BACKGROUND
Health organisations recommend exclusive breastfeeding for six months. However, the addition of other fluids or foods before six months is common in many countries. Recently, research has suggested that introducing solid food at around four months of age while the baby continues to breastfeed is more protective against developing food allergies compared to exclusive breastfeeding for six months. Other studies have shown that the risks associated with non-exclusive breastfeeding are dependent on the type of additional food or fluid given. Given this background we felt it was important to update the previous version of this review to incorporate the latest findings from studies examining exclusive compared to non-exclusive breastfeeding.

OBJECTIVES
To assess the benefits and harms of additional food or fluid for full-term healthy breastfeeding infants and to examine the timing and type of additional food or fluid.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group's Trials Register (1 March 2016) and reference lists of all relevant retrieved papers.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials in infants under six months of age comparing exclusive breastfeeding versus breastfeeding with any additional food or fluids.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently assessed trials for inclusion and risk of bias, extracted data and checked them for accuracy. Two review authors assessed the quality of the evidence using the GRADE approach.

MAIN RESULTS
We included 11 trials (2542 randomised infants/mothers). Nine trials (2226 analysed) provided data on outcomes of interest to this review. The variation in outcome measures and time points made it difficult to pool results from trials. Data could only be combined in a meta-analysis for one primary (breastfeeding duration) and one secondary (weight change) outcome. None of the trials reported on physiological jaundice. Infant mortality was only reported in one trial.For the majority of older trials, the description of study methods was inadequate to assess the risk of bias. Most studies that we could assess showed a high risk of other biases and over half were at high risk of selection bias.Providing breastfeeding infants with artifical milk, compared to exclusive breastfeeding, did not affect rates of breastfeeding at hospital discharge (risk ratio (RR) 1.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.97 to 1.08; one trial, 100 infants; low-quality evidence). At three months, breastfeeding infants who were provided with artificial milk had higher rates of any breastfeeding compared to exclusively breastfeeding infants (RR 1.21, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.41; two trials, 137 infants; low-quality evidence). Infants who were given artifical milk in the first few days after birth before breastfeeding, had less "obvious or probable symptoms" of allergy compared to exclusively breastfeeding infants (RR 0.56, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.91; one trial, 207 infants; very low-quality evidence). No difference was found in maternal confidence when comparing non-exclusive breastfeeding infants who were provided with artificial milk with exclusive breastfeeding infants (mean difference (MD) 0.10, 95% CI -0.34 to 0.54; one study, 39 infants; low-quality evidence). Rates of breastfeeding were lower in the non-exclusive breastfeeding group compared to the exclusive breastfeeding group at four, eight, 12 (RR 0.68, 95% CI 0.53 to 0.87; one trial, 170 infants; low-quality evidence), 16 and 20 weeks.The addition of glucose water resulted in fewer episodes of hypoglycaemia (below 2.2 mmol/L) compared to the exclusive breastfeeding group, reported at 12 hours (RR 0.07, 95% CI 0.00 to 1.20; one trial, 170 infants; very low-quality evidence), but no significant difference at 24 hours (RR 1.57, 95% CI 0.27 to 9.17; one trial, 170 infants; very low-quality evidence). Weight loss was lower for infants who received additional glucose water (one trial, 170 infants) at six, 12, 24 and 48 hours of life (MD -32.50 g, 95% CI -52.09 to -12.91; low-quality evidence) compared to the exclusively breastfeeding infants but no difference between groups was observed at 72 hours of life (MD 3.00 g, 95% CI -20.83 to 26.83; very low-quality evidence). In another trial with the water and glucose water arms combined (one trial, 47 infants), we found no significant difference in weight loss between the additional fluid group and the exclusively breastfeeding group on either day three or day five (MD -1.03%, 95% CI -2.24 to 0.18; very low-quality evidence) and (MD -0.20%, 95% CI -0.86 to 0.46; very low-quality evidence).Infant mortality was reported in one trial with no deaths occurring in either group (1162 infants). The early introduction of potentially allergenic foods, compared to exclusively breastfeeding, did not reduce the risk of "food allergy" to one or more of these foods between one to three years of age (RR 0.80, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.25; 1162 children), visible eczema at 12 months stratified by visible eczema at enrolment (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.44; 284 children), or food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome reactions (RR 2.00, 95% CI 0.18 to 22.04; 1303 children) (all moderate-quality evidence). Breastfeeding infants receiving additional foods from four months showed no difference in infant weight gain (g) from 16 to 26 weeks compared to exclusive breastfeeding to six months (MD -39.48, 95% CI -128.43 to 49.48; two trials, 260 children; low-quality evidence) or weight z-scores (MD -0.01, 95% CI -0.15 to 0.13; one trial, 100 children; moderate-quality evidence).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
We found no evidence of benefit to newborn infants on the duration of breastfeeding from the brief use of additional water or glucose water. The quality of the evidence on formula supplementation was insufficient to suggest a change in practice away from exclusive breastfeeding. For infants at four to six months, we found no evidence of benefit from additional foods nor any risks related to morbidity or weight change. The majority of studies showed high risk of other bias and most outcomes were based on low-quality evidence which meant that we were unable to fully assess the benefits or harms of supplementation or to determine the impact from timing and type of supplementation. We found no evidence to disagree with the current international recommendation that healthy infants exclusively breastfeed for the first six months.


Multiple drugs in combinatory therapy can improve the treatment of cancer due to their efficient reduction of multidrug resistance (MDR) of tumor cells. In this paper, we first synthesized a reduction-sensitive dextran-ss-camptothecin (Dex-ss-CPT, or Dex-CPT) prodrug conjugated by a disulfide bond, and a pH-responsive dextran-hyd-doxorubicin (Dex-hyd-DOX, or Dex-DOX) prodrug linked with an acid-cleavable hydrazone group. The chemical structures of the intermediate polymers and polymeric prodrugs have been fully characterized by 1H NMR, FT-IR, UV-Vis and HPLC analyses, respectively. Both prodrugs could self-assemble into uniform particles in aqueous solution. Subsequently, in vitro synergistic drug release of the two prodrugs was studied by methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay. The reduction of a disulfide linker generates a thiol intermediate that is followed by intramolecular cyclization and the cleavage of the neighboring carbonate bridge, thus releasing native CPT molecules from the Dex-ss-CPT micelles. Similarly, the pH-sensitive hydrazone bond is broken under intracellular acidic conditions and the DOX parent drug is released from the Dex-hyd-DOX micelles. Finally, in vivo pharmacokinetics and biodistribution were investigated via intravenous administration with various formulations to treat 4T1 tumor-bearing mice. Meanwhile, the antitumor activity was also studied. This work demonstrates an effective anti-cancer prodrug design platform, which is expected to be useful for the treatment of various tumors.


Pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is an important regulator of carbohydrate oxidation during exercise, and its activity can be downregulated by an increase in dietary fat. The purpose of this study was to determine the acute metabolic effects of differential dietary fatty acids on the activation of the PDH complex (PDHa activity) at rest and at the onset of moderate-intensity exercise. University-aged male subjects (n = 7) underwent two fat-loading trials spaced at least 2 wk apart. Subjects consumed approximately 300 g saturated (SFA) or n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) fat over the course of 5 h. Following this, participants cycled at 65% of their maximum oxygen uptake for 15 min. Muscle biopsies were taken before and following fat loading and at 1 min exercise. Plasma free fatty acids increased from 0.15 +/- 0.07 to 0.54 +/- 0.19 mM over 5 h with SFA and from 0.11 +/- 0.04 to 0.35 +/- 0.13 mM with n-6 PUFA and were significantly lower throughout the n-6 PUFA trial. PDHa activity was unchanged following fat loading but increased at the onset of exercise in the SFA trial, from 1.18 +/- 0.27 to 2.16 +/- 0.37 mmol x min(-1) x kg wet wt(-1). This effect was negated in the n-6 PUFA trial (1.04 +/- 0.20 to 1.28 +/- 0.36 mmol x min(-1) x kg wet wt(-1)). PDH kinase was unchanged in both trials, suggesting that the attenuation of PDHa activity with n-6 PUFA was a result of changes in the concentrations of intramitochondrial effectors, potentially intramitochondrial NADH or Ca(2+). Our findings suggest that attenuated PDHa activity contributes to the preferential oxidation of n-6 PUFA during moderate-intensity exercise.


Objective: To identify pathological changes to vessels in the facial nerve canal among patients with diabetes mellitus. Design: Histopathologic human temporal bone study. Subject: This study examined 26 temporal bones from 13 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus and 40 temporal bones from 20 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Temporal bones from patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were divided into 2 groups according to the method of diabetes management: insulin (n = 11) and oral hypoglycemic agents (n = 9). For the control groups, 16 age-matched normal temporal bones from 11 subjects were recruited for type 1 diabetes mellitus and 11 age-matched normal temporal bones from 8 subjects were recruited for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Main Outcome Measures: Thicknesses of vessel walls in the labyrinthine, tympanic, and mastoid portions of the facial nerve canal were examined under light microscopy. Results: Vessel walls for all portions of the facial nerve canal were significantly thicker in diabetic patients than in normal controls for both types 1 and 2 diabetes. In type 2 diabetic patients, vessel wall thickness was significantly greater in patients treated with insulin therapy than in patients treated via oral hypoglycemic agents. Conclusion: The facial nerve in patients with diabetes mellitus is ischemic compared with normal controls. These findings suggest a histologic basis for the high incidence and difficulty in achieving improvement of facial nerve palsy in patients with diabetes mellitus.


Background:Maternal mortality is on the rise in Nigeria with the North- East having the highest ratio, and Borno state records one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the country. Objective:To determine the trends in maternal mortality in UMTH, identify the background socio- cultural factors, establish the major causes of deaths and determine avoidable factors. Study design:Retrospective study of maternal deaths. Methods: The case records of all recorded cases of maternal deaths between January 2001 and December 2005 inclusive were retrieved and relevant data obtained and analysed. Results: The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) for the period under review was 430 per 100,000 live births. There were annual fluctuations in MMR. However, there was a consistently rising trend in MMR from 2002-2004 with the highest ratio of 545 per 100,000 live births recorded in the year 2004, with a decline in 2005. Thirty (78.9%) of these deaths occurred among the unbooked patients and more than 90% of this were referred as obstetric emergencies. Age range was 14-39 years with a mean of 26.5years. The highest maternal death occurred at the two extremes of reproductive age group (14-19 years and 35 years and above). Grandmultiparas suffered the highest maternal mortality of 36.8%, followed by teenage mothers. P1-4 contributed the least to maternal mortality. The direct causes of maternal death accounted for 92.1% of the deaths. The major causes of death were eclampsia 34.2%, sepsis 26.3% and prolonged obstructed labour/ruptured uterus 13.2%. Amongst the indirect causes of maternal death, HIV/Tuberculosis was the leading cause accounting for 5.3%. Basic but professional antenatal care, skilled attendance at birth, community mobilization and health education messages for a healthy pregnancy and safe birth will help to reduce the unacceptably high maternal mortality ratio in Borno state and the country at large.


The Southern African Development Community (SADC) aims to facilitate and attain deeper economic integration and industrial development among its members. To achieve these objectives, the grouping developed the SADC Protocol on Trade whose implementation began in 2000. While this Protocol is mainly a trade instrument, this article seeks to explore how it could be used to facilitate industrial development instead of using it solely for trade integration. In analysing this Protocol it has been observed that it has specific provisions that address issues on industrial development within the grouping. These provisions are Part Two Article 3 and Part Four Article 21. As the region progresses in implementing the Protocol, the aforementioned Articles could be utilised to facilitate industrial development. Theoretical debates upon which these Articles could be used to facilitate industrial development rest on the infant industry argument, the static and dynamic effects of economic integration. Limitations of the theoretical frameworks will be explored and how this could impact on industrial development initiatives by the grouping.


In beech stands (Fagus sylvatica) it is observed, that beech trees with specific trunk morphology, such as forked stems, often occur in groups. At the same time, in naturral regenerated beech stands distinct family structures can be assumed due to a limited pollen and especially seed dispersal. Aim of this work is the investigation of spatial distributions of such family structures. Based on genetic investigations of morphologically differentiated individuals and their natural regeneration in three beech stands in Germany, a possible relation between the variability of the trunk morphology and the genetic variation could be detected. The outcrossing rate estimated by using isoenzyme gene markers was relatively high for all the investigated individuals, as expected. The study of nine enzymatic gene loci GOT-B, IDH-A, MDH-B, MDH-C, PGI-B, PGM-A, LAP-A, 6PGDH-A and MNR-A did not show any clear genetic differentiation between the forked and monopodial groups of trees, that means there was no indication about enzymatic genotypes, which strongly promote the formation of forked stems. The application of geostatistical methods for the study of the spatial distribution of the genetic variation enables the identification of spatial structures. The autocorrelation analysis according to MORAN (1950) showed a low correlation between the spatial and genetic distances in each of the studied beech stands. The results of the present study pointed out that in a beech stand both the family structures and the action of a microenvironmental selection should be taken into consideration for the interpretation of the spatial distribution of genetic information. The investigation of the spatial distribution of genetic variants in beech populations by using the grouping index and the sum of the allele frequencies for increasing distances, especially regarding rare alleles, provides further information for interpretation and takes into consideration further aspects of spatial structuring. The results of this analysis were in accordance with those achieved with the interpolation method. All geostatistic methods applied in the present study confirmed spatial genetic autocorrelation limited in small areas, possibly due to the restricted pollen and especially seed dispersal. It has been showed that the size of these spatial genetic structures can differ between beech stands, depending on factors like stand density and structure, as well as on the effect of a microenvironmental conditions or the influence of human activities. In beech stands with natural regeneration, and consequently various age classes, the diameter of areas of pronounced autocorrelation was estimated to be around 20 to 30 m, increasing with the increasing age of the stand. The molecular markers offer new possibilities for the investigation of phylogenetic relationships and kinship, as well as of the mating system and gene flow within and between populations. For the study of phylogenetic relations and ancestry reconstruction in the female lineages, uniparental inherited markers, such as cpDNA or mtDNA markers, would be the most appropriate. The mating system and gene flow could be investigated with a combination of uniparental and biparental inherited markers, like the nucleus microsatellites. Universal cpDNA markers were already applied for the study of beech populations in Europe and a high genetic differentiation between populations has been detected (DEMESURE et al., 1996). Furthermore, the RFLP analysis of cpDNA from populations in Rheinland-Pfalz in Germany showed variation within a population (VORNAM and HERZOG, 1996), while the PCR-RFLP analysis showed neither in the study of DEMESURE et al. (1996) nor in the present study any variation within a beech population. The development of homologe primers in beech would be of a great importance, because of methodological problems during the PCR reaction by using the universal cpDNA primers. The mitochondrial DNA markers are also very important for the investigation of the gene flow by seeds. The mtDNA molecules are often more variable than the highly conserved cpDNA molecules. Therefore it is expected, that such mtDNA markers are very informativ for phylogenetic analyses in the microevolutionary level (AVISE et al., 1987). The mtDNA markers investigated in the present study were not variable, an indication for highly conserved mtDNA molecules in European beech. Consequently, the maternal inherited markers used in the present study are not appropriate for the identification of the maternal ancestor in family structures in beech stands, since for such investigations high variability of these markers is required. The microsatellites (simple-sequence repeats or SSR) are highly repeated, short DNA sequencies dispersed throughout the genome and the plastids. The repeated unit of such SSR loci is five or fewer bases in length. Microsatellites are very important markers for population genetic studies, mainly because of their high variability. SSR primer developed from the genome of Quercus petraea were tested also on other species of the Fagaceae family.These (GA)n sequencies were not variable in beech. (STEINKELLNER et al., 1997). Microsatellite primers developed from Fagus crenata (TANAKA et al., 1999) were tested in the present study for Fagus sylvatica. These microsatellite regions seem to be very variable in the European beech. However, an inheritance analysis is required for the interpretation of the band patterns and the use of them as genetic markers. The identification of spatial structures of the genetic variation based on the investigation of enzyme gene markers and additional molecular markers, by means of geostatistical methods would be of major practical importance. Such structures could provide information about the possible origin and development of a stand, as well as suggestions about the strategy of collection of seed material, preferably originating from different families. Moreover, such kind of studies offers the possibility to investigate associations between genetic and morphological variation, on the basis of which important information can be achieved about the influence of forest management measures on the genetic structures. Nevertheless, no relation between the spatial distribution of the trees with forked stems and the observed genetic structures were obvious in the present study.


What constitutes a good, worthwhile, fulfilling life? How should one live? What kind of a person should one be? From Lao Tzu to Aristotle, from Dostoyevsky to Bertrand Russell, philosophers ancient and modern attempted their own answers to these oldest and most enduring of philosophical questions. Frequently figuring in the discussions on the highest, best possible life were the concepts of "happiness" and "virtue". Notwithstanding inevitable differences in terminology, many great minds posited that the road to a happy, thriving, worth-of-living life is paved with virtues. Is there any merit to these claims? Does possessing and exercising virtue indeed lead to happiness? The current chapter endeavors to shed light on these questions, by reviewing the burgeoning empirical literature on the relationship between virtues and happiness. In line with the philosophical thinking on the topic, our review reveals virtue and happiness to be closely associated. It furthermore appears that happiness and virtue are bi-directionally related — with virtue leading to happiness and happiness leading to virtue, in a "virtuous cycle."


Bone healing process is a complicated phenomenon regulated by biochemical and mechanical signals. Experimental studies have shown that ultrasound (US) accelerates bone ossification and has a multiple influence on cell differentiation and angiogenesis. In a recent work of the authors, a bioregulatory model for providing bone-healing predictions was addressed, taking into account for the first time the salutary effect of US on the involved angiogenesis. In the present work, a mechanobioregulatory model of bone solidification under the US presence incorporating also the mechanical environment on the regeneration process, which is known to affect cellular processes, is presented. An iterative procedure is adopted, where the finite element method is employed to compute the mechanical stimuli at the linear elastic phases of the poroelastic callus region and a coupled system of partial differential equations to simulate the enhancement by the US cell angiogenesis process and thus the oxygen concentration in the fractured area. Numerical simulations with and without the presence of US that illustrate the influence of progenitor cells' origin in the healing pattern and the healing rate and simultaneously demonstrate the salutary effect of US on bone repair are presented and discussed.


This paper investigates the influence of volatility of foreign exchange rate of the U.S., the U.K., Netherlands, Japan, China and Singapore to the volatility of the six Australian sectors within the investigated period controlling for the time periods global financial crisis 2007-2008.The volatility in this study was estimated using GARCH(1,1) models. Daily data is collected for a period of 2002 to 2014. The dataset is divided into three sub periods: before GFC (July 2002 to July 2007), during GFC (July 2007 to July 2009) and after GFC (July 2009 to July 2014). The estimated results find strong relationship between exchange rates for the six countries with six Australian sectors volatility, except health care sectors during GFC. The same relationship is evident before GFC, except banks sector. The statistically significant impact of these foreign exchange on the six Australian sectors continues after GFC, except materials sector is weakly significantly. This result is important for the investors and other market participants to understand the risk factors related to the sectors of the Australian stock market.


The American exploitation film functioned as an alternative to mainstream Hollywood cinema, and served as a way of introducing to audiences shocking, controversial themes, as well as narratives that major American studios were reluctant to explore. Whereas American exploitation cinema developed in parallel to mainstream Hollywood, exploitation cinema in Britain has no such historical equivalent. Furthermore, the definition of exploitation, in terms of the British industry, is currently used to describe (according to the Encyclopedia of British Film) either poor quality sex comedies from the 1970s, a handful of horror films, or as a loosely fixed generic description dependent upon prevailing critical or academic orthodoxies. However, exploitation was a term used by the British industry in the 1960s to describe a wide-ranging and eclectic variety of films – these films included, ―kitchen-sink dramas‖, comedies, musicals, westerns, as well as many films from Continental Europe and Scandinavia. Therefore, the current description of an exploitation film in Britain has changed a great deal from its original meaning. Moreover, the films currently described as exploitation films include not only low budget independent films but also films made by large filmmaking companies like the Rank Organisation.
The filmmaker Robert Hartford-Davis, whose career spans the 1960s, is frequently described as a director of British exploitation films. How can Hartford-Davis' films help us to identify and understand the role of these films which are perceived as outside of the cultural mainstream, and how do these films fit into the narrative of British cinema? Hartford-Davis' films, although now described as exploitation, were made to compete with the rest of the British film industry, unlike American exploitation which was sustained in opposition to Hollywood. Nonetheless, Hartford-Davis' films exposes the tension that existed throughout the 1960s, between British low budget independent companies and companies like the Rank Organisation and other larger British film companies. Moreover, Hartford-Davis' films throw up wider questions, not only about the definition and meaning of British exploitation films, but also about the accepted narrative of post-war British film culture, as well as the structure of the domestic industry during the 1960s. Furthermore, if the outsider status of British exploitation filmmakers is removed, then perhaps the accepted opposition between the ―quality‖ film and lowbrow film is also considerably blurred, and supported only by an existing critical and academic consensus.


Effects of Combined Bevacizumab and Paclitaxel on Tumor Interstitial Fluid Pressure in a Preclinical Breast Cancer Model by Ricardo H. Alvarez Several mechanisms of cell resistance are often accountable for unsuccessful chemotherapy against cancer. Another reason, which has received increased attention, is the inefficient transport of anticancer drugs into tumor tissue. These impaired transports of chemotherapy into the tumor have been attributed to abnormal microvasculature and to pathologically increased tumor hypertension also called: interstitial fluid pressure (IFP). The pathophysiological processes leading to elevated tumor IFP are poorly understood. Here, in a preclinical breast cancer model, it is argued that a condition of raised IFP is a major factor in preventing optimal access of systemically administered chemotherapy agents. In our experimental model, we used a GILM2 human breast cancer in xenografts; mice were treated with different doses of paclitaxel –a widely used antimicrotubular agent, and bevacizumab – monoclonal antibody against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The proposed research project is designed to test the hypothesis that paclitaxel in combination with bevacizumab decreases the tumor IPF by restoring tumor permeability and increasing chemotherapy delivery. We demonstrated that the combination of paclitaxel and bevacizumab produced greater tumor control than either agent given alone and this combination reduced the IFP, producing an increment of 75% of apoptosis compared with the control arm. In addition, the intra-tumor paclitaxel quantification by liquid chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) demonstrated that lower dose of both agents showed a synergistic effect compared with high dose of treatment, where there is no significantly increase of paclitaxel into the tumor. These preclinical results are likely to have broad implications for the utility of anti-angiogenic therapies alone and in combination with chemotherapeutic agents.


1. The effect of calcitonin, a large amount of calcium given orally, pentagastrin and glucagon on plasma 47Ca radioactivity curves in subjects pretreated with 47Ca was examined. 2. A sudden increase of plasma radioactivity after intravenous administration of calcitonin and pentagastrin and after the oral calcium load was observed in normal subjects; the intravenous infusion of glucagon was less effective. 3. Two thyroparathyroidectomized patients who responded to the calcitonin infusion did not respond to the oral calcium load. 4. These data may be considered to offer indirect evidence of endogenous calcitonin secretion in man.


Our starting point is colour and the notion that colour makes a difference. We studied colour science and colour geography in order to research the architecture facades in Karlskrona. The first part of the paper introduces the significance of our study, background, research objective and methodology, along with the definitions of some concepts,and urban colourscape situation of foreign counties and China. The second part of the paper expounds problems of urban colourscape and discusses principles, significance and function of urban colourscape planning. The third part of the paper analyses the colourscape planning of Copenhagen in order to demonstrate the significance and process of colourscape planning. It also investigates geography, history and culture of Karlskrona. The fourth part of the paper has the results of our research--a colour program of Karlskrona's architecture. The fifth part of the paper summarize the whole thesis.


Among the most celebrated statements ever issued in a Supreme Court opinion is Justice Robert Jackson's resounding declaration in Barnette v. West Virginia Board that "[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." By using the preposition "or" rather than "and," Jackson asserted two constitutional prohibitions: government may not force citizens to confess an orthodoxy, but government may also not prescribe any orthodoxy. Upon reflection, however, the "no prescription" prohibition is manifestly untenable, and neither Justices nor scholars have ever tried to apply it in any consistent way. Nonetheless, this impossible prohibition exerts a powerful and unfortunate rhetorical influence over constitutional discourse: recent examples discussed in the article include work by respected legal scholars including Kent Greenawalt and Michael McConnell and judicial decisions including the recent Newdow decision on the Pledge of Allegiance. This article first explains why the "no prescription" prohibition could not possibly be taken at face value. The article then considers the various ways in which courts and scholars have tried to qualify or reinterpret that prohibition (such as by limiting the prohibition to religion), and it argues that these efforts do not succeed in avoiding the decisive objections to a "no prescribed orthodoxy" principle. Our constitutional discourse would be more honest and cogent, the article concludes, if Barnette's "no prescription" principle were excised "root and branch."


The objective of this work was to compare the soybean crop mapping in the western of Parana State by MODIS/Terra and TM/Landsat 5 images. Firstly, it was generated a soybean crop mask using six TM images covering the crop season, which was used as a reference. The images were submitted to Parallelepiped and Maximum Likelihood digital classification algorithms, followed by visual inspection. Four MODIS images, covering the vegetative peak, were classified using the Parallelepiped method. The quality assessment of MODIS and TM classification was carried out through an Error Matrix, considering 100 sample points between soybean or not soybean, randomly allocated in each of the eight municipalities within the study area. The results showed that both the Overall Classification (OC) and the Kappa Index (KI) have produced values ranging from 0.55 to 0.80, considered good to very good performances, either in TM or MODIS images. When OC and KI, from both sensors were compared, it wasn't found no statistical difference between them. The soybean mapping, using MODIS, has produced 70% of reliance in terms of users. The main conclusion is that the mapping of soybean by MODIS is feasible, with the advantage to have better temporal resolution than Landsat, and to be available on the internet, free of charge.


The Coaching Relationship discusses how we can integrate process perspectives such as the quality of the coach-coachee relationship, and professional perspectives including the influences of training and supervision, for more effective outcomes. Stephen Palmer and Almuth McDowall bring together experts from the field of coaching to discuss different aspects of the coach-coachee relationship, topics covered include: •the interpersonal perspective •the role of assessment •ethical issues •cultural influences •issues of power. The book also includes a chapter on the interpersonal relationship in the training and supervision of coaches to provide a complete overview of how the coaching relationship can contribute to successful coaching Illustrated throughout with case studies and client dialogue, The Coaching Relationship is essential reading for practicing coaches and coaching psychologists wishing to learn more about the interpersonal aspects of coaching.


This exploratory paper aims to open up discussion of public entrepreneurship through the examination of the emergence of new forms of governance and ownership structures of public service providers. This contributes to broadening and deepening discussion around public-private polarization, which often reduces the complexity of debate around the role, scope, and reach of the state in safeguarding public services for the wider public good.The paper draws on critical pragmatism, specifically the concepts of publics (Dewey) and lateral progress (Addams), and literature on public, civic, and social entrepreneurism to explore the entrepreneurship-society relationship.The aim of the paper, then, is to bring together conceptualisations of public and theoretical contributions on public entrepreneurship with practical examples from new and emerging organisations forms. A primary objective is to engage with the meaning and nature of 'public'. A second objective is to examine the ways in which public entrepreneurship is manifested and to shift from preoccupation of 'the correction of political machinery and ... concern for the better method of administration' to concern with an 'ultimate purpose of securing the welfare of the people' (Addams, 1902, pp 229-30). Here, Dewey's (1927/2016) conceptualisation of the public as a sensory network for emerging problems is pertinent. A final objective is to provide practical examples of hybrid and alternative delivery models and to conclude with some questions in relation to possible sustainable health and social care in austerity and beyond.


While treatments that induce DNA damage are commonly used as anticancer therapies, the mechanisms through which DNA damage produces a therapeutic response are incompletely understood. Here we have tested whether medulloblastomas must be competent for apoptosis to be sensitive to radiotherapy. Whether apoptosis is required for radiation sensitivity has been controversial. Medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor in children, is a biologically heterogeneous set of tumors typically sensitive to radiation and chemotherapy; 80% of medulloblastoma patients survive long-term after treatment. We used functional genetic studies to determine whether the intrinsic apoptotic pathway is required for radiation to produce a therapeutic response in mice with primary, Shh-driven medulloblastoma. We found that cranial radiation extended the survival of medulloblastoma-bearing mice and induced widespread apoptosis. Expression analysis and conditional deletion studies showed that Trp53 (p53) was the predominant transcriptional regulator activated by radiation and was strictly required for treatment response. Deletion of Bax, which blocked apoptosis downstream of p53, was sufficient to render tumors radiation resistant. In apoptosis-incompetent, Bax-deleted tumors, radiation activated p53-dependent transcription without provoking cell death and caused two discrete populations to emerge. Most radiated tumor cells underwent terminal differentiation. Perivascular cells, however, quickly resumed proliferation despite p53 activation, behaved as stem cells, and rapidly drove recurrence. These data show that radiation must induce apoptosis in tumor stem cells to be effective. Mutations that disable the intrinsic apoptotic pathways are sufficient to impart radiation resistance. We suggest that medulloblastomas are typically sensitive to DNA-damaging therapies, because they retain apoptosis competence. Cancer Res; 76(11); 3211-23. ©2016 AACR.


Attacked. Defended. Worshipped. Ridiculed. Recycled. Books today are subject to all of these treatments. Books are used as home décor, mousepads, bill folders, and sculptures. Books are also pulped and anonymously converted into other, non-book related products. It is no coincidence that such transformations and transmutations abound, nor that these bookish forms are variously being shared, promoted or decried. The current digital era both encourages and enables this. But why is the book object still celebrated? How do these celebrations of the book manifest? How much of the ongoing cultural interest in the book is driven by its materiality? Focusing on just one way in which these celebrations manifest, this article displaces questions of text and authorship and instead offers a refreshed, object-orientated account of books today as lively, material 'things' and interrogates our taken-for-granted relationships with them. As evidenced in physical and virtual spaces, there is ongoing interest in the book object, bookish objects, book spaces and fascination with the hold that these objects and spaces have on people. Drawing together visual evidence (that resides on my publicly-accessible Pinterest boards), I demonstrate the broader levels of cultural obsession that surround the book object, an obsession that is becoming ever clearer in today's digital era. This rich examination of the book object draws upon a range of theoretical approaches which can be gathered together under the umbrella of new materialism. Featured theoretical frameworks include: vital materialism and enchantment (Bennett 2010; 2001), thing theory (Brown 2003), sacredness and ritualization (Alasuutari 2006; Bell 1992) ecocriticism and the ethics of waste (Dryzek 2013; Fox 2000; Hawkins 2006; Scanlan 2005); embodied experience as a site of knowledge (Alaimo 2010; Merleau-Ponty 2012; Littau 2006); liquid modernity (Bauman 2000) and Actor-Network-Theory (Akrich and Latour 1994; Latour 2005). With this article I present a framework through which to consider how important embodiment is to the concept of the book and the status of the book today.


This paper explains how distribution grid renewable integration and protection studies are conducted using a digital real-time simulator (DRTS). Distribution grids are difficult to simulate in real-time because they are very large and have only short lines, making the parallel calculation of the equations particularly difficult. The SSN solver is an Electromagnetic Transient (EMT) solver used to compute the time-domain solution of these large distribution networks in real-time. The SSN solver is able to handle networks with more than 750 nodes without the use of Bergeron-type line models and without artificial delays added. A real-life distribution grid, from ENEL Distribuzione, is used to explain these concepts and check the real-time performance of the SSN solver. Other distribution cases using EMT and real-time phasor type solvers are also presented.


In this thesis, we study various aspects of physics in higher-dimensional manifolds involving a single extra dimension. After giving some historical perspective on the motivation for studying higher-dimensional theories of physics, we describe classical tests for a non-compact extra dimension utilizing test particles and pointlike gyroscopes. We then turn our attention to the problem of embedding any given n-dimensional spacetime within an (n + 1)-dimensional manifold, paying special attention to how any structure from the extra dimension modifies the standard n-dimensional Einstein equations. Using results derived from this investigation and the formalism derived for test particles and gyroscopes, we systematically introduce three specific higher-dimensional models and classify their properties; including the Space-Time-Matter and two types of braneworld models. The remainder of the thesis concentrates on specific higher-dimensional cosmological models drawn from the above mentioned scenarios; including an analysis of the embedding of Friedmann-Lemâitre-Robertson-Walker submanifolds in 5-dimensional Minkowski and topological Schwarzschild spaces, and an investigation of the dynamics of a d-brane that takes the form of a thin shell encircling a (d+2)-dimensional topological black hole in anti-deSitter space. The latter is derived from a finite-dimensional action principle, which allows us to consider the canonical quantization of the model and the solutions of the resulting Wheeler-DeWitt equation.


Context. Successful software product management concerns about developing right software products for right markets at the right time. The product manager, who carries responsibilities of planning, requires but does not always have access to high-quality information for making the best possible planning decisions. The following master thesis concentrates on proposing a solution that supports planning of a software product by means of analytics. Objectives. The aim of the master thesis is to understand potentials of analytics in product planning decisions in a SaaS context. This thesis focuses on SaaS based analytics used for portfolio management, product roadmapping, and release planning and specify how the analytics can be utilized for planning of a software product. Then the study devises an analytics-based method to enable software product planning. Methods. The current study was designed with a mixed methodology approach, which includes the literature review and survey researches as well as case study under the framework of the design science. Literature review was conducted to identify product planning decisions and the measurements that support them. A total of 17 interview based surveys were conducted to investigate the impact of analytics on product planning decisions in product roadmapping context. The result of the interviews ended in an analytics-based planning method provided under the framework of design science. The designed analytics-based method was validated by a case study in order to measure the effectiveness of the solution. Results. The identified product planning decisions were summarized and categorized into a taxonomy of decisions divided by portfolio management, roadmapping, and release planning. The identified SaaS-based measurements were categorized into six categories and made a taxonomy of measurements. The result of the survey illustrated that importance functions of the measurement- categories are not much different for planning-decisions. In the interviews 61.8% of interviewees selected "very important" for "Product", 58.8% for "Feature", and 64.7% for "Product healthiness" categories. For "Referral sources" category, 61.8% of responses have valuated as "not important". Categories of "Technologies and Channels" and "Usage Pattern" have been rated majorly "important" by 47.1% and 32.4% of the corresponding responses. Also the results showed that product use, feature use, users of feature use, response time, product errors, and downtime are the first top measurement- attributes that a product manager prefers to use for product planning. Qualitative results identified "product specification, product maturity and goal" as the effected factors on analytics importance for product planning and in parallel specified strengths and weaknesses of analytical planning from product managers' perspectives. Analytics-based product planning method was developed with eleven main process steps, using the measurements and measurement scores resulted from the interviews, and finally got validated in a case. The method can support all three assets of product planning (portfolio management, roadmapping, and release planning), however it was validated only for roadmapping decisions in the current study. SaaS-based analytics are enablers for the method, but there might be some other analytics that can assist to take planning decisions as well. Conclusion. The results of the interviews on the roadmapping decisions indicated that different planning decisions consider similar importance for measurement-categories to plan a software product. Statistics about feature use, product use, response time, users, error and downtime have been recognized as the most important measurements for planning. Analytics increase knowledge about product usability and functionality, and also can assist to improve problem handling and client-side technologies. But it has limitations regarding to receiving formed-based customer feedback, handling development technologies and also interpreting some measurements in practice. Immature products are not able to use analytics. To create, remove, or enhance a feature, the data trend provides a wide view of feature desirability in the current or even future time and clarifies how these changes can impact decision making. Prioritizing features can be performed for the features in the same context by comparing their measurement impacts. The analytics-based method covers both reactive and proactive planning.


Objective To compare patient comfort in preterm infants treated with heated humidified high flow nasal cannulae (HHHFNC) versus nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP). Design Randomised cross-over trial (2×24 h). Setting Single tertiary neonatal unit. Patients 20 infants less than 34 weeks postmenstrual age treated with NCPAP due to mild respiratory illness. Interventions After parental consent, infants were randomised to 24 h of treatment with NCPAP or HHHFNC followed by 24 h of the alternate therapy. Main outcome measures Primary outcome was patient comfort assessed by the EDIN (neonatal pain and discomfort) scale. Secondary outcomes were respiratory parameters (respiratory rate, FiO2, SpO2, TcPCO2), ambient noise, salivary cortisol and parental assessments of their child. Results We found no differences between HHHFNC and NCPAP in mean cumulative EDIN score (10.7 vs 11.1, p=0.25) or ambient noise (70 vs 74 dBa, p=0.18). Parents assessed HHHFNC treatment as significantly better in the three domains, 1) child satisfied, 2) parental contact and interaction and 3) possibility to take part in care. Mean respiratory rate over 24 h was lower during HHHFNC than CPAP (41 vs 46, p=0.001). Other respiratory parameters were similar. Conclusions Using EDIN scale, we found no difference in patient comfort with HHHFNC versus NCPAP. However, parents preferred HHHFNC, and during HHHFNC respiratory rate was lower than during NCPAP. ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01526226.


CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH VIDEO Description:  Covers lighting, plugs loads and occupants. Addresses typical inputs and provides information about sources of typical input values.  Presenter:  Erik Kolderup , Principal at Kolderup Consulting . This video is part of the online learning course video series: Building Energy Modeling workshop BEM101. The presenters are past ASHRAE conference BEM101 workshop veteran presenters and leading experts in the energy modeling field. The target audience is the beginning and intermediate level energy modelers. BEM101 online learning videos have 7 parts: Modeling to Inform Design, Fundamentals of Energy Modeling, Energy Modeling Best Practices, ASHRARE Std 90.1 Performance Rating Method, Measurement and Verification and Life Cycle Cost Analysis.


The viability and the in vitro gastrointestinal survival of Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis Bb-12 (Bifidobacterium Bb-12) in table spreads with different proportions of milk fat (MF) and palm olein (PO) (MF : PO 40 : 60 and MF : PO 20 : 80) were investigated for up to 28 days of storage at 5 °C. Moreover, qPCR alone and combined with propidium monoazide (PMA) were compared with the traditional plate count method for determining the in vitro gastrointestinal survival of Bifidobacterium Bb-12 in table spreads after 35 days of storage. Formulations showed probiotic viabilities ranging from 8 to 9 log CFU g-1 across the whole storage period, and the milk fat and palm olein in different concentrations did not affect this viability. Bifidobacterium Bb-12 showed good survival after six hours under in vitro simulated gastrointestinal conditions during the studied storage period, with average reductions of 1.70 (MF : PO 40 : 60) and 2.16 log CFU g-1 (MF : PO 20 : 80). The results of the qPCR with PMA treatment and the plate count method were similar and the qPCR without PMA treatment was shown to overestimate the Bifidobacterium Bb-12 populations. However, the MF : PO 40 : 60 spread showed a Bb-12 population between 0.76 and 1.43 log CFU g-1 higher than that of MF : PO 20 : 80. Thus, the results showed that table spreads, especially food matrices with a higher proportion of milk fat, are suitable for the incorporation of Bifidobacterium Bb-12.


This chapter focuses on understanding the electromagnetic response of nanoscopic metallic antennas through a classical computational electromagnetic algorithm: volumetric method of moments (V-MoMs). Under the assumption that metals only respond to external electromagnetic disturbancelocally, we rigorously formulate the light-nanoantenna interaction in terms of a volume integral equation (VIE) and solve the equation by using the method of moments algorithm. Modes of a nanoantenna, as the excitation independent solution to the volume integral equation (VIE), are introduced to resolve the antenna ' s complex optical spectrum. Group representation theory is then employed to reveal how the symmetry of a nanoantenna defines the modes ' properties and determines the antenna ' s optical response. Through such a treatment, a set of tools that can systematically treat the interaction of light with a nanoantenna is developed, paving the road for future nanoantenna design.


Lack of housing is a problem in Bolivia, migrations from rural areas to towns causes problems in the fast growing cities. Since urban planning does not have the resources to keep up with the need for housing many settlements are illegal and often lead to a land use conflict. In some cities large parts of the population live in spontaneous settlements, often in areas planned for another use of land. In Cochabamba the number of inhabitants has grown rapidly, particularly in the past few decades. Many of the immigrants are low-income people who search housing in areas accessible to their incomes. Low-income groups search housing through illegal establishment in peripheral zones. The high housing costs in most of the districts of the city make housing provided through legal conditions unaffordable for them. In Cochabamba the expansion takes place in the outskirts of the city and the land use conflict is about the conflict between land set aside for agriculture purpose and illegal settlements. In focus for our study has been the area Maria Auxiliadora in District 9, Cochabamba. A group of women got together with a wish to build houses of their own. The area is situated on a hillside in an area for agricultural use but on a piece of land not suitable for this use because of the steep and rocky terrain. There are several non governmental organizations involved with a common ambition to build a cooperative housing area. Cooperative housing is a new experience in Bolivia which could be a beginning of a new way of thinking and a new way to solve the housing problem in the country. There is a growing interest, both from the government and from people that need land for housing, of this new form of living. The Bolivian cooperative housing program is formed out of a concept used in Uruguay. In this study we focus on spatial planning issues for cooperative housing. Through spatial planning we demonstrate how housing areas can be planned in the future with focus on cooperative thinking and living. The project area, Maria Auxiliadora, has been used as a case study. Maria Auxiliadora has a spatial plan and houses are already under construction but the plan does not consider cooperative thoughts and needs. We have developed two individual proposals and one proposal jointly. The first individual proposal treats generally aspects of how to plan a cooperative housing area in Bolivia. The proposal treats for example how many inhabitants that is to prefer in a cooperative, physical aspects of the outdoor environment and other physical arrangements that can give the area great opportunities to be a well functioning cooperative housing area. It also illustrates house types that can be used in a cooperative and how the houses can be grouped to promote the cooperative thoughts. One part is treating how to build in steep terrain though many of the new housing areas is situated in steep terrain. The second individual proposal illustrates how an area like Maria Auxiliadora can be planned in the future. The proposal consider cooperative thinking and needs in line with the first individual proposal. Maria Auxiliadora is situated in steep terrain and it is likely that other new housing areas will be planned in similar terrain. The proposal illustrates the possibility to place houses in groups around a shared garden even in steep terrain to give the area great opportunities to act as a well functioning cooperative housing area. Even a design proposal have been created to illustrate the importance of an coherent appearance of an cooperative housing area. The third proposal is drawn jointly and illustrates improvements of the existing plan for Maria Auxiliadora. In this proposal we have been taken the built houses and roads into consideration. The plan is adjusted to fit the steep terrain and considers cooperative housing.


Sport sponsorship is a growth area which is under-researched yet which displays opportunities and threats for both sponsor and sport, as well as having important ethical implications. If sponsorship funding is to be attracted, sports need to supply evidence of the opportunities for sponsors; yet "sport also needs to ensure that the negative aspects of sponsorship are reduced and the positive encouraged." Marylyn Carrigan has a background in banking and export marketing and is currently Lecturer in Marketing and International Marketing at the Business School, The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, England, where she also researches the areas of Corporate Philanthropy and Sport and Leisure Marketing. Her husband worked in industry before graduating in Sports Studies and Business, and currently works as a Youth Worker for the City of Birmingham Department of Leisure and Community Services with research interests in Sport and the 50+ leisure market.


This paper studies how firms contribute to the productivity growth of an industry over their lifecycle. We present a decomposition method that allows us to condition the components of productivity growth on the age of production units. We find evidence for a prolonged positive exit effect that mirrors market selection during the early stages of firms' lifecycle. This effect is tightly related to the negative initial productivity effect of entry. We also find some evidence that productivity-enhancing reallocation of resources between firms is concentrated on the middle aged firms. JEL: O12, O14, O47


The airborne wind energy (AWE) paradigm proposes to generate energy by flying a tethered airfoil across the wind flow at a high velocity. Although AWE enables flight in higher altitude and stronger wind layers, the extra drag generated by the tether motion imposes a significant limit to the overall system efficiency. To address this issue, two airfoils with a shared tether can reduce overall system drag. Although this technique may improve the efficiency of AWE systems, such improvement can only be achieved through properly balancing the system trajectories and parameters. This brief tackles that problem using optimal control. A generic procedure for modeling multiple-airfoil systems with equations of minimal complexity is proposed. A parametric study shows that at small and medium scales, dual-airfoil systems are significantly more efficient than single-airfoil systems, but they are less advantageous at very large scales.


Phytoplankton species show a variety in morphology which is the result of adaptations to pelagic life including responses to fluctuations in water column dynamics driven by weather conditions. This has been reported in the oceans and in Northern temperate lakes. In order to observe whether tropical freshwater phytoplankton responds to seasonal variation in weather, the weekly variation in temperature of the water column and phytoplankton composition was studied in Lake Fraijanes, Costa Rica, a shallow (6.2m) lake at 1 640m above sea level. A chain of data loggers for temperature was placed in the deepest point in the lake to register temperature every hour at four different depths, and phytoplankton samples were retrieved every week for a year. Additional monthly samples for nutrients were taken at two depths. Notwithstanding its shallowness, the lake developed a thermal gradient which kept the water column stratified for several months during dry season. Whole lake overturns occurred during cold spells with intense precipitation. Phytoplankton changed throughout the year mainly through a shift in dominant taxa. From September to February the lake was frequently mixed by rain storms and windy weather. At this time, phytoplankton was dominated by Chlorococcal green algae. From March to June, the lake was stratified and warmer. Phytoplankton became dominated by Cyanobateria, mainly colonial Chroococcales. The rainy season started again in May 2009. During June and July the lake started to mix intermittently during rain events and phytoplankton showed a brief increase in the contribution of Chlorococcales. These changes fitted well to a general model of phytoplankton succession based on functional groups identified according to their morphology and adaptations.


Spectral unmixing is an important task in hyperspectral data exploitation. It amounts to estimating the abundance of pure spectral constituents (endmembers) in each (possibly mixed) observation collected by the imaging instrument. In recent years, several endmember extraction algorithms (EEAs) have been proposed for automated endmember extraction from hyperspectral data sets. Traditionally, EEAs extract/select only one single standard endmember spectrum for each of the presented endmember classes or scene components. The use of fixed endmember spectra, however, is a simplification since in many cases the conditions of the scene components are spatially and temporally variable. As a result, variation in endmember spectral signatures is not always accounted for and, hence, spectral unmixing can lead to poor accuracy of the estimated endmember fractions. Here, we address this issue by developing a simple strategy to adapt available EEAs to select multiple endmembers (or bundles) per scene component. We run the EEAs in randomly selected subsets of the original hyperspectral image, and group the extracted samples of pure materials in a bundle using a clustering technique. The output is a spectral library of pure materials, extracted automatically from the input scene. The proposed technique is applied to several common EEAs and combined with an endmember variability reduction technique for unmixing purposes. Experiments with both simulated and real hyperspectral data sets indicate that the proposed strategy can significantly improve fractional abundance estimations by accounting for endmember variability in the original hyperspectral data.


The design of pavement must be carried out to make it capable of evenly transferring the wheel load to the subgrade soil without exceeding its bearing capacity. However, failure occurs before the design life because of structural defects shown by pavements, such as low skid resistance, fatigue, and rutting. Because low-temperature cracking is more predominant in cold-temperature regions, this aspect of failure is considered within the future scope of study. To address this concern, waste lime sludge was added to improve the properties of bitumen in the present research work. In order to examine the effect of aging, the rolling thin-film oven test was conducted to replicate the short-term aging process, and pressure aging vessel test was used to resemble long-term aging. The viscosity test, softening point test, and penetration test were carried out to assess the physical properties, whereas the dynamic shear rheometer test was conducted to investigate the rheological properties of aged and unaged bitumen binders. It is observed that sludge acts as an aging inhibitor. The complex modulus was enhanced as a result of addition of sludge up to 20 %, which also lowered the values of phase angle, depicting high resistance to permanent deformation. The rutting and fatigue resistances of the binder improved, and soft grade bitumen was converted to hard grade bitumen.


In this paper, an approach using a Bayesian model based on a Gaussian distribution for image intensity and a GRF for image texture is proposed for denoising the images corrupted by salty noise. The MRF is used to represent spatial correlation existing in many digital images and is incorporated into digital image analysis by viewing pixel type s as states of molecules in a lattice-like physical system defined on a GRF. Because of the MRF-GRF equivalence, the assignment of an energy function to the physical system determines its Gibbs measure, which is used to model molecular interactions. The proposed iterative approach was first evaluated using simulation data of speckle noise generated by the Monte Carlo method. The methodology was then applied to SAR data remotely sensed on Korean Peninsula. In the extensive experiments of this study, the proposed method demonstrated the capability to relax noise and estimate noise-free intensity.


Objective: Expanding the original scope of the study, which was to explore the decision-making process of pregnant women in the uptake of invasive diagnostic tests - amniocentesis and Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS) – and taking into account the latest emergence of a Noninvasive Prenatal Testing, NIPT, the primary goal of this study was to explore factors that influence women's decision to have an invasive, a non-invasive or no further testing at all.

Design and sample: The Prenatal Decision Making Questionnaire (PDMQ) developed for the purposes of this study. Following a pilot test and factor analysis, it was distributed to a population of pregnant women (N=421) prior to them receiving their combined screening results. The total sample was divided into three sub-groups according to their risk status (low-intermediate-high) for the analysis.

Results. Logistic regression analysis using the R version 3.0.3 revealed that none of the PDMQ factors had a significant impact on women's decision to have an invasive test (CVS), whereas the following three factors had a significant impact on the decision to have a non-invasive test (NIPT): negative attitude to doctors and an internal locus of control were associated with the uptake of NIPT, whereas a negative attitude to medicine was associated with rejection of NIPT When risk status was included in the model it was found that uptake of NIPT was predicted by the presence of some level of risk for T21 or T13/T18. On the contrary, uptake of CVS was only predicted by an increased risk for T21.

Conclusion(s): Women's decision making process in prenatal diagnosis is affected by several factors with personalised risk being one of the key determinants. The findings of this study can be used by healthcare professionals in providing the appropriate support and information and facilitating an informed decision during this stage of pregnancy.


Parallel algorithms are often first designed as a sequence of rounds, where each round includes any number of independent constant time operations. This so-called work?time presentation is then followed by a processor scheduling implementation on a more concrete computational model. Many parallel algorithms are geometric-decaying in the sense that the sequence of work loads is upper bounded by a decreasing geometric series. A standard scheduling implementation of such algorithms consists of a repeated application of load balancing. We present a more effective, yet as simple, policy for the utilization of load balancing in geometric-decaying algorithms. By making a more careful choice of when and how often load balancing should be employed, and by using a simple amortization argument, we show that the number of required applications of load balancing should be nearly constant. The policy is not restricted to any particular model of parallel computation, and, up to a constant factor, it is the best possible.


This written report supports a creative thesis investigation about objects used for celebrations and ceremonies. My work in precious metals and textiles symbolically represents significant transitions in a human life. Individually, each object represents a meditation on the different aspects of life's transitions, depicting contemporary culture and the rites, rituals, and markers of time that bring people together through a lifetime. It is my personal interpretation of the natural world and religious ideologies that have inspired me to create works that express my connection to those events.


The availability of the panchromatic (PAN) band in remote sensing images gives birth to so-called image fusion techniques for increasing the spatial resolution of images to that of the PAN band. The spatial resolution of such spatially sharpened images, such as for the MODIS and Landsat sensors, however, may not be sufficient to provide the required detailed land-cover/land-use information. This paper proposes an area-to-point regression kriging (ATPRK)-based geostatistical solution to increase the spatial resolution of remote sensing images beyond that of any input images, including the PAN band. The new approach is a two-stage approach, including covariate downscaling and ATPRK-based image fusion. The new approach treats the PAN band as the covariate and takes advantages of its textural information. It explicitly accounts for the size of support, spatial correlation, and the point spread function of the sensor and has the characteristic of perfect coherence with the original coarse data. Moreover, the new downscaling approach can be extended readily by incorporating other ancillary information. The proposed approach was examined using both Landsat and MODIS images. The results show that it can produce more accurate sharpened images than four benchmark approaches.


Herbivory often has a negative effect on plants. However, there is a growing number of examples, primarily in terrestrial ecosystems, where herbivory causes an increase in plant size, growth rate, and/or reproductive output. In marine ecosystems, the positive effects of herbivores on macroalgae are not as well studied, although limited evidence exists for herbivore-induced increases in macroalgal growth rates via 2 mechanisms: nutrient addition via grazer defecation, and epiphyte removal. In this study, we examined the effects of grazing by the mud snail Ilyanassa obsoleta on Ulva lactuca, the dominant bloom-forming macroalga in many New England estuaries. We found that the presence of I. obsoleta had a significant positive, rather than negative, effect on U. lactuca. Through caging experiments, we established that this positive effect was not due to fecal nutrient inputs from the snail. Similarly, snail contact in the absence of grazing did not affect U. lactuca growth rates. In contrast, grazing by I. obsoleta significantly reduced the microalgal cover on heavily fouled U. lactuca blades, indicating that snail herbivory of microalgal films likely facilitates U. lactuca growth. Our study demonstrates the surprising, positive effect that an abundant herbivore can have on the growth of a macroalgal bloom species.


This study was conducted with the primary aim to distinguish patients with a true stroke versus a stroke mimic based on clinical features and imaging. We conducted a retrospective case e control study on 116 adult patients who received alteplase (tPA) to treat acute stroke at our hospital. We further analyzed 79 patients with a normal computed tomography angiography (CTA). Based on their magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, they were divided into cases (stroke mimics) and controls (true strokes). Data were collected retrospectively by reviewing individual medical charts on the electronic medical record (EMR), including age, gender, history of stroke, seizure, hypertension, diabetes, atrial fi brillation, hyperlipidemia, presenting NIH Stroke Scale/Score, hemorrhagic conversion, history of migraine, history of depression, sidedness of symptoms and aphasia. Data were categorized to separate those who were later diagnosed to be stroke mimics by being- postictal, encephalopathic, in acute migraine, suffered post-stroke recrudescence (PSR) due to metabolic insult, or had conversion disorder when symptoms could not be attributed to any medical condition or mental illness. Of the 79 study subjects, 48 (60%) were stroke mimics. The mean age of the cohort was 68.67 years, and 46.8% of the study subjects were females. Based on the multivariate logistic regression analysis, factors associated with being a stroke mimic were older age, history of migraine, and a history of prior stroke. In conclusion, increased attention to history and clinical examination as the fi rst step can aid in the proper diagnosis of strokes versus stroke mimics. Identifying stroke mimics early could help expedite hospital workup and prevent inadvertent investigations, reducing hospital occupancy during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We could potentially avoid the administration of tPA to such patients, reducing both the cost and adverse effects of it. Every stroke can cause neurological de fi cits, but every de fi cit need not be a stroke.


The chapter looks at how drawing can be used as a primary working method to record and reinvent places, people and communities who inhabit them. It also proposes that the urgent, shorthand nature of drawing can be a direct conduit to the imagination and unconscious.

Working with the King's Cross as an example of a place in the process of architectural regeneration and transition, the chapter investigates the ways buildings and locations can be interpreted in non-literal ways and transformed into containers and metaphors for stories, concepts and imaginative depictions. The 'in between' state of the slowly transforming railway lands of KX is of central interest with its overlapping of architectural histories - influenced and informed by Georges Seurat's depictions of the banlieues of Paris in the late nineteenth century.

'Drawing and Memory' also discusses Howeson's working process for specific projects: the use of a digital camera (allowing the deliberate mis-programming of camera settings to influence final decisions on colour in the final drawings), sketch books and diary notes to record arrested moments in time and evoke the idea of commemoration and the past.


An experiment is described in which an apparatus is used to demonstrate the feasibility of measuring multiphoton photoionization rates in the interaction of short pulsed lasers with atoms or molecules. With this methodology, the ionization rate is measured as a function of the spatial position in the beam-waist region of the laser through the direct three-dimensional spatial imaging of the ionization events. Thus, if the spatial dependence of the laser beam intensity were known, a series of experiments could yield the intensity dependence of multiphoton ionization without the assumptions or errors that are generally inherent in the integration over one or more dimensions in the laser focal volume.


From the Publisher:
"Web Site Design is Communication Design is written for practitioners, trainers, and students of Communication, Business, Information Science and Media Design." This book is based on a series of case studies of the web site design processes in smaller and larger organizations, including Amazon and Microsoft. It offers a well-researched, reflective and thorough analysis of the activities undertaken, in combination with practical, real-life experiences of web site designers and producers. It pays attention to the often complicated organizational context that web designers and producers have to work in, while they serve both bosses and target groups to their best intents. The importance of careful evaluation is stressed throughout the book and the in concluding checklists, which guide the practitioner through the design process, from initial idea through site maintenance and re-design.


Purpose: Lesion segmentation in medical imaging is key to evaluating treatment response. We have recently shown that reinforcement learning can be applied to radiological images for lesion localization. Furthermore, we demonstrated that reinforcement learning addresses important limitations of supervised deep learning; namely, it can eliminate the requirement for large amounts of annotated training data and can provide valuable intuition lacking in supervised approaches. However, we did not address the fundamental task of lesion/structure-of-interest segmentation. Here we introduce a method combining unsupervised deep learning clustering with reinforcement learning to segment brain lesions on MRI. Materials and Methods: We initially clustered images using unsupervised deep learning clustering to generate candidate lesion masks for each MRI image. The user then selected the best mask for each of 10 training images. We then trained a reinforcement learning algorithm to select the masks. We tested the corresponding trained deep Q network on a separate testing set of 10 images. For comparison, we also trained and tested a U-net supervised deep learning network on the same set of training/testing images. Results: Whereas the supervised approach quickly overfit the training data and predictably performed poorly on the testing set (16% average Dice score), the unsupervised deep clustering and reinforcement learning achieved an average Dice score of 83%. Conclusion: We have demonstrated a proof-of-principle application of unsupervised deep clustering and reinforcement learning to segment brain tumors. The approach represents human-allied AI that requires minimal input from the radiologist without the need for hand-traced annotation.


BACKGROUND
A systematic review and assessment of disease-related mortality as part of standardized prospective patient follow-up and evaluation within a multicenter clinical trial have been lacking in previous studies of choroidal melanoma.

OBJECTIVE
To describe disease status at death in patients with large choroidal melanoma treated and followed up in the Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS).

DESIGN
Analysis of reviews of patient status at death performed by the COMS Mortality Coding Committee using available clinical and histopathologic information.

SETTING AND PATIENTS
Reviews of deaths as of July 31, 1997, the cutoff date for reporting initial mortality findings.

INTERVENTIONS
Patients were treated by either enucleation preceded by external beam radiotherapy or enucleation only.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Disease status at the time of death and certainty associated with the coding of disease status, sites of metastasis, and availability of autopsy.

RESULTS
Of 1003 patients enrolled in the trial, 457 had died; the estimated median survival from time of enrollment was 7.4 years. Disease status at time of death had been reviewed for 435 deaths (95%). The autopsy rate was 6%. A total of 269 patients (62%) had histopathologically confirmed melanoma metastasis at the time of death, and metastasis was suspected in 92 additional patients (21%) on the basis of imaging and tests but without tissue confirmation. The common sites were liver (93%), lung (24%), and bone (16%); multiple sites were identified in 87% of patients with metastasis. The likelihood of 3 or more sites increased more than 4-fold when autopsy results were available.

CONCLUSIONS
Detailed mortality coding following a standard protocol provides the most accurate reporting to date of disease-related mortality in patients with choroidal melanoma and also identifies difficulties. Guidelines for the evaluation of future patients in clinical studies of choroidal melanoma are suggested.


Advances in modern research have unveiled numerous fundamental and practical benefits of studying the hydrodynamics of microorganisms. Many microorganisms, especially bacteria, actively search for nutrients via a process called chemotaxis. The physical constraints posed by hydrodynamics in the locomotion of microorganisms can combine with their chemotactic ability to significantly affect functions like colonization of nutrient sources. In this thesis, we investigate the interplay between hydrodynamics and chemotaxis toward dictating bacterial distribution around fluid-fluid interfaces, which often act as a source of nutrition. We approach our problem statements using mathematical models and numerical and/or semi-analytical tools. Our studies are particularly relevant in the context of hydrocarbon degradation after oil-spills.We begin by showing that the flow generated by rising oil drops delocalizes dissolved nutrient patches in the ocean, and aids chemotactic bacteria in improving their nutrition (over non-chemotactic bacteria) by 45%. We then move from studying colonization of soluble nutrient patches to colonization around nutrient sources, e.g., oil drops, marine snow. Towards this, we first demonstrate the phenomenon of hydrodynamics-mediated 'trapping' of bacteria around oil drops and show that a surfactant-laden drop can retain an approaching bacterium on its surface for approximately 35% longer times than a clean drop. We also analyze hydrodynamic trapping of bacteria around settling marine snow particles and show how bacteria can collide with and colonize the marine snow, even when the latter moves 10 times faster than the former. In all the cases above, we show how the hydrodynamic interactions are complemented by chemotaxis to enable extremely effective bacterial foraging. We next explore how propulsion mechanisms of microorganisms affect their ability to form biofilms on fluid-fluid interfaces and unveil the hydrodynamic origins behind the tendency of flagellated bacteria to swim parallel to plane surfactant-laden interfaces. Finally, we summarize our results, identify further avenues of research and propose problem statements related to them.


Abstract
 One of the most famous incense juniper (Juniperus thurifera L.) forest of western Alps, Saint-Crépin site, has been floristically surveyed focusing on corticolous assemblages. New data regarding the occurrence of Didymodon johansenii (R.S.Williams) H.A.Crum, a species newly recorded for France, Pseudoleskeella tectorum (Funck ex Brid.) Kindb. ex Broth., Orthotrichum crenulatum Mitt, and Orthotrichum vittii F.Lara, Garilleti et Mazimpaka are provided. The floristic originality of incense juniper's bark is underlined.


This article considers the violent confrontation at Marikana in the context of the South African transition, and whether it represents a broader crisis in the social pact that emerged during the transition years leading up to the nation's first democratic elections in 1994. In the last decades of the twentieth century a wave of transitions to democracy swept through South America, Southern Europe and South Africa. Threatened concurrently by coups, revolutionary overthrows, and the flight of capital, these precarious processes were usually stabilised through pacts negotiated at the political, military and socioeconomic levels. Negotiations at each of the levels may have been fractious but overall they reflected choices by parties, even as they pushed against one another, to build a common vision of a future society and then to use their joint energies to push for its achievement.


Most interfaces of our interactive devices such as phones and laptops are flat and are built as external devices in our environment, disconnected from our bodies. Therefore, we need to carry them with us in our pocket or in a bag and accommodate our bodies to their design by sitting at a desk or holding the device in our hand. We propose Hand Range Interface, an input surface that is always at our fingertips. This body-centric interface is a semi-sphere attached to a user's wrist, with a radius the same as the distance from the wrist to the index finger. We prototyped the concept in virtual reality and conducted a user study with a pointing task. The input surface can be designed as rotating with the wrist or fixed relative to the wrist. We evaluated and compared participants' subjective physical comfort level, pointing speed and pointing accuracy on the interface that was divided into 64 regions. We found that the interface whose orientation was fixed had a much better performance, with 41.2% higher average comfort score, 40.6% shorter average pointing time and 34.5% lower average error. Our results revealed interesting insights on user performance and preference of different regions on the interface. We concluded with a set of guidelines for future designers and developers on how to develop this type of new body-centric input surface.


'The Fabulous Baker Boys' (1989) by Kloves is a fictional account of a frustrated sibling piano duo who, in order to liven up their act, hire a singer. As well as a portrayal of sibling rivalry, the film is a study of the working jazz musician and the suppression and expression of individual identity. The film's soundtrack, arranged, composed and performed by jazz pianist Dave Grusin, uses jazz standards and original thematic compositions that work as 'ambi-diegetic cinemusical moments' (Holbrook), which provide improvisatory contexts for the main character's emerging individuality and his relationships with the other characters. This article identifies those compositions and using transcriptions, analyses the score in detail, revealing the melodic, harmonic, structural and improvisatory devices Grusin uses to convey the authority of a jazz 'standard', particularly by drawing on the work of Bill Evans and Miles Davis; and shows that these improvisational structures enable and act as a form of expression for the main character and his emerging individuality. The film takes its premise from The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) by Green, the biopic of the swing-era bandleaders the Dorsey Brothers, allowing this article to also consider the historical context of the film and the question of authenticity in both films, particularly through the parallel use of Art Tatum/Bill Evans as signifiers of 'real jazz' and Duke Ellington as a site of articulacy.


`Minoan' Crete is one of the most intensively investigated archaeological cultures in the world, and one that has often captured the public imagination. It is a Bronze Age Aegean society, but it has been intimately connected with the Classical Greek myth of King Minos and his Labyrinth since Sir Arthur Evans excavated and restored (some would say `rebuilt') the important site of Knossos, more than a century ago. Yet many archaeological interpretations of this fascinating culture are still largely traditional in focus and often anachronistic. This collection of papers, challenging and re-examining many conventional and established versions of 'Minoan' history is thus long overdue. How have modern preconceptions and socio-political developments shaped archaeological interpretations of 'Minoan' society? What were the gender roles and attitudes of the inhabitants of Bronze Age Crete? How can data such as the puzzling architecture, the stunning wall-paintings, the elaborate and abundant pots, the landscape and the way it is perceived by humans, help us understand the nature and the negotiations of power and the role of the so-called palaces? These are some of the questions that this book addresses, considering 'Minoan' archaeology from a variety of interpretive angles, and situating 'Minoan' archaeology in the mainstream of archaeological thinking and practice. Contents: What Future for the 'Minoan' Past? Re-thinking Minoan Archaeology (Yannis Hamilakis); Archaeology as Museology: Re-thinking the Minoan Past (Donald Preziosi); Virtual Discourse: Arthur Evans and the Reconstructions of the Minoan Palace at Knossos (Louise Hitchcock and Paul Koudounaris); Cretan Questions: Politics and Archaeology 1898-1913 (John C McEnroe); Palaces with Faces in Protopalatial Crete: Looking for the People in the First Minoan States (Marianna Nikolaidou); Gender and the Figurative Art of Late Bronze Age Knossos (Benjamin Alberti); Integration and Complexity in the Late Pre-Palatial Period: A View from the Countryside in Eastern Crete (D C Haggis); Landscapes of Memory, Craft and Power in Pre-Palatial and Proto-Palatial Knossos (Peter M Day and David E Wilson); Mind the Gap: Between Pots and Politics in Minoan Studies (Carl Knappett); Pottery as a Barometer of Economic Change: From the Protopalatial to the Neopalatial Society in Central Crete (Aleydis Van de Moortel); Millennial Ambiguities (John Bennet).


National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for depression and anxiety recommend the provision of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)-based guided self-help interventions in primary care as part of a stepped care model.

Despite such guidance some important questions remain, such as the nature of the guidance, who should provide the guidance within primary care and the application of service delivery models in practice.

This paper describes and evaluates a pilot project involving guided self-help for depression provided by a nurse practitioner within primary care.

Clinical outcome measures showed statistical and clinically significant improvements in both anxiety and depression, although, as this was not a controlled study, one cannot definitely attribute improvements to the intervention. Issues about the provision of guided self-help in primary care and the implications for implementing NICE guidance and the role of nurse practitioners and other primary care staff are discussed.


Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women in Europe and the US. The aim of this study was to assess whether perioperative care, for breast cancer patients, provided at a patient hotel could be an alternative to the conventional care in an ordinary surgical ward. The study focuses solely on the patients' experience of the provided care with a primary outcome that perioperative care at the patient hotel would be valued better than care in a general ward. Prospective, randomized single centre study. Between 2010 and 2012 a total of 151 patients < 80 years and without severe comorbidities were included in the trial, whereof 76 patients were randomised to the ward group and 75 patients to the hotel group. Five patients were excluded from each group. The validated IN2005-E questionnaire was used to evaluate the patients' experiences of the care. The response rate was high with 65 patients answering the IN2005-E in each group. No difference could be found between the two groups regarding patient characteristics, type of surgery or tumour characteristics. The patients generally perceived the quality of the provided care as high. However, in the hotel group there was a better experience of care regarding issues such as coordination, privacy, some aspects of medical information, availability and the courtesy of the nurses. For selected patients, perioperative care at a patient hotel is an appreciated alternative to care at a surgical ward.


Since Evo Morales' arrival to the Palacio Quemado and the nomination of David Choquehuanca as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bolivian international policy has been marked by a rhetoric of environmentalism, defence of indigenous rights and cosmovisions, and the promotion of vivir bien (good living) as a new paradigm of development.This piece investigates the narratives that the actors of the mobilisations in 2003 — both in the urban context, in the city of El Alto, and in the countryside, in the province of Omasuyos — have enacted to explain their struggle. What sort of perspective(s) on development do they express in their accounts? How much of them can actually be related to a vivir bien formulation, which emphasises the importance of living in harmony with nature and with the community? By investigating these issues in people's actual perception of their struggle, this piece attempts to cast light on processes that mediate between the empirical and the normative dimensions of development.


The recent LOCKHEAD LITIGATION CASES presented the California Supreme Court with an opportunity to clarify the law of expert testimony in that jurisdiction. Unfortunately, although the cases were pending before the court for several years, ultimately the court dismissed the case without reaching the merits. One of the important questions presented was whether the California courts may enforce uncodified restrictions on the admissibility of such testimony. In the past, the courts have sometimes imposed such limitations without squaring the limitations with the statutory scheme of the California Evidence Code. In this article, the authors argue that some of those limitations were sensible, sound restrictions. More importantly, the authors contend that the reference to "law" in Evidence Code section 802 empowers the judiciary to enunciate and enforce decisional restrictions. So construed, section 802 can serve as the basis for rationalizing the law of expert testimony in California.


In the field of forensics, there is a critical need for genetic tests that can function in a predictive or inferential sense, before suspects have been identified, and/or for crimes for which DNA evidence exists but eye-witnesses do not. "Molecular Photofitting" fills this need by describing the process of generating a physical description of an individual from the analysis of his or her DNA. The molecular photofitting process has been used to assist with the identification of remains and to guide criminal investigations toward certain individuals within the sphere of prior suspects. "Molecular Photofitting" provides an accessible roadmap for both the forensic scientist hoping to make use of the new tests becoming available, and for the human genetic researcher working to discover the panels of markers that comprise these tests.By implementing population structure as a practical forensics and clinical genomics tool, "Molecular Photofitting" serves to redefine the way science and history look at ancestry and genetics, and shows how these tools can be used to maximize the efficacy of our criminal justice system. It explains how physical descriptions of individuals can be generated using only their DNA. It contains case studies that show how this new forensic technology is used in practical application. It includes over 100 diagrams, tables, and photos to illustrate and outline complex concepts.


In this work, we critically assess the ability of the all-atom enhanced sampling method accelerated molecular dynamics (aMD) to investigate conformational changes in proteins that typically occur on the millisecond time scale. We combine aMD with the inherent power of graphics processor units (GPUs) and apply the implementation to the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI). A 500 ns aMD simulation is compared to a previous millisecond unbiased brute force MD simulation carried out on BPTI, showing that the same conformational space is sampled by both approaches. To our knowledge, this represents the first implementation of aMD on GPUs and also the longest aMD simulation of a biomolecule run to date. Our implementation is available to the community in the latest release of the Amber software suite (v12), providing routine access to millisecond events sampled from dynamics simulations using off the shelf hardware.


A pilot test was carried out to determine the suitability, validity and reliability of a survey instrument in preparation for a large scale study to be undertaken involving one of the important public sector namely local governments. Content and face validity was initially carried out through a panel of expert where some modification and alteration to the original set was made taking into account that local governments' employees are majority Malays with basic tertiary education level and are support staff category (low to middle level management staff). Data obtained from pilot testing was analyzed where the values of Cronbach's alpha for all variables exceeded the 0.6 benchmark, an indication that the reliability of the scale instrument was reliable. Normality tests indicated that the data was normally distributed and the assumptions of linearity and homocedasticity in the multivariate analyses have been fulfilled. Demographic profile and descriptive statistics of the respondents were tabled out and analyzed. It is envisaged that the measurement tool will contribute in elevating organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) level among local governments' employees as OCB has been identified as a vehicle to promote overall organizational effectiveness at a relatively low cost.


PARALLELIZATION OF A MAXIMUM PARSIMONY BRANCH AND BOUND ALGORITHM FOR PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCE byCurtis Howard Supervising Professor: Dr. Muhammad Shaaban Department of Computer Engineering Phyiogenetic inference involves the reconstruction of evolutionary relationships among species in the form of branching diagrams called trees. Specifically, certain biological structures common to all living organisms, such as morphological characteristics, protein sequences or DNA sequences can be compared Differences and similarities in these characteristics among species are used to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships and draw trees. Many methods of tree reconstruction are currently used. The method of maximum parsimony for phyiogenetic inference is a widely used algorithm which employs the hypothesis that the most likely tree for a given group of data will be the one which uses the least number of changes from an origin (root of the tree) to the terminal taxa The problems and corresponding solution algorithms associated with these searches are frequently implemented on single-processor systems, and can take weeks to complete for large data sets. Parallelization of these algorithms is therefore an important area of development in the bioinformatics community [1, 3, 17, 20, 25]. A free license, open-source, parallel implementation of a phyiogenetic inference program using maximum parsimony has yet to be developed, and it is the aim of this thesis to provide such a tool. It is hoped that the tool will work transparently with one of the most popular suites of free phyiogenetic inference tools called PHYLIP, developed by Joe Felsenstein at the University of Washington [7], by accepting and generating the same format of input and output data The tool would be a first step towards providing the academic community and others with improvements in performance and capabilities (through parallelization) over the currently available free distributions of phyiogenetic inference programs using parsimony, allowing for larger volumes of data to be analyzed in a reduced amount of time.


Abstract The occurrence is reported of spectacular oriented needles of rutile within quartz veins and pods in granulite-facies rocks that have undergone partial melting under ultrahigh-temperature (UHT) conditions in the Karur region in southern India. Laser Raman spectroscopy and electron microprobe analysis confirm that (1) the mineral inclusions within quartz are pure rutiles, and (2) a second category of quartz contains pure hematite inclusions. The rutile never coexists with the hematite inside the same quartz specimens. Fluid inclusions in the quartz are characterized as a CO2 + H2O mixture. Application of two geothermometric calibrations utilizing Ti in quartz yields minimum estimates of ~1190°C, suggesting the formation of the rutile-quartz under UHT metamorphic condition. It is proposed that such Ti-rich quartz segregations could be another indicator for extreme crustal metamorphism at very high temperatures.