On June 27, 2002, the United States Supreme Court held that all students participating in extracurricular activities in public schools may be subjected to random, suspicionless drug testing.2 The holding, in itself, is not terribly remarkable, as the decision in Board of Education of LS.D. of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma v. Earls follows a developing pattern among public schools in this country. Further, the Earls case simply broadens the right of the state to randomly drug test students, without individualized suspicion, that this same court announced a mere seven years earlier in Vernonia v. Acton. What is remarkable about Earls, and what may be disconcerting to those clinging to the notion that students' rights entitle them to Fourth Amendment protection at school, is that Earls undoubtedly will be the necessary link between testing those engaging in "voluntary" activities, as the athletes in Vernonia and the Academic Team member in Earls, to the true target of such expansive suspicionless testing policies: all public school students.Earls represents a problematic break with past application of the Fourth Amendment in school cases.7 Earls goes beyond the holding in Acton by broadening the application of the special needs doctrine to all students. The justifications underlying Acton - safety in athletic competition and a demonstrated drug problem among students athletes - were not present in Earls.'Rather, Earls breaks with precedent by allowing the liberalization of the "special needs" doctrine in school cases and finding that drug use among American teens and elementary students serves as an appropriate "special need" to support suspicionless drug testing.'" In this manner, Earls is not true to Acton and ignores crucial policy justifications for dispensing with the Fourth Amendment warrant and probable cause requirements that the Acton majority underscored.' Likewise, Earls breaks with precedent in the special needs area by allowing the global problem of drug use generally to provide ample basis for the suspicionless drug testing of an identifiable group: elementary and secondary public school students. Accordingly, Earls represents two problematic departures from stare decisis.In addition, the Earls case, written in seemingly limitless breadth, provides the requisite step between testing those involved in athletics and other extracurricular activities and those in the general student population that we fear, due to self-disclosed surveys or medical data, must be using illicit drugs. For this reason, Earls single-handedly sounds the death knell of the assurance that students do not shed their Constitutional rights at the school house gate. Post- Earls, students absolutely shed their constitutional right to be free from suspicionless searches regardless of whether the student's school has any demonstrated drug problem and regardless of whether there is any demonstrated safety or special need attendant to the search. 16 Thus, while the special needs doctrine has consistently been limited to prevent full-scale devaluation of the Fourth Amendment's warrant and probable cause requirements, Earls suggests that students and youth fall outside this general limitation. Neither Acton's limited holding and requirement that a compelling drug or safety problem be actually present at the school nor the special needs doctrine requirement for some specific demonstration of a special safety need as to a particular group will delimit application of the Fourth Amendment at public schools after Earls. With the resurrection and strengthening of the in loco parentis concept, the Supreme Court has given license to schools to continue invading the personal privacy of public school children to ensure that these wards are not using or abusing illicit drugs - either on campus or in the privacy of their homes.This article will trace the devolution of students' rights to privacy, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, beginning with T.L.O. v. New Jersey. Next, the article will consider the elastic application of the court-created "special needs" doctrine, particularly as applied in drug testing cases and in school settings. In this section, the author will note the traditional requirements for application of the "special needs" doctrine and distinguish the Supreme Court's approach to "special needs" cases when the subjects are children. Finally, the article will consider the recent application of the special needs doctrine in the school setting by comparing the Vernonia and Earls opinions and project their future application.While at one time the Supreme Court assured society that "[t]he prisoner and schoolchild stand in wholly different circumstances,"' that pronouncement is subject to challenge in both letter and spirit. Post-Vernonia, post-Col-umbine, and now, post-Earls, schools have become a place where safety concerns reign paramount to challenges against "zero tolerance" policies and Fourth Amendment protections. Schools are increasingly becoming places where police and state presence are both seen and felt. And while safety concerns for students and teachers remain valid, we cannot, we must not, lose sight of the pronouncement in Brown v. Board of Education, that "[tioday, education [remains] perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. The lessons we teach our children - particularly those relating to the protection of their rights in times of fear and crisis - will eventually have broad consequences on our society. After all, we are today educating the leaders of tomorrow.


The Antwerp-Rossie metaigneous suite (ARS) represents arc magmatism related to closure of the Trans-Adirondack backarc basin during Shawinigan collisional orogenesis (ca. 1200–1160 Ma). The ARS is of calc-alkaline character, bimodal, and lacks intermediate compositions. Primarily intruding marble and pelitic gneiss, the ARS is spatially restricted to the Adirondack Lowlands southeast of the Black Lake fault. On discrimination diagrams, the ARS samples plot primarily within the volcanic arc granite fi elds. Incompatible elements show an arc-like signature with negative Nb, Ta, P, and Zr and positive Cs, Pb, La, and Nd anomalies relative to primitive mantle. Neodymium model ages (TDM, depleted mantle model) range from 1288 to 1634 Ma; the oldest ages (1613–1634) and smallest epsilon Nd (eNd) values are found in proximity to the Black Lake fault, delineating the extent of Laurentia prior to the Shawinigan orogeny. The epsilon Nd values at crystallization (1200 Ma) plot well below the depleted mantle curve. Geochemical and isotopic similarities to the Hermon granitic gneiss (HGG) (ca. 1182 Ma) and differences from the Hyde School Gneiss–Rockport Granite suites (1155–1180 Ma) suggest that arc plutonism rapidly transitioned into A-type AMCG (anorthosite-mangeritecharnockite-granite) plutonism. Given the short duration of Shawinigan subduction, apparently restricted extent of the ARS (Adirondack Lowlands), location outboard of the pre-Shawinigan Laurentian margin, intrusion into the Lowlands supracrustal sequence, bimodal composition, and recent discovery of enriched mantle rocks in the Lowlands, it is proposed the ARS formed as a consequence of subduction related to closure of a backarc basin that once extended between the Frontenac terrane and the Southern Adirondacks.


This Article addresses whether a cause of action exists under federal statutes to challenge gender and racial inequity in federally funded programs. The question has widespread ramifications because Congress appropriates funds to millions of programs that aresubject to these statutes. The Court has held that the only cause of action that exists under these statutes is for intentional discrimination, but in a series of recent cases the Court has developed a framework that broadens the concept of intentional discrimination. Unfortunately, lower courts have focused on older and narrower interpretations of intentional discrimination without accounting for the more complex nuances in recent cases. Thus, lower courts continue to assume that intentional discrimination includes only actions that are motivated by animus or the inappropriate consideration of gender or race. A thorough analysis of Supreme Court precedent, however, provides a different answer. Specifically, in regard to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments, the Court has also recognized that intentional discrimination occurs when a funding recipient makes a conscious choice that frustrates the congressional objective to eliminate discrimination and inequity in federally funded programs. More specifically, the Court's decisions reveal three factors that are consistently present when the Court has imposed liability under this broader notion of intentional discrimination: whether the defendant made a value choice in regard to the challenged activity or conditions, whether permitting the activity or conditions within a federally funded program would be inconsistent with congressional objectives, and whether the defendant's choice is a cause of the continuance of the activity or condition. However, to permit plaintiffs to establish that any circumstances beyond those in the Court's recent decisions are inconsistent with congressional objectives, federal agencies must provide regulations and guidance that specifically identify those circumstances.


Liu Zhi (ca. 1670-1724) was one of the most important scholars of Islam in traditional China. His "Tianfang xingli" ("Nature and Principle in Islam"), the Chinese-language text translated here, focuses on the roots or principles of Islam. It was heavily influenced by several classic texts in the Sufi tradition. Liu's approach, however, is distinguished from that of other Muslim scholars in that he addressed the basic articles of Islamic thought with Neo-Confucian terminology and categories. Besides its innate metaphysical and philosophical value, the text is invaluable for understanding how the masters of Chinese Islam straddled religious and civilizational frontiers and created harmony between two different intellectual worlds. The introductory chapters explore both the Chinese and the Islamic intellectual traditions behind Liu's work and locate the arguments of Tianfang xingli within those systems of thought. The copious annotations to the translation explain Liu's text and draw attention to parallels in Chinese-, Arabic-, and Persian-language works as well as differences.


A recent article by Wilson and colleagues1 proposes the mandatory ECG screening of athletes as a means of reducing the risk of sudden cardiac death in this population. The idea of such screening originated with the studies of Dr Corrado and his colleagues in Italy.2 The concept has subsequently received support from several European groups, Dr Corrado being involved in some of these: the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission,3 the European Society of Cardiology4 and the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).5

A proper starting point for a consideration of this issue is Bayes' theorem. This theorem makes clear that mass screening cannot be effective and will inevitably lead to a high proportion of false positive results if one is using a fallible test procedure when attempting to detect a rare risk. Wilson and associates1 attempted to increase the frequency of their positive outcomes by assessing the frequency with which their ECGs detected certain "abnormalities" such as the Wolff–Parkinson–White (WPW) syndrome, thought to be associated with an increased risk of sudden death. One …


Electrical Engineering (ABSTRACT) The conventional power factor correction circuit has a fixed output voltage. However, in some applications, a PFC circuit with a wide output voltage range is needed. A single phase power factor correction circuit with wide output voltage range is developed in this work. After a comparison of two main power stage candidates (Buck+Boost and Sepic) in terms of efficiency, complexity, cost and device rating, the buck+boost converter is employed as the variable output PFC power stage. From the loss analysis, this topology has a high efficiency from light load to heavy load. The control system of the variable output PFC circuit is analyzed and designed. Charge average current sensing scheme has been adopted to sense the input current. The problem of high input harmonic currents at low output voltage is discussed. It is found that the current loop gain and cross over frequency will change greatly when the output voltage changes. To solve this problem, an automatic gain control scheme is proposed and a detailed circuit is designed and added to the current loop. A modified input current sensing scheme is presented to overcome the problem of an insufficient phase margin of the PFC circuit near the maximum output voltage. The charge average current sensing circuit will be bypassed automatically by a logical circuit when the output voltage is higher than the peak line voltage. Instead, a resistor is used to sense the input current at that condition. Therefore, the phase delay caused by the charge average current sensing circuit is avoided. The design and analysis are based on a novel air conditioner motor system application. Some detailed design issues are discussed. The experimental results show that the variable output PFC circuit has good performance in the wide output voltage range, under both the Boost mode when the output voltage is high and the Buck+Boost mode when the output voltage is low.


Chemical profiles of water in the vadose zone and in the upper part of the groundwater from a water-table sand-silt aquifer at Haslemoen, South Norway, have been studied. Filter tips attached to steel pipes (BAT monitoring system) have been installed to different depths at two localities. The system makes it possible to measure pore pressures and hydraulic conductivities and to take samples under controlled conditions both above and below the groundwater level. One locality is characterized by forest, groundwater level at about 7 m below surface, and filter tips down to 13.2 m. Agricultural land surrounds the field installations at the other locality, the groundwater level is here about 4.5 m below surface, and filter tips are down to 10.4 m. The chemical data demonstrate a) Higher concentrations of both total nitrogen and nitrate below agricultural land b) Decreasing concentrations downwards of both total nitrogen and nitrate in both profiles c) Iron and/or organic carbon seems to take part in the reduction of nitrate, probably to free nitrogen.


India's child stunting rate is among the highest in the world, exceeding that of many poorer African countries. In this paper, we analyze data for over 174,000 Indian and Sub-Saharan African children to show that Indian firstborns are taller than African firstborns; the Indian height disadvantage emerges with the second child and then increases with birth order. This pattern persists when we compare height between siblings, and also holds for health inputs such as vaccinations. Three patterns in the data indicate that India's culture of eldest son preference plays a key role in explaining the steeper birth order gradient among Indian children and, consequently, the overall height deficit. First, the Indian firstborn height advantage only exists for sons. Second, an Indian son with an older sibling is taller than his African counterpart if and only if he is the eldest son. Third, the India-Africa height deficit is largest for daughters with no older brothers, which reflects that fact that their families are those most likely to exceed their desired fertility in order to have a son.


This thesis considers how Wikipedia justifies, structures, and legitimizes its production of knowledge. To do so the thesis positions Wikipedia as a site of conflict over the epistemic values between its wiki and encyclopaedic traditions. Through the literature review, the wiki epistemology is argued to be composed of six values: self-identification, collaboration, co-construction, cooperation, trust in the community, and constructionism. While these values are explicit, encyclopaedism's were not found to be equally defined. To fill this gap, the thesis conducts a genre analysis of encyclopaedism. It first identifies the genre through its communicative purposes to create a universal system of total knowledge and to use this system to educate the public. Second, an analysis of recurrent social contexts within Chambers' Cyclopaedia (1728), Diderot & d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (1751–72), the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771–), and Wikipedia (2001–) find that the communicative purposes are achieved through the use of five epistemic values: utility, systematic organization, authority, trust in experts, and consistency. Third, a comparison spanning 240 years between Wikipedia and the Britannica's article headings finds that the value of systematic organization structures Wikipedia's articles using seventeenth century categories of knowledge. Having established two sets of values that determine Wikipedia's production of knowledge, the thesis sets the stage for future research to analyze how Wikipedia's epistemology is articulated in its different production spaces. Ultimately, such research may not only describe the shifting values of Wikipedia's epistemology but also explain how knowledge is transformed and produced in the network society.


1. INTRODUCTION The World Trade Organization ("WTO"), only six years old, faces two formidable challenges. First, it must mobilize support to confront determined and growing attacks from outside groups and individuals who proclaim that the organization lacks democratic accountability and is merely a front for multinational corporations and dehumanizing capitalist values. Second, even as it attempts to mobilize its resources to meet these onslaughts, the WTO finds its own institutional viability jeopardized by internal constitutional flaws that play into the hands of opponents: namely, the pressure to "legislate" new rules-through a highly efficient new dispute settlement system-that flout the mandate that dispute settlement judgments must neither add to nor diminish the existing rights and obligations of WTO members. The United States faces a different, though related, set of challenges. In a world of increasing technological and economic integration, it must continue to balance and rebalance a defense of national sovereignty against grants of authority over economic and social policy to international organizations such as the WTO. The United States must also devise domestic political mechanisms that provide greater democratic accountability with regard to decisions affecting US international obligations. The first draft of this article was completed during the week of the United Nations "Millennium Summit" in early September 2000. On the opening day of the summit, the New York Times interviewed leaders of the anti-globalist movement who stated that, in contrast to Seattle, their groups were in New York not to protest but to give support to the UN: "We've lately begun to worry that the mandate [of the UN] was weakening, and that the same ideologies that drive the WTO will appear in the United Nations ... It is our role to still insist and assert that the United Nations is not a body that should be siding with the interests of capitalists..."' I had to chuckle because I had just finished writing a book that stemmed, at least in part, from the fear that the ideological flow was in the opposite direction-that the free market principles embodied in the rules of the WTO would be suborned by protectionism in the name of other social, economic, or political interests. The day after that news item appeared, the New York Times published a second article that is also directly relevant to this study! It reported that the European Union had rejected as still inadequate a US effort to come into compliance with the ruling of a WTO panel that the United States had granted an illegal export subsidy to American companies.3 This had ominous implications. Stuart Eizenstat, the deputy secretary of the US Treasury, had warned in July that a "major trade war" could ensue if the two sides could not come to some agreement Sanctions in the WTO are based upon the amount of harm suffered in the international marketplace by the complaining country. Using that metric, the EU calculates that it could seek 100 percent tariffs on $4 billion of US exports.5 Should this occur, it would be far and away the largest retaliation taken under the new WTO dispute settlement system. It would come on top of two other corrosive quarrels between the two trading partners. In one, the US has levied some $200 million in tariffs on European goods after the EU refused to alter its restrictions on banana imports from Central America; and in the second, the US has levied over $100 million in tariffs on European goods because the EU has banned hormone-- treated beef. Taken together, these snapshots of the current travails of the WTO create a picture of the current state of the organization. The WTO faces enormous new pressures from the outside, with the emergence of powerful anti-globalist sentiment matched by determined new transnational interest groups that are effectively exploiting that sentiment. At the same time, the WTO is saddled with a constitutional structure that may cripple its ability both to deal with its external antagonists and-of greater importance-to settle disputes between member states in a manner that upholds the rules and at the same time is satisfactory to the contending parties. …


The nitrogen isotopic composition (15N/14N) of forested ecosystems varies systematically worldwide. In tropical forests, which are elevated in 15N relative to temperate biomes, a decrease in ecosystem 15N/14N with increasing rainfall has been reported. This trend is seen in a set of well characterized Hawaiian rainforests, across which we have measured the 15N/14N of inputs and hydrologic losses. We report that the two most widely purported mechanisms, an isotopic shift in N inputs or isotopic discrimination by leaching, fail to explain this climate-dependent trend in 15N/14N. Rather, isotopic discrimination by microbial denitrification appears to be the major determinant of N isotopic variations across differences in rainfall. In the driest climates, the 15N/14N of total dissolved outputs is higher than that of inputs, which can only be explained by a 14N-rich gas loss. In contrast, in the wettest climates, denitrification completely consumes nitrate in local soil environments, thus preventing the expression of its isotope effect at the ecosystem scale. Under these conditions, the 15N/14N of bulk soils and stream outputs decrease to converge on the low 15N/14N of N inputs. N isotope budgets that account for such local isotopic underexpression suggest that denitrification is responsible for a large fraction (24-53%) of total ecosystem N loss across the sampled range in rainfall.


Information on metal adaptation of plants is necessary to understand the mechanism of heavy metal, including lead (Pb), remediation mediated by forest plants in contaminated land. This study aimed to find out the adaptation mechanism of jabon (Anthocephalus cadamba Roxb) seedlings to excessive lead level based on the tolerance index of growth performance and lead transport to plant tissue. The seedlings were exposed to lead (Pb(NO ) ) with the 3 2 concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 5 and 10 mM in nutrient culture for 15 days. The result showed that the tolerance index (TI) of the seedlings was significantly decreased by Pb exposure up to 1.5 mM, but the TI values were more than 75%. All seedlings died at Pb concentration of 5 mM and up. Pb accumulated in all parts of the seedlings, with the highest concentration found in the leaves (735.9 ppm) under Pb concentration of 0.5 mM. The Pb was found to be transported to the top portion of the seedlings indicated by Transport Factor (TF) that was more than 1. The results suggest that jabon can adapt to excessive Pb exposure up to 1.5 mM and has the potential as a remediator plant.


The first part of this chapter provides an overview of the current state of genre theory in various fields of linguistics and discourse analysis. Based on this overview, a set of common features of genre definitions is presented that provides the theoretical basis for the empirical investigation. In the empirical part, the inaugural speeches of three Austrian chancellors (representing the two big Austrian political parties) during the last ten years are analyzed. After a short discussion of relevant contextual features (production process, audience design), lexical characteristics, generic and topical structures, and the co-articulation of topics are analyzed. Results show that, although delivered by politicians from two different political backgrounds, the speeches share many features in terms of lexis and generic structure. Differences become manifest at the topic structure and the co-articulation of topics. In conclusion, it is argued that a politically sensitive genre analysis must not only focus on generic features of political texts but also investigate registers and discourses which are realized in these texts.


We consider the pool-based active learning problem, where only a subset of the training data is labeled, and the goal is to query a batch of unlabeled samples to be labeled so as to maximally improve model performance. We formulate the problem using constrained learning, where a set of constraints bounds the performance of the model on labeled samples. Considering a primal-dual approach, we optimize the primal variables, corresponding to the model parameters, as well as the dual variables, corresponding to the constraints. As each dual variable indicates how significantly the perturbation of the respective constraint affects the optimal value of the objective function, we use it as a proxy of the informativeness of the corresponding training sample. Our approach, which we refer to as Active Learning via Lagrangian dualitY, or ALLY, leverages this fact to select a diverse set of unlabeled samples with the highest estimated dual variables as our query set. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach in a variety of classification and regression tasks and discuss its limitations depending on the capacity of the model used and the degree of redundancy in the dataset. We also examine the impact of the distribution shift induced by active sampling and show that ALLY can be used in a generative mode to create novel, maximally-informative samples.


THE SPIRIT IN THE LAW PODCAST: TESTING THE DEMOCRATIZATION AND AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR OF NEW MEDIA BROADCASTING Scott L. Lunt Department of Communications Master of Arts This project summary presents the details of a podcast project conducted from April to December of 2006. The project consisted of the creation of a new Internet-based audio interview show entitled Spirit In The Law. The interviews were delivered to listeners who requested the shows via the Internet, and were available to a targeted audience of law students in the United States and abroad. The show featured interviews with 20 notable attorneys and professionals who answered questions regarding spiritual values in their professional practice. The project was informed by two theoretical frameworks: New Media theory and Situational Theory of Publics. The results, when applying both theoretical frameworks, were mixed. While podcasting did demonstrate universality, it was hindered by the complexity of traditional radio production roles. Similarly, it was useful to use the Situational Theory of Publics to help to conceptualize audiences in groups, but the goals of moving the groups into activity were not completely achieved. The main objective for the project was to understand more about the opportunities and obstacles of the new communication technology of podcasting.


I have given great prominence to the discussion of the character and relations of the Bala and Silurian rocks because of the great interest attached to this easternmost outcrop exposed in the deep valleys which have been carved out on the east and west of Ingleborough. but this is essentially a country of Carboniferous rocks.

As we stand on the great limestone terrace of Ingleborough (see PL XXIV.), and look out east across the valley of the Ribble, we see the bold outline of Penyghent, owing its profile to the alternations of sandstone, limestone, and shale which have differently resisted the various denuding agents that have for ages been at work upon it.

The top of it consists of beds higher in the series than any we have on Ingleborough, and the first shoulder from the top corresponds to Ingleborough's cap of Millstone Grit. The next shoulder is due to the massive sandstones which make up the upper part of the Yoredale rocks (the Hawes Flagstone Series), while the top of the Mountain Limestone on which we stand is seen at the foot of the steeper slopes opposite, and its scars are visible here and there projecting out towards Ribblesdale. Though we know that Bala and Silurian occur all along the bottom of the valley from Horton below us, and as far south as Stainforth, we see no features due to them. The conspicuous rounded hills are the moraine mounds of the receding glacier-ice which seems to have been long ...


Skin image classification involves the development of computational methods for solving problems such as cancer detection in lesion images, and their use for biomedical research and clinical care. Such methods aim at extracting relevant information or knowledge from skin images that can significantly assist in the early detection of disease. Skin images are enormous, and come with various artifacts that hinder effective feature extraction leading to inaccurate classification. Feature selection and feature construction can significantly reduce the amount of data while improving classification performance by selecting prominent features and constructing high-level features. Existing approaches mostly rely on expert intervention and follow multiple stages for pre-processing, feature extraction, and classification, which decreases the reliability, and increases the computational complexity. Since good generalization accuracy is not always the primary objective, clinicians are also interested in analyzing specific features such as pigment network, streaks, and blobs responsible for developing the disease; interpretable methods are favored. In Evolutionary Computation, Genetic Programming (GP) can automatically evolve an interpretable model and address the curse of dimensionality (through feature selection and construction). GP has been successfully applied to many areas, but its potential for feature selection, feature construction, and classification in skin images has not been thoroughly investigated. The overall goal of this thesis is to develop a new GP approach to skin image classification by utilizing GP to evolve programs that are capable of automatically selecting prominent image features, constructing new high level features, interpreting useful image features which can help dermatologist to diagnose a type of cancer, and are robust to processing skin images captured from specialized instruments and standard cameras. This thesis focuses on utilizing a wide range of texture, color, frequency-based, local, and global image properties at the terminal nodes of GP to classify skin cancer images from multiple modalities effectively. This thesis develops new two-stage GP methods using embedded and wrapper feature selection and construction approaches to automatically generating a feature vector of selected and constructed features for classification. The results show that wrapper approach outperforms the embedded approach, the existing baseline GP and other machine learning methods, but the embedded approach is faster than the wrapper approach. This thesis develops a multi-tree GP based embedded feature selection approach for melanoma detection using domain specific and domain independent features. It explores suitable crossover and mutation operators to evolve GP classifiers effectively and further extends this approach using a weighted fitness function. The results show that these multi-tree approaches outperformed single tree GP and other classification methods. They identify that a specific feature extraction method extracts most suitable features for particular images taken from a specific optical instrument. This thesis develops the first GP method utilizing frequency-based wavelet features, where the wrapper based feature selection and construction methods automatically evolve useful constructed features to improve the classification performance. The results show the evidence of successful feature construction by significantly outperforming existing GP approaches, state-of-the-art CNN, and other classification methods. This thesis develops a GP approach to multiple feature construction for ensemble learning in classification. The results show that the ensemble method outperformed existing GP approaches, state-of-the-art skin image classification, and commonly used ensemble methods. Further analysis of the evolved constructed features identified important image features that can potentially help the dermatologist identify further medical procedures in real-world situations.


In order to conduct the gait recognition system, a wireless in-shoe wearable plantar pressure acquisition system based on ATmega16 and 8 FSR sensors was applied to data acquisition for the gaits which consist of standing, walking, jumping and going upstairs. And four volunteers (2 females and 2 males) were invited in this research to collect the pressure information. MATLAB and LIBSVM were applied to conduct all algorithms proposed by this study. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used to set the best tuning (penalty) parameter  and the best  (gamma) of Gauss radial basis kernel (RBF) for C-support vector classification (C-SVC) model and the GA-based C-SVC was obtained. A dataset named 'train-data', containing 800 sets of pressure data was used to train the GA-based C-SVC as the algorithm of gait recognition. Finally a testing dataset containing 400 sets of pressure data was applied to test the algorithm of gait recognition called GA-based C-SVC. The accuracy of this GA-based C-SVC was 98% for standing, 91% for walking, 82% for going-upstairs and 97% for jumping. In generally speaking, a better GA-based C-SVC was obtained in this research. DOI:  http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i10.2962


Semi-supervised learning is crucial for alleviating labelling burdens in people-centric sensing. However, humangenerated data inherently suffer from distribution shift in semi-supervised learning due to the diverse biological conditions and behavior patterns of humans. To address this problem, we propose a generic distributionally robust model for semi-supervised learning on distributionally shifted data. Considering both the discrepancy and the consistency between the labeled data and the unlabeled data, we learn the latent features that reduce person-specific discrepancy and preserve task-specific consistency. We evaluate our model in a variety of people-centric recognition tasks on real-world datasets, including intention recognition, activity recognition, muscular movement recognition and gesture recognition. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.


Abstract In the lead-up to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, several next-generation radio telescopes and upgrades are already being built around the world. These include APERTIF (The Netherlands), ASKAP (Australia), e-MERLIN (UK), VLA (USA), e-EVN (based in Europe), LOFAR (The Netherlands), MeerKAT (South Africa), and the Murchison Widefield Array. Each of these new instruments has different strengths, and coordination of surveys between them can help maximise the science from each of them. A radio continuum survey is being planned on each of them with the primary science objective of understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies over cosmic time, and the cosmological parameters and large-scale structures which drive it. In pursuit of this objective, the different teams are developing a variety of new techniques, and refining existing ones. To achieve these exciting scientific goals, many technical challenges must be addressed by the survey instruments. Given the limited resources of the global radio-astronomical community, it is essential that we pool our skills and knowledge. We do not have sufficient resources to enjoy the luxury of re-inventing wheels. We face significant challenges in calibration, imaging, source extraction and measurement, classification and cross-identification, redshift determination, stacking, and data-intensive research. As these instruments extend the observational parameters, we will face further unexpected challenges in calibration, imaging, and interpretation. If we are to realise the full scientific potential of these expensive instruments, it is essential that we devote enough resources and careful study to understanding the instrumental effects and how they will affect the data. We have established an SKA Radio Continuum Survey working group, whose prime role is to maximise science from these instruments by ensuring we share resources and expertise across the projects. Here we describe these projects, their science goals, and the technical challenges which are being addressed to maximise the science return.


This project aims to investigate the construction of the "international" in curriculum work in social science education in Sweden, England and Germany. The "international" will be handled as an understanding of a virtual global space that is constructed by local actors embedded in particular contexts. By perceiving the "international" not as an arena where certain phenomena are defined and disseminated into local contexts, but as constructed in the very local as various internationalities, we challenge impact-models that seek a path from the global down to the local. We approach our aim by focusing curriculum work in a field of education that by the character of its subjects has a deep interest in relating to the "international". By asking the subject matter and didactic question of how global literacy is to be developed in social studies in secondary education, we investigate, through discourse analysis, the construction of a world-level that obviously makes such competencies necessary from the perspective of curriculum makers. We argue that such constructions differ regarding both levels of curriculum work and national contexts. A comparison of three countries, presenting three different traditions of curriculum work, will become an analytical device to understand the impact of the contexts both internationally and nationally. Our empirical study will comprise in all cases analyses of governmental documents concerning social science education, curriculum, syllabi and/or national standards and complementary materials. Furthermore, we will self-reflecting publicistic work of teachers in each of the subjects (teacher journals) and conduct focus group interviews with teachers. The data will cover all relevant levels of curriculum work.


This paper introduces and experimentally verifies a method for robust, active control of friction reduction in microchannels, enabling new flow control applications and overcoming previous limitations with regard to sustainable liquid pressure. The air pockets trapped at a superhydrophobic micrograting during liquid priming are coupled to an actively controlled pressure source, allowing the pressure difference over the air/liquid interface to be dynamically adjusted. This allows for manipulating the friction reduction properties of the surface, enabling active control of liquid mass flow through the channel. It also permits for sustainable air lubrication at theoretically unlimited liquid pressures, without loss of superhydrophobic properties. With the non-optimized grating used in the experiment, a difference in liquid mass flow of 4.8% is obtained by alternatively collapsing and recreating the air pockets using the coupled pressure source, which is in line with a FE analysis of the same geometry. A FE analysis of a more optimized geometry predicts a mass flow change of over 30%, which would make possible new microfluidic devices based on local friction control. It is also experimentally shown that our method allows for sustainable liquid pressure 3 times higher than the Laplace pressure of a passive device.


Recently a Resistive Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) package has been added to the KULL code. In order to be compatible with the underlying hydrodynamics algorithm, a new sub-zonal magnetics discretization was developed that supports arbitrary polygonal and polyhedral zones. This flexibility comes at the cost of many more unknowns per zone - approximately ten times more for a hexahedral mesh. We can eliminate some (or all, depending on the dimensionality) of the extra unknowns from the global matrix during assembly by using a Schur complement approach. This trades expensive global work for cache-friendly local work, while still allowing solution for the full system. Significant improvements in the solution time are observed for several test problems.


Abstract Multi-conductor transmission line and interconnect carry signals with wide rage of frequencies from sending end to receiving end. The signal in one transmission line may be interupted by the unwanted contributions from the neighboring line conductors. If data speed increases, high frequency effects occur and the signals suffer from difficulties such as ringing, crosstalk, reflections, and ground bounce that seriously hamper the quality of the received signal. In order to estimate the signal quality, signal integrity analysis is needed. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the sensitivity of the near and far end crosstalk on the parameters such as physical geometry of the conductors, electrical property of the substrate and the rise and fall time of excitation signal. The method of moments (MOM) is used to calculate the line parameters for different geometries. The simulation studies are carried out in TNT. The time domain and frequency domain analyses are performed using transmission line model of PSPICE. Moreover, a model is developed and tested in the laboratory. It is observed that the coupling inductance and capacitance vary with the variation of physical geometry and the substrate parameter. Abstract Multi-conductor transmission line and interconnect carry signals with wide rage of frequencies from sending end to receiving end. The signal in one transmission line may be interupted by the unwanted contributions from the neighboring line conductors. If data speed increases, high frequency effects occur and the signals suffer from difficulties such as ringing, crosstalk, reflections, and ground bounce that seriously hamper the quality of the received signal. In order to estimate the signal quality, signal integrity analysis is needed. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the sensitivity of the near and far end crosstalk on the parameters such as physical geometry of the conductors, electrical property of the substrate and the rise and fall time of excitation signal. The method of moments (MOM) is used to calculate the line parameters for different geometries. The simulation studies are carried out in TNT. The time domain and frequency domain analyses are performed using transmission line model of PSPICE. Moreover, a model is developed and tested in the laboratory. It is observed that the coupling inductance and capacitance vary with the variation of physical geometry and the substrate parameter.


We empirically assess the sources of fluctuations in the real exchange rates of four high inflation countries, for which monetary shocks are generally believed to be predominant. In a benchmark model we identify fiscal, monetary, and output shocks based on a general-equilibrium optimizing model. We then estimate two alternative extensions. In the first, we decompose the output shock into supply and demand disturbances; in the second, the monetary shock is further decomposed into money supply and nominal exchange rate disturbances. Monetary shocks are found to be generally significant. Real shocks, especially those associated with government policy restrictions on the flow of currency, income from foreign investments, capital, and/or goods, are uniformly more influential however. The paper suggests that analyses of real exchange rates in high inflation economies using models emphasizing monetary shocks and sticky prices could be improved by not negtecting real shocks.


At the turn of the century, I undertook an assessment of the then current state of workplace rights and obligations. I concluded that the balance of power between employers and workers was "badly skewed" in favor of employers. This article revisits that topic for the purpose of assessing twenty-first century trends through the lens of six workplace dimensions. They are: workforce attachment, union-management relations, employment security, income inequality, balancing work and family, and retirement security. An examination of these dimensions reveal that the status of U.S. workers has significantly declined during the first sixteen years of the twenty-first century. This article then sets out a proposed agenda for reform designed to recalibrate the current imbalance in the respective fortunes of employees and employers.


We formulate a new problem as Object Importance Estimation (OIE) in on-road driving videos, where the road users are considered as important objects if they have influence on the control decision of the ego-vehicle's driver. The importance of a road user depends on both its visual dynamics, e.g., appearance, motion and location, in the driving scene and the driving goal, e.g., the planned path, of the ego vehicle. We propose a novel framework that incorporates both visual model and goal representation to conduct OIE. To evaluate our framework, we collect an on-road driving dataset at traffic intersections in the real world and conduct human-labeled annotation of the important objects. Experimental results show that our goal-oriented method outperforms baselines and has much more improvement on the left-turn and right-turn scenarios. Furthermore, we explore the possibility of using object importance for driving control prediction and demonstrate that binary brake prediction can be improved with the information of object importance.


This research project investigated the pattern-producing Belousov- Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction under flow using a combination of optical and magnetic resonance (MRI) imaging techniques. The coupling between reaction-diffusion and advection was studied in three distinct systems. Stationary flow-distributed oscillation (FDO) patterns, previously only observed in packed bed reactors, were produced in alternative flow fields for the first time. The two systems studied have allowed greater insight into the structure, dynamics and stability of the patterns. Plug-like flow was produced with an agar gelling agent and in a vortex flow reactor (VFR). The agar system allowed the production of FDO patterns in the absence of a packing material and could be forced by a periodic change in reaction temperature. Synchronisation was found in space-time but not time. This was in contrast to previous investigations, where periodic illumination resulted in the observation of synchronous behaviour. The VFR provided a flow field which was able to produce stationary and travelling patterns. The complex structure of the stationary bands was explained by the flow, in which Taylor vortices translate axially up the tube in an approximation of plug flow. The rotation rate of the inner cylinder was identified as a new parameter for control of both the stability and wavelength of FDO patterns. Optical imaging was able to probe the bulk behaviour of propagating waves through three-dimensional Taylor vortices but was unable to probe the wave propagation mechanisms. It was found however, that magnetic resonance imaging was able to visualise the behaviour of the chemical waves within the Couette cell in order to elucidate the wave behaviour. In conjunction with this MR velocity and diffusion imaging were able to characterise the flow within the Taylor vortices. The combination of these two methods uniquely allowed the behaviour of these travelling waves to be explained in terms of the flow within the system.


The Intellectual Property Clause of the United States Constitution grants Congress power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This essay investigates the issues raised by Eldred v. Ashcroft, in which the Supreme Court may decide whether the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) exceeds Congress's authority under that clause. The essay frames the issues in Eldred v. Ashcroft by discussing the history of copyright legislation in general and the CTEA in particular and then summarizing the procedural history of Eldred v. Ashcroft. The essay then undertakes a detailed investigation of the text of the Intellectual Property Clause, with a special emphasis on the interpretation of the Clause by the first Congress and early judicial decisions. Three elements of the constitutional text have important implications for the Supreme Court's decision in Eldred. First, the Copyright Clause empowers Congress to pursue the goal of promoting the progress of science. This goal is integral to the grant of power to Congress and does not constitute a hortatory preamble. Second, the meaning of science that best coheres with the constitutional text and the original understanding can be glossed as systematic knowledge or learning of enduring value. This understanding of the meaning of "science" is confirmed by Clayton v. Stone, the earliest federal case to undertake a substantive evaluation of the meaning of the phrase "promote the progress of science." Third, if the limited times restriction is to impose a meaningful limit on Congress's power, the most plausible constructions are inconsistent with either a term of life plus seventy years or with retroactive extensions, or both. If the phrase "limited times" is construed to limit terms in relationship to the grant of exclusive rights to authors, then a grant of life plus seventy years is, in relationship to the outer limits of the productive life of authors, unlimited. If the phrase "limited times" is construed to require definite or certain terms, then the retroactive extension of terms on a wholesale basis is unlimited. Finally, the essay provides a reader's guide to the issues raised both by the parties and by scholars. Among these topics are the tier of scrutiny to be applied to congressional exercise of the copyright power, the question whether retroactive extensions of copyright terms can promote the progress of science, an analysis of the economic effects of the CTEA's extensions of copyright terms, a discussion of the "limited times" constraint in the intellectual property clause, and an investigation of the first amendment implications of the CTEA. This article and the scholarly work upon which it comments may be found in the symposium, "Eldred v. Ashcroft: Intellectual Property, Congressional Power, and the Constitution," in Volume 36 of the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review.


It is shown how to test revealed preference data on choices under uncertainty for consistency with first and second order stochastic dominance (FSD or SSD). The axiom derived for SSD is a necessary and sufficient condition for risk aversion. If an investor is risk averse, stochastic dominance relations can be combined with revealed preference relations to recover a larger part of an investor's preference. Interpersonal comparison between investors can be based on intersections of revealed preferred and worse sets. Using a variant of Yaari's (1969) defi nition of more risk averse than, it is shown that it is sufficient to compare only the revealed preference relations of two investors. This makes the approach operational given a finite set of observations. The central rationalisability theorem provides strong support for this approach to comparative risk aversion. The entire analysis is kept completely nonparametric and can be used as an alternative or complement to parametric approaches and as a robustness check. The approach is illustrated with an application to experimental data of by Choi et al. (2007). Most subjects come close to SSD-rationality, and most subjects are comparable with each other. The distribution of risk attitudes in the population can be described by comparing subjects' choices with any given preference, which is also illustrated.


We present an extension of the PatchworkMHD code [1], itself an MHD-capable extension of the Patchwork code [2], for which several algorithms presented here were co-developed. Its purpose is to create a multipatch scheme compatible with numerical simulations of arbitrary equations of motion at any discretization order in space and time. In the Patchwork framework, the global simulation is comprised of an arbitrary number of moving, local meshes, or patches, which are free to employ their own resolution, coordinate system/topology, physics equations, reference frame, and in our new approach, numerical method. Each local patch exchanges boundary data with a single global patch on which all other patches reside through a client-router-server parallelization model. In generalizing Patchwork to be compatible with arbitrary order time integration, PatchworkMHD and PatchworkWave have significantly improved the interpatch interpolation accuracy by removing an interpolation of interpolated data feedback present in the original Patchwork code. Furthermore, we extend Patchwork to be multimethod by allowing multiple state vectors to be updated simultaneously, with each state vector providing its own interpatch interpolation and transformation procedures. As such, our scheme is compatible with nearly any set of hyperbolic partial differential equations. We demonstrate our changes through the implementation of a scalar wave toy-model that is evolved on arbitrary, time dependent patch configurations at 4th order accuracy.


With advances in biology and medicine, there is a need for new decision support systems that can integrate the knowledge of these domains and enhance the decision making process. Several issues need to be addressed before we can design an intelligent biomedical decision support system. With rapid speed of development and innovation, biomedical information is continuously changing, so systems adaptive to change in knowledge are needed. Furthermore, successful integration of knowledge from experimental data as well as that stored in textual databases is needed. In this paper, we discuss some of the challenges in an adaptive modeling framework for complex systems. We focus on systems biology and discuss the challenges in two aspects – modeling from experimental data and modeling from scientific text articles. Firstly, we focus on learning from experimental data and address why adaptive behaviour is required. Secondly, we discuss the importance of having a general adaptive system that may be able to extract knowledge from text for several domains rather than one specific domain as is done in most of the current state-of-the art systems.


Ageing is associated with a decline in daily functioning and mobility. A physically active life and physical exercise can minimize the decline of daily functioning and improve the physical-, psychological- and social functioning of older adults. Despite several advantages of group-based exercise programs, older adults participating in such interventions often do not meet the frequency, intensity or duration of exercises needed to gain health benefits. An exercise program that combines the advantages of group-based exercises led by an instructor with tailored home-based exercises can increase the effectiveness. Technology can assist in delivering a personalized program. The aim of the study was to determine the susceptibility of older adults currently participating in a nationwide group-based exercise program to such a blended exercise program. Eight focus-groups were held with adults of 55 years of age or older. Two researchers coded independently the remarks of the 30 participants that were included in the analysis according to the three key concepts of the Self Determination Theory: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The results show that maintaining self-reliance and keeping in touch with others were the main motives to participate in the weekly group-based exercises. Participants recognized benefits of doing additional home-based exercises, but had concerns regarding guidance, safety, and motivation. Furthermore, some participants strongly rejected the idea to use technology to support them in doing exercises at home, but the majority was open to it. Insights are discussed how these findings can help design novel interventions that can increase the wellbeing of older adults and preserve an independent living.


The purpose to this article is two-fold: First, to draw a map of the birth and development of design from the specific point of view: the concept of deterritorialization. Second, to address the present day situation of design through the deleuzian concept of "abstract machines". The aim is respectively to more precisely specify the ultimate state of deterritorialization, and more importantly to uncover how these machines can advance the potentials of design by constituting becomings.


Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHOD) from Escherichia coli is a monomeric membrane-associated flavoprotein that catalyzes the oxidation of dihydroorotate to orotate. By using confocal fluorescence spectroscopy on the highly fluorescent Tyr318Leu DHOD mutant, we studied the catalytic turnover of single enzyme molecules through the characteristic on-off fluorescence signal, which corresponds to flavin mononucleotide (FMN) interconverting between the oxidized and reduced states during turnover. Our single-molecule data provide evidence of a distinct static heterogeneity in the enzymatic activity, with some molecules going through the on-off cycles 5-fold faster than others, however, there is no detectable dynamic disorder in DHOD turnover. When 0.1% reduced Triton X-100, a detergent that more closely simulates the natural membrane environment, is added, our data suggest the degree of static molecular heterogeneity is reduced. The observation of static heterogeneity suggests that the enzyme, which associates with the membrane in vivo, is present in distinct conformations that result in different catalytic efficiencies. The alternate conformations are most likely the result of the loss of van der Waals or other interactions between tyrosine 318 and FMN in the catalytic site with the mutation of Tyr318Leu, which disrupts the native structure of wild-type DHOD.


The European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) is a typical inhabitant of the steppe but it also occurs in a variety of man-made habitats such as pastures, lawns or sports fields. In our study we attempt to present a complete survey of vegetation types and environmental conditions on recent ground squirrel localities in the Czech Republic. We carried out vegetation research of 42 localities and recorded 110 phytocoenological relevés at the sites recently occupied by ground squirrels. The relevés were classified using the TWINSPAN classification and general patterns of vegetation were analysed using the principal component analysis (PCA). Environmental factors were assessed using the Ellenberg indicator values. The classification analysis showed six distant groups of relevés/vegetation types (in descending order according to group size): (i) Cynosurus pastures, (ii) Undifferentiated grasslands, (iii) Xerophilous ruderal vegetation with biennial and perennial species, (iv) Xerophilous natural grasslands, (v) Annual vegetation of arable land, and (vi) Acidophilous grasslands on shallow soils. The PCA showed relation, although limited, of the ground squirrel occurrence to three groups of plant species characterized by (i) Lolium perenne, (ii) Festuca rupicola, and (iii) Poa angustifolia and Festuca rubra agg. The Ellenberg indicator values characterized vegetation present at ground squirrel localities as hemi-heliophilous, sub-atlantic and adapted to average temperature and lower humidity conditions. The soil productivity and soil reaction values were considerably variable. occurrence of the European ground squirrel in the Czech Republic thus seems to be related rather to low vegetation cover than to habitats possessing some specific plant species or vegetation types.


An apparatus for extracting organic compounds from soils, sands, and other solid matrix materials utilizes water at subcritical temperature and pressure as a solvent. The apparatus, called subcritical water extractor (SCWE), is a prototype of subsystems of future instrumentation systems to be used in searching for organic compounds as signs of past or present life on Mars. An aqueous solution generated by an apparatus like this one can be analyzed by any of a variety of established chromatographic or spectroscopic means to detect the dissolved organic compound( s). The apparatus can be used on Earth: indeed, in proof-of-concept experiments, SCWE was used to extract amino acids from soils of the Atacama Desert (Chile), which was chosen because the dryness and other relevant soil conditions there approximate those on Mars. The design of the apparatus is based partly on the fact that the relative permittivity (also known as the dielectric constant) of liquid water varies with temperature and pressure. At a temperature of 30 C and a pressure of 0.1 MPa, the relative permittivity of water is 79.6, due to the strong dipole-dipole electrostatic interactions between individual molecular dipoles. As the temperature increases, increasing thermal energy causes increasing disorientation of molecular dipoles, with a consequent decrease in relative permittivity. For example, water at a temperature of 325 C and pressure of 20 MPa has a relative permittivity of 17.5, which is similar to the relative permittivities of such nonpolar organic solvents as 1-butanol (17.8). In the operation of this apparatus, the temperature and pressure of water are adjusted so that the water can be used in place of commonly used organic solvents to extract compounds that have dissimilar physical and chemical properties.


The number of domestically educated overseas graduates remaining in Australia after graduation has risen significantly since 2007. There is growing evidence to suggest that overseas graduates have a high probability of being employed in lower-skilled jobs that do not match their educational qualifications. A lack of spatial flexibility in terms of geographic mobility underlies this outcome. Prior work has examined the role of long-distance commuting in reducing the chance of experiencing an education_–job mismatch, but there is limited empirical research on the way migration acts as a strategy to overcome this misalignment. Compared to long-distance commuting, migration enables a larger geographical scope of job search and thus is regarded as offering a greater potential in mitigating education–job mismatch. Drawing on annual data from the Australian Graduate Survey between 2008 and 2012, this chapter examines the role of internal migration in lowering the likelihood of overseas graduates experiencing an education–job mismatch. Results highlight that migration leads to a reduction of education–job mismatch among overseas graduates. Nonetheless, the extent of this impact is marginal, lowering the probability by only 2–3 per cent. This modest effect is attributed to the tendency of overseas graduates to echo the settlement patterns of long-standing migrants and relocate to metropolitan regions that typically have a higher incidence of education–job mismatch.


The causes of the Dakota Conflict are many and complex. The treaties of 1851 and 1858 contributed to tensions by undermining the Dakota culture and the power of chieftains, concentrating malcontents, and leading to a corrupt system of Indian agents and traders. Annuity payments reduced the once proud Dakota to the status of dependents. Annuity payments for the Dakota were late in the summer of 1862. On Sunday, August 17, four Dakota from a breakaway band of young malcontents were on a hunting trip when they came across some eggs in a hen's nest along the fence line of a settler's homestead. When one of the four took the eggs, another of the group warned him that the eggs belonged to a white man. The first young man became angry, dashed the eggs to the ground, and accused the other of being afraid of white men, even though half-starved. Apparently to disprove the accusation of cowardice, the other Dakota said that to show he was not afraid of white men he would go the house and shoot the owner. He challenged the others to join him. Minutes later three white men, a white woman, and a fifteen-year old white girl lay dead. Events moved quickly. Forty-four Americans were killed and another ten captured in the first full day of fighting in and around the Lower Agency at Redwood. Nearly two hundred additional whites died over the next few days as Dakota massacred farm families and attacked Fort Ridgely and the town of New Ulm. By mid-September, the initiative had shifted to the American forces. Penned in to the north and south, facing severe food shortages and declining morale, many Dakota warriors chose to surrender. Together with those taken captive, the ranks of Dakota prisoners soon swelled to 1,250. A decision had to be made soon what to do with them. The trials were quick affairs, getting quicker as they progressed. The commission heard nearly forty cases on November 3, the last day it met. The commission believed that mere participation in a battle justified a death sentence, so in the many cases, perhaps two-thirds of the total, where the prisoner admitted firing shots it proceeded to a guilty verdict in a matter of a few minutes. The final decision on whether to go ahead with the planned mass execution of the 303 Dakota and mixed-bloods rested with President Lincoln. Lincoln asked his clerks to search the records and identify those convicted of participating in the massacres of settlers. The clerks came up with the thirty-nine names included in Lincoln's handwritten order of execution written on December 6, 1862.


The article explores the durability of Egypt's republican executive leadership and examines the strategies of survival employed by the three presidential regimes of the country from 1954 to 2000. The presidential regimes of Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser, Anwar al-Sadat and Husni Mubarak were compared. Strategic patterns of each president were identified under the concepts of containment, repression and external diversion. The article further shed light on the strategies of political survival which are common in other developing countries. It gave a view on the effect of these survival strategies on plans for change and development.


Background It remains largely unknown where and how infections with soil-transmitted helminths (STHs; Ascaris, Trichuris, Necator and Ancylostoma) occur. We therefore aimed to identify possible sources of infection by assessing the environmental contamination in an STH-endemic area. Methods We first performed a series of laboratory experiments designed to optimize a soil straining-flotation method to detect and quantify Ascaris and Trichuris eggs in soil, and to validate the diagnostic performance of the optimized method when followed by microscopy and qPCR. In a second phase, we applied this method to assess the level of STH contamination in 399 environmental samples collected from 10 school compounds, 50 households and 9 open markets in Jimma Town (Ethiopia). Subsequently, we explored associations between the environmental contamination and both the corresponding STH epidemiology at the level of the schools and the household characteristics. Finally, we assessed the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) towards STHs in school children. Principal findings Our soil straining-flotation method has an analytical sensitivity of 50 eggs per 100 grams of soil and egg recovery rate of 36.0% (Ascaris) and 8.0% (Trichuris). The analysis of field samples with both microscopy and qPCR revealed the presence of 8 different helminth species of medical importance, including but not limited to the human STHs. There was a significant association between the environmental contamination and prevalence of any STH infections at the school level only. The KAP indicated a lack of knowledge and awareness of STHs. Conclusions/Significance Our optimized straining-flotation method has a moderate diagnostic performance and revealed that life stages of helminths are ubiquitous in the environment, which might be due to the poor sanitary facilities at both the schools and the households, and a poor level of KAP towards STHs. Further research is required to gain more insights into the contribution of these life stages to transmission.


The Neoproterozoic Timanide Orogen of eastern Baltiea extends from the high Arctic to the southern Ural Mountains and represents significant crustal growth of the northeastern European continental margin in the late Neoproterozoic. This volume, a co-operation between Western European and Russian scientists within the framework of the European Science Foundation's EUROPROBE programme, provides a comprehensive overview of the orogen and represents a new synthesis of Timanian Orogeny. It includes: the pre-Timanian passive margin deposits of the northern and northeastern flank of the East European Craton; the magmatic, metamorphic and structural evolution of the orogen across the Timan Mountain and Pechora Basin regions to the Ural Mountains; the post-Timanian platform successions, important for interpreting the timing of orogeny and the return to an early Palaeozoic passive margin setting; and the extension of the orogen northwards to Novaya Zemlya. Relationships westwards to the Caledonides of Greenland and Scandinavia and eastwards to the Baikalides of Siberia are also treated. This volume will be of interest to geoseientists, students and researchers concerned with orogenic processes and regional tectonics.


Systems whose organization displays causal asymmetry constraints, from evolutionary trees to river basins or transport networks, can often be described in terms of directed paths on a discrete set of arbitrary units including states in state spaces, feed-forward neural nets, the evolutionary history of a given collection of events or the chart of computational states visited along a complex computation. Such a set of paths defines a feed-forward, acyclic network. A key problem associated with these systems involves characterizing their intrinsic degree of path reversibility: given an end node in the graph, what is the uncertainty of recovering the process backwards until the origin? Here, we propose a novel concept, topological reversibility, which is a measure of the complexity of the net that rigorously weights such uncertainty in path dependency, quantifying the minimum amount of information required to successfully reverse a causal path. Within the proposed framework, we also analytically characterize limit cases for both topologically reversible and maximally entropic structures. The relevance of these measures within the context of evolutionary dynamics is highlighted.


In this chapter, Jane Spiro explores a Creative Writing pedagogy in which the experienced writer and the second language learner writer meet in search of a second language writing voice. Drawing on the insights from an international group of undergraduate students at a UK university engaged in a creative writing component in their undergraduate program, Spiro suggests that the success of the project derives partly from its four-part cycle, entailing student choice of text, the articulation of reasons for their choice, applying their reading insights to writing creative texts of their own, and reflection on the process, and partly because students were participating in a writing community.


Background The NICE clinical guideline for chest pain of recent onset (NCG 95) published in March 2010 recommends diagnosing angina based on clinical assessment and likelihood of coronary artery disease (CAD). If the estimated likelihood of CAD is 61%–90%, coronary angiography should be offered. If 30%–60%, functional imaging should be offered, and if 10%–29%, CT calcium scoring should be offered. We determined the number and types of different investigations to diagnose coronary artery disease in patients referred with suspected cardiac pain before the publication of NCG 95 and compared this with the predicted investigations after the application of the guidelines. Methods Data was collected prospectively in a bespoke database for patients referred to the Rapid Access Chest Pain Clinic, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Patients with chest pain of suspected cardiac origin were referred from primary care between February 2002 and March 2010. Patients with previous MI, PCI or CABG were excluded. The analysis comprised 5598 men and women with no past history of coronary disease. Likelihood of CAD was calculated by the Pryor equation using the variables age, sex, type of chest pain (typical or atypical), ECG Q waves, smoking, hyperlipidaemia, diabetes and ST/T changes on ECG. The main outcome measures were actual and predicted future frequency of exercise tests, CT coronary angiograms, functional imaging tests and invasive coronary angiograms by pretest likelihood of coronary artery disease. Results The proportion of the study population before and after the guidelines undergoing exercise testing was 50.1% vs 0.0%; for calcium score/CT coronary angiography 0.0% vs 14.7%; for functional imaging 25.6% vs 13.4%; and for invasive coronary angiography 15.3% vs 25.8%. The proportion not requiring further testing was unchanged (30.0% vs 31.0%). Conclusions Application of NICE CG95 will change the investigation of patients with chest pain substantially. A significant reallocation of resources will be required. Exercise testing will be replaced by anatomic or functional imaging. CT coronary angiography will play an important role and replace functional imaging in some patients. Invasive angiography will take on a more important role in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. It will, however, empower us to reassure almost a third of referrals that they do not have angina on clinical assessment alone.


Sexuality has been linked to the human psyche since long before psychology was recognised as a science. It's one of most significant human drives. The pursuit and attainment of sex influences our sense of power and worth, and is closely linked to the human search for meaning. It's no wonder then that sexuality and mental illness are often intertwined. Individuals and groups who have struggles with sexual identity - particularly in the LGBT community - are more prone to depression and anxiety, as well as sexual dysfunction. As health practitioners, it's crucial to be sensitive to the context of an LGBT patient, and diagnose and treat accordingly.


Allele-specific signaling by different KRAS alleles remains poorly understood. The KRASG12R mutation displays uneven prevalence among cancers that harbor the highest occurrence of KRAS mutations: it is rare in lung and colorectal cancers (~1%), yet relatively common (~20%) in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), suggesting context-specific properties. We evaluated whether KRASG12R is functionally distinct from the more common KRASG12D or KRASG12V mutant proteins (KRASG12D/V). We found that KRASG12D/V but not KRASG12R drives macropinocytosis and that MYC is essential for macropinocytosis in KRASG12D/V but not KRASG12R-mutant PDAC. Surprisingly, we found that KRASG12R is defective for interaction with a key effector, p110a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3Ka, due to structural perturbations in switch II. Instead, upregulated KRAS-independent PI3Kg activity was able to support macropinocytosis in KRASG12R-mutant PDAC. Finally, we determined that KRASG12R-mutant PDAC displayed a distinct drug sensitivity profile compared with KRASG12D-mutant PDAC but is still responsive to the combined inhibition of ERK and autophagy.


Several aspects of the ground response to tunnel excavation in deep clay formations have been studied. Such strata may be only lightly overconsolidated and an unsupported tunnel could have a high stability ratio. Consequently, at large depths there may be construcz ion difficulties similar to those encountered in soft ground at shallow depths. Problems which may be encountered are squeezing ground, i.e. a continually increasing volume loss with time, and possible collapse after a 'stand-up' time. A range of parameters likely to influence the time dependent deformation behaviour at an unsupported tunnel face was investigated in a number of small scale model tunnel tests. The tests were performed in large cylindrical samples of kaolin clay under axisymmetric conditions, with measurement of tunnel face displacement and pore pressure changes in the clay. After removal of the tunnel face support, soil intruded into the tunnel at a rate which gradually increased with time until a constant rate was reached. The steadily increasing deformation was frequently associated with increasing pore pressures close to the tunnel face as water flow occurred towards the tunnel face due to the changed boundary conditions. Two parameters, the initial pore pressure in the soil and the initial load factor, were shown to have a major influence on the time dependent behaviour, and were incorporated into a new deformation time factor. Initial undrained pore pressure changes caused by the removal of tunnel face support have been compared with simplified closed form solutions for the thick cylinder and thick sphere analogue. As a result two zones were identified at the tunnel face, in which either approximately cylindrical or spherical behaviour was observed. The small scale tests were modelled numerically using the finite element program CRISP. Elasto-plastic soil behaviour and consolidation were included in the analyses. Although the predictions were affected by the complex geometry and boundary conditions of the model tests, the mechanics of the time dependent deformations were demonstrated. Deformations at the tunnel face were poorly predicted and pore pressure changes were confined to smaller zones than in the model tests. However, comparisons of the finite element predictions and the closed form solutions for the plastic zone were more favourable. Longe term pore pressure predictions showed only limited agreement with the experimental behaviour. For both the model tunnel and thick cylinder, CRISP predicted localized zones of softened soil close to the unsupported boundary which developed over a very short time period. The rapid local drainage implies that time dependent movements will be observed which are governed by changes in pore pressure and water flow.


Five patients with cubitus varus deformities from malunited childhood fractures had dislocation (snapping) of both the medial portion of the triceps and the ulnar nerve over the medial epicondyle. In addition to snapping, these patients had medial elbow pain or ulnar nerve symptoms. Cubitus varus shifts the line of pull of the triceps more medial, which can cause anteromedial displacement of the medial portion of the triceps during elbow flexion. The ulnar nerve is concomitantly pushed or pulled anteromedially by the triceps, and ulnar neuropathy may result from friction neuritis or from dynamic compression by the triceps against the epicondyle. Recognition of both the dislocating ulnar nerve and the snapping medial triceps is crucial in the successful treatment of this pathologic finding. In symptomatic individuals, we recommend either corrective valgus osteotomy of the distal humerus or partial excision or lateral transposition of the snapping medial triceps, or a combination of both. Alternatively, medial epicondylectomy can also eliminate the snapping. Transposition of the ulnar nerve can be performed for ulnar nerve symptoms and/or ulnar nerve instability. Using this approach, correction of the snapping and/or ulnar nerve symptoms was achieved in all cases.


Women and men work in occupations, industries, firms, and jobs that are predominantly occupied by workers of the same gender. We investigate if and to what extent the male-female wage gap can be accounted for by the degree of female segregation along these dimensions. Different from the previous literature, we use longitudinal data from a large employer-employee data set from Brazil (Relação Anual de Informações Sociais RAIS ) and employ various fixed effects models to control for unobserved heterogeneity across workers, establishments, and worker-establishment job matches. In sharp contrast to past studies, our results show that the wage effects of female segregation are rather small after controlling for these forms of unobserved heterogeneity.


Obesity is associated with an increased risk of severe Covid-19. However, the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in people with obesity is unknown. Here we studied the relationship between body mass index (BMI), hospitalization and mortality due to Covid-19 amongst 3.5 million people in Scotland. Vaccinated people with severe obesity (BMI>40 kg/m2) were significantly more likely to experience hospitalization or death from Covid-19. Excess risk increased with time since vaccination. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, we conducted a prospective longitudinal study of the immune response in a clinical cohort of vaccinated people with severe obesity. Compared with normal weight controls, six months after their second vaccine dose, significantly more people with severe obesity had unquantifiable titres of neutralizing antibody against authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, reduced frequencies of antigen-experienced SARS-CoV-2 Spike-binding B cells, and a dissociation between anti-Spike antibody levels and neutralizing capacity. Neutralizing capacity was restored by a third dose of vaccine, but again declined more rapidly in people with severe obesity. We demonstrate that waning of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-induced humoral immunity is accelerated in people with severe obesity and associated with increased hospitalization and mortality from breakthrough infections. Given the prevalence of obesity, our findings have significant implications for global public health.


To this date, it is difficult to find high-level statistics on YouTube that paint a fair picture of the platform in its entirety. This study attempts to provide an overall characterization of YouTube, based on a random sample of channel and video data, by showing how video provision and consumption evolved over the course of the past 10 years. It demonstrates stark contrasts between video genres in terms of channels, uploads and views, and that a vast majority of on average 85% of all views goes to a small minority of 3% of all channels. The analytical results give evidence that older channels have a significantly higher probability to garner a large viewership, but also show that there has always been a small chance for young channels to become successful quickly, depending on whether they choose their genre wisely.


Purpose To examine the effect of increases in payment for teaching on retention of primary care faculty, and to compare those faculty members' needs and rewards for teaching with objective data on retention. Method In 2006–2007, the authors compared retention rates of primary care clerkship preceptors at Harvard Medical School (1997–2006) when their stipends were raised from $600 to $900 (in 2003) and to $2,500 (in 2004), and when faculty received payment directly versus indirectly. A survey was sent to all 404 present and past living preceptors, who were asked to rank-order six factors in terms of (1) how much they needed each to continue teaching, and (2) each factor's contribution to their satisfaction with teaching. Results Retention rates varied from a high of 91% in 2006 to a low of 69% in 2000. Faculty were 2.66 times more likely (P < .0001) to return to teach in the highest pay period than the lowest, and faculty receiving direct payment were more likely to continue teaching than those receiving it indirectly. Only 8% of the 170 responding faculty ranked receiving the stipend as the most important factor in their continuing to teach; no one ranked it first as a source of satisfaction. However, 73% ranked having a good student first as a factor in continuing to teach; 82% ranked it first as a source of satisfaction. Conclusion Raising stipends was associated with increased retention, although faculty ranked stipend low in terms of what motivates them to continue teaching.


Creative professionals seeking the fastest, easiest way to learn design with Adobe Creative Cloud chooseDesignwithAdobe Creative Cloud: Classroom in aBookfrom the Adobe Creative Team. Project-based lessons show readers, step-by-step, the key techniques for working with multiple Adobeapplications. Readers learn what they need to know to create engaging layouts for print and web publishing. This completely revised edition covers new toolsand essential performance and workflow enhancements, including how to set up assets in Bridge CC, use Content-Aware tools on images and edit video inPhotoshop CC, create accurate image tracings in Illustrator CC, design print layouts and documents for mobile devices in InDesign CC, and build a website that works across desktop and mobile devices in Muse CC without writing code. Lesson files and assets are included as a download so readers can work step-by-step along with the book. The Classroom in a Book series is by far the best training material on the market. Everything you need to master the software is included: clear explanations of each lesson, step-by-step instructions, and the project files for the students. Barbara Binder, Adobe Certified Instructor, Rocky Mountain Training Classroom in a Book, the best-selling series of hands-on software training workbooks, helps you learn the features of Adobe software quickly and easily. Classroom in a Book offers what no other book or training program doesan official training series from Adobe Systems Incorporated, developed with the support of Adobe product experts


The biological properties of calcium phosphate-derived materials are strongly influenced by changes in Ca/P stoichiometry and grain size, which have not yet been fully elucidated to date. For this reason, the objective of this in vitro study was to understand osteoblast (bone forming cells) adhesion on nanoparticulate calcium phosphates of various Ca/P ratios. A group of calcium phosphates with Ca/P ratios between 0.5 and 2.5 were obtained by adjusting the Ca/P stoichiometry of the initial reactants necessary for calcium phosphate precipitation. For samples with 0.5 and 0.75 Ca/P ratios, tricalcium phosphate (TCP) and Ca(2)P(2)O(7) phases were observed. In contrast, for samples with 1.0 and 1.33 Ca/P ratios, the only stable phase was TCP. For samples with 1.5 Ca/P ratios, the TCP phase was dominant, however, small amounts of the hydroxyapatite (HA) phase started to appear. For samples with 1.6 Ca/P ratios, the HA phase was dominant. Last, for samples with 2.0 and 2.5 Ca/P ratios, the CaO phase started to appear in the HA phase, which was the dominant phase. Moreover, the average nanometer grain size, porosity (%), and the average pore size decreased in general with increasing Ca/P ratios. Most importantly, results demonstrated increased osteoblast adhesion on calcium phosphates with higher Ca/P ratios (up to 2.5). In this manner, this study provided evidence that Ca/P ratios should be maximized (up to 2.5) in nanoparticulate calcium phosphate formulations to increase osteoblast adhesion, a necessary step for subsequent osteoblast functions such as new bone deposition.


In this paper, we study the performance of the beaconing mechanism underlying active safety vehicular applications in presence of different levels of channel congestion. The importance of this study lies in the fact that channel congestion is considered a major factor influencing communication performance in vehicular networks, and that ours is the first investigation of the effects of congestion based on extensive, real-world measurements. We present a set of measurement-based models of the packet inter-reception time, and we show how these models can be used to estimate the application-level benefits, expressed in terms of increased reliability, of congestion control and of multi-hop propagation of situational information.


There has been an increased interest in true potato seeds (TPS) as planting material because of their advantages over seed tubers. TPS produced from a tetraploid heterozygous bi-parental population produces non-uniform segregating progenies, which have had limited uniformity in yield and quality in commercial cultivation, and, thus, limited success. Inbreeding depression and self-incompatibility hamper the development of inbred lines in both tetraploid and diploid potatoes, impeding hybrid development efforts. Diploid potatoes have gametophytic self-incompatibility (SI) controlled by S-locus, harboring the male-dependent S-locus F-box (SLF/SFB) and female-dependent Stylar-RNase (S-RNase). Manipulation of these genes using biotechnological tools may lead to loss of self-incompatibility. Self-compatibility can also be achieved by the introgression of S-locus inhibitor (Sli) found in the self-compatible (SC) natural mutants of Solanum chacoense. The introgression of Sli through conventional breeding methods has gained much success. Recently, the Sli gene has been cloned from diverse SC diploid potato lines. It is expressed gametophytically and can overcome the SI in different diploid potato genotypes through conventional breeding or transgenic approaches. Interestingly, it has a 533 bp insertion in its promoter elements, a MITE transposon, making it a SC allele. Sli gene encodes an F-box protein PP2-B10, which consists of an F-box domain linked to a lectin domain. Interaction studies have revealed that the C-terminal region of Sli interacts with most of the StS-RNases, except StS-RNase 3, 9, 10, and 13, while full-length Sli cannot interact with StS-RNase 3, 9, 11, 13, and 14. Thus, Sli may play an essential role in mediating the interactions between pollen and stigma and function like SLFs to interact with and detoxify the S-RNases during pollen tube elongation to confer SC to SI lines. These advancements have opened new avenues in the diploid potato hybrid.


A simple HPLC with UV detection method is developed and validated for determination of Bovine Serum Albumin and Myoglobin proteins in a standard solution of the two protein as well as in a plasma spiked with theses two proteins.Separation was achieved on a reversed-phase C18, 5.0 µm, 150mm ◊ 4.6 mm inner diameter column using a mobile phase consisting ofsolution A (900 mL of water, 100 mL Acetonitrile, 10 mL Trifluroacetic acid) and solution B (900 mL of ace tonitrile, 100 mL water, 10 mL Trifluroacetic acid) with gradient elution of 5 to 50% of solution B in 15 minutes . This new method is validated in accordance with requirements for new methods, which include accuracy, precision, selectivity, linearity and r ange, robustness, limit of detection and limit of quantitation. The method demonstrates good linearity over the range of 1 -1000 ppm for the two proteins with r 2 greater than 0.998.The percentage recovery of the method is within 97.9 to 102.0% for the twoproteins. Precision of this method reflected by relative standard deviation of the area of six replicate injections of each protein at five concentration levels (1.0, 100.0, 300.0, 500, and 1000.0 ppm) was found to be less than 2%. Limit of quantitation ofthe two proteins is low which enables the determination of these proteins at low concentration. OriginalResearch Article


Summary Lupins are important grain legume crops that form a critical part of sustainable farming systems, reducing fertilizer use and providing disease breaks. It has a basal phylogenetic position relative to other crop and model legumes and a high speciation rate. Narrow‐leafed lupin (NLL; Lupinus angustifolius L.) is gaining popularity as a health food, which is high in protein and dietary fibre but low in starch and gluten‐free. We report the draft genome assembly (609 Mb) of NLL cultivar Tanjil, which has captured >98% of the gene content, sequences of additional lines and a dense genetic map. Lupins are unique among legumes and differ from most other land plants in that they do not form mycorrhizal associations. Remarkably, we find that NLL has lost all mycorrhiza‐specific genes, but has retained genes commonly required for mycorrhization and nodulation. In addition, the genome also provided candidate genes for key disease resistance and domestication traits. We also find evidence of a whole‐genome triplication at around 25 million years ago in the genistoid lineage leading to Lupinus. Our results will support detailed studies of legume evolution and accelerate lupin breeding programmes.


Four steers were used in a three-period switchback design to determine effects of dry distillers grains fat level on digestibility. Forage based diets were supplemented with distillers grains with differing fat levels (6.9% or 13.3 % dry matter). Intake and digestibility of DM and organic matter did not differ between treatments. Neutral detergent fiber intake was less and digestibility tended to be less in steers supplemented with high fat distillers grains. Differences in fiber type and intake as well as fat intake may be responsible for the small difference in neutral detergent fiber digestibility.


This article examines how conflict in the country of origin interacts with other factors in shaping migrants' remittance-sending practices. Our data come from a survey of 10 immigrant groups in Norway and semi-structured interviews with Somali and Pakistani remittance-senders and receivers. First, we conduct an in-depth comparison to explore the differences in how Somali and Pakistani migrants decide about remittance-sending. Second, we use survey data on all 10 migrant groups to evaluate whether the differences that are not explained by socioeconomic characteristics, may partly reflect whether or not there is ongoing conflict in the country of origin. In our analyses we differentiate between (1) the effect of migrants' capacity to remit and their prioritizing of local and transnational expenditures, and (2) the impact of state collapse and absence of human security on migrants' and refugees' desire to remit. We find that ongoing conflict in the country of origin exerts an upward pressure on remittance-sending.


The objectives of econometric modeling of producer behavior are to determine the nature of substitution among inputs and outputs and of differences in technology, as well as the role of economies of scale in production. Recent advances in methodology, based on the dual formulation of the theory of production in terms of prices, have enabled econometricians to achieve these objectives more effectively. This volume summarizes the economic theory, the econometric methodology, and the empirical findings resulting from the new approach.


Calliandra calothyrsus is a tree legume native to Mexico and Central America. The species has attracted considerable attention for its capacity to produce both fuelwood and foliage for either green manure or fodder. Its high content of proanthocyanidins (condensed tannins) and associated low digestibility has, however, limited its use as a feed for ruminants, and there is also a widespread perception that wilting the leaves further reduces their nutritive value. Nevertheless, there has been increasing uptake of calliandra as fodder in certain regions, notably the Central Highlands of Kenya. The present study, conducted in Embu, Kenya, investigated effects of provenance, wilting, cutting frequency and seasonal variation both in the laboratory (in vitro digestibility, crude protein, neutral detergent fibre, extractable and bound proanthocyanidins) and in on-station animal production trials with growing lambs and lactating goats. The local Kenyan landrace of calliandra (Embu) and a closely-related Guatemalan provenance (Patulul) were found to be significantly different, and superior, to a provenance from Nicaragua (San Ramón) in most of the laboratory traits measured, as well as in animal production and feed efficiency. Cutting frequency had no important effect on quality; and although all quality traits displayed seasonal variation there was little discernible pattern to this variation. Wilting had a much less negative effect than expected, and for lambs fed calliandra as a supplement to a low quality basal feed (maize stover), wilting was actually found to give higher live-weight gain and feed efficiency. Conversely, with a high quality basal diet (Napier grass) wilting enhanced intake but not live-weight gain, so feed efficiency was greater for fresh material. The difference between fresh and wilted leaves was not great enough to justify the current widespread recommendation that calliandra should always be fed fresh.


Abstract The prognosis of giant cervical teratomas is determined by the severity of the associated airway obstruction. Ex-utero intrapartum treatment (EXIT) is a technique to establish a patent airway before completion of birth, while the infant remains on placental support. We present two cases of newborns with cervical teratomas treated with the EXIT procedure. In the first, this technique allowed a tracheotomy to be performed, and in the second, correction of tracheal displacement and subsequent nasotracheal intubation was achieved.