Database flexibility is a crucial criterion for database applicability. If stored in a flexible format, the same LCI data may be useful in many different contexts. LCI results often depend on the assumptions made with respect to linking processes through a market. By modelling markets as processes, it is possible to combine the same unit processes in many different ways, depending on the scenario and market conditions appropriate for the individual LCI study. Market modelling is illustrated in two examples: 1) a database linking a comprehensive set of agricultural and food chain processes into product life cycles under actual and prospective market conditions, e.g. with and without production quotas, 2) a national input-output based database with both average and market-based modelling, illustrating the important differences and the possibilities for maintaining flexibility.


This paper empirically analyses the impact of the bundling of four common home communication services with a single supplier on the probability that an individual changes supplier using a survey-elicited dataset of 2,871 individuals. Implementing a random effects probit approach to control for individual heterogeneity, the results strongly show that when individuals bundle their service then they are significantly less likely to change supplier. A second result indicates that service- and supplier- related variables are better predictors of an individual's likelihood of switching than are the characteristics of the individual, suggesting that future research in this area should prioritise their inclusion.


Non-invasive ventilation (NIV) is recognised as an effective treatment for chronic hypercapnic respiratory failure. Monitoring NIV during sleep may be preferable to daytime assessment. This paper reports the findings of an international consensus group which systematically analysed nocturnal polygraphic or polysomnographic tracings recorded with either volume-cycled or pressure-cycled ventilators. A systematic description of nocturnal respiratory events which occur during NIV is proposed: leaks, obstruction at different levels of the upper airway (glottis and/or pharynx), with or without decrease of respiratory drive and asynchrony.


The genus Menippus is revised for Australia, with six species, three of which are new: M. cynicus Clark, M. darcyisp. nov., M. ewanisp. nov., M. fugitivus (Lea), M. sufisp. nov. and M. yulensis (Jacoby) comb. nov. (from Diorhabda Weise). Menippus yulensis was described from New Guinea. This species and M. darcyi were formerly confused in Australia with M. fugitivus, which is now considered endemic to Lord Howe Island. The species formerly considered M. fugitivus and protected under the Threatened Species Conservation Act, New South Wales, is now named M. darcyi. A key is provided for the Australian species of Menippus and a lectotype designated for M. yulensis. The composition of Menippus is discussed and three non-Australian species are transferred to this genus: M. inconspicua (Jacoby) comb. nov. (from Diorhabda Weise); M. laterimaculata (Jacoby) comb. nov.; and M. marginipennis (Jacoby) comb. nov. (from Galerucella Crotch). A revised checklist of Menippus species is given. The recorded foodplants of Menippus are species of Celtis (Ulmaceae).


Successful research commercialisation within the university domain is predicated upon basic research being developed into technology that will attract funding, ultimately resulting in entities such as University spin-out companies or licensing arrangements. This development process involves considerable risk and uncertainty and may require substantial resources to fund early stage operations while returns are uncertain. Hence there is a need to explore risk-minimisation approaches relating to proving the potential for development while concurrently allocating resources in an incremental manner. This paper focuses on the development of the Northern Ireland Proof of Concept (PoC) process within a University Science Park Incubator (USI) as a particular approach to addressing these challenges inherent in the United Kingdom University technology transfer. Furthermore, Absorptive Capacity has emerged in the literature as an appropriate theoretical framework or lens for exploring the development and application of new technology. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the PoC process within a USI as a means for improving the commercialisation of University technology transfer using an Absorptive Capacity perspective. A multiple case analysis of PoC applications within a UK university is described. From the findings it emerges that Absorptive Capacity influencing factors such as levels of R&D investment, prior knowledge base and integration of stakeholder and technology planning all impact on PoC outcomes. In addition a number of process improvement areas for PoC are identified in relation to the influencing factors within the Absorptive Capacity framework.


Prompted by student enthusiasm and by the opportunity to enhance college courses, more and more faculty members in higher education are incorporating the Web into their teaching. This helpful book is designed to answer the questions an educator who lacks extensive technical experience asks about creating a Web site: Why should I use the Web? How can the Web enhance my teaching? How do I make a Web site? How can I make it effective? Multimedia specialist Sarah Horton draws on extensive experience as a faculty Web consultant to explain the entire process of creating a site, from initial planning through site assessment. She examines the strengths of the Web and its many possible uses. More than just a way to distribute course handouts, a Web site can provide richer content, multiple expressions of an idea, interactivity, opportunities for collaboration and customization, and flexibility for updates. Horton urges teachers to consider the ever-growing possibilities that information technology presents. Her focus is on practical matters related to creating Web-based instructional materials. With case studies throughout, she discusses the planning process, content creation, site development, and finally site implementation in the curriculum.


The development and iteration of a body of professional knowledge appropriate to the demands of practice is a central concern of studies of professional education and work. This article concentrates on Bernstein's notion of the 'region' of professional knowledge, identifying regions as complex socio-epistemic entities into which forms of knowledge are appropriated and transformed to meet the requirements of practice. In order to better understand the constitution of professional knowledge, there is a need to conceptualise how knowledge is recontextualised between regions, disciplinary 'singulars', and professional practice. Two variables, proximity and dominance, are introduced to illustrate how relations between regions, singulars and practice may vary, with implications for what is recontextualised into regions. In some professions, there are pressures for greater proximity between regions as a consequence of changes in work practices, while in others there is the potential for the dominance of recontextualisation processes by market and bureaucratic logics. It is suggested that actors within regions need to find ways to maintain authority over professional knowledge while avoiding the risks of control by bodies ill-equipped to maintain knowledge validity. The analysis provides a lens through which to view developments in the knowledge bases of professional, or professionalising, occupations, and concomitant changes in professional education.


Relict high-pressure granulite-facies assemblages have been discovered in mafic sheets within Neoproterozoic Moine Supergroup psammites of northern Scotland. Minerals and fabrics associated with the main 440–430 Ma Caledonian deformation and metamorphism (D2) overprint these assemblages, which preserve peak pressure-temperature ( P-T ) conditions of 11–12 kbar at 650–700 °C, indicating burial to ∼35 km. The maximum age of the sheets is constrained by the post-Grenvillian ca. 1000 Ma age of the youngest detrital zircons in the host psammites. The high- P assemblage is constrained by the age of anatexis in the psammites at 467 ± 10 Ma. Assembling these data with P-T and chronological data for the D2, D3, and later cooling events, two partial clockwise P-T-t-D (time-deformation) paths emerge, demonstrating that the high- P event is not part of the evolution of the P granulite assemblages are interpreted to be a relict of an earlier, Taconic 470–460 Ma history. This new evidence suggests that the tectonic evolution of the Caledonian nappes east of the Moine thrust is more complex than previously thought.


Microdosimetry is a particularly powerful method to estimate the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of any mixed radiation field. This is particularly convenient for therapeutic heavy ion therapy (HIT) beams, referring to ions larger than protons, where the RBE of the beam can vary significantly along the Bragg curve. Additionally, due to the sharp dose gradients at the end of the Bragg peak (BP), or spread out BP, to make accurate measurements and estimations of the biological properties of a beam a high spatial resolution is required, less than a millimetre. This requirement makes silicon microdosimetry particularly attractive due to the thicknesses of the sensitive volumes commonly being  ∼10 m or less. Monte Carlo (MC) codes are widely used to study the complex mixed HIT radiation field as well as to model the response of novel microdosimeter detectors when irradiated with HIT beams. Therefore it is essential to validate MC codes against experimental measurements. This work compares measurements performed with a silicon microdosimeter in mono-energetic , and ion beams of therapeutic energies, against simulation results calculated with the Geant4 toolkit. Experimental and simulation results were compared in terms of microdosimetric spectra (dose lineal energy, ), the dose mean lineal energy, y D and the RBE10, as estimated by the microdosimetric kinetic model (MKM). Overall Geant4 showed reasonable agreement with experimental measurements. Before the distal edge of the BP, simulation and experiment agreed within  ∼10% for y D and  ∼2% for RBE10. Downstream of the BP less agreement was observed between simulation and experiment, particularly for the and beams. Simulation results downstream of the BP had lower values of y D and RBE10 compared to the experiment due to a higher contribution from lighter fragments compared to heavier fragments.


The SH-1 wildcat well, firstly encountering oil, proved the existence of a working petroleum system in the Tenere Basin, but the origin of oil and its generation history is not fully understood. In this regard, one crude oil and nine Upper Cretaceous source rock samples from the SH-1 wildcat well in the Tenere Basin were characterized by a variety of biomarker parameters and stable carbon isotopic composition. The oil from the Tenere Basin displays a low pristine/phytane (Pr/Ph) ratio, low C29/C30 and C35/C34 hopane ratios, low C22/C21 and high C24/C23 tricyclic terpane ratios, and high gammacerane index (gammacerane/C30 hopane), suggesting shale source rocks deposited under an anoxic and relatively high-salinity environment. Relatively high C29 sterane concentrations, a low value of the regular steranes/17α(H)-hopanes ratio and a canonical variable from stable carbon isotopic composition larger than 0.47 indicate that the oil is mainly derived from terrestrial higher plants. Both aromatic maturity parameters and sterane isomerization parameters suggest that the oil was generated from an early mature source rock. Correlation between oils from the Tenere Basin and those from the Termit Basin confirms that these oils belong to the same genetic family. The oil–source rock correlation suggests that the oil from the Tenere Basin originated from the Upper Cretaceous marine source rocks, and the Yogou Formation can be considered as effective source potential.


The impacts of heat waves in a warming climate depend not only on changing temperatures but also on changing humidity. Using 35 simulations from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble (CESM LENS), we investigate the long‐term evolution of the joint distribution of summer relative humidity (RH) and daily maximum temperature (Tmax) near four U.S. cities (New York City, Chicago, Phoenix, and New Orleans) under the high‐emissions Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5. We estimate the conditional quantiles of RH given Tmax with quantile regression models, using functions of temperature for each city in July for three time periods (1990–2005, 2026–2035, and 2071–2080). Quality‐of‐fit diagnostics indicate that these models accurately estimate conditional quantiles for each city. As expected, each quantile of Tmax increases from 1990–2005 to 2071–2080, while mean RH decreases modestly. Conditional upon a fixed quantile of Tmax, the median and high quantiles of RH decrease, while those of the Heat Index (HI) and dew point both increase. This result suggests that, despite a modest decrease in median relative humidity, heat stress measured by metrics considering both humidity and temperature in a warming climate will increase faster than that measured by temperatures alone would indicate. For a fixed Tmax, the high quantiles of RH (and thus of HI and dew point) increase from 1990–2005 to 2071–2080 in all four cities. This result suggests that the heat stress of a day at a given Tmax will increase in a warming climate due to the increase of RH.


We present an evaluation of the ability of passive broadband geostationary satellite measurements to detect high ice water content (IWC > 1 g m−3) as part of the European High Altitude Ice Crystals (HAIC) project for detection of upper-atmospheric high IWC, which can be a hazard for aviation. We developed a high IWC mask based on measurements of cloud properties using the Cloud Physical Properties (CPP) algorithm applied to the geostationary Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI). Evaluation of the high IWC mask with satellite measurements of active remote sensors of cloud properties (CLOUDSAT/CALIPSO combined in the DARDAR (raDAR–liDAR) product) reveals that the high IWC mask is capable of detecting high IWC values > 1 g m−3 in the DARDAR profiles with a probability of detection of 60–80 %. The best CPP predictors of high IWC were the condensed water path, cloud optical thickness, cloud phase, and cloud top height. The evaluation of the high IWC mask against DARDAR provided indications that the MSG-CPP high IWC mask is more sensitive to cloud ice or cloud water in the upper part of the cloud, which is relevant for aviation purposes. Biases in the CPP results were also identified, in particular a solar zenith angle (SZA) dependence that reduces the performance of the high IWC mask for SZAs > 60. Verification statistics show that for the detection of high IWC a trade-off has to be made between better detection of high IWC scenes and more false detections, i.e., scenes identified by the high IWC mask that do not contain IWC > 1 g m−3. However, the large majority of these detections still contain IWC values between 0.1 and 1 g m−3. Comparison of the high IWC mask against results from the Rapidly Developing Thunderstorm (RDT) algorithm applied to the same geostationary SEVIRI data showed that there are similarities and differences with the high IWC mask: the RDT algorithm is very capable of detecting young/new convective cells and areas, whereas the high IWC mask appears to be better capable of detecting more mature and ageing convection as well as cirrus remnants. The lack of detailed understanding of what causes aviation hazards related to high IWC, as well as the lack of clearly defined user requirements, hampers further tuning of the high IWC mask. Future evaluation of the high IWC mask against field campaign data, as well as obtaining user feedback and user requirements from the aviation industry, should provide more information on the performance of the MSG-CPP high IWC mask and contribute to improving the practical use of the high IWC mask.


ABSTRACT . This study aims to determine the factors that affect the production of the agricultural sector in the Aceh province. Furthermore, these factors can determine the level of production growth in the agricultural sector in the GDP of Aceh can be analyzed properly. The data used in this research is secondary data are time series from 1985 to 2013. The analysis model used is multiple linear regression model (multiple regression) were estimated by Ordinary Least Square method (OLS). The results showed that the variable labor, Domestic Investment (DCI), and the land area and a significant positive effect on the production of the agricultural sector in Aceh province. Based on these results, it is suggested to the government in order to maintain the stability of the economy in the Aceh province to implement a policy that is relevant. Thus, factors that affect for agricultural production growth in GDP at Aceh province could be optimized.


Abstract A series of two-week international workshops was held in Joensuu, Finland during February 2010, in Glasgow, Scotland in February 2011 and again in Nicosia, Cyprus during February 2012. Entitled "Intercultural Innovation Insight Workshop" (3EYES), they were sponsored by the European Lifelong Learning programme. Students from Portugal, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland and the United Kingdom were placed in multi-cultural teams of five. Each team had two product designers, one graphic designer, one financial and one marketing student. They were set the task of devising new product ideas for a local company and they had two weeks within which to do it. These intensive workshops comprised lectures and practical tutorials as well as ideation sessions for the new product ideas and represent one way in which international issues may be appreciated and accommodated. During the first innovation camp the students examined product futures for a fairly large Finnish ceramics company, the Glasgow workshop liaised with a micro-company and during the third 3EYES workshop, the Municipality of Nicosia was helped in its bid to become the European City of Culture 2017. All three events dealt with a completely different clientele: the first was a medium sized company, the second a micro company and the third a Municipal authority. The output of the first two was expected to be a physical product or product idea whereas the third did not need to be a product of any sort. The previous paper, which was delivered in the South African conference last year, compared the first two events and discussed issues of social responsiveness, shared goals and identity. Now that the third (and last) event has taken place, it is time to take stock. We conclude that the students gain greatly from both cultural and functional interaction on a way that cannot be reproduced by means of local teaching. This experience is attitude forming and can transform motivation. It also has the desired effect of increasing the desire to go on Erasmus placements in subsequent years. The perceptions from staff who attended are compared with similar reflections from staff who worked on a different, video conference based, approach. The differences in the financial sustainability of such projects are discussed and the benefits of each model evaluated.


Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition involving involuntary movements and sounds (tics) and is thought to affect as many as 1% of school aged children. Some young people with Tourette syndrome experience educational difficulties and social difficulties. Current clinical guidelines suggest educators can play an important role in maximising learning potential and reducing the negative impact of this condition on students' social adjustment. Secondary school staff (N = 63) with responsibilities for special educational needs or disabilities completed a survey about support strategies for students with Tourette syndrome. Participants were first asked to suggest potentially helpful strategies and then rated how easily 17 recommended strategies could be implemented in school. The survey participants suggested a range of support strategies that were categorised as (1) promoting knowledge and understanding in school, (2) helping the student to cope with his/her tics, (3) supporting the student's learning and (4) providing social and emotional support. All the recommended support strategies were rated as being easy to implement (or already in place) by the majority of respondents (e.g., increasing staff awareness and regular communication with home). The strategies that were identified as being least easy to implement were those requiring extra staff input (support from teaching assistants and individual/small group working). Additional challenges to providing support were also identified by the participants (e.g., getting input from outside agencies).


A fresh take on social class from the experts behind the BBC's 'Great British Class Survey'. Why does social class matter more than ever in Britain today? How has the meaning of class changed? What does this mean for social mobility and inequality? In this book Mike Savage and the team of sociologists responsible for the Great British Class Survey look beyond the labels to explore how and why our society is changing and what this means for the people who find themselves in the margins as well as in the centre. Their new conceptualization of class is based on the distribution of three kinds of capital - economic (inequalities in income and wealth), social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive) - and provides incontrovertible evidence that class is as powerful and relevant today as it's ever been. Mike Savage has written this book in collaboration with the team of sociology experts behind the Gret British Class Survey: Niall Cunningham, Fiona Devine, Sam Friedman, Daniel Laurison, Lisa Mckenzie, Andrew Miles, Helene Snee and Paul Wakeling.


At Edith Cowan University, a Computer Installation and Maintenance (CIM) unit was developed in response to employers' expectations of computer science graduates and the students' need to develop skills in this area. Previous studies have shown that these students typically lack sufficient physics and maths to properly support their learning in the CIM unit. As such, various practical workshop activities began to be trialed that were designed to improve the students' physics and maths skills within a CIM context. These activities range from simple measurements of power plug DC voltages, to observing and measuring the period of clock pulses on an ISA bus and then calculating the frequency and bandwidth. Observations and measurements of the monitor synchronisation pulses also led to calculations. This approach is in line with the general philosophy of the CIM unit where both practical and theoretical exercises help to promote mutual reinforcement. Students are required to use a Cathode Ray Oscilloscope (CRO) to make these observations and measurements. Although almost all students had never used a CRO, they were able to obtain meaningful results after some brief orientation tasks.


The present study analyses the impacts of verbal interactions as well as the team's international diversity on team performance and on team members' satisfaction during a game called the Marshmallow Challenge. Ninety-one students from a business school participated in the game, forming twenty-three teams. The purpose was to construct the highest freestanding structure with 20 sticks of spaghettis and a marshmallow on top. Participants only had eighteen minutes to achieve this goal. The variables were measured through observations and through individual questionnaires. Results show that verbal interactions played a critical role on both performance and satisfaction. Teams where some of the members spoke more than others were more likely to achieve higher performance. Members in these teams were also more satisfied regarding the team outcome. Furthermore, open discussions in teams decreased the members' communication process satisfaction. Finally interesting results appeared in international teams. For instance, the average level of anger and frustration was highest in these teams. This in turn had an impact on personal satisfaction. More specifically, the team's international diversity affected negatively the members' communication process satisfaction. Taken together, these findings show that communication strongly affected performance and satisfaction and it significantly influenced members' willingness to remain in the same team. Despite these observations, the current study presents some limitations that will be discussed and that should be taken into account for further research.


In early 2011, the nation was stunned to watch Wisconsin s state capitol in Madison come under sudden and unexpected occupation by union members and their allies. The protests to defend collective bargaining rights were militant and practically unheard of in this era of declining union power. Nearly forty years of neoliberalism and the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression have battered the labor movement, and workers have been largely complacent in the face of stagnant wages, slashed benefits and services, widening unemployment, and growing inequality. That is, until now. Under pressure from a union-busting governor and his supporters in the legislature, and inspired by the massive uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, workers in Wisconsin shook the nation with their colossal display of solidarity and outrage. Their struggle is still ongoing, but there are lessons to be learned from the Wisconsin revolt. This timely book brings together some of the best labor journalists and scholars in the United States, many of whom were on the ground at the time, to examine the causes and impact of events, and suggest how the labor movement might proceed in this new era of union militancy."


The criminal law has often been seen as central to the rule of the eighteenth-century landed élite in England. This book presents a detailed analysis of the judicial processs of victims' reactions, pretrial practices, policing, magistrates hearings, trials, sentencing, pardoning and punishment using property offenders as its main focus. The period 1740-1820 the final era before the coming of the new police and the repeal of the capital code emerges as the great age of discretionary justice, and the book explores the impact of the vast discretionary powers held by many social groups. It reassesses both the relationship between crime rates and the economic deprivation, and the many ways that vulnerability to prosecution varied widely across the lifecycle, in the light of the highly selective nature of pretrial negotiations. More centrally, by asking at every stage who used the law, for what purposes, in whose interests and with what social effects it opens up a number of new perspectives on the role of the law in eighteenth-century social relations. The law emerges as less the instrument of particular élite groups and more as an arena of struggle, of negotiation, and of compromise. Its rituals were less controllable and its merciful moments less manageable and less exclusively available to the gentry élite than has been previously suggested. Justice was vulnerable to power, but was also mobilised to constrain it. Despite the key functions that the propertied fulfilled, courtroom crowds, the counter-theatre of the condemned, and the decisions of the victims from a very wide range of backgrounds had a role to play, and the criteria on which decisions were based were shaped as much by the broad and more humane discourse which Fielding called the 'good mind' as by the instrumental needs of the propertied élites. Item Type: Book Copyright Holders: 2000 Oxford University Press ISBN: 0-19-822910-0, 978-0-19-822910-0 Academic Unit/School: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) Research Group: International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR) Item ID: 21747 Depositing User: Jean Fone Date Deposited: 11 Jun 2010 09:33 Skip to content Last Modified: 02 May 2018 13:12 URI: http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/21747


This paper discusses an ongoing research-based collaboration between an academic literacies researcher and a lecturer in the field of Social Work aimed at exploring the nature of everyday writing in social work. The paper outlines the key principles of the methodology adopted—a text-oriented ethnography—and discusses the extent to which this methodology is facilitating a collaborative partnership towards meeting three interrelated goals: the empirical goal of building rich descriptions of writing in everyday social work practice; the ideological-epistemological goal of challenging a deficit discourse on writing (and writers); and the interventionist goal of working with institutions to harness writing in productive ways to learning and professional practice. Central to this methodological approach is an attempt to build a three-way conversation between the fields of 'new' literacy studies, in particular academic literacies; the discipline of social work education; and social work agencies/practitioners. We outline the methodology and foreground some key congruencies across these fields which are helping to facilitate successful collaboration.


This report is an appraisal of the compaction currently being achieved in pavement layers constructed with dense coated macadams in the United Kingdom. Cores were removed from 12 newly constructed major roads. Densities of the compacted material were found by direct transmission of gamma rays through cores and also by in-situ use of a gamma-ray back-scatter gauge. Compaction is expressed in terms of density, void content and voids in the mineral aggregate (VMA). The effect of material composition on compaction is considered for all sites and a detailed assessment is made of the effect of laying and compaction procedures in the case of 7 sites where construction was observed. Ninety per cent of the values of void content were in the range from 2 to 8 per cent whereas the corresponding range of values of VMA was considerably narrower, from 13 to 16 per cent. An examination of the rolling procedures indicated that there is scope from increasing the level of compaction in the position of the nearside wheel path. Further cores will be removed 12 months after the roads were opened to determine the extent further densification under traffic. /Author/


This thesis is concerned with stability and existence of waves in interfacial and free surface problems. Considered is the curtain coating problem, with specific emphasis on trilayer and bilayer flows, and the breakup of a viscous thread with a solid core.
Experiments on curtain coating and sheet breakup are mostly conducted by industry and as such are hidden in patents or kept secret by companies trying to gain an edge in a competitive market. Experiments on curtain breakup concentrating on the effect that surfactants have upon the stability and the effect of differing fluid properties are discussed. It is shown that multiple layers of different fluid are more stable when reducing the flow rate of the lowest layer.
Single and multi-layer fluid flow down an inclined plane is studied with the emphasis on the effect of an insoluble surfactant. Bilayer and trilayer flow down an inclined plane is considered. The main point of interest here is the existence of multiple unstable modes for a single set of parameters.
A long wave model describing the multi-layer flow is discussed. Time-dependent solutions to this model system lead to the discovery of travelling wave solutions present in the dynamics.
The travelling wave solutions are further investigated through Fourier analysis leading to the discovery of branches of solutions emerging from wavenumbers for which the flow is neutrally stable.
The normal mode stability of annular Stokes flow of a viscous thread with a solid core is discussed which extends work done for negligible viscosity and small wavenumbers.


Vitamin E is important for ruminants to maintain an optimal immune function, reproduction traits and a high quality of milk and meat. Synthetic vitamin E consists of 87.5% tocopherol molecules with a non-natural configuration and is biological ineffective.
The aim of this project is to study the effects of supplementing the diets with seaweed meal or oil seeds extracts as natural vitamin E sources on the immune system and gastrointestinal microbiota in sheep and their off-springs. Of special interest is the group fed with seaweed meal, since seaweed is an abundant and easy accessible raw material on the Norwegian coastline with a huge economical potential.
The study includes 40 ewes and their future lambs. The animals will be followed from mating until the animals are put out to pasture. The animals were divided in four even groups, with two pens per group. Each group gets a concentrate including the different vitamin E sources. Intestinal microbiota parameters, production of specific antibodies and cell mediated immunity following immunization, production of antibodies against environmental microbes and the immunoglobulin concentration in the mothers and the lambs will be monitored. We will also assess the mitogen induced lymphocyte proliferation and intradermal skintest reaction to both mitogen and antigen in lambs.
The hypothesis is that supplementation with natural vitamin sources improves the immunologic status and the gastrointestinal microbiota composition in sheep.


On November 4, 2009, an Italian court found a group of Italian military intelligence agents, operatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and a U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer guilty of the 2003 kidnapping of terror suspect Abu Omar. Thrown in a van on the streets of Milan, the abduction took Abu Omar from Italy to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured and interrogated about his role in recruiting fighters for extremist Islamic causes, including the insurgency in Iraq. This essay posits that lost amidst politically charged rhetoric about Bush administration impunity and the "war on terror" is that the Italian Court did not have jurisdiction over the USAF officer and violated the human rights of the other U.S. defendants. None of the U.S. defendants were at the proceedings. Although the Italian government refused to forward extradition requests from the Italian prosecutor to the U.S. government, Italian law allows for in absentia trials. Two Americans secured private counsel, the remaining U.S. defendants were solely represented by court-appointed Italian attorneys, none of whom ever spoke with their clients. Regardless of whether what happened to Abu Omar is considered an extraordinary rendition or state enabled kidnapping, the Italian proceedings should provide little comfort to those truly interested in the rule of law and human rights. Rather than supporting the rule of law, the Italian trial blatantly disregarded international law and treaty and the conduct of the in absentia proceedings simply followed one alleged human rights abuse with another. This essay explains how the trial constituted a precedent setting breach by Italy of its international treaty obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Status of Forces Agreement. The essay then details the flawed in absentia trials, flaws which amount to a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ultimately this essay concludes that while Italy may have spoken out against extraordinary rendition, the price for doing so was Italy's own commitment to the rule of law and human rights.


Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of paclobutrazol on shoot and cambial growth of nine tree species located in Indiana and Louisiana, U.S. In Experiment I, white oak (Quercus alba L.) and red oak (Q. rubra L.) in Indiana were treated in April 1995 with paclobutrazol using the soil drench method. In Experiment II, paclobutrazol was applied in April 1996, using the soil injection method, to eight species growing in Indiana: white oak, red oak, sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.), black walnut (Juglans nigra L.), European black alder (Alnus glutinosa L.), yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera L.), white ash (Fraxinus americana L.), and white pine (Pinus strobus L.). In Experiment III, two species, sweetgum and cherrybark oak (Q. falcata var. pagodaefolia L.) in Louisiana, were treated with paclobutrazol by the soil drench method in March 1997. At the end of the 1998 growing season, annual shoot growth and annual xylem ring increment were measured for each of the two to four growing seasons after treatment in the three experiments. The effects of paclobutrazol on cambial growth and annual shoot growth at various positions along the trunk and in the canopy varied with species and treatment duration. Paclobutrazol reduced cambial growth in white oak, red oak, cherrybark oak, sweetgum, European black alder, and white pine with the amount varying among species, vertical location in the tree, and year after treatment.


The second Rayleigh–Sommerfeld (RS) diffraction integral, wherein the normal derivative is specified, is evaluated in simple closed form for all axial points when a divergent or convergent spherical wave is incident upon a circular aperture or disk. These evaluations (solutions) are compared with known corresponding solutions of the first RS diffraction integral. These sets of solutions are intercompared with their mean value, i.e., the derived solutions of the Kirchhoff diffraction integral. The three diffraction formulations are shown to be in agreement for incident divergent spherical waves when the source and observation points are equally distant from the aperture or disk. Conversely, for convergent spherical waves, the three formulations are never in exact agreement for focal and observation points located at finite distances from the aperture, though at optical frequencies the relative error at the geometric focal point is vanishingly small. The second RS formulation predicts, in the limit of plane waves incident on a disk, that the axial irradiance is everywhere equal to the incident irradiance, whereas the first RS formulation predicts that the irradiance goes to zero at the back of the disk.


Adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) fall short of social outcomes of non‐ASD peers in mid‐life, as documented by currently published research. The aim of the current study was to extend what is known about social functioning, employment, independent living, and use of social services by examining details of the current life status for a population‐based sample of adults with ASD (mean age = 35.5 years, range = 22.2–51.4). We collected outcome data via direct assessment and informant report for 169 individuals. Three‐fourths of the sample had cognitive abilities in the intellectually disabled range. Social functioning outcomes, as a single measure, mirror those reported previously for other samples, including samples with a high proportion of individuals with normal range intellectual abilities, with 20% achieving the most independent outcomes and 46% requiring high levels of support across most life areas. Participant subgroups who achieved maximal outcomes represented a range of social and intellectual abilities for several outcome metrics. Participants used high levels of public and private supports, yet specific areas of clear, unmet need were also identified. Autism Res 2018, 11: 142–152. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Abstract. B/Ca ratios in Cibicides mundulus and Cibicides wuellerstorfi have been shown to correlate with the degree of calcite saturation in seawater (Δ[CO 3 2− ]). In the South Pacific, a region of high importance in the global carbon cycle, these species are not continuously present in down-core records. Small numbers of epibenthic foraminifera in samples present an additional challenge, which can be overcome by using laser ablation-inductively coupled-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). We present a laser ablation based core-top calibration for Cibicides cf. wuellerstorfi , a C. wuellerstorfi morphotype that is abundant in the South Pacific and extend the existing global core top calibration for C. mundulus and C. wuellerstorfi to this region. B/Ca in C. cf. wuellerstorfi are linearly correlated with Δ[CO 3 2− ] and possibly display a higher sensitivity to calcite saturation changes than C. wuellerstorfi . Trace element profiles through C. wuellerstorfi and C. mundulus reveal an intra-shell B/Ca variation of ±36% around the mean shell value. Mg/Ca and B/Ca display opposite trends along the shell. Both phenomena likely result from ontogenetic effects. Intra-shell variability equals intra-sample variability, mean sample B/Ca values can thus be reliably calculated from averaged spot results of single specimen. In the global B/Ca–Δ[CO 3 2− ] range, we observe an inverse relationship between water mass age and Δ[CO 3 2− ].


Abstract Honey, which has been used as an ancient remedy for infected wounds, has been shown in laboratory studies to have antimicrobial action against a spectrum of bacteria and fungi. Because very little quantitative information exists on the microbiota of honey, the aim of this study was to quantify the Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Gammaproteobacteria groups in samples of honeydew honey and blossom honey from six regions in the Czech Republic, using quantitative real-time PCR analysis with specific primers based on the 16S rRNA gene. Gammaproteobacteria and Firmicutes were clearly the most abundant, predominating Actinobacteria in both types of honey. Most of the Firmicutes were detected in samples from South Bohemia (mean gene copies per 1 g honey: 5.6 × 105) and Ústí nad Labem Region (3.7 × 105), which contained the lowest number of Gammaproteobacteria (15.5 × 103). The Actinobacteria were prevalent in samples from Plzeň (4.3 × 103) and Central Bohemia (5.4 × 103), where conversely the Firmicutes were least abundant. Honey thus contains bacterial species with probiotic activity and oligosaccharides which can act as prebiotics, suggesting that its incorporation into the human diet may potentially impart significant health benefits to consumers compared with 'empty calories' consumed as refined sugar.


To improve the resilience of distributed training to worst-case, or Byzantine node failures, several recent approaches have replaced gradient averaging with robust aggregation methods. Such techniques can have high computational costs, often quadratic in the number of compute nodes, and only have limited robustness guarantees. Other methods have instead used redundancy to guarantee robustness, but can only tolerate limited number of Byzantine failures. In this work, we present DETOX, a Byzantine-resilient distributed training framework that combines algorithmic redundancy with robust aggregation. DETOX operates in two steps, a filtering step that uses limited redundancy to significantly reduce the effect of Byzantine nodes, and a hierarchical aggregation step that can be used in tandem with any state-of-the-art robust aggregation method. We show theoretically that this leads to a substantial increase in robustness, and has a per iteration runtime that can be nearly linear in the number of compute nodes. We provide extensive experiments over real distributed setups across a variety of large-scale machine learning tasks, showing that DETOX leads to orders of magnitude accuracy and speedup improvements over many state-of-the-art Byzantine-resilient approaches.


We present a non perturbative study of SU(2) gauge theory with two fundamental Dirac flavours. This theory provides a minimal template which is ideal for a wide class of Standard Model extensions featuring novel strong dynamics, such as a minimal realization of composite Higgs models. We present an update on the status of the meson spectrum and decay constants based on increased statistics on our existing ensembles and the inclusion of new ensembles with lighter pion masses, resulting in a more reliable chiral extrapolation.


This paper explores the concepts of organizational knowledge and intelligence from the perspective of new systems theory. It draws particularly on Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems, George Spencer-Brown's calculus of distinctions, and Dirk Baecker's applications of the two to questions of management. According to this view, knowledge can be conceptualized as a structure that determines the way in which information is dealt with. In other words, knowledge is a structure that determines whether a difference makes a difference and, if so, what difference it makes. Knowledge thus means selection; and selection implies contingency — one could have selected differently. The selectivity of knowledge, however, remains latent. That, and what knowledge excludes, is not included in the knowledge. Knowledge, thus, inevitably implies nonknowledge as its other, or "dark," side. Intelligence can be conceptualized in relation to knowledge. It can be understood as the ability to deal with the other side of knowledge — to deal with nonknowledge. According to this view, an organization is intelligent to the extent that it is aware of its nonknowledge and takes account of this nonknowledge in its operations. In terms of Spencer-Brown's theory, intelligence appears as the re-entry of nonknowledge into knowledge. Three examples of forms of organizational intelligence are presented in this paper: inter-organizational networks, heterarchy, and organizational interaction.


Chios, one of the largest islands in the Eastern Mediterranean, became internationally known during the 13th century due to the production of the Chios mastic in twenty one villages on the south, the resin of the mastic tree ( Pistacia lentiscus L. var. chia (Desf. ex Poiret) DC.), to which many beneficial properties and uses had already been attributed in the antiquity. The international demand for mastic led the various conquerors of Chios to prohibit free trade and lay down a system for monopoly distribution. After the island was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1566, following a period of almost two centuries of Genoan rule (1346 to 1566), the valuable product of Chios Mastic constitutes one of the monopolies of the Ottoman State.  The present article aims firstly to present the botanical aspect of Chios Mastic, the mastic tree ( P. lentiscus var chia ), as well as the cultivation and harvesting methods of the produce. Secondly, by investigating the historical sources it aims to present the geography of the mastic trade in the East and West from the 17th through to the 19th century, while at the same time analyzing the monopoly trade system established by the Ottoman State. Thirdly, it analyzes the international demand for the Chios mastic during this same period in the international markets, focussing on the beneficial qualities attributed to it. Finally, it examines the validity of the information published in geographical and traveller's journals during the period in question, evaluating the conclusions of the relevant modern scientific research.  This article is based mainly on studying sources such as geographical and traveller's manuscripts dated back from the 17th until the 19th century, which are kept in the " Korais " Central Public Historical Library, as well as other historical sources examining the period in question.


&NA; Assessment and intervention issues in recurrent pediatric headache are discussed. A broad overview of diagnostic and etiological issues is presented, with consideration of the application of functional models to recurrent headache patterns. Behavioral treatment outcome research is reviewed, and pharmacotherapy approaches are briefly addressed. Recommendations are made for clinical practice, and future research priorities in the area of recurrent pediatric headache are underscored.


Background: Injury and death from the passage of electric current through the body is common in both industrial and domestic circumstances. The study has been carried out to find out the incidence of electrocution deaths in Manipur and also to detect the common source of electrocution, and study the pattern of injuries sustained by the victims. Materials and Methods: In this study, medicolegal reports of electrocution cases brought for autopsy during 2007 to 2011 at our centre have been analyzed as regards the history of the cases, police papers, and post-mortem examination findings. The findings were recorded in proformas and analyzed. Results: Twenty five cases (1.02%) were electrocution deaths and males outnumbered females. The highest number of cases was observed in the age group of 21-30 years followed by 31-40 years. Most of the victims were electrocuted on the road side (68%) and the remaining victims were electrocuted in their houses. The most common causative agent was the high tension wire (60%) followed by the home appliances (28%). 80% of the cases died on the spot and the majority of these victims were electrocuted by the high tension wires. All the electrocution deaths in the present series were accidental cases and no homicidal or suicidal cases were observed. Conclusion: The risk of getting electrocuted from the haphazardly installed electric wires without proper maintenance in most parts of this place is indeed a matter of concern. The spread of awareness and adoption of safety measures are important factors required for prevention of fatal electrocution.


The present study attempts to establish a new framework to speculate customer lifetime value by a stochastic approach. In this research the customer lifetime value is considered as combination of customer's present and future value. At first step of our desired model, it is essential to define customer groups based on their behavior similarities, and in second step a mechanism to count current value, and at the end estimate the future value of customers. Having a structure in modeling customer churn is also important to have complete customer lifetime value computation. Clustering as one of data mining techniques is practiced to help us analyze the different groups of customers, and extract mathematical model to count the customers value. Thereafter by using Markov chain model as stochastic approach, we predict future behavior of the customer and as a result, estimate future value of different customers. The proposed model is demonstrated by the customer demographic data and historical transaction data in a composite manufacturing company in Iran.


Given the important role of voltage-gated sodium (NaV) channel-modulating spider toxins in elucidating the function, pharmacology, and mechanism of action of therapeutically relevant NaV channels, we screened the venom from Australian theraphosid species against the human pain target hNaV1.7. Using assay-guided fractionation, we isolated a 33-residue inhibitor cystine knot (ICK) peptide (Ssp1a) belonging to the NaSpTx1 family. Recombinant Ssp1a (rSsp1a) inhibited neuronal hNaV subtypes with a rank order of potency hNaV1.7 > 1.6 > 1.2 > 1.3 > 1.1. rSsp1a inhibited hNaV1.7, hNaV1.2 and hNaV1.3 without significantly altering the voltage-dependence of activation, inactivation, or delay in recovery from inactivation. However, rSsp1a demonstrated voltage-dependent inhibition at hNaV1.7 and rSsp1a-bound hNaV1.7 opened at extreme depolarizations, suggesting rSsp1a likely interacted with voltage-sensing domain II (VSD II) of hNaV1.7 to trap the channel in its resting state. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed key structural features of Ssp1a, including an amphipathic surface with hydrophobic and charged patches shown by docking studies to comprise the interacting surface. This study provides the basis for future structure-function studies to guide the development of subtype selective inhibitors.


We proposed a model to investigate the transient diffusion of drug (sulphate) into the intervertebral disc. Using finite element method, drug diffusion was simulated and the concentration of diffused drug in each region of disc including Nucleus pulpous (NP), Inner annulus fibroses (IA), and Outer annulus fibroses (OA) was measured. In addition, to investigate the role of CEP permeability on the amount of diffused drug, model was simulated with different cartilage endplate (CEP) permeability. Having obtained concentration distribution for different cases, it was clearly shown that the amount of diffused drug is affected by the endplate permeability and the more permeable CEP, the more diffused drug into the disc specifically at the center of the disc.


Empirical work regarding Intertemporal Current Account (ICA) models has centered around two distinct testing methodologies, present value tests and a productivity shock approach as formulated in Glick and Rogoff (1995). In previous work, Gruber (2001), I have tested an ICA model that allows for habits in aggregate consumption via the present value method. This paper applies the alternative Glick and Rogoff style approach to testing the model. The benefits of doing such are an ability to separate country-specific from worldwide output changes, a distinction of considerable importance, as well as to impose restrictions on the relationship between investment and output, neither of which are possible in the present value framework. The results of the test are supportive of the existence of habits and coincide with the results of Gruber (2001). The degree of habit persistence implied by the model is estimated for the G-7 countries. The paper also proposes habit formation as a possible solution to an empirical puzzle identified in the original Glick and Rogoff paper.


Social emotional development has been found to be a key component in a child's developmental trajectory, as it supports many developmental domains. Low-income children often enter school having experienced low social emotional support due to the many external barriers that often challenge their families' ability to foster positive social emotional development. The present literature has made it clear that there is an association between a child's social emotional trajectory, family functioning, and parent-child interactions. Further, home-based intervention and prevention in early childhood is effective in promoting social emotional development. This investigation aims to assess the efforts of a particular Early Head Start program's long-term goal to document and highlight the fostering of social emotional development within their home visiting program. An innovative method of highlighting home visitor planning and execution of social emotional activities and experiences for children and their families was implemented in their routine home visitor documentation form. Overall, it was found that the innovative documentation significantly increased the utilization of social emotional curriculum, activities, and materials.


Recent spiking network models of Bayesian inference and unsupervised learning frequently assume either inputs to arrive in a special format or employ complex computations in neuronal activation functions and synaptic plasticity rules. Here we show in a rigorous mathematical treatment how homeostatic processes, which have previously received little attention in this context, can overcome common theoretical limitations and facilitate the neural implementation and performance of existing models. In particular, we show that homeostatic plasticity can be understood as the enforcement of a 'balancing' posterior constraint during probabilistic inference and learning with Expectation Maximization. We link homeostatic dynamics to the theory of variational inference, and show that nontrivial terms, which typically appear during probabilistic inference in a large class of models, drop out. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach in a spiking Winner-Take-All architecture of Bayesian inference and learning. Finally, we sketch how the mathematical framework can be extended to richer recurrent network architectures. Altogether, our theory provides a novel perspective on the interplay of homeostatic processes and synaptic plasticity in cortical microcircuits, and points to an essential role of homeostasis during inference and learning in spiking networks.


Turkey's dramatically low female Labor Force Participation (LFP) rate of 30 percent is a salient challenge, particularly considering the increase of female LFP rates at both the EU and OECD level. However, women's LFP is a complex issue as it ensues from a combination of economic, cultural, and social factors. Considering the interplay between the labor market and social policies, this article examines Turkey's welfare state, focusing on the country's family policies and social security system.


Some high-risk prisoners on parole "beat the odds": remaining in the community through their first year without incurring even minor reconvictions. What makes the difference? We investigated three potential mechanisms for postrelease survival—lower dynamic risk, greater readiness for parole, and earlier and longer parole oversight—in two samples: 120 men who had completed 8 to 12 months in an intensive treatment unit for high-risk prisoners, and 151 comparison prisoners who had received less or no treatment. Based on structural equation modeling, results indicated that treatment status (completer or comparison), and readiness for release each directly predicted when and for how long a prisoner would be on parole, which in turn predicted reconviction. Significant indirect pathways indicated that lower dynamic risk, better release readiness, and longer/earlier parole oversight all contributed to the lower rates of reconviction in high-risk prisoners, whether treated or not.


Several indicators suggest that older persons have been accepted as one of the special populations in u.s. society with whom counselors may appropriately work and for whom counselors need special preparation. Various approaches to providing such preparation are identified, including the integrated, separate course, concentration, and interdisciplinary models. Advantages and limitations of each model are, discussed. The basic competencies described in the ,1ccreditation Manual of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (1982) are proposed as an appropriate guide for the content of gerontological counseling curricula. Examples of how gerontological counseling topics can relate to the basic competencies are provided.


Abstract Large mammals often play critical roles within ecosystems by affecting either prey populations or the structure and species composition of surrounding vegetation. However, large mammals are highly vulnerable to extirpation by humans and consequently, severe contractions of species ranges result in intact large mammal faunas becoming increasingly rare. We compared historical (AD 1500) range maps of large mammals with their current distributions to determine which areas today retain complete assemblages of large mammals. We estimate that less than 21% of the earth's terrestrial surface still contains all of the large (>20 kg) mammals it once held, with the proportion varying between 68% in Australasia to only 1% in Indomalaya. Although the presence of large mammals offers no guarantee of the presence of all smaller animals, their absence represents an ecologically based measurement of human impacts on biodiversity. Given the ecological importance of large mammals and their vulnerability to extinction, better protection and extension of sites containing complete assemblages of large mammals is urgently needed.


Lipopolysaccharide is a component of the cell membrane of Gram negative bacteria and is a pro-inflammatory substance; small amounts present in the blood can be fatal to mammals. Scavenging of lipopolysaccharide from plasma has been attempted previously but the use of molecularly imprinted polymers for this purpose has not been described before. This preliminary study utilized a single lipopolysaccharide type to investigate scavenging by molecular polymers and used Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF) to detect such scavenging. Commercially available LPS from E. coli O111:B4 was subjected to MALDI-TOF analysis to detect LPS profiles in solutions containing pure LPS or solutions that had been exposed to imprinted and non-imprinted polymers with scavenging potential. The current research suggests potential for molecularly imprinted polymers to be used as scavengers of LPS, although the imprinting protocols need optimization. MALDI-TOF is a suitable method for detection of LPS profiles and LPS elimination from samples.


This paper presents a deflectometric technique to measure the power of an ophthalmic lens as perceived by the user. It is based on a calibrated camera acting as a pinhole in order to measure ray deflection along the same path as the visual axis when the lens is held in front of the eye. We have analyzed numerically the accuracy of our technique, and it has been compared experimentally with a commercial "lens mapper" and with the real user power calculated from the measured topography of the lens surfaces to state the reliability and accuracy of the presented technique.


There is much debate in the linguistic literature about what mechanisms are responsible for accessing, implementing, and restricting grammatical competition. Building on this line of research, this article explores competition between plural and singular marking in Western Armenian, a language where grammatical competition results in a restricted interpretation of singular nouns. Of interest to competition theories in general, this restriction only occurs in certain grammatical environments: namely, definite NPs. As argued here, an adequate treatment of these facts requires comparing utterances in terms of their syntactic complexity (as Katzir (2007) proposes).


ABSTRACT The principles of social inclusion have been embraced by institutions across the higher education sector but their translation into practice through pedagogy is not readily apparent. This paper examines perceptions of social inclusion and inclusive pedagogies held by academic staff at an Australian university. Of specific interest were the perceptions of teaching staff with regard to diverse student populations, particularly students from low socio-economic (LSES) backgrounds, given the institution's reasonably high proportion of LSES student enrolment (14%). A mixed-method approach was utilised: (i) in-depth interviews with a representative sample of academic staff and (ii) an online survey targeting all academic staff across the institution. The results point to the dual responsibilities of students and institutions in enacting inclusivity in order to move beyond reductive standpoints that simply apportion blame.


Using three meteorological reanalyses and three outgoing long-wave radiation (OLR) datasets, we show that the Hadley circulation has a significant expansion of about 2 to 4.5 degrees of latitude since 1979. The three reanalyses all indicate that the poleward expansion of the Hadley circulation in each hemisphere occurs during its summer and fall seasons. Results from the OLR datasets do not have such seasonality. The expansion of the Hadley circulation implies a poleward expansion of the band of subtropical subsidence, leading to enhanced mid-latitude tropospheric warming and poleward shifts of the subtropical dry zone. This would contribute to an increased frequency of midlatitude droughts in both hemispheres.


The study, which was conducted in Turkish Banks between 2002-206, has three main objectives: (i) to examine the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of deposit banks operating in Turkey, (ii) to compare the productivity changes of banks that listed and non-listed listed on the stock exchange, and (iii) to evaluate the relationship between the change in productivity and shareholder returns of the listed banks. In this way, the hypothesis that "the shareholder returns of banks with increased productivity also increase" will be tested. In line with the stated objectives, the productivity change of 22 banks between examined period was measured by using the Malmquist TFP index. There was no significant difference between the productivity changes of the listed and non - listed banks. Then, for the period 2007-2016, the shareholder returns and productivity changes of 10 banks listed in the stock exchange were calculated. While there was no significant relationship between total factor productivity and shareholder returns, it was observed that the change in technical efficiency had a positive and significant effect on it. However, regression analyzes were repeated using control variables (market return, book value/market value, return on assets) to test this relationship. After repeated regression analysis, it was concluded that the relationship is disappeared.


The institutional changes that have resulted from China's rapid transformation from a closed communist society to a more open, market-driven society are both impressive and daunting. A hundred years from now, people will look back to try to understand and fully appreciate the impact of the major structural, societal level transformations, not only on China itself but on the larger community both in Asia and other parts in the world. Among the many positive developments that have occurred in the past 1 5 years, including increased foreign investment, economic opportunities, and individual wealth (among others), there has emerged a new set of challenges that many communities and families are experiencing. One such challenge is the recent and rapid rise of crime and delinquency over many parts of Chinese society. Rapid increases in crime and delinquency across China have the potential not only to destabilize families but also to influence levels of social cohesion as well as responses by the juvenile and criminal justices systems. Thus, it is important for social scientists (and others) to work toward better understanding how social, structural, economic, and cultural changes in China are fostering negative outcomes, such as crime and delinquency, and the authors of "Social Change, Life Strain, and Delinquency among Chinese Urban Adolescents" have done an admirable job in examining and applying Robert Agnews general strain theory (1992, 2001) to this task. Agnew's theory provides a highly effective model for understanding how the major macro- and microtransformations of Chinese society are impacting upon the production of delinquency across communities. It is particularly important to fully understand both the range and the depth of the nature of strain that Chinese families and institutions are experiencing. The authors of this paper correctly note that the impact of very salient sources of strain involving economic conditions, especially the role of poverty and increased competition, have placed significant pressure on Chinese families, which is magnified by an increasing cultural emphasis on success. Thus, the nature of economic strain that many Chinese families are experiencing is highly complex, involving not only the impact of diminished financial resources but also the cultural pressure to succeed - in a highly competitive society and in a cultural context whereby parents and extended families are tremendously invested in their children. This potent mix of pressures and strain has consequences for delinquency production. Thus, family functioning and the provision of familial support in modern China are being influenced by a host of economic pressures. The authors of this paper note the increasing role of the one-child policy on creating pressure on families to invest significantly in the success of their only child, but this cultural expectation is affected by the harsh reality of market forces in a highly competitive environment that incorporates the school systems and the employment markets. Part of the significance of this article rests with describing and applying the major transformations of Chinese society and their various consequences for delinquency generation, as well as in understanding the nature of macrolevel changes in Chinese society and their impact on microprocesses, which fostet strain and facilitate delinquency production. Chinese society is experiencing major changes and the authors have done a commendable job illustrating how Agnew's theory of general strain can be useful in understanding the unique strains currently operating in China, as well as take account of why and how some of the mediating processes may be operating. Moreover, the authors usefully describe and illustrate some of the conditioning influences that can magnify the impact of strain on delinquency as well as some of the traditional coping responses. In doing so, the authors have recognized that traditional forms of coping the strict moral code of Chinese society, the emphasis on collective well-being, and the importance of honor, particularly honor within one's family - have been eroded by the massive economic transformations. …


We report hints for the correlation between the X-ray and $\gamma$-ray emission in the nearby galaxy NGC 4945, which harbors both an active galactic nucleus and a nuclear starburst region. We have divided the Fermi/LAT observations of NGC 4945 into two datasets, comprising events detected during the low (L) and high (H) level of X-ray emission from the active nucleus of this galaxy, determined using the Swift/BAT light curve. Both datasets contain an equal amount of 3.8 years of LAT data and NGC 4945 is detected with a similar statistical significance of $\sim 15 \sigma$ in L and $14 \sigma$ in H. However, the slope of the $\gamma$-ray spectrum hardens with the increase of the X-ray flux, with the photon index $\Gamma = 2.47 \pm 0.07$ in L and $2.11 \pm 0.08$ in H. The change is confirmed by a systematic variation of the spectral energy distribution as well as a substantial reversal of the $\gamma$-ray signal in significance maps for low and high $\gamma$-ray energies. The X/$\gamma$-ray correlation indicates that the $\gamma$-ray production is dominated by the active nucleus rather than by cosmic rays interacting with the interstellar medium. We discuss possible locations of the $\gamma$-ray source. We also compare NGC 4945 with other starburst galaxies detected by LAT and we note similarities between those with active nuclei, e.g. unlikely high efficiencies of $\gamma$-ray production in starburst scenario, which argues for a significant contribution of their active nuclei to the $\gamma$-ray emission.


A novel approach to shadow detection is presented. The method is based on the use of invariant color models to identify and to classify shadows in digital images. The procedure is divided into two levels: first, shadow candidate regions are extracted; then, by using the invariant color features, shadow candidate pixels are classified as self shadow points or as cast shadow points. The use of invariant color features allows a low complexity of the classification stage. Experimental results show that the method succeeds in detecting and classifying shadows within the environmental constrains assumed as hypotheses, which are less restrictive than state-of-the-art methods with respect to illumination conditions and the scene's layout.


We investigate the relationship of perceived distances to judged similarities between document points in various types of spatialized displays. Our findings suggest that the distance–similarity relationship is not as self‐evident to viewers as is commonly assumed in the information visualization literature. We further investigate how participants interpret instructions to judge distances when those instructions do or do not specify the type of distance. We find that in all types of spatialization displays, there is no significant difference between default and direct judgements of distance; people clearly interpret default distance instructions to refer to direct (straight‐line) distance. These findings provide direct evidence on the conditions under which people employ distance when assessing similarity between data objects in various types of spatialized views and, when they do, which type of distance. They also give insight into how people explore the similarity of geographic features depicted in cartographic maps or GIS displays.


The human copper (Cu) chaperone Atox1 delivers Cu to P1B type ATPases in the Golgi network, for incorporation into essential Cu-dependent enzymes. Atox1 homologs are found in most organisms; it is a 68-residue ferredoxin-fold protein that binds Cu in a conserved surface-exposed Cys-X-X-Cys (CXXC) motif. In addition to its well-documented cytoplasmic chaperone function, in 2008 Atox1 was suggested to have functionality in the nucleus. To identify new interactions partners of Atox1, we performed a yeast two-hybrid screen with a large human placenta library of cDNA fragments using Atox1 as bait. Among 98 million fragments investigated, 25 proteins were found to be confident interaction partners. Nine of these were uncharacterized proteins, and the remaining 16 proteins were analyzed by bioinformatics with respect to cell localization, tissue distribution, function, sequence motifs, three-dimensional structures and interaction networks. Several of the hits were eukaryotic-specific proteins interacting with DNA or RNA implying that Atox1 may act as a modulator of gene regulation. Notably, because many of the identified proteins contain CXXC motifs, similarly to the Cu transport reactions, interactions between these and Atox1 may be mediated by Cu.


The purpose of the study was to investigate conflicts in the perceptions of band directors, band parents, band students, and selected school personnel regarding the role and scope of their respective band programs. The problems were to examine the relationships among these four groups in terms of selective perception, perceptual constancy, and polarization. Questionnaires were developed in order to survey the senior public high schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In addition to demographic data, the questionnaires included perceptions about public performances, marching, concert, and jazz bands; contests and festivals; and other band related activities which might be desirable in a band program. The questionnaires concluded with opportunities for open-ended comments and suggestions about the survey instrument and the band program. Statistical computations included one-way analysis of variance, chi-square test, frequency counts, and cross-tabulations. Qualitative analyses and reports of interviews helped to clarify and interpret all statistical findings.


Micro RNAs (miRNAs) regulate the expression of target genes posttranscriptionally by pairing incompletely with mRNA in a sequence-specific manner. About 30% of human genes are regulated by miRNAs, and a single miRNA is capable of reducing the production of hundreds of proteins by means of incomplete pairing upon miRNA–mRNA binding. Lately, evidence implicating miRNAs in the development of lung cancers has been emerging. In particular, miR-19a, which is highly expressed in malignant lung cancer cells, is considered the key miRNA for tumorigenesis. However, its direct targets remain underreported. In the present study, we focused on six potential miR-19a target genes selected by miRNA target prediction software. To evaluate these genes as direct miR-19a target genes, we performed luciferase, pull-down, and western blot assays. The luciferase activity of plasmids with each miR-19a–binding site was observed to decrease, while increased luciferase activity was observed in the presence of anti-miR-19a locked nucleic acid (LNA). The pull-down assay showed biotinylated miR-19a to bind to AGO2 protein and to four of six potential target mRNAs. Western blot analysis showed that the expression levels of the four genes changed depending on treatment with miR-19a mimic or anti-miR-19a-LNA. Finally, FOXP1, TP53INP1, TNFAIP3, and TUSC2 were identified as miR-19a targets. To examine the function of these four target genes in lung cancer cells, LK79 (which has high miR-19a expression) and A549 (which has low miR-19a expression) were used. The expression of the four target proteins was higher in A549 than in LK79 cells. The four miR-19a target cDNA expression vectors suppressed cell viability, colony formation, migration, and invasion of A549 and LK79 cells, but LK79 cells transfected with FOXP1 and TP53INP1 cDNAs showed no difference compared to the control cells in the invasion assay.


This engaging book contains a set of original contributions to the much-debated issues of long-run economic growth in relation to institutional and social progress.


As many buying decision are made in retail stores, it is interesting to investigate which factors, such as noise, lighting, music, colour, layout or visual communication have a significant influence on customers' behaviour in a supermarket. Since only a few studies have been conducted among customers in Sweden, this paper examined their behaviour in the supermarket. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the various environmental factors in the supermarket as well as how the perceived servicescape influences customers' behaviour in the store. The research approach used was that of a single case study, based on survey instrument (personal interviews and electronic collection) in order to collect data on facets in regards to the perceived servicescape and customers' behaviour in the supermarket. A supermarket chain – the ICA group, precisely ICA MAXI in Jonkoping was used for this purpose. The collected data was analysed with the means of factor analysis and multiple regression methods in order to obtain factors that can influence customers' behaviour in the supermarket. The conducted study showed that lighting, noise, colours, signs and symbols as well as space/function conditions such as layout and equipment are the factors that create emotionally pleasant environment in the supermarket. Thus, these factors influence customers' moods, attitudes or certain beliefs about the supermarket. Moreover, customers may feel happier, more satisfied or relaxed in the supermarket, which lead to arousal – stimulation or excitement. Furthermore, the environmental factors explain the approach behaviour such as exploring the supermarket, spending more time on browsing the products which, consequently, refer to an increased number of items bought.


The interactions between Late Quaternary volcanic and sedimentary processes in the Naples Bay, Southern Tyrrhenian sea, are here discussed through the results of the marine geological survey at the scale 1:25.000. The example of the geological map n. 465 "Isola di Procida", herein presented, has put in evidence the stratigraphy of marine Quaternary deposits and related volcanic seismic units. The volcanic deposits cropping out in the Procida island have been explained as the result of eruptions of local eruptive centres. The geological survey carried out onshore indicates the occurrence of several pyroclastic units linked to the eruptive activity of the Ischian and Phlegrean volcanic complexes, interstratified with the products erupted by local volcanic centres. The occurrence in the pyroclastic sequences of Ischia and Procida islands of several marker horizons and their stratigraphic correlations have allowed to reconstruct the volcanological evolution of the two islands and the interactions with sedimentary processes at the scale of the whole Tyrrhenian margin. Four geological maps at the scale 1:25.000 covering the whole Naples Bay have been reconstructed based on the interpretation of marine geological and geophysical data. The stratigraphic relationships between the seismic units and the eruptive deposits have testified the activity of several monogenetic volcanic centers, whose products are interstratified with marine and continental deposits of the Late Quaternary depositional sequence.


Tor is a network designed for low-latency anonymous communications. Tor clients form circuits through relays that are listed in a public directory, and then relay their encrypted traffic through these circuits. This indirection makes it difficult for a local adversary to determine with whom a particular Tor user is communicating. Tor may also be used to circumvent regional Internet censorship, since the final hop of a user's connection can be in a different country. In response, some local adversaries restrict access to Tor by blocking each of the publicly listed relays. To deal with such an adversary, Tor uses bridges, which are unlisted relays that can be used as alternative entry points into the Tor network. Unfortunately, issues with Tor's bridge implementation make it easy to discover large numbers of bridges. This makes bridges easy to block. Also, an adversary that hoards this information may use it to determine when each bridge is online over time. If a bridge operator also browses with Tor on the same machine, this information may be sufficient to deanonymize him. We present BridgeSPA as a method to mitigate these issues. A client using BridgeSPA relies on innocuous single packet authorization (SPA) to present a time-limited key to a bridge. Before this authorization takes place, the bridge will not reveal whether it is online. We have implemented BridgeSPA as a working proof-ofconcept for GNU/Linux systems. The implementation is available under a free licence. We have integrated our implementation to work in an OpenWRT environment. This enables BridgeSPA support for any client behind a deployed BridgeSPA OpenWRT router, no matter which operating system they are running.


Food waste has become a major issue, adding to environmental degradation, economic impoverishment and social tensions around the world. This article examines what is currently known in the literature about why food waste occurs at the household level. After reviewing what is known about the relevant demographic characteristics and broad behavioural drivers, these findings are applied to examine the potential causes of, and solutions to, household food waste in Australia. This research suggests that high levels of food waste may emerge from the interaction of activities associated with planning, shopping, storage, preparation and consumption of food. The literature also indicates the significance of behavioural drivers such as: lack of awareness; lack of negative economic impact; high quality standards; insufficient purchase planning; over-purchasing and cooking; lack of kitchen skills; high sensitivity to food safety; and changing meal plans. Although many of the findings presented have emerged from studies across numerous cultural and economic contexts, and are therefore necessarily general, they provide a valuable indication of some common drivers of household food waste. As such, this article provides a basis for the development of other more context specific investigations and interventions into the prevention of household food waste. PEARSON, MINEHAN AND WAKEFIELD-RANN—FOOD WASTE IN AUSTRALIAN HOUSEHOLDS Locale: The Australasian-Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies Number 3, 2013 —119—


Three-quarters of medical schools in the United States report associations with operational student-run free clinics (SRFCs), but less than half report student pharmacist involvement. Addition of student pharmacists to the SRFC environment advances inter-professional team models and allows for more comprehensive medication management for underserved populations. Here we describe student pharmacist involvement in implementing a new SRFC, the roles that student pharmacists continue to serve in administrative and clinical patient care activities, impact on inter-professional opinions of the pharmacy profession, and areas of future growth with pharmacy involvement in a SRFC. The implementation process revealed that when student pharmacists are given opportunities to lead in both traditional and non-traditional pharmacy roles, they are critical to the success of establishing and running a SRFC and impact other healthcare professionals' opinions on the value of the pharmacy profession. Pharmacy students working to their full potential within their scope of practice on an inter-professional team can allow other professions to maximize their own skills and improve medication management. Pharmacy students' abilities to thrive in both traditional and non-traditional pharmacy roles and work together with inter-professional students should be capitalized on by those who are implementing similar community health initiatives or projects such as a SRFC.


OBJECTIVE Spinal epidural arteriovenous fistulas (SEDAVFs) constitute a rare but treatable cause of vascular myelopathy and are a different subtype from the more common Type I spinal dural AVFs. The purpose of this study was to review a consecutive series of SEDAVFs from a single institution and report on the clinical presentations, functional status, and treatment outcomes. METHODS The authors identified all SEDAVFs treated at their institution from 2005 to 2015. SEDAVFs were defined as spinal AVFs in which the fistulous connection occurred in the epidural venous plexus. The clinical presentation, functional status, immediate treatment outcomes, and long-term neurological outcomes were analyzed. RESULTS Twenty-four patients with SEDAVFs were included in this study. The patients' mean age at presentation was 66.9 years. The most common presenting symptoms were pain and numbness (22 patients, 91.7%), followed by lower-extremity weakness (21 patients, 87.5%). The mean duration of symptoms prior to diagnosis was 11.8 months. Eighteen patients (75.0%) were treated with endovascular therapy alone, 4 (16.7) with surgery, and 2 (8.3%) with a combination of techniques. There was 1 major treatment-related complication (4.2%). Fifteen patients (62.5%) had improvement in disability, and 12 patients (54.5%) had improvement in sensory symptoms. CONCLUSIONS SEDAVFs often present with lower-extremity motor dysfunction and sensory symptoms. With the availability of newer liquid embolic agents, these lesions can be effectively treated with endovascular techniques. Surgery is also effective at treating these lesions, especially in situations where endovascular embolization fails or is not safe and in patients presenting with mass effect from compressive varices.


The paper addresses three key issues raised by the G-7 in its proposals to reform the multilateral banks, in 2001. One, the restructuring of IDA with a part of its lending in the form of grants rather than loans. Two, the harmonization of procedures, policies and overlapping mandates among MDBs. And three, the volume of support by MDBs for Global Public Goods (GPGs) and the rankings and priorities among them. The paper argues that while in principle shifting a fraction of IDA's resources to grants can address some of the problems associated with loans, these gains are limited. At the same time it poses long term political risks for the Bank. Moreover, the paper cautions that the more fundamental problem with IDA is the manner in which the IDA Deputies (the representatives of the donor countries) have been making policy decisions relating not just to IDA but to the institution as a whole. The result has been a creeping constitutional coup that has fundamentally subverted the role of the Executive Board in the institution's governance. The paper also questions whether LDCs in their quest for a larger IDA may not be sacrificing their larger interests in the global system. With regard to GPGs, the paper questions the degree to which the Bank's research contributes to GPGs. It argues that there is little analytical and empirical evidence that the G-7's priorities for GPGs would maximize the well-being of the poor relative to a host of notional alternatives. With regard to the harmonization of procedures and policies among the MDBs, the paper supports the harmonization of procedures, especially those related to procurement and financial reporting, while arguing that harmonization of policies and overlapping of jurisdictions not be formalized. The paper further argues that increasingly stringent compliance standards of the IFIs are imposing high financial and opportunity costs on their borrowers. It is trivially easy for the major shareholders to insist on standards whose costs they do not bear. The most inimical aspect of this pressure is that it has forced the Bank to shift lending towards sectors where it has little comparative advantage and away from the very sectors where it does have comparative advantage.


In
 my
 thesis
 I
 use
 a
 historical
 approach
 to
 close
 readings
 of
 fairy
 tale
 texts
 and movies
 to
 study
 the
 evolution
 of
 fathers,
 daughters,
 and
 marriage
 within
 three landmark
 tales:
 "Cinderella,"
 "Sleeping
 Beauty,"
 and
 "Snow
 White."
 Using
 the
 works
 of Giambattista
 Basile,
 Charles
 Perrault,
 Jacob
 and
 Wilhelm
 Grimm,
 and
 Walt
 Disney
 and his
 cohort
 of
 animators,
 I
 trace
 the
 historical
 trajectory
 of
 these
 three
 elements, analyzing
 both
 the
 ways
 they
 change
 and
 develop
 as
 history
 progresses
 as
 well
 as
 the ways
 they
 remain
 consistent.
 Through
 close
 and
 comparative
 readings
 of
 primary sources
 and
 films,
 I
 demonstrate
 the
 power
 structures
 and
 familial
 dynamics
 evident through
 the
 interactions
 of
 fathers
 and
 daughters.
 Specifically,
 I
 show
 that
 through
 the weakness
 and
 ineptitude
 of
 fairy
 tale
 fathers,
 fairy
 tale
 daughters
 are
 able
 to
 gain power,
 authority,
 and
 autonomy
 by
 using
 magic
 and
 marriage
 to
 navigate
 patriarchal systems.
 The
 work
 I
 have
 done
 is
 important
 because
 it
 explores
 how
 each
 tale
 is
 a product
 of
 the
 story
 before
 it
 and
 thus
 that
 in
 order
 for
 these
 tales
 to
 continue
 to survive
 the
 test
 of
 time,
 we
 must
 not
 only
 recognize
 the
 validity
 of
 the
 academic
 merit of
 the
 Disney
 stories,
 but
 also
 remember
 them
 and
 others
 as
 we
 forge
 new
 paths
 in
 the stories
 we
 use
 to
 teach
 both
 children
 and
 parents.
 Specifically,
 this
 work
 is
 important because
 it
 explores
 the
 historical
 trend
 evident
 in
 the
 evolving
 relationships
 between fathers
 and
 daughters.
 This
 relationship
 ultimately
 it
 reveals
 the
 deep
 underlying
 need for
 family
 within
 all
 of
 us.


The costs of wars have been the main driver of public debt in the Western World during the modern era. The late twentieth century stands out as a period that saw a pronounced increase of government debt to GDP ratios in peacetime. This paper assesses the role that financial crises have played in shaping the public debt trajectory in the twentieth century. Focusing on the experiences of 14 industrial economies, I show that financial crises have long and lasting effects on public finances. I provide evidence that the costs of financial crises have increased strongly in the second half of the twentieth century and that the costs of financial crises grow with the size of the financial sector. In many countries, the rising costs incurred from stabilizing the economy after financial crises were an important cause of the peacetime surge of public debt ratios in the late twentieth century. In today's highly financialized economies, financial crises have become a key risk for public finances.


The current study examined the reliability and applicability of the Chinese translated versions of the
Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale –Revised (ECERS-R) and Early Childhood Environment
Rating Scale –Extension (ECERS-E) as formative tools for use by local practitioners to perform selfevaluations
on the various aspects of the educational environments being provided to pre-school
children in their own settings with the goal of helping to facilitate changes that may help to enhance
the quality of educational experiences for young children. Five registered kindergartens were
recruited and received trainings in the administration of the said tools by the PECERA-HK (ECERS)
professional team. Three assessment trials were administered in three different phases. For each trial,
teacher representatives from each kindergarten completed the assessment using the said tools together
with the trainers. Discussions were also held with the trainers on their observations. Internal reliability
for the tools was found to be quite robust. Qualitative findings also suggested that the ECERS-R and
ECERS-E can serve to assist practitioners in identifying the respective strengths and weaknesses in
the educational environment they were providing to children and in setting clear directions for making
corresponding improvements.


Realistic acoustic modeling is essential for spatializing sound in distributed virtual environments where multiple networked users move around and interact visually and aurally in a shared virtual world. Unfortunately, current methods for computing accurate acoustical models are not fast enough for real-time auralization of sounds for simultaneously moving sources and receivers. In this paper, we present three new beam tracing algorithms that greatly accelerate computation of reverberation paths in a distributed virtual environment by taking advantage of the fact that sounds can only be generated or heard at the positions of "avatars" representing the users. The priority-driven beam tracing algorithm performs a bestfirst search of a cell adjacency graph, and thus enables new termination criteria with which all early reflection paths can be found very efficiently. The bidirectional beam tracing algorithm combines sets of beams traced from pairs of avatar locations to find reverberation paths between them while requiring significantly less computation than previous unidirectional algorithms. The amortized beam tracing algorithm computes beams emanating from box-shaped regions of space containing predicted avatar locations and re-uses those beams multiple times to compute reflections paths as each avatar moves inside the box. Cumulatively, these algorithms enable speedups of approximately two orders of magnitude over previous methods. They are incorporated into a time-critical multiprocessing system that allocates its computational resources dynamically in order to compute the highest priority reverberation paths between moving avatar locations in real-time with graceful degradation and adaptive refinement.


This paper presents a generic solution to apply a mission described by a sequence of tasks on a robot while accounting for its physical constraints, without computing explicitly a reference trajectory. A naive solution to this problem would be to schedule the execution of the tasks sequentially, avoiding concurrency. This solution does not exploit fully the robot capabilities such as redundancy and have poor performance in terms of execution time or energy. Our contribution is to determine the time-optimal realization of the mission taking into account robotic constraints that may be as complex as collision avoidance. Our approach achieves more than a simple scheduling; its originality lies in maintaining the task approach in the formulated optimization of the task sequencing problem. This theory is exemplified through a complete experiment on the real HRP-2 robot.


On a number of occasions it was observed by the authors that nymphs of the Brown Locust, Locustana pardalina (Walk.), moved their hind legs very rapidly and in such a manner that the hoppers appeared to be stridulating. The hopper rapidly moves the hind femora upwards and downwards in a vertical plane, the femora articulating on their basal joints. The angle between the femur and tibia apparently remains constant. Both legs are in action simultaneously. The movements are very rapid, and the speed is estimated at about five times per half second.


Background. Allografts are occasionally accepted in the absence of immunosuppression. Because naturally occurring CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (natural CD25+ Treg cells) have been shown to inhibit allograft rejection, we investigated their influence on the outcome of allografts in nonimmunosuppressed mouse recipients. Methods. We compared survival times of male CBA/Ca skin grafts in female CBA/Ca recipients expressing a transgenic anti-HY T-cell receptor on a RAG-1+/+ (A1[M]RAG+) or a RAG-1−/− (A1[M]RAG−) background. Depletion of natural CD25+ Treg cells in A1[M]RAG+ mice was achieved by in vivo administration of the PC61 monoclonal antibody. The influence of natural CD25+ Treg cells on the fate of major histocompatibility complex class II-mismatched (C57BL/6× bm12)F1 skin or bm12 heart transplants in C57BL/6 recipients was also assessed. Finally, we investigated the impact of natural CD25+ Treg cells on the production of T-helper (Th)1 and Th2 cytokines in mixed lymphocyte cultures between C57BL/6 CD4+ CD25− T cells as responders and bm12 or (C57BL/6× bm12)F1 antigen-presenting cells as stimulators. Results. Male allografts were spontaneously accepted by female A1(M)RAG+ mice but readily rejected by female A1(M)RAG+ mice depleted of natural CD25+ Treg cells by pretreatment with the PC61 monoclonal antibody. Depletion of CD25+ Treg cells also enhanced eosinophil-determined rejection of (C57BL/6× bm12)F1 skin grafts or bm12 cardiac grafts in C57BL/6 recipients. Finally, natural CD25+ Treg cells inhibited the production of interleukin (IL)-2, interferon-γ, IL-5, and IL-13 in mixed lymphocyte culture in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusion. Natural CD25+ Treg cells control Th1- and Th2-type allohelper T-cell responses and thereby influence the fate of allografts in nonimmunosuppressed recipients.