Many prior studies show that, with technology embedded in all we do, and more than half of the world's population now connected to the internet, forecasts of the global economy being 60% digitised by 2022, means the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is upon us. The readiness of countries, including South Africa (SA), and whether and how they have prepared, planned and organised for this revolution, offers little empirical research. To date, no clarity exists with regards to social re-skilling, infrastructural adjustments, technology up scaling, and human resource readiness, as well as economic re-capitalisation. This study aims at providing input to assist with closing this research gap, seeking understanding and knowledge around creative methodologies for 4IR in SA, and the extent of perceived readiness and various factors confronting the country's readiness in the coming industrial revolution. The study population consisted of 287 participants from seven selected business areas in the province of KwaZulu- Natal (KZN, SA. The target population was determined by quota sampling method, while the measuring instrument was a 3-point Likert-scaled questionnaire, designed and personally administered to respondents, allowing 10 days for completion. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 24.0) was used for data analysis and research findings presented in tables. The study highlighted that many respondents do not believe SA is ready for 4IR. The findings of this research should be used with care, as the sample is very small; the study recommends further empirical studies with larger numbers, which will include other provinces.


This paper analyzes the urban edges of historic cities. Managing these edges would enhance the success of any intervention projects inside the historic fabric. The paper develops and tests a method of analytical assessment framework that is applicable for quantitative analysis within an urban edge. It is capable of measuring micro and macro levels of analysis of historic urban edges with reference to their spatial configuration. In addition, the paper searches for repetitive spatial configuration patterns. The main case study is Historic Cairo. The paper reveals that there are apparent patterns of cause and effect of both spatial configurations and related activities along the urban edges, forming different type of barriers. The paper discovers the repetitive spatial, architectural, and land-use patterns that exist on various edges. These patterns enable the possibility of learning and acquiring from other successful interventions that have been applied to similar patterns, without being limited to cultural or contextual differences.


Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor-based clusters offer high compute and memory performance for parallel workloads and also support direct network access. Many real world applications are significantly impacted by network characteristics and to maximize the performance of such applications on these clusters, it is particularly important to effectively saturate network bandwidth and/or hide communications latency. We demonstrate how to do so using techniques such as pipelined DMAs for data transfer, dynamic chunk sizing, and better asynchronous progress. We also show a method for, and the impact of avoiding serialization and maximizing parallelism during application communication phases. Additionally, we apply application optimizations focused on balancing computation and communication in order to hide communication latency and improve utilization of cores and of network bandwidth. We demonstrate the impact of our techniques on three well known and highly optimized HPC kernels running natively on the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor. For the Wilson-Dslash operator from Lattice QCD, we characterize the improvements from each of our optimizations for communication performance, apply our method for maximizing concurrency during communication phases, and show an overall 48% improvement from our previously best published result. For HPL/LINPACK, we show 68.5% efficiency with 97 TFLOPs on 128 Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors, the first ever reported native HPL efficiency on a coprocessor-based supercomputer. For FFT, we show 10.8 TFLOPs using 1024 Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors on the TACC Stampede cluster, the highest reported performance on any Intel Architecture-based cluster and the first such result to be reported on a coprocessor-based supercomputer.


Abstract In this paper we study a Hamilton-Jacobi equation related to the boundary control of a parabolic equation with Neumann boundary conditions. The state space of this problem is a Hilbert space and the equation is defined classically only on a dense subset of the state space. Moreover the Hamiltonian appearing in the equation contains fractional powers of an unbounded operator. These facts render the problem difficult. In this paper we give a revised definition of a viscosity solution to accommodate the unboundness of the Hamiltonian. We then obtain existence and uniqueness results for viscosity solutions. In particular we show that under suitable assumptions the value function of the boundary control problem is the unique viscosity solution of the related Hamilton-Jacobi equation.


Wenchuan Earthquake triggered a large number of geological hazards, dramatically stimulating soil erosion. This study was carried out in Pengzhou County, Sichuan Province. By comparison of sediment, runoff and nutrient losses in earthquake-damaged forests (EF) and unaffected forests (UF), the actual status of soil erosion after the Wenchuan Earthquake was investigated by runoff plots. Results showed that water and soil losses were dramatically increased after earthquake. During the study period (from August to November 2010), UF runoffs were 19.26, 36.76, 10.68 and 7.51 L m(-2), while total runoffs in EF sites were 30.41, 25.79, 5.03 and 2.67 L m(-2) respectively, which were 15, 15, 18 and 19 times more than those in UF. Total sediment losses in EF sites were 28.94, 25.16, 4.11 and 1.98 t km(-2) respectively while in UF they were 707.69, 610.05, 113.43 and 58.95 t km(-2) respectively during the same study period, i.e. 23, 23, 32 and 29 times more than those in UF. Path analysis showed that both vegetation and rainfall exerted an indirect influence on sediment loss by significantly influencing runoff, which correlated with sediment loss very significantly. Although no obvious differences of the nutrients' concentration in runoff water (soluble organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and total potassium (TK)) between EF and UF sites were observed, total losses of the four nutrients were significantly higher in EF than in UF sites (for example, in EF sites, SOC, TN, TP and TK losses were 970.52, 114.46, 2.26 and 307.00 g m(-2) respectively, while in UF they were 38.13, 4.22, 0.10 and 13.28 g m(-2)) due to significantly higher runoff in EF sites. In conclusion, soil erosion was significantly more serious due to the loss of forested lands resulting from the Wenchuan Earthquake, delaying the restoring process of forest cover and weakening the ecological linkage between upstream and downstream.


ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY USED TO DETERMINE THE YOUNG'S MODULUS OF VASCULAR SMOOTH MUSCLE CELLS by Samuel C. Lieber The Young's modulus of cultured mouse and rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) was measured with an atomic force microscope (AFM). The AFM can image the threedimensional structure of biological cells in a physiological environment enabling realtime biochemical and physiological processes to be monitored at a resolution similar to that obtained for the electron microscope (EM). Cellular mechanical properties were determined by indenting the cell's body, and analyzing the indentation data with classical infinitesimal strain theory. This calculation was accomplished by modeling the AFM probe as a cone, as well as a blunted cone. The blunted cone geometry fits the AFM force indentation data well and was used to calculate the Young's Modulus (E) of the respective VSMC cell body under various conditions. HEPES, a buffer solution commonly used to maintain pH in culture was found to alter the Young's Modulus (E) and the morphology of rat cells. Old mouse VSMCs had a higher Young's Modulus (E) than younger ones, with a clear change in cytoskeleton morphology. A change in cell body morphology was seen after application of drug treatment. ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY USED TO DETERMINE THE YOUNG'S MODULUS OF VASCULAR SMOOTH MUSCLE CELLS


Performance trees are a recently-proposed mechanism for the specification of performance properties and measures. They represent an attractive alternative to stochastic logics, since they support traditional stochastic model checking queries, while also allowing for the direct extraction of a wide range of quantitative measures. In this paper we illustrate differences in expressiveness between performance trees and continuous stochastic logic (CSL), and present quantitative semantics showing the mathematical basis underlying performance tree operators. As a running example, we demonstrate performance query specification with performance trees on a stochastic Petri net model of a healthcare system.


Summary and Conclusions
During August and September 1951, forest canopy mosquito collections were made at two localities in Costa Rica where sylvan yellow fever was active. Haemagogus spegazzinii falco, a species which has been found naturally infected with yellow fever on a number of occasions in Colombia, was the commonest species of the genus present at Wauchope and was at least as abundant at San Gerardo as it had been at localities where yellow fever appeared in Panama in the two years previous. The conservative course would be to take this association at face value and consider this species the probable vector in this outbreak.
Haemagogus spegazzinii falco is ordinarily an inhabitant of the upper stories of primary tropical rain forest, but at Wauchope we found it commonly at ground level in cacao plantation in which the original forest cover had been thinned to provide the partial shade necessary for cacao trees. In these circumstances the canopy habitat is simulated at ground level and the stratification of spegazzinii falco is less pronounced. Such a situation provides conditions under which there is danger of sylvan yellow fever transmission on the ground.
Other Haemagogus present were H. equinus and H. lucifer-iridicolor. The former is known to be capable of transmitting virus in the laboratory but has never been found infected with certainty in nature. Nothing is known of the vector status of the latter two species. As the numbers of H. spegazzinii falco present were ample to explain the transmission of yellow fever in the area, these species need not be considered in the present circumstance.
The commonest sabethine mosquito present was Sabethes chloropterus. Its status as a vector is unknown, but on epidemiological grounds we considered it suspect in Panama, and note with interest its present association with yellow fever.


Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is spreading rapidly with no established effective treatments. While most cases are mild, others experience uncontrolled inflammatory responses with oxidative stress, dysregulation of iron and coagulation as features. Lactoferrin, ovotransferrin and lysozyme are abundant, safe antimicrobials that have wide antiviral as well as immunomodulatory properties. In particular, lactoferrin restores iron homeostasis and inhibits replication of SARS-CoV, which is closely related to SARS-CoV-2. Ovotransferrin has antiviral peptides and activities that are shared with lactoferrin. Both lactoferrin and lysozyme are 'immune sensing' as they may stimulate immune responses or resolve inflammation. Mechanisms by which these antimicrobials may treat or prevent COVID-19, as well as sources and forms of these, are reviewed.


Human balance ability declines with age and falls due to balance deficiencies cause significant health problems. Nintendo Wii FIT was introduced as a possible alternative to traditional balance training regimens. To determine the changes Wii FIT causes in balance ability, eight healthy normal elders (age = 79-93) with no balance concerns and six healthy elders (age = 80-91) with mild to moderate balance concerns volunteered to be participants in this study. Balance ability was determined prior to and following a 12- or 18-session training regimen using gait mechanics analysis, functional balance assessment, and center of pressure movement analysis. The gait mechanics analysis revealed significant changes in stride rate and walking velocity for the normal elderly group, and in step width for the group with mild/moderate balance concerns. The average movement of the center of pressure during a 10 s standing test did not change significantly between the pre- and post-test for either group. The functional balance assessments used were the Berg Balance Scale and Tinetti Test. Each assessment recorded significant changes from pre- to post test for each of the groups. These results show a slight increase in balance ability. It is possible that the generally insignificant findings are the result of the inability of the tests used to properly assess the balance mechanisms trained with Wii FIT. In conclusion, 12- and 18-session training programs showed only slight differences in the balance ability of elderly adults with and without balance concerns.

Supported by the Borgenicht Program for Aging Studies and Exercise Science


The European Union (EU) maintains that the word "Prosecco" is a geographical indication for a type of wine made in Northern Italy, rather than a grape variety. This position has been relied on by the EU to ban the importation of any wine labelled as Prosecco into the EU, and into other countries with which the EU has free trade agreements. Moreover, the EU is demanding that Australian wine producers be prohibited from marketing wine labelled Prosecco in Australia, as a condition of its entry into a bilateral trade agreement. Based on a detailed historical analysis of the use of the term Prosecco in Italy, this article argues that that the EU's characterisation of the term is erroneous and is intended to operate to protect Italian Prosecco producers from international competition. By implication, the EU regulation is likely to contravene Article 20 of the World Trade Organization's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement (which prohibits governments from unjustifiably encumbering the use of trademarks) and Article 2.1 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, (which prohibits, inter alia, technical regulations pertaining to terminology and labelling that unjustifiably discriminate between similar domestic and imported products). Furthermore, a prohibition on the use of the word Prosecco on Australian products in the Australian market may be inconsistent with the Australian Constitution, which prohibits the acquisition of property by government on other than just terms. These issues also point to a more fundamental question: namely, whether and if so to what extent domestic legal systems may permissibly be used to generate claims to intellectual property that are then used to leverage international protection for that intellectual property.


Trusty's Hill is an early medieval fort at Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway. The hillfort comprises a fortified citadel defined by a vitrified rampart around its summit, with a number of enclosures looping out along lower-lying terraces and crags. The approach to its summit is flanked on one side by a circular rock-cut basin and on the other side by Pictish Symbols carved on to the face of a natural outcrop of bedrock. This Pictish inscribed stone is unique in Dumfries and Galloway, and southern Scotland, and has long puzzled scholars as to why the symbols were carved so far from Pictland and even if they are genuine.

The Galloway Picts Project, launched in 2012, aimed to recover evidence for the archaeological context for the inscribed stone, but far from validating the existence of Picts in this southerly region of Scotland, the archaeological context instead suggests the carvings relate to a royal stronghold and place of inauguration for the local Britons of Galloway around AD 600. Examined in the context of contemporary sites across Scotland and northern England, the archaeological evidence from Galloway suggests that this region may have been the heart of the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged, a kingdom that was in the late sixth century pre-eminent amongst the kingdoms of the north. The new archaeological evidence from Trusty's Hill enhances our perception of power, politics, economy and culture at a time when the foundations for the kingdoms of Scotland, England and Wales were being laid.


Nigeria, which is variously described by some people as 'a geographical expression', 'a unique nation', 'the giant of Africa', 'the most populous black nation on earth', among several others, had three distinct governments in the year 1993 alone. Against this background of political instability, numerous discourses which should be of interest and significance to linguists, political scientists, historians, social anthropologists and discourse analysts of various persuasions are examined in this work. Notable is the emergence of the metaphorical use of the word child in the farewell speech of the deposed Head-of-State, Chief Ernest Oladeinde Shonekan, when he spoke of the interim regime as 'a child of circumstance' and in the inaugural speech of the then new Head-of-State, General Sani Abacha, as 'a child of necessity'. These expressions were used not only as part of the reasons for either taking up or rather seizing the mantle of leadership but also as descriptive signals both to the state of the nation and the kind of government that they purported to lead. Using articles in some national newspapers, I attempt in this paper a functional-semiotic discourse analysis of the relevant statements, responses and comments on these national, dramatic, political changes. This paper is therefore an analysis of aspects of the linguistic features of discourses engendered by the diverse problematic, economic, socio-cultural and political events within the Nigerian polity and the political implications for putting in place adequate democratic principles in a developing nation.


Daghestanian languages of the Caucasus show consistent use of the dative and locative cases to mark subject arguments with certain verbs, most notably the experiencers of the verbs 'see', 'hear', 'know', 'want', 'forget', 'find' and some others. Although this pattern is very stable and can probably be reconstructed for Proto-Daghestanian, variation in experiencer marking reveals that diachronic changes happened to non-canonical subjects at a later stage of evolution. The paper looks into two related issues concerning the diachrony of experiencer subjects in Daghestanian languages: the relative diachronic stability of non-canonical case marking and non-canonical agreement, and the loss of non-canonical subjects in Udi and Dargwa.


A field study was conducted to investigate effect of phosphorus and different levels of irrigation on growth and yield of maize at the Agronomic Research Area, Faculty of Agricultural sciences and Technology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, during autumn 2016.The Experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design (RCBD) with split plot courses of action having three replications with net plot size of 4m x 3m. The crop was sown in 75 cm spaced rows, while plant to plant distance was maintained at 30 cm with the help of dibbler. Experimental treatments comprised of two irrigation level sand four phosphorus levels. The crop was harvested at maturity and the data were recorded by using the standard procedures. Maximum grain yield was obtained at full irrigation levels where phosphorus was applied @ 100 kg ha-1. All the growth and yield parameter increased with full irrigation levels with application of Phosphorus at the rate of 100 kg ha-1 while it was decreased where half irrigation was applied. Increase in P2O5 rates upto100 kg ha-1 enhanced the plant height, cob length, cob weight, thousands grain weight, Beyond application of 100 kg P2O5 ha-1 there was no significant increase in number of grains cob-1, thousand grain weight and other growth parameters. It is recommended that maize crop should preferably be fertilized @ 100 kg Phosphorus per hectare to get maximum grain yield under the ecological conditions of Multan.


CLAIMS ABOUT DETRIMENTAL economic effects of product liability are a cornerstone of efforts by tort reformers to rally support. It seems fair to say, however, that existing evidence about economic effects of product liability is sketchy. ' In this paper, we attempt to develop information about a narrow but important piece of a very complex puzzle. In particular, we develop quantitative evidence about a component of automobile manufacturers' incentives stemming from product liability by examining effects of trial verdicts on company stock prices and on new vehicle sales. We know of no similar study.2


Journey to the Centre of the Earth has been consistently praised for its style and its vision of the world. It explores the prehistory of the globe, but can also be read as a psychological quest, for the journey itself is as important as arrival or discovery. Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel travel across Iceland, and then down through an extinct crater towards a sunless sea where they enter a living past and are confronted with the origins of man. A classic of nineteenth-century French literature, the novel's distinctive combination of realism and Romanticism has marked figures as diverse as Sartre and Tournier, Mark Twain and Conan Doyle. This new translation of the complete text is faithful to the lyricism, verve, and humour of the original. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


Explainable deep learning models are advantageous in many situations. Prior work mostly provide unimodal explanations through post-hoc approaches not part of the original system design. Explanation mechanisms also ignore useful textual information present in images. In this paper, we propose MTXNet, an end-to-end trainable multimodal architecture to generate multimodal explanations, which focuses on the text in the image. We curate a novel dataset TextVQA-X, containing ground truth visual and multi-reference textual explanations that can be leveraged during both training and evaluation. We then quantitatively show that training with multimodal explanations complements model performance and surpasses unimodal baselines by up to 7% in CIDEr scores and 2% in IoU. More importantly, we demonstrate that the multimodal explanations are consistent with human interpretations, help justify the models' decision, and provide useful insights to help diagnose an incorrect prediction. Finally, we describe a real-world e-commerce application for using the generated multimodal explanations.


Alan Chong Lau's poetic memoir of his days as a produce worker in Seattle's Chinatown reveals a microcosm of grassroots, working-class Asian America -- a world where customers, workers, and fruits and vegetables intersect in exchanges that crackle with energy and brim over with humor. With the simple profundity of a Zen koan, the poems bear witness to people's humanity. Lau portrays in words and pictures a community in constant flux as it moves to the push and pull of immigration. Blues and Greens has a lot to say about Asian Americans. What emerges is an acutely observed, nuanced critique of where Asian Americans -- native-born, refugee, and migrant -- are today.


This report documents the roles of formerly incarcerated leaders engaged in work related to reducing incarceration and rebuilding communities, drawing on in-depth interviews with 48 of these leaders conducted over a period of 14 months. These "leaders with conviction" have developed a set of capabilities that enable them to advance transformative change, both in the lives of individuals affected by mass incarceration and in the criminal legal systems that have devastated so many lives and communities. Their leadership assumes particular importance in the era of the Trump Presidency, when the durability of the ideological coalitions to undo the failed apparatus of mass incarceration will be tested.
Our analysis of these interviews indicates that a particular set of qualities equips this group of formerly incarcerated leaders to serve as organizational catalysts. Organizational catalysts are individuals with knowledge, influence, and credibility who are in a position to mobilize change. They operate at the intersection of communities and systems that do not usually interact, and bring a track record of commitment and an ability to communicate across different backgrounds and cultures. They can transform organizations and networks by (1) mobilizing varied forms of knowledge to promote change, (2) developing collaborations in strategic locations, (3) cultivating new organizational catalysts, and (4) maintaining pressure and support for action.
The leaders share three important characteristics contributing to their evolution into organizational catalysts: (1) first-hand experience with the criminal legal system, (2) education that legitimizes and enhances their knowledge and leadership capacity, and (3) jobs and activist positions placing them at the intersection of different communities and systems. This combination affords them multifaceted insight into the needs, barriers, and opportunities for transformation, as well as the legitimacy and influence needed to mobilize change based on that knowledge.
These leaders with conviction have developed the capacity to mobilize unusually diverse forms of social capital. As such, formerly incarcerated leaders are bonders (maintaining ties and sharing resources among those with a common identity linked to experiencing and seeking to transform the criminal justice system), bridgers (connecting individuals who would not ordinarily come in contact), and linkers (linking those with direct experience and knowledge of criminal justice to people in positions to influence public policy and change the public narrative).
The leaders use their social capital both as an engine of mobility for those affected by mass incarceration and as a vehicle for catalyzing change. Their varied knowledge and experience equip them to speak the language of many different communities, and thus to communicate effectively with different audiences. They build trust with people who have experienced consistent stigmatization and dispel myths among people who hold stereotypes that have prevented them from learning the realities of the criminal justice system.
Three structural supports emerged from this study as crucial building blocks of leaders with conviction: (1) relationships with people who believe in them and support their development, including when they struggle, (2) education and training that cultivates their identity and capacity as leaders, and (3) institutional and policy design that makes them full participants in the decision-making process.


This book examines a series of controversies surrounding Israel's use of force and its failure to prevent violence. Influenced by Weber's definition of the state as the 'monopoly of violence', politcial scientists and criminologists alike have focused their attention on the legitimation struggles of non-state actors who resort to violence. This book redresses the balance. Chapters are devoted to the public discourse about Palestinian and Jewish terrorism, the war in Lebanon, the alleged connection between verbal violence of government leaders and the physical violence of its supporters, and the use of history to justify the state use of force. The conclusion considers why these controversies play such a central role in Israeli politics and presents a number of suggestions as to the function they fulfil in other Western societies.


Herein, an electrode architecture design using three-dimensional carbon/ZnO nanomembrane composite foam (C/ZnO NM foam) was proposed to achieve highly stable areal capacity at a practical mass loading. The composite, consisting of three-dimensional interconnected carbon foam anchored with two-dimensional ZnO NMs, was directly used as an anode of a lithium-ion battery without additional additives. The large surface area and high porosity of the carbon foam lead to a high ZnO loading of 3–4 mg cm−2. The flexibility of the ZnO NMs, effective electronic and ionic transport throughout the three-dimensional composite structure, and capacity from the carbon foam enhance the areal capacity and stability of the composite. Thus, the synthesized anode retains 92% capacity after 700 cycles at 2 A g−1 and after 500 cycles at 5 A g−1 and manifests a remarkable areal capacity of 4.3 mA h cm−2. The proposed approach and the composite structure produced in this study may have important potential applications in many fields requiring high energy storage capacity.


In this paper, the issue of the night journey (Isrā') and the ascent to heaven (Mirāj) will be discussed from several aspects. First, the date of these occurrences will be considered, then, an interpretation of these events from the view of both the Qur'an and the sirahs is presented. As a third issue, the paper will deal with the question of whether the Isrā' and Mirāj were only spiritual or whether they happened to both the soul and the body of the Prophet. The interpretation of these events from the point of view of rationality and modern sciences is a fundamental issue. This paper also deals with that the subject of 'the Prophet and Miracles'.


This article investigates the application of game theory to the sphere of investor-state dispute settlement and related dispute resolution strategies through international arbitration. When deciding whether either to bring or to defend a claim rather than pursue settlement, investors and states will select a strategy to maximize their respective payoffs, either by securing compensation or successfully defeating a claim for compensation. This article will develop a model decision making strategy for claimant investors and defendant states based on the observed patterns of outcomes in actual investment treaty arbitration awards. Embedding the problem in the context of utility and hence risk-aversion, it will go on to offer a general solution for the arbitration "game" based on risk-neutral participants using historic data on the allocation of costs, the probability of claimant victory and the scaling of claims in past arbitration awards. The mathematics will quantify the probability of claimant victory below which it would not be reasonable for a potential claimant to proceed. Furthermore, an algorithm has been developed for calculating the settlement sum that the respondent may offer with a reasonable expectation of acceptance by the claimant. While the claimant's chances of success may be disputed by the two parties in any particular case, a long-run average for the probability of success may be calculated for a general claimant, which might prove more acceptable as a proxy. The resulting algorithm is then tested and corroborated against published data on previous arbitration outcomes.


BACKGROUND
Dyslipidemia causes coronary heart disease in middle-aged and elderly adults, but the consequences of lipid exposure during young adulthood are unclear.

OBJECTIVE
To assess whether nonoptimal lipid levels during young adulthood cause atherosclerotic changes that persist into middle age.

DESIGN
Prospective cohort study.

SETTING
4 cities in the United States.

PARTICIPANTS
3258 participants from the 5115 black and white men and women recruited at age 18 to 30 years in 1985 to 1986 for the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study.

MEASUREMENTS
Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, triglycerides, and coronary calcium. Time-averaged cumulative exposures to lipids between age 20 and 35 years were estimated by using repeated serum lipid measurements over 20 years in the CARDIA study; these measurements were then related to coronary calcium scores assessed later in life (45 years [SD, 4]).

RESULTS
2824 participants (87%) had nonoptimal levels of LDL cholesterol (>or=2.59 mmol/L [>or=100 mg/dL]), HDL cholesterol (<1.55 mmol/L [<60 mg/dL]), or triglycerides (>or=1.70 mmol/L [>or=150 mg/dL]) during young adulthood. Coronary calcium prevalence 2 decades later was 8% in participants who maintained optimal LDL levels (<1.81 mmol/L [<70 mg/dL]), and 44% in participants with LDL cholesterol levels of 4.14 mmol/L (160 mg/dL) or greater (P < 0.001). The association was similar across race and sex and strongly graded, with odds ratios for coronary calcium of 1.5 (95% CI, 0.7 to 3.3) for LDL cholesterol levels of 1.81 to 2.56 mmol/L (70 to 99 mg/dL), 2.4 (CI, 1.1 to 5.3) for levels of 2.59 to 3.34 mmol/L (100 to 129 mg/dL), 3.3 (CI, 1.3 to 7.8) for levels of 3.37 to 4.12 mmol/L (130 to 159 mg/dL), and 5.6 (CI, 2.0 to 16) for levels of 4.14 mmol/L (160 mg/dL) or greater, compared with levels less than 1.81 mmol/L (<70 mg/dL), after adjustment for lipid exposure after age 35 years and other coronary risk factors. Both LDL and HDL cholesterol levels were independently associated with coronary calcium after participants who were receiving lipid-lowering medications or had clinically abnormal lipid levels were excluded.

LIMITATION
Coronary calcium, although a strong predictor of future coronary heart disease, is not a clinical outcome.

CONCLUSION
Nonoptimal levels of LDL and HDL cholesterol during young adulthood are independently associated with coronary atherosclerosis 2 decades later.

PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.


The conventional account of our remedial tradition recognizes that courts may engage in discretionary public interest balancing to withhold the specific remedies typically administered in equity. But it generally does not acknowledge that courts possess the same power with respect to the substitutionary remedies usually provided at law. The conventional account has things backwards when it comes to constitutional remedies. The modern Supreme Court frequently requires the withholding of substitutionary constitutional relief under doctrines developed to protect the perceived public interest. Yet it has treated specific relief to remedy ongoing or imminent invasions of rights as routine, at least when the underlying claim is justiciable and subject to neither a judicial federalism doctrine nor statutory preclusion.This paper details the reversal of the conventional account of remedial power and advances a two-part hypothesis that the Court's behavior traces an appropriate con- stitutional boundary. The hypothesis is as follows. First, substitutionary constitutional remedies, while integral to the proper functioning of our constitutional order, are individually contingent and susceptible of legislative or judicial expansion, contraction, or replacement as the perceived public interest dictates. But second, specific relief must be available for justiciable and meritorious claims of constitutional right to which neither a judicial federalism nor a statutory diversion doctrine applies, and an effective constitutional remedy ultimately must be available even in these exceptional cases.


We have investigated bacterial factors required for the entry of Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B into mucosal cells using a novel in vitro infection model of primary cultures of human nasopharyngeal epithelium. An invasive meningococcal phenotype was obtained after several cycles of selection for intracellular bacteria with gentamicin. Invasive bacteria differed from those in the initial inoculum in that they lacked a capsule and pili, exhibited a nonsialylated low-molecular-weight type of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and produced a new 28-kDa opacity outer membrane protein. LPS revertants of the selected meningococci expressed a nonsialylated L3,(7,9) type of LPS and were also invasive, while after LPS sialylation bacterial entry was inhibited. Variants lacking the 28-kDa opacity protein were poorly invasive. Coexpression of the outer membrane protein Opc and the 28-kDa opacity protein strongly inhibited microbial invasion into the primary cultured nasopharyngeal cells. Conversely, meningococcal internalization by cells of various epithelia] cell lines was correlated with the expression of Opc rather than the 28-kDa opacity protein. Our data indicate that a concurrent phase switching of multiple phase-variable bacterial surface components may be a prerequisite for meningococcal invasion into nasopharyngeal epithelium and that meningococcal class 5 proteins (Opa and Opc) may promote tissue tropism.


There is nothing self-evidently attractive about separation — whether of church and state or anything else — as a model for individual or collective life. Pursuing separation is not like pursuing knowledge or friendship — ends that are intrinsically good. Separation must be justified by some contingent reason. Though the Constitution speaks of the free exercise of "religion" and "religion's" non-establishment, much of the confusion about separation as an American civic ideal results from a failure to focus on the specifically historical and contingent justifications for it. These justifications concern not "religion" in general or in the abstract but Christianity in specific — Christianity being, as a historical and cultural matter, the central religious tradition of the United States.
These historical justifications have taken two cardinal forms. The first concerns the politico-theological benefits that are believed to devolve onto Christian churches, or onto Christian believers, from division from the state, and the general social and political advantages derived therefrom. The second involves the secular benefits to the liberal democratic state of unbreachable barriers against the civic and cultural influence of Christianity. The first justification is more ancient, but the second is more powerful today. The first is oriented positively, and the second negatively, toward the cultural and political value of Christianity in the United States. The first sees Christianity as precious. The second sees it as irrelevant or even obnoxious.
This chapter distinguishes and explores the two separations — separation as a specifically Christian piece of political theology, in large part for the benefit of a Christian civil society; and separation as a specifically secular position for the benefit of a liberal society that wishes to divest from and repudiate Christianity. It then describes the allure of equality and nondiscrimination as church-state ideals, their ascendancy in late twentieth century constitutional law, and the sense in which they are believed to have supplanted separation.
But neither equality nor nondiscrimination delivers what it promises: a valueless perspective on the social and political worth of Christianity. In fact, their perspective is decidedly negative. The chapter explains this claim by comparing the use of these principles in the contexts of race and sex discrimination, where the overriding assumption is that race and sex are fundamentally irrelevant considerations, and obnoxious and illegitimate bases on which to make laws and to order society. Transposed to the context of religion — and, as this chapter argues, the transposition in reality concerns Christianity specifically — a similar assumption holds: that Christianity is fundamentally an irrelevant, or even an obnoxious, and illegitimate, influence in the making of laws or the structuring of the cultural and political realms. Indeed, in a society in which Christianity has had such overwhelming predominance, insisting on equality is tantamount to squelching it. This view is not neutral as to the value of Christianity in contemporary American politics and society. It is nothing less than an expression of the second separation.


The popular image of the Jewish community is that it consists primarily of members of the middle and upper middle classes. But this image is far from true. Poor Jews: An American Awakening shatters, once and for all, the stereotype of Jewish affluence. Citing national data and descriptions of the life-styles of the Jewish poor, the authors reveal unique social characteristics of the Jewish poor--including the surprising statistic that over two-thirds of the members of this group are past the age of sixty, thus experiencing the compounded disadvantage of being poor, elderly, and deserted by the young, mobile Jewish community. Reasons for the "invisibility" of Jewish poverty are examined, as well as how the Jewish community has responded to poverty within its own ethnic group and Jewish attitudes toward the welfare state and charity. The lack of Jewish participation in antipoverty programs is cited, along with measures which will bring them fully into this and other federal and state programs.


This Article examines the historical development of Alaska's debtor protections from their beginnings in the period of initial federal administration to the present. The current Alaska statutes protecting certain property of debtors from their creditors descended from policies first enacted by Congress. Although federal authority began in 1867 with the area's acquisition from Russia, Congress did not provide for governmental administration in Alaska until 1884, which act also provided Alaska its first debtor protection statutes. Extension of the federal Homestead Act to Alaska in 1898 brought the first protections for settlers' homesteads from their creditors. By 1912 and the creation of the territorial government, Congress had set the basic structure of debtor protection in Alaska. Unlike those states which insisted historically on placing certain debtor protections within their constitutions, public policy in Alaska has deemed statutory structures adequate to protect a debtor's interests.


The ways in which society responds to pregnant women whose behavior purportedly harms their fetuses can be explored from a variety of legal vantage points. This article argues that the criminal law model currently used is ineffective. The assignment of criminal liability to pregnant women is often rooted in fetal personhood and maternal deviance discourse. Criminal law solutions fail because they fail to take into account the fact that maternal behavior is often the result of a myriad of the social and economic conditions over which pregnant women have little or no control. The criminal law model, therefore, simply punishes women without any corresponding benefit to fetal health. And in effect, work to treat pregnant women in an instrumental way, as people whose primary purpose and responsibility is the health of others. This article argues that use of the public health model is superior in three ways. First, as a pragmatic matter, public health's emphasis on harm prevention focuses attention on and proposes solutions to the problem of how to better ensure the health of women of child bearing age – especially those women who face social and economic barriers to good health. Second, public health's pragmatic emphasis on harm reduction focuses attention on and proposes solutions to the problem of poor fetal and neonatal health. Finally, by its emphasis on social justice, the public health model encourages policy makers to focus on the dignity of women, including the absence of coercion and the availability of a sufficient number of meaningful options.


This paper measures the degree of medical literacy in Robeson County and to better improve the understanding of various cardiovascular ailments. This will be done through numerous Heart Health Literacy Tables held at a local venue, Golden Corral (Lumberton, NC). Blood pressures will be administered on-site for willing participants, American Heart Association literature will be provided and explained, and comparisons will be drawn between the data collected and national values. Trends were seen, such as a greater participation of women, a higher incidence of hypertension in African Americans than other ethnicities (in contrast to their population sizes), and an upward trend in participation with respect to age. Overall, results corresponded nicely with national averages, with the exception that we had a larger percentage of Native American volunteers. This can be attributed to the proximity of the literacy table venue to the Lumbee Tribe population (Pembroke, NC). Strategies for improved methodology in communicating with patients, bridging the literacy gap, and blood pressure measurements are given as well.


Katherine Newey, in her study of nineteenth century female playwrights, has written of those, 'who routinely worked for money, in theatres where the takings were as important as aesthetic achievement or legitimacy'. While Joanne Shattock, in a study of women authors, acknowledges that earnings were the key to a woman's professionalism. With her short hair, masculine style of dress and her penchant for cigarettes, Clotilde Graves (1863-1932) epitomised the vigorous New Woman of the fin de siècle. Drawing on previously unused material from Graves's case file, held in the Royal Literary Fund Archive, this thesis charts her progress as a writer to explore both the motivational force of economics on her literary career, and its impact on her various discourses as a journalist, playwright and novelist. The study, divided into three sections, explores a number of key themes including: sexual abuse, marriage, the fallen woman, and the maternal ideal, to assess Graves's development as both a writer and an advocate of social purity feminism. The thesis exposes the precarious nature of the writer's profession, especially for a woman, and reveals the demands on Graves to balance personal beliefs against the immediate need to earn a living. Though she died penniless her extensive output included innumerable articles, twenty plays, nine compilations of short stories, and fifteen novels. The thesis appraises Graves's adoption of male aliases and her employment of autobiographical material, which is contextualised against the production of her most popular novel, The Dop Doctor. This work shows that compromise was often a prerequisite and confirms that commerciality did not necessarily translate into financial achievement, nor did it provide economic security. This recovery of a forgotten female writer, of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, contributes to the growing body of work in this field.


The development of high sensitivity biosensors, for example for clinical diagnostics, requires the identification of suitable receptor molecules which offer high stability, specificity and affinity, even when embedded into solid-state biosensor transducers. Here, we present an electrochemical biosensor employing small synthetic receptor proteins (Mw < 15 kDa) which emulate antibodies but with improved stability, sensitivity and molecular recognition properties, in particular when immobilized on a solid sensor surface. The synthetic receptor protein is a non-antibody-based protein scaffold with variable peptide regions inserted to provide the specific binding, and was designed to bind anti-myc tag antibody (Mw ∼ 150 kDa), as a proof-of-principle exemplar. Both the scaffold and the selected receptor protein were found to have high thermostability with melting temperatures of 101 °C and 85 °C, respectively. Furthermore, the secondary structures of the receptor protein were found to be very similar to that of the original native scaffold, despite the insertion of variable peptide loops that create the binding sites. A label-free electrochemical sensor was fabricated by functionalising a microfabricated gold electrode with the receptor protein. A change in the phase of the electrochemical impedance was observed when the biosensor was subjected to anti-myc tag antibodies at concentrations between 6.7 pM and 6.7 nM. These findings demonstrate that these non-antibody receptor proteins are excellent candidates for recognition molecules in label-free biosensors.


This paper studies automated classification of Human Epithelial Type-2 (HEp-2) cell images which is essential in diagnosing the Autoimmune Diseases (AD). The prevalent approach for this problem makes use of the Bag of Words (BoW) model and sparse coding scheme on over complete dictionaries, where the dictionary dimension is usually much larger than feature dimension. In addition, this approach usually requires manual selection of the dictionary dimension which is often troublesome and dependent highly on specific applications and datasets. We proposed a non-parametric Bayesian model that is capable of determining the dictionary dimension automatically by exploiting the Indian Buffet Process (IBP). This proposed model has been evaluated on two public HEp-2 benchmarking datasets, i.e., ICPR2012 and ICIP2013 where the SIFT and SURF features of the cell image are extracted in a grid manner and used as the input. Experiments show that the proposed model obtained state-of-the-art cell classification accuracy. More importantly, the dictionary dimension learned by the proposed model is around 29 and 8 times lower than the over complete dictionaries, respectively, for two benchmarking datasets. This low-dimensional dictionary helps to reduce the computational cost significantly for the cell classification task.


This literature review explores the issue of underrepresentation of women in physics by framing the topic as a journey towards equity, with many barriers along the way and which persists, yet at a slow pace. The journey perspective accounts for the long history of the issue and includes various understandings of and approaches to the issue. This review begins by introducing the status of underrepresentation of women in physics education in Canada, which is indicative of the low numbers of women in the field. In recognizing the complex dynamics of the problem of underrepresentation of women in physics, the review asks about the nature of the problem: What is the relationship between gender and science? Is equity in physics education and the field at large important? Based on the review of existing literature on the underrepresentation of women in physics, this literature review presents three arguments. The first argument is that the low number of women in physics is best explained by low participation from young women at the high school level of education. The second argument is that barriers to young women's election and continuation of physics study exist within physics education at the high school level. The third argument is that there is a need for research that aims to understand young women's experiences of barriers in physics education during high school in order to move forward on the journey toward gender equity in physics education and the field.


Purpose: In an increasingly competitive labour market, an organisations' ability to attract and retain the right skills in the 'war for talent' is invaluable (Ronda, et al., 2018). In Ireland, recent studies demonstrate increasing competition within the labour market, with demand outweighing supply in 2018 (Hays Ireland, 2018). The focus of this research is to explore the impact of internal employer branding on organisational performance and retention of talent within the recruitment sector in Ireland.

Research Design/Methodology: For the purpose of this study, the author pursued a qualitative, inductive approach to data collection, conducting non-standardised, semi-structured interviews with a number of representatives within the Irish recruitment sector. Results were extrapolated using thematic analysis, in which the author identified key themes in line with the research objectives. These themes were then discussed and analysed, with reference to both the primary and secondary data collected as part of the study.

Findings: The findings from this dissertation, suggest the indubitable importance of internal employer branding as a key tool for retention and business performance. The findings present a significant shift in how organisations view internal employer branding, establishing that many senior management teams are beginning to place greater strategic emphasis on internal employer brand. It was also noted that financial reward is no longer a key pull factor for employees and the need for employers to consider intangible elements of the employment experience when developing their Employer Value Proposition was also established. The fundamental finding of this study is communication. Effective internal communication that is open and transparent should be the basis for any internal employer brand in order for organisations to keep employees engaged, retain talent and improve business performance.


Arsenic is a well-known carcinogen, which has been suspected of being a human teratogen, although there is currently insufficient and inadequate supportive data to make any definitive judgments. In addition, the significance of individual genetic differences on pregnancy outcomes following in utero exposure to arsenic is currently unknown. In order to better understand the role of folate transport mechanisms in arsenic-induced neural tube defects, we examined the effect of in utero exposure to sodium arsenate in a genetically altered murine model in which the folate binding protein 2 (Folbp2) gene has been inactivated by homologous recombination. In utero sodium arsenate exposure induced exencephaly in 40.6% of Folbp2(-/-) embryos compared with 24.0% in control Folbp2(+/+) embryos. The differences in response frequencies were further exacerbated when the dams were fed a folate-deficient diet. Under these conditions, exencephaly was observed in 64.0% of Folbp2(-/-) embryos compared with 25.7% in control Folbp2(+/+) embryos. Analysis of arsenic metabolites excreted in the urine following sodium arsenate injection to Folbp2(-/-) and Folbp2(+/+) mice indicated that there were no significant differences in arsenic metabolism between the two groups. Thus, the increased susceptibility of Folbp2(-/-) mice to arsenate-induced teratogenicity may not be due to differences in biomethylation and exposure. In conclusion, the data suggest that impaired folate transport in the developing mouse embryo increases the risk for developmental defects following in utero exposure to sodium arsenate and that these differences are not due to differences in metabolism of arsenic.


PixD (Slr1694) is a BLUF (blue-light-using FAD) photoreceptor used by the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 to control phototaxis toward blue light. In this study, we probe the involvement of a conserved Tyr8-Gln50-Met93 triad in promoting an output signal upon blue light excitation of the bound flavin. Analysis of acrylamide quenching of Trp91 fluorescence shows that the side chain of this residue remains partially solvent exposed in both the lit and dark states. Mutational analysis demonstrates that substitution mutations at Tyr8 and Gln50 result in the loss of the photocycle while a mutation of Met93 does not appreciably disturb the formation of the light-excited state and only minimally accelerates its decay from 5.7 to 4.5 s. However, mutations of Tyr8, Gln50, and Met93 disrupt the ability of PixD dimers to interact with PixE to form a higher-order PixD(10)-PixE(5) complex, which is indicative of a lit conformational state. Solution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and X-ray crystallographic analyses confirm that a Tyr8 to Phe mutation is locked in a pseudo-light-excited state revealing flexible areas in PixD that likely constitute part of an output signal upon light excitation of wild-type PixD.


The "proportionality" amendment to the federal discovery rules, which went into effect on December 1, 2015, was greeted with panic by the plaintiffs' bar (and the academy) and euphoria by the defense bar. Both sides predicted that the impact would be profound and immediate. Some predicted that the impact would be especially great in class actions. To examine whether the predictions have been correct, the author has reviewed every published judicial opinion (approximately 135) between December 1, 2015, and April 30, 2018, that applies the new proportionality rule in the class action context. The analysis is necessarily anecdotal rather than empirical. Nonetheless, the results are striking. At bottom, the proportionality amendment has had little impact, at least in the class action context. Courts have generally indicated that the new rule does not fundamentally change the governing principles. In ruling on discovery disputes in class actions, courts continue to conduct nuanced, highly fact-specific analyses, with results that differ little from pre-amendment case law. The courts are especially liberal in allowing discovery that is relevant to class certification. In short, the class action discovery decisions thus far do not support the predictions that the proportionality rule would lead to a sea change.


With the increasing concerns of low carbon development of building industry, the feasibility of using straw bale buildings has been widely discussed for the last decade in China. However, there are few studies focus on assessment of durability of this building type regarding the climatic features in China. This paper analyzes the features of straw degradation inside straw bale walls in the severe cold region in China. The analysis involves two parts of researches: The first part analyzes the degradation potential of straw inside straw bale walls in high humidity and high temperature conditions which was recorded in the summers in the climatic region; The following research examine straw conditions inside an experimental straw bale building in the region after one-year competition of the building. The results show that the straw inside straw bale walls have no concerns of degradation in the high hygrothermal environment in the severe cold region in China. The following inspections of straw conditions inside experimental building indicate that straw have moderate concerns of degradation in the area 2-3cm deep behind the lime render. The work of this research will help to build up models for predicting straw degradation levels inside straw bale building in severe cold region in China. This impact of this research will be the growth in low carbon energy efficient straw bale construction with confidence over its long-term durability characteristics in severe cold region in China.


The existing empirical literature fails to agree on the nature of the intertemporal relation between risk and return. This paper attempts to resolve the issue by estimating a conditional two-factor model motivated by Merton's intertemporal capital asset pricing model. When long-term government bond returns are included as a second factor, the "partial" relation between the market risk premium and conditional market variance is found to be positive and significant. The paper also helps explain the convoluted empirical relation between the market risk premium, conditional market variance, and the nominal risk-free rate previously reported in the literature. Copyright The American Finance Association 1998.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of the study is to evaluate the ability of standard vancomycin dosing strategies actually recommended to attain the pharmacodynamic target of an area under the curve of vancomycin serum concentration versus time from 0 to 24 hours (AUC(24h)) to minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ratio greater than 400:1 for patients with a suspected or documented methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteraemia by individual analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
The study included all patients admitted with suspected or proven MRSA infection during the years 2007-2008, and who were initially treated with vancomycin at a dose of 30 mg/kg/ day, and underwent pharmacokinetic monitoring. The area under the curve of vancomycin serum concentration versus time from 0 to 24 hours (AUC(24h)) was calculated as daily dose/ clearance total (D(24h)/CL). Additionally, we studied 45 isolates of MRSA obtained from blood cultures in the period 2007-2008. The MIC to vancomycin was determined using Epsilon-test®. The PK-PD parameter calculated was AUC(24h)/MIC. Microsoft Excel was used to perform a 10.000 subject Monte Carlo simulation. An AUC(24h)/MIC > or =400 was assumed as the target attainment.

RESULTS
In the individual study, the percentage of patients with AUC(24h)/ MIC(50/90) > or = 400 was 50%. The probability (%) of attaining AUC(24h)/MIC ratio values > or = 400 by Monte Carlo simulation was of 66%. The vancomycin MIC value from which the scenario would have to wait a suboptimal treatment (target < 90%) was >1 mg/ L.

DISCUSSION
This study shows that in the population studied to achieve a vancomycin AUC(24h)/MIC > or =400 is not always attained with the standard dose. Therefore, one would expect a high probability of suboptimal vancomycin AUC(24h)/MIC ratios for patients infected with organisms with vancomycin MICs of >1 mg/ L treated with doses of 30 mg/ kg/ day.


The present study describes the ultrastructure of the mature spermatozoon of Lecithocladium excisum (Rudolphi, 1819) (Digenea: Hemiuroidea: Hemiuridae) from the stomach of the marine teleost Scomber japonicus Houttuyn (Scombridae) captured in the Atlantic Ocean, off Dakar (Senegal). The ultrastructural organization of the spermatozoon of L. excisum follows the general model described in most digeneans. It presents two axonemes of the 9+'1' pattern of the Trepaxonemata, nucleus, mitochondrion and parallel cortical microtubules, among other characters. However, some particularities of the spermatozoon of L. excisum are (i) the presence of a membranous ornamentation not associated with cortical microtubules in its anterior extremity, (ii) the presence of a very reduced number of cortical microtubules located only in the ventral side of the spermatozoon and (iii) the absence of several structures described in most digeneans such as spine-like bodies and cytoplasmic expansions.


Models and modeling function as themes or representational subjects in a striking number of recent literary, pictorial, and filmic works. This sudden currency is explained here through indexical and iconic characteristics of models. Since they are historical entities, works about models indicate art's relation to extra-artistic reality, often gesturing as well to the reality of the artist, audience, and 'contact'. The model's likeness to its image opens a potential for reversibility between them, which artists can use in exploring hierarchy. By anchoring art in reality and signifying reciprocity and equality, model-themed art blurs the line between ethics and aesthetics. Thus, in contemporary culture the aesthetic function would no longer be Roman Jakobson's formalist "set toward the message", but instead a set toward the interaction.


Wheat plays a major role in food contribution, it is considered as a principal food grain in the daily life of the people in Libya. In addition, wheat is an important commodity to the Libyan economy in terms of its contribution to the country's GDP, food requirement and farm income.

 The production of wheat in Libya, however, has been declining over the years. Consequently, it is vital to identify the economic and policy variables that influence its decline in the production in order to formulate appropriate policy measures. This study addresses the issue of government intervention on the Libyan wheat industry. The main objective of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the Libyan wheat market and analyse the impact of changes in government policies on wheat production, area, yield, consumption and imports.

The Libyan wheat market model was estimated using the auto regressive distributed lag model (ARDL). The study used a time series data from 1970 to 2000. The model consists of area, yield, production, consumption and wheat imports equations. Annual models for the Libyan wheat market are developed based on market factors as well as government agricultural commodity programmes.

The results from the wheat area equation indicate that the influence of relative price is significant in affecting acreage, and price-acreage relationship is positive. This means that if the price is enhanced, the production of wheat may improve considerably. The coefficient of agricultural loan is positive and statistically significant. This indicates that agricultural loan is also an important determinant for wheat area equation. The results from the wheat yield equation show that the real fertiliser price coefficient is negative and statistically significant. The implication of this finding in terms of policy formulation is that attention has to be paid to promote the wheat producers with low fertiliser prices to reach the desired level of yield. Technology is also found to be an important non-price factor affecting wheat yield. Income and prices are still important variables in determining the level of wheat consumption. Finally, the findings indicate that import demand for wheat is largely explained by per capita GDP.

Simulations are also used to estimate the impacts of the three agricultural policies on wheat area, production, import, and consumption. The conclusions are drawn from a simulation experiment and from an analysis of policy. The results suggest that the model is an acceptable approximation of the Libyan wheat market.


Background Vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been reported but does not appear to be common. This study aims to systematically review the evidence for vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Methods This review is part of an Open Evidence Review on the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 and the role of intrauterine mother to fetus transmission. Literature searches were performed in the WHO Covid-19 Database, LitCovid, medRxiv, and Google Scholar for SARS-CoV-2 using keywords and associated synonyms, search date up to 20 December 2020, no language restrictions. Results We included 106 studies assessing vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from pregnant women to their neonates: these studies comprised 40 reviews (21 fulfilled systematic review methodology, including risk of bias assessment of included studies) and 66 primary studies including 32 case reports (of up to two cases) and 34 prospective and retrospective cohort studies, prospective and retrospective case series, observational studies (including asymptomatic screening), database studies and a quality improvement project. Almost all were conducted in a hospital setting. The 32 case reports were considered to be at high risk of bias, due to the study design; across the 34 remaining primary studies, risk of bias was low to moderate. Sixteen case reports examined vertical transmission, which was not related to maternal symptomatology. For the cohort and case series studies, the percentage of positive neonates ranged from 0% to 22% across the studies. Twenty studies reported no positive vertical transmission. Three studies that reported the highest positivity rates of 11%, 15% and 22% had specifically selected neonates with a positive test (within up to 35 days) within the study population and were therefore more selective populations. Across the cohort and case series studies there were 65/2391 (2.7%) neonates born to mothers with a diagnosis of COVID-19 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 within 24 hours of birth. No evidence correlated maternal symptomatology to vertical transmission. Mode of delivery did not correlate with rates of vertical transmission. Of 25 studies, 7 identified SARS-CoV-2 in placental tissue; some of these did not demonstrate vertical transmission to the neonate. No study reported the results of viral culture to detect SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions The results of these studies indicate that vertical transmission is possible, but is not frequent, and factors that influence when vertical transmission occurs are unknown. Further studies using standardised methods to establish viral infection are needed to establish vertical transmission rates and to assess clinical and other conditions affecting transmission.


The chemical composition of hyssop oil from Bulgaria was determined by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry on two different chromatographic columns. The quantity of identified compounds was shown correspond to 97.2% and 98% of the total oil content. Among the detected compounds, cis-pinocamphone (48.98%–50.77%), β-pinene (13.38%–13.54%), trans-pinocamphone (5.78%–5.94%) and β-phellandrene (4.44%–5.17%) were the major compounds. Hyssop oil demonstrated antifungal activity against 52 clinical isolates and reference strains of Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida tropicalis, Candida parapsilosis and Candida krusei. The essential oil characterized with stronger antifungal activity in comparison with pure cis- and trans-pinocamphone, α- and β-pinene and β-phellandrene. Essential oil of Hyssopus officinalis L. from Bulgaria inhibited both fluconazol-sensitive and fluconazol-resistant strains.


The tactile surface forms a continuous sheet covering the body. And yet, the perceived distance between two touches varies across stimulation sites. Perceived tactile distance is larger when stimuli cross over the wrist, compared to when both fall on either the hand or the forearm. This effect could reflect a categorical distortion of tactile space across body-part boundaries (in which stimuli crossing the wrist boundary are perceptually elongated) or may simply reflect a localised increased in acuity surrounding anatomical landmarks (in which stimuli near the wrist are perceptually elongated). We tested these two interpretations, by comparing a well-documented bias to perceive mediolateral tactile distances across the forearm/hand as larger than proximodistal ones along the forearm/hand at three different sites (hand, wrist, and forearm). According to the 'categorical' interpretation, tactile distances should be elongated selectively in the proximodistal axis thus reducing the anisotropy. According to the 'localised acuity' interpretation, distances will be perceptually elongated in the vicinity of the wrist regardless of orientation, leading to increased overall size without affecting anisotropy. Consistent with the categorical account, we found a reduction in the magnitude of anisotropy at the wrist, with no evidence of a corresponding specialized increase in precision. These findings demonstrate that we reference touch to a representation of the body that is categorically segmented into discrete parts, which consequently influences the perception of tactile distance.


The teaching of law has experienced new challenges, especially with globalisation and the changes introduced by the Bologna process. However, it has been difficult to implement them before the insistence of the traditional methodology of expository lessons, deeply rooted in the cycles of law. One of the current challenging methodologies is the legal clinics, as a dynamic and providing tool for active learning and facilitating the acquisition of practical competences. The legal clinics offer the possibility of a teaching based on life cases, allowing students to observe the effective or simulated representation of legal cases, developing skills, also appealing to the values and ethics that are imposed on a future jurist, be a lawyer or a magistrate. The purpose of our study is to raise awareness of the paradigm shift in the teaching of law, especially in Portuguese schools. The legal clinics will raise awareness of civil society, instilling reliability in the legal services.

Keywords: Globalisation, law, legal clinics,teaching, methodologies.


Abstract How can green advertising get non-green consumers to think more about the environment? Using Elaboration Likelihood Model and Social Judgment Theory, we construct hypotheses and test them across three experiments. Results provide converging evidence that messages placed on social media with low-information and high-fear (emotional) appeals are most effective at generating purchase intent and digital engagement. Moreover, pollution ideation is the mechanism underlying these effects on social media. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in light of the potential for advertising to be a force for good, particularly on social media where campaigns may encourage non-green consumers to think more about the environment.


The compositional space can be seen as a vector space, where the vector addition corresponds to
perturbation and the multiplication by a scalar corresponds to powering (Aitchison, 1986; PawlowskyGlahn
and Egozcue, 2001). Whereas perturbation is a widely used operation in applications of compositional
analysis, powering is somewhat neglected. Survey data analysis on the other hand is a domain
of applied statistics where the use of weights is predominant. The reason for introducing weights in
survey data analysis is threefold: 1. the use of complex survey designs with unequal inclusion probabilities,
2. the correction of non-response, and 3. calibration procedures. We shall introduce briefly
the rationale for weights in survey analysis and then discuss the connection between survey weights
and the powering operation. Several examples will be given.
Surveys are essentially built to optimize the estimation of totals in population subgroups for a
number of variables. Practically, a key variable is chosen and the design is optimized for this variable,
the trade-off being between cost and precision. Totals are estimated by weighted sums of the sampled
values. The weights are extrapolation factors that depend on the survey design. It is an important
aspect of the data quality to inform the user on the measurement error of the published figures. Survey
design and estimation are described e.g. in S¨arndal, Swensson and Wretman (1992).
In a survey context, the interest is taken in totals or means across cases, but in a compositional
context, totals have no meaning. So if we want to average cases, we have to go back to the original
measurement scale and then make the closure operation. For the geometric mean composition on the
contrary, the result is the same, whether the amounts are averaged first and then a average composition
is computed, or whether the geometric mean of the compositions is computed directly and then closed.
The design-based approach does not make any assumptions on the distribution of compositions.
This opens the way to parametrization by general partitions (Aitchison, 1986, section 2.7) without
the drawback of ad hoc assumptions on multivariate normality (Aitchison, 1986, definition 6.7). In
household expenditure surveys for instance, a hierarchy of commodities with broad categories are subdivided
into more detailed goods. A general partition can follow this organization and may be a more
convenient way to convey the information on the surveyed units. The joint probability distribution
of transforms of this general partition is derived from the distribution of the sample inclusion indicator.
After a brief review of survey methodology, we apply the design-based principles to the estimation
of compositions, of compositional transforms and of their covariance matrix on a small population.
The properties of the estimators will be investigated by simulation. The talk will end with a discussion


The aim of this thesis is to implement a multi-level splitting of full grids on the GPU, which could be used in the incremental visualization of scientific data sets. The splitting is motivated by the approximation properties of the sparse grid technique. Looking towards large amounts of data, ideas of parallelization and data slicing are discussed and implemented. State-of-the-art implementations of the splitting algorithm are discussed and the highly parallelizable part is extracted. We compare against a highly tuned CPU version of the algorithm, and we aim to speed up the calculation as much as possible. We suppose that a higher degree of parallelism can lower the time to solution, so highly parallel GPUs sound promising as target platforms. We take general implementation ideas from the CPU version, transfer and map them to the GPU. Although the performance results of this first implementation are promising, the parallel and vectorized CPU version is still a bit faster. Still, in terms of performance the GPU implementation comes close to the highly-tuned CPU version of the algorithm. Following the approach further might prove useful for the timecritical task of visualizing (reading, processing, drawing) of large amounts of data, which needs to be as fast as possible and requires access to both coarse and fine level representation of the data.


We study an Abelian compact gauge theory minimally coupled to bosonic matter with charge q, which may undergo a confinement-deconfinement transition in 2+1 dimensions. The transition is analyzed using a nonlocal order parameter W-tilde, which is related to large Wilson loops for fractional charges. We map the model to a dual representation with no gauge field but only a global q-state clock symmetry and show that W-tilde corresponds to the domain wall energy of that model. W-tilde is also directly connected to the concept of topological order. We exploit these facts in Monte Carlo simulations to study the detailed nature of the deconfinement transition.


This is a report on data raised through research, which has already finished, about Identification references in adolescents. Objetives: To analyze and reflect upon the collected data, adolescents' representations about the work field and their projects for future work. To conceptualize about the crises of social significances which produce and order sense and, therefore, organize our perceptions of work through social discourses and practices which have an impact on the subjectivity of adolescents and young adults. Methodology: Brief presentation of the concepts which frame the qualitative research in this area. Reading and analysis of fragments from adolescents' accounts, obtained in focal groups at different state secondary schools. Conclusions: The adolescents researched portray a self-image full of uncertainty and skepticism as regards their future possibilities. The impact produced by the fall of work as an ideal of doing and being is made evident in their accounts. Only some of them link their future project with an invested and valuable activity, even if this is not associated with economic safety and wellbeing. Others present themselves as incapable to modify the state of things, which offers a field connected with consumerist values and with the idea that "you are worth what you have (in material things)".


Robustness is the invariance of a given phenotype when faced with a given incoming genetic or environmental variation. Such essential property is being studied in a wide diversity of traits in many organisms but it is difficult to compare the results obtained on the robustness of different traits with each other given the differences that exist between traits in the way they are measured, in their genetic architecture and development. In this study, we assessed robustness of bristle number to incoming genetic and environmental variation for eight bristle types in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, allowing for a straightforward comparison of the robustness observed between bristle types. We measured the response of bristle number mean and variance to changes in temperature and in the number of copies of two genes (scute and miR-9a) known to be involved in bristle development. Many combinations between the three factors were tested, thus allowing to test for the effect of each factor in different contexts for the two other factors – to which we refer herein as different backgrounds. We have found different responses between bristle types, suggesting that they present different levels of robustness to the factors tested. In addition, we have found that temperature and miR-9a affect more generally the variance of the traits rather than their means, thus fulfilling a criteria usually admitted to identify robustness factors.


Summary
The effect of two different compounded diets on experimentally induced Endamoeba histolytica infection in two hosts, the rat and the guinea pig, has been studied and the results reported here.
When the guinea pigs were maintained on the modified guinea pig (MGP) diet, almost 100 per cent of the animals died of the infection with a mean day of death of 8.4 days, and an average degree of infection of 3.9 out of a possible 4.0. When the rat breeder diet was fed to the guinea pigs only 78 per cent of the animals died of the infection with the mean day of death of 14.8 days and an average degree of infection of 3.3. The differences produced by the two diets were statistically significant.
In rats both diets produced a high incidence of infection and a high average degree of infection.
The data presented here, along with the work already reported from our laboratory, add further evidence to that reported by others, that diet influences the course of amebic infection in rats and guinea pigs.


Aboriginal women suffer the effects of marginalization in every area of their lives. Profound effects have particularly been noted in their health and wellness status. Yet little research has been conducted to unravel the complex array of variables that affect their health and wellness. Research that has been conducted either medicalizes their experiences in a Western fashion, so that little is still known about the actual lived experience of health and wellness for Aboriginal women. This research study sought to answer questions that are important to Aboriginal women's health and wellness because it relates to identifying aspects of health and wellness that are unique to Aboriginal women. In Project I, 125 Aboriginal women completed a 49-item questionnaire designed to assess their health status across four dimensions (i.e., physical, mental, emotional, spiritual), their health and wellness concerns, their access to health care services in the mainstream and in the Aboriginal Community and most importantly their thoughts on what "wellness" means to them. In Project II, the primary focus was on identifying aspects of wellness, health concerns across the same four dimensions, and documenting Aboriginal women's stories about their experiences with the health care system. Ten Aboriginal women who did not complete the survey questionnaire were interviewed and asked questions relating to their health experiences, needs and concerns. The results indicate that Aboriginal women face health problems that are not common to non-Aboriginal women and current health care services do not adequately meet their needs. These results are discussed in terms of acculturation theory. Elder consultation also provided information for the inclusion of traditional knowledge in the analysis. The interview results were analyzed for relevant themes in relation to the survey data, current services and traditional knowledge. Aboriginal Women's Health 5


While interdisciplinary work is something to be encouraged and supported, it can only thrive on the basis of strong disciplinarity. When carried out properly, interdiscipliarity does not diminish or undermine the individual disciplines, but in fact is made possible by vibrant individual disciplines. A healthy tension between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity must then be sought, calling to mind the Heraclitean ideal of harmony that is produced through the proper tension, say as in the strings of musical instrument, as in Heraclitus's well-known example of the bow and the lyre. Genuine interdisciplinary work does not constrict, but rather helps expand the individual disciplines through research and scholarship.


The first consensus on definitions in the field of probiotics between the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and the World Health Organization (WHO) was adopted in 2001. Then, probiotics were defined as "live microorganisms, which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host" but already in the following year, in 2002, the FAO/WHO working group issued more detailed instructions on the interpretation of the document produced. Several professional associations reached the agreement on the assessment of probiotics based on the results from available clinical studies according to "evidence-based medicine" which lead to the clinical recommendation. They refer to specific clinical indications such as the treatment and prevention of acute gastroenteritis (AG) in children and adults (Lactobacillus rhamnosus LGG, Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus reuteri, Saccharomyces boulardi), necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), antibioticassociated diarrhoea (LGG, L. casei, Saccharomyces boulardi), irritable colon, infant colic (Bacillus infantis and L. reuteri), in the case of H. pylori eradication, mild ulcerative colitis (UC) with the probiotic VSL#3, but with disappointing results in the remission of Crohn's disease and prevention of food allergy. The capacity of probiotics to cure illnesses and relieve symptoms varies between different strains, drawing the conclusion of their uneven efficacy and appropriateness in the treatment of every illness conditions. Special caution is advised in immunocompromised and severely ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).


Glaucoma, frequently associated with high IOP (intra-ocular pressure), is a leading cause of blindness, characterized by a loss of retinal ganglion cells and the corresponding optic nerve fibres. In the present study, acutely and transiently elevated IOP, characteristic of acute angle-closure glaucoma in humans, was observed in CLR (calcitonin receptor-like receptor) transgenic mice between 1 and 3 months of age. Expression of CLR under the control of a smooth muscle alpha-actin promoter in these mice augmented signalling of the smooth-muscle-relaxing peptide adrenomedullin in the pupillary sphincter muscle and resulted in pupillary palsy. Elevated IOP was prevented in CLR transgenic mice when mated with hemizygote adrenomedullin-deficient mice with up to 50% lower plasma and organ adrenomedullin concentrations. This indicates that endogenous adrenomedullin of iris ciliary body origin causes pupillary palsy and angle closure in CLR transgenic mice overexpressing adrenomedullin receptors in the pupillary sphincter muscle. In human eyes, immunoreactive adrenomedullin has also been detected in the ciliary body. Furthermore, the CLR and RAMP2 (receptor-activity-modifying protein 2), constituting adrenomedullin receptor heterodimers, were identified in the human pupillary sphincter muscle. Thus, in humans, defective regulation of adrenomedullin action in the pupillary sphincter muscle, provoked in the present study in CLR transgenic mice, may cause acute and chronic atony and, thereby, contribute to the development of angle-closure glaucoma. The CLR transgenic mice used in the present study provide a model for acute angle-closure glaucoma.


Abstract. Marine scientists often use two measured or modeled carbonate system variables to compute others. These carbonate chemistry calculations, based on well-known thermodynamic equilibria, are now available in a dozen public packages. Ten of those were compared using common input data and the set of equilibrium constants recommended for best practices. Current versions of all 10 packages agree within 0.2 μatm for pCO2, 0.0002 units for pH, and 0.1 μmol kg−1 for CO32− in terms of surface zonal-mean values. That represents more than a 10-fold improvement relative to outdated versions of the same packages. Differences between packages grow with depth for some computed variables but remain small. Discrepancies derive largely from differences in equilibrium constants. Analysis of the sensitivity of each computed variable to changes in each constant reveals the general dominance of K1 and K2 but also the comparable sensitivity to KB for the AT–CT input pair. Best-practice formulations for K1 and K2 are implemented consistently among packages. Yet with more recent formulations designed to cover a wider range of salinity, packages disagree by up to 8 μatm in pCO2, 0.006 units in pH, and 1 μmol kg−1 in CO32− under typical surface conditions. They use different proposed sets of coefficients for these formulations, all of which are inconsistent. Users would do well to use up-to-date versions of packages and the constants recommended for best practices.


Sandplay Harriet S. Friedman 2002-01-04 Sandplay is one of the fastest growing therapies. What are its origins, who were it pioneers, and how have they influenced the current practice of sandplay? What does the future hold? Rie Rogers Mitchell and Harriet S. Friedman have written a unique book that answers all these questions and many more. They give an overview of the historical origins of sandplay, including biographical profiles of the innovators together with discussions of their seminal writings. The five main therapeutic trends are explored, and in a final chapter the future of sandplay is discussed through addressing emerging issues and concerns. A special feature is a comprehensive international bibliography as well as a listing of sandtray videotapes and audiotapes.


BACKGROUND: Mid-frequency ventilation (MFV) is a mode of pressure control ventilation based on an optimal targeting scheme that maximizes alveolar ventilation and minimizes tidal volume (VT). This study was designed to compare the effects of conventional mechanical ventilation using a lung-protective strategy with MFV in a porcine model of lung injury. Our hypothesis was that MFV can maximize ventilation at higher frequencies without adverse consequences. We compared ventilation and hemodynamic outcomes between conventional ventilation and MFV. METHODS: This was a prospective study of 6 live Yorkshire pigs (10 ± 0.5 kg). The animals were subjected to lung injury induced by saline lavage and injurious conventional mechanical ventilation. Baseline conventional pressure control continuous mandatory ventilation was applied with VT = 6 mL/kg and PEEP determined using a decremental PEEP trial. A manual decision support algorithm was used to implement MFV using the same conventional ventilator. We measured PaCO2, PaO2, end-tidal carbon dioxide, cardiac output, arterial and venous blood oxygen saturation, pulmonary and systemic vascular pressures, and lactic acid. RESULTS: The MFV algorithm produced the same minute ventilation as conventional ventilation but with lower VT (−1 ± 0.7 mL/kg) and higher frequency (32.1 ± 6.8 vs 55.7 ± 15.8 breaths/min, P < .002). There were no differences between conventional ventilation and MFV for mean airway pressures (16.1 ± 1.3 vs 16.4 ± 2 cm H2O, P = .75) even when auto-PEEP was higher (0.6 ± 0.9 vs 2.4 ± 1.1 cm H2O, P = .02). There were no significant differences in any hemodynamic measurements, although heart rate was higher during MFV. CONCLUSIONS: In this pilot study, we demonstrate that MFV allows the use of higher breathing frequencies and lower VT than conventional ventilation to maximize alveolar ventilation. We describe the ventilatory or hemodynamic effects of MFV. We also demonstrate that the application of a decision support algorithm to manage MFV is feasible.


We prove that the necessary divisibility conditions are sufficient for the existence of resolvable group divisible designs with a fixed number of sufficiently large groups. Our method combines an application of the Rees product construction with a streamlined recursion based on incomplete transversal designs. With similar techniques, we also obtain new results on decompositions of complete multipartite graphs into a prescribed graph.


Taxation is the collection by a revenue authority of levies, fees, or charges from residents, businesses, or other legal entities deemed taxable pursuant to laws and regulations. Taxation affects most people in the world within the confines of a nation, state, or region. Some people claim taxation is theft by the state, others claim that it is a moral action and duty, and a third view is that taxes are expenses that citizens incur in order to make claims on the state. Taxation is thus an area of contestation.
 Taxpayers pay taxes on what they produce or transport, on their salaries and other income, and on their consumption. Taxation not only has a fiscal purpose, but can be used for resource allocation within society, for income redistribution, and for leveling economic stability to address issues of unemployment, prices, and economic growth. Research on taxation has been conducted in most social sciences. Legal scholars discuss changes to the law, economists emphasize taxation's economic impact within the constraints of models, the accounting discipline addresses the organization and measurement of taxation, and behavioral economists and psychologists aim to predict human behavior in taxation experiments. While this research has extended the knowledge of fiscal practices, taxation has long been in dire need of a critical perspective on its human consequences, its social impact, and how it is culturally shaped. An emerging anthropology of taxation can address these issues.
 The anthropology of taxation opens a host of interconnected issues at the nexus of states, markets, and citizenship. It focuses on money, work, and ownership; notions of fairness and honesty or avoidance and evasion; the politics of regulation and redistribution; and the balance between taking responsibility for oneself and for others, to name a few. Ethnographic studies of taxation can depict how various stakeholders in the tax arena shape and are shaped by taxation. And they can illustrate how subjects of taxation—residents, businesses, communities, and societies—through their view on and practices of taxation, negotiate their relation to the state and to other beneficiaries. Turning our attention to the collecting side, taxation provides a multifaceted arena for issues such as policymaking, governance, and digitalization. The role that tax advisers play, often advising taxpayers on curtailing tax, also suggests a complicated relation with society. Anthropologists can untangle and illustrate the relations taxation create between various stakeholders through notions of social contract, governance, fiscal citizenship, reciprocity, and redistribution.


Social inclusion remains high on the British government's agenda despite considerable evolution in conceptualizations of the term. This essay re-examines assumptions underpinning the linkage between increased opportunity and greater levels of social inclusion with a particular focus on the role of sports facilities and sporting opportunities. It explores the role of sport in the promotion of social inclusion, drawing on data from a UK-wide, six-year evaluation of the Big Lottery Fund's New Opportunities for PE and Sport programme (NOPES). The essay considers stakeholders' views about the perceived value of the sports facilities funded through the NOPES programme in providing increased opportunities for active citizens to engage in and explores some of the ways in which increased participation has been achieved through seeking to overcome barriers to participation. Ultimately, the essay questions the widely held assumption that social inclusion will follow directly from increased opportunity for participation through increased sporting opportunity.


In the past twenty-five years, the production of digital games has become a global media industry stretching from Japan, to the UK, France and the US. Despite this growth playing digital games, particularly computer games, is still seen by many as a boy's pastime and part of boy's bedroom culture. While these perceptions may serve to
exclude, this paper set out to explore the experiences of women who game despite these perceptions.

This paper addresses the topic of gender and games from two perspectives:the producer's and the consumer's. The first part of the paper explores how Sony represented the PS2 in advertisements in Ireland and how adult female game players
interpreted these representations. The second part goes on to chart the gaming biographies of these women and how this leisure activity is incorporated into their adult everyday life. It also discuses their views about the gendered nature of game culture, public game spaces and game content; and how these influence their enjoyment
of game playing and their views of themselves as women.

These research findings are based on semi-structured interviews with two marketing professionals and ten female
game players aged 18 and over. The paper concludes that the construction of both gender and digital games are highly contested and even when access is difficult, and representations in the media, in console design and in games are strongly masculine these interviewees were able to
contest and appropriate the technology for their own means. Indeed 'social networks' were important in relation to their recruitment into, and sustained playing of, digital
games. At the same time, the paper found that these interviewees were largely 'invisible' to the wider gaming community and producers, an issue raised by Bryce and Rutter
(2002:244) in an earlier paper, which has important implications for the development of the games industry.