Objectives To audit the quality of treatment of lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) and urinary tract infections (UTIs) and to identify targets for antibiotic stewardship. Methods The audit involved collecting data on admitted patients, who were diagnosed with LRTIs or UTIs and subsequently received antibiotic treatment (January 2009–April 2009). Key findings The percentage adherence rate for hospital antibiotic policy was 68.6% (24/35). Documentation of the CURB-65 score was found in 80% (16/20) of the patients' clinical notes, for which 46.2% (6/13) of patients were treated according to their CURB-65 score. The percentages of delayed and missed doses for all antibiotics were 21.7% (254/1171) and 8.6% (101/1171), respectively. The percentage of patients switched from intravenous to oral antibiotics in accordance with the policy was 58.5% (31/53). The mean length of stay for patients switched in line with the guidelines was 6.9 days (range: 2–18 days) compared with 13.2 days (range: 4–28 days) for patients treated with intravenous antibiotics >24 h after the intravenous to oral switch criteria were fulfilled; this equates to on average an extra 6.3 days of hospitalisation (p=0.01). Conclusions The study identified a number of targets for quality improvement including adherence to antibiotic policy, documentation of the CURB-65 score in patients' notes and treating patients accordingly, addressing the issue of missed and delayed doses, and maintaining adherence to the hospital intravenous-to-oral antibiotic switch policy. The findings suggest that the quality of antibiotic prescribing could be improved by measuring and addressing such performance indicators.


BACKGROUND
 Many intervention development projects fail to bridge the gap from basic research to clinical practice. Instead of theory-based approaches to intervention development, co-design prioritizes the end users' perspective as well as continuous collaboration between stakeholders, designers, and researchers throughout the project. This alternative approach to the development of interventions is expected to promote the adaptation to existing treatment activities and to be responsive to the requirements of end users.

 OBJECTIVE
 The first objective was to provide an overview of all activities that were employed during the course of a research project to develop a relapse prevention intervention for interdisciplinary pain treatment programs. The second objective was to examine how co-design may contribute to stakeholder involvement, generation of relevant insights and ideas, and incorporation of stakeholder input into the intervention design.

 METHODS
 We performed an embedded single case study and used the double diamond model to describe the process of intervention development. Using all available data sources, we also performed deductive content analysis to reflect on this process.

 RESULTS
 By critically reviewing the value and function of a co-design project with respect to idea generation, stakeholder involvement, and incorporation of stakeholder input into the intervention design, we demonstrated how co-design shaped the transition from ideas, via concepts, to a prototype for a relapse prevention intervention.

 CONCLUSIONS
 Structural use of co-design throughout the project resulted in many different participating stakeholders and stimulating design activities. As a consequence, the majority of the components of the final prototype can be traced back to the information that stakeholders provided during the project. Although this illustrates how co-design facilitates the integration of contextual information into the intervention design, further experimental testing is required to evaluate to what extent this approach ultimately leads to improved usability as well as patient outcomes in the context of clinical practice.


Introduction: Headache is a frequent complaint among children and adolescents. Its prevalence is still poorly described in this Portuguese population. The most frequent primary headache disorders are migraine and tension-type headache. The authors aimed to characterise and to determine the prevalence in a three months period of headache among adolescents in a Portuguese urban county.
Methods: Population-based cross-sectional study with data collected through anonymous questionnaire to an adolescent sample attending the third cycle of basic education. The questionnaire was compiled using the International Headache Society diagnostic criteria.
Results: A total of 2123 valid questionnaires were obtained. The three months headache prevalence was 74.5%, higher among female adolescents (boys 63.9%, girls 84.6%). Recurrent headache (more than one episode in three months) prevalence was 49.7% and frequent recurrent headache (14 or more episodes in three months) prevalence was 6.2%. Using a visual analog scale from 0-10 points, the average intensity was 4.64 points (boys 4.47, girls 4.77) and 12.4% (boys 9.3%, girls 15.3%) of all adolescents reported severe intensity pain (≥ 7 points). According to the International Headache Society diagnostic criteria 5.4% (boys 4.3%, girls 6.4%) students reported headache that fulfilled migraine criteria and 7.6% (boys 8.3%, girls 7.0%) tension-type headache criteria.
Among female adolescents, significant association was detected (p < 0.05) between the increasing age and the prevalence of three months headache as well as headache that fulfilled migraine criteria.
Discussion: This study shows the high prevalence of headache among the studied adolescents supporting the need for greater awareness of this clinical entity.


This paper reports an essential part of a wider research activity, which entails the development of a procedure for the Determination of the Optimal Prosthesis Architecture (DOPA) for a given upper limb amputee. A fundamental algorithm of the DOPA procedure performs the kinematic analysis of several prosthetic arm models (also with less than the six degrees of freedom normally required to correctly execute a generic manipulation task). The algorithm must simulate the execution of important daily living activities performed by a prosthesis and thus it requires reference trajectories of the hand. By means of experimental analysis, 59 trajectories of the hand of an able-bodied subject were acquired to identify a modality to correctly perform the corresponding tasks. This paper illustrates in detail the stages of task analysis, experimental acquisition and data processing in order to define the required reference trajectories. The obtained reference trajectories are a temporal succession of the hand pose (position and orientation). A customized algorithm automatically selects the most relevant poses to be considered for the definition of the reference trajectory. The hand pose is reported in the Cartesian Space by means of Natural Coordinates. In order to correctly execute a given task the pose error admitted for the end-effector of the different architectures is associated to each trajectory. In particular, the critical problem to express the orientation error is solved by means of the use of Spherical Rotation Coordinates.


The benefits of negative detection for obscuring information are explored in the context of Artificial Immune Systems (AIS). AIS based on string matching have the potential for an extra security feature in which the "normal" profile of a system is hidden from its possible hijackers. Even if the model of normal behavior falls into the wrong hands, reconstructing the set of valid or "normal" strings is an NP-hard problem. The data-hiding aspects of negative detection are explored in the context of an application to negative databases. Previous work is reviewed describing possible representations and reversibility properties for privacy-enhancing negative databases. New algorithms are presented which allow on-line creation, updates and clean-up of negative databases, some experimental results illustrate the impact of these operations on the size of the negative database. Finally some future challenges are discussed.


Development of brain is fascinating because of the
multitude and complexity of the processes involved
in it. It starts with primary neurulation in the third
and fourth week of gestation. Primary neurulation
refers to formation of the neural tube. This is followed
by prosencephalic development in the second and
third months of gestation. Development of prosencephalon
is considered best in terms of three sequential
events, i.e., prosencephalic formation, prosencephalic
cleavage, and midline prosencephalic development.1
This development is followed by proliferation of the
brain's total complement of neurons. At a microscopic
level, the first process to occur is neuronal proliferation
and generation of radial glia. This takes place during
the first half of gestation. In addition, cortical neurons
will move from their sites of origin in the ventricular
and subventricular zones to the loci within central
nervous system where they will reside the rest of their
life and start to differentiate. Neuronal differentiation
and organization processes include establishment and
differentiation of sub plate neurons, attainment of
proper alignment, orientation and layering of cortical
neurons, elaboration of dendritic and axonal
ramifications, synapse formation, cell death, selective
elimination of neuronal processes ,synapses,
proliferation and differentiation of glia.1
Organizational events occur in a peak time period from
approximately the fifth month of gestation to several
years after birth. The glia cells take care of axonal
myelination. Myelination occurs especially between
the second trimester of gestation and end in the first
postnatal year. However, it is first completed around
30 years.2
Brain development consists of the creation of
components and the elimination of elements.
Approximately half of the created neurons die
(apoptosis), in particular during mid gestation.
Similarly, axons and synapses are eliminated, the later
especially between 18 months of age and puberty. The
shaping of the nervous system by these regressive
phenomena is guided by neural chemical processes
and neural activity. The neural elements that fit the
environment persist, thus allowing for adaptation of
the brain to its own environment.2
This indicates that not only a substantial part of
brain development occurs before term age, but alsothat throughout childhood the brain is in a continuous
process of remodeling. The presence of continuous
neurobiological changes during childhood has major
clinical consequences such as age specific vulnerability
of the nervous system with age specific signs and
symptoms. Due to the age specific differences, it is
difficult to predict nervous system development
outcome during early infancy. Age specific neurological
assessment is required.2,3


"Two aspects of media bias are important empirically. First, bias is persistent: it does not seem to disappear even when the media is under scrutiny. Second, bias is conflicting: different people often perceive bias in the same media outlet to be of opposite signs. We build a model in which both empirical characteristics of bias are observed in equilibrium.""The key assumptions are that the information contained in the facts about a news event may not always be fully verifiable, and consumers have heterogeneous prior views ("ideologies") about the news event. Based on these ingredients of the model, we build a location model with entry to characterize firms' reports in equilibrium, and the nature of bias. When a news item comprises only fully verifiable facts, firms report these as such, so that there is no bias and the market looks like any market for information . When a news item comprises information that is mostly nonverifiable, however, then consumers may care both about opinion and editorials, and a firm's report will contain both these aspects-in which case the market resembles any differentiated product market . Thus, the appearance of bias is a result of equilibrium product differentiation when some facts are nonverifiable.""We use the model to address several questions, including the impact of competition on bias, the incentives to report unpopular news, and the impact of owner ideology on bias. In general, competition does not lead to a reduction in bias unless this is accompanied by an increase in verifiability or a smaller dispersion of prior beliefs." Copyright 2007, The Author(s) Journal Compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing.


Objectives: To observe the prescribing pattern & to evaluate the rationality of drugs used in dermatology outpatients. Methods and materials: A Prospective, observational study was conducted in out-patients department of dermatology at Mandya Institute of Medical sciences, Mandya over a period of 3 months. Rationality of drug usage was evaluated by analysing the drug prescriptions. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 310 prescriptions of patients attending the Dermatology OPD were included for analysis. Among the 310 prescription studied 124 (40%) were males & 186 (60%) were females. Among 310 Patients, majority were between the age group of 20-60 yrs. 945 drugs were prescribed, with an average of 3.04 drugs per prescription. Out of all drugs 92.6% were from National essential drug list. Only 290(30.68%) drugs were prescribed under generic names while brand names were used for 655(69.31%) drugs. Drugs prescribed by parenteral route were 65 (6.87%), oral route were 410 (43.38%) and topical 470 (49.73%). Out of all the topical agents, 94.2 % were given as single preparations and 5.8% as combination agents. Antihistaminics were the most commonly prescribed group of drug. Conclusions: Periodic therapeutic audit is essential to ensure rational medicine use


The issue of data exchange between type-1 and type-2 buses, which multiplex the first data byte (which has the lowest address) with the least and most significant portions of the address, respectively, is considered. In an analogy based on Gulliver's Travels, the associated architectures have been dubbed little-endian and big-endian processors, respectively. It is pointed out that the byte order within integers and the byte order during transmission can differ. Therefore, the big and little adjectives are used to describe the order of bytes within integers, and the acronyms Mad and Sad to describe the order of bytes (most versus least important first) during transmission on a multiplexed address-data bus. After a review of the endian ordering issues, it is concluded that big- and little-endians can use the same bus standard. For high-performance serialized buses, the mad-endian order seems superior to a sad-endian order. For consistency between serialized and multiplexed parallel buses of various widths, the mad-endian order is proposed for future multiplexed standards. To minimize the interface costs to mad-endian buses, a big-endian order is proposed for shared data also.<<ETX>>


We report on photoluminescence (PL) measurements at 85 K for GaN/AlGaN surface quantum wells (SQW's) with a width in the range of 1.51-2.9 nm. The PL spectra show a redshift with decreasing SQW width, in contrast to the blueshift normally observed for conventional GaN QW's of the same width. The effect is attributed to a strong coupling of SQW confined exciton states with surface acceptors. The PL hence originates from the recombination of surface-acceptor-bound excitons. Two types of acceptors were identified.


Modern search systems are based on dozens or even hundreds of ranking features. The dueling bandit gradient descent (DBGD) algorithm has been shown to effectively learn combinations of these features solely from user interactions. DBGD explores the search space by comparing a possibly improved ranker to the current production ranker. To this end, it uses interleaved comparison methods, which can infer with high sensitivity a preference between two rankings based only on interaction data. A limiting factor is that it can compare only to a single exploratory ranker. We propose an online learning to rank algorithm called multileave gradient descent (MGD) that extends DBGD to learn from so-called multileaved comparison methods that can compare a set of rankings instead of merely a pair. We show experimentally that MGD allows for better selection of candidates than DBGD without the need for more comparisons involving users. An important implication of our results is that orders of magnitude less user interaction data is required to find good rankers when multileaved comparisons are used within online learning to rank. Hence, fewer users need to be exposed to possibly inferior rankers and our method allows search engines to adapt more quickly to changes in user preferences.


Paleoropronia salamonei gen. et sp. nov., the first Cenozoic Roproniidae, is described from the Paleocene of Menat (Massif Central, France) on the basis of its fore wing venation. The Roproniidae range between the Mesozoic and the present time. P. salamonei gen. et sp. nov. was perhaps a parasitoid on tenthredinid sawfly larvae, as these insects were present in the wasp fauna from Menat outcrop.


The recent power shift in the U.S. Congress reflects in part the public's desire to get the U.S. economy quickly back on track and the federal budget under better control. In recognition, both the Obama Administration and the Republican Party leadership are considering significant budget reductions. These could result in 5 to 10% (or greater) cuts in R&D allocations for fiscal years 2011 and 2012. The consequences would be severe. Federal agencies, which often commit their funds years in advance but only pay them out in later years, would have little left for new and competing renewal grants. Agencies could see funding success rates fall to below 1 in 10 applications, and new investigators—the seeds of the future—could be hit even harder. These kinds of budget cuts work against the ultimate national goals of restoring the U.S. economy and its international prowess. It is well documented that science, engineering, and technology fuel innovation and economic growth. That is why virtually all competitor countries, including India, China, and Korea, are increasing investments in science and engineering research, development, and education. U.S. funding looks like it could be heading in the opposite direction.


This research project has the objective to extend use of the matroid algorithm using statistically based criteria, Joint/Multivariate Cumulants (Speed, 1983) and Effective Dependence (Pena & Rodriguez, 2003) to capture linear as well as non-linear higher order dependencies. We also improve variable selection for complex data structures using the proposed matroid algorithm. The limiting distribution of the joint cumulant was defined using U-statistics theory by Hoeffding (1948). U-statistics variance as theorized by Hoeffding provide a lower bound for the estimated variance, and our simulation results justify the use of Hoeffding U-statistic variance for determining a threshold for joint cumulants deviation from zero. We use the definition of dependent sets given in Greene (1990) to define the matroid. The algorithm finally identifies the maximal set of covariates that can be depicted by a j dimensional projection known as flats. We also utilize the effective dependence theory proposed by Pena and Rodriguez (2003) to compare groups with different numbers of variables. The effective rank of the flat provides an estimate for the number of variables that we need to choose from each flat. Simulation studies are carried out to assess variable selection using the matroid approach compare to the traditional variable selection methods under different parameter values and sample sizes. We present two illustrative examples using Fano and Induced Collinearity structures. Applications to real data and some concluding remarks are presented.


Graphs and Networks have been the most researched topics with applications ranging from theoretical to practical fields, such as social media, genetics, and education. In many competitive environments, the most productive activities may be interacting with high-profile people, reading a much-cited article, or researching a wide range of fields such as the study on highly connected proteins. This thesis proposes two methods to deal with top-K nodes identification: centrality-based and activity-based methods for identifying top-K nodes. The first method is based on the topological structure of the network and uses the centrality measure called Katz Centrality; a path based ranking measure that calculates the local influence of a node as well as its global influence. It starts by filtering out the top-K nodes from a pool of network data using Katz centrality. By providing a means to filter out unnecessary nodes based on their centrality values, one can focus more on the most important nodes. The proposed method was applied to various network data and the results showed how different parameter values lead to different numbers of top-K nodes. The second method incorporates the theory of heat diffusion. Each node in the network can act as the source of heat. The amount of heat diffused or received by the node depends on the number of activities it performs. There are two types of activities: Interactive and Non-Interactive. Interactive activities could be likes, comments, and shares whereas posting a status, tweets or pictures could be the examples of non-interactive activities. We applied these proposed methods on Instagram network data and compared the results with the other similar algorithms. The experiment results showed that our activity-based approach is much faster and accurate than the existing methods.


Although cancer is the leading cause of disease-related mortality in children, the relative rarity of pediatric cancers poses a significant challenge for developing novel therapeutics to further improve prognosis. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, which are usually developed from high-risk tumors, are a useful platform to study molecular driver events, identify biomarkers, and prioritize therapeutic agents. Here we develop PDX for Childhood Cancer Therapeutics (PCAT), a new integrated portal for pediatric cancer PDX models. Distinct from previously reported PDX portals, PCAT is focused on pediatric cancer models and provides intuitive interfaces for querying and data mining. The current release comprises 324 models and their associated clinical and genomic data, including gene expression, mutation, and copy number alteration. Importantly, PCAT curates preclinical testing results for 68 models and 79 therapeutic agents manually collected from individual agent testing studies published since 2008. To facilitate comparisons of patterns between patient tumors and PDX models, PCAT curates clinical and molecular data of patient tumors from the TARGET project. In addition, PCAT provides access to gene fusions identified in nearly 1,000 TARGET samples. PCAT was built using R-shiny and MySQL. The portal can be accessed at http://pcat.zhenglab.info or http://www.pedtranscriptome.org.


Objectives: To illustrate the types of injuries seen by the accident and emergency department as a result of the use of non-motorized 'microscooters' in children, and to increase awareness of scooter-related triplane fractures of the ankle. Study design: A retrospective study conducted in an accident and emergency department of a district general hospital on all children who had a scooter-related limb injury over a 6-month period and were referred for orthopaedic review. Methods: The analysis involved a case note review. Information recorded included the injury sustained, protective equipment worn at the time of the accident and management by the orthopaedic team. Results: Scooter injuries accounted for 10 fractures in this period. There were three 'triplanar' injuries, which required operative fixation, and three injuries requiring manipulation under anaesthesia. No protective gear was worn by any of the patients. Conclusion: The popularity of microscooters seems to represent a significant risk of bony injury in the paediatric population. Medical personnel who manage acute paediatric trauma should be aware of scooter-related triplanar ankle injuries.


Over recent years, Genetic Algorithms have proven to be an appropriate tool for solving certain problems. However, it does not matter if the search space has several valid solutions, as their classic approach is insufficient. To this end, the idea of dividing the individuals into species has been successfully raised. However, this solution is not free of drawbacks, such as the emergence of redundant species, overlapping or performance degradation by significantly increasing the number of individuals to be evaluated. This paper presents the implementation of a method based on the predator-prey technique, with the aim of providing a solution to the problem, as well as a number of examples to prove its effectiveness.


Summary
One hundred and thirty-five patients suffering from schistosomiasis mansoni were divided into two groups at random. An experimental group of 69 patients was treated with a 20-ml course of a 10 percent solution of antimony dimercaptosodium succinate (TWSb/6 or Astiban®) over a 4- to 5-day period, while a control group of 66 patients was treated with an 80-ml course of 6.3 percent solution of antimony pyrocatechol sodium sulphonate (stibophen or Fuadin®) administered over a 6- to 7-week period.
The two drugs were moderately tolerated. Vomiting and rashes and/or pruritus were frequently encountered in the Astiban group while joint pains were a prominent feature during Fuadin therapy.
The cure rates obtained after a follow-up period of at least four months involving six stool examinations were 79.6 percent and 80.4 percent in the Astiban and Fuadin groups, respectively.
Under the existing conditions in New York City, Astiban has proved to be a potent schistosomicidal drug which can be applied with a reasonable degree of safety on an outpatient basis in mass therapy.


Eva Hoffman, known primarily for her autobiography of exile, Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (1989), is also the author of a work of Gothic science fiction, set in the future. The Secret: A Fable for our Time (2001) is narrated by a human clone, whose discovery that she is the "monstrous" cloned offspring of a single mother emerges with growing discomfort at the uncanny similarities and tight bonds between her and her mother. This article places Hoffman's use of the uncanny in relation to her understanding of Holocaust history and the condition of the postmemory generation. Relying on Freud's definition of the uncanny as being "both very alien and deeply familiar," she insists that "the second generation has grown up with the uncanny." In The Secret, growing up with the uncanny leads to matrophobia, a strong dread of becoming one's mother. This article draws on theoretical work by Adrienne Rich and Deborah D. Rogers to argue that the novel brings to "the matrophobic Gothic" specific insights into the uncanniness of second-generation experiences of kinship, particularly kinship between survivor mothers and their daughters.


: Maize is a tropical grass that gets well adapted to many climates and hence has wide-ranging maturities from 70 days to 120 days. Maize plants are erect and may grow as tall as 3m, with little tillering capacity. The scientific name of Maize is Zea Mays, also commonly known as Corn. The main aim of this research is to test the hypothesis that the impact of different dates of sowing on crop growth and yield of Maize. Best sowing dates provide favourable temperature to obtain maximum yield. Early and late sowing is done to grow the Maize crop of different varieties at 10 days interval. Early sown crop mature early than those sown later. Early sown crop reduced from the different types of injuries like drought and diseases other environmental factor like rainfall, temperature, humidity. Dose of fertilizers were used in all plots to enhance the yield and growth of Maize. On the behalf of this research work we conclude that the different dates of sowing like early sowing and late sowing give crop growth and yield of Maize.


The present dissertation consists of two parts.
The first part of this work deals with the study of chiral order that has its origin in frustrated interactions.
First of all, the basic concept of phase transitions and their relation to the underlying symmetry will be described.
Here we will discuss how the discrete $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry of the Ising spins and the continuous SO(2) symmetry of the XY spins leads to fundamentally different phase transitions.
Next, different forms of chiral order will be discussed, as well as their experimental realizations.
Chiral order breaks the discrete inversion symmetry ($\mathbb{Z}_2$), which can appear simultaneously with the SO(2) symmetry of the XY spins.
One of the central questions of this work is how the phase transitions are influenced by the additional symmetries.
As an archetypical model for the simultaneous existence of both a discrete and continuous symmetry, the so-called helical XY model will be studied.
The model itself will be introduced as an extension to the classical XY model and will be discussed in detail.
It will be described how the addition of a frustrated interaction leads to a chiral ground state and different approaches to dealing with these simultaneous symmetries are mentioned.
Additionally, the mesoscopic version of the model will be derived.

We will start with the discussion of the chiral order phase transition.
Using a variational method, the critical temperature of the transition and its dependance on the chiral pitch angle $\theta$ will be found.
Afterwards, the effect of the chiral order on the Berezinskii--Kosterlitz--Thouless (BKT) transition of the SO(2) symmetry will be studied.
The vortices responsible for the BKT transition will be discussed on short and large length scales and the energy cost of the vortex cores is estimated.
Using the renormalization group technique, the effects of the vortices on the phase transition is studied and their critical exponents are estimated.
Afterwards, the anomalous scaling dimension of the chiral transition is calculated.
The data of the numerical simulations done by Sorokin et al.~are used to determine the critical exponents and compare them to the analytic calculations.
The resulting phase diagram for the HXY model is calculated and its relation to possible experimental systems and other theoretical works is discussed.

We will continue with a closer look at the relation between chiral order and polarization in multiferroic systems.
Different mechanisms for the coupling of magnetic and electric order are discussed and, starting from a symmetry argument, the HXY model will extended by an interaction with the electric field.
The effect of the polarization on the domain walls of the system will be studied.
The resulting saddle-point equations will be solved perturbatively and are compared to numerical results.
Additionally, an effective interaction between the chiral domain walls and the polarization walls will be derived and identified as an attractive interaction.

As a concrete example of a multiferroic material, the material MnWO$_4$ will be studied.
Here the chiral order couples to the polarization, as indicated by a magnetic phase transition with an accompanied onset of polarization.
In collaboration with D.~Niermann and the group of Prof.~J.~Hemberger, the critical behavior of the phase transition was studied.
First the different phase transitions in MnWO$_4$ will be described and the crystal symmetry will be discussed.
Starting from the Ginzburg--Landau free energy expansion done by Tol\'{e}dano, the phase transitions will be classified and the critical dynamical behavior described.
The resulting critical exponents are compared to the experimental work of the group of Prof.~J.~Hemberger.

In the second part of this work, the dynamical behavior of vortices in thin superconducting films is studied.
%The results discussed here are part of the theoretical work done in collaboration with L. Embon and Prof. E. Zeldov of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and were financed by the German Israeli Foundation (GIF).
First, a historical overview of the discovery of superconductivity is given, followed by a discussion of it phenomenological description.
Afterwards, the phenomenon of superconducting vortices is discussed and the special features of vortices in thin films and their interaction with an applied current are presented.

We start with a description of the experimental setup used in the group of Prof.~E.~Zeldov.
They study vortices in thin superconducting lead films with the SQUID-on-tip raster microscopy.
In the presence of an applied current, vortices can enter the thin strips by overcoming an entry barrier.
These barriers are discussed and their effect on the measurable current--voltage curves is calculated.
The results are compared to the available numerical data.

Finally, we study the dynamics of the vortices in thin films.
The focus is on the effect of inhomogeneous current densities, a result from experimentally imposed constrictions in the thin films themselves.
The task is to explain the formation of lines in the moving vortices and the existence of bifurcation points in said lines.
Several approaches and effective models are used to study the interacting vortices, the results and shortcomings are discussed.


Orbital debris is a growing problem that poses a collision risk to spacecraft and is expected to worsen exponentially as each collision between two bodies fragments them into three or more. Active removal of debris is necessary to prevent runaway growth in the number of objects but removal is complicated by the presence of perturbation forces and lack of knowledge of debris parameters such as mass. Capturing and towing debris will require a control strategy that can perform trajectory tracking that is robust to these uncertainties. This thesis presents the use of Simple Adaptive Control (SAC), a direct adaptive control method, to perform trajectory tracking in the presence of mass and perturbation uncertainties. A new laboratory facility was developed to perform simulations and experiments. Both simulation and experimental results agree that SAC is a viable control strategy for this purpose that significantly outperforms a PD controller.


The number of open access (OA) journals and their share of all scholarly journals are usually estimated based on indexing in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). DOAJ's coverage of OA journals from different regions of the world is, however, far from complete, particularly of journals publishing in languages other than English. Using alternative data sources for identification and manual verification, 437 scholarly OA journals published in the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) were identified, and some key characteristics were studied. Of these, only 184 were indexed in DOAJ. A vast majority of the journals was published by scholarly societies or universities. Social sciences and humanities dominated as topics, and few journals charge authors. National or university‐specific OJS portals have played a major role in enabling OA publishing. Around a third of the Nordic scholarly journals are currently OA.


This special issue furthers the conversation begun in the August 2014 of edition of Education Policy Analysis Archives in the article Accountability for College and Career Readiness: Developing a New Paradigm by Linda Darling-Hammond, Gene Wilhoit and Linda Pittenger .  That paper posits that as schools across the country take on the challenge of preparing all children for success in college, career, and life, states must in turn move toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. The authors recommend "an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and appropriate resources, so that all students regardless of background are prepared for both college and career when they graduate from high school" (p. 1). This issue focuses particularly upon accountability for meaningful learning with subsequent issues focusing on professional accountability and resource accountability.


Purpose Human retinal ganglion cells (hRGC) derived from human pluripotent stem cells are promising candidates to model, protect, and replace degenerating RGCs. Here, we examined intrinsic morphologic and physiologic development of hRGCs. Methods We used CRISPR-Cas9 to selectively express tdTomato under the RGC-specific promoter, BRN3B. Human pluripotent stem cells were chemically differentiated into hRGCs and cultured up to 7 weeks. We measured soma area, neurite complexity, synaptic protein, axon-related messenger RNA and protein, and voltage-dependent responses. Results Soma area, neurite complexity, and postsynaptic density protein 95 increased over time. Soma area and neurite complexity increased proportionally week to week, and this relationship was dynamic, strengthening between 2 and 3 weeks and diminishing by 4 weeks. Postsynaptic density 95 localization was dependent on culture duration. After 1 to 2 weeks, postsynaptic density 95 localized within somas but redistributed along neurites after 3 to 4 weeks. Axon initial segment scaffolding protein, Ankyrin G, expression also increased over time, and by 7 weeks, Ankyrin G often localized within putative axons. Voltage-gated inward currents progressively developed, but outward currents matured by 4 weeks. Current-induced spike generation increased over time but limited by depolarization block. Conclusions Human RGCs develop up to 7 weeks after culture. Thus, the state of hRGC maturation should be accounted for in designing models and treatments for optic neuropathies. Translational Relevance We characterized hRGC morphologic and physiologic development towards identifying key time points when hRGCs express mechanisms that may be harnessed to enhance the efficacy of neuroprotective and cell replacement therapies.


Inspection and Maintenance methods development have a pivotal role in preventing the uncertainty-induced risks in the oil and gas industry. A key aspect of inspection is evaluating the risk of equipment from the scheduled and monitored assessment in the dynamic system. This activity includes assessing the modification factor's Probability of Failure (PoF) and calculating the equipment's remaining useful life (RUL). The traditional inspection model constitutes a partial solution to grouping the vast amount of real-data inspection and observations at equal intervals. This literature review aims to offer a comprehensive review concerning the benefit of Machine Learning (ML) in managing the risk while incorporating time-series forecasting studies and an overview of Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) methods (e.g. quantitative, semi-quantitative, and qualitative). A literature review with a deductive approach is used to discuss the improvement of the clustering Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to overcome the non-circular shape data that may show in the K-Means models. Machine Learning classifiers such as Decision Trees, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, K-nearest neighbours, and Random Forests were selected to provide a platform for risk assessment and give a promising prediction towards the actual condition and their severity level of equipment. This work approaches complementary tools and grows interest in embedded artificial intelligence in Risk Management systems and can be used as the basis of more robust guidance to organize complexity in handling inspection data, but further and future research is required.


Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Cardiac involvement among hospitalized patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is common and associated with adverse outcomes. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and clinical implications of COVID-19 cardiac involvement in young competitive athletes. Methods: In this prospective, multicenter, observational cohort study with data from 42 colleges and universities, we assessed the prevalence, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of COVID-19 cardiac involvement among collegiate athletes in the United States. Data were collected from September 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020. The primary outcome was the prevalence of definite, probable, or possible COVID-19 cardiac involvement based on imaging definitions adapted from the Updated Lake Louise Imaging Criteria. Secondary outcomes included the diagnostic yield of cardiac testing, predictors for cardiac involvement, and adverse cardiovascular events or hospitalizations. Results: Among 19 378 athletes tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, 3018 (mean age, 20 years [SD, 1 year]; 32% female) tested positive and underwent cardiac evaluation. A total of 2820 athletes underwent at least 1 element of cardiac triad testing (12-lead ECG, troponin, transthoracic echocardiography) followed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) if clinically indicated. In contrast, primary screening CMR was performed in 198 athletes. Abnormal findings suggestive of SARS-CoV-2 cardiac involvement were detected by ECG (21 of 2999 [0.7%]), cardiac troponin (24 of 2719 [0.9%]), and transthoracic echocardiography (24 of 2556 [0.9%]). Definite, probable, or possible SARS-CoV-2 cardiac involvement was identified in 21 of 3018 (0.7%) athletes, including 15 of 2820 (0.5%) who underwent clinically indicated CMR (n=119) and 6 of 198 (3.0%) who underwent primary screening CMR. Accordingly, the diagnostic yield of CMR for SARS-CoV-2 cardiac involvement was 4.2 times higher for a clinically indicated CMR (15 of 119 [12.6%]) versus a primary screening CMR (6 of 198 [3.0%]). After adjustment for race and sex, predictors of SARS-CoV-2 cardiac involvement included cardiopulmonary symptoms (odds ratio, 3.1 [95% CI, 1.2, 7.7]) or at least 1 abnormal triad test result (odds ratio, 37.4 [95% CI, 13.3, 105.3]). Five (0.2%) athletes required hospitalization for noncardiac complications of COVID-19. During clinical surveillance (median follow-up, 113 days [interquartile range=90 146]), there was 1 (0.03%) adverse cardiac event, likely unrelated to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Conclusions: SARS-CoV-2 infection among young competitive athletes is associated with a low prevalence of cardiac involvement and a low risk of clinical events in short-term follow-up.


We present an infinite horizon model that studies the competition between a relatively ineffective incumbent Credit Rating Agency (CRA) and a sequence of entrant CRAs that are potentially more effective but whose ability in appraising default risk is unproven at the time they enter the market. We show that free entry competition in the credit rating business fails in selecting the most competent CRA as long as two conditions are met. First, investors and issuers trust the incumbent CRA to provide a sincere, although imperfect, assessment of issuers' default risk. Second, CRAs cannot charge higher fees for low rating than for high rating. Under these conditions a rather incompetent CRA can dominate the market without being worried about potentially more competent entrants. We derive policy implications.


Therapeutic use, overuse, abuse, and diversion of controlled substances in managing chronic non-cancer pain continue to be an issue for physicians and patients. The challenge is to eliminate or significantly curtail abuse of controlled prescription drugs while still assuring the proper treatment of those patients. Some physicians are apprehensive regarding the use of chronic opioid therapy in chronic non-cancer pain due to a perceived lack of proven evidence, the misuse of opioids, tolerance, dependence, and hyperalgesia. However, others have criticized the underuse of opioids, resulting in the undertreatment of pain. It has been the convention that federal, state, and local governments; professional associations; as well as pharmaceutical companies, physicians, accrediting bodies, medical licensure boards, and the public all share responsibility for preventing abuse of controlled prescription drugs. To overcome the critical challenge of eliminating or significantly curtailing abuse of controlled prescription drugs and at the same time assuring the appropriate treatment for those patients who can be helped by these medications, it is crucial to practice adherence or compliance monitoring of opioid therapy. Compliance monitoring has been shown to be crucial in delivering proper opioid therapy and preserving this therapy for the future. Urine drug testing (UDT) is considered one of the mainstays of adherence monitoring in conjunction with prescription monitoring programs and other screening tools, however, UDT is associated with multiple limitations secondary to potential pitfalls related to drug metabolism, reliability of the tests, and the knowledge of the pain physician. UDT is a widely available and familiar method for monitoring opioid use in chronic pain patients. UDT can provide tools for tracking patient compliance and expose possible drug misuse and abuse. UDT is one of the major tools of adherence monitoring in the assessment of the patient's predisposition to, and patterns of, drug misuse/abuse--a vital first step towards establishing and maintaining the safe and effective use of opioid analgesics in the treatment of chronic pain. This comprehensive review provides the role of UDT in monitoring chronic opioid therapy along with reliability and accuracy, appropriate use, overuse, misuse, and abuse.


Genomic classification has improved risk assignment of pediatric but not adult B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). The international UKALLXII/ECOG-ACRIN E2993 (NCT00002514) trial accrued 1229 BCR-ABL1-negative adolescent/adult B-ALL patients (aged 14-65 years). While 93% of patients achieved remission, 41% relapsed at a median of 13 months (range 28 days to 12 years). Five-year overall survival (5yr-OS) was 42% (95% CI, 39, 44). Transcriptome sequencing (n=238), gene expression profiling (n=210), cytogenetics (n=197) and fusion PCR (n=274) enabled genomic subtyping of 282 patient samples, of which 264 were eligible for trial, accounting for 64.5% of E2993 patients. Among patients in the outcome analysis, 29.5% of cases had favorable outcomes with 5yr-OS of 65-80% and were deemed standard-risk (DUX4-rearranged [9.2%], ETV6-RUNX1/-like [2.3%], TCF3-PBX1 [6.9%], PAX5 P80R [4.1%], high-hyperdiploid [6.9%]); 50.2% had high-risk genotypes with 5yr-OS of 0-27% (Ph-like [21.2%], KMT2A-AFF1 [12%], low-hypodiploid/near-haploid [14.3%], BCL2/MYC-rearranged [2.8%]); and 20.3% had intermediate-risk genotypes with 5yr-OS of 33-45% (PAX5alt [12.4%], ZNF384/-like [5.1%], MEF2D-rearranged [2.8%]). IKZF1 alterations occurred in 86% of Ph-like and TP53 mutations occurred in low-hypodiploid (54%) and BCL2/MYC-rearranged patients (33%), but were not independently associated with outcome. Of patients considered high-risk for relapse based on presenting age and WBC count, 40% harbored subtype-defining genetic alterations associated with standard- or intermediate-risk outcomes. We identified distinct immunophenotypic features for DUX4-rearranged, PAX5 P80R, ZNF384-R/-like and Ph-like genotypes. These data in a large adult B-ALL cohort treated with a non-risk-adapted approach on a single trial show the prognostic importance of genomic analyses which may translate into future therapeutic benefits.


Wnt signaling is essential for embryogenesis and adult tissue homeostasis and contributes to cancer development, especially in the colon. A new essential pathway component, legless, was identified in Drosophila melanogaster. Mice with Cre/loxP-mediated conditional ablation of the legless homologues Bcl9 and Bcl9l in the intestinal epithelium were generated to assess the contribution of the genes to Wnt signaling and their potential suitability as therapeutic drug targets. Initial analysis had revealed that both genes were not required for self-renewal of the intestinal epithelium during homeostasis, but for regeneration of experimentally induced colon wounds. Furthermore, formation of chemically induced colon tumors was not impaired and Bcl9/Bcl9-mutant tumors were morphologically indistinguishable from wild-type tumors and displayed hallmarks of active Wnt signaling. This study aimed at further investigating the molecular processes involving Bcl9 and Bcl9l in wound regeneration and tumorigenesis in the colon, and in particular relatedness of the genes to Wnt signaling. To this end, transcriptomes of laser microdissected wound regions were analyzed by microarray-based gene expression profiling and realtime quantitative PCR, but did not reveal significant changes in gene expression at the time point chosen for analysis. However, expression profiling of homeostatic colon epithelium revealed a reduced expression of several intestinal stem cell marker genes in Bcl9/Bcl9l-mutant colon epithelium, suggesting that the regeneration deficit has been caused by functional impairment of intestinal stem cells. This stem cell deficiency did not differ between young and old mice and was also weakly detectable in small intestinal epithelium. To verify that tumors originated from cells in which complete deletion of all four Bcl9 and Bcl9l alleles had occurred and to assess Wnt signaling activity more comprehensively, laser microdissected tumor regions were profiled using microarrays and realtime quantitative PCR. This analysis confirmed that Bcl9 and Bcl9l were not required for colon tumorigenesis and revealed that despite the morphological similarity, transcriptional profiles of Bcl9/Bcl9l-mutant tumors were very different from wild-type tumors. Notably, loss of Bcl9 and Bcl9l caused reduced expression of a subset of direct Wnt target genes, genes related to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and intestinal stem cell traits. While wild-type tumor epithelium appeared to be in a metastable state, characterized by co-expression of epithelial and mesenchymal traits, Bcl9/Bcl9l-mutant tumor epithelium predominantly expressed epithelial traits. In addition, a marked reduction in expression of several genes associated with malignant tumor properties was observed in Bcl9/Bcl9l-mutant tumors. This was highlighted by the preservation of an intact basement membrane around Bcl9/Bcl9l-mutant tumor epithelium, which was absent in wild-type tumors, and indicated that loss of Bcl9/Bcl9l decreased tumor aggressiveness. Of note, EMT and stemness traits are correlated to tumor resistance to therapy and thus interfering with Bcl9/Bcl9l function might restore drug responsiveness. As a proof of concept, it was shown that the malignant traits mediated by Bcl9/Bcl9l could be abrogated in wild-type tumors by inducing deletion of the genes. These findings suggest that targeting Bcl9 and Bcl9l with therapeutic drugs has the potential to attenuate the malignancy of colon tumors.


Abstract One of the traditional plants that have so many pharmacological effects is chilli fruit (Capsicum sp.) that belong to the family Solanaceae. Around the world, five varieties of Capsicum are known, i. e., C. annuum, C. frutescens, C. chinense, C. baccatum, and C. pubescens. Chilli peppers are known for causing the sensation of heat or burning when consumed. The heat sensation is incited by the type and the amount of a group of capsaicinoids; the alkaloids found only in chilli pepper pods. A widely used heat measurement of chilli peppers is the SHU (Scoville Heating Unit). This measurement is the highest dilution of a chilli pepper extract at which heat can be detected by a taste panel. Nowadays, the Scoville organoleptic test has been largely replaced by chromatographic methods which are considered to be more reliable and accurate. The HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) method was used for the determination of capsaicin content in various fresh and dried peppers from the genera C. chinense. Currently, based on the results of HPLC, the hottest pepper has been Bhut Jolokia, followed by Habanero Red Savina and Habanero Yellow etc. The content of capsaicin in dried chillies is 7-10 times higher compared to fresh ones.


Recent developments in ice melter systems and continuous flow analysis (CFA) techniques now allow higher-resolution ice core analysis. Here, we present a new method to aid interpretation of high-resolution ice core stable water isotope records. Using a set of simple isotopic recording and postdepositional assumptions, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' 40 year reanalysis time series of temperature and precipitation are converted to "virtual core" depth series across the Antarctic Peninsula, helping us to understand what information can be gleaned from the CFA high-resolution observations. Virtual core temperatures are transferred onto time using three different depth-age transfer assumptions: (1) a perfect depth-age model, (2) a depth-age model constructed from single or dual annual photochemical tie points, and (3) a cross-dated depth-age model. Comparing the sampled temperatures on the various depth-age models with the original time series allows quantification of the effect of ice core sample resolution and dating. We show that accurate annual layer count depth-age models should allow some subseasonal temperature anomalies to be recovered using a sample resolution of around 40 mm, or 10–20 samples per year. Seasonal temperature anomalies may be recovered using sample lengths closer to 60 mm, or about 7–14 samples per year. These results tend to confirm the value of current CFA ice core sampling strategies and indicate that it should be possible to recover about a third of subannual (but not synoptic) temperature anomaly information from annually "layer-counted" peninsula ice cores.


The main aim of the present study is to provide a clear picture and investigate the relation between job satisfaction and self-efficacy experienced by general employees and teachers, as it rises through literature review. There seems to be no consensus about how job satisfaction should be defined, as the definition depends on the research subject and on each individual's priorities. During the past decades, many different theories and models of job satisfaction have been developed. In addition, different factors that are likely to have an influence on job satisfaction have been distinguished, as well as several consequences emerging from job satisfaction. In addition, the concept of self-efficacy has been defined in many different ways. In general, an educator is conceived as one of the most important persons responsible for shaping a nations' future. The review shows that schools must pay more attention to improving teacher's job satisfaction and self-efficacy, investigating and enhancing those factors which promote teachers' job satisfaction and personal efficacy. Moreover, the current review provides information about instruments to measure teacher's job satisfaction and self-efficacy. The review shows that different factors of teachers' job satisfaction are related and have a positive influence on different factors of teachers' efficacy. Implications and suggestions for future empirical research of findings are drawn as well.


Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is an evolutionarily conserved serine/threonine kinase controlling many physiological processes in mammals. mTOR functions in two distinct protein complexes, namely mTORC1 and mTORC2. Compared to mTORC1, the specific roles of mTORC2 are less well understood. To investigate the potential contribution of mTORC2 to skeletal development and homeostasis, we have genetically deleted Rictor, an essential component of mTORC2, in the limb skeletogenic mesenchyme of the mouse embryo. Loss of Rictor leads to shorter and narrower skeletal elements in both embryos and postnatal mice. In the embryo, Rictor deletion reduces the width but not the length of the initial cartilage anlage. Subsequently, the embryonic skeletal elements are shortened due to a delay in chondrocyte hypertrophy, with no change in proliferation, apoptosis, cell size, or matrix production. Postnatally, Rictor‐deficient mice exhibit impaired bone formation, resulting in thinner cortical bone, but the trabecular bone mass is relatively normal thanks to a concurrent decrease in bone resorption. Moreover, Rictor‐deficient bones exhibit a lesser anabolic response to mechanical loading. Thus, mTORC2 signaling is necessary for optimal skeletal growth and bone anabolism. © 2014 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.


We show that the accumulation rate of nonlinearity in highly-dispersive long-haul coherent links can also be measured from the nonlinear threshold decrease rate, and provide simulations of such rates for both single- and cross-channel effects. We then show how the estimated rate can be used for the overall system design.


Dendritic cells (DCs) are the only APCs capable of initiating adaptive immune responses. The initiation of immune responses requires that DCs 1) internalize and present Ags; and 2) undergo a differentiation process, called "maturation", which transforms DCs into efficient APCs. DC maturation may be initiated by the engagement of different surface receptors, including certain cytokine receptors (such as TNFR), Toll-like receptors, CD40, and FcRs. The early activation events that link receptor engagement and DC maturation are not well characterized. We found that FcR engagement by immune complexes induced the phosphorylation of Syk, a protein tyrosine kinase acting immediately downstream of FcRs. Syk was dispensable for DC differentiation in vitro and in vivo, but was strictly required for immune complexes internalization and subsequent Ag presentation to T lymphocytes. Importantly, Syk was also required for the induction of DC maturation and IL-12 production after FcR engagement, but not after engagement of other surface receptors, such as TNFR or Toll-like receptors. Therefore, protein tyrosine phosphorylation by Syk represents a novel pathway for the induction of DC maturation.


We propose a new variational inference method based on a proximal framework that uses the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence as the proximal term. We make two contributions towards exploiting the geometry and structure of the variational bound. First, we propose a KL proximal-point algorithm and show its equivalence to variational inference with natural gradients (e.g., stochastic variational inference). Second, we use the proximal framework to derive efficient variational algorithms for non-conjugate models. We propose a splitting procedure to separate non-conjugate terms from conjugate ones. We linearize the non-conjugate terms to obtain subproblems that admit a closed-form solution. Overall, our approach converts inference in a non-conjugate model to subproblems that involve inference in well-known conjugate models. We show that our method is applicable to a wide variety of models and can result in computationally efficient algorithms. Applications to real-world datasets show comparable performances to existing methods.


The major aim of this study was to identify an appropriate assay to use routinely for cellular glutathione measurement. The Saville assay has been widely used in cytotoxicity studies, while the GSH-400 assay is a commercial kit which only recently became available. Therefore, in this study, the accuracy and sensitivity of the Saville and GSH-400 assays were compared. Results presented herein indicate that the Saville assay gave a lower blank absorbance and higher sensitivity when compared to the GSH-400 assay.


Biomass offers an alternative renewable energy source to fossil fuels and can be used to produce energy directly or through the production of liquid biofuels, e.g., ethanol, as a substitute for liquid transport fuels. Biomass also offers a vehicle to sequester carbon dioxide, thereby reducing atmospheric carbon, which contributes to global warming. However, in some cases, e.g., forests, there is a tension between biomass energy and biomass sequestration of carbon. This paper focuses on both energy and carbon sequestration issues with a view to a better understanding of the potential role of biomass in energy and climate.


Up to 70 micrograms per liter (μg/L) of tetrachloroethylene (PCE) was detected in dewatering flows associated with a construction project (Project) in the City of Los Angeles. Because PCE was not identified as a groundwater contaminant during the Project background studies, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the Project did not address PCE treatment; nor did it specify PCE discharge requirements. However, PCE was monitored on a quarterly basis as part of the volatile organic compounds (VOC) of the EPA Priority Pollutant list. During construction dewatering, PCE contamination was found at six outfall locations. Hydrogeological investigation identified a possible regional source for PCE, thus rendering remediation options via point source elimination highly unlikely. Costs for design, procurement, and construction of a treatment facility to handle projected dewatering flows of up to 500 gallons per minutes (gpm), and its operation for the duration of dewatering, were estimated at several million dollars.


An instrument for recording and indicating the frequency and intensity of aircraft icing conditions encountered in flight has been developed by the NACA Lewis Laboratory to obtain statistical icing data over world-wide air routes during routine airline operations. The operation of the instrument is based on the creation of a differential pressure between an ice-free total-pressure system and a total-pressure system in which small total-pressure holes vented to static pressure are allowed to plug with ice accretion. The simplicity of this operating principle permits automatic operation, and provides relative freedom from maintenance and operating problems. The complete unit weighing only 18 pounds records icing rate, airspeed, and altitude on photographic film and provides visual indications of icing intensity to the pilot.


A substantial body of work has addressed why animals live in groups. However, few studies have described how group-living vertebrates are able to coordinate their actions and make collective decisions; crucial if individuals are to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of grouping. In this thesis, I apply observational, experimental, and theoretical, methods to address this paucity of knowledge, using a social primate - chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) - as a model system. Specifically, I investigate three concepts upon which group-living is reliant: information use, coordinated behaviour and leadership. I address each of these concepts in turn. First in the case of information use, I show that the foraging decisions of individual baboons meet the predictions of 'producer-scrounger games'- evolutionary models developed to predict when a social forager should find its own food patch, or join the discovery of a group-mate. I also use a simple theoretical model to show that social information can allow less well-informed members of large groups to reach a correct decision with the same probability as more well-informed members of small groups. Second, in the case of coordinated behaviour, I show that individual state and the environment (both social and ecological conditions) can influence levels of behavioural synchrony in baboons. Moreover, behavioural synchrony in baboon groups was seen to positively influence the behaviour of another species: rock kestrels (Falco rupicolus) derived foraging opportunities by associating with baboons as they travel-forage together in desert vegetation 'flushing' kestrel prey items. Finally, I examined leadership behaviour. I used an experimental design that allowed me to test between two alternate decision-making modes: despotism (i.e. leadership) and democracy (i.e. a majority rule, voting). Baboon group foraging decisions were consistently led by the individual who acquired the most benefits from those decisions, namely the dominant male. Subordinate group members followed the leader despite considerable costs, and follower behaviour was mediated by social ties to the leader.


Abstract The dependence of microstructures and mechanical properties on tempering temperature (from 180 to 650 °C) in a designed 3Mn-Si-Ni martensitic steel was systematically analyzed. Microstructure was characterized using scanning and transmission electron microscopy; mechanical properties were measured using uniaxial tensile test and Charpy V-notch impact test. After tempering at different temperatures, recovery, partial recrystallization, carbides precipitation and decomposition of residual austenite were observed. After tempering at 230 °C, an excellent combination of strength (1550 MPa) and toughness (91.5 J) was achieved, due to high dislocation density and ε -carbides precipitation. However, with an increase in tempering temperature from 320 to 550 °C, tempered martensite embrittlement was observed, where impact energy was ~ 10 J. It was ascribed to cementite formation instead of transition carbides and decomposition of residual austenite. With an increase in tempering temperature up to 650 °C, high fracture impact toughness of 75 J was obtained with deteriorated tensile strength of 850 MPa due to strong recovery and partial recrystallization. Abstract The dependence of microstructures and mechanical properties on tempering temperature (from 180 to 650 ° C) in a designed 3Mn-Si-Ni martensitic steel was systematically analyzed. Microstructure was characterized using scanning and transmission electron microscopy; mechanical properties were measured using uniaxial tensile test and Charpy V-notch impact test. After tempering at different temperatures, recovery, partial recrystallization, carbides precipitation and decomposition of residual austenite were observed. After tempering at 230 ° C, an excellent combination of strength (1550 MPa) and toughness (91.5 J) was achieved, due to high dislocation density and ε-carbides precipitation. However, with an increase in tempering temperature from 320 to 550 ° C, tempered martensite embrittlement was observed, where impact energy was ~ 10 J. It was ascribed to cementite formation instead of transition carbides and decomposition of residual austenite. With an increase in tempering temperature up to 650 ° C, high fracture impact toughness of 75 J was obtained with deteriorated tensile strength of 850 MPa due to strong recovery and partial recrystallization.


To elucidate the cellular mechanism by which angiotensin II (ANG II) induces cardiac hypertrophy, we investigated the possible autocrine/paracrine role of endogenous endothelin-1 (ET-1) in ANG II-induced hypertrophy of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes by use of synthetic ET-1 receptor antagonist and antisense oligonucleotides to preproET-1 (ppET-1) mRNA. Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization revealed that ppET-1 mRNA was expressed in cardiomyocytes, but, to a lesser extent, in nonmyocytes as well. ANG II upregulated ppET-1 mRNA level by threefold over control level as early as 30 min, and it stimulated release of immunoreactive ET-1 from cardiomyocytes in a dose- and time-dependent manner. ET-1 stimulated ppET-1 mRNA levels after 30 min in a similar fashion as ANG II. Tetradecanoylphorbol-acetate (10(-7) M) mimicked the effects of ANG II and ET-1 on induction of ppET-1 mRNA. ANG II-induced ppET-1 gene expression was completely blocked by protein kinase C inhibitor H-7 or by down-regulation of endogenous protein kinase C by pretreatment with phorbol ester. ET-1 and ANG II stimulated twofold increase [3H]leucine incorporation into cardiomyocytes, whose effects were similarly and dose dependently inhibited by endothelin A receptor antagonist (BQ123). Introduction of antisense sequence against coding region of ppET-1 mRNA into cardiomyocytes resulted in complete blockade with ppET-1 mRNA levels and [3H]leucine incorporation stimulated by ANG II. These results suggest that endogenous ET-1 locally generated and secreted by cardiomyocytes may contribute to ANG II-induced cardiac hypertrophy via an autocrine/paracrine fashion.


Jacques Rancière defined the "distribution of the sensible" as the effect of a type of aesthetico-political decision-making that creates a partitioning of the realm of the perceivable in relation to both art and society. The artworld itself constructs its own particular types of curatorial partitioning: between "art" and "non-art," between "dominant, residual, and emergent," and between "mainstream" and "periphery." This essay examines certain "boundary effects" that develop as a result of the act of the partitioning itself and closely examines what arguably are two new categories in contemporary art: "crossover" and "interventionist." Both categories have a certain relationship to a culturally constructed boundary or partition. In the former, we see a type of artwork emerge that is the result of the overdetermination of the partition itself. In the latter, artworks appear that are antinomically situated at both sides of a partition simultaneously.


Suboptimal biocompatibility of cardiovascular stents manifest as non-compliance at stent-artery interface in vivo. We optimized a plasma-activated coating (PAC) technology to modify cobalt chromium alloy L605 (PAC-L605) surface of an implantable coronary stent material, for improved biofunctionalization. The PAC-L605 surfaces displayed covalent binding capacity of a protein candidate tropoelastin (TE) by retaining 70.3% of TE after SDS detergent washing. Human coronary artery endothelial cell (HCAEC) proliferation visualized with crystal violet staining, did not vary significantly among the biomaterials at 3 or 5 days. Anchorage of cell cytoskeleton visualized with immunofluorescence and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), showed homogenous cell morphology on PAC/TE (with TE) surfaces. Surface hemocompatibility was assessed with static and flow blood assays, the hydrophilic PAC-L605 displayed lower clot formation compared to L605. Area of surface fibrinogen deposited was significantly lower on PAC-L605 vs. L605. Selected ISO 10993-4 tests for biological evaluation of medical devices in contact with blood indicated significantly lowered plasma markers of thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT), beta-thromboglobulin (β-TG), soluble P-selectin and soluble terminal complement complex (SC5b-9) on PAC-L605 vs. L605. There was no significant difference for plasma biomarkers of polymorphonuclear elastase (PMN elastase) on PAC-L605 vs. L605. Improved surface biofunctionalization of implantable cardiovascular materials could be achieved by plasma-activated coating (PAC).


In many real-world sequential decision making problems, the number of available actions (decisions) can vary over time. While problems like catastrophic forgetting, changing transition dynamics, changing rewards functions, etc. have been well-studied in the lifelong learning literature, the setting where the size of the action set changes remains unaddressed. In this paper, we present first steps towards developing an algorithm that autonomously adapts to an action set whose size changes over time. To tackle this open problem, we break it into two problems that can be solved iteratively: inferring the underlying, unknown, structure in the space of actions and optimizing a policy that leverages this structure. We demonstrate the efficiency of this approach on large-scale real-world lifelong learning problems.


The purpose of this study was to investigate several biological markers that may predict the response of muscle invasive transitional cell carcinoma TCC of the bladder to radical radiotherapy. The specific markers chosen were tumour angiogenesis (CD31 &CD34), tumour cell proliferation (K.i-67) and apoptosis (bcl-2), intratumour macrophage infiltration (CD68) and p53. Archival formalin fixed paraffin embedded pre treatment bladder biopsies from I 0 I patients with muscle invasive TCC were obtained. All patients subsequently received radical radiotherapy as their only treatment for the disease. 4f.llll sections were graded according to the WHO grading system and staged by the TNM classification. Angiogenesis (CD3I&CD34) counts were obtained using a 25-point Chalkley eyepiece graticule. Bcl-2 scored as positive and negative, while p53, Ki-67 and CD68 were estimated using an eyepiece graticule. The medical records were examined to assess the response of the tumour at the 3-month post radiotherapy cystoscopy and the long-term outcome. Patients were classified into two groups in two sections: the first section includes (I) those free of disease (no tumour detected in the bladder at the 3-month cystoscopy), (2) those with resistant disease (tumour present at 3 months). The second section includes (I) those with persistent or recurrent cancer in the bladder (tumour recurred after an initial 3 months negative check cystoscopy together with patients with resistant disease at 3 months), (2) those free of disease at all subsequent cystoscopies. Detailed statistical analysis revealed that there were no association between any of the markers examined and the response to radiotherapy. MVD using CD34 was lower in higher stage tumours (p=O.OSO). Females, whilst representing only a small fraction (16) of the total of patients studied showed an inferior response to radiotherapy when compared to that of male patients (p=0.048). Higher median haemoglobin levels for the response group (p=0.031) was observed as well as a positive significant correlation between p53 (Ll) expression and MIB-1 (LI) (r=0.332, p=O.OOJ). The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis shows that the survival time is significantly better for those who were exposed longer to radiotherapy (> 33 days) (Log Rank, p=0.0246). There was a significantly higher survival time for patients who have CD68 higher than 42.4 (log rank, p--D.036). The study concluded that none of the selected markers could be used as prognostic value in determining patients most suitable for radiotherapy as primary treatment with curative intent for their bladder cancer. The finding of a poorer response in females is worthy of further study since, hormonal and anatomical influences may be important.


Heart disease is one of the largest causes of death in humans throughout the developed world. Despite its critical role in maintaining physiologic homeostasis, the adult mammalian heart does not exhibit a significant capacity for regeneration. By contrast, several lower vertebrates exhibit a remarkable ability to regenerate the aging myocardium in response to severe injury. Additionally, recent evidence has shed light on a transient regenerative window in postnatal mammals. In this review, we discuss key findings that help to unravel the differences in cardiac regeneration across phylogeny and ontogeny. Furthermore, we highlight recent significant progress in the pursuit of adult mammalian cardiac regeneration. Collectively, this important body of work has great potential impact on human therapy for heart failure.


The transformation of decayed semi-peripheral riverside areas and its Tangible Culture Heritage is presented today as a contributing factor in urban regeneration by several public preservation bodies and agendas, as well as privately led investment. These practices demand the economic and symbolic valorization of abandoned Tangible Cultural Heritage, where the social coexistence of residents, workers and visitors is seen as a smoother urban integration of these deprived territories and their communities into the surrounding contemporary cities. We'll focus our approach on socio-spatial changes occurring in Marvila and Beato, presented today as new urban areas in which to financially invest after the 2011 economic crisis occurred in Portugal, discussing public and private reappropriation of Old Palaces, Convents and Farms and Reconverted Warehouses (industrial and commercial); towards the creation of a new urban centrality in Lisbon. In this case, public ground-field intervention established a culture led regeneration process, with the creation of a municipal library, a crucial point in the cultural use of this space, community participation and gathering. Dealing with private investors, despite the positive effects, such as a reduction in unemployment, economic diversification and re-use of urban voids, there is always the possibility of undesired consequences. This paper argues, and the research experiments in many European cities show us that the ambition to improve the image of these deprived areas, despite somGonzalex encouraging ground level achievements, has unwanted or unexpected outcomes, starting as urban regeneration practices, often sliding towards gentrification, where local public powers have a determinant role.


The vector autoregressive (VAR) model is a powerful tool in learning complex time series and has been exploited in many elds. The VAR model poses some unique challenges to researchers: On one hand, the dimensionality, introduced by incorporating multiple numbers of time series and adding the order of the vector autoregression, is usually much higher than the time series length; On the other hand, the temporal dependence structure naturally present in the VAR model gives rise to extra diculties in data analysis. The regular way in cracking the VAR model is via \least squares" and usually involves adding dierent penalty terms (e.g., ridge or lasso penalty) in handling high dimensionality. In this manuscript, we propose an alternative way in estimating the VAR model. The main idea is, via exploiting the temporal dependence structure, formulating the estimating problem to a linear program. There is instant advantage of the proposed approach over the lassotype estimators: The estimation equation can be decomposed to multiple sub-equations and accordingly can be solved eciently using parallel computing. Besides that, we also bring new theoretical insights into the VAR model analysis. So far the theoretical results developed in high dimensions (e.g., Song and Bickel, 2011 and Kock and Callot, 2015) are based on stringent assumptions that are not transparent. Our results, on the other hand, show that the spectral norms of the transition matrices play an important role in estimation accuracy and build estimation and prediction consistency accordingly. Moreover, we provide some experiments on both synthetic and real-world equity data. We show that there are empirical advantages of our method over the lasso-type estimators in parameter estimation and forecasting.


Normalizing flows can be used to construct high quality generative probabilistic models, but training and sample generation require repeated evaluation of Jacobian determinants and function inverses. To make such computations feasible, current approaches employ highly constrained architectures that produce diagonal, triangular, or low rank Jacobian matrices. As an alternative, we investigate a set of novel normalizing flows based on the circular and symmetric convolutions. We show that these transforms admit efficient Jacobian determinant computation and inverse mapping (deconvolution) in O(N log N) time. Additionally, element-wise multiplication, widely used in normalizing flow architectures, can be combined with these transforms to increase modeling flexibility. We further propose an analytic approach to designing nonlinear elementwise bijectors that induce special properties in the intermediate layers, by implicitly introducing specific regularizers in the loss. We show that these transforms allow more effective normalizing flow models to be developed for generative image models.


The ships Nieuwe-Haerlem, Oliphant and Schiedam departed on 16 January 1647 as followers of the home-bound fleet from Batavia to patria. On 25 March 1647, the Nieuwe-Haerlem sailed into Table Bay where it stranded. An earthen entrenchment, temporary dwellings and storage places were erected. Junior merchant Leendert Janszen and sixty men remained behind to bring as much as possible of the ship's cargo to safety. In March 1648 the crew and cargo went on board a home-bound fleet. Jan van Riebeeck, his wife Maria and their son Lambertus, as well as two cousins of whom Van Riebeeck was guardian, initially stayed on board the Drommedaris after their arrival in Table Bay in April 1652. On 24 April they went ashore and stayed in a temporary wooden tent. The rest of the people lived in tents made from old canvas. After the completion of the dwellings in the Fort de Goede Hoope on 3 August 1652, everyone moved to these premises. This article is an attempt to reconstruct the temporary dwellings from written and pictorial sources.


Deep Freezer
I worked on a new commission for Objectif, in the basement space. The new work further develops my on-going interest in bitumen, and its temporal qualities. Drawing on the work I made with Neal White, A Quantity of Easing we created two bitumen forms, taking open cast diamond mines as a starting point (Antwerp being a capital of Diamonds in the world). Situated on a plinth with an interior visible along the perimeter of the top surface, these forms collapse through holes into the bright space below. This inversion of the extraction process, sees the bitumen slowly unfold onto the negative void of the casts. From above, the forms simply dissolve into the plinth upon which they are placed. The link between oil, the basis of the bitumen, and mining or drilling of resources, waste and the void, is implicit.

The plinth itself is shown in a darkened space accessed through a Kiosk placed in the courtyard outside of the gallery. Visitors slowly lowered themselves down a ladder in to the darkness below. Facing them was the plinth, and around them the resonant audio of open source seismic data taken from a global array of sensors - developed by Anna Troisi with the Office of Experiments. Far to the left in the bottom of a liftshaft, a video plays back captured materials from diamond displays.

Exiting, the visitor leaves up a stairwell to an upstairs space, which is lit by orange fluorescent tubes. A text taken from Robert Smithson text on Spiral Jetty, alluding to land art and media, is the only other element in the space. There is no access to the gallery and visitors leave via the roller door half opened to the courtyard.

Going through the main entrance to the gallery upstairs, the Speedie Telstar – a work commissioned by TULCA Galway and on loan from the Museum of Computing and Communications, Galway was exhibited among works made by White that reflect on recent projects and fieldwork concerning key issues of time, with the ideas of global communications and global resource extraction.

Project Elements:
Deep Freezer
Two bitumen casts approx 40 x 40 cm. Custom made white plinth with floating top. LED lights, wood .

Speedie Telstar Sculpture;
Original Front page of the New York Times following the Speedie Telstar Launch 1962; Assorted informational videos and propoganda on DVD.

The Speedie Telster is a sculpture in aluminium and steel with a range of recent technologies and traditional techniques used to finish details, from 3d printing to watercolour for the solar panels. The sculpture is approxiamtely the size of the orginal at 30 inches diameter.


Dix Hallpike Maneuver is performed to diagnose Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and is still relevant in the clinical evaluation of BPPV. However in clinical practice we routinely get cases of vertigo due to postural changes or head movements which donot follow the typical sign of Dix Hall pike test. These patients can be classified of being having suffering from Atypical BPPV. The Aim was to Evaluate BPPV with negative Dix Hallpike test and the treatment modality for it. Selection criteria for our studies were based on perspective clinical studies done in 64 patients with Atypical BPPV at Dept of ENT Audio-vestibular unit , in a tertiary care Hospital for a period of 1 year. Results and observations showed that 56 patients from the study group were symptomatically relieved when Epleys maneuver was performed on them consecutively for 3 days. It is seen that almost 88 % of the patients suffering from Atypical BPPV showed symptom remission when treated with Canalith Repositioning Maneuver specially the Epleys .Thus Epleys maneuver can be a treatment modality for patients suffering from BPPV without nystagmus. Patients with a typical history of positional vertigo who shows no nystagmus in Dix hallpike which we often diagnose no not a case of BPPV are actually atypical BPPVs which can be successfully treated by Epleys manoeuvre , a cheap and easy and effective way of treatment .


The Technological Singularity represents a confluence of techno-cultural narratives of progress in which the projected exponential growth of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will usher in a moment of irrevocable change for the human race – a change that many claim is scant decades away. Although the concept saw its modern clarification by science fiction author Vernor Vinge, the Singularity sits astride both fictional and nonfictional narratives of the future. It is the aim of this study to explore the ideological discourses that emerge from texts on the Singularity and the unfathomable posthuman future it ushers in. Doing so reveals how the Singularity often functions as a projection of Late Capital, which achieves ominous posthuman agency in the form of the financial derivative. Yet the Singularity also occupies a Marxian space – its teleological metaphor mirrors that of classical Marxism and a historical terminus in Utopia. Ultimately the response of science fiction authors such as Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Ken Macloud, and Rudy Rucker, among others, is to treat the Singularity as an elastic metaphor subjected to ideological scrutiny rather than a dogmatic inevitability of exponential historiography. This interpretation frees the Singularity to be explored as a conglomerate of early 21 century hopes and anxieties. Far from being the "genre-killer" of science fiction, the Singularity represents a new, heightened set of concerns and methodologies for engaging the late capitalist/postmodern condition.


A little before 4 Ma ago, deposition of Pliocene and Pleistocene strata described as the Omo Group began in the Turkana and Omo basins of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Soon after, basaltic magma erupted as thin lava flows, and intruded as dykes into the oldest Pliocene strata of the basin. These flows and intrusions are similar petrographically and geochemically, and mark a basaltic magmatic event spanning latitudes from 2° 45′ N to 6° 45′ N at a longitude of about 36° E. By 3.94 Ma, this basaltic magmatic activity had ceased. Previous researchers used these lavas as an important seismic marker in their study of the southern part of the Turkana Basin. Subsequent volcanic eruptions formed North, Central and South islands in Lake Turkana, and the Korath Range in southern Ethiopia. Thus there was a hiatus in basaltic magmatic activity of nearly 4 Ma in the area presently occupied by Lake Turkana and the lower Omo Valley, although volcanism continued on the eastern margin of the basin. Here we review the field occurrences of these basalts, their distinctive petrography, composition, age and significance to Pliocene deposition in the basin.


The Cadia East deposit is the largest of four porphyry Au-Cu deposits that comprise the Cadia district which is located ~220 km west of Sydney in NSW, Australia. Porphyry Au-Cu and related skarn mineralisation at Cadia is hosted by middle to late Ordovician subaqueous volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks that were deposited in an ancient intra-oceanic island arc named the Macquarie Arc (Percival and Glen, 2007). Mineralisation is associated with alkalic monzonite and quartz monzonite intrusions that were emplaced between the latest Ordovician and the early Silurian after collision of the Macquarie Arc with the eastern margin of Gondwana (Glen et al., 2007).
Mineralisation at Cadia East is centred on a swarm of NW trending monzonite and quartz monzonite dykes that define an ore zone 2.5 km in length and 0.8 km in width, and that extends vertically for over 1.5 km. Hydrothermal alteration is zoned from an early sodic-calcic/calc-potassic assemblage (plagioclase + actinolite + tourmaline + K-feldspar + epidote) at greatest depth (2,000 to 1,500 m) that transitions vertically and laterally into a pervasive potassic assemblage (biotite + magnetite + K-feldspar). A second potassic alteration overprints the earlier assemblages and occurs principally as K-feldspar + biotite alteration envelopes around sheeted quartz-sulfide veins which are associated with Au-Cu mineralisation. Inner propylitic alteration is actinolite-bearing, a common feature of alkalic porphyry deposits (Holliday and Cooke, 2007), and is located peripherally to the calc-potassic and potassic alteration zones. Alteration in the shallow part of the Cadia East deposit comprises a 200 to 300 m thick zone of pervasive assemblage of K-feldspar + plagioclase + calcite + pyrite + apatite ア tourmaline that overprints all earlier alteration stages. This shallow potassic-sodic alteration is an atypical feature of alteration in porphyry deposits but is voluminous and laterally extensive (>2 km) at Cadia East.
Hydrothermal tourmaline is highly sensitive to its chemical environment of formation and it can therefore provide an excellent chemical and isotopic record of the hydrothermal fluids from which it precipitated (e.g., van Hinsberg et al., 2011). Early hydrothermal tourmaline at Cadia East is associated with pervasive calc-potassic alteration within the high-grade ore zone. Tourmaline also occurs in late-stage breccias and veins which are temporally associated with an extensive zone (>200 m thick, 1 km wide and several kilometres in length) of pervasive feldspar-rich alteration that caps the deposit. The total range in the boron isotope composition (δ11B) of tourmaline ranges between -5.2 and +7.7・and the calculated boron isotope composition of fluids in equilibrium with tourmaline range between -1.1 and +10.4・ Although relatively high calculated δ11B values of fluids have been attributed to seawater or basinal brine sources (e.g., Xavier et al., 2008), a combination of oxygen, hydrogen and strontium isotope analysis of tourmaline indicate that external fluids, including Ordovician-Silurian seawater and meteoric water, were precluded from the hydrothermal system at Cadia East. Instead, the isotopic composition of tourmaline was controlled by hydrothermal fluids that were derived from alkalic intrusions that may have boiled locally. The range in the δ11B composition of tourmaline at Cadia East is comparable to that documented in porphyry Cu and iron-oxide-copper-gold systems in the central Andes (e.g., Wittenbrink et al., 2009; Tornos et al., 2012) and therefore, suggests a similar magmatic-hydrothermal origin. A magmatic origin for the laterally extensive zone of shallow potassic-sodic alteration at Cadia East suggests that this alteration may be analogous to the extensive zones of advanced argillic alteration that forms lithocaps in the upper parts of calc-alkaline porphyry deposits (e.g., Sillitoe, 1995).


Metasedimentary rocks of the Neoproterozoic Grampian and Appin groups exposed in the Glen Roy district (Monadhliath Mountains, Scotland) were strongly folded during an initial progressive tectonothermal event of the Caledonian orogeny. The attitude and style of the first folds varies from open, upright NE-trending structures in the west (e.g. the Appin Synform) to recumbent NW-facing nappes in the east (e.g. the Treig Synform). These early nappes occur only south of the Corrieyairack Complex and their amplitude decreases towards the NW. Ductility contrasts induced sliding such as that locally recorded along the Grampian-Appin group lithostratigraphical boundary. Subsequently the early structures were deformed by tight, upright 'D2' folds. NW-thrusting along the Eilrig Shear Zone, during 'D2', is interpreted as occurring in response to a transfer of bulk transport to deeper structural levels relative to 'D1'. Prograde metamorphism accompanied deformation, with the thermal peak in the Glen Roy district (T = 500–600 °C; P = 7.0–8.0 kbar) coinciding with 'D2' folding. It is suggested that the regional variation in the style of deformation was controlled, at least in part, by pre-existing major structures, most notably fundamental, transverse basement lineaments. Temporal changes in the style of deformation occurred in response to changing crustal architecture during progressive deformation. The study demonstrates the diachronous nature of deformation and also illustrates how its is possible to preserve areas with simple deformation histories in the centre of a major orogenic belt.


In mammals, the B-cell lineage arises from pluripotent progenitors in the bone marrow. During their development, B-cells undergo lineage specification and commitment, followed by expansion and selection. These processes are mediated by regulated changes in gene expression programmes, rearrangements of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes, and well-timed rounds of proliferation and apoptosis. Many of these processes are initiated by environmental factors including cytokines, chemokines, and cell-cell contacts. Developing B-cells process these environmental cues into stage-specific functions via signalling pathways including the PI3K, MAPK, or JAK-STAT pathway. The cytokines FLT3-Ligand and c-Kit-Ligand are important for the early expansion of the B-cell precursors at different developmental stages and conditions. Interleukin 7 is essential for commitment to the B-cell lineage and for orchestrating the Ig recombination machinery. After rearrangement of the immunoglobulin heavy chain, proliferation and apoptosis, and thus selection, are mediated by the clonal pre-B-cell receptor, and, following light chain rearrangement, by the B-cell receptor.


Sleeping sickness is a neglected tropical disease that affects rural populations in Africa. Deadly when untreated, it is being targeted for elimination through case finding and treatment. Yet, fundamental questions about its transmission cycle remain unanswered. One of them is whether transmission is limited to humans, or whether other species play a role in maintaining circulation of the disease. In this snapshot, we introduce a mathematical model for the spread of Trypanosoma brucei, the parasite responsible for causing sleeping sickness, and present some results based on data collected in Cameroon. Understanding how important animals are in harbouring Trypanosoma brucei that can infect humans is important for assessing whether the disease could be reintroduced in human populations even after all infected people have been successfully treated.


The scale insect predator Chilocorus nigritus is considered as one of the most successful and important biological control agents in classical biocontrol. The ladybird is currently a commercial product, used for scale insect control in glasshouse environments, but despite widespread success in wild field releases, use of the predator in glasshouses has achieved only moderate success. This study aimed to find out which factors may affect the success of C. nigritus in glasshouse pest control. Two key factors with potential to have a dramatic impact on the predator were identified; genetic variability within and between insect populations, and male killing endosymbiotic bacteria, known to have a diverse range of effects on up to 70% of all insect species.

Beetle strains were sourced from several insectaries and geographical locations. DNA sequencing determined significant genetic differences between biotypes of C. nigritus from different localities, indicating that C. nigritus exists as a series of functional biotypes across its range. All biotypes were tested for Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Spiroplasma infections, identifying Rickettsia and Wolbachia presence in most populations. Uninfected sub-lines of these strains were therefore created via tetracycline treatment. A number of bionomic characteristics of the beetle were compared across these strains and infection types in order to assess the influence of genetics and bacterial endosymbionts.

Significant effects of endosymbionts were noted in fecundity and prey consumption, and genetically distinct biotypes varied in their prey consumption. A combination of biotypes and infection types also provided successful suppression of scale insects in glasshouse trials at Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and beetles were shown to produce a defence pheromone similar to hippodamine, which could potentially be another strong influence on the species' ecology. This thesis suggests that variability within a predator population may be an asset, rather than a hindrance.


This paper discusses the results of a research study in the alignment of Business Strategy with Information Systems and Technology (IS/IT) in government. A qualitative research method was used to examine social enablers of alignment in six government agencies. The paper contrasts the findings with the study of Luftman et al (1999) that identified several important enablers and inhibitors of alignment using data collected from 500 company executives. The results show that management support is an important social enabler of alignment that includes literacy in technical matters and cohesive decision-making that comes from sound business and IS relationships. A business planning style that involves business and technical staff, and open business plan communications that engages internal and external stakeholders, were also found to be social enablers of alignment.


In a field dominated by a discourse that paints the European Union (EU) as a change agent providing initial stimuli, it is refreshing that the transmission or diffusion of norms, values, processes and institutional design is now being reported (albeit inchoately) in the cooperation of regional entities in developing countries between themselves. The fact that South-South inter-regional diffusion has been low is trite. Pre-colonial and colonial patterns of international relations embedded an ethic of North to South flows of ideas, especially in the realm of knowledge transfer. It is easy to conclude that South-South interregional exchanges have so far been barren. In many cases, e.g. between Asia and Africa, this assessment is not far off. Taking account of inter-regional diffusion between the African Union (AU) and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) within the broader context of Africa-Asia relations, the paper aspires to provoke further research interest in diffusion between regional entities of the Global South.