Abstract Meltwater ponds are one of the most widespread aquatic habitats in ice-free areas of continental Antarctica. While most studies of such systems occur during the Antarctic summer, here we report on ice formation and water column attributes in four meltwater ponds on the McMurdo Ice Shelf during autumn, when they went from ice-free to > 80 cm thickness of ice. Ice thickness grew at an average rate of 1.5 cm d-1 in all ponds and as ice formed, salts and gases were excluded. This resulted in conductivity rising from 3–5 to > 60 mS cm-1 and contributed to the ebullition of gases. Incorporation of gas bubbles in the ice resulted in a high albedo and under-ice irradiance declined faster than incident, the former falling below 1 W m-2 (daily average) by early April. After two months of ice formation, only 0–15% of the volume of each pond was still liquid, although this represented 5–35% of the pond sediment area, where much of the biological activity was concentrated. We suggest that the stresses that the freezing process imposes may be as important to structuring the biotic communities as those during the more benign summer growth period.


Is it possible to revert the resource curse through institutional reform? Evidence suggests that there is a negative relationship between abundance of natural resources and economic growth, political stability, democracy, and peace. However, evidence illustrating how institutional reform can revert this situation is scarce. In this paper, we exploit an institutional reform that took place in Colombia in 2011. We evaluate the effects of the reform to the royalties system, that modified the allocation rule of these rents but also introduced important changes in terms of control and accountability, on the living standards of Colombian households. We instrument municipality-level allocations of royalties using international variations in the price of oil, and we find that the reform had important effects on several household welfare indicators. We find positive impacts on important dimensions, such as poverty, income, employment, housing conditions, health, and education, among others. Results are mixed or null in other areas, such as formality or employment in the service sector. We test for different channels explaining these effects, which include theories of state capacity, competition for resources, and increased control and accountability. Our evidence supports the state capacity mechanism.


Abstract Background: Guidelines recommend primary prophylactic use of colony-stimulating factor (PP-CSF) when risk of febrile neutropenia (FN) – based on chemotherapy and patient risk factors – is high. Whether and how PP-CSF use may have changed over time (e.g. due to guideline revisions, increasing use of myelosuppressive regimens, controversy regarding inappropriate CSF use), and whether there has been a concomitant change in the incidence of FN, is unknown. Methods: A retrospective cohort design and data from two US healthcare claims repositories were employed. The study population included patients who had non-metastatic cancer of the breast, colon/rectum, lung or ovaries, or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), and who received myelosuppressive chemotherapy regimens with an intermediate/high risk for FN. For each patient, the first cycle of the first course was characterized in terms of PP-CSF use and FN episodes. Crude incidence proportions for PP-CSF and FN during the first cycle were estimated by calendar quarter (2010–2016); multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate quarter-specific adjusted mean probabilities of FN by PP-CSF use. Results: The study population totaled 142,730 patients with breast cancer (61%), colorectal cancer (14%), NHL (11%), ovarian cancer (10%) or lung cancer (5%). PP-CSF use increased from 52% in 1Q2010 to 58% in 4Q2016; pegfilgrastim was the most commonly used agent (>96% across quarters). PP-CSF administration on the same day as chemotherapy ranged from 8 to 11% until 1Q2015, and increased to 64% by 4Q2016. Adjusted incidence proportions for FN in the first chemotherapy cycle ranged from 2.7% (95% CI: 2.3–3.0) to 3.7% (95% CI: 3.1–4.3) among those who did not receive PP-CSF, and was 2.6% (95% CI: 2.5–2.7) across quarters among those who received PP-CSF. Conclusions: Although the use of PP-CSF is commonplace in current US clinical practice, underutilization in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy regimens with an intermediate/high risk for FN may still be an issue. Use of same-day PP-CSF increased markedly from the end of 2015, although this finding reflects (at least in part) increased uptake of pegfilgrastim delivered via an on-body injector as well as the recent change in clinical practice guidelines. Overall, patients receiving PP-CSF appear to have a lower risk of FN during the first cycle of chemotherapy.


Failure mechanisms exposed by environmental accelerating testing methods such as thermal cycling or thermal shock test, may differ from those at service operating conditions. While the device is heated up or cooled down evenly on its external surface during environmental testing, real operating powered devices experience temperature gradients caused by internal local heating, components' different heat dissipation capability, and ambient temperature variation, etc. In this study, a power cycling technique is introduced to better approximate the field operating conditions so as to activate the field failure modes. Power cycling thermal fatigue test is performed with different ball grid array solder joints, that is, lead contained [Sn/37 Pb (SP)] and lead free [Sn/4.0Ag/0.5 Cu (SAC)], and the result is compared. In order to account for the thermal fatigue life behavior discrepancy for different solder joint composition, real time Moire interferometry is applied to measure the global/local thermo-mechanical behavior during power cycling excursion. Effective damage parameter, the total average shear strain, is extracted from the experiment and applied to account for the difference in fatigue life result of two different solders. In addition, amount of experimentally measured total average shear strain is mutually verified with finite element method analysis. It is clear that total average shear strain of a solder joint can be an effective damage parameter to predict thermo-mechanical fatigue life. A physical mechanism in terms of thermal material property of solder joints' is proposed to offer some thoughts to abnormal shear strain behavior that leads to discrepancies in fatigue life of two solders. An importance of power cycling testing method is emphasized for certain package designs.


There is a very close relationship between the amplitude of the first heart sound and the cardiac contractility. We previously presented the concept of cardiac contractility variability (CCV) and an analysis method. On the basis of the findings from the authors' observation and other previous studies, a conclusion can be made that the variability of the first heart sound amplitude is a reflection of CCV. We found that an increase of the amplitude of the first heart sound can be seen on the phonocardiogram obtained even after a small workload exercise. We defined the increase of the amplitude of the first heart sound after accomplishing different exercise workloads, with respect to the amplitude of the first heart sound recorded at rest as cardiac contractility change trend (CCCT). CCCT implies information about cardiac contractility and cardiac reserve. To explore the significance of CCCT for evaluating cardiac contractility reserve of a patient or an athlete, we carried out a study on cardiac contractility change trend, the methods and the results of which are presented.


Inclusion and usage of humpback whale song within the context of an electroacoustic or acoustic ensemble has been used in recent twentieth and twenty-first century literature such as George Crumb's Vox Balaenae. New humpback whale song research techniques enable composers to create more representative ways, than previously used, to effectively capture the sound environments of the wild by using instrumental and vocal imitation or through the inclusion. I have composed a piece, Song of the Sirens, with a researched use of the aforementioned techniques and an understanding of the pitch material, contour, and development of humpback whale song. In Song of the Sirens, I present the songs of the humpback whale to be that of the mythological creature, the Siren. This thesis investigates the deeper connection between humpback whale song and composition by including the compositional techniques informed by new research of humpback whale song and the process in which the techniques may be adapted for human composition. I provide original research led by Dr. Patricia Gray, Senior Research Scientist, at the Music Research Institute of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Appendix A/Appendix B), a score of the work (Appendix C), and the Max/MSP patches used to perform the electronic component of the composition (Appendix D).


Prisoner reentry is widely recognized as a hybrid project of poverty governance situated at the intersection of the welfare state and penal state. Numerous scholars have examined the devolved terrain and organizational dynamics of reentry services. Still others have emphasized the particular challenges and importance of housing to the reentry process. However, few have examined how reentry organizations secure or manage housing for their clients, particularly in an era marked by a widespread housing affordability crisis and the retrenchment of public housing in favor of privatized subsidized housing provision. In this article, we present an ethnographic case study of one particularly illustrative site: "New Beginnings," a new and novel housing development in Syracuse, NY, codeveloped and comanaged by a prisoner reentry organization and a local housing authority. We show that, despite its ostensible mission to integrate the formerly incarcerated and provide much-needed housing to the poor, the development reproduces the stigma of criminal history, producing a sense of ambivalence among residents, who are both grateful for the quality of their new housing and resentful of ongoing forms of carceral supervision and control. In turn, formerly incarcerated residents uphold their participation in the program as a way to distinguish themselves from traditional public housing tenants, further entrenching dominant narratives about the failures of public housing. These findings reveal the complex interplay between the project of reentry and the provision of subsidized housing in the post-public housing era.


This paper constitutes the first stage of an analysis of the problem of aid allocation when the donor is sensitive to both needs and governance considerations and is moreover able to influence local governance through its own disciplining effort. In this first stage, we write a principal-agent model of the relationship between a donor and a single recipient country. One key and original feature is the assumed comparability between domestic and donor-imposed disciplines: the two types can be summed up to obtain an aggregate discipline. We show that, paradoxically, an (exogenous) improvement of domestic discipline may be over-compensated by the donor so that total discipline actually decreases and elite capture increases. The relationship between domestic and total disciplines may thus be non-monotonous so that no simple general testable prediction can be inferred from economic theory regarding the impact of aid even controlling for domestic governance.


In order for machine learning to garner widespread public adoption, models must be able to provide interpretable and robust explanations for their decisions, as well as learn from human-provided explanations at train time. In this work, we extend the Stanford Natural Language Inference dataset with an additional layer of human-annotated natural language explanations of the entailment relations. We further implement models that incorporate these explanations into their training process and output them at test time. We show how our corpus of explanations, which we call e-SNLI, can be used for various goals, such as obtaining full sentence justifications of a model's decisions, improving universal sentence representations and transferring to out-of-domain NLI datasets. Our dataset thus opens up a range of research directions for using natural language explanations, both for improving models and for asserting their trust


The growth of the global hydrogen market demands more efficient industrial processes for its production. Hydrogen can be produced from renewable or nuclear sources, using electricity as an intermediate energy carrier. However, industrially is produced mainly by steam reforming of methane or other hydrocarbons and also by gasification of coal and oil refining residues. Methane steam reforming (MSR) is being used for decades, despite the severe operating conditions (high temperatures and pressures) and low-energy efficiency, which challenges the development of more efficient and reliable processes. The present chapter provides an overview of hydrogen production via MSR, purification processes and procedures for enhancing the hydrogen production. Sorption-enhanced and membrane-enhanced reactors, considering selective CO2 sorption removal from the reaction bulk and selective hydrogen membrane permeation are, respectively, addressed. Particular attention was paid to the recently proposed hybrid sorption-enhanced membrane reactor (HSEMR), in which sorption and permeation processes occur inside the reforming reactor. This technology allows lower operating temperatures, produces hydrogen with higher purity and exhibits higher reaction conversions than sorption or membrane reactors. The major contributions in this field are reviewed and the advantages and drawback of each approach are discussed in detail.


Run-time verification is a technique to reason about a program correctness. Given a set of desirable properties and a program trace from the inspected program as an input, the monitor module verifies that properties hold on this trace. As this process is taking place at a run time, one of the major drawbacks of run-time verification is the execution overhead caused by a monitoring activity. In this thesis, we intend to minimize this overhead by presenting a collection of parallel verification algorithms. The algorithms verify properties correctness in a parallel fashion, decreasing the verification time by dispersion of computationally intensive calculations over multiple cores (first level of parallelism). We designed the algorithms with the intention to exploit a data-level parallelism, thus specifically suitable to run on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), although can be utilized on multi-core platforms as well. Running the inspected program and the monitor module on separate platforms (second level of parallelism) results in several advantages: minimization of interference between the monitor and the program, faster processing for non-trivial computations, and even significant reduction in power consumption (when the monitor is running on GPU). This work also aims to provide a solution to automated run-time verification of C programs by implementing the aforementioned set of algorithms in the monitoring tool called GPU-based online and offline Monitoring Framework (GooMF). The ultimate goal of GooMF is to supply developers with an easy-to-use and flexible verification API that requires minimal knowledge of formal languages and techniques.


This study investigates the relationships between Internet addiction and the areas of life satisfaction and positive or negative affects in Turkish adolescents. The research sample comprised 358 students studying in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at four different middle schools in Canakkale city centre during the 2012–2013 academic year, of which 189 (52.8%) were females and 169 (48.2%) were males. Of the participants, 131 (37%) were sixth graders, 90 (25%) were seventh graders and 137 (38%) were eighth graders. The Internet Addiction Scale, the Multidimensional Student's Life Satisfaction Scale and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience were used as data collection instruments in the study. Research data was analysed using Pearson's product-moment correlation technique and multiple linear regression. The results indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between Internet addiction and school and family satisfaction, and a significant positive relationship between Internet addiction and negative affects. The regression analysis results indicated that school satisfaction and negative affects are important predictors of Internet addiction. The results suggested that increasing adolescents' school satisfaction and developing their ability to regulate their emotions might be useful in decreasing Internet addiction.


This paper argues that Causal Layered Analysis aka CLA is a method of the multiple that offers a process-theory of knowledge that facilitates new becomings and alternative futures. It makes the case that agency and social learning are enhanced through understanding human contexts as layered and dynamic. To do so it draws on the work of French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari who offer the organic metaphor of the rhizome as a way to understand the hybrid and multiple nature of reality. CLA is an ideal vehicle for articulating this insight and enabling futures practitioners in their work to empower those in contexts to realise their preferred futures.


Today Kahnawa:ke ('at the rapids') is a community of approximately seventy-two hundred Mohawks, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal. One of the largest Mohawk communities, it is known in the modern era for its activism - a traditionalist, energetic impulse with a long history. "Kahnawa:ke" examines the development of traditionalism and nationalism in this Kanien'keka:ka (Mohawk) community from 1870 to 1940. The core of Kahnawa:ke's cultural and political revitalization involved efforts to revive and refashion the community's traditional political institutions, re-forge ties to and identification with the Iroquois Confederacy, and reestablish the traditional longhouse within the community. Gerald F. Reid interprets these developments as the result of the community's efforts to deal with internal ecological, economic, and political pressures and the external pressures for assimilation, particularly as they stemmed from Canadian Indian policy.Factionalism was a consequence of these pressures and an important ingredient in the development of traditionalist and nationalist responses within the community. These responses within Kahnawa:ke also contributed to and were supported by similar processes of revitalization in other Iroquois communities. Drawing on primary documents and numerous oral histories, "Kahnawa:ke" provides a detailed ethnohistory of a major Kanien'keka:ka community at a turbulent and transformative time in its history and the history of the Iroquois Confederacy. It not only makes an important contribution to the understanding of this vital but little studied community but also sheds new light on recent Iroquois history and Native political and cultural revitalization. Gerald F. Reid is an associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.


What information would people like to have? What information would they prefer to avoid? How does the provision of information bear on welfare? And what does this mean for food policy? Representative surveys in eleven nations find that substantial percentages of people do not want to receive information even when it bears on health, sustainability, and consumer welfare. Nonetheless, substantial percentages of people also do want to receive that information, and people's willingness to pay for information, contingent on their wanting it, is mostly higher than people's willingness to pay not to receive information, contingent on their not wanting it. We develop a model and estimate the welfare effects of information provision. We find substantial benefits and costs, with the former outweighing the latter. The results suggest that in principle, policymakers should take both instrumental and hedonic effects into account when deciding whether to impose disclosure requirements for food, whether the domain involves health, safety, or moral considerations. If policymakers fail to consider either instrumental or hedonic effects, and if they fail to consider the magnitude of those effects, they will not capture the welfare consequences of disclosure requirements. Our evidence has concrete implications for how to think about, and capture, the welfare consequences of such requirements with respect to food.<br>


Regulatory transparency is traditionally regarded as the primary means for strengthening the public accountability of administrative agencies. However, the effectiveness of transparency policies is undermined by agencies' resistance to public exposure and lack of public engagement. The introduction of technology into regulatory transparency policies is often envisioned as a powerful game-changer that could overcome these past hurdles. This Article challenges this common perspective, complicating the marriage between transparency, technology, and public accountability. First, the Article develops a new analytic typology of online transparency policies: a) mandatory transparency (e.g., e-rulemaking and online disclosure of federal spending), b) discretionary transparency (online release of governmental databases), and c) involuntary transparency (regulatory reaction to online leaks of information). Analyzing the effects of these policies on the public accountability of federal agencies, the Article demonstrates that both their design and implementation are flawed. They do not account for agencies' resistance to exposure, reinforce traditional pitfalls of transparency policies, and fail to strengthen public accountability. Against this backdrop, the Article advocates a major reappraisal of online regulatory transparency in the United States. It argues that transparency policies should be goal-oriented and more narrowly tailored to target accountability-related information. As part of this, agencies should be required to release structured information on their decision-making processes and performance. This transparency regime should be complemented with effective institutional and civil society-oriented enforcement measures - an element which is currently missing from the architecture of regulatory transparency. The Article examines the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed transparency regime and discusses the role of the internet in this framework.


For a long time, there has been a tradition in China of experienced teachers helping beginning teachers. This empirical school study investigates the kinds of support that are provided by eight dyads of mentoring teacher and first‐year secondary school teachers in Guangzhou of southern China and the major factors affecting mentoring support. In addition, this research focuses on the professional development of first‐year teachers in areas of subject knowledge, student, teaching and classroom management. The findings reveal that mentors provide four forms of support: provision of information, mutual lesson observation, collaborative lesson preparation and discussion in the office. Factors affecting mentoring support include teaching workload, grade and subject, style of mentor–protégé interactions, relationships between mentor and mentee, incentives for the mentors, and collegial culture in the case study schools. It is notable that there are positive and negative developments perceived by the protégé and the foci of mentoring tend to be the teaching of content rather than curriculum and pedagogy.


Background: The rule of fifths describes the facial proportions in a transverse relation. This study aimed to evaluate the transverse facial proportions by the rule of fifths in a sample of Iraqi adult males with class I normal occlusion, and to find if there is a correlation between alar width and the distance between the inner canthus and between the mouth width and the distance between the points at the most medial margin of the iris of the eyes. Materials and methods: The sample of this study consisted of 50 Iraqi adults, dental male students of 18-25 years of age. After clinical examination of each individual, a full frontal facial photograph with a cephalostat head position was taken for each individual. Each photograph with facial landmarks and measurements was analyzed by AutoCAD 2014 program and then were subjected to statistical analysis which included the descriptive statistics of the measured variables. Results and conclusions: The statistical analysis showed that there was a non-significant difference between the medial two fifths on the right side and the left side of the face, and a highly significant difference between the lateral two fifths on the right and the left side of the face, since a small degree of facial asymmetry is present in most individuals and it is considered to be a normal feature. Pearson correlation coefficient showed a high significant and moderate correlation between interalar width and inner canthal distance and a high significant and moderate correlation between the mouth width and the distance between the points at the most medial margin of the iris of the eyes, since these measurements are considered to be a part of the symmetrical face (normal transverse facial proportions).


An aquaplanet model is used to study the nature of the highly persistent low-frequency waves that have been observed in models forced by zonally symmetric boundary conditions. Using the Hayashi spectral analysis of the extratropical waves, the authorsfind that a quasi-stationary wave 5 belongs to a wave packet obeying a well-defined dispersion relation with eastward group velocity. The components of the dispersion relation with k $ 5 baroclinically convert eddy available potential energy into eddy kinetic energy, whereas those with k , 5 are baroclinically neutral. In agreement with Green's model of baroclinic instability, wave 5 is weakly unstable, and the inverse energy cascade, which had been previously proposed as a main forcing for this type of wave, only acts as a positive feedback on its predominantly baroclinic energetics. The quasi-stationary wave is reinforced by a phase lock to an analogous pattern in the tropical convection, which provides further amplification to the wave. It is also found that the Pedlosky bounds on the phase speed of unstable waves provide guidance in explaining the latitudinal structure of the energy conversion,which is shown to be more enhancedwhere the zonal westerly surface wind is weaker. The wave's energy is then trapped in the waveguide created by the upper tropospheric jet stream. In agreement with Green's theory, as the equator-to-pole SST difference is reduced, the stationary marginally stable component shifts toward higher wavenumbers, while wave 5 becomes neutral and westward propagating. Some properties of the aquaplanet quasi-stationary waves are found to be in interesting agreement with a low frequency wave observed by Salby during December‐February in the Southern Hemisphere so that this perspective on low frequency variability, apart from its value in terms of basic geophysical fluid dynamics, might be of specific interest for studying the earth's atmosphere.


Introduction PEROSH stands for the Partnership for European Research in Occupational Safety and Health. One of the joint research projects run from the PEROSH network deals with Wellbeing at Work, within which scientific representatives from five European countries have developed a set of initiatives aimed at improving working lives. Methods In order to allow employers and workers to better understand the determinants of wellbeing at work, a model of wellbeing at work was developed, based on scientific knowledge, in three meetings which experts from different fields attended. Results The WellbeingTree was developed as both a visually attractive and interactive graphic, but also to allow better understanding of wellbeing issues, and their determinants, at work. The tree incorporates abstracts, studies and case studies gathered from the international Wellbeing at Work conferences, but also relies on literature reviews and original articles. The symbol of a tree was adopted because effects of optimising worker wellbeing can be represented as the tree's fruits, and the roots of the tree were designed to represent the precursors, or antecedents, of wellbeing. The roots and branches thus give the user of the tree an opportunity to appreciate the wide variety of influences that may positively, or indeed negatively, influence wellbeing. A variety of sources of feedback about its usefulness have been received, and work is ongoing within PEROSH to develop these further. Discussion We are now developing the tree further graphically, and it will be populated over time with references to scientific studies and cases. An interactive, 'clickable' version will be developed for use by employers, where clicking on a particular area of the tree will display relevant content. Our European approach to worker wellbeing has successfully developed a tool that we believe will be a useful resource for all those with responsibility for wellbeing of workers.


Most existing multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) assume the existence of Pareto-optimal solutions/Pareto-optimal objective vectors in a neighborhood of an obtained Pareto-optimal set (PS)/Pareto-optimal front (PF). Obviously, this assumption does not work well on the multiobjective problem (MOP) whose true PF and true PS are in the form of multiple segments-truly disconnected MOP (TYD-MOP). Moreover, these MOEAs commonly involve more than three control parameters; and some of them even involve nine control parameters. The stabilities of their performance against parameter settings are generally unknown. In this paper, we propose a MOEA, namely multiobjective density driven evolutionary algorithm (MODdEA), which can handle TYD-MOP. MODdEA stores all evaluated solutions by a binary space partitioning (BSP) tree. Benefiting from the BSP scheme, a fast solution density estimation by the archive is naturally obtained. MODdEA uses this estimated density together with the nondominated rank to probabilistically select mating individuals, which relaxes the neighborhood assumption on PF in a parameter-less manner. Moreover, two genetic operators, extended arithmetic crossover and diversified mutation, are proposed to enhance the explorative search ability of the algorithm. MODdEA is examined on two test problem sets. The first test set consists of six TYD-MOPs; the second test set consists of 17 benchmark MOPs which are commonly examined by the existing MOEAs. Comparing to 14 test MOEAs, MODdEA has superior performance on TYD-MOP and is competitive on MOP whose true PF and PS are one single connected segment.


The use of laser microbeams and optical tweezers in a wide field of biological applications from genomic to immunology is discussed. Microperforation is used to introduce a well-defined amount of molecules into cells for genetic engineering and optical imaging. The microwelding of two cells induced by a laser microbeam combines their genetic outfit. Microdissection allows specific regions of genomes to be isolated from a whole set of chromosomes. Handling the cells with optical tweezers supports investigation on the attack of immune systems against diseased or cancerous cells. With the help of laser microbeams, heart infarction can be simulated, and optical tweezers support studies on the heartbeat. Finally, laser microbeams are used to induce DNA damage in living cells for studies on cancer and ageing.


This work presents the modelling and numerical simulation of mannequins as well as clothes in a 3D virtual environment. The paper explains garment modelling, with the objective of defining the development of a 3D body model that is useful and based on the demand of the garment industry. For this purpose a development strategy should be defined. Many scientists are working on the creative process for virtual garment development to create a garment directly on a 3D model of the human body, also called " virtual tailoring".The first strategic issue in this context that we present is that the model must necessarily incorporate the ease garment model associatively. These parameters define the priority concepts that are the draping and proper fit of the garment. The second point is that the transition between the 3D and 2D patterns, known as flattening 3D patterns, must be associative, precise and must take into account the real deformation of the fabric.


Abstract Sodium boiling phenomena in nuclear reactors have been reviewed in the context of the renewed interest in sodium-cooled fast reactors. This paper presents all properties that influence sodium boiling behavior, including thermodynamic and transport properties, as well as the typical composition of reactor-grade sodium, the surface wetting, radiative heat transfer properties, and noncondensable behavior. Starting from these properties, the tendency for high superheat is explained, together with the reasons that the problem of superheat can be neglected for reactor systems. The peculiar boiling behavior of sodium in assemblies is explained on the basis of the temperature profile. This leads us to conclude that a typical slug flow pattern prevails for sodium boiling. The boiling heat transfer for pool film boiling is also given, deducing that the critical heat flux phenomena for sodium boiling in reactor systems is mainly related to dryout and not to the departure from nucleate boiling. The correlations that exist for the minimum film-boiling temperature are discussed in light of their applicability to liquid sodium. Although there are already a large amount of data, gaps in the current understanding of sodium are highlighted.


ABSTRACT Epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) have focused primarily on DNA methylation as a chemically stable and functional epigenetic modification. However, the stability and accuracy of the measurement of methylation in different tissues and extraction types is still being actively studied, and the longitudinal stability of DNA methylation in commonly studied peripheral tissues is of great interest. Here, we used data from two studies, three tissue types, and multiple time points to assess the stability of DNA methylation measured with the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip array. Redundancy analysis enabled visual assessment of agreement of replicate samples overall and showed good agreement after removing effects of tissue type, age, and sex. At the probe level, analysis of variance contrasts separating technical and biological replicates clearly showed better agreement between technical replicates versus longitudinal samples, and suggested increased stability for buccal cells versus blood or blood spots. Intraclass correlations (ICCs) demonstrated that inter-individual variability is of similar magnitude to within-sample variability at many probes; however, as inter-individual variability increased, so did ICC. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate decreasing agreement in methylation levels with time, despite a maximal sampling interval of only 576 days. Finally, at 6 popular candidate genes, there was a large range of stability across probes. Our findings highlight important sources of technical and biological variation in DNA methylation across different tissues over time. These data will help to inform longitudinal sampling strategies of future EWAS.


ABSTRACT The Pichia pastoris N-glycosylation pathway is only partially homologous to the pathway in human cells. In the Golgi apparatus, human cells synthesize complex oligosaccharides, whereas Pichia cells form mannose structures that can contain up to 40 mannose residues. This hypermannosylation of secreted glycoproteins hampers the downstream processing of heterologously expressed glycoproteins and leads to the production of protein-based therapeutic agents that are rapidly cleared from the blood because of the presence of terminal mannose residues. Here, we describe engineering of the P. pastoris N-glycosylation pathway to produce nonhyperglycosylated hybrid glycans. This was accomplished by inactivation of OCH1 and overexpression of an α-1,2-mannosidase retained in the endoplasmic reticulum and N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I and β-1,4-galactosyltransferase retained in the Golgi apparatus. The engineered strain synthesized a nonsialylated hybrid-type N-linked oligosaccharide structure on its glycoproteins. The procedures which we developed allow glycan engineering of any P. pastoris expression strain and can yield up to 90% homogeneous protein-linked oligosaccharides.


Trojan asteroids orbit in the Lagrange points of the system Sun-planet-asteroid. Their dynamical stability make their physical properties important proxies for the early evolution of our solar system. To study their origin, we want to characterize the surfaces of Jupiter Trojan asteroids and check possible similarities with objects of the main belt and of the Kuiper Belt. We have obtained high-accuracy broad-band linear polarization measurements of six Jupiter Trojans of the L4 population and tried to estimate the main features of their polarimetric behaviour. We have compared the polarimetric properties of our targets among themselves, and with those of other atmosphere-less bodies of our solar system. Our sample show approximately homogeneous polarimetric behaviour, although some distinct features are found between them. In general, the polarimetric properties of Trojan asteroids are similar to those of D- and P-type main-belt asteroids. No sign of coma activity is detected in any of the observed objects. An extended polarimetric survey may help to further investigate the origin and the surface evolution of Jupiter Trojans.


HLA‐E is a member of the nonclassical HLA class Ib genes. Even though it is structurally highly similar to the classical HLA class Ia genes, it is less diverse and only 45 alleles and 12 proteins were known in December 2019 (IPD‐IMGT/HLA, release 3.38.0). Since 2017, we have genotyped over 3 million voluntary stem cell donors for HLA‐E by sequencing the most relevant allele‐determining bases of exons 2 and 3. As expected, most donors harbor the two predominant alleles HLA‐E*01:01 and/or HLA‐E*01:03. However, in 1666 (0.05%) of our samples we detected 345 distinct novel HLA‐E sequences. The most frequent one was identified in 162 samples and has by now been named HLA‐E*01:114. To characterize these novel alleles in full‐length, we used both short‐read Illumina and long‐read PacBio sequencing to obtain fully phased and highly accurate sequences. This resulted in 234 submissions to IPD‐IMGT/HLA comprising 170 novel HLA‐E alleles, which encode for 93 novel HLA‐E proteins, as well as 64 confirmations or sequence extensions. Consequently, the number of HLA‐E alleles in the database (release 3.42.0) has now increased to 256 HLA‐E alleles and 110 HLA‐E proteins.


In this paper, we analyze Twitter signals as a medium for user sentiment to predict the price fluctuations of a small-cap alternative cryptocurrency called \emph{ZClassic}. We extracted tweets on an hourly basis for a period of 3.5 weeks, classifying each tweet as positive, neutral, or negative. We then compiled these tweets into an hourly sentiment index, creating an unweighted and weighted index, with the latter giving larger weight to retweets. These two indices, alongside the raw summations of positive, negative, and neutral sentiment were juxtaposed to $\sim 400$ data points of hourly pricing data to train an Extreme Gradient Boosting Regression Tree Model. Price predictions produced from this model were compared to historical price data, with the resulting predictions having a 0.81 correlation with the testing data. Our model's predictive data yielded statistical significance at the $p < 0.0001$ level. Our model is the first academic proof of concept that social media platforms such as Twitter can serve as powerful social signals for predicting price movements in the highly speculative alternative cryptocurrency, or "alt-coin", market.


Lead pollution is consistently linked to cognitive and behavioral impairments, yet little is known about the benefits of public health interventions for children exposed to lead. This paper estimates the long-term impacts of early life interventions (e.g., lead remediation, nutritional assessment, medical evaluation, developmental surveillance, and public assistance referrals) recommended for lead-poisoned children. Using linked administrative data from Charlotte, NC, we compare outcomes for children who are similar across observable characteristics but differ in eligibility for intervention due to blood lead test results. We find that the negative outcomes previously associated with early life exposure can largely be reversed by intervention. (JEL I12, I18, I21, J13, J24, Q51)


There is a growing trend in applying Linux operating system in the domain of embeddedsystems. This is due to the important features that Linux benets from, such as beingopen source, its light weight compared to other major operating systems, its adaptabilityto dierent platforms, and its more stable performance speed. However, there are up-grades that still need to be done in order to use Linux for real-time purposes. A numberof dierent approaches have been suggested in order to improve Linux's performance inreal-time environment. Nevertheless, proposing a correct-by-construction system is verydicult in real-time environment, mainly due to the complexity and unpredictability ofthem. Thus, run-time monitoring can be a helpful approach in order to provide the userwith data regarding to the actual timing behavior of the system which can be used foranalysis and modication of it. In this thesis work, a design for run-time monitoringis suggested and implemented on a real-time scheduler module that assists Linux withreal-time tasks. Besides providing crucial data regarding the timing performance of thesystem, this monitor predicts violations of timing requirements based on the currenttrace of the system performance.


The major excreted protein of malignantly transformed mouse fibroblasts (MEP), which is the precursor to lysosomal cathepsin L, was used to study the effect of exogenous acid proteases on antigen processing. When MEP and native pigeon cytochrome c were added to Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing transfected major histocompatability complex class II gene products, the antigen-specific T-cell hybridoma 2B4 did not respond to the antigen. MEP appears to destroy the antigen in an acid compartment of the presenting cell because: (a) MEP is only active as a protease under acid conditions; (b) mannose 6-phosphate inhibited the internalization of MEP and blocked its effect on antigen processing; (c) the destruction required the simultaneous entry of the antigen and MEP into the cells; and (d) cytochrome c fragment 66-104 which does not need to be processed stimulated 2B4 in the presence of MEP. These results support the hypothesis that antigen processing requires internalization of the antigen into an acidic compartment, and they provide a new model for the investigation of the contribution of acid proteases to the reduced immunocompetence of tumor-bearing animals.


This paper examines the causal relationship between oil consumption and economic growth in the BRICS countries for the period from 1985 to 2011. We employ a panel causality approach which accounts for both cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity across countries. The empirical results support the view that oil consumption and economic growth are not sensitive to each other for the panel of BRICS countries. Looking at the individual country results, there is only some evidence for China of a bidirectional causality. The lack of sensitivity between oil consumption and GDP for the BRICS countries indicates that policies aiming at reducing the use of crude oil will have minor to no effect on the economic growth and development of the BRICS countries.


A US appeal court has ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must allow sales over the counter of some emergency contraceptives without age restrictions until the court rules on an appeal by the federal government, which seeks to maintain restrictions on the drugs.

The decision is the latest turn in the legal battle over access to emergency contraceptives that began more than a decade ago.

The levonorgestrel based contraceptives, often referred to as "morning after" pills, have been shown to be effective in preventing pregnancy if taken promptly after unprotected sex.

However, the drugs have been controversial,1 because of concerns that they promote promiscuity and undermine parental authority and because opponents of abortion have said that the …


Despite predictions of continuing secularisation, the twenty-first century has witnessed a surge of religious extremism and violence in the name of God. In this powerful and timely book, Jonathan Sacks explores the roots of violence and its relationship to religion, focusing on the historic tensions between the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Drawing on arguments from evolutionary psychology, game theory, history, philosophy, ethics and theology, Sacks shows how a tendency to violence can subvert even the most compassionate of religions. Through a close reading of key biblical texts at the heart of the Abrahamic faiths, Sacks then challenges those who claim that religion is intrinsically a cause of violence, and argues that theology must become part of the solution if it is not to remain at the heart of the problem. This book is a rebuke to all those who kill in the name of the God of life, wage war in the name of the God of peace, hate in the name of the God of love, and practise cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. For the sake of humanity and the free world, the time has come for people of all faiths and none to stand together and declare: Not In God's Name.


As told, or rather retold second-hand, by the narrator, "Take It or Leave It" relates the hilarious and amorous adventures of a young Frenchman who has been drafted into the U.S. Army and is being shipped Overseas to fight in Korea. The obsessed narrator retells, as best as he can, what the young man supposedly told him as they sat under a tree. He recounts how the young man escaped German persecution during World War Two, how he came to America and struggled to survive before joining the "rah rah spitshine" 82nd Airborne Division, and how, because of a "typical Army goof," he must travel in an old beat-up Buick Special from Fort Bragg to Camp Drum to collect the money the Army owes him, before he can set out for "the great journey cross-country" to San Francisco where he will embark for Overseas. Moving freely from past to present (and Vice Versa), and from place to place leap-frogging from digression to digression, "Take It or Leave It "explores new possibilities of narrative technique. Whie the story of Frenchy is being told, the narrator involves his listeners in digressive arguments about politics, sex, America, literature, laughter, death, and the telling of the story itself. Consequently, as this "exaggerated second-hand tale to be read aloud either standing or sitting" progresses, it also deviates from its course, and eventually cancels itself as the voices of the fiction multiply. "Take It or Leave It," the ultimate postmodern novel, makes a shamble of traditional fiction and conventional modes of writing, and does so with effrontery and laughter.


The slow transport of dopants through crystal lattices has hindered the development of novel devices. Typically atoms are contained within deep potential energy wells which necessitates multiple attempts to hop between minimum energy positions. This is because the bonds that constrain atoms are strongest at the minimum positions. As they hop between sites the bonds must be broken, only to re-form as the atoms slide into adjacent minima. Here we demonstrate that the Pd atoms introduced into the Ge lattice behave differently. They retain bonds as the atoms shift across so that at the energy maximum between sites Pd still exhibits strong bonding characteristics. This reduces the energy maximum to almost nothing (a migration energy of only 0.03 eV) and means that the transport of Pd through the Ge lattice is ultrafast. We scrutinize the bonding characteristics at the atomic level using quantum mechanical simulation tools and demonstrate why Pd behaves so differently to other metals we investigated (i.e. Li, Cu, Ag, Pt and Au). Consequently, this fundamental understanding can be extended to systems where extremely rapid diffusion is desired, such as radiation sensors, batteries and solid oxide fuel cells.


The present research examines intercultural accuracy—people's ability to make accurate judgments about outgroup values—and the role of social projection processes. Across four studies, U.S. and British participants showed low overall levels of intercultural accuracy for Chinese students' individualistic and collectivistic values. In line with recent changes towards individualism in China, we observed different levels of intercultural accuracy, hinging on whether the criterion values of Chinese were assessed before (2001) or after (2015) this shift. Important for the study of social projection, we observed that U.S./British participants projected their values onto the outgroup. Social projection tendency (measured in Study 2 and manipulated in Study 3) was associated with greater intercultural accuracy. The relationship between projection and accuracy also depended on the shifts in individualistic values of Chinese. Important for the study of intergroup relations, accuracy was positively associated with interest in future relationships with the Chinese.


A frequency divider is one of the key building blocks in phased-lock loops (PLL) and frequency synthesizers, which are essential subsystems in wireless communication and sensing systems. A frequency divider divides the output frequency of a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) in order to compare it with a reference clock signal. Among the different types of frequency dividers, the injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) is becoming more popular due to its low power and high frequency characteristics. However, the ILFD has an inherent problem of narrow locking range, which basically defines a range over which a frequency-division operation is supported. In order to increase the locking range, one of the most obvious ways is to inject higher power. In fully integrated PLLs, however, the injection signal is supplied by an internal VCO, which typically has limited fixed output power and hence enhancing the locking range with large injection signal power poses difficulty. In this work, we present the development of a fully integrated 10.5-GHz divide-by-3 (1/3) injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) that can provide extra locking range with a small fixed injection power. The ILFD consists of a previously measured on-chip 10.5-GHz VCO functioning as an injection source, a 1/3 ILFD core, and an output inverter buffer. A phase tuner implemented using an asymmetric inductor is proposed to increase the locking range through even-harmonic (the 2rd harmonic for this design) phase tuning. With a fixed internal injection signal power of only -18 dBm (measured output power of the standalone VCO with a 50-? reference), a 25% enhancement in the locking range from 12 to 15 MHz is achieved with the proposed phase tuning technique without consuming an additional DC power. The frequency tuning range of the integrated 1/3 ILFD is from 3.3 GHz to 4.2 GHz. The proposed 1/3 ILFD is realized in a 0.18-µm BiCMOS process, occupies 0.6 mm × 0.7 mm, and consumes 10.6 mA while the ILFD alone consumes 6.15 mA from 1.8-V supply. The main objective of this work is proposing a new technique of phase-tuning of the even-harmonics that can "further" increase the locking range with an "extra" amount beyond what can be achieved by other techniques. Since the developed technique can enhance the locking range further at a fixed injection power, it can be used in conjunction with other techniques for further enhancing the locking range. For instance, the locking range can be increased by using different injection powers and then further enhanced by tuning the phase of the even harmonics at each power level. The "extra" locking range, not achievable without the even-harmonic phase tuning, amounts to 25%, which is very attractive for PLL applications. Furthermore, additional tuning mechanisms such as use of a capacitor bank can be employed to achieve even wider tuning range for applications such as PLL.


A novel Rotating Rope Biofilter (RRB) has been developed especially for the treatment of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) at higher loadings and characterised by high volatility along with high water solubility. The RRB provides a higher interfacial area (per unit reactor liquid volume) along with high oxygen mass transfer rate, greater microbial culture stability, and consequently higher substrate loadings and removal rates in comparison with other conventional reactors (e.g. biofilters) widely used for the treatment of VOCs. Pyridine was used as a model compound to demonstrate the enhanced performance of the RRB. The experimental results indicate that the novel RRB system is able to degrade pyridine with removal efficiency of more than 90%, up to a loading of 250 g/m³/h. The reactor has been in operation for the past 15 months and no loss of activity has been observed.


Postnatal care has for too long been the Cinderella of the childbirth continuum and marginalized within maternity care services. Most women in the UK are hospitalized after giving birth and spend time on a postnatal ward. Women tend to view this aspect of their childbirth journey as the least satisfying, and in-depth analysis as to the reasons for this perspective is limited. This article presents a thought-provoking debate on postnatal hospital care and is underpinned by data that have emerged from observing postnatal wards as part of a larger research study. Two main points are pursued: reflections on carrying out 'fieldwork' and the notion that postnatal care is becoming deficient in purpose. Questions are raised as to the intention of hospitalization after birth, given the culture and context of a busy ward. Many factors impinge upon the woman's experience of the postnatal ward: the availability of midwives, the status/value of postnatal work and having enough time to spend with women on a busy ward. ...


Trustworthiness of results from statistical analyses relies on the fulfillment of a set of assumptions made about data. Asurvey of published pedagogy studies in physical education revealed that examining the assumptions has heen overlooked in data analyses and result reporting. The purpose of this article is to provide a conceprual understanding of the assumptions and to summarize available methods to test and address their violations. In the article, we present information to show that it is in appropriate to overlook the assumptions and ignore their violation's impact on interpretation of results. We summarize current findings from theoretical statistical research that start to challenge the conventional belief about the robustness of traditional inferential statistical analyses. Remedial procedures recommended in the latest statistical theories are presented for researchers to adopt in order to gencrate valid results from statistical analyses.


Flickr and the Creative Commons Movement teamed up to expand the commons by making it easier to license copyrighted creative works, like digital photographs. Creative Common licenses with commercial terms, however, may give away rights that copyright holders do not have, such as the publicity rights of private individuals. To remedy this, Flickr and similar websites that facilitate CC licensing should educate copyright holders about publicity right infringement, create a tagging system to provide potential image users with notice of consent from private individuals, and facilitate royalty negotiations between photographed individuals and potential commercial users. Without these changes the possibility of publicity right infringement inhibits the integrity of commercial licenses and imposes additional costs on potential image users. This Article briefly summarizes the history and goals of the Creative Commons Project, illustrates cases where CC commercial licenses have encouraged publicity right infringement, and suggests ways to implement methods of restoring the integrity of CC commercial licenses.


Although geographically distant, the histories of Indigenous North America and Southeast Asia contain a series of parallels in colonial experience. This article traces these historical similarities between these two geographic regions in colonial and counter-colonial movements. It then focuses on American Indians and Indigenous communities in the Philippines and Indonesia perceptions of one another, recorded during fieldwork by the authors in Southeast Asia and the U.S. Additionally, it elaborates on the similarities between these two groups in expressions of solidarity and sympathy as parts of settler-societies. Beyond views of dispossession, these communities placed importance on one another's environmental stewardship, retention of community in the context of a "modernising" settler society, and government-to-government relationships that are often eclipsed by settler societies who perceive Indigenous populations as racial minorities rather than self-determined polities. This analysis provides a greater understanding of how Indigenous groups in North America and Southeast Asia understand each other's experiences.


Using the coefficient of cooperation, we analyse the effect of cost asymmetries on collusive agreements when firms are able to coordinate on distinct output levels than the unrestricted joint profit maximization outcome. In this context, we first investigate the extent to which collusive agreements are feasible. Secondly, we focus on collusion sustainability in an infinitely repeated game. We show that, regardless of the degree of cost asymmetry, at least some collusion is always sustainable. Finally, the degree of collusion is also endogeneised to show that cooperation has an upper bound determined by the most inefficient firm.


A thermodynamic framework is proposed to model the effect of mechanical stress and temperature on crack opening and closure in rocks. The model is based on Continuum Damage Mechanics with damage defined as the second-order crack density tensor. The free energy of damaged rock is expressed as a function of deformation, temperature and damage. The damage criterion controls mode I crack propagation, captures temperature-induced decrease of rock toughness, and accounts for the increase of energy release rate necessary to propagate cracks induced by damage. Crack closure is modeled through unilateral effects produced on rock stiffness. Simulations show that: (1) under anisotropic mechanical boundary conditions, crack closure occurs during cooling, (2) the thermo-mechanical strain energy necessary to close cracks during cooling is larger than the strain energy needed to close the cracks by mechanical compression. Parametric study highlights the thermo-mechanical stress redistributions occurring during closure. The proposed framework is expected to bring new insights in the design and reliability assessment of geotechnical reservoirs and repositories.


A novel dual specificity phosphatase (DSP) designated LMW-DSP2 was cloned with a combination of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and cDNA library screening strategies. The LMW-DSP2 open reading frame of 194 amino acids contained a single DSP catalytic domain but lacked the cdc25 homology domain, which is conserved in most known DSPs. Northern blot and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analyses revealed that LMW-DSP2 was specifically expressed in testis. Recombinant LMW-DSP2 protein exhibited phosphatase activity toward an artificial low molecular weight substrate para-nitrophenyl phosphate, and the activity was inhibited completely by sodium orthovanadate but not sodium fluoride, pyrophosphate, and okadaic acid. The substitution of critical amino acid residues, aspartic acid and cysteine, resulted in a dramatic reduction of phosphatase activity. Transient transfection of LMW-DSP2 in COS7 cells resulted in the expression of a 21-kDa protein, and the phosphatase was shown to be distributed in both the cytosol and the nucleus. LMW-DSP2 dephosphorylated and deactivated p38, to a higher extent, and stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK)/c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), but not extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 mitogen-activated protein kinases, in transfected COS7 cells andin vitro. Interestingly, mutation in a conserved docking motif of p38 and SAPK/JNK as well as in a cluster of aspartic acids of LMW-DSP2 did not affect the deactivation of the mitogen-activated protein kinases by LMW-DSP2. Furthermore, the binding between LMW-DSP2 and p38 and SAPK/JNK was also not disrupted by such mutations. Among the DSPs lacking the cdc25 homology domain, LMW-DSP2 is the first one that dephosphorylates and deactivates p38 and SAPK/JNK.


Interest in creating emblematic devices, fashionable during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, did not disappear in England with the demise of the tournament and the Stuart masque. Alan R. Young examines the hundreds of emblematic devices used by the warring parties on their military flags during and immediatley after, the English Civil Wars. To be fully understood, these emblematic devices must be 'read' as part of the massive propaganda war waged by the different factions. This collection throws light on the nature of the conflicts that led to the civil wars, based on the views set forth in the emblems and mottoes designed by the men who risked their lives in the cause of Parliament, king, covenant, or Irish Confederacy. Unlike earlier volumes in the Index Emblematicus series, which draw on printed emblem books as their sources, The English Emblem Tradition, Volume 3 brings together a corpus of material that was previously scattered widely among a number of surviving manuscripts. Wherever possible, carefully drawn illustrations of details of the flags have been reproduced from the original manuscripts. The flags are listed in alphabetical order by motto ( the mottoes are translated from the original Latin, French, Spanish, and other languages). A series of concordances, indexes, and lists makes the volume extremely accessible. Because of the unusual nature of the source material, a lengthy introductory essay is provided to explain the indexing of the text.


In this paper, we investigate the response of female lone parents to two reforms to the welfare system in Australia. We look at changes to both hours and participation and focus on the channels of adjustment, in particular the role of job changes for adjustment in hours. We highlight the relationship between policy design and heterogeneous outcomes. Workers/non-workers and mothers with high/low education respond differently to different policies. We find evidence of within job rigidities as the adjustment of working hours happens primarily through changing jobs. Our findings also provide support for the importance of accounting for fixed costs of working.


Introduction: IDRS is based on four simple parameters derived from known risk factors for diabetes; two modifiable risk factors (waist circumference and physical inactivity) and two non-modifiable risk factors (age and family history of diabetes), which may be amenable to intervention. The present study has been planned as the region specific validation is important before it can be used for screening in this part of the country. Aims: The aim of the present study was to validate MDRF-IDRS for screening of diabetes mellitus among adult population of urban field practice area, IGMC, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India. Methods: The present community based cross sectional study was conducted among 417 adults fulfilling the eligibility criteria using a two stage sampling design. Results: In the present study IDRS value ≥70 had an optimum sensitivity of 61.33% and specificity of 56.14% for detecting undiagnosed type 2 diabetes in the community. At an IDRS score of ≥70, the PPV was 23.47%, NPV as 86.88%, the diagnostic accuracy as 57.07%, LR for positive test as 1.398, LR for negative test as 0.69 and Youden's index as 0.17. However Youden's index was 0.19 at a cut of ≥60 i.e. higher than what was at ≥70. Higher IDRS scores increased the specificity but the sensitivity dramatically decreased. Conversely, lower IDRS values increased the sensitivity but the specificity drastically decreased. Area under the curve = 0.630 and a P value < 0.001. Conclusions: MDRF IDRS is user friendly screening tool but the criteria of including the parameter of physical activity for the calculation of the risk score needs to be clearly defined. In the present study the maximum sensitivity of 100% was seen at a cut off of ≥30. Hence we would recommend that all those in the medium and high risk group should be screened for type 2 Diabetes.


In the ambit of the educational research in particular, and in that of the social sciences as a rule, we find positions faced between the advocates of the large two paradigms or perspectives of research: the positivist or quantitative research and the naturalist (also designated etnography, phenomenologic, interpretive) or qualitative research. They are many the voices that advocate by adopting eclactical positions, where both paradigms are complemented and enriched with this the research, in contrast to conceptual inflexibility situations, of intellectual reductionism that prejudice instead of favoring the advance of the background. The study that is collected in this I articulate uses this by of complement between both methods, with the purpose of finding relationships between the different category found in the educational behavioral study of teacher in physical education novels. KEY WORDS: Research education methodology. Teacher thinking. Initial formation. Novice teachers of Physical Education.


We measure the lasing dynamics of single and coupled photonic crystal nanocavity array lasers fabricated in the indium gallium arsenide phosphide material system. Under short optical excitation, single cavity lasers produce pulses as fast as 11ps (full width at half maximum), while coupled cavity lasers show significantly longer lasing duration which is not explained by a simple rate equation model. A finite difference time domain simulation including carrier gain and diffusion suggests that asynchronous lasing across the nanocavity array extends the laser's pulse duration.


The achievement gap between Black and White students has been an area of concern for a
number of years. One of the contributing factors to this gap is the low minority enrollment in
Advanced Placement (AP) classes. By reviewing literature on the subject, some of the reasons
suggested for low enrollment are the "Acting White Syndrome", socioeconomics, teacher
expectations/perceptions, and selection processes. New Hanover High School is not exempt
from the problem of low minority enrollment in AP classes, and has recently implemented a
program help prepare students—minorities in particular—for AP classes. Through interviews
with Black students who are currently enrolled and those who are not enrolled in AP courses, it is
apparent that the "Acting White Syndrome" weighs heavily on their participation in these
classes. The interviews also shed light on the fact that New Hanover High School needs to
design a program to make more students and parents aware of the AP program. It is concluded
that by implementing a program to increase AP awareness, more minorities may be inclined to
participate in AP classes and thus help close the gap between White and Black students.


: Recent studies showed that soil fertility properties can be predicted from soil spectral reflectance data and in a second step can be combined successfully with information from satellite imagery for rapid assessment of soil quality over large areas. This approach shall be adapted for a test area in the Loess zone of Tajikistan in order to assess the impact of land use on soil fertility. The groundtruth data collected confirms that widespread land use changes have taken place since 1992 (30 % of the area formerly used as grazing land has been cultivated since 1992). The newly cultivated areas are situated on steep slopes (the average slope is 20 %) and show visible signs of water erosion in 60 % of the cases observed. Also 48 % of the plots recorded from grazing land showed signs of water erosion. VIS-NIR measurements of soil samples collected from each sampling plot have been explored for relations between soil reflectance data and commonly used indicators of soil fertility in the study area. First results show that reflectance wavebands are strongly relating to CaCO3 and soil colour. Regression tree modelling has been carried out successfully to calibrate total nitrogen contents determined by chemical analysis against reflectance wavebands (validation r2 for regression was 0.71). A classification tree model predicting areas with water erosion shows the potential of decision tree modelling when combining different datasets. Hierarchical structures can be revealed and thresholds for mapping purposes using raster datasets available (DEM and Landsat 7 satellite imagery) can be determined. Prediction success determined by 10 fold cross-validation was 72 % and 61% for the classes erosion and no erosion respectively. ABSTRACT Recent studies showed that soil fertility properties can be predicted from soil spectral reflectance data and in a second step can be combined successfully with information from satellite imagery for rapid assessment of soil quality over large areas. This approach shall be adapted for a test area in the Loess zone of Tajikistan in order to assess the impact of land use on soil fertility. The groundtruth data collected confirms that widespread land use changes have taken place since 1992 (30 % of the area formerly used as grazing land has been cultivated since 1992). The newly cultivated areas are situated on steep slopes (the average slope is 20 %) and show visible signs of water erosion in 60 % of the cases observed. Also 48 % of the plots recorded from grazing land showed signs of water erosion. VIS-NIR measurements of soil samples collected from each sampling plot have been explored for relations between soil reflectance data and commonly used indicators of soil fertility in the study area. First results show that reflectance wavebands are strongly relating to CaCO 3 and soil colour. Regression tree modelling has been carried out successfully to calibrate total nitrogen contents determined by chemical analysis against reflectance wavebands (validation r 2 for regression was 0.71). A classification tree model predicting areas with water erosion shows the potential of decision tree modelling when combining different datasets. Hierarchical structures can be revealed and thresholds for mapping purposes using raster datasets available (DEM and Landsat 7 satellite imagery) can be determined. Prediction success determined by 10 fold cross-validation was 72 % and 61 % for the classes erosion and no erosion respectively.


The objective of this research was to understand and to get picture of organizational communication, decision making and reward that used by School Principal at Canisius College Junior High School Jakarta.
The data were collected through participant observation using interview, observation, document study and recording. The data analysis and interpretation indicates that (1) the interpersonal communication system is a main communication system, social networking and electronic communication become the main support in developing the communication. The communication  that occurs such as oral, written and  nonverbal communication which is applied in Downward communication nor Upward communication, (2) Decision was taken as a programmed and nonprogrammed decisions. The programmed decisions is the main task of a school leader and the nonprogrammed decisions is  the strategic policy that taken to achieving the goal of the school which refers to the schools vision and mission, (3) The awarding highly prioritized both the intrinsic reward and extrinsic reward so that the teachers, staff and students feel very appreciated. It will always provide the best work for the school.


Aside from functional groups, aromatic rings have mostly been regarded as zones via which certain inhibitors can protect etching metal parts. Substituent groups generally can be aromatic or non-aromatic, comparison of which is scanty in literature. Among these, amino acids exhibit side substituent chain in addition to amino- and carboxylic carbonyl- functional groups, hence may show unique behaviours in corrosive environment. The side chains of amino acids can vary from to H- to alkyl and then to aromatic. This study is devoted to the investigation of the influence of non-polar, hydrophobic side chain of amino acid homologues (glycine, alanine and phenylalanine) on the inhibition of aluminium corrosion in 0.3 M HCl. Corrosion properties and inhibition mechanism were analysed using mass loss, solid-state characterisation and quantum chemical methods. Potentiodynamic polarisation results confirmed cathodic inhibition, which was relatively less efficient with glycine and phenylalanine. The adsorption of these inhibitors was consistent with Langmuir isotherm and physical mechanism. Activation parameters, topography, electropotential shifts quantum studies and mass loss confirmed the superiority of the inhibiting effect of alanine. It is therefore argued herein that the aromatic carbocyclic moiety of phenylalanine does not dictate its anti-corrosion effect in acidic media, but preferentially, properties such as the adsorption type, corrosion medium, interfacial behaviour of adsorbates and


Experiments were conducted under laboratory conditions to elucidate the effect of three nitrification inhibitors viz, 3.4dime-thylpyrazo-lephosphate (DMPP), 4-Chlormethylpyrazole (ClMP) and dicyandiamide (DCD) on mineral nitrogen dynamics of (NH 4 ) 2 SO 4 in soil incubated at 25 o C in soils. The quantitative determination of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate were carried out spectrophotometrically, while potential denitrify-cation capacity (PDC) was measured gas chromatographically. DMPP, ClMP and DCD were used on recommended rates of 90kg N ha -1 corres-ponding to 0.36µg DMPP; 0.25µg ClMP and 10µg DCD g -1 dry soil. In all treatments, the influence of 1, 10, 50, 100, 250 and 500 times of the recommended-concentrations were examined. Results suggested that DMPP, ClMP and DCD applied at rates generally recommended for agricultural use may not be effective to inhibit nitrification. Thus even at the highest tested NIs-concentrations, nitrate and nitrite formation still occurred. Application of high concentrations of these chemicals up to 180µg DMPP, 125µg ClMP and 2500µg DCD were needed for inhibiting nitrification completely. The three NIs began to inhibit PDC at 10 to 50 times recommended concentration and were more effective in sandy than in loamy or clay soils. ClMP influenced PDC at much lower concentration as DMPP or DCD. Keywords: nitrification inhibitors, mineral nitrogen dynamics Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE


The first record of the seymouriamorph stem amniote Discosauriscus from the Krkonoše Piedmont Basin (the Czech Republic) is described. The specimen is identified as D. pulcherrimus on the basis of the following features which are absent in D. austriacus: 1) the pointed tip of the ventrolateral process of the postorbital lies anteriorly to the tip of the wedge-shaped dorsomedial process of the jugal; and 2) the rows of small denticles diverge anteromedially and anterolaterally from the midwidth of the ventral surface of the palatal ramus of the pterygoid. This new record increases our knowledge of the occurrence of this seymouriamorph in the Permo-Carboniferous basins of Europe.


Background: Injuries among high school athletes are an important health concern as it could lead to serious issues later on in life such as chronic injuries, depression, anxiety or death. We hypothesize that contact male sports such as Football and Soccer will have higher rates of total injury while Cheer and Tennis will have lower concussion and injury occurrences.
Methods: Pitt County Athletic Training collected data to record daily activities at high schools in the county from August 1, 2014 to December 3, 2014 to include fall and winter sports. The certified athletic trainers tracked and recorded the daily activities of five high schools in Pitt County. The database served as an injury tracker that recorded information such as date, sport, level, event, injury, illness, medical care and referral. The database was reviewed and analyzed by sport in terms of upper extremity, lower extremity and non-extremity injury, as well as illness. Concussions were analyzed by gender, season, event and sport. Upper extremity injuries include those to the hands, elbow, thumb, lower arm, fingers or shoulder, while lower extremity injuries consist of injuries to the ankle, knee, lower leg, thigh, gluteals, toe or foot. Non-extremity injuries are injuries that occur to the brain (concussion), cervical spine, lumbar spine, ear, nose, mouth, back abdomen or chest and illnesses were recorded when athletes were experiencing heat illness, skin infection, asthma, respiratory condition, diabetes, or stomach discomfort.
Results: 4,254 injuries occurred in 1,182 athletes among five of the high schools in Pitt County. Lower extremity injuries were the most prevalent with about 1,978 cases being reported, while only 1,524 cases of upper extremity injuries were reported. There were 361 cases of concussions, 239 injuries reported as other of other injuries (non-extremity injuries excluding the brain) and only 152 instances of an illness recorded. Varsity and junior varsity football reported the highest number of injuries among all five categories, while Track/Field/Cross Country had the next highest number of lower extremity injuries reporting 156 cases of this injury. Cheer also reported 59 incidents of concussion after both varsity and junior varsity football. Wrestlers reported 20 cases of illnesses while varsity football reported 84 and junior varsity football reported 41. More males experienced concussions than females and most concussions occurred at practice or during the regular season.
Conclusion: In contrast to our prediction, Cheer had one of the highest concussion incidences among the sports excluding Football, which did have the highest concussion and injury occurrence. Our results show that more safety should be implemented in all sports to prevent and avoid the possible development of a disability or death in severe cases.


The development of the information technology (IT) industry in the Asia Pacific region faces two challenges. Firstly, can its established physical, technical, regional and governance infrastructures be adapted to meet the challenges embedded in the set of products and processes created by the IT industry? Secondly, as this adaptation evolves, which cities and regions will be best suited to connect to or lead global responses to these challenges?
The chapters in this book have set out to explore these questions, providing details of change in a range of aspects of the IT industry such as mobile phones, software services, and flat screen design in regions in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, China and Australia. The book also outlines the policy responses of national and regional governments in Singapore, India and China and India. These case studies provide a basis to understand effective strategies which could be formulated for the future.
This book's originality emerges from the fine detail provided about firms, in particular regions and cities, from research carried out by young scholars in the past two years. This makes it very useful for readers keen to understand the recent changes in this dynamic industry in a fast growth part of the world, and it will also help to shape thinking by policy makers on policy settings that can be applied.


OpusPocus Publishing, 1996, 0965024903, 9780965024907, 224 pages. Creativity is crucial to business success. But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius. Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work..


As a medium between people and the city, urbanscape makes a mental connection between individuals and their surroundings. It is usually difficult to conceive this mental relationship and its corresponding processes with usual methods. This study seeks to address the mental aspects of urbanscape and highlight its role and importance by using an innovative method. In this study, map-based methods have been examined as one of the most effective tools for studying citizens' urbanscape. Indeed, using maps provides a tangible model of the city and its spatial imagination by mapping people's perceptions. In order to achieve the hidden layers of people's perceptions, a combination of map-based methods have been examined in the study of Ferdowsi Square in Tehran. First, 50 questionnaires in which interviewees were asked to draw remarkable element of the area were conducted (cognitive map). Second, people were asked to mark the places that are meaningful for them in a provided map of the area and describe the reason (narrative map). Finally, the results of the former step as evaluative meaning were measured in investigated area (evaluative map). As the result, collective images completed by narrative maps and 4 categories of meanings attributed to the space have been recognized, collective, individual, physicalfunctional and sensory-emotional concepts. Moreover, the locations of detailed meanings and the intensity of each meaning or concept have been determined and located on the map. Through analyzing and comparing these maps; it is concluded that by developing map-based methods and combining them with other techniques and methods, deeper layers of individuals' perception about spaces are revealed. So, spatial distribution of concepts and assessments of individuals that have been provided by these methods in this study seems to be very helpful in analysing mental urbanscape. In this context, moving from traditional and structured methods to more evaluative and flexible ones that focus on deeper layers of individuals' perception is extremely useful.


In a widely cited article Boyle suggests that a movement against the growing propertization of knowledge should develop a mobilization frame centered around the idea of the public domain. Based on an analysis of the framing strategies in the two most important protest mobilizations against extensive intellectual property rights I discuss whether and to which degree these movements did actually put the concept of the public domain at the center of their argumentation. The article uses political claims analysis and discourse analysis to show that the actual framing strategies relied on other frames. It closes with a discussion, explaining why the idea of the public domain is essentially a defensive concept with a limited potential for movements that primarily address the production of knowledge.


The Benn Diaries, embracing the years 1940-1990, are already established as a uniquely authoritative, fascinating and readable record of political life. The selected highlights that form this single-volume edition include the most notable events, arguments and personal reflections throughout Benn's long and remarkable career as a leading politician. The narrative starts with Benn as a schoolboy and takes the reader through his youthful wartime experiences as a trainee pilot, his nervous excitement as a new MP during Clement Atlee's premiership and the tribulations of Labour in the 1950s, when the Conservatives were in firm control. It ends with the Tories again in power, but on the eve of Margaret Thatcher's fall, while Tony Benn is on a mission to Baghdad before the impending Gulf War. Over the span of fifty years, the public and private turmoil in British and world politics is recorded as Benn himself moves from wartime service to become the baby of the House, Cabinet Minister, and finally the Commons' most senior Labour Member.


Most of currently deployed Wi-Fi networks use the IEEE 802.11b/g standard and operate in 2.4 GHz ISMband. As mobile traffic demand rapidly increases, significant Wi-Fi deployment in the still very lightly used 5 GHz band is anticipated. In combination with the recent PHY amendments, e.g., 802.11ac, such Wi-Fi in many settings emerges as a strong competitor to small cellular deployment. In this paper, we aim to quantify what total capacity and which data rates per user can be supported by high-density, the state-of-the-art 5 GHz Wi-Fi deployment. Unlike previous studies, we consider the effect of densification by explicitly modeling the different level of interference among access points for office-type scenarios with various internal wall losses. Although abundant spectrum availability at 5 GHz may compensate for system inefficiency caused by carrier sensing and contention, we find that there is a capacity limit. This capacity limit depends on propagation environments and is especially low in "open" environments or environments with low wall losses. To operate at capacities above this limit, cellular systems with their more advanced interference mitigation techniques are required.


Orthostatic tremor (OT) is a rarely reported condition defined as a subjective feeling of unsteadiness on standing, accompanied by a 13- to 18-Hz leg tremor that is relieved during sitting. There are 211 cases in the literature with a 2:1 female preponderance. The commonest presenting complaint being unsteadiness on standing. OT is described as causing tremor of the legs, trunk, and postural arm tremor. The effect of OT on spiral drawing and writing had not been studied. Clonazepam is considered the treatment of choice for OT, which is thought to respond poorly to alcohol. DaTSCAN imaging studies had shown conflicting results. Analysis of our 56 cases confirmed a female preponderance. The age at OT onset distribution had a single peak and was a decade later than essential tremor (ET), which is bimodal. Symptomatic leg tremor was ubiquitous, but OT affected the arms in 50%, head (20%), trunk (16%) and voice and tongue (both 7%) of cases. Tremulous writing and spiral drawings were present in 26.8% and 58.9% of cases respectively; 5.4% of OT cases reported a first degree relative with OT, 5.4% with PD and 10.7% with ET. OT responded to alcohol in 52%. The most effective therapy was primidone; beneficial in 26.7% of cases. Parkinsonian signs were common (37.5% reduced arm swing, 14.3% shuffling gait, 37.5% facial and 8.9% vocal impassivity and 4.3% upper limb rest tremor). DaTSCAN imaging was normal. Our data further characterises the clinical features and therapeutic response of OT.


In the largest antitrust case prosecuted in Peru during the 2000s, the competition authority fined three firms for colluding to supply oxygen to Social Security hospitals (ESSALUD). At first the case looked simple: between 1999 and 2002 these firms won tenders in the same geographical areas in processes where the other two bidders always disqualified themselves. Moreover, this is an industry with a history of anticompetitive practices, since producers of industrial and medical gases have been found guilty of collusion in several countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile and the European Union. However, a deeper look at the economic evidence of the case shows that it was not conclusive, since the collusion hypothesis cannot explain key facts: the reason for which the firms disqualified themselves, since the others did not require it to win the tenders; the reason why the firms would maintain a collusive agreement that could not provide higher benefits than competition; and the price evidence that shows ESSALUD was exerting market power at the same time it was the supposed victim of a collusion. Likewise, the collusion hypothesis implies that the behavior of the firms was irrational, since i) a producer representing 85% of the market colluded with two firms representing 10% and 5%, ii) to allow them to gain market share at its expense, iii) to sell the product at increasingly lower prices than those paid by the rest of buyers, iv) through contracts obtained bidding the lowest possible price. This paper argues the collusion could not be proven and thus, the case should have been dropped.


The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda, edited by Gerard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. 474 pp. $24.95. The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda, edited by Gerard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin, is a worthy contribution to the literature on sub-national terrorist activity. Cast as a volume about the use of terrorism over the centuries, it contains a wealth of information in its numerous individual chapters covering subjects ranging from the first century Zealots, to anarchist groups of the 19th century, to the history of suicide operations. Especially important contributions include a revised version of Ariel Merari's seminal paper, "Terrorism as a Strategy of Insurgency" and essays by Chaliand and Blin on the numerous manifestations of terrorism throughout history and on the "modern" history of terrorism from 1968 to the present. Yet The History of Terrorism is more than a collection of essays on significant periods in the long history of terrorist activity. The book's real goal is to place the modern threat posed by al Qaeda and related jihadist groups in historical perspective. Chaliand and Blin's argument (the two wrote eight of the seventeen chapters, including all of those designed to summarize significant trends within defined historical periods) is that the current terrorist threat differs from previous ones in that modern jihadist groups are more interested in killing as an end in itself. While this point has been made by many others, the argument that emerges from the book is that the interest in inflicting harm on others is only partly the result of the Al Qaeda network's fanatical attachment to its particular brand of Islam. Also important, but frequently overlooked, is that the nature of target selection by terrorist organizations underwent a lengthy transformation in conjunction with the rise of mass politics and the development of technologies (e.g., dynamite) that made indiscriminate killing possible. In the past, terrorist organizations focused on tyrannicide because the key to influencing politics was influencing leaders, not citizens. Technological barriers also made relatively large-scale attacks difficult. The emergence of politically influential civilian populations and the weapons capable of injuring or killing several people at once ushered in a period in which civilians, nor leaders, became the preferred targets for terrorist violence. Chaliand and Blin's argument about the changing nature of terrorist activity echoes, but does not fully adopt, Walter Laqueuer's thesis in his widely read 1977 book, Terrorism. Whereas Laqueuer is famous for arguing that there are no historical constants when it comes to terrorism, Chaliand and Blin suggest that what has really changed are the particular tactics terrorists use to achieve their goals and the conditions under which they use them. …


Sp1 is a basic transcriptional factor that binds to the GC-rich region in the promoter of the target gene. It is involved in transcription of numerous genes by recruiting transcriptional factors to the promoters of target genes. In this study, we found in vivo and in vitro that Hsp90α was recruited to the GC-rich region of the 12(S)-lipoxygenase promoter through interaction with Sp1 in A431 cells by employing DNA affinity immunoprecipitation assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation assay. When Hsp90α was inhibited by geldanamycin (GA, a specific inhibitor of the Hsp90 family) or by siRNA of Hsp90α (to block its activity or to knockdown protein levels), respectively, luciferase activity (driven by the 12(S)-lipoxygenase promoter) and both mRNA and protein levels of 12(S)-lipoxygenase were reduced significantly in cells. In addition, the effect of GA was abolished when the Sp1 binding sites of 12(S)-lipoxygenase were mutated in A431 cells. Interestingly, binding of Sp1 to the 12(S)-lipoxygenase promoter was also decreased upon GA treatment in cells. In conclusion, our results indicate that Sp1 interacts with Hsp90α to recruit it to the promoter of 12(S)-lipoxygenase and then to regulate gene transcription by modulating the binding ability of Sp1 to promoters.


What is the evolutionary value of self-awareness and agency in intelligent agents? One way to make this problem tractable is to think about the necessary conditions that lay the foundation for the emergence of agency, and assess their evolutionary origin.We postulate that one such requirement is the predictability of the internal state trajectory. A distinct property of onepsilas own actions compared to someone elsepsilas is that onepsilas own is highly predictable, and this gives the sense of ldquoauthorshiprdquo. In order to investigate if internal state predictability has any evolutionary value, we evolved sensorimotor control agents driven by a recurrent neural network in a 2D pole-balancing task. The hidden layer activity of the network was viewed as the internal state of an agent, and the predictability of its trajectory was measured. We took agents exhibiting equal levels of performance during evolutionary trials, and grouped them into those with high or low internal state predictability (ISP). The high-ISP group showed better performance than the low-ISP group in novel tasks with substantially harder initial conditions. These results indicate that regularity or predictability of neural activity in internal dynamics of agents can have a positive impact on fitness, and, in turn, can help us better understand the evolutionary role of self-awareness and agency.


The usage of hydrogels has greatly expanded to a wide range of fields due to their eco-friendly properties. In this study, we demonstrated the rapid repair of broken hydrogels utilizing microgel architectures, which were prepared by the adhesion of oppositely charged microgels. The mechanical strength of the microgel architectures was able to be controlled by changing the charge density and/or mixing ratio of larger and smaller microgels. The rapid repair of broken microgel architectures and deletion-formed hydrogels was performed by gap filling using microgel paste. The reported microgel architectures would be useful for the do-it-yourself repair of soft materials including hydrogels and soft-tissues with green manufacturing processes.


As genomic and proteomic data is collected from high-throughput methods on a daily basis, subcellular components are identified and their in vitro behavior is characterized. However, much less is known of their in vivo activity because of the complex subcellular milieu they operate within. A component's milieu is determined by the biological pathways it participates in, and hence, the mechanisms by which it is regulated. We believe AI planning technology provides a modeling formalism for the task of biological pathway discovery, such that hypothetical pathways can be generated, queried and qualitatively simulated. The task of signal transduction pathway discovery is re-cast as a planning problem, one in which the initial and final states are known and cellular processes captured as abstract operators that modify the cellular environment. Thus, a valid plan that transforms the initial state into a goal state is a hypothetical pathway that prescribes the order of signaling events that must occur to effect the goal state. The planner is driven by data that is stored within a knowledge base and retrieved from heterogeneous sources (including gene expression, protein-protein interaction and literature mining) by a multi-agent information gathering system. We demonstrate the combined technology by translating the well-known EGF pathway into the planning formalism and deploying the Fast-Forward planner to reconstruct the pathway directly from the knowledge base.