Human Rights organizations have a history in fighting against violations and issues that are affecting the individuals, groups and nations worldwide, however, constant challenges faced by such organizations proved to delay effective advancement in access to human rights. The research aims at tackling the challenges from the standpoint of a necessary change in the organizational perception of campaigning systems to improve performance and achieve significant outcomes. The research proposes the inclusion of new technological trends of engagement that proved effective and resourceful in other sectors. The motivations underlying the behavior of human beings are influenced by the tendency to satisfy psychological needs, such as self-achievement, meaning, recognition, status and altruism. The research will discuss the psychological motivations behind people's engagement in online activities and extend them to explain why gamification and crowdsourcing harnessed success and why such methods would be significant adaptations for campaigning in human rights. Case study methodology was adopted for this research to examine campaigns of human rights organizations that used gamification and crowdsourcing techniques, where data pertaining to the cases have been collected from the concerned websites and other reliable social media and networking online resources. The findings revealed a positive impact from applying gamification and crowdsourcing in the two selected cases, translated in the raised funds, awareness levels, contribution, participation and interaction. The outcome of this research will help identify what the expectations of people are when they logon into their social profiles and will consequently; assist human rights organizations in selecting the components of their campaigns and various engagement elements according to the interests of the targeted users of social platforms.


The purpose of this study is to appraise the performance of Ethiopian MFIs in terms of various criteria by comparing with the Micro banking Bulletin (MBB) benchmark and for some relative ratios comparison among themselves.The MF industry as a whole is challenged by the need to reach the poorest customers and at the same time being financially self sufficient. Although the industry as a whole is growing at a faster pace still the two critical questions of reaching the poor and building a financially sustainable MF industry that walk on their own leg freely are empirical questions. This research, although will not solve these crucial questions, will at least contribute to researchers, practitioners and policy makers by showing where the Ethiopian MFIs are lying on the outreach to the poor, sustainability, and a couple of other performance dimensions. Data for the research are taken from the MIX MARKET website. Although the actual number of Ethiopian MFIs is around 27 as per National Bank of Ethiopia database, I have data access online only for 16 MFIs from the MIX MARKET website. Hence the sample constitutes these 16 MFIs. For data analysis, I have used one sample t test, one way ANOVA with Scheffe Post Hoc Comparison tests, Kruskal-Wallis test and Pearson correlation coefficients.The result of the study indicates that Ethiopian MFIs in general are poor performers on depth of outreach. They are not reaching the poorest of the poor. They are also poor in terms of the ratio of GLP to assets, allocating a lower proportion of their total assets in to loans. They also are not using their debt capacity properly. The large and small MFIs are allocating more loan loss provision expense than the industry average and the related PAR is high for these MFIs.All the MFIs are good at breath of outreach, cost management, efficiency and productivity. They also charge low interest rates. The profitability and sustainability of the MFI depend on their size. From a simple correlation analysis it is found that there is a tradeoff between serving the poor and being operationally self sufficient. MF age correlates positively with efficiency, productivity, the use debt financing (commercialization) and OSS. It is also found that the use of debt financing makes firms more efficient and productive.


This is a story about the language and role of justice, violence, and nonviolent resistance in contemporary activism against neoliberal policies in U.S. education. Through a description of meetings of "un-organized," white-led groups of education activists over the course of eight years, this article traces shifts in the white progressive activist imagination, during a time of broad national shift in the United States from wholesale public embrace of neoliberal education reform to a more fractured and contentious field. Specifically, this article explores white progressive activists' shifts from analyzing injustice in education to talking about structural violence and engaging with nonviolent resistance. The findings of this inquiry speak to the role of collective memory, discursive power, and the capacities of a particular U.S. white public to recognize, engage with, relate to, and appropriate Latino/Latina and black students' and parents' experiences and analyses of violence in education.


Thirty-two strains of an infectious filterable agent, with properties that establish it as a virus, have been isolated from a malady of cats. This disease can be readily recognized and differentiated from other feline diseases by blood studies, which make apparent the characteristic profound leucopenia and marked relative lymphocytosis in the absence of thrombopenia and appreciable anemia. (Because the cytological pictures of the bone marrow and blood are essentially similar to those which characterize human agranulocytosis, we have named the disease under study "infectious feline agranulocytosis.") The cytological reaction to the presence of the virus is further characterized by proliferation of the reticuloendothelial cells of the lymph nodes and spleen, and by the formation of intranuclear inclusion bodies in the cells of the gastro-intestinal mucosa, lymph nodes, and bronchial mucosa. The etiological agent, the virus of infectious feline agranulocytosis, is pathogenic for cats when given by the oral, intragastric, cutaneous, subcutaneous, intraperitoneal, intravenous, and intranasal routes; it can be recovered at the height of the disease from the blood, spleen, liver, lung, intestinal mucosa, nasal secretions, nasal mucosa and turbinates, feces, and urine. The virus appears to be limited in its pathogenicity to the feline species. We found that a variety of animals, as represented by albino Swiss mice, guinea pigs, domestic rabbits, and ground squirrels (Citellus richardsonii Sabine), failed entirely to react to the injection of massive doses of virus. Repeated attempts at infection of these animals regularly failed when the intranasal, intraperitoneal, subcutaneous, and intramuscular routes of inoculation were employed for single doses. The same was true when from four to six transfers in "blind" serial tissue passages were made. Moreover, attempts to propagate the virus on the chorio-allantoic membrane of the developing chick were unsuccessful. The significance of the facts is discussed in the paper that follows.


This study explores the mechanism through which system quality influences e-learning system acceptance. Precisely, this study aims to examine how perceived usefulness and intention to use serially mediate the impact of system quality on actual use. The data were collected from three public universities in Jordan. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine 336 questionnaires. The findings reveal that system quality significantly affects perceived usefulness and intention to use, perceived usefulness significantly affects intention to use and actual use, where the intention to use significantly affects actual use of the e-learning system as well. Furthermore, the study also confirms that system quality does not affect the e-learning system actual use directly but indirectly and serially through the two acceptance variables, perceived usefulness and intention to use. Thus, this study improves the understanding of student's acceptance and behavior towards the e-learning system in Jordan public universities and the effect of system quality attributes on this relationship. Also, this study set certain directions for the decision-makers and university management in designing their strategies.


Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy (MIRAGE), we simulate the impacts of the most recent drafts circulated in the multilateral trade negotiations arena, augmented by a modest outcome of the negotiation in services. The liberalisation of tariffs is implemented at the product level in order to take into account exceptions, flexibilities as well as the non-linear design of the formulas. A reduction in domestic support and the phasing out of export subsidies are taken into account. We integrate dynamic gains up to 2025. We observe a $US70bn world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) long run gain when agriculture and industry are liberalised, a $US85bn gain when a 3% reduction in protection for services is added to certain services sectors. Calculation of the gains associated with trade facilitation suggests roughly a doubling of the expected gains ($US152bn); port efficiency adds another $US35bn. In total, the $US187bn gains identified here in the scenario combining liberalisation in trade in goods and services with trade facilitation and port efficiency, would accumulate to world GDP every year in the medium term, compared to the situation without agreement. Recent proposals for sectoral initiatives would add a further $US15bn on top of these gains.


Objectives/Research Problem: The increasing of breast cancer cases from year to year is really worrying. It is ranked as the most common cancer occurs and the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Although there are many advance treatments available, the long term effect of the treatments on the patients cannot be ensured. Effective, safe and non-toxic treatment of natural product is one of the best approaches in treating breast cancer and act as chemopreventive agent. Neolamarckia cadamba, an Ayurvedic medicinal plant, has been used by Indian folklore in treating illnesses. The variety of phytochemical compounds found and pharmacological activities in this Rubiaceae family plant indicates that it has a strong potential in treating cancer. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate anti-cancer properties of this plant on breast cancer cell. The present study is carried out to obtain a better understanding on chemopreventive effect of N. cadamba's leaves on human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7).
Materials and Method: N. cadamba leaves were extracted with 80% ethanol by sonication method. Different concentrations of N. cadamba leaves extract (NCE) were prepared by serial dilution (1:2). Then, the extracts were administered on breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) assay was conducted by Trypan blue exclusion method to determine the cell viability. The IC50 value will be used to measure antiproliferative effect. The induction of apoptosis and cell cycle arrest will be evaluated using flow cytometry. The mechanism pathway which regard to apoptosis and cell cycle will be determined using Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR).
Results and Discussion: The result found that the IC50 value of this extract was 0.125 mg/ml. It showed that the NCE have ability to inhibit growth of breast cancer cell. Meanwhile, the results for antiproliferative assay, flow cytometric analysis and qPCR analysis are yet to be determined as the works are still in progress.
Conclusion: The present study demonstrates that the N. cadamba leaves extract has a potential against breast cancer cell line, MCF-7.

KEYWORDS: Neolamarckia. cadamba, Leaves Extract, IC50, Breast Cancer


What is smart power? What kind of power is it? Is it really a new form of power? How
many forms, features, and shapes does it take? How can we recognize and manage it?
How do scholars describe it?
This MPhil thesis aims to answer these and other questions regarding the dimension of
power with a specific focus on smart power. This is a first attempt to study smart
power in the broader context of power analysis and therefore I will follow two
approaches. First of all, I will contextualize smart power, touching on the debate of
power as an academic and political concept. Secondly, the idea is to investigate how
power manifests itself in the realms of international and social relations. To this end, I
will address three "ideal" forms of power, notably hard, soft and – finally - smart
power.
We already know that hard power is commonly associated in IR with realism: it is
about power politics, force, and violence. Hard power is, to a certain extent, the oldest
form of power; it is connected to the idea of an anarchic, untamed international
system, where countries do not recognize any superior authority. Order is the result of
competition for power and wars. The possession and acquisition of resources is the
key to success.
Soft power is something completely different. In order to understand soft power a
methodological change is required. A state, an organization or a single person can
exercise power with means other than violence and force. Persuasion, example,
seduction, and myth: these are the resources of soft power. It is being able to convince
or persuade others to follow your example, to want what you want, rather than
coercing them. Soft power is about a world in which international institutions matter,
in which war is not the only way to settle conflicts and in which the ones to succeed
are the most powerful, in terms of natural, economic and financial resources and are
not necessarily the best equipped.
And finally, what is smart power? Where does it come from? We know that smart
power is a new and to a certain extent popular concept, which was coined by Joseph
Nye in the USA and is used to describe a new way of dealing with and managing
power. Nye conceptualizes smart power as something lying somewhere between hard
and soft power, a sort of "third way" in the complex jungle of power relations. But
Nye also stresses that smart power is something "beyond" hard and soft, a sort of new
approach that fits particularly well into the realm of international relations and foreign
politics. This is why we will analyse Nye's approach in depth, as well as the US
debate about smart power and the concrete use of this concept by the US
administration. Finally, we will investigate why smart power is becoming popular in
the EU as well. Here again, policy-makers seem confident about using this new
concept as a political programme that involves institutions and policy reforms.
To sum up, my argument is that smart power is definitely a new form of power and
this MPhil dissertation aims at introducing it into the academic debate, studying it
from a theoretical, scientific point of view, investigating its origins, and the historical
and political context in which it gained popularity and – finally – testing its possible
declination in real scenarios of international politics.


The richness of Oscar Wilde's way with words and ideas is given full range in this sparkling collection of short stories written between 1887 and 1891. From the comic tales of The Canterville Ghost and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime to the marvelous fairy stories and fantasies of The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince and The Star Child, we are treated to the extravagance and dexterity of Wilde's exceptional wit, in stories that will appeal to both adults and children. Beautifully illustrated by Charles Robinson and Walter Crane, this Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The Happy Prince & Other Stories also features an afterword by author David Stuart Davies. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.


This article explores the effects of the 2005 bankruptcy amendments in the private student loan market. Overall, our findings suggest that bankruptcy reform failed miserably at helping students.
Using a novel loan-level administrative dataset from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and econometric techniques, we quantify the (a) effect of consumers receiving lower prices as a result of the law and (b) the demand-expansion effect of lower prices leading new consumers to enter the market. Overall, our findings suggest that bankruptcy reform failed miserably at helping students.
First, we show that BAPCPA did not have a significant effect on the price of loans for the lowest credit score individuals relative to individuals with higher credit scores. In other words, students became effectively unable to discharge their loans in bankruptcy, but did not experience a compensating decrease in price. Second, we do see an increase in loan volumes, but since we do not observe a change in prices and we find that the price elasticity of demand for student loans is not significantly different from zero, we do not attribute this change in originations to a price effect. It is thus easy to argue that BAPCPA was not very helpful to students: they lost the ability to discharge their private student loans, but received no discount in return.
Given these findings, we offer some recommendations to reform how student loans are treated in bankruptcy and to regulate private student loans. First, we join with many others in calling for an amendment to the Bankruptcy Code to treat PSLs in the same way as credit cards or other types of unsecured debt are treated. That is: PSLs should be automatically dischargeable in bankruptcy unless the bankruptcy judge finds that the bankruptcy petition has been filed in bad faith. This is, we think, the simplest and best solution to the problems we identify.
Nonetheless, we recognize that rolling back the protection PSL lenders obtained in 2005 may be a hard sell politically. A number of bills have been proposed attempting to do just that and none have gained much traction. Consequently, we propose an alternative. Given students' inelastic demand and the fact that PSL lenders are in a better position to know the true likelihood of loan repayment, the CFPB should implement an ability-to-repay rule similar to the one they have implemented in the mortgage markets. In other words, private student loan lenders would incur liability to borrowers if they originated loans without verifying a borrower's ability to repay that loan. Because this verification is a complex endeavor, we outline some of the features of PSLs that could be packaged as a "qualified PSL," a safe harbor to the ability-to-repay rule.


INTRODUCTION
Tinnitus patients have higher risk of developing anxiety-depressive disorders and decreased quality of life. The reasons why selected patients are able to cope with chronic tinnitus, whereas it represents a disabling symptom for others remain under discussion.

OBJECTIVES
the objective of the study was to determine the tinnitus-related degree of distress along with the prevalence of anxiety-depression disorders in a sample of eighty patients referring for chronic tinnitus at the Department of Otolaryngology of Catholic University of Rome from March to September 2015.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
We administered to all patients the Italian versions of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Furthermore we investigated the correlation among patient's discomfort, severity of hearing loss and age.

RESULTS
Average THI score was 40.85, meaning moderate degree of discomfort; 57.5% of the patients showed HADS scores consistent with high risk of psychiatric comorbidities. A significant linear correlation between THI and HADS scores was demonstrated.

CONCLUSION
We suggest that patients with severe tinnitus-related distress are routinely invited to accomplish psychometric questionnaires, to assess the possibility of a neuropsychiatric evaluation and/or specific pharmacological planning. At this purpose we recommend the administration of HADS, as a reliable and quick instrument.


Neuromuscular strategies employed in multijoint movements during repetitive motion-induced fatigue are still unclear, and movement variability may present a novel way to understand the compensatory control mechanisms that occur during fatigue. The aim of this study was to assess changes in shoulder and elbow joint kinematic variabilities and shoulder-elbow coordination variability associated with neck-shoulder fatigue, and whether these changes affected the spatio-temporal aspects of task performance. Nineteen healthy young adults continuously performed a repetitive pointing task between two targets placed in front of them at shoulder height at 1 Hz until fatigue (Borg CR10 rating of 8). Shoulder and elbow kinematics were recorded and used to compute shoulder abduction-adduction and elbow flexion-extension joint angles, and fingertip trajectories were used to compute the movement time and 3D spatial coordinates of the endpoint in each repetitive pointing movement cycle. Cycle-to-cycle movement variability of the shoulder and elbow joint angles from 15 consecutive forward pointing movements and cycle-to-cycle variability of continuous relative phase between the shoulder and elbow joint angles were compared between the first (baseline) and last (fatigue-terminal) minutes of performance. Shoulder kinematic variability and shoulder-elbow coordination variability were found to significantly increase with fatigue (by 60% and 30% of their respective baseline values). However, movement timing errors and spatial variability of the endpoint were found to be unchanged with fatigue. Results suggest that fatigue-related increase in shoulder variability may have been compensated by changes in shoulder-elbow coordination with an overall task performance objective and associated hierarchical control mechanisms.


I would venture to suggest that the most sensitive critic, the one with the keenest appreciation of the Caribbean woman's story, is inevitably the one who comes to Caribbean literature intent not only in an artistic analysis of the signifying word, or in assessing how much the word conforms to labels constructed outside of its existence, but on developing an understanding of the society that has produced the literature. --Merle Collins, "Framing the Word: Caribbean Women's Writing" (9) Approaching contemporary Caribbean women's literature from a theoretical space in which food studies and literary studies intersect offers a framework to understand the multivalent, cultural politics of identity reclamation in postcolonial literature. This framework grounds the strategies that Caribbean women employ to assert their identities in the local, cultural context. One trait common to both Caribbean food culture and literary culture is the philosophy of "making do," an act of creation using any available resources. (1) As a theory of postcolonial literature, this philosophy reveals the economic enterprise that challenges both agricultural production in postcolonial areas and postcolonial literary production: the strategies by which a positive cultural identity can be reclaimed after colonization, given scarce cultural, economic, and literary resources. To express local identities, instead of those imposed by colonial forces, postcolonial authors often employ images from their everyday material culture. As a phenomenon of material culture, "making do" speaks to the unique cultural and agricultural context of the Caribbean. "Making do" also draws attention to the parallel between movements of agricultural products in an export economy (i.e. exportation, in the sense of goods leaving the country) and the movement of authors as cultural products (i.e. emigration or exile, in the sense of authors leaving the country). This cultural and gastronomic philosophy suggests alternative approaches to concepts of literary genealogy and to the nature of the category of "author." In addition, by focusing on practices that emerge from a scarcity of resources, "making do" lays bare the workings of the export economies of the Caribbean as they impact both agricultural and cultural production. Finally, the cultural politics involved with literary representation of agricultural products and practices, as well as practices of food preparation, reveal the necessity for ethical reading--for new ways of interpreting postcolonial literature so that it is not judged by standards imposed by literary or philosophical traditions of the colonizing culture. "Making do," as a theory of postcolonial literature, offers a method of analysis responsive to new and inventive forms of literariness situated outside of (or in tension with) Western models and paradigms. As a theory of Caribbean women's literature informed by a study of foodways, it takes into account all of the following contexts for Caribbean literature: its material culture, the way Caribbean authors come to writing, and the details of Caribbean economies and the economics of literary production. As an approach to postcolonial literature, "making do" places the study of foodways in dialogue with the politics of literary production to produce a liberated critical discourse capable of articulating the complexity of the postcolonial condition. The History of Export Economy in the Caribbean In a 1998 interview, Guadeloupian writer Maryse Conde identifies the major problem inherent to agricultural production throughout the Caribbean islands. She states: "There is a strike going on right now, a dockers' strike, and right now there is no milk, nor onions on this island. Part of the colonial pact is that Guadeloupians don't grow these things themselves. These are things we need to change." Caribbean people find themselves at a disadvantage in the world economy because of past reliance on exporting goods for the use of other countries and on importing goods for their own use. …


In this dissertation, we consider wireless multi-hop networks, where the nodes are randomly placed. We are particularly interested in their asymptotic properties when the number of nodes tends to infinity. We use percolation theory as our main tool of analysis.

As a first model, we assume that nodes have a fixed connectivity range, and can establish wireless links to all nodes within this range, but no other (Boolean model). We compute for one-dimensional networks the probability that two nodes are connected, given the distance between them. We show that this probability tends exponentially to zero when the distance increases, proving that pure multi-hopping does not work in large networks. In two dimensions however, an unbounded cluster of connected nodes forms if the node density is above a critical threshold (super-critical phase). This is known as the percolation phenomenon. This cluster contains a positive fraction of the nodes that depends on the node density, and remains constant as the network size increases. Furthermore, the fraction of connected nodes tends rapidly to one when the node density is above the threshold. We compare this partial connectivity to full connectivity, and show that the requirement for full connectivity leads to vanishing throughput when the network size increases. In contrast, partial connectivity is perfectly scalable, at the cost of a tiny fraction of the nodes being disconnected.

We consider two other connectivity models. The first one is a signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio based connectivity graph (STIRG). In this model, we assume deterministic attenuation of the signals as a function of distance. We prove that percolation occurs in this model in a similar way as in the previous model, and study in detail the domain of parameters where it occurs. We show in particular that the assumptions on the attenuation function dramatically impact the results: the commonly used power-law attenuation leads to particular symmetry properties. However, physics imposes that the received signal cannot be stronger than the emitted signal, implying a bounded attenuation function. We observe that percolation is harder to achieve in most cases with such an attenuation function.

The second model is an information theoretic view on connectivity, where two arbitrary nodes are considered connected if it is possible to transmit data from one to the other at a given rate. We show that in this model the same partial connectivity can be achieved in a scalable way as in the Boolean model. This result is however a pure connectivity result in the sense that there is no competition and interferences between data flows. We also look at the other extreme, the Gupta and Kumar scenario, where all nodes want to transmit data simultaneously. We show first that under point-to-point communication and bounded attenuation function the total transport capacity of a fixed area network is bounded from above by a constant, whatever the number of nodes may be. However, if the network area increases linearly with the number of nodes (constant density), or if we assume power-law attenuation function, a throughput per node of order 1/√n can be achieved. This latter result improves the existing results about random networks by a factor √log n.

In the last part of this dissertation, we address two problems related to latency. The first one is an intruder detection scenario, where a static sensor network has to detect an intruder that moves with constant speed along a straight line. We compute an upper bound to the time needed to detect the intruder, under the assumption that detection by disconnected sensors does not count. In the second scenario, sensors switch off their radio device for random periods, in order to save energy. This affects the delivery of alert messages, since they may have to wait for relays to turn on their radio to move further. We show that asymptotically, alert messages propagate with constant, deterministic speed in such networks.


Is the purpose of private law to correct wrongs? To promote just distributions? To enhance economic efficiency? Or to protect valuable moral practices and individual autonomy? Theorists have long suspected that all of these ideas may play some role in the justification of private law. Many classical doctrines of contract and tort law seem consistent with wrong-correction and the protection of individual autonomy. Other doctrines, such as the payment of damages as a valid option for a contract party, seem more informed by efficiency considerations. Modern statutory regimes for the protection of consumers, employees or insurance holders are typically understood as efforts to minimize disparities in the distribution of bargaining power across the community.

Described in those terms, private law emerges as a patchwork of different and largely independent justifications of varying breadth and applicability. This book argues that this description is mistaken. Its main thesis is that private law is best understood as having an aim that is both unifying and distinctive. That aim is to articulate reasonably acceptable principles as to when our institutions can legitimately hold agents accountable for the choices they make in their transactions with one another. The moral centre of this account is the idea (proposed in general form by T.M. Scanlon) that the legitimacy of enforcement in the context of private transactions must depend on the value for parties to those transactions of being able to choose under conditions and from a range of alternatives that they could not reasonably reject as a basis for being held so accountable. The proposed value-of-choice account has the potential to explain how wrong-correcting, distributive, efficiency and autonomy considerations can contribute to the justification of private law, namely by affecting the value of agents' choice, while structuring their relative contributions around a single and morally attractive idea.


String kernels directly model sequence similarities without the necessity of extracting numerical features in a vector space. Since they better capture complex traits in the sequences, string kernels often achieve better prediction performance. RNA interference is an important biological mechanism with many therapeutical applications, where strings can be used to represent target messenger RNAs and initiating short RNAs and string kernels can be applied for learning and prediction. However, existing string kernels are not particularly developed for RNA applications. Moreover, most existing string kernels are n-gram based and suffer from high dimensionality and inability of preserving subsequence orderings. We propose a randomized string kernel for use with support vector regression with a purpose of better predicting silencing efficacy scores for the candidate sequences and eventually improving the efficiency of biological experiments. We show the positive definiteness of this kernel and give an analysis of randomization error rates. Empirical results on biological data demonstrate that the proposed kernel performed better than existing string kernels and achieved significant improvements over kernels computed from numerical descriptors extracted according to structural and thermodynamic rules. In addition, it is computationally more efficient.


Purpose: To describe a quick and simple "small-bubble" technique to immediately determine the success of attaining complete Descemet's membrane (DM) separation from corneal stroma through Anwar's "big-bubble" technique of deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK) for complete stromal removal. Methods: A partial trephination was followed by a lamellar dissection of the anterior stroma. Deep stromal air injection was then attempted to achieve the big bubble to help separate the stroma from the DM. To confirm that a big bubble had been achieved, a small air bubble was injected into the anterior chamber (AC) through a limbal paracentesis. If the small bubble is then seen at the corneal periphery, it confirms that the big-bubble separation of DM was successful because the convex nature of the bubble will cause it to protrude posteriorly, forcing the small AC bubble to the periphery. If the small AC bubble is not seen in the corneal periphery, this means that it is present in the centre, beneath the opaque corneal stroma, and therefore the big bubble has not been achieved. Results: We used the small-bubble technique to confirm the presence of the big bubble in three (one keratoconus, one interstitial keratitis and one dense corneal scar) out of 41 patients who underwent DALK. The small-bubble technique confirmed that the big bubble was achieved in the eye of all three patients. Complete stromal removal with baring of the DM was achieved, and postoperatively all three eyes achieved best corrected vision of 6/6. Conclusion: The small-bubble technique can be a useful surgical tool for corneal surgeons attempting lamellar keratoplasty using the big-bubble technique. It helps in confirming the separation of DM from the deep stroma, which is important in achieving total stromal replacement. It will help to make the transition to lamellar keratoplasty smoother, enhance corneal graft success and improve visual outcomes in patients.


Too often in social research for design, academic knowledge is privileged at the expense of other knowledge and ways of knowing, although by overlooking insights from other participants this academic meaning-making may be wasteful and/or damaging to relations. In this paper, we describe a project that focuses on establishing academic/community relations to look at how knowledge issues are handled in setting up participative projects. We touch on the ethics of the 'informed consent' required for the ethics approval process and that of generating and sharing project outcomes in a way that reflects team membership, considering how to share credit, encourage diverse opinion and ensure some value in participating for all participants. Since a key outcome of the study is intended to be policy recommendations as to how to involve community groups in research projects, we take a highly reflexive approach. We reflect here on how we, as academic researchers, became participants and what we made available to our partners in research to do the same.


This title is a substantial revision of one of the leading textbooks designed for the statistical quality control course taught in departments of industrial engineering, operations research and statistics . While maintaining its already successful writing style and pedagogy, this title has also incorporated key organizational changes in order to reflect recent trends in the field. The text features large quantity of examples and student problems and a strong introduction to the proper use and misuse of control charts. In this edition several chapters were streamlined, and consolidations and profitability were brought forward in the text. There is new material on experimental design, a reduced emphasis on acceptance sampling, and enhanced attention to the managerial and organizational aspects of quality control. Free SPC expert software is packaged with the text for use as a statistical and graphical tool. Text plus 3.5 diskette.


We investigate the extent to which information regarding positive environmental activities undertaken by firms has the potential to influence environmental quality, and serve as a tool for regulation. In contrast to news of negative environmental performance, different types of positive environmental activities bear different signals to investors, which in turn implies that the ability of such information to augment regulation is not straightforward. We consider a range of positive environmental activities, and deploy a wide array of statistical tools to assess the impact of news regarding these activities to create financial incentives that may induce a firm to improve actual environmental quality. We find that the largest financial incentives regard self-made announcements of future activities, and bear the least credibility in terms of real environmental improvement. We consider the importance of related, potentially confounding events; differences between environmental disclosure and environmental performance; distributional impacts of public news; and endogeneity in news release. Our findings indicate positive environmental information is unlikely to augment environmental regulation.


We established a real-time PCR method that can simultaneously detect 10 different fusion transcripts (major, minor and micro BCR / ABL, AML1 / MTG8, PML / RAR α, CBF β / MYH11, TEL / AML1, E2A / PBX1, MLL / AF4, and MLL / AF9 ) together with Wilms' tumor gene (WT1 ) transcripts. This screening method allowed the processing of six specimens concomitantly and required only one working day from RNA extraction to final results. Fifty-seven bone marrow (BM) samples from patients with acute leukemia were retrospectively screened for the presence of fusion and WT1 transcripts without knowledge of the cytogenetic data, and the fusion transcripts were detected in 20 of 57 samples (35.1%). The concordance between the present method and cytogenetic analysis was examined in 38 samples in which the cytogenetic data were available. In 12 of 38 samples, the PCR results agreed with the cytogenetic data, whereas in 4 of the remaining 26 samples, the translocations were detected by real-time PCR alone because of the insufficient number of metaphases obtained and presumably the submicroscopic or masked translocations. The WT1 levels ranged from 400 to 690,000 copies/ µ g RNA in BM from leukemia patients, whereas 0-470 copies/ µ g RNA were found in BM cells from BMT donors. This real-time PCR method enables rapid and efficient characterization of acute leukemia in addition to subsequent evaluation of minimal residual diseases.


Purpose: Healthcare organizations are mandated to improve quality and safety for patients while stressed with shorter lengths of stay, communication lapses between disciplines, and patient throughput issues that impede timely delivery of patient care. Nurses play a prominent role in the safe transition of patients from admission to discharge. Although nurses participate in discharge planning, limited research has addressed the role and outcomes of the registered nurse as a leader in the process. The aim of this study was determine if implementation of a nurse-driven discharge planning protocol for patients undergoing cardiac implant would result in improved organizational efficiencies, higher medication reconciliation rates, and higher patient satisfaction scores. Methods: A two-group posttest experimental design was used to conduct the study. Informed consent was obtained from 53 individuals scheduled for a cardiac implant procedure. Subjects were randomly assigned to either a nurse-driven discharge planning intervention group or a control group. Post procedure, 46 subjects met inclusion criteria with half (n=23) assigned to each group. All subjects received traditional discharge planning services. The morning after the cardiac implant procedure, a specially trained registered nurse assessed subjects in the intervention for discharge readiness. Subjects in the intervention groups were then discharged under protocol orders by the intervention nurse after targeted physical assessment, review of the post procedure chest radiograph, and examination of the cardiac implant device function. The intervention nurse also provided patient education, discharge instructions, and conducted medication reconciliation. The day after discharge the principal iii investigator conducted a scripted follow-up phone call to answer questions and monitor for post procedure complications. A Hospital Discharge Survey was administered during the subject's follow-up appointment. Results: The majority of subjects were men, Caucasian, insured, and educated at the high school level or higher. Their average age was 73.5+ 9.8 years. No significant differences between groups were noted for gender, type of insurance, education, or type of cardiac implant (chi-square); or age (t-test). A Mann-Whitney U test (one-tailed) found no significant difference in variable cost per case (p=.437) and actual charges (p=.403) between the intervention and control groups. Significant differences were found between groups for discharge satisfaction (p=.05) and the discharge perception of overall health (p=.02), with those in the intervention group reporting higher scores. Chi square analysis found no significant difference in 30-day readmission rates (p=.520). Using an independent samples t-test, those in the intervention group were discharged earlier (p=.000), had a lower length of stay (p=.005), and had higher rates of reconciled medications (p=.000). The odds of having all medications reconciled were significantly higher in the intervention group (odds ratio, 50.27; 95% CI, 5.62-450.2; p=.000). Discussion/Implications: This is the first study to evaluate the role of the nurse as a clinical leader in patient throughput, discharge planning, and patient safety initiatives. A nurse driven discharge planning protocol resulted in earlier discharge times which can have a dramatic impact on patient throughput. The nurse driven protocol significantly reduced the likelihood of unreconciled medications at discharge and significantly increased patient satisfaction. Follow-up research is needed to determine if a registered


Producers of digital media works increasingly employ technological protection measures, commonly referred to as "digital rights management" (or "DRM") technologies, that prevent the works from being accessed or used except upon conditions the producers themselves specify. These technologies have come under criticism for interfering with the rights users enjoy under copyright law, including the right to engage in fair uses of the DRM-protected works. Most DRM mechanisms are not engineered to include exceptions for fair use, and user circumvention of the DRM may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act even if the use for which the circumvention occurs is itself noninfringing. The academic literature on fair use in digital media has suggested several possible ways to resolve the tension between fair use on the one hand and DRM on the other. Among the more provocative possibilities is that DRM technologies themselves may evolve to incorporate greater built-in protections for end-user rights. This article examines several such proposals and finds that they are not likely to provide users with the same measure of protections for fair use of copyrighted works that exists in the offline world. The failure of these proposals, however, does not suggest that the broader goal of protecting fair use rights in digital media is unattainable. It is possible to advance much more closely towards that goal by altering the design philosophy of DRM technologies to focus more on the processes by which fair uses occur and less on attempting to replicate the substantive law of fair use in machine-administrable form. The article concludes by outlining one possible system engineered to protect the process of fair use.


This paper highlights the essential role of early years teachers and teacher educators in delivering an educational response to promoting a just and sustainable world. ESD/GC has expanded in schools and in further and higher education but has received less attention in early years, particularly in England. In the light of this, we offer an account of a practical project that provides an exemplar of ESD/GC in the early years – the Bat Conservation Project. The Bat Conservation Project has been implemented with young children in England and in a parallel project in Kenya and then used as the basis for a professional development resource for early years teachers. The Bat Project training resource comprises 3 phases/sections bringing together teachers' own perceptions, attitudes and broader understanding of ESD with the implementation of a project with young children under the EYFS principles and the active learning approach and finally the review and future considerations of ways to enhance ESD. Precisely, in phase 1 the project proposes activities that focus on teachers' personal and shared understanding of ESD; phase 2 is about exploring with pre-schoolers the worldwide issue of conservation of protected species (in this case bats); and phase 3 consists of assessing provision and planning further steps in promoting ESD in the Early Years classrooms. All the proposed activities are flexible and can be used by individuals and groups; face-to-face or online. Using this project as a basis, we then explore some of the possibilities and challenges of introducing meaningful curriculum for ESD/GC in the earliest years of education. We draw parallels between the opportunities for experiential learning on offer to the children and strategies for the training and professional development in order to build the knowledge, skills, values and capabilities of early years teachers and other early years practitioners. World OMEP and OMEP UK have been working in this direction by addressing the necessity and urge to consider ESD from Early Childhood onwards in accordance with the United Nation's 2015-2030 sustainable development goals.


In South Africa (SA), childhood tuberculosis (TB) still accounts for considerable morbidity and mortality. The incidence of TB disease and risk of progression to severe or disseminated forms are especially high in young children or those with HIV infection. Childhood TB presents most commonly as primary TB, often with non specific signs and symptoms; TB may also present as acute pneumonia. The clinical diagnosis can therefore be challenging. Furthermore, due to difficulty in obtaining good-quality specimens and the paucibacillary nature of childhood TB, microbiological confirmation is only achieved in a minority of children, especially in settings where there is limited capacity for microbiological confirmation.


Indonesia is one of the world's largest exporters of frogs' legs for consumption as food. The majority of the frogs are
caught in natural habitat on the island of Java - predominantly the Crab-eating Frog Fejervarya cancrivora (75%), and the Giant Javan Frog Limnonectes macrodon (19%). While the greater number of frogs taken is for local consumption, the available data show increasing numbers of frogs' legs have been exported from Indonesia over time - from around 28 t in 1969, rising to around 5600 t in 1992 and then declining to around 3800 t in 2002. A strong increase in exports after 1985 corresponded with the banning in that year of exports of edible frogs from India and Pakistan - formerly the principal exporters of frogs' legs. This paper examines the trade in Indonesia based on export data covering 34 years (1969 to 2002) and market surveys and interviews conducted in 2001 to 2003. Although some concern has been raised about the trade, this paper discusses the possibility that the current level of harvest has not depleted Indonesia's population of edible frogs. However, it is not possible at the moment to state that current harvest levels are not a problem as insufficient information is available on production for the substantial domestic market.


Net blotch is caused by Pyrenophora teres Drechs. (stat. conid. Drechslera teres (Sacc.) Shoem., syn. Helminthosporium teres Sacc). P. teres produces symptoms which appear initially as small necrotic spots and streaks on the leaf. These increase to produce the characteristic net-like symptoms, which have given rise to the name net blotch. Sometimes, lesions develop from small necrotic spots, to form elliptical lesions. This is the "spot" type of P. teres and was first noticed in 1967 in isolates from North America, Mexico, Israel and Holland. It was thought that these isolates were mutants of P. teres. Since 1969 however, other workers have reported similar observations widely occurring in Norway, Denmark and Finland. Based on minor morphological differences, Ito and Kuribayashi proposed a new species, called P. japonica. Smedegård-Petersen disagreed, and showed that the spot-producing isolate represents a deviating type of P. teres, only differing from the usual "net" type in the symptoms induced on barley plants. He based his reasoning on morphological, cultural and genetical investigations. Consequently, Smedegård-Petersen described two new forms of the fungus, Pyrenophora teres Drechs. f. teres Smedeg., which produces the usual net lesions, and Pyrenophora teres Drechs. f. maculata Smedeg., which produces well defined dark brown circular or elliptical lesions without netting. The aim of the research undertaken in the present study was to conduct a comparative study on the morphology and fitness of a range of New Zealand "net" and "spot" type isolates. An attempt was also made at crossing a "net" type with a "spot" type. Although Smedegård-Petersen had stated that there was no morphological difference between the "net" and "spot" types, this project was undertaken because no research had been done on New Zealand isolates. Furthermore, different features were studied using different methods not used by other workers in studying P. teres. The only morphological difference that was distinctive was that the "spot" types of P. teres formed coremial strands, which were fan-like in morphology, which produced conidia in culture, and the "net" types did not. There was no way to tell the "net" isolates apart from the "spot" isolates, based on conidia colour, length, width, volume or the number of cells per conidium. One fact that did emerge, was that the longest conidia had the greatest number of cells per conidium and the reverse was also true. The germination of monoconidial isolates showed that there were no major differences in branching between the two types of P. teres. However, it was revealed that two germ tubes were capable of emerging from one cell in the "spot" isolates. All cells in a conidium in both the "net" and "spot" types were able to germinate, cells that germinated tended to be at opposite ends, and the first cell to germinate in a conidium was usually the cell at the hilum. Examination of the growth rates showed that there were no significant differences in the growth rates of the "net" and "spot" types when grown on MEA+B. The "spot" types were able to penetrate cellulose faster than the "net" types and hence may produce cellulose faster as well. ANT148, which had previously been an unknown type, was proved to be a "spot" type in the pathogenicity tests. It may have been the source of the New Zealand "spot" type inoculum because the seed it came from was imported into New Zealand in 1984, two years prior to the discovery of the "spot" type of P. teres in the South Island. Both forms of P. teres penetrated the leaf through the epidermal cell wall, and occasionally entered through the stomata. Even though the "spot" type may be present inside the leaf, the symptoms are not usually manifested until later, compared with the "net" type where the symptoms tend to be an indication of the amount of hyphae present in the leaf. In the screening of the progeny from the crossing, the "spot" type of P. teres had lost up to 78.9% of its resistance to triadimenol and flutriafol, when compared to the sensitivity tests carried out in 1986 and 1987. It is hypothesised that 13Y, the "net" type is dominant, and the "spot" type, KF2, recessive, as none of the progeny had any resistance to triadimenol or flutriafol, after undergoing somatic recombination. It was concluded that the "spot" and "net" types are two types of the same species, and there was not enough evidence to suggest otherwise. Further studies should be done, using more current isolates of the "net" and "spot" types of P. teres, and the old D. japonica isolates from New Zealand, to establish if the cultures identified as D. japonica, are different in any way.


Contests for the control of information and communication networks and, specifically, for control of digital bits of power (the capacity to control information processing) often take the form of struggles over network neutrality. This article examines how, historically, such struggles have been accompanied by changes in the configuration of ideas or social imaginaries that have legitimized the actions of companies, the state and civil society in relation to the development of networks. The aim is to assess the likelihood that institutional arrangements will be put in place that might privilege citizen interests in preserving an open internet. This, in turn, would strengthen the capacity of citizens to resist power asymmetries that threaten their fundamental rights to privacy, access to information, and freedom of expression in the digital environment. Concepts derived from historical institutionalism and the economic history of technical advances provide a framework for examining continuity and change following the introduction of digital technologies. The analysis shows why a narrow policy focus on network neutrality can obscure the way citizen interests in a digitally mediated environment are subordinated to corporate and state interests. Such obfuscation makes it difficult to assess whether the current period is path dependent and locked in to a single direction for development or whether there is the potential for alternative pathways - a 'forking of the road' - which could be more favourable to citizens.


Abstract This commentary documents the journey of several research initiatives, which focused upon creative pattern cutting. Instigated by a peer-reviewed journal paper entitled, "Insufficient Allure: The Luxurious Art and Cost of Creative Pattern Cutting", the endeavors attempted to elevate concepts of tacit knowledge and the making process as a form of legitimate, academic enquiry. The projects culminated in the first peer-reviewed conference dedicated to the discipline: the First International Symposium for Creative Pattern Cutting, held at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, in February 2013. To trace the impact of the research initiatives, the commentary considers how the skills of the pattern cutter clothe the body with a myriad of shapes and silhouettes. This is discussed in relation to the different pattern cutting techniques that can be utilized to realize three-dimensional form and ways in which the research enterprises have arguably elevated the professional position of the cutter in terms of esteem and remuneration. In order to assess the impact of these initiatives, both within the fashion industry and in the emerging arena of fashion research, some of the different research approaches utilized in practice-based enquiry are identified, along with how results can be arrived at from hands-on experience, inspiring us to develop new ways to pattern cut.


Summary
Although supernatural beliefs often paint a peculiar picture about the physical world, the possibility that the beliefs might be based on inadequate understanding of the non-social world has not received research attention. In this study (N = 258), we therefore examined how physical-world skills and knowledge predict religious and paranormal beliefs. The results showed that supernatural beliefs correlated with all variables that were included, namely, with low systemizing, poor intuitive physics skills, poor mechanical ability, poor mental rotation, low school grades in mathematics and physics, poor common knowledge about physical and biological phenomena, intuitive and analytical thinking styles, and in particular, with assigning mentality to non-mental phenomena. Regression analyses indicated that the strongest predictors of the beliefs were overall physical capability (a factor representing most physical skills, interests, and knowledge) and intuitive thinking style. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Evidence suggests that the reactivity of the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis (HPAA) is modulated by both genetic and environmental variables. Of special interest are the underlying molecular mechanisms driving gender differences to psychosocial stressors. Epigenetic mechanisms that sculpt the genome are ideal candidates for mediating the effects of signals on the HPAA. In the current study, we analyzed by pyrosequencing, bisulfite-treated buccal DNA from male and female university students who participated in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). A linear regression model was used to ascertain the effects of sex, CpG methylation and genes on stress response. Total cortisol output (area under the curve, AUC) was significantly predicted by glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) exon 1F methylation (averaged across 39 CpG sites) solely in female subjects. A single CpG site located in the exon 1F noncanonical nerve growth factor-inducible protein A (NGFI-A) transcription factor was a highly significant predictor of AUC in female subjects. Additionally, variations in the estrogen receptor alpha (ESR1) and the serotonin transporter promoter (5-HTTLPR) genes were independent additive predictors of AUC. The full model accounted for half of the variance (50.06%) in total cortisol output. Notably, this is the first demonstration that epigenetic changes at the GR exon 1F correlate with HPAA reactivity. These findings have important implications for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying gender differences in stress-related disorders and underscore the unique value of modeling both epigenetic and genetic information in conferring vulnerability to stress.


The alternative typologies of visual metaphors proposed by Forceville (1996, 2005) and Phillips and McQuarrie (2004) show some striking similarities with regard to disposition of the visual elements, that is, the source and target domains. The first part of this chapter summarizes the results of two experiments that tested the validity of these classifications with Spanish, French, and Dutch participants and proposes an overall image of the appreciation of the three visual metaphor types. The second part focuses on the interpretations of the metaphors by the Spanish, French, and Dutch participants in the second experiment, to verify whether culture influences the interpretation of the common ground in visual metaphor. We detected subtle cultural differences in focus and interpretive diversity.


Extracted from text ... SA Pharmaceutical Journal - October 2006 12
Conference was a good time to network and collaborate.
Ilse Truter (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University),
Norah Katende-Kyenda (Walter Sisulu University) and
Martie Lubbe (North-West University) use the opportunity
to discuss Norah's thesis.
CUM LAUDE
Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Last month the Academy of
Pharmaceutical Sciences held a
successful joint conference with the
Pharmacological Society (from 20 to 23
September) in Vanderbijlpark.
The 27th AGM of Academy took place
on the Thursday evening. During the
AGM a motion was unanimously
passed amending the constitution. This
amendment will allow the Executive
Committee to appoint an ..


This paper presents a novel multi-label classification framework for domains with large numbers of labels. Automatic image annotation is such a domain, as the available semantic concepts are typically hundreds. The proposed framework comprises an initial clustering phase that breaks the original training set into several disjoint clusters of data. It then trains a multi-label classifier from the data of each cluster. Given a new test instance, the framework first finds the nearest cluster and then applies the corresponding model. Empirical results using two clustering algorithms, four multi-label classification algorithms and three image annotation data sets suggest that the proposed approach can improve the performance and reduce the training time of standard multi-label classification algorithms, particularly in the case of large number of labels.


The design of eHealth systems calls for a clear needs analysis and functions based on the users' perspective. However, this is often the most difficult part of designing eHealth service systems, because of the diversity of users and diversified needs. This paper provides a general mapping and overview of the basic functions of eHealth systems identified through two studies: (1) a comprehensive study of the resource book of eHealth projects under the European Sixth Framework programme (FP6), and (2) a theoretical study based on the framework of Activity Theory. The first study provides the eHealth system designers with an overview of a number of important and particular functions that the users/citizens need in order to get good services; while the second study presents a fundamental 'skeleton' and architecture for providing those particular functions in an orderly and coherent system.


Although the ongoing Ebola epidemic has brought much attention to Liberia, diseases of poverty, such as malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and maternal–newborn complications, rarely make the headlines. Along with the other West African countries that bore the brunt of the epidemic, Liberia ranks near the bottom of the Human Development Index, a composite measure that assesses whether persons enjoy a long and healthy life, can acquire knowledge, and have an adequate standard of living (1). In Liberia, before the Ebola outbreak, ≈50 doctors attempted to care for ≈4 million persons (2). In an already fragile health-care setting, Ebola took a terrible toll: >8% of the health care workforce in Liberia died from the virus (3). The consequences of such a dramatic loss will be felt for years to come, especially in the areas of infectious disease and maternal and infant mortality (3). As we renew our commitment to make Liberia "Ebola free," we should remind ourselves that in the 21st century, Liberians still die from 19th century diseases. The focus must go beyond "getting to zero." As concerned clinicians, we argue that much more work needs to be done.

In early 2015, we went to Grand Gedeh County as short-term clinicians, working with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) to support Liberia's existing health care infrastructure. Unlike emergency response NGOs, our NGO turned its attention to assisting local hospitals, clinics, and communities in their routine, day-to-day health care activities. Tucked away in Liberia's remote southeastern corner, Grand Gedeh County had largely been spared from the epidemic; at that point, only 1 case had been reported since the epidemic's onset. We would not wear the protective space suits so familiar in the public eye. Instead, we would work in surrounding communities, meeting with local health workers and psychosocial officers, or on the wards with Liberian nurses and doctors, tending to persons who suffered, and at times died, from easily preventable diseases.

The public hospital offered a glimpse into the state of Liberian health care facilities in the wake of Ebola. The building itself lacked electricity most hours of the day; it had no running water, and there was a severe shortage of medications and basic supplies. The only available pain medication at the hospital was oral acetaminophen tablets. We witnessed 5 neonatal deaths in 10 days. In the community, we listened to first-hand experiences about the peak of the epidemic from those who had relocated to Grand Gedeh County. They recounted how entire families died in the span of weeks and how fear and stigma rent communities apart. Nonetheless, working alongside and learning from our colleagues and friends filled us with deep admiration and humility. Despite their country's history of war, poverty, and disease, the Liberians we met believe they can create something better.

Indeed, the inner strength and commitment of our Liberian colleagues prompted much self-reflection. In the throes of the epidemic, Liberian health care workers provided care at the expense of their own safety, and many died. Even before Ebola, however, these same health care workers were risking their own health and well-being, and that of their families, by treating patients with TB without respiratory masks or going without basic vaccinations—all fundamental, common-place measures taken in American hospitals. Our contribution as short-term health care providers seemed minuscule compared with the reality that our Liberian colleagues continue to face. This personal struggle was made all the more disturbing by knowing that an exit was already planned for us. Our Liberian colleagues and friends remain.

As we reflect on our brief time in Liberia, we revisit the central issue that compelled us to go: do we, in our position of comfort and relative ease, have a responsibility to help impoverished persons who have an exotic and frightening disease? We still emphatically believe that the answer is yes. But shouldn't we go further and ask whether that responsibility includes diseases and deaths that have become routine, accepted, or rendered invisible?

The story of Ebola confirmed that we are all connected in a complex sphere of exchange—of resources, technologies, ideas—and that the arrangement benefits some more than others. It was not coincidental that so many persons in that part of the world fell ill from the virus. Decades of conflict, economic impoverishment, and a near-nonexistent health care system created a tangle of injustices that set the stage for the epidemic. We share the conviction that these injustices—unfair social, political, and economic arrangements—are the real culprits behind the Ebola epidemic and, in broader terms, today's health disparities. Our participation reminds us that the Ebola experience is but one example of how politics and poverty cause death and suffering on a grand scale.

We should examine how the Ebola epidemic, and the global response to it, fit into this larger picture of health disparities and injustice. Ebola linked Monrovia, Liberia, to Dallas, Texas, USA, and in so doing exposed how interconnected our global society has become. While infected international health workers were evacuated to specialized centers with experimental drugs, infected Africans hoped for supportive care in crowded Ebola treatment units, circumstances that forced us to grapple with the unfairness of today's health care inequities. Despite years of bureaucratic research, financing, and planning, the epidemic's unprecedented scale demanded major reexamination of what is meant by the concept of global preparedness. Thus, in terms of understanding how health disparities should be addressed, Ebola overturned key assumptions: that rich countries can ensure the health of their populations in isolation, that fundamental ethical issues regarding the role of global health agencies and their actors are settled, and that a single, global authority can marshal and coordinate resources effectively (4).

Why don't we apply the same lessons to diseases of poverty and other emerging infectious diseases? De Cock and colleagues note, "It is difficult to explain why investment in separating human drinking water from human feces, the basis of the nineteenth century public health revolution in Europe and North America, has not been a higher political or development priority in resource-poor settings" (5, p. 1195). If we acknowledge our interconnectedness through social, economic, and political dimensions, that there exist severe shortcomings in health equity both within and between countries, and that these challenges require cooperation beyond the traditional donor-recipient model, then perhaps we will come to terms with why deaths from malaria, TB, or diarrheal diseases implicate all of us, and matter (5). Engagement in global health is not just a humanitarian endeavor; it is a priority for our collective well-being.

As the Ebola crisis wanes and media attention shifts away from West Africa, the underlying determinants of health and disease are still in place. The reemergence of Ebola virus infection attests to this, as do the senseless deaths of those who die from easily preventable diseases. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard, one beyond a 42-day Ebola-free countdown. With self-reflection and in a spirit of solidarity, we must continue to articulate that standard and where our responsibility lies in meeting it.


The Mt Todd goldfield is located approximately 40 km northwest of the township of
Katherine, in the Northern Territory, Australia. The goldfield is host to several discrete ore
bodies that strike north-northeast within a broad northeasterly trending corridor of gold
mineralisation. The largest ore body occurs at the Batman mine and constitutes an identified
mineral resource of 92.9 million tonnes at 1.4 git Au.
The goldfield lies in the southern region of the Central Domain of the Pine Creek Inlier and is
hosted by a Palaeoproterozoic sequence of rocks termed the Burrell Creek Formation. The
formation is dominated by greywackes, siltstones, sandstones and shales that exhibit
sedimentary features akin to those of a river-dominant delta front to pro-delta environment.
The formation is conformably overlain by volcanodastic and volcanolithic sediments of the
Tallis Formation (-1890 Ma).
Three deformation events are recognised, viz. , 0 1, 0 2 and 0 3. The earliest deformation, 0 1,
is characterised by close to tight, northeast to northerly to northwesterly trending asymmetric
folds (F1), a continuous axial planar cleavage (S1), and numerous strike-slip faults. The
deformation is associated with the development of buck quartz veins and was preceded by
the emplacement of the Yenberrie Leucogranite of the Cullen Batholith (1835-1820 Ma)
which contact metamorphosed the sediments of the Burrell Creek Formation to hornblendehornfels
facies (H1 ) , with the development of cordierite porphyroblasts (type C1). D1 was coincident with peak regional metamorphism to greenschist facies.
0 2 is associated with westerly trending open folds (F2) , a spaced disjunctive to fracture
cleavage (S2) in transaction to the folds, and strike-slip and normal faults. The deformation is
associated with the development of quartz-tourmaline and gold-bearing quartz-sulphide
veins and lodes. It was preceded by the emplacement of the Tennysons Leucogranite
which contact metamorphosed the Yenberrie Leucogranite of the Cullen Batholith and the
sediments of the Burrell Creek Formation to hornblende-hornfels facies (H2), with the
development of cordierite porphyroblasts (type C2) .
D3 is characterised by the reactivation of strike-slip faults (mostly sinistral), a steeply dipping
Type S3-C type foliation, and mesoscopic en echelon folds (F3) that trend oblique to the
faults in a left stepping (sinistral) array. The faults offset 01 and 0 2 structures. Calcite-base
metal veins and epithermal style quartz veins may have formed during this deformation.

The age of emplacement of the leucogranites, D1 and D2 is constrained by the age of
emplacement of the Cullen Batholith at 1835-1820 Ma. D1 and D2 are correlated with
deformation during the Maud Creek Event (-1850 Ma), while D3 is correlated with
deformation during the Shoobridge Event (-1780 Ma).
Mineralisation in the goldfield is associated with quartz-sulphide veins and lodes that
comprise pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, pyrite, marcasite, loellingite, with minor
galena, sphalerite, bismuth-sulphosalts, ISS CuFeS minerals, and gold. Gold is associated
with bismuth and CH4-rich hypersaline fluid inclusions (29-33 wt% NaCl eq) in trails which
cross-cut early quartz and sulphide. The general vein/lode alteration assemblage comprises
quartz, biotite, muscovite, chlorite, sericite, rutile, accessory tourmaline, chalcopyrite,
pyrrhotite, pyrite or marcasite.
The quartz-sulphide veins and lodes are typified by extension concomitant to hydrothermal
fracturing and/or normal faulting. Across the goldfield, the veins and lodes exhibit a
remarkable similarity with respect to strike geometry, morphology, vein forming process and
isotopic composition. They are located within the thermal aureole of the Tennysons
Leucogranite and strike north-northeast within a corridor that trends northeasterly above a
basement strike-slip fault. They are preferentially hosted in competent rock types such as
greywackes and siltstones. Detailed structural and petrographic analyses has indicated that
the veins and lodes were generated at the same time by hydrothermal activity during
retrograde (contact) metamorphism associated with cooling of the Tennysons Leucogranite,
and early in D2, prior to the development of the regional S2 fabric.
Integrated petrologic, isotopic (sulphur and oxygen) and fluid inclusion studies suggest that
the hydrothermal fluids were chiefly magmatic-metamorphic in origin. The fluids were
enriched in metal and sulphur derived either as magmatic metal or sulphur (from the
Tennysons Leucogranite), or scavenged during fluid-rock reactions from sources in the
sedimentary pile, the Yenberrie Leucogranite, or from sulphide-bearing greisens in the
Yenberrie Leucogranite. Fluid evolution was controlled by retrograde reactions which
accompanied rehydration of the country rock and T ennysons Leucogranite, at low fluid-rock
ratios.
The hydrothermal fluid was reduced in nature and exhibited a tendency to lower fO2 and fS2
concomitant to an overall decrease in temperature and salinity for a given pH. δ34S values of
4.5%o to 13.3%0 indicate that the source for sulphur was mixed (magmatic-sedimentary).
Initial precipitation of crack-seal fibre quartz from a silica-saturated brine occurred during early
retrograde metamorphism by progressive fracturing and sealing of the host rocks. The subsequent precipitation of quartz and tourmaline coincided with a significant vein dilation
event and accompanied decompressive effervescence and boiling of a surface-derived
hydrothermal fluid at a minimum pressure of 180-225 bars or a minimum depth of 1.8 to 2.6
kilometres. Fluid salinity ranged from 1 to 20 wt% NaCl eq: this fluid interacted with a mixed
magmatic-metamorphic fluid.
The precipitation of a silicate-sulphide-carbonate assemblage accompanied an influx of hot
(~ 400°C), acidic (pH ~ 4.0 at 330°C), hypersaline brine (30-50% NaCl-CaCl2). This metal and
sulphur enriched brine was mixed magmatic-metamorphic in origin. The principal cause of
metal deposition was fluid unmixing at a shallow crustal level (minimum depth of 1.8 to 2.6
km) during a decrease in temperature from approximately 370°C to 240°C, a decrease in
salinity from 30-50% NaCl-CaCl2 to 29-33 wt% NaCl eq, and vertical transport of the brine
along joints, fractures and faults. Gold precipitation occurred late in the development of the
silicate-sulphide-carbonate assemblage from a hot (~ 250°C), acidic (pH of 2.3-4.9 at 250°C),
hypersaline brine (29-33 wt% NaCl eq), and accompanied the precipitation of bismuth and
the entrapment of CH4-rich fluid inclusions.
A genetic model for mineralisation in the goldfield invokes sinistral reactivation of a northeasterly
trending basement strike-slip fault under the influence of effective tensile stresses
caused by cooling of the Tennysons Leucogranite. The reactivation of the fault caused
brittle failure in the upper crust and/or dilation of existing north-northeasterly trending faults,
fractures and joints in competent rock types. The generation of dilatant structures, coupled
with a sudden reduction in pressure facilitated channelization of fluid flow into the upper
crust, probably away from convection cells juxtaposed about the cooling leucogranite.
Rising fluids decompressed causing phase separation with mineral precipitation. Throttling
of the conduit or fluid pathways resulted in over-pressuring of the fluid, this giving way to
hydrothermal fracturing and an enhanced permeability.


Metal injection molding (MIM) is a swift manufacturing process, which can produce complex and intricate parts with good repeatability and accuracy. However, to quickly address low-volume demands of customized MIM parts, manufacturing of mold could be a potential challenge. Typically, machined metal molds are used for MIM, but they are expensive and need more lead time. The machined metal mold becomes useless once the design is changed or requirement of MIM parts is met. Therefore, for MIM production of a low volume of highly customized parts, machined metal mold could be substituted by 3D printed polymer molds. However, knowledge of filling behavior of MIM feedstock in polymer mold is a grey area, which demands study to investigate the effects of injection parameters on mold filling. The present study investigates the effects of machine injection parameters on feedstock filling behavior in 3D printed polymer molds. An attempt has been made to determine the trend of feedstock filling in the polymer mold as a function of injection parameters. Further, the design of experiment (DOE) has been used to estimate the weight of injection parameters.


This essay puts Yale critic and cofounder of the New Criticism William K. Wimsatt into the balance with the most influential poet of eighteenth-century England, Alexander Pope. A scholar-collector with a lifelong penchant for Pope's poetry and iconography, Wimsatt molds his influential theoretical paradoxes of abstract particularity after the uniquely embodied poet who made himself inseparable from his art. The elusive power of style connects universal truth to worldly materiality for both writers, giving theoretical abstraction a human likeness.


Scales of conclusion in forensic interpretation play an important role in the interface between scientific work at a forensic laboratory and different bodies of the jurisdictional system of a country. Of particular importance is the use of a unified scale that allows interpretation of different kinds of evidence in one common framework. The logical approach to forensic interpretation comprises the use of the likelihood ratio as a measure of evidentiary strength. While fully understood by forensic scientists, the likelihood ratio may be hard to interpret for a person not trained in natural sciences or mathematics. Translation of likelihood ratios to an ordinal scale including verbal counterparts of the levels is therefore a necessary procedure for communicating evidence values to the police and in the courtroom. In this paper, we present a method to develop an ordinal scale for the value of evidence that can be applied to any type of forensic findings. The method is built on probabilistic reasoning about the interpretation of findings and the number of scale levels chosen is a compromise between a pragmatic limit and mathematically well-defined distances between levels. The application of the unified scale is illustrated by a number of case studies. Language: en


The cross-sectional dynamics of the U.S. business cycle is examined through the lens of quantile regression models. Conditioning the quantiles of firm-level growth to different measures of technological change highlights a deep connection between counter-cyclical skewness and the transmission of aggregate disturbances. Asymmetry reversals emerge as the dominant source of cyclical variation in the probability density, generating a powerful amplification of aggregate shocks to firm technology. Designing and validating heterogeneous firm business cycle models should necessarily account for this empirical finding.


We report an active surveillance study of the occurrence of specific antibodies to European Bat Lyssavirus Type 1 (EBLV-1) in bat species, scarcely studied hitherto, that share the same refuge. From 2004 to 2012, 406 sera were obtained from nine bat species. Blood samples were subjected to a modified fluorescent antibody virus neutralization test to determine the antibody titer. EBLV-1-neutralizing antibodies were detected in six of the nine species analyzed (Pipistrellus pipistrellus, P. kuhlii, Hypsugo savii, Plecotus austriacus, Eptesicus serotinus and Tadarida teniotis). Among all bats sampled, female seroprevalence (20.21%, 95% CI: 14.78%–26.57%) was not significantly higher than the seroprevalence in males (15.02%, 95% CI: 10.51%–20.54%). The results showed that the inter-annual variation in the number of seropositive bats in T. teniotis and P. austriacus showed a peak in 2007 (>70% of EBLV-1 prevalence). However, significant differences were observed in the temporal patterns of the seroprevalence modeling of T. teniotis and P. austriacus. The behavioral ecology of these species involved could explain the different annual fluctuations in EBLV-1 seroprevalence.


The linkage between foreign policy and hegemony is admitted but has not been systematically analysed in the study of Turkish foreign policy. One of the key reasons for this is the absence of analytical tools that conceptualise the linkage between foreign policy and hegemony. In response to this gap, this study presents postfoundational/post-structural analytical tools to study the linkage. In addition, it applies those tools to analyse the far-reaching transformation in Turkish-American relations in the context of Turkey's search for a new subjectivity in world politics. It argues there have been two main periods in Turkish-American relations since the AK Party came to power: an era of "lack of understanding" between the years 2002 and 2006, and the era after the parties had come to a "new understanding" since 2006.


In the last few years the amount of research regarding gait analysis has increased considerably. The emergence of new technologies makes it possible to accurately measure a wide amount of gait aspects, detecting multiple physical disabilities and syndromes. In this sense, frailty syndrome describes elderly people who are dependent on others to perform basic needs. Obviously, the study and detection of frailty considers a set of parameters from different domains mainly from a clinical viewpoint. However, the functional domain has been classically appreciated as the independence level of a person, and the gait activity as the main predictor of functional disorders. Thus, gait analysis can be used in the detection and diagnosis of frailty. Development of mobile technologies and sensor devices facilitates the gait study, providing relevant information about the health condition of the person. Acquisition, segmentation, filtering, and depth analysis are the main stages in the treatment of the gait signal. This chapter presents a detailed study of gait activity from a quantitative viewpoint, taking into account multiple sensors and devices, as well as several analysis techniques. We study the use of accelerometer-enabled devices, pressure sensors, and cameras to collect gait data, which provides details according to our experience about the pros and cons of using specific and general purpose devices. Also, the estimation of gait parameters and the application of classification algorithms in gait analysis are discussed. We present three experimental systems that analyse gait parameters by using different devices and procedures and consider other relevant factors to support frailty detection. From the deployment of these systems, some results and conclusions are shown.


We propose a strategy for implementing parallel I/O interfaces portably and efficiently. We have defined an abstract device interface for parallel I/O, called ADIO. Any parallel I/O API can be implemented on multiple file systems by implementing the API portably on top of ADIO, and implementing only ADIO on different file systems. This approach simplifies the task of implementing an API and yet exploits the specific high performance features of individual file systems. We have used ADIO to implement the Intel PFS interface and subsets of MPI-IO and IBM PIOFS interfaces on PFS, PIOFS, Unix, and NFS file systems. Our performance studies indicate that the overhead of using ADIO as an implementation strategy is very low.


A sequence of analytical solutions explore the spectrum of response patterns expected for unsteady elastic-compressible flow in pipes. Complete analytical details of the solutions are provided, together with specific suggestions for an associated set of analytical benchmark tests. Illustrations of predicted response patterns provide the basis for a discussion of many significant physical aspects and their representation in discrete numerical codes. An evaluation of the incompressible flow approximation completes the discussion.


This paper begins with the basic premise that noise is an inescapable feature of modern life and considers how inadequate sound insulation exacerbates the problems associated with noise pollution. The obvious mechanism for ensuring that buildings are constructed so as to provide sufficient sound insulation is the building control regime contained in the Building Regulations. The paper proceeds to analyse the building regulations and highlights the deficiencies which seriously inhibit their efficacy in terms of providing protection from excessive noise. The central issue therefore, is the extent to which the law of nuisance (both common law and statutory) is capable of providing an effective remedy in situations where the Building Regulations are in-applicable. It will be contended that following the House of Lords decision in Baxter v London Borough of Camden, the utility of common law nuisance has been radically undermined as a solution and this has a knock on effect in relation to statutory nuisance where the term 'nuisance' is given its common law definition. For a period of time it did seem that section 70(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, relating to the state of premises, provided a solution to external noise but statutory and case law developments have seriously undermined the effectiveness of section 70(1)(a) in this regard. It is therefore submitted that if the law of nuisance is to have any utility as a remedy for inadequate sound insulation it is essential that the courts adopt a definition of the phrase 'prejudicial to health' which is sufficiently wide to cover the adverse psychological effects of noise.


This paper describes a theory of amplified spontaneous emission in index-guided multimodal waveguide structures. It is based on a perturbation approach taking into account the correlated excitation of the different guided modes of the unperturbed waveguide. The coupling between these modes due to the propagation through a perturbed waveguide is taken into account by deducing evolution equations of the cross correlations between the modal amplitudes. Eventually, a beam propagation method program, including the spontaneous emission model, has been used for a comparison of the noise characteristics of a single-mode SOA with a 1-by-1 multimode interference semiconductor optical amplifier. Experiments have been performed confirming the obtained simulation results.


Obstetrics and gynaecology are vast subjects. Each contains 40 elements or so, many of which subdivide into separate topics. Medical students are expected to acquire knowledge of these in 6 weeks, 2 months or 3 months, and will be examined by someone who may have been rereading the information for 25 years. Medical students suffer from a further problem - someone once said, 'What I hear, I forget; what I see, I remember; what I do, I understand.' A student may never see one of the conditions in the exam and may never have been actively involved in the process of choice regarding investigation or management. The result may be that, to the untrained examiner, a bright student may appear ignorant, foolish or careless, and may be inappropriately marked down.


The duty to capture stands at the fault line between competing legal regimes that might govern targeted killings. If human rights law and domestic law enforcement procedures govern these killings, the duty to attempt capture prior to lethal force represents a cardinal rule that is systematically violated by these operations. On the other hand, if the Law of War applies then the duty to capture is fundamentally inconsistent with the summary killing already sanctioned by jus in bello. The following article examines the duty to capture and the divergent approaches that each legal regime takes to this normative requirement, and evaluates internal debates within these regimes over when a duty to capture might apply. At issue in these debates, regardless of the body of law that applies, is the scope and content of the concept of necessity, i.e. when is it truly necessary to target an individual with lethal force. The key question is whether a unified and trans-regime understanding of the concept could promote doctrinal unity across legal regimes. However, this article concludes that the concept of necessity stubbornly defies such attempts; necessity is a term of art with a distinct history and meaning in each body of law, and unification of these meanings can only come at the cost of betraying the fundamental precepts of one legal regime over the other. Part I begins by examining the scope of international humanitarian law and concludes that the current literature often unduly constrains its application; a new analysis is offered of the classification of armed conflicts, the level of organization required before a non-state actor can be a party to an armed conflict, and the legal geography of armed conflict. Part II examines the concept of necessity and concludes that military necessity (destruction of "life and limb" related to the war aim) is fundamentally incompatible with human rights law and its understanding of necessity as the least-restrictive means. Finally, Part III concludes that the IHL regime, and its permissive notion of military necessity, should apply when the state is acting as a belligerent against other co-equal belligerents, but that human rights law, and its more restrictive notion of necessity, should apply when the state acts as a sovereign over its own subjects. However, being a U.S. citizen does not automatically make an individual a "subject" under a sovereign, as opposed to a belligerent. Rather, this article concludes that belligerency is always a relationship between collectives, and that the relevant question is whether the United States stands in a relationship of belligerency to a non-state organization of which the individual is a member.


"Leichte Sprache" as the equivalent concept to Easy-to-read and a form of accessible communi-cation has been established in the German-speaking countries since the early 2000s. It is ad-dressed to people with learning disabilities and other groups with difficulties in reading and understanding (simple and complex) written text. In 2009 the German government ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thereby committed itself to provid-ing accessible information and communication. However, the concept's scientific exploration is still in its early stages. The existing lists of linguistic features and design rules were devel-oped mainly intuitively. A systematic empirical investigation of "Leichte Sprache" is still to be done. The current practice is often slanted towards (over-)simplification, reduction of infor-mation, of lexical and grammatical variety and of stylistic differentiation.
 "Leichte Sprache" is intended as a means of supporting and enabling participation in different areas of life for the target group. The article wants to investigate the chances and problems of this accessible form of communication as a prerequisite for and a means of political participa-tion from a linguistic point of view. By way of example three texts are linguistically analysed and compared: For the elections to the Bundestag in 2013 the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) released three manifestos, one regular version, one version modified into "Leichte Sprache" and one version modified into einfache Sprache, which is a similar concept allowing more complexity than "Leichte Sprache". The linguistic analysis mainly focuses on the different strategies regarding the presentation of content, regarding lexis, adequate realisation of text type and function as well as on semantic and pragmatic aspects (frames, speech acts). Subsequently, the article discusses which consequences result from the different linguistic presentations with a view to enabling democratic participation.


This study considers the time series relationship between bank fee income and bank net interest margins in Australia, applying panel vector autoregressions to a unique, hand-collected dataset. Increases in bank fee income are being used to supplement decreases in net interest margins. The increase in magnitude of fee income associated with reductions in margin income is smaller than the decrease in net interest margins, resulting in a net wealth transfer favouring users of bank services; although not all users of bank services gained and/or gained equally. The overall increase in fee income is marginally greater that the reduction in margin income. It is argued that banks have responded to falling margin revenue by increasing their range of fee-based services, especially insurance. Increases in fee income are found to pre-date declines in margin income, thus Australian banks were pro-active in the process of disintermediation. JEL Classifications: G21, G11, C33


Random sampling has found numerous applications in computer science, statistics, and physics. The most widely applicable method of random sampling is to use a Markov chain whose steady state distribution is the probability distribution r from which we wish to sample. After the Markov chain has been run for long enough, its state is approximately distributed according to 7r. The principal problem with this approach is that it is often difficult to determine how long to run the Markov chain. In this thesis we present several algorithms that use Markov chains to return samples distributed exactly according to r. The algorithms determine on their own how long to run the Markov chain. Two of the algorithms may be used with any Markov chain, but are useful only if the state space is not too large. Nonetheless, a spin-off of these two algorithms is a procedure for sampling random spanning trees of a directed graph that runs more quickly than the Aldous/Broder algorithm. Another of the exact sampling algorithms presented here is much more efficient and may be used on Markov chains with huge state spaces, provided that they have a suitable special structure. Many Markov chains of practical interest have this structure, including some from statistical mechanics, and this exact sampling algorithm has already been implemented by the author and others. One example from physics is the random cluster model, which generalizes the Ising and Potts models. Of particular interest are the so-called critical exponents, which characterize the singular behavior of quantities such as the heat capacity and spontaneous magnetization at a certain critical temperature. In this thesis we also see how to use these sampling algorithms to generate (perfectly random) "omnithermal" random cluster samples. Given a single such sample, one can quickly read off a random Potts configuration at any prescribed temperature. We include preliminary results on the use of omnithermal samples to estimate the critical exponents. Thesis Supervisor: James G. Propp Title: Assistant Professor Dedicated to the memories of Helen Elizabeth Hughes Wilson and Carrie Lee. For Mom, Dad, and Janet.


The almost complete translation of shell accretion to vertical growth was a successful morphogenetic adaptation of rudist bivalves, which replaced coral-algal-hydrozoan communities in most Tethyan shallow-marine environments during the Cretaceous. Growth rates of rudist shells are, therefore, important in reconstructions of Cretaceous shallow-marine benthic communities. Carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions were analyzed in sclerochronological profiles through the shells of two Late Cretaceous rudist bivalves from Greece and Turkey. Values of δ 13 C vary between +0.8‰ and +2.2‰ in the hippuritid Vaccinites ultimus and between +0.8‰ and +2.6‰ in the radiolitid Gorjanovicia cf. costata . Ranges in δ 18 O are −5.3‰ to −2.9‰ and −4.6‰ to −2.1‰, respectively. A distinct cyclicity of δ 13 C and δ 18 O in both shells reflects Late Cretaceous seasonality and indicates annual vertical-growth increments of 45 mm in V. ultimus and 54 mm in Gorjanovicia . The concentrations of minor elements are similar to those of extant bivalves with low-Mg calcite shells.