Abstract Self-care is a cornerstone issue for those who deal with stressful events, as it is the case of palliative care professionals. It has been related to awareness, coping with death and quality of life, among others, but no measurement instruments have been used in palliative care professionals. This research presents and validates a brief new measure with clinical and psychometric good properties, called Professional Self-Care Scale (PSCS). The PSCS assesses professionals' self-care in three areas: physical self-care, inner self-care, and social self-care. Data come from a cross-sectional survey in a sample of 385 professionals of palliative care. The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, the Coping with Death Scale, and the Professional's Quality of Life measure were also used. Results of the CFA showed adequate fit (χ2(24, N = 385) = 140.66, p < .01; CFI = .91; GFI = .93; SRMR = .09; and RMSEA = .10). Evidence pointed better reliability indices for the 3-item physical and inner factors of self-care than for the social dimension (Rho and GLB of .64, .90, and .57, respectively). Evidence regarding validity was consistent with previous literature. When levels of self-care were examined, women showed higher levels of inner and social self-care (F(3, 371) = 3.19, p = .02, η2 = .03, as also did psychologists when compared to doctors and nurses (F(9, 1074) = 2.00, p = .04, η2 = .02. The PSCS has shown adequate psychometric properties, and thus it could be used as diagnostic instrument when studying professionals' health.


BACKGROUND: Hemorrhagic cystitis (HC) is a dose limiting side effect of cyclophosphamide (CYP). AIM: In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of amifostine in the protection of CYP-induced HC and compare its efficacy with mesna. SETTING AND DESIGN: This animal study was conducted in the Experimental Animals Breeding and Research Center of the Medical Faculty of Uludag University. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Male Wistar rats (150200 g; 10 rats per group) were randomly assigned to four groups. Group I (control group) received no drugs, group II received CYP (200 mg/kg, i.p.) alone, group III received amifostine (200 mg/kg, i.p.) and CYP, and group IV received CYP and mesna (40 mg/kg, i.p.) immediately and 4 and 8 h after administration of CYP. Bladders of animals were assessed macroscopically and histologically 24 h later. Gross assessment for presence of edema and hemorrhage and histological evaluation of damage to the bladder were scored according to Gray's criteria. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: For macroscopic and microscopic data, we used statistical evaluation by KruskalWallis nonparametric analysis of variance followed by the Mann-Whitney U-test. RESULTS: All the animals in group II had evidence of HC. Significant histological damage and macroscopic changes were present in this group compared to control group (P<0.001). The median scores for bladder damage in group III and IV were significantly lower compared to group II (P<0.001). When the median scores for bladder damage of group I, III, and IV were compared, there was no significant difference among these groups. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated the efficacy of amifostine in prevention of cyclophosphamide-induced hemorrhagic cystitis.


The pneumonia caused by Pneumocystis carinii is ultimately responsible for the death of many acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients. Large doses of trimethoprim and pyrimethamine in combination with a sulphonamide and/or pentamidine suppress the infection but produce serious side-effects and seldom prevent recurrence after treatment withdrawal. However, the partial success of the aforementioned antifolates, and also trimetrexate used alone, does suggest dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) as a target for the development of antipneumocystis agents. From the DHFR inhibitory activities of 3'-substituted pyrimethamine analogues it was suggested that the 3'-(3'',3''-dimethyltriazen-1''-yl) substituent may be responsible for the greater activity for the P.carinii over the mammalian enzyme. Crystallographic and molecular modeling studies revealed considerable geometrical and electronic differences between the triazene and the chemically related formamidine functions that may account for the differences in DHFR inhibitory profiles. Structural and electronic parameters calculated for a series of 3'-(3'',3''-disubstitutedtriazen-1''-yl) pyrimethamine analogues did not correlate with the DHFR inhibitory activities. However, the in vitro screening against P.carinii DHFR revealed that the 3''-hydroxyethyl-3''-benzyl analogue was the most active and selective. Models of the active sites of human and P.carinii DHFRs were constructed using DHFR sequence and structural homology data which had identified key residues involved in substrate and cofactor binding. Low energy conformations of the 3'',3''-dimethyl and 3''-hydroxyethyl-3''-benzyle analogues, determined from nuclear magnetic resonance studies and theoretical calculations, were docked by superimposing the diaminopyrimidine fragment onto a previously docked pyrimethamine analogue. Enzyme kinetic data supported the 3''-hydroxyethyl-3''-benzyl moiety being located in the NADPH binding groove. The 3''-benzyl substituent was able to locate to within 3 AA of a valine residue in the active site of P.carinii DHFR thereby producing a hydrophobic contact. The equivalent residue in human DHFR is threonine, more hydrophilic and less likely to be involved in such a contact. This difference may account for the greater inhibitory activity this analogue has for P.carinii DHFR and provide a basis for future drug design. From an in vivo model of PCP in immunosuppressed rats it was established that the 3"-hydroxyethyl-3"-benzyl analogue was able to reduce the.P.carinii burden more effectively with increasing doses, without causmg any visible signs of toxicity. However, equivalent doses were not as effective as pentamidine, a current treatment of choice for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.


Two simple, precise, accurate and sensitive visible spectrophotometric methods (I and II) have been established for quantifying ribavirin in pure form and pharmaceutical preparations. The proposed method I is based on the ability of ribavirin to reduce Folin-Ciocalteau reagent in alkaline medium to form a highly stable blue colored complex that can be measured spectrophotometrically at 760 nm. Method II is based on the formation of colored stable charge transfer complex, measured spectrophotometrically at 550 nm, between dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4- benzoquinone and ribavirin in acetonitrile medium. Variables affecting the chemical reaction were studied and optimized. The suggested methods I and II were validated as per ICH guidelines and successfully applied for quantification of the ribavirin in its pharmaceutical preparations like tablets, capsules and injections dosage forms with good accuracy and precision.


New vehicle sales in the U.S. fell nearly 40 percent during the last recession, causing significant job losses and unprecedented government interventions in the auto industry. This paper explores two potential explanations for this decline: falling home values and falling households? income expectations. First, we establish that declining home values explain only a small portion of the observed reduction in vehicle sales. Using a county-level panel from the episode, we ?nd: (1) A one-dollar fall in home values reduced new vehicle spending by about 0.9 cents; and (2) Falling home values explain approximately 19 percent of the aggregate vehicle spending decline. Next, examining state-level data from 1997-2016, we ?nd: (3) The short-run responses of vehicle consumption to home value changes are larger in the 2005-2011 period relative to other years, but at longer horizons (e.g. 5 years), the responses are similar across the two sub-periods; and (4) The service ?ow from vehicles, as measured from miles traveled, responds very little to house price shocks. We also detail the sources of the di?erences between our ?ndings (1) and (2) from existing research. Second, we establish that declining current and expected future income expectations played an important role in the auto market?s collapse. We build a permanent income model augmented to include infrequent, repeated car buying. Our calibrated model matches the pre-recession distribution of auto vintages and exhibits a large vehicle sales decline in response to a moderate decline in expected permanent income. In response to the decline in permanent income, households delay replacing existing vehicles, allowing them smooth the e?ects of the income shock without signi?cantly adjusting the service ?ow from their vehicles. Combining our negative results regarding housing wealth with our positive model-based ?ndings, we interpret the auto market collapse as consistent with existing permanent income based approaches to durable goods consumption (e.g., Leahy and Zeira (2005)).


Much of social life is so structured that behavior occurs rather routinely. Most of the time, established and standardized procedures are followed, manifesting themselves in the habitual behavior of individuals and/or the traditional actions of groups. At times however internal and/or external factors generate enough stress and strain so that it is possible to think of responding entities as being in a state of crisis. Crises required the reworking of established and standardized procedures or the creation of new means as well as of organizations for carrying them out. In large part, the direction of response of groups and organizations is for certain aspects of emergent behavior to be combined with elements of routinized organizational behavior. (Dynes and Quarantelli, 1968; Brouilette and Quarantelli 1969; Dynes 1970)


The book comprises results of the author cooperation with archaeologists during the last 35 years and systematically describes lithic raw materials used in prehistoric times of Eastern Central Europe. It covers the area of Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, eastern part of Germany (Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria) and northern Austria. Introductory chapters present brief survey of geomorphological and geological units with potential rock sources. Than, various methods of natural science suitable for determination of lithic artefacts are characterized. The principal chapter describes in detail individual rocks and minerals for chipped artefacts. Raw materials for polished axes and battleaxes, wristguards, whetstones, millstones and whorls are introduced in a similar way. The attention is also focussed on sources of rock-salt, the usage of fossils in prehistory and finds of pseudoartefacts or fakes. Within the text there are 147 black-and-white pictures or maps and the final annex contains 384 coloured photos of raw materials seen by naked eye, under a stereomicroscope, in a thin section or as interesting artefacts.


In this paper we investigate panel regression models with interactive fixed effects. We propose two new estimation methods that are based on minimizing convex objective functions. The first method minimizes the sum of squared residuals with a nuclear (trace) norm regularization. The second method minimizes the nuclear norm of the residuals. We establish the consistency of the two resulting estimators. Those estimators have a very important computational advantage compared to the existing least squares (LS) estimator, in that they are defined as minimizers of a convex objective function. In addition, the nuclear norm penalization helps to resolve a potential identification problem for interactive fixed effect models, in particular when the regressors are low-rank and the number of the factors is unknown. We also show how to construct estimators that are asymptotically equivalent to the least squares (LS) estimator in Bai (2009) and Moon and Weidner (2017) by using our nuclear norm regularized or minimized estimators as initial values for a finite number of LS minimizing iteration steps. This iteration avoids any non-convex minimization, while the original LS estimation problem is generally non-convex, and can have multiple local minima.


Alternative splicing is a process by which multiple protein isoforms are generated from a single coding region by altering the ways in which exons are joined together. This pathway is used by cellular systems to both increase proteomic diversity from a limited number of genes and to precisely control gene expression. Bioinformatics and comparative genomics approaches have provided significant sequence and functional insight into the regulatory sequences that occur within exonic regions of a transcript. In vitro and in vivo strategies have also been developed to screen for exonic splicing enhancers and silencers (ESEs and ESSs) from small, randomized libraries. Much less is known about intronic splicing enhancers and silencers (ISEs and ISSs), although recent bioinformatics approaches are beginning to shed some light on these regulatory sequences. A thorough understanding of both exonic and intronic regulators is necessary to enable the programming of alternative splicing patterns, which will provide a powerful tool for interrogating and manipulating cellular function. We developed a generalizable in vivo screening strategy for generating intronic splicing regulatory elements (ISREs). Our high-throughput approach employed a systematic screening strategy with extensive genome-wide bioinformatic analyses and experimental characterization which included a small-scale RNAi screen. Using this approach, we identified ISRE consensus motifs, characterized the splicing regulatory networks (SRNs) associated with these regulatory elements and generated a model for ISRE regulatory function. Highlighting the complexity of SRNs, we found that cis-acting intronic regulatory sequences function through combinatorial effects from multiple elements and trans-acting factors, and that the immediate transcript context has a dominant effect on ISRE function. Overall, this screening strategy provides a general method for generating regulatory sequences of alternative splicing events, which provide powerful tools for gene expression control. We next extended from our studies on cellular screening strategies for generating splicing regulatory elements, to build novel platforms that support the construction of protein-responsive alternative splicing control elements. Protein-binding RNA aptamers were inserted into key intronic locations of an alternatively spliced transcript to enable the detection of intracellular protein concentrations and to translate detection events to the regulation of alternative splicing patterns and thus gene expression. We demonstrate that these RNA elements can serve as autonomous control devices by linking endogenous nuclear protein levels to gene expression events and external stimuli to complex cellular phenotypes. These synthetic alternative splicing regulators can be implemented combinatorially to regulate alternative splicing patterns in response to multiple inputs. In addition, we applied these synthetic regulators to the rewiring of endogenous signal transduction pathways and building of novel regulatory networks for user-defined phenotypes. Our work provides an early example of a novel class of RNA-based "intelligent" therapeutics by directing increased signaling through pathways associated with disease to the triggering of apoptosis. These programmable sensing-actuation molecules will be broadly applied in health and medicine towards the early diagnosis and treatment of disease.


This paper forms part of a book symposium on "A Liberal Theory of Property" hosted by the Law and Political Economy Project. It replies to reviews by David Singh Grewal & Jedediah Britton-Purdy, Nestor Davidson, Rashmi Dyal-Chand, Katharina Pistor, Ezra Rosser, and Lua Yuille. The response succinctly recaps the book's core thesis and then addresses the reviewers' two main challenges: whether liberal property is potentially self-destructive, and whether it might be a distracting utopia. These concerns are important and fair; and they help refine the mission and vision of "A Liberal Theory of Property" as well as the background regime which is crucial for liberal property's actual success.


A live e-round table discussion with Toronto artist and curator Richard Fung and artist Alison S. M. Kobayashi, and Montreal curator Alice Jim and artist Ayesha Hameed.

Moments began in 1998 as a fun way to introduce new technology to Asian artists during the month of May as part of Asian Heritage month. Technology has since zeta-leaped and 10 Moments in 2008 was a turning point. Wait… a Minute!, in 2009, is a stop action and reflection of the role, power and challenges of technology and where Asian Canadian artists fit today.


Robotic systems are increasingly becoming a relevant factor for so-called "made to order" production, as is the case in the construction industry. The aim of this contribution is to provide a basis for a cross-disciplinary discussion on the topic of robotics in the construction industry, in which both technical issues regarding the technical challenges of robotics in the construction industry and how automated building construction can be practically addressed in education and training. Based on case studies and lab experiments, the authors investigated upcoming transformations in shell production by comparing the conventional construction process with proposed processes involving cable-driven parallel robots. The focus is on bricklaying and working methods for the installation of pre-fabricated elements. Based on the prospective changes in construction the impact on vocational education and training will be discussed and influences in current educational frameworks based on automation and robotics will be introduced.


Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). At the time of conducting this study, it had recorded over 1.6 million cases while more than 105,000 have died due to it, with these figures rising on a daily basis across the globe. The burden of this highly contagious respiratory disease is that it presents itself in both symptomatic and asymptomatic patterns in those already infected, thereby leading to an exponential rise in the number of contractions of the disease and fatalities. It is therefore crucial to expedite the process of early detection and diagnosis of the disease across the world. The case-based reasoning (CBR) model is an effective paradigm that allows for the utilization of cases' specific knowledge previously experienced, concrete problem situations or specific patient cases for solving new cases. This study therefore aims to leverage the very rich database of cases of COVID-19 to solve new cases. The approach adopted in this study employs the use of an improved CBR model for state-of-the-art reasoning task in classification of suspected cases of Covid19. The CBR model leverages on a novel feature selection and semantic-based mathematical model proposed in this study for case similarity computation. An initial population of the archive was achieved with 68 cases obtained from the Italian Society of Medical and Interventional Radiology (SIRM) repository. Results obtained revealed that the proposed approach in this study successfully classified suspected cases into their categories at an accuracy of 97.10%. The study found that the proposed model can support physicians to easily diagnose suspected cases of Covid19 base on their medical records without subjecting the specimen to laboratory test. As a result, there will be a global minimization of contagion rate occasioned by slow testing and as well reduce false positive rates of diagnosed cases as observed in some parts of the globe.


Abstract Mediation is predicated on the notion that disputants have an argument or disagreement about something. Mediation is set up with a "neutral" mediator to enable an agreement to emerge from competing positions. Mediators are appointed by a third-party (e.g., courts) to enable a neutral forum for joint decision making, where disputants can set out their proposals and negotiate an agreement where possible. However, in the family mediation sessions investigated in this study, there are specific challenges that confront the process of reaching agreement, namely the emotionality of disputing terms of visitation for children. Using conversation analysis, this paper investigates how parents explicitly challenge and contradict each other during mediation sessions with a court-appointed mediator. Rather than use the mediator to repackage and redirect contradictory statements, parents directly address each other by violating question–answer sequences, completing mediator turns, and repairing formulations made by the mediator, to name a few. These findings bear resemblance to arguments investigated in non-mediation settings (e.g., playgrounds). This similarity is particularly interesting given the fact that mediation is designed, at least in theory, to minimize direct challenges and contradictions (cf. Garcia 1991).


This paper deals with atomic systems coupled to a structured reservoir of quantum EM field modes, with particular relevance to atoms interacting with the field in photonic band gap materials. The case of high Q cavities has been treated elsewhere using Fano diagonalization based on a quasimode approach, showing that the cavity quasimodes are responsible for pseudomodes introduced to treat non-Markovian behaviour. The paper considers a simple model of a photonic band gap case, where the spatially dependent permittivity consists of a constant term plus a small spatially periodic term that leads to a narrow band gap in the spectrum of mode frequencies. Most treatments of photonic band gap materials are based on the true modes, obtained numerically by solving the Helmholtz equation for the actual spatially periodic permittivity. Here the field modes are first treated in terms of a simpler quasimode approach, in which the quasimodes are plane waves associated with the constant permittivity term. Couplings between the quasimodes occur owing to the small periodic term in the permittivity, with selection rules for the coupled modes being related to the reciprocal lattice vectors. This produces a field Hamiltonian in quasimode form. A matrix diagonalization method may be applied to relate true mode annihilation operators to those for quasimodes. The atomic transitions are coupled to all the quasimodes, and the true mode atom-EM field coupling constants (one-photon Rabi frequencies) are related to those for the quasimodes and also expressions are obtained for the true mode density. The results for the one-photon Rabi frequencies differ from those assumed in other work. Expressions for atomic decay rates are obtained using the Fermi Golden rule, although these are valid only well away from the band gaps.


Objective: To investigate the herbal drugs utilization by healthcare professional (physician/academician) at AIMST University, Kedah D.A., and Malaysia. Method: Analysis was carried out by using a Software Package for Statistical Analysis, Version 20. A total of 168 healthcare professional (physician/academician) were interviewed. Results: The result showed that 150 (89.2%) used herbal drugs while 18 (10.8%) were not. The ethnicity showed that 99 (86.1%) Indians used herbal drugs 66.0%. The utilization of herbal drugs was 52.0% within the age groups of 31-40 years. Respondents 68 (90.7) from Faculty of Medicine utilized herbal drugs 45.3% more as compared to other faculties. The less experienced respondents 45 (84.9%) utilized 30% and was least in highly experienced. Most of the respondents were having Master's qualification 102 (85.7%), Ph.D. 25 (100.0%) and the utilization was 68.9% and 18.0% respectively. The respondents engaged in academics were 143 (87.7%) and utilization was 96.6%. The respondents agreed for mild illness 96 (57.1%), economic cost 70 (41.7%) and familiar with treatment option was 63 (37.5%). Conclusion: Highest utilization was in mild illness, diabetes and gastric problems. Common herbal as a drug used by the respondents was bitter gourd ( Momordica charantia ). Key words: Herbal drugs, health care professionals, ethnicity, common cold, cough.


We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? From a scientist and writer whom E.O. Wilson has called 'the world authority on primate social behavior' comes a lively look at the most provocative aspects of human nature - power, sex, violence, kindness, and morality - through our two closest cousins in the ape family. For nearly 20 years, Frans de Waal has worked with both the famously aggressive chimpanzee and the lesser-known egalitarian, erotic, matriarchal bonobo, two species whose DNA is nearly identical to that of humans. He brings these apes to life on every page, revealing their personalities, relationships, and power struggles, creating an engrossing narrative that explores what their behaviour can teach us about ourselves and each other.


DNA uptake by polyethylenimine (PEI)-mediated transfection was investigated in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO DG44) cells. Rapid DNA uptake was observed with the maximum occurring during the first 45-60 min after addition of PEI-DNA complexes to cells. With longer incubation times, the aggregation of PEI-DNA particles reduced the rate of DNA uptake. At early times after transfection, the kinetics of DNA uptake were constant, suggesting that the limiting factor to PEI transfection was the rate of endocytosis. The most efficient transfection with PEI was observed at a density of 2 x 106 cells/ml and at a PEI:DNA ratio of 2:1 (w/w). DNA uptake at higher PEI:DNA ratios was also efficient, but the toxicity of PEI decreased the recombinant protein yield. The optimal PEI:DNA ratio was found to be related to the number of cells in the culture. Once in the cell, PEI:DNA particles must be disassembled to allow transcription of the recombinant gene. Here their disassembly was investigated using a simple in vitro assay. The particles were formed with either a linear (25 kDa or JetPEITM) or a branched PEI (2, 25, or 750 kDa) and then mixed with varying amounts of a competitor (RNA, DNA, or heparin). The amount of plasmid DNA released from particles was determined by agarose gel electrophoresis or spectroscopy. The stability of the particles to changes in pH, osmolarity, and the PEI:DNA ratio was also determined. Either the presence of heparin or high salt concentrations (1-2 M) yielded complete particle disassembly for all PEIs tested. The addition of RNA to particles formed with linear PEIs or branched 2 kDa PEI resulted in the rapid release of all the plasmid DNA, even at an RNA concentration of 50 µg/ml. However, the presence of RNA at concentrations up to 400 µg/ml induced only partial disassembly of particles formed with branched PEIs of 25 or 750 kDa. In the presence of competitor DNA, slow particle disassembly was observed with particles made with linear 25 kDa PEI, JetPEI, and branched 2 kDa PEI, but DNA release was not seen for particles made with branched PEIs of higher molecular weight. The presence of BSA only resulted in partial disassembly of PEI-DNA particles, and DNA release was not observed after the exposure of particles to acidic pH as low as 3. For all the PEIs tested, their stability increased as the PEI:DNA ratio increased. It was concluded from these studies that branched PEIs have a higher affinity for DNA than linear PEIs and that the intracellular disassembly of PEI-DNA particles may involve interactions between PEI and cellular RNA. In the second part of the work, RNA interference (RNAi) was used to enhance transient gene expression by knockdown of two different mRNAs, the E1A mRNA in human embryonic kidney 293 EBNA (HEK293E) cells and the ube2i mRNA in CHO DG44 cells and HEK293 cells. HEK293 cells are transformed with the adenovirus E1A and E1B genes. Because the E1A proteins function as transcriptional activators or repressors, they may have a positive or negative effect on transient transgene expression in this cell line. Suspension cultures of HEK293 cells were co-transfected with a reporter plasmid expressing the GFP gene and a plasmid expressing a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting the E1A mRNAs for degradation by RNAi. The presence of the shRNA in HEK293E cells reduced the steady state level of E1A mRNA up to 75% and increased transient GFP expression from either the elongation factor-1α (EF-1α) promoter or the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) immediate early promoter up to 3-fold. E1A mRNA depletion also resulted in a 2-fold increase in transient expression of a recombinant IgG in suspension cultures when the IgG light and heavy chain genes were driven by the EF-1α promoter. These results demonstrated that E1A has a negative effect on transient gene expression in HEK293E cells. Efficient RNAi-mediated depletion of ube2i mRNA in CHO DG44 cells was accomplished by co-expression of 2 shRNAs targeting two distinct sides in the ube2i mRNA, whereas knockdown with only one of the shRNAs at a time was insufficient for reducing ube2i mRNA levels. The reduction of the ube2i mRNA level in CHO DG44 cells was shown to enhance transient GFP expression 2-fold and IgG expression 2.5-fold. For these experiments, the GFP gene was under the control of the CMV IE promoter and the IgG light and heavy chain genes were under the control of the human EF-1α promoter. Thus, the enhancement of transient gene expression resulting from ube2i mRNA depletion was not promoter-dependent. These results demonstrated that sumoylation has a negative effect on transient gene expression in CHO DG44 and HEK293E cells.


A 410 km long Ocean Bottom Seismometer profile spanning from the Bear Island, Barents Sea to oceanic crust formed along the Mohns Ridge has been modelled by use of ray-tracing with regard to observed P-waves. The northeastern part of the model represents typical continental crust, thinned from ca. 30 km thickness beneath the Bear Island to ca. 13 km within the Continent–Ocean-Transition. Between the Hornsund FZ and the Knolegga Fault, a 3–4 km thick sedimentary basin, dominantly of Permian/Carboniferous age, is modelled beneath the ca. 1.5 km thick layer of volcanics (Vestbakken Volcanic Province). The P-wave velocity in the 3–4 km thick lowermost continental crust is significantly higher than normal (ca. 7.5 km s–1). We interpret this layer as a mixture of mafic intrusions and continental crystalline blocks, dominantly related to the Paleocene-Early Eocene rifting event. The crystalline portion of the crust within the south-western part of the COT consists of a ca. 30 km wide and ca. 6 km thick high-velocity (7.3 km s–1) body. We interpret the body as a ridge of serpentinized peridotites. The magmatic portion of the ocean crust accreted along the Knipovich Ridge from continental break-up at ca. 35 Ma until ca. 20 Ma is 3–5 km thicker than normal. We interpret the increased magmatism as a passive response to the bending of this southernmost part of the Knipovich Ridge. The thickness of the magmatic portion of the crust formed along the Mohns Ridge at ca. 20 Ma decreases to ca. 3 km, which is normal for ultra slow spreading ridges.


Minimal criterion coevolution (MCC) was recently introduced to show that a very simple criterion can lead to an open-ended expansion of two coevolving populations. Inspired by the simplicity of striving to survive and reproduce in nature, in MCC there are few of the usual mechanisms of quality diversity algorithms: no explicit novelty, no fitness function, and no local competition. While the idea that a simple minimal criterion could produce quality diversity on its own is provocative, its initial demonstration on mazes and maze solvers was limited because the size of the potential mazes was static, effectively capping the potential for complexity to increase. This paper overcomes this limitation to make two significant contributions to the field: (1) By introducing a completely novel maze encoding with higher-quality mazes that allow indefinite expansion in size and complexity, it offers for the first time a viable, computationally cheap domain for benchmarking open-ended algorithms, and (2) it leverages this new domain to show for the first time a succession of mazes that increase in size indefinitely while solutions continue to appear. With this initial result, a baseline is now established that can help researchers to begin to mark progress in the field systematically.


The Bach Flower Remedies Step by Step is a straightforward yet comprehensive guide to the Bach Flower Remedies system. Written by a consultant at the Dr Edward Bach Centre, the guide includes detailed descriptions of the 38 remedies, as well as helpful information on their preparation and administration. As correct selection is one of the most important ingredients of success in treatment


The International Crisis Group (icg) has the motto 'working to prevent conflict worldwide'. As an organisation the icg occupies a very specific niche role, which is related to crises of a political nature, specifically armed conflict. While the icg employs a negative understanding of crisis, the academic definition of what a crisis may constitute is broader, as it can actually represent an opportunity for some actors. This article, written from a communication studies perspective, seeks to address how crises are manufactured in icg texts. It argues that the way in which crisis events are viewed and reacted to depends on the level of information and 'knowledge' that is produced and circulating about them. The article tackles the issue of the strategic level of the icg in terms of its means and mechanisms of attempting to project influence. It explores the different ploys and strategies used to influence policy makers, especially its communication strategy, the different values and ethics that are highlighted, and the 'causes' that are promoted.


Determining targets in forest restoration is a complicated task that can be facilitated by cooperative partnerships. Too often restoration plans are implemented after adverse events that cause widespread tree mortality, such as drought or insect outbreaks, have occurred. Reactive management precludes the use of preemptive management techniques that can result in more effective restoration. The potential recognition and risks associated with a large-scale mortality event cultivated a proactive partnership among managers, stakeholders, and researchers on the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky. This partnership resulted in the development of innovative proactive approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of threat of declining forest health, thus reducing the need for untested and expensive postdisturbance restorative operations. The partnership comprised four Research Work Units in the USDA Forest Service (including the Northern and Southern Research Stations), three universities (one land grant and two liberal arts), two natural resource state agencies, private logging contractors, an electrical utility, and National Forest system personnel at the district, forest supervisor, and Washington office levels. We tested forest management prescriptions designed to meet targets for future forest conditions. The goal of the silviculture treatments was to improve forest health and productivity to increase resilience to and/or avoidance of exotic invasive insect defoliation and oak decline. Treatments varied from high levels of disturbance to low levels of disturbance and ranged from even-aged regeneration treatments coupled with prescribed burning to thinning. Research assessed the alteration in species composition and stand structure, the projected regeneration outcomes and the costs and operational efficacy of mechanized forest operations used to implement the treatments. The relatively large scale of the study and diversity of treatments has afforded additional multidisciplinary research activities. Via partnership building and information and technology sharing, this project has been sustained for 10 years.


This 302-page book describes methodologies and applications of real-time PCR in food science. In addition to detection of enteric pathogens, including foodborne and waterborne parasites, a section on food quality provides information on the use of this method to detect genetically modified organisms, allergens, and animal or plant species in food products. This book will be valuable to food scientists with an interest in real-time PCR, also known as quantitative PCR or qPCR (not to be confused with reverse transcription PCR, or RT-PCR). This book provides a comprehensive overview of conventional and qPCR methods used to detect pathogens in contaminated foods, as well as their use in analysis of food integrity, including the detection of genetically modified organisms, allergens, and authentication of biological species in labeled foods. The book is divided into 3 sections.

The first section, comprising 4 chapters, provides a detailed examination of basic methodologies of qPCR. The inclusion of an introduction to these methodologies, sample preparations, assay design, and the role of controls is beneficial for new scientists and experienced readers. As a bonus, color plates are included.

The second and third sections span 14 chapters. Each of the chapters covering detection of enteric pathogens is organized similarly, which allows the reader to quickly compare and locate information. Bacterial pathogens are discussed in separate chapters; viruses and foodborne and waterborne parasitic pathogens are covered in 2 comprehensive chapters. Each chapter includes background information about organism types, tables of published assays, current methods, the use of controls, approaches to determine limits of detection, and current challenges. A compelling chapter on standardization of qPCR methods compares the International Organization for Standardization and the European Organization for Standardization platforms, giving the reader a glimpse into international processes for creating standards.

Rounding out this text are chapters focused on the use of qPCR to detect allergens, gluten, and genetically modified organisms and chapters addressing authentication of animal or plant species present in labeled foods. This book provides an excellent, detailed guide for anyone interested in development and use of qPCR platforms for food safety, quality, and microbiology.


As much empirical work attests, people have a reliable tendency to match their conversational partner's body movements, speech style, and patterns of language use – amongst other things. A specific version of this tendency, Structural priming , which occurs when prior exposure to a particular linguistic structure facilitates one's subsequent processing of the same structure, has gained widespread acceptance. Pickering and Garrod (2004) propose that cross -person structural priming is a basic mechanism of conversational coordination – part of an automatic, resource-free alignment mechanism that is the basis for all successful human interaction. We present evidence to the contrary from two analyses of a corpus of ordinary conversation. The first suggests that the level of structural (syntactic) matching is no different from chance, and the second that the observed statistical correlation between prime form and target form may be entirely associated with repetition of lexical form.


Hydrologic regime is highly dependent on climate change, as hydrologic cycle components are directly influenced by climatic conditions. This paper analyzes the impacts of climate change on the hydrologic regime of the Atrak River basin in the northeast of Iran. The river drains to the Caspian Sea in its southeastern coasts. The data collected at 11 hydrometeorological stations were examined to detect trends in hydroclimatological variables. Ten variables including annual mean discharge, annual maximum discharge, annual precipitation, maximum daily precipitation, annual minimum, mean and maximum temperatures, diurnal temperature range, annual pan evaporation and annual potential evapotranspiration during 1975–2008 were analyzed using Mann-Kendall non-parametric test. The long term observations of annual mean discharge at 8 hydrometric stations were analyzed to reveal indications of increasing or decreasing trends. Then, the long term records of precipitation, temperature, pan evaporation and potential evapotranspiration were examined to detect signs of climate change. Finally, the relationship between trends in streamflow and meteorological variables was investigated. The results indicate that although the annual mean discharge at all stations across the Atrak River basin is decreasing, but the decrease is statistically significant at only 6 stations (75 percent of stations). However, there is no evidence of significant increasing or decreasing trends in the precipitation variables. Analyses of temperature and evaporation variables show increasing trends in most of the stations. Therefore, it is concluded that decreasing trends of mean annual discharge is most likely related to an increase in the evaporative power of atmosphere.


Designing agri-environmental schemes targeted at conservation poses the key question of how many financial resources should be allocated to address a particular aim such as the conservation of an endangered species. Economists can contribute to an answer by estimating the 'optimal level of species conservation'. This requires an assessment of the supply and the demand curve for conservation and a comparison of the two curves to identify the optimal conservation level. In a case study we estimate the optimal conservation level of Large Blue butterflies (protected by the EU Habitats Directive) in the region of Landau, Germany. The difference to other studies estimating optimal conservation is that a problem is addressed where costs and benefits of conservation measures are heterogeneous in space and over time. In our case study we find a corner solution where the highest proposed level of butterfly conservation is optimal. Although our results are specific to the area and species studied, the methodology is generally applicable to estimate how many financial resources should be allocated to conserve an endangered species in the context of agri-environmental schemes.


Sedimentary basin fills along the windward flanks of orogenic plateaus are valuable archives of paleoenvironmental change with the potential to resolve the history of surface uplift and orographic barrier formation. The intermontane basins of the southern Central Andes contain thick successions of sedimentary material that are commonly interbedded with datable volcanic ashes. We relate variations in the hydrogen isotopic composition of hydrated volcanic glass (delta D-g) of Neogene to Quaternary fills in the semiarid intermontane Humahuaca Basin (Eastern Cordillera, northwest Argentina) to spatiotemporal changes in topography and associated orographic effects. delta D values from volcanic glass in the basin strata (-117 parts per thousand to -98 parts per thousand) show two main trends that accompany observed tectonosedimentary events in the study area. Between 6.0 and 3.5 Ma, delta D-g values decrease by similar to 17 parts per thousand; this is associated with surface uplift in the catchment area. After 3.5 Ma, delta D-g values show abrupt deuterium enrichment, which we associate with (1) the attainment of threshold elevations for blocking moisture transport in the basin-bounding ranges to the east, and (2) the onset of semiarid conditions in the basin. Such orographic barriers throughout the eastern flanks of the Central Andes have impeded moisture transport into the orogen interior; this has likely helped maintain aridity and internal drainage conditions on the adjacent Andean Plateau.


Precipitate hardening is commonly used in materials science to control strength by acting on the number density, size distribution, and shape of solute precipitates in the hardened matrix. The Fe-Cu system has attracted much attention over the last several decades due to its technological importance as a model alloy for Cu steels. In spite of these efforts several aspects of its phase diagram remain unexplained. Here we use atomistic simulations to characterize the polymorphic phase diagram of Cu precipitates in body-centered cubic (BCC) Fe and establish a consistent link between their thermodynamic and mechanical properties in terms of thermal stability, shape, and strength. The size at which Cu precipitates transform from BCC to a close-packed 9R structure is found to be strongly temperature dependent, ranging from approximately 4 nm in diameter (similar to 2700 atoms) at 200 K to about 8 nm (similar to 22 800 atoms) at 700 K. These numbers are in very good agreement with the interpretation of experimental data given Monzen et al. [Philos. Mag. A 80, 711 (2000)]. The strong temperature dependence originates from the entropic stabilization of BCC Cu, which is mechanically unstable as a bulk phase. While at high temperatures the transition exhibits first-order characteristics, the hysteresis, and thus the nucleation barrier, vanish at temperatures below approximately 300 K. This behavior is explained in terms of the mutual cancellation of the energy differences between core and shell (wetting layer) regions of BCC and 9R nanoprecipitates, respectively. The proposed mechanism is not specific for the Fe-Cu system but could generally be observed in immiscible systems, whenever the minority component is unstable in the lattice structure of the host matrix. Finally, we also study the interaction of precipitates with screw dislocations as a function of both structure and orientation. The results provide a coherent picture of precipitate strength that unifies previous calculations and experimental observations.


The formation of the Mesoproterozoic Natal Metamorphic Province occurred during the closing stages of the assembly of the supercontinent Rodinia (~1150 to ~950 Ma), forming part of the ~1190 to ~950 Ma Grenvillian orogeny. This was preceded by the accretion, at ~1210 Ma, of Mesoproterozoic island arcs along the southern margin of the Archaean Kaapvaal Craton. The Mfongosi Group represents an enigmatic sequence of rocks found between the Kaapvaal Craton and the partially ophiolitic Natal Nappe Zone to the north of these accreted island arcs. Mfongosi metagreywackes adjacent to the Kaapvaal Craton have ocean island arc major element geochemical signatures. These contrast with metagreywackes approximately two kilometres further south, near the contact zone between the Natal Thrust Front and Natal Nappe Zone, which have active continental margin major element geochemical signatures. A third type of metasediment is represented in both areas by geochemically distinct low-Ca+Na, high-K meta-arkoses to meta-lithic arkoses, which were formed by relatively minor sedimentation from a passive continental margin. The Mfongosi Group is a fore-arc complex, incorporating elements of a fore-arc basin and an accretionary prism deposited in a trench, which filled during final oblique collision between the Kaapvaal Craton and an oceanic island arc to the south. The inclusion of an active continental margin signature in the metasediments is enigmatic, although the geochemistry of the metagreywackes suggests that the margin of the Grunehogna Province is a probable source. Subsequent closure of this basin resulted in inversion and accretion of the metasedimentary sequence onto the southern margin of the Kaapvaal Craton.


We study multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) in a stochastic network of agents. The objective is to find localized policies that maximize the (discounted) global reward. In general, scalability is a challenge in this setting because the size of the global state/action space can be exponential in the number of agents. Scalable algorithms are only known in cases where dependencies are static, fixed and local, e.g., between neighbors in a fixed, time-invariant underlying graph. In this work, we propose a Scalable Actor Critic framework that applies in settings where the dependencies can be non-local and stochastic, and provide a finite-time error bound that shows how the convergence rate depends on the speed of information spread in the network. Additionally, as a byproduct of our analysis, we obtain novel finite-time convergence results for a general stochastic approximation scheme and for temporal difference learning with state aggregation, which apply beyond the setting of MARL in networked systems.


If you really want to know what makes Barack Obama tick, you need to understand his education. James T. Kloppenberg explains the rich American intellectual tradition that shapes Obama's beliefs and influences his actions--particularly his aversion to absolutes and his commitment to compromise. This look at Obama's education is a deeply rewarding education in itself. Princeton Shorts are brief selections taken from influential Princeton University Press books and produced exclusively in ebook format. Providing unmatched insight into important contemporary issues or timeless passages from classic works of the past, Princeton Shorts enable you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium.


We introduce the interference-multiple-access channel, which is a discrete memoryless channel with two transmitters and two receivers, similar to the interference channel. One receiver is required to decode the information encoded at one transmitter, the other receiver is required to decode the messages from both transmitters. We provide an inner bound on the capacity region of this channel, as well as an outer bound for a special class of such channels. For this class, we also quantify the gap between inner and outer bound and show that the bounds match for a semi-deterministic channel, providing a complete characterization. For the Gaussian case, we show that the gap is at most 1 bit, yielding an approximate characterization.


Background: Pain poses a unique challenge to anaesthesiologist. Femur fracture is one such condition where patient experiences spikes of excruciating pain whenever patient is subjected to move or position for delivering central neuraxial anaesthesia which further increases stress response and results in polypharmacy to tackle its consequences. This study is designed to compare the efficacy of ultrasound guided Fascia Iliaca Compartment Block with bupivacaine over intravenous fentanyl for positioning during spinal anaesthesia in femur fracture cases Methodology: A single blinded, randomised study was carried out with 60 patients of ASA grade I and II aged between 18 to 70 years undergoing Femur fracture surgeries under spinal anaesthesia, patients are randomly allocated into two groups Group FICB: will be given ultrasound guided Fascia Iliaca Compartment Block preoperatively with 30ml of 0.25% bupivacaine, the block will be done 15 minutes before the sub arachnoid block. Group FENT: will be administered intravenous fentanyl preoperatively according to their calculated body weight as 2mcg/kg body weight I.V. Results: The VAS scores (P<0.0029), quality of patient positioning(P<0.0024) ,patient satisfaction(P<0.0284),Time to perform subarachnoid block (P<0.0001) heart rate (P<0.0022), Respiratory rate (P<0.0001) during positioning, Time for first rescue analgesic dose (P<0.0001)were comparatively better in the femoral nerve block group compared to intravenous fentanyl group and no statistically significant difference was observed in relation to mean arterial pressure, peripheral capillary oxygen saturation during positioning among both groups Conclusion: It is concluded that Fascia Iliaca Compartment Block is more efficacious than intravenous fentanyl for positioning during spinal anaesthesia in surgery for fracture femur cases.


We consider a generalization of a recently proposed non-Hermitian model for resonant cavities coupled by a chiral mirror by taking into account number non-conservation and nonlinear interactions. We analyze non-Hermitian quantum dynamics of populations and entanglement of the cavity modes. We find that the interplay between initial coherence and non-Hermitian coupling leads to a counterintuitive population transfer. While an initially coherent cavity mode is depleted, the other empty cavity can be populated more than or less than the initially filled one. Moreover, the presence of nonlinearity yields population collapse and revival as well as bipartite entanglement of the cavity modes. In addition to coupled cavities, we point out that similar models can be found in -symmetric Bose-Hubbard dimers of Bose-Einstein condensates or in coupled soliton-plasmon waveguides. We specifically illustrate the quantum dynamics of populations and entanglement in a heuristic model that we propose for a soliton-plasmon system with soliton amplitude-dependent asymmetric interaction. Degree of asymmetry, nonlinearity and coherence are examined to control plasmon excitations and soliton-plasmon entanglement. Relations to -symmetric lasers and Jahn-Teller systems are pointed out.


A module is called absolutely indecomposable if it is directly indecomposable in every generic extension of the universe. We want to show the existence of large abelian groups that are absolutely indecomposable. This will follow from a more general result about R-modules over a large class of commutative rings R with endomorphism ring R which remains the same when passing to a generic extension of the universe. It turns out that `large' in this context has the precise meaning, namely being smaller then the first omega-Erdos cardinal defined below. We will first apply result on large rigid trees with a similar property established by Shelah in 1982, and will prove the existence of related ` R_omega-modules' (R-modules with countably many distinguished submodules) and finally pass to R-modules. The passage through R_omega-modules has the great advantage that the proofs become very transparent essentially using a few `linear algebra' arguments accessible also for graduate students. The result gives a new construction of indecomposable modules in general using a counting argument.


Determining the list of proteins present in a sample, based on the list of identified peptides, is a crucial step in the untargeted proteomics LC-MS/MS data-processing pipeline. This step, commonly referred to as protein inference, turns out to be a very challenging problem because many peptide sequences are found across multiple proteins. Current protein inference engines typically use peptide to spectrum match (PSM) quality measures and spectral count information to score protein identifications in LC-MS/MS data sets. This is, however, not enough to confidently validate or otherwise rule out many of the proteins. Here we introduce the basis for a new way of performing protein inference based on accurate quantification patterns of identified peptides using the correlation of these patterns to validate peptide to protein matches. For the first implementation of this new approach, we focused on (1) distinguishing between unambiguously and ambiguously identified proteins and (2) generating hypotheses for the discrimination of subsets of the ambiguously identified proteins. Our preprocessing pipelines support both labeled LC-MS/MS or label-free LC-MS followed by LC-MS/MS providing the peptide quantification. We apply our procedure to two published data sets and show that it is able to detect and infer proteins that would otherwise not be confidently inferred.


Background: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a chronic and serious complication associated with diabetes. The standardization of an in vitro model to best represent DN is very challenging due to the chronic nature of the condition. Therefore, two different renal tubule cell lines - Madin-Darby canine kidney cells (MDCK) and Normal rat kidney cells (NRK-52E) - were used to investigate the effects of high glucose on kidney cells. Objective: To determine the effects of high glucose concentrations on cell viability (using MTT assay), oxidative stress (using dichlorofluorescein (DCF) staining), and expression of proteins activated in DN such as aldose reductase and glucose-regulated protein-78 (GRP78), an endoplasmic reticulum chaperone (using western blotting). Results: MDCK cells showed a subtle decrease in viability when exposed to high glucose concentrations (30 mM and 1% FBS) for 48 h. Furthermore, there was a slight increase in aldose reductase expression after 48 h of high glucose exposure, however; the GRP78 levels remained unchanged. NRK-52E cells showed more consistent decrease in viability after 48 and 72 h of high glucose exposure (30 mM and 1% FBS). In addition, the DCF staining also demonstrated an increase in oxidative stress after 24 h of high glucose exposure. Furthermore, a 30% increase in aldose reductase expression has been observed after 48 h of high glucose exposure. Conclusion: Although the 48 h high glucose exposure in MDCK cells can be used as a model for in vitro DN, the results are less reproducible, whereas NRK-52E cells seem to be a better and more reliable cell line to mimic the features of DN in vitro. Key words: Diabetic nephropathy; In vitro; Kidney; Oxidative Stress; ER Stress.


The architecture of the past 100 years is characterized by a desire for ever greater transparency. Inevitably, that goes hand in hand with a constantly growing proportion of glass in the building envelope. But owing to the brittle nature of glass, there are only limited options for transferring tried-and-tested methods of jointing—derived from structural steelwork and other engineering disciplines—to this material. However, adhesive joints are much more suited to creating a material bond between glass components. Structural adhesive joints for load bearing glass components have been the subject of research and development work all over Europe in recent years. This article looks at some of that work. The research has led to the development of practical adhesive joints for glass-glass and glass-metal connections. The work includes the study of surface pretreatments and aging scenarios so that types of application for the tensile and shear loads encountered in practice can be specified. Material specimens tested at various load application rates and temperatures enable the material parameters to be determined. A torsion specimen with a glued butt joint is being used to improve the in situ testing of glass-metal connections. There are plenty of potential applications for adhesive joints in structural glazing and solar technology, including the following: Point adhesive joints for overhead glazing and for oversize photovoltaic modules subjected to high environmental loads, linear adhesive joints for hybrid steel-glass composite beams with good ductility and for glass fins with a reduced cross-section in minimized steel-and-glass facades, or full-bond adhesive joints for photovoltaic facades suspended in front of a ventilation cavity and for fully transparent load bearing adhesive joints to an all-glass pavilion (first approved application in Germany).


I propose a new theory of scalar implicatures: the speaker should be in the same epistemic status with respect to alternatives obtained via similar transformations (e.g., replacements of a scalar items with various stronger items). This theory extends naturally to explain presupposition projection. Cases where scalar items and presupposition triggers co-occur are straightforwardly accounted for. The main focus is the unification between various phenomena: scalar implicatures, free choice effects and presupposition projection. Yet, the system can be split into independent proposals for each of these issues.


Service-learning is an instructional method in which students learn course content by actively participating in thoughtfully organized service experiences related to the content. Effectively linking service-learning to course content not only offers students a powerful opportunity to maximize academic learning, but also promotes their personal growth and instills a commitment to lifelong, civic engagement. Service-learning was integrated into an upper level Family and Consumer Sciences Adolescent Development course. In addition to completing the traditional course work, students also completed a service-learning experience at a community agency that served adolescents. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the service-learning component, students were surveyed at the end of the semester about their service-learning experiences. All agreed they had learned more about course concepts as a result of their SL experience, and the majority felt their service-learning activity provided a needed service to the agency and community.


A remarkable group of three-handled jars was manufactured on Cyprus in the 14th century BC under the influence of LH IIIA1 and LH IIIA2 jars FS 44 and FS 45, which suggests that they were the earliest Cypriot vases of Mycenaean inspiration. In this article a comparative analysis between these Cypriot examples and the Mycenaean pottery found in Achaea, Elis and Messenia is carried out. Several morphological affinities between the jars FS 44 and FS 45 with the conical and conical-piriform shapes from these regions and the Cypriot three-handled jars are apparent. There are also additional common features concerning the decoration, such as old-fashioned motifs and the presence of secondary motifs under the handles, which became some of the main decorative elements of the Cypriot three-handled jars. Based on the convergence of this circumstantial evidence, it can be suggested that the influence of the Mycenaean pottery of the western regions of the Peloponnese played an important, although ephemeral, role on Cypriot pottery production during the 14th Century BC. This could be attributed to the substantial development on the Greek mainland, after the destruction of Knossos, of perfumed oil and perfumed ointment production, which led to the widespread export of Mycenaean slow-pouring and unguent containers throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.


Title of Document: AMOEBOID SHAPE DYNAMICS ON FLAT AND TOPOGRAPHICALLY MODIFIED SURFACES Meghan Katrien Driscoll, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Directed By: Professor Wolfgang Losert, Department of Physics I present an analysis of the shape dynamics of the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, a model system for the study of cellular migration. To better understand cellular migration in complicated 3-D environments, cell migration was studied on simple 3-D surfaces, such as cliffs and ridges. D. discoideum interact with surfaces without forming mature focal adhesion complexes (FACs). The cellular response to the surface topography was characterized by measuring and looking for patterns in cell shape. Dynamic cell shape is a measure of the interaction between the internal biochemical state of a cell and its external environment. For D. discoideum migrating on flat surfaces, waves of high boundary curvature were observed to travel from the cell front to the cell back. Curvature waves are also easily seen in cells that do not adhere to a surface, such as cells that are electrostatically repelled from the coverslip or cells that are extended over the edge of micro-fabricated cliffs. At the leading edge of adhered cells, these curvature waves are associated with protrusive activity, suggesting that protrusive motion can be thought of as a wave-like process. The wave-like character of protrusions provides a plausible mechanism for the ability of cells to swim in viscous fluids and to navigate complex 3-D topography. Patterning of focal adhesion complexes has previously been implicated in contact guidance (polarization or migration parallel to linear topographical structures). However, significant contact guidance is observed in D. discoideum, which lack focal adhesion complexes. Analyzing the migration of cells on nanogratings of ridges spaced various distances apart, ridges spaced about 1.5 μm apart were found to guide cells best. Contact guidance was modeled as an interaction between wave-like processes internal to the cell and the periodicity of the nanograting. The observed wavelength and speed of the oscillations that best couple to the surface are consistent with those of protrusive dynamics. Dynamic sensing via actin or protrusive dynamics might then play a role in contact guidance. AMOEBOID SHAPE DYNAMICS ON FLAT AND TOPOGRAPHICALLY MODIFIED SURFACES


This work introduces personas, descriptions of fictional individuals used in the field of human-computer interac- tion, into the simulation of building performance. The ultimate goal is to reduce the impact of buildings on the environment by helping architects predict the energy de- mand associated with different design options. As energy consumption patterns are largely dependent on human ac- tivities, we previously developed a method to simulate the behavior of individual building occupants. Here we ex- tend the method, allowing occupants to interact with one another. Also, whereas activities generated by the previ- ous method were based on only the recorded schedules of real people, we now use personas as well to customize and diversify occupant behavior. Both occupant interac- tion and behavior customization were achieved via the as- signment of weighting coefficients to activities used for model calibration. Simulation results demonstrate that, by supplying only modest amounts of information, architects may be able to generate plausible interdependent sched- ules specifically tailored to their own projects.


The persistent clinical uncertainty that characterizes medical innovation provides important insights beyond the health arena and for the broader framework of evolutionary approaches to technological change. This paper focuses on the intimate connection between uncertainty and the process of hybridization, defined as the embodiment of multiple competing operational principles within a single device. We argue this type of solution and the associated problem solving emerge as a response to persistent clinical uncertainty about the performance of competing operational principles. Stated in conditional programming language, hybridization corresponds to ?if you do not know which one is better then choose all?.The history of the intervertebral artificial disc, a surgical prosthesis used in the treatment of spinal pain, offers important insights into the hybridization of technologies under persistent uncertainty. The paper presents the case of the only hybrid artificial disc that has been approved for use in regular clinical practice.


Most brownfields cleanups have relied on institutional and engineering controls as part of the remedy, although the implementation, monitoring, and enforcement of these controls is one of the most difficult issues affecting contaminated property cleanup and redevelopment. The critical role of institutional controls has recently been highlighted by the 2001 Brownfields Amendments, and as a result a key element in the future success of brownfields redevelopment will rest on understanding and effectively using risk-based corrective action, including institutional and engineering controls. Implementing Institutional Controls at Brownfields and Other Contaminated Sites, the first book on this important and evolving topic, provides a thorough grounding in the history and current use of institutional controls. Emphasizing federal, state and public perspectives, this compendium of articles written by over 43 experts in the field offers real estate and environmental practitioners a state-of-the-art review of a subject that is integral to the success and growth of brownfields redevelopment projects. Beginning with an overview of institutional controls, Part I of the manual also examines some of the emerging tools that can be used in brownfields redevelopment, including custodial trusts, one-call systems, and web-based tracking systems. It also discusses the benefits of the proposed uniform model law on environmental covenants (UECA). Part II addresses the federal perspective, including the statutory and regulatory framework for the use of institutional controls in CERCLA and RCRA. The state perspective is covered in Part III, looking at the varying use of these controls in several states, including Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maine. "Experience in the Field" is the focus of Part IV, which reviews how these controls have been used, highlights recent case studies, and draws conclusions on what can be learned from these successes and failures. A wealth of appendices provides quick, one-source access to relevant documents and forms, including the flow chart from the ASTM Standard Guide on the Use of Activity and Use Limitations, Including Institutional and Engineering Controls (E 2091), final fact sheets from the Environmental Protection Agency for site managers at Superfund and RCRA sites, guidance from the Department of Defense, and state documents referenced in the text.


The present investigation deals with the synthesis and thermal degradation studies of resin 8-Hydroxyquinoline 5- sulphonic acid -semicarbazide - formaldehyde derived by the condensation of 8-Hydroxyquinoline 5-sulphonic acid and semicarbazide with formaldehyde in the presence of 2M acetic acid as catalyst with varying molar proportions of reactants. Copolymer composition has been determined on the basis of their elemental analysis. The copolymer has been characterized by UV-visible, FTIR and 1H NMR spectra. The morphology of synthesized copolymer was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal decomposition behavior of some new copolymers were studied using thermogravimetric analysis in air atmosphere at heating rate of 10 oC/min. Detailed thermal degradation studies of the resin has been carried out to ascertain its thermal stability. The Freeman– Carroll and Sharp– Wentworth methods have been used to calculate activation energy and thermal stability. Thermal activation energy (Ea) calculated with the help of these methods are in agreement with each other. Thermodynamic parameters such as free energy change (ΔF), entropy change (ΔS), apparent entropy change (S*), and frequency factor (z) are also determined on the basis of the TG curves and by using data of the Freeman–Carroll method. Keywords: Thermal degradation, Resin, Thermal stability, Morphology, Characterization, Poly


This paper argues that there is something deeply wrong with the attempt to give rule-following explanations of broadly rational activities. It thus supports the view that rational norms are part of the 'bedrock' and it challenges the widespread strategy of attempting to explain an individual's rational or linguistic abilities by attributing to her knowledge of a theory of some kind. The theorist who would attempt to attribute knowledge of norms to an individual in order to explain her ability to act rationally is presented with a dilemma: either she is committed to a (vicious) explanatory regress or she destroys the normative nature of these rational practices or activities, thus making it pointless to attribute knowledge of the norms to an individual who participates in these practices. The appeal to tacit or implicit knowledge does not help in avoiding the basic dilemma.


Despite increasing interest in Syriac studies and growing digital availability of Syriac texts, there is currently no up-to-date infrastructure for discovering, identifying, classifying, and referencing works of Syriac literature. The standard reference work (Baumstark's Geschichte) is over ninety years old, and the perhaps 20,000 Syriac manuscripts extant worldwide can be accessed only through disparate catalogues and databases. The present article proposes a tentative data model for Syriaca.org's New Handbook of Syriac Literature, an open-access digital publication that will serve as both an authority file for Syriac works and a guide to accessing their manuscript representations, editions, and translations. The authors hope that by publishing a draft data model they can receive feedback and incorporate suggestions into the next stage of the project.


As a system of hereditary social stratification, caste is associated primarily with South Asia, particularly India, but it also exists in South Asian diaspora communities including in the United Kingdom. Discrimination based on caste affects around 167 million Dalits – formerly 'Untouchables' – in India alone. In the United Kingdom it is estimated that there are at least 200,000 people of Dalit origin, possibly many more. Government-commissioned research suggests strongly that discrimination and harassment based on caste also exist in this country. This thesis discusses the legal regulation of caste discrimination in India, in international human rights law and in the United Kingdom. In order to contribute to an understanding of how caste can be conceptualised legally and how caste discrimination can be regulated legally, the thesis examines how the concept of caste and the phenomenon of discrimination and inequality on grounds of caste have been defined, constructed and addressed by law. It traces the evolution of the religious, social and legal rationales for caste discrimination, and conversely the evolution of legal remedies for its elimination. Caste is a complex social phenomenon; this thesis explains and addresses the legal challenges of capturing caste in national and international law and examines the advantages and limitations of existing legal analyses and frameworks for tackling discrimination based on caste. In India, caste discrimination and inequality persist, despite constitutional and legislative measures for their elimination; this thesis examines why this is the case, identifies the lessons learned from India's experience and suggests ways in which India could extend and improve its legal and policy responses to caste discrimination. International human rights law engagement with caste discrimination dates from the mid-1990s. The thesis explains and analyses the prohibition of caste discrimination in international human rights law and the reasons for and implications of the refusal by India, the world's largest caste-affected country, to accept the conceptualisation of caste discrimination as a form of internationally-prohibited racial discrimination. Other international law approaches to caste discrimination (for example minority rights) are also considered and assessed. A particular focus of the research is the legal regulation of caste discrimination in the United Kingdom. Hence, the thesis undertakes a detailed analysis of the capacity of domestic discrimination law to capture caste. The Equality Act 2010 provides for the introduction, by ministerial order, of a statutory prohibition of caste discrimination by adding caste to the definition of the protected characteristic of race, but reservations have been raised about the appropriateness of legislating for caste discrimination, and as at 1 April 2013 no such order had been made. This thesis challenges the reservations to caste discrimination legislation. It explains why existing discrimination law is inadequate to capture caste, and it argues in favour of an express statutory prohibition of caste discrimination in national law, in accordance with the UK's international human rights law obligations, as an essential – although not the sole – element of a strategy to tackle such discrimination. In doing so, the thesis also reveals the role and contribution of domestic grassroots activism in securing legal change.


In this article, we study the choice of issuer location and regulatory competition in the European corporate debt market. We find that, in absolute terms, Germany has by far the highest outflow of debt issues, while the Netherlands, the UK, Luxembourg and Ireland see the most inflows (in that order). We use a panel gravity model to investigate country specific factors attracting foreign subsidiaries as issuer. The data clearly support the prediction that the locational choice is positively influenced by a low withholding tax rate. There is also some evidence that corporate tax rates play a role. We do not find support for creditor protection rules in bankruptcy as a driver of cross-border debt securities issues. Hence, countries who wish to attract issuers are well-advised to reduce their withholding tax rates – creditor rights seem not to matter.


General Motors Research and Development (R&D) management is planning to renovate portions of the Warren, Michigan, research facility. The study's goal was to help organizational leaders and planners understand culturally endorsed workspace architecture and design elements. Researchers used a rapid ethnographic assessment research design grounded in cognitive anthropology and methods to capture impressions and cultural requirements for workspace. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge at the intersection of workspace, culture, and user-oriented design by analyzing employee comments and research observations to construct a cultural model of R&D workspace. All model components underscore the cultural values of productivity and pragmatism. The authors examine features associated with the workspace productivity model, behaviors associated with the workspace, and differences in workspace perceptions and behaviors by organizational role. Findings refine the definition of knowledge worker culture and suggest that an orientation to productivity reflects broader American cultural values including pragmatism, individualism, and effectiveness.


Over half of all American Jewish children are being raised by intermarried parents. This demographic group will have a tremendous impact on American Judaism as it is lived and practiced in the coming decades. To date, however, in both academic studies about Judaism and in the popular imagination, such children and their parents remain marginal. Jennifer A. Thompson takes a different approach. In Jewish on Their Own Terms, she tells the stories of intermarried couples, the rabbis and other Jewish educators who work with them, and the conflicting public conversations about intermarriage among American Jews. Thompson notes that in the dominant Jewish cultural narrative, intermarriage symbolizes individualism and assimilation. Talking about intermarriage allows American Jews to discuss their anxieties about remaining distinctively Jewish despite their success in assimilating into American culture. In contrast, Thompson uses ethnography to describe the compelling concerns of all of these parties and places their anxieties firmly within the context of American religious culture and morality. She explains how American and traditional Jewish gender roles converge to put non-Jewish women in charge of raising Jewish children. Interfaith couples are like other Americans in often harboring contradictory notions of individual autonomy, universal religious truths, and obligations to family and history. Focusing on the lived experiences of these families, Jewish on Their Own Terms provides a complex and insightful portrait of intermarried couples and the new forms of American Judaism that they are constructing.


Knowledge distillation constitutes a simple yet effective way to improve the performance of a compact student network by exploiting the knowledge of a more powerful teacher. Nevertheless, the knowledge distillation literature remains limited to the scenario where the student and the teacher tackle the same task. Here, we investigate the problem of transferring knowledge not only across architectures but also across tasks. To this end, we study the case of object detection and, instead of following the standard detector-to-detector distillation approach, introduce a classifier-to-detector knowledge transfer framework. In particular, we propose strategies to exploit the classification teacher to improve both the detector's recognition accuracy and localization performance. Our experiments on several detectors with different backbones demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, allowing us to outperform the state-of-the-art detector-to-detector distillation methods.


Due to such requirements as low power consumption and low cost, sensor nodes commonly do not include advanced H/W features. The absence of the features such as the memory management unit enforces several tasks to share a memory address domain on a small data memory space (1~16 KB). It exposes each task to the stack overflow causing the corruption of other memory areas. In this paper, we propose a robust and efficient stack memory management method (RESM) that dynamically assigns and releases a preestimated amount of stack memory to each function call at runtime. RESM maintains the stack memory usage with the similar amount of the stack usage that the system actually requires, and the stack memory area of each task is individually protected from corruption by the stack overflow. RESM can also anticipate a saturated condition in data memory at runtime. When the memory state is unsafe from the saturated condition, it conditionally allows function calls to operate tasks without any memory fault by using the proposed function call deferring algorithm. From the analytical and experiment results, it is proven that the performance of RESM outperforms the other mechanisms and RESM can provide more robust stack operation environment.


Groundwater is a scarce resource in the arid plains of the northwestern United States. Accordingly, its high demand by farmers and cattle ranchers has led to a series of laws restricting and governing its use. The Supreme Court of Washington recently ruled in Five Corners Family Farmers v. State that one of these statutes, drafted decades ago, allows for unlimited water to be used for the purposes of watering cattle. This Comment reviews the competing arguments of this case, and focuses on the method the court used in making its determination. This Comment addresses the plain meaning of the statute in question, and suggests that while the court made the correct decision, it may have catastrophic effects on the land and people affected by it.


Recent approaches to processing and restoration of images and video have brought together several powerful data-adaptive methods from different fields of work. Examples include Moving Least Square (from computer graphics), the Bilateral Filter and Anisotropic Diffusion (from computer vision), Boosting and Spectral Methods (from Machine Learning), Non-local Means (from Signal Processing), Bregman Iterations (from Applied Math), Functional Gradient Descent, Kernel Regression and Iterative Scaling (from Statistics). These approaches are deeply connected, and their use has led to the present state of the art in imaging applications. In this talk, I will present a practical and unified framework for understanding some common underpinnings of these methods. This leads to new insights and a broad understanding of how these diverse methods interrelate. I will also discuss the statistical performance of the resulting algorithms, illustrate connections between these techniques and empirical Bayes procedures. .


One in every ten patients have experienced an adverse event while in a healthcare setting across the globe. The adverse event can occur as a result of a medication event, hospital acquired infection, surgical complication or due to a fall. As a result, the international focus is on healthcare policy reform, legislative changes and development of standards of care aimed at promoting patient safety and providing quality healthcare. This essay focuses on patient safety in relation to medication management by nursing staff with emphasis on the nurses role within medication management, causes and preventive measures of medication errors, prevalence of error reporting and open disclosure and associated barriers. Nursing staff have a huge role to play in medication management and can be more prone to medications errors as they are usually the person administering the medication while working in busy environments. It was found that causes of medication errors were due to nurse fatigue and distraction, poor mathematical skills, pharmacological deficit of nurses, inadequate drug labelling and staff shortages. Medication errors can be prevented by adequate staff levels, an environment open to error reporting, continuing education in medication management, and distraction free zones. Barriers to error reporting are due to fear of reactions from staff and fear of disciplinary action. The essay concludes that a systems approach allowing for non-punitive incident reporting of errors would be more effective at supporting patient safety as opposed to the current culture of individual blame. Also, nurses are responsible and accountable for maintaining competence towards medication management and should practice a more holistic view.


The present article presents an approach to evaluating the transformation of the industrial complex in the context of deep penetration of digital technologies into the material sector of the economy. The authors propose a theoretical research platform based on the theory of a new industrial society, substantiate a methodology, which comprises reproduction, institutional and synergetic approaches. The study showed that the transformation of the industrial complex, caused by any factors and implemented in any conditions, is always a discrete process of qualitative changes, resulting in significant structural changes and institutional transformations. The authors proposed a methodology to define the stages of industrial complex transformation in a digital economy. The authors' model of the digitization process consists of five stages – primary information and communication digitization; electronic data exchange with external partners; use of specialized software; electronic data exchange with external partners. Within this framework, an empirical analysis was carried out to determine the digitization level of the industrial complex of Russia that implies a sufficiently high degree of primary computerization, the involvement of the industrial enterprises in the "digital" communication with counterparties and the dynamic software development. The study shows that the process of digital transformation of the Russian industry is still in its formative stages.


Any effort to project the vectors of development in the law affecting consumer financial services for the 1980s must take into account the sources from which the legal ground rules will emanate. Those sources are in one sense bifurcated i.e., the states have long had a significant role in regulating consumer credit and related consumer transactions, and, since 1968, the federal government has been substantially and increasingly involved in standard setting for consumer financial transactions. At these two levels of government there is further fragmentation of the lawmaking function. Each of the fifty states, and countless local government entities, enact laws without reference to the lawmaking in neighboring jurisdictions or in Washington; attempts to generate uniform state laws have had limited success. At the federal level, it is tempting to think that congressional legislation is perforce of uniform applicability across the nation, and that friction between federal and state initiatives (posed in terms of the preemption of state and local laws by federal standards) can be kept to a minimum. Yet a cursory examination reveals that standards explicitly set by Congress are barely the tip of the federal lawmaking iceberg. The most voluminous federal regulations are generated from federal administrative agencies, among whom there is as much balkanization as among the states. This article reviews these complex sources of law, and suggests the possible courses of evolution over the next decade.


This volume contains the proceedings of a recent Edinburgh conference at which scholars discussed the intersection of Scottish and Irish politics and culture in the later Middle Ages. It was a world epitomized by the neglected figure of the galloglass and several of the papers explore the role of these West Highland dynasties and their rapid proliferation throughout Ireland from the late thirteenth century onwards, but the volume also examines the high politics of Scottish royal involvement in Ireland, and the common culture of Gaeldom, particularly as manifested in the corpus of surviving bardic verse. Contributors include: Steve Boardman, David Caldwell, Alison Cathcart, Seán Duffy, David Edwards, Wilson McLeod, Kenneth Nicholls, Alasdair Ross, Katharine Simms, and Alex Woolf.... Download ebook, read file pdf Kings, Warlords and Warriors in Ireland and Scotland, 1200¿1600


Abstract. Anthropogenic aerosol emissions have increased considerably over the last century, but climate effects and quantification of the emissions are highly uncertain as one goes back in time.
This uncertainty is partly due to a lack of observations in the pre-satellite era, making the observations we do have before 1990 additionally valuable.
Aerosols suspended in the atmosphere scatter and absorb incoming solar radiation and thereby alter the Earth's surface energy balance. Previous studies show that Earth system models (ESMs) do not adequately represent surface energy fluxes over the historical era.
We investigated global and regional aerosol effects over the time period 1961–2014 by looking at surface downwelling shortwave radiation (SDSR).
We used observations from ground stations as well as multiple experiments from eight ESMs participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Version 6 (CMIP6).
Our results show that this subset of models reproduces the observed transient SDSR well in Europe but poorly in China. We suggest that this may be attributed to missing emissions of sulfur dioxide in China, sulfur dioxide being a precursor to sulfate, which is a highly reflective aerosol and responsible for more reflective clouds.
The emissions of sulfur dioxide used in the models do not show a temporal pattern that could explain observed SDSR evolution over China.
The results from various aerosol emission perturbation experiments from DAMIP, RFMIP and AerChemMIP show that only simulations containing anthropogenic aerosol emissions show dimming, even if the dimming is underestimated.
Simulated clear-sky and all-sky SDSR do not differ greatly, suggesting that cloud cover changes are not a dominant cause of the biased SDSR evolution in the simulations. Therefore we suggest that the discrepancy between modeled and observed SDSR evolution is partly caused by erroneous aerosol and aerosol precursor emission inventories. This is an important finding as it may help interpret whether ESMs reproduce the historical climate evolution for the right or wrong reason.


The increasing threats and opportunities, on the global markets, challenge today the company at several levels. The actual Manufacturing Systems becomes dramatic for the survival and prosperity of the organization. Agility, Sustainability and high rate of Re-usability are the main objectives of an "Evolvable Production System". Task-specific and process-oriented modules with embedded intelligence, together with distributed control based on agent technology are the cornerstones of an EPS. The realization and management of this kind of systems entail an ontological approach due to their implicit complexity. The reference architecture is the key to canalize the underlying holism of an EPS towards an effective instantiation, which exploits the "Emergent Behavior", the key driver of the Evolvability of a system. The issues related with the application of this view, such as dynamic link between product and system design as well as the management of a module repository, underline the weakness of present business models. Therefore a model for the emplacement of a System that follows the "Evolvable Paradigm" predicament has been produced in order to enable further studies. One of the conclusions of the work is the need for a more suitable approach to business by the main actors involved in the realization of an EPS. Sharing information and standards about product design and modules realization becomes a compulsory strategic choice.


This best-selling guide to the workings of the European Union provides comprehensive coverage of: The development of the Union. How it works: the institutions, the mechanisms. Every area of EU competence from agriculture to workers' rights The effects of the single market and the single currency . The prospects for closer political integration. This Guide to the European is well-established as the clearest and most comprehensive guide to how the EU operates. This new edition brings you up to date at a crucial stage following the replacement of the mark, franc, lira, peseta and seven other currencies by the euro and at a time when Britain edges closer to putting euro zone membership to the vote in a referendum.


This research, entitled Essence of Religion in Islam. Many people often connote science with Western. However, if tracked historically, Islam have enormous contribution in developing of science. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the scientific character of the West and Islam, analyzing the development of science in Islamic and discover the nature of science in Islam. This is a library research using hermeneutic method with method elements are description, verstehen and interpretation. The material object is Islamic thought while the formal object is the philosophy of science. The results of this research indicate that there is a distinctive characteristic between Western science and Islam from the aspect of ontology, epistemology, and axiology. The most striking difference is the recognition of the existence of God. In its development, Islamic science actually stems from the Prophet Muhammad's own then forwarded the new companions subsequent Islamic thinkers. The nature of science in Islam includes facility, processes and objectives. Epistemologically, it means that Islam accepts ratio and sense as well as revelation and intuition, while the purpose of science is to reveal the truth in pursuit of Ultimate Truth.


BACKGROUND A miniature wireless vital signs monitor (MWVSM, www.athena.gtx.com) has been designed according to US Special Operations Command specifications for field monitoring of combat casualties. It incorporates an injury acuity algorithm termed the Murphy Factor (MF), which is calculated from whatever vital signs are available at the moment and changes in the last 30 seconds. We tested the hypothesis that MF can identify civilian trauma patients during prehospital transport who will require a lifesaving intervention (LSI) upon hospital admission. METHODS From December 2011 to June 2013, a prospective trial was conducted in collaboration with prehospital providers. The MWVSM detects skin temperature, pulse oximetry (SpO2), heart rate (HR), pulse wave transit time, and MF. LSIs included: intubation, tube thoracostomy, central line insertion, blood product transfusion, and operative intervention. Prehospital MWVSM data were compared with simultaneous vital signs (SaO2, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and HR) from a conventional vital signs monitor. Sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, positive predictive value, and area under the receiving operating characteristic curves were calculated. RESULTS Ninety-six trauma patients experienced predominantly blunt trauma (n = 80, 84%), were mostly male (n = 79, 82%), and had a mean ± SD age of 48 ± 19 years and an Injury Severity Score (ISS) of 10 (17). Those who received an LSI (n = 48) had similar demographics but higher ISS (18 vs. 5) and mortality (23% vs. 0%) (all p < 0.05). The most common LSIs were intubation (n = 24, 25%), blood product transfusion (n = 19, 20%), and emergency surgery (n = 19, 20%). Compared with HR > 100 beats/min, SBP < 90 mm Hg, SaO2 < 95% alone or in combination, MF > 3 during the entire transport time had the largest area under the receiving operating characteristic curves (0.620, p = 0.081). MF greater than 3 had a specificity of 81%, sensitivity of 39%, positive predictive value of 68%, and negative predictive value of 57% for the need for LSI. CONCLUSION A single numeric value has the potential to summarize overall patient status and identify prehospital trauma patients who need an LSI. Prehospital monitoring combined with algorithms that include trends over time could improve prehospital care for both civilian and military trauma. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prospective observational, level II.


Red sandstones near Green River, Utah (United States), have been bleached by diagenetic fluids. Field relationships, modeling, fluid inclusion and isotopic data suggest that the causal fluid was a CO2-charged brine, distinguishing this site from hydrocarbon-related bleaching elsewhere on the Colorado Plateau. Mineralogical and chemical profiles from unbleached to bleached sandstone show that bleaching is related to hematite dissolution and precipitation of a 1–2 cm band of secondary oxide and carbonate at the reaction front. Trace metals are mobilized by the fluid and concentrated near the reaction front. High-flux fluid pathways are more heavily altered with large-scale secondary calcite and iron oxide precipitation. Changes may be modeled by a reaction with stoichiometry 20Fe2O3 + 5CH4 + 64CO2 + 19H2O + 11H+ = 30Fe2+ + 10FeHCO3+ + 59HCO3–. The Fe-rich, reduced fluid precipitates iron-oxides and carbonate at the reaction front between bleached and unbleached sandstone. These findings make the site an analogue for processes occurring over long time scales in geological carbon storage projects. Trace metals moblized by CO2-charged brines are likely to be rapidly re-precipitated at reaction fronts.