Simulation based medical education (SBME) is gradually becoming an inseparable part of medical and Professionals Allied to Medicine (PAM) education. The demand to use this training approach in healthcare is increasing every year to meet the Department of Health's Standards for Better Health (NESC, 2008). As an alternative training approach SBME provides medical students and practitioners with near real-life opportunities to practice and improve clinical and non-clinical skills and improve health care services as a result. Although SBME is already a very popular training approach, Kneebone (2005) argues it is "often accepted uncritically, with undue emphasis being placed on technological sophistication at the expense of theory-based design" (p.549). SBME is "a complex service intervention" (McGaghie, 2009, p.50), which includes much more than a series of advanced technologies utilised for simulating an event. SBME is actualised by a network of closely knit human, non-human, and "conceptual and symbolic" (Bleakley, 2012, p.464) actors that work in an interrelated manner "as a basis to promoting learning and innovation" (Bleakley, p.464). It is not just the sophistication of the technology that supports learning but the dialogic relation of all the actors involved in creating the opportunities for learning. What is required to develop a 'healthy' and 'growing' network that promotes learning and innovation (Bleakley, 2012) or hinder effective learning hasn't widely been investigated. Bleakley argues that actor network theory (ANT) "serves to repair the historical separation of theory and practice" (p. 465). To understand SBME as a complex process involving technology, people, objects, artefacts, actions, and places, ANT may introduce new insight, "an interruption or intervention, a way to sense and draw nearer" (Fenwick & Edwards 2010: ix) to the phenomenon of SBME. This paper expands the understanding of how actors interact with each other within a network and the practices that support/hinder blended learning in the Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHTR) Simulation Centre (SC). Outcomes provide insight into the design of a simulation session, describe the assemblage of a blended learning in SBME (B-SBME) actor network, and illustrate an example of the network effects of mediators' and intermediaries' capacities to form alliances between a B-SBME networked assemblage and broader Trust networks.


Who is the greatest running back of all time? How about the most dominant team in NFL history? What was the best play ever? "Sports Illustrated" has polled its experts, asking them to list their Top 10 answers to these and other questions that pro football fans have been debating ever since the pigskin starting flying. "Football's Greatest" will rank the best of the best, explaining the methodology while paying tribute to those chosen with material from "SI's" rich historical archive. Fans will not only be able to see how our experts rate, for example, Johnny Unitas against Brett Favre against Tom Brady, but they will also be able to sample classic coverage of those superstars. This book is sure to spark debate around the country as fans compare their rankings to those determined by Peter King, Tim Layden, Damon Hack and the rest of "SI's" NFL insiders. Which player will rate highest among linebackers - Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus or Ray Lewis? How about franchises - which is the greatest of all, the Packers, the Steelers or the Cowboys? What better way to celebrate the best of America's most popular sport than with the greatest stories and photographs from America's favourite sports magazine?


A new multichip monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) package operable to X and K/sub a/ bands has been developed and tested. This package provides space for mounting up to five MMIC chips and has three radio frequency (RF) and five dc feed-throughs. The RF feed-throughs are of a mixed-mode, conductor-backed coplanar waveguide design that minimizes reflections and insertion loss over a wide bandwidth. The dc feed-throughs permit bias access for up to five chips and internal mounting of chip bypass capacitors. Prototypes of the package have been built and tested using miniature coplanar probes. Test results indicate that the RF feed-throughs meet design goals to about 30 GHz and can be used to about 35 GHz. The package has been analyzed using a "Composite Model" approach in which individual elements are separately analyzed and modeled and then combined in a circuit simulator to provide a complete package model. This approach has provided quite good agreement with measured data.


During the year 2015 two great geomagnetic storms (Dst < −200 nT) occurred on 17 March and 22 June. These two geomagnetic storms have similarities. They occurred during the same decreasing phase of the sunspot cycle 24. The interplanetary and magnetospheric environments were calm before the beginning of the storms. Both events were due to Coronal Mass Ejections and High‐Speed Solar Wind. Variations of the solar wind velocity and the Bz component of the interplanetary magnetic field were also similar. Two key features that are different for these storms are UT time of the beginning (04:45 UT for 17 March and 18:33 UT for 22 June) and season (equinox and solstice). The comparison of the impact of the storms on the Earth ionosphere and magnetosphere has been performed using diverse parameters including global ionospheric maps of vertical total electron content, data from individual Global Navigation Satellite System receivers, ionosondes, magnetometers, and instruments from different space missions. Visualizing global ionospheric map data as the difference of vertical total electron content between consecutive days allowed understanding better the effect of the storms as a function of time of the beginning of the storm and of the season. It is shown that the presence or absence of scintillations in Global Navigation Satellite System signals during these two storms in African longitude sector is clearly related to the local time at a given station at the beginning of the storm.


This article analyses the impact on EU sell-side research of the MiFID II Research Unbundling provisions that require portfolio managers to pay for the research they obtain. In the past, concerns have been raised, based primarily on survey data, that the new rules could have detrimental effects on the availability and quality of company research in the EU. In order to provide a more detailed, data-based contribution to inform this discussion, we examine a sample of 8,000 EU listed companies between 2006 and 2019, and do not find material evidence of harmful effects from these rules. The introduction of MiFID II has not led to a significant difference in the number of analysts producing Earnings per Share (EPS) estimates ('research intensity'). Recent increases in the number of companies no longer being covered by research analysts ('research coverage') appear to be a continuation of a long-term trend. The quality of research has been steadily improving in recent years. SMEs do not appear to be disproportionately affected in terms of research intensity, research coverage, and research quality. The descriptive findings in this article are consistent with the emerging data-based academic literature on the impact of the MiFID II research unbundling provisions and are complemented by a forthcoming ESMA econometric study. Further assessment of the impact of the MiFID II research unbundling provisions on subsets of the EU market for research, such as the impact on sponsored research, will be interesting avenues for further study.


The purpose of this study were to determine effects of fattening systems on fattening performance (n=39) and slaughter and carcass characteristics (n=24) in male Tuj lambs. Three different fattening groups were formed as extensive (n=13), semi-intensive (n=13) and intensive (n=13). Lambs in the extensive group were grazed in pasture. In addition to pasture, concentrated feed was given to lambs in the semi-intensive group. High quality fodder and concentrated feed were given to those in the intensive group. The study was completed in 90 d. Final live weights of extensive, semi-intensive and intensive groups were 31.19, 41.22, and 40.56 kg (P<0.001), respectively, and for daily live weight gain were (DLWG) 117.52, 229.66, and 221.11 g (P<0.001), respectively. Feed conversion rates (FCR) were 3.05 and 5.16 respectively in the semi-intensive and intensive fattening. It was found that hot carcass weight was 13.41, 19.51, and 19.89 kg (P<0.001) in extensive, semi-intensive, and intensive fattening groups respectively. Hot carcass yield was 43.11, 46.95, and 49.77% (P<0.001) in extensive, semi-intensive, and intensive fattening groups respectively. Consequently; leg, foreleg, shoulder, neck, flank, and kidney percentages, and spleen and full stomach weights of lambs in the extensive group were higher than in semi-extensive and entensive groups. Although there was no statistical difference between semi-extensive and entensive groups in respect to fattening performance, slaugher weight, hot and cold carcass weights, entensive group was higher than the other groups in respect to hot and cold carcass yield.


Since 1991, Robert Barro has been a lively contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other popular financial media. Getting It Right brings together, updates, and expands upon these writings that showcase Barro's agility in applying economic understanding to a wide array of social issues. Barro, a "conservative who takes no prisoners," and a self-described libertarian, believes that most governments have gone much too far in their spending, taxation, and regulation. The dominant theme in these wide-ranging essays is the importance of institutions that ensure property rights and free markets. The discussion deals especially with the appropriate range of government: which areas represent useful public policy and which are unnecessary interference. The first section of the book considers these questions in the context of the determinants of long-run economic growth. In addition to basic economics, Barro assesses related political topics, such as the role of public institutions, the optimal size of countries, and the consequences of default on foreign debt. The second section deals with the proper role and form of monetary policy. Barro argues that government should provide markets with a stable nominal framework and then stay out of the way to best allow for price stability. Writings in the third section cover fiscal and other macroeconomic policies. Topics include the distorting influences of taxation, especially taxes on capital income; infrastructure investment and other government spending; and the consequences of public debt and budget deficits. In a final section, Barro looks at more micro issues such as cartels, tax amnesties, school choice, privatization, cigarette-smoking regulation, endangered species regulation, the market for baseball players, and term limits for politicians.


Second language (L2) learners have problems when acquiring relative clauses (Hawkins and Chan 1997; Wong 1999). This study examines and attempts to explain the learners' competence in the use of relative clauses. The L2 learners are L1 (first language) speakers of Malay who were gauged to have elementary proficiency in English by the Oxford Placement Test. A grammaticality judgment task (GJT) was administered to determine the subjects' ability to distinguish between the grammatical and ungrammatical forms of relative clauses. The task revealed the students'
acquired competence in this particular area. This competence is further examined in the context of a production task which gauged their ability to form relative clauses through sentence combining. Results from the GJT showed consistently low scores for a variety of extractions from various positions in the formation of relative clauses. This is further supported by the results obtained from the sentence-combination task where the production of correct sentences using relative clauses was the focus. In sum, the Malay learners failed to recognise and produce
appropriate relative clause constructions. The data confirmed other findings that relative clauses are a source of difficulty for these L2 learners and these findings have pedagogic implications for the learning of this essential grammar component.


PREMISE OF THE STUDY
Insect-resistant Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) maize is widely cultivated, yet few studies have examined the interaction of symbiotic arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) with different lines of Bt maize. As obligate symbionts, AMF may be sensitive to genetic changes within a plant host. Previous evaluations of the impact of Bt crops on AMF have been inconsistent, and because most studies were conducted under disparate experimental conditions, the results are difficult to compare.

METHODS
We evaluate AMF colonization in nine Bt maize lines, differing in number and type of engineered trait, and five corresponding near-isogenic parental (P) base hybrids in greenhouse microcosms. Plants were grown in 50% local agricultural soil with low levels of fertilization, and AMF colonization was evaluated at 60 and 100 d. Nontarget effects of Bt cultivation on AMF colonization were tested in a subsequently planted crop, Glycine max, which was seeded into soil that had been preconditioned for 60 d with Bt or P maize.

KEY RESULTS
We found that Bt maize had lower levels of AMF colonization in their roots than did the non-Bt parental lines. However, reductions in AMF colonization were not related to the expression of a particular Bt protein. There was no difference in AMF colonization in G. max grown in the Bt- or P-preconditioned soil.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings are the first demonstration of a reduction in AMF colonization in multiple Bt maize lines grown under the same experimental conditions and contribute to the growing body of knowledge examining the unanticipated effects of Bt crop cultivation on nontarget soil organisms.


Establishing healthy dietary habits in childhood is crucial in preventing long-term repercussions, as a lack of dietary variety in childhood leads to enduring impacts on both physical and cognitive health. Poor conceptual knowledge about food has recently been shown to be a driving factor of food rejection. The majority of studies that have investigated the development of food knowledge along with food rejection have mainly focused on one subtype of conceptual knowledge about food, namely taxonomic categories (e.g., vegetables or meat). However, taxonomic categorization is not the only way to understand the food domain. We also heavily rely on other conceptual structures, namely thematic associations, in which objects are grouped because they share spatial-temporal properties or exhibit a complementary relationship (e.g., soft-boiled egg and soldiers). We rely on such thematic associations between food items, which may not fall into the same taxon, to determine the acceptability of food combinations. However, the development of children's ability to master these relations has not been systematically investigated, nor alongside the phenomenon of food rejection. The present research aims to fill this gap by investigating (i) the development of conceptual food knowledge (both taxonomic and thematic) and (ii) the putative relationship between children's food rejection (as measured by the Child Food Rejection Scale) and both thematic and taxonomic food knowledge. A proportional (A:B::C:?) analogy task, with a choice between taxonomic (i.e., bread and pasta) and thematic (i.e., bread and butter) food associates, was conducted on children between 3 and 7-years-old (n = 85). The children were systematically presented with either a thematic or taxonomic food base pair (A:B) and then asked to extend the example type of relation to select the respective thematic or taxonomic match to the target (C:?). Our results revealed, for the first time, that increased levels of food rejection were significantly predictive of poorer food identification and decreased thematic understanding. These findings entitle us to hypothesize that knowledge-based food education programs to foster dietary variety in young children, should not only aim to improve taxonomic understanding of food, but also thematic relations.


In Cement, the Court of Justice decided that the automatic voidness provided for by Article 101(2) TFEU applies only to those contractual provisions which are incompatible with Article 101(1) TFEU. The remainder of the agreement and as well as any orders and deliveries made on the basis of the agreement, and the resulting financial obligations are not affected by Article 101(2) TFEU. Their validity is to be determined by the applicable national law. The contribution analyses their validity under Belgian, French, German, Dutch and English law and questions whether the Court of Justice should not review its position on this matter.


Public health authorities are required to prepare for future threats and need predictions of the likely impact of climate change on public health risks. They may get overwhelmed by the volume of heterogeneous information in scientific articles and risk relying purely on the public opinion articles which focus mainly on global warming trends, and leave out many other relevant factors. In the current paper, we discuss various scientific approaches investigating climate change and its possible impact on public health and discuss their different roles and functions in unraveling the complexity of the subject. It is not our objective to review the available literature or to make predictions for certain diseases or countries, but rather to evaluate the applicability of scientific research articles on climate change to evidence-based public health decisions. In the context of mosquito borne diseases, we identify common pitfalls to watch out for when assessing scientific research on the impact of climate change on human health. We aim to provide guidance through the plethora of scientific papers and views on the impact of climate change on human health to those new to the subject, as well as to remind public health experts of its multifactorial and multidisciplinary character.


In 2012, the American Law Institute asked us to serve as reporters for a new Restatement of Consumer Contracts. Recognizing that many innovations in American contract law in the past generation occurred in the area of consumer transactions, the project seemed timely and challenging. We discovered that many of these innovations are controversial and seemingly subject to conflicting approaches in the case law and heated debates among commentators. We also discovered that prior attempts to devise a unified set of rules have largely failed. We therefore decided to take a new approach to our search for, and restatement of, the emerging rules. In addition to identifying the majority rules, we used an empirical approach that involved collecting, coding, and systematically analyzing the entire body of court decisions on relevant questions. We identified the degree of support that different rules garnered in courts and the rate at which they were adopted or rejected over time. We thus discovered which rulings and rationales serve as guiding precedent. We based the black-letter rules in the final draft of the Restatement of Consumer Contracts on these findings (complementing them with qualitative support). In this Essay, we present our empirical approach to searching for the law and legal precedent, discuss its conceptual and normative foundations, and describe some of the doctrinal debates it helped resolve.


The development of robot motion planning algorithms is inherently a challenging task. This is more than ever true when the latest trends in motion planning are considered. Some motion planners can deal with kinematic and dynamic constraints induced by the mechanical structure of the robot. Another class of motion planners fulfill various types of optimality conditions, yet others include means of dealing with uncertainty about the robot and its environment. Sensor-based motion planners gather information typically afflicted with errors about a partially known environment in order to plan a trajectory therein. In another research area it is investigated how multiple robots best cooperate to solve a common task. In order to deal with the complexity of developing motion planning algorithms, it is proposed in this document to resort to a simulation environment. The advantages of doing so are outlined and a system named Ibex presented which is well suited to support motion planner development. The developed framework makes use of rigid body dynamics algorithms as simulation kernel. Further, various components are included which integrate the simulation into existing engineering environments. Simulation content can be conveniently developed through extensions of well-established 3D modelling tools. The co-simulation with components from other domains of physics is provided by the integration into a leading dynamic modelling environment. Robotic actuator models can be combined with a rigid body dynamics simulation using this mechanism. The same configuration also allows to conveniently develop control algorithms for a rigid body dynamics setup and offers powerful tools for handling and analysing simulation data. The developed simulation framework also offers physics-based models for simulating various sensors, most prominently a model for sensor types based on wave propagation, such as laser range finding devices. Application examples of the simulation framework are presented from the mobile robotics rough-terrain motion planning domain. Three novel rough-terrain planning algorithms are presented which are extensions of known approaches. To quantify the navigational difficulty on rough terrain, a new generic measure named "obstacleness" is proposed which forms the basis of the proposed algorithms. The first algorithm is based on Randomised Potential Field Planners (RPP) and consequently is a local algorithm. The second proposed planner extends RRTconnect , a bi-directional Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm and biases exploration of the search space towards easily traversable regions. The third planner is an extension of the second approach and uses the same heuristic to grow a series of additional local RRTs. This allows it to plan trajectories through complex distributions of navigational difficulty benefitting from easy regions throughout the motion plan. A complete example is shown in which the proposed algorithms form the basis for sensor-based dynamic re-planning simulated in the presented framework. In the scenario, a simulated planetary rover navigates a long distance over rough terrain while gathering sensor data about the terrain topography. Where obstacles are sensed which interfere with the original motion plan, dynamic re-planning routines are applied to circumnavigate the hindrances. In the course of this document a complete simulation environment is presented by means of a theoretical background and application examples which can significantly support the development of robot motion planning algorithms. The framework is capable of simulating setups which fulfil the requirements posed by stateof-the-art motion planning algorithm development.


Social mobility—the extent to which social and economic position in adulthood is facilitated or constrained by family origins—has taken an increasingly prominent role in public and policy discourse. Recent studies have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study trends in social mobility in England and Wales, in three post-war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. We estimate rates of occupational social class mobility by sex and region of origin. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility as well as how these have changed over time. While rates of upward mobility increased in every region between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, this upward shift varied across different parts of the country, and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore the role of domestic migration in understanding these temporal and spatial patterns, finding that those who stayed in their region of origin had lower rates of upward mobility compared to those who moved out, although this difference also narrowed over time. While policy discussion has focused almost entirely on national-level trends in social mobility, our results emphasise the need to also consider persistent spatial inequalities.


BACKGROUND
Techniques to measure apoptosis are used to study a wide spectrum of conditions, from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) to cancer to autoimmune diseases. Therefore, a critical comparison of common assays for apoptosis is warranted.

METHODS
The kinetics of apoptosis induction in dexamethasone (DEX)-exposed thymocytes was examined after 2, 4, 8, 12, 26-28, and 48-50 h of culture. An additional aim was to ascertain whether a similar thymic atrophy-inducing hormone, diethylstilbestrol (DES), also directly induces thymocyte apoptosis. Apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometric examination of cells stained with propidium iodide (PI), 7-aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD), or fluorescein isothiocyante (FITC)-annexin; by forward-and side-scatter (FS, SS) analysis, cell-size analyzer; and through cytopathologic examination.

RESULTS
After 4 h of DEX exposure, apoptosis was evident by 7-AAD, annexin, and cytopathological assays, but no cells with sub-diploid DNA content were evident by PI analysis. Maximal apoptosis was evident by all the above flow cytometric techniques at 12 h after DEX exposure. The 7-AAD and annexin assays, which allow discrimination between early apoptosis and late apoptosis/necrosis, were comparable and identified similar apoptotic populations. Appearance of a FSlow/SSincreased population was evident only after 12 h of DEX exposure. Apoptosis could not be detected by any of the above assays in thymocytes exposed to various doses of DES.

CONCLUSION
Two of the six assays, 7-AAD and annexin, were similar in detecting apoptosis at an early kinetic time point. Results of both assays were comparable at all time points studied. Our studies imply that DEX and DES induce thymic atrophy, in vivo, by different mechanisms.


The difficulty of semantic multimedia analysis can be attributed to the extended diversity in form and appearance exhibited by the majority of semantic concepts and the difficulty to express them using a finite number of patterns. In meeting this challenge there has been a scientific debate on whether the problem should be addressed from the perspective of using overwhelming amounts of training data to capture all possible instantiations of a concept, or from the perspective of using explicit knowledge about the concepts' relations to infer their presence. In this thesis we address three problems of pattern recognition and propose solutions that combine the knowledge extracted implicitly from training data with the knowledge provided explicitly in structured form. First, we propose a BNs modeling approach that defines a conceptual space where both domain related evidence and evidence derived from content analysis can be jointly considered to support or disprove a hypothesis. The use of this space leads to significant gains in performance compared to analysis methods that can not handle combined knowledge. Then, we present an unsupervised method that exploits the collective nature of social media to automatically obtain large amounts of annotated image regions. By proving that the quality of the obtained samples can be almost as good as manually annotated images when working with large datasets, we significantly contribute towards scalable object detection. Finally, we introduce a method that treats images, visual features and tags as the three observable variables of an aspect model and extracts a set of latent topics that incorporates the semantics of both visual and tag information space. By showing that the cross-modal dependencies of tagged images can be exploited to increase the semantic capacity of the resulting space, we advocate the use of all existing information facets in the semantic analysis of social media.


White long-lasting persistent luminescence covering the whole visible region in Bi3+-doped ZnGa2O4 ceramics is reported. The afterglow luminescence can be observed for several tens of minutes after 360 nm or 280 nm excitation. Photochromism is also observed during ultra-violet excitation. The persistent luminescence and photochromism are considered to originate from electron trapping by defect centers in the ZnGa2O4 crystals. The Bi3+-doped ZnGa2O4 ceramics are expected to be potential white-color afterglow phosphors.


This study was carried out to explore educators' perceptions of peer harassment among rural day secondary school pupils in Gweru, Zimbabwe. The study was based on the assumption that peer harassment among secondary school pupils is a problem that needs to be prevented and so educators were viewed as critical players in the prevention of the problem hence it was important to understand their perceptions. The study was based on a sample of fifty five educators drawn from five randomly selected rural day secondary schools in Gweru district. The fifty five educators included five school heads who were purposively selected, twenty four female teachers and twenty six male teachers. All the teachers were selected using stratified random sampling. The main findings of the study were that all the educators agreed that nasty jokes, hitting and kicking and social exclusion were forms of peer harassment experienced by their pupils at school. However, their understanding of the effects of peer harassment on the victims' social development is underpinned by the different perceptions they have about the problem. While the majority of the educators perceived pupils who were subjected to such experiences by other pupils as having their human rights being violated, some of the educators thought that having pupils being subjected to such experiences was socially acceptable and it had positive benefits for the pupils' socialization. The findings also revealed that there were diverging views when it came to the educators' perceptions on spreading malicious rumors and sexual harassment among pupils. The divergence of views was based on gender divisions. While female educators perceived sexual harassment as a prevalent form of peer harassment among their pupils, male educators did not perceive it as being prevalent. Further variations in perceptions were also noted between teachers and school heads. While teachers thought peer harassment was a problem among pupils, three out of the five school heads thought teachers were viewing the dynamics of pupils' interactional processes using concepts that were alien to the Zimbabwean culture. The study concluded that there was a worrying diversity of perceptions among educators which could lead to varied responses in handling issues of peer harassment among pupils. Based on these findings, the study recommends that extensive studies be carried out to establish other stakeholders' perceptions of peer harassment so to enable authorities to come up with a shared conceptualization of the problem and so enhance the crafting of effective intervention strategies.


Pakistan is both the embodiment of national ambitions fulfilled and, in the eyes of many, a failed state. Muslim Zion cuts to the core of the geopolitical paradoxes entangling Pakistan to argue that it has never been a nation state in the conventional sense. It is instead a distinct type of political geography, ungrounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples, whose context is provided by the settler states of the New World but whose closest ideological parallel is the state of Israel. A year before the 1948 establishment of Israel, Pakistan was founded on a philosophy that accords with Zionism in surprising ways. This book understands Zion as a political form rather than a holy land, one that rejects hereditary linkages between ethnicity and soil in favour of membership based on nothing but the idea of belonging. Like Israel, Pakistan came into being through the migration of a minority population, inhabiting a vast subcontinent, who abandoned old lands in which they feared persecution to settle in a new homeland. Just as Israel is the world's sole Jewish state, Pakistan is the only Muslim country to make religion the sole basis for its nationality. Revealing how Pakistan's troubled present continues to be shaped by its past, Muslim Zion is a penetrating critique of what comes of founding a country on an unresolved desire both to join and reject the world of modern nation-states.


Social factors heavily influence the initiation and maintenance of alcohol use and misuse, but researchers seldom study the acute effects of alcohol in social context. This is due in part to difficulty capturing the effects of alcohol on social behavior in a controlled, laboratory setting. The primary aim of the present research was to use systematic observation techniques to measure the effects of alcohol on behavioral responses during an initial group interaction. Fifty-four male social drinkers were assembled into three-person groups, and all members of each group were administered either a moderate dose of alcohol (0.82 g/kg) or an alcohol placebo to be consumed over 30 minutes. This "free drink" period was audio and video recorded, and the duration and sequence of selected smiling and speech behaviors were systematically coded from the videotape. Participants then completed self-report measures of affect and perceived social bonding. Results indicate that although alcohol consumption did not increase the overall amount of participants' behavioral responses, consumption did increase group-level coordination of smiling and speech behaviors over time. Following the free drink, participants did not report improved mood, and self-reported social bonding did not differ between groups. Potential applications of this laboratory-based paradigm for measurement of the acute effects of alcohol are discussed.


Historically, many countries have suffered a pattern of procyclical fiscal policy: spending too much in booms and then forced to cut back in recessions, thereby exacerbating the business cycle. This problem has especially plagued Latin American commodity-producers. Since 2000, fiscal policy in Chile has been governed by a structural budget rule that has succeeded in implementing countercyclical fiscal policy. The key innovation is that the two most important estimates of the structural versus cyclical components of the budget - trend output and the 10-year price of copper - are made by expert panels and thus insulated from the political process. Chile's fiscal institutions could usefully be emulated everywhere, but especially in other commodity-exporting countries. This paper finds statistical support for a series of hypotheses regarding forecasts by official agencies that have responsibility for formulating the budget. 1) Official forecasts of budgets and GDP in a 33-country sample are overly optimistic on average. 2) The bias toward over-optimism is stronger the longer the horizon 3) The bias is greater among European governments that are politically subject to the budget rules in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). 4) The bias is greater at the extremes of the business cycle, particularly in booms. 5) In most countries, the real growth rate is the key macroeconomic input for budget forecasting. In Chile it is the price of copper. 6) Real copper prices mean-revert in the long run, but this is not always readily perceived. 7) Chile's official forecasts are not overly optimistic on average. 8) Chile has apparently avoided the problem of official forecasts that unrealistically extrapolate in boom times. The conclusion: official forecasts, if not insulated from politics, tend to be overly optimistic, and the problem can be worse when the government is formally subject to budget rules. The key innovation that has allowed Chile in general to achieve countercyclical fiscal policy, and in particular to run surpluses in booms, is not just a structural budget rule in itself, but a regime that entrusts to panels of independent experts the responsibility for estimating the extent to which contemporaneous copper prices and GDP have departed from their long-run trends.


Monarch butterfly antennae contain the timing mechanism for time-compensated Sun compass orientation. Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico from various parts of North America in the fall and navigate with the aid of Sun compass. This navigational mechanism, also employed by migratory birds, uses the circadian clock to compensate for the positional change of the Sun in the sky throughout the day. The mechanism behind time-compensated Sun compass orientation has remained obscure. Merlin et al. (see the Perspective by Kyriacou) now provide comprehensive data showing that the mechanism resides in the antennae of the butterflies, rather than the brain, as previously thought. The "antennal clocks" found in the monarchs probably provide the primary timing mechanism for Sun compass orientation. These findings reveal a further function for the antennae—a function that may extend widely to other insects that use this orientation mechanism. C. Merlin, R. J. Gegear, S. M. Reppert, Antennal circadian clocks coordinate Sun compass orientation in migratory monarch butterflies. Science 325, 1700–1704 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text] C. P. Kyriacou, Unraveling traveling. Science 325, 1629–1630 (2009). [Summary] [Full Text]


This article takes a critical approach to the language used by Australian politicians during the global financial crisis of 2007–8. Critical periods in history provide a rich substrate for the appearance of new expressions with the potential to frame the debate, influencing the ways events are interpreted and blame attributed. Passing unnoticed into usage, such memes have the potential to become part of unexamined background knowledge and covertly co-opt hearers and users into shared systems of value and belief. The study focusses on one specific neologism deployed by opposition politicians, firstly in an attempt to create the erroneous impression that a recession was occurring and secondly that it was the fault of the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Patterns of occurrence were tracked against local and international events, indicating a life cycle with several distinct phases: chance emergence, a strategic deployment, cross-genre diffusion, resistance and eventual rejection. Keywords: Alliteration; critical discourse analysis; economic crisis; blame; political discourse; slogans; social media; memes.


The item veto power forms an important check on the legislature in many states, including Alaska. The power allows the governor to veto individual items in an appropriations bill rather than vetoing or signing the bill as a whole. In 2011 the Alaska State Legislature contemplated challenging this crucial executive power. A proposed draft of the annual capital appropriations bill contained language that linked each energy appropriation to all the others, providing that if the governor struck one item then none of the items would go into effect. Further, the legislature inserted language providing that none of the proposed energy appropriations would go into effect if the section of the bill linking them together were successfully challenged in court. While neither provision was included in the final version of the bill signed into law, they prompted a controversy about whether such language would comport with the requirements of the state constitution. If they had been passed, the provisions would indeed have been unconstitutional and invalid, as they usurp the governor's constitutional item veto power and violate the confinement clause's requirement that the content of appropriations bills be limited to appropriations.


Abstract Background Breast cancer accounts for 10 to 20 percent of the total cancer cost. The direct cost of cancer care are the health care expenses directly related to prevention and cancer treatment. The indirect cost, 2-3 times the direct cost include presenteeism, disability to work, absenteism and workers compensation. The aim of this study is to achieve a better understanding of the direct cost and the importance of the variables. Methods This retrospective descriptive study used the administrative data of AZ KLINA linked to the Cancer Registry of Belgium. The study comprised women diagnosed with breast cancer between July 2015 and December 2015. The direct health care costs were calculated for the diagnostic and treatment phase up to 365 days after diagnosis. The costs were grouped according to the different kinds of medical interventions. Regression analyses were performed for 3 dependent variables i.e. the patient contribution, the health insurance cost and the total cost. The type of room, age, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, antibody therapy, disease stage, number of hospital visits and right for increased reimbursement were independent variables. Results The study population included 107 patients. The total mean cost of the diagnostic phase was 817 €, divided into the personal contribution of 80 € and the health insurance cost of 737 €. The mean patient cost of the treatment phase was 1.712 €, for the health insurance 17.282 €. The regression analyses revealed the number of hospital visits was significantly associated with total cost, patient cost and health insurance cost. The patient cost was highly predictive by the choice of the room. The total cost of the diagnostic phase for 107 patients was 87.377 €. Imaging 32.742 € and pathology 32.895 € were most important, followed by pharmacy 9.641 € and consultation 6.598 €. In the treatment phase radiotherapy 436.247 €, antibody treatment with trastuzumab 326.961 € were most important, followed by chemotherapy 189.729 €, hospitalisation cost 153.026 €, pathology cost 144.239 €, and surgery cost 134.251 €. Conclusions In our study an estimation was given of all direct medical costs of breast cancer of the diagnostic and treatment phase. The results can inform hospital executives and policy makers to determine further strategic decisions for financing breast cancer care. Legal entity responsible for the study University of Antwerp. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


Maintenance of glucose uptake is a key component in the response of hematopoietic cells to survival factors. To investigate the mechanism of this response we employed the interleukin-3 (IL-3)-dependent murine mast cell line IC2.9. In these cells, hexose uptake decreased markedly upon withdrawal of IL-3, whereas its readdition led to rapid (t½ ∼ 10 min) stimulation of transport, associated with an ∼4-fold increase in Vmax but no change in Km. Immunocytochemistry and photoaffinity labeling revealed that IL-3 caused translocation of intracellular GLUT1 transporters to the cell surface, whereas a second transporter isoform, GLUT3, remained predominantly intracellular. The inhibitory effects of latrunculin B and jasplakinolide, and of nocodazole and colchicine, respectively, revealed a requirement for both the actin and microtubule cytoskeletons in GLUT1 translocation and transport stimulation. Both IL-3 stimulation of transport and GLUT1 translocation were also prevented by the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002. The time courses for activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and its downstream target, protein kinase B, by IL-3 were consistent with a role in IL-3-induced transporter translocation and enhanced glucose uptake. We conclude that one component of the survival mechanisms elicited by IL-3 involves the subcellular redistribution of glucose transporters, thus ensuring the supply of a key metabolic substrate.


It is shown that a priori knowledge of the edges of an object is not sufficient to ensure that it can be uniquely reconstructed from the modulus of its Fourier transform (or from its autocorrelation function). Furthermore, even in those cases for which the ultimate solution is unique, in intermediate steps in the solution by the recursive Hayes–Quatieri algorithm there can be ambiguities. An extension of the recursive algorithm that finds the solution (or solutions) is suggested, and it is shown that the recursive method can be applied to complex-valued objects.


We Need to Talk: Persuasive Communication in Fireproof Ministries' XXXchurch Anti-Pornography Campaign Vauna Davis Department of Communications, BYU Master of Arts The growing evidence of harm caused by pornography calls for interventions to counteract the influence of explicit sexual media. Fireproof Ministries conducts a major Christian anti-pornography campaign called XXXchurch. This case analysis of the campaign evaluated if the messages were appropriately designed in light of what persuasion research has discovered about motivating attitudinal and behavioral change. Theories about agenda setting, attitude accessibility, exemplars, evidence, cognitive dissonance, guilt, reactance, fear appeals, and self-efficacy were the basis of identifying the themes of the campaign, evaluating the credibility of XXXchurch, and assessing the theoretical foundation of the campaign. The study found three dominant objectives of the campaign: awareness, prevention, and recovery. XXXchurch has set the pornography agenda in many Christian churches, and also brings the issue to a wider public through news media; they have been featured in thousands of media publications and broadcasts. XXXchurch measures their own success by the stories and feedback they hear from their audience, the media attention they receive, and their increased acceptance by churches. The three main groups of themes in the messages of the campaign are prevention and recovery, the harm of pornography, and how God's purposes for life are impacted by pornography. These themes are essentially persuasive messages encouraging people to consider the negative consequence of using pornography and the benefits of resisting it. The attitudes influenced through these messages are the precursors to taking action to overcome pornography. The XXXchurch campaign establishes credibility with their audience through six elements: (a) prior experience or perceptions, (b) credentials, competence, and expertise (c) honesty and lack of bias, (d) similarity to the audience, (e) bold, confident delivery, and (f) plausible messages. Examples of self-efficacy, exemplars, and fear appeals were the most frequently found theories in the campaign messages. Persuasion theories functioned as useful tools for analyzing and understanding the campaign. Although the XXXchurch team did not design the campaign with these theories in mind, the theories strongly explain the foundation of the campaign. Taken as a whole, the campaign clearly demonstrates research-based principles, which suggest a prediction of successfully influencing attitudes and behavior.


. The peanut plant has high plasticity and great adaptability to adverse conditions, including drought. To mitigate the negative effects of drought on legumes, nitrogen-fixing microorganisms have been investigated in some plant species, such as soybeans and beans. We analyzed the role Bradyrhizobium strains in peanut genotypes subjected to water deficit by means of plant growth, physiological and gene expression analysis. The research was conducted under greenhouse conditions with the runner peanut genotypes (IAC Runner 886, 2012-33 and 2012-47) and two Bradyrhizobium strains (ESA 123 and SEMIA 6144). After 20 days of germination, the water supply was completely interrupted and gas exchange analysis were carried out using an infrared gas analyzer, up to the 10 th day of stress. Leaves were collected for the analysis of proline content and the strains obtained the best results. The genotypes inoculated with the ESA 123 strain obtained superior responses compared to the non-stressed treatment inoculated with the same bacteria and the stressed control without bacterial inoculation. In the ESA 123 inoculated treatments, the water stressed plants had higher RDM (28.5% higher, on average), NN (two fold higher), and gene expression (approximately six and three-fold higher for ERF8 and NCED genes, respectively). The increase in the expression of NCED and ERF8 genes , in the three genotypes inoculated with ESA 123, suggests a key role of this inoculant in the activation of metabolic cascades for plant protection under water deficit.


Triple-negative (TN) breast carcinoma, characterized by estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 negativity, is a group of aggressive tumors that can be further classified into 2 subtypes: basal-like, defined as CK5/6 and/or epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) positive by immunohistochemistry; and non-basal-like. Clinical characteristics and tumor profiles were analyzed in 105 cases of TN tumors. Among these cases, 35 had distant metastasis, 34 had axillary nodal metastasis only, and 36 were nodal negative. Our results indicate basal-like TN breast tumors with nodal and distant metastases are significantly associated with a higher intratumoral expression of EGFR and CK5/6 compared to those in the nodal negative group. High level of intratumoral EGFR and CK5/6 expression may play a role in development of nodal or distant metastases in patients with basal-like TN tumors and may be predictive of metastatic disease. Furthermore, EGFR targeted therapy may be potentially useful in the treatment of basal-like TN breast cancer.


A novel flow configuration devised for investigation of active control of separated airfoil flows using synthetic jets is presented. The configuration consists of a flat plate, with an elliptic leading edge and a blunt trailing edge, at zero incidence in a free stream. Flow separation is induced on the upper surface of the airfoil at the aft-chord location by applying suction and blowing on the top boundary of the computational domain. Typical separated airfoil flows are generally characterized by at least three distinct frequency scales corresponding to the shear layer instability, the unsteadiness of the separated region and the vortex shedding in the wake, and all these features are present in the current flow. Two-dimensional Navier–Stokes simulations of this flow at a chord Reynolds number of 6 × 104 have been carried out to examine the nonlinear dynamics in this flow and its implications for synthetic-jet-based separation control. The results show that there is a strong nonlinear coupling between the various features of the flow, and that the uncontrolled as well as the forced flow is characterized by a variety of 'lock-on' states that result from this nonlinear coupling. The most effective separation control is found to occur at the highest forcing frequency for which both the shear layer and the separated region lock on to the forcing frequency. The effects of the Reynolds number on the scaling of the characteristic frequencies of the separated flow and its subsequent control are studied by repeating some of the simulations at a higher Reynolds number of 1 × 105.


The Food Review team recently attended a breakfast hosted at Africa's Big Seven, the annual food and beverage industry trade show held at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand. During the breakfast, former CNN correspondent Paul Tilsley hinted strongly that UK grocer Tesco was considering expansion into South Africa. Global retail expert Simon Mathers addressed the breakfast via video conferencing from Chesterfield in the UK. He was interviewed by veteran broadcaster Tilsley. When asked to comment on the Tesco rumours, Mathers said he could see the retail giant growing its presence in to the Eastern and African markets.


We infiltrate photonic crystal fibers with a negative dielectric anisotropy liquid crystal. A 396 nm bandgap shift is obtained in the temperature range of 22-80 degrees C, and a 67 nm shift of long-wavelength bandgap edge is achieved by applying a voltage of 200 Vrms. The polarization sensitivity and corresponding activation loss are measured using polarized light and a full broadband polarization control setup. The electrically induced phase shift on the Poincaré sphere and corresponding birefringence change are also measured. According to the results, tunable wave plates working in the wavelength range of 1520-1580 nm and a potential for realizing a polarimeter working at the 1310 nm region are experimentally demonstrated.


In the developing imaginal wing disc of Drosophila, cells at the dorsoventral boundary require localized Notch activity for specification of the wing margin. The Notch ligands Serrate and Delta are required on opposite sides of the presumptive wing margin and, even though activated forms of Notch generate responses on both sides of the dorsoventral boundary, each ligand generates a compartment-specific response. In this report we demonstrate that Serrate, which is expressed in the dorsal compartment, does not signal in the dorsal regions due to the action of the fringe gene product. Using ectopic expression, we show that regulation of Serrate by fringe occurs at the level of protein and not Serrate transcription. Furthermore, replacement of the N-terminal region of Serrate with the corresponding region of Delta abolishes the ability of fringe to regulate Serrate without altering Serrate-specific signaling.


We present Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS imaging of the H2 2.12 μm emission in five fields in the Helix Nebula ranging in radial distance from 250″ to 450″ from the central star. The images reveal arcuate structures with their apexes pointing toward the central star. These molecular hydrogen knots are most highly structured in the fields closest to the central star and become increasingly less structured with increasing radius. Comparison of these images with ground-based images of comparable resolution reveals that the molecular gas is more highly clumped than the ionized gas line tracers. From our images, we determine an average number density of knots in the molecular gas ranging from 162 knots arcmin-2 in the denser regions to 18 knots arcmin-2 in the lower density outer regions. The decreasing number density of H2 knots in the outer regions creates a lower filling factor of neutral and molecular gas emission in the radio observations of CO and H I and may explain why these outer regions, where we clearly detect H2 2.12 μm, fall below the detection limit of the radio observations. Using this new number density, we estimate the total number of knots in the Helix to be ∼23,000, which is a factor of 6.5 larger than previous estimates. The total neutral gas mass in the Helix is 0.35 M⊙ assuming a mass of ∼1.5 × 10-5 M⊙ for the individual knots. The H2 emission structure of the entire Helix Nebula supports the recent interpretation of the Helix as a nearly pole-on polypolar planetary nebula (PN). The H2 intensity, (5–9) × 10-5 ergs s-1 cm-2 sr-1, remains relatively constant with projected distance from the central star, suggesting a heating mechanism for the molecular gas that is distributed almost uniformly in the knots throughout the nebula. The temperature and H2 2.12 μm intensity of the knots can be approximately explained by photodissociation regions (PDRs) in the individual knots; however, theoretical PDR models of PNs underpredict the intensities of some knots by a factor of 10. The brightest H2 emission (∼3 × 10-4 ergs s-1 cm-2 sr-1) may be enhanced by a larger than unity area filling factor of H2 knots or may be an individual H2 knot exposed to direct starlight, causing rapid photoevaporation compared with the more embedded knots of the disk.


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The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused significant global economic and social disruption. In McKibbin and Fernando (2020), we used data from historical pandemics to explore seven plausible scenarios of the economic consequences if COVID-19 were to become a global pandemic. In this paper, we use currently observed epidemiological outcomes across countries and recent data on sectoral shutdowns and economic shocks to estimate the likely impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy in coming years under six new scenarios. The first scenario explores the outcomes if the current course of COVID-19 is successfully controlled, and there is only a mild recurrence in 2021. We then explore scenarios where the opening of economies results in recurrent outbreaks of various magnitudes and countries respond with and without economic shutdowns. We also explore the impact if no vaccine becomes available and the world must adapt to living with COVID-19 in coming decades. The final scenario is the case where a given country is in the most optimistic scenario (scenario 1), but the rest of the world is in the most pessimistic scenario. The scenarios in this paper demonstrate that even a contained outbreak (which is optimistic), will significantly impact the global economy in the coming years. The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic under plausible scenarios are substantial and the ongoing economic adjustment is far from over.


Student evaluations of teaching (or SET) through anonymous survey forms are a consistent practice in higher education across the world yet research results vary considerably as to the reliability, validity and efficacy of SET. Nonetheless, the widespread use of SET for promotion and tenure decisions ensures that these results are high stakes for tertiary staff. The tension between the purposes of SET (to supposedly improve teaching) and the ramifications of SET results are explored. Staff and students tend to hold very different views of SET and the issue of maintaining high academic standards can be at risk. However, SET can be used as an opportunity for staff and students to work together on issues in teaching and learning that enhance quality for all concerned.


Today, with the rapid advance in broadband technology, streaming technology is applied to many applications, such as content delivery systems and web conference systems. On the other hand, we must implement digital rights management (DRM) to control content spreading and to avoid unintended content use. Traitor tracing is one of the key technologies that constructs DRM systems, and enables content distributors to observe and control content reception. General methods make use of watermarking to provide users' individual information unique to each user. However, these methods need to produce many individual contents. Especially, this is not realistic for real-time streaming systems. Furthermore, watermarking, which is a key technology adopted by contemporary methods, has known limitations and attacks against it. This is why the authors have proposed a method to monitor the content stream using traffic patterns constructed from only traffic volume information obtained from routers. The proposed method can determine who is watching the streaming content and whether or not a secondary content delivery exists. This information can be also used with general methods to construct a more practical traitor-tracing system. A method to cope with random errors and burst errors has also been investigated. Finally, the results of simulation and practical experiment are provided demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.


Analysis of farmer risk perceptions is usually limited to production risks, with risk perception as a function of likelihood and severity. Such an approach is limited in the context of the many risks and other important risk attributes. Our analysis of the risk perceptions of farmers extends beyond production risks, severity of the risks, and their likelihoods. We first characterize agricultural risks and identify their main sources and consequences. We then analyze risk perceptions as a hierarchical construct using partial least squares path modelling. We determine the most important risks and risk attributes in the perceptions of farmers, and test for differences in the perceptions between men and women. Results show that severity and ability to prevent a risk are most important in forming risk perceptions. Second, probabilities (ability to prevent) tend to matter more to men (women) for some risks; lastly, low crop yields and fluctuating input prices have greater total effects on the overall risk perception. Our results provide an impetus for risk analysis in agriculture to consider risk attributes that cause affective reactions such as severity and perceived ability to prevent the risks, the need for input price stabilization, and redress of the rampart yield gaps in small-scale agriculture.


Introduction and Objectives: For many stroke survivors recovering independent walking is an important objective, however, although most survivors recover some walking ability it is often insufficient to meet the challenges of community walking[1]. Treadmill walking, through forced use of the paretic side, has some evidence as an intervention but lacks transfer to community walking[2]. With the rationale of providing a more realistic, variable walking experience, the addition of virtual reality (VR) to treadmills is a recent, promising, development. This aim of this study, therefore, was to investigate the credibility and acceptability of treadmill training with VR among stroke survivors. Methods: This was a feasibility study testing the validity of treadmill training with and without VR through comparison with overground walking. User acceptability was assessed through independent interviews. Six ambulant stroke survivors (aged 56.5±10.6years, 116±93.3months post stroke) were recruited from local stroke clubs. They attended an introductory session for baseline measurements (over ground gait biomechanics, functional mobility and cognition) and familiarisation with the treadmill VR system (MOTEKMedical, Netherlands) including wearing a harness. They then participated in two training sessions, one week apart, each session included treadmill walking without VR (TW) and treadmill walking with VR (TWVR) e.g. road and forest paths visualisations. The final session included a second measurement of gait biomechanics which provided the data for statistical comparison. Each individual was independently interviewed before and after their participation. Results: In general minor, non-significant, differences were observed for TM, TMVR and overground walking. There was, however, a consistent, and statistically significant (p= 0.032) finding of greater hip flexion for TWVR, see table for details. Universally, participants found the experience acceptable and enjoyable, although "challenging". Conclusion: This feasibility study found treadmill walking (with and without VR) to be similar enough to overground walking to justify it as a training modality for chronic stroke survivors who had already attained some independence in walking. One possible difference, greater hip flexion during treadmill walking, may be a product of harness wearing, and/or relate to the setup of the visualisations. Participants found the experience of treadmill walking acceptable. Although they preferred walking with the visualisations there were few biomechanical differences to simple treadmill walking. Further exploration of individual variability, however, should be undertaken as this may be a factor in ranslating gains from treadmill training to community walking. In conclusion, similarities between overground and treadmill walking (with and without VR) support its use as a training modality in stroke rehabilitation. No great advantage was evident from the use of visualisation other than participant's preference, however these findings require further testing.


Set in Hyderabad in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book, a study of the cultural world of the Muslim soldiers of colonial India, focuses on the soldiers' relationships with the faqir holy men who protected them and the British officers they served. Drawing on Urdu as well as European sources, the book uses the biographies of Muslim holy men and their military followers to recreate the extraordinary encounter between a barracks culture of miracle stories, carnivals, drug-use and madness with a colonial culture of mutiny memoirs, Evangelicalism, magistrates and the asylum. It explores the ways in which the colonial army helped promote this sepoy religion while at the same time attempting to control and suppress certain aspects of it. The book brings to light the existence of a distinct 'barracks Islam' and shows its importance to the cultural no less than the military history of colonial India.


The paper is a conceptual approach to education for sustainable development using an e-learning platform. It starts from the observed reality that all education stakeholders need a learning environment where they can have access to knowledge, collaborate and share their experience, as a survey conducted among students and companies in Timisoara, Romania, region shows. The proposed multi-stakeholder environment accommodates two sections: the learning environment mostly dedicated to students, trainees, tutors and mentors and the virtual sustainability centre that is dedicated to on-line meetings, workshops, counselling, etc. Durable learning is supported by a range of written digital and multimedia resources, including pre-recorded on-line tutoring, videos and games. To engage online learners, various gamification techniques were used in the course design phase, such as recording and presenting the learner's progress, role-playing and similar. The article presents a conceptual design of the learner's journey and a mapping from gamification concepts to Moodle LMS elements. Keywords: E-learning, education, sustainable development, gamification, LMS


Objective: To characterize effects of alemtuzumab treatment on measures of disability improvement in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) with inadequate response (≥1 relapse) to prior therapy. Methods: Comparison of Alemtuzumab and Rebif Efficacy in Multiple Sclerosis (CARE-MS) II, a 2-year randomized, rater-blinded, active-controlled, head-to-head, phase 3 trial, compared efficacy and safety of alemtuzumab 12 mg with subcutaneous interferon-β-1a (SC IFN-β-1a) 44 μg in patients with RRMS. Prespecified and post hoc disability outcomes based on Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS), Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC), and Sloan low-contrast letter acuity (SLCLA) are reported, focusing on improvement of preexisting disability in addition to slowing of disability accumulation. Results: Alemtuzumab-treated patients were more likely than SC IFN-β-1a–treated patients to show improvement in EDSS scores (p < 0.0001) on all 7 functional systems. Significantly more alemtuzumab patients demonstrated 6-month confirmed disability improvement. The likelihood of improved vs stable/worsening MSFC scores was greater with alemtuzumab than SC IFN-β-1a (p = 0.0300); improvement in MSFC scores with alemtuzumab was primarily driven by the upper limb coordination and dexterity domain. Alemtuzumab-treated patients had more favorable changes from baseline in SLCLA (2.5% contrast) scores (p = 0.0014) and MSFC + SLCLA composite scores (p = 0.0097) than SC IFN-β-1a–treated patients. Conclusions: In patients with RRMS and inadequate response to prior disease-modifying therapies, alemtuzumab provides greater benefits than SC IFN-β-1a across several disability outcomes, reflecting improvement of preexisting disabilities. Classification of evidence: This study provides Class I evidence (based on rater blinding and a balance in baseline characteristics between arms) that alemtuzumab modifies disability measures favorably compared with SC IFN-β-1a.


Is the same person perceived as more dangerous if the perceiver is induced to think about Arab and Muslim categories versus no category? Using the shooter paradigm, this study investigated the effects of the accessibility of ethnic (Arab) versus religious (Muslim) categories versus no category on spontaneous aggressive responses toward a target with an ambiguous appearance. Results demonstrated that shooting reactions toward armed targets were faster than non-shooting reactions toward unarmed targets, especially if the target was a man. Despite these main effects, participants made faster decisions to shoot an ambiguous armed target if primed with the category Arab or Muslim (versus no category priming). The findings indicate that the mere priming of these social categories is sufficient to facilitate aggressive responses, even if the targets themselves are ambiguous. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The objective of this paper is to explore how the external balance of the United States (US) might evolve in future years as the economy emerges from the recession. We examine the issue from the domestic perspective of the saving and investment balance and from the external side in terms of the basic determinants of exports and imports and the role of the real exchange rate. Using these two respective perspectives, we highlight (1) causes and consequences of low private and public saving in the US, and (2) sensitivity of trade to variations in the real exchange rate. We highlight the need for sustained depreciation of the dollar to improve the competitiveness of US exports and argue that the current exchange rate is consistent with a significant reduction in the size of the trade deficit. However, the favorable external outlook is very inconsistent with a projected domestic situation of low rates of private saving and a very large public sector budget deficit matched by a cyclically depressed rate of investment. Changes in US corporate tax structure, reconsideration of capital controls, and perhaps some further decline in the level of real exchange rates could help soften the impact of a potentially very hard postrecession landing for the United States.


Aim: To compare the effects of aliskiren, ramipril, and losartan on the psychomotor performance in healthy volunteers. Materials and Methods: In this preliminary, single-dose, open-label, cross-over study conducted in 12 healthy volunteers, psychomotor assessment was carried out by four tests: Simple reaction time (SRT), multiple choice reaction time test (MCRT), critical flicker fusion frequency threshold test (CFFT), and tracking performance test (TPT). Each volunteer received a single dose of each of the three test drugs with a washout period of 10 days between different test sessions and then evaluated for post-drug scores at 2-h intervals up to 12 h and then at 24 h. The changes from the baseline scores by the test drug were statistically analyzed. Results: All the three antihypertensive drugs caused significant improvement in a similar fashion on SRT, MCRT calculated as error index, CFFT, and TPT. Aliskiren caused numerically more improvement than the other two test drugs, suggesting better cognitive profile. However, inter-drug comparisons were nonsignificant. Conclusion: The results of the study highlight improvement of the cognitive functions equally by ramipril, losartan, and aliskiren. The results of the study could be of immense clinical utility in ambulatory hypertensive patients especially engaged in sensory-motor coordination tasks like driving and operating on mechanical tools.


The purpose of the study is to investigate technical efficiency and productivity change of a sample of Greek Hospitals over the period 1998 - 2005. Efficiency and productivity measurement became a crucial issue in Greece after the launching of health reforms in 2001, with the legislative Act No. 2889, aiming at cost containment and improvements in hospital efficiency. Applying the linear programming method of Data Envelopment Analysis we investigate how efficiently the hospital resources are used to obtain the maximum possible outcome, before and after the reforms. Hospital output is modelled in terms of interventions, laboratory examinations, outpatient and inpatient cases. Inputs considered include beds, doctors, nurses and rest personnel and operational expenses. The analysis indicates that the reforms have generated efficiency gains when only input and output quantities are considered. During the period 1998- 2002 an overall efficiency regress is observed followed by an upturn, after the launching of managerial reforms. However, when the running costs of the hospitals are considered, then the sample experiences significant regress, implying relatively higher production costs over time. We conclude that DEA is a useful technique to assess relative efficiency and optimum hospital performance across hospitals.


Fatty acid signature analysis was used to investigate the diet and the spatial scales of foraging in harbor seals Phoca vitulina richardsi in Prince William Sound (PWS) and elsewhere in the Gulf of Alaska. Blubber samples collected in 1994 and 1995 from 104 harbor seals from PWS, Kodiak Island, and southeast Alaska were analyzed for fatty acid composition. A total of 163 potential prey samples representing 10 taxa were collected and individually analyzed for total fat content and fatty acid composition. Approximately 70 fatty acids and isomers were found in both harbor seals and their prey. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to classify seals and prey according to their fatty acid signatures. Large differences were found in the fatty acid composition of blubber from seals sampled at Kodiak, southeast Alaska and PWS, over a broad geographical scale of 400 to 800 km. Additionally, fatty acid signatures distinguished seals from different regions within PWS, as well as on fine-scale resolutions of specific haulout sites within 9 to 15 km of one another. These findings suggest that seals forage site-specifically. These conclusions are supported by prey fatty acid patterns, which also differed on similarly small spatial scales within PWS. Not only could prey species such as herring Clupea pallasi and pollock Theragra chalcogramma be differentiated from one another using fatty acid signatures, but they could also be differentiated from one another using fatty acid signatures, but they could also be distinguished by size-class and location within PWS, reflecting differences in diet with age and as well as with fine-scale habitat. Results from this study are consistent with both satellite data from tagged harbor seals and stomach content analyses of forage fish species in PWS. Although preliminary, analyses suggest that large herring and pollock, as well as flatfish, may have dominated the diet of seals in southern PWS, whereas diets of seals in northern and eastern PWS may have been comprised more of small size classes of herring and pollock, and perhaps other items such as cephalopods, sandlance Ammodytes hexapterus, cod Gadus macrocephalus, and shrimp. We conclude that fatty acid signature analysis will be an important contribution to understanding marine food webs in estuarine and other marine environments.


Learning the optimal ordering of content is an important challenge in website design. The learning to rank (LTR) framework models this problem as a sequential problem of selecting lists of content and observing where users decide to click. Most previous work on LTR assumes that the user considers each item in the list in isolation, and makes binary choices to click or not on each. We introduce a multinomial logit (MNL) choice model to the LTR framework, which captures the behaviour of users who consider the ordered list of items as a whole and make a single choice among all the items and a no-click option. Under the MNL model, the user favours items which are either inherently more attractive, or placed in a preferable position within the list. We propose upper confidence bound algorithms to minimise regret in two settings - where the position dependent parameters are known, and unknown. We present theoretical analysis leading to an $\Omega(\sqrt{T})$ lower bound for the problem, an $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{T})$ upper bound on regret for the known parameter version. Our analyses are based on tight new concentration results for Geometric random variables, and novel functional inequalities for maximum likelihood estimators computed on discrete data.


Psychiatry is different from all other branches of medicine as it pertains on "psyche" which is intangible, effervescent and indefinable. It is influenced by interviewer and client's communication skills, personality, socio-cultural beliefs and interpretations. The inference of "normal" and "abnormal" varies across cultures and understanding of the cultural nuances is an integral part of understanding psychopathology. Knowledge gained in one culture cannot be extrapolated completely to another culture. Indian psyche is distinct as it is has been influenced by various invaders into the country, collectivism and interdependence. Because of all these factors, presentation of mental illness is different in the Indian culture and many a times it is difficult to fit patients into the categories developed by the Western world. Similar factors also influence attitude towards treatment seeking and visit to magico-religious healers and those practicing alternative system of medicine. Moreover, the principles of Western psychotherapy cannot be applied to the Indian subjects. Compared to West, family plays a vital role in all major decision in an individual's life including his treatment and care. They bear the major burden and take up the responsibility of care of the persons with mental illness and dampen the effect of limited resources. These families cope by trusting and passing on the responsibility to almighty. Hence, there is a need for Indianization of psychiatry.


Abstract. This paper investigates the strength properties of the fine-grained concrete reinforced with the amorphous fiber based on the Fe-B-C system and obtained by the "spinning" method, and concretes reinforced with commercially available types of fibers: fiber based on mineral wool, basalt fiber, fiberglass, steel and polypropylene fibers. The flexural and compressive strength tests with the fiber-reinforced concrete specimens were carried out in accordance with the standard method corresponding to the Russian State Standard. The analysis of results was made by comparison with the characteristics of the control specimens without reinforcement. The best flexural strength characteristics were shown by specimens with the amorphous fiber, while the highest compressive strength was demonstrated with the steel fiber. The addition of the amorphous fibers leads to an increase of 56 % in the flexural strength, but decreases the compressive strength by 30 % compared to the control specimens, which proves the efficiency of this fiber working in bending. The addition of the steel fiber shows an increase of 20 % in flexural strength and an increase of 14 % in compressive strength, which confirms the positive effect of adding a commercially available fiber to the finegrained concrete. The compounds of the fiber concrete with the compression strength limit up to 38 MPa and tensile strength in bending up to 12 MPa were developed, which allows to use amorphous fiber as a compound of fine-grained concrete in the construction industry.


To keep up with demand and ensure users get quick access to information on the World Wide Web, Internet Service Providers have been adding capacity continuously, interconnecting more users and companies and at faster speeds. For home users, the progression has seen capacity increase from dial-up (56kbps) to fiber (1Gbps), while for mobile users cellular speeds have increased from GPRS (~100Kbps) to LTE (~100Mbps). As with Moore's Law for computing, and despite continuous investment in capacity, we have reached a point where adding more capacity will not necessarily make the Web faster. The fundamental reason is that propagation latency, the time it takes information to travel from one point to another on the Internet, is lower bounded by the time it takes light to travel the same distance, and thus cannot be lowered. The time required to download a small Web page is dominated by propagation latency between the client and the server, and not throughput. If a client from Bucharest wishes to visit a Web page hosted in Silicon Valley, the download time will be lower bounded by round-trip time, which is the latency to cross the Atlantic twice and cannot be faster than 100ms. In practice, latency is quite a bit higher than this theoretical optimum. To reduce this latency, content distribution networks (such as Akamai) appeared around 2000 that placed servers all around the globe to move content physically closer to users. In my example, the content hosted in Silicon Valley would be replicated on CDN servers in Romania such that the client can reach the content in tens instead of hundreds of milliseconds. CDNs are now ubiquitous, but they do not solve the latency problem completely: they work really well for static content, but less so for dynamically generated one. More importantly, the protocols sending information over the Internet have not been optimized for latency, and require many round-trip times between the client and the server to download a Web page. In fact, to download a small Web page over the prevalent transport protocol stack (HTTP2 running over TLS version 1.2 over TCP) requires at least four RTTs, severely inflating Web latency. Higher latencies lead to disgruntled users and less business, so there is a strong push to reduce Web latency. To reduce the number of RTTs and thus Web latency, non-trivial changes to the base protocols (HTTP, TLS, and TCP) are required. While capacity enhancements or CDN deployments were implemented by a single entity (for example, ISPs), protocol changes require multiple stakeholders to agree as they first require standardization, then implementation by multiple operating systems and finally deployment on user devices. Following this approach, changes to TCP were introduced over the past six years to allow zero-RTT connection setup and TLS version 1.3 is significantly faster than 1.2. Unfortunately, such changes to existing protocols have limited impact because they must obey the layered architecture (HTTP/TLS/TCP), they need to support legacy applications, and require huge development resources and many years to get deployed. QUIC is a novel protocol proposed by Google that reduces latency by replacing the entire HTTP/TLS/TCP stack with a single protocol that runs on top of UDP. The key benefit of running atop UDP is the protocol stack can be implemented as a user-space application, rather than in the kernel as needed when changing TCP, for instance. This implies that QUIC protocol changes can be pushed as easily as changing an application. Google's QUIC approach is radical because it bypasses all the hurdles faced by incremental protocol changes: as Google controls both the servers and the client stack it can simply implement the protocol and deploy it both on its servers and the clients (through Chrome), as often as it wishes, without external factors delaying the process. QUIC was first deployed in 2012 and has since been continuously updated. Today, QUIC is widely used and it carries a large fraction of Google's traffic; it is also undergoing standardization to enable other companies to use it, but standardization follows deployment, not the reverse. QUIC's organic development has left heads scratching both in the research and standardization communities. QUIC's advocates point to impressive performance numbers in its favor, mostly reported by Google. Its detractors complain about the lack of justification for the chosen protocol mechanisms, and in general the lack of understanding of the reasons why QUIC outperforms TCP; the argument is that without such understanding, QUIC's gains could prove elusive when the network evolves in the future. The following paper is a bold attempt to unearth the reasons why QUIC works better than TCP. The authors provide a unique and comprehensive insight into QUIC's behavior and how it compares to HTTP2/TLS/ TCP. In contrast to many other studies of QUIC's performance, the work by Kakhki et al. does not only focus on the latest version of QUIC, but examines all versions comparatively, contrasting code changes to varying performance. Furthermore, the paper fights the lack of documentation by extracting the QUIC state machine from the code itself. The work is interesting because it sets the basis for a thorough understanding of why QUIC works so well and it should be equally interesting for computer science researchers outside networking.


SUMMARY 1. Freshwater cyanobacterial blooms are a worldwide environmental issue. These blooms often comprise both non-toxic and toxic species and strains. Populations of some zooplankton, including Daphnia, have been shown to adapt locally to toxic Microcystis through maternal effects. However, Microcystis populations vary spatially and temporally in the absolute and relative abundances of non-toxic and toxic genotypes. 2. We examined variation in induction of tolerance to toxic cyanobacteria in offspring from two Daphnia magna clones (JS and AH) fed diets containing Scenedesmus by itself or in combination with either a non-toxic or a toxic clone of Microcystis aeruginosa. The diets containing Microcystis included relatively more cyanobacteria within each week of the 3 week experiment (week 1–10%, week 2–20%, week 3–40%). Daphnia neonates were collected from these three treatments at the end of the third week and fed a diet containing Scenedesmus and toxic Microcystis for 3 weeks before a suite of lifehistory, physiological and biochemical measurements were made on the surviving animals. 3. Neonates from mothers fed toxic and non-toxic Microcystis showed enhanced growth and reproduction compared to neonates produced from mothers fed only Scenedesmus. Our results showed that Daphnia neonates could be induced to tolerate toxic cyanobacteria when their mothers were fed diets containing non-toxic or toxic strains of cyanobacteria. Furthermore, elevated RNA–DNA ratios, superoxide dismutase activity and catalase activity in neonates fed diets containing non-toxic or toxic Microcystis clones suggested that the mechanisms behind these changes involved processes associated with metabolism and antioxidation. 4. Our study shows that non-toxic cyanobacteria can induce tolerance to toxic cyanobacteria and further elucidates the general importance of maternal effects on tolerance of cyanobacteria in herbivorous zooplankton.


ABSTRACT Aim: Fundamental for an effective therapeutic cancer vaccine is facilitating the delivery of exogenous antigens to antigen presenting cells, ensuing processing and presentation via the MHC-class I and induction of an effective immune response. In this regard, we propose the use of cell-penetrating peptides fused to a tumor antigen. To demonstrate this concept we designed a fusion protein comprising a novel our proprietary cell-penetrating and immunostimulatory peptide (CIGB 550) linked to the human papillomavirus 16 (HPV 16) -E7 antigen (CIGB550-E7). The E7 viral protein alone is often poorly recognized by the immune system. HPV 16 infection has been linked to the development of cervical, anal and head and neck cancers. Methods: Mice: Female C57BL/6 mice, 6–8 weeks old. Immunizations: The immunizations with CIGB550-E7 were given subcutaneously in the flank, in a final volume of 0.2 mL/dose. Tumor cells: The TC-1 cells were injected subcutaneously in the leg of C57BL/6 mice at 5 × 104 or 2 × 105 doses. Starting 7–10 days later and every 3–4 days thereafter, the area was observed and palpated for the presence of a tumor nodule. Tumor diameters were measured. Results: 1. Coupling E7 to CIGB550 takes advantage that allows it to enter to the cells and thereby significantly improves the presentation of E7-derived peptides to T-cells 2. Therapeutic immunization with CIGB550-E7 vaccine induces regression of palpable tumors and survival increase. 3. In vitro analyses indicated that immunizations with this vaccine leads to the induction of a Th1- like cell mediated immune response based IFN-gamma secretion T cells and significant IFN-gamma increase following antigenic recall, using the ELISPOT assay. Conclusions: The relevance of this result is the design of an original vaccine with promissory perspectives to treat HPV16 related malignancies, based on the covalent linkage of CIGB550 and HPV16 E7 antigen. Our data underline the efficacy of this approach at inducing broad immune responses in vivo, and offer a new strategy that could improve subunit cancer vaccine in a clinical setting. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.


It has been shown, with tasks specifically designed for well-controlled laboratory research, that task-irrelevant speech is more distracting when it is presented to the right ear (as right-ear presentation has privileged access to the left hemisphere that plays a dominant role in language processing). This is called the right-ear disadvantage. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the right-ear disadvantage generalizes to more applied, less well-controlled, tasks. Students were asked to write short stories while they were hearing task-irrelevant sound, either normal or spectrally-rotated speech, which they were to ignore. The sound was either presented to the right or to the left ear. The participants produced less written text when they were exposed to normal speech in comparison with rotated speech. However, this difference was just as large when the sound was presented to the right as to the left ear. In all, the semanticity of speech seems to disrupt output writing processes, but there was no evidence of a right-ear disadvantage with this task, probably because writing is not an experimentally controlled task. This study shows that the applied consequences of right-ear disadvantage are limited.


A comprehensive isolation, fractionation, and characterization research approach was developed for dissolved and colloidal organic matter (DOM) in water, and it was applied to various surface- and groundwaters to assess DOM precursors, DOM diagenesis, and DOM reactivity to water treatment processes. Major precursors for natural DOM are amino sugars, condensed tannins, and terpenoids. Amino sugar colloids derived from bacterial cell walls are incompletely removed by drinking water treatment and foul reverse osmosis membranes, but are nearly quantitatively removed by soil/aquifer treatment. When chlorinated, amino sugars produce low yields of regulated disinfection by-products (DBPs) but they produce significant chlorine demand that is likely caused by chlorination of free amino groups. Condensed tannins are major precursors for ,blackwater- DOM such as that found in the Suwannee River. This DOM produces high yields of DBPs upon chorination, and is efficiently removed by coagulation/flocculation treatment. Terpenoid-derived DOM appears to be biologically refractory, infiltrates readily into groundwater with little removal by soil/aquifer treatment, gives low DBP-yields upon chlorination and is poorly removed by coagulation/flocculation treatments. Peptides derived from proteins are major components of the base DOM fraction (10% or less of the mass of DOM), and this fraction produces large yields of haloacetonitriles upon chorination.


Colonies, colonisation and, in particular, colonialism are concepts carrying heavy ideological subtexts – yet they loom over the current debate about the dynamism of the Iron Age Mediterranean. Forty years after M.I. Finley's 'attempt at a typology', this paper tries to thin out the terminological jungle: by employing cross-cultural historical comparison, it demonstrates how complex and manifold seemingly straightforward ideal types are; and that 'colonies' and 'colonialism' in the classical period of European imperialism were altogether different from the settlements Greeks and Phoenicians established in their Mediterranean diasporas.


3D television using multiple views rendering is receiving increasing interest. In this technology a number of video sequences are transmitted simultaneously and provides a larger view of the scene or stereoscopic viewing experience. With two views stereoscopic rendition is possible. Nowadays 3D displays are available that are capable of displaying several views simultaneously and the user is able to see different views by moving his head. The thesis work aims at implementing a demonstration system with a number of simultaneous views. The system will include two cameras, computers at both the transmitting and receiving end and a multi-view display. Besides setting up the hardware, the main task is to implement software so that the transmission can be done over an IP-network. This thesis report includes an overview and experiences of similar published systems, the implementation of real time video, its compression, encoding, and transmission over the internet with the help of socket programming and finally the multi-view display in 3D format. This report also describes the design considerations more precisely regarding the video coding and network protocols.


Chemists often use hand-drawn structural diagrams to capture and communicate ideas about organic compounds. However, the software available today for specifying these structures to a computer relies on a traditional mouse and keyboard interface, and as a result lacks the ease of use, naturalness, and speed of drawing on paper. In response, we have developed a novel sketch-based system capable of interpreting hand-drawn organic chemistry diagrams, allowing users to draw molecules with a pen-based input device in much the same way that they would on paper. The system's ability to interpret a sketch is based on knowledge about both chemistry and chemical drawing conventions. The system employs a trainable symbol recognizer incorporating both feature-based and image-based methods to locate and identify symbols in the sketch. Analysis of the spatial context around each symbol allows the system to choose among competing interpretations and determine an initial structure for the molecule. Finally, knowledge of chemistry (in particular chemical valence) enables the system to check the validity of its interpretation and, when necessary, refine it to recover from inconsistencies. We demonstrate that the system is capable of recognizing diagrams of common organic molecules and show that using domain knowledge produces a noticeable improvement in recognition accuracy.


Laboratory and field efforts were undertaken to examine trichloroethene (TCE) dechlorination as a function of temperature as an aquifer is heated to temperatures approaching boiling. Experiments were conducted using sediment samples and during electrical resistance heating (ERH) treatment at the East Gate Disposal Yard (Fort Lewis, Washington), which contains nonaqueous phase TCE and hydrocarbon contamination. Laboratory microcosms with these sediments showed TCE dechlorination at 70°C with measured products of acetylene, ethene, and ethane, indicating an abiotic component of the degradation. In contrast, TCE was dechlorinated to cis‐1,2‐dichloroethene in experiments at 10°C, likely by biological reductive dechlorination. The observed products at 70°C suggest dechlorination catalyzed by reduced sediment iron. Indications of in situ dechlorination were observed in periodic ground water samples collected during field‐scale ERH from an average ambient temperature of about 19°C to near boiling. Dechlorination indicators included an increase in chloride concentration at the onset of heating and observation of acetylene, ethene, and methane at elevated temperatures. The data collected in this study suggest that dechlorination can occur during ERH. The overall cost‐effectiveness of ERH may be enhanced by fortuitous in situ dechlorination and, potentially, could be further enhanced by specifically designing and operating ERH to maximize in situ dechlorination.


The so-called "Agriogomphus complex" contains a number of imperfectly known little Gomphine dragon-flies which fall within the Epigomphus series of the Legion Gomphus of DE SELYS as proposed by E. B. WILLIAMSON in his paper of 1920 (Occ. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Mich. 80, p. 8). The adult material hitherto recorded consists of only a dozen specimens. The group comprises four genera and the species known to us are chronologically listed below under their original names: 1. Agriogomphus sylvicola SELYS 1869, Bull. Acad. Belg. (2) 28, p. 189. 2. Cyanogomphus waltheri SELYS 1873, Bull. Acad Belg. (2) 36, p. 753. 3. Cyanogomphus demerarae SELYS 1894, Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. 38, p. 173. 4. Cyanogomphus tumens CALVERT 1905, Biol. Centr.-Amer., Neuropt., p. 169. 5. Cyanogomphus conchinus Williamson 1916, Ent. News 27, p. 168. 6. Ischnogomphus jessei WILLIAMSON 1918, Occ. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Mich. 52, p. 10. 7. Ebegomphus strumens NEEDHAM 1944, Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 69, p. 186. 8. Cyanogomphus uncatus FRASER 1947, Act. Zool. Lillo. 4, p. 437. It must be noted that the species mentioned under nos. 3, 4 and 5 were questionably referred to the genus Cyanogomphus. F. C. FRASER transferred Ischnogomphus jessei in 1943 to the genus Agriogomphus (Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. B, 12, p. 162). J. G. NEEDHAM transferred Cyanogomphus conchinus in 1944 to the genus Ebegomphus (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 69, p. 185). In the same paper (p. 180) he summarized the adult characters of the group. Further, he described the immature stages of three genera of the group, viz. Cyanogomphus in his paper of 1940 (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 65, p. 382) and both Agriogomphus and Ebegomphus in his additional paper of 1944 (Trans. Amer. Ent. 69, p. 183, 190). In the latter paper (p. 180—181) he also characterized these stages on the basis of his knowledge of the larvae of the three genera, and concerning these characters he remarks: "These characteristics become progressively stronger in Agriogomphus, Cyanogomphus and Strumagomphus [= Ebegomphus; Strumagomphus is an error], and correspond, I think, to the specialization by reduction and readjustment seen in the wing venation of the adults".