Steganography is used to hide the secret information within a cover media in such a way that the existence of the message could not be noticeable. Here we are considering audio file as cover media and text message as secret information. The secret information is embedded in a cover media as noise as the HAS cannot detect the sound less than 20Hz or greater than 20000Hz. Generally LSB algorithm is used to embed the secret information within a cover media. Here we are using genetic programming to increase the robustness of the data so that the secret data could not be noticeable as far as possible.


This thesis is concerned with problems related to shortest pathrouting (SPR) in Internet protocol (IP) networks. In IP routing, alldata traffic is routed in accordance with an SPR protocol, e.g. OSPF.That is, the routing paths are shortest paths w.r.t. some artificialmetric. This implies that the majority of the Internet traffic isdirected by SPR. Since the Internet is steadily growing, efficientutilization of its resources is of major importance. In theoperational planning phase the objective is to utilize the availableresources as efficiently as possible without changing the actualdesign. That is, only by re-configuration of the routing. This isreferred to as traffic engineering (TE). In this thesis, TE in IPnetworks and related problems are approached by integer linearprogramming. Most TE problems are closely related to multicommodity routingproblems and they are regularly solved by integer programmingtechniques. However, TE in IP networks has not been studied as much,and is in fact a lot harder than ordinary TE problems without IProuting since the complicating shortest path aspect has to be takeninto account. In a TE problem in an IP network the routing isperformed in accordance with an SPR protocol that depends on a metric,the so called set of administrative weights. The major differencebetween ordinary TE problems and TE in IP networks is that all routingpaths must be simultaneously realizable as shortest paths w.r.t. thismetric. This restriction implies that the set of feasible routingpatterns is significantly reduced and that the only means available toadjust and control the routing is indirectly, via the administrativeweights. A constraint generation method for solving TE problems in IP networksis outlined in this thesis. Given an "original" TE problem, the ideais to iteratively generate and augment valid inequalities that handlethe SPR aspect of IP networks. These valid inequalities are derived byanalyzing the inverse SPR problem. The inverse SPR problem is todecide if a set of tentative routing patterns is simultaneouslyrealizable as shortest paths w.r.t. some metric. When this is not thecase, an SPR conflict exists which must be prohibited by a validinequality that is then augmented to the original TE problem. Toderive strong valid inequalities that prohibit SPR conflicts, athorough analysis of the inverse SPR problem is first performed. Inthe end, this allows us to draw conclusions for the design problem,which was the initial primary concern.


Abstraction is the very essence of architectural specification and modeling. Consequently, as we develop a proper theoretical underpinning for model-based engineering methods, it is crucial for us to understand more precisely what is involved in moving from a concrete specification of some system to a more abstract one (or vice versa). Well-known abstraction patterns, such as layering, encapsulation, hierarchical (de)composition, and the like are quite common and have been used since the earliest days of software design. However, they are typically specified informally using ambiguous inconclusive language, which can lead to confusion and misunderstandings that are difficult to detect. For example, hierarchical decomposition and layering, which are semantically distinct patterns, are often confused with each other due to their syntactical similarity. In this talk, we identify a starter set of common and reversible abstraction patterns â€" that is, patterns that relate a concrete representation with a corresponding abstract one â€" giving precise formal descriptions of the mappings involved in each. This serves not only to clarify what actually happens in the process of abstraction but, perhaps even more importantly, it can serve as a basis for automating some of the mechanical aspects involved in moving between models at different levels of abstraction. This, in turn, enables computer-based traceability between such models. Moreover, such a precise specification of these transformations can mitigate one of the major hazards of abstraction whereby highly relevant information is erroneously dropped from consideration.


Constructing a system o f intelligent robotic mapping agents that can function in an unstructured and unknown environment is a challenging task. With the exploration o f our solar system as well as our own planet requiring more robust mapping agents, and with the drastic drop in the price o f technology versus the gains in performance, robotic mapping is becoming a focus o f research like never before. Efforts are underway to send mobile robots to map bodies within our solar system. While much o f the research in robotic map construction has been focused on building maps used by the robotic agents themselves, very little has been done in building maps usable by humans. And yet it is the human that drives the need for mapping solutions. We propose a computational framework for building mobile robotic mapping systems to be deployed in unknown environments. This is the first work known to address the general problem o f mapping in unknown terrain under the effect o f error in readings, operations and systems that employs more than a single robot. The system draws upon the strengths from research in various robotic related areas by selecting those components and ideas that show promise when applied to mapping for human reading via a distributed network o f heterogeneous mobile robots. This application o f multiple mobile robots and the application to human end-users is a new direction in robotics research. We also propose and develop a new paradigm for storing mapping-agent generated data in a way that allows rapid map construction and correction to compensate for detected errors. We experimentally test the paradigm on a simulated robotic environment and analyze the results and show that there is a definite gain from correction, particularly in error rich environments. We also develop methods by which to apply corrections to the map and test their effectiveness. Finally we propose some extensions to this work and suggest research in areas not completely covered by our discussion. R eproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.


Abstract. This study investigates the effect of stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) on planetary wave (PW) activity in the mesosphere–lower thermosphere (MLT). PW activity near 95 km is derived from meteor wind data using a chain of eight SuperDARN radars at high northern latitudes that span longitudes from 150° W to 25° E and latitudes from 51 to 66° N. Zonal wave number 1 and 2 components were extracted from the meridional wind for the years 2000–2008. The observed wintertime PW activity shows common features associated with the stratospheric wind reversals and the accompanying stratospheric warming events. Onset dates for seven SSW events accompanied by an elevated stratopause (ES) were identified during this time period using the Specified Dynamics Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (SD-WACCM). For the seven events, a significant enhancement in wave number 1 and 2 PW amplitudes near 95 km was found to occur after the wind reversed at 50 km, with amplitudes maximizing approximately 5 days after the onset of the wind reversal. This PW enhancement in the MLT after the event was confirmed using SD-WACCM. When all cases of polar cap wind reversals at 50 km were considered, a significant, albeit moderate, correlation of 0.4 was found between PW amplitudes near 95 km and westward polar-cap stratospheric winds at 50 km, with the maximum correlation occurring ∼ 3 days after the maximum westward wind. These results indicate that the enhancement of PW amplitudes near 95 km is a common feature of SSWs irrespective of the strength of the wind reversal.


Africa is witnessing a rapid epidemiological transition with the emergence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Indeed, Mensah and colleagues have shown that in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there has been a rise in cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality since 1990, mainly due to population growth and an increase in the proportion of people older than 65 years.1 Despite the increasing prevalence of CVD in developing countries including SSA, many patients in these countries do not have access to treatment modalities like pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) that are associated with substantial reduction in morbidity and mortality due to CVD in industrialised nations. For example, in a 2009 global review of pacemaker implantation in 61 countries, there was a large gap between the developed and developing nations in the number of implants; for example, there were 782 implants per million people in France compared with four implants per million in Pakistan.2 Although the statistics on pacemaker implantation rates are not readily available in most SSA countries, cardiac pacemaker use remains dismally low at <10 implants per million population (with the exception of South Africa with 39 per million population, most for those with private health insurance).3 This disparity is believed to be due to the high cost of new cardiac devices. The price of the pacemaker generator without accessories is between US$2500 and US$3000, while that of the leads is US$800–1000. An ICD generator price is between US$20 000 and US$40 000 and leads cost over US$10 000. These costs exceed the yearly earnings of the average citizen in most lower-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).4

Every year, one million people die due to lack of access to pacemaker treatment.5 Apart from premature deaths, the non-availability of pacemaker treatment also adversely affects the individual's quality of life due to poor physical performance, persistent tiredness and …


Dimensionality reduction is widely used in many statistical applications, such as image analysis, microarray analysis, or text mining. This thesis focuses on three problems that relate to the robustness in dimension reduction. The first topic is the performance analysis in dimension reduction, that is, quantitatively assessing the performance of a algorithm on a given dataset. A criterion for success is established from the geometric point of view to address this issues. A family of goodness measures, called local rank correlation, is developed to assess the performance of dimensionality reduction methods. The potential application of the local rank correlation in selecting tuning parameters of dimension reduction algorithms is also explored. The second topic is the sensitivity analysis in dimension reduction. Two types of influence functions are developed as measures of robustness, based on which we develop graphical display strategies for visualizing the robustness of a dimension reduction method, and flagging potential outliers. In the third part of the thesis, a novel robust PCA framework, called Performance-Weighted Bagging PCA, is proposed from the perspective of model averaging. It obtains a robust linear subspace by weighted averaging a collection of subspaces produced by subsamples. The robustness against outliers is achieved by a proper weighting scheme, and possible choices of weighting scheme are investigated.


The European Central Bank (ECB) is a special, even unique central bank. It is a central bank without a treasury by its side or a state behind it, just as the euro, Europe's common currency that the ECB is tasked with guarding, is a 'denationalised' currency. The euro area is a rare exception to the global 'one state, one currency' rule. But the ECB is not the only central bank in the euro area. Rather, the ECB is designed as the headquarters (or perhaps 'cockpit') of the Eurosystem, the system of European central banks that also includes the national central banks (NCBs) of European Union (EU) member countries that have adopted the euro as their common currency. The euro has failed to deliver on its promises. While the euro area's performance during the euro's first decade was mediocre, things turned truly dismal when the global fi nancial crisis of 2007–2009 struck. In contrast to the rest of the world, which started to recover from the crisis in 2010, the euro area suffered a 'double-dip' recession. Only since 2013 has the euro currency union experienced a fragile, uneven and incomplete revival. This study evaluates the ECB's unconventional monetary policies and its role as euro crisis manager under Mario Draghi's presidency, exploring the options available for adding further monetary policy stimulus going forward. As the euro's central bank guardian, the ECB has been a central force throughout the crisis and its aftermath. Many observers would argue that among the euro area authorities the ECB stands out as the most constructive. ECB president Mario Draghi's famous 'whatever it takes' declaration in July 2012 stopped the escalating crisis and marked a critical turning point. As the euro area's uneven growth slowed markedly in 2018–2019 and the recovery increasingly appeared at risk of unravelling, all eyes once again turned to the ECB to come up with another 'whatever it takes' attack-plan to restore the positive momentum and keep the recovery alive. The ECB duly delivered a fresh monetary stimulus programme in autumn 2019, prompting new controversies, especially in Germany. But how much ammunition does the ECB really have left? Will it be enough to restore sustainable growth and save the euro for good?


On April 13, 2013 a very bright fireball with an absolute magnitude of 13:0 0:5 was recorded over the center of Spain. This sporadic event, which was witnessed by numerous casual observers throughout the whole country, was imaged from seven meteorobserving stations operated by the Spanish Meteor Network (SPMN), and its emission spectrum was also obtained in the framework of our meteor spectroscopy campaign. The atmospheric trajectory of the bolide and the heliocentric orbit of the parent meteoroid are analyzed here. The spectrum reveals a chondritic nature for this particle, which was following a Jupiter family comet orbit before its encounter with the Earth. In addition, the emission spectrum of the meteoric afterglow was recorded during about 0.8 s. The main emission lines appearing in this signal were identified and their evolution with time is also discussed. Afterglow spectra are not abundant in the literature, and these can provide important clues about the physical proceses taking place in meteoric persistent trains.


Potato, Solanum tuberosum L., is the second most important food crop in Kenya after maize and plays an important role in food security. However farmers face many constraints in its production, with pests and diseases being the most important. PTM is the most destructive insect pest capable of causing 25% damage in the field and upto 90% loss in store. The study was undertaken to determine the effect of different harvest periods; Harvest two weeks before maturity, Harvest at maturity, Harvest two weeks after maturity and Harvest four weeks after maturity on PTM activity in the field and later in store. The experiment were set in a complete randomized design both in the field and in store with four replicates and repeated for two seasons where larvae, mines and yield were collected as parameters to assess PTM damage. The study demonstrated that PTM infestation in the store depended much on the initial PTM infestation in the field. Harvesting two weeks before maturity significantly lowered PTM infestation in the store (P< 0.001) and population of PTM builds up after two months of storage causing serious tuber damages. This harvest period also significantly lowered the potato tuber yield (p<0.001). The results show that harvesting two weeks before maturity has the potential to manage PTM in storage and can be used by small scale farmers aiming at producing potato seed for their own use and for sale. Farmers can however accommodate different harvest periods as components of an IPM strategy for PTM management.


Ruthenium(II) biscarboxylate oxidase catalysis is a powerful tool for the assembly of functionalized arenes with oxygen as a green oxidant, but this strategy was thus far limited to its use in traditional organic solvents. Herein, we report on a green procedure for the ruthenium(II) biscarboxylate-catalysed C–H functionalisation in biomass-derived γ-valerolactone as the reaction medium. The oxidase catalysis was characterized by ample substrate scope and proceeded efficiently with oxygen as the sole oxidant. The overall green nature of this C–H-activation methodology is reflected by H2O being the only by-product.


We explore the dynamics of hard-core lattice bosons in the presence of strong non-local particle loss. The evolution occurs on two distinct time-scales, first a rapid strongly correlated decay into a highly degenerate Zeno state subspace, followed by a slow almost coherent evolution. We analytically solve the fast initial dynamics of the system, where we specifically focus on an initial Mott insulator state, and perform an analysis of the particle arrangements in the Zeno subspace. We investigate the secondary slow relaxation process that follows and find an intricate regime where the competition between dissipation and coherence results in various types of interacting particle complexes. We classify them and analyse their spectral properties in the presence and absence of nearest-neighbor interactions. Under certain circumstances the dispersion relations of the complexes feature flat bands, which are a result of an effective spin-orbit coupling.


In Sweden, gender pedagogics has been on the political agenda the last decade. Consequently, gender matters have been given much attention in Swedish preschools, and specialized pedagogues have also been trained to counteract socially constructed gender distinctions. Therefore, we have explored the enactment of gender pedagogics. We asked 17 preschool teachers to describe the situations revolving around gender issues that they have experienced, using the critical incident method. In all, 34 critical incidents were described and subsequently discussed in groups of 6–10 individuals. Afterward, the data were analyzed qualitatively, with the objective to explore the preschool teachers' understanding of gender approaches. The analysis led us to single out four "ideal type approaches," that is, "instrumental," "co-productive," "facilitative," "proactive," and "agitative" gender approach. The gender approaches were made up by the different ways of interacting with the children as regards gender described by the preschool teachers and by the different ways of reflecting over the described situations. We argue that the four different types of gender interaction emanate from corresponding underlying conceptions of gender, and that they may exercise influence on the children's identity process.


Abstract. We present a new model of P and S velocity anomalies in the mantle down to a depth of 1300 km beneath the Izu-Bonin and Mariana (IBM) arcs. This model is derived based on tomographic inversion of global travel time data from the revised ISC catalogue. The results of inversion are thoroughly verified using a series of different tests. The obtained model is generally consistent with previous studies by different authors. We also present the distribution of relocated deep events projected to the vertical surface along the IBM arc system. Unexpectedly, the seismicity forms elongated vertical clusters instead of horizontal zones indicating phase transitions in the slab. We propose that these vertical seismicity zones mark zones of intense deformation and boundaries between semi-autonomous segments of the subducting plate. The P and S seismic tomography models consistently display the slab as prominent high-velocity anomalies coinciding with the distribution of deep seismicity. We can distinguish at least four segments which subduct differently. The northernmost segment of the Izu-Bonin arc has the gentlest angle of dipping which is explained by backward displacement of the trench. In the second segment, the trench stayed at the same location, and we observe the accumulation of the slab material in the transition zone and its further descending to the lower mantle. In the third segment, the trench is moving forward causing the steepening of the slab. Finally, for the Mariana segment, despite the backward displacement of the arc, the subducting slab is nearly vertical. Between the Izu-Bonin and Mariana arcs we clearly observe a gap which can be traced down to about 400 km in depth. Based on joint consideration of the tomography results and the seismicity distribution, we propose two different scenarios of the subduction evolution in the IBM zone during the recent time, depending on the reference frame of plate displacements. In the first case, we consider the movements in respect to the Philippine Plate, and explain the different styles of the subduction by the relative backward and forward migrations of the trench. In the second case, all the elements of the subduction system move westward in respect to the stable Asia. Different subduction styles are explained by the "anchoring" of selected segments of the slab, different physical properties of the subducting plate and the existence of buoyant rigid blocks related to sea mount and igneous provinces.


Planning process has a significant impact on the ability of a construction project to success. This is the stage where the detailed directions are given which would affect the whole course of the project. The process is argued to be the most crucial stage which the principles of sustainability are integrated throughout the whole life of building. The purpose of this research was to investigate the Malaysian building project stakeholders' perspectives on the most significant strategies to integrate sustainability principles into the whole life of building through the project planning process. From the review of available literatures, there are 21 strategies to integrate sustainability principles during a building project planning process have been unveiled. A total of 357 Malaysian project stakeholders who have been directly involved in sustainable building project and/or the stakeholders who are judged to be knowledgeable on the project were selected to be contributed for questionnaire survey. The collected data were analyzed using cronbach's alpha measurement to assess their internal reliability, and frequency and descriptive analysis to measure the relative importance of the factors. The result shows that all the 21 strategies (the factors) to integrate sustainability during a project planning process were identified by the respondents to be very crucial to be implemented throughout the planning process of a sustainable building project in Malaysia. This paper offers ideas and recommendations on the sustainability integration strategies to be practiced throughout the project planning process towards delivering a successful sustainable building project. The concept is very useful to be a starting point for the development of a practical 'Sustainability Integration Framework' during the planning process of a sustainable building project in the future. Keywords: Sustainable Building Project; Construction Project; Project Planning Process


Wine is a complex beverage, comprising hundreds of metabolites produced through the action of yeasts and bacteria in fermenting grape must. To ensure a robust and reliable fermentation, most commercial wines are produced via inoculation with commercial strains of the major wine yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, there is a growing trend towards the use of uninoculated or "wild" fermentations, in which the yeasts and bacteria that are naturally associated with the vineyard and winery, perform the fermentation. In doing so, the varied metabolic contributions of the numerous non-Saccharomyces species in this microbial community are thought to impart complexity and desirable taste and aroma attributes to wild ferments in comparison to their inoculated counterparts. In order the map the microflora of spontaneous fermentation, metagenomic techniques were used to characterize and monitor the progression of fungal species in several wild fermentations. Both amplicon-based ITS phylotyping (meta-barcoding) and shotgun metagenomics were used to assess community structure. While providing a sensitive and highly accurate means of characterizing the wine microbiome, the shotgun metagenomic data also uncovered a significant over-abundance bias in the ITS phylotyping abundance estimations for the common non-Saccharomyces wine yeast genus Metschnikowia.


Focusing on how one's own body influences one's perception is a central theme of embodied cognition. The idea begins with the recognition that through extensive practice, the bodies of athletes become more skilled at performing certain skills. In turn, the brains of these athletes, and in particular their mirror neurons, tune in to recognize actions of a particular type. This setup allows athletes to perceive movements, or movement patterns, that remain invisible to novices. This coupling between athletic performance and perception has implications for the psychology of sport. Sports psy - chologists have noted the importance of these ideas in their efforts to understand athletic performance, thus helping to expand and develop research programs in the field of embodied cognition.


Text-to-image generation, i.e. generating an image given a text description, is a very challenging task due to the significant semantic gap between the two domains. Humans, however, tackle this problem intelligently. We learn from diverse objects to form a solid prior about semantics, textures, colors, shapes, and layouts. Given a text description, we immediately imagine an overall visual impression using this prior and, based on this, we draw a picture by progressively adding more and more details. In this paper, and inspired by this process, we propose a novel text-to-image method called LeicaGAN to combine the above three phases in a unified framework. First, we formulate the multiple priors learning phase as a textual-visual co-embedding (TVE) comprising a text-image encoder for learning semantic, texture, and color priors and a text-mask encoder for learning shape and layout priors. Then, we formulate the imagination phase as multiple priors aggregation (MPA) by combining these complementary priors and adding noise for diversity. Lastly, we formulate the creation phase by using a cascaded attentive generator (CAG) to progressively draw a picture from coarse to fine. We leverage adversarial learning for LeicaGAN to enforce semantic consistency and visual realism. Thorough experiments on two public benchmark datasets demonstrate LeicaGAN's superiority over the baseline method. Code has been made available at https://github.com/qiaott/LeicaGAN.


During the rollout of CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) in Tonle Sap in 2013, water management was highlighted as one of the key development challenges. With limited capacity to regulate water, the situation oscillates between too much water in the wet season and too little water in the dry season. Access to and availability of water were seen by local communities as major limitations for aquatic and agricultural production, impacting on functions that include the lake fishery, intensive (dry season) rice crops, recession rice, rainfed rice and floating rice by the lakeside. For both fish and rice production, water and water management are determined principally by the natural flooding of the Tonle Sap Lake. This study is based on a community survey on water access, availability and management and was conceived out of the AAS consultation process and was developed to help identify existing practices in water use and management, as well as best practices where lessons can be learned and promising activities scaled out to other communities. The community survey also aims to understand, identify and analyze constraints and opportunities related to water, and includes a gender perspective to better understand the role of women in water management and use.


Abstract. In this paper, we simulate intermittent turbulence (also known as bursting events) in stably stratified open-channel flows using direct numerical simulation. Clear signatures of this intriguing phenomenon are observed for a range of stabilities. However, the spatiotemporal characteristics of intermittency are found to be strongly stability dependent. In general, the bursting events are much more frequent near the bottom wall than in the upper-channel region. A steady coexistence of laminar and turbulent flows is detected at various horizontal planes in very stable cases. This spatially intermittent pattern is found to propagate downstream and strongly correlate with the temporal evolution of intermittency. Lastly, a long standing hypothesis by Blackadar (1979), i.e., the strong connection between local stability and intermittent turbulence, is corroborated by this modeling study.


The food retail business has undergone radical changes in the 21st century because of changing consumer demand in the market. The changes in consumption patterns are largely influenced by higher income and the expenditure on food as a percentage of disposable income, demographic changes, urbanization, improved transportation, trade relations, and consumers' concerns with regards to product quality and food safety. There have been observed differences in the way consumers in developed and developing countries react to income changes. For developing countries, higher income levels foster an increase in the demand for meat products which is why livestock sales have generally improved in developing countries. In more mature markets, consumers are allocating income to high value processed foodstuffs, a wider range of products to choose from, indulgence and better product quality. The demand for organic food products has increased, associated with consumers' beliefs that consuming organic products is the only way they can protect themselves from consuming toxic substances contained in pesticides and veterinary drugs. In addition, consumers require product labeling and product traceability on produce, as quality assurance instruments, to further protect themselves from food safety risks. Affluence in developed countries is giving consumers' the confidence to demand anything from the market as long as they will be paying for their demands. It is therefore important for food retailers to be able to anticipate and respond to the changes in consumer demands.


Recent calls for change in teacher preparation programs stress the importance of field experience and the need for preservice teachers to have ample opportunities for peer collaboration and feedback. The paired placement model, with two preservice teachers working with one cooperating teacher, has shown to provide many benefits. However, the strategies for developing successful partnerships in the context of a required course are not fully understood. This article presents a study of early childhood and elementary preservice teachers' perspectives on the peer and faculty related factors that contribute to the success (and lack of success) of their partnerships. The article concludes with effective strategies for teacher educators to consider in creating and supporting field-based peer partnerships.


J. S. Mill's case against censorship rests on a conception of relevant communications as truth apt. If the communication is true, everyone benefits from the opportunity to exchange error for truth. If it is false, we benefit from the livelier impression truth makes when it collides with error. This classical liberal model is not however adequate for today's world. In particular, it is inadequate for dealing with the problem of stereotyping. Much contemporary communication is not truth apt. Advertising and journalism, film and fashion portray images that can be neither verified nor refuted. Moreover, where these images do bear some relation to reality, any truth they may possess is not necessarily beneficial. Cultural stereotypes, for example, can be harmful even when true, to the extent that they reflect a distorted reality (the realities of life under conditions of injustice and exploitation). Exposure to such stereotypes affects a community's self-conception. The resulting harms may be direct or indirect. Indirect harm is done when a stereotype affects a community's capacity for self-determination, perpetuating existing inequalities by restricting the options its members understand to be available to them. Direct harm is done when a stereotype induces a distorted self-conception. Pace Kant, human dignity is not purely a function of our capacity to be authors of a universal moral law. It also resides in our capacity to achieve an undistorted self-conception. Thus true communications that reflect a distorted historical reality may threaten our dignity, through their effects on our self-conception, independent of any consequences they may have for self-determining action.


We carry out a preliminary enquiry into the nature of geographical penetration and distribution of mutual
funds in India as well as their likely determinants. Using a questionnaire survey we collect qualitative and
quantitative evidence from fund managers on the nature and determinants of their geographical presence
throughout the country. Distribution channels seem to play a major role in fund penetration and facilitating
these rather than trying to boost demand through financial literacy may be a more effective way of achieving
better fund penetration.
The Indian mutual fund industry is one of the fastest growing and most competitive segments of the financial
sector. As of August 2013, the total AUM stood at Rs. 7.66 trillion. However, growth rates of AMCs have
come down from the peak levels seen in the early 2000s. One of the biggest reasons behind this is the lack
of healthy participation from a large part of the country. This lack of penetration can be due to two reasons:
a) Low demand of mutual funds from the public outside the major (T-15) cities. This low demand in turn could
be caused by low levels of financial literacy, cultural attitudes towards savings and investments etc., and
b) Low supply of mutual funds from AMCs outside the major cities. The low supply could be due to perceived
lack of demand from the general retail investor or due to lack of available manpower in these areas.
The study first documents how Assets under Management (AUM) are unevenly distributed across the country
and then proceed to scrutinize the reasons behind this uneven penetration. It focuses on the AMCs distribution
networks using proxies such as the distribution of independent financial agents (IFAs) across the country, sales
made by IFAs, distributional efficiency of AMCs etc., A survey of fund houses was carried out to gain a better
understanding of the causes holding them back from expanding beyond top 15 cities.
The study found that low number of agents (per capita) in sub-urban and rural areas and the slow growth
rates in mutual fund sales in the corresponding areas are closely associated with each other.


ABSTRACT How do legislators deal with having preferences that go against those of the principals that they represent in parliament? This article analyzes the debate in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum in the House of Commons to explore the relationship between divergent preferences and legislative speeches. It finds that legislators who defy the will of their country or constituency are rather communicative, and their speeches reveal higher levels of negativity. In contrast, those defying their party refrain from speaking in parliament, but if they speak, they use a significantly less negative language. These findings suggest that legislators behave strategically in deciding whether and how to justify their positions publicly when in conflict with their various principals.


The objective of the present study was to describe the incidence and the characteristics of Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors (SITBs), among adolescents aged 11–18 admitted, over a two year period, to all the Emergency Departments of a Region of North-eastern Italy through a comprehensive analysis of medical records. A two-step search was performed in the regional ED electronic database. First, we identified the cases that had been clearly diagnosed as SITBs by an Emergency Department physician. Secondly, suspect cases were detected through a keyword search of the database, and the medical records of these cases were hand screened to identify SITBs. The mean annual incidence rate of SITBs was 90 per 100,000 adolescents aged 11–18 years. Events were more frequent in females. Drug poisoning was the most frequently adopted method (54%). In 42% of cases a diagnosis of SITB was not explicitly reported by the physician. In 65% of cases adolescents were discharged within hours of admission. Only 9% of patients started a psychiatric assessment and treatment program during hospital stay. This research confirms the high incidence of SITBs among adolescents and highlights the difficulty in their proper diagnosis and management. Such difficulty is confirmed by the fact that only a few patients, even among those with a clear diagnosis, were sent for psychiatric assessment. Correct identification and management of SITB patients needs to be improved, since SITBs are an important public health problem in adolescence and one of the main risk factors for suicide.


Abstract Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present and assess professional development opportunities for older employees in SME. Methodology: In the process of desk research, the author has discerned a number of characteristics of training activities conducted by SMEs. The management of older employees' professional development is discussed on the basis of selected research findings, i.a. CATI and CAPI surveys conducted in the framework of the "Comprehensive program of activation of people aged 50+" project carried out by the Department of Human Resource Management at Kozminski University in 2010-2012. Findings: The first part of the paper discusses the specificity of training measures undertaken in SMEs. According to a large body research results available, these include: informality, reactivity, short-term perspective, focus on solving current problems, "learning by doing", focus on the development of specific skills and organizational knowledge, lack of professional organization of trainings. The core part of the paper focuses on the management of professional development of older employees in SMEs. The majority of surveyed firms have declared providing their older and younger employees with the same access to training. However, it does not always mean training is organised, or that employees aged 50+ participate in it. Moreover, the survey has proven the existence of significant differences in assessments and opinions among entrepreneurs and employees. Originality/value: This paper discusses professional development of older SME employees, which is a relatively new problem; it is based on an extensive body of research. Managing professional development of older workers is one of the most important challenges faced by SMEs in the twentyfirst century and it shall require extensive and thorough research in the future.


Abstract A thermal source for hydrogen production is an attractive utilization of nuclear energy. Hydrogen production from natural gas is a promising method in an early stage of hydrogen society, though hydrogen production with water splitting without carbon dioxide emission is the final goal. Steam methane reforming is a well-known method for producing hydrogen from natural gas. A hydrogen separation membrane makes the reforming temperature much lower than that of the equilibrium condition, and a sodium-cooled fast reactor, which supplies heat at ~500°C, can be used as a heat source for hydrogen production. In this study, a hydrogen production plant with the membrane reforming method using a sodium-cooled reactor as a thermal source has been designed, and its economic potential is roughly evaluated. The hydrogen production cost is estimated to be about $1.67/kg, achieving the economic target of $1.7/kg. The construction cost is largely shared by the reformers' cost, and it can be decreased using a more efficient hydrogen separation membrane. This shows that steam methane reforming hydrogen production with a sodium-cooled reactor has high economical potential.


Bayes' theorem is a relatively simple equation but one of the most important mathematical principles discovered. It is a formalization of a basic cognitive process: updating expectations as new information is obtained. It was derived from the laws of conditional probability by Reverend Thomas Bayes and published posthumously in 1763. In the 21st century, it is used in academic fields ranging from computer science to social science.
 The theorem's most prominent use is in statistical inference. In this regard, there are three essential tenets of Bayesian thought that distinguish it from standard approaches. First, any quantity that is not known as an absolute fact is treated probabilistically, meaning that a numerical probability or a probability distribution is assigned. Second, research questions and designs are based on prior knowledge and expressed as prior distributions. Finally, these prior distributions are updated by conditioning on new data through the use of Bayes' theorem to create a posterior distribution that is a compromise between prior and data knowledge.
 This approach has a number of advantages, especially in social science. First, it gives researchers the probability of observing the parameter given the data, which is the inverse of the results from frequentist inference and more appropriate for social scientific data and parameters. Second, Bayesian approaches excel at estimating parameters for complex data structures and functional forms, and provide more information about these parameters compared to standard approaches. This is possible due to stochastic simulation techniques called Markov Chain Monte Carlo. Third, Bayesian approaches allow for the explicit incorporation of previous estimates through the use of the prior distribution. This provides a formal mechanism for incorporating previous estimates and a means of comparing potential results.
 Bayes' theorem is also used in machine learning, which is a subset of computer science that focuses on algorithms that learn from data to make predictions. One such algorithm is the Naive Bayes Classifier, which uses Bayes' theorem to classify objects such as documents based on prior relationships. Bayesian networks can be seen as a complicated version of the Naive Classifier that maps, estimates, and predicts relationships in a network. It is useful for more complicated prediction problems. Lastly, the theorem has even been used by qualitative social scientists as a formal mechanism for stating and evaluating beliefs and updating knowledge.


The objective of this thesis was to examine the geotechnical conditions at the Engebofjell in Naustdal Municipality, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway with regard to a proposed open pit mine there. Another aim was to develop design parameters for the mine, i.e. bench angles, inter-ramp slope angles and overall slope angles. Finally, the economical ramifications of changes in the design parameters were examined. Geotechnical field mapping campaigns were conducted according to described standards and the results were processed by methods such as stereographic analysis in Rocsciences Dips 6.0. In addition, previously drilled cores were re-examined to extract geotechnical information, such as Rock Quality Designation (RQD). Using gathered data, the pit area was divided into geotechnical domains, and a kinematic analysis was performed for each domain. The analyses were carried out in Dips 6.0 as well. Empirical methods were applied to find supplementary estimates of overall slope angle and rock mass conditions. Rock Mass Ratings (RMR) were calculated for each of the domains. The Barton-Bandis failure criterion was used in conjunction with tilt tests to estimate the shear strength of the discontinuities in the rock mass. Scale corrections were applied to the Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC) and the Joint Compressive Strength (JCS). It is concluded that three separate joint sets exist in the rock mass and that their dip-directions are: West (steep), North (steep) and SSW (low incline). The discontinuities have tight apertures with a moderate spacing and are commonly fresh and clean, however some staining was observed. The persistence of the discontinuities was concluded to lie in the interval 3-10 m. Results from the rock mass analysis indicated good rock mass quality. The following scale corrected results stem from the field mapping: JRC is approximately 7 and JCS=[56,115]MPa(depending on lithology). Basic friction angles were found to lie in the region [25deg,32deg], which implicated joint friction angles of [46deg},54deg}]. Based on the kinematic analysis it is concluded that maximum stable bench face angles can be in the range of [60deg,80deg],while inter-ramp angles are [47deg,63deg]and overall slope angles are [45deg,59deg]. Different stability problems were expected to occur in different regions of the pit: the northern part was exposed to toppling, the south-western to planar failure and the south-eastern to both wedge and planar failure. The large scale stability of the pit has been discussed and it was concluded that large scale structures could affect the stability of the pit, and since these are likely to be parallel to the discontinuity sets further efforts should be directed towards uncovering such features. Drilling cores perpendicular to the expected orientations was recommended. It is noted that, should such features be encountered, the frictional properties of each one of them must be estimated. It has been shown that the benefits of steepening an open pit wall are significant for the project as a whole. Recommendations to couple sensitivity analyses of pit design parameters with the geotechnical investigations were made. In this way, the money that is set aside for geotechnical work will be put to the best possible use.


Ortner syndrome, or cardio-vocal syndrome, is a clinical entity characterised by hoarseness (secondary to left-sided recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy) caused by cardiovascular disease. It has been reported in up to 12% of patients with aortic aneurysms. Vocal cord palsy is rarely reported in paediatric patients with cardiac pathology. A reason for the paucity of data in paediatric cardiac patients could be due to the focus on patient survival rather than secondary complications of the disease and its treatment. Most cases have been described in adults, and to the best of our knowledge this is the youngest patient mentioned in the literature.


Connecting Curriculum; Connecting Learning was a 2-year research project conducted by the authors in conjunction with eight teachers across five primary schools in New Zealand. This article describes three case studies from this research project that used Mantle of the Expert - an inquirylearning approach that incorporates drama. This teacher- and student-led approach sees participants going into role as members of an imaginary organisation carrying out an important commission for a high-status client. The teacher guides and supports, while the students are key content creators. The authors found that several curriculum areas were integrated, all four social science conceptual strands were addressed, and the processes used fulfil the best-practice evidence for effective pedagogy as described in The New Zealand Curriculum.


This article uses relational contract theory to discuss the standard to be applied to evaluate the behavior of insurance companies in first-party bad faith cases. The article first briefly summarizes relational contract theory and describes the insurance contract as a prime example of a relational contract. It then describes the law of bad faith in first-party insurance cases-cases in which a policyholder alleges that the insurance company has violated the duty of good faith and fair dealing that is present in every contract and intensified in insurance contracts. The most widely adopted standard for bad faith is the "fairly debatable" test, under which an insurance company is liable only if it lacks a reasonable basis for denying benefits of the policy and knows or recklessly disregards the lack of a reasonable basis for denying the claim. Therefore, where a claim is "fairly debatable," the company is held to have not acted in bad faith. Moreover, courts have created a procedural elaboration on the fairly debatable test, under which a policyholder who could not have established as a matter of law a right to summary judgment on the substantive claim is not entitled to assert a claim for an insurer's bad-faith refusal to pay the claim. The article argues that from the perspective of relational contract theory, the fairly debatable rule and the summary judgment elaboration are deeply flawed. Instead, negligence is a better rule because it recognizes that the relationship between the company and policyholder is one of security, in which the company has adopted a role of acting not as an adverse party to its insured, but in a responsible manner to give the insured the benefits it reasonably expects. A negligence rule also recognizes and deters the possibility of insurer opportunism in the area of claim practices. The rule also serves the broader social role of the insurance relation in providing indemnity and security for large numbers of people.This article is a contribution to a symposium in memory of Professor Richard Speidel.


Discovered after the end of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory mission, the radio pulsar PSR J2021+3651 was long considered a likely counterpart of the high-energy γ-ray source 2CG 075+00 = 3EG J2021+3716 = GeV J2020+3658, but it could not be confirmed due to the lack of a contemporaneous radio pulsar ephemeris to fold the sparse, archival γ-ray photons. Here, we report the discovery of γ-ray pulsations from PSR J2021+3651 in the 100-1500 MeV range using data from the AGILE satellite gathered over 8 months, folded on a densely sampled, contemporaneous radio ephemeris obtained for this purpose at the Green Bank Telescope. The γ-ray pulse consists of two sharp peaks separated by 0.47 ± 0.01 cycles. The single radio pulse leads the first γ-ray peak by 0.165 ± 0.010 cycles. These properties are similar to those of other γ-ray pulsars, and the phase relationship of the peaks can be interpreted in the context of the outer-gap accelerator model for γ-ray emission. Pulse-phase-resolved images show that there is only one dominant source, AGL J2020.5+3653 = PSR J2021+3651, in the region previously containing confused sources 3EG J2021+3716 and 3EG J2016+3657.


This paper aims to predict the trend of land use land cover (LULC) changes in Dak Nong province over time. Data from Landsat images captured in 2009, 2015, and 2018 was employed to analyze and predict the spatial distributions of LULC categories. The Random Forest (RF) was adopted to classify the images into ten different LULC classes. Besides, integration of Multi-Layer Perceptron Markov Neural Network (MLP-NN) with Markov Chain (MC) was applied to predict the future LULC changes in the region based on the change detection over the previous years. For all classified images, overall accuracy (OA) ranged from 77.35% to 84.55% with kappa (K) coefficient index ranging from 0.75 to 0.8. The results revealed that the annual population growth together with social-economic development was regarded as major drives for land conversion in the area. The predicted map showed a significant decrease trend in the forest classes by 2025, accounting for 23 thousand ha. However, residential areas, rubber, and agricultural land classes are predicted to rise to 460 ha, 3,000 ha, and 20,000 ha, respectively. The simulated model and calibrated area data may be a vital contribution to sustainable development efforts of the local based on the dynamics of LULC and future LULC change scenarios. Overall, ascertaining the complex interface related to changes in land use and its major drivers over time provides useful information predict to explore the future trend of LULC changes, establish alternative land-use schemes and serve as guidelines for urban planning policymakers.


Many natural dyes, for example carminic acid, are soluble in water. We present a simple strategy to naturalize synthetic azadyes through their linkage with lactose to induce their water solubility. The dyeing process of textile fibres then becomes possible in water without additives such as surfactants and mordants, which result in products that are difficult to eliminate. Glyco-azadyes (GADs) we are presenting here are obtained through a diether linker to bond the azadye and the sugar. Tinctorial tests were carried out with fabrics containing wool, polyester, cotton, nylon, and acetate. GADs were found to be multipurpose and capable of dyeing many fabrics efficiently under mild conditions.


Background: Interindividual differences in estrogen metabolism may partially account for differences in risks of estrogen-responsive cancers. We conducted a proof-of-performance study to assess the reproducibility of a LC/MS-MS method for measurement of 15 serum estrogens and metabolites (all 15 termed EM) in total (conjugated+unconjugated) and unconjugated forms and describe interindividual variation. Methods: Interindividual variation in serum EM profiles was evaluated for 20 premenopausal women, 15 postmenopausal women, and 10 men. Replicate aliquots from 10 premenopausal women, 5 postmenopausal women, and 5 men were assayed eight times over 4 weeks. Components of variance were used to calculate coefficients of variation (CV) and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Results: In postmenopausal women and men, median EM concentrations were similar and substantially lower than that in premenopausal women. Within each sex/menopausal group, the sum of all EM varied 5- to 7-fold across extreme deciles. Some EM had greater variation; total estrone varied approximately 12-fold in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Unconjugated estradiol varied 17-fold in postmenopausal women but only 5-fold in premenopausal women and men. CVs reflecting variation across replicate measures for individuals were <5% for most EM, but higher in some individuals with a low EM concentration. Overall laboratory CVs for all but one EM were <2% and ICCs were >99% for all EM in each group. Conclusions: The serum EM assay has excellent laboratory reproducibility. In premenopausal women, postmenopausal women, and men, interindividual variation in EM measures is substantially greater than laboratory variation. Impact: The serum EM assay is suitable for epidemiologic application. See all the articles in this CEBP Focus section, "Biomarkers, Biospecimens, and New Technologies in Molecular Epidemiology." Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 23(12); 2649–57. ©2014 AACR.


Context: Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) as a traditional Chinese medicinal plant has various uses in Xinjiang. Objective: A reversed-phase rapid-resolution liquid-chromatography method with diode array detector was developed for simultaneous determination of protocatechuic acid, rutin, quercetin, kaempferol, and isorhamnetin in the pulp and seed of sea buckthorn, a widely used traditional Chinese medicine for promoting metabolism and treating scurvy and other diseases. Settings and design: Compounds were separated on an Agilent ZORBAX SB-C18 column (4.6 mm × 250 mm, 5 μm; USA) with gradient elution using methanol and 0.4% phosphoric acid (v/v) at 1.0 mL/min. Detection wavelength was set at 280 nm. Materials and Methods: The fruits of wild sea buckthorn were collected from Wushi County in Aksu, Xinjiang Province. Statistical performances: The RSD of precision test of the five compounds were in the range of 0.60-2.22%, and the average recoveries ranged from 97.36% to 101.19%. Good linearity between specific chromatographic peak and component qualities were observed in the investigated ranges for all the analytes (R2 > 0.9997). Results: The proposed method was successfully applied to determine the levels of five active components in sea buckthorn samples from Aksu in Xinjiang. Conclusions: The proposed method is simple, fast, sensitive, accurate, and suitable for quantitative assessment of the pulp and seed of sea buckthorn. Abbreviation used: PR: protocatechuic acid, RU: rutin, QU: quercetin, KA: kaempferol, IS: isorhamnetin, HPLC: high-performance liquid chromatography, HPLC-DAD: high performance liquid chromatographydiode array detector, LOD: linearity and limit of detection, LOQ: limit of quantitation, RSD: relative standard deviation


Growth rate of irrigated grain sorghum with moisture not limiting was measured in the field between August 11 and September 4, 1965, near Amarillo, Texas. A growth sensor was used which converted the extension of a grain sorghum leaf from the whorl, or of a head from the boot, into an electrical signal which was continuously recorded on a strip chart recorder.The minimum growth rate occurred between 7:00 and 9:00 AM on individual days. The growth rate increased rapidly after that and reached a maximum value for the day near noon. The growth rate decreased sharply during a 3- or 4-hr period which began on different days between 4:00 and 7:30 PM and lasted until 8:00 to 10:00 PM. After this evening period of sharp growth rate decline, the growth rate decreased more gradually and paralleled the air temperature decline until the morning growth minimum was reached. (Times stated are Central Standard Time, or true solar time + 50 min.) There was evidence of a double peak in the growth rate curve in the afternoon of a clear day and of a temporary acceleration of growth rate in the early morning when moisture condensed on the foliage.


OBJECTIVE : To evaluate the clinical profile, complications, site of involvement and response to therapy and interventional management of aortoarteritis. MATERIAL AND METHODS : 33 patients with Aortoarteritis were studied over a period of two years between Jan 2001 to Nov 2002. Data on clinical features, laboratory and angiographic findings, disease course, response to therapy and interventional management were all recorded and stored in a computer based retrieval system. RESULTS : In our series of 33 patients (21 female, 12 male) with angiographically diagnosed Aortoarteritis, females (63.64 percent) were most frequently affected. The median age of onset was 29 years. The clinical presentation ranged from asymptomatic to catastrophic with stroke. Patients had both non-vascular symptoms (fever 21.21 percent, arthralgia 9 percent) and symptom of vascular stenosis such as limb claudication (66.67 percent), headache (66.67 percent), and hypertension due to renal artery Stenosis (42 percent). All patients had either multiple vascular bruits (76 percent), absent pulses (18 percent), or asymmetric pulses (66.67 percent) and blood pressure differences greater than 10 mm hg between arm (66.67 percent). Laboratory findings included elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (87.88 percent), C-reactive protein (30.30 percent), one patient had Mantax test positive. However, E.S.R. was not a consistently reliable surrogate marker of the disease activity. Almost all patients had multiple sites of arterial involvement documented by angiogram with various combinations of stenosis, Luminal irregularity and aneurysm formation. Type IV (63.64 percent) (i.e. involvement of abdominal aorta and or renal arteries) was more commonly found in our study. Response to corticosteroid treatment was usually very good, with dramatic improvement in non-vascular symptoms. SIX patients underwent percutaneous transluminal angioplasty involving the abdominal aorta (2 cases), subclavian artery (3cases) and renal artery (lease). CONCLUSIONS : In central India, Aortoarteritis is a rare disease. However, Type IV is more common. It is heterogeneous in presentation, progression, and response to therapy. Current laboratory markers of disease activity are insufficiently reliable to guide management. Most patients require repeated and at times, prolonged course of therapy. After percutaneous transluminal, balloon angioplasty (P.T.A.) clinical parameters were normal. Although mortality was low, substantial morbidity occurred in most patients.


The exhaustive quality control is becoming very important in the worlds globalised market. One example where quality control becomes critical is the percussion cap mass production, an element assembled in firearm ammunition. These elements must achieve a minimum tolerance deviation in their fabrication. This study outlines a machine vision system development using a three-dimensional camera for the inspection of the whole production of percussion caps. This system presents multiple problems, such as metallic reflections in the percussion caps, high-speed movement for scanning the pieces, and mechanical errors and irregularities in percussion cap placement. Owing to these problems, it is impossible to solve the problem using traditional image processing methods, and hence, machine-learning algorithms have been tested to provide a feasible classification of the possible errors present in the percussion caps.


Abstract. Arctic paleoenvironmental archives serve as sensitive recorders of past climate change. Lake El'gygytgyn (Far East Russian Arctic) is a high-latitude crater impact lake that contains a continuous sediment record influenced by neither glaciation nor glacial erosion since the time of impact 3.58 Ma ago. Prior research on sediments collected from Lake El'gygytgyn suggest times of permanent ice cover and anoxia corresponding to global glacial intervals, during which the sediments are laminated and are characterized by the co-occurrence of high total organic carbon, microscopic magnetite grains that show etching and dissolution, and negative excursions in bulk sediment organic matter carbon isotope (δ13C) values. Here we investigate the abundance and carbon isotopic composition of lipid biomarkers recovered from Lake El'gygytgyn sediments spanning marine isotope stages 1–3 to identify key sources of organic matter (OM) to lake sediments, to establish which OM sources drive the negative δ13C excursion exhibited by bulk sediment OM, and to explore if there are molecular and isotopic signatures of anoxia in the lake during glaciation. We find that during marine isotope stages 1–3, direct evidence for water column anoxia is lacking. A ~4‰ negative excursion in bulk sediment δ13C values during the Local Last Glacial Maximum (LLGM) is accompanied by more protracted, higher magnitude negative excursions in n-alkanoic acid and n-alkanol δ13C values that begin 20 kyr in advance of the LLGM. In contrast, n-alkanes and the C30 n-alkanoic acid do not exhibit a negative δ13C excursion at this time. Our results indicate that the C24, C26 and C28 n-alkanoic acids do not derive entirely from terrestrial OM sources, while the C30 n-alkanoic acid at Lake El'gygytgyn is a robust indicator of terrestrial OM contributions. Overall, our results strongly support the presence of a nutrient-poor water column, which is mostly isolated from atmospheric carbon dioxide during glaciation at Lake El'gygytgyn.


Northern shrimp stocks thrive when climatic conditions lead to cold bottom waters. The northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, makes up ∼70% of the 500,000 tons of cold-water shrimp harvested annually from the world's oceans. Commonly captured in shelf waters deeper than 100 meters, it supports major fisheries throughout the North Atlantic. On page 791 of this issue, Koeller et al. (1) report that the reproductive cycles of most northern shrimp stocks are finely tuned to match the timing of egg hatching with that of the local spring phytoplankton bloom (see the figure). This remarkable degree of local adaptation on a basin scale is achieved by females regulating the initiation date of their temperature-dependent egg incubation period so that eggs hatch on average within a week of the expected spring bloom. Thus, in typical years, eggs hatch at the time of maximum food availability. The potential downside of this reproductive strategy is its sensitivity to climate-associated changes in the ocean environment.


John Vorster lived in Port Elizabeth for little over three years, he arrived in the city in September 1939 and was forced to leave in December 1942. During his stay in Port Elizabeth, he took up the cudgels on behalf of the White Afrikaans-speaking community who were not receiving a fair deal. One particular area in which Vorster believed the Afrikaner was getting a raw deal was rugby, a dominating facet of recreational life. As representative of the Park Rugby Club, John Vorster accordingly challenged the Eastern Province Rugby Union. The confrontation between Vorster, along with the Park Rugby Club, and the EPRU hinged on the issue of rugby being played for the Second World War effort or not. Being the staunch Afrikaner Nationalist that he was, Vorster opposed the efforts of the EPRU to promote the war effort on behalf of the Allied forces, with Britain the dominant partner. He, Vorster, was highly critical of South Africa's involvement in the Second World War as the war sentiment favoured British interests. Thus, the conflict between Vorster and the EPRU had definite political undertones. By the time Vorster was arrested and interned, the differences between the Park Rugby Club and the EPRU had become temporarily insurmountable and led to a split within the EPRU for the duration of the war. In those years, 1940-1942, sport and politics were closely entwined, as evidenced by Vorster's clash with the EPRU concerning the exploitation of rugby for political ends.


In the aftermath of the 2016 elections there is ample data to examine trends in voter turnout across the states. This election cycle also provided the first national election in fifty years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Previously covered states and jurisdictions were no longer required to obtain preclearance in the enactment of voting legislation. This thesis will seek to answer which interest was being served by the new voting laws in several states and whether the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court had an impact on voter turnout. It begins with an examination of the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and the restrictive voting legislation enforced for the first time in the 2016 elections. Next, voter identification laws will be discussed as a restrictive form of legislation that has had some impact on voter turnout in states. Subsequently, popular vote totals from the 2012 elections will be compared with the 2016 elections to determine whether turnout increased or decreased in certain states. This will be followed by a legal analysis of the Court's decisions to examine how the Court reached its result. Finally, legislative alternatives to the VRA will be examined as this thesis seeks to answer what effect the weakening of the VRA by the U.S. Supreme Court had on turnout. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Political Science First Advisor Beth Henschen Second Advisor Jeffrey Bernstein


Maraging steels represent a special group of precipitation-hardening steels, mainly used for highly stressed components in critical applications and for the manufacturing of die casting tools. Consequently, they are subject to different forms of load and wear which inevitably shorten their service life. Therefore, improvements of their mechanical properties and especially the resistance of the surface layer to such phenomena are of great interest. Peening techniques, such as shot peening (SP) and laser shock peening (LSP), represent a promising solution. In this paper, we present the results obtained with the surface integrity analysis on X2NiCoMo18-9-5 maraging steel before and after different sequences of LSP and heat treatment stages. The originality of the present work is that the laser treatment has been performed on a maraging steel, which brings new insights into the effects on its fatigue strength, which could be of interest to the scientific community and the industry. The main challenge is the optimization of process parameters using affordable low energy lasers. Within the present study LSP has shown promising results, supported by mechanical fatigue tests.


Regulation of gene expression can occur at the pre-mRNA level by alternative splicing. As a type of alternative splicing, intron retention received attention only in recent years. Specifically, there are few reports on endogenous terminal intron retention event in different gene transcripts and only one report of antisense oligonucleotide induced retention of the terminal intron in SMN transcripts. So far, there is no report of induced terminal intron retention other gene transcripts. Terminal intron retention is proposed to be inducible in human gene transcripts using antisense oligonucleotides, with an effect on expression at the mRNA and/or protein levels. Five gene transcripts, LMNA, LMNC, ITGA4, SOD1, and DMD, were selected and for each transcript, the terminal intron/exon splice site and exon-internal sequences of the last exon were targeted for antisense oligonucleotide annealing. It was found that terminal intron retention is inducible in LMNC and ITGA4 transcripts, and possibly LMNA transcripts. Inclusion of the terminal intron decreases full-length LMNC and ITGA4 mRNA expression whereas its effect on protein expression is undetermined. Using the PMO chemistry resulted in a reduced effect on terminal intron retention compared to when 2'-OMeAOs were used. In addition, in both LMNC and ITGA4 transcripts, terminal intron retention led to approximately 3% to 13% decrease in full-length mRNA expression. Changing transfection parameters such as antisense oligonucleotide concentrations, transfection reagent, and transfection duration can also influence transfection outcome. Possible features that may predict terminal intron retention, including but not limited to, splicing motifs, intron length and splice site strengths, were compared between transcripts with and without retained terminal intron. However, no specific features for retention of the terminal intron were observed. Overall, this project shows that terminal intron retention is inducible in human gene transcripts other than SMN transcripts, but not in all gene transcripts examined.


Measuring insulin sensitivity during the physiological milieu of oral glucose perturbation, e.g., a meal or an oral glucose tolerance test, would be extremely valuable but difficult since the rate of appearance of absorbed glucose is unknown. The reference method is a tracer two-step one: first, the rate of appearance of glucose (R(a meal)(ref)) is reconstructed by employing the tracer-to-tracee ratio clamp technique with two tracers and a model of non-steady-state glucose kinetics; next, this R(a meal)(ref) is used as the known input of a model describing insulin action on glucose kinetics to estimate insulin sensitivity (SI(ref)). Recently, a nontracer method based on the oral minimal model (OMM) has been proposed to estimate simultaneously the above quantities, denoted R(a meal) and SI, respectively, from plasma glucose and insulin concentrations measured after an oral glucose perturbation. This last method has obvious advantages over the tracer method, but its domain of validity has never been assessed against a reference method. It is thus important to establish whether or not the "nontracer" R(a meal) and SI compare well with the "tracer" R(a meal)(ref) and SI(ref). We do this comparison on a database of 88 subjects, and it is very satisfactory: R(a meal) profiles agree well with the R(a meal)(ref) and correlation of SI(ref) with SI is r = 0.86 (P < 0.0001). We conclude that OMM candidates as a reliable tool to measure both the rate of glucose absorption and insulin sensitivity from oral glucose tests without employing tracers.


The UK Met Office's Daily Weather Reports (DWR) contain extensive logs of UK thunderstorm activity. To date, only a very small fraction of these data have been digitized as part of the MIDAS dataset, and exclusively after 1950. Using the recently‐scanned UK Met Office Monthly Weather Reports (MWR), which are based on a subset of the observations that form the DWR, we here provide digitized data and a summary of thunderdays from 10 long‐running British stations over the period 1884–1993. The data are presented 'as is', with no attempt to provide any corrections or calibration. For 4 of the 10 stations, thunderday observations were discontinued at various times between 1949 and 1964, and it is necessary to switch to a neighbouring station in order to continue the series. Approximately half the series exhibit sharp drops in thunderdays at various points between 1960 and 1990, although none are coincident with known station changes. Comparison with nearby MIDAS stations suggests the low thunderdays are the result of changes in observing practice, rather than genuine changes in thunderstorm occurrence. These potential data issues limit interpretation of the long‐term trends. However, it can nevertheless be concluded that none of the stations show the expected increase in thunderdays as a result of the rise in surface temperature over the 20th century. In order to provide more quantitative determination of the long‐term trends in thunderstorm occurrence, we advocate further digitization efforts to recover the data from the numerous stations in the MWRs, and subsequent analysis of the common signals across neighbouring stations.


Nominations for this year's Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award ranged from a channel built to control flood waters to the construction of a wastewater pollution control plant underneath a city zoo. The 13 nominations which did not receive an award of merit or the grand prize are capsuled in this article. Projects reviewed include: the largest example of an American municipal waste site that uses crushed stones in the leachate collection system, cured-in-place pipe technology on a sewer line in Honolulu, a large tunnel-prevention system in Milwaukee that collects sewage overflow, an underground detention-vault system in Dallas to hold flood waters, redirecting a channel's outlet in Southern California to avoid beachgoers, building river walls around an island in Iowa, building an environmentally sensitive bridge over old Tampa Bay, constructing a bridge to sustain hurricane-force winds in Southern Alabama, building a cable-stayed roof over a sports arena in San Antonio, reconstructing an old train station in Boston and moving it to a new location, laying a 695-mile gas pipeline from Canada to Fresno and restoring a Florida wetland as well as the aforementioned nominations.


Synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or synthetic CDOs, are popular vehicles for trading the credit risk of a portfolio of assets. Following a brief summary of the development of the synthetic CDO market, I draw on recent innovations in modeling to present a pricing model for CDO tranches that does not require Monte Carlo simulation. I use the model to analyze the risk characteristics of the tranches of synthetic CDOs. The analysis shows that although the more junior CDO tranches -- equity and mezzanine tranches -- typically contain a small fraction of the notional amount of the CDO's reference portfolio, they bear a majority of the credit risk. One implication is that credit risk disclosures relying on notional amounts are especially inadequate for firms that invest in CDOs. I show how the equity and mezzanine tranches can be viewed as leveraged exposures to the underlying credit risk of the CDO's reference portfolio. Even though mezzanine tranches are typically rated investment-grade, the leverage they possess implies their risk (and expected return) can be many times that of an investment-grade corporate bond. The paper goes on to show how CDO tranches and other innovative credit products, such as single-tranche CDOs and first-to-default basket swaps, are sensitive to the correlation of defaults among the credits in the reference portfolio. Differences of opinion among market participants as to the correct default correlation can create trading opportunities. Finally, the paper shows how the dependence of CDO tranches on default correlation can also be characterized and measured as an exposure to the business cycle, or as "business cycle risk." A mezzanine tranche, in particular, is highly sensitive to business cycle risk.


This paper introduces Deep Statistical Solvers (DSS), a new class of trainable solvers for optimization problems, arising e.g., from system simulations. The key idea is to learn a solver that generalizes to a given distribution of problem instances. This is achieved by directly using as loss the objective function of the problem, as opposed to most previous Machine Learning based approaches, which mimic the solutions attained by an existing solver. Though both types of approaches outperform classical solvers with respect to speed for a given accuracy, a distinctive advantage of DSS is that they can be trained without a training set of sample solutions. Focusing on use cases of systems of interacting and interchangeable entities (e.g. molecular dynamics, power systems, discretized PDEs), the proposed approach is instantiated within a class of Graph Neural Networks. Under sufficient conditions, we prove that the corresponding set of functions contains approximations to any arbitrary precision of the actual solution of the optimization problem. The proposed approach is experimentally validated on large linear problems, demonstrating super-generalisation properties; And on AC power grid simulations, on which the predictions of the trained model have a correlation higher than 99.99% with the outputs of the classical Newton-Raphson method (known for its accuracy), while being 2 to 3 orders of magnitude faster.


The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) constitute a profoundly heterogeneous myeloid malignancy with a common origin in the hemopoietic stem cell compartment. Consequently, patient management and treatment are as heterogeneous. Decision-making includes identifying risk, symptoms, and options for the individual patient and to make a risk-benefit analysis. The only potential cure is allogeneic stem cell transplantation and albeit the fraction of transplanted MDS patients increase over time due to a better management and increased donor availability a majority are not eligible for this intervention. Current challenges encompass to decrease the relapse risk, the main cause of HSCT failure. Hypomethylating agents (HMA) constitute first-line treatment for higher-risk MDS. Combinations with other drugs as first-line treatment has to date not proven more efficacious than monotherapy, although combinations approved for acute myeloid leukemia, including venetoclax currently are under evaluation and often used as rescue treatment. The treatment goal for lower-risk MDS is to improve cytopenia, mainly anemia, quality-of-life, and possibly overall survival. Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) constitute first-line treatment for anemia and have better and more durable responses if initiated before the onset of a permanent transfusion need. Treatment in case of ESA failure or ineligibility should be tailored to the main disease mechanism; immunosuppression for hypoplastic MDS without high-risk genetics, lenalidomide for low-risk del(5q) MDS, and luspatercept for MDS with ring sideroblasts. Approved therapeutic options are still more scarce for MDS than for most other hematological malignancies. Better tools to match disease biology with treatment, i.e. applied precision medicine is needed to improve patient outcome.


This review examines the molecular, cellular and physiological effects of magnetic fields with particular reference to the possible effects of magnetism on athletic performance. Magnetic fields have been shown to alter sub-atomic, molecular and cellular parameters, including the hydrogen bonding and solubility of water, enzyme activity, gene expression, ion transport, membrane permeability and mitochondrial function. Each of which could possibly have an effect on athletic performance, by enhancing the transport of substrates in and out of cells, up-regulating enzyme activity and enhancing the production of ATP. Magnetism has also been shown to affect the central nervous system altering neurotransmitter and hormone levels as well as altering the excitability of peripheral nerves. This could affect athletic performance by enhancing the neuromuscular control, as well as having a central effect altering the perception of pain and fatigue which, in turn, could result in an athlete being able to train harder. Human and animal studies indicate that magnetic fields may have an effect on the cardiovascular system altering the haematocrit, haemoglobin concentration, micro-vascular and vascular tone. This may affect athletic performance by enhancing the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood, as well as the perfusion to active tissue. The musculoskeletal effects of magnetic fields have been well studied and have been shown to up-regulate the growth factors associated with increased bone growth, as well as enhancing the orientation of collagen and bone. This could have important implications for athletes in the prevention and treatment of stress fractures, as well as to enhance bony union following surgery. Today magnetic fields are used to successfully treat fractures, depression, pain, wounds and other medical conditions. Exposure to magnetic fields appears to be safe with very few reported side effects, even after long-term exposure to very strong magnetic fields.
Despite these molecular, cellular and physiological changes induced by magnetic fields, there has, however, been little documented research on the possible effects of magnetism on athletic performance.


In the context of autonomous network management, the Autonomic Managers (AMs) need to collect management information from other elements in order to infer an overall state of the network considered by the decision making process. Two concurrent strategies are commonly used to achieve this operation. On one hand, approaches based on a situated view only gather information in a bounded neighborhood, thus providing a high reactivity to AMs for control operations. On the other hand, approaches based on a global view provide a good accuracy at the cost of a larger convergence time. Being able to choose the best approach in a given context is crucial to ensure the efficiency of an autonomous management system. Thus, in this paper, we perform an exhaustive performance analysis of these approaches by considering typical schemes of both of them, namely a one-hop and two-hops situated view against gossip- and tree-based global aggregation schemes. Metrics we consider are the convergence time, communication and computation cost, scalability and the accuracy of estimated aggregates. Given them, we show under which conditions an approach outperforms the others.


Dr William Wilson Ingram (1888-1982), a Scottish-born physician, contributed significantly to the health and heritage of Australia, his adopted land. Born on Speyside and educated in Aberdeen, he was a doctor-soldier in two World Wars and decorated with the Military Cross. Ingram was a Foundation Fellow (1938) of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and established one of the first specialist diabetic clinics in Australia, in Sydney in 1928. As an arachnologist, he published clinical descriptions of both surviving and fatal cases of envenomation by the Sydney funnel web spider, Atrax robustus. He founded the Kolling Institute of Medical Research at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney where for two generations he was a leader in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. The international significance of his life's work relates to his service as the medical officer and biologist on the two British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expeditions (BANZARE) of 1929-1931, for which service he was awarded the Polar Medal and subsequent Clasp. Those expeditions secured, for the British Crown, what was to become the Australian Antarctic Territory, ceded to Australia by a British Order in Council of 24 August 1936. Sir Douglas Mawson, polar expeditioner and the leader of BANZARE, described Ingram as 'an ideal medical officer', one who in addition to his clinical skills and judgement, manifested courage and 'physical endurance and a full measure of camaraderie'. Ingram has no published obituary or biography. This précis records some details of his extraordinary life.


Changes in total chlorophyll, total soluble sugar, reducing sugar and non reducing sugar were observed in five different cultivars ofmustard in response to powderymildewviz, Skm-9801, skm-9804,GM-1,Varuna and Skm- 9818 at different stages of disease infection. In fungicide treated plant ie. Control plants significantly higher value for total soluble sugar, chlorophyll and reducing sugar where as reverse trend obsereved in non reducing sugar content in all cultivars.Among the different cultivars no similar trend was observed in diseased infectional stages.


Conjugation is the primary mechanism of horizontal gene transfer that spreads antibiotic resistance among bacteria. Although conjugation normally occurs in surface-associated growth (e.g., biofilms), it has been traditionally studied in well-mixed liquid cultures lacking spatial structure, which is known to affect many evolutionary and ecological processes. Here we visualize spatial patterns of gene transfer mediated by F plasmid conjugation in a colony of Escherichia coli growing on solid agar, and we develop a quantitative understanding by spatial extension of traditional mass-action models. We found that spatial structure suppresses conjugation in surface-associated growth because strong genetic drift leads to spatial isolation of donor and recipient cells, restricting conjugation to rare boundaries between donor and recipient strains. These results suggest that ecological strategies, such as enforcement of spatial structure and enhancement of genetic drift, could complement molecular strategies in slowing the spread of antibiotic resistance genes.


The objective of this article is to review the results of a children's rights study of children without parental care or at risk of loosing parental in Lithuania. In conducting the analysis, the following research methods were applied: expert interview and focus group. Analysis of the situation showed that the main problems and obstacles preventing institutions from effectively implementing the rights of children from target groups are as such: lack of qualified specialists, insufficiently developed infrastructure, value judgements in society. To ensure that children without parental care or at risk of loosing parental care grow up in a harmonious environment, provision of information and social welfare to social risk families should be continued. Additionally, the following services should be developed in the future: individual and group consultations for parents held by different specialists, parenting education, building mutual relationships, summer camps and other socio-cultural services for children. Development of the following services would be appropriate: individual and group consultations for children held by different specialists, group and individual child development activities, activities in children's day care centres.


Have great wars become less violent over time, and is there something we might identify as the long peace? We investigate statistical versions of such questions, by examining the number of battle-deaths in the Correlates of War dataset, with 95 interstate wars from 1816 to 2007. Previous research has found this series of wars to be stationary, with no apparent change over time. We develop a framework to find and assess a change-point in this battle-deaths series. Our change-point methodology takes into consideration the power law distribution of the data, models the full battle-deaths distribution, as opposed to focusing merely on the extreme tail, and evaluates the uncertainty in the estimation. Using this framework, we find evidence that the series has not been as stationary as past research has indicated. Our statistical sightings of better angels indicate that 1950 represents the most likely change-point in the battle-deaths series – the point in time where the battle-deaths distribution might have changed for the better.


Background: Mycoplasma pneumoniae (M. pneumoniae) is an important respiratory bacterial pathogen, especially among children. It causes acute upper and lower respiratory infections.
Objective: This study was aimed to measure anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies among hospitalized children who were admitted to hospital diagnosed with acute respiratory tract infections.
Method: Automated ELISA technique was performed to detect anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies (IgM and IgG antibodies) in serum from 108 children less than 5 years old. The children were admitted to the Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Suleimani city/Kurdistan Region/Iraq because of acute respiratory tract infections. A questionnaire was designed to collect demographic and clinical data from those children.
Results: IgM anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies were positive in 15 (13.9%) out of 108 children. The highest seroprevalence was found in the age group 25-36 months while the lowest is in the age group 1-12 months. M. pneumoniae infections were more common among males than females though results were statistically not significant, and attendance of kindergarten or nursery, residency, history of chronic diseases, history of contact with similar conditions, and family history of chronic diseases, they were all statistically not significant. The IgM
seropositive children were suffering from bronchitis, croup, pneumonia, or other respiratory infections, in frequencies of 7 (46.6%), 4 (26.7%), 3 (20%), and 1 (6.7%) respectively. Increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, diagnosis of croup, and diagnosis of bronchitis were more frequent in M. pneumoniae infected group and the results were statistically significant. The IgG anti- M. pneumoniae antibodies were positive in 31 (28.8%) out of the 108 children, and the greatest IgG seroprevalence was highest in age group 49-60 months.
Conclusion: M. pneumoniae is an important respiratory pathogen among hospitalized children in Sulaimani governorate/Kurdistan/Iraq, and nearly one third of children had experienced M. pneumoniae infection by the age of five years


The research carried out in this work is in two parts: In the first part, we derive a configurational temperature Nosé-Hoover thermostat by reformulating the original Braga and Travis thermostat [J. Chem. Phys. 123 (134101), 2005] in phase space using a quasiHamiltonian approach introduced by Sergi and Ferrario [Phys. Rev. E 64 (056125), 2001]. We also present a reversible integrator based on the symmetric Trotter decomposition of propagator for harmonic potentials and for more complicated potentials, a harmonic approximation of the potential is performed locally resulting in a positiondependent harmonically approximated propagator for a general system. In the second part of our work, we present a phonostat methodology based on classical molecular dynamics and Wigner approach to quantum mechanics. We introduce quantum effects into our system by generating a thermal profile using different 'effective' temperature for the modes and coupling each one of the modes to a thermal bath. We test our phonostat algorithm against the range of temperatures and densities explored by Mausbach and May [Fluid Phase Equil. 249 (17), 2006].


This article examines the concepts of retrospective and retroactive—both forms of ex post facto—law. It shows that although the distinction between retrospective and prospective law is difficult to draw (given that laws generally alter rights), the classification of particular laws as retrospective is not arbitrary, since the proposition that only some legal rules interfere with "vested" rights is, while vague, not meaningless. Retroactive legislation is recognized to attract a long list of objections. The article seeks to identify and assess those objections, and to provide a comprehensive account of the various possible (if invariably limited) justifications for retroactivity. The conclusion offers some brief reflections on why the complaint that a law operates ex post facto is less likely to be directed at a judicial decision than at a statute.


We report on fuel cell flow-field development employing two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (2-D CFD). Simulation of the flow distribution of a parallel channel flow-field, with a simple one-channel manifold, predicted inhomogeneous performance distribution within the cell. Further modeling, focusing on modification of the inlet and outlet flow fields, was used to predict a more homogeneous flow distribution in the flow-field. Attempts were made to verify the theoretical predictions experimentally by application of the segmented cell system. Measurements of the current distribution and CO transient response supported the 2-D CFD predictions. However, the margin of error between predicted and experimental results was considered insufficient to be of practical use. Future work will involve the evaluation of 3-D CFD to achieve the appropriate level of accuracy.


Protein phosphorylation by kinases and the subsequent dephosphorylation by phosphatases are key mechanisms that regulate intracellular signal transduction during development. Here, we report the identification of the receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase DEP-1 as a negative regulator of the Caenorhabditis elegans EGF receptor. DEP-1 amplifies in the developing vulva and the excretory system the small differences in the amount of EGF signal received by equivalent precursor cells to achieve binary cell fate decisions. During vulval development, DEP-1 inhibits EGFR signaling in the secondary cell lineage in parallel with the NOTCH-mediated lateral inhibition, while EGFR signaling simultaneously down-regulates DEP-1 and NOTCH expression in the primary cell lineage. This regulatory network of inhibitors results in the full activation of the EGFR/RAS/MAPK pathway in the primary vulval cells and at the same time keeps the EGFR/RAS/MAPK pathway inactive in the adjacent secondary cells. Mammalian Dep-1/Scc1 functions as a tumor-suppressor gene in the intestinal epithelium. Thus, mutations in human Dep-1 may promote tumor formation through a hyperactivation of the EGF receptor.


Machine‐learning models are capable of capturing the structure–property relationship from a dataset of computationally demanding ab initio calculations. Over the past two years, the Organic Materials Database (OMDB) has hosted a growing number of calculated electronic properties of previously synthesized organic crystal structures. The complexity of the organic crystals contained within the OMDB, which have on average 82 atoms per unit cell, makes this database a challenging platform for machine learning applications. In this paper, the focus is on predicting the band gap which represents one of the basic properties of a crystalline material. With this aim, a consistent dataset of 12 500 crystal structures and their corresponding DFT band gap are released, freely available for download at https://omdb.mathub.io/dataset. An ensemble of two state‐of‐the‐art models reach a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.388 eV, which corresponds to a percentage error of 13% for an average band gap of 3.05 eV. Finally, the trained models are employed to predict the band gap for 260 092 materials contained within the Crystallography Open Database (COD) and made available online so that the predictions can be obtained for any arbitrary crystal structure uploaded by a user.


Toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) is a life-threatening disease, the pathogenesis of which remains largely unknown. We describe a 23-year-old woman under treatment with clobazam who developed lesions of TEN in light-exposed areas. Patch and photopatch tests with clobazam were negative. The cellular phenotype and cytokines were studied in blister fluid. The cellular infiltrate was composed mainly of T lymphocytes with a predominant cytotoxic phenotype. There was an increase in the level of tumour necrosis factor (TNE)-or in blister fluid compared with the con-trol (a patient with bullous pemphigoid). - -