The tropical subseasonal variability simulated by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model, Model E2, is examined. Several versions of Model E2 were developed with changes to the convective parameterization in order to improve the simulation of the Madden‐Julian oscillation (MJO). When the convective scheme is modified to have a greater fractional entrainment rate, Model E2 is able to simulate MJO-like disturbances with proper spatial and temporal scales. Increasing the rate of rain reevaporation has additionalpositive impacts on the simulated MJO. The improvement in MJO simulation comes at the cost of increased biases in the mean state, consistent in structure and amplitude with those found in other GCMs when tuned to have a stronger MJO. By reinitializing a relatively poor-MJO version with restart files from a relatively better-MJO version, a series of 30-day integrations is constructed to examine the impacts of the parameterization changes on the organization of tropical convection. The poor-MJO version with smaller entrainment rate has a tendency to allow convection to be activated over a broader area and to reduce the contrast between dry and wet regimes so that tropical convection becomes less organized. Besides the MJO, the number of tropical-cyclone-like vortices simulated by the model is also affected by changes in the convectionscheme.Themodelsimulatesasmallernumberof suchstormsgloballywithalargerentrainmentrate, while the number increases significantly with a greater rain reevaporation rate.


Summary.  In diagnostic medicine, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) surface is one of the established tools for assessing the accuracy of a diagnostic test in discriminating three disease states, and the volume under the ROC surface has served as a summary index for diagnostic accuracy. In practice, the selection for definitive disease examination may be based on initial test measurements and induces verification bias in the assessment. We propose a non‐parametric likelihood‐based approach to construct the empirical ROC surface in the presence of differential verification, and to estimate the volume under the ROC surface. Estimators of the standard deviation are derived by both the Fisher information and the jackknife method, and their relative accuracy is evaluated in an extensive simulation study. The methodology is further extended to incorporate discrete baseline covariates in the selection process, and to compare the accuracy of a pair of diagnostic tests. We apply the proposed method to compare the diagnostic accuracy between mini‐mental state examination and clinical evaluation of dementia, in discriminating between three disease states of Alzheimer's disease.


This paper presents the quiescent current's (IDQ) variations over temperature and a simple method of compensation concerning a laterally diffused Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (LDMOS) amplifier. It has been justified in real condition measurements that quiescent current is progressively increasing proportionally to temperature variations of the LDMOS causing instability to the parameters of the amplifier. In order to be compensated over a wide range of temperature variations, e.g. 40-80 degrees Celsius, a very simple Temperature to Voltage converter (sensor) has been developed. This sensor can also be applied on any other MOSFET amplifier that its quiescent current is drifting proportionally to temperature variations as well. That is, the mentioned sensor has been installed in many different amplifier units employing various types of LDMOSs and it has been operating as expected. Since it is very simple to be simulated and constructed, it is recommended to be demonstrated to the scientific society which conducts research in this area.


In the tradition of Black Dog & Leventhal's successful "Chinese Natural Cures," "Healing Secrets of the Native Americans" brings the age-old knowledge and trusted techniques of Native-American healing to a wider audience. From this clear, reliable, and beautifully packaged book, learn how Native Americans have used the bountiful gifts of nature to heal the mind, the body, and the spirit. Discover how the Native-American tradition uses plants and herbs, heat, movement and sound, visualization, and spirituality to heal dozens of everyday ailments and illnesses--from back pain to insect bites to flu and sore throat and much more. Broken into sections, the book covers such topics as "The Healing Spirit" (including dream therapy, spirituality, and prayer), "The Native American Spa" (healing with heat, massage, sound and movement, and nutrition), "The Native American Pharmacy" (including more than 40 herbs and plants, how to obtain them, and how to use them), plus remedies for more than 40 ailments from acne to wrinkles.


The transglycosylation activity of a novel commercial β-galactosidase from Bifidobacterium bifidum (Saphera) was evaluated. The optimal conditions of operation of this enzyme, measured with o-nitrophenyl-β-D-galactopyranoside, were 40 °C and pH around 6.0. Although at low lactose concentrations the character of this enzyme was basically hydrolytic, an increase of lactose concentration to 400 g/L resulted in a significant formation (107.2 g/L, 27% yield) of prebiotic galactooligosaccharides (GOS). The maximum amount of GOS was obtained at a lactose conversion of approximately 90%, which contrasts with other β-galactosidases, for which the highest GOS yield is achieved at 40-50% lactose conversion. Using HPAEC-PAD, semipreparative HPLC-HILIC, MS, 1D and 2D NMR, we determined the structure of most of the GOS synthesized by this enzyme. The main identified products were Gal-β(1→3)-Gal-β(1→4)-Glc (3´-O-β-galactosyl-lactose), Gal-β(1→6)-Glc (allolactose), Gal-β(1→3)-Glc (3-galactosyl-glucose), Gal-β(1→3)-Gal (3-galactobiose) and the tetrasaccharide Gal-β(1→3)-Gal-β(1→3)-Gal-β(1→4)-Glc. In general, the B. bifidum β-galactosidase showed a tendency to form β(1→3) linkages followed by β(1→6), and more scarcely β(1→4).


In NEMO network, handoff is the process in which the Serving MR (SMR) needs to change its point
of attachment to the network when it moves from one network to another new network. Usually during
handover, firstly the SMR needs to be disconnected from the old network and then it gets connected to a new
network. Thus there is a possibility to lose the connectivity from the Internet as well as its Home Agent (HA)
and Correspondent Nodes (CNs). During this time, it becomes difficult to send or receive any data packets
which results in packet loss and delay. Accordingly for real time applications that depend on timely packet
delivery within certain acceptable thresholds will be sensitive to the length of time a SMR loses connectivity
while performing handover. In case of this type of applications seamless handoff is generally expected which
includes both features i.e. smooth (no or very little packet loss) as well as fast (low delay) handoff. But in
accordance with NEMO Basic Support Protocol (NEMO BSP), only one primary Care of Address (CoA) of SMR
can be registered with home agent, which affects the handoff performance resulting packet loss and delay.
This paper presents an enhanced macro mobility management scheme for NEMO network which integrates
improved FHMIPv6 with mobile networks. The main idea of the proposed macro mobility scheme is to apply
the improved fast handoff mechanism for the SMR handoff with its Local Fixed Node (LFN) in NEMO network
in order to achieve seamless handoff in terms of packet loss and delay. The performance of the proposed
scheme is evaluated using simulation approach. The simulation is done using Network Simulator (NS-2).
The simulation result shows that the proposed scheme outperforms the standard NEMO BSP in terms of packet
loss (packet loss less than 6%).


Multiple immunolabeling of cryosections was performed to compare the subcellular distributions of the two mannose 6-phosphate receptors (MPRs) involved in the intracellular targeting of lysosomal enzymes: the cation-dependent (CD) and cation-independent (CI) MPR. In two cell types, the human hepatoma cell line HepG2 and BHK cells double transfected with cDNA's encoding for the human CD-MPR and CI-MPR, we found the two receptors at the same sites: the trans-Golgi reticulum (TGR), endosomes, electron-dense cytoplasmic vesicles, and the plasma membrane. In the TGR the two receptors colocalized and were concentrated to the same extent in the same HA I-adaptor positive coated buds and vesicles. Endosomes were identified by the presence of exogenous tracers. The two MPR codistributed to the same endosomes, but semiquantitative analysis showed a relative enrichment of the CI-MPR in endosomes containing many internal vesicles. Two endosomal subcompartments were discerned, the central vacuole and the associated tubules and vesicles (ATV). We found an enrichment of CD-MPR over CI- MPR in the ATV. Lateral segregation of the two receptors within the plane of membranes was also detected on isolated organelles. Double immunolabeling for the CD-MPR and the asialoglycoprotein receptor, which mainly recycles between endosomes and the plasma membrane, revealed that these two receptors were concentrated in different subpopulations of endosomal ATV. The small GTP-binding protein rab4, which has been shown to mediate recycling from endosomes to the plasma membrane, was localized at the cytosolic face of many endosomal ATV. Quantitative analysis of double-immunolabeled cells revealed only a limited codistribution of the MPRs and rab4 in ATV. These data suggest that the two MPRs exit the TGR via the same coated vesicles, but that upon arrival in the endosomes CD-MPR is more rapidly than CI-MPR, segregated into ATV which probably are destined to recycle MPRs to TGR.


Federal legislation such as No Child Left Behind mandated that students with disabilities be included in accountability standards, creating an important responsibility to fairly assess all students, even those with disabilities. Consequently, a sense of urgency was placed on the entire educational system to ensure that these students had a fair chance at being adequately tested, to ensure equity and access. Alternate assessments and accommodations are a part of access for these students in the testing realm. This study, which centered around fairness, focused on psychometrically comparing three subject exams administered to eighth grade students who received accommodations as opposed to those who did not. Covariance matrices, dimensionality, factor structure, and item functioning were all compared across groups to examine invariance and show that the use of accommodations did not affect the validity or fairness of the testing program.

Analyses revealed that for each of the tests, there was a significant difference in the covariance matrices, but unidimensionality held across groups implying that the dimensionality structure was the same for both groups. The factor structure was tested only for the math exam and the one-factor structure held for accommodated and non-accommodated students, again confirming unidimensionality. Despite consistent dimensions being measured for both groups, DIF did manifest but without actual test items it could not be attributed to bias.


To monitor the fault activity in the Taipei area, a new broadband downhole seismic network comprised of three stations was established in the Taipei Basin over a period of three years, 2005 - 2007. The network geometry is a triangle with a station spacing of about 12 km covering the entire Taipei Basin. Each station has two holes of different depths containing modern instruments, including a low-gain broadband seismometer. The largest depth is 150 m. We report our first experience on the installation and operation of the broadband downhole seismic network in the Taipei Basin. Some representative records from the Pingtung earthquake doublet in December 2006 are shown here. Ground displacement during the Pingtung earthquake doublet can be recovered from the velocity records without the baseline corrections that are required for the acceleration records. Our network offers excellent data for accurate and effective characterization of seismic motion in the study area. Seismic data from this network will be shared with other research institutions in Taiwan and abroad for further research.


A series of ZrO2-doped Ru:Fe:LiNbO3 crystals with various Li composition were grown by conventional Czochralski technique. The OH− absorption spectra were measured, and the Lorentzian fitting was employed to analyze the defect structures. The photorefractive properties in these crystals were investigated as a function of Li/Nb ratios. The recording sensitivity of Li-enriched Zr:Ru:Fe:liNbO3 crystal was 1.70  cm/J, and the diffraction efficiency was as high as 44.3%, while this crystal could withstand a laser intensity of 3.4×104  W/cm2 at 476 nm irradiation. Experimental results definitely showed that Zr:Ru:Fe:LiNbO3 crystals were promising blue photorefraction materials for holographic volume storage.


This paper presents a method for semi-automatic bug localization, generalized algorithmic debugging, which has been integrated with the category partition method for functional testing. In this way the efficiency of the algorithmic debugging method for bug localization can be improved by using test specifications and test results. The long-range goal of this work is a semi-automatic debugging and testing system which can be used during large-scale program development of nontrivial programs.
The method is generally applicable to procedural languages and is not dependent on any ad hoc assumptions regarding the subject program. The original form of algorithmic debugging, introduced by Shapiro, was however limited to small Prolog programs without side-effects, but has later been generalized to concurrent logic programming languages. Another drawback of the original method is the large number of interactions with the user during bug localization.
To our knowledge, this is the first method which uses category partition testing to improve the bug localization properties of algorithmic debugging. The method can avoid irrelevant questions to the programmer by categorizing input parameters and then match these against test cases in the test database. Additionally, we use program slicing, a data flow analysis technique, to dynamically compute which parts of the program are relevant for the search, thus further improving bug localization.
We believe that this is the first generalization of algorithmic debugging for programs with side-effects written in imperative languages such as Pascal. These improvements together makes it more feasible to debug larger programs. However, additional improvements are needed to make it handle pointer-related side-effects and concurrent Pascal programs.
A prototype generalized algorithmic debugger for a Pascal subset without pointer side-effects and a test case generator for application programs in Pascal, C, dBase, and LOTUS have been implemented.


In 1994, House Republicans stood on the steps of the Capitol and signed the Contract with America, promising to revolutionize government by imposing "rationality" on environmental, health, and safety regulation. When the 104th Congress adjourned two years later, just one regulatory program had been remade in the rationalist image: the program governing the risks of energy pipelines. The pipeline safety program, like the millions of miles of pipelines underground, has operated out of sight. The scholarly debate over rationalism has largely failed to recognize the importance of the reforms to risk regulation. Once unearthed, however, the program provides a new lens through which to view the broader tension between rationality and democracy in the administrative state. More than twenty years later, the pipeline safety program is a policy paradox. It has not delivered the benefits predicted by rationalists—better decisionmaking, more efficient regulation of risk, and improved democratic governance. Meanwhile, the results confirm many of the warnings of scholars who viewed the reforms as a threat to democratic process and values. The bargain offered by rationalists—better regulation in return for less direct democracy—has in practice resulted in political dysfunction. This Article contends that the rationalist experiment has not been successful because the rationalists' faith in technocratic decisionmaking obscured the real political struggle over risk. Instead of attempting to protect the administrative state from a fearful public, reformers should seek better regulation through deliberative processes that harness public concern.


Obesity is a disorder that develops from the interaction between genotype and environment involving social, behavioral, cultural, and physiological factors. Obesity increases the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, musculoskeletal disorders, chronic kidney and pulmonary disease. Although obesity is clearly associated with an increased prevalence of hypertension, many obese individuals may not develop hypertension. Protecting factors may exist and it is important to understand why obesity is not always related to hypertension. The aim of this review is to highlight the knowledge gap for the association between obesity, hypertension, and potential genetic and racial differences or environmental factors that may protect obese patients against the development of hypertension and other co-morbidities. Specific mutations in the leptin and the melaninocortin receptor genes in animal models of obesity without hypertension, the actions of α-melanocyte stimulating hormone, and SNS activity in obesity-related hypertension may promote recognition of protective and promoting factors for hypertension in obesity. Furthermore, gene-environment interactions may have the potential to modify gene expression and epigenetic mechanisms could also contribute to the heritability of obesity-induced hypertension. Finally, differences in nutrition, gut microbiota, exposure to sun light and exercise may play an important role in the presence or absence of hypertension in obesity.


Max-product Belief Propagation (BP) is a popular message-passing algorithm for computing a Maximum-A-Posteriori (MAP) assignment over a distribution represented by a Graphical Model (GM). It has been shown that BP can solve a number of combinatorial optimization problems including minimum weight matching, shortest path, network flow and vertex cover under the following common assumption: the respective Linear Programming (LP) relaxation is tight, i.e., no integrality gap is present. However, when LP shows an integrality gap, no model has been known which can be solved systematically via sequential applications of BP. In this paper, we develop the first such algorithm, coined Blossom-BP, for solving the minimum weight matching problem over arbitrary graphs. Each step of the sequential algorithm requires applying BP over a modified graph constructed by contractions and expansions of blossoms, i.e., odd sets of vertices. Our scheme guarantees termination in O(n2) of BP runs, where n is the number of vertices in the original graph. In essence, the Blossom-BP offers a distributed version of the celebrated Edmonds' Blossom algorithm by jumping at once over many sub-steps with a single BP. Moreover, our result provides an interpretation of the Edmonds' algorithm as a sequence of LPs.


This thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, we examine the behavior of the implied volatility of both target and acquirer firms around merger and acquisition announcements. We find that option implied volatility is related to the bidder firm's announcement cumulative abnormal return (CAR-Bidder), the choice of the method of payment as well as the probability that the deal will be concluded successfully. Specifically, we show that target implied volatility not only drops at the announcement day but moves towards the acquirer implied volatility post acquisition announcement for stock or mixed deals. Moreover, we find that the method of payment is related to the post announcement target implied volatility, and we document that target implied volatilities are lower in cash deals. The probability of deal success is significantly negatively affected by the spread between the actual target's implied volatility two days after the announcement and its theoretical value. The greater the difference between the target's implied volatility and its theoretical value, the lower the probability of successful deal completion. Next, we rely on the average of the implied volatility as a proxy for expected risk and the volatility of the implied volatility as a proxy for uncertainty about expected risk. We show that the CAR-Bidder decreases with an increase in both the expected risk and the uncertainty about expected risk of the bidder firm for stock or mixed deals. We also illustrate that the probability of a cash offer is decreasing in the expected risk and the uncertainty about expected risk of both bidder and target firms. We also find that the probability of deal success is decreasing in bidder's expected risk. Our measures related to risk and uncertainty about risk contain information additional to common proxies for asymmetric information and uncertainty used in the literature such as the standard deviation of analysts' forecasts and idiosyncratic volatility.

The second essay examines whether the puzzling negative relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and next month performance is affected by the intensity of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the market. Our results show that the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle is stronger in periods of high M&A activity than in periods of low M&A activity. Further analysis shows that the negative relationship between idiosyncratic volatility and next month performance is the strongest in the high M&A activity sub-period spanning from 1982-1989. In contrast, M&A activity does not explain the negative relationship between the common factor in idiosyncratic volatility (CIV) and the next month's performance. M&A activity can in part explain the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle, but it does not subsume the negative relationship between CIV exposure and firm returns.

The third essay investigates how investor sentiment affects mergers and acquisitions. Our results show that periods of higher market sentiment are associated with a lower likelihood of observing a Cash-Only offer. We also find that for stock and mixed offers, periods of higher market sentiment are associated with lower bidder announcement returns, higher target bargaining power, and lower synergy. Our findings are consistent with Barker and Wu's (2012) argument that associates periods of higher market sentiment with greater overpricing. These results are consistent with the argument that higher overpricing results in bidder firms opting for stock or mixed deals. However, this will also lead bidder investors to react more negatively to these non-cash offer announcements, target investors to bargain more if they are to be paid in stock (fully or partially), and the market to anticipate lower total synergy as the deal may be driven by the stock overpricing rather than the maximization of synergy. Next, we find that target firm runups are, on average, higher in periods of higher market sentiment. This relationship is not observed in the premium, which is unrelated to investor sentiment. The differing results of the runup and the premium is interesting as we expected to find a relationship between runup and premium similar to the markup pricing hypothesis of Schwert (1996). It appears that in periods of higher investor sentiment there is a higher runup potentially associated with the overreaction of optimistic investors. However, bidder firms' management realize that this excessive runup is not an increase in the stand-alone value of the target firm and they price the deal accordingly.


Thinking About Cultural Resource Management: Essays from the Edge. THOMAS F. KING. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 2002. xix + 196 pp., glossary, biblio., index. $70.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-7591-0214-9; $22.95 (paper), ISBN 0-7591-0214-7. Thinking About Significance. ROBERT J. AUSTIN, KATHLEEN S. HUFFMAN, and GEORGE R. BALLO (eds.). Florida Archaeological Council, Inc., Riverview, 2002. xi + 242 pp., biblio., tables, graphs, appendix. $15.00 (paper), ISBN 0-9720677-0-1. In a recent issue of the SAA Archaeological Record, Thomas Whitley (2004) makes a compelling argument for the need for cultural resource management (CRM) training in academic graduate programs. He notes the lack of formal programs in most graduate archaeology (anthropology) departments and the infrequency of courses on CRM practice, law, or training, not to mention internships. Instead, graduates typically receive on-thejob training when they, almost inevitably, find employment in CRM and not academia. This is certainly the path my career has taken thus far, although I was fortunate enough to have had a very well placed internship during undergraduate studies and numerous stints as a "shovelbum" during both my undergraduate and graduate studies. I can attest to the role that CRM companies play in the education of new archaeologists, as I myself was hired by Tom just before receiving my Ph.D. and began to learn the ropes of project management while I wrapped up a dissertation on, as Whitley writes, "assemblages excavated in a 'pure' research context over 30 years ago" (2004:24). The usefulness of reinterpreting old assemblages notwithstanding, Whitley struck a nerve as my onthe-job-training continues, even as I am now a principal investigator with a CRM outfit in Alabama. Wading into the nuances of CRM, even after having been involved in the field in one capacity or another for over ten years, is daunting to say the least. It is one thing to be familiar with the basics of section 106 review or National Register criteria. It is another task entirely to keep up with debates surrounding traditional cultural properties (TCP), much less to create dynamic cultural resource management solutions with clients, SHPOs, THPOs, and interested members of the public. To this end, I, like other CRM professionals who are products of academic systems without CRM courses, attempt to read bulletins, newsletters, books, essays, and anything else I can get my hands on during those few moments in the day when the phone isn't ringing or I'm not slogging through paperwork. Thomas King has written a great deal about CRM, its practice, its laws, and, certainly, its nuances (five of the eight books in the AltaMira Heritage Resources Management Series are penned by King). This volume, Essays from the Edge, contains his views on a wide array of topics, including innumerous problems with the process of practicing CRM, flaws in our regulations and laws, and the practitioners themselves, be they SHPO employees, project managers, or interested members of the public. His intended audience is clearly those better versed in CRM practice, and this collection of essays may be over the heads of students who have not first read his (and others') books on the basic rules and regulations governing our field. The essays are arranged under four topic groupings, which can generally be described as 1) CRM is more than archaeology, 2) section 106 review needs work, 3) ideas for consulting with Native Americans in meaningful ways, and 4) archaeology in CRM. Each short essay concisely addresses an aspect of the field from the perspective of someone who has clearly thought about each one for some time and is not shy about offering his opinion if it advances or broadens the debate beyond how to preserve the status quo of CRM. King sees CRM, its laws and regulations, and certainly its practice, as a dynamic system-flawed, but not unalterable. In CRM, we follow a myriad of rules and regulations constructed and amended by those who may or may not work directly in CRM. …


Modern approaches for multi-person pose estimation in video require large amounts of dense annotations. However, labeling every frame in a video is costly and labor intensive. To reduce the need for dense annotations, we propose a PoseWarper network that leverages training videos with sparse annotations (every k frames) to learn to perform dense temporal pose propagation and estimation. Given a pair of video frames---a labeled Frame A and an unlabeled Frame B---we train our model to predict human pose in Frame A using the features from Frame B by means of deformable convolutions to implicitly learn the pose warping between A and B. We demonstrate that we can leverage our trained PoseWarper for several applications. First, at inference time we can reverse the application direction of our network in order to propagate pose information from manually annotated frames to unlabeled frames. This makes it possible to generate pose annotations for the entire video given only a few manually-labeled frames. Compared to modern label propagation methods based on optical flow, our warping mechanism is much more compact (6M vs 39M parameters), and also more accurate (88.7% mAP vs 83.8% mAP). We also show that we can improve the accuracy of a pose estimator by training it on an augmented dataset obtained by adding our propagated poses to the original manual labels. Lastly, we can use our PoseWarper to aggregate temporal pose information from neighboring frames during inference. This allows our system to achieve state-of-the-art pose detection results on the PoseTrack2017 and PoseTrack2018 datasets. Code has been made available at: this https URL.


An improved prototype of the "voiscape" voice communication medium has been developed and subjectively evaluated. Voiscape enables natural and seamless voice communication by using sound to create a virtual "sound room" in which people, who are represented by different sounds, can move freely. It features low-delay motion-tracking spatial audio with simulated early reflections that produce out-of-head sound localization and sound distance expression. It also features virtual-location-based selective communication: a user can walk freely in the sound room using a map- and cursor-key-based user-interface and can select whom to talk to or which sound sources to listen to. A third feature is SIP-presence-event-notification (SIMPLE)-based sound room management: when users move, their locations and directions are distributed using SIP SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY messages. The combination of these features creates a natural voice-communication space in which two or more parallel conversation contexts can coexist. Limited, subjective testing by around 200 people showed that this medium can be used for cocktail-party-like conversation; i.e., users could distinguish parallel conversations by paying attention to or by moving toward one of them.


Abstract With the universal hearing screening we can prevent auditory disorders in children. Aim To characterize the program of neonatal auditory screening into a population of neonates. Materials and Methods longitudinal cohort study. We surveyed the clinic's database on neonatal auditory screening in the city of Porto Velho, Rondônia. Results Among the 6,889 newborns in the database, 5,700 (82.7%) passed and 1,189 (17.3%) failed the first screening. Of the group which failed 900 (75.7 %) returned for retesting. Among these, 15 (0.22 %) newborns had hearing loss confirmed. The most prevalent was neural hearing loss with 46.7% confirmed cases; they had hyperbilirubinemia as the most prevalent risk factor. Conclusion hyperbilirubinemia was the most prevalent risk factor found in the group of hearing impaired children. The prevalence of hearing loss was of 2 in 1,000 newborns. It is important to highlight the relevant association between neural hearing loss caused by hyperbilirubinemia and sensorineural hearing loss of unknown causes.


This paper assesses the potential benefits of climate-change mitigation in reducing the impacts of sea-level rise over the 21st century in G-20 countries (excluding the European Union as a whole), using the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment model. Impacts of the expected number of people flooded annually and wetland losses were assessed. To assess the benefits of mitigation, it was assumed that defences were not upgraded during the study. Globally, with a sea-level rise of 0.68 m by the 2080s (with respect to 1980–99), representing a potential future with limited climate-change mitigation, and with the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A1 socio-economic scenario, 123 million additional people could be flooded annually and 39% of present global wetland stock could be lost. For a 0.19-m rise in sea level, associated with a substantial reduction in emissions, the number of people flooded could be reduced to 13 million/y, with 21% of global wetland stock loss, unless new wetlands emerge. Collectively, non-Annex 1 G-20 countries experience a disproportionately higher number of people flooded in their nations compared with the proportion of population flooded globally. The greatest wetland losses for G-20 countries are projected for Australia, Indonesia, and the United States. Thus, G-20 nations with the highest emissions or gross domestic product frequently do not experience the greatest impacts, despite some of these nations being potentially more able to pay for adaptation.


Getting the Dosage Right As sex chromosomes evolve, they must compensate for differential gene dosage, especially in non-sex-specific genes. However, owing to the relative rarity of chromosomes that are in the process of becoming sex chromosomes, the ongoing evolutionary processes resulting in dosage compensation are unclear. Ellison and Bachtrog (p. 846; see the Perspective by Chuong and Feschotte) identified a specific transposable element involved in dosage compensation in males on the evolutionarily new neo-X chromosome of Drosophila miranda. A particular copy of this transposable element has been inserted at chromatin entry sites on the neo-X chromosome that favorably binds to the male-specific lethal complex, which in turn facilitates the spreading of chromatin silencing on a single chromosome to provide dosage compensation. Transposable elements facilitated functional specialization of recently evolved X chromosomes in fruit flies. [Also see Perspective by Chuong and Feschotte] Transposable elements (TEs) may contribute to evolutionary innovations through the rewiring of networks by supplying ready-to-use cis regulatory elements. Genes on the Drosophila X chromosome are coordinately regulated by the male specific lethal (MSL) complex to achieve dosage compensation in males. We show that the acquisition of dozens of MSL binding sites on evolutionarily new X chromosomes was facilitated by the independent co-option of a mutant helitron TE that attracts the MSL complex (TE domestication). The recently formed neo-X recruits helitrons that provide dozens of functional, but suboptimal, MSL binding sites, whereas the older XR chromosome has ceased acquisition and appears to have fine-tuned the binding affinities of more ancient elements for the MSL complex. Thus, TE-mediated rewiring of regulatory networks through domestication and amplification may be followed by fine-tuning of the cis-regulatory element supplied by the TE and erosion of nonfunctional regions.


The global challenges of food security and biodiversity are rarely addressed together, though recently there has been an increasing awareness that the two issues are closely related. The majority of land available for agriculture is already used for food production, but despite the productivity gains, one in nine people worldwide are classified as food insecure. There is an increasing risk that addressing food insecurity through methods such as agricultural expansion or intensification could lead to biodiversity loss through destruction of habitats important for conservation. This analysis uses various indicators of biodiversity at a global scale, including biodiversity hotspots, total species richness, and threatened and endemic species richness. Areas where high biodiversity coexists with high food insecurity or a high risk of agricultural expansion, were examined and found to mainly occur in the tropics, with Madagascar standing out in particular. The areas identified are especially at risk of biodiversity loss, and so are global priorities for further research and for policy development to address food insecurity and biodiversity loss together.


MIEF1 promotes mitochondrial fusion despite recruiting the fission-promoting GTPase Drp1 to the mitochondrial membrane. The balance between fission and fusion events controls both the form and function of mitochondria and is regulated by various environmental and internal stimuli, such as cellular energy status. Molecular components required at the mitochondrial outer membrane for fission include the dynamin-like guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) Drp1; mitochondrial fission factor (Mff), which is required for recruitment of Drp1 to the outer membrane; and the integral membrane protein hFis1, which has been implicated as the receptor for Drp1. Mitofusins 1 and 2 (Mfn1 and Mfn2) are fusion-promoting dynamin-like GTPases that are also localized to the outer membrane. Zhao et al. have identified an additional component of the machinery that regulates mitochondrial dynamics. MIEF1 (mitochondrial elongation factor 1) was identified from a database of green fluorescent protein (GFP)–tagged fusion proteins and induced mitochondrial elongation when ectopically expressed in human 293T cells. Conversely, depletion of MIEF1 by RNA interference led to mitochondrial fragmentation. MIEF1 was present on mitochondrial membranes in puncta and at sites of contact between adjacent mitochondria. Based on mitochondrial morphology, overexpression of MIEF1 promoted mitochondrial fusion in a manner distinct from that of Mfn2 overexpression. MIEF1 colocalized with Drp1 on mitochondria, and the two proteins coimmunoprecipitated from cell lysates. Overexpressed MIEF1 recruited cytoplasmic Drp1 to the mitochondrial outer membrane, and deletion of MIEF1's transmembrane domain prevented its colocalization with Drp1 and caused a mitochondrial elongation phenotype similar to that of dominant-negative Drp1 mutants. Binding to MIEF1 decreased the GTPase activity of Drp1, implying that MIEF1 promoted fusion by interfering with Drp1's fission-inducing activity. Mfn2, hFis1, and Mfn2 were not required for MIEF1 to recruit Drp1 to the membrane, but MIEF1 did coimmunoprecipitate with hFis1 and colocalize with hFis1 independent of MIEF1's ability to bind to Drp1. Similarly, the interaction of Drp1 with MIEF1 was independent of hFis1. Overexpression of hFis1 decreased MIEF1-induced mitochondrial fusion, suggesting that MIEF1 may affect fusion by a Drp1-independent mechanism or that the inhibition of Drp1 may be overcome by enhancing recruitment though hFis1. The authors propose a model in which MIEF1 sequesters Drp1, thus preventing it from interacting with hFis1 to promote fission. MIEF1 has no homologs in yeast or invertebrates, highlighting the fact that the mechanisms that regulate mitochondrial dynamics differ between yeast and vertebrates. J. Zhao, T. Liu, S. Jin, X. Wang, M. Qu, P. Uhlén, N. Tomilin, O. Shupliakov, U. Lendahl, M. Nistér, Human MIEF1 recruits Drp1 to mitochondrial outer membranes and promotes mitochondrial fusion rather than fission. EMBO J. 30, 2762–2778 (2011). [PubMed]


Space-time code can be implemented in wireless relay networks when all relays cooperate to generate the code at the receiver. In this case, it is called distributed space-time code. If the channel response changes very quickly, the idea of differential space-time coding is needed to overcome the difficulty of updating the channel state information at the receiver. As a result, the transmitted signal can be demodulated without any knowledge of the channel state information at the relays or the receiver. In this paper, development of new low decoding complexity distributed differential spacetime codes is considered. The developed codes are designed using semiorthogonal algebraic space-time codes. They work for networks with an even number of relays and have a two-group decodable maximum likelihood receiver. The performance of the new codes is analyzed via MATLAB simulation which demonstrates that they outperform both cyclic codes and circulant codes.


Among North American fishes, albinism is rare. Only 107 of 1498 references to piscine anomalies (7%) compiled by Dawson (1) dealt with this phenomenon. None was listed for the genus Lepisosteus. On 17 May 1993, I shot an albinistic spotted gar (Lepisosteus oculatus) while bowfishing in Lake Lawtonka, Comanche County, Oklahoma. The fish was resting quietly near the surface in clear, well-vegetated water about 30 cm deep, where fairly dense stands of smartweeds (Polygonum sp.), scattered black willows (Salix nigra), and buttonbushes (Cephalanthus occidentalis) provided cover. The air temperature was 33 °C and the water was several degrees cooler. The fish was a gravid female measuring 619 mm (TL) and weighing 827 g. It was not a complete albino, for its eyes were pigmented heavily with black. Although the top of the snout was colorless and no body or fin spotting was evident, a lateral scale count of 57 separated it from the morphologically similar short-nosed gar (L. platostomus). The overall color was a dull white, with a pale yellowish tinge. This yellow wash extended posteriorly from the nape approximately 15 cm, and was also evident around and between the eyes. The gular region and ventrolateral aspects of the head were a paler shade of yellow. Other colorless areas included a dime-sized spot atop the head, the sides of the head, and the opercula. The venter was off-white. The fins were transparent except for the first two or three outer rays of the pectorals and dorsal fin and the anteriormost four or five anal rays, which were yellow. The snout had a pinkish hue except for its yellow-tinged base. This fish was deposited in the Cameron University Museum of Zoology in Lawton, Oklahoma (CUMZ-F38). This report apparently represents the first documentation of albinism for the genus Lepisosteus. However, on 6 May 1980, in this same lake I had observed, but did not capture, another white gar which was estimated to be about 36 cm TL (2).


AbstractDuring the last five years there has been a considerable immigration from the Netherlands to Varmland in Sweden. INVA, Invest in Varmland, wanted to highlight this phenomenon and therefore contacted Karlstad University to make a survey about how extensive the immigration is and what consequences it brings for the business life and municipalities in Varmland. We were luckily chosen to perform this research and the main focus in this study has been the following questions:• Why do the Dutchmen choose to buy their house in Varmland?• What are the main reasons for leaving the Netherlands?• What consequences does the immigration cause for the business life in Varmland?• How do the Dutchmen experience the contact with Swedish authorities?To answer the questions we designed a questionnaire that was sent to 200 Dutch house purchasers. The ambition was to survey all the Dutch house purchasers in Varmland, but with the time constrains and the municipalities having problem to find complete data, we limited the survey to 200 households. To sample more information eleven interviews were made with Dutch families, brokers and local authorities.The most important factor behind the Dutchmen moving to Varmland is the nature and the calmness. Other factors that were mentioned in the survey are the mentality of the people who live in Varmland, a good place to raise your children and house prices. The main reasons for leaving the Netherlands are lack of space, social aspects, work and economic motives.The first big investment that is done by the Dutchmen is buying a house, the consequences of this act is higher house prices. The consuming of items on the local market is another indirect investment that is positive for the local businessmen. 60 % of the Dutchmen that moves to Varmland for permanent living starts their own business or bring their company from the Netherlands.One of the most common problems when buying the house was the poor language skills among the local brokers. Some of the respondent requested the brokers to speak Dutch and some required that the brokers should speak better English. In the future this problem might disappear because during the last year there are some Dutchmen who has started to work together with the local brokers. The contact with Swedish authorities was considered positive in general but some of the Dutchmen had problems to get a social security number and some had problems finding information about the Swedish tax system.


Hyaluronan (HA) is a naturally occurring high-value polysaccharide with important medical applications. HA is commercially produced from pathogenic microbial sources. HA-producing recombinant cell factories that are being developed with GRAS organisms are comparatively less productive than the best natural producers. The metabolism of these recombinant systems needs to be more strategically engineered to achieve significant improvement. Here, we use a genome-scale metabolic network model to account for the entire metabolic network of the cell to predict strategies for improving HA production. We here analyze the metabolic network of Lactococcus lactis adapted to produce HA, and identify non-conventional overexpression and knock-out strategies to enhance HA flux. To experimentally validate our predictions, we identify an alternate route for enhancement of HA synthesis, originating from the nucleoside inosine, which has the capacity to function in parallel with the traditionally known route from glucose. Adopting this strategy resulted in a 2.8-fold increase in HA yield. The strategies identified and the experimental results show that the cell is capable of involving a larger subset of metabolic pathways in HA production. Apart from being the first report of the use of a nucleoside to improve HA production, our study shows how experimental results enable model refinement. Overall, we point out that well-constructed genome-scale metabolic models could be very potent tools to derive efficient strategies to improve biosynthesis of important high-value products.


Fabrication of curved shells plays an important role in modern design, industry, and science. Among their remarkable properties are, for example, aesthetics of organic shapes, ability to evenly distribute loads, or efficient flow separation. They find applications across vast length scales ranging from sky-scraper architecture to microscopic devices. But, at
the same time, the design of curved shells and their manufacturing process pose a variety of challenges. In this thesis, they are addressed from several perspectives. In particular, this thesis presents approaches based on the transformation of initially flat sheets into the target curved surfaces. This involves problems of interactive design of shells with nontrivial mechanical constraints, inverse design of complex structural materials, and data-driven modeling of delicate and time-dependent physical properties. At the same time, two newly-developed self-morphing mechanisms targeting flat-to-curved transformation are presented.
In architecture, doubly curved surfaces can be realized as cold bent glass panelizations. Originally flat glass panels are bent into frames and remain stressed. This is a cost-efficient fabrication approach compared to hot bending, when glass panels are shaped plastically. However such constructions are prone to breaking during bending, and it is highly
nontrivial to navigate the design space, keeping the panels fabricable and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. We introduce an interactive design system for cold bent glass facades, while previously even offline optimization for such scenarios has not been sufficiently developed. Our method is based on a deep learning approach providing quick
and high precision estimation of glass panel shape and stress while handling the shape
multimodality.
Fabrication of smaller objects of scales below 1 m, can also greatly benefit from shaping originally flat sheets. In this respect, we designed new self-morphing shell mechanisms transforming from an initial flat state to a doubly curved state with high precision and detail. Our so-called CurveUps demonstrate the encodement of the geometric information
into the shell. Furthermore, we explored the frontiers of programmable materials and showed how temporal information can additionally be encoded into a flat shell. This allows prescribing deformation sequences for doubly curved surfaces and, thus, facilitates self-collision avoidance enabling complex shapes and functionalities otherwise impossible.
Both of these methods include inverse design tools keeping the user in the design loop.


The Aurora area is a glaciated upland of drift-mantled slopes, channels, swamps, and glacial-lake plains. It covers about 24 square miles of the eastern part of the Mesabi Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota. A deep narrow channel along the Embarrass River, the principal outlet of a former large glacial lake north of the Embarrass Mountains, lies partly within the area. The deposits in the report area consist of bedrock and unconsolidated glacial drift. The 'bedrock belongs to the Animikie Group of late Preeambrian age and consists of taconite (an iron-rich silicate rock) in the northern part and slightly metamorphosed argillite in the middle and southern parts. Bedrock is exposed only in the open-pit iron mines. Large quantities of ground water are pumped from porous and permeable ore zones in the St. James Mine. Small quantities of ground water are obtainable from openings along bedding planes and fractures in the argillite. Unconsolidated deposits consisting of till and water-laid glacial and alluvial materials mantle the bedrock to depths ranging from about 20 feet in the north-central part of the Aurora area to more than 300 feet near the Embarrass River. Thick deposits of sand and gravel in the Embarrass channel are capable of yielding large quantites of water. At places along the Partridge River glaeiofluvial deposits (glacial sediments deposited in running water) could yield moderate to large quantities of water. Sandy to bouldery till yields small quantities of water to domestic wells. Well yields in the Aurora area range from less than 5 gpm (gallons per minute) to about 250 gpm from a well tapping an ore body. The specific capacity of wells penetrating ore zones ranges from about 7 gpm per foot of drawdown to 25 gpm per foot of drawdown. Although no attempt has been made to develop a high-yield well in the sand and gravel deposits of the Embarrass channel, more than 5,000 gpm is pumped from sumps which collect water from these deposits in the Embarrass mine. Most domestic wells yield about 5 gpm and are drilled and finished in sand or gravel in either the bouldery till or glaciofluvial deposits. Ground water from the unconsolidated deposits is hard and commonly contains large, undesirable amounts of iron and manganese. Water from the 'bedrock aquifers contains less iron and manganese than does water from the unconsolidated deposits. Ul U2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES


Background: Containment of the COVID-19 pandemic requires evidence-based strategies to reduce transmission. Because COVID-19 can spread via respired droplets, many states have mandated mask use in public settings. Randomized control trials have not clearly demonstrated mask efficacy against respiratory viruses, but observational studies suggest greater mask compliance may be associated with lower infection rates. We hypothesized that statewide mask mandates and mask use are associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States. Methods: We calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the continental United States with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. We estimated post-mask mandate case growth in non-mandate states using median issuance dates of neighboring states with mandates. Results: Case growth was not significantly different between mandate and non-mandate states at low or high transmission rates, and surges were equivocal. Mask use predicted lower case growth at low, but not high transmission rates. Growth rates were comparable between states in the top and bottom mask use quintiles adjusted for normalized total cases early in the pandemic and unadjusted after peak Fall-Winter infections. Mask use did not predict Summer 2020 case growth for non-Northeast states or Fall-Winter 2020 growth for all states. Conclusions: Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID-19 growth surges. COVID-19 containment requires future research and implementation of existing efficacious strategies.


Although the annual precipitation in Korea is 30% higher than the world average, increased population, urbanization and industrialization, as well as improved living standard have caused problems such as water shortage, flood damage, and water pollution. Additional multi-purpose dams and infra-structures are supposed to be constructed by 2011. On the other hand, water demand control is also suggested. This includes water saving by increasing water price, reuse of treated water, development of new water resources and rainfall management. Beside the Comprehensive Measures on the Provision of Clean Water, Comprehensive Water Quality Management Measures for the Four Major Rivers and Act on Watershed Management and Community Support are the main policies to be implemented for improving the quality of major rivers. Recently, Total Water Pollution Load management is voluntarily pursued for sustainable management of water resources.


Sustainability is a normative concept, building on ideas such as justice, equity and responsibility, and based on human culture and society. Computers, internet, and the technologies that are central in our network society embed also normative values and are part of a cultural context. But the work looking at computer technologies and sustainability has been mostly oriented towards either calculating the impact of technology or using technology as a tool for solving practical problems. ICT is seen as a neutral system to be used or study, while the more normative aspects are mostly overlooked. This paper explores some of the problems arising from these overlooked normative values, such as focusing only on quantifiable problems while forgetting other aspects that may be as important but not easy to put in numbers, or trusting too much in numbers while hiding assumption and model choices. This paper suggests that more critical reflection on these questions is needed in the research area, as well as developing more connections with existing research on these topics in more traditional disciplines.


Single crystals of Dy:GdScO3 and Dy,Tb:GdScO3 have been successfully grown by the Czochralski method. High crystalline quality of both crystals was determined via X-ray rocking curves. Effective segregation coefficients of Dy3+ and Tb3+ ions in GdScO3 host were calculated to be ∼0.7 and 1.03, respectively. The large FWHMs and absorption cross-sections of Dy:GdScO3 and Dy,Tb:GdScO3 crystals at 452 nm indicate that they can be efficiently pumped by the commercial blue GaN laser diodes. Both Dy:GdScO3 and Dy,Tb:GdScO3 exhibit relatively large stimulated emission cross-sections at 578 nm and relatively long fluorescence lifetimes. In particular, Dy,Tb:GdScO3 shows an enhanced yellow emission at around 578 nm. The energy transfer between Dy3+ and Tb3+ ions is beneficial for realizing population inversion by depopulating the population of the lower laser level of Dy3+ and has negligible influence on the upper laser level. Additionally, the defects and thermal properties of Dy:GdScO3 were investigated since they are very important for crystal growth and laser applications. Collectively, these results suggest that Dy:GdScO3 and Dy,Tb:GdScO3 can be regarded as promising candidates for realizing 578 nm laser output.


The ICT disciplines in Australian universities have a strong tradition of industry engagement in curriculum design and implementation particularly through work integrated learning programs. Work integrated learning (WIL) includes industry placements, internships, industry projects and other methods and approaches that aim to enhance the professional practice capabilities of students. There are various stakeholders involved in WIL programs including universities, students, government and industry, each with their own motivations and expectations. Whilst all stakeholders agree on the benefits to students, there are conflicting interests that jeopardise further development and innovation in WIL. This paper reports on surveys of industry and university stakeholders in order to understand representative views and current practices. The findings confirm a lack of a shared understanding between stakeholders regarding roles, responsibilities, models and benefits. The paper concludes with several recommendations regarding the adoption of an outcomes-based approach to the design and implementation of work integrated learning programs that will encourage innovation and quality in WIL.


Understanding the characteristics of unutilized biomass resources, such as small-diameter trees from biomass-dense thinning forests (BDTF) (non-commercially-thinned forests), can provide important information for developing a bio-based economy. The aim of this study was to describe the areal distribution, characteristics (biomass of growing stock, tree height, etc.) and harvesting potential of BDTF in Sweden. A national forest inventory plot dataset was imported into a geographical information system and plots containing BDTF were selected by applying increasingly stringent constraints. Results show that, depending on the constraints applied, BDTF covers 9-44% (2.1-9.8 M ha) of the productive forest land area, and contains 7-34% of the total growing stock (119-564 M OD t), with an average biomass density of 57 OD t ha^-1. Of the total BDTF area, 65% is located in northern Sweden and 2% corresponds to set-aside farmlands. Comparisons with a study from 2008 indicate that BDTF area has increased by at least 4% (about 102 000 ha), in line with general trends for Sweden and Europe. Analyses revealed that the technical harvesting potential of delimbed stemwood (over bark, including tops) from BDTF ranges from 3.0 to 6.1 M OD t yr^-1 (7.5 to 15.1 M m^3 yr^-1), while the potential of whole-tree harvesting ranges from 4.3 to 8.7 M OD t yr^-1 (10.2 to 20.6 M m3 yr^-1) depending on the scenario considered. However, further technological developments of the harvest and supply systems are needed to utilize the full potential of BDTF.


Human-induced climate change is a serious development issue with major implications for agriculture, water supplies, rural livelihoods and other sectors of the economy. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007a) states that warming of the planet in unequivocal observed changes in climate are already affecting ecological, social, and economic systems, and sustainable development is threatened by climate change. Climate change may have serious consequences for the livelihoods of rural populations in the Mekong region. For rural economies in the Mekong region, the additional stresses imposed by climate change could threaten goals related to poverty alleviation. The challenges to agriculture and water supply may be further aggravated by changes in rainfall regimes, hydrology and the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events, leading to threats to economic development. Furthermore, climate change may also affect the viability of infrastructure investments such as hydropower plants. Little research has been conducted in the Mekong sub-region to understand impacts, risks, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change here. This paper considers some of the issues being investigated by a research project funded by the Asian Development Bank under the Greater Mekong Sub-region Core Environmental Program, especially focused on risks and potential adaptation measures. The project will conduct policy-relevant assessments to be discussed during workshops of government decision-makers. Some of the outcomes of this study are likely to be relevant for many countries in Southeast Asia outside of the Mekong sub-region.


Throughout history governments have had to confront the problem of how to deal with the poorer parts of their population. During the medieval and early modern period this responsibility was largely borne by religious institutions, civic institutions and individual charity. By the eighteenth century, however, the rapid social and economic changes brought about by industrialisation put these systems under intolerable strain, forcing radical new solutions to be sought to address both old and new problems of health care and poor relief.

This volume looks at how northern European governments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries coped with the needs of the poor, whilst balancing any new measures against the perceived negative effects of relief upon the moral wellbeing of the poor and issues of social stability.

Taken together, the essays in this volume chart the varying responses of states, social classes and political theorists towards the great social and economic issue of the age, industrialisation. Its demands and effects undermined the capacity of the old poor relief arrangements to look after those people that the fits and starts of the industrialisation cycle itself turned into paupers. The result was a response that replaced the traditional principle of 'outdoor' relief, with a generally repressive system of 'indoor' relief that lasted until the rise of organised labour forced a more benign approach to the problems of poverty.

Although complete in itself, this volume also forms the third of a four-volume survey of health care and poor relief provision between 1500 and 1900, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham.
General Themes: Health care and poor relief in 18th and 19th-century northern Europe, Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham; Health care and the construction of citizenship in civil societies in the era of the Enlightenment and industrialisation, Dorothy Porter; Histories of risk and welfare in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, Marco van Leeuwen; The German States: Health care provision and poor relief in enlightenment and 19th-century Prussia, Fritz Dross; Health care provision and poor relief in the electorate and kingdom of Bavaria, Michael Stolberg; Urban charity and the relief of the sick poor in northern Germany, 1750–1850, Mary Lindemann; Russia and Scandinavia: Health care and poor relief in Russia (1700–1856), Hubertus Jahn; Health care provision and poor relief in enlightenment and 19th-century Denmark, Gerda Bonderup; Ideology or pragmatism?: health care provision and poor relief in Norway in the 19th century, Oivind Larsen; Britain: Health care and poor relief in provincial England, Anne Crowther; Medical relief and the new Poor Law in London, David Green; Poor relief and health care in 19th-century Scotland, Rosalind Mitchison; The Netherlands: Dutch approaches to problems of illness and poverty between the Golden Age and the Fin de Siecle, Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra; France: Poor relief and medical assistance in 18th-and 19th-century Paris, Matthew Ramsey; Health care provision and poor relief in 19th-century provincial France, Olivier Faure; Index.


Demographic, personality, and disease-related factors all contribute when patients disagree with physicians on the severity of subjective symptoms. This study aims to create a model, on the basis of patient factors at treatment initiation, for longitudinal prediction of disagreement on treatment response and remission in depressed patients. Four hundred patients with major depressive disorder were studied during a clinical drug trial. Repeated assessments with the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and the self-rating version (MADRS-S) were used to indicate response or remission. Factors at baseline and week 2 were tested for inclusion in a model for the prediction of discordance on remission and response between patients and physicians at week 8. The models were then tested, in the same population, at weeks 12, 16, and 24. Model AUCs ranged from 0.71 to 0.74 for week 8. The models that were validated at weeks 12, 16, and 24 indicated stability in the predictive value of the models. The risk for longitudinal disagreement in the evaluation of depression treatment response and remission in clinical practice and drug trials can be predicted using factors at study initiation and at week 2.


Transcript quantification using RNA-seq is central to contemporary and future transcriptomics research. The existing tools are useful but have much room for improvement. We present a new statistical model, a fast yet accurate transcript quantification algorithm. Our tool takes RNA-seq reads in fasta or fastq format as input and output transcript abundance through a few mouse clicks. Our method compares favorably with the existing GUI tools in terms of both time complexity and accuracy. Availability: Both simulation data used for method comparisons and the GUI tool are freely available at http://asammate.sourceforge.net/.


Clinical alarm systems safety is a national healthcare concern in the United States. Physiologic monitors are the medical devices associated with the highest number of false and clinically insignificant alarms, producing alarm fatigue and a challenge to meet the national clinical alarm systems safety goal. Modern physiologic monitors are high-tech complex devices with multimeasurement modalities and high sensitivity for alarms. This complexity hinders safe operation of the monitors by nurses and appropriate management of associated alarms. Nurses need to integrate cognitive knowledge, psychomotor skills, and critical thinking to safely operate the monitors and support clinical decisions. Limited resources are available to support clinical education for nurses on physiologic monitor use and alarm management. This toolkit presents an educational framework for physiologic monitor use and alarm safety guided by adult learning principles. The components of the program are (1) knowledge, skills, and attitude of physiologic monitor use; (2) scenario-based learning model to support the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for safe monitor use; and (3) a framework for evaluating the educational program. Education should be ongoing and customized per facility to ensure safe use of complex technology and to decrease alarm fatigue, the leading cause of alarm-related sentinel events.


We study Doob's martingale convergence theorem for computable continuous time martingales on Brownian motion, in the context of algorithmic randomness. A characterization of the class of sample points for which the theorem holds is given. Such points are given the name of Doob random points. It is shown that a point is Doob random if its tail is computably random in a certain sense. Moreover, Doob randomness is strictly weaker than computable randomness and is incomparable with Schnorr randomness.


Vine water status is a major parameter for vine management because it affects both wine quality and yield. In order to optimize vineyard management and harvesting practices, it is necessary to characterize vineyard water status spatial variability. This work aims at establishing an empirical spatial model for stem water potential (ΨStem) with ancillary data based on vine water status. Carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) measured at harvest was selected as ancillary data because it reflects only the effect of vine water status variations integrated over the season and is not impacted by other factors such as vine nitrogen status. The proposed model was applied at the intrablock level. It is based on the spatial extrapolation of a ΨStem value measured at a reference site using δ13C values collected over the block. Measurements of ΨStem and δ13C were carried out over three consecutive years on 96 locations within the block. ΨStem values obtained with a spatial model were more accurate than ΨStem values obtained with a nonspatial model, indicating the relevancy of δ13C values to account for spatial variability of vine water status. Results show that operational maps of vine water status can be obtained by means of a spatial model, in which δ13C values from a previous season are used as ancillary data. Maps can be updated at any given time during the season by carrying out a limited number of ΨStem measurements in selected locations. This model offers a tool to monitor vine water status and to implement management practices while considering vine water status intrablock variability.


The first detailed treatment of the Chinese homosexual tradition in any Western language, Passions of the Cut Sleeve shatters preconceptions and stereotypes. Gone is the image of the sternly puritanical Confucian as sole representative of Chinese sexual practices--and with it the justification for the modern Chinese insistence that homosexuality is a recent import from the decadent West. Rediscovering the male homosexual tradition in China provides a startling new perspective on Chinese society and adds richly to our understanding of homosexuality. Bret Hinsch's reconstruction of the Chinese homosexual past reveals unexpected scenes. An emperor on his deathbed turns over the seals of the empire to a male beloved; two men marry each other with elaborate wedding rituals; parents sell their son into prostitution. The tradition portrays men from all levels of society--emperors, transvestite actors, rapists, elegant scholars, licentious monks, and even the nameless poor. Drawing from dynastic histories, erotic novels, popular Buddhist tracts, love poetry, legal cases, and joke books, Passions of the Cut Sleeve evokes the complex and fascinating male homosexual tradition in China from the Bronze Age until its decline in recent times.


Edna O'Brien's "A Scandalous Woman" (1972) ends with the statement that Ireland is "a land of strange, sacrificial women" (33). Like O'Brien, Mary Lavin features sacrificial women in her short stories. The disturbing martyrdoms of the heroines created by both writers stem, in part, from Catholic notions of the Madonna. The two writers criticize their heroines' emulations of the suffering Virgin. Julia Kristeva's "Stabat Mater" (1977) and Marina Warner's Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976) scrutinize the impact of the Madonna myth on western European women. Their feminist scholarship illuminates short stories such as Lavin's "A Nun's Mother" (1944) and "Sarah" (1943), as well as O'Brien's "Sister Imelda" (1981) and "A Scandalous Woman." In each story, female martyrdom (en)gendered by the Madonna myth takes different forms, from becoming a nun to becoming a wife, mother, or "fallen woman." Kristeva comments upon the fluidity of the Madonna, who encompasses diverse female roles, as do the Irish female characters who emulate her. Discussing the dimensions of the Madonna - Virgin, mother, wife - Warner describes the primary effect of the Madonna myth: "By setting up an impossible ideal the cult of the Virgin does drive the adherent into a position of acknowledged and hopeless yearning and inferiority," (337). The heroines of Lavin's and O'Brien's stories fit the pattern of self-hatred that Warner describes. Their varieties of sacrifice stem from self-disgust fostered by failing to reach the standards of the Madonna myth. In O'Brien's "Sister Imelda," the teenage narrator falls in love with her teacher, the beautiful young nun of the title. The joys of their love are the Foucauldian pleasures of self-denial - a passion never to be realized but fanned by both teacher and student through notes, whispered confidences, devotional gifts, and an occasional hug or kiss. This story fits the pattern of O'Brien's novels that Thomas F. Staley calls confessional, "crying out for absolution" (188). Imelda's and the narrator's romance makes life in the cold nunnery, tolerable, even enjoyable. The romance stands, in miniature, for the unrealizable passion that Sister Imelda holds for Christ. Thus it becomes an enlistment tool for the nunnery, as Sister Imelda lures the narrator into a permanent sisterhood of sublimated passion. The narrator abandons her plan to become a nun after she leaves the convent, instead taking up the worldly solaces of makeup and nylons to attract the attention of men. Her best friend, Baba, outdoes her at dressing like a mature woman, becoming the narrator's model as Imelda once was. Baba's name suggests trite babytalk among lovers, as well as the magic of the Arabian Nights - here the transformations of puberty that are supposed to lead to marital joy. The narrator's struggle to sublimate her sexuality into a pure love for Sister Imelda may come from her wish to emulate the Virgin. Warner writes that "the foundations of the ethic of sexual chastity are laid in fear and loathing of the female body's functions in identification of evil with the flesh and flesh with woman" (77). The nuns' routine mortifications, which the schoolgirls are expected to imitate, reveal their sense that the female body is an inherently evil possession for which they must compensate. Sister Imelda gets a sty that suggests both her neglect of her body and her distorted view of it. Meanwhile, "Most girls had sore throats and were told to suffer this inconvenience to mortify themselves . . ." (2373). Sore throats are a metaphor for the voicelessness of the girls and the nuns under the convent's regimen. Both the nuns and the girls are often hungry because the convent habitually underfeeds them. Delicacies, such as the narrator's comically suggestive gift of bananas for Imelda, are saved for visiting bishops. The semi-starvation of both nuns and girls by a wealthy church forces their bodies into thin and spiritualized shapes that avoid the lush fecundity stereotypically associated with woman as sexual body. …


Transformers have a potential of learning longer-term dependency, but are limited by a fixed-length context in the setting of language modeling. We propose a novel neural architecture Transformer-XL that enables learning dependency beyond a fixed length without disrupting temporal coherence. It consists of a segment-level recurrence mechanism and a novel positional encoding scheme. Our method not only enables capturing longer-term dependency, but also resolves the context fragmentation problem. As a result, Transformer-XL learns dependency that is 80% longer than RNNs and 450% longer than vanilla Transformers, achieves better performance on both short and long sequences, and is up to 1,800+ times faster than vanilla Transformers during evaluation. Notably, we improve the state-of-the-art results of bpc/perplexity to 0.99 on enwiki8, 1.08 on text8, 18.3 on WikiText-103, 21.8 on One Billion Word, and 54.5 on Penn Treebank (without finetuning). When trained only on WikiText-103, Transformer-XL manages to generate reasonably coherent, novel text articles with thousands of tokens. Our code, pretrained models, and hyperparameters are available in both Tensorflow and PyTorch.


Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic intestinal illness of autoimmune origin affecting millions across the globe. The most common subtypes include ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease. While many medical treatments for IBD exist, none come without the risk of significant immunosuppression and in general do not have benign side effect profiles. Surgical intervention exists only as radical resection for medically refractory UC. There exists a dire need for novel treatments that target the inherent pathophysiologic disturbances of IBD, rather than global immune suppression. One avenue of investigation that could provide such an agent is the interaction between certain dietary elements and the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). The AHR is a cytosolic transcription factor with a rich history in environmental toxicant handling, however, recently a role has emerged for the AHR as a modulator of the gastrointestinal immune system. Studies have come to elucidate these effects to include the enhancement of Th cell subset differentiation, interactions between enteric flora and the luminal wall, and modulation of inflammatory interleukin and cytokine signaling. This review highlights advancements in our understanding of AHR activity in the digestive tract and how this stimulation may be wrought by certain dietary "micronutriceuticals", namely indole-3-carbinol (I3C) and its derivatives. Greater clarity surrounding these dynamics could lead to a novel diet-derived agonist of the AHR which is not only non-toxic, but also efficacious in the amelioration of clinical IBD.


It is crucial to involve the patient in the development of patient accessible eHealth systems. But who, how and when? Patientinvolvement in development of e-health services for citizens has gained little attention to date. It is important to highlight theexperiences, pros and cons, and explore new issues and future challenges that arise for all different stakeholders involved in e-healthdevelopment. One source of inspiration for this workshop is the European funded SUSTAINS project which aims to deploy e-healthservices with the patient as an important actor. Another is the Swedish research project My Care Pathways where focus is ondevelopment of new e-health services that enable the patient to follow and interact with their care processes. This workshop aims todiscuss the experiences made in ongoing European deployment projects of online e-health services as well as methods to improvepatient participation in such development based on current evaluations and future needs. The objective is to collect and disseminatevarious experiences from novel e-health service deployment in Europe; during the workshop active participation is desired via twitterand other eLearning tools, and afterwards the results of the workshop are published on easily accessible web sites.


In this article, I bring together work in political ecology and environmental anthropology to examine how smallholder farmers in Madagascar articulate and embody political and economic histories through the everyday interactions with the commodities cultivated in their fields and forests. I ask: how does the work of cultivating land connect with the art of cultivating memory? In considering this question, I draw from ethnographic research in the agrarian village of Imorona, located in Northeastern Madagascar. In Imorona, smallholder farmers turn towards the materials in their agroforestry fields to reference the more painful political epics of their collective pasts – memories that otherwise remain largely silent within everyday realms of Malagasy culture. I show how the stories people tell of their shifting relationships to commodities including rosewood, vanilla and cloves bring together political and economic 'histories writ large' with more personal and intimate 'histories writ small.' Overall, I argue that the analytical approach of a 'political ecology of memory' offers the productive capacity to look both outward towards others, and inwards towards self. In the process, it elucidates the ways that people render global histories personal. Key words: Political ecology; memory; agroforestry; commodities; Madagascar; Indian Ocean.


ABSTRACT The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter genes are ubiquitous in the genomes of all vertebrates so far studied. The human ABC transporter superfamily contains 48 genes, subdivided into 7 subfamilies ranging from A to G (based on sequence homology of their nucleotide binding domains). The ABC proteins encoded by these genes are ATP-driven transmembrane pumps, some of which possess the capacity to efflux harmful toxic substances and therefore play a key role in xenobiotic defense. ABC proteins have been evolutionarily conserved from bacteria to humans and multiple gene duplication and deletion events in the ABC genes indicate that the process of gene evolution is still ongoing. Polymorphisms and variations in these genes are linked to variations in expression, function, drug disposition, and drug response. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genes could be markers of individual risk for adverse drug reactions or susceptibility to complex diseases. The pharmacogenetics of this unique f...


U-Pb ages of zircon and allanite from the coesite-bearing ultrahigh-pressure (UHP) units in the Kaghan Valley, northern Pakistan, demonstrate that peak UHP metamorphism along the northern margin of the Indian plate occurred at 46.4 ± 0.1 Ma at peak pressure-temperature conditions of >27.5 kbar (>100 km) and 720–770 °C. Much lower pressure retrogressive growth of titanite took place between 46.4 and ca. 44 Ma, indicating that the eclogites were exhumed to 35 km depth at or before 44 Ma, implying very rapid exhumation rates within the mantle of ∼30–80 mm/yr or more, comparable to rapid plate velocities. Once entrained in the base of the crust, the eclogites followed a slower cooling history from 45 Ma, similar to the amphibolite facies gneisses of the Pakistan Himalaya.


Introduction. This paper presents the findings from a project that investigated people's everyday life information experiences on Twitter. Method. The project employed constructivist grounded theory methodology, which emphasizes personal, subjective meaning-making or construction of reality. Eleven people from Boston, Massachusetts participated in the study. Each person participated in two in-depth interviews. Analysis. The study used the methods of constant comparison to create codes and categories towards constructing a new substantive model of information experiences on Twitter in the context of everyday life. Results. The substantive model constructed consists of twelve categories: being aware of audiences; making sense of uncertainty; being part of a community; conversing freely; observing the world; having instant sources; being humorous; documenting life moments; being dependent; selfregulating; broadening horizons; and valuing diverse voices. Conclusion. A conceptual model of people's everyday life experiences on Twitter was developed from an innovative information experience lens. The model can be used to inform research and design, and to lead to better digital, social and personal outcomes related to social media.


Heterogeneity of soil nutrients, particularly phosphorus (P), is widespread in modern agriculture due to increased adoption of no-till farming, but P-use efficiency and related physiological processes in plants grown in soils with variable distribution of nutrients are not well documented. In a glasshouse column experiment, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and white lupin (Lupinus albus L.) were subjected to 50 mg P/kg at 7–10 cm depth (hotspot P) or 5 mg P/kg in the whole profile (uniform P), with both treatments receiving the same amount of P. Measurements were made of plant growth, gas exchange, P uptake, and root distribution. Plants with hotspot P supply had more biomass and P content than those with uniform P supply. The ratios of hotspot to uniform P supply for shoot parameters, but not for root parameters, were lower in L. albus than wheat, indicating that L. albus was better able than wheat to acquire and utilise P from low-P soil. Cluster roots in L. albus were enhanced by low shoot P concentration but suppressed by high shoot P concentration. Soil P supply decreased root thickness and the root-to-shoot ratio in wheat but had little effect on L. albus. The formation of cluster roots in low-P soil and greater proliferation and surface area of roots in the localised, P-enriched zone in L. albus than in wheat would increase plant P use in heterogeneous soils. L. albus also used proportionally less assimilated carbon than wheat for root growth in response to soil P deficiency. The comparative advantage of each strategy by wheat and L. albus for P-use efficiency under heterogeneous P supply may depend on the levels of P in the enriched v. low-P portions of the root-zone and other soil constraints such as water, nitrogen, or potassium supply.


This study investigated cross-sectional and longitudinal neuropsychological data from 55 patients: 38 with Alzheimer's disease and 18 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The analyses were designed to investigate two issues: the relationship of MCI to Alzheimer's disease, and that of atypical to typical Alzheimer's disease. When longitudinal data were averaged across individual patients, a consistent staging of neuropsychological deficits emerged: the selective amnesia characteristic of the MCI phase was joined next by semantic and other linguistic impairments plus emerging difficulties with demanding visuospatial tasks. A two-stage statistical procedure was used to extract underlying factors that corresponded to the severity-governed decline in neuropsychological test scores and then to the consistent deviations away from this typical longitudinal profile; i.e. identifying patterns of atypical Alzheimer's disease. The severity-based factor accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in this MCI-Alzheimer's disease longitudinal and cross-sectional database. This suggests that there is a fairly high degree of homogeneity within this group of patients, and that most of their longitudinal progression can be predicted by dementia severity alone. There were also two main patterns of atypical variation corresponding to patients with exaggerated semantic or visuospatial deficits. Although such cases may mimic more focal lobar degenerative conditions, patients with atypical Alzheimer's disease have pronounced episodic memory impairments, suggesting amnesia as a critical diagnostic feature.


This book concerns two men, a stockingmaker and a magistrate, who both lived in a small English village at the turn of the nineteenth century. It focuses on Joseph Woolley the stockingmaker, on his way of seeing and writing the world around him, and on the activities of magistrate Sir Gervase Clifton, administering justice from his country house Clifton Hall. Using Woolley's voluminous diaries and Clifton's magistrate records, Carolyn Steedman gives us a unique and fascinating account of working-class living and loving, and getting and spending. Through Woolley and his thoughts on reading and drinking, sex, the law and social relations, she challenges traditional accounts which she argues have overstated the importance of work to the working man's understanding of himself, as a creature of time, place and society. She shows instead that, for men like Woolley, law and fiction were just as critical as work in framing everyday life.


Abstract One-class classification (OCC) algorithms aim to build classification models when the negative class is either absent, poorly sampled or not well defined. This unique situation constrains the learning of efficient classifiers by defining class boundary just with the knowledge of positive class. The OCC problem has been considered and applied under many research themes, such as outlier/novelty detection and concept learning. In this paper, we present a unified view of the general problem of OCC by presenting a taxonomy of study for OCC problems, which is based on the availability of training data, algorithms used and the application domains applied. We further delve into each of the categories of the proposed taxonomy and present a comprehensive literature review of the OCC algorithms, techniques and methodologies with a focus on their significance, limitations and applications. We conclude our paper by discussing some open research problems in the field of OCC and present our vision for future research.


Abstract This working group asked, "What should be the institutional and social goals for academic rhetoric, both within and beyond the academy?" The question takes significance from rhetoric's peculiar position as both sub‐discipline and inter‐discipline, as a subject in its own right and a perspective adopted by scholars in many fields, as a practice both valorized and marginalized. The essay reviews this position, describes the work group process, and summarizes recommendations for "staying on message," disciplinary infrastructure, promoting rhetoric within individual institutions, working across disciplinary lines, enhancing pedagogy, pre‐collegiate education, and the public face of rhetoric.


Tuition tax credits for private schools, a policy increasingly popular among advocates of school choice, present us with several riddles. When is a charitable donation not charity? When is a public expenditure not public spending? And what policy can be virtually indistinguishable from a voucher in its effects, but be treated by courts as something very different? The answer to this last question, and the key to answering the first two, is a type of tuition tax credit I call a "neovoucher."


Objectives: To provide examples of thermoregulatory responses during competitive singles tennis and comparisons with continuous, steady-state running. Methods: Typical examples of body core (rectal) temperature, skin temperature and heart rate were selected to show the differing characteristics of tennis and running, and the corresponding thermal environments. Rectal and skin temperatures were logged each minute and heart rate logged every 15 seconds throughout the competitive "best of three sets" singles tennis matches and 60-minute continuous, steady-state running trials. Tennis matches were completed outdoors in widely varying thermal environments, and the running trials were completed in the laboratory under stable conditions. Results: Rectal temperature in tennis was raised only slightly above resting levels, reaching a plateau relative to the exercise intensity. Rectal temperature during tennis was found to take longer to reach a plateau than continuous, steady-state exercise. Skin temperature during tennis varied widely depending on environmental air temperature, and was lower than that of runners at the same air temperature. Heart rate was very similar between opponents for both average and response characteristics during tennis. A wider range and higher peak values were found for tennis players compared with runners. Conclusions: This report provides a descriptive account of thermoregulatory response characteristics during singles tennis. Differences between outdoor tennis and continuous, steady-state running in the laboratory for each of these responses were found.


The Incredible Years (IY) Parent and Child Series are evidence-based interventions that increase knowledge and mastery of parenting, mood regulation, and interpersonal problem solving strategies for caregivers while developing similar social and emotional skills in their children. Rogers, Bobich, and Heppell (2016) use a case study approach to examine the effectiveness of adaptations of the IY program for delivery in a transitional housing shelter. They describe strategies for modifying IY to meet the needs of a vulnerable population within the context of the shelter and the broader welfare system. In this commentary, the difficulties commonly experienced by youth like "Cathy" as a function of homelessness and trauma are discussed. Aspects of IY and its adaptation are examined as they highlight (1) essential elements of psychological interventions with clients exposed to trauma, and (2) barriers and facilitators in the delivery of evidence-based treatments within complex natural settings and systems of care. These considerations are salient for practitioners treating youth and families involved in the child welfare system and foster care. The most vital adaptations presented in the Case of Cathy and the IY literature are reviewed to address anticipated pragmatic barriers and therapeutic issues in the implementation of IY for youth in these systems.


Aquatic ecosystems are dynamic and depend on various interdependent and inter-related factors that are vital for their existence and in maintaining the ecological balance. Various anthropogenic activities have impaired ecological conditions in many ecosystems. This monograph gives an account of the essentials in limnology, which helps in understanding the nature and extent of the problems and also provides an insight into the use of Geographic Information System as an effective tool for resource inventorying, monitoring and management.

The monograph consists of four chapters, and the first one gives an overall view of the inland aquatic bodies as complex ecological systems. It begins with the formation of lakes, and the various physical, chemical and biological factors that determine these ecosystems. The physical factors covered include morphometry, density, light, etc., and the lake chemistry determined by various anions and cations are discussed in detail. The biological parameters include phytoplankton, zooplankton, waterfowl and fish communities that play an important role in freshwater biodiversity, and are presented with diagrams for easy understanding. The monograph gives an in depth view of the lake zones, productivity, and seasonal changes in the lake community with various energy relationships. The concept of food chain and food web in an aquatic ecosystem is also presented with illustrations. Lastly, the various anthropogenic activities that have deteriorated the quality of water are listed with the restoration strategies.


On 1 Mar 2014, the Terengganu District Health Office was notified of ten patients presented with acute gastroenteritis at Sultanah Nur Zahirah Hospital. Their illness was linked to consumption of foods from two night markets. An outbreak investigation was initiated to determine the source of the outbreak. Case finding was conducted in the hospital, and community. Patients were interviewed about demographics, symptoms and food consumption history. Stool samples from patients and food handlers as well as food and environmental samples were collected for laboratory analysis. Suspected food premises were inspected. A case-control study was conducted. Of 169 cases, 68.6% and 32.5% ate food from night markets A and B respectively while 1.2% ate food from both night markets. Major symptom was diarrhea (98.2%). There was one death from hypovolemic shock. Salmonella typhimurium was isolated from 13 patients and one food handler. All isolates showed genetic similarity by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. The food handler tested to have the infection served the white fried rice sold in both night markets. Cases were 14 (95% CI = 4.05-46.61) and nine (95% CI = 3.36-24.3) times more likely to have consumed white fried rice from night markets A & B respectively. The source of infection was likely to be white fried rice that was prepared at the same place, contaminated by an infected food handler and sold at both night markets.


The 2000s witnessed the rapid expansion of biofuel plantations in the global South in the context of a growing trend of crop plantation expansion. This trend has been spurred by policies in the European Union, United States, Brazil, and other countries favoring the use of biofuels in the transport sector to enhance energy security and reduce carbon emissions, as well as by the desire of governments in developing countries to harness the stimulus that new commercial investments provide to the agricultural sector and to national economies. Despite these potential benefits, a number of concerns have been raised about the local social and environmental impacts of biofuel feedstock expansion. We shed light on this debate through a synthesis of findings from case studies in six biofuel producer countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and a seventh paper exploring the implications of the land-use changes observed in these case studies for the climate mitigation potential of biofuels. We also explore the implications for governing the environmental impacts of biofuel feedstock production, protecting the rights of customary land users, and enabling smallholder-inclusive business models. Our analysis suggests that better governance of the sector's impacts is not the exclusive preserve of unitary sets of actors, but instead requires concerted and coordinated efforts by governments of producer and consumer countries, investors, civil society, and the financial sector to better capture the sector's potential while minimizing its social and environmental costs.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the perspectives of surgical interns regarding the implications of the new Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) duty-hour regulations for their training.

DESIGN
We compared responses of interns and surgery program directors on a survey about the proposed ACGME mandates.

SETTING
Eleven general surgery residency programs.

PARTICIPANTS
Two hundred fifteen interns who were administered the survey during the summer of 2011 and a previously surveyed national sample of 134 surgery program directors.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Perceptions of the implications of the new duty-hour restrictions on various aspects of surgical training, including the 6 ACGME core competencies of graduate medical education, measured using 3-point scales (increase, no change, or decrease).

RESULTS
Of 215 eligible surgical interns, 179 (83.3%) completed the survey. Most interns believed that the new duty-hour regulations will decrease continuity with patients (80.3%), time spent operating (67.4%), and coordination of patient care (57.6%), while approximately half believed that the changes will decrease their acquisition of medical knowledge (48.0%), development of surgical skills (52.8%), and overall educational experience (51.1%). Most believed that the changes will improve or will not alter other aspects of training, and 61.5% believed that the new standards will decrease resident fatigue. Surgical interns were significantly less pessimistic than surgery program directors regarding the implications of the new duty-hour restrictions on all aspects of surgical training (P < .05 for all comparisons).

CONCLUSIONS
Although less pessimistic than program directors, interns beginning their training under the new paradigm of duty-hour restrictions have significant concerns about the effect of these regulations on the quality of their training.