Whether or not unilateral humanitarian intervention should be considered 'legal' in public international law remains unresolved, and is apparently unresolvable. (Unilateral humanitarian intervention here refers to international military intervention by one or more countries in the territory of another, in the absence of clear Security Council mandate, and designed to protect a population under immediate threat of violence.) This article argues that, when seen from the point of view of the world's most vulnerable populations, the humanitarian intervention question is in fact the most significant question in contemporary international law. Its resolution is also key to the consistent and coherent functioning of the international legal regime. Especially when comparing recent events in Libya to other long running - but neglected - conflicts, international law seems to have contented itself with an ad hoc, even arbitrary, approach to the question of when military intervention on behalf of a besieged population is permitted. By contrast, a disproportionate amount of intellectual energy is directed at post-conflict criminal tribunals, which are far less important to the international rule of law than a strong, positive doctrine of humanitarian intervention would be.The article reviews the history of U.N. Charter 'dysfunction,' in that the international military force intended to meet threats to international peace and security was never created, and the problem of gridlock on the Security Council - although certainly less acute now than during the Cold War - was never fully resolved. The result, as the article details, has been a string of tragedies, in which vulnerable populations are often left to fend for themselves in the face of brutal violence. The article pays particular attention to those situations, as in Uganda, where populations have been terrorized by small, low tech military bands, whose violent activities would have been quite easy to put a stop to, but where the international community has felt no compulsion to step in. Such conflicts often run for many years.The article discusses in detail the evolution of international thought on the matter of unilateral humanitarian intervention. In particular, it notes recent attempts to reframe the concept as an international 'responsibility to protect.' The argument is made that this change is attractive in the sense of linking military intervention with the idea of 'rights' belonging to those under threat; however, it might prove less effective than the more robust notion of a unilateral right of nations to intervene on an as-needed basis.The article makes the further argument that it is a grave mistake to treat the issue of unilateral humanitarian intervention as just another thorny issue in international law, whereas in fact a viable legal system simply cannot allow genocidal events to run their course. The article also reviews the old arguments as to whether international law is in fact 'law' as we understand that term, and suggests that a negative response to that question might refocus the scholarly mind on revamping the Charter system to ensure clear protective responses to genocidal threats.


In this paper, we use an estimated DSGE model of the UK economy to investigate perceptions of the effectiveness of monetary policy since the onset of the 2007–08 financial crisis in a number of measures of deflation probability — the Survey of Economic Forecasts, financial-market option prices, and the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) forecasts. To do so, we use stochastic simulations of the model to generate measures of deflation probability in which the effectiveness of monetary policy to offset deflationary shocks is affected by different assumptions about the existence and level of a lower bound on policy rates. We find that measures of deflation probability are consistent with the perception that the MPC was not particularly constrained in its ability to offset deflation shocks in the post-crisis period.


Low-wage workers in the United States face obstacles including racial and ethnic discrimination, a pervasive lack of wage enforcement, misclassification of their employment, and for some, their status as undocumented immigrants. In the past, political parties, unions, and fraternal and mutual-aid societies served as important vehicles for workers who hoped to achieve political and economic integration. As these traditional civic institutions have weakened, low-wage workers must seek new structures for mutual support. Worker centers are among the institutions to which workers turn as they strive to build vibrant communities and attain economic and political visibility. Community-based worker centers help low-wage workers gain access to social services; advocate for their own civil and human rights; and organize to improve wages, working conditions, neighborhoods, and public schools.In this pathbreaking book, Janice Fine identifies 137 worker centers in more than eighty cities, suburbs, and rural areas in thirty-one states. These centers, which attract workers in industries that are difficult to organize, have emerged as especially useful components of any program intended to assist immigrants and low-wage workers of color. Worker centers serve not only as organizing laboratories but also as places where immigrants and other low-wage workers can participate in civil society, tell their stories to the larger community, resist racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, and work to improve their political and economic standing.


The overall hypothesis of this thesis addresses the release of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the sediments of a highly contaminated harbor. I collected, analyzed and quantified PCB congeners in more than 130 samples of air, water and sediment. Then I constructed a chemical fate model as function of chemical concentrations, physicalchemical properties, local meteorological and hydraulic conditions. Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal in East Chicago (IHSC), Indiana, was selected for its expected high levels of PCBs in the sediment and because of future plans for dredging. I found that PCB concentrations in air, water and sediment in this area were much higher than background levels in the Great Lakes region. PCB sediment concentrations were above the threshold limit to designate IHSC as a Superfund site (≥ 50 ppm), although it is not. The PCB signature in surficial sediment strongly resembles the original Aroclor 1248 but deeper layers show evidence of mixtures of Aroclors and weathering processes. The fate model showed that IHSC contaminated sediments are a continuous source of PCBs to the water and overlying air, and also produce a PCB input to Lake Michigan, even under quiescent conditions. The PCB signature in sediment, water, and air support my determination that the contaminated sediment is a major source of PCBs into the water and air above it. Simulations considering different surficial sediment concentrations post-dredging demonstrated that PCB concentrations in the sediment should be considered in the dredging operation to minimize the release of PCBs into the environment. Finally, I examined the role of the dissolved sediment porewater concentration in the prediction of sediment-water soluble fluxes, using a passive sampler technique (SPME PDMS-fiber) and calculated values from a one-parameter linear free energy relationship (op-LFER). I determined that the latter overestimates the freely dissolved porewater concentration but are nevertheless the most appropriate values for predicting PCBs soluble release from contaminated sediments.


Stored pineapples exhibit weight loss, over ripening, fungal attack and sometimes internal browning disorder during storage. The effect of paraffin coating and shrinkwrapping on Mauritius pineapples stored at 10⁰C, 15⁰C, 20⁰C and ambient were studied. Weight loss and texture loss (firmness) was least in shrinkwrapped pineapples, followed by paraffin coated ones. This was attributed to the high relative humidity, high CO2 and low O2 level inside the packaging. Paraffin coating was effective in inhibiting internal browning disorder in pineapples stored at 10-20⁰C to between 7-11 weeks respectively. Paraffin coating also reduced the acidity of the pineapples, helped retain the total soluble solids content and ascorbic acid content of pineapples stored at the lower temperatures. This was thought to be due the reduction of oxygen level in the tissue. Combination of paraffin waxing and shrinkwrapping was found to be effective in maintaining all the parameters studied except for texture.


The allegations of malfeasance in the investment management industry - market timing, late trading, revenue sharing, and several others - involve a broad range of mutual fund operations. This Article seeks to explain the common source of these irregularities by focusing upon a trait they share: the practice of investment advisers' capitalizing upon their managerial influence to increase assets under management in order to generate greater fees from those assets. This Article extends theories of executive compensation into the context of investment management to understand the extraction of rents by mutual fund advisers. Investment advisers, as collective groups of portfolio managers, interact with the boards of trustees of mutual funds in ways analogous to the dealings of business executives with corporate boards of directors. In this setting, the managerial power hypothesis of executive compensation provides a useful paradigm for understanding distortions in arm's-length bargaining between investment advisers and fund boards, as well as limitations of the market's ability to ensure optimal contracting between those parties.


Business ethics today receives wide attention because of the need for the profitability and sustainability of global organizations. This study adopted the exploratory research design to evaluate the relationship between business ethics and organizational sustainability. Elements that influence business ethics and organizational sustainability include integrity, good corporate governance, among other variables. Integrity as a function of business ethics is crucial to minimize some of the problems of the business enterprise that could be created by weak and imperfect corporate governance mechanisms and therefore focusing on growth maximizing strategies. Business ethics have many dimensions, but the purpose of business ethics, as a discipline of study is not very much about to teach the difference between right and wrong, but to give individuals the tools for dealing with matters of moral complexity, so that they can identify and reason through the perspectives of the moral implications of strategic business decisions. To this extent therefore, the major task of business ethics is to make two central points; that business decisions do have an ethical component, and that management must always weigh the ethical implications of strategic business decisions before taking action. 77 respondents participated in the study and data analyzed through descriptive, multiple correlation and regression statistical techniques showed strong positive relationship between the variables of study. Further study in this area could examine the relationship between business ethics and industrial failure. It is important that issues leading to environmental degradation must be minimized to enhance its sustainability and prosperity of industrial organizations.


Context.The detection of gamma rays in the very-high-energy (VHE) energy range (100 GeV-100 TeV) provides a direct view of the parent population of ultra-relativistic particles found in astrophysical sources. For this reason, VHE gamma rays are useful for understanding the underlying astrophysical processes in non-thermal sources. Aims.We investigate unidentified VHE gamma-ray sources that have been discovered with HESS in the most sensitive blind survey of the Galactic plane at VHE energies conducted so far. Methods.The HESS array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) has a high sensitivity compared with previous instruments (~ in 25 h observation time for a point-source detection), and with its large field of view, is well suited for scan-based observations. The on-going HESS survey of the inner Galaxy has revealed a large number of new VHE sources, and for each we attempt to associate the VHE emission with multi-wavelength data in the radio through X-ray wavebands. Results. For each of the eight unidentified VHE sources considered here, we present the energy spectra and sky maps of the sources and their environment. The VHE morphology is compared with available multi-wavelength data (mainly radio and X-rays). No plausible counterparts are found.


The effect of ionizing radiation on the expression of two DNA-damage-inducible genes, designated gadd45 and gadd153, was examined in cultured human cells. These genes have previously been shown to be strongly and coordinately induced by UV radiation and alkylating agents in human and hamster cells. We found that the gadd45 but not the gadd153 gene is strongly induced by X rays in human cells. The level of gadd45 mRNA increased rapidly after X rays at doses as low as 2 Gy. After 20 Gy of X rays, gadd45 induction, as measured by increased amounts of mRNA, was similar to that produced by the most effective dose of the alkylating agent methyl methanesulfonate. No induction was seen after treatment of either human or hamster cells with 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate, a known activator of protein kinase C (PKC). Therefore, gadd45 represents the only known mammalian X-ray-responsive gene whose induction is not mediated by PKC. However, induction was blocked by the protein kinase inhibitor H7, indicating that induction is mediated by some other kinase(s). Sequence analysis of human and hamster cDNA clones demonstrated that this gene has been highly conserved and encodes a novel 165-amino-acid polypeptide which is 96% identical in the two species. This gene was localized to the short arm of human chromosome 1 between p12 and p34. When induction in lymphoblast lines from four normal individuals was compared with that in lines from four patients with ataxia telangiectasia, induction by X rays of gadd45 mRNA was less in the cell lines from this cancer-prone radiosensitive disorder. Our results provide evidence for the existence of an X-ray stress response in human cells which is independent of PKC and which is abnormal in taxia telangiectasia.


A number of amendments to the Federal Rules of Procedure and Evidence became effective on December 1, 2007. Criminal Rule 11 was amended to conform the rule to the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, which held that the sections in the federal sentencing statute that made pleas mandatory violated the fifth and sixth constitutional amendments. Criminal Rule 32 was made to conform to United States v. Booker by making it clear that the court may require the probation office to include in the presentence report information relevant to factors set out in 18 U.S.C § 3553(a). The amendment to Criminal Rule 35 clarified the computation of an additional three days when service is made by mail, when it is left with the clerk of court, or where counsel uses electronic means under Civil Rule 5. Last, Criminal Rule 49.1 now requires in part that the U.S. Supreme Court develop rules to protect the privacy and security concerns relating to electronic filings and availability of those filings to the public.


Email is far from dead; in fact the volume of messages exchanged daily, the number of accounts per user, and the number of devices on which email is accessed have been constantly growing. Most previous studies on email have focused on management and retrieval behaviour within a single account and on a single device. In this paper, we examine how people find email in today's ecosystem through an in-depth qualitative diary study with 16 participants. We found that personal and work accounts are managed differently, resulting in diverse retrieval strategies: while work accounts are more structured and thus email is retrieved through folders, personal accounts have fewer folders and users rely primarily on the built-in search option. Moreover, retrieval occurs primarily on laptops and PCs compared to smartphones. We explore the reasons, and uncover barriers and workarounds related to managing multiple accounts and devices. Finally, we consider new design possibilities for email clients to better support how email is used today.


Genomic studies, such as gene expression profiling and next‐generation sequencing studies, have provided new insights into the phenotypic characteristics and pathogenesis of mature aggressive B‐cell lymphomas. In particular, mutations in the transcription factors ID3 and TCF3, leading to overexpression of B‐cell receptor components such as VPREB3, have been shown to be specific for Burkitt lymphoma (BL) and play an important tumourigenic role by mediating the activation of the pro‐survival phosphatidylinositol‐3‐OH kinase pathway. We performed immunohistochemical analysis by applying commercially available anti‐VPREB3 antibody to a large cohort of 185 genetically and immunophenotypically characterized mature aggressive B‐cell lymphomas and analyzed these results together with recent data on ID3 expression. The combined expression of both VPREB3 and ID3 was associated with a diagnosis of BL with high sensitivity (0.77), high specificity (0.75) and high negative predictive values (0.96), however, with lower positive predictive value (0.30). Double negative cases were absent in the group of BLs but could be found in approximately one third of the remaining cases of mature aggressive B‐cell lymphomas. Further, we could not identify a correlation with MYC, BCL2 or BCL6 aberrations with neither VPREB3 nor ID3 expression in each of the diagnostic groups analyzed. Our results, which are in line with recently discovered mutations in next‐generation sequencing studies, suggest that the combined immunohistochemical detection of VPREB3 and ID3 is applicable to the routine diagnostic in case of mature aggressive B‐cell lymphomas. In particular, it represents a useful and routinely applicable diagnostic tool to exclude BL diagnosis in case of single positive or double negative cases. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Given that in Brazil there is a significant asymmetry in production and trade among states, this study had as objective to measure the border effect to the intranational and international trade, using it as an indicator of the degree of integration. Such effect measures the bias to the internal trade of a country or state, in comparison to the external trade. A gravity model, including different dummy variables was used as methodology for this study. Results showed that intra-state trade in Brazil was 32 and 96 times larger than interstate and international trade, respectively. Interstate trade, was shown to be around 34 times larger than international trade. The border effect calculated to each state trading to other states, and to the rest of the world, showed smaller values and larger commercial integration among the states of the southeast and south regions of Brazil.


Government regulation is said to be justified when private markets fail to efficiently allocate resources owing to so-called "externalities." Yet as Ronald Coase convincingly showed decades ago, the presence of externalities can be usefully attributed to the "costs of market transactions," putting the entire notion of market failure on shaky ground. What kind of failure is it when the parties affected by an alleged externality decline to spend a dollar transacting to capture ninety-nine cents in benefits? Transaction costs are real social costs and, at least conceptually, must be factored in to any social calculus. This essay proposes a relatively simple Coasean approach to cost-benefit analysis where transaction costs are sufficiently low that competition can be expected to drive the parties toward efficient resource allocation. A rule is justified under this approach only if the regulator can show it is likely to reduce the relevant transaction costs. If so, the parties will adjust their private arrangements to reduce any inefficiencies out of self-interest. There is no need for the regulator to quantify total costs and benefits. This is the information the parties--the men and women "on the spot"--are best able to identify on their own.


GAL lncRNAs in yeast induce gene transcription by enabling gene looping through the formation of RNA-DNA hybrids. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are mainly associated with transcriptional silencing. The inducible GAL gene cluster in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is repressed when the yeast are grown in glucose-rich medium by glucose-dependent repressors. Upon switching the yeast to a galactose-rich medium, two lncRNAs, GAL 10 lncRNA and GAL 10s lncRNA (collectively referred to as GAL lncRNA and both expressed from the GAL gene cluster), promote the induction of the repressed GAL genes, such as GAL1, GAL10, and GAL7. Cloutier et al. investigated the mechanism of lncRNA-mediated induction of repressed GAL genes. Comparing DBP2– yeast, which lacked the RNA helicase DBP2, with wild-type yeast showed that DBP2– promoted a greater increase in GAL gene cluster transcripts during the nutrient switch. In addition, Northern blotting analysis showed faster induction and increased abundance of GAL1, GAL10, and GAL7 transcripts in DBP2– and DBP2– trans GAL lncRNA (a strain in which the GAL lncRNA gene had been inactivated in the GAL gene cluster and inserted in a distant location) strains compared with wild-type or DBP2– GAL lncRNA– double-mutant strains, suggesting that the GAL lncRNA-coding sequences did not have to be within the GAL gene cluster to function. Yeast strains with a plasmid expressing RNaseH, an enzyme that degrades DNA-RNA hybrids termed R-loops, had reduced induction of GAL cluster genes, which suggested that GAL lncRNA may induce the formation of an R-loop structure to promote expression of the GAL cluster. Indeed, both wild-type and DBP2– yeast formed R-loops at the GAL cluster, which were detected by DNA-RNA immunoprecipitation (DRIP) assay. Yeast in which Dpb2 was depleted from the nucleus had increased R-loop structures in the DRIP assay compared with wild-type strains. Comparison of publicly available transcript data and DRIP data revealed that transcripts with increased expression in DBP2– yeast cells were associated with R-loop–associated genes in wild-type cells, consistent with an inhibitory effect of DBP2 on R-loop structure formation. Chromatin confirmation capture analysis, a method that identifies gene looping, showed a time-dependent increase in promoter-terminator looping in DBP2– strains compared with GAL lncRNA– or DBP2– GAL lncRNA– strains after nutrient switching. GAL lncRNA– strains had increased binding of transcriptional repressors at the GAL gene cluster promoters. Last, yeast lacking GAL lncRNA grew less well than did wild-type yeast when provided galactose as the carbon source. Thus, lncRNAs can induce gene expression by enabling the formation of R-loop structures. S. C. Cloutier, S. Wang, W. K. Ma, N. Al Husini, Z. Dhoondia, A. Ansari, P. E. Pascuzzi, E. J. Tran, Regulated formation of lncRNA-DNA hybrids enables faster transcriptional induction and environmental adaptation. Mol. Cell 61, 393–404 (2016). [PubMed]


The cell-to-cell propagation of the cardiac action potential allows for the electro-mechanical coupling of cells, which promotes the coordinated contraction of cardiac tissue, often referred to as the heartbeat. The main structures that promote electrical coupling between adjacent cardiac cells are pore-like proteins called gap junctions that line the membranes of such cells, allowing a channel for electrically charged ions to travel between cells. It is known that the conformational, and hence conducting, properties of gap-junction channels change as a function of local gap-junctional voltage and local ionic concentrations and are stochastic in nature. Many previous models of gap junctions have made a constant-resistance approximation or used an ODE model relating gating state to a local voltage. In this thesis, we extend a previous ODE model of gap-junction gating state by Henriquez et al. and formulate it as a system of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) by deriving the expected change vector and covariance matrix of the model and integrating the covariance with respect to a stochastic process, the Wiener Process. In doing so, we construct the first SDE-based model of gap-junction gating dynamics. This SDE description of the electrical coupling between cardiac cells is integrated into a 1D cable model where intracellular current dynamics are described using the Luo-Rudy 1 formulation. Monte Carlo simulations are performed on the resulting model in order to gather data used to construct distributions of several model responses of interest, including conduction block, conduction velocity, gap-junction current and gap-junction conductance. We find a smoothing effect occurs as the number of gap junctions considered increases, but at small numbers of gap junctions, such as those observed in many diseased states, stochastic effects can be pronounced. In such decoupled regimes, stochastic effects are found to have a large effect on the occurrence of conduction block, the cessation of action potential propagation at some tissue location, and are found to increase the variance in conduction velocity from cell to cell. The waiting time between when two consecutive gap junctions reach their maximum current was found to conform to a gamma distribution, with shape and scale parameters a function of the number of gap junctions. As the number of gap junctions increases, the spread of the waiting time distributions decreases. Gap-junctional conductance was modeled as a time-dependent Gaussian distribution, with a temporal variance decreasing as a function of the elapsed time after depolarization. In the case of conduction block, we show that an emulator function can be constructed to estimate the probability of occurrence, thereby reducing the need for a large number of computationally intensive Monte Carlo simulations. Along with probabilistically describing the stochastic gapjunction model, these distributions can be leveraged in larger-scale tissue-level simulations to incorporate stochastic gap-junction gating at a reduced computational cost.


A source of data on the health and working conditions of a probability sample of United States workers, the Quality of Employment Survey for 1972-3 (QES73), is investigated for the first time to determine which groups of workers are more or are less likely to report back pain. Estimated coefficients from a logistic regression are used to calculate odds ratios and confidence intervals for various groups. Few previous studies on back pain among United States workers control for as many potentially confounding variables as are considered in this study and few use data from a national probability sample of workers. The following independent variables are judged to be important positive correlates based on their estimated odds ratios and confidence intervals: farm, service, blue collar, and clerical work; low levels of schooling and income; jobs needing physical effort; age between and including 50 to 64; and smoking. Marital separation was found to be negatively correlated with back pain. Caution should be exercised in attempting to generalise these findings, since the back pain variable is based on respondents' subjective evaluations. Moreover, the variable does not distinguish between lower or upper back or neck pain, nor is information on the duration or frequency of pain available.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this article is to review the neuroimaging findings of pediatric and adolescent intramedullary spinal tumors in children. The differential diagnosis for lesions in this location is limited and can be further narrowed with knowledge of specific imaging characteristics.

CONCLUSION
This article reviews the radiologic findings and differential diagnosis for intramedullary neoplasms. After completing this article, the reader should have an improved understanding of the types of neoplastic processes that can involve this region of the pediatric spine.


Neoplastic intervention is derived from the medical term of neoplasm, which is an abnormal growth that continues to grow and evolve after the initial stimuli ceases. Architecturally, this neoplastic intervention at a more localized region will serve as scaffolding to catalyze revitalization by providing public space to a district of Cairo. With a civic space focused design, I aim to restructure an informal Cairo district to provide continuity, identity and architectural reform. This thesis studies the historic context of Cairo, analysis of case studies in slum reform in other regions, extract the DNA from these interventions, and apply it to a design for re-imagined public space in Cairo. The culminating proposal unites the study of the context of Cairo, existing public space in Cairo, precedent analysis, and the application of these analyses to propose a new public realm for a district in Cairo to serve as a paradigm for revitalization.


The PWM methods of parallel connected current fed type inverter for increasing the capacity of a inverter with sinusoidal outputs have been investigated. The main circuit configuration of this type inverter is very simple. Only one rectifier is used for supplying the dc power to two unit inverters, and the ac output terminals of each unit inverter are directly connected in parallel without any transformers. Since it is very important to balance the dc currents, the large dc reactors are usually connected in the dc input terminals of each unit inverter.In this paper, the new PWM method which allows a great reduction in the DC reactor is proposed. This PWM method is based on closed-loop regulation of the ac current vector. The suitable current vector is carefully selected to reduce the distortion of the output current waveform Then, the closed-loop control of balancing the currents of the dc reactors is achieved at the same time by measuring the difference of the reactor current.This paper describes the configuration of main circuit, the principle of balance control of the dc currents, the design of control circuit. Moreover, the feasibility of proposed PWM method is confirmed by some experimental results using a small test system.


"The most distinguished private place" - that is how, in 1893, the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted described Biltmore Estate, perhaps the most ambitious private building project of America's Gilded Age. It was only five years earlier that George Washington Vanderbilt purchased the first parcel of what would become his 125,000-acre estate in Asheville, North Carolina. Along with Olmsted, he commissioned the preeminent architect of the day, Richard Morris Hunt, to design the estate. The house, modeled in part on the chateaux of the Loire Valley, has become one of the greatest and most important in American architectural history. Its 255 rooms, with spectacular and finely crafted interiors, opulent furnishings (some designed by Hunt), and furniture and decorative arts objects collected by Vanderbilt from all corners of the world, have made it a rich national treasure. The estate served as the cradle of the profession of forestry in America. With Olmsted's advice and expertise, it became the first working model of a scientifically managed forest and played a critical role in the creation of our national parks. This meticulously researched book accompanies an exhibition organized by The Octagon, the Museum of The American Architectural Foundation; it chronicles Biltmore from inception, development, and construction through its Christmas 1895 opening celebrations, and into the present. Original architectural drawings, sketches, plans, presentation drawings, nineteenth-century photographs, and vibrant new color photography complete this portrait of a great landmark. Today Biltmore Estate belongs to George Washington Vanderbilt's descendants, who have opened the house to thepublic and have made it one of the most visited in America.


The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in border closures in many countries and a sharp reduction in overall international mobility. However, this disruption of legal pathways to migration has raised concerns that potential migrants may turn to irregular migration routes as a substitute. We examine how the pandemic has changed intentions to migrate from The Gambia, the country with the highest pre-pandemic per-capita irregular migration rates in Africa. We use a large-scale panel survey conducted in 2019 and 2020 to compare changes in intentions to migrate to Europe and to neighboring Senegal. We find the pandemic has reduced the intention to migrate to both destinations, with approximately one-third of young males expressing less intention to migrate. The largest reductions in migration intentions are for individuals who were unsure of their intent pre-pandemic, and for poorer individuals who are no longer able to afford the costs of migrating at a time when these costs have increased and their remittance income has fallen. We also introduce the methodology of priming experiments to the study of migration intentions, by randomly varying the salience of the COVID-19 pandemic before eliciting intentions to migrate. We find no impact of this added salience, which appears to be because knowledge of the virus, while imperfect, was already enough to inform migration decisions. Nevertheless, despite these decreases in intentions, the overall desire to migrate the backway to Europe remains high, highlighting the need for legal migration pathways to support migrants and divert them from the risks of backway migration.


Smart cities could help overcome traditional problems of big cities, such as pollution, traffic congestion and administrative corruption. They can stimulate economic productivity, accommodate population growth, and make lives more convenient, but at the same time, they raise many security threats to national security. Daily life needs in smart cities are based on information and communication technologies. Houses, infrastructure, transportation, communication, government services, as well as commercial and industrial services, etc. are controlled by smart systems dependent upon artificial intelligence and the Internet of things1. If these services are targeted by a successful cyber-attack, the consequences in that case would be unaffordable to national security and to people's lives. This article seeks to analyse the impact of smart cities on national security, and it comes in three main sections. The first one defines smart cities and its different models, the second one analyses the impact of adopting the smart city model on national security, and the conclusion tries to provide some recommendations of how to decrease national security risks in the smart city.


AIM
To identify the facilitators and barriers for health-care organizations to sustain Magnet Recognition, the exemplar of a professional practice environment and quality care.

BACKGROUND
Recognition as a Magnet Hospital is the gold standard for acknowledging excellence in nursing. However, limited evidence exists to inform nursing management practices for sustainability.

METHOD
This qualitative study was conducted using a national convenience sample of 15 Chief Nursing Officers of Magnet Recognized hospitals in the USA.

RESULTS
Key macrosystem facilitators included executive management and leadership themes about quality, people, education, and the nurse executive's commitment and intent. Barriers were executive management turnover and financial challenges. Infrastructure supports and resources for empowerment and quality and unit leadership practices were found to be essential for quality outcomes. The key theme at the microsystem level was moving nursing practice to managing outcomes from tasks; barriers were challenges with unit management turnover and development.

CONCLUSIONS
Multiple factors at system levels were found to contribute to sustainability. Further research is needed on the concept of sustainability.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
The findings contribute to executives' armamentarium to inform management practice for the design of evidenced based organizational systems and programs for nursing excellence.


The role of science and technology as one of the most important pillars of sustainable development has been analysed within the new FLOGEN sustainability framework. Many distant and recent historical examples have been considered to make the point that science and technology are grand disruptors of boundaries, borders, and ways of life, and they have opened society's eyes to new serious problems and realities. The paper points out that science and technology are well credited for this great diagnostic role, but have been frequently ignored for their role as solution producers. Numerous examples illustrate the fact that usually solutions are sought far from science and technology, or without their close cooperation, and this has been in fact the cause of failures. It is shown that science and technology are grand solution providers, and this is clear from the distant, recent, and current realities, where they have proven wrong all non-scientific solutions or doomsday predictions. It is concluded that no sound long term solution can be found when science and technology are not considered as a solution provider as the pillar at the forefront of sustainable development, and this is even more so valid for the acute problems faced by the world today.


The orientational ordering of the nematic phase of a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-peptide block copolymer in aqueous solution is probed by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), with the sample subjected to steady shear in a Couette cell. The PEG-peptide conjugate forms fibrils that behave as semiflexible rodlike chains. The orientational order parameters P2 and P4 are obtained by modeling the data using a series expansion approach to the form factor of uniform cylinders. The method used is independent of assumptions on the form of the singlet orientational distribution function. Good agreement with the anisotropic two-dimensional SANS patterns is obtained. The results show shear alignment starting at very low shear rates, and the orientational order parameters reach a plateau at higher shear rates with a pseudologarithmic dependence on shear rate. The most probable distribution functions correspond to fibrils parallel to the flow direction under shear, but a sample at rest shows a bimodal distribution with some of the rodlike peptide fibrils oriented perpendicular to the flow direction.


Many researchers and advocates believe that income inequality affects individual health, but empirical evidence has been inconclusive. A large body of research has found that income inequality is negatively correlated with average life expectancy, partly because a transfer of income from the poor to the rich is likely to harm the health of the poor more than it improves the health of the rich. A smaller body of work has investigated socioeconomic disparities in life expectancy, which widened in many countries after 1980, at the same time that income inequality was increasing. These two lines of work should be seen as complementary, because high and rising income inequality is unlikely to affect the health of all socioeconomic groups equally. Understanding the effects of income inequality on health requires attention to the mechanisms that affect the health of different income groups, changing average health, disparities in health, or (more likely) both. Rising income inequality can affect individuals in two ways. Direct effects change individuals' own income. Indirect effects change other people's income, which can then change a society's politics, customs, and ideals, altering even the behavior of those whose own income remains unchanged. Indirect effects can thus change both average health and the slope of the relationship between individual income and health.


The vesper bats are the largest and best known common family of bats, with more than 400 species spread across the globe, ranking second among mammals in species diversity. Platt et al. (2014) wanted to get at the root cause of this diversity by taking advantage of two vesper bat species whose genomes have recently been sequenced. They speculated that one cause of this diversity might be jumping elements in the genome, called DNA transposons, which are more active and recent in the evolutionary history of this family than any other mammal. Why and how this DNA transposon activity has increased in these bats is unknown. In their study, they examined the patterns of DNA transposons activity in the two vesper bat species genomes. They found that the timing of bat species expansion coincides with DNA transposon activity around 30 Ma. DNA transposons, in turn, gave rise to the introduction of small RNAs, called microRNAs, or miRNAs, which can have a major effect on gene expression, and thus, evolutionary novelties. Says Ray, "Our results suggest that transposable elements have the potential to shift evolution into overdrive by rapidly introducing large numbers of small RNAs. Those small RNAs don't change the proteins that genes code for but instead impact how and when the genes are expressed, thereby allowing for rapid changes in the way organisms interact with their environment." They further speculate that DNA transposons acted as a major evolutionary force in bat species diversity, which coincided with a rapid and large shift in the Earth's climate from warm tropical conditions to a more temperate climate called the Eocene–Oligocene transition, which occurred 33–34 Ma.


Background: Professional Sex Workers (PSW) and their partners are considered as vulnerable populations at high risk of transmission for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) as well as infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Objective: The objective of this work was to determine the molecular and virological profile of PSW and their clients at the beginning of Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) followed at the IST Matonge center in the city of Kinshasa.
Methods: Twenty (20) subjects diagnosed HIV-1 positive by serology at IST-Matonge voluntarily participated in this work. This is the PSW and their partners, all aged over 18 and naive ART. Blood samples were collected in 5 ml tubes with EDTA anticoagulant. After extraction of the RNA from the plasma collected using the QIAGEN RNA kit, a Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qPCR) was used for the determination of the Viral Load (VL). Then Reverse Transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) and Nested PCR were used to amplify the regions of interest on Protease and Reverse Transcriptase for subsequent sequencing by the Sanger method.
Results: Twenty (20) patients were included in this work. Forty-five percent (45%) of the patients were women. The median age was 43 years. The median value of the VL of the included patients was 5.53 log10 RNA copies/ml. The dominant subtype in this population was K with 25%.
Conclusion: Professional Sex Workers and their partners remain a population at risk for transmission of HIV infection which has a particular molecular profile and most begin treatment with a poor viral prognosis of treatment.


The environmental service provided by the great biodiversity of Amazonian forests is one of several factors leading to the conclusion that much greater efforts are warranted to reduce the destruction of these forests. Risks to biodiversity in Amazonian forests include deforestation, logging, fires, fragmentation, depletion of fauna, invasion by exotic species, and climate change. Financial values assigned to biodiversity depend strongly on the purposes of valuation. Utilitarian benefits include the values of presently-marketed and presently-unexploited forest products, and the monetary value of environmental benefits. Non-monetary values of Amazonian forests are also essential components of decision-making on conservation. Measures of 'willingness to pay' and 'willingness to accept' can be useful as indicators of potential financial flows, but should not be confused with the true values of the forests to society. Valuation for the purpose of setting penalties for destruction of biodiversity is an important legal question in Brazil and must take into consideration additional factors. Conservation of biodiversity in Brazil includes creation of various types of protected areas. The status of these areas varies greatly, with practice frequently deviating from official requirements. Creating reserves that include human occupants has a variety of pros and cons. Although the effect of humans is not always benign, much larger areas can be brought under protection regimes if human occupants are included. Additional considerations apply to buffer zones around protected areas. The choice and design of reserves depends on the financial costs and biodiversity benefits of different strategies. In Brazil, rapid creation of lightly-protected 'paper parks' has been a means of keeping ahead of the advance of barriers to establishment of new conservation units, but emphasis must eventually shift to better protection of existing reserves. Indigenous peoples have the best record of maintaining forest, but negotiation with these peoples is essential in order to ensure maintenance of the large areas of forest they inhabit. The benefits of environmental services provided by the forest must accrue to those who maintain these forests. Development of mechanisms to capture the value of these services will be a key factor affecting the long-term prospects of Amazonian forests. However, many effective measures to discourage deforestation could be taken immediately through government action, including levying and collecting taxes that discourage land speculation, changing land tenure establishment procedures so as not to reward deforestation, revoking remaining incentives, restricting road building and improvement, strengthening requirements for environmental impact statements (RIMAs) for proposed development projects, and creating employment alternatives.


Time-resolved spectroscopy in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) regions was used in a feasibility study for analysis of solid pharmaceuticals. The objective of the experiments was to study the interaction of light with pharmaceutical solids and to investigate the usefulness of the method as an analytical tool for spectroscopic analysis. In these experiments, a pulsed Ti:sapphire laser and white light generation in water was utilized to form a pulsed light source in the visible/NIR region. The light was focused onto the surface of tablets, and the transmitted light was detected by a time-resolving streak camera. Two types of measurements were performed. First, a spectrometer was put in front of the streak camera for spectral resolution. Secondly, the signal originating from different locations of the sample was collected. Time-resolved and wavelength/spatially resolved data were generated and compared for a number of different samples. The most striking result from the experiments is that the typical optical path length through a 3.5-mm-thick tablet is about 20–25 cm. This indicates very strong multiple scattering in these samples. Monte Carlo simulations and comparison with experimental data support very high scattering coefficients on the order of 500 cm−1. Furthermore, the data evaluation shows that photons with a particular propagation time through the sample contain a higher chemical contrast than other propagation times or than steady-state information. In conclusion, time-resolved NIR spectroscopy yields more information about solid pharmaceutical samples than conventional steady-state spectroscopy.


An efficient, reliable and low-cost procedure to determine the silicon content in plant material is presented which allows to monitor the agricultural aspects like growth and yield. The presented procedure consists of a hydrochloric acid pre-treatment and a subsequent thermal oxidation. The method is compared to other processes like dissolution in hydrofluoric acid combined with ICP OES, energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (EDXRF) or aqua regia treatment. Graphical Abstract A Procedure for Rapid Determination of the Silicon Content in Plant Materials


With regard to flexibility and strength properties requirements of soft biological tissue, elastomeric materials could be more beneficial in soft tissue engineering applications. The present work investigates the use of an elastic polymer, (polycaprolactone fumarate [PCLF]), for fabricating an electrospun scaffold. PCLF with number-average molecular weight of 13,284 g/mol was synthetized, electrospun PCLF:polycaprolactone (PCL) (70:30) nanofibrous scaffolds were fabricated and a novel strategy (in situ photo-crosslinking along with wet electrospinning) was applied for crosslinking of PCLF in the structure of PCLF:PCL nanofibers was presented. Sol fraction results, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and mechanical tests confirmed occurrence of crosslinking reaction. Strain at break and Young's modulus of crosslinked PCLF:PCL nanofibers fabricated was found to be 114.5 ± 3.9% and 0.6 ± 0.1 MPa, respectively, and dynamic mechanical analysis results revealed elasticity of nanofibers. MTS assay showed biocompatibility of PCLF:PCL (70:30) nanofibrous scaffolds. Our overall results showed that electrospun PCLF:PCL nanofibrous scaffold could be considered as a candidate for further in vitro and in vivo experiments and its application for engineering of soft tissues subjected to in vivo cyclic mechanical stresses. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 106B: 2371-2383, 2018.


How are the welfare costs from monopoly distributed across U.S. households? We answer this question for the U.S. credit card industry, which is highly concentrated, charges interest rates that are 3.4 to 8.8 percentage points above perfectly competitive pricing, and has repeatedly lost antitrust lawsuits. We depart from existing competitive models by integrating oligopolistic lenders into a heterogeneous agent, defaultable debt framework. Our model accounts for 20 to 50 percent of the spreads observed in the data. Welfare gains from competitive reforms in the 1970s are equivalent to a one-time transfer worth between 0.24 and 1.66 percent of GDP. Along the transition path, 93 percent of individuals are better off. Poor households benefit from increased consumption smoothing, while rich households benefit from higher general equilibrium interest rates on savings. Transitioning from 1970 to 2016 levels of competition yields welfare gains equivalent to a one-time transfer worth between 1.87 and 3.20 percent of GDP. Lastly, homogeneous interest rate caps in 2016 deliver limited welfare gains.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A major trend in the global economic environment since the end of World War II is the formation of regional trading blocs. The most well-known regional trading bloc in the world is the European Union, which has 27 member nations today. Nations form or join such trading blocs in order to achieve faster economic growth and stay globally competitive. This paper provides a concise and up-to-date report on the United States' regional and bilateral free trade agreements that have been implemented as of mid-2007. Keywords: regional economic integration, free trade agreement, NAFTA, FTAA, CAFTA-DR INTRODUCTION The term "regional economic integration" (REI) refers to a group of countries (usually in the same region) linking their economies together for the purpose of achieving a higher level of economic performance that will benefit all the participating members. REI can take four basic forms: (1) free trade agreement (abolition of trade barriers among member nations); (2) customs union (a free trade agreement plus common trade barriers for non-member nations); (3) common market (a customs union plus free flow of labor, capital and other production factors); and (4) economic union (a common market plus unification/harmonization of economic institutions and policies). Like several other complicated matters that are easily subjected to misinformation, miscommunication, and misunderstanding, REI is a controversial issue. REI's supporters focus on its benefits, such as a bigger and more attractive market, job creation, economies of scale in production and distribution, lower prices for customers to pay. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) Office states (2007a; 2007b): Trade is essential to America's economic growth, high standard of living, and job creation in the states. The U.S. is the world's largest trading nation, exporting nearly $1.3 trillion in goods and services in 2005. Over one-fifth of the growth in U.S. GDP depended on exports in 2005. Domestically, manufacturing exports supported an estimated 5.2 million jobs (in 2002 - latest data), including 1 in 5 manufacturing jobs. Jobs supported by goods exports pay 13-18% higher than the average wage. .. .Additionally, more than 5.1 million Americans have "insourced" jobs, drawing their paychecks from U.S. subsidiaries of overseas-based companies (as of 2004)... .The U.S. trade strategy is to pursue multiple market-opening initiatives on a global, regional and bilateral basis, establishing models of success that can be used throughout all negotiations. REI's opponents emphasize its problems, including the relocation of factories from high-wage countries to low-wage countries, a slow wage growth in high-wage countries, and rising income inequality in high-wage countries (Walker, 2007). The objective of this paper is to provide a concise and up-to-date report on the United States' regional and bilateral free trade agreements. Because free trade agreements can exert a gigantic impact on the economy of the United States for many years to come, the contents of this paper should be of high interest and value to government officials, business executives, and economics and business scholars. AMERICA'S REGIONAL FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) took effect on January 1, 1989. Then President George H. Bush formally proposed creation of a free trade area for the Western Hemisphere in his "Enterprise of the Americas" initiative in June 1990. His administration laid the groundwork for expanding CUFTA to include Mexico. President Clinton apparently liked the idea of developing a Western Hemisphere free trade area. With his strong support, NAFTA was passed by Congress in late 1993 and put into effect on January 1, 1994. The three NAFTA members are Canada, Mexico and the United States. NAFTA eliminated the tariffs on most products traded, phased out other tariffs gradually, removed trade and investment restrictions, and strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights (patents, copyrights, and trademarks) among its members. …


Abstract Markhininite, ideally TlBi(SO4)2, was found in a fumarole of the 1st cinder cone of the North Breach of the Great Fissure Tolbachik volcano eruption (1975-1976), Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. Markhininite occurs as white pseudohexagonal plates associated with shcherbinaite, pauflerite, bobjonesite, karpovite, evdokimovite and microcrystalline Mg, Al, Fe and Na sulfates. Markhininite is triclinic, P1̄ , a = 7.378(3), b = 10.657(3), c = 10.657(3) Å , α = 61.31(3), β = 70.964(7), γ = 70.964(7)°, V = 680.2(4) Å3, Z = 4 (from single-crystal diffraction data). The eight strongest lines of the X-ray powder diffraction pattern are (I/d/hkl): 68/4.264/111, 100/3.441/113, 35/3.350/222, 24/3.125/122, 23/3.054/202, 45/2.717/022, 20/2.217/331, 34/2.114/204. Chemical composition determined by electron microprobe analysis is (wt.%): Tl2O 35.41, Bi2O3 38.91, SO3 25.19, total 99.51. The empirical formula based on 8 O a.p.f.u. is Tl1.04Bi1.05S1.97O8. The simplified formula is TlBi(SO4)2, which requires Tl2O 35.08, Bi2O3 38.48, SO3 26.44, total 100.00 wt.%. The crystal structure was solved by direct methods and refined to R1 = 0.055 on the basis of 1425 independent observed reflections. The structure contains four Tl+ and two Bi3+ sites in holodirected symmetrical coordination. BiO8 tetragonal antiprisms and SO4 tetrahedra in markhininite share common O atoms to produce [Bi(SO4)2]- layers of the yavapaiite type. The layers are parallel to (111) and linked together through interlayer Tl+ cations. The mineral is named in honour of Professor Yevgeniy Konstantinovich Markhinin (b. 1926), Institute of Volcanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Kamchatka peninsula, Russia, in recognition of his contributions to volcanology. Markhininite is the first oxysalt compound that contains both Tl and Bi in an ordered crystal structure.


The quadrant multiplier phototube developed for use as a navigational aid is described. The tube contains four independent and adjacent semitransparent photocathode quadrants in a common image plane. By means of a retarding field three of the four photocathode segments are biased off during a quarter cycle while emission from the fourth is collected by the electron multiplier. Operating sequentially the photocathode quadrants perform the function of four multiplier phototubes in an all-electronic nulling-type tracker. No rotating reticles or mechanical choppers are required in the optical system. Position information of the image is discussed in relation to the size of the image spot. The performance characteristics are given in terms of nulling precision and signal-to-noise ratio for stars of different visual magnitudes.


Professional regulation of attorneys is still attempting to catch up with the burgeoning international legal profession, which until recently has been wholly unregulated. The primary effort has been through revisions to Model Rule 8.5 to extend the reach of the Rule to international cases and professional activities in foreign countries. Because Rule 8.5 was drafted for domestic multi-jurisdiction practice, however, it is based on assumptions about territoriality and the historical relationship between the jurisdiction of tribunals and the licensing of attorneys that are simply inapposite in international settings. As a result, applying Rule 8.5 to international tribunals and international advocacy produces anomalous and often problematic results. A more careful examination of how the Rule would operate in various practical settlings reveals not only shortcomings in the Rule, but the need for a new conception of what it means to be an "international lawyer" or a "global advocate," and the need for a new approach to regulating these individuals. For the short and medium term, I propose a series of proposals for rewriting the Rule to provide for interim management of these issues. While Rule 8.5 is a meaningful attempt to respond to an obvious need to regulate international law practice, I argue that it causes more problems than it resolves and must be completely rewritten as applied to international legal practice. Ultimately, however, resolving the problems with Rule 8.5 is only a first step in the ominous but important task of developing a coherent regulatory regime for international legal practice. In a related forthcoming article entitled The Global Advocate, I will take up these challenges.


In 2011, Congress passed the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, a broad-sweeping reform of the American patent system. Within this landmark piece of legislation, Congress created trial-like administrative proceedings as a cost-effective alternative to litigation. Inter partes review allows third parties to go before the Patent and Trademark Office and attempt to invalidate an already issued patent on the limited grounds that it fails to meet either novelty or nonobvious standards. For a brief, nine-month period following patent issuance, however, a different administrative proceeding governs: post-grant review. With PGR, third parties can bring invalidity challenges that are unavailable to them at IPR—such as the claim that the invention does not encompass patentable subject matter. This Note aims to understand the effect of limiting administrative subject-matter eligibility challenges to a discrete nine-month window, labeling this phenomenon the "IPR–PGR dichotomy" in the process. It argues that, much like common statutes of limitations, the nine-month barrier incentivizes third parties to bring their subject-matter eligibility claims early. But as a consequence, smaller companies and individual inventors will likely be shut out, with only big businesses able to make use of the advantages PGR presents. As such, the Note advocates for legislative reform that would allow more third parties, including the "little guy," to bring subject-matter eligibility challenges before the PTO.


The argument of this paper is that we in the Computer Ethics community have been perhaps held captive for too long by the rhetoric of revolutionary technological change. It may be worthwhile re-examining this canonical assumption that ethical concerns are necessarily about radical novelty especially given that the theme of this conference is 'the backwards, forwards and sideways changes of ICT'. The revolutionary view is, of course, metaphorical and metaphors are notorious for their properties of bewitchment. Hannah Arendt reminds us that the original meaning of the metaphor of revolution was 'return', a backward revolving motion, suggesting the lawfulness of rotating, cyclic movement of astronomical bodies. The new metaphor denoting novelty, beginning and violence can be dated to the time of the French Revolution (Arendt, 1963, p.41). The danger of revolutionary rhetoric is that it suggests a kind of irresistibility, a quasi-Marxist view, in which the force of computing transforms society so we have variously 'the cybernetic', 'the computer', 'the information', 'the virtual' 'the digital', and so on, revolution. These revolutions are then meant to usher in their corresponding societies: the cybernetic, the computer, the information, the virtual, the digital etc. (Winner, 1986; Graham; 1999).

In Jim Moor's now widely accepted standard account of Computer Ethics, as an independent field of theoretical and practical endeavours, the stress is precisely on the need to address the policy vacuums and conceptual muddles thrown up by the radical novelty of revolutionary advances in computing. Moor summarises the argument in this way: "The revolutionary feature of computers is their logical malleability. Logical malleability assures the enormous application of computer technology. This will (sic) bring about the computer revolution. During the Computer Revolution many of our human activities and social institutions will be transformed. These transformations will leave us with policy and conceptual vacuums about how to use computer technology. Such policy and conceptual vacuums are the marks of basic problems within computer ethics. Therefore computer ethics is a field of substantial practical importance." (Moor, 1985 p.272) A further part of this standard account is that we must not only fill the policy vacuums retrospectively but attempt to anticipate the future direction of technological travel in order to produce a prospective ethical assessment of likely policy vacuums.

I wish to differentiate this revolutionary or 'innovation-centric' picture from, what seems to me, a broader and cogent picture, a 'technology-in-use' view. David Edgerton in The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900, (2006) argues that this innovation-centric picture generally tends to ignore those technologies which are mature and currently in use – their histories and continuing significance. Why should we assume these no longer present ethical problems? Social values change; what once seemed uncontentious may now be contentious and vice versa: "Time was always jumbled up, in the pre-modern era, the post-modern era and the modern era. We worked with old and new things, with hammers and electric drills. In use-centred history technologies do not only appear, they also reappear, and mix and match across the centuries. Since the late 1960s many more bicycles were produced globally each year than cars. The guillotine made a gruesome return in the 1940s. Cable TV declined in the 1950s to reappear in the 1980s' (Edgerton, 2006, xii). In its picture of revolutionary irresistibility, innovation-centric view tends to ignore the innovations that failed; it tends to ignore the technology that developed only slowly and not exponentially; it ignores the counterfactuals that is how, for example, the different ways in which information and communication technologies might have developed given different policies, regulatory regimes and social values. Old technologies re-emerge whilst we find emergent limits to new technologies.

I will aim in the paper to illustrate this argument by an analysis of Jonathan Zittrain's recent account of the growth and possible future of the Internet, The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It (2009). Zittrain's approach has much in common with that of Jim Moor. He refers, for example, to 'the modern information revolution' and considers both the PC and the Internet as revolutionary. If for Jim Moor the revolutionary attribute of computing is 'logical malleability' then for Jonathan Zittrain the concept of 'generativity' is the revolutionary attribute of PCs and the Internet. Zittrain writes that: "Today the same qualities that led to their successes are causing the Internet and the PC to falter. As ubiquitous as Internet technologies are today, the pieces are in place for a wholesale shift away from the original chaotic design that has given rise to the modern information revolution. This counterrevolution would push mainstream users away from a generative Internet fosters innovation and disruption, to an applanicized network that incorporates some of the most powerful features of today's Internet while greatly limiting its innovative capacity – and for better or worse, heightening its regulability." (Zittrain, 2009, p 8)

What I will argue is that Zittrain's account demonstrates that the innovation-centric approach with its emphasis on irresistibility and novelty misplaces the dynamic from the social to the technological. There was nothing pre-destined about the way the Internet emerged and continues to develop. It was the way in which certain developers and designers chose to instantiate logical malleability to produce generativity which is the key to its current characteristics. The analysis of the history of both the PC and the Internet with the emergence of generativity stems ultimately from the nature of social groups primarily involved in their development (academic researchers, hobbyists, etc.), the values they held and the choices that they made. What I propose is that Zittrain's history shows that trust and openness were as important, if not more important, than any particular technical attributes. There is a clear link between design choices and the ethos of the Internet and this puts ideas of 'the good' at the centre of the discussion. At the same time the possibility of an applanicized network represents the re-emergence, if not of old technology, then of new technologies embedded in old business models and old methods of control.


Self-assembly of a series of amphiphilic poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate)-block-poly(lactic acid)-block-poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (P(OEGMA)-b-PLLA-b-P(OEGMA)) copolymers was investigated. The copolymers were synthesized by a combination of ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of L-lactide and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of oligo ethylene glycol methyl ether methacrylate (OEGMA). The resulting brush-like triblock copolymers were characterized by 1H NMR and size exclusion chromatography. Self-assembly behavior of the copolymers in deionized water was investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The critical aggregation concentration ranged from 50 to 160 mg L−1 depending on the composition. The diameter of the nanoparticles (NPs) was determined by DLS and TEM. Images showed that these nano-sized objects displayed spherical and worm-like morphology with a length increasing with the hydrophilic content. Preliminary studies of drug loading and drug release with a water-insoluble model drug, namely curcumin, showed that these NPs are potential candidates for drug delivery carriers.


OBJECT
Resection of lesions close to the primary motor cortex (M1) and the corticospinal tract (CST) is generally regarded as high-risk surgery due to reported rates of postoperative severe deficits of up to 50%. The authors' objective was to determine the feasibility and safety of low-threshold motor mapping and its efficacy for increasing the extent of lesion resection in the proximity of M1 and the CST in children and adolescents.

METHODS
The authors analyzed 8 consecutive pediatric patients in whom they performed 9 resections for lesions within or close (≤ 10 mm) to M1 and/or the CST. Monopolar high-frequency motor mapping with train-of-five stimuli (pulse duration 500 μsec, interstimulus interval 4.0 msec, frequency 250 Hz) was used. The motor threshold was defined as the minimal stimulation intensity that elicited motor evoked potentials (MEPs) from target muscles (amplitude > 30 μV). Resection was performed toward M1 and the CST at sites negative to 1- to 3-mA high-frequency train-of-five stimulation.

RESULTS
The M1 was identified through high-frequency train-of-five via application of varying low intensities. The lowest motor thresholds after final resection ranged from 1 to 9 mA in 8 cases and up to 18 mA in 1 case, indicating proximity to motor neurons. Intraoperative electroencephalography documented an absence of seizures during all surgeries. Two transient neurological deficits were observed, but there were no permanent deficits. Postoperative imaging revealed complete resection in 8 patients and a very small remnant (< 0.175 cm3) in 1 patient.

CONCLUSIONS
High-frequency train-of-five with a minimal threshold of 1-3 mA is a feasible and safe procedure for resections in the proximity of the CST. Thus, low-threshold motor mapping might help to expand the area for safe resection in pediatric patients with lesions located within the precentral gyrus and close to the CST, and may be regarded as a functional navigational tool. The additional use of continuous MEP monitoring serves as a safety feedback for the functional integrity of the CST, especially because the true excitability threshold in children is unknown.


ABSTRACT Cauliflower root and plant growth and Verticillium wilt development were evaluated under different moisture regimes in the presence or absence of V. dahliae. Treatments included two main plots (V. dahliae-infested and fumigated), two subplots (furrow and subsurface drip irrigation), and three sub-subplots (deficit, moderate, and excessive regimes) that were arranged in a split-split-plot design in the field. Soil cores with roots were periodically sampled at 5 and 25 cm distance from plants. Total roots in each soil core were extracted with a hydropneumatic root elutriator, and root length from each sample was determined with a digital image analysis system. Incidence and severity of Verticillium wilt, plant height, number of leaves, and dry weights of leaves and roots were determined on 10 plants sampled at 7- to 10-day intervals 1 month after cauliflower transplanting and continued until harvest. To evaluate the effects of Verticillium wilt-induced stress on cauliflower plants, stomatal resistance was measured in upper healthy and lower (or diseased) leaves. Root length density at 5 and 25 cm from plant was significantly (P < 0.05) higher in subsurface drip than in furrow irrigation. Root length density was significantly higher in excessive irrigation regime than in the other regimes. Concomitantly, there was higher wilt incidence and severity in excessive and moderate regimes than deficit regime regardless of the irrigation method. Plant height was affected by irrigation methods and deficit regime. Neither the method of irrigation nor the quantity of water affected the other variables. Stomatal resistance in lower diseased leaves was significantly higher in infested than in fumigated plots but it was not in the upper healthy leaves. In this study, cauliflower yield was not affected by V. dahliae and irrigation method, but the deficit irrigation regime resulted in reduced yield even though it suppressed wilt in cauliflower. Thus, higher moisture levels resulted in higher root length density in V. dahliae-infested plots that in turn lead to greater incidence of Verticillium wilt and severity. The pathogen also affected physiological processes such as hydraulic conductance of cauliflower leaves, but not shoot growth or yield under these experimental conditions.


We present optical broad band colour maps of nine Seyfert galaxies. In the bands used, the contribution from emission lines to the total flux is relatively small, and hence the images predominantly trace the continuum distribution. The ratios of these images are sensitive to gradients in the stellar populations, and to reddening by dust. We detect ringlike, clumpy or elongated morphological features in several galaxies, which are blue in the index ( for NGC 7469). For NGC 7469 there is good spatial agreement with the molecular millimeter CO and radio continuum structure indicating the presence of star forming regions around its Seyfert nucleus. The blue elongations and/or double structures seen in the colour maps of NGC 1068, NGC 3227, NGC 4151, Mrk 3 and Mrk 573 are roughly parallel to their extended radio and NLR emission and probably arise from scattering of nuclear light by extranuclear "mirrors". In Mrk 78 and Mrk 348, the structure is not well resolved, possibly because the scattering mirrors are either less efficient and/or further away from the nucleus than in the previous galaxies. In NGC 1667, we detect double red maxima, again possibly related to obscuring material. The colours of the blue maxima are not well determined due to contamination from the underlying bulge, but they are generally consistent with those expected from scattering off dust or electrons. Our findings thus give further support to the current unified models of AGN.


This paper proposes a framework to analyze the effects of scientific and commercial incentives in R&D organizations. We build a simple repeated model of a researcher capable of obtaining innovative ideas. Although they reduce the time spent on research, we show that commercialization incentives also affect the choice of research projects. Commercial rewards induce a more intensive search for (ex post) path-breaking innovations, which are more likely to be generated through (ex ante) riskier research programs. We derive the organization's optimal incentive scheme in terms of the researcher's characteristics. We show that organizations should use a high level of commercial incentives for scientists who have strong or weak intrinsic preferences for research. For those with strong preferences, the organization needs to induce development, whereas for those with weak ones, it needs to induce effort.


The authors investigate the links between playfulness and creative organizational climates established by other research, using play cues—objects and sweets—they provide participants halfway through workplace meetings. Their findings suggest such cues significantly enhance the creative climate and playfulness in workplace meetings without risking meeting productivity. Key words: adult playfulness; creative climate; organizational behavior; play and productivity; workplace meetings


microRNAs and other small RNAs generated by the ribonuclease Dicer are involved in a variety of physiological processes including immune responses, neuronal function and modulation of synaptic plasticity. This thesis uses the Nav1.8-Cre mouse to ablate Dicer in post-mitotic nociceptors, in order to study the role of small RNAs in nociception. Colleagues have previously identified that loss of small RNAs within these nociceptors leads to deficits in inflammatory pain behaviour, and that the expression of nociceptor transcripts is greatly reduced.
In this thesis electrophysiological recordings were used. It was determined that Dicer null nociceptors were not capable of being sensitised using inflammatory mediators. This was found to be due to reduced functional voltage gated sodium channel expression, particularly Nav1.8 and Nav1.9, leading to impaired action potential electrogenesis and loss of repetitive firing properties.
Deep sequencing and bioinformatic analysis were used to identify the miRNA and small RNA repertoire in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) tissue. Additionally, nociceptor enriched miRNAs were identified using the conditional Dicer knockout mouse. The observation that the loss of miRNAs leads to reduced expression of nociceptor transcripts does not fit with the canonical RNA interference (RNAi) paradigm. Therefore a hypothesis that small RNAs can induce transcription was tested using bioinformatic approaches and functional studies in DRG neurons.


Three distinct α1 subunit genes encode T-type Ca2+ channels (CaV3.1, CaV3.2, and CaV3.3), and these have nonredundant roles in pain transmission, cell proliferation, and cardiovascular function. Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a phospholipid involved in the development and growth of neurons, binds to members of a family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) called LPA1-5, of which LPA1 is the most abundant in the brain. LPA1 activates members of the Gαi, Gαq, and Gα12/13 family of G proteins. Stimulated Gα12/13 activates the Rho guanosine triphosphatase family member RhoA, which activates Rho-associated kinase (ROCK). ROCK isoforms phosphorylate (among other substrates) sodium and potassium channels. Previous studies have shown overlapping physiological responses to activation of either ROCK or T-type Ca2+ channels, so Iftinca et al. investigated a role for ROCK in regulating T-type Ca2+ channels. Whole-cell patch clamp assays on tsA-201 cells (a subclone of HEK 293 cells) transiently expressing rat CaV3.1 showed a dose-dependent decrease in channel current in response to LPA. Experiments with pertussis toxin (to block Gαi) and protein kinase C inhibitors (to block signals downstream of Gαq) suggested that the Gα12/13 pathway mediated the inhibitory effect of LPA on CaV3.1 activity. Coexpression of dominant-negative mutants of Gα12 and Gα13, or treatment with specific inhibitors of Rho or ROCK, substantially decreased the inhibitory effects of LPA. Mutation of Ser and Thr residues in putative ROCK-phosphorylation consensus sites (found between domains II and III) of CaV3.1 resulted in mutant channels that did not respond to LPA. These consensus sites are conserved in all T-type Ca2+ channels, and the authors found that whereas LPA treatment also inhibited the activity of CaV3.3, it increased the activity of CaV3.2. The authors performed experiments in neurons isolated from the lateral habenula (LHb) nucleus (predominantly expressing CaV3.1) and the dorsal root ganglia (DRG, in which CaV3.2 is the major channel) of rats and found that the effects of LPA (decreasing currents in LHb neurons and increasing currents in the DRG) were all blocked by inhibition of ROCK. Together, these data describe a new mechanism of regulation of the activity of T-type Ca2+ channels and, given that T-type Ca2+ channels and ROCK are coexpressed in other cell types, suggest that this regulation might be important for various physiological processes. M. Iftinca, J. Hamid, L. Chen, D. Varela, R. Tadayonnejad, C. Altier, R. W. Turner, G. W. Zamponi, Regulation of T-type calcium channels by Rho-associated kinase. Nat. Neurosci. 10, 854-860 (2007). [PubMed]


Objective: Patients suffering from mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis may be treated with unloader knee orthoses or laterally wedged insoles. This study aimed to identify and compare the effects of two orthoses in these patients. Methods: 56 patients with medial compartment knee OA were evaluated when wearing an unloader knee orthosis and insoles with a 6° lateral wedge which were randomly assigned. Testing was performed at baseline and after 6 months of use with the two types of orthoses. The KOOS score was used to assess outcomes in this study. A paired T test was used for comparing base line and the 6th month post interventions KOOS sub scale score. An independent T test was used for analyzing the efficacy between the two orthoses. Results: Each of the interventions improved all the parameters comparing to the baseline condition (P=0.000). However, in comparing the effect between these orthoses, we did not find significant differences in activities of daily living (P=0.871), or sports and recreational activities (P=0.351). The pain and symptoms (P=0.000) were, however, significantly different between the two interventions. Conclusion: The unloader knee orthoses were more effective than lateral wedge insoles in reducing pain and symptoms.


Speaker embeddings (x-vectors) extracted from very short segments of speech have recently been shown to give competitive performance in speaker diarization. We generalize this recipe by extracting from each speech segment, in parallel with the x-vector, also a diagonal precision matrix, thus providing a path for the propagation of information about the quality of the speech segment into a PLDA scoring backend. These precisions quantify the uncertainty about what the values of the embeddings might have been if they had been extracted from high quality speech segments. The proposed probabilistic embeddings (x-vectors with precisions) are interfaced with the PLDA model by treating the x-vectors as hidden variables and marginalizing them out. We apply the proposed probabilistic embeddings as input to an agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) algorithm to do diarization in the DIHARD'19 evaluation set. We compute the full PLDA likelihood 'by the book' for each clustering hypothesis that is considered by AHC. We do joint discriminative training of the PLDA parameters and of the probabilistic x-vector extractor. We demonstrate accuracy gains relative to a baseline AHC algorithm, applied to traditional xvectors (without uncertainty), and which uses averaging of binary log-likelihood-ratios, rather than by-the-book scoring.


From abstract: The ore deposits are in fissue veins that contain silver, nickel, cobalt, and uranium minerals. The ore minerals, which include native silver, argentite, niccolite, millerite, skutterudite, nickel skutterudite, bismuthinite, pitchblende,
and sphalerite, are in a carbonate gangue in narrow, persistent veins, most of which trend northeast. Pitchblende has been identified in the Black Hawk and the Alhambra deposits and unidentified radioactive minerals were found at five other localities. The deposits that contain the radioactive minerals constitute a belt 600 to 1,500 feet wide that trends about N. 450 E. and is approximately parallel to the southeastern boundary of the monzonite porphyry stock. All the major ore deposits are in the quartz diorite gneiss close to the monzonite porphyry. The ore deposits are similar to the deposits at Great Bear Lake, Canada, and Joachimsthal, Czechoslovakia.


Background: Rib fractures are common sequelae after blunt chest wall trauma. They can occur in isolation or association with life-threatening injuries to the head, thorax, and abdomen and may be complicated by hemothorax, pneumothorax, or lung contusions. Contiguous rib fractures can result in flail chest, which is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. This study aims to compare the risk factors, treatment modalities, and outcomes between patients with flail chest and nonflail chest postblunt trauma. Patients and Methods: Data were retrospectively collected from all patients admitted with rib fractures from January 2016 to December 2016 to the Department of General Surgery, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Singapore. The outcomes identified were mortality, pain scores on injury day 1, 3, 5, and 7, injury severity score, duration of mechanical ventilation, worst partial pressure arterial oxygen/fraction of inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2) ratio, length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay, and pulmonary complications. Results: Motor vehicle accident was the most common cause of rib fractures (63.1%, n = 123). Patients with flail chest had more associated pneumothorax (53.8% vs. 35.2%) and lung contusions (53.8% vs. 30.2%) compared to those without flail chest and underwent more investigations such as inpatient-computed tomography scans (76.9% vs. 59.3%), interventions such as chest tube insertion (61.5% vs. 19.8%), and ICU admission (46.1 vs. 13.7%). Patients also had higher pain scores, used more analgesic modalities, and had increased inpatient mortality (30.8% vs. 4.4%). Conclusion: Flail chest is associated with higher morbidity and mortality. Proactive management from a multidisciplinary team such as identification of high-risk patients in particular patients with flail chest, early admission to critical care, and protocols including multimodal pain management, respiratory support, and rehabilitation should be instituted.


Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are smart lightweight flexible materials integrating actuation, sensing, and structural functions. The field of DEAs has been progressing rapidly, with actuation strains of over 300% reported, and many application concepts demonstrated. However many DEAs are slow, exhibit large viscoelastic drift, and have short lifetimes, due principally to the use of acrylic elastomer membranes and carbon grease electrodes applied by hand. Here a DEA‐driven tunable lens, the world's fastest capable of holding a stable focal length, is presented. By using low‐loss silicone elastomers rather than acrylics, a settling time shorter than 175 μs is obtained for a 20% change in focal length. The silicone‐based lenses show a bandwidth 3 orders of magnitude higher compared to lenses of the same geometry fabricated from the acrylic elastomer. Stretchable electrodes, a carbon black and silicone composite, are precisely patterned by pad‐printing and subsequently cross‐linked, enabling strong adhesion to the elastomer and excellent resistance to abrasion. The lenses operate for over 400 million cycles without degradation, and show no change after more than two years of storage. This lens demonstrates the unmatched combination of strain, speed, and stability that DEAs can achieve, paving the way for complex fast soft machines.


Power amplifiers and their performance lie at the heart of audio engineering and provide some challenging problems for the engineer. Ben Duncan's experience, as an audio consultant, analog electronics designer and author, give him an unique insight into this difficult but rewarding field.Linking analog electronics, acoustics, heat and music technology; high-end hi-fi and professional PA and recording studio use; theory, modelling and real-world practice; design and repair; the old and the new, the mainstream and the specialised, this comprehensive guide to power amps is a core reference for anyone in the industry, and any interested onlookers.Ben Duncan is well known to many users of audio power amplifiers around the world, both professional and domestic, through his articles, reviews and research papers on music technology in the UK and US press, and through his part in creating several notable professional power amplifiers. Since 1977, he has been involved in the design of over 70 innovative, high-end audio products used by recording and broadcast studios, on stages, in clubs and by the most critical domestic listeners - as well as creating bespoke equipment for top musicians. Born in London, he has travelled widely but has lived mainly in Lincolnshire, home of his family for over 150 years. He is twice co-author of the book Rock Hardware in which he has chronicled the history of rock'n'roll PA.


This paper examines the impact of public health insurance expansions through both Medicaid and SCHIP on children's educational outcomes, measured by 4th and 8th grade reading and math test scores, available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). We use a triple difference estimation strategy, taking advantage of the cross-state variation over time and across ages in children's health insurance eligibility. Using this approach, we find that test scores in reading, but not math, increased for those children affected at birth by increased health insurance eligibility. A 50 percentage point increase in eligibility is found to increase reading test scores by 0.09 standard deviations. We also examine whether the improvements in educational outcomes can be at least partially attributed to improvements in health status itself. First, we provide further evidence that increases in eligibility are linked to improvements in health status at birth. Second, we show that better health status at birth (measured by rates of low birth-weight and infant mortality), is linked to improved educational outcomes. Although the methods used to support this last finding do not completely eliminate potentially confounding factors, we believe it is strongly suggestive that improving children's health will improve their classroom performance.


High-frequency trading is an algorithm-based computerized trading practice that allows firms to trade stocks in milliseconds. Over the last fifteen years, the use of statistical and econometric methods for analyzing high-frequency financial data has grown exponentially. This growth has been driven by the increasing availability of such data, the technological advancements that make high-frequency trading strategies possible, and the need of practitioners to analyze these data. This comprehensive book introduces readers to these emerging methods and tools of analysis. Yacine Ait-Sahalia and Jean Jacod cover the mathematical foundations of stochastic processes, describe the primary characteristics of high-frequency financial data, and present the asymptotic concepts that their analysis relies on. Ait-Sahalia and Jacod also deal with estimation of the volatility portion of the model, including methods that are robust to market microstructure noise, and address estimation and testing questions involving the jump part of the model. As they demonstrate, the practical importance and relevance of jumps in financial data are universally recognized, but only recently have econometric methods become available to rigorously analyze jump processes. Ait-Sahalia and Jacod approach high-frequency econometrics with a distinct focus on the financial side of matters while maintaining technical rigor, which makes this book invaluable to researchers and practitioners alike.


Background: Studies have shown that postprandial hyperglycemia is a risk factor for developing diabetes type 2 and cardiovascular disease. Herein is the systematic evaluation of whether postprandial light walking will reduce and delay the increase in postprandial plasma glucose level. Methods: An exhaustive electronic search of Medline-OVID, CINAHL, and EBMR Multifile was conducted using the following keywords: postprandial period, postmeal, blood glucose, walking, and motor activity. Inclusion criteria included all study designs. The search was narrowed down to the English language and studies on humans. Studies were eligible if they included human adults, had clearly defined controls, had prognostically balanced intervention and control groups, evaluated postprandial walking, and measured blood glucose levels. Relevant articles were assessed for quality using the Grading for Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). Results: Two studies were included in this review. Both studies were crossover study trials that examined the effects of postprandial walking on post meal plasma glucose levels. Overall, the trials included impaired glucose tolerant elderly men and women and middle-age diabetic-prone Pakistani women immigrants. The physical activities performed post meal included 20 and 40 minutes of light walking, 45 minutes sustained treadmill walking, and 15 minutes of treadmill walking after each meal. All the crossover trials demonstrated that walking post meal reduced the rise in postprandial blood glucose. Conclusion: These results suggest that even low intensity physical activity such as walking can be beneficial in blunting and delaying the rise in postprandial plasma glucose. Moreover, 15 minutes of walking performed after each meal has the same effect as 45 minutes of sustained walking performed once a day. The studies in this review, however, are crossover studies with small sample sizes and are considered as very low quality on the GRADE scale. More evidence from a larger, well-designed randomized control trial is needed in order to validate this recommendation to the general population.


International Journal of Exercise Science 11(5): 152-167, 2018. This study aimed to investigate the effect of very brief, high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) on selective attention in university students. As a follow-up, we investigated whether HIIE performed prior to a university lecture improves retention of lecture material. A single-group counterbalanced post-test only design was used for this study. 22 university students (19 females; age = 20.0 ±1.0 years) performed a HIIE and control visit on separate days. During the HIIE session, participants performed 4 separate body-weight exercises for 1 set each, consisting of eight 20 s intervals interspersed with 10 s rest, totaling 11 minutes in duration, including rest. 10 minutes following exercise cessation, participants completed the d2 test of attention. The control visit consisted of quiet reading followed by completion of the d2. Selective attention, as assessed by the d2 test of attention was significantly greater following a bout of HIIE compared to the control condition. Effect size analysis revealed a moderate effect in favour of HIIE compared to control (d = 0.459 [0.171, 0.747]). Study #2: 23 university students (17 females; age = 19.0 ±0.5 years) performed HIIE and a rest condition prior to attending an exercise physiology lecture on separate days. A quiz was administered 24-hours post-lecture to assess lecture retention. Quiz performance was not different between HIIE and control conditions (p = 0.18). HIIE is a time-effective exercise stimulus that improves selective attention. However, performing HIIE prior to a university lecture did not impact retention of lecture material.


We have examined whether non-thermal exposures of cultures of the human endothelial cell line EA.hy926 to 900 MHz GSM mobile phone microwave radiation could activate stress response. Results obtained demonstrate that 1-hour non-thermal exposure of EA.hy926 cells changes the phosphorylation status of numerous, yet largely unidentified, proteins. One of the affected proteins was identified as heat shock protein-27 (hsp27). Mobile phone exposure caused a transient increase in phosphorylation of hsp27, an effect which was prevented by SB203580, a specific inhibitor of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38MAPK). Also, mobile phone exposure caused transient changes in the protein expression levels of hsp27 and p38MAPK. All these changes were non-thermal effects because, as determined using temperature probes, irradiation did not alter the temperature of cell cultures, which remained throughout the irradiation period at 37 +/- 0.3 degrees C. Changes in the overall pattern of protein phosphorylation suggest that mobile phone radiation activates a variety of cellular signal transduction pathways, among them the hsp27/p38MAPK stress response pathway. Based on the known functions of hsp27, we put forward the hypothesis that mobile phone radiation-induced activation of hsp27 may (i) facilitate the development of brain cancer by inhibiting the cytochrome c/caspase-3 apoptotic pathway and (ii) cause an increase in blood-brain barrier permeability through stabilization of endothelial cell stress fibers. We postulate that these events, when occurring repeatedly over a long period of time, might become a health hazard because of the possible accumulation of brain tissue damage. Furthermore, our hypothesis suggests that other brain damaging factors may co-participate in mobile phone radiation-induced effects.


Cambridge International AS and A Level Computer Science offers a complete set of resources to accompany the 9608 syllabus. This coursebook delivers an accessible guide to the theoretical and practical skills that are required by the course, with a clear progression of tasks that consolidate and develop knowledge. It offers students detailed descriptions of the concepts, reinforced with examples that outline complex subject matter in a clear way. Alongside fundamental definitions, higher level programming skills are developed through the explanation of processes and consolidated by practical exam-type questions for students to attempt.


Abstract: The use of canal water for cooling is an important opportunity for companies to reduce their carbon emissions and save on energy bills. The available models used to evaluate the possibility of using canal water are too complicated and their applications are difficult. As such some potential opportunities for using canal water for cooling are being lost. This paper addresses current concerns to produce an interactive numerical model that will produce a three dimensional representation of the temperature distribution of heated water discharged into a still water region. The interactive model may be manipulated by non technical personnel to evaluate different discharge scenarios and ensure that the proposal does not infringe the stringent regulations imposed by the Environmental Agencies. The proposed model makes use of information gathered from real on-site testing using a thermal camera and grid measurements in addition to a laboratory experimental tank that duplicates the various on-site options. The parameters of temperature, velocity and boundaries were determined in both practical processes using a predefined grid mesh that covered the mixing zone. These practical results gave the turbulent diffusivity which was then used in the formulation of the model that was optimised to represent the real system results. It is shown that the results from the on-site testing, the laboratory results and the 3-D model all give complementary values so validating the final model.