•Media debates after the invasion of Iraq suggested that there was a growing anti-Americanism in Europe and that this contributed to an increasing sense of European identity as representing values that differed from that of the USA. But what if this anti-Americanism was really anti-Bushism, and how shared are the shared values on the European side when it comes to representation of the USA as Other? The articles in this Special Issue focus on the discursive image of the USA in the elite media of five European countries at points in time from a particularly frosty Cold War period under President Reagan until six months after the installation of President Obama. Taken together, there are broad similarities in the paradigms and characteristics used to depict the USA from the post-Cold War period, especially in French, Finnish, Swedish and German media. Below the surface, however, the narratives reveal that each country's commentators are mainly interested in the USA in relation to domestic concerns or as a prism for its relationships with other countries on the world stage. There is a stark focus on the US presidents as symbols through which the USA as a whole is seen. Both Democratic and Republican presidents are likened to Rambo, the 'space cowboy', the 'trade and cultural warrior', or Hollywood 'stars', which could be interpreted as a measure of cultural disdain towards American popular culture and militarism. •


This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture , by Robert Venturi.1 Often identified as the first postmodern manifesto—although Venturi has disavowed this attribution— Complexity and Contradiction had a significant impact on architecture culture as much for what it did not do as for what it did. As a "gentle manifesto," it eschewed the polemics and vehemence of earlier modernist manifestoes and took a more personal tone. Statements beginning "I like …" or "I find …" shifted Venturi's treatise from a polemic to what he called an "apologia—an explanation, indirectly, of my work" (18). Far from the fervent proclamations of early twentieth-century manifestoes, the mildness of Venturi's tone concealed the radical nature of his program to dismantle "orthodox Modern architecture."

Venturi decoupled architecture and "other things," the social, technological, and political issues that had informed modernism:

> The architect's ever diminishing power and his growing ineffectualness in shaping the whole environment can be reversed, ironically, by narrowing his concerns and concentrating on his own job. Perhaps …


As the First Review Conference of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) closed in Geneva on 3 May 1996, there was widespread dismay at the failure of the States Parties to reach consensus on effective ways to combat the global scourge of landmines. The CCW Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended) introduced a number of changes that were widely welcomed, but it fell far short of totally prohibiting these weapons, a move already supported by more than 40 States. Keen to sustain the international momentum that might otherwise have slackened, the Canadian delegation announced that Canada would host a meeting of pro-ban States later in the year to develop a strategy to move the international community towards a global ban on anti-personnel mines.


Over the next 30 years, it is anticipated that the world will need to source 70% more food to provide for the growing population, and it is likely that a significant amount of this will have to come from irrigated land. However, the quality of irrigation water is also important, and measuring the quality of this water will allow management decisions to be made. Soil salinity is an important parameter in crop yield, and in this paper, we describe a chloride sensor system based on a low-cost robust screen-printed chloride ion sensor, suitable for use in distributed sensor networks. Previously, this sensor has been used in controlled laboratory-based experiments, but here we provide evidence that the sensor will find application outside of the laboratory in field deployments. We report on three experiments using this sensor; one with a soil column, one using a fluvarium, and finally on an experiment in a greenhouse. All these give an insight into the movement of chloride over small distances with high temporal resolution. These initial experiments illustrate that the new sensors are viable and usable with relatively simple electronics, and although subject to ongoing development, they are currently capable of providing new scientific data at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Therefore, we conclude that such chloride sensors, coupled with a distributed wireless network, offer a new paradigm in hydrological monitoring and will enable new applications, such as irrigation using mixtures of potable and brackish water, with significant cost and resource saving.


Now a day the recent development in new drug delivery systems plays a vital role in pharmaceutical industries. The drug delivery practice has been modified in the last decades and even many advanced innovations happened in recent times. Newer drug delivery systems are largely influencing the current medical practice. Alterations of a traditional or conventional drug delivery into a new drug delivery system can absolutely changing the bioavailability, safety and efficacy of the drug and also it can produce improved patient compliance. Now a day, the scope of controlled drug delivery system is tremendously influencing the pharmaceutical dosage forms because it offers a wide range of products. Out of all controlled release products, Microspheres is one among all because of the controlled release and sustained release properties. This paper focus on the various types of microspheres along with their method of preparation and basic technique to evaluate its efficiency with most important emphasizes on pharmaceutical application of microspheres by means of microspheres taken by various routes of system such as oral, trasnsdermal, parenteral etc. Radioactive labelled microspheres found to attain more medicinal importance for the treatment of disease with labelled isotope tagging. Beside this Fluorescent microspheres can be used for membrane based technology flow cytometry, cell biology, fluorescent linked immuno sorbent assay. Isotope of Yttrium 90 can be used for primary treatment of cancer causing diseases and also used for pre transplant management of Hepato cellular Carcinoma with promising results. INTRODUCTION: Controlled drug delivery system over the past thirty years, because the expense and complications concerned in promoting new drug entities have magnified, with concomitant recognition of the therapeutic benefits of novel drug delivery, bigger attention has been targeted on development of novel controlled drug delivery system.


Moral licensing describes the phenomenon that displaying moral behavior can lead to subsequent immoral behavior. This is usually explained by the idea that an initial moral act affirms the moral self-image and hence licenses subsequent immoral acts. Previous meta-analyses on moral licensing indicate significant overall effects of d> .30. However, several large replication studies have either not found the effect or reported a substantially smaller effect size. The present article investigated whether this can be attributed to publication bias. Datasets from two previous meta-analyses on moral licensing were compared and when necessary modified. The larger dataset was used for the present analyses. Using PET-PEESE and a three-parameter-selection-model (3-PSM), we found some evidence for publication bias. The adjusted effect sizes were reduced to d= -0.05, p= .64 and d= 0.18, p= .002, respectively. While the first estimate could be an underestimation, we also found indications that the second estimate might exaggerate the true effect size. It is concluded that both the evidence for and the size of moral licensing effects has likely been inflated by publication bias. Furthermore, our findings indicate that culture moderates the moral licensing effect. Recommendations for future meta-analytic and empirical work are given. Subsequent studies on moral licensing should be adequately powered and ideally pre-registered.


This study examines the effects of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey's foreign exchange interventions via auctions on the level and volatility of the Turkish lira/US dollar exchange rate between February 02, 2009 and January 31, 2014 with daily data. In order to study the impact of interventions on the Turkish lira, this study employs the Exponential GARCH (1,1) framework. The results suggest that interventions have no significant impact on the level of the exchange rate, ever so leading the Turkish lira to appreciate. Regarding volatility, the presence of the Central Bank in the market alone is not statistically significant, however, intervention volume has a weak significant impact on the exchange rate volatility in negative direction, although still the magnitude of impact is indifferent from zero. Also, the leverage effect is found insignificant, may be referring to non–active central bank intervention in the market during the period.


The situation arising in path planning under kinematic constraints, where the valid configurations define a manifold embedded in the joint ambient space, can be seen as a limit case of the well-known narrow corridor problem. With kinematic constraints, the probability of obtaining a valid configuration by sampling in the joint ambient space is not low but null, which complicates the direct application of sampling-based path planners. This paper presents the AtlasRRT algorithm, which is a planner especially tailored for such constrained systems that builds on recently developed tools for higher-dimensional continuation. These tools provide procedures to define charts that locally parametrize a manifold and to coordinate the charts, forming an atlas that fully covers it. AtlasRRT simultaneously builds an atlas and a bidirectional rapidly exploring random tree (RRT), using the atlas to sample configurations and to grow the branches of the RRTs, and the RRTs to devise directions of expansion for the atlas. The efficiency of AtlasRRT is evaluated in several benchmarks involving high-dimensional manifolds embedded in large ambient spaces. The results show that the combined use of the atlas and the RRTs produces a more rapid exploration of the configuration space manifolds than existing approaches.


Background. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) system has certain limitations when applied to two South African examples of dissociation, because it is descriptive (non-explanatory) and focuses on intrapsychic (non-communal)processes. Even the existing Western explanatory models of dissociation fail to accommodate fully the communal aspects of dissociation in our South African context.
Objectives and methods. The aim was to explore an expanded perspective on dissociation that does not limit it to an intrapsychic phenomenon, but that accounts for the interrelatedness of individuals within their social context. Autoethnography was used. In this article a collective, socially orientated, contextual hermeneutic was applied to two local examples of dissociation. Three existing Western models were expanded along multicontextual, collective lines, for them to be more useful in the pluralistic South African context.
Results. This preliminary contextual model of dissociation includes a person's interpersonal, socio-cultural, and spiritual contexts, in addition to the intrapsychic context. Dissociationis considered to be a normal information-processing tool that maintains balanced, coherent selves-in-society, i.e. individuals connected to each other. In the South African context dissociation appears mostly as a normal phenomenon and seldom as a sign of mental illness. Dissociation is pivotal for the normal construction of individual and communal identities in the face of conflicting sets of information from various contexts. Dissociation may help individuals or communities to survive in a world of conflicting messages, where conflict is often interpersonal / cultural / societal in nature, rather than primarily intrapsychic.
Conclusions. This model should be developed and evaluated further. Such evaluation would require suitable new local terminology.


According to World Health Organization Learning disability is a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind. The most common learning disabilities are Dyslexia, Dyscalculia Dysgraphia, Auditory and Visual Processing Disorders and Nonverbal Learning Disabilities. Adolescents with learning difficulty have trouble expressing their feelings, calming themselves down, and reading non-verbal cues which can lead to difficulty in the classroom and with their peers. In India approximately 13 to 14 per cent of all school children suffer from learning disorders (Sadaket 2009). The social relationships of the adolescents with learning disability have a positive influence on their self esteem. It helps them to maintain a constructive relationship with their peers, teachers and parents. The study was focused to know the relationship of self esteem and social relation in adolescents with learning disability. The study was conducted among all the Adolescents with Learning Disability, in an alternative school in Bangalore. The size of the sample was 50 which include both genders and the sampling design was purposive sampling. Adolescents with learning disability of the age group 11 to 18 years were included for the study. The students' level of self-esteem was assessed by using a 10-item scale developed by Rosenberg (1965). The Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale was rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The researcher reverse scored five items that were negative in nature so that higher scores would indicate higher level of self-esteem. The scale ranges from 0-30. Scores between 15 and 25 are within normal range; scores below 15 suggest low selfesteem. A semi structured questionnaire was designed to gather information on the socio demographic profile and social relation of adolescents with learning disability. A pilot study was conducted among 10 percent of samples and necessary modifications were made. The statistical analysis was done on the data using SPSS. The level of significance was fixed at 0.005(p<0.05). The results show that, among the total respondents, 62.0 percent of them are male respondents (n=31) and 38.0 percent are female respondents (n=19).56 percent of the respondents are being compared with their siblings by their parents. The study indicates that 44 percent of the respondents feel stressed due to parental pressure. The respondents who fall under the age group of 16-19 years have a higher self-esteem than the respondents who fall under the age group of 11-15 years. The study shows that, statically there is a significant relationship between the respondents relationship with parents with respect to respondents self-esteem. There is less significant relationship between the respondents relationship with peers with respect to respondents self-esteem. Present study indicates that, statically there is a significant relationship between the respondents relationship with teachers with respect to respondents self-esteem. Learning disability is a disorder which can be remedied using appropriate instructional strategies. The early identification helps in remedial teaching and building self-esteem. The present study indicates that adolescents with learning disability with better social relationship will have high self-esteem. Realizing the importance of self-esteem and its relationship with social relation, a multidisciplinary approach is required to initiate appropriate interventions in building self-esteem and teaching learning disabled child. Thus the learning disabled child can be mainstreamed effectively.


Context. The main goal of this paper is to prove that accreting very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs can be identified in IPHAS, an Hα emission survey of the northern Milky Way. Full exploitation of the IPHAS database and a future extension of it in the southern hemisphere will be useful in identifying very low-mass accreting objects near to and far from well-known star-forming regions. Aims. We have used Virtual Observatory tools to cross-match the IPHAS catalogue with the 2MASS catalogue. We defined photometric criteria to identify Hα emission sources with near-infrared colours similar to those of known young very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. 4000 candidates were identified that met our criteria over an area of 1600 square degrees. We present low-resolution optical spectra of 113 candidates. Spectral types have been derived for the 33 candidates that have spectroscopically confirmed Hα emission, negligible reddening and spectral class M. We have also measured Hα emission and investigated the NaI doublet (818.3 nm, 819.5 nm) in these 33 objects. Methods. We confirm that 33 IPHAS candidates have strong Hα emission indicative of disc accretion for their spectral type. Twenty-three of them have spectral class M4 or later, of which ten have classes in the range M5.5–M7.0 and could thus be very young brown dwarfs. Many objects also have a weak NaI doublet, an indication of low surface gravity. Results. IPHAS provides a very valuable database for identifying accreting very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. Virtual Observatory tools provide an efficient method for identifying these objects over large areas of the sky. Based on our success rate of 23 Hα emission objects with spectral type in the range M4–M7 out of 113 candidates with spectroscopic follow-up, we estimate that there could be hundreds of such objects in the full IPHAS survey.


In this thesis, we combine Groebner basis with SAT Solver in different manners.
Both SAT solvers and Groebner basis techniques have their own strength and weakness.
Combining them could fix their weakness.

The first combination is using Groebner techniques to learn additional binary clauses for SAT solver from a selection of clauses. This combination is first proposed by Zengler and Kuechlin.
However, in our experiments, about 80 percent Groebner basis computations give no new binary clauses.
By selecting smaller and more compact input for Groebner basis computations, we can significantly
reduce the number of inefficient Groebner basis computations, learn much more binary clauses. In addition,
the new strategy can reduce the solving time of a SAT Solver in general, especially for large and hard problems.

The second combination is using all-solution SAT solver and interpolation to compute Boolean Groebner bases of Boolean elimination ideals of a given ideal. Computing Boolean Groebner basis of the given ideal is an inefficient method in case we want to eliminate most of the variables from a big system of Boolean polynomials.
Therefore, we propose a more efficient approach to handle such cases.
In this approach, the given ideal is translated to the CNF formula. Then an all-solution SAT Solver is used to find the projection of all solutions of the given ideal. Finally, an algorithm, e.g. Buchberger-Moeller Algorithm, is used to associate the reduced Groebner basis to the projection.
We also optimize the Buchberger-Moeller Algorithm for lexicographical ordering and compare it with Brickenstein's interpolation algorithm.

Finally, we combine Groebner basis and abstraction techniques to the verification of some digital designs that contain complicated data paths.
For a given design, we construct an abstract model.
Then, we reformulate it as a system of polynomials in the ring \({\mathbb Z}_{2^k}[x_1,\dots,x_n]\).
The variables are ordered in a way such that the system has already been a Groebner basis w.r.t lexicographical monomial ordering.
Finally, the normal form is employed to prove the desired properties.
To evaluate our approach, we verify the global property of a multiplier and a FIR filter using the computer algebra system Singular. The result shows that our approach is much faster than the commercial verification tool from Onespin on these benchmarks.


What responsibilities, if any, do we have towards our genetic offspring, before or after birth and perhaps even before creation, merely by virtue of the genetic link? What claims, if any, arise from the mere genetic parental relation? Should society through its legal arrangements allow 'fatherless' or 'motherless' children to be born, as the current law on medically assisted reproduction involving gamete donation in some legal systems does? Does the possibility of establishing genetic parentage with practical certainty necessitate reform of current legal regimes of parenthood? And what limits, if any, should we set on parental procreative choices in the interests of future children, particularly with regard to genetic engineering and related techniques? These are the questions explored in this book by some of the foremost legal, bioethical and biomedical thinkers. Assembled with a view to assisting the reader to reflect critically on the ongoing social experiment which medically assisted reproduction is today, the essays in this collection highlight what are - and what else might in the nearby future become - possible reproductive options and respond to the difficulties we encounter in assessing these practices and possibilities from our traditional ethical vantage points. Contributions by: Andrew Bainham, Thomas Baldwin, Lisa Bortolotti, John Harris, Martin H. Johnson, Judith Masson, Martin Richards, Alison Shaw, Sally Sheldon, Bonnie Steinbock and Mary Warnock.


Objective: To determine the role of protein-with-molecular-weight-53 (p53), burkit cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2),  Fas ligand (FasL) mRNA, and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1), known as the apoptosis-related molecular pathway, in preeclamptic patients. Methods: Observation on the correlation between the mRNA levels of p53, Bcl2 and FasL and VCAM-1 in 31 subjects at 28-42 weeks gestational age was performed in this study using the real time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: The results showed that p53 mRNA increased (>1.2350 ng/μL) in the preeclampsia group compared to the normal pregnancy group (p=0.010), Bcl2 mRNA was lower (≤0.9271 ng/μL) in the preeclampsia group than the control group (p=0.041). There was also a tendency of increased FasL mRNA expression (>0.5509 ng/μL) in the preeclampsia group compared to the normal pregnancy group (p=0.300). The level of VCAM-1 elevated (>890.08 ng/mL) in the preeclampsia group compared to the normal pregnancy group (p=0.001). In preeclampsia, the correlation between the Bcl2/p53 ratio and VCAM-1 was r=0.541 (p=0.002), whereas the correlation in normal pregnancy was r=0.099 (p=0.595). Conclusions: There are correlations between the mRNA expression levels of p53 and Bcl2 as an intrinsic pathway of apoptosis along with the VCAM-1 levels in the incidence of preeclampsia. However, no correlation is found between FasL mRNA expression and the incidence of preeclampsia. Keywords: Bcl2, FasL, p53, Preeclampsia, VCAM-1 DOI : 10.15850/ijihs.v2n1.273


Background The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a prominent species in Cenderawasih Bay. Its recent association with moored lift-net fisheries there has led to an increase in tourism that facilitates encounters for human snorkelers and SCUBA divers with the sharks. This association has also supported opportunities for research to discover various elements of their biology, ecology, movements and genetics. An understanding of the genetic composition of the sharks in Cenderawasih Bay and their relationships with whale sharks elsewhere in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific Ocean is important for their conservation and to help design marine protected areas. Approach Skin samples from whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay were collected with modified hog ear notch pliers and small biopsy tips. The samples were preserved in 96% ethanol and stored at 4°C in the laboratory until DNA extraction. The DNA template was amplified for the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene. The nucleotide composition and genetic diversity (polymorphisms, haplotypes, and nucleotides) were analyzed. The results from whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay were compared with those available in Genbank for nearby areas of the Indian and Western Pacific oceans with the neighbor-joining method. Evolutionary distances and haplotype networks were calculated. Results Seven haplotypes were detected among the 31 whale sharks sampled in Cenderawasih Bay, for a haplotype diversity (Hd) of 0.1871 (variance = 0.00859, s.d. = 0.093). The nucleotide diversity (Φ) was 0.00244 (±0.0013) and the values for theta were 0.75094 per shark and 0.00722 per site. The neighbour-joining tree for individual whale sharks from Cenderawasih Bay and other regions appeared to be closely related to each other. They also appeared to be closely related to whale sharks sampled elsewhere in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans (Chi-square, Chi2: 3.620, df: 5, p: 0.605). Haplotype one has highest frequency (37 individuals), one haplotype has two individuals, and six other haplotypes each have one individual. The three last haplotypes have just one individual, respectively. The whale sharks that we sampled in Cenderawasih Bay had low genetic diversity (haplotype, nucleotide and polymorphic). Conclusion 31 whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay were very closely related, and these sharks were closely related to whale sharks elsewhere in the Indian and Western Pacific oceans. The extent of movements among reproductive sharks in this large region is unknown as is the frequency and magnitude of mating among sharks from these different areas. Further research is needed to monitor the long-term movements of sharks within and among regions, particularly reproductively mature males and females, to help design conservation plans for whale sharks and the habitats that they might depend on for feeding andreproducing.


A synthetic bone substitute based on calcium hydroxyapatite CHA and polylactic-co-glycolic acid PLGA, described in this paper, was synthesized to fulfill specific requirements like biodegradability, satisfying mechanical properties, optimal porosity and nanotopology, osteoinductive and osteoconductive properties, and so forth. Structural and morphological properties of the new scaffold were analyzed by micro computed tomography and scanning electron microscopy, while its physicochemical properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy. In vivo biological investigations of the synthesized scaffold were conducted over the cutaneous irritation and biofunctionality assays on rabbits and the test of acute systemic toxicity on mice. The results showed that the scaffold is not irritant and that it does not exhibit any symptoms of acute toxicity. Biofunctionality assays which include evaluation of the presence of various cells of immune response, the presence of neoangiogenesis, percentage of mineralization of newly formed bone, and fibroplasia in the tissue indicated that the new scaffold is suitable for the application in maxillofacial and dental surgery as a bone substitute. Also, it showed significant advantages over commercial product Geistlich Bio-Oss® from the aspect of some parameters of immunological response.


The present study compared the cognitive and mood effects of two commercially available products, Red Bull energy drink 250 mL and Red Bull Sugarfree energy drink 250 mL, together with a matching placebo 250 mL. Twenty-four healthy young volunteers took part in a randomised, placebo controlled, double-blind, three-way cross-over study. Cognitive function was assessed using an integrated set of nine computerised tests of attention, working and episodic memory. On each study day the volunteers received a standardised breakfast prior to completing a baseline performance on cognitive tests and mood scales, followed by the consumption of the study drink. The cognitive tests and scales were then re-administered at 30, 60 and 90 min post-dose. Red Bull was found to produce significant improvements over both the Sugarfree version and the placebo drink on two composite scores from the six working and episodic memory tests; one combining the 12 accuracy measures from the six tasks and the other the average speed of correct responses from the working memory and episodic recognition memory tasks. These improvements were in the range of a medium effect size, which reflects a substantial enhancement to memory in young volunteers.


The molecular arrangement of the membrane attack mechanism of complement was explored. The molar ratios of the components within the C5-9 assembly on the target cell surface were determined using human complement proteins in highly purified and radiolabeled form. With the aid of monospecific complement antisera it was possible to probe the spatial relationships between the components of the assembly. C5 and C6, in the presence of C7, were bound to EAC1-3 in equimolar quantities irrespective of the amounts and the relative proportions of C5, C6, and C7 offered. The amount of C8 bound to EAC1-7 increased with input and at saturation of all C8 binding sites the molar ratio of bound C8/bound C5 approached 1.0. Uptake of C9 by EAC1-8 increased with input and at saturation of all C9 binding sites the molar ratio of bound C9/bound C8 became 6.0. However, calculations suggest that the binding of three C9 molecules to one C8 molecule is sufficient to achieve a full hemolytic effect. Evidence was obtained indicating that binding and hemolytic function of C9 depends upon cooperative interaction of multiple C9 molecules. Binding of C8 to EAC1-7 and the generation of hemolytic C8 sites were inhibited by antibody to either C5, C6, or C7. Uptake of C9 by EAC1-8 and the generation of hemolytic C9 sites were strongly inhibited by anti-C8 and to a lesser degree by anti-C5. Binding of C9 (but not hemolysis) was also reduced by antibody to C6 or C7. The data are consistent with the concept that the fully assembled membrane attack mechanism of complement consists of a decamolecular complex: a trimolecular arrangement composed of C5, C6, and C7 forms the binding site for one C8 molecule which in turn furnishes binding sites for six C9 molecules, saturation of three sites apparently being sufficient for expression of full cytolytic activity of the complex. This work made it possible to design a simple molecular model.


Submarine density flows dominate sediment transport into many parts of the ocean and form submarine fans, which are some of the largest sediment accumulations on Earth. Previous studies often assumed that the distal fringes of submarine fans would be dominated by extensive sheet-like deposits from dilute and expanded turbidity currents, because only turbidity currents would transport large volumes of sediment for long distances across such low gradients. Deposits with a remarkable frondlike shape occur at the furthest fringe of the Mississippi submarine fan. Understanding the emplacement process of these deposits is important because their frondlike shape suggests deposition from debris flows rather than turbidity currents. Previous analyses concluded that these deposits comprise a complex arrangement of thin interbedded turbidity current and debris flow deposits. Here we propose a different internal geometry for the frondlike deposits. Intervals previously described as in place turbidites are interpreted to be clasts within a single debrite interval that is ~ 1 to 2 m thick. This debrite interval is underlain by clean sand. The debrite interval could have been emplaced by multiple debris flows, or one event comprising multiple pulses. Clasts in the debrite interval are much bigger than previously thought, including boulders with diameters that can exceed 50 cm. We show that thin (~ 2 m) and extremely fluidal debris flows could have carried these boulders across gradients of only 0.06° to the fringes of one of the world's largest submarine fans, without hydroplaning. This long transport distance could occur if the density of the clasts was less than that of the surrounding debris flow. Emplacement of the basal clean sand layer appears closely linked to debris flow deposition because the clean sand layer pinches out in a location similar to that of the overlying debrite. We therefore suggest that the basal clean sand most likely settled out from the overlying debris flows, and that the clean sand is not a fore running turbidity current deposit. Shearing at the base of a mud-rich debris flow would most likely produce a muddy basal sand interval, rather than the clean sand that is observed. This basal sand interval is therefore less likely to be a record of a lubricating layer with high-pore-fluid-pressure on which the debris flows moved. This study shows how thin and highly mobile debris flows can redistribute large volumes of sediment including bouldersized clasts long distances into the deep ocean across remarkably low gradients.


User account management is an important task in all applications. Online services are employed to support mail, chat, media data sharing and social network features. User ID and password are the key requirements in the user authentication process. Security questions and alternate mail account details are required in the account verification process due to password missing problems. Security and reliability issues are raised in the security questions and alternate mail account based methods. Account recovery is achieved with backup authentication methods. Contact based user verification scheme uses the trustees that are selected from the contact list of the user account. Verification codes are issued to the trustees for the user account recovery process. The password recovery is achieved with K verification codes that are received from the trustees. Trustee based authentication model is threaten by forest fire attacks. Compromised users are used to iteratively attack the social authentication mechanism. Forest fire attacks are handled with probabilistic models. Defense methods are applied to discover and control the forest fire attacks. Time limit based account recovery mechanism is adapted to control the forest fire attacks. Social authentication process is enhanced with multi level trustee based verification mechanism. The attack controlling scheme is employed with multiple service based account verification mechanism. The system is equipped with service level, user level and hierarchical level trustees for account recovery process.


Objective: To explore self-rated physical and psychological health in two groups of women with substance misuse problems, subjected to male violence. Methods: An examination of the health situation for women with substance dependence being exposed to male violence during life. The study took place in a Swedish context exploring data from 35 women with housing (WwH) and 44 homeless women (HW), regarding posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, psychological and physical problems. Mann-Whitney U-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to calculate differences between groups and correlations. Results: The proportion of women being exposed to male violence during life for the studied group was 91% (72 of 79 women; WwH 29; HW 43). It was found that the WwH had physical health problems but compared to the HW, significantly less frequent. Regarding psychological health problems, both groups were suffering from self-reported problems, most notably in variables measuring stress susceptibility and embitterment, where both WwH and HW had scores markedly above norm mean scores. The HW had overall a poorer mental health profile as compared to the WwH. The WwH still maintained a foundation in the society compared to the HW regarding housing (100/0%), and custody over their children (91/0%). Conclusion: The study indicated that women with substance dependence and those who are victims of male violence have major problems with both their psychological and physical health. Particularly vulnerable are the HW. Past experiences of violence that have not been processed can further aggravate the women's health. Thus, we suggest initiating the process of asking women if they have experienced violence in order to then be able to provide appropriate treatment interventions. For the WwH, this process may lead to a prevention of serious consequences for both their housing situation and for their health.


As a rule, corporate insolvency proceedings are financed from the debtor's estate. To avoid the abatement of bankruptcy proceedings, other, extraordinary arrangements extending beyond this must be found when the estate is insufficient to cover the costs of the proceedings.  Such extraordinary arrangements are deposits by creditors, assistance from public funds, and post-commencement financing (loans), all of these aimed at financing the trustees' activities in proceedings. It is necessary to have rules regulating the duties of the individuals responsible for the timely filing of corporate bankruptcy petitions in payment of the costs of the corresponding insolvency proceedings. The author finds that in jurisdictions linking insolvency proceedings to a broader range of aims than only the best possible satisfaction of the creditors' claims (including ascertaining the causes of insolvency), public funding for conducting the proceedings should be available. There is a possibility of combining several sources of funding to achieve the best possible result and fulfilment of multiple aims of insolvency proceedings.


This essay opens space for movement in higher education~student affairs by using post-structural philosophy as a counterweight to balance the corpus of student development theories that create and inscribe in/dividualized subjectivity onto students. Taking up Jones and Stewart's (2016) structuring of waves in student development theorizing, we unpack régimes of truth that undergird the profession of college student educators: discipline/con-trol (a doubled biopower that centers the whole student), and dividuation (a fracturing of the whole student into component parts). We extend dividuation to include an adherence to representationalism through method in perpetuating and inscribing the student as in/dividual (neoliberal subjectivity). We take up Rosi Braidotti's concept of nomadic sub-jectivity—a relational subjectivity—as a counterbalance to the in/dividualizing subjectivi-ties of current student development theorizing. In doing so, we advance queered third wave theorizing, provoking movement and necessary ethical questions for college student educators: what does it mean to give up commonplace notions such as student, development, identity, and method? What possibilities for practice(s) and futurities in higher education~student affairs open by embracing movement?


During the process of integrated circuit manufacturing, positioning techniques, such as leveling and focusing, are among the key factors in improving the resolution of optical lithography and related lithographic tools. We present a measurement scheme based on the proverbial moire effect for focus positioning in projection lithography. The framework of this scheme is based on a fundamental model of dual gratings and can also be decomposed into a dual 4f optical system. In this scheme, the moire effect that usually occurs in the superposition of two gratings also comes forth when they are located at two sides of the dual 4f optical system, which puts one grating together with the other by optical imaging. Related results of this basic dual-grating model have been concluded. The framework of this scheme is built, and the complex structure is explored when similarly broken down to a basic model of two superposed proximity gratings. Finally, experimental results and corresponding analyses indicate that focusing resolution at the nanometer level can be realized by this scheme. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America


the beginning, it requires but brief study to convince the reader that the revision has greatly improved it. Through reor ganization alone, even when the matter remains largely unchanged, the reader is able to grasp the contents more read ily. Volume II, for instance, begins with what was the second chapter of the older Volume II, that matter having rightly been placed now at the end of the revised Volume I. There are changes in matter, also. These are, indeed, in the revised Volume II, possibly more ex tensive than those incorporated in the new Volume I, if the Introductory Vol ume be disregarded as part of that change. Many of the changes are not sweeping, but they are nevertheless very transforming. By the omission of a paragraph, the insertion of a new para graph, the omission of musical illustra tions that originally appeared and the substitution or addition of new ones, new points of view and much better perspectives are created. Perhaps these alterations are the most effective of the changes. Yet when one reads the two long and admirable new chapters added, Song, by J. A. Westrup, and Instru mental Music, by Gerald M. Cooper, he wonders that the work could have ap« peared so complete as it did in its first form. More than mere delicate re-draw ings, too, are the additions made by J. B. Trend to the account given in the first edition of the Spanish School, and the largely new account of Palestrina's work contributed by the Reverend Dom Anselm Hughes. The latter's discussion of Palestrina's melodic methods is strik ingly different from that given by Pro fessor Woolbridge in the first edition.


Background: The effects of Shenmai Zhusheye on the expression of B7, CD28 and CTL-4 (CD152) in Qi and Yin Deficiency non-small cell lung cancer patient is surveyed in this study.
Methods: 150 patients of Qi and Yin Deficiency non-small cell lung cancer are randomized into two groups with 75 patients in each group, the patients in control group is given symptomatic treatment, and the patients in treatment group is given symptomatic treatment plus Shenmai Zhusheye. Pre-treatment and post-treatment blood routine examination results, hepatic and renal function, and expression of CD4, CD8, CD28, CTLA-4 (CD152), B7(CD80, CD86) of the two group is compared respectively.
Results: No significant difference of blood routine examination results and hepatic and renal function between the two groups is observed after 15 d of treatment. Immune index between the two groups are comparable and no significant difference before treatment is observed; While post-treatment CD4, CD8, CD28 and CD152 of the two groups showed statistical difference (P<0.05); all results except CB86 show intra-group difference (P<0.05) in the treatment group and all results except CD28 show intra-group difference (P<0.05) in the control group.
Conclusions: Immune function of patient of deficiency of both QI and YIN type non-small cell lung cancer is improved by Shenmai Zhusheye.


Sometimes, it is difficult to buy objects in the senses of its not evident adaptation to the anticipated place. To facilitate this operation, it would be possible to study virtually the disposition without being obliged to proceed to a real displacement. The augmented reality is one area to allow such operation since the essence of its principle is that. It would be possible to visualize objects to sell in a scene corresponding to the site of the client The salesman and the client would be able to 'discuss' of possible dispositions. In this article, we present one foundation of this realization. In the occurrence, how the manipulation of virtual objects is possible for the operation of disposition. Then we present a simple method of shared manipulation in a network.


We will be primarily concerned with two special kinds of real algebraic integers called Pisot and Salem numbers, both of which are characterized by the location of their conjugates in relation to the unit circle in the complex plane. While both types of numbers have been studied extensively for many years, certain important questions about Pisot numbers are generally better understood than corresponding questions about Salem numbers. In 1978 David Boyd, extending earlier work done by Jacques Dufresnoy and Charles Pisot in the 1950's, constructed an algorithm to generate all Pisot numbers in any given finite interval of the real line. Using this algorithm, we describe all Pisot numbers whose minimal polynomial is a Littlewood polynomial, one with {+l, -1)-coefficients. These are examples of polynomials that are said to have height 1, the height of a polynomial being simply the largest coefficient in absolute value. We show that every such Pisot number is a limit point, from both sides, of sequences of Salem numbers that are roots of Littlewood polynomials. We also consider analogous questions for another subset of height 1 polynomials, those with ( 0 , 1)-coefficients. Such polynomials, under a suitable normalization, have been called Newman polynomials. We describe all Pisot numbers whose minimal polynomial is derived from a Newman polynomial, and show that each Pisot number of this kind is also a limit, from both sides, of sequences of Salem numbers derived from Newman polynomials. Finally, we investigate some similarities and differences between the sets of Littlewood and Newman polynomials, especially in connection with their roots. One indicator of the location of these roots is the Mahler measure, which, for a monic polynomial, is defined as the product of the absolute values of those roots that lie outside the unit circle. Another indicator of the location of roots is the number that lie on the unit circle, and we investigate both types of polynomials with palindromic coefficient sequences in this regard.


Modern source-control systems, such as Subversion, preserve change-sets of files as atomic commits. However, the specific ordering information in which files were changed is typically not found in these source-code repositories. In this paper, a set of heuristics for grouping change-sets (i.e., log-entries) found in source-code repositories is presented. Given such groups of change-sets, sequences of files that frequently change together are uncovered. This approach not only gives the (unordered) sets of files but supplements them with (partial temporal) ordering information. The technique is demonstrated on a subset of KDE source-code repository. The results show that the approach is able to find sequences of changed-files.


The human pathogens of the Leishmania and Trypanosoma genera compartmentalize glycolytic and other key metabolic pathways in unique subcellular microbodies called glycosomes, organelles related to the peroxisomes of mammals and yeast. The molecular machinery that carries out the specific targeting of glycosomal proteins to the organelle has not been characterized, although the bulk of glycosomal proteins contain the COOH-terminal tripeptide glycosomal peroxisomal targeting signal-1 (PTS-1) similar to the mammalian and fungal peroxisomal targeting signal. To characterize the mechanisms of glycosomal targeting, the gene encoding PEX5, designated LdPEX5, has been isolated from Leishmania donovani. LdPEX5 encodes a 625-amino acid protein with a molecular mass of 69.7 kDa. Like its homologs in yeast and humans, LdPEX5 predicts a protein with seven copies of a tetratricopeptide repeat in its COOH-terminal half proposed to mediate PTS-1 binding and three copies of a WXXX(Y/F) motif in its NH(2) terminus conjectured to be essential for protein translocation into the organelle. LdPEX5 was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and purified to homogeneity for binding experiments and generation of antibodies. Recombinant LdPEX5 bound xanthine phosphoribosyltransferase (XPRT), a PTS-1 containing glycosomal protein with a K(D) of 4.2 nm, but did not bind an XPRT in which the PTS-1 had been deleted. Moreover, binding studies with the COOH-terminal half of the LdPEX5 confirmed that this portion of the PEX5 protein was capable of binding the XPRT PTS-1 with an affinity of 17.3 nm. Confocal microsocopy revealed that LdPEX5 was predominantly in the cytosolic milieu, and genetic analysis implied that LdPEX5 was an essential gene.


In severe nutriment conditions, the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum enters a particular life cycle where it forms multicellular patterns to achieve aggregation. Extensively observed from an initial dispersed state, its developmental program can usefully be studied from a confined population to implement theoretical developments regarding biological self-organization. The challenge is then to form a cell assembly of well-defined geometrical dimensions without hindering cell behavior. To achieve this goal, we imposed transient constraints by applying temporary external magnetic gradients to trap magnetically labeled cells. Deposits of various numbers of cells were geometrically characterized for different magnetic exposure conditions. We demonstrated that the cell deposit was organized as a three-dimensional (3D) structure by both stacking layers of cells and extending these layers in the substrate plane. This structure evolves during the aggregation phase, forming periodic aggregative centers along the linear initial pattern.


On November 7, 1848 William H. Robertson rose early and rushed to the post office in Bedford, a town in Westchester County, New York. The young lawyer was brimming with excitement because two weeks earlier, the Whigs in the county?s northern section had nominated him as their candidate for the New York State Assembly. Only twenty-four years old and a rising legal star, Robertson hoped that holding political office would launch his nascent career. After casting his ballot at the Bedford Post Office, Robertson paid a visit to Sheriff James M. Bates, his political manager, to await the election results. Robertson?s intelligence, collected a week before Election Day, that "news from every part of the district is favorable," proved accurate. The Whig attorney heard later that evening that he had defeated his Democratic opponent, with 57% of the vote. To celebrate, Robertson and Bates feasted on "chickens, turkeys, oysters, and Champaign" before retiring around midnight at Philer Betts? Hotel. The following afternoon, they boarded the 3:00 PM train from Bedford to the county seat of White Plains, seventeen miles south. There, the two triumphant Whigs gossiped and caught up with their counterparts from Westchester?s usually Democratic southern section. Hearing of their friends? overwhelming victories surprised Robertson, leading him to exclaim, "The Whigs have carried almost everything!" Indeed, the Whigs had swept every elective office in Westchester County. [excerpt]


We empirically investigate the relationship between a country's economic complexity and the diversity in the birthplaces of its immigrants. Our cross-country analysis suggests that birthplace diversity is strongly and positively associated with economic complexity. This holds particularly for diversity among highly educated migrants and for countries at intermediate levels of economic complexity. The results are robust to accounting for previous trends in birthplace diversity as well as to using alternatives diversity measures. We address endogeneity concerns by instrumenting diversity through predicted stocks from a pseudo-gravity model as well as from a standard shift-share approach. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that birthplace diversity boosts economic complexity by increasing the diversification of the host country's export basket.


Infectious Bronchitis (IB) is highly contagious disease of commercial poultry causing substantial economic loses by producing poor quality meat in broilers and effecting production in breeder birds. The causative agent has been reported as most hazardous pathogen among other infectious agent even after being immunized with multi-variant strain vaccine. Currently, different strain such as H-120, 4/91 and D274 have been used extensively for immunoprophylaxis against velogenic strain across Pakistan with minimal protection reported. In current study PCR analysis was used to investigate the molecular nature of IB isolates from Punjab and Sind province of Pakistan in 2016 epidemics. Total of 100 tracheal samples were considered for virus inoculation in 10 days old chicken embryonated eggs. The IBV infected amniotic fluid was neutralized with monoclonal antisera of H-120, 4/91 and D274 strains. The IBV screened samples were subjected for RNA extraction and subsequent to PCR using type specific primer of each strain. The amplified product of 840 bp was sequenced through Sanger sequencing. On the basis of PCR results, four similar amplified products from both regions were obtained showing similarities in agarose gel electrophoresis, but they differ from each other on the basis of nucleotides sequence. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that nucleotide sequences of isolates from Karachi were similar to the IBV H-120, Mass-41 and Connecticut 46 reference strains. Whereas, isolates from the Punjab province are analogous to the Mans-2, Mans-3, 9/41(UK) but did not show significant similarity with other reference strain. Therefore, it is recommended that use of M-41 and H-120 in vaccine production could be effective measure against velogenic infectious agent in Sindh particularly in Karachi, whereas, it would be better to incorporate either of the variant GQ281656.1, AY279533.1 in vaccine because of their highest level of resemblance with genetically sequenced isolates from Lahore and its surroundings.


ORIGINAL ARTICLE Background: Sexual dysfunction is an important health problem which prevalence in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) is higher than other people. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of L-arginine oral supplementation on sexual function in men with T2D and mild-to-moderate erectile dysfunction (ED). Methods: Eighty men with T2D, suffering from mildto-moderate erectile dysfunction participated in this double-blind clinical trial. They were randomly assigned in to two groups; receiving 5 g/day L-arginine (AG) or placebo group (PG) for 4 weeks. Sexual functions were recorded with international index of erectile function questionnaire at the beginning and end of the intervention. Total testosterone concentrations were measured too. Results: The total mean score of sexual function parameters significantly increased only in AG than PG (43.2 ± 6.2 vs. 39.4 ± 4.0, P = 0.003). Against PG, the mean of all parameters significantly improved in AG after intervention. Only the mean score of erectile function in AG had a significant increase compared to PG. Mean of other sexual activity scores between the two groups had no significant differences. The mean of testosterone concentration had a significant increase in both groups after the intervention, but the mean of changes was significantly higher in AG than in PG (1.91 μg/L vs. 0.53 μg/L, P = 0.004). Conclusions: The present trial showed that daily consumption of 5 g L-arginine for four weeks in T2D men with mild-to-moderate sexual dysfunction improved various parameters such as erectile function, sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, pleasure from sexual intercourse, and testosterone level.


When a problem is large or difficult to solve, computers are often used to find the solution. But when the problem becomes too large, traditional methods of finding the answer may not be enough. It is in turning to nature that inspiration can be found to solve these difficult problems. Artificial intelligence seeks to emulate creatures and processes found in nature, and turn their techniques for solving a problem into an algorithm. Many such metaheuristic algorithms have been developed, but there is a continuous search for better, faster algorithms. The recently developed Firefly Algorithm has been shown to outperform the longstanding Particle Swarm Optimization, and this work aims to verify those results and improve upon them by comparing the two algorithms with a large scale application. A direct hardware implementation of the Firefly Algorithm is also proposed, to speed up performance in embedded systems applications.


Knowledge about the general graph structure of theWorldWideWeb is important for understanding the social mechanisms that govern its growth, for designing ranking methods, for devising better crawling algorithms, and for creating accurate models of its structure. In this paper, we analyze a large web graph. The graph was extracted from a large publicly accessible web crawl that was gathered by the Common Crawl Foundation in 2012. The graph covers over 3:5 billion web pages and 128:7 billion hyperlinks. We analyze and compare, among other features, degree distributions, connectivity, average distances, and the structure of weakly/strongly connected components. We conduct our analysis on three different levels of aggregation: page, host, and pay-level domain (PLD) (one "dot level" above public suffixes). Our analysis shows that, as evidenced by previous research (Serrano et al., 2007), some of the features previously observed by Broder et al., 2000 are very dependent on artifacts of the crawling process, whereas other appear to be more structural. We confirm the existence of a giant strongly connected component; we however find, as observed by other researchers (Donato et al., 2005; Boldi et al., 2002; Baeza-Yates and Poblete, 2003), very different proportions of nodes that can reach or that can be reached from the giant component, suggesting that the "bow-tie structure" as described by Broder et al. is strongly dependent on the crawling process, and to the best of our current knowledge is not a structural property of the Web. More importantly, statistical testing and visual inspection of size-rank plots show that the distributions of indegree, outdegree and sizes of strongly connected components of the page and host graph are not power laws, contrarily to what was previously reported for much smaller crawls, although they might be heavy tailed. If we aggregate at pay-level domain, however, a power law emerges. We also provide for the first time accurate measurement of distance-based features, using recently introduced algorithms that scale to the size of our crawl (Boldi and Vigna, 2013).


An experiment will be reported which assessed speech intelligibility and free recall of spoken words in Swedish (native tongue) and in English heard under different signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios (+3 and +12 dB), and with/without the spoken words being repeated back orally directly after presentation (shadowing). All participants encountered all experimental conditions. Twelve wordlists with 12 words each were generated in English as well as in Swedish. The words were chosen according to their ranks in category norms for the two languages, and no category was the same for the two languages. Blocks of counter balanced presentation orders, S/N-ratios and shadowing/no shadowing were generated. After each wordlist the participants wrote down the words they could recall. Pre-experimental measures of working memory capacity were taken. The basic hypotheses for the recall of the words were that working memory would be overloaded when the S/N-ratio was low, there was no shadowing and when the language was English. A low score on working memory capacity was expected to further enhance these effects. While writing this abstract data collection is still in progress but results will be presented at the conference.


Metric databases are databases where a metric distance function is defined for pairs of database objects. In such databases, similarity queries in the form of range queries or k-nearest-neighbor queries are the most important query types. In traditional query processing, single queries are issued independently by different users. In many data mining applications, however, the database is typically explored by iteratively asking similarity queries for answers of previous similarity queries. We introduce a generic scheme for such data mining algorithms and we investigate two orthogonal approaches, reducing I/O cost as well as CPU cost, to speed-up the processing of multiple similarity queries. The proposed techniques apply to any type of similarity query and to an implementation based on an index or using a sequential scan. Parallelization yields an additional impressive speed-up. An extensive performance evaluation confirms the efficiency of our approach.


Many epidemiologic studies of environmental exposures and disease susceptibility measure DNA methylation in white blood cells (WBC). Some studies are also starting to use saliva DNA as it is usually more readily available in large epidemiologic studies. However, little is known about the correlation of methylation between WBC and saliva DNA. We examined DNA methylation in three repetitive elements, Sat2, Alu, and LINE-1, and in four CpG sites, including AHRR (cg23576855, cg05575921), cg05951221 at 2q37.1, and cg11924019 at CYP1A1, in 57 girls aged 6–15 years with blood and saliva collected on the same day. We measured all DNA methylation markers by bisulfite-pyrosequencing, except for Sat2 and Alu, which were measured by the MethyLight assay. Methylation levels measured in saliva DNA were lower than those in WBC DNA, with differences ranging from 2.8% for Alu to 14.1% for cg05575921. Methylation levels for the three repetitive elements measured in saliva DNA were all positively correlated with those in WBC DNA. However, there was a wide range in the Spearman correlations, with the smallest correlation found for Alu (0.24) and the strongest correlation found for LINE-1 (0.73). Spearman correlations for cg05575921, cg05951221, and cg11924019 were 0.33, 0.42, and 0.79, respectively. If these findings are replicated in larger studies, they suggest that, for selected methylation markers (e.g., LINE-1), methylation levels may be highly correlated between blood and saliva, while for others methylation markers, the levels may be more tissue specific. Thus, in studies that differ by DNA source, each interrogated site should be separately examined in order to evaluate the correlation in DNA methylation levels across DNA sources.


2003). TPX2 also The mitotic spindle consists of microtubules (MTs), which are nucleated by the γ -tubulin ring complex ( γ -TuRC). How the γ -TuRC gets activated at the right time and location remains elusive. Recently, it was uncovered that MTs nucleate from preexisting MTs within the mitotic spindle, which requires the protein TPX2, but the mechanism basis for TPX2 action is unknown. Here, we investigate the role of TPX2 in branching MT nucleation. We establish the domain organization of Xenopus laevis TPX2 and define the minimal TPX2 version that stimulates branching MT nucleation, which we find is unrelated to TPX2's ability to nucleate MTs in vitro. Several domains of TPX2 contribute to its MT-binding and bundling activities. However, the property necessary for TPX2 to induce branching MT nucleation is contained within newly identified γ -TuRC nucleation activator motifs. Separation-of-function mutations leave the binding of TPX2 to γ -TuRC intact, whereas branching MT nucleation is abolished, suggesting that TPX2 may activate γ -TuRC to promote branching MT nucleation.


Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a fatal neuromuscular disease caused by absence of dystrophin. Utrophin is a chromosome 6-encoded dystrophin-related protein (DRP), sharing functional motifs with dystrophin. Utrophin's ability to compensate for dystrophin during development and when transgenically overexpressed has provided an important impetus for identifying activators of utrophin expression. The utrophin promoter A is transcriptionally regulated in part by heregulin-mediated, extracellular signal-related kinase-dependent activation of the GABP(alpha/beta) transcription factor complex. Therefore, this pathway offers a potential mechanism to modulate utrophin expression in muscle. We tested the ability of heregulin to improve the dystrophic phenotype in the mdx mouse model of DMD. Intraperitoneal injections of a small peptide encoding the epidermal growth factor-like region of heregulin ectodomain for 3 months in vivo resulted in up-regulation of utrophin, a marked improvement in the mechanical properties of muscle as evidenced by resistance to eccentric contraction mediated damage, and a reduction of muscle pathology. The amelioration of dystrophic phenotype by heregulin-mediated utrophin up-regulation offers a pharmacological therapeutic modality and obviates many of the toxicity and delivery issues associated with viral vector-based gene therapy for DMD.


Papadopoulos, Y. A., McElroy, M. S., Fillmore, S. A. E., McRae, K. B., Duyinsveld, J. L. and Fredeen, A. H. 2012. Sward complexity and grass species composition affects the performance of grass-white clover pasture mixtures. Can. J. Plant Sci. 92: 1199-1205. The productivity of managed permanent pastures is closely associated with the species composition of seeded mixtures. Ecological theory suggests that increasing plant species' diversity will result in higher productivity, resilience, and resistance to invasive species. To better understand the relationship between sward species composition and pasture productivity, mixtures of four common pasture grass species, timothy (Phleum pratense L.), Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea L.), and meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis L.), were seeded in 2004 in binary (two-grass), tertiary (three-grass), and quaternary (four-grass) combinations with white clover (Trifolium repens L.). Plots were rotationally grazed for 5 yr, with yield determined in the first post-establishment year (2005) and in 3 subsequent production years (2007, 2008, and 2009). Mean dry matter yield (DMY) increased appreciably from post-establishment (3801 kg ha-1) to the production years (6613 kg ha-1). Contrasts revealed significantly higher DMY production in quaternary mixtures versus less complex plots in production years. Repeated measure analysis found significant quadratic trends in DMY for plots containing bluegrass and timothy, showing different patterns of growth between the respective mixtures. Principal component analysis (PCA) of averaged yields over the production years revealed a strong association between seeded grass growth and DMY. This relationship between DMY and seeded grass growth was strongest in swards containing a combination of timothy and bluegrass. In general, the growth of unseeded grasses and forbs increased in mixtures with large proportions of timothy and reed canarygrass. In spite of the fact that mixtures containing timothy and bluegrass were shown to produce high DMY, it appears the aggressiveness of bluegrass suppressed the yield potential of timothy. White clover yields and unseeded grasses/forbs were both significantly lower in mixtures containing bluegrass. Also, the PCA revealed a favourable compatibility between meadow fescue and white clover growth, while bluegrass appears to suppress meadow fescue growth. Results show that species complexity increases sward productivity over the long term, and that the presence of two grass species, in particular (timothy and bluegrass), has considerable influence on DMY.


The electrochemical reduction of 4-(5',6',7',8'-tetrahydro-naphthalene)-1-tetralone was investigated in aprotic solvent dimethylsulphoxide at glassy carbon electrode (GCE) using the technique of cyclic voltammetry at room temperature. The reduction of tetralone carried out in acidic medium which is irreversible and involves transfer of two electrons. The intensity of cathodic peak current increases with increasing scan rate consistent with Randles-Sevcik equation. A linear behavior of peak current versus square root of scan rate indicates that the electrochemical reduction processes are diffusion controlled.


Rates and extent of biodegradability of four different organic components of municipal solid waste (leaf litter, newspaper, magazine paper and A4 sheet) were evaluated under optimum conditions. Total solids (TS) removals in biotic samples ranged from 74.7% to 78.8% while volatile solids removals ranged from 75.7% to 84.8%. Significant biodegradation of tannin-lignin was observed for all four components and removals ranged from 53% to 79.5%. Biodegradation rates were measured for all components and were found to fit second-order kinetics best. Biodegradation rate constants for all biotic samples ranged from 0.0317 to 0.0352 L/g-d. Control samples that had been autoclaved initially had higher biodegradation rates ranging from 0.0303 to 0.0537 L/g-d.


During complex humanitarian emergencies, the relations between humanitarian NGOs and military organization vary widely, ranging from hostility to cooperation. In some cases, NGOs and military organizations define forms of coordination to avoid duplication, they cooperate and even launch joint projects. In others, however, even basic coordination has proven problematic, not to mention genuine cooperation. Why? The goal of this article is to explore empirically the challenges of these disputed boundaries and the ways in which humanitarian NGOs and military organizations face them in their areas of operation, during the course of their missions. Specifically, we challenge the two most common responses to the question of the source of coordination problems, namely their identity differences on the one hand, and the characteristics of the mission, particularly its ends and means, on the other. We make two arguments instead. First, irrespective of the ends and means and the threat level on the ground, domestic politics influence the propensity of NGOs and the military of the same country to cooperate. Second, the propensity of NGOs and the military to cooperate is also influenced by the ways in which each type of organization constructs the operational reality it is embedded in. Empirically, using fresh empirical evidence we explore the differences between French and Italian armies' relations with French and Italian NGOs as well as their interactions with NGOs from other countries during the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan and the UNIFIL II mission in Lebanon in 2007-2008.


The Mid Caiboniferous (Visean and Namurian) Yoredale cycles of Northumbria were deposited as a result of glacio-eustatic fluctuations, arising from waxing aid waning of Gondwanan ice sheets in the southern hemisphere. Each cycle contains a variety of Uthofacies, generally comprising carbonate platform lithofacies deposited during the transgressive systems ttact, followed by deltaic or marine shoreline lithofocies, deposited during the highstand, lowstand and falling stage systems tract. There may or may not be a transgressive shoreline lithofacies present at the top of each cycle. Although there is a general pattern to the composition of each Yoredale cycle, carbonate platform lithofacies are more dominant in the south of the area due to a close proximity to the main marine source to the south-west. Likewise, deltaic and marine shoreline lithofacies are more common in the north of the area due to a close proximity to the main sedimentary source to the north-east The duration of each cycle has been calculated as approximately 200,000 years resulting in their classification as fourth-order cycles. Within each Yoredale cycle, the components of a sea-level curve have been identified indicating their formation was directly influenced by fluctuations in relative sea- level. By using Fischer plots, third-order cycles have also been identified and it is inferred that composite eustasy was տ operation, resulting from Gondwanan glaciation. Evidence for climate change is abundant throughout the Mid Carboniferom. By using palaeosoils and lithological evidence for climate change has been recognised. A major arid phase at the Asbian I Brigantian boundary has been identified by the presence of calcretes, red flmial sediments, a decrease both the amount of coal the amount of fine siliciclastic material within each cycle. This change in climate can be correlated with other areas of similar palaeolatitude indicating that this change was global. Stable isotope analysis reveals little or no information regarding Mid Carboniferous palaeoclimate and I or palaeoceanogiaphy. It has been possible to identify major post-depositional influences on the Mid Caiboniferous strata of Northumbria. Both the Weardale Granite and the Whin Sill Complex appear to have generated large amounts of hydrothermal fluids, both during their emplacement and in the case of the Weardale Granite, after еmplacement. This has led to the obliteration of the original isotopic composition of the marine limestones. Tectonic activity associated with the Variscan orogeny began in the Late Devonian, but was still active in Northumbria during the Visean. The resulting extensional tectonics had a profound affect on sedimentation. During the Visean, active extension was still ongoing, with the syn-rift phase lasting until the end of the Asbian period. The result of this was a series of E-w trending sedimentary basins with wedge-shaped geometry of sediments. The intervening blocks subsided at a slower rate due to underlying buoyant granite masses compared to the Caledonian basement rock of the basinal areas. Differential subsidence ended in the Namurian and the post rift-phase gradually took over from the start of the Brigantian period onwards. This resulted in uniform deposition, with localised intrabasinal faulting. The initial objectives for this thesis were to assess not only the effects of climate, eustasy and tectonics on the Mid Caibontferous strata of Northmnbria, but also to look at the clastic and carbonate interactions within the classic Yoredale cycles. The vast amount of previously unpublished information that has been obtained from the rocks especially with regards to climate change has meant that the clastic-carbonate interaction study was abandoned. In an area that has been studied for over two centuries due to it mineral wealth it is perhaps surprisng to find that there is still much work to be gleaned from such a classic area of British geology.


ABSTRACT The new Franco-Brazilian website "Saint-Hilaire virtual herbarium" offers dynamic online consultation of all specimens and manuscripts of the naturalist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, providing links between specimen images and associated textual data, including notes available in his field books. This tool aims at facilitating the work of taxonomy and systematic botany and allowing a more accurate reconstruction of the routes and time frame of Saint-Hilaire's exploration. All specimens are being digitized by the Paris herbarium (P) and added online. The system will also offer Saint-Hilaire's major publications online. The nomenclature and determinations are automatically updated through dynamic links to the SONNERAT/MNHN database. In this paper, we propose moreover a standard for the correct citation of Saint-Hilaire specimens.


Collagen organization has been analyzed at both external and internal scales by combining Stokes-vector polarimetry and second harmonic generation microscopy. A significant linear relationship between the diattenuation and the external collagen organization was found. The dominant orientation of the collagen fibers was found to run parallel to the axis of diattenuation. Information on the collagen chirality was obtained from the circular dichroism, which showed also a strong dependence with the internal collagen organization. The results show that certain polarimetric parameters might be useful to extract quantitative information and characterize collagen arrangement.


The daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother and a lover of women, Sappho was one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience. Philip Freeman paints a vivid picture of Sappho's world. He delves into religious rites, customs, the role of women in the family, medical knowledge and the experience of motherhood at the time. Through this contextual knowledge, a picture of Sappho's life emerges. Freeman uses his vast historical research, in conjunction with Sappho's poems and other Greek works of fiction, to bring us the closest we can come to knowing the biographical details of this most famous woman poet.


It is becoming increasingly more important to provide a low-cost point-of-care diagnostic device with the ability to detect and monitor various biological and chemical compounds. Traditional laboratories can be time-consuming and very costly. Through the combination of well-established materials and fabrication methods, it is possible to produce devices that meet the needs of many patients, healthcare and medical professionals, and environmental specialists. Existing research has demonstrated that inkjet-printed and paper-based electrochemical sensors are suitable for this application due to advantages provided by the carefully selected materials and fabrication method. Inkjet printing provides a low cost fabrication method with incredible control over the material deposition process, while paper-based substrates enable pump-free microfluidic devices due to their natural wicking ability. Furthermore, electrochemical sensing is incredibly selective and provides accurate and repeatable quantitative results without expensive measurement equipment. By merging each of these favorable techniques and materials and continuing to innovate, the production of low-cost point-of-care sensors is certainly within reach.


A new analysis in our Making Ends Meet survey series looks at the early impact of COVID-19 on the financial status of consumers. The results show that fewer consumers had difficulty paying a bill in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic than one year earlier and that both credit scores and CFPB financial well-being scores increased. These improvements were largely consistent across demographics like race, ethnicity, gender, rural status, and income.Many consumers' financial status declined, despite the average increase. Consumers whose income or savings decreased, regardless of whether they became unemployed, were more likely than others to experience reduced financial well-being and credit scores. Credit forbearance appears to have helped consumers who were having difficulty paying bills avoid a decline in financial well-being.


Vic Montemayor - No one has been more passionate about improving the quality and effectiveness of the teaching of Medical Physics than Bill Hendee. It was in August of 2008 that the first AAPM Workshop on Becoming a Better Teacher of Medical Physics was held, organized and run by Bill Hendee. This was followed up in July of 2010 with a summer school on the same topic, again organized by Bill. There has been continued interest in alternate approaches to teaching medical physics since those initial gatherings. The momentum established by these workshops is made clear each year in the annual Innovation in Medical Physics Education session, which highlights work being done in all forms of medical physics education, from one-on-one residencies or classroom presentations to large-scale program revisions and on-line resources for international audiences. This symposium, presented on behalf of the Education Council, highlights the work of three finalists from past Innovation in Education sessions. Each will be presenting their approaches to and innovations in teaching medical physics. It is hoped that audience members interested in trying something new in their teaching of medical physics will find some of these ideas and approaches readily applicable to their own classrooms. Rebecca Howell - The presentation will discuss ways to maximize classroom learning, i.e., increasing the amount of material covered while also enhancing students' understanding of the broader implications of the course topics. Specifically, the presentation will focus on two teaching methodologies, project based learning and flip learning. These teaching methods will be illustrated using an example of graduate medical physics course where both are used in conjunction with traditional lectures. Additionally, the presentation will focus on our experience implementing these methods including challenges that were overcome. Jay Burmeister - My presentation will discuss the incorporation of active learning techniques into a traditional medical physics classroom course. I will describe these techniques and how they were implemented as well as student performance before and after implementation. Student feedback indicated that these course changes improved their ability to actively assimilate the course content, thus improving their understanding of the material. Shahid Naqvi - My talk will focus on ways to help students visualize crucial concepts that lie at the core of radiation physics. Although particle tracks generated by Monte Carlo simulations have served as an indispensable visualization tool, students often struggle to resolve the underlying physics from a simultaneous jumble of tracks. We can clarify the physics by "coding" the tracks, e.g., by coloring the tracks according to their "starting" or "crossing" regions. The regionally-coded tracks when overlaid with dose distributions help the students see the elusive connection between dose, kerma and electronic disequilibrium. Tracks coded according to local energy or energy-loss rate can illustrate the need for stopping power corrections in electron beams and explain the Bragg peak in a proton beam. Coding tracks according to parent interaction type and order can clarify the often misunderstood distinction between primary and scatter dose. The students can thus see the "whole" simultaneously with the "sum of the parts," which enhances their physical insight and creates a sustainable foundation for further learning. After the presentations the speakers and moderator will be open to questions and discussion with the audience members.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Be able to explain Project-Based Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. 2. Be able to explain Flipped Learning and how can it be incorporated into a Medical Physics classroom. 3. Be able to explain active-learning strategies for the teaching of Medical Physics. 4. Be able to explain how Monte Carlo simulations can be used to deepen a student's understanding of radiation physics and dosimetry.


The life expectancy provides valuable information about population health. The life expectancies were evaluated in 12,039 dogs which were buried or cremated during January 2012 to March 2015. The data of dogs were collected at the eight animal cemeteries in Tokyo. The overall life expectancy of dogs was 13.7 (95% confidence interval (CI): 13.7–13.8) years. The probability of death was high in the first year of life, lowest in the fourth year, and increased exponentially after four years of age like Gompertz curve in semilog graph. The life expectancy of companion dogs in Tokyo has increased 1.67 fold from 8.6 years to 13.7 years over the past three decades. Canine crossbreed life expectancy (15.1 years, 95% CI 14.9–15.3) was significantly greater than pure breed life expectancy (13.6 years, 95%CI 13.5–13.7, P-value <0.001). The life expectancy for male and for female dogs were 13.6 (95% CI: 13.5–13.7) and 13.5 (95% CI: 13.4–13.6) years, respectively, with no significant difference (P=0.097). In terms of the median age of death and life expectancy for major breeds, Shiba had the highest median age of death (15.7 years), life expectancy (15.5 years) and French Bulldog had the lowest median age of death (10.2 years), life expectancy (10.2 years). When considering life expectancy alone, these results suggest that the health of companion dogs in Japan has significantly improved over the past 30 years.


The injection of mafic magmas into felsic magmas is studied
focussing on three natural case studies in which the process was
frozen at the initial stages. The contact morphology between magmas
is strongly variable in each outcrop and has been quantified by
the fractal dimension.
Natural morphologies are identical to those produced in the «viscous fingering» process where a low viscosity fluid displaces a high
viscosity one. Viscous-fingering fluid-mechanics experiments have
been performed using fluids with different viscosity ratios. A very
good empirical exponential relationship has been found between
fractal dimension of experimental structures and viscosity ratio.
Using the empirical relationship derived from experiments, and
using the values of fractal dimension measured on natural samples,
the viscosity ratios between magmas has been estimated. Results
indicated that magmas with highly variable viscosity ratios coexisted
in each studied magmatic system. These results have been explained
hypothesizing the heating of the felsic magma by continuous inputs
of the high temperature mafic magma. Such a process may explain
and physically justify a decrease of viscosity contrasts between magmas
as the injection of the mafic magma proceeds in time.
Results from this study may give new insights into the potential
evolution of magma mixing processes in plutonic environments. In
fact, it is suggested that the viscous fingering may be a very important
process contributing to drifting the viscosity ratio between magmas
towards low values and, hence, towards the best rheological conditions
to trigger widespread mixing processes in the magma chamber.
We show that combining fractal geometry measurements on
natural rocks and fluid-mechanics experiments may help to shed
new light into geological processes whose knowledge may open new
frontiers in the study of igneous systems and their evolution in time
and space


SUMMARY Intracellular oscillators entrain to periodic signals by adjusting their phase and frequency. However, the low copy numbers of key molecular players make the dynamics of these oscillators intrinsically noisy, disrupting their oscillatory activity and entrainment response. Here, we use a combination of computational methods and experimental observations to reveal a functional distinction between the entrainment of individual oscillators (e.g., inside cells) and the entrainment of populations of oscillators (e.g., across tissues). We demonstrate that, in the presence of intracellular noise, weak periodic cues robustly entrain the population averaged response, even while individual oscillators remain un-entrained. We mathematically elucidate this phenomenon, which we call stochastic population entrainment, and show that it naturally arises due to interactions between intrinsic noise and nonlinear oscillatory dynamics. Our findings suggest that robust tissue-level oscillations can be achieved by a simple mechanism that utilizes intrinsic biochemical noise, even in the absence of biochemical couplings between cells. and 59% for the constant initial-states and the random initial-states situations respectively, again indicating that the overall enhancement effects are quite similar. However it is noteworthy that this effect is slightly more when the initial states are randomized. These numerical experiments with the NF- k B model clearly show that static noise, in the form of randomized initial states, is not responsible for the phenomenon we report and dynamical noise is necessary to see the proposed effect. In the case of weak forcing, this insight can also be obtained from the mathematical analysis we present later for a simple example.


Bone implants of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) have become increasingly popular in the orthopedic field but its bioinertness and poor osteogenic properties significantly limit its applications for bone regeneration and osseointegration with host bone. In this study, by incorporation of mesoporous diopside (MD) into the PEEK matrix, macro-mesoporous PEEK/MD (PM) composites as bone implants with interconnected macropores of 300-400 μm were fabricated using the method of cold press-sintering and salt-leaching. The results showed that the compressive strength, porosity and water absorption of the porous PM composites significantly increased with an increase in the MD content. In addition, the incorporation of MD into PEEK obviously enhanced the mineralization ability of the PM composites, indicating good bioactivity. Moreover, the in vitro cell experiments indicated that the macro-mesoporous PM composites significantly promoted the adhesion and proliferation as well as osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells, which depended on the MD content. The results of synchrotron radiation-based micro-computed tomography (SRmCT) and histological analysis revealed that the porous PM composites possessed excellent osteogenic properties in vivo, which were obviously enhanced with an increase in the MD content. Moreover, the immunohistochemistry evaluation of type I collagen (COL I) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) confirmed that addition of MD into PEEK obviously enhanced the osteogenesis and vascularization potential of the macro-mesoporous PM composites in vivo. The results suggested that the PM composites containing macropores and mesopores as bone implants had great potential for bone repair/substitution.


Several methods of assessing body composition are presented and discussed in this thesis. The assessment of body composition has been a leading area of research for many years. The increasing prevalence of obesity in recent years has done nothing but stress the importance of having accurate and reliable methods which allow us to understand better the composition of the body itself, as well as identify any abnormal conditions of the same.
Data was provided by the Gateshead Millennium Study (GMS). This is a large cohort of over 1000 children, who were born in Gateshead, in the Northeast of England, between 1999 and 2000. The children have so far been followed up until age 7, when the last data collection was completed. Information about their parents (such as anthropometric measurements) was also recorded. This thesis analyzes the data of the children at age 7 as well as their parents.
A number of methods for determining body composition are currently in use. These vary from taking simple measurements of the body, such as weight or height, to more complicated methods for which sophisticated devices are needed. Various relationships and associations between the different characteristics of the human body have been established, drawn from results of numerous studies. Although these relationships may vary from person to person, as there are many other factors which might affect them (such as diet, genetics or lifestyle), they are fairly well established in adults. However, when assessing children, an important factor should be considered in addition, age. This is fundamental for the correct assessment of body composition in children. This thesis focusses on two more novel methods of determining body composition, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and bony frame, in addition to anthropometry (body mass index in particular) and skinfolds.
Parental body composition is thought to be influential on their children's body composition. Such influence does not necessarily have to be genetic, but might indirectly come from the eating habits and lifestyle of the family as a whole. Another factor which is believed to have an influential role is social class. Social differences might be reflected in body composition differences, with people from lower social classes being fatter. Both factors are explored in this thesis.
Chapter 1 gives a general introduction on how body composition can be assessed and describes the data set and aims of the project. These include processing anthropometric (height, weight, body mass index, skinfold thicknesses, waist circumference, bony frame) and impedance data for children and their parents, as well as comparing and validating different methods of assessing body composition.
Chapter 2 provides a review of some relevant published literature and methodology concerning assessment of body composition in children and adults. The principles on which bioelectrical impedance analysis is based are described and different approaches suggested in the past for analyzing bony frame data are reviewed.
Chapter 3 presents the anthropometric data collected on children and their mothers in the GMS. The LMS method was used to calculate standard deviation scores for children's anthropometric data. The results reflected an increase in height, weight, waist circumference, BMI and skinfolds (triceps and subscapular) with respect to reference data (UK 1990 children). In particular, classification criteria based on body mass index and skinfold thicknesses are discussed. Children were classified under the UK National and the IOTF body mass index criteria. The resulting classifications differed, especially for boys. Two different equations were applied to predict %fat from skinfolds, but discrepant results were obtained. The relationship between mothers and children's body mass index was explored. Although it was found to be significant, the correlation was weak.
Of particular interest for this project is bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), explored in Chapter 4. This approach is presented as a way of studying the fat and lean mass components of the body separately. A novel methodology for deriving lean and fat indices in children, adjusted for height and age, is discussed. These methods were derived on another data set and are applied here to the GMS children. The results are encouraging, although it is a matter of concern that the variance of the fat index was smaller than expected. Both indices are correlated with weight, waist circumference, BMI and skinfolds. Fat index yields considerably higher correlation with skinfolds than lean index. The relationship between fat index and other measures of fatness is stronger for girls, especially for BMI; while for boys the correlation coefficients with BMI are about the same for both indices, for girls the correlation with fat index is clearly higher. The methodology was then adapted to derive similar indices for the children's mothers. The resulting indices, especially the fat index, are highly correlated with the body mass index. Mothers and children's lean and fat indices are positively (but not strongly) correlated.
Chapter 5 explores bony frame data. Faced with the lack of a gold standard method, an alternative way of analyzing these data is proposed, taking the average of the internally standardized measurements. The results from a principal components analysis supported this idea. Average limb and trunk measurements were considered separately but this approach did not seem to be better than taking the overall average. Correlation coefficients between bony frame and height, weight and BMI are all high. Waist circumference and skinfolds, which are measures of fatness, are also correlated with bony frame. In general, correlation coefficients are higher for girls. For boys, the correlation of bony frame with lean index is higher than with fat index, while for girls the opposite occurs.
Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes the results and main findings, pointing out the limitations in the methodology used and suggesting areas of study which should be considered in the future.
Bioelectrical impedance analysis has been reported to be a valid and reliable method for assessing body composition in previous studies. The results presented in this thesis are very encouraging. In general, fat and lean indices seem to perform fairly well for both children and adults; the relationships between these indices and various anthropometric measurements agree in sign and magnitude with the expectations. However, there are limitations one should be aware of. The equations for calculating the lean and fat indices for children were derived on a specific age range (7-11 years) and therefore, might not be suitable for children aged outside that range. Also, when applying this method to the GMS children, the variance of the fat index was found to be smaller than expected. The reason for this is not clear yet, and further investigation should be done. In adults, the equations for calculating these indices were derived using solely women's data. The hydration and resistivity constants underpinning the method might differ for males, and also for different age ranges.
The results obtained from analyzing the bony frame data are unclear. The high correlation with fatness, which, in principle, was not expected, could mean two different things: either an actual relationship between bony frame and fat mass, or simply the fact that bony frame calculation is being confounded with fat, and therefore the results would not be reliable. Further work on this field should be done, so that these questions can be answered and an appropriate and reliable method for adjusting for bony frame can be developed.


Independence preservation, a desirable property in realtime locking protocols that isolates tasks from delays due to unrelated critical sections, is formalized. It is shown that independence preservation is impossible if temporary job migrations are disallowed. The OMIP, a new, asymptotically optimal, independence-preserving locking protocol for clustered scheduling based on migratory priority inheritance, is proposed and analyzed. By extending the OMIP to tolerate budget overruns, it is shown that shared resources can be abstracted into virtually exclusive resources (VXRs)—tasks can be provisioned and composed as if they had exclusive access to each resource, even when sharing resources with erroneous tasks. Several practical extensions and applications of VXRs are described. Notably, VXRs enable predictable resource sharing in mixed-criticality systems.