Carbamazepine is an antiepileptic iminostilbene that is dispensed from multiple sources in Peru without bioequivalence studies. The biopharmaceutical equivalence of two generic (A and B) and one commercial brand (C) of carbamazepine sodium as compared to the innovator drug was determined by an in vitro study of commercial 200-mg tablets, following the guidelines of the Biopharmaceutical Classification System. Hardness, weight, friability, and content were evaluated for compliance with official specifications. A United States Pharmacopeia (USP) dissolution apparatus 2 (paddle) was used at with 900 mL of medium (pH 1.2, 4.5, and 6.8) at 75 rpm and 37 ± 0.5 °C. Samples (5 mL) were withdrawn at 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 minutes and analyzed in a UV spectrophotometer at 288 nm. The studied drugs did not release 85% of the active pharmaceutical ingredient within 30 minutes in any media. When compared to the innovator brand using the similarity factor ( f 2 ), product A was < 50 at all three pH levels; B was < 50 at pH 4.5, and C was < 50 at pH 1.2 and 4.5. For all products, dissolution efficiency was 56.1–84.3% and mean dissolution time was 18.0–47.5 min. Despite meeting the official specifications for quality control tests, the evaluated samples are not in vitro biopharmaceutical equivalents with the innovator brand based on the dissolution profiles ( f 2 < 50).


This thesis describes, conceptualizes and explains the segregated spatiality of everyday life of
young affluent heads of households in post-war Beirut, Lebanon. It tracks how young affluent heads
of households have come to produce the living spaces of their everyday life in a spatially segregated
way that rejects the local and is stretched out over the totality of the city. Its main objectives are to
contribute to the literature on spatial segregation by (1) conceptualizing segregation in its
residential and non-residential manifestations as actively and passively practiced by a certain
profile of affluent individuals and (2) explaining the logic behind this type of segregation from the
point of view of affluent individuals that are actively pursuing segregation.
This research has utilized an ethnographic research approach that started from observing and
understanding the motivations of individuals who are actively pursuing segregation. Based mainly
on a qualitative research methodology, this research has utilized ethnographic field notes,
qualitative interviews and participant observation with young affluent heads of households. The
findings of this qualitative research have been supported by questionnaires that were distributed in
five elite childcare nurseries in Beirut in which young affluent heads of households were outcropped.
A total of 118 questionnaires were collected.
The four core chapters of this thesis discuss the relationship of affluence to the local place around
the home, to places of play, to non--places and to places of passage in post war Beirut. They
conceptualize the spatiality of affluence in Beirut and propose the concept of the layer as one that
captures the pattern of this spatiality and unlocks its logic. This thesis concludes by raising
questions related to the changing role of neighbourhoods in Beirut and the changing nature of its
urban condition. Indeed, to affluent individuals in Beirut the neighbourhood has become a space
with which they avoid getting in contact, while, paradoxically, the city is perceived as a small
neighbourly space where everyone knows everyone else.


This paper develops a simple structural model of the boundaries of the firm to formalize some of the aspects of the Williamsonian transaction cost economics that are distinct from Grossman, Hart and Moore's formal property rights theory. We build on two ideas. First, we employ Williamson's idea that alternative modes of governance of transactions work out of different contract law regimes; i.e., whereas interfirm transactions may be governed by court-enforced contracts, intrafirm transactions are governed by the implicit law of forbearance. The application of the forbearance doctrine to internal organization limits the use of incentive contracts within the firm and gives rise to the cost of integration. Second, we incorporate from the property rights theory the idea that it is easier to replace an employee-manager than to replace an independent subcontractor. As a result, some observable but unverifiable information can be effectively used in the internal governance of the firm but not in the governance of contractual interfirm relations. This difference is identified as the source of the benefits of integration. Moreover, while we treat contract law differences as an institutional constraint, we argue in the context of the model that such differences entail no efficiency losses.


The '2019 Research Capacity Network (REDe) workshop series' was an initiative led by Brazil-based REDe coordinators and The Global Health Network (TGHN) in partnership with Brazilian researchers interested in arboviruses. This workshop initiative has provided crucial training to the local research community offering transferable skills to effectively respond to health emergencies, with an impact beyond arboviral diseases, as evidenced by further activities undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of this approach resulted from several factors, especially the workshops' local leadership and the combination of in-person training with online sharing of the resources generated in the local language. Analytics data from REDe online platform evidenced the wider reach of the shared resources to a larger audience than the workshop attendees. Importantly, the impact of this approach extends beyond the workshop series per se, with workshop participants afforded access to wider training, career development and collaborative opportunities through REDe and TGHN platforms. In addition, this initiative design resulted in the development of new collaborations between the workshop leaders and other local researchers, who have been jointly writing research projects and applying for grants. As a result, REDe has become a highly dynamic community of practice for health researchers in the region, strengthening the research culture and improving connectivity. Here, we describe the design and implementation of this initiative and demonstrate the value of integrating local expertise, and a practical workshop series format with digital dissemination of research resources and training materials to generate a vibrant and robust community of practice.


Forced by the death of her parents to seek her fortune in London, Fanny Hill is duped into prostitution by an old procuress. In Mrs Brown's bawdy-house the naive young woman begins her sexual initiation - progressing from innocence to curiosity and desire - and soon embarks on her own path in pursuit of pleasure, until she at last finds true love. John Cleland's story of Fanny's rise to respectability was denounced after its publication by the then Bishop of London as 'an open insult upon Religion and good manners', while James Boswell called it 'a most licentious and inflaming book'. But beside its highly entertaining and boisterous depictions of a startling variety of sexual acts, Fanny Hill stands as one of the great works of eighteenth-century fiction for its unique combination of parody, erotica and philosophy of sensuality.


Background/Objective Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation and migration play a pronounced role in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and neointima formation. microRNAs are short, single stranded, non-coding 22 nucleotide RNAs involved in post transcriptional gene silencing. Increasing evidence has suggested an important role of miRNAs in regulating VSMC functions. However, little is known about the functional involvements of miR-214 in VSMC proliferation/migration and vessel injury-induced neointima formation. In the current study, we aimed to study the functional importance of miR-214 and its target genes in VSMC proliferation, migration and neointima SMC hyperplasia. Methods and Results miR-214 expression was closely associated with VSMC phenotypic modulation in response to different pathological stimuli. miR-214 over-expression in serum-starved VSMCs significantly decreased VSMC proliferation and migration, while knockdown of miR-214 dramatically increased VSMC proliferation and migration, respectively. Proteomic analyses pinpointed that NCK-associated protein 1 (NCKAP1), a major component of the WAVE complex that regulates lamellipodia formation and cell motility, was negatively regulated by miR-214 in VSMCs. NCKAP1 has also been predicted as one of the top targets of miR-214 by using several computational miRNA target prediction tools, and was indeed negatively regulated by miR-214 in VSMCs. Luciferase assay showed miR-214 substantially repressed wild type, but not the miR-214 binding site mutated version of NCKAP1–3'-UTR-luciferase activity in VSMCs, confirming the NCKAP1 is the functional target of miR-214 in VSMCs. Data from co-transfection experiments also revealed that inhibition of NCKAP1 is required for miR-214-mediated lamellipodia formation and cell motility. Importantly, locally enforced expression of miR-214 in the injured vessels significantly reduced NCKAP1 expression levels, inhibited VSMC proliferation, and prevented neointima SMC hyperplasia after injury. Conclusions/implications We have uncovered an important role of miR-214 in modulating VSMC functions and neointima hyperplasia. Our findings have suggested that miR-214 represents a potential therapeutic target for vascular diseases.


Background. Clinical education forms an integral part of the training of undergraduate healthcare students. Clinical learning and education can be influenced by a number of factors.  Objectives. To evaluate clinical service sites used to train undergraduate physiotherapy students at Stellenbosch University, in terms of: ( i ) the suitability of the site as a training facility; and ( ii ) the range of clinical problems students encounter at these clinical service sites. Methods. A descriptive study was conducted. Data were gathered through structured clinical site visits, staff interviews and student record sheets documenting the number and type of patients students encountered at the clinical service sites.  Results. Seven of the nine clinical sites used for training were evaluated. Close proximity to the Faculty was an identified strength of three of the sites. There were opportunities for the expansion of multidisciplinary services and group treatment classes. There were safety concerns at most of the sites visited. The number of qualified physiotherapists was low and there was also a lack of basic equipment needed for patient management at more than half of the clinical sites. Students' exposure to the various fields of physiotherapy varied greatly at the tertiary service settings versus primary healthcare settings. On average students saw only two patients per day during a 5-hour clinical day.  Conclusion. The suitability of healthcare service sites for training undergraduate students should be carefully evaluated prior to commencing training at these sites. The development of good clinical training sites for undergraduate healthcare students requires the availability of adequate resources such as equipment, an adequate complement of clinical staff and effective measures to ensure student and patient safety.


Network relationships are significant for new firms' competitive advantages and success since new and entrepreneurial opportunities are favored by diversity (Burt, 2004; Ireland et al., 2002; Cooper, 2002; Granovetter, 1973). However, to gain access to various resources held by other actors the firms would have to have an ability to develop and utilize inter-organizational relationships (Walter et al., 2006), called network capability (NC). Additionally, new ventures would increase their performance by using an entrepreneurial strategy (cf. Wiklund & Shepherd, 2003; Lumpkin & Dess, 2001). Firms using an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) have an ability to find or discover new opportunities creating different and competitive advantages (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). This is particularly true among start-ups having external ties providing scarce and valuable resources (Lee et al., 2001). However, we believe these associations are moderated by the venture's complexity. The more complex the venture is internally (i.e. having low level of routines and analyzability) and externally (i.e. having immature markets) the stronger the relationship between NC, networks and EO, and performance will be. This study will hence combine these three dimensions to investigate how start-ups can obtain competitive advantages improving their performance by the use of an entrepreneurial strategy and participation in networks, a combination that has not previously been studied.MethodWe test the framework on 171 new Swedish ventures. The research instrument consisted of a mailed questionnaire to the owner and/or manager having taking part in the start-up of the company examining firm level factors affecting the start-ups' competitive performance. For the analysis structural equation modeling is used.Results and implicationThe results show a positive link between a new venture's NC and its EO, as well as between its network structure and EO, and EO in turn is the only dimension linked to increased firm performance. We did not find any moderating effects of venture complexity, but a strong direct effect on EO. Consequently, regardless of complexity, new ventures benefit from their networks and the ability to utilize external contacts in order to act entrepreneurially and in turn create competitive advantages.


The kinetic characteristics of β-cyclodextrin production by a cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase (CGTase) produced by Bacillus sp. C26, a new isolate from a soil sample was investigated. Considering highest yield and initial production rate of β-cyclodextrin, among the starches examined, soluble starch, tapioca starch, sago starch, corn starch and rice starch, tapioca starch was the best substrate for this CGTase. The optimum temperature for tapioca starch gelatinization prior to its use as a substrate for β-cyclodextrin production was 65oC. The yield and initial production rate of β-cyclodextrin increased with increasing starch concentration up to 6% and an enzyme concentration up to 48 U/g-starch. The kinetic parameters of V max and K m of β-cyclodextrin production from tapioca starch by CGTase were 1.59 mg/mL/h and 22.3 mg/mL, respectively. Considering high initial production rate and high yield of β-cyclodextrin, the optimum reaction temperature was at 50oC. This study provided the necessary kinetic information that may be useful to define the most suitable condition for industrialized production ofβ-cyclodextrin with the high yield and productivity.


In this paper, we propose a novel application of Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to the synthesis of cells imaged by fluorescence microscopy. Compared to natural images, cells tend to have a simpler and more geometric global structure that facilitates image generation. However, the correlation between the spatial pattern of different fluorescent proteins reflects important biological functions, and synthesized images have to capture these relationships to be relevant for biological applications. We adapt GANs to the task at hand and propose new models with casual dependencies between image channels that can generate multichannel images, which would be impossible to obtain experimentally. We evaluate our approach using two independent techniques and compare it against sensible baselines. Finally, we demonstrate that by interpolating across the latent space we can mimic the known changes in protein localization that occur through time during the cell cycle, allowing us to predict temporal evolution from static images.


This study documents that Danian-aged sand remobilization of deep-water slope-channel complexes and intrusion of fluidized sand into hydraulically fractured slope mudstones of the Great Valley sequence, California, generated 400-m (1312 ft)–thick reservoir units: unit 1, parent unit channel complexes for shallower sandstone intrusions; unit 2, a moderate net-to-gross interval (0.19 sand) of sills with staggered, stepped, and multilayer geometries with well-developed lateral sandstone-body connectivity; unit 3, a low net-to-gross interval (0.08 sand) of exclusively high-angle dikes with good vertical connectivity; and unit 4, an interval of extrusive sandstone. Unit 2 was formed during a phase of fluidization that emplaced on an average 0.19 km3 (0.046 mi3) of sand per cubic kilometer of host sediment. Probe permeametry data reveal a positive relationship between sill thickness and permeability. Reservoir quality is reduced by the presence of fragments of host strata, such as the incorporation of large rafts of mudstone, which are formed by in-situ hydraulic fracturing during sand injection. Mudstone clasts and clay- and silt-size particles generated by intrusion-induced abrasion of the host strata reduce sandstone permeability in multilayer sills (70 md) when compared to that in staggered and stepped sills (586 and 1225 md, respectively). Post-injection cementation greatly reduces permeability in high-angle dikes (81 md). This architecturally based reservoir zonation and trends in reservoir characteristics in dikes and sills form a basis for quantitative reservoir modeling and can be used to support conceptual interpretations that infer injectite architecture in situations where sands in low net-to-gross intervals are anticipated to have well-developed lateral and vertical connectivity.


SUMMARY Millimeter-waves integrated circuits offer a unique opportunity for a holistic design approach encompassing RF, analog, and digital, as well as radiation and electromagnetics. The ability to deal with the complete system covering a broad range from the digital circuitry to on-chip antennas and everything in between offers unparalleled opportunities for completely new architectures and topologies, which were previously impossible due the traditional partitioning of various blocks in conventional design. This can open a plethora of new architectural and system level innovation within the integrated circuit platform. This paper reviews some of the challenges and opportunities for mm-wave ICs and presents several solutions to them.


Multi-touch mobile devices are now commonly used in any area, including education. In this context we focus on applications for 3D geometry learning in primary schools. Manipulating a 3D scene based on a 2D input touch space is one key challenge of such applications for pupils. In this paper we present the results of an exploratory experimentation with pupils. We compare three different interaction techniques for rotating a 3D scene based on different interaction metaphors by using: multi-touch input, movements of the tablet captured with a gyroscope sensor and movements of the head captured by a camera-based head tracking. We ran the exploratory experiment with 28 pupils in a primary school to compare these three techniques by considering the performance and the subjective preferences. Results indicate worst performance for head-tracking and similar performance for multi-touch input and gyroscope-based movement. Qualitative results indicate participant preference for multi-touch interaction.


This dissertation is mainly concerned with the Generalized signed-rank estimation of model parameters in complex regression models, specifically nonlinear models with multidimensional indices and two-phase linear models. First we consider a nonlinear regression model when the index variable is multidimensional. Such models are useful in signal processing, texture modeling, and spatio-temporal data analysis. A generalized form of the signed-rank estimator of the nonlinear regression coefficients is proposed. This general form of the signed-rank estimator includes Lp estimators and hybrid variants. Sufficient conditions for strong consistency and asymptotically normality of the estimator are given. It is shown that the rate of convergence to normality can be different from √ n. The sufficient conditions are weak in the sense that they are satisfied by harmonic type functions for which results in the current literature are not applicable. A simulation study shows that the certain generalized signed-rank estimators (eg. signed-rank) perform better in recovering signals than others (eg. least squares) when the error distribution is contaminated or is heavy-tailed. For two-phase regression models, we consider two-phase random design linear models with arbitrary error densities and where the regression function has a fixed jump at the true change-point. We establish the consistency and the limiting distributions of signedrank estimators of the model parameters. The left end point of the minimizing interval with respect to the change-point, herein called the signed-rank estimator r̂n of the change-point parameter r, is shown to be n-consistent and the underlying process, of the standardized change-point parameter, is shown to converge weakly to a compound poisson process. This process obtains maximum over a bounded interval and n(r̂n−r) converges weakly to the left end point of this interval.


Introduction: Previous investigations reported the influence of running shoe design on running economy (RE) and determined that both shoe weight and midsole properties (hardness, stiffness, comfort) can alter RE. External forefoot actuator lugs have been reported to provide enhanced energy return during shoe mechanical testing, but it was unclear if this design feature would provide any improvement of RE. The current investigation measured the effects of external forefoot actuator lugs on RE in 12 highly-trained male distance runners during four submaximal running velocities. Methods: All runners voluntarily completed a maximal graded exercise treadmill protocol followed 5–7 days later by eight randomised 6 min submaximal level-grade treadmill runs with two randomised footwear conditions (WL = with lugs, WOL = without lugs). Oxygen consumption, heart rate (HR), rating of perceived effort (RPE), and sagittal plane high-speed video were collected. RE (metres run per millilitre O2 per kg of body mass), stance duration (ST), stride rate (SR), and foot strike (FS) were computed for each trial. Data were analysed with factorial repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: RE, averaged over all submaximal velocities, was significantly greater (p < 0.05) in the WL condition (4.96 ± 0.12 m·ml−1·kg−1) as compared to the WOL condition (4.91 ± 0.10 m·ml−1·kg−1). Only one subject displayed a lower RE in the WL condition. No significant differences were found between HR (p > 0.05), ST (p > 0.05), or SR (p > 0.05) between footwear conditions, but running in the WL condition lowered RPE (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The presence of external forefoot actuator lugs improved RE by ∼1%, although the mechanisms explaining this improvement are not clear.


By the term exosemantic I refer to the way music is associated with entities beyond its own material and intrinsic structure. The definition of a musical sign will consist of three aspects: the manifest aspect (i.e. the signifier, the perceptible sound), the hidden aspect (i.e. the signified, the meaning of the sign), and the link between them (the semiosis or signifying act). In the context of the present project – a post-Schaefferian study of music-as-heard – the semiosis can be identified as being the listening intentions that imbue what we hear with meaning. Four semioses will be discussed: Comparison, Causal Inference, Association, and Recognition. These correspond to the semioses involved in the constitution of, respectively, Iconic Signs, Indexical Signs, Metonymic Signs, and Arbitrary Signs. However, musical signs turn out to have a more complex nature than what is involved in the latter four types of signs, each of which are conventionally described as being constituted by one unique semiosis. I have resolved this problem by a developing a matrix that combines the primary semiosis with a secondary one. Thus in a motivated sign where the primary semiosis will be Comparison, Causal Inference or Association, there will be added a secondary semiosis, Recognition. In order to describe more complex constitutions of signs, different semioses may be combined into chains, notated as formulae. The presentation proceeds to make an exosemantic analysis of Nimb 45 by Toshimaru Nakamura.


Perry, Dennis (Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Ill.), and Hutton D. Slade. Effects of filtrates from transformable and nontransformable streptococci on the transformation of streptococci. J. Bacteriol. 91:2216–2222. 1966.—The nature of the transformation competence factor from a group H streptococcus was investigated. The activity of competence factor reached a maximum at the time that optimal competence was attained, the maxima of both occurring in the early log phase of growth. The decrease in competence factor was much more gradual than the decrease in number of competent cells. No inhibitor, however, was detected as being responsible for the decrease in either competent cells or competence factor activity. Efforts to induce transformation in other serological groups of streptococci with the use of group H competence factor were unsuccessful. The development of competence in group H when grown in the presence of nontransformable group A strains resulted in a significant increase in the number of transformants. Culture filtrates from early log phase group A cells also caused an increase in the number of transformants from the group H strain. The addition of 10−4m ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid to group A (or group H) culture filtrates caused significant increases in the number of transformants. These results thus indicate that group A streptococci, although nontransformable, produce low levels of "competence factor." Late culture filtrates from the group H streptococcus and several strains of group A streptococci possessed deoxyribonuclease-like activity which inhibited the transformation of the group H strain. This activity in the A filtrates, however, was not prevented by group A anti-deoxyribonuclease sera. Instead, these sera also inhibited transformation. Evidence indicates that the lack of transformation of group A streptococci is due to factors other than the production of deoxyribonuclease.


In the present text we discuss on electronic properties arising from polycrystalline semiconductor ceramics of SnO2, TiO2 and (SnxTi1-x)O2 solid solution rutile-type structure. This is intended to be a short overview of the most recent papers in this area. One of the most important content discussed in this text is based on sinterability of these polycrystalline ceramics, which depends on the target application used to project porous or highly dense microstructure. The majority of discussion is focused in two main applications: varistor and sensor. In both applications there are similarities involved in the control of the sensor and varistor properties, which can mainly ascribed to the grain boundary structure and composition. The similarities found are consistently explained by the fact that all of these n-type semicondutor ceramics have the tendency to establish a grain boundary region with a "p-type semiconductor nature" (due to metal transition atoms segregated at the grain boundary region and then favors negative charged species to adsorb and enrich this region). This configuration enables electrons to become localized on the surfaces, giving rise to a negative surface and, as a result, electron depletion layers are formed, acting as potential barriers which control the properties of the mentioned devices.


AIM AND OBJECTIVES
To investigate the effectiveness of assertiveness training programmes on psychiatric patients' assertiveness, self-esteem and social anxiety.

BACKGROUND
Assertiveness training programmes are designed to improve an individual's assertive beliefs and behaviours, which can help the individual change how they view themselves and establish self-confidence and social anxiety. It is useful for patients with depression, depressive phase of bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder or adjustment disorder.

DESIGN
Experimental.

METHOD
There were 68 subjects (28, experimental group; 40, diagnosis-matched comparison group). Subjects in experimental groups participated in experimenter-designed assertiveness training twice a week (two hours each) for four weeks. The comparison groups participated the usual activities. Data were collected in the two groups at the same time: before, after and one month after training programme. Efficacy was measured by assertiveness, self-esteem and social anxiety inventories. A generalised estimating equation was used for analysis.

RESULTS
After training, subjects had a significant increase in assertiveness immediately after the assertiveness training programme and one-month follow-up. There was a significant decrease in social anxiety after training, but the improvement was not significant after one month. Self-esteem did not increase significantly after training.

CONCLUSION
With our sample of patients with mixed diagnoses, assertiveness seemed to be improved after assertiveness training.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Patients would benefit more from the assertiveness training programme for the change in how they view themselves, improve their assertiveness, properly express their individual moods and thoughts and further establish self-confidence. The assertiveness training protocol could be provided as a reference guide to clinical nurses.


Although both constitutional and statutory authority is invoked by the conduct of military commission trials, these tribunals are fundamentally common law institutions. Proper understanding of historical precedent is essential to the validity of any common law trial, and in the case of military commissions is also key to interpreting applicable constitutional and statutory mandates. Despite this, current historical knowledge about the commissions is both limited in scope and plagued with common misconceptions; even government participants routinely cite a trial that never happened as a precedent. The original Anglo-American understanding was that only the legislature could establish the personal jurisdiction of military trials. The military commission, the common law counterpart to the statutory court-martial, was not created until 1847, and was based closely on the procedural mandates and due process protections accorded by courts-martial. This commonality was maintained through thousands of cases in the Civil War and Philippine Insurrection, and the senior judge advocate in the Philippines actually drafted the modern statutory language. Departures from court-martial practice developed during World War II, but do not necessarily constitute valid grounds for continuing to do so today, particularly in light of the significant developments in both international and U.S. military law since that era. The constitutional authority invoked by U.S. trials for law of war violations is committed to Congress, so modern claims of significant executive authority in this field are misplaced, and courts should continue to hear and resolve challenges to commission jurisdiction and procedure.


Article History: Received: 6 Jul. 2015 Accepted: 6 Jan. 2016 Hydrodynamic performance of a marine vessel mainly depends on the frictional and pressure resistance. Pressure drag reduction could be achieved by improving the shape of the vessels with implementation of modern hull forms. Hull forms optimization techniques could also be used for this purpose. Other techniques are needed to deal with the viscous portion of the total resistance, which is mainly frictional resistance. In this paper, an extensive literature review on the different methods applied to reduce the resistance of marine vessels was made, and the advantages and disadvantages of the implemented methods were identified. The related papers were categorized into three main categories and a summary of experimental and theoretical studies was provided. On the basis of results obtained from the reviewed research studies, the combination of hull form optimization methods with other applicable drag reduction technologies such as antifouling coating is recommended to optimize the hydrodynamic forces.


Recent observational studies reveal that a fall Pan-Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly, composed of a horseshoe-like dipole in the North Atlantic and a southern center in the equatorial Atlantic, tends to precede the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and its related SST tripole by several months. This study seeks to understand this relationship using large ensembles of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments and experiments with the AGCM coupled to a mixed layer ocean (AGCM_ML). The models are forced either by the North Atlantic horseshoe (NAH) or by the tropical SST anomalies over the boreal winter months. The AGCM results show that the NAH anomaly induces a baroclinic response in geopotential heights throughout the winter, with little projection on the NAO. Since the NAH anomaly is ineffective in forcing the wintertime NAO, it cannot account for observations that the NAH SST leads the NAO. In contrast, in the AGCM_ML, the coupled North Atlantic response forced by the tropical anomaly exhibits a strong seasonal dependence. In early winter, the positive anomaly induces a trough east of Newfoundland with a wave train to the northeast, and in late winter the response projects strongly on a negative NAO. Correspondingly, the extratropical SST response features an NAH-like pattern in early winter and a tripole in late winter. These results suggest that tropical Atlantic SST anomalies can significantly influence the coupled extratropical variability. The observed relationship between the fall NAH SST and the winter NAO (or the SST tripole) may be a consequence of persistent forcing of the seasonally varying atmosphere by tropical SST anomalies. Comparisons with the parallel AGCM results indicate that the largely sign-symmetric NAO responses developed in the AGCM_ML are in part due to active extratropical SST feedbacks. Diagnostic experiments using a linear model further illustrate that, in the absence of transient-eddy feedbacks, an idealized tropical heating induces anomalous flows that are qualitatively similar in early and late winter, with a trough southeast of Newfoundland and a ridge to the northeast. The enhanced seasonality in the SST-induced coupled response likely arises from the seasonal modulation of transient-eddy feedbacks on the heatingforced anomalous flow.


Title of Document: MATERIAL MURDERS: "AUTHENTICITY" IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY TRUE CRIME MURDER MELODRAMA Erin Rebecca Bone Steele, Ph.D., 2012 Directed By: Professor Franklin J. Hildy, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies In the early nineteenth century, London's illegitimate playhouses featured melodramas based on murder accounts. The value of comparing a true-crime drama to its historical antecedent lies in asking how the theatre makes its claim, and what social or political issues jump to the fore. Spectatorship at public hangings is a regular feature of this period, but crowds sought to "see more" and "know more" by attending all sorts of spectacles. The courtroom, scaffold, publishing house, fair, and theatre all proclaimed their goal was to provide a moral lesson. The intent was education as well as profit; the effect for the audience was one of titillation. This study is rooted in archival print material including playscripts, pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides, and employs theoretical concepts developed by theatre historians to illuminate the ways competing public narratives functioned in the minds of audiences. Four cases are examined in detail: the Ashford/Thornton case and a "trial by battle" courtroom confrontation, the Weare/Thurtell case featuring a sloppy murder amongst gamblers, the Marten/Corder case of murder in a red barn, and the Bradford case following a wrongly-accused innkeeper. The dramas they spawned appeared between 1818 and 1833. Broadly speaking, each play communicates a warning to the working classes beyond simple moral proscriptions. Doomed characters might have no opportunity for redemption but there is a sense that social and political structures could and should be changed, reflecting the lived experience of a period when the legal system was being reformed, cities were being rebuilt, workers' associations were growing, and the police system was being established anew. Dramatizations invariably diverge from news reports, yet melodrama playhouses consistently claim they provide "authentic" experiences and present "true" stories. Material, tangible objects serve many functions, chiefly acting as a concrete link between circulating press accounts of a murder and theatrical representations. In the most extreme instance, the Surrey playhouse acquired property previously owned by accused murderers and used it on stage. More often, playhouses like the Coburg and Pavilion invoked or recreated specific material goods. MATERIAL MURDERS: "AUTHENTICITY" IN EARLY NINETEENTHCENTURY TRUE CRIME MURDER MELODRAMA


Mechatronics is a natural stage in the evolution of modern products, many containing components from different engineering domains, such as mechanical, electrical, and software control systems. As part of concurrent engineering practice, mechatronics is a synergistic system design philosophy to optimize the system as a whole simultaneously. Yet there is still lack of support of this design principle in practice. To date, conventional design tools have been limited to single domain problems and require a trial-and-error synthesis process. In order to support the concurrent synthesis process of mechatronic products, theoretical modeling of multi-domain engineering systems, with a formal unified representation and a well-defined algorithmic and flexible synthesis procedure, is needed. These are essential to accommodate the complexity of such systems and support the design automation process.
In this work, multi-domain mechatronic system design is treated as a network synthesis problem, extending from single domain electrical network synthesis. Desired design performance is specified in an impedance matrix that captures the dynamic relations of effort and flow variables at input-output interaction ports. An extended multi-port bond graph representation is developed to unify power and signal flows at a high-level abstraction across engineering domains, which also integrates active control system design. The unified representation of both physical systems and their control systems in bond graphs is achieved by applying "controller design in the physical domain" philosophy, to design and synthesize the whole system simultaneously at the conceptual design stage. The graphical structure of bond graphs being close to reality also gives intuitive physical insight of the interactions among physical components for detailed level design realization and simulation in different domains to verify the entire system.
This approach makes full use of computational power to automatically explore the design space for both design configuration and parameterization utilizing biology-inspired optimization techniques: genetic algorithms, genetic programming, and coevolution. Bond graph elements are encoded as genetic programming functional and terminal primitives, to evolve low-level building blocks to high-level functionality by applying genetic operations based on population-based natural evolution. It aids design exploration of a wider range of possible creative design options and achieves synergy in coevolving different subsystems, including both active control strategies and physical system design configurations, for overall system optimality.
Two mechatronic design case studies are provided: a one-axis robotic manipulator system and a quarter-car suspension system. The computational results are compared with the design solutions obtained by human designers from trial-and-error synthesis and theoretical analysis. The coevolutionary synthesis approach is capable of discovering design options with better performance, more creativity and flexibility than those perceived by human designers. It is our belief that the establishment of such mechanism will enhance the capability of computers to automatically generate and evaluate innovative and alternative solutions to multi-domain dynamic systems and enable intelligent assistance to engineering designers at the early stages of system modeling and development for concurrent engineering practices.


We evaluated electrolytic separation factors of hydrogen isotopes by SPE (Solid Polymer Electrolyte) for application to environmental tritium analysis. The apparent separation factors αa for deuterium and βa for tritium were determined as 3.5 ± 0.1 and 6.2 ± 0.5, respectively. The tritium enrichment of 8.4 times was achieved, when a 1000 ml of sample water was electrolyzed to about 60 ml. The chemical composition changes before and after the electrolysis were examined, showing an increase in H+ and Na+ concentrations and a decrease in Mg2+ and Ca2+concentrations. F-, which was not contained in the sample water, was detected after electrolysis accompanying with a reduction of SO42-, Cl- and NO3-. The memory of tritium and ions in the electrolysis cell after electrolysis was possible to be eliminated by washings with de-ionized water. Tritium concentrations of rain at Kumamoto, Japan were determined with a combination of the present electrolytic enrichment system and liquid scintillation counting.


The subject of this dissertation is finding an architecture for two-dimensional cellular automata computations that is verifiably correct, and the fastest and cheapest possible. The motivating problems for this work are large-scale scientific computations; the hardware context is that of application-specific processors attached to general-purpose systems. While the conclusions are derived for a specific class of two-dimensional cellular automata, the so-called "lattice gasses," they are applicable to a wide range of similar problems.
By developing and applying solutions to discrete isoperimetric problems to a pebbling game, upper bounds on throughput for machines computing problems with data dependency graphs based on the undirected graphs for the Hardy-de Pazzis-Pomeau (HPP) and Frisch-Hasslacher-Pomeau (FHP) lattice-gasses are shown. A particular architecture, the "Wide Serial Architecture" (WSA), is shown to be within a factor of approximately 6 of the bound for the HPP-like computations, and within a factor of about 4.5 of the bound for the FHP-like computations. Besides the insight they provide into the optimal computational strategy, the methods of solution of the isoperimetric problems, such as the use of the Wulff Crystal, are of interest in their own right.
An analytic study of the least-cost configuration for a multiple-pipeline WSA machine is undertaken. The use of overlap-save method is described, and the efficiency of the WSA architecture using this method is derived. A numerical search is used to find the least cost machine configuration as the problem size is scaled. A slightly super-linear speedup is shown over a moderate range of problem sizes, and the least-cost machine parameters are described.
Finally, a data-embedded, specification-based testing technique for FHP lattice gasses is introduced. The tests consist of limit cycles in the cellular automaton, and their error detection coverage is shown empirically to be good. Their use in software, hardware, and system debugging is described, as well as their use as runtime simulation error detectors. Machine design tradeoffs relating to testability are discussed.


We used magnetic source imaging in human subjects to reveal within-subject variations of the homuncular hand representation within the primary somatosensory cortex modulated by attention. In one condition subjects were trained to detect sequential leftward or rightward stimulus motion across the fingers of the left hand ("hand" condition) and in a different condition to detect stimulus motion at a specific finger on this hand ("finger" condition). Afferent input was controlled by applying exactly the same stimulus pattern to the digits in the two tasks. Segregation of the somatotopic hand representation (an increase in the distance between the representations of digits 2 and 5) was observed, commencing with the onset of practice, in the finger relative to the hand condition. Subsequent training in the hand and finger conditions with feedback for correctness did not modify segregation, indicating that segregation was a task effect and not a training effect. These findings indicate that the hand representation within the primary somatosensory cortex is not statically fixed but is dynamically modulated by top-down mechanisms to support task requirements. A greater capacity for modulation of the functional cortical organization was positively correlated with superior learning and task performance.


China's Soft Power and International Relations Hongyi Lai 2012-05-23 China's soft power has attracted considerable attention in the recent decade. In this volume scholars from the U.K., Europe, the U.S., Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and mainland China, including a number of well established and well known analysts on China, examine main areas where China has made noticeable advances in its appeal and influence. They include China's foreign policy discourse, international communication, cultural diplomacy, and foreign assistance. In addition, Chinese concept of soft power, foreign policy strategy, and the relationship between its international standing and that of the U.S. are also closely analysed. The volume covers some of the most recent development and assesses China's soft power critically. This book offers an assessment of China's efforts to cultivate its international image, as well as a critique of Nye's theory of soft power. It draws on case studies of the Chinese diplomatic practice and utilizes world opinion polls. This volume offers a theoretical and empirical perspective on the discussion on soft power with a particular focus on China's soft power.


ABSTRACT Perception of treatment effect (TE) in cosmetics is multifaceted and influenced by multiple parameters that need to be considered simultaneously when evaluating TE. Here we provide a global approach to predicting TE perception using Random Forest (RF) classifier. Data from three randomized double-blind clinical studies with a total of 50 subjects were used. Different products were applied to each facial cheek of subjects at each visit, and post-application photographs were taken. Nine primary endpoints relating to skin pores were assessed by a specific image analysis algorithm. Twenty judges evaluated the relative pore visibility in all possible pairs of cheek photographs. RF was used to construct a prediction model for TE perception based on the primary endpoints and judge's evaluation. Intra-study product ranking was done using the Bradley-Terry model on mean judges' predicted preference. RF demonstrated overall good accuracy in predicting TE perception. Applying RF technique not only addresses issues of multiplicity, nonlinearity and interactions between multiple criteria but also focuses decision-making on one discrete parameter thereby simplifying interpretability and allowing for more consumer-centered claim substantiation in clinical trials. Abbreviations: RF: Random Forest classifier; FDA: The US Food and Drug Agency; ID: Identifier; MCID: Minimal clinical important difference; Param: Parameter; PGIC: Patients' Global Impression of Change; TE: Treatment effect; TRT: Treatment


The genetic structure of Dolania populations in South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida was examined using starch gel electrophoresis. All study populations except Alabama consisted entirely of D. americana Edmunds and Traver. Electrophoresis revealed that the Alabama site contained both D. americana and an undescribed species (D. sp. nov.), with the latter taxon predominating. Individuals of the two taxa had nearly fixed allelic differences at two loci (Est 4 and Gda). The extent of genetic differentiation between populations of the two taxa in the same river or between adjacent river systems was significantly greater than between D. americana populations separated by large geographic distances. Populations of both species were characterized by relatively normal levels of polymorphic loci (average = 23%) but unusually low levels of heterozygosity (average = 0.03). Genetic variation between the Florida and South Carolina populations of D. americana was statistically significant. There was also some indicatio...


ABSTRACT Background: This study examines the association between marital and parental status and their individual and combined effect on risk of dementia diseases in a population-based longitudinal study while controlling for a range of potential confounders, including social networks and exposure to stressful negative life events. Methods: A total of 1,609 participants without dementia, aged 65 years and over, were followed for an average period of 8.6 years (SD = 4.8). During follow-up, 354 participants were diagnosed with dementia. Cox regression was used to investigate the effect of marital and parental status on risk of dementia. Results: In univariate Cox regression models (adjusted for age as time scale), widowed (hazard ratio (HR) 1.42, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.13–1.78), and not having children (HR 1.54, 95% CI = 1.15–2.06) were significantly associated with incident dementia. In multivariate analyses that included simultaneously marital and parental status and covariates that were found to be significant in univariate models (p < 0.10), the HR was 1.30 (95% CI = 1.01–1.66) for widowed, and 1.51 (95% CI = 1.08–2.10) for those not having children. Finally, a group of four combined factors was constructed: married parents (reference), married without children, widowed parents, and widowed without children. The combined effect revealed a 1.3 times higher risk (95% CI = 1.03–1.76) of dementia in widow parents, and a 2.2 times higher risk (95% CI = 1.36–3.60) in widowed persons without children, in relation to married parents. No significant difference was observed for those being married and without children. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that marital- and parental status are important risk factors for developing dementia, with especially increased risk in those being both widowed and without children.


Chromium is one of such toxic heavy metals, which is extensively discharged in the environment through a large number of industrial operations such as metal finishing industries, petroleum refining, leather tanning etc. Chromium has binding affinities to biomolecules in living system and cause toxicity to biological life. The crucial amounts of Cr in the environment interact with biological life and cause cellular/DNA damages, mutation, cancer, genotoxicity, and organogenesis/fetotoxicity. Hexavalent form is about 100 fold more toxic than the trivalent form. Hexavalent Cr compounds are greatly soluble at neutral pH and easily cross the membranes of eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells via sulphate transport system.

To evaluate the clinical toxicity of chromiumt, 600 human blood samples were collected from Niaz Nagar and Din Ghar of District Kasur. These samples were categorized into three different age groups i.e. 1-20, 21-40 and 41-60 years, and also sex wise (males and females). These blood samples were analyzed biochemically for albumin, alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransaminase, aspartate aminotransaminase, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, total proteins and glucose and heamatologically for heamoglobin, white blood cell count, red blood cell count, erythrocytic sedimentation rate. platelet count, heamatocrit or packed cell volume, mean corpuscular volume. mean corpuscular heamoglobin, mean corpuscular heamoglobin concentration. Total and hexavalent chromium was also been estimated in blood serum and different water samples of Kasur.

About 100 samples were collected from Khanuspur, Ayubia as control samples because this area is free of industry. The doners of these samples were interviewed for their medical history with special reference to their reproductive abnormality, if any. The physiological abnormalities were also recorded and correlated with the amount of Cr present in different facets of food chain.

Almost all the parameters of liver function have been affected in the industrial area population and are significantly different from those of the normal population. The albumin, total protein and aminotransferases are higher, whereas bilirubin (direct and total) and glucose content are lower in exposed population. Total chromium and chromium VI showed higher values in the blood serum of exposed population.

There is a general trend of increased red blood cell count, platelets count and packed cell volume in the exposed population, whereas, other parameters such as haemoglobin content, mean corpuscular haemoglobin and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration decreased in the exposed population. The white blood cell count, mean corpuscular volume and erythrocyte sedimentation rate remained unchanged.

The total chromium and chromium VI showed 327 % and 1618 % highly significant increase in the population residing in industrial area as compared with the control population

In workers and non-workers except for the albumin content and activity .of alkaline phosphatase these are higher in younger age group, however all the other liver function tests were normal in the workers as well as non-workers

The total chromium content of blood of workers of age group 1-20 years showed significant increase i.e.24%, while the remaining two age groups showed non-significant increase, when compared with the non-workers.

There is general trend of decreased values in mean cell volume, packed cell volume and platelet counts in worker, while the haemoglobin, mean corpuscular haemoglobin and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration values were higher in workers as compared with that of non-workers. The white blood cell counts decreased in workers upto the age of 40 years, whereas in older population it showed slight increase.

Biochemical analysis of blood serum of exposed. and unexposed male and female population showed that all the biochemical parameters viz. Albumin, alkaline phosphatase, alanine aminotransferases, aspartate aminotransferases and total protein of liver were positively affected in the exposed male and female population. The total bilirubin, direct bilirubin and blood serum glucose contents were however lower in the exposed population as compared with those of the control population.

Haematological values such as white blood cell count, red blood cell count, packed cell volume and platelets count of male and female population residing in industrial area of Kasur and also those of control areas show a general increasing trend when compared with non-exposed population. The other parameters such as haemoglobin content, mean corpuscular haemoglobin and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration decreased in exposed population, while the mean cell volume and mean cell volume and erythrocyte sedimentation rate remain unchanged.

The total chromium and hexavalent chromium were significantly higher in the blood of exposed male and female population i.e. 569% and 78% respectively, as compared with the control population.

No definite pattern has been observed in different haematological and biochemical parameters. While comparing controls with exposed population, workers with non-workers, normal male with exposed males and normal females with exposed females. The different observation in various parameters is mostly insignificant. Even where the differences are significant the mean values obtained are well with in the normal ranges. Slight variation may be due to multitude of factors in addition to possible effects of chromium toxicity


The creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has generated a great deal of attention and controversy in the development community and beyond. Do these banks indicate that China is promoting a new model of multilateral development finance that undermines the existing system dating back to Bretton Woods? What are the forces shaping China's policy choices in this area? In contrast to the prevailing tendency to view these banks as part and parcel of the same challenge or opportunity for multilateral development financing, this article highlights major distinctions between the NDB and the AIIB. The fact that China is playing a prominent role in both the NDB and the AIIB suggests that China is not promoting a coherent new model of multilateral development financing, but is instead straddling different traditions in this realm of global financial governance. The ambiguity in China's approach to multilateral development finance is shaped by its multiple identities and complex economic and political interests.


Abstract. Many countries were the target of air strikes during the Second World War. The aftermath of such attacks is felt until today, as numerous unexploded bombs or duds still exist in the ground. Typically, such areas are documented in so-called impact maps, which are based on detected bomb craters. This paper proposes a stochastic approach to automatically detect bomb craters in aerial wartime images that were taken during World War II. In this work, one aspect we investigate is the type of object model for the crater: we compare circles with ellipses. The respective models are embedded in the probabilistic framework of marked point processes. By means of stochastic sampling the most likely configuration of objects within the scene is determined. Each configuration is evaluated using an energy function which describes the conformity with a predefined model. High gradient magnitudes along the border of the object are favoured and overlapping objects are penalized. In addition, a term that requires the grey values inside the object to be homogeneous is investigated. Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling in combination with simulated annealing provides the global optimum of the energy function. Afterwards, a probability map is generated from the automatic detections via kernel density estimation. By setting a threshold, areas around the detections are classified as contaminated or uncontaminated sites, respectively, which results in an impact map. Our results, based on 22 aerial wartime images, show the general potential of the method for the automated detection of bomb craters and the subsequent automatic generation of an impact map.


The first divertor was installed in the JET machine between 1992 and 1994 and was operated with carbon tiles and then beryllium tiles in 1994–5. Post-mortem studies after these first experiments demonstrated that most of the impurities deposited in the divertor originate in the main chamber, and that asymmetric deposition patterns generally favouring the inner divertor region result from drift in the scrape-off layer. A new monolithic divertor structure was installed in 1996 which produced heavy deposition at shadowed areas in the inner divertor corner, which is where the majority of the tritium was trapped by co-deposition during the deuterium-tritium experiment in 1997. Different divertor geometries have been tested since such as the Gas-Box and High-Delta divertors; a principle objective has been to predict plasma behaviour, transport and tritium retention in ITER. Transport modelling experiments were carried out at the end of four campaigns by puffing C-labelled methane, and a range of diagnostics such as quartz-microbalance and rotating collectors have been installed to add time resolution to the post-mortem analyses. The study of material migration after D-D and D-T campaigns clearly revealed important consequences of fuel retention in the presence of carbon walls. They gave a strong impulse to make a fundamental change of wall materials. In 2010 the carbon divertor and wall tiles were removed and replaced with tiles with Be or W surfaces for the ITER-Like Wall Project.


Neuroscientists conduct experiments at different scales from molecules to system level to gain insights into various brain functions. When in vivo and in vitro experiments are hard to perform, neural simulators are very helpful. The NeoCortical Simulator (NCS) is a neural simulator designed to run on a heterogeneous cluster of CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. With the use of neural simulators, there is always a tradeoff between biological accuracy and time. Previously, NCS had one built-in neuron model for researchers to use. In order to provide choices for accuracy and execution time, two more built-in neuron models have been added to NCS. The back-end of NCS is written using C++11 and CUDA. Prior to NCS7, input files were used as an input. They did not allow loops and files tended to be large. To overcome the issues with input file and to allow scientists with varying level of programming skills to utilize NCS, a Graphical User Interface and a Python interface have been added to NCS. Furthermore, the new Report interface will allow users to view output by the simulator in real time and the MongoDB database will allow researchers to share their models and collaborate with others in the community. This thesis presents the design and implementation of NCS6 along with the newer version of NCS, NCS7, and its Python interface, Graphical User Interface, Report interface, database, and modeling information.


The family of receptors for epidermal growth factor (EGF) transmits signals critical for growth and differentiation of cells in a wide variety of tissues during development. Inappropriate expression of these receptors occurs in many human cancers, and Herceptin, an antibody against one of these receptors (HER2), is used in the treatment of breast cancer. Cho and Leahy present the 2.6 angstrom crystal structure of the entire extracellular portion of one member of this receptor family, HER3. One of the L-shaped halves sits atop the other and assumes a toroidal shape with a protruding spur. Previously mapped regions of the EGF binding site, on the spur and the torus, must be brought together in order to interact productively with the ligand. Interference with this large-scale conformational change might offer a promising route to therapeutics. H.-S. Cho, D. J. Leahy, Structure of the extracellular region of HER3 reveals an interdomain tether, Science 297, 1330-1333 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Two swamp sites on Flinders Island in Bass Strait provide evidence of vegetation cover for the period 10000 BP to present. Steppe vegetation in which Compositae Liguliflorae taxa and chenopods were important was present on the Flinders Island part of the Bassian Isthmus during the earliest part of the record. However, it was replaced by eucalypt forest or woodland with a grassy understorey and some shrubs as sea level rose to form the present island by 6000 BP. The eucalypt dominated vegetation became less important about 940 BP when Callitris became prominent until very recently. This change may be related to a drier climate.

Flinders Island is one of the few sites in Australia where humans were absent for an extended time (c. 4700 to 200 BP) during the Holocene. There is no particular indication of pollen or charcoal changes which can be related to the disappearance of humans from the island. However, at Killiecrankie Swamp the arrival of Europeans 200 yr ago probably caused the increased charcoal input to the swamp sediments and the vegetation change observed. Likewise Middle Patriarch Swamp records changes due to clearing and swamp drainage in the most recent times. The fact that the swamp deposits contain charcoal and pollen, together with the density of swamps on the eastern side of the island means the area is very favourably placed to provide detailed information on firing regimes unaffected by humans, in a sclerophyll vegetation very similar to that in large areas of southeastern Australia.

In the light of the pollen evidence from this study and that from other southeastern mainland and Tasmanian sites it is suggested that the apparent prominence of Casuarina in the southwest of Victoria and southeast of South Australia during the early Holocene was due to local soil factors and drier climate. Later changes in soil and climate led to a decrease in Casuarina and increase in Eucalyptus.


We provide further evidence that markets trend on the medium term (months) and mean-revert on the long term (several years). Our results bolster Black's intuition that prices tend to be off roughly by a factor of 2, and take years to equilibrate. The story behind these results fits well with the existence of two types of behaviour in financial markets: "chartists", who act as trend followers, and "fundamentalists", who set in when the price is clearly out of line. Mean-reversion is a self-correcting mechanism, tempering (albeit only weakly) the exuberance of financial markets.


On and off responses to a conditioning stimulus fluctuating between a primary adapting level of 2.7 ft-L and a secondary level of 0.3 ft-L are investigated using the increment-threshold technique. Single negative conditioning flashes (momentary diminution from 2.7 to 0.3 ft-L) are shown to yield discrete off and then on responses, even for flashes as short as 3 msec. Positive conditioning flashes, presented after a 17-msec diminution of the primary adapting level and followed by 57 msec at the secondary level, are also capable of generating discrete on and off responses, but only if longer than about 40 msec. Very short positive flashes produce little or no effect and are treated by the visual system as if they were part of a continuous dark interval. Flicker is investigated by presenting series of N negative conditioning flashes, with N varying from 2 to 5; increment thresholds obtained under these conditions are compared with those for a stimulus continuously fluctuating between the two levels at 29 cps. The results indicate that the visual system treats the flicker train to a considerable extent as it would a single negative flash, with a ripple superposed that is associated with all individual flashes in the train except the first positive flash, which is always ignored. It is tentatively suggested—pending further experimentation—that the responses to the individual flashes in a flicker train are neither on nor off responses; rather they may be responses to the integrated energy contained within each flash.


1 As a result of global warming, species may spread into previously cool regions. Species that disperse faster than their natural enemies may become released from top‐down control. We investigated whether plants originating from southern Europe and recently established in north‐western Europe experience less soil pathogen effects than native species. 2 We selected three plant species originating from southern Europe that have immigrated into the Netherlands and three similar native Dutch species. All six plant species were grown in sterilized soils with a soil inoculum collected from the rhizospheres of field populations. As a control we grew a series of all six plant species with a sterilized rhizosphere inoculum. 3 We harvested the plants, added the conditioned soil to sterilized soil and grew a second generation of all six plant species in order to test for each plant pair feedback effects from the conditioned soil communities to conspecifics and heterospecifics. 4 The effect of the soil community is dependent on plant species, and is dependent on soil fertility in only one of the three pairs. 5 Soil conditioning caused less biomass reduction to exotic plant species than to native species, suggesting that exotic immigrants are less exposed to soil pathogens than similar native plant species. 6 Our results suggest that plant species that expand their range as a result of climate change may become released from soil pathogenic activity. Whether the exotics are released from soil pathogens, or whether they experience enhanced benefit from mutualistic symbionts remains to be studied. We conclude that range expansion may result in enemy release patterns that are similar to artificially introduced invasive exotic plant species. 7 The escape from enemies through range shifts changes key biotic interactions and complicates predictions of future distribution and dominance.


Tactile perception is referenced to, and modulated by, body parts and their boundaries. For example, tactile distances presented over the wrist are perceptually elongated relative to those presented within the hand or arm. This phenomenon is argued to result from a segmentation of tactile space according to body parts and their boundaries, i.e., touches presented within a body part are perceived as being more similar, and therefore closer together, whereas those that straddle a body part boundary (e.g. presented across two body parts) are perceived as more distinct and thus further apart. We tested the hypothesis that language shapes this effect by providing consolidatory labels for categories and boundaries, as it does in other perceptual domains. We examined the perceptual elongation of distance over the wrist in a group of Croatian adults (n = 37) whose first language does not differentiate between hand and arm at the wrist in common noun terms (instead, the Croatian word " ruka " encompasses the entire limb). Croatian adults, like UK adults reported in a previous study (Le Cornu Knight, Longo & Bremner, 2014), perceived distances presented proximodistally over the wrist boundary as longer than those presented mediolaterally, whereas the reverse was found for both the hand and the arm. This pattern of results was remained when Croatian participants were split into two groups of inexperienced or proficient English-language speakers. This is striking evidence that body part boundaries consistently modulate tactile perception, despite differences in the linguistic distinctions of such body parts made by one's first language.


The visual-spatial resource competition theory suggests that the frequency of flashback could be reduced, when a visual task competes with trauma-related negative pictures for the limited space resources. However, the cognitive control theory hold the view that the central executive control system, as the core of the working memory system, compete with trauma-related negative images for the cognitive control ability. And this ability can be reflected by intense cognitive distraction tasks, indexed by N2 and the late positive potential (LPP) at the neural level. However, it is unclear how the intensity of cognitive distraction modulates the neural processing of the trauma-related information. The present event-related potentials (ERP) study used the traumatic film paradigm and improved working memory paradigm to investigate the effect of cognitive distraction's intensity on the process of trauma-related information. Two parts consisted of the experiment: watching the traumatic film and completing working memory task. Before and after watching the traumatic film, 22 Participants completed PANAS, but the STAI scale was used only before the film. During the working memory task, participants were told to perform a task which requiring to memorize letters at the beginning. Each trial began with a two- or six-letter string presented on a black background for 5, 000 ms. Next, a white fixation cross appeared for 500~1, 000 ms, followed by a trauma-related picture or a unrelated neutral picture in random order for 2,000 ms. Then, the words 'what were the letters?' were presented on the screen. In the following, participants pressed the key of 'Enter' and typed the letters in the black empty screen in the order they had memorized them. Participants could use the backspace key to correct mistakes. The trial ended when participants pressed the enter key again when they finished typing letters. The trial interval varied randomly from 2,000 to 2,500 ms, during which a white fixation cross was presented on a black background. The EEG was recorded while the picture appeared. Participants then completed PANAS again after the working memory task. The results showed that: (1) the amplitudes of N2 to the high-load task were significantly larger than those of low-load task; (2) the amplitudes of LPP for trauma-related negative pictures were larger than trauma-related neutral and unrelated neutral pictures in the low-load task, whereas there were no significant differences among the three kinds of pictures in the high-load task; (3) for the trauma-related negative pictures, LPP activity was significantly greater to the high-load task than the low-load task. The results of the present study indicated that the cognitive distraction of the high-load task had a stronger modulation to trauma-related information. This provided support for the cognitive control theory.


Asexual reproduction has evolved repeatedly in nonmarine ostracods and takes a variety of forms from ancient asexuals to species in which sexual and asexual lineages coexist. Clonal diversity is highly variable. There is evidence that some of this diversity is maintained by ecological differentiation. Hybridization between asexual females and males, of the same or related species, contributes to clonal diversity. Molecular data suggest that some clonal lineages are surprisingly old (more than 5 Myr). In the ancient asexual Darwinula stevensoni, from a lineage that has apparently been without sex for more than 100 Myr, a remarkable lack of sequence variation in ITS1 may be explained by occasional automixis, gene conversion or somatic recombination, or by efficient DNA repair. Overall, the ostracods provide an excellent system in which to study the evolution of reproductive modes.


TA shev, A., 2013. Pulsatilla styriaca (Pritzel) Simonk. (Ranunculaceae) - a new species for Bulgarian flora. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 19: 347-352 The paper presents first record of the rare and endangered species Pulsatilla styriaca (Pritzel) simonk. (P. halleri (All.) Willd. subsp. styriaca (Pritzel) Zāmels), a species not known for the Bulgarian flora so far and found to date only in Eastern Austria. The locality reported is situated in Western Sredna Gora and has been monitored during the period 1998 – 2010. During the 1998 inventory total 89 individuals were found, 53 of which having generative stems. Next inventories revealed a clear trend of decreasing the population size. The main trees, shrubs and other plant species in the locality are reported and the results showed that it is within a habitat of European importance. A status of protected site is recommended for the locality.


There are few human experiences as profound as the physical, psychological, and social intensity of labour and childbirth. Beyond the physiological aspects, childbirth is a socially and historically shaped event, with wide cultural and geographical variability. Historical evidence showed that women have been attended to by other women during labour, mostly relatives and in some societies, traditional birth attendants. Although, the adoption of modern obstetric practices has resulted in decrease in the incidence of maternal morbidity and mortality, obstetric interventions have continued to increase. Women give birth in hospitals where they are often left to labour alone as the midwives often have too many women they care for at the same time. Health care providers tend to underestimate the importance of the experience of childbirth and focus more on the outcomes, such as morbidity and mortality. Though, some women reported the experience of labour and childbirth to be empowering, ecstatic or even orgasmic event, most others report it as being stressful and painful. In the early twentieth century, with the emergence of evidence-based healthcare, a worldwide movement started to document the emotional, health benefits and maternal satisfaction associated with companionship and support during labour. Aim: This study was undertaken to compare the birthing experiences and labour outcome among parturients with and without companionship in labour at Mile 4 Hospital Ishieke Abakaliki with a view to enhancing positive maternal experience and better foetal outcome. Materials and methods: This was a hospital-based prospective cohort study involving 587 pregnant women recruited using systematic random sampling method and randomly allocated into intervention and control groups. The study lasted for four months. Relevant data on demographic features were obtained using a pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. Main outcome measures: The main outcome measures in this study were pain perception and anxiety among parturients and Apgar score of the babies at 1 and 5-minutes. Results: More women in the control group had severe pain compared to the intervention group (x2-51.201; p<0.001). Also majority of the parturients with companions had low anxiety levels (56.8%); 39.0% had moderate anxiety and only about 4.1% had high anxiety levels. But among the women without companions, the majority of them (56.3%) had high anxiety levels; in 38.0% of the women, their anxiety level was moderate while only a small proportion of them (5.8%) had low anxiety(x2-254.162; p<0.001). There was no significant difference in the Apgar score at 1 and 5 minutes between the two groups. Conclusion: Companionship during childbirth is a safe and effective intervention in improving maternal labour experience with regard to psychosocial variables and does not worsen foetal outcome. However, there is need for clear guidelines to govern the practice for health care professionals and labour support persons to avoid potential harm to the parturient.


The ACRL Framework for information literacy for higher education, the guiding document for academic instruction librarians in North America, encourages a deep connection between information literacy and discipline-specific teaching practices. In the context of art librarianship, one means of attaining this connection is via librarian participation in studio critiques. Critiques enable librarians to identify the similarities between the research process and the creative process, making information literacy relevant for art students. In two different institutional examples, the ACRL Framework provides a conceptual grounding for studio critiques as a collaborative space between librarians and faculty, where students learn lifelong information literacy and critical thinking skills that enrich their artistic work.


This document defines a set of new Certificate Signing Request
attributes for use with the Enrollment over Secure Transport (EST)
protocol. These attributes provide disambiguation of the existing
overloaded uses for the challengePassword attribute defined in "PKCS
#9: Selected Object Classes and Attribute Types Version 2.0" (RFC
2985). Uses include the original certificate revocation password,
common authentication password uses, and EST-defined linking of
transport security identity.


9x: can't use plugin helper when posting a comment. Click question mark and try to use the CODE plugin 9x: can't edit comments anymore (was possible in previous versions of Tiki) Was re-added later tiki-user_information.php is missing tracker comments WYSIWYCA for Karma related things (filters, etc.) New comments admin panel done in Tiki6 Trunk 2009-10-12: comment filtering: Style is always threaded Trunk 2009-10-12: comment filtering: Add a threshold to show (now hard coded to 10) Trunk 2010-09-08: for anon comments, it asks email, but it should specify that this email will not be made public Could be nice to tie this into watch planned for Tiki7 Trunk 2010-09-08: If I make a comment on a page "Hello", after saving I am sent to tikiindex.php#comments instead of tiki-Hello#comments (so I can mail the URL to a friend) tiki-list_comments.php is missing tracker comments (9.0) users/admins can't edit comments


In this study, we investigated the accuracy of using off-line bioluminescence imaging (BLI) and tomography (BLT) to guide irradiation of small soft tissue targets on a small animal radiation research platform (SARRP) with on-board cone beam CT (CBCT) capability. A small glass bulb containing BL cells was implanted as a BL source in the abdomen of 11 mouse carcasses. Bioluminescence imaging and tomography were acquired for each carcass. Six carcasses were setup visually without immobilization and 5 were restrained in position with tape. All carcasses were setup in treatment position on the SARRP where the centroid position of the bulb on CBCT was taken as "truth". In the 2D visual setup, the carcass was setup by aligning the point of brightest luminescence with the vertical beam axis. In the CBCT assisted setup, the pose of the carcass on CBCT was aligned with that on the 2D BL image for setup. For both 2D setup methods, the offset of the bulb centroid on CBCT from the vertical beam axis was measured. In the BLT-CBCT fusion method, the 3D torso on BLT and CBCT was registered and the 3D offset of the respective source centroids was calculated. The setup results were independent of the carcass being immobilized or not due to the onset of rigor mortis. The 2D offset of the perceived BL source position from the CBCT bulb position was 2.3 mm ± 1.3 mm. The 3D offset between BLT and CBCT was 1.5 mm ± 0.9 mm. Given the rigidity of the carcasses, the setup results represent the best that can be achieved with off-line 2D BLI and 3D BLT. The setup uncertainty would require the use of undesirably large margin of 4-5 mm. The results compel the implementation of on-board BLT capability on the SARRP to eliminate setup error and to improve BLT accuracy.


The cardiomyopathies are heart muscle diseases of primary or secondary origin. Primary cardiomyopathies are often of unknown cause, hence their treatment is limited to general heart failure management. In secondary cardiomyopathies, in contrast, the identification of the underlying cause allows for a more specific, hence effective, approach that, when applied early, may prevent the development of heart failure.

The term iron overload cardiomyopathy (IOC) recently has been introduced to describe a secondary form of cardiomyopathy resulting from the accumulation of iron in the myocardium mainly because of genetically determined disorders of iron metabolism or multiple transfusions.1,2 This condition, although previously overlooked, has lately attracted the attention of investigators because iron overload is, on one hand, a frequently encountered condition, especially in association with certain hematologic conditions, and on the other hand, its accurate identification and effective management have now become possible.

IOC has been recently described as a dilated cardiomyopathy, characterized by left ventricular (LV) remodeling with chamber dilatation and reduced LV ejection fraction (LVEF).1 However, primary hemochromatosis, a genetically determined condition leading to iron overload, is classically categorized as an infiltrative cause of restrictive cardiomyopathy.3 Moreover, secondary hemochromatosis may lead to severe diastolic LV dysfunction in the early stages of the disease, before LVEF is affected.4,5 In the present review, we describe the forms, pathophysiology, and phenotypic expression of IOC, focusing on ventricular geometry and function and describing the early diastolic abnormalities that lead ultimately to heart muscle dysfunction and heart failure. The clinical implications of the condition are also discussed.

Iron overload is the accumulation of excess body iron in different organs as a result of increased intestinal absorption, parenteral administration, or increased dietary intake.6 Besides being a crucial component of hemoglobin with a key role in erythropoiesis, oxygen …


As one of the most stereotyped minorities, the Roma are particularly 'good to think' in relation to constructions of Europeanness. In the production of 'Gypsiness', the body, the space, and the materiality of the dwelling are linked through smell as signifiers of a racial and cultural inferiority that does not 'belong' in and to Europe. Drawing on research projects carried out in the outskirts of Rome and in a small Romanian town, our contribution relies on a juxtaposed
ethnography of constructions of 'Gypsiness' in relation to the spatial, sensorial and material inscriptions of the body. The article will examine the relationship between space and the social production of smell, discussing how spaces inhabited by Roma play a role in 'doing' Europeanness in a contrastive mode.


Children and adolescents spend an average of 7 h a day using electronic media which include television, radio, cellphones, computers, and handheld devices (1); it would be naive to think that time spent on these devices has no effects (2). Indeed, it is clear that media has an effect on all of us, especially, youth who have grown up in a world surrounded by electronic devices (3–5). Decades of study on media use indicate a profound effect on the lives, health, and well being of youth (1). In particular, findings from a large number of studies, though often subject to controversy, link media use to psychosocial (6, 7), behavioral, and health problems (8–10) in children and youth. Potential positive effects of media use have been less studied. Media entertains, teaches, is a tool for communication, and may also be used as a means to cope with stress. We propose a need for the development of a novel assessment scale that will facilitate studies of the role of electronic media as a youth coping strategy.


Although several nuclear regulatory proteins may be targeted by estrogen, our efforts have focused on the redox nuclear respiratory factor-1 (NRF-1), because our recent study showed that NRF-1 gene expression significantly increases with the progression of breast tumor grades. NRF-1 overexpression supported in vitro tumor formation. To determine if NRF-1 is required for 17 beta estradiol (E2)-induced neoplastic phenotype, we have generated NRF-1 mutants by site directed mutagenesis. We have generated stable clones that express NRF-1 mutant. The in vitro tumor formation was detected by anchorage independent growth and 3D spheroid assays. NRF-1 overexpression enhanced in vitro tumor spheroid formation, cell migration and cell invasion. Our flow cytometry analysis showed that overexpression of wild-type NRF-1 increased the percent of transformed MCF-10A cells in S phase compared to vector alone. Dominant negative NRF-1 protein showed reduction in the tumor formation. In addition, shRNA targeting NRF-1 resulted in the inhibition of anchorage independent growth of MCF-10A cells in both vehicle control and E2-treated cells. Since NRF-1 is a substrate of the kinase AKT, we determined whether NRF-1 phosphorylation was increased in MCF-10A cells after treatment with a carcinogenic regimen of E2. We observed more than a 2-fold increase in phospho-NRF-1 in E2 treated (100pg/ml for 30 min) MCF-10A cells and phosphorylation of NRF-1 was inhibited by co-treatment with either biological (CAT or MnSOD) or chemical (20μM ebselen) ROS modifiers. These results suggest that E2-induced phosphorylation of NRF-1 is influenced by ROS signaling messengers. We found that E2 treated MCF-10A cells showed increased NRF-1 binding to the promoters of Cdc2, PRC1, PCNA, Cyclin B1, and CDC25C genes. NRF-1 binding induced by E2 treatment was inhibited by the overexpression of CAT and MnSOD. NRF-1 phosphorylation site specific to kinase AKT, Thr-109, was mutated to Asp (D) or Ala (A), and the NRF-1 acetylation site specific to acetyl-transferase PCAF, Lys- 89, was mutated to Gln (glutamine)-Q or Ala (A). We examine the effect of one of the NRF-1 mutants on E2-induced in vitro tumor formation. We observed that the expression of NRF-1 (T109A) phosphodeficient mutant (NRF-1PMT) significantly inhibited E2-induced cell transformation, whereas empty vector did not influence E2-induced colony formation. Together these findings support the idea that NRF-1 may play an important role in E2-induced malignant transformation of breast epithelial cells. Thus, our data is consistent with the hypothesis that in addition to the estrogen receptor activity, NRF-1 activation contributes to the susceptibility to develop malignant phenotype in response to exposure to estrogen. This work was in part supported by a VA MERIT Review (VA BX001463) grant to DR Citation Format: Lazaro Mesa, Jayanta Das, Alok Deoraj, Victor Okoh, Deodutta Roy. Phosphodeficient NRF1 mutant suppresses the susceptibility of the breast epithelial cells to develop tumors when exposed to estrogen - a major breast cancer risk factor. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4559. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4559


The presented work integrates molecular data on gene expression with anatomical and biochemical data to analyze the development and the sucrose accumulation process in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) roots. Sugar beet is a biennial Chenopodiacean plant, and it is the major crop for sucrose production in temperate regions. A special root morphology and physiology allow the accumulation of sucrose up to 20% of the fresh weight of the mature root. Approaches to study this storage process at the molecular level have so far been limited to known genes involved in pathways related to sugar metabolism which were mapped and tested for their association with QTLs for sugar yield and quality (Schneider et al., 1999, 2002). In the study presented here, transcription levels in sugar beet roots were analyzed to select candidate genes for the sucrose accumulation process. For this purpose macroarrays were generated from two cDNA collections. The first experiment was performed with 3840 redundant sugar beet cDNAs. A procedure for the analysis including control steps was developed. The performance of the macroarrays was evaluated and compared to commercially produced nylon filters. Both systems could detect transcripts present in as little as 10 copies per cell in agreement with reports by Desprez et al. (1998). Their capacity to analyse transcripts of low abundance was demonstrated in a case study using resistance gene analogues (RGAs). Within an interval of two-fold variation in signal intensities, reproducibility between spots on the same filter was determined to be 98.9%, between spots on different filters 89.8%, and reproducibility after hybridization with two probes synthesized from the same poly(A)+RNA sample was 97.6%. Hybridizations with probes synthesized from different field grown samples of the same organ showed reproducibility for 69.7% of the spots on average. Some precautions were introduced to reduce the sampling effects caused by the variability of environmental conditions. Expression profiles from roots, leaves and inflorescences were generated for 2048 unique cDNAs of the first cDNA clone set. Expression values for each organ were determined by stringent statistical analysis based on eight replica for each clone. Differential expression among the three organs was shown for 917 unique cDNAs, and for 76 unique cDNAs, the amount of detected transcript in roots was at least twice as high as in other organs. For 40 of them a map position was identified and linkage to QTLs is discussed. Additionally, possible functions of preferentially root-expressed candidate genes in taproot morphology and physiology are proposed. As a technical validation, macroarray expression data were confirmed by Northern blot analysis and quantitative RT-PCR experiments. The second set of macroarray experiments was performed with 11520 unique cDNA clones to identify candidate genes in sugar beet roots related to sucrose accumulation or development. For this purpose, a time-course experiment was repeated in two different years. Plants were characterized morphologically and metabolically with respect to their sucrose content during the development. Among the genes differentially expressed in the development, 599 clones with highest expression in the early stages of the first vegetation period were identified in both years. For additional 175 clones, a reproducible preferential expression in the last stages of the development was demonstrated. These candidate genes were classified with respect to their function, and their putative role during development and sucrose accumulation is discussed. Additionally, strategies to focus on the validation of candidates related to sucrose accumulation are discussed. In conclusion, the macroarray technology as established here, together with the selection and characterization of appropriate physiological samples, proved to be a valuable tool to identify new candidate genes related to development and to the sucrose accumulation in the sugar beet root. This is of special importance to sugar beet research because the considered processes cannot be analyzed in model systems without a root storage organ for sucrose.


During 2nd world war there was shortage of oil in Sweden and one of the assets available were oil shales which could be used to extract oil through pyrolysis. In 1942 the annual production of oil shale reached 100,000 cubic meters and production continued until 1966.  The remaining shales were deposited outside the city of Kumla reaching approximately 100m in height and still to this day some parts in the pile is undergoing pyrolysis causing temperature inside the deposit to reach more than hundreds of degrees Celsius. The oil shale contained elevated concentrations of uranium making it a NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials) waste.
 Samples taken for this study included soil cores of 45 cm depth, moss growing on the top of the deposit, hare droppings found in the area, surface water from a nearby lake and hair samples taken from a nearby barber shop. The samples were analyzed by gamma and alpha spectroscopy.
 Analyzed cores showed 238U ranging from 0.44 to 1.62 Bq/g with an average of 1.26 Bq/g. For comparison, the average 238U activity concentration in Swedish soil is 0.07 Bq/g for 0-50 cm depth. It was found that the average ratio of 234U/ 238U in the cores were 0.95 with a max value of 1 and average ratio of 210Po/ 238U were 1.13 and max value was 1.34. The results from the external dose survey showed that the dose above the ground ranged from 0.112 to 1.200 µSv/h.
 The results obtained from this preliminary study shows that the uranium concentration in the remaining oil shale are about twenty times the average concentration found in Swedish soil. It is also seen that the concentration is increasing with depth and that a more severe disequilibrium in the 238U decay chain exists along the depth.


Background and objectives Hypotension after spinal anesthesia is still widespread in cesarean delivery, especially in pregnant women with short stature. The use of a reduced dose of local anesthesia allows adequate spinal anesthesia with minimal hypotension. We investigate the lowest dose of heavy bupivacaine that can be used to reduce the frequency of hypotension associated with adequate spinal anesthesia in short stature pregnant female individuals undergoing cesarean section. Patients and methods Sixty women scheduled for cesarean section were divided into three groups of patients (20 in each group) receiving spinal injections of 0.04 mg heavy bupivacaine/cm height (group A), 0.05 mg heavy bupivacaine/cm height (group B), and 0.06 mg heavy bupivacaine/cm height (group C). A decrease in systolic pressure greater than 20% of the baseline was considered low blood pressure and was treated with a bolus of 5–10 mg intravenous ephedrine. The quality of surgical anesthesia was assessed among groups. Results Groups B and C were assigned a higher sensory level block than group A after spinal anesthesia, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). In group C, 18 (90%) patients developed a complete motor block, while in group B, 16 (80%) patients developed a complete motor block, compared with patients of group A in which only four (20%) patients developed complete motor block, and the difference between groups was statistically significant (P<0.05). The spinal block resulted in excellent surgical anesthesia in groups B and C compared with group A. Patients in group C were more likely to develop hypotension than patients in groups B and A. There was no significant statistical difference between the groups as regards neonatal outcome. Conclusions This study showed that the use of spinal anesthesia in pregnant women of short stature using heavy bupivacaine at a concentration of 0.05 mg/cm body weight showed a clear benefit in terms of adequate anesthesia and stable hemodynamics.