We propose a deep autoencoder with graph topology inference and filtering to achieve compact representations of unorganized 3D point clouds in an unsupervised manner. Many previous works discretize 3D points to voxels and then use lattice-based methods to process and learn 3D spatial information; however, this leads to inevitable discretization errors. In this work, we try to handle raw 3D points without such compromise. The proposed networks follow the autoencoder framework with a focus on designing the decoder. The encoder of the proposed networks adopts similar architectures as in PointNet, which is a well-acknowledged method for supervised learning of 3D point clouds. The decoder of the proposed networks involves three novel modules: the folding module, the graph-topology-inference module, and the graph-filtering module. The folding module folds a canonical 2D lattice to the underlying surface of a 3D point cloud, achieving coarse reconstruction; the graph-topology-inference module learns a graph topology to represent pairwise relationships between 3D points, pushing the latent code to preserve both coordinates and pairwise relationships of points in 3D point clouds; and the graph-filtering module couples the above two modules, refining the coarse reconstruction through a learnt graph topology to obtain the final reconstruction. The proposed decoder leverages a learnable graph topology to push the codeword to preserve representative features and further improve the unsupervised-learning performance. We further provide theoretical analyses of the proposed architecture. We provide an upper bound for the reconstruction loss and further show the superiority of graph smoothness over spatial smoothness as a prior to model 3D point clouds. In the experiments, we validate the proposed networks in three tasks, including 3D point cloud reconstruction, visualization, and transfer classification. The experimental results show that (1) the proposed networks outperform the state-of-the-art methods in various tasks, including reconstruction and transfer classification; (2) a graph topology can be inferred as auxiliary information without specific supervision on graph topology inference; (3) graph filtering refines the reconstruction, leading to better performances; and (4) designing a powerful decoder could improve the unsupervised-learning performance, just like a powerful encoder.


The level reached by digital control and architectural modeling has produced so important consequences to influence – de facto – the whole design process. For this reason today B.I.M. (intended both as process and as tool for digital management and production of all the elements of the whole building life-cycle) poses research issues of fundamental importance in the field of Representation. A such research complexity of themes goes beyond the topics of the Journal, but we think that the consultation of a significant part of the scientific community, interested in Architectural Surveying and Representation, could be useful to understand how – nowadays – B.I.M. potentialities are intended. Aim of this journal issue is to analyze how B.I.M. characteristics for representation are used and defined, both for design and product's documentation, and according to its implication with laws and regulations.


STUDY QUESTION
Is gonadal function affected in males and females with Silver-Russell Syndrome (SRS)?

SUMMARY ANSWER
Sertoli cell dysfunction is more common in males with SRS, with 11p15 LOM, but gonadal function seems to be unaffected in females with SRS.

WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY
Males with SRS have an increased risk for genital abnormalities such as cryptorchidism and hypospadias, which could be associated with reproductive problems in later life. In SRS females, an association has been described with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, which might compromise their reproductive function.

STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION
Longitudinal follow-up study, involving 154 subjects, over a time period of 20 years.

PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS
Thirty-one SRS patients (14 males) and 123 non-SRS patients born at same gestational age (SGA; 65 males). All received growth hormone and 27.3% received additional gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog treatment (GnRHa).

MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE
Mean age at onset of puberty was 11.5 years in SRS males versus 11.6 years in non-SRS males (P = 0.51), and 10.5 years in SRS females versus 10.7 years in non-SRS females (P = 0.50). Four of the 14 SRS males had a post-pubertal inhibin-B level below the fifth percentile compared to healthy controls, and two of them an FSH above the 95th percentile, indicating Sertoli cell dysfunction. One of them had a history of bilateral cryptorchidism and orchiopexy. All SRS females had AMH, LH and FSH levels within the reference range. Pubertal duration to Tanner stage five was similar in SRS and non-SRS. Pubertal height gain was better in SRS patients who additionally received GnRHa (P < 0.01). Mean age at menarche was 13.1 years in SRS versus 13.3 years in non-SRS (P = 0.62). One SRS female had primary amenorrhea due to Müllerian agenesis.

LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION
As this is a rare syndrome, the SRS group had a small size.

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS
As gonadal function is not affected in females with SRS, it is likely that reproductive function is also not affected. Sertoli cell dysfunction in males with SRS could cause impaired reproductive function and should be assessed during pubertal development.

STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)
No external funding was used for the study. The authors have no conflicts of interest.


The hoax is universally condemned as an underhanded method—a transaction that, while sometimes clever in design or execution, is injurious. Hoaxers act in bad faith, exploiting, and thus diminishing, the social trust society needs to function. Hoaxes harm individuals and undermine institutions, all the more reason to reconsider such deceptions from a functional, rather than purely moral, perspective. The hoax can be a method to do what? What are the outcomes of hoaxes, whether intended or unintended? This essay offers eight answers to these questions, drawing evidence from an array of Chinese writings and films. It argues that the hoax is a useful concept to explain certain practices, styles, and trends in Chinese literary history. Further it proposes that the hoax offers a theoretical paradigm for rethinking more venerated categories, such as creativity, art, and value, as well as method itself.


Samples were taken from Metamorphosis/Attica combined treatment plant for municipal wastewater and septage, which treats about 12000 m 3 d-1 of municipal wastewater and 8000 m 3 d-1 of septage, and analyzed for solids, COD, ammonia, nitrate, orthophosphate, polyphosphate and total phosphorus. Ammonia is almost completely eliminated within the plant. Orthophosphates show a removal of about 28%, while total phosphorus is removed by about 15%. The mean value of the ratio (phosphorus eliminated)/(COD eliminated) in mg g -1 is 8. Assuming suspended-growth nitrification and denitrification kinetics as proposed in literature, the percentage of nitrifiers in the activated sludge population is estimated at 1.1%. Assuming that phosphorus removal in the aeration tank is proportional to cell formation, which in turn is proportional to substrate elimination, the phosphorus content of the activated sludge is estimated at 0.031 gP (gVSS) -1.


Spotted gum (Corymbia citriodora subsp. variegata and C. maculata) is a valuable source of commercial timber and suitable for a wide range of different soil types in eastern Australia. The main biological constraint to further expansion of spotted gum plantations is Quambalaria shoot blight caused by the fungus Quambalaria pitereka. Surveys conducted to evaluate the impact of Quambalaria shoot blight have shown that the disease is present in all spotted gum plantations and on a range of Corymbia species and hybrids in subtropical and tropical regions surveyed in eastern Australia. More recently, Q. eucalypti has also been identified from a range of Eucalyptus species in these regions. Both pathogens have also been found associated with foliage blight and die-back of amenity trees and Q. pitereka in native stands of Corymbia species, which is the probable initial infection source for plantations. Infection by Q. pitereka commonly results in the repeated destruction of the growing tips and the subsequent formation of a bushy crown or death of trees in severe cases. In comparison, Q. eucalypti causes small, limited lesions and has in some cases been associated with insect feeding. It has not been recorded as causing severe shoot and stem blight. A better understanding of factors influencing disease development and host–pathogen interactions is essential in the development of a disease management strategy for these poorly understood but important pathogens in the rapidly expanding eucalypt (Corymbia and Eucalyptus spp.) plantation industry in subtropical and tropical eastern Australia.


In the framework of image theory the full scattering pattern from model anisotropic particles on a perfectly reflecting surface is calculated for an arbitrary direction of the incident field. The particles on the surface are modeled either as clusters of spherical scatterers or as clusters of hemispheres whose flat faces lie on the reflecting surface. Our approach is based on the expansion of all the fields in terms of spherical multipoles whose transformation properties are used to yield a compact expression for the scattered intensity both from a single particle as a function of its orientation and from a dispersion of randomly oriented particles. The patterns that were calculated for several model scatterers show some features that may provide useful information about the possible anisotropy of actual particles on a reflecting surface.


More than 80 genetic loci affecting type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk have been published to date. However, the causative variant(s) and biology underlying the associations at the vast majority of these loci remain elusive, in part due to an incomplete understanding of the genes and pathways involved in T2D development and progression. This highlights two interrelated challenges: the need for functional elucidation of the effects of individual variants, and the need to broadly and comprehensively investigate the function of implicated genes to understand how their modulation contributes to disease risk. This chapter discusses the approaches beginning to bear fruit in addressing both of these challenges, including the characterization of nonsynonymous common variants or collections of rare variants (e.g. GCKR, MTNR1B), the assignment of novel gene function relevant to disease processes (e.g. CDKAL1), the value of integrating genetic association results with datasets for expression or epigenetic factors (e.g. TCF7L2, KLF14), and emerging systems genetics approaches focusing on pathways, protein-protein interactions, and gene-gene interactions. These instructive studies suggest a template for future functional investigations into the variants and genes underlying T2D risk.


The climatologically behavior of the wind and waves is studied around the Costa Rica's coasts using re-analysis data from wave forecasting numeric model. It is found that the wind in the Caribbean coasts of Costa Rica is predominantly from northeast direction all the year. This wind is projected to the north Pacific of Costa Rica through the topographical depression north of Costa Rica and south of Nicaragua generating high wave conditions. The strong trade winds in the boreal winter (north hemisphere) dominate the behavior of the wind in the central and south Pacific coasts of Costa Rica in the first months of the year. This pattern is modified as the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) migrating to north and then, the westerly wind is intensified over the Pacific coast reaching their maximum expression during September. In respect to waves, it is found that in the Caribbean wave heights are in relationship with the trade wind force over the sea. The relatively short wave period (7 seg) identifies the local wave origin, called "ea", which is chaotic in general and with short wave crests. In the Pacific coast, it is found that the predominant wave direction for all the three distinguishable Costa Rican regions is from the Southwest continued by the south. In the north Pacific, although the predominance of the wind is the zonal component and there is a local wave generation in that direction, it prevails waves with direction from the southwest, indicating that its main wave origin is remote, mainly generated in the south Pacific, like New Zealand , called "well", which are smooth and long wave crests. The monthly climatological analysis of the wave height shows that the Caribbean waves has more energy as the trade wind is intensified (November to April) in the boreal winter. In this time the wave heights in the Pacific coasts is low, changing their pattern when the Caribbean wind weaken (September to October) and the equatorial tropical western is present.


Unwanted catches can be reduced by improving fishing effectiveness in targeting species and sizes and by banning their sale for human consumption. The landing obligation introduced by the European Union can be seen as a combination of these two measures, and the aim of this paper is to analyse its effects on the Southern Iberian Hake Stock fishery. To this end, reference points for a mixed fishery are computed under the two measures as the steady-state solution of a dynamic optimal management problem. Our results show that measures that improve selectivity obtain better results than sales ban strategies in terms of increasing yields and stocks and reducing discards. In particular, we find that reducing the selectivity parameters by 90% for the three early ages leads to an almost six-fold increase in the hake yield and lowers the discard rate by more than 20 percentage points. Banning the sale of the two youngest ages also increases hake yield by 21% and the discard rate by 7 percentage points.


Deep-directional-resistivity (DDR) logging-while-drilling (LWD) technology has gained acceptance as an efficient method for horizontal well landing, geosteering, and reservoir and fluid-contact mapping. The largest part of the value lies in the automatic inversion of the measurements, improving the detection of geologic and fluid boundaries within a radius of investigation of more than 30 m around the wellbore in real time. The tool and its sensors were designed to acquire a data set with sensitivity to a number of formation properties ensuring the concurrent deployment of a robust inversion. Based on this, an inversion method implemented on computer clusters statistically samples (or explores) the multidimensional inversion space, returning the distribution of formation models that fit the available data. The most noticeable aspect to operators is that this is done without introducing bias. There is no need to commit to a number of layers or to the position, thickness, resistivity, or dip of the layers to generate the continuous images on which all DDR interpretation is based, which translates into several theoretical and practical advantages. In practice, this gives users a higher level of quality control and more confidence in interpreting the subsurface within a larger diameter around the wellbore, which is useful for integrating the information into a geomodel. This derisks current and future operation, improves real-time and planning decisions, and ultimately drives better well placement, completion, production, and return on investment.


James Wisheart, the senior surgeon struck off the medical register for his role in the deaths of children undergoing heart surgery at Bristol, told the public inquiry into Bristol paediatric cardiac surgery services this week that he had stopped operating on children because of stress and anxiety from seeing so many of his patients die.

Although he believed there were "true and proper" factors accounting for the deaths, the "anxiety and emotional investment or drain weighed very heavily."The one thing he could clearly say he regretted was not consulting colleagues earlier over his disappointing results.

But he was not sure this would have led him to stop sooner.

Mr Wisheart, former medical director of United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust, said that he stopped doing operations to correct atrioventricular septal defects in September 1994. The …


Clarissa is becoming more and more frightened of her colleague, Rafe. He won't leave her alone, and he refuses to take no for an answer. He is always there.

Being selected for jury service is a relief. The courtroom is a safe haven, a place where Rafe can't be. But as a violent tale of kidnap and abuse unfolds, Clarissa begins to see parallels between her own situation and that of the young woman on the witness stand.

Realizing that she bears the burden of proof, Clarissa unravels the twisted, macabre fairytale that Rafe has spun around them – and discovers that the ending he envisions is more terrifying than she could have imagined.


Evidences of orogenic Action. More than once I have called attention to the fact that the Tertiary and Cretaceous beds on the island of Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts, show throughout an area of about fifty square miles unmistakable evidence of mountain-building stresses. The strata, having an aggregate thickness of certainly many hundred, perhaps of some thousand feet, have been thrown into folds of considerable amplitude, which are so sharply compressed that the numerous outcrops show dips which average more than 45°. The suggestion that these distortions have been produced by the shearing action of the ice in the last glacial period is completely disproved by the very well developed preglacial topography which this region exhibits—contours of hill and dale which were formed in these soft rocks after they were folded, and on which the drift rests as an incomplete mantle. It is impossible to conceive that the folding of the . . .


Land snails were collected from quadrats positioned outside and inside treefall gaps in the Tabonuco Forest of Puerto Rico to determine the effects of treefall gaps on the species abundance, richness, evenness, diversity, and distribution of land snails during the dry and wet seasons. This study also determined the importance of atmospheric and litter temperature, relative humidity, litter and soil moisture, slope, and substrate type in determining the spatial distribution of the land snails. Only two species, H. tridens and £.. caracolla. respond to patches created by treefalls. In particular, the abundance of R. tridens was higher in gaps, whereas that of £.. caracolla was higher in the surrounding undisturbed forest. Such differences in habitat use by titridens and £.. caracolla may be attributed to differences in diet and body water loss rates. However, patchiness does not have a pervasive influence at the community level. In general, treefall gaps have little effect on the richness, evenness, diversity, and distribution of land snails of the Tabonuco Forest.


The Fibula of Montieri. Archeological studies at the church of San Niccolo and the discovery of a medieval jewel. The fibula under examination in the present article was found during recent archeological excavations in the area of Canonica, near Montieri (Grosseto), carried out by the Medieval Archeology staff of Siena University. The parish church, dedicated to San Niccolo, was linked to the bishop of Volterra in the same way as the nearby castle of Montieri. The religious complex consisted of a church with six apses situated within an enclosure that incorporated an open space overlooked by two long buildings and a smaller construction. The church was built in the first half of the XIth century. In the layer of earth where the building's foundations were laid, a small circular hole was made where the fibula was deposited. The uniqueness of the archeological discovery is given by the fact of finding the fibula where it had originally been laid. The chronology of the church's construction, established by indicators drawn from archeological stratigraphy, provides further confirmation of the dating attributed to the fibula. Indeed, considering the context of the jewel's discovery and its characteristics in terms of form and style, the piece can be dated to the first half of the XIth century. It would be reasonable to suppose that the Fibula of Montieri, which has similarities with brooches coming from Italy and northern Europe, was the creation of a goldsmith active in an Italian centre in the service of patrons of very high social rank. The owner could have been either a man or a woman, a layman or a man of the church. In addition to the analysis of a purely historical and artistic nature, the present paper also explains the production methods and archeometric analyses carried out on the piece.


Aim: The aim of this study was to examine and compare the contribution of central neuromuscular fatigue and peripheral neuromuscular fatigue to total neuromuscular fatigue in the hemiplegic leg of people with stroke, with that of a matched control group. Study Design: This experimental study utilised a repeated measures block design. Participants: Fifteen people with chronic stroke who had mild to moderate physical disability and fifteen age, height and weight matched controls were compared. Main outcome measures Participants physical function was evaluated using the 30s Chair Stand Test, Comfortable Paced Walking Speed and Fast Paced Walking Speed. Neuromuscular function was measured using maximal voluntary isometric contraction force and voluntary activation. Total neuromuscular fatigue, central neuromuscular fatigue and peripheral neuromuscular fatigue was measured during a 90 second sustained maximal voluntary isometric contraction of the quadriceps muscle. Results: The fatigue profile of stroke participants differed from that of control participants. Stroke participants demonstrated less total neuromuscular fatigue (U=41.00, p=.026) and less peripheral neuromuscular fatigue (U=14.00, p=.000) than the control participants. While stroke participants did demonstrate greater central neuromuscular fatigue than control participants, this finding was not statistically significant (U=80.00, p=.817). Conclusions: Statistically significant differences were found in the performance of people with mild to moderate physical disability following stroke on measures of neuromuscular fatigue when compared to age, weight and height matched healthy adults.


We rely on a unique pre-crisis baseline and five-year follow-up to investigate the effects of emergency school feeding and general food distribution (GFD) on children's schooling during conflict in Mali. We estimate programme impact on child enrolment, absenteeism and attainment by combining difference in differences with propensity score matching. School feeding led to increases in enrolment by 11 percentage points and to about an additional half-year of completed schooling. Attendance among boys residing in households receiving GFD, however, declined by about 20 per cent over the comparison group. Disaggregating by conflict intensity showed that receipt of any programme led to rises in enrolment mostly in high-intensity conflict areas and that the negative effects of GFD on attendance were also concentrated in the most affected areas. Conversely, school feeding mostly raised attainment among children residing in areas not in the immediate vicinity of the conflict. Programme receipt triggered adjustments in child labour. Thus, school feeding led to lower participation and time spent in work among girls, while GFD raised children's labour, particularly among boys. The educational implications of food assistance should be considered in planning humanitarian responses to bridge the gap between emergency assistance and development by promoting children's education.


The Capacity Building Programme for Employment Promotion (CBPEP) is an EU-funded initiative aimed at assisting the Government of South Africa to attain its goal of reducing unemployment, by building state and institutional capacity. The CBPEP seeks to build state capability for employment promotion, as well as support strategic dialogue, shared problem-solving and practical collaboration between the social partners. It also aims to strengthen the knowledge and evidence base for effective policy, planning and implementation. This policy brief focuses on the potential contribution of redistributive land reform to employment creation.


The primary objective of the study was to determine the best parametric model that can be used for fitting yield curves for a bank between Nelson-Siegel model and Nelson-Siegel-Svensson.Nelson-Siegel and Nelson-Siegel-Svensson models using Ordinary Least Squares after fixing the shape parameters to make the models linear models. A t-test conducted is conducted on the adjusted R2 of the two models and results showed that Nelson-Siegel-Svensson model fits better the yield curves of the Bank compared to Nelson-Siegel model. An analysis of the out-of-sample forecasting abilities of the two models using AR(1) conducted using E-views shows that the two parametric models have excellent out-of-sample forecasting abilities on all of their parameters. The time independent of Nelson-Siegel-Svensson model was found to be negative in most of the time and could not be interpreted as a long run yield of the Bank. It is also highlighted that the models produces very low levels of R2 in many cases because of the high volatility that is found in the market interest rates of certificates of deposits. The estimated yield curve may be used as a reference curve for funds transfer pricing systems.


Dr. Robert Rosenson from The Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY moderated the topic "What Recent Trials Have Taught Us About the Efficacy of Exetimibe" with Drs. Michael Davidson from the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, and Robert Hegele from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL. The discussion focused primarily on: (1) Low-density lipoproteincholesterol lowering and the role of ezetimibe (2) sitosterolemia and plant sterols (3) the effect of ezetimibe on lipids, lipoproteins, and remnant lipoproteins (4) clinical trials using ezetimibe (5) recommendations regarding the use of plant sterols (6) recommendations for ezetimibe in clinical practice. (Med Roundtable Cardiovasc Ed. 2012;3(3):197–203) ©2012 FoxP2Media, LLC


This presentation comes from the Options and Futures: New Route to Risk/Return Management conference held in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 15, 1983 and in Dallas, Texas, on February 16, 1984.


We present a translation of a generic stochastic process algebra model into a form suitable for stochastic simulation. By systematically generating rate equations from a process description, we can use tools developed for chemical and biochemical reaction analysis to provide time-series output for models with state spaces of O(1010000) and beyond. We apply these techniques to a significant case study: that of a secure electronic voting protocol


OBJECTIVES
This study examined whether higher intakes of milk and other calcium-rich foods during adult years can reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures.

METHODS
This was a 12-year prospective study among 77761 women, aged 34 through 59 years in 1980, who had never used calcium supplements. Dietary intake was assessed with a food-frequency questionnaire in 1980, 1984, and 1986. Fractures of the proximal femur (n = 133) and distal radius (n = 1046) from low or moderate trauma were self-reported on biennial questionnaires.

RESULTS
We found no evidence that higher intakes of milk or calcium from food sources reduce fracture incidence. Women who drank two or more glasses of milk per day had relative risks of 1.45 for hip fracture (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.87, 2.43) and 1.05 for forearm fracture (95% CI = 0.88, 1.25) when compared with women consuming one glass or less per week. Likewise, higher intakes of total dietary calcium or calcium from dairy foods were not associated with decreased risk of hip or forearm fracture.

CONCLUSIONS
These data do not support the hypothesis that higher consumption of milk or other food sources of calcium by adult women protects against hip or forearm fractures.


Understanding extraterrestrial environments and landforms through remote sensing and terrestrial analogy has gained momentum in recent years due to advances in remote sensing platforms, sensors, and computing efficiency. The seasonal brines of the largest salt plateau on Earth in Salar de Uyuni (Bolivian Altiplano) have been inadequately studied for their localized hydrodynamics and the regolith volume transport across the freshwater-brine mixing zones. These brines have recently been projected as a new analogue site for the proposed Martian brines, such as recurring slope lineae (RSL) and slope streaks. The Martian brines have been postulated to be the result of ongoing deliquescence-based salt-hydrology processes on contemporary Mars, similar to the studied Salar de Uyuni brines. As part of a field-site campaign during the cold and dry season in the latter half of August 2017, we deployed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at two sites of the Salar de Uyuni to perform detailed terrain mapping and geomorphometry. We generated high-resolution (2 cm/pixel) photogrammetric digital elevation models (DEMs) for observing and quantifying short-term terrain changes within the brines and their surroundings. The achieved co-registration for the temporal DEMs was considerably high, from which precise inferences regarding the terrain dynamics were derived. The observed average rate of bottom surface elevation change for brines was ~1.02 mm/day, with localized signs of erosion and deposition. Additionally, we observed short-term changes in the adjacent geomorphology and salt cracks. We conclude that the transferred regolith volume via such brines can be extremely low, well within the resolution limits of the remote sensors that are currently orbiting Mars, thereby making it difficult to resolve the topographic relief and terrain perturbations that are produced by such flows on Mars. Thus, the absence of observable erosion and deposition features within or around most of the proposed Martian RSL and slope streaks cannot be used to dismiss the possibility of fluidized flow within these features.


ABSTRACT Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are required to maintain stable repression of the homeotic genes and others throughout development. The PcG proteins ESC and E(Z) are present in a prominent 600-kDa complex as well as in a number of higher-molecular-mass complexes. Here we identify and characterize a 1-MDa ESC/E(Z) complex that is distinguished from the 600-kDa complex by the presence of the PcG protein Polycomblike (PCL) and the histone deacetylase RPD3. In addition, the 1-MDa complex shares with the 600-kDa complex the histone binding protein p55 and the PcG protein SU(Z)12. Coimmunoprecipitation assays performed on embryo extracts and gel filtration column fractions indicate that, during embryogenesis E(Z), SU(Z)12, and p55 are present in all ESC complexes, while PCL and RPD3 are associated with ESC, E(Z), SU(Z)12, and p55 only in the 1-MDa complex. Glutathione transferase pulldown assays demonstrate that RPD3 binds directly to PCL via the conserved PHD fingers of PCL and the N terminus of RPD3. PCL and E(Z) colocalize virtually completely on polytene chromosomes and are associated with a subset of RPD3 sites. As previously shown for E(Z) and RPD3, PCL and SU(Z)12 are also recruited to the insertion site of a minimal Ubx Polycomb response element transgene in vivo. Consistent with these biochemical and cytological results, Rpd3 mutations enhance the phenotypes of Pcl mutants, further indicating that RPD3 is required for PcG silencing and possibly for PCL function. These results suggest that there may be multiple ESC/E(Z) complexes with distinct functions in vivo.


On 24–25 February 1989 a storm brought high winds and moderate to heavy snow to the U.S. East Coast. The storm is noteworthy for its rapid mesoscale development within a polar air mass at relatively low latitudes and for the difficulty experienced by operational NWP models and forecasters in predicting the storm's impact. This paper investigates the mesoscale structure and evolution of the cold-air cyclone through analysis of enhanced data sets collected during the Experiment on Rapidly Intensifying Cyclones over the Atlantic (ERICA). Results are presented from numerical sensitivity studies of the impact of diabatic heating on storm structure and track using the Mesoscale Atmospheric Simulation System (MASS) model. The following conclusions are drawn from the research. Differential surface fluxes in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream led to the development of a well-defined baroclinic zone at low levels that extended parallel to the axis of the GulfStream front. The baroclinic zone strengthened and assumed the characteristics of a shallow warm front as the cyclone matured. Enhanced cyclonic vorticity, moisture-flux convergence, clouds, and precipitation accompanied the front. Early in the event a series of shallow, thermally forced vortices of small wavelength ( 200 km) formed along the baroclinic zone in the area of maximum surface-heat fluxes offshore of the Carolinas. Baroclinic instability associated with a vigorous short-wave trough aloft resulted in the outbreak of deep convection surrounding and rapid intensification of the northernmost vortex. Numerical sensitivity experiments were conducted to investigate the non-linear response of the mass field to the convection. The results show that latent heating in deep convection surrounding the surface low produced a mesoscale height perturbation aloft. The subsequent acceleration of the flow aloft substantially increased the integrated mass divergence above the surface cyclone, leading to deepening on the scale observed. The observed track of the low followed the axis of the warm front, which in turn followed the axis of maximum SST gradient associated with the GulfStream front. Accurate simulation of the storm track required a high-resolution, full-physics run that included high-resolution SST data in the initial condition and moisture nudging during the early hours of the simulation.


This study examines the role of learned societies as publishers in Finland based on bibliographic information from two Finnish databases. We studied the share of learned societies' peer‐reviewed publication channels (serials with ISSNs and book publishers with distinct ISBN roots) and outputs (journal articles, conference articles, book articles, and monographs) in Finland. We also studied the share of learned societies' open access (OA) publications. In 2018, there were 402 peer‐reviewed publication channels in Finland. In 2011–2017, the number of peer‐reviewed publications from scholars working in Finnish universities and published in Finland was 17,724. Learned societies publish around 70% of these channels and publications, mostly in the fields of humanities and social sciences. Learned societies in Finland focus on journal publishing, whereas university presses and commercial publishers focus on book publishing. In 2016–2017, 38.4% of the learned societies' outputs were OA. This study concludes that Finnish learned societies play an integral part in national scholarly publishing. They play an especially important role in journal publishing, as commercial publishers produce only 2.6% of Finnish journals and book series, and only 1.4% of the journal articles from scholars working in Finnish universities.


Mechanisms of free-shrinkage strains of desiccating deformable initially saturated soils are studied. The role of the surface evaporation rate, surface tension and viscosity of pore fluid, and soil compressibility and permeability is investigated in experimental and numerical parametric studies. Two different geomaterials with three different pore fluids are tested and numerically simulated using a macroscale Biot theory model and a mesoscale vessel model. Evolution of shrinkage strain and fluid content is reported and evaluated. The total amount of shrinkage and shrinkage limit are found to correlate with both solid fraction compressibility and surface tension of the fluid fraction. Most of the strain occurs in the saturated stage of drying concomitant with a build-up of fluid suction. The macroscopic Biot model yields good results in the saturated stage of drying. However, the air-entry criteria are all formulated at meso- or microscale. Hence, a mesoscale deformable pore vessel model is adopted, with pore fluid suction limited by a fluid tensile stress threshold identified with fluid cavitation. Beyond cavitation, air entry occurs. Subsequently, partially fluid-filled pore vessels are considered with fluid evaporation across a migrating fluid–gas interface within the vessel. A mesoscale model parametric study confirms that the total drying shrinkage strain and the shrinkage limit depend on the solids' compressibility, as well as on the fluid surface tension.


OBJECTIVE
To examine frequency and predictors of severe adverse life events and depressive symptoms among HIV-infected women and a comparison group of uninfected women.

DESIGN
Analysis of baseline data collected from HIV-infected and uninfected women in a prospective cohort study of HIV infection and women, the HIV Epidemiologic Research Study.

METHOD
The sample of 871 HIV-infected and 439 demographically and behaviorally similar uninfected women were recruited from four metropolitan areas in the USA. Women provided interview information that included sociodemographic characteristics, sexual and drug-using behaviors, and social and psychological functioning. The outcome measures were number of severe adverse life events (e.g., insufficient money for necessities, physical attack or rape, death of a person close to them) and levels of depressive symptoms.

RESULTS
HIV-infected and uninfected women reported numerous adverse life events and high levels of depressive symptoms. The two groups, however, did not differ on either outcome measure. Low socio-economic status, injecting drug and crack cocaine use, and high risk sexual activity were related to reports of more adverse events and depressive symptoms for both groups.

CONCLUSIONS
HIV-infected and uninfected women in socially and economically disadvantaged environments experience many adverse events and high levels of depressive symptoms. HIV infection, at least during the early phase, may be less important than socio-environmental factors in predicting negative psychosocial outcomes for women.


POSIX is a standard for operating systems, with a substantial part devoted to specifying file-system operations. File-system operations exhibit complex concurrent behaviour, comprising multiple actions affecting different parts of the state: typically, multiple atomic reads followed by an atomic update. However, the standard's description of concurrent behaviour is unsatisfactory: it is fragmented; contains ambiguities; and is generally under-specified. We provide a formal concurrent specification of POSIX file systems and demonstrate scalable reasoning for clients. Our specification is based on a concurrent specification language, which uses a modern concurrent separation logic for reasoning about abstract atomic operations, and an associated refinement calculus. Our reasoning about clients highlights an important difference between reasoning about modules built over a heap, where the interference on the shared state is restricted to the operations of the module, and modules built over a file system, where the interference cannot be restricted as the file system is a public namespace. We introduce specifications conditional on context invariants used to restrict the interference, and apply our reasoning to the example of lock files.


ABSTRACT The distributional properties of returns data have important implications for financial models and are of particular importance in risk-scenario simulation, volatility prediction and in the event of financial crisis. We present simple time-series models that capture the heteroskedasticity of financial time series and incorporate the effect of using heavy-tailed distributions. These models allow for time-varying volatility, which is an important extension of the conventional methodology. The models are an augmentation of the GARCH class of models, but allow for conditionally normal inverse Gaussian and variance gamma distributed errors. As in previous studies, this new approach permits a distinction between conditional heteroskedasticity and a conditionally leptokurtic distribution, but, compared with the well-known GARCH-t model, it allows us to capture the asymmetric behaviour observed in actual returns series. The practical applicability of the models is confirmed by implementing a fitting procedure to a carefully chosen set of South African stock price returns.


We show how a neural network can be used to allow a mobile robot to derive an accurate estimate of its location from noisy sonar sensors and noisy motion information. The robot's model of its location is in the form of a probability distribution across a grid of possible locations. This distribution is updated using both the motion information and the predictions of a neural network that maps locations into likelihood distributions across possible sonar readings. By predicting sonar readings from locations, rather than vice versa, the robot can handle the very nongaussian noise in the sonar sensors. By using the constraint provided by the noisy motion information, the robot can use previous readings to improve its estimate of its current location. By treating the resulting estimates as if they were correct, the robot can learn the relationship between location and sonar readings without requiring an external supervision signal that specifies the actual location of the robot. It can learn to locate itself in a new environment with almost no supervision, and it can maintain its location ability even when the environment is nonstationary.


The measurement of the partial pressure of oxygen in arterial blood is essential for the analysis of a patient's respiratory condition. There are several commercially available methods and systems to measure this parameter transcutaneously. However, they tend to be cumbersome and costly. To overcome the disadvantages presented, a new type of sensor for transcutaneous blood gas measurement was investigated, employing thick film technology, which is an excellent technique to produce sensors in bulk, as it is cost effective and easy for reproducible fabrication. This thesis describes the application of thick film technology to the investigation and production of these sensors, which are small in size and readily disposable. Such advantages are greatly welcomed from the medical point of view. The devices under investigation were based on amperometry. Gold electrodes were printed on an alumina substrate and covered with a layer of electrolyte gel and then finally, with a membrane. An external silver/silver chloride reference electrode was also employed in this electrochemical cell set-up. The project also involved several electronic circuits to support the transcutaneous oxygen measurement. The main studies were concentrated on the materials employed as the electrolyte and membrane. Investigations were carried out to evaluate the performance of these devices in atmospheric and hydrated environment as well as under the influences of different temperatures. Detailed discussions of the results were presented and future work for the project is identified. The novel contributions towards this research work were categorized into two major modules. Firstly, in the heating module, a single element taking both the roles of a heating element and a feedback temperature sensor was employed for the wheatstone bridge circuit configuration to regulate the transcutaneous temperature. In addition, the oxygen sensing module included studies on the effectiveness of using Nafion polyelectrolytes to achieve amperometric measurements for transcutaneous oxygen monitoring. From the experimental results, the most promising choice for the thick film transcutaneous oxygen sensor was the prototype with Nafion as the electrolyte and PTFE as the membrane. The disposable prototype produced results achieving low manufacturing cost of approximately £1 and was able to make continuous measurement of up to 46 hours. It proved to be compact, non-biohazardous and portable with a good degree of user-friendliness. It also provided accurate and reproducible measurements of not more than 3% error. Thorough intensive research activities were carried out to overcome all existing problems in order to achieve the objectives of the research project. With more than 70% of the specifications being met, the positive results had presented a successful design for the fundamental version of the disposable transcutaneous oxygen sensor employing thick film fabrication processes.


The pulmonary associations of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are poorly characterized. The clinical, physiological and high-resolution computed tomographic thorax characteristics of the lung disease in patients with IBD presenting with respiratory symptoms are described. Detailed clinical information was obtained and standard pulmonary physiological tests and thorax high-resolution computed tomography performed on 14 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) and three with Crohn's disease (CD), 10 male, aged 38-83 yrs. Respiratory symptoms had been present for 2-50 yrs and extraintestinal manifestations were present in three (17.6%). Normal pulmonary physiology (six patients) was associated with the high resolution computed tomographic changes of bronchiectasis, mosaic perfusion and air trapping suggestive of obliterative bronchiolitis and a pattern of centrilobular nodules and branching linear opacities ("tree in bud" appearance) suggestive of either cellular bronchiolitis or bronchiolectasis with mucoid secretions. Bronchiectasis was found in 13 patients (11 UC, 2 CD), 11 had air trapping and five had a "tree in bud" appearance on computed tomography. One patient had a predominantly peripheral reticular pattern at the lung bases similar to that found in cryptogenic fibrosing alveolitis and one patient had a mixed reticular and ground-glass pattern in the midzones with a patchy distribution in the central and peripheral portions of the lungs with air trapping. Eleven patients (three with alveolitis) exhibited a clinical and/or physiological response to steroids. Pulmonary abnormalities in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease can present years after the onset of the bowel disease and can affect any part of the lungs. Early recognition is important as they can be strikingly steroid-responsive.


In 2010, Keith Aoki and I coined the phrase 'immigration regionalism' to describe a proposed innovation in immigration law and policy reform. Our intention was that immigration regionalism would become Immigration Regionalism — a book-length articulation, argument, and analysis of the provocative idea — in hopes that others would take up, critique, expand, revise, and operationalize this notion, in other words: help to answer our query as to whether 'immigration regionalism is an idea whose time has come.' Thus, without Immigration Regionalism, and without Keith, immigration regionalism necessarily remains incomplete. Given Keith's love of music, his talent and background as a musician, his distinctive collaborative style of riffing-and-jamming, and his prolific career forged by crossing genres and media, I regard the status of our work on immigration regionalism like the first song of an unfinished album: Immigration Regionalism. Perhaps just as important as what we discussed is what we did not discuss before Keith passed away on April 26, 2011. Specifically, we had not written about these basic topics: what is a region; how and why are regions defined and who defines them; what is regionalism; what is the connection between regions and regionalism; what meaning or influence might regionalism have in the context of immigration law and policy; and what might count as an immigration region. I want to begin to address those topics here. In paying my respects to the influence of Keith's work and thought, it feels right to continue with the focus of our collaboration and to reflect upon and share with others the distinctiveness of how Keith worked. How Keith thought through and worked out ideas with others was utterly refreshing, both professionally and personally speaking, and it is part of what so many of us dearly miss. With this Article, I mean to help bring our unfinished album nearer to completion. I do so here both by sharing the genesis and formation of immigration regionalism and by discussing and employing the methods by which we worked. I use a song structure framework as the organizational framework for this piece, both in homage to Keith and in keeping with our style of collaboration, and I utilize eco — the recalling of previously played notes, though softly and in a different octave — as I work to advance this half-written song toward a coda (repeat) and fade. My hope is that Keith's voice, as well as his thought, vision, and inspiration, remains resonant here and in any future work on immigration regionalism.


In manufacturing of paper and paperboard, optimized fiber usage has crucial importance for process efficiency and profitability. Dry strength of paper is one of the important quality criteria, which can be improved by adding dry strength additive that affect fiber to fiber bonding. This study is using the micromechanical simulations which assist interpretation of the experimental results concerning the effect of strength additives.A finite element model for 3D dry fiber network was constructed to study the effect of bond strength, bond area and the number of bonds numerically on the strength of paper products. In the network, fibers' geometrical properties such as wall thickness, diameter, length and curl were assigned according to fiber characterization of the pulp and SEM analyses of dry paper cross-section. The numerical network was created by depositing the fibers onto a flat surface which should mimic the handsheet-making procedure. In the FE model, each fiber was represented with a number of quadratic Timoshenko beam elements where fiber to fiber bonds were modelled by beam-to-beam contact. The contact model is represented by cohesive zone model, which needs bond strength and bond stiffness in normal and shear directions. To get a reasonable estimate of the bond stiffness, a detailed finite element model of a fiber bond was used. Additionally, the effect of different fiber and bond geometries on bond stiffness were examined by this model since the previous work [13] indicated that the bond stiffness can have a considerable effect on dry strength of paper.The network simulation results show that the effect of the strength additive comes through improving the bond strength primarily. Furthermore, with the considered sheet structure, both the fiber bond compliance and the number of bonds affect the stiffness of paper. Finally, the results of the analyses indicated that the AFM measurements of the fiber adhesion could not be used directly to relate the corresponding changes in the bond strength.The fiber bond simulation concluded that fiber wall thickness has the most significant effect on the fiber bond compliance. It was also affected by micro-fibril orientation angle, bond orientation and the degree of pressing.


Metalloproteins, which represent about 30% of the total proteome, are often important markers for distinguishing between healthy and diseased states of patients. As such markers have become increasingly important in clinical diagnostics, some of these proteins are routinely analysed in clinical laboratories. Reliable and comparable results are the basis for the investigation of changes in the proteome due to different health conditions. Nevertheless, for many proteins the results achieved with different routine measurement procedures or in different laboratories vary widely, thus hampering medical insights and the development of treatments. Reference measurement procedures with results traceable to the International System of Units (SI) will also help to greatly improve the performance of routine measurement procedures and, this way, they support the understanding of changes in the metallome. This perspective will give an overview of the efforts during the last three years to achieve reliable quantification of metalloproteins. The analytes covered were chosen due to their importance in clinical diagnostics. Haemoglobin (HGB), transferrin (TRF), superoxide dismutase (SOD) or ceruloplasmin (CER), for example, can serve as markers for diseases such as Down's syndrome in prenatal diagnostics (e.g. SOD), inflammation (acute-phase proteins such as TRF) or deficiency diseases (e.g. HGB, TRF, and CER). Moreover, they are used for the control of treatment efficiency, e.g. total HGB as the most important marker for anaemia treatment or the glycosylated form of haemoglobin A (HBA1c) for the treatment of diabetes. On the other hand, selenoproteins, namely glutathione peroxidase (GPX), seem to play an important role in cancer prevention and in reducing the side effects of chemotherapies.


Abstract Huge production losses occur because of deterioration of quality of clingstone peaches during cold storage, rendering the fruit unsuitable for canning. Near infrared (NIR) spectra recorded from intact clingstone peaches were evaluated to predict post harvest quality of these peaches. The NIR spectra were recorded, before storage, on the fresh peaches while the subjective post-storage quality, fruit firmness and diameter (reference data) were determined after either three- (2002 season) or two-week (2003 season) cold storage periods at -0.5ºC. Poor post-storage quality was indicated by softening of the flesh, loosening of the skin and adhesion of the flesh to the stone after destoning. Soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA) gave correct total classifications of between 53 and 60% in comparison to the 57 to 65% obtained by multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS). However, when predicting only poor post-storage quality, correct classfication rates of between 60 and 80% were obtained using MARS. Using classification trees, the fruit were classified into good and poor post-storage quality classes according to fruit firmness and diameter. Only reasonable results were obtained due to the poor relationship between the NIR spectra and firmness measurements.


The popularity of smart mobile devices has brought significant growth of data service for mobile service providers. Very often, mobile users of data service are charged based on the amount of data used. With the increasing revenue, mobile operators are also facing the increasing operation cost due to the high energy consumption. Meanwhile, as the access to spectral resource is limited, increasing spectrum efficiency is an economic incentive for operators alike. However, we are faced with the dilemma that focusing only on reducing energy consumption might incur the cost of decreasing spectrum efficiency. In this paper, we study the spectrum-energy efficiency enhancement problem by way of jointly considering the mechanisms of cell zooming, sleep mode and user migration. To gain the benefits economically, we formulate an optimization framework into an integer linear program which is solvable by CPLEX to maximize spectrum and energy efficiencies jointly as well as to meet the minimal traffic demand by associated users in multicell/multi-user networks. To avoid high computation time, a heuristic algorithm is proposed to efficiently solve the formulated problem. Numerical analysis through case studies demonstrates the energy saved and efficiency improvements and the comparison between the proposed heuristic algorithm against the optimal solutions.


In this article, we investigate some further properties of one-dimensional tiling semigroups as a particular case of the inverse semigroup associated with a factorial language. Namely, a presentation for the semigroup and its description as a P*-semigroup are obtained. Since both cons-truc-tions rely on the language, these properties highlight the deep connection between the semigroup and the language associated with a one-dimensional tiling semigroup.


Abstract Background: The aim of this study was to determine the outcome of a one-hour training session on the correct technique of fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) by assessing adequacy of FNAB specimens received from clinicians at an academic hospital. Method: Six clinicians were recruited and their FNABs assessed, six months prior to, and then again after, a one-hour training session in correct technique. Questionnaires were completed prior to the training session and after the subsequent six-month period, to determine the subjective assessment of the clinicians' perceived value of the training on their aspiration technique. Results: Five of the clinicians had never received training in FNAB technique. The adequacy of the aspirates for all six clinicians did not improve, although this was not statistically significant. They performed a median of 15.5 FNABs in the six months prior to training, and 13.5 FNABs in the six-month follow-up period. Five of the six clinicians subjectively perceived the quality of the aspirates to have improved, and all six recommended the training session to their colleagues. Conclusion: No improvement was noted after training, but the number of FNABs performed per clinician was suboptimal. Previous studies have shown that clinicians performing relatively few aspirates perform poorly, even if they have received adequate training. The fact that all six would recommend the training session to colleagues is encouraging, and the authors recommend that formal training in FNAB technique should be included in the undergraduate medical curriculum.


Modulation of the striatal dopamine system affects glucose metabolism in humans and mice. A stimulating therapy for diabetes Blood glucose concentration is controlled by the hormone insulin. In patients with type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance leads to elevated blood glucose concentration and increased risk of developing cardiovascular disorders. The brain has been shown to participate in glucose metabolism; however, whether and how modulation of brain activity affects systemic blood concentrations of glucose is poorly understood. ter Horst et al. show that in diabetic and nondiabetic patients, striatal dopamine release induced by deep brain electrical stimulation of the ventral anterior limb of the internal capsule improved insulin sensitivity. Conversely, pharmacological systemic dopamine depletion reduced the insulin-mediated blood glucose uptake. The findings open up a potential avenue for treating pharmacoresistant type 2 diabetes. The brain is emerging as an important regulator of systemic glucose metabolism. Accumulating data from animal and observational human studies suggest that striatal dopamine signaling plays a role in glucose regulation, but direct evidence in humans is currently lacking. We present a series of experiments supporting the regulation of peripheral glucose metabolism by striatal dopamine signaling. First, we present the case of a diabetes patient who displayed strongly reduced insulin requirements after treatment with bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) targeting the anterior limb of the internal capsule. Next, we show that DBS in this striatal area, which induced dopamine release, increased hepatic and peripheral insulin sensitivity in 14 nondiabetic patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Conversely, systemic dopamine depletion reduced peripheral insulin sensitivity in healthy subjects. Supporting these human data, we demonstrate that optogenetic activation of dopamine D1 receptor–expressing neurons in the nucleus accumbens increased glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity in mice. Together, these findings support the hypothesis that striatal neuronal activity regulates systemic glucose metabolism.


Abstract Supergenes are genomic regions containing sets of tightly linked loci that control multi-trait phenotypic polymorphisms under balancing selection. Recent advances in genomics have uncovered significant variation in both the genomic architecture as well as the mode of origin of supergenes across diverse organismal systems. Although the role of genomic architecture for the origin of supergenes has been much discussed, differences in the genomic architecture also subsequently affect the evolutionary trajectory of supergenes and the rate of degeneration of supergene haplotypes. In this review, we synthesize recent genomic work and historical models of supergene evolution, highlighting how the genomic architecture of supergenes affects their evolutionary fate. We discuss how recent findings on classic supergenes involved in governing ant colony social form, mimicry in butterflies, and heterostyly in flowering plants relate to theoretical expectations. Furthermore, we use forward simulations to demonstrate that differences in genomic architecture affect the degeneration of supergenes. Finally, we discuss implications of the evolution of supergene haplotypes for the long-term fate of balanced polymorphisms governed by supergenes.


As in many parts of the developing world, the share of high value crops in agricultural gross domestic product (AgGDP) has increased substantially in Nepal. We contribute to the literature on trends in agricultural development in the poorest countries by answering the research question on "Does transition from traditional to high-value agriculture reduce rural poverty in poor developing countries†? We also identified the drivers leading to this transition. The study uses survey data from three rounds of the nationally representative Nepal Living Standard Surveys: NLSS I (1994/1995), NLSS II (2004/2005) and NLSS III (2010/2011). Multi-level model was used to study the determinants of agricultural diversification. To estimate the causal impact of agricultural diversification on welfare measures, propensity score matching and instrumental variable techniques were used. Results indicate that there has been a rightward shift in the distribution of the share (percent) of high-value crops between 1995 and 2004 and between 2004 and 2010, respectively. The area as well as the shared by major cereals (paddy, maize, and wheat) is declining over years. However, it is increasing for high-value crops (potato, vegetables, spices/condiments, and fruits). The percentage increase in share of the high-value crops was higher in or adjacent to urbanized districts between 1995 and 2010. The factors positively associated with the agricultural diversification are female-headed households, caste, mother's education, net-buyer status, urban region, remittance, farm size, kitchen garden, improved seeds, telephone and refrigerator. We found positive impact of agricultural diversification towards high-value crops on rural poverty and monthly per capita consumption expenditure. However, for cereal crops grower, we find the negative impact on poverty and monthly per capita consumption expenditure.


CONTEXT
The association between menopausal hormone replacement therapy and ovarian cancer is unclear.

OBJECTIVE
To determine whether hormone replacement therapy using estrogen only, estrogen-progestin only, or both estrogen only and estrogen-progestin increases ovarian cancer risk.

DESIGN
A 1979-1998 cohort study of former participants in the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project, a nationwide breast cancer screening program.

SETTING
Twenty-nine US clinical centers.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 44 241 postmenopausal women (mean age at start of follow-up, 56.6 years).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Incident ovarian cancer.

RESULTS
We identified 329 women who developed ovarian cancer during follow-up. In time-dependent analyses adjusted for age, menopause type, and oral contraceptive use, ever use of estrogen only was significantly associated with ovarian cancer (rate ratio [RR], 1.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.2-2.0). Increasing duration of estrogen-only use was significantly associated with ovarian cancer: RRs for 10 to 19 years and 20 or more years were 1.8 (95% CI, 1.1-3.0) and 3.2 (95% CI, 1.7-5.7), respectively (P value for trend <.001), and we observed a 7% (95% CI, 2%-13%) increase in RR per year of use. We observed significantly elevated RRs with increasing duration of estrogen-only use across all strata of other ovarian cancer risk factors, including women with hysterectomy. The RR for estrogen-progestin use after prior estrogen-only use was 1.5 (95% CI, 0.91-2.4), but the RR for estrogen-progestin-only use was 1.1 (95% CI, 0.64-1.7). The RRs for less than 2 years and 2 or more years of estrogen-progestin-only use were 1.6 (95% CI, 0.78-3.3) and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.35-1.8), respectively, and there was no evidence of a duration response (P value for trend =.30).

CONCLUSION
Women who used estrogen-only replacement therapy, particularly for 10 or more years, were at significantly increased risk of ovarian cancer in this study. Women who used short-term estrogen-progestin-only replacement therapy were not at increased risk, but risk associated with short-term and longer-term estrogen-progestin replacement therapy warrants further investigation.


The world strives to satisfy sustainability conditions, such as human rights and environmental protection, among others, nowadays. Hence, investors would find it interesting to know whether investing in ethical portfolios will worsen the investment opportunities, compared to investing in portfolios constructed by both sustainable and unsustainable assets. One can choose to analyze this topic based on classical optimal portfolio analysis, such as studying whether the difference between the minimum-variance frontier of sustainable assets and the minimum-variance frontier of those assets and some additional unsustainable assets is statistically significant by applying mean-variance spanning tests. In this thesis, we used monthly and weekly returns, respectively, of 21 stocks in the OMX Stockholm 30 (OMXS30) index over the period 2008-2019, and we performed four screenings to obtain different numbers of stocks that are considered more sustainable. Mean-variance spanning tests were then applied to study whether the differences between the minimum-variance frontier of all the 21 stocks and each of the minimum-variance frontiers of the assets obtained after screening are statistically significant or not. The results of the spanning tests showed statistically nonsignificant differences between the minimum-variance frontiers. Hence, our study suggests that an investor would not obtain better investment opportunities when she, in addition to the considered more sustainable assets in the OMXS30 index, adds the stocks that are considered more unsustainable into the investment portfolio. ∗Postal address: Mathematical Statistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Sweden. E-mail: email@example.com. Supervisor: Taras Bodnar.


The poultry processing industry has been undergoing a series of changes as it modifies processing practices to comply with new performance standards for chicken parts and comminuted poultry products. The regulatory approach encourages the use of intervention strategies to prevent and control foodborne pathogens in poultry products and thus improve food safety and protect human health. The present studies were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of antimicrobial interventions for reducing Salmonella on inoculated chicken parts under simulated commercial processing conditions. Chicken pieces were inoculated by immersion in a five-strain Salmonella cocktail at 6 log CFU/mL and then treated with organic acids and oxidizing agents on a commercial rinsing conveyor belt. The efficacy of spraying with six different treatments (sterile water, lactic acid, acetic acid, buffered lactic acid, acetic acid in combination with lactic acid, and peracetic acid) at two concentrations was evaluated on skin-on and skin-off chicken thighs at three application temperatures. Skinless chicken breasts were used to evaluate the antimicrobial efficacy of lactic acid and peracetic acid. The color stability of treated and untreated chicken parts was assessed after the acid interventions. The lactic acid and buffered lactic acid treatments produced the greatest reductions in Salmonella counts. Significant differences between the control and water treatments were identified for 5.11% lactic acid and 5.85% buffered lactic acid in both skin-on and skin-off chicken thighs. No significant effect of treatment temperature for skin-on chicken thighs was found. Lactic acid and peracetic acid were effective agents for eluting Salmonella cells attached to chicken breasts.


Objectives & Background Cardiac sounding chest pain is one of the commonest reasons for presentation to the Emergency Department (ED) or acute medical receiving. An electrocardiogram (ECG) can rapidly identify those patients suffering from an ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (ACS) but the differentiation of patients with non ST elevation ACS from those with non cardiac chest pain or stable cardiac disease is often not straightforward and encompasses historical, clinical and biochemical factors. Effective early risk stratification of this group of non ST elevated ACS patients may streamline care pathways for those at high risk and lead to effective use of resources and early discharge in those in whom ACS is unlikely. Methods A prospective cohort study of adult patients presenting to the ED or acute medical receiving unit of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary with cardiac sounding chest pain and an a non-diagnostic ECG. A necessary sample size of 1000 patients was calculated and recruitment began in December 2014. HEART, GRACE and TIMI scores were calculated from data obtained on patient attendance, with subjective aspects entered by the attending medical practitioner in real time. Patients were followed up to 30 days for the development of a MACE. Receiver Operated Characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to determine discriminative power of each of the three scores to detect MACE. Sensitivities and specificities (with 95% CIs) for each score (at different cut-offs) were calculated. Results Preliminary results are available on 605 patients. Ages ranged from 20–95 years (mean 61.8 years), 360 (59.5%) were male and 108 patients (17.9%) patients suffered a MACE at 30 days. Area under the ROC curves demonstrated that HEART (0.86) had a greater ability to discriminate patients going on to develop a MACE than TIMI (0.71) and GRACE (0.76) scores. Within the HEART low risk group 1.2% of patients developed a MACE and within the high risk group over 60% developed a MACE. Conclusion The HEART score out performs GRACE and TIMI in predicting MACE in patients presenting to the ED with cardiac sounding chest pain. It rapidly identifies a low-risk population that may be suitable for early discharge or ambulatory management from the ED and higher risk patients may be promptly prioritised for invasive management. Figure 1 Table 1 Preliminary HEART Score Data Risk Group HEART Score Patients 30 Day MACE (%) Low 0–3 167 2 (1.2) Intermediate 4–6 325 38 (11.7) High 7–10 113 68 (60.2)


The electronic structures, spin-states, and geometrical parameters of tetra-, penta-, and hexa-coordinated iron-porphyrins are investigated applying density functional theory (DFT) based calculations, utilizing the plane-wave pseudopotential as well as localized basis set approaches. The splitting of the spin multiplet energies are investigated applying various functionals including recently developed hybrid meta-GGA (M06 family) functionals. Almost all of the hybrid functionals accurately reproduce the experimental ground state spins of the investigated Fe-porphyrins. However, the energetic ordering of the spin-states and the energies between them are still an issue. The widely used B3LYP provides consistent results for all chosen systems. The GGA+U functionals are found to be equally competent. After assessing the performance of various functionals in spin-state calculations, the potential energy surfaces of the oxygen binding process by heme is investigated. This reveals a "double spin-crossover" feature for the lowest energy reaction path that is consistent with previous CASPT2 calculations but predicting a lowest energy singlet state. The calculations have hence captured the spin-crossover as well as spin-flip processes. These are driven by the intra-atomic orbital polarization on the central metal atom due to the atomic and orbitals rearrangements. The nature of the chemical bonding and a molecular orbital analysis are also performed for the geometrically simple but electronic structurally complicated system tetra-coordinated planar Fe porphyrin in comparison to the penta-coordinated systems. This analysis explains the observed paradoxical appearance of certain peaks in the local density of states (DOS).


The problem of this experimental study is to determine to what extent visual information may dominate over audio information. Additionally, the experimental design addresses problems with previous research in this area and emphasizes simplified approaches to the study of channel condition effects. The study does not include investigations of learning theory or short-term memory, but processes of listening and long-term memory are incorporated into the design. A stimulus of sound effects and slides was utilized in one audio and two audio-visual channel conditions, and results showed a high recall among all subjects in all three conditions. The study concludes that channel condition has little effect at low levels of information.


When Barbara Hanawalt's acclaimed history The Ties That Bind first appeared, it was hailed for its unprecedented research and vivid re-creation of medieval life. David Levine, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called Hanawalt's book "as stimulating for the questions it asks as for the answers it provides" and he concluded that "one comes away from this stimulating book with the same sense of wonder that Thomas Hardy's Angel Clare felt [: ] 'The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.'" Now, in Growing Up in Medieval London, Hanawalt again reveals the larger, fuller, more dramatic life of the common people, in this instance, the lives of children in London. Bringing together a wealth of evidence drawn from court records, literary sources, and books of advice, Hanawalt weaves a rich tapestry of the life of London youth during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Much of what she finds is eye opening. She shows for instance that--contrary to the belief of some historians--medieval adults did recognize and pay close attention to the various stages of childhood and adolescence. For instance, manuals on childrearing, such as "Rhodes's Book of Nurture" or "Seager's School of Virtue," clearly reflect the value parents placed in laying the proper groundwork for a child's future. Likewise, wardship cases reveal that in fact London laws granted orphans greater protection than do our own courts. Hanawalt also breaks ground with her innovative narrative style. To bring medieval childhood to life, she creates composite profiles, based on the experiences of real children, which provide a more vivid portrait than otherwise possible of the trials and tribulations of medieval youths at work and at play. We discover through these portraits that the road to adulthood was fraught with danger. We meet Alison the Bastard Heiress, whose guardians married her off to their apprentice in order to gain control of her inheritance. We learn how Joan Rawlyns of Aldenham thwarted an attempt to sell her into prostitution. And we hear the unfortunate story of William Raynold and Thomas Appleford, two mercer's apprentices who found themselves forgotten by their senile master, and abused by his wife. These composite portraits, and many more, enrich our understanding of the many stages of life in the Middle Ages. Written by a leading historian of the Middle Ages, these pages evoke the color and drama of medieval life. Ranging from birth and baptism, to apprenticeship and adulthood, here is a myth-shattering, innovative work that illuminates the nature of childhood in the Middle Ages.


Conflict, convergence, cooperation and competition among governance actors and institutions have long fascinated scholars of transnational law, yet transnational legal theorists' accounts of such interactions are for the most part tentative, incomplete and unsystematic. Having elsewhere proposed an overarching conceptual framework for the study of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI), in this article we propose criteria for middle-range theory-building. We argue that a portfolio of theoretical perspectives on transnational governance interactions should account for the multiplicity of interacting entities and scales of interaction; the co-evolution of social agency and structure; the multiple components of regulatory governance; the role of interactions as both influence and outcome; the diverse modes of interaction; the mechanisms and pathways of interaction; and the spatio-temporal dynamics of interaction. To suggest the value of these criteria, we apply them in a preliminary way to selected transnational legal scholarship and to the other articles in this special issue.


Understanding the nature of bulges in disc galaxies can provide important insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies. For instance, the presence of a classical bulge suggests a relatively violent history, in contrast, the presence of simply an inner disc (also referred to as a "pseudobulge") indicates the occurrence of secular evolution processes in the main disc. However, we still lack criteria to effectively categorise bulges, limiting our ability to study their impact on the evolution of the host galaxies. Here we present a recipe to separate inner discs from classical bulges by combining four different parameters from photometric and kinematic analyses: The bulge S\'ersic index $n_\mathrm{b}$, the concentration index $C_{20,50}$, the Kormendy (1977) relation and the inner slope of the radial velocity dispersion profile $\nabla\sigma$. With that recipe we provide a detailed bulge classification for a sample of 45 galaxies from the integral-field spectroscopic survey CALIFA. To aid in categorising bulges within these galaxies, we perform 2D image decomposition to determine bulge S\'ersic index, bulge-to-total light ratio, surface brightness and effective radius of the bulge and use growth curve analysis to derive a new concentration index, $C_{20,50}$. We further extract the stellar kinematics from CALIFA data cubes and analyse the radial velocity dispersion profile. The results of the different approaches are in good agreement and allow a safe classification for approximately $95\%$ of the galaxies. In particular, we show that our new "inner" concentration index performs considerably better than the traditionally used $C_{50,90}$ when yielding the nature of bulges. We also found that a combined use of this index and the Kormendy (1977) relation gives a very robust indication of the physical nature of the bulge.


The role of self-peptides bound to MHC molecules in the selection of T cells in the thymus remains controversial. Here, we have tested whether a high-abundance single class II MHC-peptide complex has a dominant effect on the repertoire of CD4(+) T cells selected by low-abundance class II MHC-peptide complexes. For these studies, we have used H-2(b) mice that lack an invariant chain (Ii) (A(b)Ii(-)) and their transgenic variant (A(b)A(b)EpIi(-)) that co-expresses A(b) molecules covalently bound with a single peptide Ep(52-68). In these latter mice, close to 50% of all A(b) molecules are occupied by Ep(52-68) peptide. Although the A(b)Ep complex was abundantly expressed in the thymus under conditions excluding negative selection on bone marrow-derived cells, no striking quantitative difference between repertoires of TCR expressed on CD4(+) T cells in A(b)Ii(-) and A(b)A(b)EpIi(-) mice was noticed. Our results are consistent with the view that diverse, low-abundance self-peptides play an important role in thymic positive selection and do not support the notion that dominant, high-abundance peptides may be critical for shaping the TCR repertoire.


We consider spatially homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions of Milgrom's recently proposed class of bimetric theories of gravity. These theories have two different regimes, corresponding to high and low acceleration. We find simple power-law matter dominated solutions in both, as well as solutions with spatial curvature, and exponentially expanding solutions. In the high acceleration limit these solutions behave like the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker solutions of general relativity, with a cosmological constant term that is of the correct order of magnitude to explain the observed accelerating expansion of the Universe. We find that solutions that remain in the high acceleration regime for their entire history, however, require nonbaryonic dark matter fields, or extra interaction terms in their gravitational Lagrangian, in order to be observationally viable. The low acceleration regime also provides some scope to account for this deficit, with solutions that differ considerably from their general relativistic counterparts.


Since its establishment five years ago, the Department of Homeland Security has played a pivotal role in mobilizing the efforts of the United States government to prevent and deter terrorists and other dangerous people from attacking the country. These efforts have yielded positive results: By any fair measure, the United States is safer and more secure today. Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that the threat posed by terrorism has entirely disappeared or has ceased to be of critical concern. In the words of the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, "[W]e face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years." In al Qaeda and like-minded organizations, the United States and its allies confront a relentless and resourceful adversary rooted in a violent, extremist ideology. Its adherents continue to wage war against civilization, including mainstream Muslims, while seeking to harness further the power of modern technology and globalization to achieve dominance and far greater destructive capabilities in the future. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Consequently, it is imperative that over the next decade, the United States, in concert with its friends and allies, retain every option at its disposal and apply every available tool or strategy where appropriate against this threat. Certainly that includes the effective use of military options when necessary as well as other tools that may reduce the ability of terrorists to carry out attacks. Most importantly, however, in order to prevent the growth of terrorist groups themselves, the United States must pursue strategies to win nations and peoples to its side. Use of such "soft power"--a term coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye--can help the United States and its allies reduce the appeal of terrorist organizations and deter individuals from joining them. A Multi-Faceted Fight against Terrorists The use of military action in recent years against the terrorists has included deposing the Taliban in Afghanistan and combating al Qaeda in Iraq. During this time, the United States and its allies have also acted to frustrate three key enablers of terrorism--communications, finance, and travel. They continue to intercept and disrupt communications and actively work to freeze the assets of groups and individuals that support terrorism. When it comes to travel, the United States employs three key strategies: collecting limited bits of commercial information in order to identify travelers warranting closer scrutiny, screening incoming individuals through biometrics, and building a system of secure travel documentation through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Taken together, these measures constitute a layered approach: deterring terrorists from entering the United States, capturing or killing them before they embark on the journey, and stopping them during their travel. Unfortunately, such measures, while necessary, will likely leave us short of a lasting victory in the safeguarding of the country. To prevail, we must not only work hard to prevent terrorists from attacking, but we must also expend equal effort to prevent people from becoming terrorists in the first place. That requires addressing the two major factors that are driving the growth of terrorism in the 21st century: the continued presence of failed political and economic systems in parts of the developing world, and the emergence of violent Islamic extremism as the most visible competing ideology for those mired in that dismal status quo. The True Nature of the Fight Given these two factors, the course ahead should be clear. The United States must fight not only the extremists, but the ideology of their extremism. It must stand firmly against malignant ideas which can only cause further poverty, degradation, and hopelessness by turning the clock back centuries. It must offer the alternative ideals of liberty and democracy, ideals which have brought more progress to more people over the past few centuries than in all the prior centuries combined. …


A new second-order MOS transistor based circuit block approximating the behavior of a fractional-order capacitor is proposed. The circuit is modular and therefore the order of the approximation can be increased by more stages of the same circuit in cascade or in parallel. Simulation results using a TSMC 65nm CMOS technology are provided and show less than 2° of phase error in two decades around the center frequency of the approximation. Experimental results of realized fractional-order capacitors and of a fractional-order relaxation oscillator are also shown.


This thesis examines formal organization in ground-bass works. While it is true that many or even most works of the ground-bass repertoire are variation sets over a ground, there also exist many ground-bass works that are not in variation form. The primary goal of this thesis is to elucidate the various ways in which such non-variation formal organizations may be achieved. The first chapter of this work discusses the general properties of ground basses and various ways that individual phrases may be placed in relation to the statements of the ground. The second chapter considers phrases groupings, phrase rhythm, and the larger formal organizations that result. The third chapter concludes this study with complete analyses of Purcell's "When I am laid in earth" from Dido and Aeneas and Delanade's "Jerusalem, convertere ad dominum Deum tuum" from his setting of the Lecons de tenebres.


Abstract Those who identify colours with physical properties need to say how the content of colour experiences relate to their favoured identifications. This is because it is not plausible to hold that colour experiences represent things as having the physical properties in question. I sketch how physical realists about colour might tackle this item of unfinished business.


Abstract : The architecture of a software-intensive system is critical to its quality. For an acquisition organization within the Department of Defense (DoD), evaluating architectures as early as possible in an acquisition can have a favorable impact on the delivered system. This technical note is a case study of how a DoD organization used architecture analysis and evaluation in a major system acquisition, early on, to reduce program risk. The case study begins by describing the system, the motivation for including architecture evaluation in the acquisition, and the Quality Attribute Workshop (QAW) approach. Following this is a brief description of the system acquisition strategy. The case study then describes the set of events (and supporting artifacts) that were required to incorporate QAW architecture analysis and evaluation in the acquisition strategy. In addition, it describes the relationship of these events and artifacts to the source-selection process. Concluding the case study is a description of the accomplishments and lessons learned, along with sample sections from the request for proposal (RFP). These sections provide additional insight into the contractual language that was used to implement the architecture analysis and evaluation approach.


Looking at software engineering from a historical perspective, we can see how software development methodologies have evolved over the past 50 years. Using the right software development methodology with the right settings has always been a challenge. Therefore, there has always been a need for empirical evidence about what worked well and what did not, and what factors affect the different variables of the development process. Probably the most noticeable change to software development methodology in the last 15 years has been the introduction of the word "agile". As any area matures, there is a need to understand its components and relations, as well as the need of empirical evidence about how well agile methods work in real life settings. In this thesis, we empirically investigate the impact of agile methods on different aspects of quality including product quality, process quality and stakeholders' satisfaction as well as the different factors that affect these aspects. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used for this research, including semi-structured interviews and surveys. Quality was studied in two projects that used agile software development. The empirical study showed that both projects were successful with multiple releases, and with improved product quality and stakeholders' satisfaction. The data analysis produced a list of 13 refined grounded hypotheses out of which 5 were supported throughout the research. One project was studied in-depth by collecting quantitative data about the process used via a newly designed iteration monitor. The iteration monitor was used by the team over three iterations and it helped identify issues and trends within the team in order to improve the process in the following iterations. Data about other organisations collected via surveys was used to generalise the obtained results. A variety of statistical analysis techniques were applied and these suggested that when agile methods have a good impact on quality they also has a good impact on productivity and satisfaction, also when agile methods had good impact on the previous aspects they reduced cost. More importantly, the analysis clustered 58 agile practices into 15 factors including incremental and iterative development, agile quality assurance, and communication. These factors can be used as a guide for agile process improvement. The previous results raised questions about agile project governance, and to answer these questions the agile projects governance survey was conducted. This survey collected 129 responses, and its statistically significant results suggested that: retrospectives are more effective when applied properly as they had more impact when the whole team participated and comments were recorded, that organisation size has a negative relationship with success, and that good practices are related together as when a team does one aspect well, they do all aspects well. Finally, the research results supported the hypotheses: agile software development can produce good quality software, achieve stakeholders' satisfaction, motivate teams, assures quick and effective response to stakeholder's requests, and it goes in stages, matures, and improves over time.


To express emotions to others in mobile text messaging in our view require designs that can both capture some of the ambiguity and subtleness that characterizes emotional interaction and keep the media specific qualities. Through the use of a body movement analysis and a dimensional model of emotion experiences, we arrived at a design for a mobile messaging service, eMoto. The service makes use of the sub-symbolic expressions; colors, shapes and animations, for expressing emotions in an open-ended way. Here we present the design process and a user study of those expressions, where the results show that the use of these sub-symbolic expressions can work as a foundation to use as a creative tool, but still allowing for the communication to be situated. The inspiration taken from body movements proved to be very useful as a design input. It was also reflected in the way our subjects described the expressions.


Clonal sedges consist of integrated ramets at different development stages. Many of these sedges are important food for herbivores, yet differences in herbivore preferences and defence allocation between ramet development stages have not previously been evaluated. In this study we investigated intraclonal ramet variation in level of plant defence and nutrient compounds and intraclonal ramet preferences by lemmings (Lemmus trimucronatus) in field samples of a rhizomatous sedge (Carex stans). Plant defence was measured as the level of proteinase inhibitor activity (PIA) and the ratio of PIA to soluble plant proteins (SPP), whereas plant nutrients were measured as the level of soluble plant sugars (SPS) and SPP. Flowering ramets generally had a higher content of defence compared to vegetative ramets, which is consistent with the optimal defence theory predicting that defence compounds are allocated to the ramet stage of the highest fitness value. Compared to vegetative ramets, the flowering ramets had a lower content of SPP and a higher content of SPS. The lemmings showed preference differences between the ramet development stages, and to a large extent the ramet content of defence compounds and nutrient compounds covaried with these preferences in the predicted way. This study shows that defence allocation between ramet development stages of the clonal sedge Carex conforms to predictions of the optimal defence theory.


Nowadays complex interventions are made possible because of improved materials including catheters, microcatheters, introducers and imaging modalities. Image guidance is the center of each intervention in interventional radiology (IR). Image guidance helps to 'see' the lesion, to 'reach', to 'treat' and to 'assess', both the procedure success and the absence of complication. This image guidance is improving, along with various imaging techniques, and is used more and more for complex interventions. Three types of image guidance techniques are distinguished: 1) X-ray-related image guidance based on computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, 2D angiography, 3D angiography and cone-beam CT (CBCT); 2) non-X-ray image guidance based on ultrasound (US), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electromagnetic guidance; and 3) multimodality image guidance based on image fusion using pre-procedural 3D imaging overlaid with intra-procedural imaging as CBCT or US. X-ray-related image guidance is the most commonly used and is adapted for endovascular or percutaneous intervention with limited angulation (i.e., lung biopsy). Non-X-ray-related imaging is usually adapted for percutaneous interventions such as biopsy, drainage and ablation in solid organs like kidney or liver; MRI intervention is used in limited number of centers for various percutaneous interventions (i.e., mammary, bone or kidney), and electromagnetic image guidance enables navigation on pre-procedural CT scan imaging for percutaneous interventions with larger angle accesses. With multimodality image guidance, the combination from two 3D image sets improve pre-procedural images Tacher, V and Kobeiter, H. State of the Art of Image Guidance in Interventional Radiology. Journal of the Belgian Society of Radiology. 2018; 102(S1): 7, 1–2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jbsr.1641 CHU Henri Mondor, FR Corresponding author: Vania Tacher (email@example.com) SHORT ABSTRACT State of the Art of Image Guidance in Interventional Radiology Vania Tacher and Hicham Kobeiter


In this paper, we look at corporate fiscal policies set by two competing regions in an environment where firms are heterogonous regarding to their mobility costs. We show that if regions are allow to tax domestic and foreign capital at different rates, they will offer a preferential treatment to foreign firms, even if mobility costs are symmetrically distributed across regions. Preventing such type of preferential treatment raises revenues for both regions, unless there exist a high density of firms with low moving costs. Because preferential tax treatment promotes firms movement for fiscal raisons, such tax regime always generates more social loss due to unnecessary delocalization. We also investigate the effect of heterogeneity among regions. JEL Codes: H73, H77


At present companies are trying hard to reduce productive assets by reducing general expenses and increasing flexibility toward what they call "lean production". For this reason they are hiring specialized companies under long term agreements in order to supply parts, operations, and services, with quality responsibility, integrating them into their production line with their own workers. Worldwide, a new phenomenon has occurred where technology has taken over a great deal of the company's performance through simplified processes. After which there has been the need to implement an integration phase, and finally there is a tendency towards optimization. Agribusiness is part of this new tendency. "Tercerizacion" is more known for its English term "outsourcing". Nevertheless, "tercerizacion" is becoming a more and more familiar term. This is good for the Spanish Language as foreign expressions should be avoided. Currently this technique is applied in big agricultural and agribusiness corporations, however during research, it was determined that other companies, such as accounting offices, service companies, and food-analysis labs, are using something similar to what has been described.