of gravity has been extensively studied when the internal capillary pressure gradient is constant. This ensures a continuous time independent flow field inside the capillary tube typically of the Poiseuille flow type. Characteristic drop ejection behaviour includes: periodic drop ejection, drop ejection with associated satellite production, complex dripping, chaotic behaviour and jetting. It is well known that this characteristic behaviour is governed by the Weber (We) and Ohnesorge (Oh) numbers (for a given Bond number) and may be delineated in a We verses Oh operability diagram. An in-depth physical understanding of drop ejection is also of great importance to industry where the tight control of drop size and ejection velocity are of critical importance in industrial processes such as sealants used in electronics assembly and inkjet printing. However, the use of such a continuous flow approach for drop ejection in industry is often impractical since such flows cannot be operator controlled. For this reason it is important to investigate so-called discrete pipe flows where the flow can be turned on and off at will. This means the flow inside the pipe is now time-dependent being controlled in a step-wise fashion. As a first stage in the investigation of drop pinch-off behaviour in discrete pipe flows this paper will study the critical pinch-off time required for drop ejection starting from a pendant drop. This is the discrete amount of time the pipe flow is turned on for in order for a drop to be ejected from the capillary. A Newtonian incompressible free-surface CFD flow code developed at the University of Leeds is used to investigate the critical pinch-off time for a range of internal pipe velocities (the central flow maximum in Poiseuille flow). It is found that the time required for drop ejection to occur decreases exponentially with internal pipe velocity. These characteristic times are also far smaller than typical static drop release times expected from Harkins and Brown analyses. The phenomenology of the process is due to the creation of a capillary wave at the pipe exit upon the sudden turning on of the flow inside the pipe. The capillary wave acts to transport fluid from the upper part of the forming pendant drop at the end of the capillary to the lower part of the drop both lowering the pendant drop centre-of-mass and thinning the neck region connecting the drop to the pipe. This allows the drop to be pinched off at an earlier than expected time as compared to static drop release times.


The English, Scottish and Welsh National Health Service (NHS) White Papers published by the government in December 1997 and January 1998, have changed the tone of NHS policy. Co-operation is to replace competition; there is to be a statutory requirement to provide good quality health care; and performance benchmarking is expected to succeed where market forces failed in producing efficiency gains. The consultation paper 'Fit for the future' published by the Department of Health and Social Services in May 1998 implies that the same changes will apply in Northern Ireland too. How far the practical operation of the NHS is altered by the White Papers' proposals remains to be seen, but two changes that clearly will occur, and which are the focus of this paper, are - 1. the abolition of fundholding by individual practices of general medical practitioners (GPs) and their replacement by various forms of collective GP involvement in commissioning; 2. the inclusion for the first time within the cash limit applied to most NHS spending, of all of the cost of medicines prescribed by GPs. Hitherto, although the prescribing expenditure of fundholding GPs had been brought within the overall NHS cash limit, the prescribing of non-fundholders had remained non-cash limited. The aim of the first of these measures appears mainly to be to avoid a 'two-tier NHS', where the patients of fundholding GPs may have been able to obtain referrals for specialist diagnosis and treatment more rapidly than could the patients of non-fundholders. A secondary aim is to contribute to cutting bureaucracy and hence costs, by reducing the number of parties negotiating with health care service providers and being invoiced by them. GP fundholding has spread widely, so that by 1997/98 over half of the UK population was registered with fundholding GPs. Abolition of this scheme from 1 April 1999 (but a year later in Northern Ireland) is likely to have effects beyond those apparently sought by the government, however. In particular, it will weaken the incentives on ex-fundholding GPs to restrain their prescribing costs and those non-prescribing costs that were included in their fundholder budgets. At the same time, as will be argued in section 5 of this paper, it is currently unclear whether there will be a significant offsetting strengthening of the incentives on non-fundholding GPs (i.e. all GPs once the new policies are in operation) to restrain their total expenditures. Thus a pre- and post-White Papers comparison implies that the incentives on GPs to control expenditure will weaken in total. It remains to be seen whether that weakening will be significant. The extension of the NHS cash limit to encompass the total Family Health Services (FHS) medicines bill, i.e. including for the first time the cost of medicines prescribed for NHS patients by non-fundholding GPs, may be intended to serve two main purposes. Firstly, it may be expected by the Treasury to tighten its control over NHS costs by bringing a further six per cent of total NHS expenditure under the (supposedly) fixed annual cash limit. (In 1997/98, in England, non-fundholding GPs' prescribing cost £1.9 billion and fundholding GPs' £2.2 billion. These sums equate respectively to just under and just over six per cent of total NHS expenditure.) Secondly, extending the cash limit takes away one possible distortion of rational clinical choices, by removing the incentive for non-fundholding GPs to prescribe medicines for their patients (for which expenditure is not cash limited) rather than refer them to specialist hospital or community health care services (for which expenditure is cash limited). It is unclear, though, whether this potential distortion to treatment choices has been significant in practice. In this paper, I shall first describe the way in which NHS spending has been controlled until, and including, the 1998/99 financial year. In that context I shall then go on to assess the significance of the changes being brought by the Labour government's recent NHS White Papers. The focus will be on how incentives have changed and will change for those who in practice make most of the expenditure-driving decisions within the health service, namely the doctors. Because it is GP prescribing expenditure which is subject to the change in cash limit status, it is prescribing expenditure which is the main focus of the discussion in this paper. Given the difficulty of keeping exactly to budgeted expenditure when much demand for health care not only requires immediate satisfaction but also cannot be forecast with 100 per cent accuracy, the result of the White Papers' changes may perversely be a progressive and significant weakening of control over total NHS spending. Many might see such an outcome as a good thing, meaning more money for the NHS, albeit at the expense of a greater burden on the taxpayer (either now or, if initially funded by increased government borrowing, later). However, unplanned NHS expenditure growth also has negative implications for the government's macroeconomic policies and for achieving its desired balance of public spending priorities. Although a small percentage overspend on the NHS might appear to be insignificant in terms of the government's attempts to direct the overall economy (e.g. a one per cent overspend on the NHS in England would equate to a £350 million worsening of the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR)), it would become more threatening to macroeconomic stability if it were perceived as symptomatic of a lack of government will and/or ability to control public expenditure at all. Furthermore, overspending in the NHS would represent a divergence from the government's planned priorities as between health and other public expenditure programmes (social security, education, defence, and so on). From a narrow health service viewpoint, any unplanned additional expenditure may not have gone where the NHS would, ex ante, most have liked any extra money to have been spent. The government may well respond to any overspending by seeking offsetting savings elsewhere within the NHS in a subsequent year.


The impacts of global climate change on the Basque coast and the pelagic systems within the southeastern Bay of Biscay are reviewed. Climate projections under greenhouse gas emission scenarios indicate that this area will experience changes in climate throughout the 21st century, including warming of surface air (especially heat wave episodes), intensification of extreme daily rainfall (10%), warming of the upper 100 m of the ocean layer (1.5 to 2.05°C), and sea level rise (SLR; 29 to 49 cm). Observations made in the bay throughout the 20th century for air temperature and mean sea level are in agreement with these projections. Trends in ocean-climatic historical observations within the area, including sea temperature, precipitation, upwelling/downwelling, turbulence and wave climate, are also reviewed. The main impacts on the coast are expected to be from SLR, especially in low-lying areas (mostly urbanised) within estuaries. Sandy beaches are also expected to undergo significant mean shoreline retreats of between 25 and 40% of their width. As the sea level rises, the natural migration of saltmarshes and intertidal seagrasses landward will be constrained, in most cases, by existing anthropogenic fixed boundaries. Empirical relationships between the distribution and dynamics of the long-term biological measures (plankton, primary production, benthos, and fisheries) on the one hand, and ocean-climatic variability on the other, indicate that pelagic and coastal water ecosystems will be affected by ocean warming, increased stratification, shifts in anomaly patterns and streamflow regimes. The largest uncertainties are associated with the lack of downscaled projections within the bay on ocean circulation, ocean-meteorological indices, wave climate and ocean acidification.


The point of attachment of spindle microtubules to metaphase chromosomes is known as the centromere. Plant and animal centromeres are epigenetically specified by a centro-mere-specific variant of Histone H3, CENH3 (a.k.a. CENP-A). Unlike canonical histones that are invariant, CENH3 proteins are accumulating substitutions at an accelerated rate. This diversification of CENH3 is a conundrum since its role as the key determinant of centromere identity remains a constant across species. Here, we ask whether naturally occurring divergence in CENH3 has functional consequences. We performed functional complementation assays on cenh3-1 , a null mutation in Arabidopsis thaliana , using untagged CENH3s from increasingly distant relatives. Contrary to previous results using GFP-tagged CENH3, we find that the essential functions of CENH3 are conserved across a broad evolutionary landscape. CENH3 from a species as distant as the monocot Zea mays can functionally replace A. thaliana CENH3. Plants expressing variant CENH3s that are fertile when selfed show dramatic segregation errors when crossed to a wild-type individual. The progeny of this cross include hybrid diploids, aneuploids with novel genetic rearrangements and haploids that inherit only the genome of the wild-type parent. Importantly, it is always chromosomes from the plant expressing the divergent CENH3 that missegregate. Using chimeras, we show that it is divergence in the fast-evolving N-terminal tail of CENH3 that is causing segregation errors and genome elimination. Furthermore, we analyzed N-terminal tail sequences from plant CENH3s and discovered a modular pattern of sequence conservation. From this we hypothesize that while the essential functions of CENH3 are largely conserved, the N-terminal tail is evolving to adapt to lineage-specific centromeric constraints. Our results demonstrate that this lineage-specific evolution of CENH3 causes inviability and sterility of progeny in crosses, at the same time producing karyotypic variation. Thus, CENH3 evolution can contribute to postzygotic reproductive barriers.


Conserving wildlife within urban areas requires knowledge of habitat requirements and population processes, and the management of threatening factors. The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is one species that is adversely affected by urban development. Sick and injured koalas in the Lismore urban area are regularly taken into care. We radio-tracked koalas released from care in order to estimate home-range areas and to determine their fate. Koalas were tracked for periods of 90–742 days; 7 of 10 survived for a period of at least one year. Home ranges defined by the minimum convex polygon (MCP100%) were large (mean ± s.e. = 37.4 ± 8.2 ha). Analysis using the 95% Fixed Kernel revealed home-range areas of 8.0 ± 1.7 ha. Analysis of the habitat composition of each MCP home range showed that they included 4.3 ± 0.9 ha of primary habitat (dominated by their primary food trees). These home ranges contained 27.6 ± 6.8 ha of non-habitat (cleared or developed land). Koalas crossed roads within their home ranges at least 5–53 times; one crossed the Bruxner Highway near a roundabout at least 32 times over his 2-year tracking period. Future management should include strategic food tree planting that enhances habitat connectivity and minimises the risk of car strike or dog attack.


Purpose To provide evidence-based, resource-stratified global recommendations to clinicians and policymakers on the management and palliative care of women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. Methods ASCO convened a multidisciplinary, multinational panel of cancer control, medical and radiation oncology, health economic, obstetric and gynecologic, and palliative care experts to produce recommendations reflecting resource-tiered settings. A systematic review of literature from 1966 to 2015 failed to yield sufficiently strong quality evidence to support basic- and limited-resource setting recommendations; a formal consensus-based process was used to develop recommendations. A modified ADAPTE process was also used to adapt recommendations from existing guidelines. Results Five existing sets of guidelines were identified and reviewed, and adapted recommendations form the evidence base. Eight systematic reviews, along with cost-effectiveness analyses, provided indirect evidence to inform the consensus process, which resulted in agreement of 75% or greater. Recommendations Clinicians and planners should strive to provide access to the most effective evidence-based antitumor and palliative care interventions. If a woman cannot access these within her own or neighboring country or region, she may need to be treated with lower-tier modalities, depending on capacity and resources for surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and supportive and palliative care. For women with early-stage cervical cancer in basic settings, cone biopsy or extrafascial hysterectomy may be performed. Fertility-sparing procedures or modified radical or radical hysterectomy may be additional options in nonbasic settings. Combinations of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy (including brachytherapy) should be used for women with stage IB to IVA disease, depending on available resources. Pain control is a vital component of palliative care. Additional information is available at www.asco.org/rs-cervical-cancer-treatment-guideline and www.asco.org/guidelineswiki. It is the view of ASCO that health care providers and health care system decision makers should be guided by the recommendations for the highest stratum of resources available. The guideline is intended to complement but not replace local guidelines.


Purpose The main aim  of this  review was to evaluate the effect of physical activity on motor development in children with  Down Syndrome by means of a systematic review. Methods An extensive literature search of published studies in English from 1980 to May 2006 was performed. Of the fifty-eight studies identified only four met the inclusion criteria. This review included studies that investigated the effects of physical activity on motor development in children with Down Syndrome and evaluated the outcomes in terms of the levelof activity. Results One study showed a significant decrease in length oftime to independent wa lking in the intervention group (CI-101[-180.48--21.52].  Two studies (N=84) reported a significant improvement in the total developmental quotient following intensive physical activity (wmd and Cl 95% -13.07 [-17.66, -8.48]. Three studies showed an increased in locomotor developmental skills following  physical activity intervention. Conclusion The results of this review support the use of programmes that are designed to improve motor development in children with Down Syndrome. We recommend that physical activity programmes need to be intensive and parents should be incorporated to strengthen the outcomes.


The successful delivery of large complex infrastructure projects continues to challenge the civil engineering profession, with a predominance of projects delivered late and over budget. Many researchers have investigated methods and means of improving the less-than-satisfactory record of the execution of these projects. One recent research direction suggests that improvements in project delivery may not be realized until the project setting is understood from the as-lived perspective of the participants. Following this direction, the research described in this dissertation explores the personal and interpersonal dynamics operating within projects, treating them as complex social processes. The social dimensions explored in this study involve team leaders and staff engineers in a matriced organization handling a large urban design-build infrastructure project. The interactions among the participants within and across units and levels had both positive and negative impacts. The data for this exploratory case study comes from semi-structured interviews and online surveys collected at three points over eleven months when the project was in the design phase. Interviews were conducted with a limited number of individuals; the survey was collected from the larger engineering organization. From the interview data, issues which impacted project delivery were identified as the relationship with supervision, the availability of information, an understanding of the larger project context, and the response to project constraints. The survey data was used primarily to understand the social dimensions affecting two engineering disciplines, one that performed well and one that performed poorly. Issues that aligned with the performance differences included frequency of contact with supervision, the ability to make decisions, and effective use of time available to complete design tasks. Data from the two modes of investigation demonstrated strong triangulation. Recommendations for both academia and industry are provided.


When objects move, their motion is governed by the laws of physics. We investigated whether multiple objects that move while correctly obeying aspects of Newtonian physics are easier to track than those that do not accurately obey the laws of physics. Participants were asked to track multiple objects that either did or did not take on the correct angles and/or speeds after collisions with each other. We found an advantage for tracking when objects obeyed realistic physics, such that people were more accurate when objects reflected from each other at proper angles and when objects varied in speed after collisions (as opposed to always maintaining the same speed). This advantage was independent of a variety of low-level factors that would be expected to affect object tracking, such as object spacing. However, we also found that performance was not affected when objects' speed changed randomly after each collision (so long as it varied), nor when the reflection angles were jittered moderately after collisions. We conclude that perceptual noise seriously limits many aspects of object trajectory estimation, but nevertheless people are sensitive to at least a subset of the Newtonian laws of physics under demanding attentional tracking conditions.


Abstract Consider the polynomial hull of a smoothly varying family of strictly convex smooth domains fibered over the unit circle. It is well-known that the boundary of the hull is foliated by graphs of analytic discs. We prove that this foliation is smooth, and we show that it induces a complex flow of contactomorphisms. These mappings are quasiconformal in the sense of Korányi and Reimann. A similar bound on their quasiconformal distortion holds as in the one-dimensional case of holomorphic motions. The special case when the fibers are rotations of a fixed domain in ${{\text{C}}^{\text{2}}}$ is studied in details.


Coriolus versicolor (CV), also called Yunzhi, has been demonstrated to exert anti-tumor effects on various types of cancer cells, but the underlying mechanism has not been fully elucidated. The present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro anti-tumor activity of a standardized aqueous ethanol extract prepared from CV on four breast cancer cell lines using MTT assay, and test whether the mechanism involves apoptosis induction and modulation of p53 and Bcl-2 protein expressions using cell death detection ELISA, p53 and Bcl-2 ELISAs respectively. Our results demonstrated that the CV extract dose-dependently suppressed the proliferation of three breast tumor cell lines, with ascending order of IC50 values: T-47D, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, while BT-20 cells were not significantly affected. Tumoricidal activity of the CV extract was found to be comparable to a chemotherapeutic anti-cancer drug, mitomycin C. Nucleosome productions in apoptotic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 and T-47D cells were significantly augmented in a time-dependent manner and paralleled the anti-proliferative activity of CV extract. Expression of p53 protein was significantly upregulated only in T-47D cells treated with the CV extract in a dose- and time-dependent fashion, but not in MCF-7 (except at 400 ?g/ml after 16 h) and MDA-MB-231 cells. The CV extract significantly induced a dose-dependent downregulation of Bcl-2 protein expression in MCF-7 and T-47D cells, but not in MDA-MB-231 cells. These results suggested that apoptosis induction, differentially dependent of p53 and Bcl-2 expressions, might be the possible mechanism of CV extract-mediated cytotoxicity in human breast cancer cells in vitro.


Strong adhesion between rubber and steel cords is essential for tires, pressure resistant hose, conveyor belt and so on to exhibit a good performance. Therefore, many studies have been carried out to clarify the adhesion mecha-nism between rubber and steel cords. It has been recognized that the rubber/brass plated cord interface is composed of some layers, such as cupper sulfide, zinc oxide and zinc sulfide. Although photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) is of-ten used to observe such adhesive interfaces, it is difficult to expose the strongly adhered layers. In this report, two studies which examine buried interfaces of rubber/brass systems are introduced. One is a study applied synchrotron PES to analyze the formation process of the adhesive interlayer during vulcanization by using so-called a filter-paper method. At least five sulfur- containing species are identified in the adhesive interlayer including CuS and Cu x S ( x ≃ 2). Formation of Cu x S ( x ≃ 2) in the adhesive layer is observed at the very beginning of vulcanization. Then Cu x S ( x ≃ 2) chemically changes to CuS due to a presence of excess sulfur. The other is a study applied HAXPES (Hard X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) to directly observe the buried interfaces. Excess sulfur is observed in the model of the exposed interface prepared by the filter-paper method in comparison with an actual rubber/ brass interface.


12 In this paper we introduce SNF, a framework that synthesizes (S) network function (NF) service chains by eliminating redundant I/O and repeated elements, while consolidating stateful cross layer packet operations across the chain. SNF uses graph composition and set theory to determine traffic classes handled by a service chain composed of multiple elements. It then synthesizes each traffic class using a minimal set of new elements that apply single-read-single-write and early-discard operations. 16 17 Our SNF prototype takes a baseline state of the art network functions virtualization (NFV) framework to the level of performance required for practical NFV service deployments. Software-based SNF realizes long (up to 10 NFs) and stateful service chains that achieve line-rate 40Gbps throughput (up to 8.5x greater than the baseline NFV framework). Hardware-assisted SNF, using a commodity OpenFlow switch, shows that our approach scales at 40Gbps for Internet Service Provider-level NFV deployments.


IMPORTANCE
There is a paucity of controlled treatment trials for the treatment of conversion disorder, seizures type, also known as psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES). Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, the most common conversion disorder, are as disabling as epilepsy and are not adequately addressed or treated by mental health clinicians.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate different PNES treatments compared with standard medical care (treatment as usual).

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Pilot randomized clinical trial at 3 academic medical centers with mental health clinicians trained to administer psychotherapy or psychopharmacology to outpatients with PNES. Thirty-eight participants were randomized in a blocked schedule among 3 sites to 1 of 4 treatment arms and were followed up for 16 weeks between September 2008 and February 2012; 34 were included in the analysis.

INTERVENTIONS
Medication (flexible-dose sertraline hydrochloride) only, cognitive behavioral therapy informed psychotherapy (CBT-ip) only, CBT-ip with medication (sertraline), or treatment as usual.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Seizure frequency was the primary outcome; psychosocial and functioning measures, including psychiatric symptoms, social interactions, quality of life, and global functioning, were secondary outcomes. Data were collected prospectively, weekly, and with baseline, week 2, midpoint (week 8), and exit (week 16) batteries. Within-group analyses for each arm were performed on primary (seizure frequency) and secondary outcomes from treatment-blinded raters using an intention-to-treat analysis.

RESULTS
The psychotherapy (CBT-ip) arm showed a 51.4% seizure reduction (P = .01) and significant improvement from baseline in secondary measures including depression, anxiety, quality of life, and global functioning (P < .001). The combined arm (CBT-ip with sertraline) showed 59.3% seizure reduction (P = .008) and significant improvements in some secondary measures, including global functioning (P = .007). The sertraline-only arm did not show a reduction in seizures (P = .08). The treatment as usual group showed no significant seizure reduction or improvement in secondary outcome measures (P = .19).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
This pilot randomized clinical trial for PNES revealed significant seizure reduction and improved comorbid symptoms and global functioning with CBT-ip for PNES without and with sertraline. There were no improvements in the sertraline-only or treatment-as-usual arms. This study supports the use of manualized psychotherapy for PNES and successful training of mental health clinicians in the treatment. Future studies could assess larger-scale intervention dissemination.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00835627.


Background Ribavirin is a drug used to treat hepatitis, but it is also used (off-label) for the treatment of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) Purpose To evaluate the efficacy and safety of ribavirin when used for RSV treatment in haematological patients. Material and methods Retrospective study during the RSV season. Parameters analysed were: sex, age, dose and treatment duration, laboratory confirmation of RSV, haemoglobin, LDH, bilirubin, and the need for transfusions. The collected data were obtained by reviewing medical records and consulting the Savac prescription and validation program. Results A total of 9 patients were included, 4 (44%) men. The median age was 49 years (range 13–69). The median number of days of treatment was 14 days (range 7–14) and all tested positive for RSV. The dose for all patients was 200 mg/day on the first two days and 1200 mg/day until the end of treatment. By the end of the treatment, the virus had been eradicated in 100% of patients. Regarding safety, none of the patients presented symptoms of haemolytic anaemia. Haemoglobin remained constant throughout the treatment, with a median of 88 g/L at baseline and 91 g/L and 86 g/L at 7 and 14 days of treatment, respectively, with LDH constant at 400 IU/L throughout treatment and regular indirect bilirubin levels. Six (67%) of the patients received blood transfusions, but all of them had already received transfusions before ribavirin treatment. None of the patients presented symptoms of haemolytic anaemia, and no adverse effects were detected attributable to ribavirin. Conclusion Treatment with ribavirin for RSV proved to be an effective treatment in our patients. Since haemoglobin levels remained constant during treatment, and patients required transfusion due to the disease, treatment with ribavirin at this dose appears to be a safe treatment. References And/or Acknowledgements No conflict of interest.


The Pliocene Loreto basin is a transtensional basin, exposed just north of Loreto, Baja California Sur, that consists of nonmarine to marine sedimentary rocks and interbedded tuffs. On the basis of stratigraphic study and 40Ar/39Ar dating of tuffs, the southern Loreto basin began to form at ∼3.4 Ma as an alluvial basin with moderate rates of subsidence (<0.4 mm/yr). Between 2.46 and 2.36 Ma, extremely rapid subsidence (5-10 mm/yr) of the basin was accompanied by deposition of vertically stacked Gilbert-type fan deltas. During this period, the southernmost basin began to be cut by an array of dextral-normal faults. The basin returned to a moderate rate of subsidence from ∼2.36 to ∼2.0 Ma, when volcanism increased within the northern part of the basin. The Pacific-North America boundary was first fully located within the Gulf of California beginning at ∼3.5 Ma, at which time the zone of transform-related deformation widened to initiate formation of the Loreto basin. The major change in the Loreto basin at 2.46 Ma may be coeval with the beginning of faulting in southern California on the Elsinore and San Jacinto faults. These widespread events may indicate a minor change in the plate boundary at ∼2.5 Ma.


We consider the problem of learning to follow a desired trajectory when given a small number of demonstrations from a sub-optimal expert. We present an algorithm that (i) extracts the---initially unknown---desired trajectory from the sub-optimal expert's demonstrations and (ii) learns a local model suitable for control along the learned trajectory. We apply our algorithm to the problem of autonomous helicopter flight. In all cases, the autonomous helicopter's performance exceeds that of our expert helicopter pilot's demonstrations. Even stronger, our results significantly extend the state-of-the-art in autonomous helicopter aerobatics. In particular, our results include the first autonomous tic-tocs, loops and hurricane, vastly superior performance on previously performed aerobatic maneuvers (such as in-place flips and rolls), and a complete airshow, which requires autonomous transitions between these and various other maneuvers.


The faces and voices of the South have been changing dramatically over the last several decades, just like the rest of the nation. Population growth, immigration, urbanization, expanding minority proportions, a thriving economy, rising environmental sentiments and shifts in property ownership, among many other changes, have put forest and wildlife management in a much different context than at any time in the region's history. This paper examines the changing social, economic, attitudinal and other voices of Southerners and speculates about the meaning these changing voices might have on the future of forest and wildlife management in the South.


In the paper we provide an explanation of the persistence of the commodity titles in US farm bills that is grounded in core theories of the policy process from the political science literature. The political science literature explains policy continuity and policy change from a number of different perspectives and we use these to explain why the commodity titles of farm bills have persisted in the face of considerable opposition and how in response the Agriculture Committees have introduced incremental change to the content of farm bills to facilitate each bill's passage. Unlike the standard approach of agricultural economists which focuses on the broader national economic efficiency impacts of farm programs, we concentrate on, narrower local political forces that affect individual Members of the Congress, and on the legislative process that created each farm bill.


In preclinical tumor models, inhibition of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) has been associated with increased sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents such as irinotecan (CPT-11). This is based on the fact that a variety of chemotherapy agents such as CPT-11 activate NF-κB to result in the expression of genes such as c-IAP1 and c-IAP2 that might be responsible for the inhibition of chemotherapy-induced apoptosis. In this study, RNA interference [small interfering RNA (siRNA)] was used to down-regulate the NF-κB p65 subunit in the HCT116 colon cancer cell line, and its role, in the presence and absence of CPT-11, was assessed on cell growth and apoptosis. Reduction of endogenous p65 by siRNA treatment significantly impaired CPT-11-mediated NF-κB activation, enhanced apoptosis, and reduced colony formation in soft agar. Furthermore, the in vivo administration of p65 siRNA reduced HCT116 tumor formation in xenograft models in the presence but not the absence of CPT-11 administration. These data indicate that the administration of siRNA directed against the p65 subunit of NF-κB can effectively enhance in vitro and in vivo sensitivity to chemotherapeutic agents.


Recently published data [Vorotnikov & Gusev (1990) FEBS Lett. 277, 134-136] indicate that smooth muscle caldesmon interacts with a mixture of soybean phospholipids (azolectin). Continuing this investigation, we found that duck gizzard caldesmon interacts more tightly with acidic (phosphatidylserine) than with neutral (phosphatidylcholine) phospholipids. A high concentration of Ca2+ (50 microM) decreased the interaction of caldesmon with phosphatidylserine. Among chymotryptic peptides of caldesmon, only those having molecular masses of 45, 40, 23, 22 and 20 kDa were able to specifically interact with phospholipids. These peptides, derived from the C-terminal part of caldesmon, contained the sites phosphorylated by Ca2+/phospholipid-dependent protein kinase, and phosphorylation catalysed by this enzyme decreased the affinity of these peptides for phospholipids. In the presence of Ca2+, calmodulin competed with phospholipids for the interaction with the caldesmon peptides. The C-terminal part of caldesmon contains three peptides with a primary structure similar to that of the calmodulin- and phospholipid-binding site of neuromodulin. These sites may be involved in the interaction of caldesmon with calmodulin and phospholipids.


The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U. S. , Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.


January to December 2002. Advanced Dermatopathology. This is a weekly 2-h course that takes place every Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. for a period of 12 months at St John's Institute of Dermatology in London. The course is directed by Dr E Calonje and consists of the review of around 300–400 cases, which are pre-circulated to the participants. Also monthly lectures are given on selected topics. For more information contact: Nick Easterbrook, Department of Dermatopathology, 2nd Floor, St John's Institute of Dermatopathology, St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7EH, UK. Tel: 0207 928 9292, ext 1383; fax: 0207 922 8347.


"Zieger has done it again! In this volume, he has put his finger on the pulse of the most exciting current work in the field. Anyone who doubts that the South is still a distinctive region, or who thinks that 'southern labor' has become an oxymoron, will be chastened by the scholarship in this compelling collection."--Alex Lichtenstein, Florida International University"Essential reading for any scholar or student who seeks better to understand not just the working class history of the South but also the way that power and politics has shifted in the nation as a whole since the 1940s."--Heather Ann Thompson, Temple University"The American South remains the nation's most distinctive region, but during the last several decades the world of work there has been subject to virtually all of the same tribulations that bedevil those who labor in the rest of the country. This exceptionally fine set of essays captures much of this historical complexity with compelling narratives of globalization and community resistance, racism and interracial unity, union power and impotence. It's a new New South all right, but the Southern accent can't be missed."--Nelson Lichtenstein, MacArthur Foundation Chair in History, University of California, Santa BarbaraThis collection of essays explores the dynamic new face of Southern labor. Weaving together the best work of established scholars with emerging research on ethnicity, gender, prison labor, deindustrialization, rapidly changing demographic and employment patterns, and popular response to globalization, the volume as a whole creates a distinguished profile of a southern workforce that has been dramatically transformed since 1950, with the pace of change accelerating over the past two decades.


This paper focuses on the incremental development of a coastal zone management (CZM) constituency in the Atlantic Region and in particular on the recent establishment of the Atlantic Coastal Zone Information Management Steering Committee (ACZISC). This Committee, with senior representation from all four Atlantic Provinces, six federal departments and one regional agency, was established to provide a focus and forum for the implementation of a coastal zone information management infrastructure, a prerequisite for CZM. The ACZISC represents a unique interdepartmental and intergovernmental initiative which is addressing the requirement for a regional coastal zone information infrastructure. This goal must be achieved in the context of a Canadian constitution which historically has allowed multiple jurisdictions to have responsibilities, often overlapping and conflicting, for activities within the coastal zone.


This article addresses the factors that influenced candidates' likelihood of cyber-campaigning in the 2007 Irish General Election. We consider the roles of party affiliation and support as well as intra-party competition, candidates' monetary and political resources and the marginality of the electoral race. We also provide the first empirical test to date of whether candidates' decisions to cyber-campaign are influenced by the behaviour of their direct political opponents. Monetary resources, party affiliation and the behaviour of opponents are found to have statistically significant effects on the probability of a candidate conducting a cyber-campaign.


Vineyard replant disorder is a disease of unknown etiology, currently controlled by methyl bromide fumigation. While not all the components of the disease are known, plant-parasitic nematode densities are often high in vineyard replant soils. Alternatives to the broadly effective general biocide, methyl bromide, are needed for vineyards replanted after January 2005, when import and manufacture of methyl bromide was banned except for exempted quarantine uses and approved critical uses. Two field trials were conducted in vineyards that had been planted to own-rooted Thompson Seedless grapes for 70 to 85 years and were known to support populations of plant-parasitic nematodes. In a randomized block design with five or six replicates per trial, shank-injected and/or drip-applied propargyl bromide (>207 kg ha−1), iodomethane + chloropicrin (50:50, >269 kg ha−1 drip-applied), and 1,3-dichloropropene + chloropicrin (InLine, 468 L ha−1) provided control of plant-parasitic nematodes throughout the first growing season similar to control achieved with methyl bromide (507 kg ha−1). Chloropicrin (448 kg ha−1) provided less nematode control than methyl bromide, but significantly greater control than untreated. An experimental drip formulation of sodium azide (Agrizide, 336 kg ha−1) was insufficient to control nematodes under vineyard replant conditions. Although vine growth in the treated plots was generally greater than in the untreated plots, growth was greater with methyl bromide than with the alternative chemicals. Alternatives to methyl bromide for nematode control in sandy loam soils were documented, but acceptable alternatives for the management of the complex vineyard replant disorder are more elusive.


The most common maize (Zea mays L.) heterotic pattern in Europe is European flint × U.S. dent. Northern Spain x southern Spain has been proposed as an alternative heterotic pattern. Three maize synthetic populations, namely EPS6 from northern Spain, EPS7 from southern Spain, and EPS10 formed by early American populations, were produced in Pontevedra, Spain. Because of their low yield, the two Spanish synthetic populations were subjected to three cycles of intrapopulation S 1 recurrent selection for grain yield. Our objectives were to evaluate the effect of selection on grain yield and other agronomic traits, and to determine the changes in heterosis and general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability brought about by selection. The three original synthetic populations, the three cycles of selection of the two Spanish synthetic populations, and the crosses among the original and the improved cycles were evaluated in two locations in northwest Spain in 1994 and 1995. Yield significantly increased with selection in both Spanish synthetic populations. The GCA improved with selection in both EPS6 and EPS7. Heterosis and SCA did not change significantly with selection. The third cycles of each Spanish synthetic would be the most appropriate maize populations to start a reciprocal recurrent selection to improve the heterotic pattern northern Spain x southern Spain.


We deployed satellite transmitters (PTTs) on Pink-footed Geese Anser brachyrhynchus to discover pre-nesting sites on Svalbard. 14 adult male were caught in Vest Stadil Fjord, Denmark and fitted with PTTs powered by batteries (n = 11; 30 g) or by solar power (n = 3; 45 g), March 2003 and 2004. All geese staged in the Trondheim Fjord area, mid Norway, for 2-3 weeks before onward migration to VesterÅlen, north Norway, where average arrival and departure dates were 10 and 17 May 2003 and 15 and 19 May 2004. Average staging period in VesterÅlen of satellite tagged geese was 4-6 days. No staging areas were identified between VesterÅlen and Svalbard. Average arrival dates in Svalbard were 22 May 2003 and 21 May 2004. On arrival to Svalbard geese staged in southwestern coastal areas of Spitsbergen (n = 5) and around Isfjord, central Spitsbergen (n = 6), areas which tend to thaw early in spring. Geese staged on average at two staging areas before 1 June during a total staging period of about 8 days. First egg dates in the two years in Sassendalen, central Spitsbergen, were mainly between 26 and 31 May, so tagged geese should have arrived at their breeding areas before 1 June. Therefore, rapid follicular development must be initiated in VesterÅlen, confirmed by observations of oocyte development in birds shot on arrival in Svalbard. A pre-nesting increase in male abdominal profile indices in Svalbard indicates income feeding as a supplement to the capital invested in follicular growth on migration. We here present the first and most comprehensive study on the distribution of pre-nesting sites on Svalbard and staging periods of the geese. Such habitats can have a substantial influence on the reproductive success.


Although essential tremor is often thought of as benign, it can be disabling to the point of justifying invasive deep brain stimulation (DBS). However, the mechanisms by which thalamic and subthalamic stimulation suppress tremor are poorly understood.

In this issue of Brain , Groppa et al. (2014) quantified the performance of seven patients with essential tremor in a reaching task to determine the DBS target structures associated with therapeutic reduction in tremor and with the side effect of stimulation-induced ataxia. The optimum site of stimulation was usually in the posterior subthalamic area, beneath the inferior border of the thalamic nucleus ventralis intermedius. Probabilistic diffusion tractography identified the dentatothalamic tract as the key therapeutic DBS target structure. Supratherapeutic stimulation of this site produced upper limb ataxia, despite continued suppression of tremor. The authors systematically varied stimulation pulse strength and duration to find that stimulation chronaxies of 27 and 52 µs were associated with tremor suppression and the induction of ataxia, respectively. Chronaxie is loosely defined as the minimum duration at which a current twice threshold (minimum current with indefinitely long pulse duration) elicits a response and provides a clue as to the properties of the axons recruited. They reasoned that two different populations of large myelinated nerve fibres were affected: (i) dentatothalamic axons for the therapeutic effect; and (ii) afferent or efferent axons of the red nucleus for the stimulation-induced ataxia. However, the involvement of rubral pathways could not be confirmed with diffusion tractography. This work is an important contribution to a growing literature addressing the mechanisms of DBS and the preferred site of DBS stimulation for essential tremor.

Ventralis intermedius has historically been the preferred stereotactic target for thalamotomy and DBS in the treatment of essential tremor and other tremor disorders (Miocinovic et al. , 2013), but recent postoperative correlations …


This paper proposes a Bayesian online classification method using Rao-Blackwellised Sequential Monte Carlo. The method is validated by testing it against a numerical example. As an example of a real-world application, the method is also applied to a computer intrusion detection problem. The proposed method has succeeded in reducing the false alarm rate when compared with a previous work.


This study obtained a tin oxide (SnO2) film via spray pyrolysis deposition on stainless steel substrate. Annealing was performed to improve the crystallinity and conductivity of the films. The as-prepared film was designated as AsP and those annealed at 400, 450 and 500oC were designated as A400, A450 and A500, respectively. It was observed that A450 had the best electrochemical performance evaluated with cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). This was attributed to the densely-packed larger grains observed with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The grain size was calculated from X-ray diffractometry (XRD) spectra and A450 was found to have bigger grains than AsP by 1.9 and 2.5 nm for reflections (110) and (200), respectively. A450 also had the smallest resistance values from fitting results in EIS. The maximum specific capacitance (Csc) was 350.24 F/g at 10mV/s which is more than 300% than that of the as-prepared sample. This study produced a pure SnO2 film with the highest measured Csc value to date.