In the past several decades, Chile has been regarded an "economic miracle" and praised for its transition from a brutal dictatorship that lasted nearly two decades to the current democracy. While the state has made much progress, it remains highly unequal in terms of opportunities and services available to the middle and lower classes. This structural inequality is most visible within education. Dictatorship-era policies and long-standing economic and political structures have commoditized education and established an educational system that essentially excludes large sections of the population from receiving quality education. It is thus not surprising that a potent, influential student movement has emerged in Chile, and that among its primary demands are: free, quality education for all and political and economic reforms to the existing system that has allowed inequality to thrive. This study examines that student movement, placing it within the context of Chilean history, politics, economics, and society. It explores the factors that have led to the uprising: political and economic remnants from Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and structural inequality in Chilean society. The study also explores the reasons that the movement arose when it did: an uprising in 2006, a recent shift to conservative government, and generational differences that compel these students to mobilize. In addition this work navigates the sociology and characteristics of the movement: its makeup, the tools used to gather support, the methods utilized for demonstration, etc. These are explored based on their ties to Chile's unique past, as the memory of the dictatorship informs the actions of the student movement today. Along with secondary research, this study utilizes profiles of two student participants of the movement constructed through interviews in order to achieve a more nuanced, personal study of the social movement. In addition, the use of theoretical research of youth movements leads to the conclusion that while this student movement has characteristics that make it uniquely Chilean, it is part of a larger trend that has emerged recently. This trend involves youth-led political movements that have erupted globally and have demanded structural changes in neoliberal politics and society. Often led by student-citizens, they call for social rights and equality and are driven by a greater international awareness and access to technological tools that aid with mobilization. They deal with issues specific to different places – as with the Chilean student movement – but reflect a general dissatisfaction with states' focus on economics in place of social rights. These young people's expectations of their states has increased and they share a generational tendency to actively seek reforms.


We consider the problem of estimating occurrence rates of rare events for extremely sparse data using pre-existing hierarchies and selected features to perform inference along multiple dimensions. In particular, we focus on the problem of estimating click rates for {Advertiser, Publisher, User} tuples where both the Advertisers and the Publishers are organized as hierarchies that capture broad contextual information at different levels of granularities. Typically, the click rates are low and the coverage of the hierarchies and dimensions is sparse. To overcome these difficulties, we decompose the joint prior of the three-dimensional Click-Through-Rate (CTR) using tensor decomposition and propose a Multidimensional Hierarchical Bayesian framework (abbreviated as MadHab). We set up a specific framework of each dimension to model dimension-specific characteristics. More specifically, we consider the hierarchical beta process prior for the Advertiser dimension and for the Publisher dimension respectively and a feature-dependent mixture model for the User dimension. Besides the centralized implementation, we propose a distributed algorithm through Spark for inference which make the model highly scalable and suited for large scale data mining applications. We demonstrate that on a real world ads campaign platform our framework can effectively discriminate extremely rare events in terms of their click propensity.


Recent concepts have highlighted the role of the hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe (MTL) in positive symptoms like delusions in schizophrenia. In healthy individuals, the MTL is critically involved in the detection and encoding of novel information. Here, we aimed to investigate whether dysfunctional novelty processing by the MTL might constitute a potential neural mechanism contributing to the pathophysiology of delusions, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 16 unmedicated patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 20 age-matched healthy controls. All patients experienced positive symptoms at time of participation. Participants performed a visual target detection task with complex scene stimuli in which novel and familiar rare stimuli were presented randomly intermixed with a standard and a target picture. Presentation of novel relative to familiar images was associated with hippocampal activation in both patients and healthy controls, but only healthy controls showed a positive relationship between novelty-related hippocampal activation and recognition memory performance after 24 h. Patients, but not controls, showed a robust neural response in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during presentation of novel stimuli. Functional connectivity analysis in the patients further revealed a novelty-related increase of functional connectivity of both the hippocampus and the OFC with the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) and the ventral striatum (VS). Notably, delusions correlated positively with the difference of the functional connectivity of the hippocampus vs. the OFC with the rACC. Taken together, our results suggest that alterations of fronto-limbic novelty processing may contribute to the pathophysiology of delusions in patients with acute psychosis.


Resolving the timing and pattern of early placental mammal evolution has been confounded by conflict among divergence date estimates from interpretation of the fossil record and from molecular-clock dating studies. Despite both fossil occurrences and molecular sequences favouring a Cretaceous origin for Placentalia, no unambiguous Cretaceous placental mammal has been discovered. Investigating the differing patterns of evolution in morphological and molecular data reveals a possible explanation for this conflict. Here, we quantified the relationship between morphological and molecular rates of evolution. We show that, independent of divergence dates, morphological rates of evolution were slow relative to molecular evolution during the initial divergence of Placentalia, but substantially increased during the origination of the extant orders. The rapid radiation of placentals into a highly morphologically disparate Cenozoic fauna is thus not associated with the origin of Placentalia, but post-dates superordinal origins. These findings predict that early members of major placental groups may not be easily distinguishable from one another or from stem eutherians on the basis of skeleto-dental morphology. This result supports a Late Cretaceous origin of crown placentals with an ordinal-level adaptive radiation in the early Paleocene, with the high relative rate permitting rapid anatomical change without requiring unreasonably fast molecular evolutionary rates. The lack of definitive Cretaceous placental mammals may be a result of morphological similarity among stem and early crown eutherians, providing an avenue for reconciling the fossil record with molecular divergence estimates for Placentalia.


Essential guide to learning Autodesk Inventor and Inventor LTThe new Essentials books from Sybex are beautiful, task-based, full-color Autodesk Official Training Guides that help you get up to speed on Autodesk topics quickly and easily. Inventor Essentials thoroughly covers core features and functions of Autodesk's industry-leading 3D mechanical design software, teaching you what you need to become quickly productive with the software.By following the book's clear explanations, practical tutorials, and step-by-step exercises, you'll cover all the bases. Topics include drawing, modeling parts, creating assemblies, working with plastic and sheet metal parts, automating processes with iLogic, and much more. Whether you're an aspiring manufacturing designer or just brushing up on the basics, this is the essential grounding you need in Autodesk Inventor.Covers Autodesk Inventor 2012 and Inventor 2012 LT fundamentals, so you become quickly productive with the softwareUses straightforward explanations and real-world, hands-on exercises and tutorials to teach the software's core features and functionsHelps you develop the skills you'll need throughout a typical workflow, whether you're a beginner or a more experienced user brushing up on the basicsPrepares you for the Autodesk Inventor Certified Associate and Professional exams and is also an Autodesk Official Training GuideFrom appliances to airplanes, from furniture to cars, you can design it using Autodesk Inventor and this essential guide.


A Pseudomonas strain, AI08, which was capable of detoxifying the herbicide acetochlor (2chloro-N-ethoxymethyl-6'-ethylacet-o-toluide) was isolated from soils. The microbe was isolated using a combination of batch culture enrichment techniques, phenotypic agar plate based assays and a qualitative bioassay for detecting acetochlor detoxification. With the aid of a bioassay developed specifically for the quantification of acetochlor concentrations, it was determined that over a 21 day period Al 08 was capable of detoxifying 20 % of the acetochlor present in a medium containing no other organic carbon and 53 % of the herbicide in a medium containing glucose and yeast extract at concentrations of 0.02 g.l-l and 0.005 g.l-l respectively. A fragment of A108 DNA was cloned in Escherichia coli which produced recombinant cells with both elevated acetochlor resistance and the ability to detoxify 15 % of the acetochlor present in a minimal nutrient medium (containing 0.02 g.l-l glucose and 0.005 g.l-l yeast extract) over a 21 day period. Partial sequencing of the cloned A108 DNA revealed that it encoded an amino acid sequence with significant homology with the dihydrolipoyltransacetylase component of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complexes of Azotobacter vinlandii, E. coli and Alcaligenes eutrophus. Theories are proposed as to the possible biochemical mechanisms whereby expression of the dihydrolipoyltransacetylase gene of Al 08 in recombinant E. coli cells may function in the detoxification of acetochlor.


The smart grid features ubiquitous interconnections of power equipments to enable two-way flows of electricity and information for various intelligent power management applications, such as accurate relay protection and timely demand response. To fulfill such pervasive equipment interconnects, a full-fledged communication infrastructure is of great importance in the smart grid. There have been extensive works on disparate layouts of communication infrastructures in the smart grid by surveying feasible wired or wireless communication technologies, such as power line communications and cellular networks. Nevertheless, towards an operable, cost-efficient and backward-compatible communication solution, more comprehensive and practical understandings are still urgently needed regarding communication requirements, applicable protocols, and system performance. Through such comprehensive understandings, we are prone to answer a fundamental question, how to design, implement and integrate communication infrastructures with power systems. In this paper, we address this issue in a case study of a smart grid demonstration project, the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) systems. By investigating communication scenarios, we first clarify communication requirements implied in FREEDM use cases. Then, we adopt a predominant protocol framework, Distributed Network Protocol 3.0 over TCP/IP (DNP3 over TCP/IP), to practically establish connections between electric devices for data exchanges in a small-scale FREEDM system setting, Green Hub. Within the real-setting testbed, we measure the message delivery performance of the DNP3-based communication infrastructure. Our results reveal that diverse timing requirements of message deliveries are arguably primary concerns in a way that dominates viabilities of protocols or schemes in the communication infrastructure of the smart grid. Accordingly, although DNP3 over TCP/IP is widely considered as a smart grid communication solution, it cannot satisfy communication requirements in some time-critical scenarios, such as relay protections, which claim a further optimization on the protocol efficiency of DNP3.


This paper examines the negotiated settlements of 20 market timing and late trading cases, comparing the restitution obtained for shareholders with an estimate of shareholder dilution. This restitution ratio varies from 0.04 to 5, or from 0.1 to 10 if penalties are included. While some of this variation is explained by differences in the defendants' conduct, controlling for this, settlement negotiations that involved New York as well as the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) resulted in restitution ratios that were higher by a factor of 5-10. An analysis that uses the firms' headquarters location and customers' state of residence as an instrument for New York's involvement suggests that this difference is causal, and not the result of New York involving itself in cases likely to lead to large settlements. Given the much larger staff and institutional expertise of the SEC, it is likely that these differences in outcomes are due to differences in aggressiveness, not prosecutorial resources. Differences in aggressiveness are consistent with popular conceptions of the regulators' career concerns, as well as with theories of industry focus and regulatory capture.


Abstract. Using a new reconstruction of the solar proton energy spectra for Ground Level Enhancement (GLE) events, based on fits to measurements from ground-based and satellite-borne instruments covering a wide energy range, we quantitatively evaluate the possible ionization effects in the low and middle atmosphere for 58 out of the 66 GLE events recorded by the world-wide neutron monitor network since 1956. The ionization computations are based on the numerical 3D CRAC:CRII model. A table of the ionization effect caused by the GLE events at different atmospheric heights is provided. It is shown that the direct ionization effect is negligible or even negative, due to the accompanying Forbush decreases, in all low- and mid-latitude regions. The ionization effect is important only in the polar atmosphere, where it can be dramatic in the middle and upper atmosphere (above 30 km) during major GLE events.


A C-methylcalix(4)methylresorcinarene–DODGA ligand, derived from calix[4]methylresorcinarene functionalized with four diglycolamide (DGA) binding units, was synthesized and characterized by NMR and MS. The ligand was investigated with respect to the extraction of rare earth elements (REEs) from nitric acid solution. High sensitivity was observed, particularly toward heavy rare earth elements. The acidity effects, as well as the concentration of the extractant, were evaluated with regard to the extraction and separation efficiencies. The results showed that the distribution coefficient values increase with an increase in nitric acid concentration in the range from 0.1 to 5 mol L−1. A slope analysis method and spectrophotometric titrations showed clear complexation of the REEs with the ligand. An extraction mechanism is proposed from the estimation of the thermodynamic parameters (ΔH, ΔS, and ΔG). The extraction and stripping of REEs from a simulated leaching solution of a Nd/Fe/B/Dy magnet have been studied.


The demand for comparable, long-term, high quality data on forest ecosystems' status and changes is increasing at the international and global level. Yet, sources for such data are limited and in many case it is not possible to compare data from different monitoring initiatives across space and time because of methodological differences. Apart from technical manuals, there is no comprehensive multidisciplinary, scientific, peer-reviewed reference for forest monitoring methods that can serve and support the user community. This book provides in a single reference the state-of-the-art of monitoring methods as applied at the international level. The book present scientific concepts and methods that form the basis of the transnational, long-term forest monitoring in Europe and looks at other initiatives at the global level. Standardized methods that have been developed over two decades in international forest monitoring projects are presented. Emphasis is put on trans-nationally harmonized methods, related data quality issues, current achievements and on remaining open questions. It offers a comprehensive overview of needs, requirements, organization and possible outcomes of an integrated monitoring program. It features tested and quality assured, internationally harmonized methodologies based on a complete revision of existing methods carried out in 2009-2011. It is connection with monitoring results allows assessment of the potential of the monitoring method.


In the wake of the recent recovery in manufacturing production, the capacity utilization rates published by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) have rebounded much more slowly than those published by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). As a result, some observers have speculated that the manufacturing sector may have considerably less slack than is indicated by the FRB measures. Our view is that the two characterizations of manufacturing slack are not as incongruent as they first appear. This paper discusses the practical and conceptual differences between these measures of capacity utilization, and concludes that the recent divergence simply reflects the character of the latest business cycle.


Today, more than 5,000 children are living in foster care as a result of immigration enforcement procedures that separate immigrant families. While these children remain largely invisible in the affairs of state politics, they are the principal casualties of an immigration system that prioritizes detention and removal over family unification. These children may represent their parents' aspirations and hopes for a better life, yet, they have also become key actors in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform. The journey for immigration reform in the United States, while not equivalent to a family journey, is a dramatically strenuous and conflictive process for children who have been left behind by deported parents. The important question is, are we there yet? This article argues that it may be possible to reach a much-needed solution to the immigration question through proposed changes in family immigration policy. A greater focus on children and their best interests within the context of immigration reform may offer necessary relief to immigrant families and a viable solution for state actors charged with enforcing immigration laws.


Chicken is a major livestock species raised by smallholder households in rural areas in developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa as a chief source of meat protein and income generation. However, Newcastle disease largely compromises the production of this precious bird under backyard production settings. The purpose of the study was to assess antibody responses and growth performance following Newcastle disease vaccination in kuroiler, broiler, and local Tanzanian chickens raised under the same tropical environmental condition. In the experiment, a total of 358 chickens comprised of 127 kuroilers, 121 broilers, and 110 local Tanzanian chickens were raised for seven weeks, and body weights were recorded weekly. Birds were vaccinated at four weeks, and blood samples were collected at days 10, and 21 post-vaccination for antibody titres quantification by ELISA test. Results demonstrated higher (P < 0.05) antibody titres in kuroilers (3.81 ± 0.06) as compared to local chicken (3.73 ± 0.07) and broilers (3.53±0.06) at day 10 post-vaccination. The growth performance of local Tanzanian chickens was comparable to that of kuroilers. The present findings contribute to on-going work in understanding chicken immune responses against NDV and inform breeding programs designed for developing chickens with increased resistance to NDV.

 Key words: Tanzania, local chicken, kuroilers, Newcastle disease virus, growth performance, ND vaccination, Sub-Saharan Africa, antibody responses


We calculate the entanglement-assisted and -unassisted channel capacities of an exactly solvable spin star system, which models the quantum dephasing channel. The capacities for this non-Markovian model exhibit a strong dependence on the coupling strengths of the bath spins with the system, the bath temperature, and the number of bath spins. For equal couplings and bath frequencies, the channel becomes periodically noiseless.


Seasonal allergic rhinitis or hay fever was called "catarrhus aestivus" (spring catarrh) in 19th century medical literature, but more recently has been labelled as a "post industrial revolution epidemic."1 Its prevalence has increased in developed countries, particularly in the past two decades.2 One in six people is affected by allergic rhinitis.3 In 1990 the estimated cost of hay fever in the United States was $1.8 billion.4

Effective medication for this condition is available, and prophylactic treatment (topical corticosteroids, sodium cromoglycate) should be started two to three weeks before the pollen season to prevent priming by allergen. This year the warm spring has advanced the pollen season by two to three weeks and treatment should be started earlier. After concern over the risk of cardiac arrhythmias, the Medicines Control Agency is currently converting terfenadine, a commonly used antihistamine that is available over the counter, into a prescription only drug.

Most of the articles selected were from the personal library of GKS, who has 10 years of clinical and research experience in this subject. For an overview, we selected book chapters that had been written by leaders in the subject, while we selected individual papers for details of particular aspects of seasonal allergic rhinitis. Drug related details came from the British National Formulary , manufacturers' product data, and documents from the Medicines Control Agency.

Seasonal allergic rhinitis is a type I immediate hypersensitivity reaction mediated by specific IgE antibody to a seasonal allergen, leading to mucosal inflammation characterised by sneezing, itching, rhinorrhoea, and nasal blockage. Pollens from wind pollinated grasses, trees, weeds, and spores from fungi are the commonest aeroallergens. Pollens are the male gametes of plants, and most antigenic pollens are 6-40 μm in diameter. Larger pollens from oil seed rape, which is pollinated by insects, have …


Culture in Rehabilitation from Competency to Proficiency provides pertinent information geared specifically towards health care professionals, educators, and students working in various settings with a culturally diverse population of patients and clients. The textbook is also applicable for all individuals interested in a general perspective of culture and ethnicity as related to health care issues. Contributors of this book represent a variety of healthcare professions that include occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, nursing, psychology, and pharmacy.


This article reviews the history of the recent shift to electronic trading in equity, foreign exchange, and fixed-income markets. The authors analyze a new data set: the eSpeed electronic Treasury network. They contrast the market microstructure of the eSpeed trading platform with the traditional voice-assisted networks that report through GovPX. The electronic market (eSpeed) has greater volume, smaller spreads, and a lower estimated trade impact than the voice market (GovPX). ; Appeared earlier as Working Paper 2006-012


With the rapid development of the packaging industry, the requirements for physical properties of corrugated paperboard tend to become higher and higher, especially for the strength properties. A water glass-starch compound system was employed as a surface sizing agent to improve the strength of linerboard in this work. The viscosity of water glass-starch compound system, and its impacts on ring-crush strength and bursting strength of linerboard were evaluated. Cobb value and contact angle were used to characterize the waterproof performance of paper after surface sizing. Compared with conventional surface sizing agents, water glass-starch compound system overcame the defects of low coating weight and inadequate stiffness of the sizing layer, allowing ring-crush strength and bursting strength of linerboard to increase by 91% and 50%, respectively. Additionally, the compound system had higher solids content, low viscosity, and good film-forming ability, which will bring a lot of convenience to production.


In this paper, we develop a new parallel auxiliary grid algebraic multigrid (AMG) method to leverage the power of graphic processing units (GPUs). In the construction of the hierarchical coarse grid, we use a simple and fixed coarsening procedure based on a region quadtree generated from an auxiliary grid. This allows us to explicitly control the sparsity patterns and operator complexities of the AMG solver. This feature provides (nearly) optimal load balancing and predictable communication patterns on shape regular grids, which makes our new algorithm suitable for parallel computing, especially on GPUs. We also design a parallel smoother based on the special coloring of the quadtree to accelerate the convergence rate and improve the parallel performance of this solver. Based on the CUDA toolkit [NVIDIA CUDA Programming Guide, NVIDIA Corp., 2010], we implemented our new parallel auxiliary grid AMG method on GPUs and the numerical results of this implementation demonstrate the efficiency of our new method ...


We study whether international trade fosters democracy. The likely endogeneity between democracy and trade is addressed via the gravity model of trade, allowing us to obtain a measure of natural openness. This serves as our instrumental variable for actual trade openness a la Frankel and Romer (1999). We use this powerful instrument to obtain estimates of the causal impact of openness on democratization. A positive impact of openness on democracy is apparent from about 1895 onwards. Late nineteenth century trade globalization may have helped generate the "first wave" of democratization. Between 1920 and 1938 countries more exposed to international trade were less likely to become authoritarian. Finally, our post-World War II results suggest that a one standard deviation increase in trade with other countries could bring countries like Indonesia, Russia or Venezuela to be as democratic as the US, Great Britain or France. We also see some variation in the impact of openness by region and note that commodity exporters and petroleum producers do not seem to become more democratic by exporting more of such items.


Low‐albedo, hydrated objects dominate the list of the largest asteroids. These objects have varied spectral shapes in the 3‐μm region, where diagnostic absorptions due to volatile species are found. Dawn's visit to Ceres has extended the view shaped by ground‐based observing and shown that world to be a complex one, potentially still experiencing geological activity. We present 33 observations from 2.2 to 4.0 μm of eight large (D > 200 km) asteroids from the C spectral complex, with spectra inconsistent with the hydrated minerals we see in meteorites. We characterize their absorption band characteristics via polynomial and Gaussian fits to test their spectral similarity to Ceres, the asteroid 24 Themis (thought to be covered in ice frost), and the asteroid 51 Nemausa (spectrally similar to the CM meteorites). We confirm most of the observations are inconsistent with what is seen in meteorites and require additional absorbers. We find clusters in band centers that correspond to Ceres‐ and Themis‐like spectra, but no hiatus in the distribution suitable for use to simply distinguish between them. We also find a range of band centers in the spectra that approaches what is seen on Comet 67P. Finally, variation is seen between observations for some objects, with the variation on 324 Bamberga consistent with hemispheric‐level difference in composition. Given the ubiquity of objects with 3‐μm spectra unlike what we see in meteorites, and the similarity of those spectra to the published spectra of Ceres and Themis, these objects appear much more to be archetypes than outliers.


This note presents a model of a partnership that requires initial investment. The production technology depends on partners' effort choices and, possibly, on an exogenous stochastic term. When the technology is monotonic, the paper shows that the need for an investor is a sufficient condition to ensure efficiency. Efficient sharing rules arise endogenously as outcomes of optimal contracts between the investor and the partners. This result illustrates how a Principal-agent structure can naturally arise in a partnership, without changing its basic internal structure. Indeed, the investor emerges as an (external) implementation of a budget-breaker Principal that solves the inefficiency problem inherent to partnerships, as suggested in HolmstrA¶m (1982).


An experimental and numerical investigation of the flow and convective heat transfer distribution around a high turning angle gas turbine rotor blade has been carried out at the University of Kwa-Zulu, Durban campus. This study in gas turbine blade aerothermodynamics was done to meet the research and development requirements of the CSIR and ARMSCOR. The experimental results were generated using an existing continuously running supersonic cascade facility which offers realistic engine conditions at low operating costs. These results were then used to develop and validate a 2-D model created using the commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software package, FLUENT. An initial phase of the study entailed a restoration of what was an unoperational experimental facility to a state capable of producing test simulation conditions. In the analysis, a 4-blade cascade system with provisions for an interchangeable, test blade was subjected to the steady state conditions set up by the facility. Firstly, the flow was characterised by evaluating the static pressures around the midspan of a pressure measurement test blade. This was done using two pressure transducers, a scanivalve, an upgraded data acquisition system and LABview software. The method for measuring the heat transfer distributions made use of a transient measuring technique, whereby a pre-chilled Macor test blade, instrumented with thin film heat flux gauges was rapidly introduced into the hot cascade flow conditions by displacing an aluminum dummy blade while still maintaining the flow conditions. Measurement of the heat flux and generation of the isothermal heat transfer co-efficient distributions entailed re-instrumentation of the test blade section with gauges of increased temperature sensitivity along with modifications of the associated electrical circuitry to improve on the quality of experimental data. Both the experimental flow and heat transfer data were used to validate the CFD model developed in FLUENT. An investigation into different meshing strategies and turbulence models placed emphasis on the choice of model upon correlation. The outcome of which showed the k -co model's superiority in predicting the flow at transonic conditions. A feasibility study regarding a new means of implementing a film cooled turbine test blade at the supersonic cascade facility was also successfully investigated. The study comprised of experimental facility modifications as well as cascade and blade redesigns, all of which were to account for the requirements of film cooling. The implementation of this project, however, demanded the resources of both time and money of which neither commodity was available.


In this report, I describe a technique which allows a non-convex optimal control problem to be expressed and solved in a convex manner. I then verify the resulting solution to ensure its physical feasibility and its optimality. The original, non-convex problem is the fuel-optimal powered landing problem with aerodynamic drag. The non-convexities present in this problem include mass depletion dynamics, aerodynamic drag, and free final time. Through the use of lossless convexification and successive convexification, this problem can be formulated as a series of iteratively solved convex problems that requires only a guess of a final time of flight. The solution's physical feasibility is verified through a nonlinear simulation built in Simulink, while its optimality is verified through the general nonlinear optimal control software GPOPS-II.


Silencing at the HMR and HML loci in Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires recruitment of Sir proteins to the HML and HMR silencers. The silencers are regulatory sites flanking both loci and consisting of binding sites for the Rap1, Abf1, and ORC proteins, each of which also functions at hundreds of sites throughout the genome in processes unrelated to silencing. Interestingly, the sequence of the binding site for Rap1 at the silencers is distinct from the genome-wide binding profile of Rap1, being a weaker match to the consensus, and indeed is bound with low affinity relative to the consensus sequence. Remarkably, this low-affinity Rap1 binding site variant was conserved among silencers of the sensu stricto Saccharomyces species, maintained as a poor match to the Rap1 genome-wide consensus sequence in all of them. We tested multiple predictions about the possible role of this binding-site variant in silencing by substituting the native Rap1 binding site at the HMR-E silencer with the genome-wide consensus sequence for Rap1. Contrary to the predictions from the current models of Rap1, we found no influence of the Rap1 binding site version on the kinetics of establishing silencing, nor on the maintenance of silencing, nor the extent of silencing. We further explored implications of these findings with regard to prevention of ectopic silencing, and deduced that the selective pressure for the unprecedented conservation of this binding site variant may not be related to silencing.


Having infected a bacterial cell, a temperate phage has to make a choice between (a) integrating itself into the bacterial genome, i.e. lysogeny, and (b) using the bacterial machinery to create multiple copies of itself and lysing the cell in the process, i.e. lysis. In order to maximize its long-term growth rate, phages need to ensure that they do not wipe off their bacterial hosts. Temperate phages have been observed to exhibit lysogenic propensities dependent on the MoI (Multiplicity of Infection), among other factors. We propose a model to estimate the propensity of lysogeny opted for by the phages in order to maximize coexistence. One possible approach to do so is to adopt a strategy that would help to attain and maintain an approximately equal proportion of phages with respect to their host. We find that the optimal fraction of phages opting for lysogeny follows a sigmoidal relationship with the MoI and is comparable to results obtained experimentally. We further assess the impact of phage and bacterial environmental stresses on the lysogenic propensity. Our results indicate that the optimal value of lysogenic propensity is greatly dependent on the intensity of these stresses.


[1] The surface signatures of meandering fronts and eddies have been regularly observed and documented in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. Wave-current interactions, the suppression of short wind waves by natural film, and the varying wind field resulting from atmospheric boundary layer changes across an oceanic temperature front all contribute to the radar image manifestation of such mesoscale features. The corresponding imaging mechanisms are quantitatively explored using a new radar imaging model (Kudryavtsev et al., 2005) that solves the energy balance equation where wind forcing, viscous and wave breaking dissipation, wave-wave interactions, and generation of short waves by breaking waves are taken into account. High-quality and synoptic in situ observations of the surface conditions should ideally be used in this model. However, such data are rarely available. Instead, the fields of temperature and ocean current are herein derived from two distinct numerical ocean models. SAR image expressions of current fronts and eddies are then simulated based on these fields. The comparison of simulated images with European Remote Sensing (ERS) SAR and Envisat advanced SAR (ASAR) images is favorable. We consequently believe that the new radar imaging model provides promising capabilities for advancing the quantitative interpretation of current features manifested in SAR images.


"Hi! I'm Melvin. Miss Riley sent me to see you. Gosh, I was scared. I thought I was in real trouble this time. I thought she sent me because I knocked that paste jar on the floor. Boy, what a mess. Made a lot of noise, too. I don't make much noise in the room. If you keep still, the teacher forgets you're there. Jimmy says he acts up in reading class so Miss Riley will get mad at him, and then she won't make him read. I like to have my turn, but I'm not very good at it. You know every time she calls my name, I can feel a great big ball right here in my throat-it gets stuck right here. Even the words I know don't come out right. I guess I'm just too dumb to read right. My sister can read pretty good, but my mom says I'm just dumber than she is. HAS ANYONE SEEN MELVIN?


Systematic review briefs provide a summary of the findings from systematic reviews developed in conjunction with the American Occupational Therapy Association's Evidence-Based Practice Program. Each systematic review brief summarizes the evidence on a theme related to a systematic review topic. This systematic review brief presents findings to support social participation in school contexts for autistic1 children and adolescents (birth to 18 yr).


The most widely used approaches for handling of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) are: (1) storage in smaller retention basins and local decentralised treatment; and (2) storage in larger retention basins and treatment at a central wastewater treatment plant. This paper compares the environmental impact including carbon footprint for these two approaches using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, and provides a holistic view of how CSO is to be treated considering technical, economic and environmental issues. The analysis is based on the results of the EU-financed LotWater project and 9 years of operational data from wastewater treatment in Copenhagen. All technologies are analysed for handling of 1 m 3 of CSO. However, costs are compared based on cost per reduced area. The study showed that decentralised treatment of CSO is the cheapest method and the power consumption for the decentralised treatment is five times less than that for central treatment of CSO. However, central treatment of CSO appeared to be most efficient in reducing discharge of nutrients and environmental toxics. The LCA showed that the largest environmental impacts from handling CSOs are eutrophication and aquatic ecotoxicity. This study concludes that focusing on global warming alone in the form of reduced energy consumption could result in negative impacts on recipient waters.


To understand the biological processes related to the development of cancer there is a need for interactive data visualization tools that integrates experimental data with biological knowledge. Existing visualization tools have shown their usefulness, but next-generation biological data analysis requires both integrating different data types and larger datasets. This requires data exploration tools with a flexible data model that is efficiently represented and processed. Entity Component System in game engines fulfil both requirements. There are two main challenges for using game engines for biological data visualization. First, how to represent the biological data to be visualized using the game engine data structures. Second, how to efficiently implement the necessary data exploration operations using these data structures. This thesis presents the, to our knowledge, first approach formapping biological data to theecsmodel. We used the approach to implement Freia, an application for visualizing gene expression data integrated with pathway images. We evaluated the performance and scalability of Freia bymeasuring the smoothness of key data exploration operations. Our results show that Freia provides a frame rate above 30 fps for these operations for up to 100 simultaneously shown pathways. We believe our approach demonstrates that game engines are well suited to implement data visualization tools for the upcoming biological data studies.


Modern Internet systems often combine different applications (e.g., DNS, web, and database), span different administrative domains, and function in the context of network mechanisms like tunnels, VPNs, NATs, and overlays. Diagnosing these complex systems is a daunting challenge. Although many diagnostic tools exist, they are typically designed for a specific layer (e.g., traceroute) or application, and there is currently no tool for reconstructing a comprehensive view of service behavior. In this paper we propose X-Trace, a tracing framework that provides such a comprehensive view for systems that adopt it. We have implemented X-Trace in several protocols and software systems, and we discuss how it works in three deployed scenarios: DNS resolution, a three-tiered photo-hosting website, and a service accessed through an overlay network.


Taking suggestion from the case of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells, this essay is profoundly interested in the possibilities for new, and alternative, forms of life and being. What forms of sociality and the communal are available for us if we estrange ourselves from the life of our species? And how might these practices of estrangement—queering—actually allow for a new ethical landscape? The essay explores the politics of science in relation to race and sex in historical context. Fantasies about the plasticity of life in speculative thought must consider the histories of social and scientific racism and eugenics. The essay considers two scientific speculators, H. G. Wells and Julian Huxley, whose works demonstrate risks that we must be mindful of in embracing an ontology of life. There are ramifications of self-directed scientific modification of the biological, as Wells's and Huxley's ideas include advanced ideas of the plasticity of life but also the theory and practice of eugenics. The essay still argues for the importance of the utopian, of dreams that reach to new paradigms, that search out the ineffable moments of life that confound us.


Author(s): Chen, Yimin; Crowe, Eliot; Lin, Guanjing; Granderson, Jessica | Abstract: Faults occurring in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems have significantly negative impacts on building energy consumption, occupant comfort, and indoor air quality. In the past thirty years, extensive research has been conducted on fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) methods, and there are now dozens of commercially available FDD software tools. Growing adoption of FDD tools has the potential to generate a massive and useful data set on fault characteristics. However, the lack of a unifying taxonomy is a significant barrier to efficient analysis and evaluation of FDD outputs. Therefore, there is a strong need to develop a robust taxonomy which can better represent and interpret FDD output data. This paper documents the development of a unifying taxonomy for HVAC system faults in commercial buildings, with initial focus on air handling units, variable air volume terminal units, and roof top unit systems. The developed fault taxonomy employs both a physical hierarchy of HVAC equipment and a cause-effect relationship model as tools to better understand and support root cause analysis for HVAC faults. A variable air volume terminal unit is used as an example to demonstrate the application of the developed fault taxonomy. The taxonomy has short-term application in a major U.S. study on fault prevalence, and promises longer term benefits to FDD software developers and building operators by creating a foundation for improved approaches to identifying and resolving HVAC faults.


Objective: To outline some of the tissue characteristics that must be dealt with in order to achieve sustainable corrections in the scoliotic spine on a theoretical basis Methods: We conducted review of the PubMed and Index to Chiropractic Literature databases, as well as our own personal libraries Discussion: All of the tissues of the spinal system, including nervous, ligament, muscle, and bone are discussed in detail, relating specifically to their involvement in the totality of scoliosis. None of these tissues respond to short term rehabilitation techniques in a corrective manner. Short term treatments may create plastic deformation forces that may be detrimental to long term outcomes. Conclusion: Although short term treatments for scoliosis have resulted in positive outcomes, none of these changes have been supported by long#term follow#up studies. Scoliosis treatment involving chiropractic rehabilitation should focus on obtaining long term outcomes for skeletally immature patients, and avoid reporting only short term outcomes in both the adolescent and adult scoliosis populations.


Acts 17:22-31 22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For "In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "For we too are his offspring.' 29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."


Writing requirements in a formal notation permits automatic assessment of such properties as ambiguity, consistency, and completeness. However, verifying that the properties expressed in requirements are preserved in other software life cycle artifacts remains difficult. The existing techniques either require substantial manual effort and skill or suffer from exponential explosion of the number of states in the generated state spaces. "Light-weight" formal methods is an approach to achieve scalability in fully automatic verification by checking an abstraction of the system for only certain properties. We describe light-weight techniques for automatic analysis of consistency between software requirements (expressed in SCR) and detailed designs in low-degree-polynomial time, achieved at the expense of using imprecise data-flow analysis techniques. A specification language SCR describes the systems as state machines with event-driven transitions. We define detailed designs to be consistent with their SCR requirements if they contain exactly the same transitions. We have developed a language for specifying detailed designs, an analysis technique to create a model of a design through data-flow analysis of the language constructs, and a method to automatically generate and check properties derived from requirements to ensure a design's consistency with them. These ideas are implemented in a tool named CORD, which we used to uncover errors in designs of some existing systems.


Dynamic reconfiguration of antenna devices is becoming a prime need in emerging telecommunication and remote sensing systems operating in the portion of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum spanning from millimeter-wave (MMW) to terahertz. Different techniques and materials are currently available for the implementation of a given EM reconfiguration in antenna systems at microwaves andMMW, such as semiconductors, RF-MEMS, Liquid Crystal, and ferroelectrics. However, a common feature to all these technologies is the significant increased loss and complexity with regard to the devices fixed counterpart. Both loss and complexity further increase when high-performance reconfiguration capabilities are addressed atMMWand above, constituting a major limitation to the future deployment of dynamically controllable systems. Advanced performance, low-complexity and low-cost are, therefore, the cornerstones in the development of new technologies for antenna reconfiguration. In this framework, the main objective of this thesis is to contribute to the advancement of low-cost and efficient technologies enabling antenna reconfiguration capabilities fromMMWto THz frequencies. Within this scope, it is proposed the analysis, design and implementation of mechanically reconfigurable devices using dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs). DEAs are an emerging technology that possesses unique properties, and represents a potential alternative to conventionalmechanical reconfiguration schemes. DEAs are especially attractive for their large strain combined with low-costmaterials and fabrication, analog control and near-zero DC power consumption. These characteristics make them particularly suited to the realization of low-cost and low-loss reconfigurable antennas. The high potential of DEAs for the realization of adaptive devices is experimentally validated by the development of different prototypes operating atMMWand THz frequencies: i) a very low-loss true-time-delay phase shifter operating at Ka-band; ii) a Ka-band reconfigurable reflectarray with 1-D beam-scanning capability; iii) a stretchable and beam-scanning THz reflectarray exhibiting the uncommon potential for the implementation of conformal or reconfigurable devices based on mechanical stretching. The designs and concepts demonstrated in this thesis pave the way for the evolution of new DEA-based reconfigurable devices resulting in low-cost, low loss and compact structures.


Well-established design patterns offer the possibility of standardized construction of software systems and can be used in various ways. The systematic use of design patterns in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems however, has received little attention so far, despite AI being a popular research area in recent years. AI systems can be used for a wide variety of applications and play an increasingly important role in business and everyday life. AI systems are becoming more complex however, the actual machine learning (ML) task comprises only a small part of the total source code of a system. In order to maintain a clear and structured architecture for such systems and to allow easy maintenance, standardized elements should be reused in the design. This paper describes possible applications of well-known design patterns in AI systems to improve traceability of the system design.


The acid-base balance of cells is related to the concentration of free H⁺ ions. These are highly reactive, and their intracellular concentration must be regulated to avoid detrimental effects to the cell. H⁺ ion dynamics are influenced by binding to chelator substances ('buffering'), and by the production, diffusion and membrane-transport of free H⁺ ions or of the H⁺-bound chelators. Intracellular pH (pHi) regulation aims to balance this system of diffusion-reaction-transport processes at a favourable steady-state pHi. The ability of cells to regulate pHi may set a limit to tissue growth and can be subject to selection pressures. Cancer cells have been postulated to respond favourably to such selection pressures by evolving a better means of pHi regulation. A particularly important feature of tumour pHi regulation is acid-extrusion, which involves H⁺-extrusion and HCO₃⁻-uptake by membrane-bound transporter-proteins. Extracellular CO₂/HCO₃⁻ buffer facilitates these membrane-transport processes. As a mobile pH-buffer, CO₂/HCO₃⁻ protects the extracellular space from excessive acidification that could otherwise inhibit further acid-extrusion. CO₂/HCO₃⁻ also provides substrate for HCO₃⁻-transporters. However, the inherently slow reaction kinetics of CO₂/HCO₃⁻ can be rate-limiting for acid-extrusion. To circumvent this, cells can express extracellular-facing carbonic anhydrase enzymes to accelerate the attainment of equilibrium between CO₂, HCO₃⁻ and H⁺. The acid-extrusion apparatus has been proposed as a target for anti-cancer therapy. The major targets include H⁺ pumps, Na⁺/H⁺ exchangers and carbonic anhydrases. The effectiveness of such therapy will depend on the correct identification of rate-limiting steps in pHi regulation in a specific type of cancer.


—In an effort to make blockchains more energy- efficient, egalitarian, and decentralized, several new protocols employ consensus based on Proofs-of-Capacity (PoC), which replace compute-intensive mining with storage-intensive farming. We observe that PoC consensus introduces a unique mechanism design challenge, referred to as the farmer's dilemma , which suggests that existing constructions are not actually incentive compatible. Simply put, farmers must decide whether to allocate scarce storage resources towards either maintaining the chain state and history or maximizing the amount of space they pledge towards consensus. Rational farmers will always choose the latter, at best becoming light clients, while at worst encouraging pooled farming under a few trusted operators. To resolve this dilemma, we introduce Subspace , a PoC blockchain in which farmers maintain neither the state nor the history, while retaining the security properties and decentralization benefits of a full node. Consensus in Subspace is based on proofs of replicated storage of the history of the blockchain itself. Farmers store the history collectively, many times over, with each farmer storing as many replicas as their disk space allows. Consensus and computation are then decoupled, such that farmers only propose an ordering for transactions, while staked executor nodes maintain the state and compute transitions. This separation of concerns significantly reduces the storage and compute overhead needed to operate a farmer, even in an Ethereum-style execution model, allowing for high levels of participation in consensus by ordinary users with commodity hardware.


Barotropic variability of the Canadian Atlantic Shelf on synoptic time-scales is examined using data analysis, statistical and dynamical models. The main objective is to understand the connections between the subregions and develop models that can be used operationally. Data are used to determine dominant scales, run statistical models and validate dynamical models. Data assimilation is used to infer open boundary conditions for the dynamical models. In the first study synoptic variability of the Labrador Shelf is examined using a limited area model. Wind and upstream boundary forcing are found to be the most important sources of the variability. Based on model results a forecasting scheme is designed and tested. The second subregional study concentrated on the variability in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Boundary forcing via Cabot Strait is found to be the dominant source of variability. Data analysis indicates the presence of resonances in the Gulf, some of which can be related to wind and boundary forcing. In the last study, a large scale model of the Canadian Atlantic Shelf forced by wind and air pressure is used to examine connections between the regions. The model showed very good predictive skill for sea level and along-shore coastal currents. The wind driven flow from the Newfoundland Shelf is the most dominant source of remote variability for the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Scotian Shelf. High frequency signals from the Newfoundland Shelf can cross the Laurentian Channel and directly force the Scotian Shelf. Non-isostatic pressure forcing within the domain is negligible. The model driven by forecast winds can be run operationally to predict sea level and currents variability or supply boundary conditions for more sophisticated limited area model.


We study the problem of long-run average cost control of Markov chains conditioned on a rare event. In a related recent work, a simulation based algorithm for estimating performance measures associated with a Markov chain conditioned on a rare event has been developed. We extend ideas from this work and develop an adaptive algorithm for obtaining, online, optimal control policies conditioned on a rare event. Our algorithm uses three timescales or step-size schedules. On the slowest timescale, a gradient search algorithm for policy updates that is based on one-simulation simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation (SPSA) type estimates is used. Deterministic perturbation sequences obtained from appropriate normalized Hadamard matrices are used here. The fast timescale recursions compute the conditional transition probabilities of an associated chain by obtaining solutions to the multiplicative Poisson equation (for a given policy estimate). Further, the risk parameter associated with the value function for a given policy estimate is updated on a timescale that lies in between the two scales above. We briefly sketch the convergence analysis of our algorithm and present a numerical application in the setting of routing multiple flows in communication networks.


Background and purpose Stress is a growing concern in many workplaces today and much research has been done on occupational stress. Some of these studies are focusing on military, police and other job categories where employees are exposed to extreme danger. However, very little research has been done on non-uniformed civilians working in volatile contexts. This thesis investigates what stressors civilian field personnel are exposed to while on assignment in different UN peacekeeping missions and what UN peacekeeping operations are doing to manage or mitigate the effects of negative long-term stress among civilian peacekeepers. Methodology Identification of environmental and organizational stress factors in different UN peacekeeping operations have been done with the help of an exploratory, cross-sectional online survey carried out in seven UN peacekeeping missions. Based on identified stressors, this thesis investigates how stress management can be improved in UN peacekeeping operations. Findings Long-term occupational stress can be damaging for the individual employee as well as the entire organization, therefore, a more pro-active stress management approach is required. The survey results showed that there are many different environmental and organizational stressors in UN peacekeeping missions. Civilian field personnel's access to gym facilities must be improved in many missions. A number of actions can be taken on the organizational level to raise awareness about welfare and stress management. The main recommendations are: - More attention needs to be paid, at Headquarters and at mission level, in trying to reduce organizational stressors in missions; - Secretary General's recommendations from 2008 and 2009 should be implemented, i.e. ensure gym facilities for all staff members; - Staff welfare should be a priority not an after-thought. Stress management strategies and welfare budgets, tailored to each mission, needs to be developed.


In mammalian cells, distinct replication domains (RDs), corresponding to structural units of chromosomes called topologically-associating domains (TADs), replicate at different times during S-phase1–4. Further, early/late replication of RDs corresponds to active/inactive chromatin interaction compartments5,6. Although replication origins are selected stochastically, such that each cell is using a different cohort of origins to replicate their genomes7–12, replication-timing is regulated independently and upstream of origin selection13 and evidence suggests that replication timing is conserved in consecutive cell cycles14. Hence, quantifying the extent of cell-to-cell variation in replication timing is central to studies of chromosome structure and function. Here we devise a strategy to measure variation in single-cell replication timing using DNA copy number. We find that borders between replicated and un-replicated DNA are highly conserved between cells, demarcating active and inactive compartments of the nucleus. Nonetheless, measurable variation was evident. Surprisingly, we detected a similar degree of variation in replication timing from cell-to-cell, between homologues within cells, and between all domains genome-wide regardless of their replication timing. These results demonstrate that stochastic variation in replication timing is independent of elements that dictate timing or extrinsic environmental variation.


The United Nations' (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development defines the formidable challenge of integrating historically separate economic, social, and environmental goals into a unified 'plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.' We highlight the substantial contribution inland fisheries can make towards preventing increased poverty and, in some cases, alleviating poverty (i.e. addressing Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] 1: No Poverty) as an opportunity to inform the next set of development agendas and their associated budgets and priorities. Overlooking the contribution of inland fisheries to poverty prevention and alleviation may undermine the capacity to successfully meet the development goals, especially in rural communities in LowIncome Food-Deficit countries. Inland fisheries are essential for food and economic security as the vast majority are small-scale operations or subsistence, predominantly used by poorer groups. Protecting inland fisheries from diverse threats from other water users and associated sectors requires robust, multi-sectoral, and multinational policies that can be brought about by global initiatives like the SDGs. Without such protection, their vital contribution towards sustainable livelihoods and poverty issues becomes uncertain. Further, integrating inland fisheries into sustainable development frameworks strengthens the likelihood of achieving the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development. In this perspective article, we posit that including inland fisheries in national policy statements and programs can prove beneficial to promoting economic and social growth for the poor, preventing further poverty, and achieving SDG 1 and other SDG targets, especially those related to food security.


Objective: Laminitis is one of the main causes of lameness in dairy cattle. In this situation the corium blood circulation is disrupted and the production of healthy horny hoof wall is reduced. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the arteriographic pattern of the digital arterial branches in the laminitic digits and to compare them with the normal digits. Design: Original study. Animals: Thirty-eight laminitic and four normal hooves from hind limbs of the Holestein dairy cattle were collected from Shiraz slaughter house, Fars province, Iran. Procedure: The dorsal digital artery of each limb was catheterized, followed by the injection of a 20 ml contrast media into each artery, in order to obtain appropriate radiographs from dorso-plantar and latero-medial positions. The arteriograms were studied and digital vascular alterations were recorded. The number of arteries, diameter of the arteries, the number of missing arteries, the number of extra arteries and angiogenesis were finally recorded.  Results: The overall vascular alterations were 52.6% and 47.3% in the lateral and medial hooves, respectively, which were not significantly different (P>0.05). Angiogenesis and new blood vessels were observed both in the lateral and medial hooves in 31.5% of the cases. No alteration in the vascular pattern of the heel area in the lateral arteriograms was observed compared to the healthy hooves. All the proven vascular changes from both lateral and medial digits of the hind limbs did not show any significant differences (P>0.05) implying that laminitis is a systemic disease and its effect is equally induced on the vascular pattern of both digits.  Conclusion:  Lame cattle affected by laminitis develop vascular alterations in digits and need urgent care to reduce further complications. Clinical Relevance: Prevention of lameness in dairy cattle.


The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 imposed a tax, the "transition tax," on as much as 31 years of undistributed, accumulated corporate income. This article focus on that transition tax as it evaluates the function and constitutionality of the tax and considers whether the transition tax might serve as a model for addressing the broader problem of deferred income in the United States. The article views the transition tax as joining the expatriation tax and other mark to market inclusion provisions in abandoning any pretext that there is continued vitality in the realization principle as something more compelling than any other longstanding and obsolescing tax principle. Recommending that Congress seize the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act moment and discard the general rule deferring the inclusion of gain in income through a realization requirement in favor of the annual marking to market of all the taxpayer's property, the article models a general mark to market transition tax after the new transition tax on deferred foreign income. The proposal recommends inclusion of the net gain in taxpayers' incomes at significantly reduced rates of tax, including one rate for liquid assets and a lower rate for illiquid assets and an opportunity to pay the tax in installments. Following the initial inclusion under this transition tax, gain and loss would be included annually consistent with comprehensive tax base definitions under an accrual system of taxation based on marking to market. Growth or decline in the value of taxpayers' property would be taken into account income annually. In some instances permitting some taxpayers to defer payment of the tax until disposition of the property may be desirable but the continued deferral might incur an interest charge.


Food or water-borne enteric pathogens invade their hosts via intestinal mucosal surfaces, thus developing effective oral vaccines would greatly reduce the burden of infectious diseases. The nature of the antigen, as well as the mode of its internalization in the intestinal mucosa affects the ensuing immune response. We show that model protein antigen ovalbumin (Ova) given per-orally (p.o.) induces oral tolerance (OT), characterized by systemic IgG1-dominated antibody response, which cannot be boosted by sub-cutaneous (s.c.) immunization with Ova in complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA). Intestinal IgA generated in response to Ova feeding diminished over time and was abrogated by s.c. immunization with Ova+CFA. Humoral response to Ova was altered by administering Ova conjugated to 20 nm nanoparticles (NP-Ova). P.o. administration of NP-Ova induced systemic IgG1/IgG2c, and primed the intestinal mucosa for secretion of IgA. These responses were boosted by secondary s.c. immunization with Ova+CFA or p.o. immunization with NP-Ova. However, only in s.c.-boosted mice serum and mucosal antibody titers remained elevated for 6 months after priming. In contrast, s.c. priming with NP-Ova induced IgG1-dominated serum antibodies, but did not prime the intestinal mucosa for secretion of IgA, even after secondary p.o. immunization with NP-Ova. These results indicate that Ova conjugated to NPs reaches the internal milieu in an immunogenic form and that mucosal immunization with NP-Ova is necessary for induction of a polarized Th1/Th2 immune response, as well as intestinal IgA response. In addition, mucosal priming with NP-Ova, followed by s.c. boosting induces superior systemic and mucosal memory responses. These findings are important for the development of efficacious mucosal vaccines.


This article addresses some issues relating to the life of Trimalchio, the well-known freedman of Petronius' Satyricon. In particular, it focuses on the modalities of self-representation of the freedman through two ekphrasis, the one painted in the frescoes of the porticus, and the other represented by the monumental complex of his tomb. The two descriptions are interpreted not only in the light of literary references, both internal and external to the Petronian novel, but also trying to find precise archaeological counterparts that would help to insert literary fiction in a realistic context. From the comparison with the literary and archaeological data some details emerge that highlight the complex and multifaceted Trimalchio's desire for self-representation, which denotes a deep and lucid consciousness of himself and of his own condition beyond the well-known cliche of the rich upstart.


BackgroundNon-missile penetrating spinal injuries (NMPSI) can cause delayed neural injury, including cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leakage and spinal cord herniation, related to dural defects. To repair ventral dural defect (VDD) is particularly challenging in trauma patients and, in a meanwhile, there has been a well-established method: sling technique, used for patients with idiopathic spinal cord herniation (ISCH) in whom VDD being the primary pathology to deal with.Case presentationThis 51-year-old man fell down from an altitude of six meters and landed on a plier. The neurological examination revealed decreased muscle strength (grade 3/3) in bilateral lower extremities. Computed tomography showed a pair of pliers penetrating L4 lamina, spinal canal through vertebral body, psoas muscle into retroperitoneal cavity with inferior vena cava (IVC) indentation. Emergent laparotomy revealed intact IVC with no major organ damage, and the plier was removed from back under direct visualization of IVC. Immediate posterior approach showed a through-and-through VDD. Sling technique with COOK® dura substitute was applied to cover the VDD and fixed with 7-0 prolene after neurolysis. There was no CSF leakage or nerve tissue herniation afterward. He regained working ability with full muscle strength except for a minor sequal of paresthesia of right toe.ConclusionsIn patients with NMPSI with VDD, indirect duraplasty using sling technique originally developed for treating patients with ISCH is suitable and effective in preventing CSF leakage and delayed neural injury. We further propose an algorithm emphasizing key decision makings for repairing dural defect while preventing delayed neural injury.


South Africa's large racial gap in enrolment in tertiary education can be attributed to the
widely varying quality of primary and secondary education rather than to the low incomes of
most black and coloured households. Thus, easing credit constraints for prospective tertiary
students via increased financial aid is expected to have a limited impact on African and
coloured enrolment. Instead, policymakers should focus on improving educational quality at
schools attended by children from low-income households.


One of the main issues that have been considered about Kuala Lumpur city is its indistinguishable identity and image, partly due to the rapid development and expansion of the city structure over many decades. Inevitably, forming a distinctive city image is not an easy task as it depends primarily on the manner of reciprocal interactions between people and their surrounding built environment. This paper examines the relationship and interaction between people and the city structure, specifically through public evaluation of landmarks as one of the five elements of the city image. The people's background and their evaluation of the landmarks' features are examined in this study. To achieve this objective, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using mixed-techniques involving a questionnaire survey of 120 respondents followed by an unstructured interview. The results show significant differences in the public evaluation of landmarks based on the respondents' nationality and ethnicity. Differences in the evaluation are related to the landmark factors namely unique; memorable; legible; historic; design; scale; meaningful and color. Much effort by the local authorities is necessary to create a distinguishable image of Kuala Lumpur that reflects the city's fusion of modern and traditional lifestyles, and diversified cultures and values.


This thesis is concerned with 1) establishing the origins of sex-gender differences and with ascertaining if these are changeable; 2) the structure and function of the postmodern patriarchal family and its role in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping; 3) the role of education in sex-gender/other stereotyping; 4) the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy; and 5) the implementation of this pedagogy. The thesis is structured around six research questions. The first three research questions What are the origins of sex-gender differences?, What is the structure of the postmodern patriarchal family and what functions does it have? and What role do the patriarchal family and its patriarchal structure play in sex-gender development and sex-gender stereotyping? guide an interdisciplinary enquiry that provides the basis for the development of an holistic inclusive pedagogy. The fourth question What role does education play in sex-gender stereo-typing? delineates the context out of which an holistic inclusive pedagogy is developed. The last two research questions What kind of pedagogy is needed to ameliorate the injustices students suffer as a result of sex-gender/other stereotyping? and How can an holistic inclusive pedagogy raise learner's-teacher's awareness of sex-gender/other stereotyping? are concerned with the creation of an holistic inclusive pedagogy, its salient features, philosophical and epistemological assumptions and aims, etc.


Linear support vector machines (SVMs) have become popular for solving classification tasks due to their fast and simple online application to large scale data sets. However, many problems are not linearly separable. For these problems kernel-based SVMs are often used, but unlike their linear variant they suffer from various drawbacks in terms of computational and memory efficiency. Their response can be represented only as a function of the set of support vectors, which has been experimentally shown to grow linearly with the size of the training set. In this paper we propose a novel locally linear svm classifier with smooth decision boundary and bounded curvature. We show how the functions defining the classifier can be approximated using local codings and show how this model can be optimized in an online fashion by performing stochastic gradient descent with the same convergence guarantees as standard gradient descent method for linear svm. Our method achieves comparable performance to the state-of-the-art whilst being significantly faster than competing kernel SVMs. We generalise this model to locally finite dimensional kernel SVM.


The cinema audience has in the past not been given a lot of room in film theory; insofar Annette Kuhn's book 'An Everyday Magic, Cinema and Cultural Memory' (2002) fills a rather large gap. Kuhn explores how cinema-going affected people's everyday life and how the film text became part of people's personal memory. Cinema, Kuhn claims in her book, is an integral part of formation of identities, especially for the generation who were young in the 1930s and for whom going to 'the pictures' was their favourite leisure activity. Why were the 1930s so special? What kind of audience are we dealing with? When considering how popular it was to visit the cinema at the time we are inclined to think of cinema as mass entertainment, even just in reference to the sheer numbers - but what significance did cinema-going have and what role did the culture that surrounded cinema play in 1930s British society?


We describe dispersion compensation of a cw mode-locked optical parametric oscillator based on a thin crystal of KTiOPO4 pumped intracavity by a standard colliding-pulse mode-locked dye laser, The device provides potential cw tunability from 0.72 to 4.5 μm with milliwatt outputs. Transform-limited pulses should be possible throughout the tuning range;here we report pulse widths of 105 fsec at 840 nm and 108 Hz. Active stabilization of the oscillator cavity is also discussed.


The behavior of the entirely unique system represented by superalkaline species incorporated into a superhalogen cage has been studied using density functional theory with hybrid functionals and the triple-ξ quality basis set level of theory. The singlet ground state and triplet excited state of an FLi2@B39 borospherene complex as well as its cationic and anionic doublet ground states have been investigated. Only the encapsulation of FLi2+ into B39 in FLi2@B39+ is a thermodynamically unfavorable process. All other systems are stabilized during encapsulation most likely via an unpaired electron delocalization process and electrostatic interaction. The calculations revealed that superhalogen and superalkaline properties inherent in the separated fragments are lost in FLi2@B39 complexes. The applicability of vertically estimated ionization potentials and electron affinities instead of adiabatic ones for description of such systems has been demonstrated.


The 2.5 percent annual decline of the Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) over the past 39 years has concerned staff from various wildlife agencies and conservation organizations, prompting increased research to better identify and protect habitat for this neo-tropical migratory warbler. To aid the North Carolina Audubon Society in identifying lands for further research or survey efforts, the objectives of this project included: 1) Using a combination of geographic information systems (GIS) spatial analysis and three statistical modeling approaches – a Classification and Regression Tree (CART), a Generalized Linear Model (GLM), and MaxEnt – to predict suitable habitat for the Golden-winged Warbler across the study area; 2) Combining the results of all three modeling techniques to generate a conservative estimate of predicted habitat; 3) Mapping the results in a GIS, and; 4) Refining and prioritizing the predicted habitat. The results of this statistical analysis suggested that the variables of elevation, distance from developed open space, and the focal mean value of Montane Oak forest may be the most useful in predicting habitat for the Golden-winged Warbler in western North Carolina. To refine the raw, three model combined output, patches less than 10 hectares were omitted. Also, to prioritize patches, three scenarios involving lands managed for conservation and open space and North Carolina Audubon Important Bird Areas (IBAs) were compared by area, number of patches, and county in which the predicted habitat occurred. Finally, several factors may limit the practical use of this modeling effort. Thus, the mapped predicted habitat should only be used to guide further research and is not intended as a basis for management recommendations.


Distributive justice plays a starring role in many fundamental tax policy debates, from the marginal rate structure to the choice of base to the propriety of wealth transfer taxes. In contrast, current tax scholarship on the charitable tax subsidies generally either ignores or explicitly disavows distributive justice concerns. Instead, it focuses on the efficiency and pluralism-enhancing advantages of having charities provide public goods instead of or in addition to the government. While identifying these advantages is a necessary and important contribution to our understanding of charitable giving policy, avoidance of distributive justice concerns ignores the very purpose of charity: voluntary redistribution. After all, it's called the charitable deduction, not the public goods deduction. As a result, the current body of work on the charitable tax subsidies is incomplete: It purposely under-theorizes "the good" in order to avoid making value judgments about which projects should be subsidized. Although this sounds appealing, completely avoiding such judgments is both impossible and counter-productive. Current scholarship thus over under-theorizes the good, creating confusion about the charitable tax subsidies in both theory and practice. Explicitly addressing distributive justice - in addition to pluralism and efficiency - will enhance our understanding of the subsidies for three reasons. First, existing scholarship - which generally ignores distributive justice issues - is incomplete and inconsistent for so doing. It is incomplete because it does not adequately identify which projects deserve a subsidy; it is inconsistent because it implicitly contains value judgments that have distributive justice implications but that are unacknowledged (and often disavowed) by their proponents. Second, popular criticisms of the charitable tax subsidies raise distributive justice issues that have not been adequately addressed. And lastly, the law governing the charitable tax subsidies is itself confused on the role of distributive justice. Extending our understanding of the subsidies in this manner has three benefits. First, it will help the efficiency- and pluralism-minded scholars better address how to structure the tax subsidies to best promote those benefits. Second, a better understanding of distributive justice will help us assess existing justice-related criticisms of the subsidies. And lastly, because our society currently spends a great deal of resources subsidizing charity, such a discussion will help us allocate our resources in a more systematic fashion.


The scripted television comedy series was first presented to audiences via the ''sitcom'' form and thus the sitcom has continued to be defined by many of the characteristics with which it was first identified in the 1950s. In examining the evolution of the American comedy series, this book seeks to highlight the similarities between the formulaic studio-bound approach to series comedy (the sitcom) and more contemporary innovations in aesthetic production modes, such as those employed in the 'single-camera' comedy. This investigation comes to view the comedy series as being characterised definitively by its narrative conventions rather than its visual style, and it thus redefines the term 'sitcom' in a manner which better encompasses the series comedy genre as a whole. The sitcom is explored through aesthetic, narrative, commercial and ideological frameworks in order to highlight salient aspects of its generic form, commercial function, ideological flexibility and future potential. The analysis of specific case studies demonstrates the tension between innovation and convention which continues to characterise the sitcom's evolution as a televisual form.


Structural estimation consists in a set of activities done to certificate security and reliability of an existing ship for its residual service life. Depending on ship's type and damages, there are alternatively evaluation approaches. In this paper it is presented the level of confidence determination for a bulk carrier ship based on approximate methods. Important information can be obtained with special attention on damage factors (corrosion, fatigue). Regarding the ship's loads, first, it is calculated the still water bending moment, then the wave-induced hull girder bending moment. Once these results being processed, it is possible to determine the structural stress of the ship for any age. The probability to overreach the admissible stress given by classification registers can be calculated, and the potential risk for structure becomes predictable.


In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.


CD34 is expressed on the surface of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, stromal cells, and on the surface of high-endothelial venules (HEV). CD34 binds L-selectin, an adhesion molecule important for leukocyte rolling on venules and lymphocyte homing to peripheral lymph nodes (PLN). We generated CD34-deficient mutant animals through the use of homologous recombination. Wild-type and mutant animals showed no differences in lymphocyte binding to PLN HEV, in leukocyte rolling on venules or homing to PLN, in neutrophil extravasation into peritoneum in response to inflammatory stimulus, nor in delayed type hypersensitivity. Anti-L-selectin monoclonal antibody (MEL-14) also inhibited these immune responses similarly in both CD34-deficient and wild-type mice. However, eosinophil accumulation in the lung after inhalation of a model allergen, ovalbumin, is several-fold lower in mutant mice. We found no abnormalities in hematopoiesis in adult mice and interactions between mutant progenitor cells and a stromal cell line in vitro were normal. No differences existed in the recovery of progenitor cells after 5-fluorouracil treatment, nor in the mobilization of progenitor cells after granulocyte colony-stimulating factor treatment compared with wild-type animals. Surprisingly, although CD34 was not expressed in these mice, a portion of its 90-kD band crossreactive with MECA79 remained after Western blot. Thus, we have identified an additional molecule(s) that might be involved in leukocyte trafficking. These results indicate that CD34 plays an important role in eosinophil trafficking into the lung.


September 11 seared our collective memory perhaps even more vividly than December 7, 1941, and has evoked a natural demand both for retribution and for measures to keep us safe. Given the existing statutory and judicial authority for capital punishment, the U.S. Government has to confront the issue whether to seek the death penalty against those who are linked to the suicide attacks or to the organization that sponsored them or both. Meting out the death penalty to international terrorists involves difficult moral, legal, and policy questions. The September 11 crimes were not only domestic crimes, but also international ones. The magnitude of these crimes, the killing of over 3,000 innocent people, cries out for redress. Yet most countries in the world, including nearly all our closest allies, have abolished capital punishment. None of the four currently operating international criminal tribunals is authorized to give a death sentence. In addition, the advent of the suicide bomber turns the deterrence justification for the death penalty inside out. Might the death penalty help create martyrs rather than discourage similar attacks? Could our imposing the death penalty increase support in the Islamic world for al Qaeda and other extremist groups? Furthermore, to what extent as a matter of constitutional law and policy, should a secondary actor, one who did not kill, but who was a member of a terrorist conspiracy, be subject to the death penalty? This Article examines these questions in the context of the Zacarias Moussaoui case, the supposed twentieth hijacker, who, on September 11, 2001, had been held in custody for twenty-six days. Note: This article was published just before the Iraq prison scandal broke. The article, however, does discuss torture and the consequences of mistreating captured individuals suspected of committing acts of terrorism.


The study investigated the efficacy of two isolates of Aspergillus terreus (65P and 9F) on the growth, morphology and pathogenicity of Pythium aphanidermatum on cucumber. In vitro tests showed that the two isolates inhibited the growth of P. aphanidermatum in culture. Investigating P. aphanidermatum hyphae close to the inhibition zone showed that the hyphae showed abnormal growth and loss of internal content. Treating P. aphanidermatum with the culture filtrate (CF) of A. terreus resulted in significant rise in cellular leakage of P. aphanidermatum mycelium. Testing glucanase enzyme activity by both A. terreus isolates showed a significant increase in glucanase activity. This suggests that the cell walls of Pythium, which consist of glucan, are affected by the glucanase enzyme produced by A. terreus. In addition, Aspergillus isolates produced siderephore, which is suggested to be involved in inhibition of Pythium growth. Also, the CFs of 65P and 9F isolates significantly reduced spore production by P. aphanidermatum compared to the control (P < 0.05). In bioassay tests, the two isolates of A. terreus increased the survival rate of cucumber seedlings from 10 to 20% in the control seedlings treated with P. aphanidermatum to 38–39% when the biocontrol agents were used. No disease symptoms were observed on cucumber seedlings only treated with the isolates 65P and 9F of A. terreus. In addition, the A. terreus isolates did not have any negative effects on the growth of cucumber seedlings. This study shows that isolates of A. terreus can help suppress Pythium-induced damping-off of cucumber, which is suggested to be through the effect of A. terreus and its glucanase enzyme on P. aphanidermatum mycelium.


Ketamine is known to induce psychotic-like symptoms, including delirium and visual hallucinations. It also causes neuronal damage and cell death in the retrosplenial cortex (RSC), an area that is thought to be a part of high visual cortical pathways and at least partially responsible for ketamine's psychotomimetic activities. However, the basic physiological properties of RSC cells as well as their response to ketamine in vivo remained largely unexplored. Here, we combine a computational method, the Inter-Spike Interval Classification Analysis (ISICA), and in vivo recordings to uncover and profile excitatory cell subtypes within layers 2&3 and 5&6 of the RSC in mice within both conscious, sleep, and ketamine-induced unconscious states. We demonstrate two distinct excitatory principal cell sub-populations, namely, high-bursting excitatory principal cells and low-bursting excitatory principal cells, within layers 2&3, and show that this classification is robust over the conscious states, namely quiet awake, and natural unconscious sleep periods. Similarly, we provide evidence of high-bursting and low-bursting excitatory principal cell sub-populations within layers 5&6 that remained distinct during quiet awake and sleep states. We further examined how these subtypes are dynamically altered by ketamine. During ketamine-induced unconscious state, these distinct excitatory principal cell subtypes in both layer 2&3 and layer 5&6 exhibited distinct dynamics. We also uncovered different dynamics of local field potential under various brain states in layer 2&3 and layer 5&6. Interestingly, ketamine administration induced high gamma oscillations in layer 2&3 of the RSC, but not layer 5&6. Our results show that excitatory principal cells within RSC layers 2&3 and 5&6 contain multiple physiologically distinct sub-populations, and they are differentially affected by ketamine.


Voyage optimization is a practice to select the optimum route for the ship operators to increase energy efficiency and reduce Green House Gas emission in the shipping industry. An accurate prediction of ship operational performance is the prerequisite to achieve these targets. In this paper, a modified Kwon's method was developed to predict the added resistance caused by wave and wind for a specific ship type, and an easy-to-use semi-empirical ship operational performance prediction model is proposed. It can accurately predict the ship's operational performance for a specific commercial ship under different drafts, at varying speeds and in varying encounter angles, and then enables the user to investigate the relation between fuel consumption and the various sea states and directions that the ship may encounter during her voyage. Based on the results from the operational performance prediction model and real time climatological information, different options for the ship's navigation course can be evaluated according to a number of objectives, including: maximizing safety and minimizing fuel consumption and voyage time. By incorporating this into a decision support tool, the ship's crew are able to make an informed decision about what is the best course to navigate. In this study the Energy Efficiency of Operation (EEO) is defined as an indicator to illustrate the ratio of main engine fuel consumption per unit of transport work. Two case studies are carried out to perform the prediction of ship operational performance for Suezmax and Aframax Oil Tankers, and the results indicate that the semi-empirical ship operational performance prediction model provides extremely quick calculation with very reasonable accuracy, particularly considering the uncertainties related to the parameters of interest for the case study data. Within the case studies, the additional fuel consumption caused by the combined hull and propeller fouling and engine degradation is included in the model as a time-dependent correction factor. The factor may assist the ship owner/operator to determine the hull coating selection, and/or the dry-docking and main engine maintenance strategy. & 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).


This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called 'British' high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and 'migrant infrastructure' (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To 'envision' migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.


The Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food provides a scientific opinion re-evaluating the safety of Tartrazine (E 102). Tartrazine has been previously evaluated by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in 1966 and the EU Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) in 1975 and 1984. Both committees established an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of 0-7.5 mg/kg bw/day. The Panel was not provided with a newly submitted dossier and based its evaluation on previous evaluations, additional literature that became available since then and the data available following a public call for data. New studies included a study by Sasaki et al. from 2002 reporting effects on nuclear DNA migration in the mouse in vivo Comet assay, a study by McCann et al. from 2007 that concluded that exposure to a mixture including Tartrazine resulted in increased hyperactivity in 3-year old and 8to 9-year old children and studies on neurodevelopment by Tanaka. The Panel notes that Tartrazine was negative in long-term carcinogenicity studies and that the effects on nuclear DNA migration observed in the mouse in vivo Comet assay are not expected to result in carcinogenicity. The Panel also concurrs with the conclusion from a previous EFSA opinion on the McCann et al. study that the findings of the study cannot be used as a basis for altering the ADI, and additionally considered that the Tanaka study can also not be used as a basis for altering the ADI. The Panel concludes that the present database does not give reason to revise the ADI of 7.5 mg/kg bw/day. The Panel also concludes that at the maximum reported levels of use, refined intake estimates are below the ADI. The Panel concludes that Tartrazine appears to be able to elicit intolerance reactions in a small fraction of the exposed population.The Panel also notes that sensitive individuals may react to Tartrazine at dose levels within the ADI.