Background Use of robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery has rapidly increased during the last decade. Understanding the causes of adverse events and their impact on patients in robot-assisted surgery will help improve systems and operational practices to avoid incidents in the future. Methods By developing an automated natural language processing tool, we performed a comprehensive analysis of the adverse events reported to the publicly available MAUDE database (maintained by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) from 2000 to 2013. We determined the number of events reported per procedure and per surgical specialty, the most common types of device malfunctions and their impact on patients, and the potential causes for catastrophic events such as patient injuries and deaths. Results During the study period, 144 deaths (1.4% of the 10,624 reports), 1,391 patient injuries (13.1%), and 8,061 device malfunctions (75.9%) were reported. The numbers of injury and death events per procedure have stayed relatively constant (mean = 83.4, 95% confidence interval (CI), 74.2–92.7 per 100,000 procedures) over the years. Surgical specialties for which robots are extensively used, such as gynecology and urology, had lower numbers of injuries, deaths, and conversions per procedure than more complex surgeries, such as cardiothoracic and head and neck (106.3 vs. 232.9 per 100,000 procedures, Risk Ratio = 2.2, 95% CI, 1.9–2.6). Device and instrument malfunctions, such as falling of burnt/broken pieces of instruments into the patient (14.7%), electrical arcing of instruments (10.5%), unintended operation of instruments (8.6%), system errors (5%), and video/imaging problems (2.6%), constituted a major part of the reports. Device malfunctions impacted patients in terms of injuries or procedure interruptions. In 1,104 (10.4%) of all the events, the procedure was interrupted to restart the system (3.1%), to convert the procedure to non-robotic techniques (7.3%), or to reschedule it (2.5%). Conclusions Despite widespread adoption of robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery in the U.S., a non-negligible number of technical difficulties and complications are still being experienced during procedures. Adoption of advanced techniques in design and operation of robotic surgical systems and enhanced mechanisms for adverse event reporting may reduce these preventable incidents in the future.


The generation of inbetween frames that interpolate a given set of key frames is a major component in the production of a 2D feature animation. Our objective is to considerably reduce the cost of the inbetweening phase by offering an intuitive and effective interactive environment that automates inbetweening when possible while allowing the artist to guide, complement, or override the results. Tight inbetweens, which interpolate similar key frames, are particularly time‐consuming and tedious to draw. Therefore, we focus on automating these high‐precision and expensive portions of the process. We have designed a set of user‐guided semi‐automatic techniques that fit well with current practice and minimize the number of required artist‐gestures. We present a novel technique for stroke interpolation from only two keys which combines a stroke motion constructed from logarithmic spiral vertex trajectories with a stroke deformation based on curvature averaging and twisting warps. We discuss our system in the context of a feature animation production environment and evaluate our approach with real production data.


An interview in two sessions, March 1997 and January 1998, with Robert Lee Walker, professor of physics, emeritus, in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. Dr. Walker matriculated at Harvard in 1937, transferring a year later to the University of Chicago (BS 1941). After a short period there as a graduate student, he joined the Manhattan Project. After the war, he continued his graduate work at Cornell (PhD 1948). He joined the Caltech faculty in 1949 as assistant professor, becoming associate professor in 1953, full professor in 1959, and emeritus professor in 1981.

He recalls his upbringing in Winnetka, Illinois; his interest in science at New Trier High School; his college years; and his work on the Manhattan Project, first under Enrico Fermi on the atomic pile and later at Los Alamos, where he calibrated neutron sources. Discusses his Cornell graduate work and postdoctoral year helping to build the 300-MeV electron synchrotron with Robert Wilson, John DeWire, and Dale Corson; working with Boyce McDaniel on a gamma-ray spectrometer. Robert F. Bacher's recruitment of him to Caltech; his work on Caltech's electron synchrotron with Alvin Tollestrup, R. V. (Joe) Langmuir, and Matthew L. Sands; teaching duties. The postwar burgeoning of high-energy physics in U.S. and at CERN. Recalls his participation in the "Caltech Ten" advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, 1956, calling for a nuclear test ban, and the disapproval of Caltech's trustees and President Lee A. Dubridge. He concludes with brief recollections of Caltech presidents he served under and discusses the reasons for his 1981 retirement and move to New Mexico.


Manure or compost from beef cattle feedlots can be excellent sources of nutrients and organic matter when
added to soils. This study was conducted to determine the effect of a single application of manure and compost on runoff
and erosion under no-till and tillage conditions. Tillage consisted of a single disking operation up and down the slope on
a Sharpsburg soil which was cropped to grain sorghum or wheat the previous season. Manure and compost were applied
at rates required to meet corn fertility requirements. Additional experimental treatments included the application of
inorganic fertilizer and an untreated check. The addition of manure or compost to the no-till plots containing sorghum or
wheat residue resulted in significant reductions in residue cover. However, residue cover following tillage was unaffected
by the earlier addition of manure or compost. Runoff and erosion from simulated rainfall were not significantly influenced
by the single application of manure or compost. On the no-till sorghum residue treatments, total solids transport
represented 5.1% and 3.3% of the mass of applied manure and compost, respectively. Total solids transport was 1.3% and
1.4% of the mass of applied manure and compost, respectively, on the no-till wheat residue treatments.


Rejuvenation of previously intruded silicic magma is an important process leading to effusive rhyolite, which is the most common product of volcanism at calderas with protracted histories of eruption and unrest such as Yellowstone caldera (Wyoming), Long Valley caldera (California), and Valles caldera (New Mexico) in the United States. Although orders of magnitude smaller in volume than rare caldera-forming supereruptions, these relatively frequent effusions of rhyolite are comparable to the largest eruptions of the 20th century, and pose a considerable volcanic hazard. However, the physical pathway from rejuvenation to eruption of silicic magma is unclear, particularly because the time between reheating of a subvolcanic intrusion and eruption is poorly quantified. This study uses nanometer-scale trace element diffusion in sanidine crystals to reveal that rejuvenation of a near-solidus or subsolidus silicic intrusion occurred in ∼10 mo or less following a protracted period (220 k.y.) of volcanic repose, and resulted in effusion of ∼3 km3 of high-silica rhyolite lava at the onset of Yellowstone's last volcanic interval. The future renewal of effusive silicic volcanism at Yellowstone will likely require a comparable energetic intrusion of magma that remelts the shallow subvolcanic reservoir and generates eruptible rhyolite on month to annual time scales.


Plastic shrinkage cracks appear in the surface of fresh concrete soon after it is placed and while it is still plastic. These cracks appear mostly on horizontal surfaces. They are usually parallel to each other on the order of 1 to 3 feet apart, relatively shallow, and generally do not intersect the perimeter of the slab. Plastic shrinkage cracking is more likely to occur when high evaporation rates cause the concrete surface to dry out before it has set. Plastic shrinkage cracks are unsightly but rarely impair the strength of concrete floors and pavements. These cracks, however, can permit the ingress of other aggressive chemicals that impact durability and as weak points for the initiation of later age cracking due to other reasons. The development of these cracks can be minimized if appropriate measures are taken prior to and during placing and finishing concrete. Note: Plastic shrinkage cracks should be distinguished from other early or pre-hardening cracks caused by settlement of the concrete around reinforcing bars, formwork movement, early age thermal cracking, or differential settlement at a change from a thin to a deep section of concrete.


Open collaboration platforms involve people in many tasks, from editing articles to analyzing datasets. To facilitate mastery of these practices, communities offer a number of learning resources, ranging from projectdefined FAQs to individually-oriented search tools and communal discussion boards. However, it is not clear which project resources best support participant learning, overall and at different stages of engagement with the project. We draw on Sørensen's framework of forms of presence to distinguish three forms of engagement with learning resources: authoritative, agent-centered and communal. We analyzed trace data from the Gravity Spy citizen-science project using a mixed-effects logistic regression with volunteer performance as an outcome variable. The findings suggest that engagement with authoritative resources (e.g., those constructed by project organizers) facilitates performance initially. However, as tasks become more difficult, volunteers seek and benefit from engagement with their own agent-centered resources and community generated resources. These findings suggest a broader scope for the design of learning resources for online communities.


Summary
Attempts to interpose various marsupials and primates in laboratory cycles of yellow fever, using the mosquito Haemagogus capricornii as vector, are described. Of 11 attempts to infect haemagogus on the brown masked opossum (Metachirus) only one was successful, though 11 of 13 animals bitten by infected haemagogus showed circulating virus. One of 4 woolly opossums (Caluromys) showed circulating virus after being bitten by infected haemagogus. These two species are considered to be the most susceptible of Colombian marsupials, and it thus seems doubtful whether any of the local marsupials can play an important role in haemagogus cycles in nature.
The maintenance of cycles with haemagogus mosquitoes and various primates was relatively easy, and constant mosquito-mammal passages were maintained for a year (14 cycles) using saimiri and douroucouli monkeys and the marmoset Oedipomidas oedipus. Attempts to infect the widow monkey (Callicebus) gave irregular results, and the local capuchin (Cebus fatuellus) in 4 instances failed to circulate enough virus to infect haemagogus mosquitoes. It thus seems likely that all monkeys are not equally important in the maintenance of virus cycles in nature.
Since the various species of mammals and mosquitoes and the various strains of virus show differences in behavior from place to place, it is considered important that transmission experiments be made with local materials in order to evaluate possible local transmissions mechanisms.


We study the problem of video-to-video synthesis, whose goal is to learn a mapping function from an input source video (e.g., a sequence of semantic segmentation masks) to an output photorealistic video that precisely depicts the content of the source video. While its image counterpart, the image-to-image synthesis problem, is a popular topic, the video-to-video synthesis problem is less explored in the literature. Without understanding temporal dynamics, directly applying existing image synthesis approaches to an input video often results in temporally incoherent videos of low visual quality. In this paper, we propose a novel video-to-video synthesis approach under the generative adversarial learning framework. Through carefully-designed generator and discriminator architectures, coupled with a spatio-temporal adversarial objective, we achieve high-resolution, photorealistic, temporally coherent video results on a diverse set of input formats including segmentation masks, sketches, and poses. Experiments on multiple benchmarks show the advantage of our method compared to strong baselines. In particular, our model is capable of synthesizing 2K resolution videos of street scenes up to 30 seconds long, which significantly advances the state-of-the-art of video synthesis. Finally, we apply our approach to future video prediction, outperforming several state-of-the-art competing systems.


Acknowledging that aid proliferation and a lack of coordination impair aid effectiveness, donors have repeatedly promised to specialize and better coordinate their aid activities, most notably in the Paris Declaration of 2005. We exploit geocoded aid data from Malawi to assess whether the country's bilateral and multilateral donors have acted accordingly at the district and sector level. We do not find compelling evidence for increased aid specialization after the Paris Declaration, and the regional division of labor among donors may even have deteriorated. Our within-country evidence thus broadly corroborates what previous studies found at the national level of recipient countries.


Ozone pollution may cause damage to plants, animals and human beings when certain critical levels are exceeded. Therefore, it is important to study actual ozone levels and their relationship with the related emissions. Several secondary indices, directly related to the damages, are studied in this paper, rather than the proper ozone concentrations. Two versions (rough and fine grid ones) of the Danish Eulerian Model (DEM) are used in an attempt to answer the following three questions: where in Bulgaria and in Europe the highest ozone concentrations are located; how big is the influence of the European emission sources on the pollution levels in Bulgaria; and is it possible to evaluate the changes of the pollution levels in Bulgaria and in Europe when the European emissions predicted for 2010 are used? Three emission scenarios are run with meteorology for 1997: the Basic Scenario, where the 1997 EMEP emission inventory is used; the Bulgarian Scenario, where only Bulgarian emissions are set to zero; and Scenario 2010, where the 1990 EMEP inventory is modified by various factors. The results are presented by using many tables and plots, which demonstrate the relationships and the trends. Several conclusions are drawn and plans for future research are sketched.


A Needs Assessment of African American Women's Risk for Cardiovascular Disease by Chikaodi P. Banor MSN, Walden University, 2012 ADN, Quincy College, 2002 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice Walden University June 2016 Abstract. Suboptimal cardiovascular health among African American (AA) women contributes to high costs of care related to acute illness, chronic illness, and disability. Using the health promotion model, this needs assessment project examined risk factors that predispose adult AA women between the ages of 21 to 64 years of age to higher incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Seventy of the 300 charts that met the inclusion criteria (female AA patients, 21 to 64 years of age, receiving care in a community clinic in an Suboptimal cardiovascular health among African American (AA) women contributes to high costs of care related to acute illness, chronic illness, and disability. Using the health promotion model, this needs assessment project examined risk factors that predispose adult AA women between the ages of 21 to 64 years of age to higher incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Seventy of the 300 charts that met the inclusion criteria (female AA patients, 21 to 64 years of age, receiving care in a community clinic in an urban city of Texas) were audited for this project. Descriptive analysis showed that 66% of the women did not have a diagnosis of CVD, 32% were noted as being at risk for CVD, and risk for diagnosis of CVD was not listed in 3% of the charts. The audit also showed that 7% of the AA women did not monitor their diet, 60% monitored their diet, and 33% lacked knowledge of heart healthy diet. Sixty-seven percent of charts audited noted a family history of CVD, 33% noted no family history of CVD, while 3% noted an unknown family history of CVD. The ages of the patients ranged from 21-64 (M = 24.9 years). Weight ranged from 104-225 lbs. (M = 172.5 lbs.) and height ranged between 5273 inches (M = 61.13 inches). Body mass index (BMI) calculated showed 1.43% of the women were underweight, 11.4% showed normal BMI, 32.86% were overweight, and 54.29% were obese. Study recommendation included implementation of a patient education that will help increase awareness of CVD among the patient population at the clinic. Findings from this project could increase awareness on the importance of creating cultural congruent education program that will help educate minority populations more effectively in the management of cardiovascular disease. A Needs Assessment of African American Women's Risk for Cardiovascular Disease


Expectations about additional short-run gains from joining monetary union should not be too optimistic. Most of the expected gains from a monetary union are largely endogenous to credible, time-consistent domestic policies. Mere euro area membership is not a replacement for that. However, monetary integration has a role in supporting such policies and completing monetary integration, i.e., introducing the common currency can lock in the gains realized so far. The new member states made considerable progress with respect to the monetary and fiscal Maastricht criteria but inflation is still a concern in some countries and fiscal deficits are considerably too high for the majority of countries. However, experience with the run-up to EMU in the second half of the nineties shows that disinflation and fiscal consolidation can be achieved without major damage to growth. Additionally, structural real appreciation is unlikely to lead to an inconsistency of the inflation and the exchange rate targets. The experience with the currency board systems in Estonia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria reveals no evidence that the absence of an active exchange rate policy exacerbated the effects of external shocks. However, at the same time, the discipline demanded by the currency board system may have supported structural reforms. Hence, for countries which are determined to introduce the euro a currency board system may help to establish and maintain credibility within a consistent macroeconomic strategy. The experience with inflation targeting in Poland, the Czech Republic, and, more recently, Hungary shows that inflation targeting in general works successfully: it is not too soft because the Maastricht criteria guide the inflation target and it is not too rigid because new member states still need to establish credibility. The three countries should enhance the credibility of the inflation targeting regimes by thorough banking supervision and thorough fiscal policy. There is no generally superior exchange rate regime that provides a golden way to bridge the transition period to full EMU membership. While there is no reason to view monetary integration with rose-tinted glasses, there is also no reason to believe that joining the ERM II is sufficient to provide a safe haven with respect to financial stability. Even countries with sound and consistent macroeconomic policies and fulfilling all criteria - be it Copenhagen or Maastricht - will still run the risk that markets turn against them.


Ultrasound high-resolution B-mode imaging was used to assess the carotid arteries in 105 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), 4–25 years of age, with duration of diabetes ranging from 0.5–17 years, 529 patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM), 31–86 years of age, with duration of diabetes ranging from 0.5–49 years, and 104 nondiabetic healthy subjects, 7–76 years of age, to determine the intimal plus medial thickness (IMT) of the arterial wall. The IMT values for IDDM patients 10–19 years of age (0.525 ± 0.123 mm, n = 68) or 20–25 years of age (0.696 ± 0.124 mm, n = 14) were significantly > those in age-matched nondiabetic subjects (0.444 ± 0.057 mm, n = 12, P = 0.01169; 0.538 ± 0.098 mm, n = 34, P < 0.00006). NIDDM patients showed IMT values equivalent to those in normal adults ≥ 20 years of age. Multiple regression analysis showed that IMT in IDDM patients was positively related to the duration of diabetes (P = 0.00061) as well as to age (P = 0.00046). No other possible risk factors, such as serum total cholesterol level, serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol level, serum low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol level, serum triglycerides, serum lipoprotein(a) level, or systolic or diastolic blood pressure, have shown significant correlations with IMT in IDDM patients. However, non-HDL-cholesterol, smoking, and systolic hypertension were independently responsible for increases in IMT values of NIDDM patients as well as age and duration of diabetes. The partial regression coefficient of IMT for duration of diabetes (0.00978 mm/year) consistent with that of IMT for age (0.00848–0.00909 mm/year) in nondiabetic and diabetic subjects indicated that diabetes led to carotid atherosclerosis that was twice as advanced in children and adolescents with IDDM. Ultrasound high-resolution B-mode imaging revealed atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries of young IDDM patients on in vivo examination. Diabetes as well as aging can advance atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries of young diabetic patients. The IMT of carotid arteries, which can be measured noninvasively and frequently, may be an important indicator of atherosclerosis, even in young IDDM patients.


Abstract This paper explores how a group of 83 young, white, working class women became involved in the state's most recent attempt at restructuring social relations through vocational initiatives. Using ethnographic research conducted in a caring course department of a northern further education college, it examines how the students everyday practical experiences of the vocational caring curriculum involves them in the construction of subjectivity and gender and class reproduction. The central argument is that caring courses are little more than domestic apprenticeships which anticipate both the family household structure and the labour market. The students implicate themselves in this process, through their attempts to gain autonomy and self‐esteem, by constructing 'ideal' caring standards, which come to prioritise exclusive, familial forms of care over and above occupational roles. Thus, they socialise themselves out of the labour market and establish familial responsibilities, which can be drawn upon ...


This article presents an argument and commentary about the concomitant effects of codification, meritocracy and performativity in the academic performance of a cohort of black African Foundation Phase Bachelor of Education degree students at a previously predominantly white institution of higher learning. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the point that the combination of codification, meritocracy and performativity has potentially debilitating ramifications for the performance of this cohort of pre-service teachers. In this instance, language is a codification mechanism and a means towards epistemological access. This paper posits the viewpoint that the sociocultural backgrounds of the cohort predispose them to the resultant negative effects of the combination of the three factors. The study that forms the basis of this article used the qualitative theoretical orientation of the transformative paradigm to pursue a critical emancipatory and transformative theoretical agenda. This agenda is embodied in the recommendations that are informed by an infusion of the literature, the participants' observations, as accrued from the data, and the researcher's reflections. The intention of this social-justice-oriented support strategy is to make an implied decolonial contribution towards counteracting and diffusing the potentially debilitating effects of the combination of codification, meritocracy and performativity.


The nucleation rates for submicron-diameter nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) aerosol particles were measured under stratospheric conditions using a temperature-programed flow tube and Fourier transform infrared extinction spectroscopy to detect the phase change from liquid to solid. The temperature range from 175 to 155 K was examined. The measured nucleation rate constants (in units of cm−3 s−1) are between 3.8±1.8 × 1010 and 9.7±6.3 × 1012 for the temperature range between 167.2 and 163.5 K. The experiments show directly that critical nuclei form rapidly in NAT droplets at these temperatures, but subsequent crystallization is very slow, so the nucleated droplets can persist as liquids for long times unless their temperature is raised to increase the crystal growth rate. In these experiments, complete crystallization of the nucleated droplets was achieved in the observation time (about 10 s) by raising their temperature to near 180 K. Although demonstrable in the laboratory, the freezing of NAT by homogeneous nucleation at low temperature and subsequent warming are unlikely to be important for type 1 polar stratospheric cloud formation because the temperatures required for nucleation are lower than those commonly found in the lower stratosphere.


The International Court of Justice's May 2008 decision to award Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore and Middle Rocks to Malaysia has removed a major obstacle to the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the eastern part of the Singapore Strait. This article explores the issues relevant to the delimitation of maritime boundaries between Malaysia, Singapore, and also Indonesia in this area. A brief summary of the case is followed by consideration of the baselines and maritime jurisdictional claims of the parties and the delimitation of maritime boundaries, with particular emphasis on the status and potential role of the islands in this context. Potential maritime boundary delimitation scenarios in the eastern Singapore Strait are then considered and assessed.


Constraining the pre-opening paleogeography of the Canadian and Alaskan margins of the Canada Basin is a first-order objective in resolving the plate tectonic evolution of the Amerasia Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The most widely accepted model for opening of the Canada Basin involves counterclockwise rotation of Arctic Alaska away from Arctic Canada about a pole of rotation in the Mackenzie Delta region, although numerous other kinematic models have been proposed. The rotation model is tested using detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology of 12 samples from Middle Mississippian to Early-Middle Jurassic strata (Ellesmerian and lower Beaufortian megasequences) obtained from wells and outcrop along Alaska's North Slope. These northerly-derived strata were deposited in fluvial to nearshore marine environments along the south-facing (present-day) shelf margin of the Arctic Alaska Basin and contain 360–390 Ma, 415–470 Ma, 500–750 Ma, 0.9–2.1 Ga, and 2.4–3.2 Ga zircon populations.

Detrital zircon age populations in Ellesmerian and lower Beaufortian strata are remarkably similar to detrital zircon populations from Devonian foreland clastic wedge strata in the Canadian Arctic Islands and northern Yukon Territory. A paleogeographic setting in which Arctic Alaska received sediments recycled from the Devonian foreland clastic wedge and underlying Franklinian Basin strata is most consistent with the model of [Embry (1990)][1] in which northern Alaska lay within the foreland fold and thrust belt of the Franklinian mobile belt prior to the opening of the Canada Basin. The sequences that are inferred to have been the long-lived source region for Ellesmerian and lower Beaufortian strata were uplifted by Paleozoic (predominantly Late Devonian) deformation that has been documented along the Canadian and Alaskan margins. Triassic and Jurassic strata deposited along the Arctic Canada, Arctic Alaska, and northern Yukon shelves have detrital zircon ages that are significantly older than the youngest detrital zircon ages (Mesozoic) in coeval strata that were deposited west of Hanna Trough and north of the Sverdrup Basin axis, supporting continuity of these bathymetric features prior to opening of the Canada Basin.

 [1]: #ref-32


Biomimicry, where nature is emulated as a basis for design, is a growing area of research in the fields of architecture and engineering. The widespread and practical application of biomimicry as a design approach remains however largely unrealized. A growing body of international research identifies various obstacles to the employment of biomimicry as an architectural design method. One barrier of particular note is the lack of a clear definition and methodology of the various approaches to biomimicry that designers can initially employ. This paper attempts to link biological principles with computational design in order to present a design methodology that aids interested architects within the preliminary design phase.


This Article and a companion defend a revisionist explanation for the Fourteenth Amendment's legitimacy. The legitimacy of both the Amendment's proposal and ratification are imperiled by the exclusion of Southern states from Congress between 1865 and 1868: the exclusion was essential for the Amendment's two-thirds supermajorities in the House and Senate, and the demand that the South ratify before being represented was essential for the Amendment's three-fourths supermajority among the states. Congress justified the exclusion of Southern representatives by the suspension of Southern states' "political relations in the Union" during the war; such suspensions continued until Congress restored them. As the companion paper makes clear, a great many Republicans and other observers applied the same theory to Article V. The right to say no to an amendment—that is, the right to be included in the denominator from which a three-fourths ratification vote was calculated—was restored at the same time as other "political relations in the Union." On this theory, the Fourteenth Amendment became law on February 12, 1867, when Pennsylvania ratified, bringing ratifications to twenty of the twenty-six represented in Congress.While its companion explains at great length the historical prevalence of Article V loyal denominatorism during Reconstruction, this Article defends the loyal Article V denominator on the merits and explains several important implications.The loyal-denominator intellectual cocktail has four parts: one part linguistics, two parts law of war, and one part separation of war power, each ingredient subject to surprisingly little real controversy. (a) The linguistic ingredient is tacit quantifier domain restriction. Language users always presuppose some domain of application for their words, almost always both non-universal and tacit. The presupposition that states with power in the Union are not engaged in war against the Union is quite similar in kind to the sorts of presupposition discussed by all careful thinkers about language (ancient, contemporaneous with the Founding, modern, or anywhere in between). (b) The first law-of-war ingredient applies this linguistic theory to war. Agreements that make a "tacit supposition of peace," as Vattel put it, are suspended during a war between the contracting parties or constituent parts. (c) The second law-of-war ingredient concerns the end of war, or jus post bellum: victorious parties in armed conflict may demand not only formal external surrender, but reliable submission, from their opponents. (d) Finally, Congress's power to "declare War," i.e., the power to declare that a state of war exists, obviously includes the power to delay the establishment of a condition of peace by declaring that a state of war still exists. The Tennessee Readmission Act of 1866 and Reconstruction Act of 1867 made very clear that Congress did not yet regard the South to be in a state of peace. Congress was not required to spell out the application to Article V.The adoption of this view is important for several reasons. (a) First, in line with the first Federalist Paper's vision of our constitutional-adoption process, it allows us to see the Fourteenth Amendment as the genuine result of federally-structured "reflection and choice" at the time of Reconstruction rather than "accident and force." If we limit the Article V "We the People" to loyal states, we need neither nationalize it, like Ackerman, nor make it intergenerational, like Colby, nor allow it to be subject to coercion, like Harrison and Amar. (b) Second, recognizing the centrality of jus post bellum issues to the legitimacy of the Amendment at the time of its very adoption can help us better understand the failure to follow through on enforcement of the Amendment in the South. The Fourteenth Amendment was and is the object of the South's submission, not a joint expression of the unimpaired "equal sovereignty" of all states. (c) Third, we see the importance of context to the inference of tacit restrictions for interpretation, something originalists and textualists have recently been accused of neglecting. (d) Fourth, to the extent that, like McDonald v. Chicago, we think rights prevalent at the time of adoption are critical, the North in 1867, not the nation in 1868, should control us, and the regional skew to state-constitutional gun rights during Reconstruction undermines McDonald's claim to consensus.


This thesis examines the design and implementation of the navigation solution for an autonomous ground vehicle suited with global position system (GPS) receivers, an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and wheel speed sensors (WSS) using the framework of Kalman filtering (KF). To demonstrate the flexibility of the KF several methods are explored and implemented such as constraints, multi-rate data, and cascading filters to augment the measurement matrix of a main filter. GPS and IMU navigation are discussed, along with common errors and disadvantages of each type of navigation system. It is shown that the coupling of sensors, constraints, and self-alignment techniques provide an accurate solution to the navigation problem for an autonomous vehicle. Filter divergence is discussed during times when the states are unobservable. Post processed data is analyzed to demonstrate performance under several test cases, such as GPS outage, and the effect that the initial calibration and alignment has on the accuracy of the solution.


Biological photonic crystal (PC) patterns provide unique functionalities for the survival of creatures, such as the static identified patterns of butterfly wings, the mating function of the eye pattern of peacock feathers and the dynamic warning effect of the changing colour of a chameleon upon external stimulus. Inspired by these special functionalities, patterned PCs have been developed and have attracted considerable research interest due to their potential applications in sensors, catalysts, displays, information security and other fields. This review summarizes the preparation strategies, functional evolution and applications of patterned PCs. First, a series of preparation strategies for PC patterns are summarized, including template-induced assembly and direct writing without a template. Subsequently, the research progress in patterned PCs is sorted based on the evolution of their functionality, such as inactive and responsive (reversible, immobilized and programmed) PC patterns. Various applications of patterned PCs are also described in detail, such as sensing devices with a high sensitivity and fast response, PC displays based on external field regulation, information security anti-counterfeiting devices and shape memory intelligent systems. Finally, the outlook and challenges regarding PC patterns are presented. This review provides a significant foundation for the construction of new functional materials based on patterned PCs.


Sea level rise is a growing threat for the coastal regions of Bangladesh. It is one of the most densely populated countries of the world where 28% of the population are living in the coastal area. Bangladesh has already been affected by sea level rise through land erosion, salinity intrusion and loss in biodiversity. Saline soil has a detrimental effect upon soil physical and chemical properties. The dominant soil textural classes that occur in the saline areas of these regions are silty clay. In both of the soils pH value of the surface horizon is slightly lower than those of the subsoil and sub stratums. Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) of all these soils varies from 12.0 to 27.6 meq/100 g soil expressing medium to high status. The organic matter content is medium to high at Asasuni and pretty low at Kalapara. In both areas, nutrient deficiencies of total nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium were quite dominant but sulphur was high. Exchangeable sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium were in high level. The dominant water soluble cations were Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and K+ and anions Cl- and SO4 2-.The amount of accumulated salt was found higher at the surface and decreases with depth. Keywords : sea level rise, coastal areas, salinity, soils, flood plain


Abstract. Man-made impervious surfaces, indicating the human footprint on Earth, are an environmental concern because it leads to a chain of events that modifies urban air and water resources. To better map man-made impervious surfaces in any region of interest (ROI), we propose a framework for learning to map impervious areas in any ROIs from Sentinel-2 images with noisy reference data, using a pre-trained fully convolutional network (FCN). The FCN is first trained with reference data only available in Europe, which is able to provide reasonable mapping results even in areas outside of Europe. The proposed framework, aiming to achieve an improvement over the preliminary predictions for a specific ROI, consists of two steps: noisy training data pre-processing and model fine-tuning with robust loss functions. The framework is validated over four test areas located in different continents with a measurable improvement over several baseline results. It has been shown that a better impervious mapping result can be achieved through a simple fine-tuning with noisy training data, and label updating through robust loss functions allows to further enhance the performances. In addition, by analyzing and comparing the mapping results to baselines, it can be highlighted that the improvement is mainly coming from a decreased omission error. This study can also provide insights for similar tasks, such as large-scale land cover/land use classification when accurate reference data is not available for training.


Abstract Background: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease that usually causes oral mucosal damage. OLP has been considered to be a potentially malignant disorder associated with an increased risk for oral cancer. Trefoil factors (TFFs) are mainly synthesized by mucin-producing epithelial cells. Expression of TFFs in oral epithelia is thought to be an essential factor in protection against oral mucosal damage. However, very little is known about the connection between tissue damage of oral mucosa in OLP patients and expression of TFFs. Objectives: To determine levels of TFF expression in oral mucosa from patients with OLP. Methods: Tissue samples were collected from 35 patients with normal oral mucosa (controls) and 35 patients with OLP. An immunohistochemical method was used to determine the expression of the 3 TFFs (TFF1, 2, and 3) in mucosal tissues of the oral cavity. Results:TFF2 and TFF3 expression in oral epithelia were significantly decreased in OLP patients (Mann- Whitney U test; P = 0.006, and P = 0.002, respectively). There were no significant differences in TFF1 expression between OLP patients and control subjects. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated reduced expression of TFF2 and TFF3 in oral epithelia of OLP patients. These outcomes support our previous observations that chronic inflammation may play a major role in downregulation of TFF expression, which may be associated with oral mucosal damage in OLP patients.


This document (RE-340) reports on the Bank's program with Bolivia over the period 2004-2007. To do this the programmatic intent of the Bank was assessed. Given the rapidly changing country environment, and the difficulties for the Bank in terms of programming and approving operations, the evaluation's strategy was to focus on selected sectors. These areas were chosen because they represented sectors in which the Bank has had a substantive role in the past as well as areas in which the Bank is increasing its presence and is expected to continue to do so in the future. The thematic approach also serves to highlight the nature of the Bank's value added for the country, and the importance of this value added for the Bank's program. The paper offers a set of recommendations which are designed to address the quality of the Bank's engagement with Bolivia.


Pulp necrosis is an uncommon sequel to extrusive luxation in immature teeth with incomplete apical closure. In this report, we describe the management of severely extruded immature maxillary incisors and the outcome of revascularization to treat subsequent pulp necrosis. An 8.5-year-old boy with severe dentoalveolar trauma to the anterior maxillary region as a result of a fall was provided emergency treatment consisting of reduction of the dislodged labial cortical bone and repositioning of the central incisors, which had suffered extrusive luxation. When he presented with spontaneous pain involving the traumatized incisors a week later, the teeth were treated via a revascularization protocol using sodium hypochlorite irrigation followed by 3 weeks of intracanal calcium hydroxide, then a coronal seal of mineral trioxide aggregate and resin composite. Complete periradicular healing was observed after 3 months, followed by progressive thickening of the root walls and apical closure. Follow-up observations confirmed the efficacy of the regenerative treatment as a viable alternative to conventional apexification in endodontically involved, traumatized immature teeth.


This study examines factors that affect the commercialization of university-based innovations. It was hypothesized that successful university-based technology transfer - royalty revenues and new venture creation - is related to licensing strategies, the configuration of the technology transfer office, and the application of monetary incentives. To avoid common method bias, data were collected from four different sources, including from AUTM Licensing Surveys (1999, 2000), interviews with 127 technology transfer directors, and for convergent validity, from web-based searches of each research institution and the US Patent and Trademark Office. Findings revealed that licensing strategies and technology transfer office configuration are significantly related to successful technology transfers. In addition, the practice of sharing licensing revenues with a scientist's academic department and technology office directors' pay levels were positively related to technology transfers. However, sharing licensing revenues with scientists, counter to predictions, generated a negative relationship with technology transfers. We conclude with a discussion that deepens our understanding of the determinants of technology commercialization, and provide a richer, theoretically grounded, characterization of the process by which universities transfer technology to industry.


Nutrition Smart Agriculture (NSmartAg) aims to simultaneously improve agriculture incomes and nutrition outcomes through agriculture interventions. NSmartAg practices and technologies contribute to address local nutrition issues and increase farm and/ or agribusiness productivity and income (Figure 1). It is a building block of food systems that promote healthy people, a healthy planet, and healthy economies.


Objective:
 The etiology of Kawasaki disease(KD) remains unknown, and several infectious agents have been proposed as the etiology of KD. There have been some studies, stating that KD and Mycoplasma pneumoniae(M. pneumoniae) infection are linked. So authors performed a prospective study to elucidate whether there is association between KD and M. pneumoniae infection.

 Subjects and Methods:
 Subjects are 36 patients with KD who admitted to Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital from January 2013 through August 2014. Patients were assigned to the M. pneumoniae group and the control group according to anti-mycoplasmal IgM antibody(AMA) titers. Clinical features, laboratory findings, courses and outcomes were compared between two groups.

 Results:
 AMA were positive or indeterminate in 11 patients(30.6%; M. pneumoniae group) and were negative in 25 patients(69.4%; control group). There were no significant differences between two groups in age and sex distributions, duration of fever, laboratory findings(WBC counts, ESR, CRP, AST, ALT, bilirubin), chest X-ray findings, and echocardiographic abnormalities(coronary arterial lesion, pericardial effusion, valvular regurgitation, LV dysfunction). AMA titers were rechecked in 6 patients, of whom 5(83.3%) showed decreased titers and 1(16.7%) showed an increased titer. All of patients were treated successfully with intravenous immunoglobulin and oral aspirin.

 Conclusion:
 Although AMA was detected in some patients with KD, it did not affect clinical features, laboratory findings, courses and outcomes of KD. In most cases AMA titers were decreased in the second examinations, so authors think that M. pneumoniae infection was a previous infection rather than a concurrent infection in some patients with KD and it did not act as a causative agent of KD.


Vitamin constituents of our diet are well known to affect the immune system. Vitamin D has essential roles in bone metabolism and modulating immune processes mainly lymphocyte activation by its proliferation. Vitamin D deficiency could be considerably diminished with ample exposure to sun and with the use of vitamin supplements. UVB photons are absorbed from sun by 7 dehydrocholesterol present in skin and transforms it into provitamin D3 and finally coverts to vitamin D3.Once vitamin D3 is formed it is metabolized to 25 hydroxyvitamin D3 in liver and then to 1, 25 dihydroxy vitamin D3 in kidney which is its biologically active form. Vitamin D deficiency could heighten the risk of rickets in children while it causes osteoporosis in adults. Vitamin D deficiency can also accelerate the risk of deadly cancer, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis and kidney disease. An essential level of 80nmol/L 25 hydroxyvitamin D should be maintained in blood concentration. Sunscreen blocks UVB radiation and some UVA radiation to enter the skin thereby reducing the ability of skin to produce vitamin D3. 1,25(OH) 2 D or calcitriol, a hormonal substitue of vitamin D plays a vital role in cellular proliferation and differentiation of many normal as well as malignant cells. Key words: Vitamin D, 1,25(OH) 2 D , Sunlight.


Twenty-five of the nation's leading tax academics, practitioners, journalists, and public intellectuals gathered in Malibu, California on the Friday before President Obama's second inauguration to plead for tax reform. The papers published in this issue of the Pepperdine Law Review provide very different prescriptions for America's tax ills. But there is a unanimous diagnosis that the country's tax system is sick indeed. A re-elected president's inauguration offers a particularly propitious moment to put politics aside and embark on a treatment plan. If our lawmakers are interested in healing our tax wounds, the ideas presented in these pages offer a good place to begin. They run the gamut from relatively minor procedures to total transplantation. But all would improve the health of our current tax system.


Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), is a multi-factorial condition characterized by a chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. In IBD, the balance between pro/anti-inflammatory cytokines and immuno-regulatory cytokines is disturbed. An over-production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and nitric oxide characterizes the pathogenesis of IBD. In Crohn's disease the major cytokines are generated by Th1and Th17-polarized T cells. In contract, UC is viewed more as an atypical Th2-type immune response characterized by the generation of high amount of IL-5, IL-4 and IL-13. Both Th1 and Th17 cytokines are involved in the up-regulation of iNOS expression in IBD and the production of high level of nitric oxide (NO). The latter, as an effect, causes tissue damages through the generation of reactive nitric oxygen species (RNOS). A better understanding of the pathogenesis of IBD has led to the development of new therapeutic strategies based on targeting cytokines and their receptors as well as NO modulation. Manipulation the microbiota with probiotics and helminthes may have potential use as anti-inflammatory agents in IBD by inducing anti-inflammatory cytokine pattern.


Artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied widely in our daily lives in a variety of ways with numerous successful stories. AI has also contributed to dealing with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which has been happening around the globe. This paper presents a survey of AI methods being used in various applications in the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak and outlines the crucial roles of AI research in this unprecedented battle. We touch on a number of areas where AI plays as an essential component, from medical image processing, data analytics, text mining and natural language processing, the Internet of Things, to computational biology and medicine. A summary of COVID-19 related data sources that are available for research purposes is also presented. Research directions on exploring the potentials of AI and enhancing its capabilities and power in the battle are thoroughly discussed. We highlight 13 groups of problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic and point out promising AI methods and tools that can be used to solve those problems. It is envisaged that this study will provide AI researchers and the wider community an overview of the current status of AI applications and motivate researchers in harnessing AI potentials in the fight against COVID-19.


Though the concept of shared spaces had been known in Groupware and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) for quite a while, it did not become popular until the arrival of the Internet and social software. Implicitly, the concept of shared spaces has penetrated many IT-areas, including the area of Business Process Management. Though shared spaces are used in many systems and tools, like Google Drive and Projectplace, there is a lack of research investigating this usage in a generic way. The article aims to fill this gap by introducing a generic model of a Business Process Support (BPS) system based on shared space that supports the comparison, analysis and design of BPS systems. In addition, the article goes in more details on one design issue – the structuring of shared spaces. This is done by analyzing and comparing two different BPS systems that exploit the concept of shared spaces, though implicitly. These systems use different approaches to shared space structuring. The first one organizes the information by grouping similar types of items without regard to the flow of activities in a business process, while the other organizes the information around groups of activities that are usually completed as a block. Which model to choose in a particular situation depends on the characteristics of the business process and its participants. In order to facilitate this choice, the article offers a number of guidelines derived from the experience of using the two BPS systems in practice. The article also discusses in what circumstances BPS systems with shared spaces are preferable to traditional workflow BPS systems.


Distinguishing the photon output of an accreting supermassive black hole binary system from that of a single supermassive black hole accreting at the same rate is intrinsically difficult because the majority of the light emerges from near the innermost stable orbits of the black holes. However, there are two possible signals that can distinctively mark binaries, both arising from the gap formed in circumbinary accretion flows inside approximately twice the binary separation. One of these is a "notch" cut into the thermal spectra of these systems in the IR/optical/UV, the other a periodically varying excess hard X-ray luminosity whose period is of order the binary orbital period. Using data from detailed galaxy evolution simulations, we estimate the distribution function in mass, mass ratio, and accretion rate for accreting supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) as a function of redshift and then transform this distribution function into predicted source counts for these two potential signals. At flux levels ≳10−13 erg cm−2 s−1, there may be ∼O(102) such systems in the sky, mostly in the redshift range 0.5 ≲ z ≲ 1. Roughly 10% should have periods short enough (≲5 yr) to detect the X-ray modulation; this is also the period range accessible to Pulsar Timing Array observations.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an argument supporting the growth of online outsourcing, which will exponentially increase in the coming years with the spread of internet availability to the less-developed regions of the world. In addition, this paper stresses the role of human decision-making in fostering this growth, rather than promoting inhibitory policies because of nationalism or fear of change.

Design/methodology/approach
First, globalization and the three "waves" of outsourcing are discussed. Next, the economic principles guiding online outsourcing (disintermediation, the rise of global internet connectivity and the benefits of output-based pay over input-based pay) are discussed. After explaining how artificial intelligence will complement rather than replace human laborers, a case study and evidence are provided. Then, suggestions for government policies going forward, including skill development and education are provided. Finally, the debate that will inevitably emerge regarding online worker benefits is introduced.

Findings
Evidence points toward the growth of online outsourcing and the resulting increased efficiency and gains through this type of trade. The increase in freelance workers and their earnings, the investments of Google and Facebook to develop internet capabilities in less-developed regions and the reducing costs of technology (such as laptops) provide support for this argument (Elance, 2013; Forbes, 2014; Pofeldt, 2015). Finally, a case study provides evidence illustrating how individuals may gain from these advances.

Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by providing a compelling argument for the upcoming transition to increased efficiency in work through online outsourcing. Technological advances will allow the modern worker to delegate his/her mundane tasks so that he/she is free to focus on more pressing issues. This shift will multiply the domestic and foreign labor markets, creating opportunities that have not been available to this point. As this transition is not inevitable, this paper further outlines suggestions for policymakers to ensure maximized gains in the future.


This book describes how to program mobile telephones, pagers, PDAs, and other small devices using Java technology. It is about the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), which is part of the Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME). It is concise and complete, describing all of MIDP as well as moving into several exciting advanced concepts such as 3D graphics and cryptography. This third edition covers MIDP 2.0, and has been updated to track the Java Technology for the Wireless Industry (JTWI 1.0) de facto standard. Every chapter has been revised and meticulously updated, and four completely new chapters have been added.


The Jornada Experimental Range and the New Mexico State University Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center are fruitful areas to study the long-term effects of rangeland remediation treatments which started in the 1930s. A number of diverse manipulations were completed under the direction of federal agency and university scientists, and abundant remote sensing imagery is available to assist in relocating the treatments and evaluating their success. This is particularly important because few of the treatments were maintained following the loss of scientific personnel coinciding with the start of World War II, and most records of Civilian Conservation Corps scientific work were lost with the disbanding of the agency in 1942. Aerial photography, which was systematically used to image the United States beginning in the 1930s, can be used to identify types of treatments, measure areal coverage, estimate longevity, and help plan locations for new experiments. No long-lasting vegetation response could be determined for contour terraces, brush water spreaders, strips grubbed free of shrubs (despite the fact that these strips have remained visible for 65 years), and mechanical rootplowing and seeding. Distinct positive, long-term vegetation responses could be seen in aerial photos for water retention dikes, certain fenced exclosures, and some boundaries where different land management practices meet. It appears from both aerial photos and existing conventional records that experimental manipulation of rangelands has often been ineffective on the landscape scale because treatments are not performed over large enough contiguous areas and hydrological and ecological processes overwhelm the treatments. In addition, treatments are not maintained over time, treatment evaluation periods are sometimes too short, multi-purpose treatments are not used to maximize effects, and treatments are often not located in appropriate sites.


Ectopic thyroid is the presence of gland at any location except for its normal position in the anterior neck in front of the trachea. It may result from an early arrest of migration or migration along an abnormal path. Ectopic thyroid in the submandibular region is relatively unusual and may or may not be accompanied with the orthotopically located thyroid gland. Pathological changes reported in the literature in the ectopic gland include goitrous change, hyperplasia, malignancy, and, rarely, inflammation. Patients usually present as a palpable, mobile, and painless mass below the lateral jaw. The important differentials include salivary gland tumor, lymphoma, inflammatory lymphadenopathy, lipoma, and cysts. Ultrasonography, radionuclide scan, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging are the diagnostic modalities for documenting the presence of ectopia. Evaluation of functional status with thyroid profile and histopathological examination after fine-needle aspiration cytology directs further management. Surgical removal is the preferred treatment for ectopic thyroid. Thyroidectomy predisposes the patient to iatrogenic hypothyroidism if eutopic thyroid is absent or hypofunctioning. Such patients require lifelong thyroid replacement. However, asymptomatic cases may be managed conservatively. Ectopic thyroid in the submandibular region has important clinical implications and hence, even though rare, should be considered as one of the differentials in the patient presenting with swelling below the lateral jaw.


The connected world:

Shared Paramedic Learning Across the UK and Gibraltar: Wimba Live Classroom

St Georges University of London (SGUL)has delivered a foundation degree in paramedic science since 2004. Since the inception of the programme, cohort numbers have grown. Students are now based in a variety of locations across the UK and in Gibraltar. We are seeing an increasing number of students come into the course from a range of backgrounds including nursing, military and care support. The number of ambulance services working in partnership with SGUL is increasing and now includes the Gibraltar ambulance service. Paramedic higher education is a relatively new pathway with very little evidence to support effective profession specific pedagogy.

To accommodate for the increasing diversity and distance challenges Wimba Live Classroom has been employed to host a series of shared learning sessions that are open to all cohorts. Above and beyond the core module content the sessions are hosted by a paramedic lecturer with content delivery by both staff and students on a range of themes. Students are able to interact with the presentations using voice, text or a series of visual images to infer feedback during the session. Sessions delivered so far include case examples of paediatric illness, an overview of the Gibraltar ambulance service and an introduction to diving medicine.
This has led to increased dialogue between traditionally separated cohorts and a learning community that encourages open, shared learning that takes advantage of the diverse backgrounds of the students. The use of students to present sessions on areas of interest promotes mentorship and leadership principles which have become a core part of the role of the professional paramedic.

An online questionnaire evaluation was distributed to the students and has shown positive response from all cohorts that have been involved. Although the students generally do not feel it should be a replacement for face to face teaching, they do feel it is a valuable addition. Particular strengths were identified to be a platform to share learning and particularly for the Gibraltar students a sense of integration into the UK based programme. Students have demonstrated that the case based approach to the sessions help to promote their clinical understanding of paramedic practice.

The success of the Live Classroom sessions has helped to reach beyond the UK borders to assist in delivering teaching and learning to a small cohort of ambulance staff in Gibraltar. Simultaneously it has created a shared lecturer and peer led learning community that plays on the strengths of a diverse student group. With increasing interest in educating paramedics overseas, the Wimba Live Classroom could be an integral part in the teaching and learning strategy of international paramedic education.


Objectives
Multiple lines of evidence show the benefits of cacao on inflammation and cardiovascular disease. The relationship between cacao and cancer is less well defined. Cacao contains bioactive compounds with antiangiogenic properties, such as procyanidins and catechins. Angiogenesis, blood vessel formation, is critical for tumor growth and validated target in cancer therapy. We studied the antiangiogenic and anti-tumorigenic potential of two commercially available 100% cacaos (Valrhona and De Zaan).

Methods
L5178y mouse lymphoma cells were incubated with different concentrations of cacao (0, 0.1, 0.3, 1, 3, and 10 µl/ml). The calorimetric methylthiazolyldiphenyl-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was applied to assess cell viability. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were grown as monolayer in Matrigel and embedded with cacao preparation. Image analysis of capillary tubes was performed and vessel diameter and intervascular length were quantified.

Results
Compared to untreated control cells, cacao preparations significantly inhibited the growth of mouse lymphoma cells in a dose-dependent manner. De Zaan had greater anti-tumor activity than Valrhona by 29.4% (p = 0.001). Cacao also inhibited angiogenesis. In the tube formation assay, increased intervascular length between individual vessel segments indicates a lower vessel density. Differential activity was observed between De Zaan which increased intervascular length by 33% (p = 0.01) compared to Valrhona, which showed a 20% increase in intervascular length (p = 0.07). Vessel diameters were also reduced by 31.8% (Valrhona, p = 0.001) and by 10% (De Zaan, p = 0.16). A reduction in tumor vessel diameters is a characteristic of clinical antiangiogenic therapy.

Conclusions
Cacao exhibits potent antiangiogenic bioactivity that has potential to suppress tumor angiogenesis through dietary intake. In addition, cacao inhibited the growth of lymphoma cells. Different cacao varieties possess different levels of bioactivity. This study is one of the first to directly test cacao rather than individual cacao bioactive compounds. Whole food preparations may contain greater bioactivity than individual components.

Funding Sources
Flora Thornton Foundation, The Walter and Phyllis Borten Foundation.


The paper examines the way society distorted tragedy into farce. Limiting the investigation to the first half of the nineteenth century it describes how Romantic artists developed an overly tragic sensibility in their work, persona and lifestyles as a reaction to the effects of the industrial revolution. It then examines how the early Victorians sentimentalisd this tragic attitude particularly in the exaggerated etiquette and artifice associated with mourning and death. Tragedy is the quintessential expression in describing excessive sadness or disaster, therefore it is the most dramatic, rendering it virtually impossible to exaggerate. Attempts at exaggeration have bordered on caricature or satire, that have distorted tragedy into travesty. Tragedy has manifested itself through various expressions in art, literature and reality yet only rarely, as in the Romantic Movement have all three mediums merged. This resulted in a histrionic tragicomedy of display that began as a serious reaction to social conditions and ended in sticky sentimentality.


A complete guide to understanding, designing, and deploying Layer 2 VPN technologies and pseudowire emulation applicationsEvaluate market drivers for Layer 2 VPNs Understand the architectural frame-work and choices for Layer 2 VPNs, including AToM and L2TPv3 Grasp the essentials of Layer 2 LAN and WAN technologies Examine the theoretical and operational details of MPLS and LDP as they pertain to AToM Understand the theoretical and operational details of Layer 2 protocols over L2TPv3 in IP networks Learn about Layer 2 VPN bridged and routed interworking and Layer 2 local switching Understand the operation and application of Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) Learn about foundation and advanced AToM and L2TPv3 topics through an extensive collection of case studies The historical disconnect between legacy Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN solutions has forced service providers to build, operate, and maintain separate infrastructures to accommodate various VPN access technologies. This costly proposition, however, is no longer necessary. As part of its new Unified VPN Suite, Cisco Systems now offers next-generation Layer 2 VPN services like Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol version 3 (L2TPv3) and Any Transport over MPLS (AToM) that enable service providers to offer Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet, and leased-line services over a common IP/MPLS core network. By unifying multiple network layers and providing an integrated set of software services and management tools over this infrastructure, the Cisco Layer 2 VPN solution enables established carriers, IP-oriented ISP/CLECs, and large enterprise customers (LECs) to reach a broader set of potential VPN customers and offer truly global VPNs.Layer 2 VPN Architectures is a comprehensive guide to consolidating network infrastructures and extending VPN services. The book opens by discussing Layer 2 VPN applications utilizing both AToM and L2TPv3 protocols and comparing Layer 3 versus Layer 2 provider-provisioned VPNs. In addition to describing the concepts related to Layer 2 VPNs, this book provides an extensive collection of case studies that show you how these technologies and architectures work. The case studies include both AToM and L2TPv3 and reveal real-world service provider and enterprise design problems and solutions with hands-on configuration examples and implementation details. The case studies include all Layer 2 technologies transported using AToM and L2TPv3 pseudowires, including Ethernet, Ethernet VLAN, HDLC, PPP, Frame Relay, ATM AAL5 and ATM cells, and advanced topics relevant to Layer 2 VPN deployment, such as QoS and scalability.


Concurrent languages have offered parallel loop constructs for some time to allow a parallel computation to be expressed in a simple and straightforward fashion. Modern programming languages include exceptions to allow for clean handling of errors or unexpected conditions, but few concurrent languages incorporate exception handling into their models for parallel loops. As a result, programmers that use parallel loops cannot use exceptions to simplify their programs. We present a semantics for handling exceptions in parallel loops that is predictable and that reduces to the familiar semantics for sequential loops. This semantics provides guarantees about the behavior of parallel loops even in the presence of exceptions, and facilitates the implementation of parallel algorithms. A Java library implementation of this semantics is presented, along with a description of a source-to-source translation.


Excerpt] The Women's Committee of IUE Local 201, established informally in 1976 and officially in 1978, is one of the oldest and longest-lived union women's committees in the country. It took root and thrived within a large and overwhelmingly male General Electric manufacturing complex in the Greater Boston area and within one of the oldest, most democratic and most progressive union locals in the labor movement. For the past 11 years, the Committee has battled an extremely insensitive and recalcitrant GE management over a wide range of issues — winning substantial victories for training and entry of women into skilled jobs, for comparable worth wage adjustments in traditional jobs, and for pregnancy disability benefits and parental leave. Committee members have counseled hundreds of women and spearheaded fights for individual grievances on pregnancy disability, sexual harassment and discrimination. Within the local, the Committee's activities have created a more positive climate for women to become stewards and committee members and to run for offices on the Policy Board. Most of the Committee leaders and many of the active members are a key part of the progressive wing within Local 201. But the local now faces massive layoffs triggered by GE's transfer of work to other plants in the U.S. and abroad. The cuts began in June 1987 and are expected to reach 3,000 or 4,000 members by the middle of 1989. With its ranks being cut in half, Local 201 membership is understandably uneasy about its future, and many of the Women's Committee's past accomplishments are now in jeopardy. As preparations begin for the national GE contract, which expires in June, GE is pushing for major concessions as the price to pay for job security. The progressive movement is faced with the dual tasks of opposing concessions and pushing to save jobs. In this context, the Women's Committee's challenge is to push ahead with its agenda in a very difficult political climate. As 1988 begins, both Local 201 and its Women's Committee are in rapid transition.


Video-on-demand in the Internet has become an immensely popular service in recent years. But due to its high bandwidth requirements and popularity, it is also a costly service to provide. We consider the design and potential benefits of peer-assisted video-on-demand, in which participating peers assist the server in delivering VoD content. The assistance is done in such a way that it provides the same user quality experience as pure client-server distribution. We focus on the single-video approach, whereby a peer only redistributes a video that it is currently watching.
 Using a nine-month trace from a client-server VoD deployment for MSN Video, we assess what the 95 percentile server bandwidth costs would have been if a peer-assisted employment had been instead used. We show that peer-assistance can dramatically reduce server bandwidth costs, particularly if peers prefetch content when there is spare upload capacity in the system. We consider the impact of peer-assisted VoD on the cross-traffic among ISPs. Although this traffic is significant, if care is taken to localize the P2P traffic within the ISPs, we can eliminate the ISP cross traffic while still achieving important reductions in server bandwidth. We also develop a simple analytical model which captures many of the critical features of peer-assisted VoD, including its operational modes.


Interview with Navy veteran Jean Balch. The interview includes Balch's personal experiences about the Pacific theater, being a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese during World War II, boot camp, radio, radar, and gunnery school, operations during the Leyte invasion, missions over Luzon, and raids on Japanese installations on Formosa and Saigon, French Indo-China. Additionally, Balch talks about his plane being shot down on a raid to Hong Kong and his capture on January 16, 1945, interrogations and beatings by the Kempei-tai, imprisonment at Ofuna, Honshu, solitary confinement for six months and continued interrogation, beatings by Japanese prison guards, starvation diet, the end of the war and liberation, and his participation in the war crimes trials held by the International Military Tribunal.


To investigate the π-extension effect on an unusual negative-charged spin crossover (SCO) FeIII complex with a weak N2O4 first coordination sphere, we designed and synthesized a series of anionic FeIII complexes from a π-extended naphthalene derivative ligand. Acetonitrile-solvate tetramethylammonium (TMA) salt 1 exhibited an SCO conversion, while acetone-solvate TMA salt 2 was in a high-spin state. The crystal structural analysis for 2 revealed that two-leg ladder-like cation-anion arrays derived from π-stacking interactions between π-ligands of the FeIII complex anion and Coulomb interactions were found and the solvated acetone molecules were in one-dimensional channels between the cation-anion arrays. A desolvation-induced single-crystal-to-single-crystal transformation to desolvate compound 2' may be driven by Coulomb energy gain. Furthermore, the structural comparison between quasi-polymorphic compounds 1 and 2 revealed that the synergy between Coulomb and π-stacking interactions induces a significant distortion of coordination structure of 2.


The last few years have shown an increased interest in the commercialization of the global navigation satellite system (GNSS), which is often referred to as the global positioning system (GPS) in various applications. A GPS system uses spread spectrum signals-binary phase-shift keying (BPSK)-emitted from satellites in space for position and time determinations. Until recently, the use of GPS was essentially reserved for military use. Now there is great interest in using GPS for navigation of commercial aircraft. The US Federal Aviation Administration implemented a wide area augmentation system for air navigation to cover the whole United States with one system. There are also applications in the automotive industry, surveying, and personal and recreational uses.


Exquisite Pywackia baileyi Landing n. gen. and sp. specimens from the lower Tinu Formation, southern Mexico, extend the bryozoan record into the Upper Cambrian. They are ∼8 m.y. older than the purported oldest bryozoans from South China, and show that all skeletalized metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian. The new form differs from similar, twig-like cryptostomes by its shallow autozooecia and an elongate axial zooid, which may be homologous to the stolon in nonmineralized ctenostomes. It may morphologically resemble mineralized stem group bryozoans that retained a stolon-like individual, although an ability to bud was acquired by the feeding individuals (autozooids). The latest Cambrian origin of bryozoans, several mollusk classes (polyplacophorans, cephalopods), and euconodonts was a major evolutionary development and can be considered the onset of the Ordovician radiation of more complex marine communities.


To determine the best live food and to reevaluate the optimal weaning period for beluga fish (Huso huso) larvae, seven experimental diets: Daphina (DP), Chironomids (CH), Gammarid (G), Daphina + formulated diet (DPFD), Chironomids + formulated diet (CHFD), Gammarid + formulated diet (GFD) and formulated diet (FD) in triplicate groups were fed to 4662 sixteen-days-old larvae which were captured from the stock tank and randomly distributed into 21 tanks. The microdiets contained 48-50% crude protein, 12-13% crude fat, 9-11% moisture and 8.5-9.5% ash. After 25 days feeding trial, weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR) and feed efficiency (FE) of fish fed CHFD were significantly higher than those of fish fed the other diets (P<0.05). Frequent cannibalism and higher mortality in larvae fed G, GFD and FD diets were observed. These results may show the importance of live food followed by formulated diets in a gradual application pattern, as early as on the fourth to fifth day after hatching.


Private International Law Stay of proceedings - Agreement to refer disputes to foreign court Action commenced in England - Principles to be applied by court in deciding whether to stay action. The age old problem of private international law concerning an alleged breach of an agreement in referring disputes to a foreign court, and the English courts' attitude to the alleged breach once again raised its head in the above case. The English courts' attitude does not always seem quite equitable and the need for some uniformity still remains. Modern international trade makes the different Anglo American and European approaches seem absurd in the age of closer international contracts. The Eleftberia is a case in point. Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division decided the case on a broad Anglo American approach (Dicey and Morris would no doubt approve), yet would the Continental jurists ?


Arsenic has diverse chemical behavior in the natural environment. It has the ability to readily change oxidation state and bonding configuration, which creates rich inorganic and organic chemistry. This behavior is a consequence of the electronic configuration of its valence orbitals, with partially filled states capable of both electron donation and overlap in covalent bonds. In natural compounds, arsenic bonds primarily to oxygen and sulfur, generating a variety of aqueous species and minerals. The affinity of arsenic for these two elements, along with its stable bonding to methyl groups, constitutes the structural basis for most organic and biosynthetic compounds. The agile chemistry of arsenic helps to explain its contradictory action as both a toxin and a curative, and its sometimes-elusive behavior in the environment.


In 1999, both Hong Kong and Singapore brought into force legislation that permitted a supermajority of apartment owners within a building development that met certain statutory criteria to force a minority of dissenters to sell the development as a whole. Both territories did so because, as land-scarce cities, it was considered that the redevelopment of aging buildings was an urgent imperative. In so doing, although they claimed to be following other jurisdictions, both Hong Kong and Singapore broke new ground in pioneering the private takings of land among common law jurisdictions. These developments have proven controversial in both territories, although the controversies have differed because of differences in implementation and historical background in both cities, despite their shared past as British colonies in Asia. This Article compares the two regimes to each other as well as to a more mature regime permitting private takings of shares in mergers and acquisitions law to highlight the lessons to be learned in order to prevent abuse.


Distributed model training is vulnerable to byzantine system failures and adversarial compute nodes, i.e., nodes that use malicious updates to corrupt the global model stored at a parameter server (PS). To guarantee some form of robustness, recent work suggests using variants of the geometric median as an aggregation rule, in place of gradient averaging. Unfortunately, median-based rules can incur a prohibitive computational overhead in large-scale settings, and their convergence guarantees often require strong assumptions. In this work, we present DRACO, a scalable framework for robust distributed training that uses ideas from coding theory. In DRACO, each compute node evaluates redundant gradients that are used by the parameter server to eliminate the effects of adversarial updates. DRACO comes with problem-independent robustness guarantees, and the model that it trains is identical to the one trained in the adversary-free setup. We provide extensive experiments on real datasets and distributed setups across a variety of large-scale models, where we show that DRACO is several times, to orders of magnitude faster than median-based approaches.


In this paper we present an approach for the query refinement called librarian agent query refinement process, which simulates the role a human librarian plays in the searching for information resources in a library. The process consists of two phases: problem discovery, in which the potential problems (ambiguities) of the initial query are discovered and estimated and query refinement, which analyses these ambiguities in order to provide suitable modification of that query that increases the precision and recall of the searching process. The agent performs comprehensive analyses of a query, based on the structure of the used vocabulary in an information portal and the content of its information repository. Moreover, the information about the previous users' behaviour and the activities of the current user are used for making the query refinement process more efficient (i.e. usage-driven and personalized). From the user's point of view, the main advantage of such an approach is that it enables a user to satisfy his information need in a more intuitive and efficient way.


In the past three decades, there has been increasing research carried out on the role of heritage and its processes in achieving broader sustainable development objectives beyond heritage conservation. As part of this movement, people-centered approaches and participation have been widely integrated into international regulations and guidelines on heritage management, stimulating the implementation of case studies-based research worldwide. Despite the wide advocacy of participatory heritage practices' contributions to more inclusive and culturally sensitive local development in a great variety of projects, there is limited research into the roles these practices can have in addressing sustainability objectives. How are these roles addressed in international heritage regulatory frameworks, and what forms of participation are promoted for their fulfillment? This paper seeks to answer this research question through a content analysis of international declarations, conventions, guidelines, and policy documents focused on the roles and forms of participation that are promoted. A crossed-matched analysis of results reveals that active forms of participation are those most used to promote all roles and subcategories of participation, as a right, as a driver, and as an enabler of sustainable development. However, fewer active forms are presented as complementary at different stages of sustainability-oriented heritage practices. Moreover, a higher incidence of generic forms of participation can be observed in documents addressing international stakeholders, while partnership and intervention are to be found in those targeting regional and local actors. Nevertheless, the low incidence of decisional forms of participation confirms the challenges of power-sharing at all scales. Trends and influences are highlighted, informing heritage research, governance, and policymaking, but also revealing gaps and ambiguities in current regulations that further research encompassing a larger number of documents might confirm.


POSITION PAPER Computer-based social network services are and will remain dominating tools for enlarging social networks thanks to their positive and despite their negative features or impacts. Key words: social network, social networking service, tools for social networking Apology ISCSC apologizes for inadvertently omitting this position paper from the Proceedings of the 2009 conference. It is accordingly presented in the Journal. 1. Introduction Communication is the essential fabric of social life, and only entities that communicate are able to create societies. Communication is necessary for coordination of all kinds of social activities on many levels, from families up to the level of international organizations. "A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependencies, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual relationships, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade" (Social network, 2009). Social networks include nodes - actors within the networks, and ties - the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes, all of them predicated on the underlying communications mechanisms, since communication is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for creating social networks. Social network services (SNSes) axe services supporting social networking, and advanced SNSes are currently based on computer networks [Social network service, 2009]. We believe that SNSes are dominating tools for enlarging social networks in our civilization, and will be even more indispensable in the future due to development of ever more sophisticated SNSes. They have gained and will maintain this position thanks to their positive and despite their negative features or impacts; both should be well known to users wishing to fully utilize their potential without adverse consequences. To support these claims, we first present briefly the history and the present day of computer-based support for social networking (emphasizing modern computer-based SNSes). We then analyze positive and negative features and impacts of modern SNSes. 2. Early Technological Support for Social Networking Interactions within social networks can be facilitated by two kinds of services and technologies: (a) transportation facilities that support face-to-face social interactions - within a limited physical space; and (b) communication facilities that support "virtual" social interactions without an inherent restriction on location of the interacting entities. In the chronological order of their development, communication facilities include: postal technologies and services (with messenger services known already in ancient civilizations); telephone technologies and services (started in the 1870's but widespread only in the 20th century); computer communication technologies and services (started in the 1970's but widespread only in the 1990's). The evolution of computer-based networking tools includes many distinct stages such as: the ARPANET in the 1970s; the Internet in the 1980s; email and World Wide Web (WWW) in the 1990s; search engines (e.g., AltaVista, Google), wikis (e.g., Wikipedia), and social network services (e.g., Myspace, Facebook) in the 2000s. Despite the fact that social network services or SNSes (providing tools for enlarging human/social networks) blossomed only recently, the history of computer-based SNS predecessors can be traced back to 1969 when the ARPANET (a predecessor of the Internet) started its operation, and to 1979 when the Usenet (a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system with a hierarchy of topical categories named newsgroups) became available. From the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, bulletin board services (BBSes) were popular; originally BB Ses were accessed only via a dial-up connection but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a network connection. …


Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of care and interdisciplinary cooperation in the palliative treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), including the associated costs. Patients and Methods: 103 patients were enrolled from 13 institutions to reflect the existing clinical treatment reality and costs of palliative CRC treatment. We present the clinical outcome of the patients and compare the results obtained in the 3 centers with double-figure recruitment numbers (centers A, B, and C). Results: First-line treatment with 5-fluorouracil monotherapy was applied in exceptional cases. The regular treatment method comprised either an irinotecan- (30%) or an oxaliplatin-based regimen (32%). Biological agents were added to the treatment of 33 patients (32%). The median overall survival (OS) of the total patient collective was 25 months. The OS differed significantly in 2 out of the 3 centers, ranging between 27 and 11 months. Secondary metastasis resections were performed in 26% of the total patient collective. The center with the most favorable outcome results also had the lowest costs for palliative treatment and care, including the lowest drug costs. Conclusion: A combined chemotherapy treatment was the rule. Concerning biological agents, a significant lack of their application in first-line treatment and the quality of interdisciplinary cooperation have to be addressed. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel


Background/Context Endowments of institutions of higher education in the United States have attracted widespread attention in recent decades due to their meteoric rise in value and their precipitous decline during the recent recession. But there has been little research on the beginnings of the significant interest in and importance of endowments. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study examines how the importance of endowment, the emphasis upon increasing it, the competition for it, and even its current meaning originated between 1890 and 1930. The research focused on the emerging meaning and significance of endowment in higher education in the United States, demonstrated by the eight universities that acquired the largest endowments during the period between 1890 and 1930. Research Design This study presents a historical analysis relying on published documents and archival records from the period between 1890 and 1930. Conclusions/Recommendations While colleges have long had permanent invested funds, endowment first acquired its meaning and significance in U.S. higher education between 1890 and 1930 as universities realized that their autonomy, stability, and comparative advantage over competitors depended heavily on the amount of their financial capital. The universities that first made this realization began to focus on increasing their endowment and thereby established an upper tier of wealthy universities that maintained this elite status through the ensuing century. Consequently, the inception of endowment between 1890 and 1930 had far-reaching influence on the stratification of higher education in the United States.


Introduction A trimethylated amino acid, roughly similar in structure to choline, L-carnitine is a cofactor required for transformation of free long-chain fatty acids into acylcarnitines, and for their subsequent transport into the mitochondrial matrix, where they undergo beta-oxidation for cellular energy production. Conditions that appear to benefit from exogenous supplementation of L-carnitine include anorexia, chronic fatigue, cardiovascular disease, diphtheria, hypoglycemia, male infertility, muscular myopathies, and Rett syndrome. Preterm infants, dialysis patients, and HIV-positive individuals seem to be prone to a deficiency of L-carnitine and benefit from supplementation. Although discovered in 1905, the crucial role of L-carnitine in metabolism was not elucidated until 1955, and its deficiency was not described until 1972. The most significant source of L-carnitine in human nutrition is meat, although humans can synthesize L-carnitine from dietary amino acids.


We study possible scenarios for the evolution of continental collision zones by using a dynamic thermomechanical model that includes brittle-elastic-ductile rheology, surface erosion, and explicit metamorphic changes. This paper focuses primarily on the influence of four key parameters: (1) geotherm or thermotectonic age (which controls the rheological profile), (2) lower-crustal composition (weak or strong rheology), (3) convergence rate, and (4) metamorphic changes in the downgoing crust. The experiments suggest that, de- pending on these parameters, plate convergence is accommodated by four distinct mech- anisms: stable subduction, shortening by pure-shear thickening or folding, and Rayleigh- Taylor instabilities. It appears that stable, oceanic-type subduction can only occur in the case of cold lithospheres (Moho temperature, TMoho , 550 8C), and basically needs high convergence rates (.4-5 cm/yr). Depending on the lower-crustal rheology (strong or weak), either the whole (upper and lower) crust or only the lower crust can be involved in subduction. It appears that in the case of weak metamorphic rheologies, phase changes only slightly improve chances for stable subduction. Lithospheric shortening becomes a dominant mechanism when TMoho . 550 8C or convergence rates are ,4-5 cm/yr. Pure- shear thickening becomes important in all cases of hot lithospheres (TMoho . 650 8C). Large-scale folding is favored in the case of TMoho 5 500-650 8C and is more effective in the case of mechanical coupling between crust and mantle (e.g., strong lower crust). Grav- itational (Rayleigh-Taylor) instabilities overcome other mechanisms for very high values of TMoho (.800 8C) and may lead to development of subvertical cold spots.


Two factorial experiments were designed to determine the effects of stage of lactation, and season of the year, on cow responses to supplementary feeding. These experiments were conducted over consecutive years with 128 high genetic merit multiparous Holstein-Friesian cows in early, mid and late lactation in spring, summer, autumn and winter. At each stage of lactation, and in each season of the year, cows were offered a restricted pasture allowance (25 to 35kg dry matter (DM) per cow per day), either unsupplemented (control) or with supplement at 50MJ metabolizable energy (ME) per cow per day in experiment 1 and 80MJ ME per cow per day in experiment 2. The two supplements given in both years were rolled maize grain (MG) and a mixture of foods formulated to nutritionally balance the diet (BR). In experiment 2, another treatment, of a generous pasture allowance (60 to 75kg DM per cow per day) (AP), was imposed on an additional group of early lactation cows during each season. Direct milk solids (MS) (milk fat plus milk protein) responses in experiment 1 to MG were 169, 279, 195 and 251g MS per cow per day in spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively, while those to BR were 107, 250, 192, 289g MS per cow per day. In experiment 2, however, milk solids responses to both supplements during spring were slightly below the control treatment, with values similar to those in experiment 1 in summer and autumn for cows on the BR but not the MG supplement. Milk solids responses to supplementary foods were largest during seasons of the year when the quantity and quality of pasture on offer resulted in the lowest milk solids yield from unsupplemented cows. When carry-over effects of feeding MG and BR on milk solids production were detected, they were only about half the magnitude of the direct effects. Serum urea concentrations were higher in control cows than those offered MG with a similar effect for BR in all but summer in experiment 1, while serum glucose concentrations were highest in winter and lowest in summer. The most important factor influencing milk solids responses was the relative food deficit (RFD) represented by the decline in milk solids yield of the respective control groups after changing from a generous pasture allowance to restricted allowance when the feeding treatments were imposed. Total milk solids responses (direct and carry-over) to supplements were greatest when severe food restrictions, relative to the cows' current food demand, resulted in large reductions in milk solids yield of the control groups. The RFD was the best predictor of milk solids response to supplementary foods. Therefore, it is likely that cows are most responsive to supplementary foods during or immediately after the imposition of a severe food restriction.