Historically, Delaware corporate law provided different standards of judicial review for buyouts by controlling shareholders (also known as "freezeouts") based on what transactional form was used: deferential business judgment review for freezeouts executed as tender offers, and stringent "entire fairness" review for transactions structured as mergers. Subramanian (2005), Subramanian (2007), and Restrepo (2013) provide doctrinal and empirical evidence that transactional planners responded to these differences in standards of judicial review; that these differences in judicial scrutiny created differences in outcomes for the minority shareholders; and that differences in outcomes created a social welfare loss, not just a wealth transfer from minority shareholders to the controlling shareholder. Over the past decade, in a series of important decisions, Delaware law has migrated toward a "unified approach" to freezeouts regardless of transactional form. In this paper we present empirical evidence on all freezeouts of Delaware targets during this period of doctrinal evolution. In general, we find that deal outcomes have converged in the eight years since the Delaware Chancery Court's decision in Cox Communications, but approximately half of merger freezeouts in the post-Cox era still did not follow the procedural template provided by the unified approach. Our findings suggest that: (1) transactional planners seem to respond to even probabilistic changes in the Delaware case law; (2) the social welfare loss identified in Subramanian (2005) seems to no longer be present; but (3) the Delaware Supreme Court may nevertheless wish to "finish the job" by endorsing the unified approach, in order to ensure adequate procedural protections to minority shareholders.


The amount of raw data produced by everything from our mobile phones, tablets, computers to our smart watches brings novel challenges in data storage and analysis. Many solutions have arisen in the industry to treat these large quantities of raw data, the most popular being the MapReduce framework. However, while the deployment complexity of such computing systems is steadily increasing, continuous availability and fast response times are still the expected norm. Furthermore, with the advent of virtualization and cloud solutions, the environments where these systems need to run is becoming more and more dynamic. Therefore ensuring performance and dependability constraints of a MapReduce service still poses significant challenges. In this thesis we address this problematic of guaranteeing the performance and availability of MapReduce based cloud services, taking an approach based on control theory. We develop the first dynamic models of a MapReduce service running a concurrent workload. Furthermore, we develop several control laws to ensure different quality of service objectives. First, classical feedback and feedforward controllers are developed to guarantee service performance. To further adapt our controllers to the cloud, such as minimizing the number of reconfigurations and costs, a novel event-based control architecture is introduced for performance management. Finally we develop the optimal control architecture MR-Ctrl, which is the first solution to provide guarantees in terms of both performance and dependability for MapReduce systems, meanwhile keeping cost at a minimum. All the modeling and control approaches are evaluated both in simulation and experimentally using MRBS, a comprehensive benchmark suite for evaluating the performance and dependability of MapReduce systems. Validation experiments were run in a real 60 node Hadoop MapReduce cluster, running a data intensive Business Intelligence workload. Our experiments show that the proposed techniques can successfully guarantee performance and dependability constraints.


The global financial and economic crisis and prospects for large and sustained budget deficits in the United States have prompted countries with massive dollar holdings such as China to consider alternatives to the US dollar. These countries realize that they would suffer losses if inflation eroded the value of the dollar securities they own. Are there feasible alternatives to the US dollar as a widely used international currency? Richard Cooper looks at possible alternatives--major currencies in use, such as the euro, the yen, the pound, or even the Chinese renminbi, and a synthetic currency such as the special drawing rights of the International Monetary Fund--and concludes that no other currency seems likely to overtake the US dollar, and it is likely to remain the dominant international currency for a long time. He notes that international use of the euro will grow, perhaps even more rapidly than that of the dollar for some years, but because of limitations on issuers and financial markets, the euro is not likely to displace the dollar. In a growing world economy, there is room for both. A deliberate international decision to create an international currency could displace the dollar, but that task would be formidably difficult. The prospective gains from such a creation would have to be sufficiently great to make governments willing to overcome the practical difficulties and to adopt the complementary policies (mainly concerning exchange rates) necessary to give a new international currency a compelling advantage over present arrangements.


M-learning has enhanced the e-learning by making the learning process learner-centered. However, enforcing exam security in open environments where each student has his/her own mobile/tablet device connected to a Wi-Fi network through which it is further connected to the Internet can be one of the most challenging tasks. In such environments, students can easily exchange information over the network during exam time. This paper aims to identify various vulnerabilities that may violate exam security in m-learning environments and to design the appropriate security services and countermeasures that can be put in place to ensure exam security. It also aims to integrate the resulting secure exam system with an existing, open-source, and widely accepted Learning Management System (LMS) and its service extension to the m-learning environment, namely "the Moodbile Project".


Most bushmeat studies in the Amazon region focus on hunting patterns of indigenous populations in rural settings. Our study describes the existence of urban hunters in medium-sized towns. Using a variety of data collection methods, we describe the main socioeconomic characteristics of urban hunters in Benjamin Constant and Atalaia do Norte, Brazil. We analyze the patterns and motivations of urban hunters as well as the type of prey harvested and quantities traded. All interviewed hunters are caboclos, people of mixed Brazilian indigenous and European origins from rural areas who now live in urban and peri-urban areas. Living in these more populated spaces allows these hunters better market options for their harvest and allows them to alternate hunting with other economic activities. Only 29% of the interviewed hunters relied solely on hunting. In total, 11.6 tons of bushmeat were harvested (of which 97% was traded) by four hunters during the monitoring period (60 days). The most hunted species were terecay (Podocnemis unifilis), curassow (Crax sp.), paca (Cuniculus paca), and tapir (Tapirus terrestris). The ratio of bushmeat sold to that consumed, as well as the level of participation in the bushmeat market chain, allowed us to differentiate between specialized and diversified hunters. Specialized hunters sell 81% of the bushmeat caught to known wholesalers in the city. Diversified hunters sell 21% of their total catch to families, neighbors, or friends directly as fresh meat, avoiding intermediaries. For all hunters, hunting localities are associated with peri-urban roadways that are easily reached by motorbike or bicycle from the hunters' houses in the urban areas or city fringes. Our results show that urban hunters in medium-sized towns exemplify how traditional hunting systems can be adapted in the face of globalization, by living close to the market, at relatively manageable distances from hunting grounds, and using modern methods of transportation and communication to bypass law enforcement.


ABSTRACT Cross-sectional studies of bullying mask variability in categories of and persistence of bullying victimization. Longitudinal, individual-level data offers a greater insight into schoolchildren's psychosomatic maladjustment as a consequence of bullying. Swedish schoolchildren (n = 3,349), with unique identifiers, in 44 schools (4th–9th grade), answered a questionnaire at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Longitudinal trends for nonvictims (88%), ceased victims (4.7%), new victims (5.7%), and continuing victims (1.6%) revealed that new victims had the largest decrease in well-being; continuing victims had a smaller though not significant decrease; while ceased victims showed a small, (nonsignificant) increase in well-being over the measurement period. It was also discovered that children not bullied at baseline but bullied subsequently, differed, at baseline, from their never-bullied peers through lower levels of overall well-being. It is argued that this finding has implications for prevention strategies.


We consider the diffraction of a p -polarized electromagnetic wave incident from the vacuum side onto a one-dimensional grating ruled on the planar surface of a dielectric medium characterized by an isotropic, frequency-dependent dielectric constant ∊(ω). The plane of incidence is assumed to be perpendicular to the grooves of the grating. On the basis of the Rayleigh hypothesis, integral equations are derived for the amplitudes of the reflected and transmitted beams. Formal solutions of these equations are obtained in the form of series of powers of the grating profile function. Recursion relations for determining the successive terms in these expansions are established. It is then pointed out that, if the series for the amplitudes of the reflected and transmitted waves are truncated after any finite number of terms, they have poles at the frequency of a surface polariton on a flat surface and not at the frequency of a surface polariton on the grating surface, in disagreement with the requirements of formal scattering theory. It is shown how the direct iterative series solutions for these coefficients can be rearranged into quotients of two series in powers of the surface-profile function in which the series in the denominator vanishes at the frequency of a surface polariton on the grating surface as required. Recursion relations are derived for the terms in both of these series. The solutions presented here are convenient in not requiring the inversion of large matrices and are well suited for machine computation in addition to possessing the required analytic properties.


Background: Treatments for kidney disease have been available in Australia for more than 50 years. Despite this, and the Northern Territory (NT) having Australia's highest rates of kidney disease, the range of models of dialysis care in the NT has been limited until quite recently. Objective: The paper provides a brief history of the development of dialysis services in the NT and examines the contexts in which unique models of dialysis care have emerged. Data reviewed included published and unpublished documents and reports, relevant Departmental and ANZDATA information and interviews with past and present staff. Discussion: The early development of renal services in the NT was characterised by a desire to limit expenditure, despite repeated disease projections that indicated rapidly escalating demand. An integrated policy response was not forthcoming to address the magnitude, persistence and growth in the burden of kidney disease. Repeated periods of capacity crisis requiring Ministerial intervention have dominated the historical landscape. In the meantime, Aboriginal patients, communities and clinicians have advocated, with some success, for services that are closer to home and more responsive to patients' health, social and cultural needs. Conclusion: There has been considerable expansion of dialysis services across the NT, with several unique models of dialysis care developing over the last 15 years. While there are now some community-led services, the NT Government continues to provide the bulk of staffed services. It is yet to be seen if the new MBS item for remote dialysis services will be another game-changer.


Clinical pharmacy services in North American are well implemented both in community pharmacies and in hospital pharmacies. In 2009 the Chinese government mandated the implementation of clinical pharmacy services in all secondary and tertiary hospitals by 2020. The mandate would require adequately trained clinical pharmacists. However, most pharmacy education programs in China have not yet incorporated clinical pharmacy into their curricula. Many pharmacists have been sent to countries, including the United States and Canada, to receive clinical pharmacy training. Because of different health care systems, medical team dynamics, and language barriers, it became difficult for the returning pharmacists to apply the skills gained from this type of training. As a result, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University initiated an international academic–run train-the-trainer program. The objectives are to provide adequate training for pharmacists to provide pharmaceutical care to patients, conduct clinical pharmacy–related research, and engage in scholarly activities. After evaluation of local readiness, the course commenced in 2014, and to date four trainers have received personalized one-on-one training by an advanced pharmacist with 15 years of experience of delivering similar curricula in North America. We present the initial process evaluation and learning that will contribute to the development of clinical pharmacy courses at Central South University.


The content of this report was originally prepared as three separate background papers describing longline fisheries of the world, the nature and extent of incidental catch of seabirds in those fisheries and a description of technical and operational measures that can mitigate such incidental catch. An FAO appointed Technical Working Group (TWG) of experts in the field of fishing technology, seabird biology and fisheries management reviewed the content and decided to compile it into one document. The report, first in general terms, describes the interaction of seabirds with longline fisheries with reference to typical behaviour patterns of seabirds and why and how the incidental longline catch of seabirds has become an international issue. The various longline fisheries (demersal and pelagic) of the world are described with regard to technology and effort. The pelagic fisheries, which mainly target tunas, swordfish and billfishes are operated widely from temperate to tropical waters in all oceans. The most important demersal fisheries are found in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific but a longline fisheries for Patagonian tootfish has been developed in the Southern Ocean over the last few years. Certain longline fisheries result in large numbers of seabirds being hooked on setting lines. The major "problem" fisheries are the demersal fisheries of the Northeast Pacific, North Atlantic, Southern Ocean and the Atlantic coast of South America, and the tuna pelagic fisheries of cool temperate seas in the North Pacific and the Southern Ocean. However, data on the incidental catch of seabirds are lacking for a number of longline fisheries, including the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean Sea and in tropical waters of all oceans. Species of seabirds most commonly taken are the albatrosses and large petrels of the family Procellariidae. A comprehensive number of mitigation measures for reducing the incidental catch of seabirds in longline fisheries has been developed during the past 5-10 years. These are all described in detail in the report. With widespread use of such mitigation measures, a significant reduction in incidental catch of seabirds is achievable at a minimal cost and with much potential financial benefit to longline fisheries.


This article addresses two distinct but related concerns. The first section argues for adoption of a wide‐ranging conceptualization of restorative justice, one that encompasses concern for community, structural, economic and social levels of attention, as well as personal and direct consideration for parties to crimes and conflicts. It is a view of restorative justice, like that espoused by Sullivan and Tifft, that is transformative in conception, ambition, and operation. It is based on awareness that making distinctions between restorative and community justice may be useful for some purposes but expresses a preference for thinking of these two perspectives as part of a larger whole. The second part of the article highlights 10 values or principles that may help guide the development and implementation of an expansive view of restorative justice. It suggests that a person who wishes to pursue a more peaceful and just world should be ethically engaged, behave in an exemplary fashion, beware of and avoid exploitation, fully embrace equality, be empathic, act so as to empower oneself and others, recognize the entwinement of all people and the earth, select interventions that are effectual while being error‐aware, appreciate that ends and means are enmeshed, and act with earnest enthusiasm.


SUMMARY 1. Stream fish can regulate their environment through direct and indirect pathways, and the relative influence of communities with different taxonomic and functional richness on ecosystem properties likely depends on habitat structure. Given this complexity, it is not surprising that observational studies of how stream fish communities influence ecosystems have shown mixed results. 2. In this study, we evaluated the effect of an observed gradient of taxonomic (zero, one, two or three species) and functional (zero, one or two groups) richness of fishes on several key ecosystem properties in experimental stream mesocosms. Our study simulated small (less than two metres wide) headwater prairie streams with a succession of three pool-riffle structures (upstream, middle and downstream) per mesocosm. Ecosystem responses included chlorophyll a from floating algal mats and benthic algae, benthic organic matter, macroinvertebrates (all as mass per unit area), algal filament length and stream metabolism (photosynthesis and respiration rate). Ecosystem responses were analysed individually using general linear mixed models. 3. Significant treatment (taxonomic and functional richness) by habitat (pools and riffles) interactions were found for all but one ecosystem response variable. After accounting for location (upstream, middle and downstream) effects, the presence of one or two grazers resulted in shorter mean algal filament lengths in pools compared to no-fish controls. These observations suggest grazers can maintain short algal filaments in pools, which may inhibit long filaments from reaching the surface. Accordingly, floating algal mats decreased in mid- and downstream locations in grazer treatment relative to no-fish controls. 4. At the scale of the entire reach, gross primary productivity and respiration were greater in treatments with two grazer species compared to mixed grazer/insectivore or control treatments. 5. The distribution of stream resources across habitat types and locations within a reach can therefore be influenced by the taxonomic and functional composition of fishes in small prairie streams. Thus, disturbances that alter diversity of these systems might have unexpected ecosystemlevel consequences.


In the recent past, there has been a phenomenal increase in monitoring the physical world using wireless sensor networks comprising tiny computing devices with integrated sensors. These devices are deployed in large numbers, often across large spaces and within hostile environments. Wireless sensor networks are used to gather meaningful data and to enable important applications. They must satisfy some basic requirements. Specifically, they must be maintenance free, inexpensive, reliable, and scalable. The devices used in these networks are deployed in the hundreds to thousands and rely on battery power. It is expensive to change these batteries in such large networks, both in terms of battery cost and personnel time. The cost of an individual device plays an important role in the cost of a sensor network. Further, if these networks are deployed in safety critical contexts, we cannot risk having incorrect data or missing important data. Finally, sensor networks must be able to accommodate new devices and gracefully handle device failures. This thesis describes a hardware/software solution for wireless sensor networks which is maintenance free, inexpensive, reliable, and scalable. In this thesis, I present a wireless sensing device which harvests solar energy and stores it in a Li-Ion battery. The device works on solar energy during the daytime and relies on battery power during the night. This addresses the problem of maintaining remote devices. The design is also focused on reducing component costs. The cost is low enough to discard the individual devices without significant concern. Finally, using these devices, I present a network protocol and reference implementation which makes data reception reliable, while supporting network scalability.


In this paper, I analyze India's approach to capital account liberalization through the lens of the new literature on financial globalization. India's authorities have taken a cautious and calibrated path to capital account opening, which has served the economy well in terms of reducing its vulnerability to crises. By now, the capital account has become quite open and reversing this is not a viable option. Moreover, the remaining capital controls are rapidly becoming ineffective, making the debate about capital controls rather moot. Managing de facto financial integration into international capital markets and aligning domestic macroeconomic policies in a manner that maximizes the indirect benefits and reduces the risks is the key challenge now facing India's policymakers on this front.


We consider the problem of automatic generation of control strategies for robotic vehicles given a set of high-level mission specifications, such as "Vehicle x must eventually visit a target region and then return to a base," "Regions A and B must be periodically surveyed," or "None of the vehicles can enter an unsafe region." We focus on instances when all of the given specifications cannot be reached simultaneously due to their incompatibility and/or environmental constraints. We aim to find the least-violating control strategy while considering different priorities of satisfying different parts of the mission. Formally, we consider the missions given in the form of linear temporal logic formulas, each of which is assigned a reward that is earned when the formula is satisfied. Leveraging ideas from the automata-based model checking, we propose an algorithm for finding an optimal control strategy that maximizes the sum of rewards earned if this control strategy is applied. We demonstrate the proposed algorithm on an illustrative case study.


Marketing Networks 2.0 Andrew T. Stephen Online social networking, so-called social media and user-generated media, and consumer-driven marketplaces (e.g., eBay where individuals can be sellers) are interesting phenomena that can have important marketing implications. This dissertation comprises four essays related to these marketplace phenomena. Four research questions are asked and addressed, each considering social interactions between individuals in marketplaces: (1) how can network-based interactions between consumers generate economic value for firms and for other marketplace participants, (2) what drives the formation and evolution of these interactions and network relationships in a marketplace context, (3) what drives the activation of consumers' network relationships with respect to the transmission of information via word-of-mouth (WOM) from one consumer to another, and (4) what affects the reception of information via WOM and how can impact of WOM on consumers' attitudes and behaviors be measured and modeled? Each of these questions is addressed by a separate essay. Essay 1 examines the economic value implications of social interactions between sellers in online marketplaces where sellers can form links to other sellers and customers can use these links (Internet hyperlinks) to browse between shops in a marketplace. This interesting phenomenon where potential competitors can link and send customers to each other is called "social commerce." Using data from a large social commerce marketplace in France, empirical findings suggest that seller networks can be beneficial, although not all links are value-creating and it depends on whether links improve the network's browsability. Although allowing sellers to connect does increase total marketplace sales, how the structure of the marketplace network evolves can either help or hurt marketplace-level performance. At the individual seller (or shop) level, being part of the network can help make shops more accessible to customers, which in turn increases shops' sales. Essay 2 examines the same social commerce network and addresses the issue of how this network structure formed and evolved over time. Given that the network does have some economic value, as found in essay 1, it is necessary to understand the evolution dynamics of this network. Although the network studied has a power-law degree distribution, its evolution is not well explained by preferential attachment or triadic and cyclic closure (common link formation mechanisms in extant literature). Instead, the evolution of the network and the emergence of its power-law degree distribution are found to be well explained by a network evolution mechanism that relies on shop attributes that are not directly related to the network: shops prefer to connect to shops with more diverse assortments. Thus, product assortment decisions made by sellers affect their ability to attract links to their shops from other shops, which in turn influences how accessible they are made by their position in the network. Essay 3 explores the nature of consumers' social interactions with respect to the transmission of information via WOM. In this essay consumers' reasons for transmitting WOM and the drivers of their selections of recipients are studied with three experiments. Across three studies it is found that the main reasons for transmitting WOM are predominantly transmitter-focused and associated with transmitters using social capital embedded in their social relationships, the importance placed on these reasons by transmitters is related to the types of recipients that they actually choose to talk to, characteristics of recipients and the relationships they have with transmitters are strong drivers of transmitters' decisions of who to (and who not to) transmit information to, and the underlying reasons for transmitting WOM, and hence the types of recipients that comprise one's preferred "audience," lie in transmitters wanting to use (but not build) social capital, but the type of use depends on whether people are sharing their own opinions ("initial transmission") or passing on others' opinions ("retransmission"). Essay 4 also concentrates on WOM, but instead on the reception or "listening" side. In this essay, with two experiments, the characteristics of transmitters who are listened to are examined, and the drivers of WOM impact on recipients' attitudes (and subsequent behaviors) are modeled. Importantly, here impact is captured as how much WOM messages from transmitters change two components of recipients' attitudes toward the topic of the message (i.e., a brand or a product): disposition (e.g., perceived quality of the product, liking of the brand), and the certainty with which the disposition is held. Two studies demonstrate that WOM impacts disposition and certainty differently, changes in both disposition and certainty affect consumers' intentions to purchase a talked-about brand, WOM from strangers in some cases can be as impactful as WOM from friends and acquaintances, and the relatively strong influence of strangers under some conditions seems to be the result of perceptions of the credibility of strangers as sources of information. Overall, the results illustrate that WOM reception is multiply-determined and, above all, the outcome of a complex set of processes.


Last May, the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and its partner in Colombia, Fundacion ProAves, announced the discovery of a new species of Neotropical bird. ABC touted the feat as "remarkable" for being one of the first times a new species had been scientifically described from an individual captured, measured, photographed, and then released. For George Fenwick, head of ABC, it was a proud moment: The bird, Fenwick9s antpitta (Grallaria fenwickorum), was named in honor of his family. But the announcement made no mention of the bird9s actual discoverer, a former employee of ProAves named Diego Caranton, and the two preserved specimens he had already collected. How Caranton, his specimens, and the name he had chosen—Grallaria urraoensis—came to be omitted from the taxonomic record is generating bitter debate between Colombia9s leading university ornithologists and ProAves, the country9s best-known private conservation organization, over scientific standards and credit for new discoveries.


Finding definitions in huge text collections is a challenging problem, not only because of the many ways in which definitions can be conveyed in natural language texts but also because the definiendum (i.e., the thing to be defined) has not, on its own, enough discriminative power to allow selection of definition-bearing passages from the collection. We have developed a method that uses already available external sources to gather knowledge about the "definiendum" before trying to define it using the given text collection. This knowledge consists of lists of relevant secondary terms that frequently co-occur with the definiendum in definition-bearing passages or "definiens". External sources used to gather secondary terms are an on-line enyclopedia, a lexical database and the Web. These secondary terms together with the definiendum are used to select passages from the text collection performing information retrieval. Further linguistic analysis is carried out on each passage to extract definition strings from the passages using a number of criteria including the presence of main and secondary terms or definition patterns.


In both Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, government briefs asserted that there is a "long-established presumption" that treaties do not create judicially-enforceable individual rights. In his dissent in Sanchez-Llamas, Justice Breyer challenged this claim. The debate about whether the Supreme Court should adopt such a presumption is part of a broader conflict between the "nationalist" and "transnationalist" models of treaty enforcement. The transnationalist model applies a presumption in favor of domestic judicial remedies for violations of treatybased individual rights. In contrast, the nationalist model applies a presumption against individual remedies for treaty violations. This article analyzes the historical foundations of both models. It demonstrates that doctrines involving the domestic judicial enforcement of treaties have changed dramatically in the past thirty years. Between 1789 and 1975, there was not a single judicial decision endorsing the nationalist presumption against private enforcement of treaty rights. In contrast, there were dozens of Supreme Court decisions that applied the transnationalist pre-


Learning when and what to learn Infants use "unexpectedness" as a cue for learning. Stahl and Feigenson studied how babies reacted when objects behaved in surprising ways (see the Perspective by Schulz). Babies who saw apparently solid and weighty objects moving through a wall or past the edge of a table without falling looked intently at them. When given the opportunity to explore these peculiar objects, they did so by banging them on the floor—as if to test their solidity—or dropping them—as if to test their weightiness. Science, this issue p. 91; see also p. 42 Early in life, violations of core expectations provide a special opportunity for improved learning. [Also see Perspective by Schulz] Given the overwhelming quantity of information available from the environment, how do young learners know what to learn about and what to ignore? We found that 11-month-old infants (N = 110) used violations of prior expectations as special opportunities for learning. The infants were shown events that violated expectations about object behavior or events that were nearly identical but did not violate expectations. The sight of an object that violated expectations enhanced learning and promoted information-seeking behaviors; specifically, infants learned more effectively about objects that committed violations, explored those objects more, and engaged in hypothesis-testing behaviors that reflected the particular kind of violation seen. Thus, early in life, expectancy violations offer a wedge into the problem of what to learn.


We report on the first demonstration of ZGP OPO based on Rotated Image Singly-Resonant Twisted RectAngle (RISTRA) cavity. For the OPO signal wave we achieved a near diffraction-limited beam at 3.4 μm with pulse energy of 10 mJ at repetition rate up to 500 Hz. As a pump source for the ZGP OPO, we utilized a 2-μm, TEM00, Ho:YLF MOPA system producing > 55 mJ energy per pulse at repetition rate range from single shot to 500 Hz.


Defensive reactions offer an explanation for why people reject persuasive messages. Surprisingly, little research has focused on the basic question of how they are structured with regard to one another. Understanding this would enable more informed theorizing. Using data from two studies ( N = 849 and N = 311), we tested four possible structures via confirmatory factor analysis, frequency analysis, and latent profile analysis. Results indicated that defensive reactions are best conceptualized as several related concepts that are positively correlated but cannot be reduced to a single phenomenon. Having addressed the structure issue empirically, we conclude with a series of questions that may guide efforts to explicate the concept known as defensive reactions.


Abstract The study of island fauna has greatly informed our understanding of the evolution of diversity. We here examine the phylogenetics, biogeography, and diversification of the damselfly genera Nesobasis and Melanesobasis, endemic to the Fiji Islands, to explore mechanisms of speciation in these highly speciose groups. Using mitochondrial (COI, 12S) and nuclear (ITS) replicons, we recovered garli‐part maximum likelihood and mrbayes Bayesian phylogenetic hypotheses for 26 species of Nesobasis and eight species/subspecies of Melanesobasis. Biogeographical patterns were explored using lagrange and bayes‐lagrange and interpreted through beast relaxed clock dating analyses. We found that Nesobasis and Melanesobasis have radiated throughout Fiji, but are not sister groups. For Nesobasis, while the two largest islands of the archipelago—Viti Levu and Vanua Levu—currently host two distinct species assemblages, they do not represent phylogenetic clades; of the three major groupings each contains some Viti Levu and some Vanua Levu species, suggesting independent colonization events across the archipelago. Our beast analysis suggests a high level of species diversification around 2–6 Ma. Our ancestral area reconstruction (rasp‐lagrange) suggests that both dispersal and vicariance events contributed to the evolution of diversity. We thus conclude that the evolutionary history of Nesobasis and Melanesobasis is complex; while inter‐island dispersal followed by speciation (i.e., peripatry) has contributed to diversity, speciation within islands appears to have taken place a number of times as well. This speciation has taken place relatively recently and appears to be driven more by reproductive isolation than by ecological differentiation: while species in Nesobasis are morphologically distinct from one another, they are ecologically very similar, and currently are found to exist sympatrically throughout the islands on which they are distributed. We consider the potential for allopatric speciation within islands, as well as the influence of parasitic endosymbionts, to explain the high rates of speciation in these damselflies.


Hyper-redundant robots (HRR) have many more degrees of freedom (DOF) than required, which enable them to handle more constraints, such as those present in highly convoluted volumes. Consequently, they can serve in many robotic applications, while extending the reachability and maneuverability of the operator. Many degrees of freedom that furnish the HRR with its wide range of capabilities also provide its major challenges: mechanism design, control, and path planning. In this paper, we present a novel design of a HRR composed of 16DOF. The HRR is composed of two concentric structures: a passive backbone and an exoskeleton which carries self-weight as well as external loads. The HRR is 80 cm long, 7.7 cm in diameter, achieves high rigidity and accuracy and is capable of 180 deg bending. The forward kinematics of the HRR is presented along with the inverse kinematics of a link. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4007203]


Policy debates about the appropriate risk levels for individual retirement plans and social retirement plans (like social security) often pay insufficient attention to the inescapable trade-off between payment risk (the risk of insufficient funding for anticipated benefits) and short fall risk (the risk of insufficient benefits for a satisfactory retirement). Thus a prudent retiree rule would permit a prudent level of contingent funding of retirement payouts. Contingent funding - basing benefit expectations on funding sources that may not materialize - increases payment risk, yet pension systems without some contingent funding will produce inferior benefits in most states of the world, increasing shortfall risk. Contingent funding can take different forms: underfunding (in an actuarial sense) of defined benefit promises, which means reliance on the firm's continued profitability; a tilt toward equity investments in a defined contribution plan, including an appropriate level of employer own stock, and reliance on pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) funding of social security benefits in which each generation funds its predecessor's benefits. The case for the prudent retiree rule is strengthened through a better appreciation of the underlying risks to retirement security: demographic risk (too many retirees relative to workers); economic risk (insufficient economic growth) and distributional risk (non-effort-based individual economic outcomes). Policies that address these risks can significantly reduce the risks associated with contingent funding.


This chapter explores how numbers are represented amongst children in different cultures, and shows how this can enrich our understanding of mathematical cognition. It focuses on two specific, related topics: the representation of multi-digit numbers and the scaling of a mental number line. The authors consider whether linguistic differences in number structures directly influence children's understanding of place value. They also consider whether cross-cultural and developmental differences in the quality of children's mental representations of number are direct influences on mathematical skill. Together, these two topics allow us to consider evidence for the existence of cross-cultural difference in mathematics and investigate factors that might underlie them. The authors propose that whilst the interpretation of data needs to proceed cautiously, valuable insights can be gained from relevant research.


The goal of the present work was to form a basis for the development of improved protein therapeutics against acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Bacterial L-asparaginases, in combination with other chemotherapeutics, are currently used for the treatment of ALL. This chemotherapy approach is limited by the elicitation of many immune responses to patients, mainly attributed to the bacterial origins of the used enzymes. A potential strategy to circumvent such imitations involves the replacement of the bacterial enzymes by human molecules which could drastically eliminate severe side effects arising from the immunogenicity. However, human enzymes which display L-asparaginase activity cannot be used for such treatment, because of their poor catalytic properties and therefore, protein engineering approaches for their catalytic improvement are inevitable. Overall, two novel human L-asparaginases were studied, namely human ASNase1 (hASNase1) and human ASNase3 (hASNase3), with the latter one being also structurally characterized.
Wildtype hASNase3 was used as template for mutagenesis and subsequent screening steps aiming at the identification of catalytically improved variants. A FACS-based high- throughput screening system was employed, which correlates semi-quantitatively the intracellular eGFP fluorescence intensity with the L-asparaginase activity. The system is based on a five-gene-deletion Escherichia coli (E.coli) strain (all genes which contribute to the biosynthesis of L-aspartate have been deleted) whose growth is exclusively dependent on the availability of exogenous L-aspartate, product of the L-asparaginase catalytic activity. The intracellular expression of hASNase3 variants can rescue the bacterial cells from the lack of L-aspartate since they can produce this amino acid through activity of these variants. The availability of L-aspartate reflects the expression levels of eGFP, and this, in turn, correlates the intracellular fluorescence with the L-asparaginase activity. Applying this screening strategy, overall five mutant libraries were analyzed (one generated via epPCR, and four via site-saturation mutagenesis), and eventually three human ASNase3 variants with improved catalytic properties against the hydrolysis of L-asparagine were identified and isolated, with the best one being 6-fold better than the wild type.
In addition, a novel high-throughput screening platform was developed by capitalizing on the rising field of droplet-based microfluidics. This approach allows the compartmentalization in very small water-in-oil emulsions of different types of chemical and/or enzymatic reactions, thereby monitoring the course of the reactions continuously. To this end, a novel fluorescent, three-step coupled assay for L-asparaginase was developed in order to be able to measure quantitatively enzymatic reactions in volumes of the range 500-600 pL. For standardizing the system at the single-cell level, the current antileukemic drug Escherichia coli L-asparaginase 2 was used, which was displayed on the inner membrane of E.coli cells. Individual cells displaying the enzyme were compartmentalized, and the assay was validated by measuring the activity of the displayed L-asparaginase. Our experimental results demonstrate that this setup allows the quantitative determination of single-cell enzymatic activities, thus being suitable for the screening of directed evolution mutant libraries not only for human L- asparaginases but also for other enzymes in general.
Besides hASNase3, we additionally characterized another human L-asparaginase, namely hASNase1. It was shown that this enzyme which comprises the N-terminal domain of an overall 60-kDa lysophospholipase and resembles the cytoplasmic bacterial E.coli L- asparaginase 1, can form an independent folding and catalytic unit. Strikingly, despite its monomeric state, hASNase1 displayed a very pronounced sigmoidal steady-state kinetic profile, hallmark of allosteric enzymes. Its catalytic properties are poorer than those of hASNase3, thus making its engineering task more challenging.
As a complementary strategy to the engineering of human enzymes for improvement of ALL therapy, we focused on the utilization of drug delivery approaches as means for the prolongation of the half-life of L-asparaginases under physiologically relevant conditions. By encapsulating Saccharomyces cerevisiae L-asparaginase 1 (ScASNase1) in multilayer polyelectrolyte microcapsules consisting of biocompatible and biodegradable materials, it was shown that the enzyme's thermal stability and its resistance against proteolysis can be dramatically improved. In addition, the isothermal inactivation rate at 37 !C of the encapsulated enzyme was considerably lower as compared to the free enzyme, thus suggesting that the encapsulated enzyme can retain its activity at physiologically relevant temperatures longer than its free state. Ultimately, it was demonstrated that unlike preparations of free enzyme, microcapsules filled with active ScASNase1 can kill leukemic cells in-vitro even in the presence of a mixture of proteases which degrade the free enzyme. These results further suggest that encapsulation of the enzymes can prevent their degradation from proteases, thereby prolonging their half-life and consequently allowing them to kill
leukemic cells. Similar results were obtained when the experiments were done using E.coli L- asparaginase 2, the current antileukemic drug.


The critical role of the information intermediary in supporting community participation in telecenters and community multimedia centers [CMCs] has been recognized for some time. However, the literature has largely taken a neutral/positive perspective (that the center manager/staff are necessary social connectors and should ensure equitable access) or a negative one (that they may replicate hierarchies, be unwilling to help, or direct users toward "undesirable" information). Drawing on how identities are embedded within and formed by networks, this article takes a third perspective: Telecenter and CMC information intermediaries are in the complex positions of brokers and translators, and their roles are constantly negotiated and performed within multiple, dynamic, and constructed networks. This interpretive, narrative analysis of interviews with the center manager and staff at Voices CMC in India illustrates that intermediaries can be in an ontologically insecure position, bridging these multiple networks, but can also navigate their roles and create their "spaces of development" within these same networks. Therefore, the article argues that it should not be taken for granted that these intermediaries are simply executing policy; instead, further research into how they interpret and perform it in vernacular terms is necessary because this, in turn, can shape user perception of CMCs and telecenters.


Numerous studies have demonstrated that vehicle alcohol ignition interlocks while installed on the cars of impaired-driving offenders reduce recidivism by approximately two-thirds in comparison to similar offenders whose licenses have been suspended. An unresolved issue is the extent to which the effectiveness of interlock programs can be improved by close monitoring of the offenders performance while in the program. This paper describes five types of monitoring currently being used in interlock programs in the United States. The programs reviewed vary from those that simply ensure that the interlock is on the offenderrs vehicle and functioning, to those that use the interlock log data to extend the length of time the offender is required to be in the interlock program, and those that use the interlock data to initiate special monitoring and treatment programs that must be completed before removal of the interlock device. The strengths and limitations of each type of program are described. Also reviewed are current technological developments that appear to be leading to the development of fully automated interlock-monitoring systems. Initial evidence shows that more intensive monitoring provides benefits in improved performance on the interlock as indicated by fewer high BAC breath tests when attempting to drive. More intensive supervision, although effective, increases government program costs. The relative cost effectiveness of the differing types of monitoring requires investigation. Treatment programs need to be integrated with the interlock installation period. New technologies can potentially reduce interlock offender monitoring costs and effectiveness. Integrating treatment with interlock could have post interlock benefits.


This collection of essays presents, for the first time in English, some of the key essays on the political by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. Including several unpublished essays, Retreating the Political offers some highly original perspectives on the relationship between philosophy and the political. Through contemporary readings of the political in Freud, Heidegger and Marx, the authors ask if we can talk of an a priori link between the philosophical and the political; they investigate the significance of the 'figure' - the human being as political subject - in the history of metaphysics; and they inquire how we can 're-treat' the political today in the face of those who argue that philosophy is at an 'end'.


Ceftaroline fosamil, the prodrug form of the active metabolite ceftaroline, is a new broad-spectrum parenteral cephalosporin with antibacterial activity against the prevalent respiratory pathogens Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, and Staphylococcus aureus. Bacterial resistance surveillance (5330 isolates) was conducted in the United States between 2008 and 2010 to assess the in vitro activity of ceftaroline and comparator antibacterial agents against invasive respiratory isolates of S. pneumoniae (3329 isolates), H. influenzae (1545 isolates), and M. catarrhalis (456 isolates). All organisms were cultured from patient infections in 71 US hospital laboratories and were submitted to a central reference monitor for broth microdilution testing by Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute reference methods. Against S. pneumoniae, ceftaroline inhibited 98.7% of strains at the susceptible breakpoint of ≤ 0.25 µg/mL (50% minimum inhibitory concentration [MIC(50)], 0.01 µg/mL; 90% MIC [MIC(90)], 0.12 µg/mL) and was 16-fold more active than ceftriaxone (MIC(90), 2 µg/mL). Among 70 ceftriaxone-resistant pneumococcal isolates, all were inhibited by ≤ 0.5 µg/mL of ceftaroline. Haemophilus influenzae (MIC(50), ≤ 0.008 µg/mL; MIC(90), 0.015 µg/mL) and M. catarrhalis (MIC(50), 0.06 µg/mL; MIC(90), 0.12 µg/mL) were very susceptible to ceftaroline regardless of β-lactamase production. Whereas the high-level of activity of ceftaroline was maintained against S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae from 2008 through 2010, increased rates of nonsusceptibility were observed for amoxicillin/clavulanate, erythromycin, and levofloxacin among S. pneumoniae and for trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole and azithromycin among H. influenzae. In summary, ceftaroline resistance surveillance (Assessing Worldwide Antimicrobial Resistance Evaluation [AWARE] Program) in the United States (2008-2010) documented in vitro sustained potency and spectrum against Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens known to cause community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.


Although a significant fraction of public transit riders in the United States are immigrants, relatively little research explores whether immigrants have unique transit experiences. This paper analyzes intercept survey data from 1,247 transit riders in the San Francisco Bay Area to explore how mode choices and travel experiences differ for low-income immigrants compared to higher-income immigrants and US-born residents. We find that some public transit experiences are similar across all immigrant status and income groups, while in other ways low-income immigrants differ from their higher-income counterparts or from US-born respondents. In particular, low-income immigrants were less likely to have a bus pass or bicycle access. They were far more likely to substitute driving for taking public transit than all other immigrant and income groups. The results underscore the importance of collecting data on country of origin together with travel behavior data, because many experiences are more burdensome for low-income immigrants.


19 Aims: Synthesis of Strontium oxide (SrO) is very remarkable for its applications in electrodes for gas sensors, lithium-ion batteries, solar cells, doped dye-sensitive solar cells, transistors, catalyst supports, super capacitors and semiconductors. This study is intended to synthesize SrO nanoparticles using a new method because it has a wide application area as mentioned above. Experimental design: Synthesis of SrO nanoparticles (NPs) was planned to be obtained by bio-reduction method using the plant extract of Erzincan Cimin grape ( Vitis vinifera , Cimin) Place and Duration of Study: The experimental steps of the study were carried out in the laboratories of Atatürk University, Erzurum Vocational College, Department of Chemical and Chemical Processing Technologies. Methodology: In this study, the synthesis of SrO NPs was made by using aqueous extract of Erzincan Cimin grape ( Vitis vinifera , Cimin). Biosynthesis medium containing 0.1 M Sr(NO 3 ) 2 was added to Cimin grape extract to synthesize SrO NPs. Results: The structural characterization of the SrO NPs that were obtained as a result of the reaction was analyzed using SEM, EDAX and FTIR techniques. Using the X-ray diffraction pattern in the study, the mean particle size was calculated to be 28.6 nm. SEM analysis revealed that particles having a porous nanostructure in 20-50 nm of size were synthesized. It was determined that SrO nanoparticles were absorbed at 203 nm using UV spectrophotometer. At the end of the experiments, it was observed that the maximum synthesis rate was reached at 90 minutes, at 40 o C and at pH8. Conclusion: The newly synthesized nanomaterial is expected to find applications in many different areas thanks to its physical and chemical properties.


This book is a historical study on Ibrahim-i Gulshani and the Khalwati-Gulshani order of dervishes. It examines the order's influence, network, and legacy on early modern regional and imperial politics and society in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire.


This thesis is basically an exegetical study of two texts in Ex 19:1-24:11 and Dt 4:45-28:69.
In Chapter 1 methodological issues about this thesis are considered. Hermeneutical
problems of narrative texts in the OT are handled shortly in order to prepare the exegesis
of these two texts.
In Chapter 2 the Sinai covenant pericope (Ex 191-24: 11) is dealt with. The present
context of Ex demands that the covenant making is initiated in Ex 19. The first section
(Ex 19: 3-8) concerns the preliminary proposal and acceptance of. the covenant relationship
between YHWH and Israel. There is a transitional bridge (Ex 19:8b-10a) between this first
section and the second one (Ex 19: 9-25). The second section should be defined, not as the
theophany, but as the meeting of the two covenant parties. After God's direct law-giving
(the decalogue Ex 20: 1-17), which is the first covenant stipulation, the people demand
Moses' mediatorship through which the subsequent laws (Ex 20: 22-23: 33), the second
covenant stipulation, are given indirectly. These sections are connected through the
prediction (Ex 199a) - fulfilment (Ex 19: 20-25,2018-21) scheme. Further these sections are
connected with the final section in, Ex 24 with the macroscopic (Ex 19: 24) -
semi-microscopic (Ex 241) - microscopic point of view (Ex 24: 9-11). Ex 24.3-8 is about the
covenant ratification ceremony performed through the mediation of Moses by the
participation of the junior Israelites (`the youngmen of Israel' Ex 24: 5a), and Ex 249-11 is
the audience of the senior Israelites (`the nobles of Israel' Ex 24: 11) with YHWH (`God of
Israel') after that ratification of the covenant.
In Chapter 3 the Moab covenant pericope (Dt 4:4 5-286: 9), marked by the heading (Dt
4:4 5) and the colophon (Dt 28:6 9), is studied. After the geographical, historical information
(Dt 4: 45-49) the law itself is directly introduced (Dt 5ff.). In this section the authority of
Moses demanded by the people is justified in order to prepare for the Hauptgebot
pericope (Dt 6-11). Dt 26: 17-19 is about the mutual declaration of the covenant
relationship 'and this section gives the framework for the following section (Dt 27-28)
which is about the variable or cultic element of covenant, the ratification ceremony. Dt
27: 1-8 reports some aspects of that ceremony (offering, covenant document, meal). And
here and in Dt 27: 9-10 the elders and the levitical priests, "who speak jointly with Moses,
receive the authority to perform the future covenant ceremony in Shechem. Dt 2711-13 is
the future pronouncement of the blessing and curse whose text is in Dt 283: -6,16-19A. nd
Dt 27: 14-26 contains the oath formula which will be pronounced by the levitical priests
and responded by the people.,
In Chapter 4 a comparative study of both texts is undertaken. In general it is asked
whether the covenant is the common theme of both texts. In detail it is investigated
whether there is a similarity between the two texts in their themes, theological
frameworks, and structure, and also how far the detailed descriptions of each section are
different. Finally the historical relationship between the two pericopes is investigated.


Background: The current legislation on the provision of medical assistance fixes the patient's right to health care and medical assistance (Article 41 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation). Hence it follows that the patient has the opportunity to receive advice on the use of different treatment methods not only from his/ her attending physician, but also from other doctors, to use available reference information, and to consider options for using methods of alternative medicine. Patients have the right to refuse treatment if they consider that the treatment options offered by the attending physician are inappropriate for them. Physicians have no right to treat patients without a patient's informed consent. It is necessary to determine the actual legal model of the relationship between the attending physician and the patient, who may have different options for further treatment. The purpose of the study was to analyze the legislation on the protection of public health, which allows the attending physician to refuse further treatment of a patient, informing the chief physician about the reasons for the refusal. Results. In cases when cancer hospitals and centers refuse to treat patients who decline conventional cancer treatment and require alternative medicine instead, a signed mutual refusal of medical care is documented: the patient's refusal of the treatment and the cancer institution's refusal of the treatment options offered by the patient.


Growth in government investment, academic research, and commercial systems building is motivating a need for increased planning and coordination in the emerging field of question answering (QA). The internationalization of QA research, and the need to move toward a common understanding of resources, tasks and evaluation methods motivate a need to facilitate more rapid and efficient progress. This paper characterizes a range of question answering systems and provides an initial roadmap for future research, including a list of existing resources and ones under development. This roadmap was initiated at the LREC 2002 Workshop on QA and will be updated during the 2003 AAAI Spring Symposium using moderated group brainstorming sessions.


This article proposes a different way to think about legal reasoning that focuses on its psychological effects rather than its ability to identify legal outcomes. Legal doctrine, such as statutes and case law, is generally thought to contribute to legal decision making only to the extent that it determines legal outcomes, or at least narrows the range of justifiable outcomes. Yet in many cases that come to court, the available authorities are acknowledged to be indeterminate. Over the course of decades, various theories and methods have been proposed to justify judges' continued reliance on doctrine. Most of this literature focuses on doctrine's capacity to direct substantive outcomes and ignores other benefits that doctrinal reasoning might provide. Recently, however, some empirical studies have begun to consider the potential cognitive effects of judges' engagement with doctrine. This article offers another model for how doctrine might influence judges' perceptions. Drawing on performance theory and recent psychological studies of readers, I argue that judges' disciplined engagement with formal legal doctrine might have self-disrupting effects akin to those performers experience when they deliberately alter their physical and vocal habits. Investigating doctrine's disruptive potential might help explain why judges continue to reason doctrinally despite doctrinal indeterminacy. The model of self-disruptive doctrine cannot explain how judges ultimately resolve, or should resolve, legal questions. But disruptive doctrinal effects would be valuable in and of themselves as a way for legal decision makers to set aside their usual subjective biases.


Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) use passive alignment with the Earth magnetic field as a mean to increase their navigation efficiency in horizontally stratified environments through what is known as magneto-aerotaxis (M-A). Current M-A models have been derived from MTB observations in aqueous environments, where a >80% alignment with inclined magnetic field lines produces a one-dimensional search for optimal living conditions. However, the mean magnetic alignment of MTB in their most widespread living environment, i.e. sediment, has been recently found to be <1%, greatly reducing or even eliminating the magnetotactic advantage deduced for the case of MTB in water. In order to understand the role of magnetotaxis for MTB populations living in sediment, we performed first M-A observations with lake sediment microcosms. Microcosm experiments were based on different combinations of (1) MTB position with respect to their preferred living depth (i.e. above, at, and below), and (2) magnetic field configurations (i.e. correctly and incorrectly polarized vertical fields, horizontal fields, and zero fields). Results suggest that polar magnetotaxis is more complex than implied by previous experiments, and revealed unexpected differences between two types of MTB living in the same sediment. Our main findings are: (1) all investigated MTB benefit of a clear magnetotactic advantage when they need to migrate over macroscopic distances for reaching their optimal living depth, (2) magnetotaxis is not used by all MTB under stationary, undisturbed conditions, (3) some MTB can rely only on chemotaxis for macroscopic vertical displacements in sediment while other cannot, and (4) some MTB use a fixed polar M-A mechanisms, while other can switch their M-A polarity, performing what can be considered as a mixed polar-axial M-A. These observations demonstrate that sedimentary M-A is controlled by complex mechanical, chemical, and temporal factors that are poorly reproduced in aqueous environments.


We report a case involving a patient who underwent rehabilitation following onset of pons tegmentum hemorrhage. The initial diagnosis was a disorder of paramedian pontine reticular formation (PPRF), but this was changed over the course of observation to bilateral medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) syndrome and dissociation associated with vertical nystagmus. Reports of rehabilitation in a patient with a severe disturbance of ocular motility are rare. Improvement was seen in bilateral abduction and adduction of the right eye, but no improvement was seen in adduction of the left eye or in vertical nystagmus during forward and vertical gaze. Lateral gaze disturbances, possibly present due to hematoma-associated pressure, may have improved spontaneously over time, with rehabilitation using convergence movement helping to shorten the time to improvement, suggesting that such treatment is effective in improving lateral gaze disturbances. However, the vertical gaze nystagmus in this patient was thought to be irreversible, given that the ascending medial longitudinal fasciculus had been severed as a result of the pontine hemorrhage, which prevented the development of a mechanism to compensate for it.


A general framework is presented to develop, test and integrate component models of the distribution and dynamics of Antarctic krill population at various spatial and temporal scales. We suggest that models of increasing complexity be developed iteratively for variability and patchiness of krill abundance. Incremental models should then be compared to statistical descriptions of the observed distribution patterns at various scales of observation to ascertain the plausibility of the model and identify critical processes to be added. An analysis of spatial distribution of krill in the Bransfield Strait area reveals that purely physical models of turbulent redistribution are not sufficient to explain krill distribution at small scales. We therefore propose to develop a modified diffusion-reaction model incorporating spatially variable growth rates of krill, krill loss rates due to predators, and density-dependent attraction of krill to account for the small-scale aggregations.


BACKGROUND
Little is known about whether the positive effect of breastfeeding on child health extends to adult psychological adjustment. We hypothesized that breastfed babies would have higher psychological well-being in adulthood in relation to the pathway of childhood psychosocial adjustment.

METHODS
We used the available cases with normal birthweight from the National Child Development Study (NCDS, N=7304, born in 1958) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70, N=6205, born in 1970). Childhood psychosocial adjustment was assessed by the child's teacher, using the Bristol Social Adjustment Guides for the NCDS and the Rutter Behaviour Scale for the BCS70. Adult psychological well-being was defined in terms of measures of emotional distress and self-efficacy. In this study, we controlled the effects of socio-demographic factors at birth: maternal age and educational status, two-parenthood and being a first-born child. We used path analysis to test life-course pathways between breastfeeding and adult psychological well-being independent of socio-demographic factors at birth and the role childhood psychosocial adjustment.

RESULTS
After accounting for the effects of the socio-demographic factors at birth, being breastfed indirectly contributed to adult psychological well-being among women through the pathway from childhood psychosocial adjustment. Moreover, this was directly associated with better psychological well-being in adulthood among women from the BCS70. Being breastfed was not associated with psychological outcomes amongst men in either cohort.

CONCLUSIONS
Being breastfed contributed to psychological outcomes in women, especially from the later born cohort. Our findings suggest that being breastfed can be important for women's psychological well-being throughout the lifecourse.


ASEAN Economic Community 2015 or Masyarakat Ekonomi ASEAN (MEA) will be established starting on December 31, 2015. The impact is that the opportunity in free trade of service and goods among ASEAN countries is widely open. In facing MEA, especially in Indonesia, supports from many different parties are needed, such as the business persons, government, community, and of course law becomes one of the props in running the economy in the country. Several problems and challenges that Indonesia currently face in implementing MEA namely are: there is lack of legal security for the business owners to ensure them to keep investing their business, the lack of readiness of businessmen in making agreements between themselves, slow service of bureaucracy and government commitment, and also the need of judiciary institution that can provide justice to all parties. Legal security is created through effective rules support, good faiths of the businessman, and law enforcers that fully support MEA since legal security in MEA is an absolute requirement.


The European Commission published in November 2010 a Communication aiming at putting the EU Internal Security Strategy (ISS) into action. The Communication envisages five key strategic objectives for the EU's internal security: disrupt organised crime, prevent terrorism, raise levels of security in cyberspace, strengthen external borders management and increase the EU's resilience to natural disasters. This paper starts by critically examining the extent to which these objectives actually constitute shared common concerns in all EU27 member states and whether they are based on independent and objective evidence. After demonstrating the contrary, we then argue that the ISS should be rather considered as an 'Internal (In)security Strategy' because of the lack of an accompanying solid rule of law and liberty strategy (model) focused on ensuring the delivery to everyone living in the EU (and who will be subject to increasing EU internal security policies focused on more surveillance, preventive measures and an intelligence-based approach) the twin rights of rule of law and fundamental rights.


Administrative law doctrines for reviewing agency rulemaking, such as the Supreme Court's dicta in Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Ass'n v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and the D.C. Circuit's hard look doctrine, give judges significant discretion to invalidate agency rules. Many commentators recognize that this discretion politicizes judicial review of agency rulemaking, as judges appointed by a president of one political party are more likely to invalidate agency rules promulgated under the presidential administration of a different political party. Unelected judges, though, should not be able to use indeterminate administrative law doctrines to invalidate agency rules on the basis that they disagree with the policy decisions of a presidential administration. This Article argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. implicitly eliminated State Farm's dicta and the D.C. Circuit's hard look doctrine. In place of these paternalistic doctrines, courts should establish a doctrine for reviewing agency rulemaking that examines only the agency's purpose in regulating and the means used by the agency to achieve that purpose—instead of giving courts leeway to impose additional procedures on agencies and to nitpick rulemaking records. Constitutional doctrines for reviewing legislation already focus on a government actor's purpose and means, so these doctrines should also be used for reviewing agency rules, which are legislative-like pronouncements that are binding with the force of law. Ultimately, this Article proposes that courts should review agency rulemaking under the standard for reviewing legislation known as "rational basis with bite." Rational basis with bite would require the agency, at the time it promulgates a rule, to articulate its actual statutory purpose in promulgating the rule and explain how the rule is rationally related to that purpose. Not only would rational basis with bite significantly limit the ability of judges to invalidate agency rules based on policy disagreements, but the standard fits well with the Supreme Court's precedents on APA arbitrary and capricious review.


This new white paper, entitled "Understanding and Improving Privacy 'Audits' under FTC Orders," carefully parses the third-party audits that Google and Facebook are required to conduct under their 2012 Federal Trade Commission consent orders. Using only publicly available documents, the article contrasts the FTC's high expectations for the audits with what the FTC actually received (as released to the public in redacted form). These audits, as a practical matter, are often the only "tooth" in FTC orders to protect consumer privacy. They are critically important to accomplishing the agency's privacy mission. As such, a failure to attend to their robust enforcement can have unintended consequences, and arguably, provide consumers with a false sense of security. The paper shows how the audits are not actually audits as commonly understood. Instead, because the FTC order language only requires third-party "assessments," the companies submit reports that are termed "attestations." Attestations fundamentally rely on a few vague privacy program aspects that are self-selected by the companies themselves. While the FTC could reject attestation-type assessments, the agency could also insist the companies bolster certain characteristics of the attestation assessments to make them more effective and replicate audit attributes. For example, the FTC could require a broader and deeper scope for the assessments. The agency could also require that assessors evaluate Fair Information Practices, data flows, notice/consent effectiveness, all company privacy assurances, and known order violations. With an entirely new set of FTC commissioners scheduled to take the helm by May, the agency could also pursue a more dramatic course correction. For example, the commission could release unredacted assessments, have assessors directly report to the agency (instead of the company being assessed), more concretely encourage those reporting violations, create incentives for companies to self-report violations, impose Board of Director responsibility for assessments, clarify that a third-party assessment is not a safe harbor, and build an internal task force to fully evaluate privacy order provisions, especially of course the third-party assessment. Simply "staying the course" puts consumers – and potentially democracy writ large – in an untenable situation, with real-world consequences. It's time to dive deeply into understanding these third-party privacy assessments and consider meaningful proposals for their improvement. The FTC is an extraordinary agency, and it is more than capable of rising to this challenge.


Aeolis Dorsa, a large sedimentary basin on Mars, contains an array of fluvially dominated sedimentary deposits. These deposits preserve a record of fluvial erosion and deposition during early Martian history. We present evidence that some of these fluvial deposits represent incised valleys carved and filled during falls and rises in base level, which were likely controlled by changes in water-surface elevation of a large lake or sea. The valley stratigraphy consists of three lowalbedo, channelized corridors, each several tens of kilometers long in the streamwise direction. Deposits composing the basal valley fills are characterized by laterally amalgamated point-bar strata confined between valley walls that preserve scoop-shaped segments cut by the erosive outer banks of meandering river bends. Both the point-bar deposits and valley walls were produced by a neterosional river system. Subsequent valleyfilling deposits are defined by both channels and associated overbank strata. The stacked channel-filling deposits are sinuous in form, but unlike the basal strata, they preserve no evidence of river migration. Within each valley, there are multiple sinuous ridges ranging from a few meters to several tens of meters thick, which we interpret as channel-belt deposits that have been topographically inverted via differential erosion. Evidence for channel avulsions and reoccupations, the overall cutting and filling patterns, and consistent up-section decreases in recorded channel migration support the interpretation of the low-albedo corridors as valley stratigraphy cut and filled in the presence of a migrating backwater zone. Crosscutting valleys require at least two episodes of base-level fall and rise at >50 m per episode. These base-


We present the results of an MIPS-24 μm study of the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) of 535 high-redshift galaxy clusters. The clusters are drawn from the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey, which effectively provides a sample selected on total stellar mass, over 0.2 < z < 1.8 within the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic (SWIRE) Survey fields. Twenty percent, or 106 clusters, have spectroscopically confirmed redshifts, and the rest have redshifts estimated from the color of their red sequence. A comparison with the public SWIRE images detects 125 individual BCGs at 24 μm ≳ 100 μJy, or 23%. The luminosity-limited detection rate of BCGs in similar richness clusters (Ngal > 12) increases rapidly with redshift. Above z ∼ 1, an average of ∼20% of the sample have 24 μm inferred infrared luminosities of LIR > 1012 L⊙, while the fraction below z ∼ 1 exhibiting such luminosities is <1%. The Spitzer-IRAC colors indicate the bulk of the 24 μm detected population is predominantly powered by star formation, with only 7/125 galaxies lying within the color region inhabited by active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Simple arguments limit the star formation activity to several hundred million years and this may therefore be indicative of the timescale for AGN feedback to halt the star formation. Below redshift z ∼ 1, there is not enough star formation to significantly contribute to the overall stellar mass of the BCG population, and therefore BCG growth is likely dominated by dry mergers. Above z ∼ 1, however, the inferred star formation would double the stellar mass of the BCGs and is comparable to the mass assembly predicted by simulations through dry mergers. We cannot yet constrain the process driving the star formation for the overall sample, though a single object studied in detail is consistent with a gas-rich merger.


This study aims to identify dental students' perceptions of pre-patient care laboratory exercises (PCLEs) and clinical experiences that influence their future plans for providing implant care. One of two questionnaires was administered to dental student classes at one dental school (D2: Survey 1; D3 and D4: Survey 2). Future plans as graduates to provide implant diagnosis and treatment planning (DxTP), restoration of single-tooth implants (STIs), and implant-retained overdentures (IODs) were cross-sectionally assessed along with potential influences such as PCLE, clinical experiences, gender, and class. The majority of students planned to provide implant services after graduation (DxTP 68.9 percent; STI 61.2 percent; IOD 62.1 percent). Bivariately, males reflected more preparedness from PCLEs than females (p=.002) and the D2 students more than D3 and D4 students (p<.001). Multivariate models revealed the perceived preparedness from PCLEs generally had the strongest association with future plans for performing implant therapy. However, this varied by gender and class. These findings indicate that PCLEs are important for their influence on students' future plans to provide implant therapy. However, further studies are needed to validate actual PCLEs and clinical implant practices (both longitudinally and for other schools) and to determine educational interventions to optimize the provision of implant care.


Background Intravaginal rings (IVRs) for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) theoretically overcome some adherence concerns associated with frequent dosing that can occur with oral or vaginal film/gel regimens. An innovative pod-IVR, composed of an elastomer scaffold that can hold up to 10 polymer-coated drug cores (or "pods"), is distinct from other IVR designs as drug release from each pod can be controlled independently. A pod-IVR has been developed for the delivery of tenofovir (TFV) disoproxil fumarate (TDF) in combination with emtricitabine (FTC), as daily oral TDF-FTC is the only Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved regimen for HIV PrEP. A triple combination IVR building on this platform and delivering TDF-FTC along with the antiretroviral (ARV) agent maraviroc (MVC) also is under development. Methodology and findings This pilot Phase I trial conducted between June 23, 2015, and July 15, 2016, evaluated the safety, pharmacokinetics (PKs), and acceptability of pod-IVRs delivering 3 different ARV regimens: 1) TDF only, 2) TDF-FTC, and 3) TDF-FTC-MVC over 7 d. The crossover, open-label portion of the trial (N = 6) consisted of 7 d of continuous TDF pod-IVR use, a wash-out phase, and 7 d of continuous TDF-FTC pod-IVR use. After a 3-mo pause to evaluate safety and PK of the TDF and TDF-FTC pod-IVRs, TDF-FTC-MVC pod-IVRs (N = 6) were evaluated over 7 d of continuous use. Safety was assessed by adverse events (AEs), colposcopy, and culture-independent analysis of the vaginal microbiome (VMB). Drug and drug metabolite concentrations in plasma, cervicovaginal fluids (CVFs), cervicovaginal lavages (CVLs), and vaginal tissue (VT) biopsies were determined via liquid chromatographic-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Perceptibility and acceptability were assessed by surveys and interviews. Median participant age was as follows: TDF/TDF-FTC group, 26 y (range 24–35 y), 2 White, 2 Hispanic, and 2 African American; TDF-FTC-MVC group, 24.5 y (range 21–41 y), 3 White, 1 Hispanic, and 2 African American. Reported acceptability was high for all 3 products, and pod-IVR use was confirmed by residual drug levels in used IVRs. There were no serious adverse events (SAEs) during the study. There were 26 AEs reported during TDF/TDF-FTC IVR use (itching, discharge, discomfort), with no differences between TDF alone or in combination with FTC observed. In the TDF-FTC-MVC IVR group, there were 12 AEs (itching, discharge, discomfort) during IVR use regardless of attribution to study product. No epithelial disruption/thinning was seen by colposcopy, and no systematic VMB shifts were observed. Median (IQR) tenofovir diphosphate (TFV-DP) tissue concentrations of 303 (277–938) fmol/106 cells (TDF), 289 (110–603) fmol/106 cells (TDF-FTC), and 302 (177.1–823.8) fmol/106 cells (TDF-FTC-MVC) were sustained for 7 d, exceeding theoretical target concentrations for vaginal HIV prevention. The study's main limitations include the small sample size, short duration (7 d versus 28 d), and the lack of FTC triphosphate measurements in VT biopsies. Conclusions An innovative pod-IVR delivery device with 3 different formulations delivering different regimens of ARV drugs vaginally appeared to be safe and acceptable and provided drug concentrations in CVFs and tissues exceeding concentrations achieved by highly protective oral dosing, suggesting that efficacy for vaginal HIV PrEP is achievable. These results show that an alternate, more adherence-independent, longer-acting prevention device based on the only FDA-approved PrEP combination regimen can be advanced to safety and efficacy testing. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02431273


The tools of investigation presented in part I of this study [ J. Opt. Soc. Am. A11, 197 ( 1994)] are applied to the analysis of experimental results. First the limits of the scatterometer are analyzed in detail. Problems of calibration, parasitic light, linearity, and repeatability of measurements are discussed. The roughness spectrum is shown to be an intrinsic property of surface defects. It is proved that this spectrum is perfectly reproduced in the whole range of measurable spatial frequencies by a metallic layer. Dielectric materials under study are TiO2, Ta2O5, and SiO2 obtained by ion-assisted deposition, ion plating, and electron beam evaporation. The inverse problem is solved with isotropy degree curves, and the scattering parameters that are low-pass filters and residual spectra are extracted for single layers and multilayers. Replication of defects in the measurable bandwidth is shown to be perfect at all interfaces of a multilayer. In addition, the thin-film materials bring low residual roughnesses. Coatings are also produced at oblique deposition, and light scattering is used to detect the oblique growth of the thin-film layers. The role of local defects is investigated.


This study focuses on teacher practices in publicly funded music schools in Finland. As views on the aims of music education change and broaden, music schools across Europe share the challenge of developing their activities in response. In public and scholarly debate, there have been calls for increased diversity of contents and concepts of teaching. In Finland, the official national curriculum for state-funded music schools builds on the ideal that teaching and learning should create conditions which promote 'a good relationship to music'. The meaning of this concept has been deliberately left open in order to leave room for dialogue, flexibility, and teacher autonomy. Since what is meant by 'good' is not defined in advance, the notion of 'improving' practices is also open to discussion. The purpose of the study is to examine these issues from teachers' point of view by asking what music school teachers aim to accomplish as they develop their practices. Methodologically, the study introduces a suggestion for building empirical research on Alperson's 'robust' praxial approach to music education, a philosophical theory which is strongly committed to practitioner perspectives and musical diversity. A systematic method for analysing music education practices, interpretive practice analysis, is elaborated with support from interpretive research methods originally used in policy analysis. In addition, the research design shows how reflecting conversations (a collaborative approach well-known in Nordic social work) can be fruitfully applied in interpretive research and combined with teacher inquiry. Data have been generated in a collaborative project involving five experienced music school teachers and the researcher. The empirical material includes transcripts from group conversations, data from teacher inquiry conducted within the project, and transcripts from follow-up interviews. The teachers' aspirations can be understood as strivings to reinforce the connection between musical practices and various forms of human flourishing such that music and flourishing can sustain each other. Examples from their practices show how the word 'good' receives its meaning in context. Central among the teachers' concerns is their hope that students develop a free and sustainable interest in music, often described as inspiration. I propose that 'good relationships to music' and 'inspiration' can be understood as philosophical mediators which support the transition from an indeterminate 'interest in music' towards specific ways in which music can become a (co-)constitutive part of living well in each person's particular circumstances. Different musical practices emphasise different aspects of what is considered important in music and in human life. Music school teachers consciously balance between a variety of such values. They also make efforts to resist pressure which might threaten the goods they think are most important. Such goods include joy, participation, perseverance, solid musical skills related to specific practices, and a strong sense of vitality. The insights from this study suggest that when teachers are able to create inspiration, they seem to do so by performing complex work which combines musical and educational aims and makes general positive contributions to their students' lives. Ensuring that teaching and learning in music schools remain as constructive and meaningful as possible for both students and teachers is a demanding task. The study indicates that collaborative, reflective and interdisciplinary work may be helpful as support for development processes on both individual and collective levels of music school teacher practices.


This book will take the reader through a systematic examination of the factors involved in process innovation. It starts with the considerations to be initiated in the boardroom and at group management level and develops into a hands-on guide for middle management and professional engineers directly involved in the innovation of process technology. The book initially puts process innovation in a corporate perspective, providing a framework for the development of a corporate process innovation strategy. Some new methodological tools are also introduced which support the targeting and proper roadmapping of improved process capabilities, and the progression of customer and end-user product demands, into raw-material specifications in a well-managed supply and demand chain.Various aspects of the design of a process innovation organisation are reviewed in a later section. In the context of the development of process technology, this book advocates the importance of delineating and clarifying corporate work processes. Various environments for development work are discussed, from initial test work to pilot-plant testing and the use of demonstration facilities to achieve lean process innovation. The importance of an open collaborative approach is stressed. This includes involving external equipment manufacturers at an early stage as well as collaborative development of customers' use of the products in their production processes, with a view to excellence in future application development.Process innovation will not, however, generate profit or reduce operating costs until the new or improved process technology is operating well in the plant. Best practice for start-up of new process technology and process plants is examined, starting with a fresh outlook on technology transfer in general. This often-neglected area of management of process innovation is, in fact, of an importance equivalent to that of a product launch in the development of new products. The final part of the book closes the circle, discussing how to implement and measure the strategic intent of process innovation. Improving the general performance of corporate process innovation is then covered by going through success factors and key performance indicators, and their aggregation on a corporate level.


: Aviation globally is characterised by significant change and consequently the future of the sector has always been difficult to predict. This study adopts a systemic approach based on findings from exploratory interviews with UK aviation academics to: determine the roles of stakeholders in the air transport system; report the current issues facing the sector; explore how these issues interact and impact on the stakeholders in the system; and speculate on the future implications. Six core stakeholders are identified: airlines, airports, consumers, manufacturers, governing institutions and interest groups. Nine core issues are reported, namely: local environment, climate change, peak oil, the state of the economy, social norms, demographics, disruptive events, national (or international) regulations and capacity. A matrix of interactions and their impacts and implications for managing the aviation system is then presented.


We examine incentive-compatible mechanisms for fair financing and efficient selection of a public budget (or public good). A mechanism selects the level of the public budget and imposes taxes on individuals. Individuals' preferences are quasilinear. Fairness is expressed as weak monotonicity (called scale monotonicity) of the tax imposed on an individual as a function of his benefit from an increased level of the public budget. Efficiency is expressed as selection of a Pareto-optimal level of the public budget. The budget deficit is the difference between the public budget and the total amount of taxes collected from the individuals. We show that any efficient scale-monotonic and incentive-compatible mechanism may generate a budget deficit. Moreover, it is impossible to collect taxes that always cover a fixed small fraction of the total cost.


Functional (speaker-based) and non-functional (listener-based) accounts are often equally satisfactory in explaining internally motivated diachronic sound change. Here we report a case clearly favoring the non-functional account: In some dialects of English, /ae/ is raised before /g/ but not /k/. The raising may be an attempt to reduce the conflict between producing the low front vowel before the voiced velar, or it may be due to listener misapprehension. Using acoustic and articulatory data from General American English to simulate the conditions prior to /ae/- raising, we show the precipitating stimulus for /ae/- raising had to have been listener misapprehension. Specifically, even though both /g/ and /k/ exert a coarticulatory effect on /ae/, acoustic evidence for the coarticulatory effect is found only before /g/.


A proper edge coloring of a graph $G$ with colors $1,2,3,\dots$ is called an interval coloring if the colors on the edges incident with any vertex are consecutive. A bipartite graph is $(3,4)$-biregular if all vertices in one part have degree $3$ and all vertices in the other part have degree $4$. Recently it was proved [ J. Graph Theory 61 (2009), 88-97] that if such a graph $G$ has a spanning subgraph whose components are paths with endpoints at 3-valent vertices and lengths in $\{2, 4, 6, 8\}$, then $G$ has an interval coloring. It was also conjectured that every simple $(3,4)$-biregular bipartite graph has such a subgraph. We provide some evidence for this conjecture by proving that a simple $(3,4)$-biregular bipartite graph has a spanning subgraph whose components are nontrivial paths with endpoints at $3$-valent vertices and lengths not exceeding $22$.


In this paper, we propose an additional noise-free, independent center frequency and bandwidth tunable optical filter based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) losses. By suppressing the out-of-band signal with two broadened symmetric SBS losses, tunable pass bandwidths from 500 MHz to 9.5 GHz and the independent center frequency tunability are demonstrated. Considering the limited SBS interaction in the center frequency range, a flat-top response with minimum 0.3 dB ripple is achieved. Assisted by the extra suppression from polarization pulling, a maximum selectivity of 20 dB and an ultrahigh 250  dB/GHz roll-off are reached. A gain-based SBS filter adds noise to the filtered signal. However, for our proposed filter setup, no additional noise is detected due to the transparency in the passband. Considering the wide independent bandwidth and center frequency tunability, flat-top response, and low-noise characteristic, our proposed filter can be perfectly used as a supplement of most commercialized conventional tunable optical single bandpass filters, whose minimum bandwidth is limited by 10 GHz.


Deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate pools were analysed in both exponentially growing and serum starved wild type BHK C13 cells and in a derivative of this cell line which lacks both thymidine kinase and deoxycytidine kinase activities, before and after infection with herpes simplex virus. Serum starved BHK cells had low levels of all four deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates. In exponentially growing cells all pools were expanded, the pool of dCTP being largest and dGTP the smallest. The dATP and dTTP pools were of intermediate sizes. In exponentially growing deoxypyrimidine kinase free cells the pools, with respect to level and distribution, were the same as those observed in wild type cells. After infection with herpes simplex virus there were marked changes in the levels of all deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate pools; the most predominant being a 25- to 50-fold expansion of dTTP pool. The pools of dCTP and dGTP also increased while the pool of dATP was very much reduced. These effects could be observed in both wild type and mutant cells.


Background: With the advent of newer chemotherapeutic agents, the use of Temozolomide is becoming an option in the treatment of low-grade glioma (LGG). This systematic review aims to look into the available evidences on the efficacy of Temozolomide in the management of LGG and determine if it is a good and reasonable option for the patients.
Method: A literature search and systematic review was conducted primarily answering the question: "What is the efficacy of Temozolomide in the treatment of LGG?" A two-phase abstraction was utilized yielding a total of nine studies included in the review.
Results: Ten prospective single-arm studies were initially included but one study was adjudicated as having low quality. Nine studies involving 453 patients with LGG were included. In this review, the three-year overall survival of patients diagnosed with LGG who were given Temozolomide were noted to be high ranging from 73.1-82.0% while progression-free survival showed a wide variation across studies ranging from 11.0-98.0%. Reduction in seizure frequency was seen in 48- 62% of the patients. The occurrence of mild to moderate hematologic toxicity is quite common at 10-97%.
Conclusion: We conclude that Temozolomide showed consistently high overall survival and reduction in seizure frequency among patients diagnosed with LGG. Variable responses on objective radiologic response, quality of life and progression- free survival rates were noted. Future studies should look into the efficacy of Temozolomide as an adjunct or as an initial treatment in LGG with a comparison with a control group in order for more conclusions to be made.