Deep-sea sponge grounds provide structurally complex habitat for fish and invertebrates and enhance local biodiversity. They are also vulnerable to bottom-contact fisheries and prime candidates for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem designation and related conservation action. This study uses species distribution modeling, based on presence and absence observations of Geodia spp. and sponge grounds derived from research trawl catches, as well as spatially continuous data on the physical and biological ocean environment derived from satellite data and oceanographic models, to model the distribution of Geodia sponges and sponge grounds in the Northwest Atlantic. Most models produce excellent fits with validation data although fits are reduced when models are extrapolated to new areas, especially when oceanographic regimes differ between areas. Depth and minimum bottom salinity were important predictors in most models, and a Geodia spp. minimum bottom salinity tolerance threshold in the 34.3-34.8 psu range was hypothesized on the basis of model structure. The models indicated two currently unsampled regions within the study area, the deeper parts of Baffin Bay and the Newfoundland and Labrador slopes, where future sponge grounds are most likely to be found.


The endogenous protein kinases of isolated Paramecium tetraurelia cilia phosphorylated approximately 30 ciliary polypeptides in vitro. Labeling with [gamma-32P]ATP was not proportional to the amount of each protein in cilia; some minor polypeptides (e.g., 67,000 and 180,000 mol wt) were more heavily labeled than some major polypeptides. Certain of the endogenous substrates for protein kinase were localized in the ciliary membrane (130,000, 86,000, 67,000, and 45,000 mol wt); others were found in axonemes or in both fractions. With cilia from bacterized cultures in the undefined Cerophyl medium, the labeling of specific endogenous phosphate acceptors was altered by pH, cyclic AMP, and cyclic GMP, but the labeling pattern was not affected by the presence of Na+ or K+ (15 mM), Ba++ (5 mM), Ca++ (10(-5) or 10(-4) M), or EGTA. Very similar results were obtained with cilia from cells grown axenically in a semidefined medium; the molecular weights and the extent of phosphorylation of the phosphopolypeptides were comparable to those of cilia from bacterized Cerophyl cultures, although no significant cyclic nucleotide effects were observed in the axenic cilia. Most of the phosphopolypeptides labeled in vitro also turned over rapidly in vitro. The phosphoprotein phosphatase responsible for turnover was partially inhibited by 5 mM NaF. The pattern of ciliary polypeptides labeled in vivo was similar to that observed in the in vitro experiments, although the relative intensities of labeling differed. Six behavioral mutants of Paramecium, known to have defects in the excitable membrane that regulates the ciliary beat, showed normal patterns of ciliary protein phosphorylation in vitro, with and without added cyclic nucleotides, at both pH 6.0 and pH 8.0. The mutants also had apparently normal phosphoprotein phosphatase. The Paranoiac A mutant, however, showed a reduction in cyclic GMP- stimulated protein kinase activity.


Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) comprises ~20% of all breast cancers and is the most aggressive breast cancer subtype. Devoid of expression of the estrogen and progesterone receptors, along with the receptor tyrosine kinase ERB2 (HER2) that defines most mammary cancers, there are no targeted therapies for patients with TNBC. This, combined with a high metastatic rate and a lower 5-year survival rate than for other breast cancer phenotypes, means there is significant unmet need for new therapeutic strategies.

Herein, the anti-neoplastic effects of the electrophilic fatty acid nitroalkene derivative, 10-nitro-octadec-9-enoic acid (nitro-oleic acid, NO2-OA), were investigated in multiple preclinical models of TNBC. NO2-OA reduced TNBC cell growth and viability in vitro, attenuated TNFα-induced TNBC cell migration and invasion and inhibited the tumor growth of MDA-MB-231 TNBC cell xenografts in the mammary fat pads of female nude mice. The upregulation of these aggressive tumor cell growth, migration and invasion phenotypes is mediated in part by the constitutive activation of proinflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling in TNBC. NO2-OA inhibited TNFα-induced NF-κB transcriptional activity in human TNBC cells and suppressed downstream NF-κB target gene expression, including the metastasis-related proteins intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA).

The mechanisms accounting for NF-κB signaling inhibition by NO2-OA in TNBC cells were multifaceted, as NO2-OA a) inhibited the inhibitor of NF-κB subunit kinase β phosphorylation and downstream inhibitor of NF-κB degradation, b) alkylated the NF-κB RelA protein to prevent DNA binding and c) promoted RelA polyubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. Comparisons with nontumorigenic human breast epithelial MCF-10A cells revealed that NO2-OA more selectively inhibited TNBC function. This was attributed to greater extents of multi-drug resistance protein-1 (MRP1) expression and greater MRP1-mediated efflux of NO2-OA glutathione conjugates in MCF-10A cells. Blocking MRP1 transporting activity by inhibitor probenecid sensitized MCF-10A cells to NO2-OA similar to its effect on TNBC cells, indicating that MRP1-mediated efflux can profoundly attenuate the NO2-OA biological activity in MCF-10A cells. This dissertation study will be an important illustration of how NO2-OA inhibits TNBC tumor development and its elucidation may have significant impact for the improvement of pharmacological therapies.


A funny thing happened after the Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore, the controversial December 2000 case ending the presidential election litigation between Al Gore and George W. Bush: over the next decade, from 2001 to 2010, the number of election law cases decided by the Supreme Court with a written opinion fell to 30 cases, the lowest level since the 1950s. The drop occurred at the Supreme Court even as the amount of election litigation in the lower courts more than doubled compared to the period just before Bush v. Gore and even as the scholarly field of election law exploded.This brief Article describes the drop in Supreme Court election law cases in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and offers at least a partial explanation as to the reasons for the drop. Although the general amount of election law litigation has risen dramatically since 2000, the number of cases in which parties sought Supreme Court review declined by more than 36 percent from the 1991-2000 decade compared to the 2001-2010 decade. The decline appears particularly steep after Justice O'Connor left the Court, replaced by Justice Alito.Factoring that decline into account, the data show that the Court issued written opinions in nearly the same percentage of election law cases each decade in which parties sought Supreme Court review – 11.9% of cases in the 1991-2000 decade, and 10.5% of cases in 2001-2010. While I cannot exclude the possibility that the Court shied away from hearing some election law cases out of Bush v. Gore fatigue or as the result of random noise, the drop in the number of election law cases in which litigants sought Supreme Court review cases seems to explain a great deal of the decline.This Article concludes by considering why the number of cases in which litigants sought Supreme Court review dropped so precipitously in 2001-2010 even as the total number of election law cases in the lower courts increased dramatically. One reason is that liberal litigants who had sought review especially in voting rights cases in the 1990-2000 period were less willing to do so in the 2001-2010 period, likely because they expected unfavorable results before the more conservative Roberts Court. The 2005-2010 period is especially important; the number of election law petitions in the Supreme Court dropped precipitously after Justice Alito joined the Court. The other reason is that many of the lower court cases making up the election law explosion were state cases involving state statutory interpretation issues, rarely raising federal constitutional or statutory claims within the Supreme Court's purview.


Regularization is an effective way to promote the generalization performance of machine learning models. In this paper, we focus on label smoothing, a form of output distribution regularization that prevents overfitting of a neural network by softening the ground-truth labels in the training data in an attempt to penalize overconfident outputs. Existing approaches typically use cross-validation to impose this smoothing, which is uniform across all training data. In this paper, we show that such label smoothing imposes a quantifiable bias in the Bayes error rate of the training data, with regions of the feature space with high overlap and low marginal likelihood having a lower bias and regions of low overlap and high marginal likelihood having a higher bias. These theoretical results motivate a simple objective function for data-dependent smoothing to mitigate the potential negative consequences of the operation while maintaining its desirable properties as a regularizer. We call this approach Structural Label Smoothing (SLS). We implement SLS and empirically validate on synthetic, Higgs, SVHN, CIFAR-10, and CIFAR-100 datasets. The results confirm our theoretical insights and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in comparison to traditional label smoothing.


This dissertation is based on four articles. Chapter 2 is based on Growitsch and Musgens (2005). In this chapter, we analyze the development of household electricity prices since the liberalization of the market in 1998. The chapter covers all components of the price, the wholesale component, and the transportation and distribution networks. We also discuss the developments of taxes and subsidies in the electricity market. The main result is that the liberalization appears to have had no significant impact on total consumer prices, as prices in 2004 are nearly the same as in 1998. However, a deeper analysis reveals significant differences between the price components: wholesale prices, which are at the focus of the other chapters in this dissertation, decreased significantly directly after the liberalization took place, but increased from 2001 to 2004. The latter effect is discussed in chapter 3. Despite this increase, wholesale prices are still lower in 2004 than they were in 1998. The costs for transportation and distribution networks decreased slightly but steadily over time. The prices of other cost components (Renewable energy act, CHP subsidies, taxes ), however, rose sharply after the liberalization. This result has serious implications, as it means that insubstantial reductions in household prices do not reveal much about the success of liberalization or the behavior of the electricity supply industry. Chapter 3 is based on Musgens (2007). The chapter presents a model to calculate system marginal costs in electricity markets. The model is a dynamic linear optimization model including start-up costs, hydro storage and pump storage dispatch, and international power exchange in the equations. We apply this model to the German power exchange for the period from June 2000 to June 2003 and perform a competitive benchmarking study. We find that prices are very close to our model-derived competitive benchmark in a first period until August 2001: the difference between prices and benchmark is only 2% in this period. In the following period, observed market prices rise significantly; this rise is not reflected in the competitive benchmark: prices are nearly 50% above the competitive benchmark in this second period. We also show that this deviation mainly comes from the high demand periods in which capacity is scarce. This is in accordance with the theories of market power. Furthermore, the chapter contains several scenarios quantifying the price effects of non-convexities and other dynamic elements. Chapter 4 is based on Musgens and Neuhoff (2005). As in chapter 3, we present a linear optimization model to determine the optimal dispatch. The model is extended to allow the analysis of the uncertainty brought into the market by wind power generation. We represent uncertainty by applying stochastic programming with recourse. We parameterize the model with historical data from the German power market and find that the short term costs for the integration of wind power are low, as there is sufficient capacity during most periods to provide balancing services. Chapter 5 is based on Kuntz and Musgens (2005). The chapter presents a formal in-depth analysis of the effects of start-up costs on electricity markets. The chapter starts from a simplified version of the optimization problem in chapter 4. Using appropriate transformations (dualization of the original problem, rephrasing the dual and reconverting it into a modified primal problem), we can prove that the impact of start-up costs on the average price is very small, which was already suggested by the empirical analyses in chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation.


Machine learning can yield timely forecasts of rainfall and flood hazard variables. Such an application of machine learning in disaster mitigation is a key topic in hydroinformatics. In this study, a modified fuzzy inference model—featuring revised implication and defuzzification processes—was used to perform probabilistic typhoon rainfall forecasting. The revised implication process exerted a higher weight of the rainfall variable than other typhoon variables on forecasting. The defuzzification process was modified into a resampling process to generate a predicted probability distribution. The modified fuzzy inference model was applied to real-time probabilistic typhoon rainfall forecasting with lead times of 1 to 3 hours. Predicted confidence intervals with respect to actual typhoon rainfall data validated the capability of the probabilistic forecasting method, although the predicted confidence intervals are wider than the perfect interval in view of a quantitative measure of the reliability diagram. In addition, the probabilistic forecasts could be condensed into deterministic forecasts using the median of the predicted confidence interval. The deterministic forecasts also had satisfactory performance in typhoon rainfall forecasting. Article history: Received 19 April 2021 Revised 22 July 2021 Accepted 23 July 2021


firstname.lastname@example.com Abstract | The arrangement rhythm of urban grains in traditional cities of Iran are formed in accordance with the water supply system of the cities and villages. In this regard, Persian gardens play a key role in formation of city structure and urban landscape of traditional cities as well as incorporation of architectural grains , green infrastructure and green natural organs of the city. The triple factors of water, vegetation and architectural grains can be identified as the main factors in formation of Iranian traditional city structure. The current research studies Persian Shârbâgh or Persian city garden in order to discover the relation between these triple factors in formation of sustainable landscape in traditional cities and the role of Persian garden as a key factor in formation of Persian city gardens. The interaction of these triple factors results into formation of city structure and creation of a green belt in peripheral parts of the city. This is enabled by the presence of gardens and fields as well as the existence of architectural grains that can be considered as green grains since they are all considered courtyard houses and garden houses. Not only does this arrangement provide a desirable micro climate in an undesired context, but also it creates a sustainable landscape within a sustainable composition and allows an interaction which enables a full productivity of nature by human and offers a perpetual life of the traditional cities. Here, an exploratory method based on field observations and aerial and satellite photographs is used. The results indicate that the urban landscapes of past Iranian cities were formed in a combination of water, vegetarian and architectural grains which provided an apt microclimate in houses and cities and resulted in a unique, appropriate, functional and aesthetic rhythm in cities.


Objectives Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive neurostimulation technique that has received increasing interest in the area of mood disorders over the last several years. While acute, double-blind, sham-controlled studies have already reported positive findings in terms of efficacy and safety for tDCS, follow-up data are lacking. This need prompted the present follow-up study, which assesses post-acute effects of tDCS (no maintenance stimulation was performed), in the mid-term, in a sample of major depressives. Methods After completing an acute, open trial of tDCS, 23 outpatients with either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder entered a naturalistic follow-up (T1) with clinical evaluations at one week (T2), 1 month (T3), and 3 months (T4). A quantitative analysis of Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) total scores, through repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) (T1–T4) and paired t-test for comparing specific time points (T1–T2, T2–T3, and T3–T4), was performed. In addition, a qualitative analysis on the basis of treatment response and remission (HAM-D) was performed. Results Even though a progressive reduction of follow-up completers was observed from T2 to T4 (95.6% at T2, 65.2% at T3, and 47.8% at T4), the antidepressant effects of acute tDCS persisted over 3 months in almost half of the sample. Of note, no post-acute side effects emerged during the follow-up observation. The most frequent causes of drop-out from this study included major modifications in therapeutic regimen (30%) and poor adherence to follow-up visits (17%). Conclusions In this mid-term, open, follow-up study, tDCS showed mixed results. Further controlled studies are urgently needed to assess its effects beyond the acute phase.


As cities expand, human mobility has become a central focus of urban planning and policy making to make cities more inclusive and sustainable. Initiatives such as the "15-minutes city" have been put in place to shift the attention from monocentric city configurations to polycentric structures, increasing the availability and diversity of local urban amenities. Ultimately they expect to increase local walkability and increase mobility within residential areas. While we know how urban amenities influence human mobility at the city level, little is known about spatial variations in this relationship. Here, we use mobile phone, census, and volunteered geographical data to measure geographic variations in the relationship between origin-destination flows and local urban accessibility in Barcelona. Using a Negative Binomial Geographically Weighted Regression model, we show that, globally, people tend to visit neighborhoods with better access to education and retail. Locally, these and other features change in sign and magnitude through the different neighborhoods of the city in ways that are not explained by administrative boundaries, and that provide deeper insights regarding urban characteristics such as rental prices. In conclusion, our work suggests that the qualities of a 15-minutes city can be measured at scale, delivering actionable insights on the polycentric structure of cities, and how people use and access this structure.


Elephant foot yam is traditionally cultivated on commercial scales in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal. The statistics on area, production and yield of this crop are not available in the literature and this paper has estimated the cost of cultivation, farm income measures and resource-use efficiency of the crop in these states, except West Bengal. The study has indicated the gross cost of cultivation as Rs 1,73,105, Rs 93,450 and Rs 1,68,032 per ha and the benefit-cost ratios as 1.38, 1.38 and 1.50 for elephant foot yam cultivation in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, respectively. The study has revealed excessive use of all NPK fertilizers in Kerala, indicating the need for rationalization in use of these inputs, while there is a scope for increase in the use of these inputs, except nitrogenous fertilizers, in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Expenditures on manures in Tamil Nadu and hired human labour in Kerala can be enhanced without any adverse effect on the productivity of the crop. The analysis has revealed the need for reorganization of farm resources so as to maximize the returns on elephant foot yam farms under different production systems in India.


How different would Western life be today had the civilization of ancient Egypt never existed? This excellent study by one of the greatest leading Egyptologists of the late nineteenth century provides astonishing answers to that question through an insightful exploration of Egyptian life and culture. Murray examines in detail such topics as food preparation, recreational pastimes, burial customs, religious beliefs, furniture and decor, social rituals, and the importance assigned to art and literature. A complete picture emerges of achievements in architecture, agriculture, horticulture, clothing, physics, astronomy, medicine, engineering, and other sciences; as well as in the establishment of law, government, and religion. This fascinating work will appeal to historians as well as general readers interested in this ancient land. Unabridged republication of the revised edition published by Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York, 1963.


Alcoholic liver disease is a leading cause of liver‐related mortality worldwide. In contrast to recent advances in therapeutic strategies for patients with viral hepatitis, there is a significant lack of novel therapeutic options for patients with alcoholic liver disease. In particular, there is an urgent need to focus our efforts on effective therapeutic interventions for alcoholic hepatitis (AH), the most severe form of alcoholic liver disease. AH is characterized by an abrupt development of jaundice and complications related to liver insufficiency and portal hypertension in patients with heavy alcohol intake. The mortality of patients with AH is very high (20%‐50% at 3 months). Available therapies are not effective in many patients, and targeted approaches are imminently needed. The development of such therapies requires translational studies in human samples and suitable animal models that reproduce the clinical and histological features of AH. In recent years, new animal models that simulate some of the features of human AH have been developed, and translational studies using human samples have identified potential pathogenic factors and histological parameters that predict survival. Conclusion: This review summarizes the unmet needs for translational studies on the pathogenesis of AH, preclinical translational tools, and emerging drug targets to benefit the AH patient. (Hepatology 2016;64:1343‐1355)


Being technologies always present throughout the art history, which is mainly constituted by images, we will try to understand in which extent digital technology, considered to us as a main structure in the way the viewer faces creative production, interferes with the artistic procedures. We will centre our attention in new formulations according to positioning of the author and the observer. The result of the intersection between technology and interactivity drives us to perceive the development of the idea of shared production that spreads out as will inherent to the attitude of the creative act. The work, on being revealed in the aspiration of interactivity enounces a positioning that is linked to the technological means, on space and proceedings issues. In the art studies, it is further growing the importance of a quest for a neutral, universal guide line, in order to assimilate an ideological component the reveals itself in the attitude inherent to the use of these new digital technologies. We will try to understand how is the meaning of the images coordinated, and why do we need and seek for images. To finish we will endeavor to the proceedings of the viewer before the digital innovations, in order to understand in which way the interaction affects the positioning of the subject in relation to aspectos of creativity.


The Article argues for the recognition of same-sex marriage from a normative and family law perspective, rather than a rights perspective. Contemporary family law and marriage law in the United States have been criticized by communitarian scholars and others as being too focused on individuals and individual fulfillment. These critiques make some valid points. It is also important, however, to emphasize that contemporary marriage law, for the first time, presents a model of equality and of reciprocal obligations.The Article articulates a broad framework of the functions of family and marriage law, drawing on work by Carl Schneider and Mary Ann Glendon. It applies both this framework and the communitarian critique of family law to the issue of same-sex marriage, also referred to in the Article as 'same-gender marriage'. This analysis leads to the conclusion that same-sex marriage should be recognized. All the key functions of family law - the expressive, protective, facilitative, dispute resolution, and channeling functions - call for recognition of same-sex marriage. Strong morality-based arguments actually support same-sex marriage. Arguments against same-sex marriage, discussed in the Article, contribute to the 'atomistic' focus of contemporary family law.


The feasibility of applying the similarity law to different types of pulsed discharges is analyzed. The analysis is based on the dependence pτ = f(E/p), where τ is the charge formation time, p is the gas pressure, and E is the pulsed field strength at which the breakdown occurs. The law holds for the Townsend and streamer breakdowns for a relatively long discharge gap d (for atmospheric air, d > 1 cm). For millimeter gaps, this law applies to many gases only in the case of the multielectron breakdown initiation down to the picosecond range. In this case, the time τ is measured from the instant the voltage amplitude sets in to the onset of current buildup and of the drop in voltage across the gap during the simultaneous development of a large number of electron avalanches. In the initiation by a small number of electrons, the time τ is longer than in the multielectron initiation by nearly an order of magnitude; this is due to the relatively low rate of free-electron accumulation in the gap, with runaway electrons (REs) playing an important role in this process. But the time θ of the fast voltage drop and current buildup obeys the similarity law pθ = F(E/p) in both cases. It is hypothesized that the source of REs is the field emission from cathodic micropoints, which terminates at the onset of explosive electron emission to limit the RE current pulse duration to 10−10 s. The similarity law pτ = f(E/p) is shown to hold for a pulsed microwave breakdown.


Severe acute malnutrition (SAM, or severe wasting) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM, or moderate wasting) affect 52 million children under five years of age around the globe. This systematic review, commissioned by the Humanitarian Evidence Programme and carried out by a research team from the University of Sheffield, represents the first attempt to apply systematic review methodology to establish the relationships between recovery and relapse and between default rates and repeated episodes of default or relapse in the management of acute malnutrition in children in humanitarian emergencies in low- and middle-income countries. The systematic review, together with corresponding executive summary and evidence brief, forms part of a series of humanitarian evidence syntheses and systematic reviews commissioned by the Humanitarian Evidence Programme. Other reports in the series review the evidence on interventions or approaches to mental health, child protection, market support and household food security, pastoralist livelihoods, shelter self-recovery and targeting in urban settings. The Humanitarian Evidence Programme is a partnership between Oxfam GB and the Feinstein International Center at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University. It is funded by the United Kingdom (UK) government's Department for International Development (DFID) through the Humanitarian Innovation and Evidence Programme.


The desorption due to the energy release of free radicals in the ice mantles of a dust grain is investigated theoretically by calculating the ultraviolet radiation field inside the cloud, the free radical accumulation, the cosmic-ray heating of the grain and then the desorption in this situation starting from the cosmic-ray energy spectra. This model can reproduce the observations of the CO gas abundances and level of depletion in dark clouds such as L977 and IC 5146 with a combination of input parameters which are either constrained by independent observations or have been derived independently from laboratory experiments. We investigate other desorption mechanisms and conclude that they cannot explain the observations. The model also shows that the energy input by the cosmic-ray induced ultraviolet field is almost one order of magnitude larger than the direct energy input by cosmic-ray particles. This strengthens the conclusion that desorption due to the energy release by ultraviolet photon produced radicals dominates over direct cosmic-ray desorption.


Cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover (Hem.: Aphididae) is one of the most important pests in greenhouses and farms that decreases the quantity and quality of the product. Besides several plant viruses transmit by this pest such as cucumber mosaic virus and watermelon mosaic virus. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cotton aphid feeding on some physiological parameters that are involved in plant resistance in four varieties of cucumber plants (Delta, Super Domino, 2201 and hybrid Luna). This experiment was done as factorial biased on completely randomize design with three replication. The results revealed that the amount of phenol, soluble sugar and sucrose were increased as plants were exposed to cotton aphid and Delta had the greatest amount of increase among cultivars tested. Also, the amount of photosynthetic pigments, starch, soluble proteins and concentrations of iron, copper, zinc and manganese were significantly decreased by feeding of aphid. According to the results of this research it can be concluded that different cultivars have different reactions to the damage of cotton aphid and phenol, proline, soluble sugars and sucrose content of plants were increased in response to the cotton aphid damage. From this results, it can be concluded that among the tested cultivars, Delta may have more potential to show resistance than other cultivars tested against cotton aphid damage.


Despite robust evidence concerning self-management for some long-term conditions (LTCs), others lack research explicitly on self-management and, consequently, some patient groups may be overlooked.To undertake a rapid, systematic overview of the evidence on self-management support for LTCs to inform health-care commissioners and providers about what works, for whom, and in what contexts.Self-management is 'the tasks . . . individuals must undertake to live with one or more chronic conditions . . . [including] . . . having the confidence to deal with medical management, role management and emotional management of their conditions'. We convened an expert workshop and identified characteristics of LTCs potentially of relevance to self-management and 14 diverse exemplar LTCs (stroke, asthma, type 2 diabetes mellitus, depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, dementia, epilepsy, hypertension, inflammatory arthropathies, irritable bowel syndrome, low back pain, progressive neurological disorders and type 1 diabetes mellitus). For each LTC we conducted systematic overviews of systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of self-management support interventions ('quantitative meta-reviews'); and systematic overviews of systematic reviews of qualitative studies of patients' experiences relating to self-management ('qualitative meta-reviews'). We also conducted an original systematic review of implementation studies of self-management support in the LTCs. We synthesised all our data considering the different characteristics of LTCs. In parallel, we developed a taxonomy of the potential components of self-management support.We included 30 qualitative systematic reviews (including 515 unique studies), 102 quantitative systematic reviews (including 969 RCTs), and 61 studies in the implementation systematic review. Effective self-management support interventions are multifaceted, should be tailored to the individual, their culture and beliefs, a specific LTC and position on the disease trajectory, and underpinned by a collaborative/communicative relationship between the patient and health-care professional (HCP) within the context of a health-care organisation that actively promotes self-management. Self-management support is a complex intervention and although many components were described and trialled in the studies no single component stood out as more important than any other. Core components include (1) provision of education about the LTC, recognising the importance of understanding patients' pre-existing knowledge and beliefs about their LTC; (2) psychological strategies to support adjustment to life with a LTC; (3) strategies specifically to support adherence to treatments; (4) practical support tailored to the specific LTC, including support around activities of daily living for disabling conditions, action plans in conditions subject to marked exacerbations, intensive disease-specific training to enable self-management of specific clinical tasks; and (5) social support as appropriate. Implementation requires a whole-systems approach which intervenes at the level of the patient, the HCP and the organisation. The health-care organisation is responsible for providing the means (both training and time/material resources) to enable HCPs to implement, and patients to benefit from, self-management support, regularly evaluating self-management processes and clinical outcomes. More widely there is a societal need to address public understanding of LTCs. The lack of public story for many conditions impacted on patient help-seeking behaviour and public perceptions of need.Supporting self-management is inseparable from the high-quality care for LTCs. Commissioners and health-care providers should promote a culture of actively supporting self-management as a normal, expected, monitored and rewarded aspect of care. Further research is needed to understand how health service managers and staff can achieve this culture change in their health-care organisations.This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012002898.The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme.


The Origins of Federal Support for Higher Education revises the traditional interpretation of the land-grant college movement, whose institutions were brought into being by the 1862 Morrill Act to provide for "the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes." Rather than being the inevitable consequence of the unfolding dynamic of institutional and socioeconomic forces, Williams argues, it was the active intervention and initiative of a handful of educational leaders that secured the colleges' future above all, the activities of George W. Atherton.For nearly three decades, Atherton, who was the seventh president of the Pennsylvania State University, worked to secure consistent federal financial support for the colleges, which in their early years received little assistance from the states they were designed to benefit. He also helped to develop the institutions as comprehensive "national" universities grounded in the liberal arts and sciences a conception that countered the prevailing view of the colleges as mainly agricultural schools.Atherton became the prime mover in the campaign to enact the 1887 Hatch Act, which encouraged the establishment of agricultural experiment stations at land-grant colleges. The act marked the federal government's first effort to provide continuous funding to research units associated with higher education institutions. At the same times, Atherton played a key role in the formation of the first association of such institutions: The Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. It was the Association that provided the critical mass needed to lobby Congress successively and to approach the many opportunities and threats the land-grant colleges faced during the 1885 1906 period.Atherton was also deeply involved in the campaign for the Morrill Act of 1890, which provided long-sought annual appropriations to land-grant colleges for a broad range of academic programs and encouraged steady growth in state support during the 1890s.Roger Williams traces the motives and tactics behind a series of laws that made the federal government irreversibly committed to funding higher education and scientific research and provides rich new insights into the complexities, polarities, and inherent contradictions of the history of the American land-grant movement."


Tourism, Blessing or Blight? George Young. Penguin Books, Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21207. 1973. 191p. This book is an attempt to describe tourism, to identify what the important issues are, and to indicate where the solutions may lie. It is aimed at the man in the street, rather than the tourism expert, as it is he who should make the vital decisions about the role tourism should play in the life of his country. The book shows how tourism has grown and describes in fairly broad terms the nature of


Surfactants are molecules of key importance in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries due to their ability to stabilize interfaces and self-assemble in solution. Commercial surfactants are typically chemically synthesized making the material extremely difficult to functionalize for biological applications. Therefore there is a need to develop bioactive surfactants. A powerful alternative to chemical synthesis is the expression of recombinant protein surfactants through molecular biology. These proteins would be monodisperse and have the precise sequence dictated by the cognate gene. Recombinant protein production would permit the direct incorporation of specific motifs that mediate protein recognition. We have chosen the naturally occurring plant protein oleosin as a candidate. Oleosins are a family of plant proteins whose biological role is to stabilize oil bodies. They have two hydrophilic arms and a central hydrophobic domain. In this thesis, we have designed many variants of oleosin to self-assemble and/or stabilize interfaces. First we created a family of truncation mutants that assemble into sheets, fibers, or vesicles depending on the geometry of the protein and the solution chemistry. We further truncated this family to create protein variants that assembled into spherical micelles. All protein variants were confirmed using mass spectroscopy and the secondary structure was analyzed through circular dichroism. Protein aggregate size and shape were analyzed through light and Xray scattering and directly visualized through cryogenic transmission electron microscopy. Oleosin variants were employed to stabilize interfaces in two applications. The first was the stabilization of microbubbles generated in a microfluidic device for ultrasound contrast and therapy. Bubbles were extremely stable over time, easily functionalized with an eGFP-oleosin fusion, and were echogenic. We further applied our variants to stabilize an oil-in-water emulsion for the creation of iron oxide nanoclusters as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. Particles size was measured using light scattering and directly measured using electron microscopy. Oleosin stabilized iron oxide clusters were non-toxic and simple targeting to Her2/neu+ cells was achieved by blending a Her2/neu affibody-Oleosin fusion protein into the shell. These results set the foundation to further engineer oleosin for self-assembly and interface stabilization and functionalization. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering First Advisor Daniel A. Hammer


Material properties of typical MEMS materials have been widely tested. Properties of MEMS structures also depend on other factors than the material properties. A measurement system has been made to measure force/deflection on microstructures to examine some of the structural properties. This is done as a stylus measurement with a loadcell and a linear actuator. First the requirements for the measurement system were established, and the method decided. Then the system was characterized, and tested on micromechanical structures. The provided structures were the SW412 accelerometer structure from Infinion SensoNor Technologies, which is a simply supported mass accelerometer structure. Measurements done on this structure were thoroughly analyzed, and this analysis will also be valid for other simply supported mass accelerometer designs. This thesis include analysis of the force/deflection curve shape, the stylus placement accuracy, the spring constant along the mass, destructive tests, process variations and measurement with bridge signals.


This article examines the extent of pre-purchase comparison search activity, in terms of comparison search duration and dispersion (number of alternative vendors examined) and its impact on purchase propensity for flight, car rental and hotel reservations. Click stream data and transactions from the Comscore panel of travelers between March and September 2008 are used to examine our hypotheses. Results show that comparison dispersion has an inverted-U relationship on purchase probability for flight and rental cars but does not significantly impact hotel purchases. Further, comparison search dispersion and duration differ for households of different sizes and income. These findings can help travel website managers develop appropriate online search marketing strategies to increase purchase conversion among different demographic segments.


Abstract This paper studies the performance implications of architectural synchronization support for automatically parallelized numerical programs. As the basis for this work, we analyze the needs for synchronization in automatically parallelized numerical programs. The needs are due to task scheduling, iteration scheduling, barriers, and data dependence handling. We present synchronization algorithms for efficient execution of programs with nested parallel loops. Next, we identify how various hardware synchronization support can be used to satisfy these software synchronization needs. The synchronization primitives studied are test&set , fetch&add , and exchange-byte operations. In addition to these, synchronization bus implementation of lock/unlock and fetch&add operations are also considered. Finally, we ran experiments to quantify the impact of various architectural support on the performance of a bus-based shared memory multiprocessor running automatically parallelized numerical programs. We found that supporting an atomic fetch&add primitive in shared memory is as effective as supporting lock/unlock operations with a synchronization bus. Both achieve substantial performance improvement over the cases where atomic test&set and exchange-byte operations are supported in shared memory.


Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran and located on the southwestern part of the country. Its capital is Shahrekord. It has an area of 16,332 square kilometers and a population of 857,910. To study of human development used the Surplus Biocappacity (SB) and Human Development Index (HDI). This research accrued in the shahr-e-kord, Boroojen, Farsan, Ardal, Lordegan and Kohrang region (chaharmehal va Bakhtiari Province). our research used the raw data in related the Surplus Biocappacity (SB) and Human Development Index (HDI) include number of death, student in the primary, guidance, high school, tertiary and number of Adult Literacy in the calendar of 2010 year. Results showed that the quantity of human development index and sub- index in the shahr-e-kord was higher the other region of chaharmehal va Bakhtiari Province, but this index in the Kohrang region was lowest quantity. because the the quantity of family income, level of education and life Expectancy index in this region are lowest in the chaharmehal va Bakhtiari Province. Other region of province arranged the Boroojen (17%), Lordegan (17%), Farsan (13%) and Ardal (12%) have a maximum of effect on the human development. Overall results showed that the shahr-e-kord (center of chaharmehal va Bakhtiari Province) has a maximum of human development, and Kohrang region have a minimum of human development. Authors suggested increasing the human development of Kohrang region more focused in this region and determinate the more financial resource and managements.


Background: Sideroxylon mascatense is a wild blueberry plant that traditionally known as "boot" in Oman. Studies on health beneficial effects of this fruit are very limited. Aims and Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant and antitumor properties of Sideroxylon mascatense under different drying methods. Materials and Methods: Freeze (−20°C) and air drying (60 and 90°C) methods were used. The antioxidant potential properties were evaluated using DPPH and ABTS assay. Moreover, the antitumor activities of blueberry extracts were determined using Alamar blue assay. Results: The results of this study revealed that a blueberry extract at 20 mg powder/mL provided the maximum amount of vitamin C, reaching a value of 19.45 mg/100 g dry-basis in the flesh dried at 60°C and 14.24 mg/100 g dry-basis in seed dried at 90°C. The freeze-dried blueberry exhibited the highest percentage of free radical scavenging activity (DPPH) from both fruit flesh (50.8%) and seeds (39.4%) at a concentration of 20 mg/mL indicating a higher antioxidant activity. There was no significant difference in the ability of blueberry extracts to scavenge radical cations (ABTS+) at various concentrations of extracts. However, there was a 40% reduction of ABTS+ radical formation in blueberry flesh extracts obtained from freeze-dried berry at a concentration of 20 mg/mL. On the other hand, blueberry seeds showed variation in the scavenging activity of the ABTS+ radical of 38% after different processing methods. Breast MCF7 and ovarian Ov2008 tumor cell lines were the most sensitive to the dried blueberry. The 50% growth inhibition (IC50) of the freeze-dried blueberry extract at both cell lines was 64 and 69 μg/mL, respectively. Conclusion: Our findings indicated a potent antioxidant activity of Sideroxylon mascatense, but further research is required to isolate the active compounds in the fruit and test their effects in an experimental animal model.


The present study was carried out to evaluate the phytochemical and antimicrobial activity of twenty medicinal plants against five microbial strains causing oral infections. The phytochemical analysis carried out revealed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins, saponins, reducing sugar and steroids in most of the medicinal plants. The antimicrobial activity of ethanolic extract of medicinal plants were evaluated using well diffusion method against Streptococcus mutans, Enterococcus faecalis, Lactobacillus acidophilus ,Candida albicans and Candida tropicalis. Ethanolic extracts of Aloe barbadensis, Calendulla officinalis Cinnamum zeylanicum and Tinospora coridfolia, were not effective against Streptococcus mutans and Enterococcus faecalis respectively. However, Azadirachta indica, Centella asiatica, Lannea coromandelica, Rosa centifolia, Zingiber officinale were showing week and the extract of Allium sativum, Citrus limon, Citrus sinesis, Curcuma longa, Emblica officinalis ,Glycyrrhiza glabra, Juglans regia, Ocimum sanctum, Piper nigrum and Psidium guajava displaying strong antimicrobial activity against most of the test species. The ethanol extracts of Syzygium aromaticum showing strong antimicrobial activity against all test species. The results provide justification for the use of the medicinal plants to treat various oral infections.


Assessing children's hand skill use is crucial for occupational therapy professional practice and research. Children's hand skill assessments could assist therapists in determining whether any presenting hand skill problems are impacting children's occupational performance or daily life participation. As well, it could assist with analyzing and establishing hand skill profile for conducting further assessments, planning intervention, and/or monitoring change. In this article, the authors provide an up-to-date overview of children's hand skill assessments by reviewing recent literature and assessments related to children's hand skills. The overview includes review of common hand use terminologies, administration modes, and recent conceptual trend for children's hand skill assessments. Furthermore, a newly-developed Assessment of Children's Hand Skills (ACHS) is briefly introduced. The ACHS fulfills the recent trend toward including bimanual measurement, reflecting actual real-life hand skill performance, and being occupation-centered. The ACHS also allows assessing the effectiveness of 2- to 12-year-old children's hand skill performance in relevant daily environments via naturalistic observation. It is anticipated that occupational therapists could use this information to select proper children's hand skill assessments.


Since China's reform and opening-up policy, China's national wealth has increased a lot, which stimulates the rapid development of China's trust industry. Among them, the assembled funds trust plan attracts a large number of investors for its high returns. In this background, this paper discusses the factors affecting China' assembled funds trust products' expected return rate. This paper will explain the expected return rate of assembled funds trust under nine explanatory variables, including four dummy variables of investing field, namely real estate, industrial & commercial enterprises, basic industries and financial products; two features of assembled funds trust products, which include three factors namely trust period, the trust scale, macro-economic factors; CPI growth rate, M2 growth, benchmark interest rates of the medium-& long-term loan interest rate. The author establishes a multivariate regression model after empirical analysis. According to the empirical results, five explanatory variables including the longer period of the trust, the trust scale, investment field in real estate, CPI growth rate and the benchmark interest rates of the medium- and long-term loan interest rate, have a positive relationship with explained variable, namely the assembled funds trust products' expected return rate. Investing in basic industries, financial products and M2 growth rate over the same period of last year, all these three elements have a negative relationship with assembled funds trust products' expected return rate. While investing in industrial & commercial enterprises, it has no significant influence on the assembled funds trust products' expected return rate.


From studies in the mouse and from the clinical and molecular analysis of patients with type 1 Waardenburg syndrome, particular members of the PAX gene family are suspected factors in the aetiology of human neural tube defects (NTD). To investigate the role of PAX1, PAX3, PAX7, and PAX9, allelic association studies were performed in 79 sporadic and 38 familial NTD patients from the Dutch population. Sequence variation was studied by SSC analysis of the paired domain regions of the PAX1, PAX7, and PAX9 genes and of the complete PAX3 gene. In one patient with spina bifida, a mutation in the PAX1 gene was detected changing the conserved amino acid Gln to His at position 42 in the paired domain of the protein. The mutation was inherited through the maternal line from the unaffected grandmother and was not detected in 300 controls. In the PAX3 gene, variation was detected at several sites including a Thr/Lys amino acid substitution in exon 6. All alleles were present among patients and controls in about the same frequencies. However, an increased frequency of the rare allele of a silent polymorphism in exon 2 was found in NTD patients, but no significant association was observed (p = 0.06). No sequence variation was observed in the paired domain of the PAX7 and PAX9 genes. Our findings so far do not support a major role of the PAX genes examined in the aetiology of NTD. However, the detection of a mutation in PAX1 suggests that, in principle, this gene can act as a risk factor for human NTD.


Background: Antioxidant plays a key role in preventing and scavenging free radicals providing safeguard to humans against diseases. Recent research has been directed towards "Natural antioxidants" from the herbal plants due to safe therapeutic potential. Information pertaining tothe antioxidant properties of entire plant of the Cynodon dactylon is very less. The present study was designed to investigate the antioxidant properties of entire plant of Cynodon dactylon . Method: The powdered crude drugs were extracted with hydro-alcoholic solvent by Soxhlet apparatus. The antioxidant potential along with the phytochemical screening was assessed. Results: Phytochemical screening of the plant showed the presence of flavonoids tannins, steroids, saponins, glycosides and alkaloids. The HPLC analysis showed the presence bioactive polyphenolic flavonoids. The antioxidant nature of the plant was confirmed by its ABTS radical scavenging activity, hydroxyl radical scavenging potential, Nitric oxide free radical scavenging activity and total antioxidant level. Conclusion: The entire plant of Cynodon dactylon is a natural source of antioxidant substances of high importance, which might be effective as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of various diseases. Key words: Cynodon dactylon , Entire plant, Antioxidants, Hydroalcoholic, Flavonoid, ABTS, Hydroxyl radical.


Two-dimensional (2D) titanium carbide MXene (Ti3C2Tx) has shown great promise as a high-performance electrode material for electrochemical capacitors (ECs). However, similar to other 2D materials, processing MXenes into freestanding films results in their restacking, thus decreasing the ion transport inside the electrodes. This problem significantly hinders the specific capacitance and rate capability of freestanding electrodes, particularly for those with thicknesses higher than a few microns. Here, we demonstrate a strategy based on surface modification of MXene sheets to fabricate electrodes with highly accessible structure and improved electrochemical performance even at very high electrode thicknesses. 2D Ti3C2Tx and polyaniline (PANI) hybrid materials were synthesized through oxidant-free in situ polymerization of PANI on the surface of MXene sheets and were assembled into freestanding films with various thicknesses. Thin MXene/PANI hybrid electrodes delivered outstanding gravimetric and volumetric capacitances as high as 503 F g−1 and 1682 F cm−3, respectively. As the electrode thicknesses and mass loadings were increased, the hybrid electrodes still showed high electrochemical performance. For example, an electrode with a thickness of 90 μm and a mass loading of 23.82 mg cm−2 could deliver a specific capacitance of about 336 F g−1 (∼888 F cm−3 volumetric capacitance). The hybrid electrodes also showed a high cycle lifetime with a capacitance retention of 98.3% after 10 000 cycles. This paper explains a simple and fast approach for the fabrication of MXenes/conducting polymer hybrid electrodes with superior electrochemical performance.


Overwhelming majority of econometric models applied on a long term basis in the financial forex market do not work sufficiently well. The reason is that transaction costs and arbitrage opportunity are not included, as this does not simulate the real financial markets. Analyses are not conducted on the non equidistant date but rather on the aggregate date, which is also not a real financial case. In this paper, we would like to show a new way how to analyze and, moreover, forecast financial market. We utilize the projections of the real exchange rate dynamics onto the string-like topology in the OANDA market. The latter approach allows us to build the stable prediction models in trading in the financial forex market. The real application of the multi-string structures is provided to demonstrate our ideas for the solution of the problem of the robust portfolio selection. The comparison with the trend following strategies was performed, the stability of the algorithm on the transaction costs for long trade periods was confirmed.


ABSTRACT Pleistocene periglacial eolian sediments are widespread in the Nushagak, Holitna, and Upper Kuskokwim lowlands of southwestern Alaska. These sediments comprise mainly sand-sheet deposits and sand-loess intergrades, with subordinate sand-dune deposits and loess. Sand-sheet deposits range from 1) sharply defined, parallel, low-angle laminae formed by migrating wind ripples to 2) irregular subhorizontal strata which reflect migration of poorly segregated wind ripples, accumulation on a sparsely vegetated surface, adhesion on a quasi-planar bed, and/or niveo-eolian deposition. Sand-loess intergrades represent alternating bed-load and suspension deposition related mainly to the stochastic and seasonal variability of former wind systems. The dominance of sand-sheet deposits over deposits of well-formed dunes in the Pleistocene eolian record of southwestern Alaska reflects the limited availability of loose, dry sand in this former periglacial environment. Immobilization of sand after deposition as low-relief sheets resulted from a seasonally variable combination of ice cementation, sparse vegetation, high water tables, and snow cover.


Specular-point flow on a stationary wave-like random surface with respect to a reference frame moving with a source–observer is described. The time rate of change of specular point densities and the differential changes caused by creations and annihilations are used to calculate the divergence of the mean flow field. The divergence has been integrated, and both mean flow and mean velocity fields have been calculated. The flow pattern is particularly complex when the source–observer motion includes a vertical component. In such a case, there is a small but nonzero vertical component of flow, and specular points at extremal surface heights may flow in opposite directions to the major flow which occurs near the mean surface plane.


A efficient biped robot balance control is essential to achieve dynamic walk. In this work we propose a incremental fuzzy algorithm to control the lateral plane movements for a biped robot. This algorithm is computationally more economic as an adaptive control algorithm. This algorithm demonstrate a smooth balance control response and a correct interaction between the walking algorithm and the lateral plane control. The algorithm was implemented in a PIC16F873 microcontroller and successfully probed in the bipedal robot "Dany walker" designed at the Freie Universität Berlin.


The propagation of small-amplitude modes in an inviscid but sheared mean flow inside a duct is considered. For isentropic flow in a circular duct with zero swirl and constant mean flow density the pressure modes are described in terms of the eigenvalue problem for the Pridmore-Brown equation. A numerical method similar to the procedure used by Tam & Auriault is proposed for the solution of the modal equation. Since for sufficiently high Helmholtz and wavenumbers, which are of great interest for the applications, the field equation is inherently stiff, special care is taken to insure the stability of the numerical algorithm designed to tackle this problem. The accuracy of the method is checked against the well-known analytical solution for the uniform flow. The numerical method is shown to be consistent with the analytical predictions at least for the Helmholtz numbers up to 100 and the circumferential wavenumber as large as 50, typical Mach numbers being up to 0.65. In order to gain further insight into the possible structure of the modal solutions and to get an independent verification of the robustness of the numerical scheme, the asymptotic solution of the problem based on the WKB method is derived. The comparisons of the WKB solution against the exact potential flow solution show remarkably good agreement between the two. This permits us to use the asymptotic solution as a benchmark for computations with high Helmholtz numbers, where numerical solutions of other authors are not available. Numerical analysis of the problem with zero mean flow at the wall and acoustic lining shows that IngardMyers condition is recovered for vanishing boundary-layer thickness, although the boundary layer must be very thin in some cases.


The Rosario and Ujina porphyry Cu-Mo deposits, together with porphyry copper mineralization at the nearby Quebrada Blanca deposit, constitute the third-largest concentration of copper mineralization associated with the Domeyko fault system in northern Chile. At Rosario, fault-hosted Cu-Ag-rich massive sulfide veins are associated with pyrophyllite-alunite-quartz altered rocks. The Rosario massive sulfide veins cut biotitealbite-magnetite, K-feldspar and illite-chlorite altered rocks associated with porphyry-style copper-molybdenum mineralization. Similar massive sulfide veins occur in the La Grande area, 1 to 2 km south of Rosario. Copper ore at Ujina is associated with a K-feldspar-biotite-altered quartz monzonite intrusion. The
K-feldspar-biotite assemblage has been overprinted by white mica-chlorite alteration.
New geochronologic data presented in this paper constrain the ages of hydrothermal activity in the Rosario and Ujina deposits. The 40Ar/39Ar biotite, illite, and alunite dates (at 2 sigma error), and a Re-Os molybdenite date (at 0.5% error) are reported for porphyritic rocks and hydrothermal alteration from the Rosario and Ujina mineralized
centers. A weighted mean 40Ar/39Ar plateau age of 34.4 plus or minus 0.3 Ma is obtained for igneous biotite in a
monzonite porphyry that hosts copper mineralization at the Rosario deposit. Illite and hypogene alunite from
separate overprinting alteration events yielded 40Ar/39Ar ages of 34.5 plus or minus 0.5 Ma (plateau age) and 32.6 plus or minus 0.3 Ma (plateau age), respectively. An Re-Os age of 33.3 plus or minus 0.2 Ma for molybdenite at Rosario is slightly younger than the 40Ar/39Ar age of illite, but older than the alunite. A weighted mean plateau age of 32.7 plus or minus 1.6 Ma for hypogene alunite from the La Grande Cu-Ag-(Au) vein south of Rosario is indistinguishable from the age of Rosario alunite. At Ujina, the weighted mean 40Ar/39Ar plateau age of igneous biotite for a monzonite intrusion that hosts copper mineralization is 35.2 plus or minus 0.3 Ma. The monzonite is intruded by postmineralization porphyry dikes
of similar composition, from which igneous biotite yielded a 40Ar/39Ar age of 34.7 plus or minus 0.3 Ma.
Igneous biotite in the Rosario Porphyry cooled through its closure temperature during and after the formation
of illite, implying that porphyry-style ore and alteration minerals in the Rosario deposit had formed by 34.3
Ma. The age of alunite at Rosario and La Grande indicate that a second discrete episode of hydrothermal
activity was superimposed, 1.8 plus or minus 0.4 m.y. later, onto the earlier-formed porphyry Cu system. Hydrothermal activity at Ujina is constrained by the 40Ar/39Ar ages of igneous biotite in the premineralization and postmineralization intrusions and occurred during a minimum interval of 0.5 plus or minus 0.4 m.y. The biotite granite at La Profunda, 1.5 km east of Ujina, has a igneous biotite age of 81.2 plus or minus 2.9 Ma, indicating that this intrusion is unrelated to the mineralized Eocene-Oligocene porphyry intrusions at Ujina, Rosario, and Quebrada Blanca. The 40Ar/39Ar data for igneous biotite in the Rosario and Ujina porphyries are cooling ages after multiple hydrothermal events. In most cases, these are minimum hydrothermal ages (i.e., ages of the last high-temperature hydrothermal event to have affected the samples), not magmatic ages. However, the biotite age for the Inca Porphyry is possibly only slightly younger than the intrusion age because biotite has not been affected by
later hydrothermal alteration.


Close binaries containing a compact object make up a wide variety of objects. The evolution of all close binaries depends crucially on the rate at which angular momentum is extracted from the binary orbit. The two most important sources of angular momentum loss are the common envelope phase and magnetic braking. Both processes have been known for long but are still poorly understood, and significant progress will only be achieved if they can be calibrated using innovative observational input. Post-common-envelope binaries are probably among the best-suited class of objects to improve our understanding of close binary evolution, because (1) they are both numerous and well-understood in terms of their stellar components, and (2) they are not contaminated by the presence of an accretion disc. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey provides the possibility of dramatically improving the observational size of known post-common-envelope binaries, with already more than 1500 white dwarf-main sequence binaries having been identified. The major task is now to identify those systems that have undergone a common envelope and to measure their binary parameters. This new, large sample of well-studied post-common-envelope binaries will then provide the much-needed constraints for further development of binary evolution theory.

Through my PhD I dedicated all my efforts towards identifying post-common-envelope binaries, obtaining orbital periods of these new systems, and determining their stellar parameters. For this purpose, I adopted the following strategies:
(1) About 10% of the white dwarf-main sequence binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have more than one survey spectrum available. By measuring radial velocities from the Na I ll 8183.27,8194.81 absorption doublet and/or the Ha emission line in the different spectra from each object, I was able to identify radial velocity variable stars, which are prime candidates for being post-common-envelope binaries. This method resulted in the identification of 18 new post-common-envelope binaries among 130 white dwarf-main sequence binaries with multiple Sloan spectra. In addition, using a spectral decomposition/ model atmosphere analysis I determined the stellar parameters such as mass, radius, and temperature for the white dwarfs, and spectral types of the main sequence stars in these 130 white dwarf-main sequence binaries, along with the distances to the systems. I discussed also an apparent systematic issue with the spectral type-radius relation of the companion stars in those white dwarf-main sequence binaries.
(2) Follow-up observations by our team have lead to the identification of 89 postcommon-envelope binaries from Sloan, which triples the number previously known. Intense radial velocity studies have lead to the determination of orbital periods for 42 of these systems, seven of them discussed in detail in this thesis.
(3) I have developed a procedure based on c2 template fitting and signal-to-noise ratio constraints to identify white dwarf-main sequence binary candidates in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 spectroscopic data base. This catalogue contains 1591 white dwarf-main sequence binaries identified in this way. Using a spectral decomposition/model atmosphere analysis, I have derived white dwarf temperatures, masses, companion star spectral types, and distances, and discussed the distributions of these parameters. In addition, I have analysed the selection effects of white dwarf-main sequence binaries in Sloan. This sample is an excellent data base for future follow-up observational studies of white dwarf-main sequence binaries.


This paper addresses the problem of building natural language based grammars and language models for directory assistance applications that use automatic speech recognition. As input, one is given an electronic version of a standard phone book, and the output is a grammar or language model that will accept all the ways in which one might ask for a particular listing. We focus primarily on the problem of processing listings for businesses and government offices, but our techniques can be used to speech-enable other kinds of large listings (like book titles, catalog entries, etc.). We have applied these techniques to the business listings of a state in the Midwestern United States, and we present highly encouraging recognition results.


This paper offers an OT analysis of the word stress patterns of Spanish non-verbs, paying close attention to the interaction with the parse of abutting vowels and to the partly diverging behaviour of traditional words (native or assimilated) and foreign forms in common use. Central to the analysis are several right-alignment constraints relating some metrical material (foot boundaries and the foot head) to the morphological constituent 'stem'. The syllabification of abutting vowels is principally driven by Onset. An important aspect of the analysis concerns the identity of the stress bearers, in particular whether they project from rime vowels or from syllable heads.


A variety of eHealth apps exist today ranging from ovulation calculators, such as Glow, to more sophisticated systems for determining the right therapist via semantic analysis, such as Talkspace, or ZocDoc. Despite their promising functionality, existing systems offer limited capabilities in terms of search filters, reviews, and doctor recommendations. In this paper, we propose FindMyDoc, a novel peer-to-peer healthcare platform that goes beyond existing traditional healthcare models. It provides doctor recommendations by allowing proper filtering based on treatment procedures, quality of treatment, and reviews of healthcare providers. In addition, the search results are refined using a recommendation engine that employs user-based collaborative filtering and exploits a set of predefined review options provided by the patients in order to match them with doctors.


Background. Theoretical and clinical developments suggest that opportunistic interventions could be developed that are more effective and satisfying to use than brief advice to quit smoking. Motivational consulting was influenced by the 'stages of change' model, self-efficacy theory, motivational interviewing, and the patient-centred clinical method. Aim. To compare the clinical and cost-effectiveness of motivational consulting with brief advice to quit smoking. Method. Pragmatic randomized trial in 21 general practices in South Wales: 536 cigarette smokers consulting with 24 general practice registrars were randomized to receive motivational consulting (270 patients) or brief advice (266 patients) during one consultation. Costs of training physicians and the extra consultation time for motivational interviewing were assessed. Outcomes were documented on 418 subjects (78%) at six-month follow-up. Results. Significantly more patients in the motivational consulting group reported not smoking in the previous 24 hours (P = 0.01), delaying their first cigarette of the day more than five minutes after waking (P = 0.01), making an attempt to quit lasting at least a week during follow-up (P = 0.04), and being in a more ready stage of change (P = 0.05). Non-significant trends favoured motivational consulting for self-report abstention from smoking for one month, making an attempt to quit, and for reducing smoking. The advantage of motivational consulting was greatest among those initially not thinking of giving up in the following six months. Cost of training was £69.50 per physician, and cost of extra consultation time was £13.59 per patient. Conclusions. Motivational consulting produces better outcomes than brief advice, especially among those not 'ready to change'. This supports the stages of change model. Overall, however, few patients quit. More intensive training might produce better outcomes.


Abstract It will soon be rare for research-based institutions not to have a digital repository. The main reason for a repository is to maximize the visibility of the institution's research outputs (provide Open Access), yet few contain a representative proportion of the research produced by their institutions. Repositories form one part of the institution's Web platform. An explicit, mandatory policy on the use of the repository for collecting outputs is needed in every institution so that the full research record is collected. Once full, a repository is a tool that enables senior management in research institutions to collate and assess research, to market their institution, to facilitate new forms of scholarship, and to enable the tools that will produce new knowledge.


OBJECTIVES
To determine if prevalent and incident diabetes mellitus (DM) increase risk of cognitive decline and if, among elderly adults with DM, poor glucose control is related to worse cognitive performance. DESIGN Prospective cohort study.

SETTING
Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study at 2 community clinics.

PARTICIPANTS
A total of 3069 elderly adults (mean age, 74.2 years; 42% black; 52% female).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Participants completed the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MS) and Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST) at baseline and selected intervals over 10 years. Diabetes mellitus status was determined at baseline and during follow-up visits. Glycosylated hemoglobin A1c level was measured at years 1 (baseline), 4, 6, and 10 from fasting whole blood.

RESULTS
At baseline, 717 participants (23.4%) had prevalent DM and 2352 (76.6%) were without DM, 159 of whom developed incident DM during follow-up. Participants with prevalent DM had lower baseline test scores than participants without DM (3MS: 88.8 vs 90.9; DSST: 32.5 vs 36.3, respectively; t = 6.09; P = .001 for both tests). Results from mixed-effects models showed a similar pattern for 9-year decline (3MS: -6.0- vs -4.5-point decline; t = 2.66; P = .008; DSST: -7.9- vs -5.7-point decline; t = 3.69; P = .001, respectively). Participants with incident DM tended to have baseline and 9-year decline scores between the other 2 groups but were not statistically different from the group without DM. Multivariate adjustment for demographics and medical comorbidities produced similar results. Among participants with prevalent DM, glycosylated hemoglobin A1c level was associated with lower average mean cognitive scores (3MS: F = 8.2; P for overall = .003; DSST: F = 3.4; P for overall = .04), even after multivariate adjustment.

CONCLUSION
Among well-functioning older adults, DM and poor glucose control among those with DM are associated with worse cognitive function and greater decline. This suggests that severity of DM may contribute to accelerated cognitive aging.


Pseudopolyrotaxanes (PPR) consisting of α-cyclodextrin rings and polyethylene glycol axes with end thymine groups have been synthesized and characterized successfully. Fluorescein (Fl) as a model drug was conjugated to the hydroxyl functional groups of cyclodextrin rings of PPR via ester bonds and PPR-Fl as the primary drug delivery system was obtained. Finally PPR-Fl was capped by hydrogen bonds between end thymine groups and a suitable complementary molecule such as polycitric acid, citric acid, or adenine. The aim of this work was to control the release of the fluorescein-cyclodextrin (Fl-CD) conjugates, as the secondary drug delivery systems, from PPR-Fl by controlling the noncovalent interactions between stoppers and thymine end groups. It was found that the rate of release of the Fl-CD from PPR-Fl could be controlled by pH and the ratio of citric acid or adenine to the PPR-Fl.


Although peer navigators have gained traction within health care, they are still a relatively new feature of criminal justice–involved organizations. Based on data gathered from interviews, nonparticipant observations, and focus groups from a nonprofit that employs peer navigators to assist clients returning from prison with diagnosed mental illnesses, we argue that peer navigators play multiple roles that extend beyond the client level by influencing the organization and its interaction with the community. Importantly, we discuss these implications for the organization and suggest structure and socialization issues for the integration of criminal justice–involved peer navigators.


Background: Children with hearing impairment may be at risk of not achieving the necessary school readiness because of the link between hearing impairment and academic achievement. However, early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) can improve potential outcomes for these children.Aim: As part of a bigger study titled 'Communication and school readiness abilities of hearing-impaired preschool graduates: Exploring outcomes of early intervention preschool programs in Gauteng', the aim of this study was to describe the school readiness and academic achievement of children with hearing impairment through retrospective record reviews of EHDI preschool records and Grade 3 teachers' survey.Setting: The study was conducted in Gauteng, South Africa, where two EHDI preschool centres participated in the study.Methods: Eight children identified with hearing impairment and enrolled in EHDI preschools were included in the study, along with their Grade 3 teachers. Data collection was conducted through a self-developed teacher questionnaire and record reviews of the children's preschool files. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics.Results: Three children (n = 8) obtained age-appropriate school readiness results and were subsequently enrolled in mainstream schools. Five children (n = 8) did not exhibit age-appropriate school readiness and were subsequently enrolled in remedial schools and schools for Learners with Special Education Needs (LSEN).Conclusion: These preliminary findings demonstrate that through EHDI, children with hearing impairment are allowed to develop the school readiness required to experience academic success. Factors influencing outcomes within the South African context need to be explored in order for South Africa to benefit maximally from EHDI initiatives.


Sulcal fundi are 3D curves that lie in the depths of the cerebral cortex and are often used as landmarks for downstream computations in brain imaging. We present a sequence of geometric algorithms which automatically extract the sulcal fundi from magnetic resonance images and represent them as smooth polygons lying on the cortical surface. First we compute a geometric depth measure for each point on the cortical surface, and based on this information we extract sulcal regions by checking the connectivity above a depth threshold. We then extract the endpoints of each fundus and delineate the fundus by thinning each connected region keeping the endpoints fixed. The curves thus defined are smoothed using weighted splines on the gray-matter surface to yield high-quality representations of the sulcal fundi


This volume contains the proceedings of the AMS Special Session on Quasiconformal Mappings, Riemann Surfaces, and Teichmuller Spaces, held in honor of Clifford J. Earle, from October 2-3, 2010, in Syracuse, New York. This volume includes a wide range of papers on Teichmuller theory and related areas. It provides a broad survey of the present state of research and the applications of quasiconformal mappings, Riemann surfaces, complex dynamical systems, Teichmuller theory, and geometric function theory. The papers in this volume reflect the directions of research in different aspects of these fields and also give the reader an idea of how Teichmuller theory intersects with other areas of mathematics.


CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) is a G protein-coupled receptor implicated in cell entry of T-cell line-tropic HIV-1 strains. CXCR4 and its ligand stromal cell derived factor-1 (SDF-1)/CXCL12 play pivotal parts in many physiological processes and pathogenetic conditions (e.g., immune cell-homing and cancer metastasis). We previously developed the potent CXCR4 antagonist T140 from structure-activity relationship studies of the antimicrobial peptide polyphemusin II. T140 and its derivatives have been exploited in biological and biomedical studies for the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis. We investigated receptor localization upon ligand stimulation using fluorescent SDF-1 and T140 derivatives as well as a specific labeling technique for cellular-membrane CXCR4. Fluorescent T140 derivatives induced translocation of CXCR4 into the perinuclear region as observed by treatment with fluorescent SDF-1. T140 derivative-mediated internalization of CXCR4 was also monitored by the coiled-coil tag-probe system. These findings demonstrated that the CXCR4 antagonistic activity and anti-HIV activity of T140 derivatives were derived (at least in part) from antagonist-mediated receptor internalization.


Successive approximation technique (SAT) has select voltages of row waveforms paired up with data voltages of column waveforms to achieve the maximum selection ratio. Cross pairing of select and data voltages without compromising the selection ratio generates more rms voltages as compared to SAT. Grayscales can be displayed with less number of voltages in the addressing waveforms and less number of time intervals in a cycle as compared to SAT by cross pairing of select voltages with data voltages. Better brightness uniformity among pixels that are driven to same grayscale can be achieved by cross pairing because the width of the select pulses increases due to less number of time intervals in a cycle as compared to SAT. About 50% reduction in number voltages in row waveforms and column waveforms in addition to a 50% reduction in number of time intervals in a cycle can be achieved as compared to SAT by cross pairing select and data voltages.


BACKGROUND
Communication skills are vital in clinical settings because the manner in which bad news is delivered could be a huge determinant of responses to such news; as well as compliance with beneficial treatment option. Information on training, institutional guidelines and protocols for breaking bad news (BBN) is scarce in Nigeria. We assessed the training, experience and perceived competence of BBN among medical personnel in southwestern Nigeria.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted out among doctors and nurses in two healthcare institutions in southwestern Nigeria using an anonymous questionnaire (adapted from the survey by Horwitz et al.), which focused on the respondents training, awareness of protocols in BBN; and perceived competence (using a Five-Point Likert Scale) in five clinical scenarios. We equally asked the respondents about an instance of BBN they have recently witnessed.

RESULTS
A total of 113 of 130 selected (response rate 86.9%) respondents were studied. Eight (7.1%) of the respondents knew of the guidelines on BBN in the hospital in which they work. Twenty-three (20.3%) respondents claimed knowledge of a protocol. The median perceived competence rating was 4 out of 5 in all the clinical scenarios. Twenty-five (22.1%) respondents have had a formal training in BBN and they generally had significant higher perceived competence rating (P = 0.003-0.021). There is poor support from fellow workers during instances of BBN.

CONCLUSION
It appears that the large proportion of the respondents in this study were unconsciously incompetent in BBN in view of the low level of training and little or no knowledge of well known protocols for BBN even though self-rated competence is high. Continuous medical education in communication skills among health personnel in Nigeria is advocated.


XML (Extensible Markup Language), which just celebrated its 10th birthday, is one of the big success stories of the Web. Apart from basic Web technologies (URIs, HTTP, and HTML) and the advanced scripting driving the Web 2.0 wave, XML is by far the most successful and ubiquitous Web technology. With great power, however, comes great responsibility, so while XML's success is well earned as the first truly universal standard for structured data, it must now deal with numerous problems that have grown up around it. These are not entirely the fault of XML itself, but instead can be attributed to exaggerated claims and ideas of what XML is and what it can do.


Marius Smit deals with bureaucracy and the role of school governing bodies. Following the establishment of a constitutional democracy South African society has been undergoing a fundamental transformation.

In education, democratisation has been formalised with the redistribution and extension of power to local school governing bodies and the removal of centralised control over certain aspects of decision-making. However, a number of bureaucratic actions and incorrect decisions by education administrators have led to legal disputes that indicate a disregard for, or misunderstanding of, the democratic values and principles that are necessary to promote effectiveness and efficiency in education. The article investigates manifestations of such controversial bureaucratic actions in the light of the democratic requirements for participatory school governance with a view to identifying legal principles underpinning participatory democracy and efficient education to which administrators should adhere.


We present the results of a detailed taphonomic and zooarchaeological study of the faunal remains from the Upper Palaeolithic layers of Dzudzuana Cave, Republic of Georgia. This study presents the first carefully analysed Upper Palaeolithic faunal assemblage from the southern Caucasus and thus serves as a significant point of reference for inter-regional studies of Upper Palaeolithic subsistence in Eurasia. A series of intra-site taphonomic comparisons are employed to reconstruct the depositional history of the bone assemblages within the different occupational phases at the site and to investigate subsistence, meat procurement and bone-processing strategies. Caucasian tur (Capra caucasica), aurochs (Bos primigenius) and steppe bison (Bison priscus) were the major prey species throughout the Upper Palaeolithic. Their frequencies do not change significantly over time, and nor does bone preservation vary by layer. The assemblage is characterised by significant density-mediated biases, caused by both human bone-processing behaviours and in situ post-burial bone attrition. Bone marrow extraction produced large numbers of unidentified bone fragments, many exhibiting green bone fractures. The density and size of bone assemblages and the extent of fragmentation indicate that Dzudzuana Cave was repeatedly occupied by Upper Palaeolithic foragers over many years. Skeletal part representation and butchery marks from all stages of carcass processing suggest that prey occasionally underwent field butchery. Intra-site taphonomic comparisons highlight uniform patterns of cultural and economic behaviours related to food procurement and processing strategies. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Networks employ link protection to achieve fast recovery from link failures. While the first link failure can be protected using link protection, there are several alternatives for protecting against the second failure. This paper formally classifies the approaches to dual-link failure resiliency. One of the strategies to recover from dual-link failures is to employ link protection for the two failed links independently, which requires that two links may not use each other in their backup paths if they may fail simultaneously. Such a requirement is referred to as backup link mutual exclusion (BLME) constraint and the problem of identifying a backup path for every link that satisfies the above requirement is referred to as the BLME problem. This paper develops the necessary theory to establish the sufficient conditions for existence of a solution to the BLME problem. Solution methodologies for the BLME problem is developed using two approaches by: 1) formulating the backup path selection as an integer linear program; 2)developing a polynomial time heuristic based on minimum cost path routing. The ILP formulation and heuristic are applied to six networks and their performance is compared with approaches that assume precise knowledge of dual-link failure. It is observed that a solution exists for all of the six networks considered. The heuristic approach is shown to obtain feasible solutions that are resilient to most dual-link failures, although the backup path lengths may be significantly higher than optimal. In addition, the paper illustrates the significance of the knowledge of failure location by illustrating that network with higher connectivity may require lesser capacity than one with a lower connectivity to recover from dual-link failures.


This article suggests that topical preaching can be revisited with integrity in postmodernity. The topical sermon in postmodernity should seek to place texts in conversation with one another in such a way that each text is valued and respected. Instead of allowing only one text to be heard at the exclusion of all others, appropriate topical preaching should model the embrace of otherness and conversation.


HP's Utility Data Center (UDC) [1] is a prominent example of how applications are provided with virtualized storage and network resources. Systems like the UDC are on their way into enterprise IT infrastructures and will have impact on management systems. In this paper we review some of the implications virtualized resource environments have on management systems and what changes are needed in management systems to manage virtualized resources. In virtualized resource environments, applications are not installed on specific hardware instances. Instead, resources are provisioned dynamically to applications as needed. Resource instances may change frequently underneath applications, and vice versa, applications may migrate from one set of resources to another. Management systems must track changes based on information maintained in the virtualization layer. Currently, there is no integration between virtualization layers and systems managing virtualized resources. Furthermore, several assumptions break that are built into management systems today when management systems are applied in virtualized environments. We detail the broken assumptions and show principal solutions.


Solar-powered electrochemical production of hydrogen through water electrolysis is an active and important research endeavor. However, technologies and roadmaps for implementation of this process do not exist. In this perspective paper, we describe potential pathways for solar-hydrogen technologies into the marketplace in the form of photoelectrochemical or photovoltaic-driven electrolysis devices and systems. We detail technical approaches for device and system architectures, economic drivers, societal perceptions, political impacts, technological challenges, and research opportunities. Implementation scenarios are broken down into short-term and long-term markets, and a specific technology roadmap is defined. In the short term, the only plausible economical option will be photovoltaic-driven electrolysis systems for niche applications. In the long term, electrochemical solar-hydrogen technologies could be deployed more broadly in energy markets but will require advances in the technology, significant cost reductions, and/or policy changes. Ultimately, a transition to a society that significantly relies on solar-hydrogen technologies will benefit from continued creativity and influence from the scientific community.


This research focuses on the implementation of teaching religion and science in "Trensains" Senior High School at Tebuireng Islamic Boarding School 2. This research concludes that the implementation of the integration of religion and science is summarized in a notion of "trensains" that makes the Qur'an the basis of construction of science by Agus Purwanto and Salahuddin Wahid. The implemenation of such an integration can be catagorized into three dimensions, namely ontological, epistemological, and axiological. In addition, the 'Trensains' result in the integration of institutions, the integration of the curriculum, and the integration of learning process in the classroom, outside, and integration in daily activities. The problem experienced in learning includes the prevalence of dichotomy among eductors, and the various abilities of learners. The facilities of learning are not yet complete, and funds are limited. The solution is to strengthen the understanding of the concept of integration of science in all elements in the form of manual integration for educator and learners, and to optimize the performance of educators and guidance and counseling, effective educators in planning learning by doing training preparation of learning plan, to optimize the use of existing facilities, and to maximize the role of the education board and the school committe in order to establish cooperat-ion with stakeholder, agencies, government, or other communities in an effort to improve the quality of the school.


Religion is not often pursued as a source of engagement in the international discourse on development. While faith-based organizations have received a greater audience and exerted greater influence in the past few years under the Bush administration, it is still uncommon for international development agencies to incorporate religious loyalties, insights and communities into their regional or national agendas. This pattern of development practice grew, perhaps, from an attempt to pursue a secular agenda that offended none and therefore was acceptable to all. However, in neglecting the religiosity of the poorest of the poor, the development agenda fails to acknowledge and learn from some of the most innovative, influential and sustainable development actors: the religious leadership of the world's poor. In the Islamic countries of sub-Saharan Africa, certain religious leaders are making great strides in advancing an ambitious development agenda among their constituent population of believers, who are among the poorest of the poor. In Niger, a country that consistently ranks at the very bottom of many development indicators, the religious leadership of the Niass Tiianiyya, one of the predominant Sufi brotherhoods in Niger, is engaged in a variety of anti-poverty, empowerment and literacy programs that touch the lives of the poorest Nigeriens. Its progress in women's human, economic and reproductive rights is especially remarkable considering the education and poverty levels of the adult population in Niger. The efforts and progress of these actors are of great value to international development agencies and actors as we pass the midway mark to accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Regional divergence is increasing, with sub-Saharan Africa falling considerably behind despite the continuing efforts and financial resources funneled into the region. The Niass Tiianiyya may not only provide some guidance in tackling the persistent problems of extreme poverty, high infant mortality, hunger, illiteracy, inequality and disease in Niger, but its leaders may also prove to be compelling and effective partners in the fight to achieve the MDGs in the 21st century. While these leaders do have access to considerable personal wealth, it is their extraordinary spiritual capital that has enabled them to address these issues with such success in Niger. AN AFTERNOON IN KIOTA The afternoon al-asar prayer was called just as we entered the small town of Kiota. (1) I adjusted my head covering and breathed in the dusty air of western Niger. As the prayer ended, Sheikh Moussa Aboubacar also known as Sheikh Moussa, the spiritual leader of the Niass Tijaniyya, walked up to his vast concession, a concrete monolith in Kiota. He was accompanied by two military guards, his assistants, an entourage of disciples from Niger and elsewhere in West Africa, and other men and women who pay tribute to Sheikh Moussa's "spiritual power"--or baraka--and seek his spiritual guidance and support. (2) We followed the group of believers up two flights of stairs and into a sparsely decorated room where, one by one, Sheikh Moussa listened to their requests, while receiving small gifts of tribute. Some asked for material assistance, others for spiritual support. Most disciples knelt at Sheikh Moussa's feet while making their requests in hushed, deferential tones and few looked at him directly. After each disciple whispered his entreaty, Sheikh Moussa offered a prayer that their hopes be realized. They sat with their hands raised, palms facing inward to partake in the prayer he offered to God, which touched by his blessing had a greater chance of being granted than their own. Sheikh Moussa performs this ritual of tribute and blessing daily for thousands of Niass Tijaniyya Muslims from Niger, Senegal, Nigeria and other West African countries. The Tijaniyya is one of several Sufi brotherhoods found in West Africa associated with the "non-sectarian Muslim tradition" of Sufism that emphasizes a more mystical religious practice, expressed mainly through the veneration of saints. …