[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANNIE MCQUEEN, LIBRARIAN AT David Starr Jordan Middle School in the Palo Alto Unified School District in California, is used to figuring out creative ways of getting what her media center needs, even though her budget is minuscule. The state pays her about 70 cents per student per year for materials; disbursed among about 925 students, that's less than $700 a year. McQueen gets additional support from the funds generated by the couple of book fairs she hosts each year. Plus, she and her staff of two part-time assistants know how to write grants. In fact, it was a grant that enabled McQueen and her colleagues at two other middle schools in the district to fund the purchase of Gale references. Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, publishes a series of printed reference books that are also available online in a digital format, which libraries can make available to their students through a password-protected link. She calls it a "great way to get a 24/7 reference collection of quality information for middle schoolers." The initial price is hefty--about $200 to $300 a title, McQueen says. But after that, the connectivity fee is low--about $100 for 10 titles per year, she estimates. "I like that a lot," she says. "It's a print source, and students can use it at home." The three schools focused their selection on topics such as the Civil War and the American Revolution, because "that information is going to stay current for a long time," McQueen says. Newer topics--drugs, alternative energies--McQueen knows she will have to buy again in another five years, simply because the information will be out of date. To cover the initial purchase of 20 references, the three libraries submitted a joint grant application, which a local education association funded. Other grant sources included the local Parent Teacher Association and the district. According to McQueen, funding sources like to support collaborative grants, "where you're going across grade levels, across schools, across departments." With school budgets what they are--skimpy--it's McQueen's brand of vision, imagination, and resourcefulness that can be put to work in lieu of money to help establish and maintain a cutting-edge media center. With the right blend of these elements, plus a good portion of technical savvy, schools can still provide the most advanced technology tools available to augment their students' educational experience. Marshaling people and ideas is key. The Gale reference books investment wasn't the first collaboration among the three Palo Alto middle school librarians. They also jointly host a research website for students to use. The Palo Alto Middle School Libraries Research Center includes links to references, bibliography resources, online databases, topic links, and library links. The idea came to fruition several years ago, McQueen recalls. "I said we needed to have a list of good websites kids can go to [for research]," she says. Now the effort is linked to the public library, which expands the resources that can be offered. Each of the schools kicks in $500 a year to pay a parent to maintain the site, and the librarians meet a few times a year to work on new initiatives. "You tend to have more power, a stronger voice, if you're working together," says McQueen. That's how another affordable resource came about, one McQueen goes so far as to describe as "the best thing any media center could offer": Google Custom Search Engine. It's a service that allows users to create a search engine tailored to their needs by prioritizing search results based on web pages specified by those who set it up. Teachers can set up the search to only include specific sites, or the librarian can customize it for them. Within the physical library, McQueen has come upon another cost-saving trick. The library has two laptop carts, one with 10 Macs and the other with 15. …


[1] We present Cluster multisatellite observations of accelerated electrons in the near-Earth magnetotail associated with substorms. We found that the hardest electron energy spectra appear in the earliest stage of substorm expansion in the near-Earth tail region and that they gradually become softer during the events. Enhancement of the high-energy electron flux occurs generally associated with the bulk acceleration of ions (fast flow) and electrons. It is also shown that the high-energy electrons sometimes show preferential perpendicular acceleration associated with the temporal enhancement of the normal component of the magnetic field, and then the anisotropic distribution quickly becomes isotropic. During the dipolarization interval, in which no convection signature is observed, perpendicular flux drops to less than the initial value, and the parallel flux is more than the perpendicular flux. The results suggest that the electron acceleration mechanism is mostly consistent with adiabatic betatron acceleration, while Fermi acceleration is not clear in the high-energy part. The effect of the pitch angle scattering is also important. The dispersive signature of the high-energy electron flux indicates fast dawnward drift loss, namely, the three-dimensional effect of the limited plasma acceleration region.


This mini-review identifies and briefly describes a total of 12 published studies investigating aspects of war and civil heroism by analyzing larger data sets on documented historical cases of such behavior. Eleven of these studies focus on either Carnegie Medal or Medal of Honor recipients. These two most prominent data sources are briefly characterized and directions for future research are pointed out.


To meet the challenges of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) the potential for water treatment technologies to limit the release of key pollutants to receiving waters must be assessed. This paper investigates the potential for stormwater best management practices (BMPs) to remove priority substances (PS) and also examines the PS emission control impact of household greywater treatment systems. In both cases, there is a limited availability of treatment efficiency data. Therefore, a systematic unit operating approach has been developed for assessing the comparative pollutant removal potentials of different types of BMPs, and fugacity modelling applications have been used as a surrogate to investigate the likely fate of PS during greywater treatment. The results indicate that infiltration basins and sub surface flow constructed wetlands may be particularly useful for preventing stormwater PS from reaching surface waters. By comparison, technical greywater treatment (not involving land disposal) is unlikely to be of major benefit as a PS emission barrier.


Efficient exploration remains a challenging research problem in reinforcement learning, especially when an environment contains large state spaces, deceptive local optima, or sparse rewards. To tackle this problem, we present a diversity-driven approach for exploration, which can be easily combined with both off- and on-policy reinforcement learning algorithms. We show that by simply adding a distance measure to the loss function, the proposed methodology significantly enhances an agent's exploratory behaviors, and thus preventing the policy from being trapped in local optima. We further propose an adaptive scaling method for stabilizing the learning process. Our experimental results in Atari 2600 show that our method outperforms baseline approaches in several tasks in terms of mean scores and exploration efficiency.


This research aimed to establish the requirements for effective fluid flow in grinding and to improve the efficiency of the fluid delivery system (fluid delivery optimization). Highly efficient fluid delivery will lower grinding temperatures, reduce the risk of thermal damage and reduce wheel wear. The thesis describes the work completed in the investigation of the complex fluid flow that occurs in the region close to the grinding contact zone between the wheel and workpiece and the boundary layer phenomena around the periphery of the rotating grinding wheel. Studies on air scraper and shoe nozzle application are also presented. Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA) was employed to obtain a basic understanding of the flow velocity profile in the region close to the grinding contact zone in a low speed grinding system and key characteristics of the fluid flow under varying grinding conditions were identified. The mathematical formulae describing the air velocity distribution around the wheel have been derived from theory based on Newton's laws. Air boundary layer flow around the rotating grinding wheel was studied using LDA measurements and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation to get the air velocity distribution in varying conditions. The experimental results and the investigation made clear the contradictory knowledge relative to this issue and gave a full understanding of the air boundary layer flow. Air scrapers are used to reduce the effects of the air boundary layer. The effects of the size and position of the different scrapers on the air flow velocity and pressure distribution was investigated using CFD simulation. The research work provides a comprehensive assessment of the ability of the air scraper to reduce the intensity of the air boundary layer. The upper surface of the shoe nozzle can be regarded as an air scraper used to interrupt the air flow. Three different shoe nozzles were applied to investigate the fluid delivery situation using CFD simulation. Results from preliminary studies are presented for the shoe nozzle application. The effects of input fluid velocity, gap size and wheel speed on the pressure distribution along the arc of the gap are reported.


ARABIAN NIGHTS IN CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO THOUGH IT LIES JUST ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN FROM EUROPE, BARELY A STONE'S THROW FROM SPAIN'S SOUTHERNMOST TIP, MOROCCO COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE FARTHER AWAY. WITH ITS MOUNTAINOUS AND DESERT LANDSCAPES, LABYRINTHINE SOUKS, DELECTABLE CUISINE, EXQUISITE RUGS AND TEXTILES, VIBRANT MOSAICS, FRAGRANT ODORS, MESMERIZING MUSIC, AND WELCOMING PEOPLE, MOROCCO IS A MOST ALLURING AND TANTALIZINGLY EXOTIC DESTINATION. DIGGING A LITTLE DEEPER INTO THE MYTH OF MOROCCO, BARBARA AND RENE STOELTIE BRING US THIS ECLECTIC SELECTION OF HOMES THAT DEMONSTRATE ALL THAT IS MOST WONDERFUL ABOUT MOROCCAN STYLE. FLIPPING THROUGH THESE PAGES OF FAIRY TALE INTERIORS (IDEALLY WHILST SIPPING A STEAMING CUP OF SWEET, FRAGRANT MINT TEA) YOU'LL BE INSTANTLY TRANSPORTED.


Symbolic Trajectory Evaluation (STE) is a powerful technique for hardware model checking. It is based on combining 3-valued abstraction with symbolic simulation, using 0,1 and ("unknown"). The value is used to abstract away parts of the circuit. The abstraction is derived from the user's specification. Currently the process of refinement in STE is performed manually. This paper presents an automatic refinement technique for STE. The technique is based on a clever selection of constraints that are added to the specification so that on the one hand the semantics of the original specification is preserved, and on the other hand, the part of the state space in which the "unknown" result is received is significantly decreased or totally eliminated. In addition, this paper raises the problem of vacuity of passed and failed specifications. This problem was never discussed in the framework of STE. We describe when an STE specification may vacuously pass or fail, and propose a method for vacuity detection in STE.


The present study aimed to investigate whether university students' body avoidance behaviours could be predicted by their level of self-esteem, anxiety, and stress, as well as their BMI and gender. University students (N = 113) completed a self-report package and results indicated that anxiety was the most important predictor of body avoidance for university students. Gender was also predictive of avoidance for university students. Post Hoc analyses indicated that body avoidance, anxiety, stress, and BMI, were higher for female university students, yet no difference was found for self-esteem between genders. These results suggest preliminary evidence for the importance of elevated body avoidance behaviours and anxiety among university students as well as the influence of gender on body avoidance and psychosocial variables among university students.


We consider deterministic feasibility and time complexity of two fundamental tasks in distributed computing: consensus and mutual exclusion. Processes have different labels and communicate through a multiple access channel. The adversary wakes up some processes in possibly different rounds. In any round, every awake process either listens or transmits. The message of a process i is heard by all other awake processes, if i is the only process to transmit in a given round. If more than one process transmits simultaneously, there is a collision and no message is heard. We consider three characteristics that may or may not exist in the channel: collision detection (listening processes can distinguish collision from silence), the availability of a global clock showing the round number, and the knowledge of the number n of all processes. If none of the above three characteristics is available in the channel, we prove that consensus and mutual exclusion are infeasible; if at least one of them is available, both tasks are feasible, and we study their time complexity. Collision detection is shown to cause an exponential gap in complexity: if it is available, both tasks can be performed in time logarithmic in n, which is optimal, and without collision detection both tasks require linear time. We then investigate both consensus and mutual exclusion in the absence of collision detection, but under alternative presence of the two other features. With global clock, we give an algorithm whose time complexity linearly depends on n and on the wake-up time, and an algorithm whose complexity does not depend on the wake-up time and differs from the linear lower bound only by a factor O(log2 n). If n is known, we also show an algorithm whose complexity differs from the linear lower bound only by a factor O(log2 n).


Wireless sensor networks are a fast-growing class of systems. They offer many new design challenges, due to stringent requirements like tight energy budgets, low-cost components, limited processing resources, and small footprint devices. Such strict design goals call for technologies like nanometer-scale semiconductor design and low-power wireless communication to be used. But using them would also make the sensor data more vulnerable to errors, within both the sensor nodes' hardware and the wireless communication links. Assuring the reliability of the data is going to be one of the major design challenges of future sensor networks. Traditional methods for reliability cannot always be used, because they introduce overheads at different levels, from hardware complexity to amount of data transmitted. This paper presents a new method that makes use of the properties of sensor data to enable reliable data collection. The approach consists of creating predictive models based on the temporal correlation in the data and using them for real-time error correction. This method handles multiple sources of errors together without imposing additional complexity or resource overhead at the sensor nodes. We demonstrate the ability to correct transient errors arising in sensor node hardware and wireless communication channels through simulation results on real sensor data.


Pacific Island countries face a range of development challenges, including smallness, distance from major markets and capacity constraints. Regional service delivery, or pooling, has been advocated as a means of addressing these challenges. This article presents the findings from the first comprehensive study of pooling initiatives in the Pacific. It draws on a review of the literature pertaining to 20 pooling initiatives identified in the region and on interviews with stakeholders involved in many of those initiatives. The study finds that experience with pooling among Pacific Island countries has not met the optimistic expectations of advocates, including development partners. This is the result of the challenges inherent in voluntary regionalism, which are exacerbated by the diversity of Pacific Island states and political economy constraints. The article concludes that an incremental approach to expansion of regional service provision in the Pacific is both likely and appropriate given these factors.


The invention relates to an adjustable pinhole, especially for the illumination beam path and/or detection beam path of a laser scanning microscope. Said pinhole consists of at least two planar basic components comprising articulation points in the form of connecting elements, to which at least one cutting edge that can be displaced in one direction is applied. The basic components advantageously contain at least one integrated preferably optical or electromagnetic positioning element, and a device for preferably optical or electromagnetic position detection is provided on the blade or is connected to the same. The inventive pinhole is advantageously provided with two asymmetric openings oriented in opposite directions for the optical position detection and at least one light source radiates through said openings. A gap which is oriented preferably perpendicularly in relation to the direction of displacement is provided upstream or downstream of the openings and the quantity of light radiated through the gap is detected separately for each opening.


This DIY landmark tour is an alternative micro tour of a small area of Corporation St in North Belfast. The landmarks in question are seemingly unorthodox and frequently temporary. However they reflect some of the detail of this peripheral location which straddles Belfast city centre and the industrial dock area. This tour can be taken with or without a guide, just use the drawings to locate the landmarks and see if they are still there. Enjoy!O'Beirn's work frequently looks at the ways in which citizens come to know and shape their cities, the places where they live and work. In the past she has collected informal nicknames for city spaces, urban myths, and hand-drawn maps of the routes that people find through their cities. This project is part of 'Some Actions Around The Centrifugal Book of Europe. The Centrifugal Book of Europe is a 'map' of the social, cultural and political space of contemporary Europe, and of the phantasmic Europes that may yet be called into being. The members of Centrifugal are artists, educators, architects and theorists who have come together to investigate the spatial, political and economic forces producing contemporary ideas of Europe. Centrifugal Sequence VI is funded by the University of Ulster, Cultural Development Fund


Many recent works on deep speaker embeddings train their feature extraction networks on large classification tasks, distinguishing between all speakers in a training set. Empirically, this has been shown to produce speaker-discriminative embeddings, even for unseen speakers. However, it is not clear that this is the optimal means of training embeddings that generalize well. This work proposes two approaches to learning embeddings, based on the notion of dropping classes during training. We demonstrate that both approaches can yield performance gains in speaker verification tasks. The first proposed method, DropClass, works via periodically dropping a random subset of classes from the training data and the output layer throughout training, resulting in a feature extractor trained on many different classification tasks. Combined with an additive angular margin loss, this method can yield a 7.9% relative improvement in equal error rate (EER) over a strong baseline on VoxCeleb. The second proposed method, DropAdapt, is a means of adapting a trained model to a set of enrolment speakers in an unsupervised manner. This is performed by fine-tuning a model on only those classes which produce high probability predictions when the enrolment speakers are used as input, again also dropping the relevant rows from the output layer. This method yields a large 13.2% relative improvement in EER on VoxCeleb. The code for this paper has been made publicly available.


Women comprise an ever-increasing percentage of the candidate pool for elective office in the United States. Public opinion surveys profess strong support for female candidates, yet many of these same candidates still encounter skepticism (at best) or hostility (at worst) from the public. The role of candidate gender in elections is a complex one. Yet, our understanding of how voters react to these women is often based on election-specific, anecdotal, or hypothetical evidence. Voting for Women is one of the first book-length treatments of both how the public evaluates female candidates and whether and when people will support them at the polls. It also provides a history of women and elections in the U.S. and analysis of contemporary data on how voting environments can influence women's success.


Nitrogen concentrations were determined in the tops of 24 annual crop and pasture varieties grown together in ungrazed plots on a lateritic gravelly sand at Gidgegannup, W.A., and sampled at three stages during growth and at maturity. All legumes had higher nitrogen concentrations in the tops than all non-legumes, but considerable variation was evident within each group. Among pasture legumes, Ornithopus compressus and O. sativus had the highest concentrations, especially towards maturity, and Trifolium subterraneum cv. Yarloop and Clare the lowest. Nitrogen concentrations in all Lupinus spp. fell rapidly towards maturity, and they were unique in suffering substantial net nitrogen losses from the tops. The herb Erodium botrys grew better and took up more nitrogen under conditions of deficiency than did the grasses. Its nitrogen concentration was nevertheless very low. Among the grasses, Bromus rigidus consistently had the highest nitrogen concentration and Lolium rigidum the lowest. There was some evidence among non-legumes of a correlation between high nitrogen concentrations and/or total uptake and observed adaptation to sandy soils. The superior adaptation of legumes in the experimental environment was demonstrated. It is suggested that crop legumes could make a more important agronomic contribution than hitherto in this and similar environments.


Microscopic examination of sputum samples for the presence of Acid fast bacilli is still the mainstay for the rapid presumptive diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis though it lacks sensitivity. The objective of this study was to compare Ziehl Neelsen (ZN) staining with Auramine fluorochrome staining in the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB), to improve upon the sensitivity of sputum smear microscopy. All the positive smears by auramine staining were stained with ZN stain, for confirmation. A total 408 out of 2030 samples were smear positive. In the present study the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the auramine staining Vs ZN staining (under RNTCP) was found to be 100 vs. 85.8%, 99.8 vs 100%, 99.5 vs 100% and 100 vs 96.3% respectively. The present study clearly demonstrates the high sensitivity of auramine staining in comparison to ZN staining, though ZN staining is slightly more specific than the auramine staining for demonstration of acid fast bacilli in the direct sputum smear.


This paper evaluates the effect (in terms of private returns) of investment in education on wages in the rural Philippines. Statistical endogeneity of education in the wage function may result from (1) unobserved determinants of education that also influence wages and/or (2) measurement error. Panel data are used that provide relevant instruments, particularly distance to schools and measures of household resources, at the time of schooling, to endogenize investments in education while estimating wage functions. The estimated return to education increases more than 60 percent when education is endogenized. This increase is robust to the inclusion of a measure of health, models of selection into the sample, and measurement error. The paper suggests how heterogeneous returns to education might account for the magnitude of the downward bias in returns to schooling. CONTENTS Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v


At present, the early phase of Requirements Engineering is a new research area in the Software Engineering field. This phase is concerned with the analysis of the organizational context in which a software system will be used. The models used in this phase allow us to describe an organizational environment using actors, goals, business processes and relationships. The late phase of Requirements Engineering, which is focused on representing the expected functionality of the software system, is more developed, so there are multiple techniques and tools to describe the software system that will be developed inside its operational environment. However, although there are methodologies which give separate support to each phase of requirements engineering, the development of methods to derive late requirements from the early requirements in a methodological way has been neglected in recent research works. This is due, in great measure, to the large difference between the abstraction levels of these two specification models. The objective of this paper is to propose a pattern language which allows us to reduce the


The Prague-born poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) provides an important case study for the ambivalent appropriation of Christian discourse in modernist literature. His crowning poetic achievements of the Duino Elegies (1912-22) and the Sonnets to Orpheus (1922) are milestones in twentieth-century attempts to create a mythology that no longer relies on the philosophical and religious framework of Christianity. Yet in contrast to many other modernist writers, Rilke is still deeply involved in an (albeit discarded) Christian heritage. In this essay, I want to demonstrate that--paradoxically--he crucially draws on Christ imagery to express a post-Christian worldview. I offer an interpretation of two Rilke texts neglected by previous scholarship: Visions of Christ (1896-98) and The Letter of the Young Worker (1922). These texts, despite their status as "minor works," play a key role in Rilke's oeuvre. In the following, I present these two texts and show how they demonstrate Rilke's literary re-imagining and transformation of Christian tropes and narratives. (1) Much has been made of Rilke's intense Catholic upbringing. Critics have frequently admonished his mother, Sophie Rilke (1851-1931), for her alleged religious fanaticism in raising her only child. Various anecdotes have provided material for those who want to explain Rilke's "almost excessive anti-Christian attitude" (2) (letter to Marie von Thurn und Taxis, December 17, 1912 [Rilke Briefe 379]) by referring to harrowing childhood experiences. (3) But regardless of the possible biographical roots for Rilke's rejection of Christianity, his mother's efforts at providing a religious education did bear fruit in one respect: the ubiquitous presence of Christian imagery and narratives during his upbringing furnished Rilke with a point of reference against which he could develop his personal notions of the spiritual life. Visions of Christ Arguably, Visions of Christ represents Rilke's first substantial literary work. The eleven pieces that make up the cycle of narrative poems certainly do not possess the poetic finesse of the later New Poems, but in terms of original thought they are more compelling than the majority of the juvenilia written before the Book of Hours. This originality may be a result of the personal urgency with which the topic of religion presented itself to Rilke. From a biographical perspective, the cycle is of special significance because it provided Rilke with the occasion to come into initial contact with Lou Andreas-Salome (1861-1937), who for a brief time would become his lover and who remained a close friend and confidante throughout his life. In 1897, in his first letter to her, he praises her essay "Jesus the Jew," published the previous year. Two aspects of the essay may have particularly resonated with him. (4) Andreas-Salome places Jesus into the context of the this-worldliness of Judaism, which stands in stark contrast to the focus on the afterlife common to other religious traditions (Andreas-Salome 347). A similar rejection of a hereafter would become a recurring topic in Rilke's critique of Christianity. Furthermore, Andreas-Salome's essay conflates the religious and the aesthetic spheres: But it may happen that what a religious genius internally experiences on an individual and hidden level ... produces an absolutely appropriate articulation in words and images, so that, as in the work of a poet the highest artistic dream appears, the highest religious dream of humankind appears before us in complete perfection as if it were graspable and shaped [plastisch]. (344) In his response to Andreas-Salome, Rilke relates the essay to his work in progress, the Visions of Christ: Dr. Conrad sent me the April 96 issue of the Neue Deutsche Rundschau. A letter of Conrad pointed me to an essay in it, Jesus the Jew. Why? At the time, Dr. Conrad had read a few parts of my Christ-Visions (five are supposed to be published shortly in the "Gesellschaft") and assumed that sparkling essay would be of interest to me. …


Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits. By Benjamin Piekut. (California Studies in 20th-Century Music, 11.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. [x, 283 p. ISBN 9780520268500 (hardcover), $65; ISBN 9780520268517 (paperback), $24.95.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Experimentalism Otherwise focuses primarily on New York City and the year 1964. After a methodological "Introduction: What was Experimentalism?" (nineteen pages), Benjamin Piekut probes four seemingly unrelated events which might all be seen to share characteristics of experimentalism. One chapter each is devoted to these events: the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's performance of John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis ; Henry Flynt's protests against the avant-garde in New York City; Charlotte Moorman's Avant Garde Festi - vals; and the creation of the Jazz Composers Guild. Instead of a conclusion in the traditional sense of summarizing findings, Piekut ends his book by relating the idea of experimentalism to the American singer and songwriter Iggy Pop. Piekut begins his introduction by stating that this "book tells the stories of four disastrous confrontations within the world of New York experimentalism in 1964, plus one more about the extension of experimentalist techniques out of the city's avantgarde community and into the foreign realm of popular music a few years later" (p. 1). His approach is essentially to tell these "stories" in a new way; he explains that he "was guided to and through these stories by an appreciation of what the literary scholar Fred Moten refers to as 'the very intense relationship between experimentalism and the everyday' " (p. 1). This dichotomy-often identified as one of the defining characteristics of the "experimental art" of the late 1950s and the 1960s- can also be applied to this book. Piekut is aware of how storytelling requires the extraordinary (here the performance and conceptualization of music in time) against the backdrop of the ordinary. At the heart of this storytelling is the use of oral history and archival documents, as for instance in the first chapter, in which Piekut reassesses the conflict-rich performance of Atlas Eclipticalis by the New York Philharmonic. Piekut interviewed a number of former musicians of the orchestra, and juxtaposes their reminiscences of the rehearsals and performances. Previous retellings of this event seem oddly skewed towards the composer as victim and the orchestra musicians as "criminals"; such a black and white perspective is, in Piekut's work, less pronounced. The introduction suggests that this complex network of people creates tensions, which in turn produce what we can understand as experimentalism. However, Piekut is less concerned with placing events within historical developments, i.e., into a uniform and "canon-ized" historiography, than with providing a "fresh appraisal of 1960s experimentalism," of which the main task is "to register the ambivalence of the connections" between what he sees as "two avant-gardes" (p. 3). Crucially, the first section of the introduction ends on the question: "What was experimentalism?" (p. 5; emphasis in original). Although one can agree that the experimentalism of the 1960s is different from whatever moments of experimentalism occurred later, the manner in which Piekut discusses most other scholarly work on experimental music as ideologically and theoretically misguided is alarming. He is rightly unconvinced by the purely musical definitions of experimentalism, and he seems to think that experimentalism is a concept that can be easily related to very different approaches to making and conceptualizing music (which can also be seen in his choice of subject matters for his "stories": the avant-garde, popular music, and jazz). His use of the "umbrella term" of experimentalism feels to me, however, a bit too conceptual. If one follows Piekut's approach of seeing experimentalism primarily as a matter of potential groupings and conflict, e. …


Soil moisture and ocean salinity at surface level can be measured by passive microwave remote sensing at L‐band. To provide global coverage data of soil moisture and ocean salinity with three‐day revisit time, the Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) was selected by ESA (European Space Agency) in May 1999. SMOS' single payload is a Y‐shaped 2‐D aperture synthesis interferometric radiometer called MIRAS (Microwave Imaging Radiometer by Aperture Synthesis). SMOS presents some particular imaging peculiarities: variation of incidence and azimuth angles, different radiometric sensitivity and accuracy at each direction (pixels), and geometric polarization mixing. Therefore, the accuracy of the geophysical parameter retrieval depends on the knowledge of the angular dependence of the emissivity over a wide range of incidence and azimuth angles. The accuracy of the sea surface salinity retrievals depends on our capability to correct the wind‐induced variation of the brightness temperatures. To better understand wind effects, ESA sponsored the WInd and Salinity Experiment 2000 (WISE‐2000) from November 15, 2000, to January 16, 2001, in the Casablanca oil rig, at 40 km off the coast of Tarragona (Spain). This paper is divided into two parts. First, it presents the derived sensitivities of the brightness temperatures at vertical and horizontal polarizations with wind speed, and compares to Hollinger's measurements and numerical simulations. Second, these results are applied to the SMOS sea surface salinity (SSS) retrieval problem for different tracks within the swath. It is shown that, except for low SSS and sea surface temperature (SST), the retrieved SSS has a RMS error of approximately 1 psu in one satellite pass.


The third generation UMTS auction in Germany raised an enormous amount of revenue, and at the same time achieved a more competitive market structure than other UMTS auctions in Europe. The present paper explains the design of that auction, and presents a game theoretic explanation of observed events during the crucial phase of that auction, which have puzzled several observers. In addition, the paper evaluates the merit of the German UMTS auction design, relative to the English design, that was predominantly employed in Europe.


The Nursing Attention Process is a method of caregiving that employs scientific fundaments. Its use promotes reflexive assistance, critical thinking and is a primary source of autonomy in the profession, it is also linked to professional development in the education context. Nevertheless, there isn't enough evidence in Costa Rica to establish the characteristics of its application. Thus, a phenomenological qualitative study was conducted which proposed 1. To determine the meaning given by nursing students at the University of Costa Rica to the method's application. 2. To distinguish the manner in which it was being used. To do this, documents and interviews of a sample of 5th year nursing students were analysed. The results show that the way the method was conducted differed between participants and the meaning given to its use was related to three categories: knowledge, experience and teaching. In this study the meaning given to the implementation experiences and the way to use it as well as the difficulties with its use were understood. However, to understand the phenomenon in depth in Costa Rica, it is considered essential to continue with the exploration of the subject.


This article seeks to answer a fundamental antitrust question: does crime pay? Do the current overall levels of U.S. cartel sanctions adequately discourage firms from engaging in illegal collusion? Seven years ago our research showed that the unfortunate answer was clearly that, yes, criminal collusion usually is profitable! The expected costs (in terms of criminal fines and prison time, civil damages, etc.) was significantly less than expected gains to the price fixers. Sadly, the most recent data re-affirm this conclusion.

The great majority of companies participating in illegal cartels make a profit even after they pay all the penalties. The current level of sanctions is only 9 to 21 percent of optimality, so it follows that current overall sanction levels should be quintupled. To move modestly in this direction, we propose five specific recommendations. Only the first and possibly the last would require new legislation.

First, legislation should add prejudgment interest to both private treble damage actions and criminal fines. Second, the U.S. Sentencing Commission should double its current presumption that cartels raise prices by an average of 10 percent. (Hundreds of independent estimates show that median cartel overcharges since 1990 have averaged 23 percent, and the mean overcharge has been more than 35 percent for domestic cartels, and 56 percent for international cartels.) Third, the budget of the Antitrust Division should be increased significantly. Fourth, as Judge Douglas Ginsburg and others have recommended, the DOJ should insist, in its plea bargaining negotiations, that corporate defendants agree not to hire or re-hire anyone who has been convicted of price fixing for a specified (and long) period. Finally, the United States should implement a whistleblower reward or bounty system for individuals who turn in cartels.

Together, these proposals would more nearly deter price fixing optimally. They would save victimized consumers and businesses from paying billions of dollars per year in cartel overcharges.


In this study, the bases of the principle of early intervention have been examined. At-risk neonates should be assessed as early as possible via a preventive and therapeutic approach. Before the situation aggravates to such an extent that treatment administered has no effect, early intervention can in fact prevent a number of difficulties from taking place, which arise when the environment cannot be adapted to the at-risk neonates. During early childhood, the association of the child's developmental processes and the parent's available energy, resulting in development of the child's optimum potential, has in fact exceeded our expectations. The assessment of the infant's capacity to organize positive interaction experiences with a nurturing adult has led us to better understand the plasticity process which permits the neonate's recuperation form damage to the central nervous system (CNS). Informing the parents in question of our observations and approach in order to improve the child's behaviour has resulted in gained confidence and cooperation, and therefore optimum recuperation. Our assessments of normal and premature neonates have both for ourselves and the parents led to a better understanding of organization and ongoing development, which in early childhood may also include the direct interview procedure. In other words, assessment by observation of a neonate's state of health consists not only of evaluating organizational capacities connected with his or her present state, but also how the infant will affect parental attitudes, and in turn what the parents will have to do to organize the child. By sharing our assessment with the parents, and with close cooperation, we aid them in identifying the positive elements as well as the defects in the child's potential. Thus the parents can utilize their nurturing capacities in their relationship with the child to bring about the best recuperation possible. Repeated observations enable an evaluation to be made of the neonate's organizational capabilities during the recuperative period following birth, and adaptation to the new environment. Adopting the same procedure throughout the child's first year of life has permitted us to share with the parents observation of the child's progress, and to point out to them the effect that they have in this area. The above system has aided the parents by showing them that the child can be organized and that its health is recuperable, even after damage to the CNS or premature birth.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)


Purpose: Multiphoton-based intravital imaging has shown that invasive carcinoma cells in mouse and rat mammary tumors intravasate when associated with perivascular macrophages, identifying a potential tumor microenvironment of metastasis (TMEM). We define TMEM as the tripartite arrangement of an invasive carcinoma cell, a macrophage, and an endothelial cell. The aim of this study was to determine if TMEM density in human breast carcinoma samples predicts the development of systemic, hematogenous metastases. Experimental Design: A case-control study of 30 patients who developed metastatic breast cancer and 30 patients without metastatic disease was done. Cases were matched to controls based on currently used prognostic criteria. Paraffin-embedded primary breast cancer samples were stained using a triple immunohistochemical method allowing simultaneous identification of carcinoma cells, macrophages, and endothelial cells. Two pathologists, blinded to outcome, evaluated the number of TMEM per 20 high-power fields. Results: No association was seen between TMEM density and tumor size or grade, lymph node metastasis, lymphovascular invasion, or hormone receptor status. TMEM density was greater in the group of patients who developed systemic metastases compared with the patients with only localized breast cancer (median, 105 versus 50, respectively; P = 0.00006). For every 10-unit increase in TMEM density, the odds ratio for systemic metastasis was 1.9 (95% confidence interval, 1.1-3.4). Conclusions: TMEM density predicted the development of systemic, hematogenous metastases. The ability of TMEM to predict distant metastasis was independent of lymph node status and other currently used prognosticators. Quantitation of TMEM may be a useful new prognostic marker for breast cancer patients.


We express the gap probabilities of the tacnode process as the ratio of two Fredholm determinants; the denominator is the standard Tracy–Widom distribution, while the numerator is the Fredholm determinant of a very explicit kernel constructed with Airy functions and exponentials. The formula allows us to apply the theory of numerical evaluation of Fredholm determinants and thus produce numerical results for the gap probabilities. In particular we investigate numerically how, in different regimes, the Pearcey process degenerates to the Airy one, and the tacnode degenerates to the Pearcey and Airy ones.


This article examines the impacts of the financial, food and fuel crises on poor and vulnerable households in two states of Nigeria: Lagos and Kano. It uses retrospective household‐level data to analyze the impacts of induced price variability on household welfare. The results indicate that aggregate shocks have significant adverse effects on household consumption, schooling and child labour decisions, with a degree of impact heterogeneity across regions and rural and urban areas of the country. We find that the coping strategies adopted by the poor to deal with the short‐term effects of the crises can lock households in a low‐income equilibrium or poverty trap. Provided that covariate shocks exacerbate these effects, they become central for policy design.


Matchmaking arises when supply and demand meet in an electronic marketplace, or when agents search for a web service to perform some task, or even when recruiting agencies match curricula and job profiles. In such open environments, the objective of a matchmaking process is to discover best available offers to a given request.

We address the problem of matchmaking from a knowledge representation perspective, with a formalization based on Description Logics. We devise Concept Abduction and Concept Contraction as non-monotonic inferences in Description Logics suitable for modeling matchmaking in a logical framework, and prove some related complexity results. We also present reasonable algorithms for semantic matchmaking based on the devised inferences, and prove that they obey to some commonsense properties.

Finally, we report on the implementation of the proposed matchmaking framework, which has been used both as a mediator in e-marketplaces and for semantic web services discovery.


Purpose
To determine the constituents and origin of the yellow pigment in surgically removed lamellar hole-associated epiretinal proliferation (LHEP) in patients with lamellar macular hole (LMH).

Methods
This prospective case series comprised nine eyes with LMH in patients aged 41 to 83 years. The presence of LHEP was confirmed by preoperative optical coherence tomography; the distribution of macular pigment was observed by two-wavelength fundus autofluorescence technique before and after surgery. The subjects underwent a 25-gauge vitrectomy, and the surgically removed epiretinal membranous tissue was fixed with formalin. The specimens were examined using resonance Raman microscopy, and paraffin sections were stained with antiglial fibrillary acidic protein.

Results
Seven cases presented with LHEP, and the presence of yellow pigment was confirmed using an operating microscope. Carotenoid-specific Raman signals with three major Raman peaks could be identified in the specimens with LHEP. These specimens were positive for glial fibrillary acidic protein staining. Using the fundus autofluorescence technique, a central defect in the distribution of the macular pigment was noted in the exact area of the lamellar hole. This type of defect was no longer visible after surgical repair of the lamellar hole.

Conclusions
The constituents of the yellow pigment in the removed LHEP were carotenoids that typically originate from the macular xanthophyll pigments at the fovea. Since LHEP is reported to be composed of Müller cells, we hypothesize that xanthophyll carotenoids at the fovea are contained in the Müller cells.


Puerarin, as a novel oncotherapeutic agent, may exert anticancer effects and inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells. To explore the effects of puerarin on human bladder cancer cells, and to elucidate the potential mechanism underlying these effects, a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay was used to examine the proliferation of T24 and EJ cells following puerarin treatment. The effects of puerarin treatment on the cell cycle were detected by flow cytometry (FCM), while puerarin-induced cell apoptosis was detected by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling and FCM, and the cellular ultrastructural morphological changes were observed by transmission electron microscopy. Cell invasion was examined using a Transwell assay with Matrigel. The expression levels of mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), phosphorylated (p)-mTOR, p70-S6 kinase (p70S6K) and p-p70S6K proteins in the mTOR signaling pathway were then assessed by western blotting. The results demonstrated that puerarin may inhibit bladder cancer cell viability, block the cell cycle in the G0/G1 phase and induce apoptosis in bladder cancer cells. The expression levels of p-mTOR and p-p70S6K proteins were downregulated, while no change was observed in the expression levels of mTOR and p70S6K proteins when T-24 and EJ cells were treated by puerarin. In the present study, puerarin was demonstrated to inhibit the viability of human bladder cancer cells. These effects may be due to the puerarin-induced downregulation of proteins in the mTOR/p70S6K signaling pathway, and the present study may provide the experimental basis for puerarin to be considered as a promising novel anti-tumor drug for the treatment of bladder cancer.


Author(s): Mielke, Randall Edward | Advisor(s): Holden, Patricia A | Abstract: This research investigates the unique properties of nanomaterials (NMs) with highly catalytic surfaces that make them ideal for the production of organic molecules but also confer toxic properties of some NMs. Iron-sulphide NMs were used in a hydrothermal reactor that released hydrogen sulphide and other metal ions in the effluent, as analyzed by inductively-coupled plasma (ICP) spectrometry. Using an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM), iron sulphide NM surfaces indicate severe weathering as a result of environmental conditions including high pressure (100 bar H2) and moderate temperatures (130°C). The effluent's chemical properties from the reactor experiment generated chimney structures from newly formed iron-sulphide NMs in a ferrous rich `Hadean Ocean' solution. Using ESEM, we show that structural changes occur under different pHs, temperatures, and silicate concentrations. The presence of 5-mer peptides also shows distinct structural differences during the formation of iron-sulphide NM chimneys. Nano-titanium dioxide NMs (nTiO2) were used to show the toxicity of nTiO2 encrusted Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) fed to Tetrahymena thermophila (TT) protozoa under aerobic conditions. The control TT showed limited toxicity when grown in the presence of nTiO2, and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) revealed the initial accumulation of nTiO2 in food vacuoles (FVs) of control TT cells that were not observed in the TT grown with nTiO2-encrusted PA. After 22 h, very little nTiO2 is observed in the control TT FVs as compared with the TT grown with nTiO2-encrusted PA FVs which had about 30% of the FV filled with nTiO2. Toxicity to nTiO2 was observed as reduced growth yields for both the control and the PA fed TT, but also as a reduction in growth rate for TT grown with nTiO2-encrusted PA. To understand biological weathering of NMs, the use of STEM energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) was enhanced to analyze single nano-sized particles. Contamination studies using cadmium selenide (CdSe) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) NMs with PA showed that CdSe weathering occurred in the cytoplasm while CdTe weathering predominantly occurred when associated with the PA cell wall. PA was shown to produce CdSe NMs in the cytoplasm when grown with cadmium and selenite salts as revealed by STEM-EDS. The use of STEM-EDS on embedded samples makes it possible to analyze NM structures while in their experimental location.


Article history: Received April 20, 2012 Accepted 21 July 2012 Available online July 22 2012 Supplier selection is one of the most important decisions made in supply chain management. Supplier evaluation problem has been in the center of supply chain researcher's attention in these years. Managers regard some of these studies and methods inappropriate due to simple, weight scoring methods that generally are based on subjective opinions and judgments of decision maker units involved in the supplier evaluation process yielding imprecise and even unreliable results. This paper seeks to propose a methodology to integrate data envelopment analysis (DEA) and group analytical hierarchy process (GAHP) for evaluating and selecting the most efficient supplier. We develop a methodology, which consists of 6 steps, one by one has been introduced in lecture and finally applicability of proposed method is indicated by assessing 12 suppliers in a numerical example. © 2012 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Includes 5 topical chapters covering paleoclimates, dating methods, volcanism, tephrochronology, and Pacific margin tephrochronologic correlation, and 15 chapters of regional synthesis covering: the Pacific margin; the Columbia Plateau; the Snake River Plain; the major pluvial lakes of the Great Basin; the Basin and Range in California, Arizona, and New Mexico; the Colorado Plateau; the Southern and Central Rocky Mountains; the Northern and Southern Great Plains, Osage Plains, and Interior Highlands; the Lower Mississippi Valley; the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain and Florida; the Appalachian Highlands and Interior Low Plateaus; and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. A large, full-color geologic map of the Quaternary deposits of the Lower Mississippi Valley, in addition to correlation charts, tables, and cross-sections relating to other chapters, is also included.


Economy activity is a part of human's life, where human are not free from economic problems. The existing fact today is monetary crisis attacking Indonesia violently, which has an enormous impact to economy life. In Banyuwangi regency, there is an area where its majority resident is Madurese, namely Muncar sub-district. It is a coastal area where its resident's living is as fisherman, because Muncar is the larger fish producer area in East Java. In Muncar, especially Duaraan Village, 150 or 60% peoples are the pure Madurese with their living is fisherman. They almost master most of haul processing activities and fishing activities in Muncar. In Indonesia, Madurese ethnic is also known as society with high work ethos, economical, and saving diligently. There is a phenomenon happened in this ethnic, that is most of its resident have living
as fisherman. If it is connected to crisis condition and many rising in price, this society is decreasing. The other phenomenon is the way they save their money. They are often saving their money in the bank, but in the form of joining in saving club, saving in strongbox or cupboard. The purpose of this research is to know the description of saving behavior on the fisherman of Madurese ethnic in Muncar sub-district, Banyuwangi regency. This research uses descriptive qualitative design, by using interview method. Its subject is Madurese person, who works as fisherman and has savings. This research is administered to explain and to deepen the description about saving behavior on Madurese ethnic. The research result shows that there are (1) positive view to saving behavior; (2) pleasure-orientation rising on the enjoyment and self-happiness; (3) the existence of the determined agreement; (4) the rise of high work motivation; and (5) the rise of good conviction and get the satisfaction when the dream comes true.


Introduction: Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a sensitive and non-invasive imaging method that provides information about the metabolite variations due to pathological damages. In this study, we aimed to systematically review studies in which the MRS had been used for quantitative analysis of steatohepatitis.Methods: PubMed and Scopus were methodically searched in June 2015 with following search method (((magnetic resonance spectroscopy OR MR spectroscopy OR MRS)) AND (hepatic steatosis OR steatohepatitis OR fatty liver)) AND Quantitative) to find relevant documents in which the diagnostic value of MRS had been investigated in patients with hepatic steatosis. Obtainable information were extracted and used for further evaluation based on the main purpose of this study.Results: Of 88 articles found in the PubMed and 328 found in the Scopus, only 10 relevant documents were selected and used for data extraction according to inclusion/exclusion criteria. Of total 2963 participants enrolled in the selected studies, 1428 were male and 1535 were female. The results of this review showed that MRS is reliable technique for quantitative assessment of steatohepatitis.Conclusion: Findings showed that MRS as a non-invasive imaging method can quantitatively determine even small changes of metabolites due to pathological damages. As well, findings suggested that the results obtained by MR spectroscopy can be considered as reference standard in quantitative analysis. Based on the results of studied documents, MRS as a sensitive tool is helpful in the quantitative assessment of patients with fatty liver disease.


As an immigrant woman, an academic of diaspora studies, a white "other" in a sea of American whiteness, I navigate the layers of difference that are always contextual, never fixed, at times a deficit, at times an abundance, a surplus.
I believe in the practice of "counterpoint": When divergent, competing cultural elements come into contact with one another, the continuing processes of adaptation and creation shift existing power dynamics. People and cultures always mutually influence and transform each other through the encounters - and often "crashes" - of languages, customs and worldviews. Naturally, cultural productions come to reflect these processes.
My life is a constant, shifting, exhausting and yet rewarding process of "counterpoint", an alchemy, a translation.
These poems manifest this quality of translation, which is both my curse and my lens through which I observe and make sense of the world.


Background & objectives: Some herbs contain compounds with antioxidant activity and can be used to protect or cure damages caused by chemical toxins. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) on total antioxidants in various tissues and Tanacetum parthenium impacts on reducing devastating effects of carbon tetrachloride. Methods: A total of 42 male Wistar rats were divided into seven groups of six animals in each group: normal control, damaged control, three groups that treated with 40, 80, and 120 mg/kg of Tanacetum parthenium extract 14 days before CCl4 injection and two groups served as post-treatment groups that received 80 and 120 mg/kg extract 2, 6, 24, and 48 h after CCl4 injection. At the end of study the liver, kidney, testis, and heart were removed and then homogenized and then the antioxidant activity of the tissues assessed using FRAP method. Results were analyzed by one-way ANOVA test. Results: The results showed that the injection of carbon tetrachloride significantly decreasestotal antioxidant in both liver (p<0.001) and kidney (p<0.05) tissues. Administration of extract significantly (p<0.05) increased the total antioxidant of liver and kidney. Conclusion: Protective effect of Feverfew against CCl4 induced damages is more effective in liver and kidney than testis and heart..


Objective Significant heterogeneity was observed in previous trials that assessed the efficacies of sequential therapy for 10 days (S10) versus triple therapy for 14 days (T14) in the first-line treatment of Helicobacter pylori. We aimed to compare the efficacy of S10 and T14 and assess the factors affecting their efficacies. Design We conducted this open-label randomised multicentre trial in eight hospitals and one community in Taiwan. 1300 adult subjects with H pylori infection naïve to treatment were randomised (1:1) to receive S10 (lansoprazole and amoxicillin for the first 5 days, followed by lansoprazole, clarithromycin and metronidazole for another 5 days) or T14 (lansoprazole, amoxicillin and clarithromycin for 14 days). All drugs were given twice daily. Successful eradication was defined as negative 13C-urea breath test at least 6 weeks after treatment. Our primary outcome was the eradication rate by intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol (PP) analyses. Antibiotic resistance was determined by agar dilution test. Results The eradication rates of S10 and T14 were 87.2% (567/650, 95% CI 84.4% to 89.6%) and 85.7% (557/650, 95% CI 82.8% to 88.2%) in the ITT analysis, respectively, and were 91.6% (556/607, 95% CI 89.1% to 93.4%) and 91.0% (548/602, 95% CI 88.5% to 93.1%) in the PP analysis, respectively. There were no differences in compliance or adverse effects. The eradication rates in strains susceptible and resistant to clarithromycin were 90.7% and 62.2%, respectively, for S10, and were 91.5% and 44.4%, respectively, for T14. The efficacy of T14, but not S10, was affected by CYP2C19 polymorphism. Conclusions S10 was not superior to T14 in areas with low clarithromycin resistance. Trial registration number NCT01607918.


This paper considers the etymologising of the names of Apollo in Plato, Cratylus and Plutarch, The E at Delphi. It is argued that the richness of the god's etymologies in these texts and in classical literature more generally suggests that a special connection was seen between the nature of Apollo and the practices of etymologising; this connection is in part owed to the similarities between etymologising and prophetic speech and practice and in part to the fact that ancient etymology reveals settled, unchanging truths about language, just as Apollo manifests the settled, unchanging order of the world. The paper sheds light not just upon ancient etymological practice from Homer onwards but also on certain conceptions of the nature of Apollo.


This research analyses the potential benefits accruing to high-tech subcontractors through spatial clustering. We test our hypotheses with data on Spanish electronics subcontractors. We use a representative sample of 105 companies, with data on 31 different tasks performed to order and 44 electronics products produced for open markets. We perform Pearson χ² tests, exact tests and t-tests. Clustering accrues significant benefits to subcontractors, especially small or regional firms. First, clustering helps small and regional firms to secure outsourcing contracts. In contrast, in peripheral locations, contracts are secured by local affiliates of companies operating at the national level, rather than by regional companies. In such locations, subcontractors are relatively large plants that have diversified into electronics from other industries. Second, clustering enables subcontractors to participate in manufacturing of core products under contract (not only in services or auxiliary-industry subcontracting). Clustering also facilitates specialisation and improves scope economies in such firms. In clusters, product variety arises not only because of great diversification among plants, as usually held, but also due to great within-establishment diversification in lines of customised production. Third, clustering per se does not facilitate subcontractors' participation in open markets, but location in specific regions does.


Fibromyalgia syndrome (FM) is a condition of chronic pain, fatigue and other symptoms without a known anatomical substrate. Until now, treatment is mostly unsatisfactory; empirical studies on pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment strategies in FM are needed. Following an overview of FM and its treatment, two such trials are described in this thesis.
The first one is a pre-randomised clinical trial of spa treatment in FM. A combination of thalassotherapy, physical exercise and patient education in a Tunisian spa resort improved FM symptoms and health-related quality of life.
Differences between spa treatment (n = 58) and treatment-as-usual (n = 76) were statistically significant after 3 months, but not after 6 and 12 months.
Cost-effectiveness analysis showed no significantly different costs in the spa and control group, except for the cost of spa treatment (€ 1,526). Quality of life was higher in the spa group: 0.04 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) based on the visual analogue scale for general health (p< 0.01). The incremental cost-utility ratio after 6 months of follow-up was € 1,311 / 0.04 = € 32,775 per QALY gained (95% confidence interval -375,000 to 273,000).
The second study is a 6-week double-blind randomised controlled trial comparing venlafaxine 75 mg/day (n = 45) to placebo (n = 45). The results of the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) suggested a positive effect. Primary
outcome measures (McGill Pain Questionnaire and visual analogue painscales) improved by 10%. However, no statistically significant differences between venlafaxine and placebo were seen. The importance of placebo effects in many FM drug trials is discussed separately.
The combined data from both trials were used to validate a Dutch translation of the FIQ, which showed sufficient reliability, construct validity and responsiveness to be recommended as an outcome measure in FM.
The studies described in this thesis show that empirical studies in FM are feasible and determination of effects and effect sizes is possible.


The soil borne fungus Rhizoctonia solani is a pathogen of many plants and causes severe damage in crops around the world. It primarily attacks below ground plant parts such as the seeds, hypocotyls, and roots, also capable to infect above ground plant parts (e.g. pods, fruits, leaves and stems). The most common symptom of Rhizoctonia disease is referred as "damping-off" characterized by non-germination of severely infected seed whereas infected seedlings can be killed either before or after they emerge from the soil. The study of the diversity of the isolates of R. solani in Qatar allows the structure of the populations to be determined and adapte control strategies against this pathogen to be established. R. solani attack many crops leading to great yield losses and to the downgrading of production. Six isolates of Rhizoctonia solani (R7, R8, R9, R10, R11 and R12) were obtained from different plant types (tomato, cucumber, eggplant, common bean and broad bean) and different locations in Qatar representing major agro ecological zones like Al-Shamal, Rod Rasheed, Shahnia and Omsalaal. They were cultured in 3 different media (water agar, corn meal agar and potato dextrose agar), there were no significant differences among isolates on water agar and corn meal agar whereas all isolates showed different characteristics on the potato dextrose agar i.e. color of the mycelium, density of the mycelium and sclerotia formation. The microscopic examination of the isolates was done. The angle of the mycelium (right angle or acute angle) was recorded. Internal transcribed spacer (ITS region) of the rRNA was amplified using the universal ITS-1 and ITS-4 primers that anneal to the flanking 18S and 28S rRNA gene Direct sequencing of the amplification products was carried out in both directions using the universal ITS-1 and ITS-4 primers. Comparison of partial rRNA ITS nucleotide sequence of all isolates showed 91% sequence homology between R8 and R10, 73% similarity between R7 and R11, R9 showed 63% homology between the other two subgroups, meanwhile isolate R12 showed 36% similarity with all other isolates. Molecular markers are important tools for the characterization of genetic diversity in fungal pathogens where morphological features are either absent or not sufficient to allow intraspecific characterization.


Background: Driver fatigue as a leading cause of death in the transportation industry can impair the driving performance in long-distance driving task. Studies on the links of driver subjective fatigue and the bus lateral position are still an exploratory issue that requires further investigation. This study aimed to determine the correlation between the driver subjective fatigue and the bus lateral position in a driving simulator. Methods: This descriptive-analytical research was conducted on 30 professional male bus drivers participated in a two-hour driving session. The driver subjective fatigue was assessed by the Fatigue Visual Analogue Scale (F-VAS) at 10-min intervals. Simultaneously, the performance measures of lane drifting as the mean and standard deviation of the bus lateral position (SDLP) were calculated during the simulated driving task. Descriptive statistics and the Spearman correlation coefficient were used to describe and analyze the data. Results: Fatigue levels had an increasing trend as the time-on-task of driving increased. Time-on-task of driving had the greatest effect on the fatigue self-evaluation (r = 0.605, p < 0.0001). The results showed a significant correlation between fatigue self-evaluation and bus lateral position (r = 0.567, p < 0.0001). Conclusion: As the time of driving increased, driving performance was affected adversely, as shown by the increase in the SDLP. Even so, the effect of individual differences on driving performance should not be overlooked. This work concludes that predicting the state of a driver fatigue based on the group mean data has some complications for any application.


Professional cycling is a rich, dynamic and often controversial sport that lends itself to great writing. Some of the most famous and illustrious races were founded by newspapermen and The Cycling Anthology continues this tradition by bringing together the best in the business. Volume Two is a Tour de France special edition and features original and exclusive pieces by leading cycling writers. ITV reporter Ned Boulting looks at how the Tour made it to our living rooms and into our hearts; pro rider Daniel Lloyd lifts the lid on actually riding a Tour in 'A Domestique's Tale'; Jeremy Whittle examines why, despite drug scandal and infamy, the Tour still intoxicates us; and many more. Between them, they've covered hundreds of Tours de France and written dozens of excellent books and some have even ridden the Tour. Here, their work is showcased together.


We empirically analyze pricing of political uncertainty in long-term property rights, guided by a theoretical model of housing assets subject to contract extension in the remote future. To identify exposure to political uncertainty, we exploit a unique variation around land lease extension protection beyond 2047 in Hong Kong's housing market due to the historical arrangements under the "One Country, Two Systems" design. Relative to properties that have been promised an extension protection, those with legally unprotected leases granted by the current Hong Kong government are sold at a substantial discount of around 8%. Similar contracts issued during the colonial era suffer an additional discount of about 8% due to their reneging risk. Our parsimonious model matches well the estimated discounts across long-term lease horizons, and implies that to extend their leases homeowners expect about 25% of penalty on ground rent after 2047. The discount is higher when people's confidence declines and where residents feel more uncertain of the city's future.


Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (ICH) is characterized by elevated intracranial pressure without an evident etiology. Here, we report the case of an adult male who presented with headache, diplopia, blurred vision, and nausea. The patient stated that he had searched a general practitioner 1 week ago because he had experienced cough, dyspnea, and fever. The physician started levofloxacin. On admission, the patient reported that his respiratory symptoms recovered. However, he complained about the beginning of neurological symptoms. On neurological examination, papilledema and unilateral abducens weakness were observed. A brain magnetic resonance imaging showed radiographic features of ICH. A lumbar puncture had an opening pressure of 50 cmH2O. Levofloxacin was withdrawn, and acetazolamide 250 mg bid was started. After 2 weeks, the patient had full recovery of the symptoms, and 4 weeks later, no papilledema was observed.


This essay, adapted from a speech upon receipt of the 2018 Richard P. Kern Memorial Award from the National Association of Sentencing Commissions, details why sentencing is "dang hard" and explores implications of that reality. The essay argues that the challenges of sentencing not only demand that all jurisdictions have a sentencing commission as an essential permanent agency, but also call for these commissions always to think big and to strive to work deep and wide to study all facets of modern criminal justice systems. The essay also contends that sentencing errors may be quite common and that, even if we manage to get sentencing "right" at the outset, changes in society and in individuals can make even "right" sentences wrong over time. Sensible humility about the likelihood of sentencing errors further suggests, for example: at the rule-making stage, having sentencing laws include sunset provisions and having sentencing commissions review and audit major guidelines and related sentencing practices on a regular basis; at the case-specific stage, having far more robust substantive appellate review of sentences and more robust mechanisms for parole and judicial reconsideration and clemency, and even developing more creative means to apply and revise different forms of punishment as time passes and new information is gathered.


A knowledge and understanding of what domestic violence actually is, and the effect it has on those involved, is crucial for practitioners in order to work effectively with children and domestic violence. This Reader was originally commissioned in 1998 by the Department of Health and produced by a consortium consisting of the NSPCC, Barnardo's and the Domestic Violence Research Group at the University of Bristol. This second edition, newly published in 2007, provides an updated review of the research and legislation on domestic violence and the consequences for children. In their introduction the authors hope that the book will enable professionals working with families to develop informed and appropriately sophisticated responses that safeguard and promote the welfare of children living in circumstances of domestic violence.An impressive amount of information is presented, yet the layout of the book is extremely clear and easy to read. The 12 chapters are neatly organised around a three-part structure. Part One begins by outlining the research evidence for the links between domestic violence and the abuse of children. It highlights that domestic violence is an important indicator of risk of harm to children and assesses the effects on children's lives and future well-being. Statistical data from the British Crime Survey 2001 are also included. Part Two deals with the legal context, discussing protection against domestic violence under criminal, civil and housing law. Two useful tables are presented to summarise the advantages and disadvantages of using criminal law and civil law in cases of domestic violence. Part Three concludes by discussing practice interventions with children, women and male perpetrators of domestic violence. It argues that certain factors such as attention to safety and confidentiality and a non-judgemental approach are key components of effective support-giving. The benefits of multi-agency practice are emphasised. Each of the 12 chapters ends with a concise point-by-point summary, thus making it an easily accessible reference resource for the busy practitioner. An extensive bibliography and a useful subject index are also included. The authors are meticulous in defining their terminology and from the outset make a point of using the term "survivors of domestic violence" in preference to the word "victim", in order to avoid negative connotations of passivity and to convey a more positive approach. They note that children are not merely passive bystanders to the domestic violence occurring around them. They act and make choices, and many children develop a wide range of complex strategies of coping and survival.There is a possibility that some readers may have concerns with the fact that the main focus of this book is only relationships between men and women, and men are largely viewed as perpetrators and women on the receiving end of violence and abuse. The policy and legislation discussed generally pertains to England, and readers in other jurisdictions may feel somewhat left out; nevertheless, this is a highly recommended book and a must-have for all professionals who wish to help and support children affected by domestic violence.


This article examines prices for 32 identical menu items sold by restaurant franchises operating on both sides of the border between El Paso in the US and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico from July 1997 to June 2008. The relationship between Real Exchange Rate (RER) volatility and the degree of price convergence is examined within a panel data context. The city-pair and goods selected provide a unique experiment in which distance, tradability and industry considerations are set aside and the extent of RER volatility is the only factor to influence price convergence. We find nonmonotonic relationships between mean reversion and RER volatility: very fast adjustments for both low and high volatility panels of goods (between 1 and 2 months) and slower half-lives (between 3 and 4 months) at moderate levels of uncertainty. These figures are, however, substantially smaller than the 6 or 7 months reported in previous research for general US–Mexico goods, suggesting the very strong price convergence observed along the US–Mexican border.


GENETICS
Microorganisms can restructure their genomes in response to environmental pressures. When glucose is scarce, budding yeast sequentially acquire mutations that enable "evolved" clones to assimilate glucose more rapidly than their ancestors. Further work has hinted that this capacity is enabled by gene amplification, but other mechanisms may come into play in other evolutionary contexts, such as speciation and tumor progression.

Dunham et al . used microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) to screen nutritionally challenged yeast at single-gene resolution. They found that genome rearrangements occurred nonrandomly and were especially frequent near transposon-related sequences. Moreover, some of these rearrangements probably account for the observed increases in fitness. For example, three clones displayed an identical transposon-associated breakpoint adjacent to the gene encoding citrate synthase—the entry point into the tricarboxylic acid cycle—and three clones had amplifications in hexose transporters. Cha and Kleckner (Reports, 26 July, p. [602][1]) have suggested that transposon sites are fragile in some way, and Dunham et al. contend that they provision yeast with adaptive resources and may relate to processes by which mammalian genomes evolve during tumorigenesis. — CA

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 10.1073/pnas.242624799 (2002).

 [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1071398


Wood based sector has been identified as a major industry contributing towards technological
development and advancement in Malaysia with respect to the value of the products made
and number of people employed. It plays an important role in increasing Malaysia's exports
earnings. However, Malaysian wood based industry is now encountering several problems
namely shortage of labour, excess capacity in certain sectors, low level of technology, low
recovery rates, low quality products and many more. In 1 990, Malaysia has set up a clear
vision i.e. to transform itself into a fully developed nation by the year 2020. The process
requires the support of the whole Government machinery, and the private sector is expected
to play a bigger role especially in R&D. In meeting the goals of Vision 2020, Malaysia has
embarked several policy guidelines such as the Second Industrial Master Plan (1995 - 2005)
and established supporting institutional framework for promoting R&D such as research
grant schemes and incentives, especially for resource based industry. There are three main
research grant schemes related to wood based industry provided by the Government, namely
the Industrial Grant Schemes (IGS), the Industrial Technology Acquisition Fund (TAF) and
the Engineering Design Grant. This study attempts to determine the participation of private
wood-based organisations in the three main grant schemes provided by the Government. A
survey involving 70 private companies in wood-based industry has been conducted to
evaluate their participation in R&D activity and identify the major constraints hampering
them in conducting R&D. The survey shows that only 17 % of the companies are actively
carrying out R&D whereas 57.3 % are not engaged in R&D activity and 25.7 % of the
companies did not submit any feedback. The survey also indicates that the major factor
limiting the participation of private organizations in conducting R&D is lack of R&D
personnel.


ABSTRACT This article examines the "indie" music industry in South Korea. It describes a consumer-led market where network of consumers aided by social media take responsibility for its maintenance and development, specifically the market for indie music in South Korea. With the emergence of digital technology and a participatory culture, the roles of consumers have expanded. Through their commitment and passion for independent music, aided by social media, these consumers have developed a virtual indie music community, which uses a variety of mechanisms, such as producing podcasts, to promote its music. These non-traditional producers regard indie music as an important part of their lives and their existence, which is why they take responsibility for developing the indie community rather than leaving this to a profit-orientated music industry. Therefore, we demonstrate how in South Korea the production of indie music has ceased to be dominated by traditional actors, such as record labels, and is driven by the enthusiasm of music fans. Previous research on cultural markets suggests that consumers play critical roles in the formation and evolution of the market. This study sheds light on this process by depicting a cultural market that is governed by pro-social consumers (rather than anti-market resistance) who pursue a balanced approach between resistance to and negotiated harmony with commercial and social norms rather than drawing a simple boundary between "us" and "other".


This paper focuses on problems in megaproject policy and planning and their causes and possible cures. After considerations of methodology, the paper first identifies as a main problem in megaproject development pervasive misinformation about the costs, benefits, and risks involved. A consequence of misinformation is cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and waste. Second, the paper explores the causes of misinformation and finds that political-economic explanations best account for the available evidence: planners and promoters deliberately misrepresent costs, benefits, and risks in order to increase the likelihood that it is their projects, and not the competition's, that gain approval and funding. This results in the "survival of the unfittest," where often it is not the best projects that are built, but the most misrepresented ones. Finally, the paper presents measures for reforming megaproject policy and planning with a focus on better planning methods and improved governance structures, the latter being more important.


Vividly revealing the challenges faced by a group of migrant workers who eventually formed the multiracial town of Randolph, Arizona, "Not All Okies Are White" is a brilliant, spellbinding celebration of the resilience and adaptability of people too often ignored by history texts.Recognizing the black exodus to the American West as an overlooked but integral chapter in American history, Geta LeSeur fills the void by extending her research beyond the Mississippi River and the Mason-Dixon line, examining close-up the personal lives of third- and fourth-generation descendants of pre-Emancipation blacks. In this first full-length study to explore the migrant life of any nonwhite group within the United States and the first to focus specifically on a primarily black town in the Southwest, LeSeur deftly uncovers the stepping-stone pattern of black movement west of the Mississippi into Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and consequent migrations to Arizona and California imposed by economic and social conditions."Not All Okies Are White" recaptures the ways of life for black migrant workers, as well as Hispanics and Native Americans, in the first half of the century through richly detailed interviews of the families of Randolph's founders. Through the words of each narrator, these personal stories recount work experiences and survival strategies, offering new insights into the people's relationship to the land. The narratives reveal a creative tension between place and identity, movement and migration. LeSeur provides a historical, cultural, and literary context for the oral histories by incorporating news articles, information culled from historical society archives, analyses of films and novels, advertisements, and photographs.An innovative blend of history telling and literary analysis, "Not All Okies Are White "describes LeSeur's acquaintance with and growing involvement in the lives of the residents of Randolph and surrounding farm communities. The result is a highly accessible cross-disciplinary study that will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in oral history, African American history, multicultural studies, and women's studies.


This paper presents the results of our study on mammals of the Hainan Island.The collection representing 53 species includes a total of about 700 specimens, most ofwhich were collected from Hainan in a zoological survey conducted in 1957, with theremainder secured during 1958-1964. Among these species, Crocidura russula rapax,Taphozous melanopogon, Hipposideros armiger armiger, Scotomanus ornatus sinensis, Pipi-strellus pulveratus,Mustela kathiah,Martes flavigula, and Belomys pearsoni are new re-cords from this island, while three races, i.e., those of the white-toothed shrew, the Ceylo-nese pipistrelle, and the black-and-white flying squirrel, are considered as new subspecies.In addition, we have previously reported a new genus and new species of the Hainangymure (Neohylomys hainanensis Shaw et Wang, 1959). Comments on the systematic status of the species investigated are presented in theChinese text of the paper. Diagnoses of the three new subspecies are given as follows: Crocidura horsfieldi wuchihensis Wang,subsp. nov. Holotype: No. 13874, ?, April 16, 1957, Shui-man, western slope of Wuchih Mt. Paratype: No. 13875, ?, April 13, 1957, locality as above. Diagnosis: Size very small, body weight 4-4.5 gms., hind foot 10-10.5 mm, condylo-basal length of skull 15.5-15.7 mm, width of skull 7.8 mm; tail 67% of head andbody combined; upper parts dark ochraceous-gray, under parts a little lighter, but notsharply different from upper parts. Closely allied to C. h. indochinensis(Yunnan, China and Vietnam) and C. h. tadae(Lan-Yu, East of Taiwan, China), but differs from the two chiefly by its smaller sizeand its darker pelage which is much of a dark grayish tinge and is less ochraceous-brownish. Pipistrellus ceylonicus tongfangensis Wang, subsp. nov. Holotype: No. 14534, ?, Feb. 27, 1957, Tongfang. Paratypes: No. 14536, 14537, 14540, Hai-70690 (in alc.), March-April, 1957,from Tongfang and Nodoa. Diagnosis: Dorsal surface bright ochraceous-brown, ventral surface buff with the baseof the hairs dark-brown; size larger, forearm 39.6 (39.0-40.5), greatest length of theskull 15.5 (15.3-15.8); P~2 unreduced, its crown about 2/3 of, or subequal with, that ofI~2,its position within the tooth-row. This subspecies is easily distinguished from the allied forms P. c. raptor (Kwangsi, southern China and Vietnam) and P. c. borneanus by its pelage showing buffy tinge onits ventral surface and by its larger size. In the latter two forms, the hairs of the ventralsurface are grayish-tipped, giving a somewhat grayish-brown tint, and the forearms mea-sure 37(36-39) mm and 38 mm in length respectively. Hylopetes alboniger chianfengensis Wang et Lu, subsp. nov. Holotype: No. Hai-71215, ? Jan. 1964, Chianfeng Mt. Examined specimen: ?, Wuchih Mt. Diagnosis: Smaller than the nominate race, H. alboniger leonardi and H. albonigerorinus, with the head-body measuring 180mm, hind foot 32 mm, occipito-nasal length41.1 mm, bullae about 20.6% of occipito-nasal length; upper parts with a richer brownishtint than in the allied subspecies, while the hairs of chin, throat, and axil parts slaty gray(not white) at the base, as in the belly, dull whitish at the tip, being washed with a lightdull buffy tint terminally. All the type specimens of the three new subspecies are deposited in the Institute ofZoology, Academia Sinica, Peking.


There is enormous interest in the investigation of electron transfer rates at the edges of graphene due to possible energy storage and sensing applications. While electrochemistry at the edges and the basal plane of graphene has been studied in the past, the new frontier is the electrochemistry of folded graphene edges. Here we describe the electrochemistry of folded graphene edges and compare it to that of open graphene edges. The materials were characterized in detail by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry. We found that the heterogeneous electron transfer rate is significantly lower on folded graphene edges compared to open edge sites for ferro/ferricyanide, and that electrochemical properties of open edges offer lower potential detection of biomarkers than the folded ones. It is apparent, therefore, that for sensing and biosensing applications the folded edges are less active than open edges, which should then be preferred for such applications. As folded edges are the product of thermal treatment of multilayer graphene, such thermal procedures should be avoided when fabricating graphene for electrochemical applications.


Genetic engineering, also called Genetic modification or Genetic manipulation, is the direct manipulation of an organism's genes using biotechnology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms. New DNA is obtained by either isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using recombinant DNA methods or by artificially synthesising the DNA. A construct is usually created and used to insert this DNA into the host organism. The first recombinant DNA molecule was made by Paul Berg in 1972 by combining DNA from the monkey virus SV40 with the lambda virus. As well as inserting genes, the process can be used to remove, or "knock out", genes. The new DNA can be inserted randomly, or targeted to a specific part of the genome.


Direct-sequence optical code-division multiple-access (DS-OCDMA) encoder/decoder based on sampled fiber Bragg gratings (S-FBGs) is characterized using phase-sensitive optical low-coherence reflectometry (OLCR). The OLCR technique allows localized measurements of FBG wavelength and physical length inside one S-FBG. This paper shows how the discrepancies between specifications and measurements of the different FBGs have some impact on spectral and temporal pulse responses of the OCDMA encoder/decoder. The FBG physical lengths lower than the specified ones are shown to affect the mean optical power reflected by the OCDMA encoder/decoder. The FBG wavelengths that are detuned from each other induce some modulations of S-FBG reflectivity resulting in encoder/decoder sensitivity to laser wavelength drift of the OCDMA system. Finally, highlighted by this OLCR study, some solutions to overcome limitations in performance with the S-FBG technology are suggested


DOPAMINE AND THE REGULATION OF MOVEMENTS SIGNIFICANCE OF NIGRAL AND STRIATAL DOPAMINE RELEASE IN NORMAL, HEMIPARKINSONIAN AND DYSKINETIC RATS Introduction: The nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) containing neurones are a pivotal component in the basal ganglia, a network that regulates movement. Degeneration of these neurones causes the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). In addition to releasing DA from terminals in the striatum, these neurones also release DA from cell bodies and dendrites in the substantia nigra (SN). Although, somatodendritic DA release is known to influence motor performance, the mechanisms for this regulation needs to be clarified. PD is predominantly treated with L-DOPA, a precursor of DA. After 4-6 years of L-DOPA-treatment, approximately 40 % of the PD patients develop side effects in the form of abnormal involuntary movements. The reasons for these abnormal movements are not yet fully elucidated, but they are believed to be induced by large pulsatile fluctuations of DA following L-DOPA administration. Methods and observations: By use of simultaneous nigral and striatal microdialysis combined with motor performance testing, we demonstrate that nigral somatodendritic DA release exerts its influence on motor performance without affecting striatal terminal release. We also show that somatodendritic DA release can functionally compensate for disturbances in striatal DA release and thus partially maintain motor ability. Furthermore, local nigral application of the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine amplifies a previously described motor activityrelated increase in somatodendritic DA release, and this amplification partially restores motor performance ability in 6-OHDA-hemilesioned rats. By combining dual probe microdialysis with a rat model of L-DOPA-induced dyskinesias, we demonstrate that the amount of DA formed and released from a given dose of L-DOPA is larger in rats that express dyskinesias than in rats that do not. Furthermore, our data indicate that the larger DA peak in dyskinetic compared to nondyskinetic animals reflects a denser serotonergic innervation in the former group. We also show that 5-HT autoreceptor agonists attenuate extracellular DA concentrations following L-DOPA and reduce dyskinesias. Conclusions: The results in this thesis indicate that the principal role of somatodendritic DA release is to modulate basal ganglia output on the level of the substantia nigra, and not to regulate terminal release in the striatum. Moreover, our findings indicate that the amount of DA formed from an L-DOPA dose is the main cause of dyskinesias in rats, and also lend support to previous findings identifying striatal 5-HT neurones as the source of L-DOPA-derived DA.


This study was conducted to estimate the bony tissue response to β-calcium sulphate hemihydrate (CSH) as a bone substitute via radiographic assessment using ImageJ software. The extraction sockets in dog mandible were the regions of interest (ROI). Twenty adult (12-24 months), local breed dogs were included in the experiment. All had a complete set of permanent dentition. They were randomly allocated into four groups, each containing 5 animals. Bilateral lower third premolars have been extracted. The right socket was filled with β-calcium sulphate hemihydrate, whereas no material was placed to fill that in the left side to serve as a control. Tissue response in extraction sockets was evaluated using two postoperative intra-oral periapical radiographs for each tooth socket, the first immediately after extraction and the second at the end of each study interval (i.e., after 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks period for group I, II, III, and IV, respectively). The radiographs were converted from conventional to digital by X-ray scanner, then examined by ImageJ software. Radiographic assessment included the evaluation of differences in extraction sockets densities, bone resorption %, bone formation %, and density of the newly formed bone. The results showed significant differences between the left (control) and right (experimental) sides in all study periods in relation to differences in extraction sockets densities. Meantime, significant differences were noticed between right and left sides during a 12 week period in relation to bone resorption and bone formation %. Concerning density of the newly formed bone, significant differences were noticed during 8 week and 12 week period.In conclusion, the use of β-calcium sulphate hemihydrate as a bone substitute significantly reduced bone resorption and increased the rate of new bone formation. In addition, the density of the newly formed bone in the right (experimental) side was greater than that noticed in the left (control) side.