Multinational Corporations in Indonesia and Thailand: Wages, Productivity, and Exports, edited by Eric D. Ramstetter and Fredrik Sjoholm. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Pp. 229. This book analyses factory-level data from Indonesia and Thailand to gain insights into the effects of multinational corporations on wages, productivity, and exports in host countries. Looking at Southeast Asia's two biggest economies, it brings together work from Eric Ramstetter, one of the leading experts on MNC operations, internationally-renowned economist Robert Lipsey, as well as a group of area specialists and economists, many from Japan's International Centre for the Study of East Asian Development. Through looking at micro-level data from both countries, the book seeks to explore how MNC investment affects host country economies and labour markets. In order to do so, it asks and attempts to answer the following questions: * Do MNCs pay higher wages, have higher productivity levels, and are they more likely to export than local firms? * Is there a relationship between wage levels, productivity, propensity to export, and foreign ownership share? * Do MNCs provide wage or productivity spillovers for locally owned firms in the same industry? * How do takeovers by MNCs affect wages in the plant concerned or elsewhere in the sector? After an introductory chapter by the editors, Ramstetter and Sjoholm, the book is divided into three sections. The first section on wage differentials and spill-overs contains chapters by Lipsey and Sjoholm, and Movshuk and Matsuoka-Movshuk on Indonesia and Thailand, respectively. The second section on productivity differentials and spill-overs is comprised of a chapter each on Indonesian and Thai manufacturing by Takii and Ramstetter respectively, in addition to a chapter by Ito that looks at the automobile industry in both countries. The last section contains a chapter by Sjoholm and Takii on exports and foreign ownership in Indonesia's manufacturing sector, and a chapter on the same topic in Thailand by Ramstetter and Umemoto. This is a solid book that deals with very technical issues in a succinct and clear manner. Unlike many publications that result from a research project, as this book was, it reads like a coherent whole. It is clear and well-written, explaining technical issues without recourse to jargon. The book shows empirically that there are significant differences between local firms and MNCs in both countries. MNCs were shown to significantly affect propensity to export, as well as generate wage and productivity spill-overs for local operations in Indonesia and Thailand. There are, however, significant differences regarding the effects on wages and productivity between the two countries. In Indonesia, the relationship between wages, productivity and foreign ownership is strong. In Thailand, in contrast, wages displayed the same relationship with foreign ownership as in Indonesia--albeit to a lesser degree. …


The prevalence of low birth weight is an important aspect of public health which has been linked to increased risk of infant death, increased cost of care, and a range of later life outcomes. Using data from a new Irish cohort study, I document the relationship between birth weight and socio-economic status. The association of maternal education with birth weight does not appear to be due to the timing of birth or complications during pregnancy, even controlling for a wide range of background characteristics. However, results do suggest intergenerational persistence in the transmission of poor early life conditions. Birth weight predicts a number of outcomes at age 9, including test scores, hospital stays and health. An advantage of the data is that I am able to control for a number of typically unmeasured variables. I determine whether parental investments (as measured by the quality of interaction with the child, parenting style, or school quality) mediate the association between birth weight and later indicators. For test scores, there is evidence of non-linearity, and boys are more adversely affected than girls. I also consider whether there are heterogeneous effects by ability using quantile regression. These results are consistent with a literature which finds that there is a causal relationship between early life conditions and later outcomes.


Stochastic robustness synthesis is a framework for designing practical compensators. It uses Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the quality of control laws, and it searches a parameter space for the best law. Search methods must find the global minimum of a probabilistic design criterion function, ideally with minimum numbers of Monte Carlo evaluations. This paper examines two approaches to minimizing the probabilistic function: random search and a genetic algorithm. The genetic algorithm is similar to previously published algorithms but has several modifications to improve its performance, most notably a clustering analysis at the beginning of each generation. Statistical tools are incorporated into the search algorithms, allowing intelligent search decisions to be based on the "noisy" Monte Carlo estimates. Performance of the two methods is demonstrated by application to a 24-dimensional test function. The genetic algorithm is shown to be significantly better than the random search for this application. The genetic algorithm is then used to design compensators for a benchmark problem and produces control laws with excellent levels of stability and performance robustness.


Facebook uses flash devices extensively in its photo-caching stack. The key design challenge for an efficient photo cache on flash at Facebook is its workload: many small random writes are generated by inserting cache-missed content, or updating cache-hit content for advanced caching algorithms. The Flash Translation Layer on flash devices performs poorly with such a workload, lowering throughput and decreasing device lifespan. Existing coping strategies under-utilize the space on flash devices, sacrificing cache capacity, or are limited to simple caching algorithms like FIFO, sacrificing hit ratios.

We overcome these limitations with the novel Restricted Insertion Priority Queue (RIPQ) framework that supports advanced caching algorithms with large cache sizes, high throughput, and long device lifespan. RIPQ aggregates small random writes, co-locates similarly prioritized content, and lazily moves updated content to further reduce device overhead. We show that two families of advanced caching algorithms, Segmented-LRU and Greedy-Dual-Size-Frequency, can be easily implemented with RIPQ. Our evaluation on Facebook's photo trace shows that these algorithms running on RIPQ increase hit ratios up to ∼20% over the current FIFO system, incur low overhead, and achieve high throughput.


PURPOSE
To study the additional benefit from adenoviral p53 gene therapy in patients undergoing first-line chemotherapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Twenty-five patients with nonresectable NSCLC were enrolled in an open-label, multicenter phase II study of three cycles of regimen A, carboplatin (area under the curve, 6; day 1) plus paclitaxel (175 mg/m(2), day 1), or regimen B, cisplatin (100 mg/m(2), day 1) plus vinorelbine (25 mg/m(2), days 1, 8, 15, and 22) in combination with intratumoral injection of 7.5 x 10(12) particles of SCH 58500 (rAd/p53, day 1). Responses of individual tumor lesions were assessed after each cycle, and gene transfer was examined in posttreatment tumor biopsies using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.

RESULTS
There was no difference between the response rate of lesions treated with p53 gene therapy in addition to chemotherapy (52% objective responses) and lesions treated with chemotherapy alone (48% objective responses). Subgroup analysis according to the chemotherapy regimens revealed evidence for increased mean local tumor regressions in response to additional p53 gene therapy in patients receiving regimen B, but not in patients receiving regimen A. There was no survival difference between the two chemotherapy regimens, and the median survival of the cohort was 10.5 months (1-year survival, 44%). Transgene expression was confirmed in tumor samples from 68% of patients, and toxicities attributable to gene therapy were mild to moderate.

CONCLUSION
Intratumoral adenoviral p53 gene therapy appears to provide no additional benefit in patients receiving an effective first-line chemotherapy for advanced NSCLC.


We study the dynamics of two-dimensional spatial solitons in the structured optical medium modeled by the complex Ginzburg–Landau equation with cubic–quintic nonlinearity and a spatially periodic modulation of the local gain–loss coefficient [a dissipative lattice (DL)]. The analysis, following the variation of the DL's amplitude and period, reveals several dynamical scenarios: stable or unstable propagation of a single dissipative soliton (the unstable propagation entails generation of an irregular multisoliton cluster), transformation of the input soliton into stable or unstable regular clusters patterned as the underlying DL, and decay of the input. Most results are obtained by means of systematic simulations, but the boundary of the single-soliton stability domain is explained analytically.


The Lorca Earthquake (11/5/2011, Mw 5.2) stands as the most destructive in Spain over the last 50 years. It was interpreted as having occurred in an intersegment zone of the strike-slip Alhama de Murcia Fault (AMF). Within the research project "Intergeosima", a multi parametric characterization and monitoring of the fault structure is ongoing, with the aim of developing a future Near Fault Observatory (NFO) to improve the understanding of the seismic behaviour of the fault in the short and medium term. In this work we present the preliminary results of a magnetotelluric (MT) survey carried out along the rambla de la Torrecilla (SW of Lorca). A more resistivity area might correspond to the Quaternary units, whereas the conductive areas might delineate the extent of the fault gauge materials. Further analysis and inversion of the data are necessary to obtain a more detailed picture of the extension and geometry below the fault zone.


Background: The objective of this study was to examine the risks for short-term (≤3 months) and long-term (>3 months) chemotherapy-associated toxicities in a large population-based cohort of patients with non-small cell lung cancer from 1991 to 2002. Methods: The population consisted of 41,361 men and 30,804 women ≥65 years identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results—Medicare-linked database. The incidence of 50 toxicity-associated end points was calculated for 14 chemotherapy agents. Short- and long-term toxicities with a ≥2-fold increase in incidence compared with the no-chemotherapy group were defined as chemotherapy-associated toxicities. Hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the risk of toxicity were calculated for the four most common chemotherapy agents for non-small cell lung cancer: cisplatin/carboplatin, paclitaxel, vinorelbine/vinblastine, and gemcitabine. Results: The most common short-term toxicities (9.2–60%) included acute anemia, nausea, and neutropenia. The most common long-term toxicities (15–37%) included acute anemia, respiratory failure, pulmonary fibrosis, dehydration, neutropenia, nausea, and fever. Multivariate analysis for selected chemotherapies demonstrated that after adjusting for other risk factors and confounders, some short-term toxicities became nonsignificant; however, almost all long-term toxicities remained significant. Long-term toxicity increased over time and was more likely in women, minority populations, those with fewer baseline comorbidities, and across disease stages. Conclusions: The administration of various chemotherapy agents for non-small cell lung was associated with a number of short- and long-term toxicities. The projected survival benefits of chemotherapy must be weighed against the risk of long-term toxicities.


As line rates increase, the task of designing high performance architectures with reduced power consumption for the processing of router traffic remains important. In this paper, we present a multi-engine packet classification hardware accelerator, which gives increased performance and reduced power consumption. It follows the basic idea of decision-tree based packet classification algorithms, such as HiCuts and HyperCuts, in which the hyperspace represented by the ruleset is recursively divided into smaller subspaces according to some heuristics. Each classification engine consists of a Trie Traverser which is responsible for finding the leaf node corresponding to the incoming packet, and a Leaf Node Searcher that reports the matching rule in the leaf node. The packet classification engine utilizes the possibility of ultra-wide memory word provided by FPGA block RAM to store the decision tree data structure, in an attempt to reduce the number of memory accesses needed for the classification. Since the clock rate of an individual engine cannot catch up to that of the internal memory, multiple classification engines are used to increase the throughput. The implementations in two different FPGAs show that this architecture can reach a searching speed of 169 million packets per second (mpps) with synthesized ACL, FW and IPC rulesets. Further analysis reveals that compared to state of the art TCAM solutions, a power savings of up to 72% and an increase in throughput of up to 27% can be achieved.


The objective of this work is to identify and examine the risk premium of the exchange rate; then, to determine the factors that cause it, and to measure its variance by using a GARCH-M model. Some theoretical models are developed by taking the exchange rate risk premium as dependent variable and other macrovariables, political events, and market conditions as independent ones. There are three different exchange rates ($/€, $/£, and ¥/$) used, here, for the measurement of the risk premium and the empirical test of the model. The empirical results show that the variances of our macro-variables, the policy variables (interest rates and money supply), the price of oil, the war in Iraq, the European debt crisis, and other factors have a significant effect on the risk premium. Also, the conditional variances of the stock markets risk premium are having a highly significant effect on the exchange rate risk premia. The empirical results show that the foreign exchange market is not very efficient and the monetary policy not very effective.


The domestic violence protection order (DVO) system is a hybrid system of criminalisation in which the DVO itself is a civil order, but any contravention of that order may result in a criminal charge. Limited attention has been paid to the potential consequences of criminalisation through the hybrid DVO system in the Australian context. We use Queensland as a case study and examine administrative data gathered through Queensland Courts.  We show that a disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people are named on DVOs, charged with contraventions of DVOs and significantly more likely than non-Indigenous people to receive a sentence of imprisonment for a contravention of a DVO, compared to non-Indigenous people. We find that ATSI women are particularly overrepresented in this system. We review explanations for these startling figures and emphasize the need for a change in approach.


This paper outlines the development of an approach (and a set of tools) for 'light' integrated water resources management (IWRM): that is, IWRM that is opportunistic, adaptive and incremental in nature and clearly focused on sustainable service delivery. The approach was developed as part of the EC funded EMPOWERS project in three middle-eastern countries: Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. Developed specifically for use at the intermediate and local levels (that is, sub-national and sub-basin) it is based on a facilitated process of stakeholder dialogue for concerted action supported by a strategic planning framework. The paper describes and discusses the justification for the approach, and sets out its main elements as well as experiences gained during its application. The main lesson of the EMPOWERS project is the seemingly simple – in fact, rather complex and timeconsuming – work on facilitating dialogue, taking a structured approach to examining problems, collecting and sharing context-specific information, and helping to formulate a shared vision and strategies to achieve it all of which contribute to improved decision making. However, a major limitation to effective action is lack of appropriately decentralised finance, with local authorities reliant on financing from the national level that is often earmarked and over which they had very little control.


Economic growth and environmental security in the United States require a national science technology policy that adequately supports a vibrant science and technology community Significant technological innovations that address long-term environmental issues can only be produced by such a community, given the narrow research focus of the defense community and the short-term nature of corporate research and development (R&D). While these interests have promoted some environmentally relevant science and technology innovations in their infant stages, they cannot provide the fundamental technological framework needed to produce a truly sustainable economy in the 21st century Despite public enthusiasm for environmentally friendly growth, the national science community does not receive consistent or adequate political support. Congress has oscillated between the passage of science funding(1) that does not even keep up with inflation to playing favorites with certain federal agencies.(2) As a result, the country's science and technology community is atomized and uncoordinated, and technological advancement is often left to large private interests and a few loosely cooperative academic powerhouses. Private firms focus their research efforts according to short-term, market-driven priorities, motives which often contradict long-term sustainable development and economic growth.(3) Large academic institutions, which are generally more sensitive to long-term concerns, are not fully capable of directing the course of national research and national innovation systems.4 However, the absence of a national policy has put them in the position of doing so. Poor coordination among federal agencies and inconsistent support from national leaders results in inadequate national science policy. A critical look at the effect of these political dynamics on the scientific community reveals the need for a national policy that is consistent and directed, supportive yet unobtrusive. A clear, sustainable technology policy would steer the national science community towards more intensive and coordinated research in areas of technology that can make environmentally sustainable and economically robust development a reality. THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP Science, Technology and Economic Growth The Wall Street Journal's March 1997 survey of 350 leading economists found that two-thirds believed that the right government policies could boost annual US economic growth by .05 percent, a substantial amount.(5) Moreover, 43 percent advocated more government spending for education, and science and technology R&D. Only 10 percent thought reducing government spending as a share of domestic product was vital to boosting growth.(6) Indeed, the link between technological innovation and economic advancement has long been recognized, with R&D seen as a major force behind the emergence of many of the new materials, products, processes and systems that promote economic advancement. As far back as 1911, Joseph A. Schumpeter integrated innovation into economic development theory by showing a positive correlation between involvement in a commercial transaction and the generation of new products, devices or systems.(7) Despite consensus on the importance of innovation among economists, industrialists and even politicians, the last five years have seen science and technology research threatened rather than supported. While an overly bloated national debt can overrun liquid assets with interest payments, drive up interest rates and generally undermine investments in science and technology programs, efforts to reduce the budget deficit have endangered many nationally funded science and technology programs. Until the 1990s, U.S. Federal Government support for research held steady or increased, but funding declines have characterized recent budgets.(8) Should this trend continue, the United States will likely forfeit its position of leadership in science and technology--as well as its ability to maintain the health and quality of life of its citizens, compete in a global marketplace and assure national security. …


Rapid development of urban centers in Africa is becoming a serious challenge for the coming decades with a wide range of foreseen social, economical and environmental implications. With the natural growth of the population, urban demography has been boosted by rural exodus triggered by serious droughts and increasing rural poverty. With the small resources available for an adequate urban management and the lack of efficient urban policy, Dakar capital of Senegal is characterized by an out of control urbanization process. Among the many impacts noted, flooding has appeared recently as a major threat for poor population leaving in the suburbs of Dakar. This study carried out at the outskirts of the town, in Yeumbeul District (17°24' North, 14°46' West), tries from rainfall variability, Digital Terrain Model and land cover change analysis since 1954 to track the interactions between natural and human causes of flooding occurring regularly since 1989. This integrated approach shows that the flooding process is not a mere climate variability related issue, it is tightly bound with poor urban management and occupation of irregular, unsuited land devoted to natural process. Satisfaction of housing needs was, for most poor rural dwellers, only possible through informal land markets, forcing them to settle in cheap yet risky lands. The recent extreme rainfall events reveal that most of these urban sprawls are located in flood prone areas. Environmental impacts of these flooded settlements have been examined. Serious flooding of 2005 has been a great momentum for the State and several other stakeholders to initiate various strategies that are discussed in this paper.


: This article explores the interface between evolutionary thought, cognitive science, and music theory. It focuses on how patterns hypothesized to function as memes in music are encoded neurobiologically, using ideas developed by the American theoretical neurophysiologist William Calvin. After recapitulating the precepts and predictions of Universal Darwinism and meme theory as to what might constitute a meme in music, I outline current understanding of the psychology of musical memory before summarizing Calvin's general Darwinian-neurobiological perspective on information storage and recall. Then I relate memetics and psychology/neurobiology by hypothesizing how certain types of musical memes might be implemented by Calvinian mechanisms. I conclude by considering neural network models of memory, one system developed by Gjerdingen aligning broadly with certain aspects of Calvinian theory.


The role of the CLAVATA (CLV) genes in the differentiation of the plant meristem of Arabidopsis is the focus of two reports. Trotochaud et al. investigated the interactions between CLV3, a small peptide, and CLV1, a receptor kinase. Most of the CLV3 found in vivo is complexed with CLV1. That fraction of CLV3 not bound up with CLV1 is found in a smaller multimeric complex. CLV1 similarly is found in two different complexes, only one of which includes CLV3. As with other ligand-receptor signaling systems, other components may sequester unbound ligand. Brand et al. have uncovered some of the signaling pathways that balance the supply and demand of stem cells, which provide a renewable source of replacement cells but only when needed. Stem cell accumulation is regulated by CLV3 activity, which in turn is subjected to regulatory feedback. Trotochaud, A.E., Jeong, S., and Clark, S.E. (2000) CLAVATA3, a multimeric ligand for the CLAVATA1 receptor-kinase. Science 289: 613-617. [Abstract] [Full Text] Brand, U., Fletcher, J.C., Hobe, M., Meyerowitz, E.M., and Simon, R. (2000) Dependence of stem cell fate in Arabidopsis on a feedback loop regulated by CLV3 activity. Science 289: 617-619. [Abstract] [Full Text]


The problem of locating hospital departments so as to minimize the total distance travelled by patients can be formulated as a Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP).In general, (QAP) is one of the Combinatorial Optimization Problems and always high dimensional. Therefore, the use of meta-heuristics that generates good solutions in reasonable computer time becomes an attractive alternative. In this paper, a proposed artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm is used to optimize QAP. The main idea is to use different crossover techniques for employee and onlooker bee stages and use exchange position operator for scout bee stage. The results of ABC algorithm show the efficiency and capabilities of proposed algorithm in finding the optimum solutions, compared with results of GA and SA in all test problems. The purpose of this paper is to apply the QAP in Azadi hospital in Kirkuk city to minimize the total distance travelled by patients. The application involves determine the flow matrix and the distance matrix to solve the problem. The results related that QAP model was presented suitable framework for clinics allocation and optimum use. KeywordsQuadratic Assignment Problem; Artificial Bee Colony; Hospital Layout; Healthcare Management.


DOI: 10.21276/sjeat.2018.3.7.3 Abstract: Over the past two decades, gulf cities have been rapidly growing, mainly after the discovery of oil. Large-scale urban projects have been constructed as a result of globalization, which has affected the built environment and the urban fabric of gulf cities. Doha, the capital city of the State of Qatar, has been substantially influenced by globalization. The city has experienced great transformation in its environment since the 1950s, after the discovery of oil. Therefore, Doha has faced the challenge of keeping pace with urban developments that have been increasing and taking over the existing heritage embedded in buildings and traditional neighborhoods. Al-Hitmi is one of the neighborhoods affected by urbanization and sprawling. This research study investigates Al-Hitmi neighborhood and its features, opportunities, constraints, and relationship with the surrounding areas, specifically Qatar National Museum and the Museum Metro Station. The research design is based on the review of the literature, site analysis of the selected case, and surrounding context in order to (1) find opportunities and challenges and (2) to propose a strategy for the urban regeneration of the neighborhood of AlHitmi.


Modifications induced by a spontaneous infection of grapes by gray rot on the polysaccharide profile and content from white musts and cava sparkling base wines have been studied. Fungal ss-D-glucans could not be detected in musts and wines obtained from grapes contaminated by B. cinerea. The direct pressing of grapes used for the production of sparkling base wines may be a limiting factor for the solubilization of fungal glucans into the must. Nevertheless, the concentration of the hydrolase-resistant grape pectic polysaccharides rhamnogalacturonan II is increased three-fold in the wine obtained from contaminated grapes. Arabinogalactan content increased also although to a lower extent. As expected, yeast mannoproteins were not affected by the previous contamination of grapes. The decrease in filterability of wines produced from contaminated grapes may be related to their high content in grape polysaccharides and not only to the presence of fungal ss-D-glucans whose extraction is related to the disruption of grape berry skins prior to pressing.


The use of raters as a methodological tool to detect significant differences in performances and as a means to evaluate music performance achievement is a solidly defended practice in music psychology, education, and performance science research. However, psychometric concerns exist in raters' precision in the use of task-specific scoring criteria. A methodology for managing rater quality in rater-mediated assessment practices has not been systematically developed in the field of music. The purpose of this study was to examine rater precision through the analysis of rating scale category structure across a set of raters and items within the context of large-group music performance assessment using a Multifaceted Rasch Partial Credit (MFR-PC) Measurement Model. Allowing for separate parameterization estimation of the rating scale for each rater can more clearly detect variability in rater judgment and improve model-data fit, thereby enhancing objectivity, fairness, and precision of rating quality in the music assessment process. Expert judges (N = 23) rated a set of four recordings by middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional jazz big bands. A single common expert rater evaluated all 24 jazz ensemble performances. The data suggest that raters significantly vary in severity, items significantly vary in difficulty, and rating scale category structure significantly varies across raters. Implications for the improvement and management of rater quality in music performance assessment are provided.


Chromobox 7 (CBX7) is a chromobox family protein and a component of the Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) that extends the lifespan of cultured epithelial cells and can act independently of BMI-1 to repress the INK4a/ARF tumor suppressor locus. To determine whether CBX7 might be oncogenic, we examined its expression pattern in a range of normal human tissues and tumor samples. CBX7 was expressed at high levels in germinal center lymphocytes and germinal center-derived follicular lymphomas, where elevated expression correlated with high c-Myc expression and a more advanced tumor grade. By targeting Cbx7 expression to the lymphoid compartment in mice, we showed that Cbx7 can initiate T cell lymphomagenesis and cooperate with c-Myc to produce highly aggressive B cell lymphomas. Furthermore, Cbx7 repressed transcription from the Ink4a/Arf locus and acted epistatically to the Arf-p53 pathway during tumorigenesis. These data identify CBX7 as a chromobox protein causally linked to cancer development and may help explain the low frequency of INK4a/ARF mutations observed in human follicular lymphoma.


The purpose of this study was to compare CT and radiography for diagnosing the presence and severity of middle ear disease in dogs with chronic otitis externa. Thirty-one dogs that were presented for a total ear canal ablation and bulla osteotomy were recruited. Three normal dogs served as controls. All dogs were examined using radiography and CT. Three radiologists independently evaluated imaging studies in random order. A visual analog scale method was used for scoring certainty and severity of middle ear disease. Surgical findings were recorded intra-operatively. Bulla lining samples were submitted for histopathology and scored by a single pathologist who also used a visual analog scale system. Findings from both modalities agreed more closely with surgical findings than with histopathology findings. With either surgery or histopathology as the gold standard, CT was more sensitive than and as specific as radiographs for predicting presence and severity of middle ear disease. Overall severity of middle ear disease was lower in the right versus the left ears. For CT, inter-observer variance of middle ear certainty was 217.04 while radiographic variance was 126.14 on the side with lower severity estimates. Both radiography and CT were more accurate for predicting the severity of the disease than its presence. Findings indicate that CT is more accurate and reliable than radiography in diagnosing middle ear disease for dogs with chronic otitis externa, but only when severity of disease is moderate or high. With low severity of disease, reader diagnostic certainty for both modalities becomes more variable.


Margitic's critical edition of Pierre Corneille's Le Cid (1637) provides scholar and student with a complete, accurate resource for the study of this famous play. The original text is reproduced, with subsequent variants indicated in footnotes. The book begins with an introduction which examines the play's genesis, sources, successive modifications, critical reception, and stage fortune as well as thematic and dramatic structure, and concludes with a bibliography. Three appendices contain texts contemporary with Le Cid which comment on the work. The first two include Corneille's comments on his masterpiece and his list of Spanish sources (accompanied by French translations). The final appendix presents a selection of particularly important documents that formed part of the Querelle du Cid. All the texts are amply but not excessively annotated. A comprehensive glossary follows the appendices.


Background: Noonan syndrome, characterized by dysmorphic facies, webbed neck, short stature, chest deformity, developmental delay and congenital heart defects, occurs as a result of mutations affecting the RAS-MAPK signaling pathway. A wide range of coagulation abnormalities are observed in these patients including: thrombocytopenia, platelet dysfunction and coagulation factor deficiencies. Screening for coagulation defects is recommended in childhood and especially prior to surgical procedures. Data available is limited and the extent of the hemostatic evaluation needed is not clearly defined. We carried out this study to outline the spectrum of coagulation abnormalities seen in patients with Noonan syndrome and their impact on surgical outcomes. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, the electronic medical record system was queried for patients with Noonan syndrome seen at Mayo Clinic between 2000 and 2016. A detailed chart review was undertaken. Results i) Phenotypic correlates: 142 patients (58% male) met our study criteria, median age 21 years (range 14 days to 68 years). The referral specialty for initial evaluation was: cardiology 69 (49%), endocrinology 10 (7%), urology 10 (7%), neurology 8 (6%), pulmonary 6 (4%), orthopedic surgery 3 (2%), gastroenterology 2 (1%), psychiatry 2 (1%) and other specialties 4 (3%). Ten patients (7%) were referred for developmental delay, 13 (9%) for dysmorphism and 4 (3%) after having a family member diagnosed with Noonan syndrome. One patient (1%) presented with hematochezia. Twenty-seven (52%) of the 52 patients screened with genetic testing had a Noonan-associated gene defect. Bleeding was reported by 22 patients (15%) with a median International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis Bleeding Assessment Tool (ISTH-BAT) score of 2 (range 1-8). Of those tested, 11/121 (9%) patients had thrombocytopenia (platelets ii) Surgical outcomes: A total of 274 surgical procedures were performed in 89 patients (63%). These included: cardiac 118 (43%), orthopedic 30 (11%), ENT 27 (10%), neurosurgical 26 (10%), abdominal 17 (6%), urologic 17 (6%), gynecologic 12 (4%) thoracic 8 (3%), ophthalmologic 7 (3%), plastic surgery 5 (2%), maxillofacial 4 (1%) and lymph node dissection 3 (1%). Platelets were utilized in 26 procedures (10%), fresh frozen plasma in 19 (7%) and cryoprecipitate in 7 (3%). Two procedures were performed in patients with type 1 vWD using vWF concentrates. Abnormal intra or postoperative bleeding was seen in 5/274 procedures (1.8%) performed in 4 patients. One patient had a known functional platelet disorder, one had normal PT and aPTT and two were not screened for coagulation defects. Bleeding was managed with transfusional supportive care in 3 (60%) surgical cases, while in 2 (40%) cases patients required re-intervention to achieve surgical hemostasis (bleeding from femoral access site and pacemaker pocket hematoma). There was no mortality related to the excess perioperative bleeding. Conclusion: Varying hemostatic abnormalities are seen in patients with Noonan syndrome, ranging from thrombocytopenia to multiple coagulation factor deficiencies. Frank bleeding manifestations however are uncommon and when present are usually mild. Clinical evaluation focused on the bleeding history and basic coagulation screening allows for successful perioperative hemostatic support and good surgical outcomes. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


An icon in his native city, Tsang Tsou Choi (1921-2007) covered the streets of Hong Kong with his graffiti for over 35 years, using a brush and ink to proclaim himself "the King of Kowloon"--heir to an imaginary birthright that fueled a lifetime of artistic output. With his signature style, Tsang wrote himself into the collective memory of a generation caught between British and Chinese rule, leaving behind an oeuvre that includes countless outdoor projects (the majority now extant only in photographs), myriad works on paper, board and cloth, as well as painted objects. This milestone publication documents Tsang's influential art and enduring legacy. With over 100 reproductions, a foreword by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and critical essays by Hou Hanru, Ou Ning and others, "The King of Kowloon" is the first comprehensive survey of Tsang's complex and fascinating artistic output.


Abstract Many recent pension reforms require individuals to make more decisions on supplementary savings, investment choices, etc. Governments and the pension industry try to assist individuals through pension communication but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. This paper uses Dutch longitudinal data to analyse the causal links between communication, pension knowledge, and conscious pension decision-making. A robust finding is that pension knowledge has a positive causal effect on active pension decision-making. Providing an annual pension statement might have a small positive effect on pension knowledge, but this result is sensitive to the identifying assumptions.


Understanding what injures a corporation can help us better understand corporate personality. Traditional corporate injury is injury to corporate assets or profits. This makes sense, because without defining impairment to corporate assets and profits as corporate injury, most of what we think of as "essential" about a corporation—locking assets into a protected partition—would be impossible: (1) protecting the going concern value of the corporation; (2) maintaining creditor priority; and (3) contracting through the corporate form. More recent expansions of what constitutes corporate injury, including injuries to a corporation's right to political speech (Citizens United) and religious freedom (Hobby Lobby), seem at first to fit poorly with existing corporate theory. But corporations can "lock in" and "partition" more than assets; they can partition beliefs and virtues as well. Viewed this way, existing corporate theory (and the idea of corporate injury as harm to whatever is partitioned by the corporate form) may provide more help in understanding corporate Constitutional rights than previously recognized.


Increased signaling of plasmacytoid dendritic cells through TLR7 and TLR8, triggered by HIV-1–derived ligands, underlies women's increased susceptibility to progression to AIDs. Women infected with human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) are at increased risk of developing acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) compared to men with the same viral load. Meier et al. analyzed the response of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) from gender-matched patients to HIV-1–derived ligands or inactivated HIV-1 that stimulates Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 7 and 8 and found that although the same percentage of cells responded between men and women, cells from women exhibited a greater production of interferon-α (IFN-α) but not tumor necrosis factor–α (TNF-α). In contrast, there was no gender-based difference in the response to ligands of TLR9. The concentration of plasma progesterone correlated with the percentage of pDCs that produced IFN-α in response to an HIV-1–derived TLR7 and TLR8 ligand, and postmenopausal women showed a lower percentage of IFN-α–producing pDCs than did premenopausal women when challenged with the TLR7/8 ligand. IFN-α stimulates CD8-positive T cells (cytotoxic T cells) to produce CD38, a surface glycoprotein the abundance of which is a predictor of HIV-1 disease progression. T cells from women showed a greater increase in CD38 abundance after stimulation with HIV-1–derived TLR7/8 ligands or inactivated virus than did T cells from men. After adjusting for HIV-1 viral load, chronically HIV-infected women had a greater percentage of CD8- and CD38-positive T cells compared with T cells from HIV-infected men. Thus, the increased TLR7 and TLR8 responsiveness of women, which may be modulated by circulating steroid hormones, leads to greater IFN-α secretion and accumulation of cytotoxic T cells and disease progression. A. Meier, J. J. Chang, E. S. Chan, R. B. Pollard, H. K. Sidhu, S. Kulkarni, T. F. Wen, R. J. Lindsay, L. Orellana, D. Mildvan, S. Bazner, H. Streeck, G. Alter, J. D. Lifson, M. Carrington, R. J. Bosch, G. K. Robbins, M. Altfeld, Sex differences in the Toll-like receptor–mediated response of plasmacytoid dendritic cells to HIV-1. Nat. Med. 15, 955–959 (2009). [PubMed]


Modern dentistry has changed tremendously with implant therapy. It is the only treatment modality where additional abutments can be created for improving the esthetics and function. For successful implant therapy, making a proper treatment plan considering with surgical and prosthetic part in mind is key to success.often dentists tend to create a treatment plan overlooking the basic principles of prosthetic part. Careful planning, evaluation of all the diagnostic aids, mock wax up and using a surgical guide helps to accurately locate the implant fixture regarding the depth and angulation which is critical to the esthetic and biomechanical success of the prosthesis. The clinical case depicted here is an illustration of how difficult it becomes to restore the case when the fixtures are placed in incorrect location and/or angulation.


Background In December 2019, an outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic occurred in Wuhan, China and infection spread rapidly around the world. To limit the rapid spread locally and nationwide, the Chinese government locked down Wuhan city on January 23 and began implementing nationwide intensive community screening on February 16. Method To assess the effectiveness of city lockdown and intensive community screening, we built a modified SIR model by introducing an α value into the classic SIR model. The α value represents the proportion of infected individuals who are not effectively isolated from susceptible individuals at a given time point. Results The accuracy of the modified SIR model was validated using data from Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces. The lockdown of Wuhan city substantially reduced the α value for the rest of China excluding Hubei province, while only slightly reducing the α value for the city itself. Intensive community screening rapidly reduced the α value for Wuhan. Conclusion City lockdown was efficient in controlling the spread of the epidemic from Wuhan to the rest of the country. Nationwide intensive community screening was extremely effective in suppressing the spread locally within Wuhan city. These experiences should urgently be shared with other countries to help halt the progressing worldwide pandemic.


Homicidal insanity has remained a vexation to both the psychiatric and legal professions despite the panorama of scientific and social change during the past 200 years. The predominant opinion today among psychiatrists is that no correlation exists between dangerousness and specific mental disorders. But for generation after generation, psychiatrists have reported cases of insane homicide that were clinically similar. Although psychiatric theory changed and psychiatric nosology was inconsistent, the mental phenomena psychiatrists identified in such cases remained the same. The central thesis of "Homicidal Insanity" is that as psychiatric theory changed, psychiatrists regarded these phenomena variously as symptoms of mental disease or the disease in itself. It is possible to trace these phenomena throughout the history of Anglo-American psychiatric theory and practice. A secondary thesis of the book is that psychiatrists have used these phenomena as predictors and markers in the practical matters of preventing insane homicide and of testifying in the courts to defend the irresponsible and expose the culpable.For 200 years, scientific and philosophical disagreement raised controversy and brought the issues to public attention. Still, to this day no rational method exists to discriminate the dangerous from the harmless in matters of involuntary commitment, nor insanity from crime in the courts.


Abstract This article uses Foucault's concept of the care of the self to interrogate the accounts of ethical agency provided by professionals involved in the settlement of refugees, in a global and national context marked by fear of the stranger and the embrace of neoliberal political rationalities. An argument is made to 'free the professional self' by refusing an individualised, psychologised and dehistoricised approach in working with refugees and asylum seekers. In its place, a threefold 'ethics of engagement' for 'international citizenship' is proposed as a way forward to further professionalism and civic action. By understanding the refugee problem as an 'integral part of North-South relations' rather than as a 'Third World' problem, new possibilities are opened for an ethics of civility and an ethics of care.


Objective To investigate knowledge, attitudes and intended behaviours in relation to concussion in professional Rugby Union players. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting English Premiership and Championship (the highest levels of domestic competition in England). Participants 1236 professional male players enrolled on a compulsory online concussion education module were invited to respond to an online survey in October 2014. 383 players completed the survey (age 17–40 years; 0.5–19 years of professional rugby). Outcome measures Number of career self-reported concussions; pre-module concussion identification and management knowledge score (5 multiple-choice questions); attitudes towards concussion (14 7-point Likert-scale questions; higher scores represent more favourable attitudes); intended behaviours regarding concussion reporting (3 7-point Likert-scale questions; lower scores represent more favourable intended behaviours). Main results 271 players (71%) recalled at least one concussion during their playing career; 249 (65%) recalled 1–5, 17 (4%) recalled 6-10 and 3 (1%) recalled >10 concussions. Knowledge scores (n=292) ranged from 0 to 5 correct answers out of 5; mean(SD) 3.4 (1.8). Attitudes scores (n=383) ranged from 42 to 98 out of a possible 98; mean(SD), 75.7 (11.9). Intended behaviour scores (n=383) ranged from 6 to 21 out of a possible 21; mean(SD), 10.2 (3.3). Spearmans Rank indicated that knowledge scores and concussion history were not associated with attitudes or intended behaviours; however, more favourable attitude scores were associated with more favourable intended behaviour scores (rs=−0.34, p<0.001). Conclusions Concussion education interventions should focus on positively influencing player attitudes towards concussion as this has the greatest potential to improve player behaviour. Competing interests Dr. Keith Stokes – Receives research funding from the Rugby Football Union Dr. Simon Kemp – Employed by the Rugby Football Union Miss Rachel Michell – Employed by Rugby Players Associationis Dr. Martyn Standage, Dr. Carly McKay - None.


We are reporting the results in a consecutive series of forty adults in whom, between 1978 and 1984, forty-one tarsometatarsal fracture-dislocations were treated with open reduction followed by temporary internal fixation with AO screws. Ninety per cent of the patients had an intra-articular or a periarticular fracture. An anatomical or nearly anatomical reduction was achieved in all but a few patients, and there was no loss of fixation or displacement. For thirty-four patients (thirty-five injuries), the length of follow-up averaged 3.4 years, and a good or excellent functional result was obtained in all but two of the thirty in whom an anatomical reduction had been achieved. Of the six patients who had a fair or a poor result, five had an associated grade-II or grade-III open injury. The development of post-traumatic arthritis was directly related to damage to the articular surfaces or to inadequate reduction, or to both.


The study examines the emergence of broad-based community organising in the UK and how it informs understanding of civil society and its capacity to effect social and political change. The thesis can be stated simply as follows:

Broad-based community organising represents a new and distinct form of civil society-driven politics in the UK, building the power of civil society organisations to more effectively engage in public life to effect social and political change.

Deserving of special attention, it is argued, are those civil society organisations which develop sufficient power and legitimacy to act politically in the public sphere, both in contesting and holding the state and market to account and in pushing the boundaries of civility and social justice.

Employing a critical social theory paradigm, broad-based community organising is understood as a distinctive political methodology, ontologically rooted in civil society and epistemologically based upon the central concept of power.

The body of work provides a coherent, original and significant contribution to knowledge of broad-based community organising within the context of the UK and to broader questions about the nature of civil society and its role in effecting social and political change.


The recent inclusion of computational skills in core curriculum by governments in the UK and Australia, has been linked to industry calls for schools to better equip young people with capabilities and dispositions aligned with needs of future high-tech industries and rapidly changing workplaces. This move has stimulated much interest in New Zealand, and while lacking any compulsory curriculum mandate, many teachers in K-12 classrooms are exploring the potential of coding tasks for developing computational skills as part of their mathematics, science and technology curricula. This paper reports findings from a study that used a unique data capture app embedded in iPads to record 9&10 year old students while they used two apps of very different designs for coding tasks. Using Studiocode video analysis software, data were analysed using a framework developed from Brennan and Resnick's [1] three dimensions of computational thinking, to learn more about how these apps constituted useful environments for developing computational thinking. Results suggest that coding apps of a 'teaching' design complement apps where computational concepts and practices are applied to project creation, and indeed may be more efficient if the desired outcome specifically targets the learning of concepts. Implications for teachers exploring coding apps for computational thinking development are drawn.


According to the 'EU Water Framework Directive' the assessment of the ecological quality of streams and rivers should be based on type specific reference conditions. In Central Europe, stream sections suited to serve as reference sites for the high ecological status of rivers are rarely found, due to long lasting anthropogenic impact on virtually all rivers. We present a method for the description of reference conditions for medium-sized and large rivers, which has been developed and tested for rivers in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).

Present data on the fauna proved to be sufficient for the description of river types, at least on a rough scale. However, even the fauna of the least deteriorated Central European river sections is very different to the 'historical' fauna. Therefore, the biological reference conditions are only partially based on investigations in the present fauna. It is indispensable to use additional sources to describe 'reference communities', particularly historical literature data. Furthermore, considerations on only slightly altered habitat-conditions in rivers and on landscape patterns under pristine conditions are taken into account.


We have used the Keck 10 m telescope to count objects as a function of image size in two high Galactic latitude fields covering 1.5 arcmin2 and reaching 50% completeness depths of K = 24 and J = 24.5 for stellar sources. Our counts extend ~1 mag deeper in K than those of surveys with other telescopes; complement other Keck surveys in the K-band that provide counts at comparable or shallower depths but that have not utilized image structure; and extend by several magnitudes the J-band counts from brighter surveys using smaller telescopes that cover larger areas. We find the surface density of objects at K = 23 to be higher than previously found (~500,000 mag-1 deg-2), but at K < 22 to be consistent with other surveys. The slope of the K-band counts (d log A/dm = 0.36) is similar to others near this depth as well as to our own J-band counts (0.35). Counts in the J- and K-bands are both in excess of our empirical no-evolution models for an open universe, with the largest excess observed in J. The counts are a factor of 2 higher than mild-evolution models at J and K ~ 23. The slope of the model counts is insensitive to the assumed geometry even in the near-infrared primarily because the model counts are dominated by low-luminosity (<0.1L*) objects at modest redshift (z < 1) with small apparent sizes (half-light radii ≤ 0.″4, i.e., <4 h50−1 kpc). The numbers of observed counts rise most steeply for these smaller objects, which dominate the counts fainter than K = 22.3 and J = 23.3. However, the greatest excess relative to no-evolution models occurs for the apparently larger objects, which have a median J-K of ~1.5. At these depths, the size and colors of such objects correspond equally well to luminous (≥0.1L*) blue galaxies at 1 < z < 4, or progressively more diffuse, blue, low-luminosity (0.001-0.1L*) galaxies at z < 1. The majority of these sources are too faint for spectroscopic measurement. Based on optical colors, we can rule out the possibility that the excess is caused by very low luminosity (<0.0001L*) red galaxies at z < 0.25. We also find a deficit of galaxies with red J-K colors corresponding to nonevolving, luminous, early-type (i.e., "red envelope") galaxies at 1 < z < 3. Even assuming that the deficit is caused by their appearance as blue galaxies, they could account for only 10%-30% of the excess of large, blue galaxies. The nature and redshift distribution of excess large and small galaxy populations at K = 24 and J = 24.5 remain indeterminate from these data alone.


Ecologists increasingly suspect that climate change will directly impact species physiology, demography, and phenology, but also indirectly affect these measures via changes to the surrounding community. Unfortunately, few studies examine both the direct and indirect pathways of impact. Doing so is important because altered competitive pressures can reduce or magnify the direct responses of a focal species to climate change. Here, we examine the effects of changing rainfall on three rare annual plant species in the presence and absence of competition on the California Channel Islands. We used rain-out shelters and hand watering to exclude and augment early, late, and season-long rainfall, spanning the wide range of precipitation change forecast for the region. In the absence of competition, droughts reduced the population growth rates of two of three focal annuals, while increased rainfall was only sometimes beneficial. As compared to the focal species, the dominant competitors were more sensitive to the precipitation treatments, benefiting from increased season-long precipitation and harmed by droughts. Importantly, the response of two of three competitors to the precipitation treatments tended to be positively correlated with those of the focal annuals. Although this leads to the expectation that increased competition will counter the direct benefits of favorable conditions, such indirect effects of precipitation change proved weak to nonexistent in our experiment. Competitors had little influence on the precipitation response of two focal species, due to their low sensitivity to competition and highly variable precipitation responses. Competition did affect how our third focal species responded to precipitation change, but this effect only approached significance, and whether it truly resulted from competitor response to precipitation change was unclear. Our work suggests that even when competitors respond to climate change, these responses may have little effect on the focal species. Ultimately, the strength of the indirect effect depends on how strongly climate change alters competition, and how sensitive focal species are to changes in competition.


Engineering practitioners currently use a combination of guidance documents, published papers, and professional experience to support tailings dam breach and inundation studies. There is considerable knowledge and information available in this relatively new field of practice, but standardized and comprehensive guidelines specific to tailings dams are not available. Practitioners face several key challenges: (a) the more established and mature guidance is typically focused on water storage dams; (b) the available literature may only address specific aspects of dam breach assessment and inundation modelling; (c) the available literature sometimes relies on historical data that may not be consistent with the proposed application; and (d) the results are highly sensitive to the selected modelling inputs. This paper reflects on the currently available literature on dam breach and inundation studies, compares how the major components for these studies are approached, and discusses how the resulting conclusions may vary. Key aspects of tailings dam breach and inundation assessment typically considered include: initial conditions and hydrology; boundary conditions; breach parameters; tailings mobility and outflow volume; and flood routing and inundation mapping. This paper quantitatively compares several of the key parameters proposed by various authors and comments on the factors that control their applicability.


Binary predictors are used in a wide range of crop protection decision making applications. Such predictors provide a simple analytical apparatus for the formulation of evidence related to risk factors, for use in the process of Bayesian updating of probabilities of crop disease. For diagrammatic interpretation of diagnostic probabilities, the receiver operating characteristic is available. Here, we view binary predictors from the perspective of diagnostic information. After a brief introduction to the basic information theoretic concepts of entropy and expected mutual information, we use an example data set to provide diagrammatic interpretations of expected mutual information, relative entropy, information inaccuracy, information updating and specific information. Our information graphs also illustrate correspondences between diagnostic information and diagnostic probabilities.


Two types of dualism characterize Spinoza's mature philosophy. The first is the Cartesian dualism of attributes. Although Spinoza's radicalized version of this dualism officially rules out any interaction between matter and mind, his Ethics nevertheless retains a theory of causal precedence between the mental and the physical. In the production of ideas, it is sometimes the mind, sometimes the physical environment that has causal priority. A second, non-Cartesian, type of dualism is to be found in Spinoza's metaphysics of substance. Spinoza's concept of substance resumes the Platonico-Aristotelian idea that agency-causation is limited to what has real being and must be distinguished from the modifications that are its effects. The first, "horizontal", dualism of Cartesian attributes eliminates from Spinoza's psychology any account of behavioral change, and forces him to fall back on the classic idea that we are agents only in so far as we direct our thoughts. The second, "vertical", dualism concerning the ontology of causation, enables Spinoza to introduce a non-arbitrary notion of God, who has a causal role to play that may be distinguished from the workings of the universal clockwork itself. In both cases, rather than expressions of a modern-type naturalism, Spinoza's dualistic positions are motivated by a concern to meet the demands of a Renaissance philosophy of morals, according to which the liberation of the mind and the love of God are crucial elements in the quest for beatitude.


Postural stability is an important component in maintaining upright stance and balance during normal daily movements and activities. Postural stability is also an important factor in the elderly where balance disability may increase the risk of falls and subsequent injury. In sport, problems with balance may lead to serious injuries. Thus, postural stability has important implications in rehabilitation and sports.

Many different methods exist today for assessing postural sway. Centre of pressure (COP) evaluation is a frequently used method of measuring this stability and gain insights into potential pathological mechanisms e.g. in association with pain. This is possible as the COP signal is proportional to ankle torque, a combination of descending motor commands as well as mechanical properties of the musculature around.

Over the last decades, postural sway has been most commonly evaluated by using spatial measures such as sway distance, velocity and area traversed based upon sequential locations of the COP in the plane of the force platform. However, despite its common usage, important clinical aspects of the COP measurements such as its potential suitability for clinical monitoring purposes in pain patients remained unaddressed. Several literature reviews were conducted that identified relevant gaps in current knowledge to focus our research.

This led to the following primary research questions:

a) Can a best evidence experimental setup be identified that is suitable for spinal pain sufferers?

b) Is there a relationship between pain intensity and the COP excursions?

c) Are there alterations in postural sway associated with diminishing pain?

Based on a systematic review of the literature the following experimental protocol was developed: Three measurements of 90sec each were conducted in bipedal narrow stance with closed eyes at a sampling frequency of 100Hz. We selected the COP parameters 90% circle diameter as a descriptor of sway area and mean sway velocity as it has shown its discriminative value for various pain conditions.

The prospective part of this thesis was preceded by pilot studies that confirmed the excellent reliability of the selected experimental setup for mean sway velocity in antero-posterior (AP) and the medio-lateral (ML) direction (ICC2,k 0.85-0.89, 95% CI 0.63-0.97, SEM 0.66-0.78) and 90% circle diameter (ICC2,k 0.80, 95% CI 0.54-0.94, SEM 0.89). Later on, very similar values were observed for sway data obtained from the symptomatic groups.

The experimental setup was found to be safe and a sub-sample of predominantly low back pain patients (n=20) reported no difficulties complying with the postural tasks involved. Furthermore, no effects of learning or fatigue could be demonstrated in 10 healthy individuals either during inter-session (10 consecutive measurements) or intra-session (three times 3 measurements at 2-3 day intervals). No adverse incidents associated with the measurements occurred in approximately 1500 measurements.

By enrolling age matched healthy individuals as a control group (n=77), reference values for the included COP parameters were established to which all subsequent data obtained from symptomatic individuals could be compared.

A total of 210 patients were enrolled subdivided into three groups for non-specific neck, mid back and low back pain. A physical examination was conducted for all pain sufferers, who were asked to rate their pain intensity on a NRS-11 scale. The associated disability was assessed by means of the Disability Rating Index. Depending on the reported severity of their complaint, the symptomatic individuals were subdivided into seven pain intensity groups (NRS 2-8) for each of the painful regions: low back (n=77, n=11/group), mid back (n=63, n=9/group) and neck (n=70, n=10/group).

The symptomatic participants exhibited greater postural sway than healthy controls. As a general trend, a statistically significant increase was reached beginning at about NRS score 4 for all three pain regions. Depending on the COP parameter and painful region, significant differences between individual NRS levels were reached about every 2-3 NRS levels. Significant differences in COP excursions between mid back, low back and neck pain sufferers could be identified. However, in the light of the expected inter-subject variability in pain perception as well as the low number of participants per NRS group this conclusion warrants caution.

A major finding from a univariate regression analysis was a linear relationship between pain intensity and the COP parameters (p<0.001) for all painful regions, while a multivariate regression analysis showed that other variables such as age, gender, height, weight and BMI did not have a statistically significant effect on postural sway.

This close relationship was maintained even with diminishing pain levels after a course of manual therapy treatments conducted in a group of low back (n=38) and neck pain patients (n=36). In this instance three measurements and interventions were performed at 3-4 day intervals. With few exceptions, the follow-up COP measures in connection with specific pain intensities did not show a significant difference in postural sway compared to reference values for identical NRS levels at baseline.

In addition, a similar linear relationship between pain intensity, the COP sway parameters and the patient's disability ratings was identified for all painful regions.

At the same time, a clear trend towards predominant sway in the medio-lateral direction was observed with increasing pain intensities, until 70% of sway occurred in ML direction at NRS score 8. In comparison, healthy controls showed a nearly equal sway distribution between AP (52%) and ML (48%) direction.

In the absence of learning effects, the reduced COP excursions with decreasing NRS scores in subacute and chronic pain sufferers further suggests that pain interference rather than long-term neuro-physiological adaptations (such as central sensitization) are the primary causative factor for increased sway.

Our findings may have clinical implications for COP measures in patients with significant pain. These include routine sway analyses as an objective outcome measure during the rehabilitation and treatment process. It also stresses the importance of an initial focus on pain regulation rather than proprioceptive training.


Aristotelian virtue ethics is often charged with counseling a self-centred approach to the moral life. Reviewing some influential responses made by defenders of virtue ethics, I argue that none of them goes far enough. I begin my own response by evaluating two common targets of the objection, Aristotle and Aquinas, and based on my findings sketch the outlines of a clearly non-self-centred version of virtue ethics, according to which the 'center' is instead located in the agent's right relation to others and ultimately to the Good. I conclude that while some species of virtue ethics may be self-centred, the objection cannot be used to indict the whole genus.


We introduce the problem of visual hashtag discovery for infographics: extracting visual elements from an infographic that are diagnostic of its topic. Given an infographic as input, our computational approach automatically outputs textual and visual elements predicted to be representative of the infographic content. Concretely, from a curated dataset of 29K large infographic images sampled across 26 categories and 391 tags, we present an automated two step approach. First, we extract the text from an infographic and use it to predict text tags indicative of the infographic content. And second, we use these predicted text tags as a supervisory signal to localize the most diagnostic visual elements from within the infographic i.e. visual hashtags. We report performances on a categorization and multi-label tag prediction problem and compare our proposed visual hashtags to human annotations.


Recognition is vital for conflict resolution. This study was designed to learn more about the factors underlying the willingness to recognize the pain and suffering of the opponent in the asymmetrical protracted conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Data were collected through a public opinion survey conducted with a representative sample of Israeli-Jewish adults (N = 511). Perceptions of threat/distrust toward Palestinians and dehumanization of Palestinians each made a significant contribution to explaining Jewish-Israeli (un)willingness to recognize Palestinian pain and suffering (R2 = .36). Hawkishness made an added significant contribution to the overall explanatory power of the model (R2 = .38). Higher scores on the threat/distrust scale and the dehumanization scale, as well as higher hawkishness predicted decreased willingness to recognize Palestinian pain and suffering. The implications of our findings for understanding the role of recognition and of moral concern in conflict resolution are discussed.


Double anal fin (Da) is a medaka with an autosomal semidominant mutation that causes mirror image duplication of the ventral region concentrating on the caudal region. The chromosomal location of the Da gene and its sequence have remained unknown. We constructed a medaka linkage map as a first step to approach positional cloning of the gene. The segregation analysis was performed on the basis of genetic recombination during female meiosis using 134 random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers, 13 sequence-tagged sites (STSs), 15 polymorphic sequences from known genes, and the Da gene. One hundred forty-six markers from the above markers segregated into 26 linkage groups. The size of the genome was estimated to be 1776 cM in length. We identified four syntenic regions between medaka and zebrafish (and human) by mapping the known genes and found one of them to be located in close proximity to the Da gene. By mapping the region surrounding the Da gene in high resolution, two markers were detected flanking the Da gene at 0.32 and 0.80 cM. The detected markers providing a vital clue to initiate chromosome walking will lead us to the definite location of the Da gene.


Two distinct basaltic suites characterize ∼1165- to 1120-Ma magmatism in west Texas. The ∼1163 Ma Pecos mafic intrusive complex consists of layered mafic and ultramafic rocks. Megacyclic units record repeated influx and mixing of tholeiitic magmas to yield a predominantly noritic body. Basaltic magmatism also accompanied emplacement of the 1120 ± 35-Ma Red Bluff granitic suite in the Franklin Mountains. In terms of their major elements, these basaltic rocks are transitional between tholeiitic and alkaline, but their low concentrations of Nb suggest a subduction-related origin. Except for their low Nb contents, the Franklin Mountains basaltic rocks are similar to coeval basaltic intrusive and volcanic rocks in the southwestern U.S.A. Of the numerous proposed tectonic settings, an extensional environment is preferred. Possible extensional associations include splays of the Midcontinent Rift, rifting caused by collision of a continental fragment during the Grenville orogeny, and extension related to collapse of over-thickened crust during the Grenville event. The low Nb contents of basalts associated with Franklin Mountains basaltic rocks are best explained as an artifact of older subduction, which modified the mantle source of the basalts hundreds of millions of years prior to their emplacement.


We analyze how the governmental market interventions during the commodity price peaks 2007/2008 and 2010/2011 have affected the transmission of price changes along the wheat-to-bread supply chain in Serbia. We aim to investigate if consumers benefitted from the wheat and flour export restrictions, which were supplemented by governmental wheat purchases in the domestic market, or if other members along the supply chain were able to gain advantage. Our analysis of price dynamics between wheat and flour prices within a Markov Switching Vector Error Correction Model suggests that the mills increased their margin and thus profits in the aftermath of the governmental interventions. The simulation of bread production costs makes evident that bakeries and even more retailers profited substantially from the crisis policy. We find that consumers benefitted from the governmental interventions only to a limited degree and experienced overall welfare losses. Compared with laissez-faire policy, the bread price increase was dampened by the governmental market interventions only at the beginning of the crisis. The additional strong bread price increase in April 2008 indirectly resulted from the governmental wheat purchases from the Serbian market.


Akiane Kramarik painted some of her earliest commercial works by age seven. She now paints eight to twenty paintings a year, which sell for anywhere from $50,000 to $1,000,000 apiece. In addition, she has written and published two books of poetry. Her teenage brothers operate a website dedicated to Akiane and her works, on which consumers can purchase her books and artwork. The website bears a copyright notice, but her brothers do not have a copyright registration in the website. Like Akiane and her brothers, thousands upon thousands of, "underage authors," are exposing their copyrighted works online. But what rights, exactly, are they securing for themselves? In theory, the Copyright Act could protect against the misappropriation of a young author's rights, but only if that author thinks to register his or her work. The minor author is often all too willing to expose the work to infringement by publishing or even creating the copyrightable work online, inviting right-click instantaneous copying. Distribution of copyrighted works can occur before the author has even realized that a work has been created, thanks to social networking sites that target teens, and tweens as young as age six. In addition, social networking sites have complex user agreements and terms of use that could confuse someone who is thirty-eight, much less eight. These terms, which many users never acknowledge or see, purport to be contractual agreements that bind the user regardless of that user's age. Or do they? The contractual doctrine of infancy may be raised as a defense against an adult plaintiff. But the infancy doctrine may not be used as a sword, allowing minors to pick and choose the contracts they would disaffirm. Online contracts may present an instance where the doctrine of infancy should be expanded so that minor authors who post materials on a web site can protect the rights in those works from unwitting dilution. In the case of A.V. v. iParadigms, involving the popular plagiarism-checking software Turnitin, the author was an older infant, bound by terms and conditions of a web site to which he was forced to publish as part of a high school class in order to receive a passing grade. This article begins by examining the practical ability or inability of the, "infant author," to achieve and exploit the full rights of copyright, given that the Copyright Office itself seems to recognize that any rights given to infant authors are tempered by contract laws. Section II reviews the contractual doctrine of infancy and its effect upon a child author's protection under copyright law. Section III examines the specific problem of minors contracting regarding their copyrights, especially online contracts. Section IV explores the issue as currently framed, reviewing potential solutions already suggested and noting their inherent problems. Section V examines the recent decision in A.V. v. iParadigms, noting potential flaws in the court's rationale. Section VI explores some of these problems, including constitutional rights that support the creative process but which may be limited in a child's setting, and suggests a measure that Congress could take to ensure that these rights are born with the child's work and mature as quickly as rights for a work authored by an adult.


North Korea is considered by westerners to be a dangerous and unpredictable country and its leader, Kim Jong II, a mad dictator. After its nuclear test in October 2006, nervousness reached a new critical point. Yet first impressions gathered after this test showed that perceptions of this "rogue state" range widely among observers in the West and their Asian counterparts. The present research specifically assesses the fear of subjects from four countries, when confronted with the official press release after the event. Our hypotheses were that the perceived fear of North Korea would differ between subject groups of each country, and that it would increase in correlation to geographical distance. The results confirm the first hypothesis. The second, however, could not be verified.


This comprehensive volume - containing 27 chapters and contributions from six continents - presents and discusses key principles, perspectives, and practices of social learning in the context of sustainability. Social learning is explored from a range of fields challenged by sustainability including: organizational learning, environmental management and corporate social responsibility; multi-stakeholder governance; education, learning and educational psychology; multiple land-use and integrated rural development; and consumerism and critical consumer education. An entire section of the book is devoted to a number of reflective case studies of people, organizations and communities using forms of social learning in moving towards sustainability.


There are some long-term trends in the global energy market: changing geography of hydrocarbons production, displacement of the centers of oil and gas in remote and offshore areas, steady decline in hydrocarbon production in the continental deposits, maintaining a stable level due to increased production from offshore fields. Currently, the share of oil and gas offshore is more than 25% of production in the world. Deterioration of conditions of hydrocarbon production comes with growing demand for oil and gas in the world. According to IEA and BP projections, the global demand for natural gas in 2030 will increase by 40%, oil - by 36%. The Arctic shelf is the largest and still the only source of undiscovered hydrocarbons. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the share of the Arctic shelf is about one-fifth of all undiscovered recoverable oil and gas reserves in the world. Most of these potential resources are located on the Russian part of the Arctic shelf. Recoverable hydrocarbon resources of the Russian Arctic shelf consist of about 13 billion tons of oil and condensate and 70 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. According to the forecast of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, oil production in the Russian Arctic shelf in 2030 will be 66 million tons, and gas production - 230 billion cubic meters. Traditionally, the largest share of Russian exports of oil and gas deal with European countries (about 80%). Supply of Russian energy covers a significant part of the European industry and households needs. In 2012, Russia provided about 34% of natural gas imports the EU, 33% - of crude oil imports. Significant challenges of the development of the Arctic fields are the following: need in more sophisticated and expensive technologies to carry out production and transportation of hydrocarbons in extreme environments, and to provide a sufficient level of environmental safety. To overcome these difficulties, the Russian company Rosneft in 2012 signed an agreement about jointly development the Arctic shelf deposits with foreign companies, ExxonMobil, Statoil, Eni. And in 2013 Russian company Gazprom will start production at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Barents Sea. In the context of sustainable long-term growth in global demand for hydrocarbons offshore development of the Arctic shelf is a necessary condition for energy supply the global economy. Development of new technologies for offshore production and transportation will boost high-tech industries as well as to expand cooperation in the economic and investment areas with the European countries.


One hundred years after the implementation of the 1913 Land Act, the subject of land reform and rural development are still at the forefront of public discourse within South Africa. Much of the literature suggests that post-apartheid interventions have not been successful at improving small-scale agriculture, which is seen as an important vehicle for improving rural food security. Nevertheless, data from the General Household Survey indicate that household food security has improved in the post-2000 decade. In particular, this paper demonstrates that hunger levels have declined substantially since 2002 (as other estimates of poverty have also indicated), but more importantly that they have done so faster in former homelands regions. Using linear probability models, this paper seeks to isolate which factors have led to the convergence of homeland regions' hunger levels to the rest of the country. The historical context that is sketched here highlights the severe challenges faced by farmers in these areas; this raises the question how convergence in food security occurred, given that many agricultural interventions have not attained the success that was hoped for. In particular, the large reliance on social grants in homelands regions accounts for a part of the reduction in hunger levels. Communal gardens and connections to the agricultural market have reduced hunger within former homelands regions. The long-term sustainability of grants in bolstering food security is of concern, highlighting the need for greater market integration of small scale farmers in homeland regions.


Objectives To estimate the prevalence of and associations between anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), low subjective well-being (SWB), potential traumas and postmigration stress among refugees from Syria resettled in Sweden. Design A cross-sectional and population-based questionnaire study based on a known and complete sample frame. The survey included multiple measures of mental ill health and factors of particular relevance for refugees. Weighted analyses were conducted to calculate representative prevalence rates and associations. Associations were investigated through a series of logistic regression analyses. All analyses were supplemented with robust 95% CIs. Setting Sweden. Participants A random sample of 1215 individuals (response rate 30.4%) from Syria aged 18–64 years that were granted residency in Sweden on grounds of asylum between 2011 and 2013. Main outcome measures Anxiety, depression, PTSD and low SWB were assessed through Hopkins Symptom Checklist, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire and WHO-5 Well-being Index, using established cut-offs. Results A majority of the participants met the criteria for at least one of the studied types of mental ill health, and the comorbidity was high. Depression was the most the common type with 40.2% (95% CI 36.9% to 43.3%), followed by low SWB with 37.7% (95% CI 34.8% to 40.1%), anxiety with 31.8% (95% CI 29.2% to 34.7%) and PTSD with 29.9% (95% CI 27.2% to 32.6%). Refugee-related potentially traumatic events (PTEs) experienced before or during migration was common as was substantial levels of postmigration stress. Most types of refugee-related PTEs, especially being exposed to interpersonal violence, and postmigration stress were associated with increased risks for anxiety, depression, low SWB and PTSD. Conclusions Mental ill health, in terms of anxiety, depression, low SWB and PTSD, are highly elevated and comorbid among refugees from Syria. Increased attention from multiple societal sectors to adequately support Syrian refugees' mental health needs, promoting recovery and reducing postmigration stress are needed.


Preexisting and acquired resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors limits their clinical usefulness in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study characterizes the efficacy and mechanisms of the combination of gefitinib or erlotinib with OSU-03012, a celecoxib-derived antitumor agent, to overcome EGFR inhibitor resistance in three NSCLC cell lines, H1155, H23, and A549. The OSU-03012/EGFR inhibitor combination induced pronounced apoptosis in H1155 and H23 cells, but not in A549 cells, suggesting a correlation between drug sensitivity and basal phospho-Akt levels independently of EGFR expression status. Evidence indicates that this combination facilitates apoptosis through both Akt signaling inhibition and up-regulation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-induced, GADD153-mediated pathways. For example, ectopic expression of constitutively active Akt significantly attenuated the inhibitory effect on cell survival, and small interfering RNA-mediated knockdown of GADD153 protected cells from undergoing apoptosis in response to drug cotreatments. Furthermore, the OSU-03012/EGFR inhibitor combination induced GADD153-mediated up-regulation of death receptor 5 expression and subsequent activation of the extrinsic apoptosis pathway. It is noteworthy that the ER stress response induced by this combination was atypical in that the cytoprotective pathway was not engaged. In addition, in vivo suppression of tumor growth and modulation of intratumoral biomarkers were observed in a H1155 tumor xenograft model in nude mice. These data suggest that the concomitant modulation of Akt and ER stress pathways with the OSU-03012/EGFR inhibitor combination represents a unique approach to overcoming EGFR inhibitor resistance in NSCLC and perhaps other types of cancer with elevated basal Akt activities.


This research describes the results of a study on young people's media usage patterns in Latvia during a period of four years from 2007 until 2010. The present study consists of three parts: it analyses the so-called "media day" of young people and shows which media, which content and for what needs are used in different parts of the day; the study collects data about a "media set" chosen by young people and tests what media technological features are used by young people on a regular basis. The results of this particular research allow the discussion of the following questions: What is the correlation between functions of media usage and the level of young people's awareness about important political, economic and social issues? What particular individual or social conditions can impact young people's media usage? How does young media users' behaviour reflect the phenomena of 'participation culture' or 'collective intelligence'? The chosen methods of this research are questionnaire and focus groups discussions.


The objective and realistic vision of the nature of the Turkish-Iranian relations with regard to the Middle East and North Africa region in general and Iraq in particular is undoubtedly based on the following : Competitiveness rather than conflict between the two countries Turkish and Iranian Iraq became, after June 2014, an arena for regional and international competition and conflict among the regional powers because of its geostrategic importance Geopolitical remains one of the most powerful elements that shape this importance, especially in the case of direct geographical proximity with all its potential impact and influence on both sides of the border at various levels of political, military, strategic, security and economic. And with the phenomenon of competition in the Turkish-Iranian relations on Iraq beyond 2003 However, there are constants between the two countries (Turkish and Iranian) and one of the most important foundations of the constants between the Iranian and Turkish sides Energy security and Turkey's view are not seen as a conduit for influence in Central and South Asia, and the constants are also coordination on security issues related to the Kurdish problem Turkish-Iranian competition and its impact on Iraq after 2003 " Boosted after the US withdrawal from Iraq in late 2011Providing Turkey and Iran with a historic opportunity to achieve their national interests and objectives by increasing the effectiveness of regional action and all political, economic, security and cultural dimensions. The imbalance of the equation of the strategic regional balance after the departure of Iraq from that equation and the emergence of a new map of regional balances, gave the two countries a great opportunity for freedom of movement and regional political action influential within the Iraqi arena.


Network analysis is a framework that allows integration and evaluation of predator-prey interactions. In the present study, we synthesized diet composition information from 94 published studies (n = 12,335 unique predator-prey interactions) that reported food habits of teleost fishes in the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM). Using this information, we constructed 12 weighted trophic network models using three diet metrics and four levels of taxonomic resolution of predators and prey. We evaluated network resilience to simulated random and directed taxa loss by assessing changes in topological indices "complexity," "connectance," "efficiency," and "robustness" with respect to a priori minima. We found all networks were resilient to random removal of nodes. However, the response to directed removal varied depending on the index used to determine node importance. Directed removal simulations that targeted taxa with the greatest number of trophic interactions had the strongest impact on network topological indices. Using an additional simulation, we assessed how removal of taxa of commercial interest impacted the predation pressure on other taxa. We found a greater magnitude of predator diet shifts when Gulf menhaden (Brevoortia patronus Goode, 1878) were removed than when blue crab (Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896) were removed, indicating predators of Gulf menhaden have a more limited portfolio of diet items than do predators of blue crab. Compared to previously described marine trophic networks, the network that describes the trophic dynamics in the nGOM is less connected and complex. This conclusion highlights the need for consistent reporting of stomach contents and improved understanding of the food habits of lesser-known taxa in the region.


The attraction of writing biography for me has always been that it so clearly demands analysis of the fields of action and discourse, the boundaries between these fields and their variation over time. There is, of course, always a limit to what may be said or done at any given moment. There are restrictive factors of which the good biographer must always be aware, and which are, from the existentialist point of view, instructive not only for the biographer but hopefully for his readers as well: that is, how the subject has made use of his limited scope of action. Within that field of action and discourse the subject has wrestled with strong and persistent dilemmas that the biographer must possess the imagination and power of insight to distinguish among all other relevant and time-specific events. In this way, a biography deals with man's struggle with and against structures he does not fully control. The amateur biographer's most common characteristic is that he writes his biography because he loves or dislikes his object. This means that he lacks ambitions of historical theory and believes that writing a biography is about handing out medals or red cards. The good biographer, on the other hand, I argue, looks at the subject as an empirical example that can be used to solve a problem or answer a question. The subject thus becomes a prism which reflects a more general historical dilemma. In a biography it is not the subject's, but the biographer's voice I primarily want to hear. This line of argument will not be developed further here, but may be studied further in my book Den tidlose modernisten (in French, Le moderniste atemporel, Paris, 2008) where questions of this kind are discussed in theoretical and practical terms. This article sheds light on the advantages of such a problem-oriented and interdisciplinary biography writing with the help of a concrete example - Ingmar Lundquist's fine dissertation Kulturposten: Torsten Fogelqvist som DN-publicist och folkbildare (Stockholm,2005). [The cultural dean: Torsten Fogelqvist as a publicist for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter and as a general educater].


Some of those who suffered at the hands of the Japanese during World War II and have subsequently written of their experiences are at pains to say they bear no grudge. George Wright-Nooth is not cast in that mould. He was a trainee Colonial Police officer studying for his Chinese-language exams when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, and was to spend the next four years incarcerated in a prison camp. He kept a diary which remained undiscovered, and from which extracts form much of this first-hand account of suffering and brutality during the terrible years of the Japanese occupation.


Fibrin is the major extracellular component of blood clots and a proteinaceous hydrogel used as a versatile biomaterial. Fibrin forms branched networks of polymeric fibers, built of laterally associated double-stranded protofibrils. This multiscale hierarchical structure is crucial for the extraordinary mechanical resilience of blood clots. Yet, the structural basis of clot mechanical properties remains largely unclear due, in part, to the unresolved molecular packing structure of fibrin fibers. Here we quantitatively assess the packing structure of fibrin fibers by combining Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) measurements of fibrin networks reconstituted under a wide range of conditions with computational molecular modeling of fibrin oligomers. The number, positions, and intensities of the Bragg peaks observed in the SAXS experiments were reproduced computationally based on the all-atom molecular structure of reconstructed fibrin protofibrils. Specifically, the model correctly predicts the intensities of the reflections of the 22.5 nm axial repeat, corresponding to the half-staggered longitudinal arrangement of fibrin molecules. In addition, the SAXS measurements showed that protofibrils within fibrin fibers have a partially ordered lateral arrangement with a characteristic transverse repeat distance of 13 nm, irrespective of the fiber thickness. These findings provide fundamental insights into the molecular structure of fibrin clots that underlies their biological and physical properties.


The Canadian province of Manitoba has long pursued an aggressive strategy of hydroelectric development. This effort was predicated upon a mix of old and new assumptions, including long-held beliefs that power must be cheap and that the province, operating through its crown utility, Manitoba Hydro, possessed the only legitimate claim to northern land and water resources. The province also recognised the need to remove Aboriginal communities from lands and resources to be used for hydro development notwithstanding the fact that these communities and individuals had long practiced what was, by many accounts, a comfortable and economically viable way of life. Using a social capital framework developed by both sociologists and political scientists, the consequences of this strategy on the displaced Aboriginal residents of South Indian Lake, a small community located in Manitoba's northern hydro region, are examined. The analysis is based on interviews conducted with former residents now living in a number of urban centers throughout the province. It is concluded that these individuals have been largely, if not entirely, unsuccessful in forming the variety of communal bonds emphasised by social capital theorists. These difficulties continue today, as individuals who were left on their own, with little assistance either from back home or from the state, exist in a world largely devoid of supportive social networks.


The papers in this volume derive from the First International Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean (Malta, 1985). The field remains divided between the view supporting the existence of a universal belief in an all-pervading and all-embracing Mother Goddess – of which the fertility cult is just one, albeit important, aspect – and the view questioning the very bases of that theory. This conference showed that there seems to be a greater disposition for further dialogue. The fertility content in Near Eastern and Classical religions remains indisputable. The conference proved to be also, not accidentally, of special significance to Maltese archaeology. The volume is divided into four sections: Section I. Prehistory; Section II. Prehistory, Malta; Section III. Phoenician and Near Eastern Religions; Section IV. The Greco-Roman World.