The World Trade Organization (WTO) arguably shapes regulatory governance in more countries to a greater extent than any other international organization. This chapter provides a new framework for assessing the broader regulatory implications of the WTO within nation states, as opposed to viewing the WTO as a form of global governance above the nation state. It first examines seven types of changes required for national law and legal practice, which affect how the state raises revenue, how the state spends it, and the principles the state applies to regulation. The chapter then assesses four broader dimensions of regulatory change catalyzed by WTO rules: (i) changes in the boundary between the market and the state (involving concomitantly market liberalization and growth of the administrative state); (ii) changes in the relative authority of institutions within the state (promoting bureaucratized and judicialized governance); (iii) changes in professional expertise engaging with state regulation (such as the role of lawyers); and (iv) changes in normative frames and accountability mechanisms for national regulation (which are trade liberal and transnational in scope). In practice, these four dimensions of change interact and build on each other. The chapter presents what we know to date and a framework for conducting further empirical study.


Rationale: Neuroendocrine neoplasia (NEN) of small bowel (SBNEN) frequently present with metastatic disease. Theranostics (molecular imaging followed by targeting therapy) allow for personalised medicine. Liquid biopsies enable precise identification of residual disease and real-time monitoring of therapeutic response. Our aim was to determine the clinical utility of a combination of surgery, theranostics, and a multigene blood measurement in metastasised SBNEN. Methods: Inclusion criteria were SBNEN, G1/G2 NEN, initial tumour diagnosis, stage IV NEN, positivity on 68Ga somatostatin analogue PET/CT, eligible for surgery, and 177Lu peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT). Blood samples for NETest were collected longitudinally. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated. NETest results were assessed prior to surgery and during clinical follow-up. Results: A surgical cohort of 39 SBNEN patients met eligibility criteria. Thirty-two patients underwent ileal resection and 7 right hemicolectomy. The mean number of 177Lu PRRT cycles was 4. Mortality was nil. Surgical morbidity was 10.3%. Transient grade 1/2 toxicity occurred in 41% (PRRT). NETest scores (n=9 patients) decreased in 100% following treatment and correlated with diminished tumour volume and disease stabilization following surgery and PRRT. Median follow-up: 78 months. Median PFS and OS: 42.7 and 110 months, respectively. Progression-free survival at 1-, 3-, and 5-years was 79.4%, 57.1% and 40.5%, respectively. Overall survival at 1-, 3-, and 5-years was 97.4%, 97.4%, and 94.1%, respectively. Conclusions: Surgery combined with 177Lu PRRT is safe and provides favourable PFS and OS in selected patients with advanced SBNEN. Liquid biopsy (NETest) has the potential to accurately delineate disease status.


Abstract Formalised exercise programmes for children and adolescents are becoming increasingly important. There has been a drastic increase in documented childhood morbidity and mortality relating to poor nutrition and low activity levels in recent years. Regular physical activity decreases the risk of chronic disease and is also a fundamental component in the management of illnesses. Recommendations for the paediatric population remain insufficient and ill-defined. This article revisits the risks of physical inactivity in childhood and provides the latest recommendations for exercise prescription in the paediatric population. Inactive children have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood cholesterol and hypertension. Other undesirable consequences include orthopaedic problems, cardiovascular disease and various psychological complications. Both aerobic and resistance training should be incorporated into paediatric exercise programmes. The recommended guidelines for childhood activity are 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day of the week. This article highlights the importance of formalised paediatric exercise programmes in disease prevention and health promotion. A healthy and happy adolescent population ultimately contributes to an adult population with a low risk of ill health.


With the increasing adoption of graph neural networks (GNNs) in the machine learning community, GPUs have become an essential tool to accelerate GNN training. However, training GNNs on very large graphs that do not fit in GPU memory is still a challenging task. Unlike conventional neural networks, mini-batching input samples in GNNs requires complicated tasks such as traversing neighboring nodes and gathering their feature values. While this process accounts for a significant portion of the training time, we find existing GNN implementations using popular deep neural network (DNN) libraries such as PyTorch are limited to a CPU-centric approach for the entire data preparation step. This "all-in-CPU" approach has negative impact on the overall GNN training performance as it over-utilizes CPU resources and hinders GPU acceleration of GNN training. To overcome such limitations, we introduce PyTorch-Direct, which enables a GPU-centric data accessing paradigm for GNN training. In PyTorch-Direct, GPUs are capable of efficiently accessing complicated data structures in host memory directly without CPU intervention. Our microbenchmark and end-to-end GNN training results show that PyTorch-Direct reduces data transfer time by 47.1% on average and speeds up GNN training by up to 1.6x. Furthermore, by reducing CPU utilization, PyTorch-Direct also saves system power by 12.4% to 17.5% during training. To minimize programmer effort, we introduce a new "unified tensor" type along with necessary changes to the PyTorch memory allocator, dispatch logic, and placement rules. As a result, users need to change at most two lines of their PyTorch GNN training code for each tensor object to take advantage of PyTorch-Direct.


Reverse nearest neighbor (RNN) queries have a broad application base such as decision support, profile-based marketing, resource allocation, etc. Previous work on RNN search does not take obstacles into consideration. In the real world, however, there are many physical obstacles (e.g., buildings) and their presence may affect the visibility between objects. In this paper, we introduce a novel variant of RNN queries, namely, visible reverse nearest neighbor (VRNN) search, which considers the impact of obstacles on the visibility of objects. Given a data set P, an obstacle set O, and a query point q in a 2D space, a VRNN query retrieves the points in P that have q as their visible nearest neighbor. We propose an efficient algorithm for VRNN query processing, assuming that P and O are indexed by R-trees. Our techniques do not require any preprocessing and employ half-plane property and visibility check to prune the search space. In addition, we extend our solution to several variations of VRNN queries, including: 1) visible reverse k-nearest neighbor (VRkNN) search, which finds the points in P that have q as one of their k visible nearest neighbors; 2) delta-VRkNN search, which handles VRkNN retrieval with the maximum visible distance delta constraint; and 3) constrained VRkNN (CVRkNN) search, which tackles the VRkNN query with region constraint. Extensive experiments on both real and synthetic data sets have been conducted to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed algorithms under various experimental settings.


Abstract. We have run a chemistry transport model (CTM) to systematically examine the drivers of interannual variability of tropospheric composition during 1996–2000. This period was characterised by anomalous meteorological conditions associated with the strong El Nino of 1997–1998 and intense wildfires, which produced a large amount of pollution. On a global scale, changing meteorology (winds, temperatures, humidity and clouds) is found to be the most important factor driving interannual variability of NO2 and ozone on the timescales considered. Changes in stratosphere-troposphere exchange, which are largely driven by meteorological variability, are found to play a particularly important role in driving ozone changes. The strong influence of emissions on NO2 and ozone interannual variability is largely confined to areas where intense biomass burning events occur. For CO, interannual variability is almost solely driven by emission changes, while for OH meteorology dominates, with the radiative influence of clouds being a very strong contributor. Through a simple attribution analysis for 1996–2000 we conclude that changing cloudiness drives 25% of the interannual variability of OH over Europe by affecting shortwave radiation. Over Indonesia this figure is as high as 71%. Changes in cloudiness contribute a small but non-negligible amount (up to 6%) to the interannual variability of ozone over Europe and Indonesia. This suggests that future assessments of trends in tropospheric oxidizing capacity should account for interannual variability in cloudiness, a factor neglected in many previous studies.


This paper proposed a new generalization of Sam-Solai's Multivariate additive F- distribution of Kind-2 from the uni-variate case. Further, we find its Marginal, Multivariate Conditional distributions, Multivariate Generating functions, Multivariate survival, hazard functions and also discussed its special cases. The authors derived the generating functions of this distribution in terms of Whittaker-M function and complex Meijer-G function. The special cases includes the transformation of Sam-Solai's Multivariate additive F- distribution of Kind -2 into Multivariate additive Beta distribution of Kind-1 of Type-B, Multivariate Beta-distribution of Kind-2 of Type-B, Multivariate Fisher's Z-distribution of Kind-2 and Multivariate Logistic-F distribution of kind-2. Moreover, it is found that the bi-variate correlation between two F- variables purely depends on the d.f and we simulated and established selected standard bi-variate F- correlation bounds from 10,000 different combination of d.f. The simulation results shows, the correlation between any two F- variables bounded from -1 to +1 for certain combination of fractional d.f.


The aim of this thesis is to summarize some results in two approaches to studying how quantum gravity may be relevant for experiments. The first approach starts off by stating that one of the questions a theory of quantum gravity might address is how a large-scale universe can be constructed from discrete Plancksize elements. Starting from a discussion of the role of causal and foliation structure in causal dynamical triangulations, this approach leads to a formulation of a model based on graphs whose purpose is to uncover what kind organizational principle or structure might be responsible for endowing spacetime with manifold-like properties. Thus in this approach, experimental input used to constrain models for quantum gravity are observations of glaring large-scale properties of the universe such as the dimensionality or total size. The second approach considers the possible effects of quantum gravity on the propagation of particles. In particular, the focus is on understanding the physics of deformed special relativity when this novel symmetry is seen as a residual effect due to a gauge fixing from a higher dimensional system. Thus here the hope is to connect a proposal for quantum gravity phenomenology with precision experiments of particle properties. A synthesis of such complementary approaches would represent a consistent model for quantum gravity phenomenology and is the background goal for the work in this thesis. The extent to which such a synthesis can be described today is presented.


This thesis addresses the language recognition problem with a special focus on phonotactic language recognition. A full description of different steps in a language recognition system is provided. We study state-of-the-art speech modeling techniques in language recognition that comprise phonotactic, acoustic and prosodic language modeling. A brief understanding of the state-of-the-art subspace modeling technique known as the iVector model for continuous features is given. Using recent proposals on training the iVector model for continuous features, we explain our recipe for extracting iVectors for acoustic and prosodic features that results in similar language recognition performance as the state-of-the-art results reported in the recent literature. In the next step, inspired by the intuition behind the iVector model for continuous features, we propose our iVector model for discrete features. After a general explanation of the model, adaption of the proposed model to the n-gram model that is used to extract iVectors representing the language phonotactics is given. Finally a regularized iVector extraction model for discrete features that is robust to model overfitting is proposed. The full theoretical derivation of the proposed iVector model for discrete features is given. We also explain use of discriminative and generative classifiers for training language models based on the different extracted iVectors. Effects of the iVector normalizations for binary and multi-class formulation of the used classifiers is also studied.We report performances of our iVector model on NIST language recognition evaluation LRE2009, LRE2011 and RATS language recognition as the most recent and challenging language recognition task. Using our phonotactic iVector model, we obtain a significant improvement over our phonotactic baseline system which was a state-of-the-art system at the time of starting this thesis. Our results on NIST LRE09, NIST LRE2011 and RATS confirms superior advantage of our iVector model for discrete features compared to the other state-of-the-art phonotactic system.


The aquarium trade has been recognized as an important pathway for the introduction of invasive species around the world. This study investigates the availability of ornamental fish species in ten large-size, centrally positioned aquarium stores that control a large share of imports and the Hellenic market chain, and aims to provide a provisional checklist on the aquarium fish trade in Greece. For each recorded species, additional data concerning various aspects (e.g. natural environment, native range, established as aliens, conservation status and threats to humans) were collected from Fishbase, IUCN red list and the scientific literature. Overall, 326 fish species belonging to 64 families were reported according to the store labels. The majority of the species recorded were freshwater (66%), originating mainly from South America and Asia, while most of the marine species (26%) had primarily an Indo-Pacific native distribution. Among the freshwater fishes, Cichlidae and Cyprinidae were the dominant families with 64 and 27 species, respectively, while the family Acanthuridae dominated within the marine fishes with ten species. The vast majority of both freshwater and marine species (>90%) were tropical. Concerning the presence of alien species, 62 ornamental species have been established outside their natural range, with 22 of them positively confirmed as aliens in the European waters. Moreover, 25 species were listed in the critically endangered (CR), endangered (EN) and vulnerable (VU) categories of the IUCN red list. Even more surprisingly, for 192 species recorded, data were missing to assign their conservation status or had not been assessed at all. Finally, the majority of the species (84%) were harmless to humans. However, 35 species (11%) were recognised as potentially harmful (i.e. venomous, ciguatera poisoning, traumatogenic) and two were found to be poisonous if consumed. In conclusion, the aquarium fish sector in Greece is practically uncontrolled given the presence of: a) threatened species, b) species potentially harmful to humans and c) species capable of establishing non-indigenous populations, if released into the wild.


Purpose of review Here we summarize the evidence from human studies of the impairments to the structural, functional, and metabolic capacities in skeletal muscle in those with type 1 diabetes (T1D) – a condition known as diabetic myopathy. Given the importance of skeletal muscle for blood lipid and glucose management, the development and progression of diabetic myopathy would not only lead to increased insulin resistance, but also impact the ability to mitigate dysglycemic/dyslipidemic burdens. Recent findings Despite the importance of skeletal muscle in whole-body metabolic control, studies investigating diabetic myopathy are startling limited. Recent findings have demonstrated that those with T1D exhibit decreased force production, increased fatigability, loss of muscle stem cells, and a greater reliance on glycolytic metabolism, as a result of reduced mitochondrial capacity. Summary We propose a mechanistic model for the development of diabetic myopathy based on the human findings to date. This model suggests that repeated insulin injections in those with T1D leads to recurrent periods of intracellular hyperglycemia in myofibers. Resultant reductions in mitochondrial function lead to greater reliance on glycolytic metabolism and a concomitant shift in fiber type composition. Studies defining the scope and magnitude of diabetic myopathy and testing the veracity of this model are urgently needed in order to develop appropriate therapeutic strategies to maximize muscle health in those with T1D.


We introduce a general study of routing mediators. A routing mediator can act in a given multi-agent encounter on behalf of the agents that give it the right of play. Routing mediators differ from one another according to the information they may have. Our study concentrates on the use of routing mediators in order to reach correlated strong equilibrium, a multi-agent behavior which is stable against deviations by coalitions. We study the relationships between the power of different routing mediators in establishing correlated strong equilibrium. Surprisingly, our main result shows a natural class of routing mediators that allow to implement fair and efficient outcomes as a correlated super-strong equilibrium in a very wide class of games.


In arguably the finest text ever written in the philosophy of social science, Abraham Kaplan emphasizes what unites the behavioral sciences more than what distinguishes them from one another. Kaplan avoids the bitter disputes among people doing methodology, claiming instead that what is important are those qualities intrinsic to the overall aspirations of the social sciences. He deals with special problems of various disciplines only so far as may be helpful in clarifying the general method of inquiry. The Conduct of Inquiry is a systematic, rounded, and wide-ranging inquiry into behavioral science. Kaplan is guided by the experience of sciences with longer histories, but he is bound neither to their problems nor to their solutions. Instead, he addresses the methodology of behavioral science in the broad sense of both method and science. The work is not a formal exercise in the philosophy of science but rather a critical and constructive assessment of the developing standards and strategies of contemporary social inquiry. He emphasizes the tasks, achievements, limitations, and dilemmas of the newer disciplines. Philosophers of science usually choose to write about the most fully developed sciences because problems are clearer there. The result is ordinarily of little benefit to the behavioral scientist, whose task is clarification of method; here the precedents and analogies of physical science are obscure or inappropriate. The Conduct of Inquiry goes a long way in drawing upon the strengths of social research insights without simplifying the common concerns of the scientific enterprise as a whole. As Leonard Broom noted when the book initially appeared: "Kaplan fills a gap and does so with admirable clarity and often engaging wit. It lacks pomposity, pedantry, and pretension, and it is bound to make an impact on the teaching of and, with luck, research in the behavioral sciences."


Memory corruption errors lead to non-deterministic, elusive crashes. This paper describes ARCHER (ARray CHeckER) a static, effective memory access checker. ARCHER uses path-sensitive, interprocedural symbolic analysis to bound the values of both variables and memory sizes. It evaluates known values using a constraint solver at every array access, pointer dereference, or call to a function that expects a size parameter. Accesses that violate constraints are flagged as errors. Those that are exploitable by malicious attackers are marked as security holes.Memory corruption errors lead to non-deterministic, elusive crashes. This paper describes ARCHER (ARray CHeckER) a static, effective memory access checker. ARCHER uses path-sensitive, interprocedural symbolic analysis to bound the values of both variables and memory sizes. It evaluates known values using a constraint solver at every array access, pointer dereference, or call to a function that expects a size parameter. Accesses that violate constraints are flagged as errors. Those that are exploitable by malicious attackers are marked as security holes.We carefully designed ARCHER to work well on large bodies of source code. It requires no annotations to use (though it can use them). Its solver has been built to be powerful in the ways that real code requires, while backing off on the places that were irrelevant. Selective power allows it to gain efficiency while avoiding classes of false positives that arise when a complex analysis interacts badly with statically undecidable program properties. ARCHER uses statistical code analysis to automatically infer the set of functions that it should track --- this inference serves as a robust guard against omissions, especially in large systems which can have hundreds of such functions.In practice ARCHER is effective: it finds many errors; its analysis scales to systems of millions of lines of code and the average false positive rate of our results is below 35%. We have run ARCHER over several large open source software projects --- such as Linux, OpenBSD, Sendmail, and PostgreSQL --- and have found errors in all of them (118 in the case of Linux, including 21 security holes).


This thesis aims to understand the motivation underpinning Malaysia's foreign policy during the period when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was its prime minister (1981-2003), In particular, it questions the adequacy of understanding Malaysia's foreign policy as being driven only by concerns for security and a search for acquisition of wealth. This thesis proposes that the desire to seek recognition was also significant, even if it might not be, in some instances, the driver of Malaysia's foreign policy. In exploring the quest for recognition, this thesis adopts a qualitative method of inquiry. It discusses the 'belief system' of Mahathir and uses both public and private pronouncements of his beliefs as evidence of the importance of his personal quest for recognition as compared to other motives of enhancing security and wealth acquisition. For this purpose, this thesis draws on Axel Honneth's insights on the struggle for recognition in order to offer a systematic understanding of the different modes of recognition. The case studies of this thesis focus on three separate foreign policy addressees - the developing countries of the 'South', the Islamic ummah and the countries of East Asia. These three respective areas pertaining to Malaysia's foreign policy issues were given significant emphasis by Mahathir and received special attention by foreign policy decision - makers. In addition, they make appropriate case studies because understandings of their importance are generally attributed only to the country's search for security or its economic interest. In answering the question to what extent the desire for recognition enhances our understanding of Malaysia's foreign policy under Mahathir, this thesis concludes that in some areas of policy, the search for recognition was a dominant, and almost an over-arching motivation. In other areas, the struggle for recognition remained significant, even though it might not have been the primary motivation.


Sustainable technologies are being sought to provide new and higher-value coproducts from sugar beet pulp. Pectin is a complex plant cell wall polysaccharide that represents a major fraction of sugar beet pulp. One distinguishing feature of sugar beet pectin is a high content of C2 and C3 acetyl esters. Such esters impart unique physical, chemical, and functional properties. Acetyl esters probably function biologically to restrict pectin depolymerizing enzyme activities. The enzyme pectin acetylesterase (EC 126.96.36.199) can specifically hydolyze such acetyl esters in homogalacturOflan regions of pectin, thus it may play a critical role in cell wall modification during root development and during pest/pathogen interactions. Pectin acetylesterase may be used technically in an efficient, environmentally-friendly bioprocess for modifying sugar beet pectin structure to improve performance and increase functionality. Such pectins can be used to fabricate new biobased materials for application in drug delivery systems. This presentation will summarize our recent developments in four areas supporting enzymatic modification of sugar beet pectin: 1) A new GC-MS method, with headspace solid-phase microextraction, for efficient determination of ester content in pectin and of esterase enzyme activity. 2) A specific polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis method to distinguish pectin esterase types. 3) The purification and biochemical characterization of pectin acetylesterase. 4) The preparation of porous "microsponge" matrices using enzyme-modified sugar beet pectin.


Large scale gene expression (transcriptome) analysis and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for single nucleotide polymorphisms have generated a considerable amount of gene- and disease-related information, but heterogeneity and various sources of noise have limited the discovery of disease mechanisms. As systematic dataset integration is becoming essential, we developed methods and performed meta-clustering of gene coexpression links in 11 transcriptome studies from postmortem brains of human subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD) and non-psychiatric control subjects. We next sought enrichment in the top 50 meta-analyzed coexpression modules for genes otherwise identified by GWAS for various sets of disorders. One coexpression module of 88 genes was consistently and significantly associated with GWAS for MDD, other neuropsychiatric disorders and brain functions, and for medical illnesses with elevated clinical risk of depression, but not for other diseases. In support of the superior discriminative power of this novel approach, we observed no significant enrichment for GWAS-related genes in coexpression modules extracted from single studies or in meta-modules using gene expression data from non-psychiatric control subjects. Genes in the identified module encode proteins implicated in neuronal signaling and structure, including glutamate metabotropic receptors (GRM1, GRM7), GABA receptors (GABRA2, GABRA4), and neurotrophic and development-related proteins [BDNF, reelin (RELN), Ephrin receptors (EPHA3, EPHA5)]. These results are consistent with the current understanding of molecular mechanisms of MDD and provide a set of putative interacting molecular partners, potentially reflecting components of a functional module across cells and biological pathways that are synchronously recruited in MDD, other brain disorders and MDD-related illnesses. Collectively, this study demonstrates the importance of integrating transcriptome data, gene coexpression modules and GWAS results for providing novel and complementary approaches to investigate the molecular pathology of MDD and other complex brain disorders.


Landscape connectivity structure, specifically the dendritic network structure of rivers, is expected to influence community diversity dynamics by altering dispersal patterns, and subsequently the unfolding of species interactions. However, previous comparative and experimental work on dendritic metacommunities has studied diversity mostly from an equilibrium perspective. Here we investigated the effect of dendritic versus linear network structure on local (α-diversity), among (β-diversity) and total (γ-diversity) temporal species community diversity dynamics. Using a combination of microcosm experiments, which allowed for active dispersal of 14 protists and a rotifer species, and numerical analyses, we demonstrate the general importance of spatial network configuration and basic life history trade-offs as driving factors of different diversity patterns in linear and dendritic systems. We experimentally found that community diversity patterns were shaped by the interaction of dispersal within the networks and local species interactions. Specifically, α-diversity remained higher in dendritic networks over time, especially at highly connected sites. β-diversity was initially greater in linear networks, due to increased dispersal limitation, but became more similar to β-diversity in dendritic networks over time. Comparing the experimental results with a neutral metacommunity model we found that dispersal and network connectivity alone may, to a large extent, explain α- and β-diversity dynamics. However, additional mechanisms, such as variation in carrying capacity and competition-colonization trade-offs, were needed in the model to capture the detailed temporal diversity dynamics of the experiments, such as a general decline in γ-diversity and long-term dynamics in α-diversity.


Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an idiopathic, progressive cholangiopathy. Cholangiocyte senescence is important in PSC pathogenesis, and we have previously reported that senescence is regulated by the transcription factor ETS proto-oncogene 1 (ETS1) and associated with overexpression of BCL2 like 1 (BCL2L1 or BCL-xL), an anti-apoptotic BCL2-family member. Here, we further explored the mechanisms regulating BCL-xL-mediated, apoptosis resistance in senescent cholangiocytes and uncovered that ETS1 and the histone acetyltransferase E1A-binding protein P300 (EP300 or p300) both promote BCL-xL transcription. Using immunofluorescence, we found that BCL-xL protein expression is increased both in cholangiocytes of livers from individuals with PSC and a mouse model of PSC. Using an in vitro model of lipopolysaccharide-induced senescence in normal human cholangiocytes (NHCs), we found increased BCL-xL mRNA and protein levels, and ChIP-PCRs indicated increased occupancy of ETS1, p300, and histone 3 Lys-27 acetylation (H3K27Ac) at the BCL-xL promoter. Using co-immunoprecipitation and proximity ligation assays, we further demonstrate that ETS1 and p300 physically interact in senescent but not control NHCs. Additionally, mutagenesis of predicted ETS1-binding sites within the BCL-xL promoter blocked luciferase reporter activity, and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genetic deletion of ETS1 reduced senescence-associated BCL-xL expression. In senescent NHCs, TRAIL-mediated apoptosis was reduced ∼70%, and ETS1 deletion or RNAi-mediated BCL-xL suppression increased apoptosis. Overall, our results suggest that ETS1 and p300 promote senescent cholangiocyte resistance to apoptosis by modifying chromatin and inducing BCL-xL expression. These findings reveal ETS1 as a central regulator of both cholangiocyte senescence and the associated apoptosis-resistant phenotype.


In centrifugal compressors, it is common to observe a rapid reduction in surge margin towards high rotational speed, which shows a non-linear surge characteristic against the change of rotational speed. This paper presents a comprehensive experimental and numerical study to understand the flow mechanisms leading to the non-linear surge behavior in a high-speed centrifugal compressor. It shows that for the studied compressor, there are two critical flow coefficients (phi =0.255 and 0.136) where the stability of the compressor stage is significantly weakened. At a higher speed, the impeller rotating stall happens at the first critical point where the diffuser instability is also enhanced. This is caused by the increase of the flow non-uniformity at impeller exit as well as increased diffuser inflow angle due to the impeller compressibility effect. Therefore, both the impeller and diffuser's instability are matched and trigger the surge at a high flow coefficient. In contrast, at a lower speed, the diffuser instability is not enhanced by impeller rotating stall, this mismatch of the two component's instability allows the compressor to pass through the first critical point and extend the surge limit to the second critical point where the diffuser reaches the stability limit and causes the rotating stall spontaneously. By these different behaviors in each speed, the non-linearity of surge characteristic is established.


With the rise of the Web 2.0, collaboratively constructed language resources are rivalling expert-built lexicons. The collaborative construction process of these resources is driven by what is called the "Wisdom of Crowds" phenomenon, which offers very promising research opportunities in the context of electronic lexicography. The vast number and broad diversity of authors yield, for instance, quickly growing and constantly updated resources. While expert-built lexicons have been extensively studied in the past, there is yet a gap in researching collaboratively constructed lexicons. We therefore provide a comprehensive description of Wiktionary – a freely available, collaborative online lexicon. We study the variety of encoded lexical, semantic, and cross-lingual knowledge of three different language editions of Wiktionary and compare the coverage of terms, lexemes, word senses, domains, and registers to multiple expert-built lexicons. We conclude our work by discussing several findings and pointing out Wiktionary's future directions and impact on lexicography.


Abstract The Profile of Emotional Distress (PED) is an instrument elaborated to assess the subjective dimension of functional and dysfunctional negative feelings (affect). To our knowledge, this is the first self-report instrument, elaborated based on Albert Ellis's binary model of distress, designed to focus solely on the subjective dimension of emotions. Reliability, validity, and normation studies for the Romanian population were conducted on a group larger than 700 participants. Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's alphas) ranged from .75 to .94, which are considered good values for a self-report instrument. Key words: binary model of distress, functional and dysfunctional negative feelings, rational emotive behavior therapy, reliability, validity, norms for Romanian population. INTRODUCTION What we experience as content, sadness, worry, joy, fury, fear or regret results from the unique combination of the way we think, the way we behave and the bio-physiological changes taking place in our body when we face a life event. Emotions are therefore dependent variables of multiple changes at different levels (David, Holdevici, Szamoskozi, & Baban, 2000; David & Brown, 2002; Szentagotai, 2006). While the intensity of an emotion is mainly determined by the level of physiological arousal, its quality (e.g., the fact that we call it "fear" and not "sadness") results from the cognitive components implicated (Schachter & Singer, 1962; David & Szentagotai, 2006). Even though from the lay perspective affectivity is seen as very complex system of emotions, researchers were able to demonstrate that there are only a few basic dimensions. In a series of studies, Watson and Tellegen (1985) proved that affect has two uncorrelated dimensions: positive emotions and negative emotions. Positive emotions are measured by the amount of pleasure and content experienced, while negative emotions are indicated by the degree of unpleasantness experienced (psychological distress). Based on his extensive clinical experience, Ellis (1962; 1994) formulated the binary model of distress (David, Schnur, & Belloiu, 2002; David, Montgomery, Macavei, & Bovbjerg, 2005), separating for the first time the negative emotions in two categories: functional negative emotions and dysfunctional negative emotions. The functional or dysfunctional character of an emotion is given by: (1) the associated subjective experience, (2) the associated beliefs and (3) the behavioral consequences of the emotion (David & Szentagotai, 2006; Ellis & DiGiuseppe, 1993; Szentagotai & Freeman, 2006). This categorization is based on the qualitative difference that exists between emotions with the same valence (i.e., negative or positive) - difference due mainly to their underlying cognitions - and not on the variations of intensity (Ellis 1994; Ellis & Harper, 1975). In other words, a higher intensity of "sadness" is not called "depression", the difference between the two emotions coming from the specific beliefs underlying them (e.g., rational beliefs for functional negative emotions and irrational negative beliefs for dysfunctional negative emotions). At the subjective level, the differences between functional and dysfunctional negative emotions have been investigated in a number of studies, with results indicating the existence of some quantitative and qualitative differences between these two types of emotions (Kassinove, Eckhardt, & Endes, 1993; David, Schnur, & Birk, 2004; Opris & Macavei, 2005). The Profile of Emotional Distress (PED) is an instrument elaborated to assess the subjective dimension of functional and dysfunctional negative emotions. GENERAL PRESENTATION OF THE SCALE The PED is a 26-item self-report instrument that measures functional and dysfunctional negative emotions from the "concern/anxiety" and "sadness/depression" categories. The scale allows for the calculation of a general score of distress (all items) and also of separate scores for "concern - functional", "anxiety - dysfunctional", "sadness - functional" and "depression - dysfunctional". …


The need for deformation surveys of large engineering structures (bridges, dams, tall structures, etc) often arises from concerns associated with environmental protection, property damage and public safety. For example, since there are many high buildings than in the past, it is therefore very important to monitor the buildings to ensure they are still under stable behaviour. The stability condition of high buildings can be achieved only through proper monitoring and deformation analysis. Conceptually, in order to sustain the engineering structures in safe condition, some deformation monitoring systems should be set up so that we can assess structural changes that may occur over the time. The geodetic sensors systems such as accelerometers, inclinometers, strain gauges, close-range-photogrammetry, precise levellings and total stations are familiar tools/methods to many professionals (e.g. engineers, surveyors) involved with structural monitoring. Recently, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has emerged as sensor for many deformation applications. The use of GPS for deformation studies has evolved rapidly especially Real Time Kinematic (RTK). This technique has been considered as a cost-effective tool to monitor safety and performance of engineering structures, including high buildings and to obtain high productivity in terms of accuracy and reliability. This paper highlights the concept and methodology of the RTK-GPS and its potential application for high building monitoring surveys. The experiments have been carried out on a high building, Menara Sarawak, Johore Malaysia. Some preliminary results is presented and discussed.


PURPOSE
Evaluate the new GafChromic film EBT3 for energy dependence over clinical photon and electron beams down to75kVpMethods: A single sheet of EBT3 (Lot A04041201) was cut into small pieces. Film pieces were irradiated at 6-9 known dose levels (0.4 - 12 Gy) with 9 beams: 75, 225, and 300 kVp x-rays, Cs-137, Co-60, 6 and 18 MV x-rays, and 6 and 20 MeV electrons. At each dose level, 3 pieces of film were irradiated to provide repeats. For KV x-ray beams including Cs-137, irradiations were performed in air with an appropriate build-up required for Cs-137; whereas for other beams irradiations were performed at dmax depth in water. The exposed films were read and analyzed with combination of flat-bed scanner (Epson 10000XL) and ImageJ software (red channel). Dose-consistency check was performed at 75 kVp by comparing film-response curve with exposure in-air versus that in Solid Water (depth 2.0 cm).

RESULTS
In Ortho-voltage region, energy dependence is significant. Film sensitivity (OD) decreases with decreasing beam energy (kVp). At 75 kVp, film-sensitivity (OD) is 16% lower than that for 6 MV beam at 6 Gy dose level. For Mega-voltage beams including Cs-137, film EBT3 is found to be practically energy independent within the measurement uncertainty. Dose uncertainty arising from film uniformity and film-to-film variation is about the same (5 ± 1.1%) as reported1 for EBT2.

CONCLUSION
In Kilo-Voltage region, EBT3 shows significant energy dependence showing decrease in film-sensitivity with decreasing beam energy. However, the film is practically energy independent for Mega-voltage Photon & Electron beams including Cs-137. Film-sensitivity decrease for 75 kVp is consistent with the recently reported2 >11% reduction in OD for 50 kVp beam. In light of another recent publication3, energy dependence may arise from components < 25 KeV in the beams.


The relative positions of branching events in a phylogeny contain information about evolutionary and population dynamic processes. We provide new summary statistics of branching event times and describe how these statistics can be used to infer rates of species diversification from interspecies trees or rates of population growth from intraspecies trees. We also introduce a phylogenetic method for estimating the level of taxon sampling in a clade. Different evolutionary models and different sampling regimes can produce similar patterns of branching events, so it is important to consider explicitly the model assumptions involved when making evolutionary inferences. Results of an analysis of the phylogeny of the mosquito-borne flaviviruses suggest that there could be several thousand currently unidentified viruses in this clade.


the disbursement of home loans is a very challenging process as many aspects are involved in its decision making process. This also includes the attitude and behavior of the customers and loan officials in providing fair and unbiased decisions. Researchers have recently found that expert systems perform very well for this complex problem when compared to more traditional statistical approaches. This paper presents an Expert System that would aid in the disbursement of Home Loans (accepting and rejecting home loan applicants). The system makes decisions and provides suggestions similar to those of a Loan Officer (Human Expert). The system will use a goal driven approach along with knowledge engineering in order to make a uniform, well informed decision. The system was verified and validated for its correctness and efficiency by running a series of tests and comparing the results to the decisions, the human experts have taken in the past.


The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith 1797) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is the most important corn pest in South America. Larvae feed mostly on leaves, but also ears when population densities are high. This pest has been historically controlled with insecticide applications, but many cases of resistance have limited their efficacy. Transgenic corn varieties expressing Bacillus thuringiensis proteins (Bt corn) have been a widely adopted alternative to insecticides and, in the past 8 yr, have been the primary technology for fall armyworm control in Brazil. Because transgenic varieties require 10–15 yr to be developed and fall armyworm has quickly evolved resistance to most commercially released Bt corn hybrids, strategies for Bt trait durability are paramount. Most of the Bt corn hybrids lost their ability to control fall armyworm in just 3 yr after their release in Brazil. Here we summarize what is known about Bt resistance in fall armyworm in Brazil, a phenomenon perhaps never seen before in any part of the world. Furthermore, we suggest that the interactions between management practices adopted (or not adopted, e.g., refuge compliance) to delay the evolution of resistance and the ecological and evolutionary characteristics of fall armyworm are driving the rapid evolution of resistance to Bt corn in Brazil. As newer products emerge in the market, careful consideration will be needed to maximize trait durability.


Game theory has been useful for understanding risk-taking and cooperative behavior. In the present study, subjects played the Hawk-Dove game with simulated and embodied (robotic) neural agents which used a neurobiologically plausible model of action selection and adaptive behaviors. Subjects had their serotonin levels temporarily altered through acute tryptophan depletion (ATD). The traditional assumption for subject data from Game-theory-ATD or human robot interaction (HRI) studies is that all participants come from the same underlying distribution or same group. We used probabilistic graphical models in order to determine potential sub-group affiliations based on the subjects' responses while playing the Hawk-Dove game. The results from the models indicate sub-groups within a subject population exist. We find that two-group, one that tends toward cooperation and the other that tends toward aggression, best describes the effect of subject behavior in response to ATD and embodiment.


Trolls are a significant feature of the patent system. They account for a large number of suits, now a majority of all patent assertions in the country and an even higher percentage in the information technology (IT) industries. They win both larger judgments and larger settlements than do "practicing entities" ("PEs") -- those that practice patents and are not principally in the business of collecting money from others that practice them. And they do so despite complaints that trolls assert weak patents and some evidence that troll patents are more likely to lose in court.Nonetheless, we think the focus on patent trolls obscures a more complex set of challenges confronting the patent system. In this paper, we make three points. First, patent trolls are not a unitary phenomenon. We see at least three different troll business models developing, and those models have different effects on the patent system. Second, patent assertions by practicing entities can create just as many problems as assertions by patent trolls. The nature of many industries obscures some of the costs of those assertions, but that does not mean they are cost-free. In addition, practicing entities are increasingly engaging in "patent privateering," in which product-producing companies take on many of the attributes of trolls. Put differently, while trolls exploit problems with the patent system, they are not the only ones that do so. Third, many of the problems associated with trolls are in fact problems that stem from the disaggregation of complementary patents into too many different hands. That in turn suggests that groups like Intellectual Ventures might be reducing, not worsening, these problems (though, as we will see, the overall effects are ambiguous), while "patent privateers" that spin off patents in order for others to assert them might make things worse. For this reason, patent reformers and antitrust authorities should worry less about aggregation of patent rights and more about disaggregation of those rights, sometimes accomplished by spinning them out to others.Understanding the economics of patent assertions by both trolls and practicing entities allows us to move beyond labels and the search for "bad actors," focusing instead on aspects of the patent system itself that give rise to the problems and on specific, objectionable conduct in which both trolls and practicing entities sometimes engage. Patent trolls alone are not the problem; they are a symptom of larger problems with the patent system. Treating the symptom will not solve the problems. In a very real sense, critics have been missing the forest for the trolls. Exposing the larger problems allows us to contemplate changes in patent law that will actually tackle the underlying pathologies of the patent system and the abusive conduct they enable.


In the present paper, we address a review of group-III nitride quantum wells and quantum dots realized by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using ammonia as a nitrogen source. Some important features of the growth of nitrides by MBE using ammonia are pointed out. We also emphasize the role of in situ analysis tools such as reflection high-energy electron diffraction. The optical properties of several kinds of quantum heterostructure are presented. They illustrate well the combined effects of polarization fields and carrier localization. Finally, the use of InGaN/GaN QWs in LEDs for white light emission is presented.


The novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) is an infectious acute respiratory infection caused by the novel coronavirus. The virus is a positive-strand RNA virus with high homology to bat coronavirus. Due to the limits of the existing experimental tools, many protein roles of novel coronavirus including ORF8 are still unclear. Therefore, in the current scene of an emergency epidemic, it is of high scientific significance to predict the biological role of viral proteins through bioinformatics methods. In this study, conserved domain analysis, homology modeling, and molecular docking were used to compare the biological roles of certain proteins of the novel coronavirus. The results showed the ORF8 and surface glycoprotein could bind to the porphyrin, respectively, while orf1ab, ORF10 and ORF3a proteins could coordinately attack heme to dissociate the iron to form the porphyrin. The mechanism seriously interfered with the normal heme anabolic pathway of the human body, being expected to result in human disease. According to the validation analysis of these finds, Chloroquine could prevent orf1ab, ORF3a and ORF10 to attack the heme to form the porphyrin, and inhibit the binding of ORF8 and surface glycoproteins to porphyrins to a certain extent. Therefore, this research is of high value to contemporary biological experiments, disease prevention and clinical treatment.


Image-based visual servoing is a flexible and robust technique to control a robot and guide it to a desired position only by using two-dimensional visual data. However, it is well known that the classical visual servoing based on the Cartesian coordinate system has one crucial problem, that the camera moves backward at infinity, in case that the camera motion from the initial to desired poses is a pure rotation of 1800 around the optical axis. This paper proposes a new formulation of visual servoing, based on a cylindrical coordinate system that can shift the position of the origin. The proposed approach can interpret from a pure rotation around an arbitrary axis to the proper camera rotational motion. It is shown that this formulation contains the classical approach based on the Cartesian coordinate system as an extreme case with the origin located at infinity. Furthermore, we propose a decision method of the origin-shift parameters by estimating a rotational motion from the differences between initial and desired image-plane positions of feature points.


Without a doubt many problems in physics arise as a consequence of our philosophical conception of the world. In this contribution however we endeavor to alleviate this scenario by putting forward a philosophical approach under which some of the most fundamental problems in modern physics might turn out to be fictitious. To accomplish such task we propound that everything that exists must be made up of \emph{matter} which not only makes up space and the universe but also is in constant change. For such reason the existence of total emptiness and material discontinuity are rejected. Here physical fields are assumed as a particular state of matter. And time is understood as the result of the intrinsic dynamics of the universe. Furthermore, the infiniteness of the universe is also discussed and its implications are briefly mentioned, e.g., the laws of conservation. Finally, the regularity of the physical laws is questioned. In summary four great problems (from the perspective of physics) are suggested to be deeply studied: (1) What is matter?, (2) Why does the universe change? (3) is the universe infinite in extension? and (4) are there really regular (invariant) laws of physics?


This short essay was written for the Touro Law Review's Associate Dean's Symposium on "Student-Edited Law Reviews: Future Publication Platforms." It maintains that the Associate Dean for Research has a responsibility to shape and develop the scholarly culture and intellectual life of the law school. Part of that charge should be to aid the student-edited law reviews in their contribution to that enterprise and to help those reviews evolve. In addition to their pedagogical value for the students (developing editing, reasoning, research, and writing skills), these reviews play a part in sending signals to the outside world of the scholarly commitment of a law school. And, most importantly, student-edited law reviews serve the higher value of distributing knowledge and disseminating legal thought that addresses doctrinal clarity, unpacks theoretical uncertainties, creates foundations for reform, or otherwise presents legal solutions to critical social issues. The ideal direction for student-edited journals is toward multiple platforms that deliver law review-quality content – maintaining long form articles and welcoming useful, online shorter forms as well. But, the irreducible minimum requirements for judging what constitutes quality "legal scholarship" – measured by its originality and unique contribution the literature – should not change. So, the first guiding principle that should control student-edited law reviews as they adopt new platforms is simple: maintain the distinctive function of publishing legal content – uniquely as a "law review" – that has the rigor and other qualities to count as legal scholarship. The Essay describes ways to control against the risks of quality dilution.The most innovative ways that law reviews can embrace the future include using new platforms and harnessing technologies to increase dialogue, exchange, and reasoning through what this Essay calls virtual liquid networks – drawing on lessons from Steven Johnson, Kevin Dunbar, and others who have explained the concept of "liquid networks" where innovation emerges in the natural world through the collision between elements in the system and should operate similarly in intellectual spaces. Law reviews and other academic outlets should aim to create "unusually fertile" and "shared environments" that make possible "serendipitous connections" and allow for the improvement and completion of ideas.This Essay spells out some of the architecture of student edited law review platforms that could serve this role. For example, beyond endorsing the concurrent or consecutive posting of response pieces at the same time as posting or printing main selected articles, already being done at many reviews, the Essay outlines a proposal to innovate with virtual workshops and virtual roundtables that facilitate strong liquid networks that leave open room to improve scholarly works before publication of a "final" product. The idea here is to truly replicate, in virtual form, the physical roundtable or workshop concept to achieve even higher-order liquid networking effects. These proposed virtual liquid network platforms hold the possibility of helping authors produce works of legal scholarship substantially improved from the forms such works might take in the traditional, more sterile, and inert publication platforms. Such virtual liquid network-based platforms also give student-edited law reviews a modern and expanded, service-oriented role in the continued production of useful scholarship.


This study examined division of child care, parenting roles, and parent-child relationship quality, both within and across same-sex couples. Analyses were carried out both at the individual level and at the couple level. The utilization of same-sex couples allowed for a quasi-experimental way of teasing apart parental sex and role, which are often conflated in other-sex couple research regarding parent-child relationships. The sample included 238 coresiding same-sex parents living across the United States who participated in online questionnaires. Results indicated that division of child care did not vary at the family level based on sex of the couple or family formation type, but within step families original parents did engage in more child care than step parents. Perceived parenting roles were associated with division of child care, and couples fell into three parenting classification groups: egalitarian (48.8%), primary-secondary (16.3%), and mismatched (34.9%) based on their egalitarianism and congruence of perceived roles. Primary and equal caregivers had higher ratings of parent-child closeness than did secondary caregivers, even when controlling for whether the parent was an original or step parent. These findings highlight the need to consider both sex and role when investigating parent-child relationships.


the the chapter Abstract The growth in the number of non-developer open source software (OSS) application users has drawn attention to usability in the OSS community. OSS communities do not generally know how to apply usability techniques and are unclear about which techniques to use in each activity of the development process. The aim of our research is to determine the feasibility of applying the focus groups technique in the OSS ERMaster project. To do this, we participated as project volunteers. We used the case study research method to inves tigate technique application and OSS community participation. As a result, we identified adverse conditions that were an obstacle to the application of the original technique. We then adapted the technique to make it applicable in an OSS project. We can conclude that was not easy to recruit OSS users and developers to participate in technique application.


Most of us know a bit about what passes for good manners - holding doors open, sending thank-you notes, no elbows on the table. We certainly know bad manners when we see them. But where has this patchwork of beliefs and behaviours come from? How did manners develop? How do they change? And why do they matter so much to us? In examining our manners, Henry Hitchings delves into the English character and investigates our notions of Englishness. Sorry! presents an amusing, illuminating and quirky audit of English manners. From basic table manners to appropriate sexual conduct, via hospitality, chivalry, faux pas and online etiquette, Hitchings traces the history of our country's customs and courtesies. Putting under the microscope some of our most astute observers of humanity, including Jane Austen and Samuel Pepys, he uses their lives and writings to pry open the often downright peculiar secrets of the English character. Hitchings' blend of history, anthropology and personal journey helps us understand our bizarre and contested cultural baggage - and ourselves.


Though largely silent, and not often associated with the same levels of violence as other forms of organized crime, illicit trade threatens national and broader regional security in myriad ways. Insufficiently appreciated, first and foremost, is the way in which the cross-border smuggling of everyday commodities can open up pathways for trafficking in illegal goods, such as drugs and arms. Far from being an 'innocent' phenomenon, it can form a critical part of much broader, largerscale illicit networks, with significant negative impacts on national and regional security. In many cases, it intersects with higher-profile forms of trafficking, and with the operations of non-state armed actors. In light of this, it is clear that effective responses are needed ;and the current response must not treat illicit trade as a distinct, discrete problem, to be addressed separately to other criminal activity in the region. Summary By Alexander Babuta & Cathy Haenlein


This paper presents a framework that enables flexible content reuse. Unlike the usual practice where document components, such as images, definitions, text fragments, tables or diagrams, are assembled manually through copy-and-paste, the framework enables on-the-fly access and reuse. Retrieval of relevant components is enabled by automatic decomposition of legacy documents and storage of individual components, enriched with metadata. Furthermore, the automatic assembly of these components in mainstream authoring tools is supported. The paper describes the framework and its current support for re-assembling PowerPoint, Wikipedia and SCORM components in authoring tools. In addition, an evaluation is presented that aims to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of such content reuse for presentations.


The first in-depth analysis of temporary work in Canada, Leah F. Vosko's important new book examines a number of important trends, including the commodification of labour power; the decline of the full-time, full-year job as a norm; and the gendered character of prevailing employment relationships. Spanning the period from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, Temporary Work traces the evolution of the temporary employment relationship in Canada and places it in an international context. It explores how, and to what extent, 'temporary work' is becoming a norm for a diverse group of workers in the labour market, taking gender as a central lens of analysis. Recent scholarship emphasizes that the nature of work is changing, citing the spread of non-standard forms of employment and the rise in women's participation in the labour force. Vosko confirms that important changes are indeed taking place in the labour market, but argues that these changes are best understood in historical, economic and political contexts. This book will be invaluable to academics in a variety of disciplines as well as to policy analysts and practitioners.


Backgrounds: The membrane voltage and Ca2+ clocks jointly regulate sinoatrial node (SAN) automaticity. Here we test the hypothesis that heart rate acceleration of subsidiary pacemaker (SP) by β-adrenergic stimulation involves synergistic interactions between both clock mechanisms.Methods: We performed optical mapping and pharmacological interventions in 15 isolated Langendorff-perfused canine right atriums (RA). SP model were produced by ligation of SAN artery at the mid portion of sulcus terminalis.Results: In 6 RAs with intact SAN, isoproterenol infusion of 1 µmol/L increased heart rate from 82±9 to 166±18 bpm (102%) with late diastolic Cai elevation (LDCAE) at superior SAN. However, in 6 SP models, heart rate increased from 55±10 bpm to 106±11 bpm (92%, p=0.005) without LDCAE at the earliest activation site. The isoproterenol induced heart rate increase was reversed to 74±5 bpm (33% from baseline) by funny current blocker, ZD 7288 infusion (3± mol/L, n=3). Whereas, it was suppressed to 69±7 bpm (24% from baseline) by SR Ca2+ emptying with ryanodine (10± mol/L) plus thapsigargin (200 nmol/L, n=3). The isoproterenol induced heart rate increase was completely abolished by combined funny current blocker and SR Ca2+ emptying (n=3).Conclusion: Acceleration of the Ca2+ clock in SP plays an important role in heart rate acceleration during β-adrenergic stimulation, interacting synergistically with the voltage clock to increase heart rate.


Diversion due to coil break in cold rolled non oriented (CRNO) grades of coils showed an increasing trend during Jan–May'12 at Silicon Steel Mill (SSM), Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP). Coil break increased from a level of less than 1% during to a level of 30% in May'12. Samples from hot rolled coils and finished coils were taken and detailed metallurgical investigation was carried out to ascertain the genesis of such defects. Further studies were carried out in the processing lines and material flow was tracked from steel making to final product. The probable reasons were identified and corrective measures were taken leading to reduction in diversion due to coil break less than 2%.


Due to changed life style, sustained arterial hypertension triggers the possible damage of blood vessels in kidney, heart, and brain, and leads to an increased incidence of renal failure, coronary disease, cardiac failure, and stroke. Hypertension is a cause of morbidity and mortality, worldwide. This review presents a comprehensive overview on three dimensional study of hypertension within the analytics of mechanism, management and the potent heterocyclic moieties for the antihypertensive activity. The antihypertensive derivatives of moieties azitidinone, imidazole, indole, oxadiazole pyridine, quinazoline and thiadiazoles have been covered.


SUMMARY This paper uses mathematical models and data analysis to examine the epidemiological implications of possible immunologically mediated links between patterns of varicella and herpes-zoster incidence in human communities. A review of previously published reports does not clarify whether or not there is a relationship between the incidence of varicella and the incidence of zoster. However, new analysis of data collected by the Royal College of General Practitioners provides indirect evidence for the hypothesis that a high intensity of varicella transmission suppresses viral reactivation. The significance of this finding for proposed varicella vaccination campaigns is explored by a review of published data on the use of the vaccine. No significant difference is shown to exist between the risk of zoster caused by the vaccine and the wild virus. A mathematical model is then developed to take into consideration the influence of the prevalence of varicella on viral reactivation and the impact of vaccination with attenuated virus, which may be able to recrudesce. Under some conditions, mass application of such vaccines may have the impact of increasing zoster incidence. The results presented here indicate that, before starting any vaccination programme against varicella, its consequences need to be assessed in much more depth.


1. Introduction 372 1.1 Residual dipolar couplings as a route to structure and dynamics 372 1.2 A brief history of oriented phase high resolution NMR 374 2. Theoretical treatment of dipolar interactions 376 2.1 Anisotropic interactions as probes of macromolecular structure and dynamics 376 2.1.1 The dipolar interaction 376 2.1.2 Averaging in the solution state 377 2.2 Ordering of a rigid body 377 2.2.1 The Saupe order tensor 378 2.2.2 Orientational probability distribution function 380 2.2.3 The generalized degree of order 380 2.3 Molecular structure and internal dynamics 381 3. Inducing molecular order in high resolution NMR 383 3.1 Tensorial interactions between the magnetic field and anisotropic magnetic susceptibilities 383 3.2 Dilute liquid crystal media: a tunable source of order 384 3.2.1 Bicelles : from membrane mimics to aligning media 385 3.2.2 Filamentous phage 387 3.2.3 Transfer of alignment from ordered media to macromolecules 388 3.3 Magnetic field alignment 389 3.3.1 Paramagnetic assisted alignment 389 3.3.2 Advantages of using magnetic alignment 389 4. The measurement of residual dipolar couplings 391 4.1 Introduction 391 4.2 Frequency based methods 392 4.2.1 Coupling enhanced pulse schemes 392 4.2.2 In phase anti-phase methods (IPAP): 1DNH couplings in proteins 393 4.2.3 Exclusive correlated spectroscopy (E-COSY): 1DNH, 1DNC′ and 2DHNC′ 395 4.2.4 Extraction of splitting values from the frequency domain 396 4.3 Intensity based experiments 397 4.3.1 J-Modulated experiments: the measurement of 1DCαHα in proteins 397 4.3.2 Phase modulated methods 399 4.3.3 Constant time COSY – the measurement of DHH couplings 399 4.3.4 Systematic errors in intensity based experiments 400 5. Interpretation of residual dipolar coupling data 401 5.1 Structure determination protocols utilizing orientational constraints 401 5.1.1 The simulated annealing approach 401 5.1.2 Order matrix analysis of dipolar couplings 402 5.1.3 A discussion of the two approaches 402 5.2 Reducing orientational degeneracy 403 5.2.1 Multiple alignment media in the simulated annealing approach 404 5.2.2 Multiple alignment media in the order matrix approach 405 5.3 Simplifying effects arising due to molecular symmetry 406 5.4 Database approaches for determining protein structure 407 6. Applications to the characterization of macromolecular systems 408 6.1 Protein structure refinement 408 6.2 Protein domain orientation 409 6.3 Oligosaccharides 413 6.4 Biomolecular complexes 415 6.5 Exchanging systems 416 7. Acknowledgements 418 8. References 419 Within its relatively short history, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has managed to play an important role in the characterization of biomolecular structure. However, the methods on which most of this characterization has been based, Nuclear Overhauser Effect (NOE) measurements for short-range distance constraints and scalar couplings measurements for torsional constraints, have limitations (Wüthrich, 1986). For extended structures, such as DNA helices, for example, propagation of errors in the short distance constraints derived from NOEs leaves the relative orientation of remote parts of the structures poorly defined. Also, the low density of observable protons in contact regions of molecules held together by factors other than hydrophobic packing, leads to poorly defined structures. This is especially true in carbohydrate containing complexes where hydrogen bonds often mediate contacts, and in multi-domain proteins where the area involved in domain–domain contact can also be small. Moreover, most NMR based structural applications are concerned with the characterization of a single, rigid conformer for the final structure. This can leave out important mechanistic information that depends on dynamic aspects and, when motion is present, this can lead to incorrect structural representations. This review focuses on one approach to alleviating some of the existing limitations in NMR based structure determination: the use of constraints derived from the measurement of residual dipolar couplings (D).


This Roundtable on Numbers/Data began life as a live, public event on the power and influence of numbers in contemporary visual, material, immaterial, and media cultures.1 To imagine such an ambitious event, and to do it justice, the event's programme brought together academics, industry professionals, and practitioners. Taking Steven Connor's recently published book Living by Numbers: In Defence of Quantity (2016) as a springboard, each contributor to the event was invited to deliver a 10-minute presentation, an opening statement to set the scene, and to raise fundamental questions to be considered in the ensuing discussion. The authors retain this structure here, along with some of the informality that live conversation affords. By way of these four presentations and the conversation between the event's speakers and audience, the Roundtable raises a series of pressing concerns around data and big data, life tracking, digital health studies, and the quantifiable self; the quantitative and the qualitative; data forms and flows; climate change data and social media; the bleed between private and public computational infrastructures; labour, productivity, and accountability; time, money, and economies; and the contemporary intensification of surveillance, audit culture, marketization, and outcomes-based performance management. Notwithstanding data dystopia's numerical sublime, the contributors are always looking to keep an eye out for reasons to be optimistic in their discussions around: numbers in education and numeric literacies; the materiality of numbers and numbers as artifacts; data's flexibility and manipulability; sensors, sensor data, and everyday life; the rise of amateurism and citizen scientists; data and numbers vis-à-vis experiences, embodiment, emotions, intensities, and their affective powers; and the contributors' absolute delight (or abject horror) at the very arbitrary nature of numbers, all of which offer hope towards more democratic, creative, imaginative, and personalized futures … Interested in the Quantified Self community? Ever wondered what role numbers played in the UK's Referendum to leave the EU? Intrigued by the idea of an exhibition about odd and even? Curious about what folk data might be? Read on!


To be sustainable, the extractive process of fishing requires biomass renewal via primary production driven by solar energy. Primary production required (PPR) estimates how much primary production is needed to replace the biomass of fisheries landings removed from marine ecosystems. Here, we examine the historical fishing behaviour of global fishing fleets, which parts of the food web they rely on, which ecosystems they fish and how intensively. Highly mobile European and Asian fleets have moved to ever more distant productive waters since the 1970s, especially once they are faced with the costs of access agreements for exclusive economic zones (EEZs) declared by host countries. We examine fleet PPR demands in the context of large marine ecosystems (LMEs), which are frequently fished with PPR demands well above their average primary productivity (PP). In some cases, this was mitigated by subsequent emigration of fleets or by management intervention. Fleet movements, however, have stressed additional marine areas, including the EEZs of developing countries. This suggests the potential for spatial serial depletion, if fishing capacity is not reduced to more sustainable PP removal levels. Fundamentally, fishing is limited by solar-powered PP limits. Fishing beyond solar production has occurred, but in the future, marine systems may not be as forgiving, especially if overfishing and climate change compromise their resilience.


In 2012, the first paper in the series Analytical Methods in Quality Control of Scientific Publications was published in the American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 3, No. 6, 2012, pp. 443-447. This paper was mainly based on evidence presented in the 2011 in book Historical Overview of Chromatography and Related Techniques in Analysis of Antimalarial Drug Primaquine (editor Ilia Brondz, Nova Science Publishers, Inc., ISSN 978-1-61761-944-1). The first paper in this series di- scussed issues of obvious falsification and plagiarism contained in paper published by Dongre et al., Applications of GC-EI-MS for the Identification and Investigation of Positional Isomer in Primaquine, an Antimalarial Drug. Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, Vol. 39, No. 1-2, 2005, pp. 111-116. Dongre et al. copied their publication from an original research manuscript submitted for consideration by other authors. This paper was published in the Asian Journal of Chemistry, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2005, pp. 1678-1688. Conclusive arguments against the publication of Dongre et al. were presented in the American Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 3, No. 6, 2012, pp. 443-447. Further cases of general plagiarism and incompetence relating to authors, reviewers, editors, and publishers were presented in Part II in Analytical Methods in Quality Control of Scientific Publications Part II: The Authors', Reviewers', Editors' Responsibility and the Publishers' Authority in the International Journal of Analytical Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2013, pp. 81-89. The present paper will discuss the following issues: the obvious neglect of the rights of authors by some publishers and editors; how original research manuscripts are exposed to mediocre researchers, and possibly sold, by editors to these "scientists" to boost the image of these particular "scientists"; how the order of authors' names in published articles are changed to satisfy the commercial interests of companies; and how copyright is breached in an appalling way by well-established publishers. The documents presented here concern research publications in the fields of chromatography, chromatography-mass spectrometry, and mass spectrometry.


This dissertation is concerned with the problem of describing the singing voice within the audio signal of a song. This work is motivated by the fact that the lead vocal is the element that attracts the attention of most listeners. For this reason it is common for music listeners to organize and browse music collections using information related to the singing voice such as the singer name. Our research concentrates on the three major problems of music information retrieval: the localization of the source to be described (i.e. the recognition of the elements corresponding to the singing voice in the signal of a mixture of instruments), the search of pertinent features to describe the singing voice, and finally the development of pattern recognition methods based on these features to identify the singer. For this purpose we propose a set of novel features computed on the temporal variations of the fundamental frequency of the sung melody. These features, which aim to describe the vibrato and the portamento, are obtained with the aid of a dedicated model. In practice, these features are computed on the time-varying frequency of partials obtained using the sinusoidal model. In the first experiment we show that partials corresponding to the singing voice can be accurately differentiated from the partials produced by other instruments using decisions based on the parameters of the vibrato and the portamento. Once the partials emitted by the singer are identified, the segments of the song containing singing can be directly localized. To improve the recognition of the partials emitted by the singer we propose to group partials that are related harmonically. Partials are clustered according to their degree of similarity. This similarity is computed using a set of CASA cues including their temporal frequency variations (i.e. the vibrato and the portamento). The clusters of harmonically related partials corresponding to the singing voice are identified using the vocal vibrato and the portamento parameters. Groups of vocal partials can then be re-synthesized to isolate the voice. The result of the partial grouping can also be used to transcribe the sung melody. We then propose to go further with these features and study if the vibrato and portamento characteristics can be considered as a part of the singers' signature. Previous works on singer identification describe audio signals using features extracted on the short-term amplitude spectrum. The latter features aim to characterize the timbre of the sound, which, in the case of singing, is related to the vocal tract of the singer. The features we develop in this document capture long-term information related to the intonation of the singer, which is relevant to the style and the technique of the singer. We propose a method to combine these two complementary descriptions of the singing voice to increase the recognition rate of singer identification. In addition we evaluate the robustness of each type of feature against a set of variations. We show the singing voice is a highly variable instrument. To obtain a representative model of a singer's voice it is thus necessary to build models using a large set of examples covering the full tessitura of a singer. In addition, we show that features extracted directly from the partials are more robust to the presence of an instrumental accompaniment than features derived from the amplitude spectrum.


Objective: The primary purpose of this article is to provide logical conclusions and likely explanations to the patterns in patient visits to the outpatient department (OPD) of an orthopedic hospital in Vadodara, Gujarat. Subjects and Methods: Over the course of 25 days, the author of this work witnessed a total of 244 patients assessed, diagnosed, and treated by the primary physician. Results: Results indicated that fractures, degenerative disc disease (DDD), arthritis, spondylosis, tendon and ligament tears, and muscle pulls were the leading causes of nearly 80% of all OPD visits. Among them, tendon and ligament tears and muscle pulls contributed to 62% of all acute visits to the OPD, while DDD, spondylosis, and arthritis contributed to 65% of all chronic visits to the OPD. Discussion: Analyses of data showed that there was an even split between acute and chronic patient visits to the OPD. However, males were almost two times more likely to visit with acute conditions and only half as much for chronic conditions compared to females. Further, males' acute visit to the OPD was triggered, on an average, by lifestyle-altering orthopedic or other medical conditions compared to females that appeared to seek medical assistance for chronic conditions. Conclusions: This article concludes with recommendations for patient engagement to assist them seek care on a timely and consistent fashion.


Event-driven simulation strategies were proposed recently to simulate integrate-and-fire (IF) type neuronal models. These strategies can lead to computationally efficient algorithms for simulating large-scale networks of neurons; most important, such approaches are more precise than traditional clock-driven numerical integration approaches because the timing of spikes is treated exactly. The drawback of such event-driven methods is that in order to be efficient, the membrane equations must be solvable analytically, or at least provide simple analytic approximations for the state variables describing the system. This requirement prevents, in general, the use of conductance-based synaptic interactions within the framework of event-driven simulations and, thus, the investigation of network paradigms where synaptic conductances are important. We propose here a number of extensions of the classical leaky IF neuron model involving approximations of the membrane equation with conductancebased synaptic current, which lead to simple analytic expressions for the membrane state, and therefore can be used in the event-driven framework. These conductance-based IF (gIF) models are compared to commonly used models, such as the leaky IF model or biophysical models in which conductances are explicitly integrated. All models are compared with respect to various spiking response properties in the presence of synaptic activity, such as the spontaneous discharge statistics, the temporal precision in resolving synaptic inputs, and gain modulation under in vivolike synaptic bombardment. Being based on the passive membrane equation with fixed-threshold spike generation, the proposed gIF models are situated in between leaky IF and biophysical models but are much closer to the latter with respect to their dynamic behavior and response characteristics, while still being nearly as computationally efficient as simple IF neuron models. gIF models should therefore provide a useful tool for efficient and precise simulation of large-scale neuronal networks with realistic, conductance-based synaptic interactions.


This research investigated the techno-economic feasibility of increasing hours of electricity services on Likoma Island in Malawi; making use of solar photovoltaic and wind power in order to enhance sustainable livelihood. Likoma Island grid is operated independent of the mainland grid; and the island is supplied electricity by diesel generators which are scheduled for only 14 hours per day. The limited hours of electricity supply constrains the delivery of essential services and hinders people from achieving sustainable livelihoods. The research used empirical and modelled data of solar irradiance and hub height wind speed, photovoltaic and wind energy systems costs, diesel-generator operation costs, energy needs, energy use patterns, electricity demand profile, and prevailing socioeconomic conditions. Diesel, photovoltaic, and wind based energy systems feeding the Island s grid; and autonomous photovoltaic and wind energy systems for selected essential institutions were modelled and simulated using the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables. Energy system solutions are proposed indicating cost factors and opportunities for the enhancement of sustainable livelihoods.
The thesis argues that with the financial resources committed to the prevailing 14-hours supply of electricity by diesel generators, it is feasible to provide Likoma Island with electricity for 24 hours every day by photovoltaic and wind based energy systems. A deployment model which uses excess energy from the modelled photovoltaic and wind power systems to serve non-grid loads and livelihood activities which are difficult to account for when sizing embedded renewable energy systems has been developed.
The findings provide cost projections of photovoltaic and wind energy systems relative to diesel generators upon which investment and policy decisions can be made. Microscale wind maps at 10 m, 25 m, 40 m and 50 m have been developed for identification of potential wind turbine sites. Empirical socioeconomic data which are essential for the design of delivery mechanisms for renewable energy systems have been generated. The deployment model proposed by the research gives new insights into holistic ways of enhancing sustainable energy access in low-income communities. The interdisciplinary insights provided by this thesis can be applied in other countries and communities with similar socioeconomic contexts to Likoma Island.


BACKGROUND
Most standard bedside monitors in critical care settings display multiple clinical parameters and do not provide directional signaling to alert clinicians to relevant changes in physiologic parameters. The complexity of information may delay identification of clinical changes and initiation of interventions. Clinical decision support system (CDSS) tools can present information at appropriate intervals in formats that may enhance clinical decision making.

OBJECTIVE
A 2-group, quasi-experimental design compared the effects of 2 different monitor displays on time required for nurses to recognize and initiate treatment of sepsis in response to a computer simulation.

METHODS
A convenience sample of 75 critical care nurses was randomly assigned to a standard or an enhanced bedside monitor (EBM) display during a computer-simulated sepsis scenario. Time to recognize symptoms and initiate treatment of sepsis was analyzed between the 2 displays.

RESULTS
Time to recognize symptoms and initiate sepsis treatment was significantly shorter for nurses exposed to the enhanced bedside monitor.

CONCLUSIONS
CDSS tools such as EBM may improve nurses' time to recognize and initiate treatment of sepsis.


Biasing of studies towards results desired by the investigators—investigator bias—arises from many sources, from outright data fabrication to subtle and even unconscious bias in design and analysis choices. Investigator bias has had an important impact in some areas of clinical practice, and can be a major source of uncertainty about study effects. Among the sources of investigator bias, empirical studies have suggested that estimates of effect are often associated with funding source. Disclosure of financial ties thus supplies predictive information about study results. Although this predictability does not by itself say which results are more or less biased, it does stand as a potentially important source of study variation, and hence is needed for full uncertainty assessments. The key problem is then fair use of disclosure data by the evaluator. Fair use will require a clear understanding that predictive power at the group level should never be used for indictment let alone claim of impropriety (as has occurred). Evaluators need to be on the alert for their own biases, and if they wish to use these biases they should be given the form of a subjective prior distribution.

Many have argued that full-scale uncertainty analysis is needed before public-health or medical recommendations are made.1–4 These arguments have largely concerned formal analysis of uncertainty arising from the "holy trinity" of validity threats: uncontrolled confounding, selection bias and measurement error; model misspecification is sometimes added to the list. Occasionally, attention is drawn to more subtle (but potentially large) biases due to sparse data, regression to the mean, data dredging and other instances of method failure.5 6

Ongoing news7–13 suggests it is time to debate incorporation of another potentially major source of uncertainty into literature assessments: investigator bias , the biasing of study results towards results …


Introduction Juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM), is a chronic inflammatory disease characterised by proximal muscle weakness and pathognomonic rash. Although there have been significant advances in management of JDM, the condition still has significant morbidity and mortality associated with it. Complications like breakthrough infections, gastrointestinal tract vasculitis, interstitial pneumonitis and myocarditis pose significant challenges to treating physicians. We report our experience of mortality patterns in this condition over the last 2 decades. There is paucity of literature on this aspect of JDM. Patients and methods Case files of 72 patients diagnosed to have JDM at a single centre during the period January 1993-November 2012 were reviewed. The total follow-up amounts to 256 patient years. The diagnosis of JDM was based on Bohan and Peter criteria. Standard treatment protocols (based on glucocorticoids and methotrexate) were used in management and the senior author was involved in the care of all these children. We recorded 7 deaths amongst these patients over the last 2 decades. Results Amongst the 7 children who died, there were 5 boys and 2 girls. The mean age at diagnosis was 10.2 years (range 7–12 years) and duration of treatment ranged from 1 month to 9 years. The causes of death included: upper gastrointestinal vasculitis (3 patients) – of the latter, 1 had perforation peritonitis and 1 had massive upper gastrointestinal bleeding leading to sudden death even before medical aid could be provided; interstitial lung disease with secondary infection (2 patients); bronchiolitis obliterans with organising pneumonia and pneumothorax (1 patient); progressive muscle disease with cardiomyopathy refractory to immunosuppesive therapy (1 patient) – this child died after 9 years of follow-up. Intercurrent and breakthrough infections were recorded amongst 5 of these 7 children. Conclusion JDM is associated with significant mortality – 13.8% at our centre over the last 2 decades. Gastrointestinal and pulmonary involvement remain the most common causes of death in this condition. Infections are also an important contributory cause. In our experience, delays in diagnosis and referral contribute significantly to mortality in this condition.


Abstract We present a formulation of the problem of probabilistic model checking as one of query evaluation over probabilistic logic programs. To the best of our knowledge, our formulation is the first of its kind, and it covers a rich class of probabilistic models and probabilistic temporal logics. The inference algorithms of existing probabilistic logic-programming systems are well defined only for queries with a finite number of explanations. This restriction prohibits the encoding of probabilistic model checkers, where explanations correspond to executions of the system being model checked. To overcome this restriction, we propose a more general inference algorithm that uses finite generative structures (similar to automata) to represent families of explanations. The inference algorithm computes the probability of a possibly infinite set of explanations directly from the finite generative structure. We have implemented our inference algorithm in XSB Prolog, and use this implementation to encode probabilistic model checkers for a variety of temporal logics, including PCTL and GPL (which subsumes PCTL*). Our experiment results show that, despite the highly declarative nature of their encodings, the model checkers constructed in this manner are competitive with their native implementations.


The neuropil of the glomeruli of the rat olfactory bulb has been studied with the electron microscope with a view to elucidating the type of processes involved - dendrites, appendages and axons - their cellular identity, and the synaptic relationships they establish. The problems encountered in defining these are considered and criteria based on the previous study of neuron types and on examination of serial sections are put forward. The glomeruli are large structures containing many thousands of processes and are the sole site of termination of the olfactory receptor axons. The terminals of the latter are characteristically electron-dense, allowing identification in normal material; they run through the glomeruli making many synapses by means of spherical vesicles and asymmetrical thickenings on to all types of dendritic profile. The glomerular dendritic arborizations of mitral and tufted cells, which are indistinguishable from each other, start as large, fairly regular, pale profiles but become increasingly varicose as they branch and diminish in size. They regularly show groups of spherical vesicles, often in association with asymmetrical synaptic thickenings directed from the dendrite; these are typically associated with return, reciprocal, synapses of the symmetrical type from profiles containing large flattened vesicles. These latter profiles are those of the dendrites and gemmules of periglomerular cells; the dendrites are of irregular outline and give rise to many appendages, mostly gemmules making synaptic contact with mitral or tufted cell dendrites. A small number of pale axon terminals containing either small or large flattened vesicles, derived from short-axon and periglomerular cells respectively, synapse with symmetrical thickenings on to the periglomerular cell dendritic processes. Close associations of particular types of axo-dendritic and dendro-dendritic synapses on interconnecting processes, termed synaptic patterns, are described and their significance considered. The nature of the glomerular interactions is discussed and then placed in the context of other, smaller glomeruli in the central nervous system; certain common principles of glomeruli are suggested.


We explore how knowledge sharing impacts innovation across generations of a family firm. We argue that each generation contributes to the knowledge pool differently, and there can be different levels of hostility towards sharing knowledge that can impact a family firm's ability to innovate. We present two models distinguishing the source of knowledge from the receiver of knowledge for each generation. When the senior generation is the source of knowledge, business tends to be as per usual. Conversely, when the source of knowledge is the next generation, this can lead to new approaches to doing business being introduced, with potential for innovation activities and outcomes. We suggest that to minimise hoarding and rejection of knowledge, strategies need to be in place to avoid redundancy in the knowledge production and problem-solving processes.


This book goes a long way to explaining at least the choices and room for manoeuvre Netanyahu has for the foreseeable future...so it presents a comprehensive account of the profound changes which Israel has undergone in the 1990s not only in attitudes and policies towards the peace process but in domestic policies as well vital addition to the literature" Israeli Perspectives Journal Of Peace Research: "Still, the book pays justice to the volatility and complexity of Israeli politics, and is interesting reading for researchers and students of Middle Eastern Politics." "...a comprehensive, very useful and vey informative examination of Israel"s domestic agenda, of the peace process and of the Jewish state"s relations with its neighbours". Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Correspondent


In this study, the capture, growth, migration and diet of hatchery-released turbots ( Psetta maxima ) were examined in the southeastern Black Sea region for six years (2009-2014). A total of 9933 turbots were marked with individual serial-numbered T-bar anchor tags and released at Trabzon, Turkey. The mean TL and weight of the released turbots were 12.91 cm (±1.25) and 35.41 g (±12.38) and the same measurements for the captured turbots were 31.17±0.86 cm and 878.08±69.47 g, respectively. A total of 2.7% (270 fishes) of the tagged individuals were captured during the study period and the age of the captured tagged fishes was between 0+ and 5+ years. Growth of the captured turbots was analytically examined. Movements of the tagged turbots were expressed as "resident" and "migratory". Three prey groups showed the majority of forage organisms; teleost fishes, crustaceans and mollusks in the stomach of the captured turbots. The hatchery-released turbots might be used for stock enhancement due to their high growth rate and commercial value, and their relatively limited migration range.