The thesis reports an investigation of object-oriented interfaces which was undertaken to advance understanding of their implications for the user. The object-oriented interface is a comparatively recent development in user computer interface technology but, despite its popularity and reputation for ease of use, little research about it has been reported from a cognitive ergonomics perspective. The investigation involves two activities, one analytic and one empirical, aimed at providing a characterization and assessment of object-oriented interfaces. The analytic activity specifies a framework within which object-oriented interfaces can be described and the empirical activity yields experimental findings concerning the usability of object-oriented interfaces. First, the framework is proposed. It comprises some distinctions, definitions and a levels structure for modelling devices and users. Throughout the investigation, the structure is applied to derive particular models of devices and user behaviour. This process enables elements of the framework to be validated or modified. On the empirical side, an observational study is conducted which compares user performance on an object-oriented interface and a non-object-oriented interface. It determines that object-oriented interfaces are easier to use and that the dimensions for classifying object-oriented interfaces have consequences for user performance. Following the observational study, a specific device feature, syntax of the command sequence, is selected for further experimentation and a rudimentary user model is proposed. Two experiments, using simulated interfaces, are conducted to discover the effects of I /O Level and Task Level factors on syntax usability. The results of these studies advance the user model. These studies suggest there is no inherent difference between the two command sequences tested. An alternative view is proposed which suggests that performance differences found in the observational study are due to characteristics particular to objects which were not tapped in the experimental studies. A third experiment is performed which lends some support this proposition. The thesis concludes that: i) an object-oriented interface can be distinguished from other interface classes in terms of features which have consequences for the user; ii) under certain conditions, object-oriented interfaces are easier to use than their contrast and the object-oriented variant of the feature, syntax, has a facilitatory influence on user performance. 2


To accurately assess the flux of mass and energy to higher trophic levels in a food web using stable isotopes, the isotopic signature of basal sources is required. When studying aquatic food webs, it is difficult to obtain a signature for algae because of challenges associated with isolating small organisms from a bulk sample. In this study, we compared freshwater algal δ 13 C values obtained using five approaches from the literature. Results indicated that the signatures derived from a primary consumer such as Daphnia sp., from particulate organic carbon with a correction for algal biomass, and from isolated algal samples were comparable. By contrast, algal δ 13 C values based on the signature of carbon dioxide and algal carbon fractionation were significantly lower than those of the other approaches. The inconsistent values produced by this method were likely due to problems in determining fractionation values based on current models and were potentially related to bicarbonate uptake by algae.


PIC microcontrollers are used worldwide in commercial and industrial devices. The 8-bit PIC which this book focuses on is a versatile work horse that completes many designs. An engineer working with applications that include a microcontroller will no doubt come across the PIC sooner rather than later. It is a must to have a working knowledge of this 8-bit technology. This book takes the novice from introduction of embedded systems through to advanced development techniques for utilizing and optimizing the PIC family of microcontrollers in your device. To truly understand the PIC, assembly and C programming language must be understood. The author explains both with sample code and examples, and makes the transition from the former to the latter an easy one. This is a solid building block for future PIC endeavors. New to the 2nd Edition:*Include end of chapter questions/activities moving from introductory to advanced*More worked examples *Includes PowerPoint slides for instructors *Includes all code snips on a companion web site for ease of use *A survey of 16/32-bit PICs*A project using ZigBee *Covers both assembly and C programming languages, essential for optimizing the PIC*Amazing breadth of coverage moving from introductory to advanced topics covering more and more complex microcontroller families*Details MPLAB and other Microchip design tools


Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate injury incidence and patterns in female and male floorball players of different ages compared with matched controls. This study involved all floorball players in Sweden and licensed during 2010–2012, and matched controls selected from Sweden's Total Population Register. Injury diagnoses were acquired from national health care registers. The cohort comprised 148,372 players and 614,678 controls, with the median age 13 (range, 6‒69) years. In most age groups, players were at increased risk of traumatic injury, particularly knee and eye injuries. The incidence of cruciate ligament injury increased steeply from the ages of 13 years in girls and 16 years in boys, and was more than 7 times higher in female players aged ≥ 16 years than in controls. The risk of eye injury for floorball players compared to controls was increased from the age of 10 years in male players and approximately doubled from the age of 13 years; in adult female players this risk was more than 6 times higher than in controls. Development and implementation of injury prevention measures are essential so that floorball players can safely practice their sport. Given the increased risk of injuries seen also in young players, such measures should be applied in all age categories.


The article focuses on the film House of Fools (Dom Durakov, 2002) of Andrei Konchalovsky, who is one of the most recognized contemporary Russian directors. The selected work is analyzed from the point of view of its intertextual relationships with Russian literary texts and cultural phenomena. The motif of the train, the paradigm of jurodivyj and the reference to the artistic worlds of acclaimed Russian writers (Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Vyrypaev) are among the main parallels which are discussed in the publication. The eclectic nature of the film allows treating it as a cultural archive founded on the storage capacity of the cultural memory. In the context of war, the sphere of art and the imagined can be seen as the most stable reality.


Fault-tolerant real-time systems are typically based on active replication where replicated entities are required to deliver their outputs in an identical order within a given time interval. Distributed scheduling of replicated tasks, however, violates this requirement if on-line scheduling, preemptive scheduling, or scheduling of dissimilar replicated task sets is employed. This problem of inconsistent task outputs has been solved previously by coordinating the decisions of the local schedulers such that replicated tasks are executed in an identical order. Global coordination results either in an extremely high communication effort to agree on each schedule decision or in an overly restrictive execution model where on-line scheduling, arbitrary preemptions, and nonidentically replicated task sets are not allowed. To overcome these restrictions, a new method, called timed messages, is introduced. Timed messages guarantee deterministic operation by presenting consistent message versions to the replicated tasks. This approach is based on simulated common knowledge and a sparse time base. Timed messages are very effective since they neither require communication between the local scheduler nor do they restrict usage of on-line flexible scheduling, preemptions and nonidentically replicated task sets.


Subjected to an oscillating flow rate, a compressor may feed additional (excitational) energy into the attached piping system. The relation between this additional energy input and the instantaneous behavior of a centrifugal compressor stage is deal in a first part. Modeling the stage behavior by taking into account either inertia of the enclosed fluid mass or a first-order transient element or transiem stall in any component leads to a different energy input. The energy input at a flow rate oscillation of given frequency and amplitude was calculated as a function of the slope of the characteristic and the reduced frequency applying a previously published model to describe the instantaneous behavior of the stage. In this model transient stall in the diffuser is taker into account. At reduced frequencies above unity the energy input of the diffuser was reduced by a considerable amount due to the specified instantaneous behavior of the diffuser. This indicates a potential to reduce the additional energy input of the diffuser either by increasing the time constant of the stall process or by increasing the mild surge frequency. For the investigated diffuser size the required reduced frequencies imply mild surge frequencies in a range being too high for industrial application (>200 Hz), Still, this method turned out to give useful insight into the link between the instantaneous behavior of the compressor and its energy input. In a second part for the same centrifugal compressor the energy contribution of several stage segments during mila surge oscillations was determined from detailed instantaneous measurements. As a result, the contribution of each stage segment to the conservation of the mild surge pulsation emerges. Although at the investigated mild surge frequencies the stage segments no longer behave strictly quasi-steadily. their contribution to the additional energy input is found to be mainly determined by the slope of their quasi-steady characteristic.


In the context of extended reality, the term immersion is commonly used as a property denoting to which extent a technology can deliver an illusion of reality while occluding the users' sensory access to the physical environment. In this paper we discuss an alternative interpretation of immersion, used in the My Sound Space project. The project is a research endeavor aiming to develop a sound environment system that enables a personalized sound space suitable for individual work places. The medium, which in our case is sound, is transparent and thus becomes an entangled part of the surrounding environment. This type of immersion is only partly occluding the users sensory access to physical reality. The purpose of using the sound space is not to become immersed by the sounds, rather to use the sounds to direct cognitive attention to get immersed in another cognitive activity.


Astronomical phenomena play a specific role in ancient literature to illustrate the internal chronology of the plot. It is obvious that especially poetical texts which deal with constellations and astronomical terms show a maximum of the so called poetical doctrina as – for example – can be seen in the work of Statius. The present paper thus tries to prove this thesis by analyzing the verses 692–693 of the first book of the Thebais. Therein the vanishing of the Great Bear/Big Dipper constellation seems to refer to a specific season.


Hybrid reverse Monte Carlo simulations of the structure of Zr50Cu45Al5 bulk metallic glass incorporating medium-range structure from fluctuation electron microscopy data and short-range structure from an embedded atom potential produce structures with significant fractions of icosahedral- and crystal-like atomic clusters. Similar clusters group together into nanometer-scale regions, and relaxation transforms crystal-like clusters into icosahedral clusters. A model refined against only the potential does not agree with the fluctuation microscopy data and contains few crystal-like clusters.


Disorders of hyperpigmentation are common in clinical practice and accounts for a large number of dermatology consultation in our country. These disorders, especially with facial involvement can result in tremendous psycho-social impact and are associated with poor quality of life. Disorders of hyperpigmentation are clinical diagnosis; the role of histopathology is limited by its invasive nature and reluctance on part of patient to undergo facial biopsy as well. Dermoscopy is a relatively new tool to diagnose these groups of disorders, but it has become popular due to its noninvasive nature and ability to perform the dermoscopic examination repeatedly over a period of time. Dermoscopy cannot replace thorough clinical history and histopathological examination, but it has distinct advantage in diagnosis of many disorders of hyperpigmentation. In this review, we will cover dermoscopy of disorders of hyperpigmentation and our approach to dermoscopy of these disorders.


Correlation has been established between transient engine and control data obtained experimentally and data obtained by simulating the engine and control with an analog computer. This correlation was established at sea-level conditions for a turbine-propeller engine with a relay-type speed control. The behavior of the controlled engine at altitudes of 20,000 and 35,000 feet was determined with an analog computer using the altitude pressure and temperature generalization factors to calculate the new engine constants for these altitudes. Because the engine response varies considerably at altitude some type of compensation appears desirable and four methods of compensation are discussed.


A three-stage monolithic millimeter-wave integrated-circuit (MMIC) amplifier designed to exhibit low noise in operation at frequencies from about 100 to somewhat above 180 GHz has been built and tested. This is a prototype of broadband amplifiers that have potential utility in diverse applications, including measurement of atmospheric temperature and humidity and millimeter-wave imaging for inspecting contents of opaque containers. Figure 1 depicts the amplifier as it appears before packaging. Figure 2 presents data from measurements of the performance of the amplifier as packaged in a WR-05 waveguide and tested in the frequency range from about 150 to about 190 GHz. The amplifier exhibited substantial gain throughout this frequency range. Especially notable is the fact that at 165 GHz, the noise figure was found to be 3.7 dB, and the noise temperature was found to be 370 K: This is less than half the noise temperature of the prior state of the art.


Background: There is controversy regarding the relationship between gender and acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Objective: To study the impact of gender on presentation, management, and mortality among patients with ACS in the Middle East. Methodology: From January 2012 to January 2013, 4057 patients with ACS were enrolled from four Arabian Gulf countries (Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar), representing more than 85% of the general hospitals in each of the participating countries. Results: Compared to men, women were older and had more comorbidities. They also had atypical presentation of ACS such as atypical chest pain and heart failure. The prevalence of non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (49 vs. 46%; P < 0.001) and unstable angina (34 vs. 24%; P < 0.001) was higher among women as compared to men. In addition, women were less likely to receive evidence-based medications such as aspirin, clopidogrel, beta-blocker, and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors on admission and on discharge. During hospital stay, women suffered more heart failure (15 vs. 12%; P = 0.008) and were more likely to receive blood transfusion (6 vs. 3%; P < 0.001). Women had higher 1-year mortality (14 vs. 11%; P < 0.001), the apparent difference that disappeared after adjusting for age and other comorbidities. Conclusion: Although there were differences between men and women in presentation, management, and in-hospital outcomes, gender was shown to be a nonsignificant contributor to mortality after adjusting for confounders.


Kaposi's Sarcoma Associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) or Human Herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8) is the most recently identified human gamma-2 herpesvirus and has been implicated in Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) and primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). At the right end of the genome KSHV encodes the complex kaposin locus, which consists of two distinct sets of 23 amino acid direct repeats, DR2 and DR1, followed by a short domain originally referred to as open reading frame (ORF) K12. Translational initiation at multiple alternative CUG and one AUG start codons causes expression of a gradient of kaposin molecules with varying length and targeting motifs from one single transcript.
The aim of the present study was to investigate in detail the expression pattern of the kaposin locus and the cellular localization and function of kaposin protein isoforms expressed in the KSHV+ PEL cell line BCBL-1. The multitude of translational products from all three reading frames could be resolved and different isoforms assigned to distinct cellular compartments. Depending on the alternative start codon used, the DR1 repeats representing a functional effector domain are fused either to the DR2 repeats harboring a nuclear localization sequence (NLS), or to K12, which encodes a transmembrane domain. Expression of kaposin in the nucleus (kaposin B) causes an activation of the AP-1 transcription factor and cellular promoters. The observed AP-1 induction is dependent on nuclear localization of both DR2 and DR1 repeats, since substitution of DR2 with a SV-40 NLS was not sufficient to restore activation. Other kaposin isoforms which are found in the cytosol (kaposin E) or membrane-associated (kaposin D) failed to activate AP-1. If co-expressed, however, kaposin D and E were able to modulate the kaposin B-caused induction, presumably mediated by a direct interaction between DR2 and DR1.
The results presented in this study indicate a novel autoregulatory mechanism based on bidirectional targeting of a viral protein to distinct subcellular compartments by expression from different start codons and reading frames. Supported by the complexity of the translational program and the conservation of the repeat regions, these findings imply that kaposin isoforms have important functions in the viral life cycle.


The Police if compared with other law enforcement authorities is the most numerous and has the widest network of territorial and specialised agencies. Activities of the Police vary greatly. Police institutions are subjects of the operative activities, they carry out prevention and investigation of criminal offences and infringements of administrative law, supervise traffic safety, participate in ensuring public safety and public order, etc. Legal regulation of its establishment and activities has direct effect on the success of objectives and functions assigned to the Police. Article contains analysis of legal regulation of police activities, which is done by examining the contents of the Law on Police Activities, basing on methodological approach of analytical jurisprudence, and court practice. Provisions of the Law on Police Activities are compared with provisions of other related legislation. Article also contains analysis of legal notions, which are used to identify the main values protected by the police ("public safety", "public order"), as well as notions used to define the position of the Police in the system of public institutions ("state security", "national security"). Moreover, legal possibilities of controlling the police activities, its relationship with executive institutions is analysed in the article. In article concludes practical recommendations for improvement of the Law on Police Activities seeking to align its provisions with those of other relevant legislation.


Big South Cape Island (Taukihepa) is a 1040 ha island, 1.5 km from the southwest coast of Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand. This island was rat-free until the incursion of ship rats (Rattus rattus) in, or shortly before, 1963, suspected to have been accidentally introduced via local fishing boats that moored at the island with ropes to the shore, and were used to transport the mutton birders to the island. This incursion was reported by the muttonbirders – local Iwi who harvest the young of titi (sooty shearwater, Puffinus griseus) – to the then New Zealand Wildlife Service (via the New Zealand Department of Lands and Survey). Investigation into the reports found ship rats had reached the island and had decimated the local land bird populations. Brian Bell and Don Merton attempted some of the first translocations of South Island saddleback (Philesturnus c. carunculatus), Stewart Island snipe (Coenocorypha aucklandica iredalei) and Stead's bush wren (Xenicus longipes variabilis) with only the saddleback being successful. Extinctions of the snipe, wren and greater short-tailed bat (Mystacina robusta) were recorded. This was the first time rats were definitively recognised as the cause of extinction of native land birds and directed further debate into the impacts of rats and how to deal with them.


Polarization properties and electro-optical switching behavior of holographic polymer-dispersed liquid-crystal (HPDLC) reflection and transmission gratings are studied. A theoretical model is developed that combines anisotropic coupled-wave theory with an elongated liquid-crystal-droplet switching model and includes the effects of a statistical orientational distribution of droplet-symmetry axes. Angle- and polarization-dependent switching behaviors of HPDLC gratings are elucidated, and the effects on dynamic range are described. A new type of electro-optical switching not seen in ordinary polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, to the best of the author's knowledge, is presented and given a physical interpretation. The model provides valuable insight to the physics of these gratings and can be applied to the design of HPDLC holographic optical elements.


The aim of this work is to investigate the role of chaotic advection in the mixing performance of the proposed novel mixer in the recent study of Hosseinalipour et.al. (2013). The computed flow domain calculated is used to find material point trajectories needed to calculate mixing measures in the novel dough mixer based on chaos theory. Two characteristics of a Lagrangian chaotic system (strong stretching and folding of material elements and sensitivity to initial conditions) horseshoe maps and also Poincare sections were visualized. Lyapunov exponents which quantify the exponential divergence of initially close state-space trajectories and estimate the amount of chaos presence in a system were also calculated. The results indicated that the flow filed was a combination of coexistence of both the chaotic and non-chaotic zones, with high and poor mixing performance respectively. [Seyed Mostafa Hosseinalipour, Amir Tohidi, and Mahnaz Shokrpour. Introduction of a Chaotic Dough Mixer, Part B: Chaotic Behavior and Mixing Performance. Life Sci J 2013;10(4s):414-422] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 63


Edward Wilson is remembered as the artist of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1912, led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott. The "Terra Nova" sailed via Madeira, South Trinidad, South Africa and Australia, to New Zealand; from where she set sail for the Antarctic on 24 January 1911. During the expedition Wilson studied and drew biological specimens, and made finished watercolours. The expedition reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912 after a journey of nearly a year. On the return journey the expedition hit unseasonably bad weather and Wilson died along with team members Scott and Bowers on 29 March. The specimens, diaries and sketchbooks were recovered by the search party the following Spring. It is probable that Edward Wilson's place in the history of art is as the last major painter of exploration art, an art form largely created by the fusion of science, cartography and art by William Hodges who had accompanied Captain Cook's second expedition from 1772-75. Hodges' work had been admired by Turner who was in turn admired by Wilson. With the death of Wilson, the major media for recording feats of exploration passed primarily to photography and film and the aesthetic technique and vision was subsumed. Edward Wilson drew all his life, collecting his drawings into indexed volumes he called his "stock in trade". He used them as the basis for his illustrations of Barrett-Hamilton's "A History of British Mammals", and started to use them for illustrating W. Eagle Clarke's "A History of British Birds", a cancelled publication. After his death, his wife, Oriana, arranged the notebooks and distributed many of them amongst the family. Two books - the "Nature Notebooks" were given to his nephew, Michael Wilson, whose sons have edited this volume. It contains the bulk of Edward Wilson's non-Antarctic work - from the Notebooks and other sources - reproduced here in chronological order, showing his development as an artist. There is also a selection of quotations from the Notebooks' observations and annotations, in keeping with the scrapbook flavour of many of the pages. Additionally, there is a short biography at the start of each chapter, concentrating on his scientific and artistic progress, and a selection of the Antarctic work so the reader can see the continuous artistic and scientific development.


Most of today's broadband networks, including the recently ratified IEEE 802.16 standard, employ reservation based multiple media access control. A problem pertinent to reservation MAC protocols is the division of frame slots between the contention and data transmission processes. In most of the reservation MAC protocols no specific ratio is standardized, leaving proprietary solutions address the local network environment. As both processes are equally important for maintaining efficient delay and throughput performance, a solution must consider the timely varying traffic load. For example, heterogeneity and cooperation of networks promote access technologies that can sustain waves of increasing traffic load. In this paper, we start by instituting a framework for efficient allocation of frame resources to the contention and data transmission processes in light of the delay and throughout performance. We then propose a dynamic resource allocation controller based on a Markovian optimization model, where the optimization parameters are tuned according to specific preferential criteria of service providers. Our model achieves opportunistic performance improvements, on a per frame basis, over the best-case static allocation. Through simulation, we study the merits of our proposed optimized controller with respect to the framework. We show by illustrative examples and numerical results that the controller successfully fulfills the framework objectives.


This study aimed to determine the potential iron‐chelating effects of silymarin in patients with β‐thalassemia major receiving standard iron‐chelation therapy. We evaluated whether addition of silymarin to standard iron‐chelation therapy could improve iron burden markers and liver and cardiac function in these patients, via a placebo‐controlled, crossover clinical study. Silymarin (140 mg) or placebo were administered thrice daily to all patients (n = 82) for 12 weeks, and after a 2‐week washout period, patients were crossed over to the other groups. Silymarin efficacy was assessed by measuring serum iron level, ferritin level, total iron‐binding capacity and liver and cardiac function on magnetic resonance imaging. Silymarin treatment resulted in a negative change in the serum iron and ferritin levels and a positive change in the total iron‐binding capacity levels (treatment effect, p < .001, p = .06, and p = .05, respectively). Silymarin treatment led to positive changes in cardiac and liver function in both treatment sequences of study; however, this was not statistically significant. There was a negative change in liver iron concentration in both treatment sequences (treatment effect, p = .02). In conclusion, combined iron‐chelation and silymarin therapy was effective for improving the iron‐burden status in patients with β‐thalassemia major.


Complex resistivity imaging provides information on the subsurface distribution of the electrical
conduction and polarisation properties. Spectral induced polarisation (SIP) refers to the frequency
dependence of these complex resistivity values. Measured SIP signatures are commonly analysed
by performing a Cole–Cole model fit or a Debye decomposition, yielding in particular chargeability
and relaxation time values. Given the close relation of these parameters with petrophysical
properties of relevance in various hydrogeological and environmental applications, it is crucial to
understand how well they can be reconstructed from multi-frequency complex resistivity imaging
with subsequent Cole–Cole or Debye decomposition analysis. In this work, we investigate, in a
series of numerical simulations, the reconstruction behaviour of the main spectral induced polarisation
parameters across a two-dimensional complex resistivity imaging plane by considering a local
anomalous polarisable body at different depths. The different anomaly positions correspond to different
cumulated sensitivity (coverage) values, which we find to be a simple and computationally
inexpensive proxy for resolution. Our results show that, for single-frequency measurements, the
reconstruction quality of resistivity and phase decreases strongly with decreasing cumulated sensitivity.
A similar behaviour is found for the recovery of Cole–Cole and Debye decomposition chargeabilities
from multi-frequency imaging results, while the reconstruction of the Cole–Cole exponent
shows non-uniform dependence over the examined sensitivity range. In contrast, the Cole–Cole and
Debye decomposition relaxation times are relatively well recovered over a broad sensitivity range.
Our results suggest that a quantitative interpretation of petrophysical properties derived from Cole–
Cole or Debye decomposition relaxation times is possible in an imaging framework, while any
parameter estimate derived from Cole–Cole or Debye decomposition chargeabilities must be used
with caution. These findings are of great importance for a successful quantitative application of
spectral induced polarisation imaging for improved subsurface characterisation, which is of interest
particularly in the fields of hydrogeophysics and biogeophysics.


As a result of the emphasis on professional development schools (PDSs) in teacher education over the past decade, numerous theoretical articles, process descriptions, and research reports provide considerable information about the nature and impact of school-university partnerships (Abdal-Haaq, 1998; Book, 1996). Several articles outline the perceived benefits for school and university faculty of participation in joint inquiry (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 1992). The literature provides particular insights into what happens to teachers, future teachers, and to a lesser extent, university professors; and how schools and universities change as a result of their collaboration. Most studies focus on roles and relationships, teacher attitudes, and teacher education, rather than on the elementary and secondary students in PDSs (Book, 1996). Although almost all PDS partnership goals include a stated emphasis on improved school achievement and student learning (Freeman, 1996), few studies address the impact of PDS efforts on student outcomes (Abdal-Haqq, 1998; Book, 1996; Valli, Cooper, & Frankes, 1997). Why have researchers not adequately addressed the impact of PDS on K-12 student outcomes? Field research that assesses student learning is difficult and fraught with pitfalls that threaten its rigor. Easy-to-obtain measures such as standardized tests may be too far removed from the focus and activities of PDSs to provide adequate measurement of impact on student learning. Reform efforts focusing on restructuring typically seek to evaluate authentic student activities that have relevance and meaning for them (Newmann, 1991) but may be difficult to measure. Furthermore, it is difficult to isolate distinct variables in complex interventions such as PDSs that can be directly related to student outcomes. Use of control group or other traditional experimental designs, which might serve to identify cause-and-effect relationships, may be seen as unethical by teachers and administrators because they deny potentially beneficial treatments from groups of students and teachers in the school. Another possible reason for the paucity of research on the effects of PDSs on K-12 students involves issues of trust and collaboration between practitioners and researchers. Many opportunities for inquiry to be misunderstood exist in partnerships where tenuous relationships are evolving between two very different cultures struggling with issues of trust, power, and control (Knight, Wiseman, & Smith, 1992; Ruscoe, Whitford, Egginton, & Esselman, 1989). Teachers may have concerns about the implications of experimentation in their classes because the experience may be damaging to students (Darling Hammond, 1992). Furthermore, partnership research can directly affect the professional lives of teachers and administrators. For example, teachers may see research as competing with instructional goals (Book, 1996); less than outstanding findings may reflect badly on programs, teachers, and administrators increasingly under public scrutiny. Teachers and administrators have traditionally been the objects of study by university researchers who may or may not even share their findings with the objects of their research. Teachers often see little relevance in studies that answer questions they do not ask and reports that use terminology they do not understand. As a result, the gap between research and practice widens. One response to the problems of mediating research and practice and excluding teachers' voices in the development of knowledge about teaching and learning is the collaboration of school and university researchers in determining PDS impact. Collaborative inquiry (Sirotnik 1988), also known as teacher research (Hollingsworth & Sockett, 1994), action research (Oja & Pine, 1987; Reason 1994), or collaborative research (Lee, 1993), holds significant promise. The goal of collaborative teacher research is to link research with practice to affect teacher thinking and instructional behavior, school systems and culture, and student outcomes. …


lncRNAs regulate metabolic tissue development and function, including adipogenesis. However, little is known about the function and profile of lncRNAs in preadipocytes differentiation of chicken. Here, we identified lncRNAs in preadipocytes of different differentiation stages by RNA-sequencing using Jinghai Yellow chicken. A total of 1,300,074,528 clean reads and 27,023 lncRNAs were obtained from twenty samples. 3095 genes (1,336 lncRNAs and 1,759 mRNAs) were differentially expressed among different stages, of which the number of DEGs decreased with the differentiation, demonstrating that the early stage might be most important for chicken preadipocytes differentiation. Furthermore, 3,095 DEGs were clustered into 8 clusters with their expression patterns by K-means clustering. We identified six stage-specific modules related to A0, A2 and A6 stages using weighted co-expression network analysis. Many well-known/novel pathways associated with preadipocytes differentiation were found. We also identified highly connected genes in each module and visualized them by cytoscape. Many well-known genes related to preadipocytes differentiation were found such as IGFBP2 and JUN. Yet, the majority of high connected genes were unknown in chicken preadipocytes. This study provides a valuable resource for chicken lncRNA study and contributes to batter understanding the biology of preadipocytes differentiation in chicken.


The development of lay ecclesial ministry in the Catholic Church as a career field began prior to the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) with a burgeoning lay apostolate, but professionalization of various ministries coincided with a decline of ordained (priests) and vowed religious (nuns and monks) beginning in the 1960s. Today 39,000 lay ecclesial ministers (LEMs) provide ministry in U.S. parishes with women serving in 80% of those roles. These women LEMs do more than support ministries or substitute for priests. LEMs create "new ways of ministering, new ways of being a minister, new configurations of the church's ministerial structures, and new arrangements of its pastoral life" (McCord, 2012, p. 8). This phenomenological study employed both group and individual interviews with 12 women engaged in ministerial leadership in Catholic parishes in Minnesota to explore the following questions about the leadership of women LEMs in Catholic parishes. How do women LEMs working in parishes ascribe meaning to their leadership in the Roman Catholic Church? What experiences, beliefs, and attitudes inform their understanding of ministerial leadership? How does the meaning they give their leadership inform their ministerial practice? The application of social theory and theological principles in analysis of the data suggests that these women LEMs integrate mission, story, and their experiences as women leaders to both convey and create meaning for their leadership. The findings also indicate that these LEMs integrate their experiences as women who lead into their leadership praxis resulting in a complex vocational commitment to leadership in the Church.


Conjugate addition of lithium (S)-N-benzyl-N-alpha-methylbenzylamide to a range of alpha, beta-unsaturated Weinreb amides proceeds with high levels of diastereoselectivity (>95% de). The beta-amino Weinreb amide products may be transformed into beta-amino ketones via reactions with Grignard reagents, while treatment with DIBAL-H furnishes beta-amino aldehydes. Trapping of the aldehyde via Wadsworth-Emmons reaction and subsequent manipulation offers an efficient route to homochiral delta-amino acid derivatives and 2-substituted piperidines. The application of this methodology for the synthesis of (S)-coniine is demonstrated.


A viral kinase mimics the activity of Akt despite their lack of sequence similarity. Viruses have evolved various strategies for evading host responses, including mechanisms for overcoming host cell translational blocks that halt viral replication. Many of these depend on targeting signaling through the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1), a key regulator of translation initiation. Phosphorylation of tuberous sclerosis complex 2 (TSC2) by Akt leads to activation of mTORC1, which, in turn, leads to phosphorylation of the regulator of translation initiation 4E-BP1 and subsequent stimulation of translation. Chuluunbaatar et al. report that the serine-threonine kinase Us3 from herpes simplex virus–1 (HSV-1) mimics Akt activity despite having no sequence homology with it. Us3 was required for efficient viral replication and for infection-induced accumulation of phosphorylated forms of both 4E-BP1 and TSC2 in infected human fibroblasts. Cell culture and in vitro assays demonstrated that TSC2 was a direct target of Us3 and that HSV-1–induced phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 depended on Us3 phosphorylating TSC2. Knocking down TSC2 by RNA interference enhanced replication of a mutant virus lacking Us3 but did not fully restore replication of the mutant virus to wild-type (WT) levels, suggesting that Us3 likely has additional cellular targets. Indeed, Us3 phosphorylated the Akt targets FOXO1 and GSK3 in HSV-infected cells and in cells expressing a tagged version of Us3 from a transgene. Molecular phylogenetics indicated that Us3 was no more closely related to the Akt subfamily of serine-threonine kinases than it was to other subfamilies, implying that it is unlikely to be subject to modulation by cellular regulators of Akt. Given that drugs that target mTORC are immunosuppressive, developing inhibitors of Us3 might offer a means for managing outbreaks of HSV-1 without compromising host cell functions. U. Chuluunbaatar, R. Roller, M. E. Feldman, S. Brown, K. M. Shokat, I. Mohr, Constitutive mTORC1 activation by a herpesvirus Akt surrogate stimulates mRNA translation and viral replication. Genes Dev. 24, 2627–2639 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text] K. L. Norman, P. Sarnow, Herpes Simplex Virus is Akt-ing in translational control. Genes Dev. 24, 2583–2586 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Modelling and Analyzing chemotherapy treatment for cancer using mathematical framework is a complex optimization problem with huge number of constraints and variables. Previous researches have shown that several approaches can be applied to the cancer chemotherapy problem with various degree of success. In our previous work, we proposed a set of controlled stochastic differential equations to model the drug scheduling with quadratic cost criteria in cancer chemotherapy process. We developed a fast and efficient algorithm to solve such complex optimization problem. However, the obtained results did not take into account the toxicity or side-effects of the treatment. In this work, we present an extended version of the previous model, a parsimonious tradeoff between drug dose and toxic side effects is carefully implemented. The ultimate goal here being optimizing drug scheduling to finding appropriate treatment design from many possibilities, we applied a novel version of Adapted Genetic Algorithm to reach optimal solution to the problem. Here we will present and discuss these new findings.


Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads. He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms. He also started an experimental school at Shantiniketan where he tried his Upanishadic ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own non-sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.


Silt loading (sL) is an important parameter in the fugitive road dust (FRD) emission inventory because it can indicate the cleaning degree of roads. In this study, we combined Testing Re-entrained Aerosol Kinetic Emissions from Roads (TRAKER) with the AP-42 method to measure the sL values of paved roads in Tianjin, China, and we developed a rapid silt loading testing system for the period from January to October in 2015. This allowed us to establish the FRD sL reservoir in a more feasible manner on a larger urban scale compared with sL measurements alone. We found that the background-corrected TRAKER signals tended to increase slightly as the speed of the mobile monitoring system increased, and the sL values increased exponentially with the speed-corrected TRAKER signals. The sL values determined by TRAKER were quite different, where branch roads > minor arterials > major arterials > outer ring > expressway, due to differences in the average speed and traffic volume. Furthermore, the sL values determined using TRAKER were higher in the slow lanes than the other lanes (except for the outer ring), whereas the sL values produced by TRAKER in the express lanes of the outer ring were the highest among all the vehicle lanes. The frequency distribution of the sL values obtained by TRAKER for various types of roads differed significantly from each other in terms of magnitude, especially on the branch roads and minor arterials. In terms of the temporal distribution, the sL values obtained by TRAKER were substantially higher in summer, followed by spring and autumn, and lowest in winter.


Testing consists of making a generalization about a population on the basis of what can be observed in a sample. This principle underlies not only the composition of the sample of individuals to be tested but also the selection of content for the testing instrument itself. Careful attention to the content of assessment tasks is needed to ensure that they are representative of the domain of tasks about which generalizations are to be drawn. However, content representativeness extends beyond mere attention to the problems posed and materials provided in the test. What is more crucially important is the manner in which test tasks are performed. Attention to test-taking process is especially crucial and problematic in the testing of cognitive processing skills. The sample will only be representative if the cogni tive processes involved in task performance are representative of those involved in performance of the domain of tasks in the real world. Thus the validation of tests involving cognitive processes will not be complete unless it includes some examination of the processes by which solutions to test tasks are reached. This line of thinking was propounded 40 years ago by Lennon but has only recently been taken up with the application of ethnographic methods to the study of the test-taking process. This article looks at the findings of a study of the processes employed by sub jects engaged in a discourse cloze test. Think-aloud protocols obtained from test- takers give indications of the reasoning employed in selecting items to complete gaps in the cloze passage and of the strategies employed in doing so. From these indications, cognitive processes are inferred. Comparing observed behaviours and inferred processes with those predicted in a model of ideal performance gives a measure of the construct validity both of the items and of the discourse cloze procedure in general. This introspective validation procedure reveals the test-tak ing behaviour of subjects engaged in cloze tasks and provides a cognitive perspec tive on the vexed question of what cloze actually measures.


As Chari et al (2008) point out in a recent paper, aggregate trends are very hard to interpret. They examine four common claims about the impact of financial sector phenomena on the economy and conclude that all four claims are myths. We argue that to evaluate these popular claims, one needs to look at the underlying composition of financial aggregates. Our findings show that most of the commonly argued facts are indeed supported by disaggregated data.


The Korean Competition Law, 'Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (MRFTA),' has a similar provision, Sectio 23 to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC). Precisely speaking, Section 23 is close to Section 5 of the FTC Act before the 1980s, which was protecting competitors, not competiton. Section 23 of the MRFTA broadly restricts business conduct under the principle of unfairness. In a recent case, the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) banned vertical agreement of KookSoonDang (KSD), a Korean traditional liquor company, to split the market between its distributors. The KFTC, without sophisticated economic analysis on the interbrand competiton or horizontal market, ruled that vertical agreement to carving out the market substantially restrain the intrabrand competition. The decision demonstrated that intracompetition should be envigorated. Contrastingly, the KFTC has implemented so-called distance limit on the franchise contracts. The KFTC alleged that the frachisors had taken advantage of their power so as to hatch too many franchisee stores without considering proper profit level of the franchisees. Therefore, cutthroating intra-brand competition has been resulted so that mitigation tool, distance limit, is needed to lessen intrabrand competition. The KFTC's policies are arbitrary and even capricious. Competition law and policy, due to broad wording, need consistent enforcement principles to save compliance cost for market players.


The Iraqi marsh lands, which are known as the Garden of Eden, cover an area about 15-20 10 3 km 2 in the lower part of the Mesopotamian basin. The area had played a prominent part in the history of mankind and was inhabited since the dawn of civilization. The Iraqi government started to drain the marshes for political and military reasons and at 2000 less than 10% of the marshes remained. After 2003, the process of restoration and rehabilitation of Iraqi marshes started. There are number of difficulties encountered in the process. In this research we would like to explore the possibilities of restoring the Iraqi marshes. It is believed that 70- 75% of the original areas of the marshes can be restored. This implies that 13km 3 water should be available to achieve this goal keeping the water quality as it is. To evaluate the water quality in the marshes, 154 samples were collected at 48 stations during summer, spring and winter. All the results indicate that the water quality was bad. To improve the water quality, then 18.86 km 3 of water is required. This requires plenty of efforts and international cooperation to overcome


Once considered a "foolish boondoggle" of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, the Federal Writers' Project was initiated to allow employment opportunity to those associated with the arts during the Great Depression. The American Guide Series became the most successful venture, offering jobs to writers nationwide as each state endeavored to produce a comprehensive guidebook. Under the direction of Charles van Ravenswaay, former director of the Missouri Historical Society, "Missouri: A Guide to the "Show Me" State" was first published in 1941. Now, in a classic reprint, Missouri Historical Society Press restores this guidebook to its original splendor and returns it to the bookshelves.With a current road map included with the book, travelers can compare sights and tours described in the antiquated guide and see how they have developed or disappeared. As Walter A. Schroeder and Howard W. Marshall describe in the updated introduction, "The unmarked, dirt road, impassable when wet, ' that we encounter in reading the WPA guide is no longer a hurdle to be negotiated in order to reach an out-of-the-way site." Due to nearly thirty thousand additional miles of paved roadway and endless gas station and motel chains, every corner of Missouri is now easily accessible. And, as Missouri Historical Society President Robert R. Archibald states in the foreword, "If you are the kind of traveler who has no intention of stirring from a comfortable chair near the reading lamp, this reprint is really all the equipment you require for a fascinating journey through the Missouri of the past."


Higher education has been subject to substantial reforms as new forms of performance management are implemented in universities across the world. Extant research suggests that in many cases performance management systems have disrupted academic life. We complement this literature with an extensive mixed methods study of how the performance management system is understood by academics across universities and departments in Finland at a time when new management principles and practices are being forcefully introduced. While our survey results enabled us to map the generally critical and negative view that Finnish scholars have of performance management, the qualitative inquiry allowed us to disentangle how and why our respondents resent the ways and means of measuring their work, the assumptions that underlie the measurement, and the university ideal on which the performance management system is rooted. Most significantly, we highlight how the proliferation of performance management can be seen as a catalyst for changing the very ethos of what it is to be an academic and to do academic work.


The explosion of data arising from rapid advances in communication, sensing and computational power has concentrated research effort on more advanced techniques for the representation, processing, analysis and interpretation of data sets. In view of these exciting developments, the program Mathematics and Computation in Imaging Science and Information Processing was held at the Institute for Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore, from July to December 2003 and in August 2004 to promote and facilitate multidisciplinary research in the area. As part of the program, a series of tutorial lectures were conducted by international experts on a wide variety of topics in mathematical image, signal and information processing. This compiled volume contains survey articles by the tutorial speakers, all specialists in their respective areas. They collectively provide graduate students and researchers new to the field a unique and valuable introduction to a range of important topics at the frontiers of current research.


We present a novel hydrogel-based photocatalyst that contains TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) uniformly dispersed in an agarose hydrogel matrix. The preparation of the TiO2/agarose hybrid gel photocatalyst was based on the gelation of agarose in the presence of well-dispersed TiO2 NPs in hot water. TiO2 NPs were homogeneously distributed in the agarose gel as characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis. It was found that the size, uniformity, and concentration of the hybrid gel as well as the contents of constituent ingredients have significant effects on the photocatalytic activity. The smaller and uniform size of the hybrid gel at an appropriate concentration exhibited superior photocatalytic performance in both photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) under UV light and TiO2 leakage. In the moderate concentration range of TiO2 and agarose, the degradation rate of MB increased upon increasing the TiO2 content or decreasing the agarose concentration. Under the optimized conditions, our hybrid gel showed excellent recycling performance over repeated use. Furthermore, we demonstrate the additional excellent features of our hybrid gel, which are: i) regeneration of pure TiO2 NPs and ii) thermal reconstruction of the hybrid gel. During the recycling, the TiO2 NPs initially immobilized in the hydrogel could be recovered through the programmed heating and separation techniques. Also, our hybrid gel could be easily reshaped into a new hydrogel with a desired architecture in terms of its size and shape. These unprecedented properties make our hybrid gel a smart and cost-effective new promising material for use in practical waste/water treatment.


The calcifying epithelial odontogenic tumor (CEOT) or Pindborg tumor is a rare benign odontogenic neoplasm of the jaws that accounts for 1% of all odontogenic tumors. The typical clinical presentation is a slow-growing intraosseous mass that causes expansion of the affected mandible. Most often, it is associated with an impacted tooth, is asymptomatic but locally aggressive and requires biopsy for diagnosis. Since the first description in 1955, only 200 cases approximately have been reported. The aim of this article is to make a systematic review of the literature and an update of Pindborg tumor, emphasizing the importance to realize a suitable histologic diagnosis and a treatment with safety margins to minimize the likelihood of recurrence.


The baby trains were the hallmark of a Catholic placing-out program begun in the 1870s by the Foundling Asylum of the Sisters of Charity, later known as the New York Foundling Hospital. The program extended and modified the Protestant orphan train movement by sending abandoned youngsters to live among pious Catholic settlements along the western frontier of the United States. At once ingenious and fraught with risks, the baby trains reflected the Foundling's multifaceted mission to rescue homeless children while bolstering Catholic culture—in the form of beliefs, values, and practices—against the persistent threat of proselytizing, Protestant charities. The face of this movement in recent scholarship has been the Children's Aid Society; the Foundling has been treated as an offshoot rather than an innovator in its own right. This essay examines both the logistics of the baby train program and its significant influence in modernizing the placing-out movement. This research tests historiographical assumptions about the dynamics of Catholic culture after the Civil War, the importance of religious institutions for enabling ethnic persistence within frontier enclaves, the role of child welfare work in perpetuating religious culture, and the work of women in reproducing that culture in future generations. The baby trains are an important chapter in the fortification of sectarian Catholicism in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as the history of faith-based, social welfare in America.


This paper tries to quantify the amount of E-waste generated in India with the related stakeholder involvement. Electronic waste (E-waste) or waste electrical and electronic equipments (WEEE), which is relatively a recent addition to the hazardous waste stream, is drawing rapid attention across the globe as the quantity being generated is rising rapidly. All electrical and electronic equipments (EEE), on completion of their useful life, contribute to the E-waste stream. However, the current estimation of the amount of E-waste generated in India is extremely hazy. In this paper, an attempt has been made to formulate an inventory of E-waste in the country in terms of both internal or domestic generation and illegal import. Different methods of estimation of E-waste have been evaluated. Furthermore, the paper tries to identify the whole range of diverse stakeholders involved in the generation of E-waste in the country. It has been observed that actual and reliable data on the generation of E-waste, both domestic and import of E-waste, is currently unavailable in India. Few studies have been conducted to identify the involvement of different stakeholders in E-waste generation in the country. Urgent needs arise to document the issues related to E-waste generation and management in the country in order to deal with this important and toxic waste stream. Key words: E-waste generation, inventory, domestic generation, illegal import, stakeholders.


Federalism is a political system with multiple levels of government, each of which has some degree of autonomy from the others. The United States has a federalist system that encompasses the national government, states, and localities. The United States adopted federalism in part to prevent abuses of power and to preserve individual liberty. Federalism serves those goals by helping individuals to "vote with their feet," thereby fostering interjurisdictional competition. Such benefits are most likely to be found in federal systems where subnational governments have an incentive to compete for residents and businesses because they must raise most of their revenue from their own taxpayers, as opposed to receiving subsidies from the central government. In many ethnically divided societies, federalism can also enhance liberty by reducing ethnic conflict and oppression. However, federalism can also endanger liberty or property by empowering subnational governments to exploit owners of immobile assets, most notably land. Federalism can also permit local majorities to oppress local minorities. Contrary to James Madison's expectations, federalism in the current era is unlikely to constrain the national government since states have incentives to support the expansion and centralization of power in Washington. Whether federalism enhances liberty depends on circumstances and institutional design.


People with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), compared with non-diabetic individuals, have increased cardiovascular risk. Part of this excess risk is associated with a higher prevalence of other cardiovascular risk factors in these patients, such as obesity, dyslipidaemia, and hypertension. However, the increased cardiovascular risk present in T2DM cannot be attributed entirely to the high prevalence of traditional risk factors and other non-traditional risk factors may also be important for people with T2DM. Evidence suggests that in patients with T2DM, treatment of cardiovascular risk factors is very important in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The poor control of risk factors observed in the diabetic population supports the need for more aggressive treatment of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, especially in patients with previous CVD. There is little evidence on the independent association between traditional and non-traditional cardiovascular risk factors, however these risk factors do not appear in isolation and are produced at the same time, exacerbating the risk of a cardiovascular event. Targeting multiple markers of CVD risk offers the best chance of improving CVD outcomes. The objective of this review is to highlight the importance of managing cardiovascular risk factors in patients with T2DM.


To the Editor: The California serogroup (CAL) of orthobunyaviruses, including Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV) and La Crosse virus (LACV), can cause neuroinvasive disease in humans (1–3). The epidemiology and clinical spectrum of LACV are well described (3), whereas less is known about JCV.

JCV is distributed throughout temperate North America, and its transmission cycle involves ungulates and several mosquito genera (4–6). The first human case of JCV disease in Minnesota, USA, was reported in 2013 (7), although serologic evidence of the virus had been previously documented in the white-tailed deer population (8). Of the 22 human cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States during 2013, 15 were neuroinvasive (7). However, given the lack of widespread testing availability and the few reported cases, the actual clinical spectrum of JCV infection, unlike that of LACV, remains unclear. We report a case of severe sepsis in an adult with antibodies against CAL and suspected JCV disease.

A 62-year-old man from Waseca County, Minnesota, who had type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity, migraine headaches, depression, and anxiety, had been vacationing for 1 week at his cabin in Carlton County, Minnesota. On July 9, 2014, he experienced diffuse myalgia, arthralgia, and headache. He sought treatment July 10 at a local urgent care facility for fever, rigors, sweats, weakness, dizziness, poor appetite, and mild shortness of breath, but he denied having cough, chest pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, neck stiffness, and photophobia. He described extensive mosquito exposure the prior week. On physical examination, temperature was 38.8°C, and he had multiple skin lesions consistent with mosquito bites. A 5-cm, lacy, petechial skin rash was observed on the right inner thigh. Chronic venous stasis changes of the lower extremities were noted, and a faint systolic cardiac murmur was heard. Peripheral leukocyte count was 11.2 × 109 cells/L, and electrolyte levels were within reference ranges. Serologic screenings for likely infectious agents were negative (Table). Empiric doxycycline was initiated.

Table

Pathogen testing in patient with undifferentiated severe sepsis, Minnesota, USA, 2014*

Two days later, he experienced worsening myalgia, arthralgia, fevers, profuse sweating, nausea, and vomiting and visited a local emergency department. Mild confusion was noted on examination. Temperature was 37.9°C, and blood pressure was 69/32 mm Hg, with minimal improvement despite intravenous fluid administration. Peripheral leukocyte count was 16.2 × 109 cells/L, serum creatinine and blood-urea nitrogen levels were elevated at 1.7 and 37 mg/dL, respectively, and liver enzyme and lactate levels were normal. Results of a chest radiograph were unremarkable. Dopamine and broad-spectrum antibiotic drugs were initiated, and he was transferred to Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota) in the intensive care unit. At that time, no confusion was noted, nor signs or symptoms of neuroinvasion that would have warranted cerebrospinal fluid examination or neuroimaging.

Hypotension resolved overnight, and leukocytosis and serum creatinine levels improved. A low-grade fever of 38.0°C was documented in the evening of July 14. Because the overall etiology of the illness remained unclear, a computed tomography scan of the abdomen and pelvis was performed to investigate potential intraabdominal sources of sepsis, but results were unrevealing. By hospital day 5, blood cultures remained negative, leukocytosis resolved, and creatinine levels normalized. Antibiotic drugs were discontinued, and the patient was discharged with a 2-week course of oral doxycycline. Soon after discharge, an acute-phase serum specimen was positive for a CAL orthobunyavirus (Table).

During the next 3 weeks, the man sought treatment multiple times as an outpatient for diarrhea, lightheadedness, dizziness, headache, fatigue, difficulties concentrating, and subjective memory loss. These symptoms gradually resolved over 2 months. Convalescent-phase serum samples were drawn 3 weeks after dismissal and showed 32-fold increased antibody titers against CAL. The Minnesota Department of Health was notified, and plaque reduction neutralization testing was ordered to determine the specific virus. Increases in the neutralizing antibody titers against JCV and LACV were noted; although the absolute titer was greater for JCV (Table), a final determination of which virus caused the patient's illness could not be made. Neutralizing antibodies in the acute-phase specimen in the absence of IgM suggests that the patient was previously exposed to an orthobunyavirus.

Antibody cross-reactivity between closely related arboviruses such as LACV and JCV is not unusual, and similar antigenic sin has been described with other orthobunyaviruses (9). Epidemiologic factors, including time of year, location of mosquito exposure, and the predilection of LACV disease for children, point to JCV infection in this case, although it cannot be confirmed.

Previous reports of JCV disease have focused on the ability of this virus to cause asymptomatic infection, nonspecific mild febrile illness, or severe neuroinvasive disease (4,7,10). This case illustrates a suspected JCV infection causing undifferentiated severe sepsis, which has not, to our knowledge, been previously reported. Initial suspicion for acute neuroinvasive disease was low, and neurologic imaging and cerebrospinal fluid sampling were not performed. We recommend that testing for CAL (and specifically for JCV) infection should be strongly considered in the setting of severe sepsis in adults with substantial exposure to mosquitoes and no other identifiable source of sepsis.


Much of our critical infrastructure is controlled by large software systems whose participants are distributed across the Internet. As our dependence on these critical systems continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important that they meet strict availability and performance requirements, even in the face of malicious attacks, including those that are successful in compromising parts of the system. This paper presents fault free randomized intrusion tolerant protocols and techniques capable of guaranteeing correctness, availability, and good performance even when some of the servers are compromised, enabling the construction of highly available and highly resilient systems for our critical infrastructure.


Objectives To assess the impact of a 7-week public bowel cancer awareness campaign pilot by reviewing the number of 2-week referrals from general practitioners (GPs) to hospital, endoscopic procedures and new cancers diagnosed throughout the five acute hospitals in The Peninsular Cancer Network, UK. Design A retrospective before and after study. Setting The Peninsula Cancer Network in the South West of England, UK. Main outcome measures For the period July 2010–July 2011, data were collected on the number of 2-week referrals, number of endoscopic procedures performed and number of new cancers diagnosed. The average for the 6 months before the campaign was compared with the immediate 3 months and then the fourth to sixth months following the campaign. Student's t test was used to compare the means of the three groups. Results There was a statistically significant increase in the number of 2-week referrals from GPs to hospital in the 3 months following the campaign but this effect disappeared after that. There was no statistical increase in the number of endoscopic procedures or new cancers diagnosed following the awareness campaign. Conclusions The pilot 'Be Clear on Cancer' awareness campaign had a significant effect on the number of patients being referred from GPs to hospital; however, the effect was short lived and had returned to baseline by 3 months. The campaign had no effect on the number of new cancers diagnosed, which was the stated underlying aim of the pilot.


Critical for Africa's future is strengthening indigenous educational systems and institutions for generating and applying knowledge by assuring long-term public support with emphasis on research capacity. In addition to individual skills developed in research work, research capacity includes: quality of the research environment, funding, adequate infrastructure, research incentives, time available to the researcher, etc. In most African countries, conditions for research have been severely compromised as manifest by the generally poor remuneration, heavy teaching loads, inability to mentor young faculty, and in- adequate infrastructure. While the adequacy of public funding is a crucial con- dition, there are a number of concrete programmatic initiatives that could be taken by the higher education and research institutions themselves. These in- clude strengthening of graduate study, improvements in the management of research, provision of a "soft landing " for young faculty, identification and concentration on "areas of strength, " and pooling resources with other institu- tions. Special initiatives aimed at individual research capacity development include the Study Programme for Higher Education Management of the Asso- ciation of African Universities (AAU); the Working Groups and Institutes of the Council for the Development of Social research in Africa (CODESRIA); and the work of the National Mathematics Centre of Nigeria.


The Zeit Bay field reservoir units consist of sandstone and carbonates, partially overlaying a tilted block of fractured basement reservoir with a complex drive mechanism A secondary recovery scheme of gas re-injection into the original gas cap was initiated to maintain reservoir energy and to overcome pressure decline. Hence accurate detection of gas movement is very critical. Several difficulties to monitor gas-oil contacts were encountered in a considerable number of wells. Some of these difficulties were, gas channelling behind the casing, gas coning, wellbore fluid changes, porosity and lithology changes, wellbore fluid invasion into the reservoir and the presence of formation stimulation fluid. The application of conventional methods using the response of gas indicator curves could result in a false indication of formation gas-oil contacts. This paper discusses the approach adopted in order to determine the gas-oil contact in wells where such problems occur. A database was established including more than 70 TDT runs, open hole log and pressure data of 12 infill wells, and production performance records of all Zeit Bay wells. The approach follows the Polyachenko model of functional relationship between count rates and gas saturation. Several crossplots for the same range of porosity and connate water saturation, e.g. formation capture cross section (SIGM), total selected near detector counts (TSCN), total selected far detector counts (TSCF), the captll{e cross section of the borehole (SIBH), and inelastic far detector counts (INFD). Each crossplot gives a definite diagnostic shape around the depth of the formation gas-oil contact By using these crossplots it will be possible to calculate gas saturation from a stand alone run. The model was validated by RFT and open hole log data from infill wells. Also it was suecessfully applied in wells which showed an ambiguity in the detected formation gas-oil contact. The field gas-oil contact in Zeit Bay was revised using the results of the model. This revision lead to an accurate definition of the oil column and to the drilling of three additional wells in the field. The open hole log results of these wells verified the gas oil contact determined by the model.


Neuroblastoma, the most common extra-cranial pediatric solid tumor, is responsible for 9–15% of all pediatric cancer deaths. Its intrinsic heterogeneity makes it difficult to successfully treat, resulting in overall survival of 50% for half of the patients. Here we analyze the role in neuroblastoma of the adaptor protein p140Cap, encoded by the SRCIN1 gene. RNA-Seq profiles of a large cohort of neuroblastoma patients show that SRCIN1 mRNA levels are an independent risk factor inversely correlated to disease aggressiveness. In high-risk patients, SRCIN1 was frequently altered by hemizygous deletion, copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, or disruption. Functional assays demonstrated that p140Cap is causal in dampening both Src and Jak2 kinase activation and STAT3 phosphorylation. Moreover, p140Cap expression decreases in vitro migration and anchorage-independent cell growth, and impairs in vivo tumor progression, in terms of tumor volume and number of spontaneous lung metastasis. p140Cap also contributes to an increased sensitivity of neuroblastoma cells to chemotherapy drugs and to the combined usage of doxorubicin and etoposide with Src inhibitors. Overall, we provide the first evidence that SRCIN1/p140Cap is a new independent prognostic marker for patient outcome and treatment, with a causal role in curbing the aggressiveness of neuroblastoma. We highlight the potential clinical impact of SRCIN1/p140Cap expression in neuroblastoma tumors, in terms of reducing cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy, one of the main issues for pediatric tumor treatment.


According to embodied theories of language, people understand a verb like throw, at least in part, by mentally simulating throwing. This implicit simulation is often assumed to be similar or identical to motor imagery. Here we used fMRI to test whether implicit simulations of actions during language understanding involve the same cortical motor regions as explicit motor imagery. Healthy participants were presented with verbs related to hand actions (e.g., to throw) and nonmanual actions (e.g., to kneel). They either read these verbs (lexical decision task) or actively imagined performing the actions named by the verbs (imagery task). Primary motor cortex showed effector-specific activation during imagery, but not during lexical decision. Parts of premotor cortex distinguished manual from nonmanual actions during both lexical decision and imagery, but there was no overlap or correlation between regions activated during the two tasks. These dissociations suggest that implicit simulation and explicit imagery cued by action verbs may involve different types of motor representations and that the construct of "mental simulation" should be distinguished from "mental imagery" in embodied theories of language.


We present analytic expressions for the temporal autocorrelation functions (ACF's) of the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) vector, the squared differential group delay (DGD) and the state of polarization (SOP) in the hinge model for stochastically varying hinges. We also derive the continuous limit of the temporal ACF of the squared DGD. Our studies demonstrate that for large time offsets, the ACF of the PMD vector approaches a constant value that depends principally on the DGD of the last fiber section but is also affected to a diminishing degree by the DGD of preceding fiber sections. We also show that sinusoidal perturbations of the hinge rotation angles do not significantly alter the results. The accuracy of the procedure is further established through comparison with numerical simulations.


This thesis examines the potential for the use of mobile devices in New Zealand healthcare. Adoption of mobile technology can potentially improve information access at point of care, increase efficiency and patient safety, significantly reduce costs, enhance workflow, and promote evidence-based practice to help make effective decisions. Mobile devices of different size and form such as laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs, smart phones, mobile phones, and RFID offer portability, remote access to clinical data, traceability, convergence, and connectivity which traditional computers cannot emulate. The pervasiveness of mobile devices is increasing both globally and within New Zealand. The potential of mobile technology in healthcare has been recognized by many developed countries; there is adequate evidence for improving productivity, efficiency, and patient engagement. The study focuses on the three prominent healthcare sectors in New Zealand: Primary, Secondary, and Community. As mobile technology is still an underdeveloped area within New Zealand's healthcare industry, the use of a qualitative research approach involving surveys and interviews helps to determine which m-health applications are most appropriate to adopt here. The sample surveyed consists of health providers, health strategists, and technology vendors. The potential of mobile devices that were identified from the interviews included realtime access to information such as clinical data, drug database, and medical references. the use of SMS reminders and alerts, use of RFID to reduce medical errors, manage patients and assets, and for identification of medical equipment and drug identification. Over 80 percent of the participants considered privacy, confidentiality, and security to be very important challenges in the m-health domain. Many challenges and implications were identified, including technical constraints such as form factor of mobile devices, storage space, limited battery life, durability, and reading distance of RFID devices. Privacy, security, and ethical issues were discussed including the sensitivity of personal data, sending and receiving of clinical data, RFID tracking ability, security, and encryption standards, authentication barriers, and cultural barriers.


Los Angeles is a new martian meteorite that expands the compositional range of basaltic shergottites. Compared to Shergotty, Zagami, QUE94201, and EET79001-B, Los Angeles is more differentiated, with higher concentrations of incompatible elements (e.g., La) and a higher abundance of late-stage phases such as phosphates and K-rich feldspathic glass. The pyroxene crystallization trend starts at compositions more ferroan than in other martian basalts. Trace elements indicate a greater similarity to Shergotty and Zagami than to QUE94201 or EET79001-B, but the Mg/Fe ratio is low even compared to postulated parent melts of Shergotty and Zagami. Pyroxene in Los Angeles has 0.7–4-µm-thick exsolution lamellae, ∼10 times thicker than those in Shergotty and Zagami. Opaque oxide compositions suggest a low equilibration temperature at an oxygen fugacity near the fayalite-magnetite-quartz buffer. Los Angeles cooled more slowly than Shergotty and Zagami. Slow cooling, coupled with the ferroan bulk composition, produced abundant fine-grained intergrowths of fayalite, hedenbergite, and silica, by the breakdown of pyroxferroite. Shock effects in Los Angeles include maskelynitized plagioclase, pyroxene with mosaic extinction, and rare fault zones. One such fault ruptured a previously decomposed zone of pyroxferroite. Although highly differentiated, the bulk composition of Los Angeles is not close to the low-Ca/Si composition of the globally wind-stirred soil of Mars.


We investigate how to extract alternating time bounds from 'focussed' proofs, treating non-invertible rule phases as nondeterministic computation and invertible rule phases as co-nondeterministic computation. We refine the usual presentation of focussing to account for deterministic computations in proof search, which correspond to invertible rules that do not branch, more faithfully associating phases of focussed proof search to their alternating time complexity. As our main result, we give a focussed system for affine MALL (i.e. with weakening) and give encodings to and from true quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs): in one direction we encode QBF satisfiability and in the other we encode focussed proof search. Moreover we show that the composition of the two encodings preserves quantifier alternation, hence yielding natural fragments of affine MALL complete for each level of the polynomial hierarchy. This refines the well-known result that affine MALL is PSPACE-complete.


Fake iris detection has been studied so far using near-infrared sensors (NIR), which provide grey scale-images, i.e. With luminance information only. Here, we incorporate into the analysis images captured in visible range, with color information, and perform comparative experiments between the two types of data. We employ Gray-Level Cocurrence textural features and SVM classifiers. These features analyze various image properties related with contrast, pixel regularity, and pixel co-occurrence statistics. We select the best features with the Sequential Forward Floating Selection (SFFS) algorithm. We also study the effect of extracting features from selected (eye or periocular) regions only. Our experiments are done with fake samples obtained from printed images, which are then presented to the same sensor than the real ones. Results show that fake images captured in NIR range are easier to detect than visible images (even if we down sample NIR images to equate the average size of the iris region between the two databases). We also observe that the best performance with both sensors can be obtained with features extracted from the whole image, showing that not only the eye region, but also the surrounding periocular texture is relevant for fake iris detection. An additional source of improvement with the visible sensor also comes from the use of the three RGB channels, in comparison with the luminance image only. A further analysis also reveals that some features are best suited to one particular sensor than the others.


In the quarter century since the Stonewall riots in New York City's Greenwich Village launched the national gay-rights movement in earnest, LGB voters have steadily expanded their political influence. The Lavender Vote is the first full- length examination of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals as a factor in American elections. Mark Hertzog here describes the differences in demographics, attitudes, and voting behavior between self-identified bisexuals and homosexuals and the rest of the voting population. He shows that lavender self- identifiers comprise a distinctive voting bloc equal in numbers to Latino voters, more liberal across the board on domestic social issues (though not necessarily on economic or national security issues) than non-gay voters, and extremely unified in high-salience elections. Further, lavender voters, contrary to popular belief, are up for grabs between the two major parties. Offering a clear and thorough explanation of LGB voting tendencies, this volume will be must-reading for elected officials, candidates for office, and all those interested in learning about LGB voters.


Incorporating arts education can be a valuable intervention for students in an urban setting. Teaching through the arts can act as an initial, Tier One intervention, for students who exhibit disruptive behaviors in the classroom, due to trauma, as well as benefit the overall classroom culture. The arts curriculum has a restorative power that allows students to learn social-emotional regulation skills, bodily-awareness, and expression. This study examines dance as an art form. Dance is a form of art that allows students to express their emotions and release energy to support positive behavior in the classroom. Data were collected on 25 kindergarten students, with a sub group of four students who exhibit disruptive behaviors in the classroom. Whole class behavioral data were collected prior to and during the art block. Students filled out an emotional self-evaluation before and after each dance class. The researcher also collected data from pre and post intervention interviews with four students identified for the case studies. Researcher observations were also noted in the data. The process of examining data from several sources, triangulation, was instrumental in creating a balanced picture of the impact of dance on students. Findings indicated that dance instruction for this population has mixed results. The case study students that exhibit disruptive behaviors appeared reluctant to participate in dance lessons. It was noted that some students became interested in learning about the classroom teacher's background in dance. This led to an increase in student social contact and extended communication with the teacher. Overall behavioral reflections and referrals were lowered during implementation of the dance intervention.


The wave profile generated by an obstacle moving at constant veiocity U over a water surface of infinite extent appears to be stationary with respect to the moving body provided, of course, the motion has been maintained for a long time. When the gravitational and capillary effects are both taken into account, the surface waves so generated may possess a minimum phase velocity c[sub]m characterized by a certain wave length, say [lambda][sub]m (see Ref. 1, p. 459). If the velocity U of the solid body is greater than c[sub]m, then the physically correct solution of this two-dimensional problem requires that the gravity waves (of wave length greater than [lambda][sub]m) should exist only on the downstream side and the capillary waves (of wave length less than [lambda][sub]m) only on the upstream side.

If one follows strictly the so-called steady-state formulation so that the time does not appear in the problem, one finds in general that it is not possible to characterize uniquely the mathematical solution with the desired physical properties by imposing only the boundedness conditions at infinity. [Footnote: In the case of a three-dimensional steady-state problem, even the condition that the disturbance should vanish at infinity is not sufficient to characterize the unique solution.] Some stronger radiation conditions are actually necessary. In the linearized treatment of this stationary problem, several methods have been employed, most of which are aimed at obtaining the correct solution by introducing some artificial device, either of a mathematical or physical nature. One of these methods widely used was due to Rayleigh, and was further discussed by Lamb. In the analysis of this problem Rayleigh introduced a "small dissipative force", proportional to the velocity relative to the moving stream. This "law" of friction does not originate from viscosity and is hence physically fictitious, for in the final result this dissipation factor is made to vanish eventually. In the present investigation, Rayleigh's friction coefficient is shown to correspond roughly to a time convergence factor for obtaining the steady-state solution from an initial value problem. (It is not a space-limit factor for fixing the boundary conditions at space infinity, as has usually been assumed in explanation of its effect). Thus, the introduction of Rayleigh's coefficient is only a mathematical device to render the steady-state solution mathematically determinate and physically acceptable. For a physical understanding, however, it is confusing and even misleading; for example, in an unsteady flow case it leads to an incomplete solution, as has been shown by Green. Another approach, purely of a physical nature, was used by Michell in his treatment of the velocity potential for thin ships. To make the problem determinate, he chose the solution which represents the gravity waves propagating only downstream and discarded the part corresponding to the waves traveling upstream. For two-dimensional problems with the capillary effect, this method would mean a superposition of simple waves so as to make the solution physically correct. Some other methods appear to be limited in the necessity of interpreting the principal value of a certain kind of improper integral. In short, as to their physical soundness and mathematical rigor, or even to their merits or demerits, the preference of one method over the others has remained nevertheless a matter of considerable dispute. Only until recently the steady-state problem has been treated by first formulating a corresponding initial value problem. A brief historical sketch of these methods is given in the next section.

The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the physical mechanism underlying the steady configuration of the surface wave phenomena and to clarify to a certain extent the background of the artifices adopted for solution of steady-state problems. The point of view to be presented here is that this problem should be formulated first as an initial value problem (for example, the body starts to move with constant velocity at a certain time instant), and then the stationary state is sought by passing to the limit as the time tends to infinity. If at any finite time instant the boundary condition that the disturbance vanishes at infinity (because of the finite wave velocity) is imposed, then the limiting solution as the time tends to infinity is determinate and bears automatically the desired physical properties. Also, from the integral representation of the linearized solution, the asymptotic behavior of the wave form for large time is derived in detail, showing the distribution of the wave trains in space. This asymptotic solution exhibits an interesting picture which reveals how the dispersion* generates two monochromatic wave trains, with the capillary wave in front of, and the gravity wave behind, the surface pressure. *[Footnote: By dispersive medium is meant one in which the wave velocity of a propagating wave depends on the wave length, so that a number of wave trains of different wave lengths tends to form groups, propagating with group velocities which are in general different from the phase velocities of individual wave trains. In case of waves on the water surface, both the gravity and surface tension are responsible for dispersion.] The special cases U< c[sub]m and U = c[sub]m are also discussed. The viscous effect and the effect of superposition are commented upon later. Through this detailed investigation it is found that the dispersive effect, not the viscous effect plays the significant role in producing the final stationary wave configuration.


Reading Science looks at the distinctive language of science and technology and the role it plays in building up scientific understandings of the world. It brings together discourse analysis and critical theory for the first time in a single volume. This edited collection examines science discourse from a number of perspectives, drawing on new rhetoric, functional linguistics and critical theory. It explores this language in research and industrial contexts as well as in educational settings and in popular science writing and science fiction. The papers also include consideration of the role of images (tables and figures) in science writing and the importance of reading science discourse as multi-modal text. The internationally renowned contributors include M. A. K. Halliday, Charles Bazerman and Jay Lemke.


Despite the success of studies attempting to integrate remotely sensed data and flood modelling and the need to provide near-real time data routinely on a global scale as well as setting up online data archives, there is to date a lack of spatially and temporally distributed hydraulic parameters to support ongoing efforts in modelling. Therefore, the objective of this project is to provide a global evaluation and benchmark data set of floodplain water stages with uncertainties and assimilation in a large scale flood model using space-borne radar imagery. An algorithm is developed for automated retrieval of water stages with uncertainties from a sequence of radar imagery and data are assimilated in a flood model using the Tewkesbury 2007 flood event as a feasibility study.
The retrieval method that we employ is based on possibility theory which is an extension of fuzzy sets and that encompasses probability theory. In our case we first attempt to identify main sources of uncertainty in the retrieval of water stages from radar imagery for which we define physically meaningful ranges of parameter values. Possibilities of values are then computed for each parameter using a triangular 'membership' function. This procedure allows the computation of possible values of water stages at maximum flood extents along a river at many different locations. At a later stage in the project these data are then used in assimilation, calibration or validation of a flood model.
The application is subsequently extended to a global scale using wide swath radar imagery and a simple global flood forecasting model thereby providing improved river discharge estimates to update the latter.


The history and content of two well-known Iranian journals of music, Majalle Musiqi and Mahnameh Rudaki have been surveyed in this article. Majalle Musiqi began its publication in 1938 and lasted, under three different and distinct editorships, until 1978. Its original editor and publisher, Golam Hossein Minbashian, who was mainly interested in introducing his western-oriented views on Iranian music, was able to elicit the cooperation of a number of young Iranian artists and writers of the time, including Sadeq Hedayat, Mohammad Zia' Hashtrudi, Mojtaba Minovi, Mas'ud Farzad, Abdol Hossein Nushin, and Nima Yushij. At the outset, the journal focused mainly on cultural and literary issues and only a small part of it was devoted to music. Thus, the author believes, Majalle Musiqi in its early period was mostly known by, and influenced, the Iranian literary circles rather than students and practitioners of music. It was only in its third phase, begun in 1957, that the journal concentrated almost totally on matters of music. Its tendency, however, to devote most of its articles to the presentation and discussion of mostly western classical music at the expense of Iranian classical and folk music did not help its standing with its readership.
Majalle Rudaki was published in 1971 as a cultural quarterly focusing mainly on music. In its format, choice of articles, and editorial policies this journal opened up new vistas for its readers. While it strived to adhere to high professional standards it gained and preserved a degree of popularity rare for journals of its genre. Not unlike the first phase of Majalle Musiqi, many articles on artistic or cultural issues were also published in Majalle Rudaki. Indeed, the most prominent and popular of Iranian writers and poets were often eager to have their works published in the journal. According to the author, despite the fact that Majalle Rudaki was the publication of a governmental institution, it enjoyed a considerable degree of editorial freedom in presenting divergent points of view; a fact which was not overlooked by the dissenting intellectual community of the period. : From Berlin to Munich


Serotonin has been repeatedly indicated as a biological marker of behavior. In particular, the serotonin transporter gene, SLC6A4, has been the focus of a large body of research. Interestingly, both rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and humans have independently evolved a number of shared polymorphisms for this gene, which is indicative of parallel evolution between the two species. However, little is known about the evolution of this gene, particularly within macaques. Although there are several hypotheses as to the adaptive values of various polymorphisms, few authors have gone beyond theoretical discussion. Here, we examined the genetic variation in SLC6A4 within and between several species of macaques and investigate whether selection has played a significant role in its evolutionary history. In addition, we assayed the promoter region polymorphism, 5-HTTLPR, which is known to play a significant role in regulating both serotonin turnover and behavior. In examining the distribution of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism, we identified significant differences between Indian and Chinese populations of Macaca mulatta; furthermore, we discovered its presence in Macaca cyclopis, which has not been described before. In regard to the evolutionary history of SLC6A4, we found little evidence for selection and conclude that SLC6A4 largely evolved through neutral processes, possibly due to its potential role in regulating behavioral plasticity. However, we also found very low levels of linkage between the coding regions and 5-HTTLPR. Because we limited evolutionary analyses to the coding regions, it is possible that the promoter region shows a distinct evolutionary history from SLC6A4.