In the United States, a very recent survey performed on children aged 8 years assessed an overall prevalence of 16.8 autistic children every 1,000 non-ASD children (equal to 1 child every 59), with a higher prevalence in boys (26.6 per 1,000) than in girls (6.6 per 1,000).  Actually, very few human diseases like ASD can be considered the result of interplay between a multitude of factors: genetics, epigenetics, environment, socioeconomic status, maternal and neonatal infections, prenatal nutrients (i.e. folic acid), immune system, gut microbiota composition, maternal exposure to potentially toxic drugs (e.g. thalidomide) and environmental toxicants, and formula feeding (instead of breastfeeding). Taken individually, each of these factors may be considered a potential risk factor for developing ASD. However, the wide range of symptoms and disabilities depicting ASD as a "galaxy of social and communication difficulties" takes place through the combination of two or more factors cited above; notably, the role of each (e.g. genetics) cannot be dissociated from the context of epigenetic mechanisms and specific interactions. Today, we can accurately explore the metabolome and its variations over time in various perinatal conditions involved in ASD etiology, for example perturbations of the gut-brain axis, due to gut dysbiosis, and to the lack of the intestinal mucosal barrier, caused by inflammation. This means a great opportunity to establish an early diagnosis of ASD, to assess the risk of developing postnatal ASD and to search for new highly sensitive and specific biomarkers especially in urine. Most of the performed studies have found abnormalities in gut bacterial-derived compounds, tryptophan, vitamin B6, and purine metabolic pathways, phenylalanine and tyrosine biosynthesis, unbalanced concentration of intermediary compounds of the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA), also known as the citric-acid or Krebs cycle, and finally diet-derived metabolites. By using 1 H NMR spectroscopy, our group found a combination of increased and decreased concentrations of: hippurate, glycine, creatine, tryptophan, D-threitol, and glutamate, creatinine, lactate, valine, betaine, and taurine, respectively. These findings strongly suggest a crucial role of oxidative stress and gut microflora in ASD development. In children with ASD, gut dysbiosis is characterized by the increase in Clostridium, Alistipes, Akkermansia, Caloramator, Sarcina spp ., and by the reduction in Prevotella spp., E. siraeum, and Bifidobacterium spp. As a result, in these children the urine metabolome is marked by alterations in hippuric acid, p-hydroxyphenylacetic acid and 3-(3-hydroxyphenyl)-3-hydroxypropanoic acid concentration. Moreover, propionic acid, related to Clostridium spp . is strongly involved. Metabolomics can lead to the discovery of dozens of biomarkers strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD (i.e. mannitol, L-threonic acid, fucose, glycine, serine, and many others). Finally, the potential toxicity of acetaminophen (paracetamol), a very common analgesic and antipyretic drug widely used during pregnancy, after birth and in early childhood should be carefully considered in combination with the microbiome.


Despite society's current preoccupation with interrelated issues such as obesity, increasingly sedentary lifestyles and children's health, there has until now been little published research that directly addresses the place and meaning of physical activity in young people's lives. In this important new collection, leading international scholars address that deficit by exploring the differences in young people's experiences and meanings of physical activity as these are related to their social, cultural and geographical locations, to their abilities and their social and personal biographies. The book places young people's everyday lives at the centre of the study, arguing that it this 'everydayness' (school, work, friendships, ethnicity, family routines, interests, finances, location) that is key to shaping the engagement of young people in physical activity. By allowing the voices of young people to be heard through these pages, the book helps the reader to make sense of how young people see physical activity in their lives. Drawing on a breadth of theoretical frameworks, and challenging the orthodox assumptions that underpin contemporary physical activity policy, interventions and curricula, this book powerfully refutes the argument that young people are 'the problem' and instead demonstrates the complex social constructions of physical activity in the lives of young people. Young People, Physical Activity and the Everyday is essential reading for both students and researchers with a particular interest physical activity, physical education, health, youth work and social policy.


The integration of geographic information systems (GIS) and hydrologic models provides the user with the ability to simulate watershed-scale processes within a spatially digitized computer-based environment. Soil type and land use data are essential GIS data layers used in a wide array of government and private sector activities, including resource inventory, land management, landscape ecology, and hydrologic modeling. This investigation was conducted to evaluate the use of different combinations of Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) and State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) soil classification systems and the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and national Gap Analysis Project (GAP) land use data sets and their effects on modeled stream flow using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT2005). Performance of the model was tested on the Cedar Creek Watershed in northeastern Indiana, one of 14 benchmark watersheds in the USDA Agricultural Research Service Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) watershed assessment component. CEAP comprises two main components: (1) a national assessment that provides model estimates of conservation benefits for annual reporting and (2) a watershed assessment component aimed at quantifying the environmental benefits from specific conservation practices at the watershed scale. Model performance for daily, monthly, and annual uncalibrated stream flow responses in SWAT was assessed using the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (ENS), coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE), ratio of RMSE to the standard deviation of measured data (RSR), and percent bias (PBIAS). We found that the range of relative error (e.g., PBIAS) and ENS values for uncalibrated stream flow predictions in this study were similar to others that have been reported in the literature. Simulated stream flow values ranged from slight overestimations of approximately 5%, to underestimating stream flow by 25% to 41% depending on the combination of soil and land use input data sets. Overall, the NASS SSURGO data sets gave the best model performance for monthly stream flow having an ENS value of 0.58, R2 of 0.66, RSR of 0.65, and PBIAS equal to 21.93. The poorest model performance results were obtained using the GAP SSURGO data sets that had an ENS value of -2.58, R2 of 0.49, RSR of 1.89, and a PBIAS value of 27.92. The results of this study indicate that in using the SWAT model, several factors regarding GIS input data sets may affect stream flow simulations and, consequently, water quality assessment studies. In addition to the effect of GIS source data on model output (e.g., SSURGO, STATSGO, NASS, GAP), there is evidence shown in this study that the interaction, pre-processing, and aggregation of unique combinations of GIS input layers within SWAT also influence simulated stream flow output. Overall, results of the study indicate that the use of different land use GIS layers has a greater effect on stream flow estimates than different soil data layers.


Energy usage of households accounts for a significant portion of total energy consumption and carbon emissions. Scottish homes today are highly energy consumers emitting on average 3 tonnes of CO2 per house annually and the amount exceeds the UK average of 2.75 tonnes of CO2. Moreover, 26% of the households are actually facing fuel poverty. It is therefore a critical task to efficiently manage and minimise energy usage in housing in order to meet carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction and energy consumption cut targets such as 80% overall cuts in carbon emissions by 2080 for the UK, compared with 1990 levels. The study has been undertaken within the Zero Energy Mass Custom Homes (ZEMCH) research network's demonstration projects - e.g. 'ZEMCH 109'. The house was intended to be built in South Ayrshire, Scotland, in early 2012, added to the adjacent existing post-council end-terraced house. As part of the project, the Building Environments Analysis Unit (BEAU) research centre has conducted a post occupancy monitoring of the energy and indoor environmental conditions (e.g. indoor air temperature, relative humidity and CO2 levels) in the Scottish affordable home which will also continue even after the construction of the newly built extension and the refurbishment of the existing home. It is important for the successful demonstration of the ZEMCH 109 project that detailed monitoring and post occupancy evaluation (POE) of the exiting NRGStyle home are performed sufficiently in order to investigate the relationship between human behaviour and energy consumption, and the indoor environmental conditions.


There are two standard methods for controlling the group velocity of light. One makes use of the dispersive properties associated with the resonance structure of a material medium. The other makes use of structural resonances, such as those that occur in photonic crystals. Both procedures have proved useful in a variety of situations. In this work we contrast these two approaches, especially in terms of issues such as the kinematics of energy flow though the system and the resulting implications for the behavior of nonlinear optical processes in these situations. Stated differently, this paper addresses the question of when nonlinear optical processes are enhanced through use of slow-light interactions and when they are not.


GridRPC is a standard API that allows an application to easily interface with a Grid environment. It implements a remote procedure call with a single task map and client-server communicationmodel. In addition to non-performance-related benefits, scientific applications having large computation and small communication tasks can also obtain important performance gains by being implemented in GridPRC. However, such convenient applications are not representative of the majority of scientific applications and therefore cannot serve as fair benchmarks for comparison of the performance of different GridRPC-based systems. In this paper, we present Hydropad, a real life astrophysical simulation, which is composed of tasks that have a balanced ratio between computation and communication. While Hydropad is not the ideal application for performance benefits from its implementation with GridRPC middleware, we show how even its performance can be improved by using GridSolve and SmartGridSolve. We believe that the Grid-enabled Hydropad is a good candidate application to benchmark GridRPC-based programming systems in order to justify their use for high performance scientific computing.


This study aimed at contributing to the current debate on the regulation of microfinance institutions (MFIs), through providing important inputs for evidence-based policy dialogue and decision making, particularly on the issue relating to whether MFIs should be regulated and supervised and how they should be regulated. Using the case of Namibia, it entailed a critical evaluation of the potential impact of regulation on MFIs and hence on the microfinance sector. Through an application of the Rationale-Objectives-Indicator (ROI) methodology, an analysis of a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) was performed at two levels, namely an ex-post level using a case study of a deposit-taking MFI that has been regulated under conventional banking law and an ex-ante level of the likely impact of the proposed microfinance regulatory framework. It was found that regulation has generally had a positive impact on the operations of the regulated MFI, as reflected in improvements in most of its performance indicators (profitability, portfolio quality, liquidity and access to finance, given substantial increases in the number of savers and borrowers) during the postlicensing period. The ex-ante RIA of the proposed new microfinance regulatory framework also pointed towards a greater probability of the envisaged regulatory framework achieving its intended regulatory objectives. This will however depend on the degree to which regulatory requirements are going to be enforced and the prevailing macro-economic conditions in the country. As such, it was concluded that, while necessary, regulation alone may not be sufficient to attract relevant players into the microfinance sector and develop the sector, given the structural weaknesses of the Namibian economy. Broader policy and reform initiatives, including additional incentives, might be required to spur the development of the country's microfinance sector.


The recent case of German siblings Patrick Stübing (age 30 years) and his sister Susan Karolewski (age 22 years) has reignited debate over the criminalisation of sexual intercourse among consanguine descendants. The primary justification for criminalising incest is the purported increased risk of genetic disabilities among offspring, but is criminalising sexual intercourse an empirically sound and proportionate response to this increased risk? To answer this question we must consider the specifics of the harm in question (eg, is it a harm to the child or a societal harm) and the magnitude of the harms of the intervention. The example of incest law has important implications for liberal societies. If we can justify imprisoning consenting adults for choosing partners who will increase the risk of having children with disabilities, then we set a troubling precedent for all couples who may pass on genetic disorders to their children.


Stock debates about transparency and secrecy usually assume that open voting and secret voting are mutually exclusive. But these positions present a false alternative; open and secret voting can be employed as complements in a larger decision-procedure. In what follows I will propose a hybrid or dual procedure of open-secret voting, and attempt to specify the conditions under which that procedure works well. I suggest that open-secret voting can best be justified as an institutional means of obtaining a second opinion from the voting group. A second opinion of this sort might produce informational benefits either for the members of the voting group itself, for outside parties, or for both. This is a companion paper to Adrian Vermeule, Second Opinions, available on SSRN.


This paper investigates the relationship between money, prices, output, and the exchange rate in Bangladesh during the 1974-92 period. Several interesting conclusions can be derived from the paper. First, the inflationary process in Bangladesh cannot be explained exclusively by the monetarist or the structuralist explanation of inflation. Second, regardless of the monetary aggregate employed, monetary policy exerts a significant unidirectional impact on real output. Third, monetary policy and inflation together account for a significant portion of fluctuations in the exchange rate. Finally, it is noted that monetary shocks have a strong, but relatively short-run, impact on inflation. In light of these findings, it can be concluded that monetary policy in Bangladesh should be carried out with extreme caution. While tight money may put a short-term halt to inflation and help stabilize the foreign trade sector, it may also cause a slowdown in the economy.


Female physicians are underrepresented in rural areas. What impact might the increasing proportion of women in medicine have on the rural physician shortage? To begin addressing this question, we present data describing the geographic distribution of female physicians in the United States. We examine the geographic distribution of all active U.S. allopathic physicians recorded in the October 1996 update of the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile. Percentages and numbers of female physicians by professional activity, specialty type, and geographic location are reported. Findings reveal there were fewer than 7,000 female allopathic physicians practicing in rural America in 1996. The proportion of generalist female physicians who practice in rural settings was significantly lower than the proportion who practice in urban locations. Although members of the most recent 10-year medical school graduation cohort of female generalist physicians were slightly more likely to practice in rural areas than members of earlier cohorts, female physicians remained significantly underrepresented in rural areas. States varied dramatically in rural female generalist underrepresentation. Should female generalists continue to be underrepresented in rural locations, the rural physician shortage will not be resolved quickly. Effective strategies to improve rural female physician placement and retention need to be identified and implemented to improve rural access to physician care.


In view of the problems that the plaintext space is too small in the existing schemes. In this paper, a new improved scheme is presented by improving the DGHV scheme. The plaintext space of the improved scheme is extended from finite prime field F2 in the original scheme to finite prime field Fp. Combine and apply the method of encryption in the batch encryption scheme was proposed in 2013, and the plaintext space is further extended to finite fields Fq. The new improved scheme encrypts the message by applying the modular mathematical operation and the Chinese remainder theorem, and the security of the scheme is based on the the difficulty of approximate greatest common divisor problem and the spare subset sum problem. The improved scheme we got has the advantages of encrypt fast, and the size of ciphertext is small. So compared with the original scheme, it is better for practical application.


Abstract: This paper is an analysis of patterns and determinants of
return and onward migration among foreign-born individuals residing in Sweden
from 1990-2015. Who is emigrating, and where do they go? What are the
determinants of return and onward migration? Increased diversity in
international migration flows includes an increase in repeat migration. However,
studies of re-emigration have often failed to appropriately distinguish
emigration types and have traditionally been limited to economic analysis of
labour migrants. Using high-quality register data from Sweden, this paper
analyses re-emigration through the conditions upon first immigration and the
evolving social and economic situations in the host country. Although return
migration is found to be the main form of remigration type, onward migration is
more prominent among specific migrant groups (e.g., forced migrants).
Additionally, various determinants of return and onward migration stress the
importance of treating them as distinct phenomena within the migration
literature.


Volume II provides an in-depth analysis of important specific issues, detailed discussion of the independence of the Bank of Israel, and an econometric study of the central banks policies. This volume also includes a historical account of the liberalization of Israel's foreign-exchange market and various issues related to the banking system, such as concentration, competition, and especially banking supervision. In one of the articles in this volume, based on a series of interviews, the top officials of the Bank of Israel present their view on the Banks policies in the various periods.


ABSTRACT This article presents an empirical investigation of how behaviour maintenance is supported or hindered through value creation and destruction in social marketing. Using a longitudinal, netnographic approach, we identify and examine the key facilitators and barriers encountered during the maintenance of physical and mental health behaviours. Data were collected over a 12-week observation period via Twitter from a sample of 242 participants. A total of 5212 tweets were analysed using content and thematic analysis facilitated by NVivo software program. The findings identify key barriers to and facilitators of behaviour maintenance at the individual level (downstream), meso level (midstream), and policy level (upstream) that have an influence on value creation and destruction in social marketing. These findings demonstrate the importance of employing a strategic and integrated approach to social change management.


Mobile sensor networks are the most promising solution to cover an Area of Interest (AoI) in safety critical scenarios. Mobile devices can coordinate with each other according to a distributed deployment algorithm, without resorting to human supervision for device positioning and network configuration. In this paper, we focus on the vulnerabilities of the deployment algorithms based on Voronoi diagrams to coordinate mobile sensors and guide their movements. We give a geometric characterization of possible attack configurations, proving that a simple attack consisting of a barrier of few compromised sensors can severely reduce network coverage. On the basis of the above characterization, we propose two new secure deployment algorithms, named SecureVor and Secure Swap Deployment (SSD). These algorithms allow a sensor to detect compromised nodes by analyzing their movements, under different and complementary operative settings. We show that the proposed algorithms are effective in defeating a barrier attack, and both have guaranteed termination. We perform extensive simulations to study the performance of the two algorithms and compare them with the original approach. Results show that SecureVor and SSD have better robustness and flexibility and excellent coverage capabilities and deployment time, even in the presence of an attack.


The introduction of high and very high resolution multispectral satellite imagery, characterized by ground resolution from one to a few meters, has lead to a new perspective in processes of risk estimation, mitigation and management. In particular, the possibility of obtaining, in a very short time, a wide-scene image of areas subjected to a crisis has become useful both for emergency management and for effective damage estimation. Examples of images in the immediate aftermath of natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, tsunami, volcanic eruptions, etc, have also been globally distributed through information media and web based image systems such as Google Earth. However, a concrete possibility of extracting quantitative information from such images is subject to several factors: first of all, accessibility in term of timing in image acquisition and in image delivery to stakeholders, followed by image quality (resolution, absence of clouds, geo-location, informative content, etc.), and finally the methodology for the information extraction process. After a review of the problem and of the current situation in terms of available data and applications, this paper focus on an approach for information extraction and quantitative image classification, in particular by object oriented analysis. One of the major objectives is to show the possibility of obtaining the outlines and the count of the buildings for an area affected by a severe disaster, saving human time in image interpretation in procedures of risk management and in estimating rebuilding costs; the integration of information coming from existing building databases is also considered. The experiences show the potential of the method and promising results in the classification accuracy.


The aim of this paper is to compare different maintenance costs of ecosystem service arising from a hypothetical case of environmental damage in order to help to understand how the different ecosystem services are considered in decision making processes. Compensatory measures are aimed precisely at maintaining the level of supply of ecosystem services. According to the literature, compensatory measures like restoration are usually applied to specific ecosystem services. We used the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) categories of ecosystem service. For each MEA category, several ecological indicators are selected, and the cost of the compensatory measures required to fulfill the goal of no net loss is assessed using the Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA). The results of this analysis highlight differences ompensatory measures EA EA o net loss between compensatory measures and their associated costs depending on the category of ecosystem services targeted. Maintenance costs are high for regulating services, low for provisioning services, and more difficult to determine for cultural services (high or low depending on the indicator selected). We discuss the implications of this result, noting that it is more rational for project developers to focus their attention on provisioning services if the legal regulation of compensation is lax or if indicators relative to cultural and regulating services are not precise enough.


In this paper, porous Ti14Nb4Sn alloys were fabricated using a space holder sintering method, resulting in a porosity of ~70%. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses revealed a combination of both macropore and micropore structures. The fabricated titanium alloy scaffolds exhibited a similar structure to that of natural bone, which is expected to improve bone implant longevity. Bacterial cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 9027 were employed for the in vitro test.


Remote sensing and microscopy share several commoo concerns including wavelength and sensor selection, signal processing, and image analysis. For crop yield assessments, multispectral observations are acquired photographically, videographically, or with opticalmechanical scanners from aircraft and spacecraft. Sensors are chosen at wavelengths of high atmospheric transmission and maximum contrast between the soil background and the vegetation growing out of it. Vegetation indices have been developed that maximize the information about the photosynthetic size of the vegetation in the landscape and, hence, about crop stresses and yield . Three such indices that reduce the multispectral observations to a single numerical index are described and software for one general procedure that pennits characterization of each major spectral component of multiband scenes is appended. Microscopists may encounter analogous si tuat ions for which the techniques developed in agricultural remote sensing can be useful.


Morbidity and mortality differences between populations, between ethnic groups and between individuals are not satisfactorily explained by the variation of risk factors. Differences in genetic susceptibility might be responsible for a part of the unexplained variation of coronary heart disease (CHD) rates. Genetic factors are also significant in determining the level of risk factors in individuals. Ample evidence links genetic factors to the levels of serum cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes. Marked sex differences in CHD mortality also indicate the role of heredity in the development of the disease. The male:female ratio varies widely between different countries, as well as between different ethnic groups. These variations are difficult to explain by variation in environmental and behavioral differences between males and females alone. The degree of atherosclerosis in males and females varies, depending on the anatomic location of the atherosclerosis. Inherited disorders of metabolism and the variability of anatomic patterns provide additional indications of the role of genetics. The data accumulated in the Israeli Ischemic Heart Disease Study over 15 years reveal an ethnic variation of risk factors coupled with remarkably larger variation in disease rates. Patterns of incidence assessed in the national mortality data of the Israeli study and in histologic findings in the coronary arteries of infants from different ethnic groups are compatible with a hypothesis that ethnic and sex differences in early structural changes of the coronary arteries partly determine the susceptibility of the latter to the development of atherosclerosis. In conclusion, findings from our studies and the review of the evidence from genetic epidemiologic investigations indicate a significant role of genetics in determining the degree, time course and severity of the atherosclerotic process and of the occurrence of symptomatic CHD. This important role of the genetic component is relevant to preventive strategies offered as tools for reducing the burden of CHD. Research into genetic determinants of both susceptibility to atherosclerosis or clinical manifestation of CHD and individual response to preventive measures should be encouraged.


In order to understand the formation mechanism and vertical structure of precipitating cloud systems associated with the Meiyu/Baiu frontal cyclone, special observational campaigns have been conducted in the downstream of the Yangtze River during June-July 2001 and 2002. We deployed a Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler (LAWP) with Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) at the Meteorological Observatory, Dongshan, China to observe the inner structure of precipitating cloud systems seen frequently in the observational area. The LAWP provides vertical profiles of threedimensional wind, convective boundary layer (CBL) and temperature from the lower atmosphere with a height resolution of 58 m to 202 m and a time resolution of about 1 to 60 minutes. LAWP had been operated in two modes: low mode and high mode up to 4 km and 11 km height during non-rainy and rain conditions, respectively. A study was carried out during intensive observational period 2002 (IOP-2002) to understand the pre-convective environments in the boundary layer during pre-Meiyu and Meiyu convective days to find out whether there is any precursor before the convection triggering. The LAWP observations demonstrate that during Meiyu period the average CBL is below < 1 km and whereas, preand post-Meiyu period the average CBL height above 1 km. The results show that distinguishable CBL evolution was noticed during pre-Meiyu and Meiyu period. LAWP observed eleven precipitating cloud systems in the vicinity of Meiyu frontal zone during IOP-2002. Each precipitating cloud system was divided into three rain types: convective, mixed convectivestratiform, and stratiform rain based on the LAWP observation data from the echo intensity above melting layer and the difference of the fall speed of precipitation particles between 3 and 6 km altitude. In the passage of the cloud system, convective systems embedded within a wide stratiform precipitation were observed. The observed precipitating cloud systems showed a diurnal variation with a peak in the late evening and nighttime. Boundary layer winds often shows strong South/southwesterly flow when the Meiyu precipitating cloud systems passes overhead of the LAWP.


Big data analytics is the process of examining large amounts of data (big data) in an effort to uncover hidden patterns or unknown correlations. Big Data Analytics Applications (BDA Apps) are a new type of software applications, which analyze big data using massive parallel processing frameworks (e.g., Hadoop). Developers of such applications typically develop them using a small sample of data in a pseudo-cloud environment. Afterwards, they deploy the applications in a large-scale cloud environment with considerably more processing power and larger input data (reminiscent of the mainframe days). Working with BDA App developers in industry over the past three years, we noticed that the runtime analysis and debugging of such applications in the deployment phase cannot be easily addressed by traditional monitoring and debugging approaches. In this paper, as a first step in assisting developers of BDA Apps for cloud deployments, we propose a lightweight approach for uncovering differences between pseudo and large-scale cloud deployments. Our approach makes use of the readily-available yet rarely used execution logs from these platforms. Our approach abstracts the execution logs, recovers the execution sequences, and compares the sequences between the pseudo and cloud deployments. Through a case study on three representative Hadoop-based BDA Apps, we show that our approach can rapidly direct the attention of BDA App developers to the major differences between the two deployments. Knowledge of such differences is essential in verifying BDA Apps when analyzing big data in the cloud. Using injected deployment faults, we show that our approach not only significantly reduces the deployment verification effort, but also provides very few false positives when identifying deployment failures.


We introduce autoregressive implicit quantile networks (AIQN), a fundamentally different approach to generative modeling than those commonly used, that implicitly captures the distribution using quantile regression. AIQN is able to achieve superior perceptual quality and improvements in evaluation metrics, without incurring a loss of sample diversity. The method can be applied to many existing models and architectures. In this work we extend the PixelCNN model with AIQN and demonstrate results on CIFAR-10 and ImageNet using Inception score, FID, non-cherry-picked samples, and inpainting results. We consistently observe that AIQN yields a highly stable algorithm that improves perceptual quality while maintaining a highly diverse distribution.


It has been shown that deep neural networks are prone to overfitting on biased training data. Towards addressing this issue, meta-learning employs a meta model for correcting the training bias. Despite the promising performances, super slow training is currently the bottleneck in the meta learning approaches. In this paper, we introduce a novel Faster Meta Update Strategy (FaMUS) to replace the most expensive step in the meta gradient computation with a faster layer-wise approximation. We empirically find that FaMUS yields not only a reasonably accurate but also a low-variance approximation of the meta gradient. We conduct extensive experiments to verify the proposed method on two tasks. We show our method is able to save two-thirds of the training time while still maintaining the comparable or achieving even better generalization performance. In particular, our method achieves the state-of-the-art performance on both synthetic and realistic noisy labels, and obtains promising performance on long-tailed recognition on standard benchmarks. Code are released at https://github.com/youjiangxu/FaMUS.


This paper presents an up-to-date magnetic material investigation and overview on magnetic materials used in rotating electrical machines. The focus is on small to medium-sized high-performance and high-efficiency permanent-magnet and induction motors for different application scenarios. The investigated materials include silicon-iron, nickel-iron, and cobalt-iron lamination steels, as well as soft magnetic composites and amorphous magnetic materials. The technical focus is on the magnetic properties and iron losses as well as the manufacturing influence and required thermal treatments during the manufacturing process. A new loss to flux density factor is introduced to compare the B H magnetization curve and the iron losses of different materials in the same diagram. The aim of the paper is to give the machine designer an efficient material overview and selection guide during the early machine design process.


In contemporary writing on photography, there is probably no text whose value and importance is as taken for granted as Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. So great is its reach and influence that it is cited approvingly both in popular non-academic books on photography and in the densest of critical works, as well as enjoying a privileged position in writing on mourning and memory, where the author's grief over his mother's death has found many admirers and imitators. It is slightly odd to find Barthes, the scourge of all doxa, so universally appreciated. It is also easy to forget that this was by no means always the case. Although it made a full recovery, Camera Lucida was initially greeted by a flurry of detractors from a politicised segment of AngloAmerican photography theorists who excoriated the book for its ontological essentialism, or lamented its sentimentality and apparent humanist deviation. (1) Indeed, the force of the reaction it originally elicited gives a good sense of the challenge that it posed to thinking on the photographic. Once a necessary shock to the orthodoxies of semiotic or historicist analysis of photography, it has now become so orthodox that its inclusion, extracted, in anthologies, is inevitable, and it is even considered hors categorie, as, for instance, in The Photography Reader, where it takes pride of place as the inaugurating piece, out of chronological order. (2) Without returning to the polemics of the early detractors, or denying the immense force of Camera Lucida, it might be worth asking whether its canonical status is not in fact symptomatic of an impasse within a certain version of photography criticism found in cultural studies. Do we really need another contribution to the melancholic consensus that so dominates the analysis of photography, or another article that notes the absence or presence of the supposed studium or punctum in this photograph or that? Slavish fidelity to Barthes' great last book ultimately cuts off a number of potentially fruitful paths of investigation. For instance, near the start of Camera Lucida, Barthes expresses a devastating general dissatisfaction with books on photography, which he says always seem to miss their object: 'Some are technical; in order to "see" the photographic signifier, they are obliged to focus at very close range. Others are historical or sociological; in order to observe the total phenomenon of the Photograph, these are obliged to focus at great distance'. (3) Free from the burden of footnotes, Barthes does not give examples of the sort of texts he means, but it would not be difficult to provide a few on his behalf. At one end of the spectrum of writings on photography, then, we might imagine an account of the improvements in shutter technology from 1955 to 1965 or Ansel Adams outlining the Zone system; at the other perhaps books like Gisele Freund's Photography and Society (1974) or Pierre Bourdieu's Photography: A Middle Brow Art (1965), or even Susan Sontag's On Photography (1977). Neither approach is able to consider the Photograph in itself, which is what concerns Barthes. And yet, is the choice we are faced with when analysing photography really so starkly either/or? What if these two supposedly opposed poles were in fact taken together? Could it not be asked in what ways changes at the 'close range' of the 'technical' are implicated in the 'great distance' of the 'historical and sociological'? That is, what is the cultural significance of technological change in the process of image-making and to what extent do 'media determine our situation' (4) or vice-versa? It is these kinds of questions that animate virtually all the work of Barthes' compatriot Paul Virilio, as well as the German techno-materialist Friedrich Kittler, but perhaps the finest exemplar of this sort of inquiry applied to photography is Walter Benjamin's 'Little History of Photography', where developments in photographic technology are understood dialectically in relation to the social and cultural field. …


This study sought to explore the role of publishers in curriculum change by asking teachers about the perceptions and beliefs they held about a new task-orientated English curriculum introduced into secondary schools in September 2001.The subjects of the study were 78 Form 1 and/or Form 2 Secondary English teachers from 14 schools. These teachers were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Later 11 teachers from 11 of these schools were interviewed .The study shows that although most teachers report that they feel quite confident about the aims of the new syllabus, there is some doubt as to the depth of their understanding. The study also pinpoints some areas of concern for teachers: in particular the teaching of grammar and the suitability of the new syllabus for weaker students. The study confirms previous findings of a high reliance on textbooks in classrooms in Hong Kong. Further, it shows that teachers felt that their textbook had helped them to implement the new syllabus. Perhaps the most important finding of the study is the discovery that groups using different textbooks perceived the syllabus in different ways. This has important implications for the way in which textbooks are produced, in particular suggesting that a closer relationship between the Education and Manpower Bureau (the government body responsible for implementing new syllabi in Hong Kong) and the publishers could help to bring about more effective curriculum reform.


Crystallization must occur in honey in order to produce set or creamed honey; however, the process must occur in a controlled manner in order to obtain an acceptable product. As a consequence, reliable methods are needed to measure the crystal content of honey (ϕ expressed as kg crystal per kg honey), which can also be implemented with relative ease in industrial production facilities. Unfortunately, suitable methods do not currently exist. This article reports on the development of 2 independent offline methods to measure the crystal content in honey based on differential scanning calorimetry and high-performance liquid chromatography. The 2 methods gave highly consistent results on the basis of paired t-test involving 143 experimental points (P > 0.05, r2 = 0.99). The crystal content also correlated with the relative viscosity, defined as the ratio of the viscosity of crystal containing honey to that of the same honey when all crystals are dissolved, giving the following correlation: μr=1-1398.8∅2.318. This correlation can be used to estimate the crystal content of honey in industrial production facilities. The crystal growth rate at a temperature of 14 °C-the normal crystallization temperature used in practice-was linear, and the growth rate also increased with the total glucose content in the honey.


Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida at 3:00 a.m. on Monday, August 24, 1992. At its peak, its winds reached 164 miles-per-hour, and the resulting destruction of life and property has been well documented. However, there are stories yet to tell; stories that are not really unfamiliar to readers who know about health professionals' commitment to their patients and their professions. One individual, Frank V. LeBlanc, a spokesman for the Louisiana Hospital Association, said that the press seldom if ever follows up with coverage of what physicians, nurses, medical technicians, practical nurses, etc., accomplish during and after storms and other disasters. "They take our industry's commitment for granted," he said, "as though police and firemen, doctors, nurses and teachers are all expected to work day and night without sleep or additional pay. I think," he added, "that our society has taken advantage of these people and their deep sense of duty." What follows are a few need-to-be-told stories beyond what has already been reported, and additional to our own coverage in the September/October 1992 issue of Health Systems REVIEW, which was done almost while our printer was inking the presses. The first of a three-part article is an interview with Tony Degina of Deering Hospital, Miami, which was all but brought down by the hurricane. Next, the story of the hardest hit hospitals on the Louisiana coast. Finally, part three focuses on the September Pacific hurricane, Iniki, that ravaged the Hawaiian island of Kauai.


We increase the sample of ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) in lower-density environments with characterized globular cluster (GC) populations using new Hubble Space Telescope observations of nine UDGs in group environments. While the bulk of our UDGs have GC abundances consistent with normal dwarf galaxies, two of these UDGs have excess GC populations. These two UDGs both have GC luminosity functions consistent with higher surface brightness galaxies and cluster UDGs. We then combine our nine objects with previous studies to create a catalog of UDGs with analyzed GC populations that spans a uniquely diverse range of environments. We use this catalog to examine broader trends in the GC populations of low stellar mass galaxies. The highest GC abundances are found in cluster UDGs, but whether cluster UDGs are actually more extreme requires the study of many more UDGs in groups. We find a possible positive correlation between GC abundance and stellar mass, and between GC abundance and galaxy size at fixed stellar mass. However, we see no significant relation between stellar mass and galaxy size, over our limited stellar mass range. We consider possible origins of the correlation between GC abundance and galaxy size, including the possibility that these two galaxy properties are both dependent on the galaxy dark matter halo, or that they are related through baryonic processes like internal feedback.


The purpose of this research was to find out and describe how the application of the mar-keting strategy is, in developing the micro small medium enterprise, in the face of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015. The study was focusing on the micro SMEs of handicraft industries e.g. leather, bags, and suitcases in Tanggulangin-Sidoarjo. The method employed in this study was the phenomenology of qualitative ap-proach. The data were collected from the owners of micro and small management, con-sumers, with the total number of 5 people and 1 from the government. It used observa-tion, documentation, and structured interview with the open questions for getting com-plete information. The results showed that the marketing strategy of the micro SME's consisting of product, price, promotion, and distribution was not yet going well for fac-ing the ASEAN economic community 2015. In terms of products and the price, they were good but in terms of distribution and promotion, they were very weak. Other re-sults of the local government related to the condition of being still in half-measures in the development of the micro SMEs, especially in terms of the promotion and the awarding business credit.


To say that the Supreme Court's decision in Lochner v. New York is infamous is an understatement. Scholars remember Lochner for its strong right to contract and laissez-faire ideals -- at least that is the conventional account of the case. Whether one concludes that Lochner leads to the judicial activism of Roe v. Wade, or foreshadows strong property rights, the standard account depends upon an important assumption: that the Lochner era's conception of fundamental rights parallels that of today. From that assumption, it appears to follow that Lochner symbolizes the grave political dangers of substantive due process, with its "repulsive connotation of value-laden" judicial review.This article's thesis is that the conventional account is based on presentist notions of right imposed upon the past. Today, fundamental rights invoked under the Due Process Clause are presumed "fatal in fact," but in 1905 when Lochner was decided, rights claims were common but rarely fatal. Today, fundamental rights trump the general welfare, whereas in 1905, under the police power of the state, the general welfare trumped rights. Today, courts define unenumerated rights in positive terms; they struggle to define the "right to die" or the "right to reject life-saving" treatment. Then, courts assumed rights existed prior to any written constitution, and enumeration was no grand ideal -- rights were defined negatively by drawing limits on federal and state power. As the Fourteenth Amendment itself proclaimed, liberty and property could be deprived subject to "due process," which meant rights were subject to a limit defined by the courts as the "police power." In this sense, the fundamental rights jurisprudence of the Lochner period was the mirror image of today's notion of right-as-trump. Today, no constitutionalist would mistake rational basis for strict scrutiny, but this is precisely what we do when we assume that Lochner-era courts adopted a strong, trumping view of fundamental rights.


There is increasing interest in the potential of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) technology and their wide ranging applications including defence missions, reconnaissance and surveillance, border patrol, disaster zone assessment and atmospheric research. High investment levels from the military sector globally is driving research and development and increasing the viability of autonomous platforms as replacements for the remotely piloted vehicles more commonly in use. UAV/UAS pose a number of new challenges, with the autonomy and in particular collision avoidance, detect and avoid, or sense and avoid, as the most challenging one, involving both regulatory and technical issues. Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications covers the problem of detect, sense and avoid in UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) in depth and combines the theoretical and application results by leading academics and researchers from industry and academia. Key features: •Presents a holistic view of the sense and avoid problem in the wider application of autonomous systems •Includes information on human factors, regulatory issues and navigation, control, aerodynamics and physics aspects of the sense and avoid problem in UAS •Provides professional, scientific and reliable content that is easy to understand, and •Includes contributions from leading engineers and researchers in the field Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications is an invaluable source of original and specialised information. It acts as a reference manual for practising engineers and advanced theoretical researchers and also forms a useful resource for younger engineers and postgraduate students. With its credible sources and thorough review process, Sense and Avoid in UAS: Research and Applications provides a reliable source of information in an area that is fast expanding but scarcely covered.


Dihydroartemisinin (DHA) is an important derivative of the herb medicine Artemisia annua L., used in ancient China. DHA is currently used worldwide to treat malaria by killing malaria-causing parasites. In addition to this prominent effect, DHA is thought to regulate cellular functions, such as angiogenesis, tumor cell growth, and immunity. Nonetheless, how DHA affects T cell function remains poorly understood. We found that DHA potently suppressed Th cell differentiation in vitro. Unexpectedly, however, DHA greatly promoted regulatory T cell (Treg) generation in a manner dependent on the TGF-βR:Smad signal. In addition, DHA treatment effectively reduced onset of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and ameliorated ongoing EAE in mice. Administration of DHA significantly decreased Th but increased Tregs in EAE-inflicted mice, without apparent global immune suppression. Moreover, DHA modulated the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, because mTOR signal was attenuated in T cells upon DHA treatment. Importantly, enhanced Akt activity neutralized DHA-mediated effects on T cells in an mTOR-dependent fashion. This study therefore reveals a novel immune regulatory function of DHA in reciprocally regulating Th and Treg cell generation through the modulating mTOR pathway. It addresses how DHA regulates immune function and suggests a new type of drug for treating diseases in which mTOR activity is to be tempered.


Lupus nephritis is a cause of significant morbidity in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and its genetic background has not been completely clarified. The aim of this investigation was to analyze single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for association with lupus nephritis, its severe form proliferative nephritis and renal outcome, in two Swedish cohorts. Cohort I (n = 567 SLE cases, n =  512 controls) was previously genotyped for 5676 SNPs and cohort II (n = 145 SLE cases, n = 619 controls) was genotyped for SNPs in STAT4, IRF5, TNIP1 and BLK. Case-control and case-only association analyses for patients with lupus nephritis, proliferative nephritis and severe renal insufficiency were performed. In the case-control analysis of cohort I, four highly linked SNPs in STAT4 were associated with lupus nephritis with genome wide significance with p = 3.7×10−9, OR 2.20 for the best SNP rs11889341. Strong signals of association between IRF5 and an HLA-DR3 SNP marker were also detected in the lupus nephritis case versus healthy control analysis (p <0.0001). An additional six genes showed an association with lupus nephritis with p <0.001 (PMS2, TNIP1, CARD11, ITGAM, BLK and IRAK1). In the case-only meta-analysis of the two cohorts, the STAT4 SNP rs7582694 was associated with severe renal insufficiency with p  = 1.6×10−3 and OR 2.22. We conclude that genetic variations in STAT4 predispose to lupus nephritis and a worse outcome with severe renal insufficiency.


Abstract : The NATO Network Enabled Operations (NEC) C2 Maturity Model (N2C2M2) defines a number of Command and Control (C2) Approaches that correspond to various ways to accomplish C2 functions. These Approaches are defined by the allocation of decision rights, patterns of interaction, and the distribution of information. Recent work in C2 theory has considered the differences in performance relative to the C2 Approach that is adopted. This work investigates the idea that an optimal operating region of the C2 Approach Space can be identified for particular missions and circumstances, where optimal is a function of effectiveness, efficiency, and agility. While circumstances that are characterized by the presence of degraded network conditions or hostile or extreme environments is of great interest, the performance of various C2 Approach options under these conditions have not been well studied. This paper focuses on the relative resilience of organizations as a function of their C2 Approach (a key component of agility). We explore the relationship between C2 Approach and performance under degraded information and communications environments using a set of six unique simulation experiments.


Benefits have long been associated with the deployment of technology and the use of decision making. Traditional decision making approaches are often focused on the measurement and consideration of the costs and the benefits associated with an undertaking and cost/benefit analysis has evolved as a process for evaluating the desirability of an option, technology or policy. Such calculations are based on the assignment of monetary values to the positive and negative aspects of a decision, or option, enabling a direct comparison. In the last twenty years the project management literature has come to terms with the idea of benefits realisation through portfolios. The main idea is to ensure that the benefits used to justify an investment can be realised and managed so that the performance of the system or policy matches the promise, and hopefully that the expectations derived from the promise and the business case are fulfilled.


Seaport container terminals are source of many interesting large-scale optimization problems, which arise in the management of operations at several decision levels. In this paper we firstly illustrate a recently proposed framework, called two-stage column generation (Salani and Vacca, 2008), which is suitable for a particular class of large-scale problems, where the structure of the original formulation, namely the presence of a combinatorial number of decision variables, does not allow for straightforward reformulation. The main idea of their approach is to start from a meaningful subset of original variables, for which the problem remains feasible, apply the DW decomposition to this subset of variables, solve the resulting reformulation with standard column generation and then iteratively perform the explicit pricing on original compact-formulation variables, retracing back the reformulation and using complementary-slackness conditions. The two-stage column generation framework is suitable to be applied to the Tactical Berth Allocation Problem (TBAP) with Quay Crane Assignment, an integrated decision problem which occurs in the management of the quayside resources in container terminals. A compact formulation of TBAP has been recently presented by Giallombardo et al. (2008); in this paper, we propose a Dantzig-Wolfe reformulation of the problem and we show that standard column generation cannot cope with the pricing induced by such reformulation, because of the particular structure of the problem. It makes sense therefore to use two-stage column generation and we illustrate the application of the method to TBAP. Conclusions and future research directions are discussed.


This study presents an experimental investigation into strain distribution of Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) in FRP-confined concrete columns with internal steel reinforcement under concentric and eccentric loading conditions. A total of nine reinforced concrete columns were cast and tested. Three of them were square in cross-section while the others were originally square but were shape-modified into circular columns with four pieces of segmental circular concrete covers and confined with three layers of CFRP. The nominal compressive strength of the segmental concrete covers was 40 MPa and 80 MPa. All columns were tested under concentric load, 25 mm or 50 mm eccentric load. Strain distribution was obtained by a number of strain gauges located symmetrically around the circumference of the columns. The CFRP strain distribution in the hoop direction and the hoop rupture strain of the shape-modified reinforced concrete columns under different load eccentricity was examined. Moreover, the load-carrying capacity and ductility were compared with columns with different volumetric ratio of transverse steel reinforcement from a previous study to discover the effect of transverse steel confinement on the ductility of FRP-confined columns under both concentric and eccentric load. Results showed that the hoop strain distribution for eccentrically loaded columns was not uniform with the maximum strain that occurred at the extreme compression fibre while the minimum strain occurred at the extreme tension fibre of the columns. The variation of the CFRP hoop strain increased when the eccentricity increased. In addition, columns with different volumetric ratio of transverse steel reinforcement had similar normalised stress and ductility, suggesting that transverse steel reinforcement is insignificant effect on the load-carrying capacity and ductility of FRP-confined columns. © 2013 International Institute for FRP in Construction.


ABSTRACT Globalizing forces have both transformed the higher education sector and made it increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities that are highly ranked globally (Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). In this study, we compared the strategic plans of 78 high-ranked, low-ranked, and unranked universities in 33 countries in 9 regions of the world. In analyzing the plans of these 78 universities, the study explored patterns of similarity and difference in universities' strategic positioning according to Suchman's (1995) 3 types of legitimacy: cognitive, pragmatic, and moral. We found evidence of stratified university strategies in a global higher education landscape that varied by institutional status. In offering a corrective to neoinstitutional theory, we suggest that patterns of globalization are mediated by status-based differences in aspirational behavior (Riesman, 1958) and "old institutional" forces (Stinchcombe, 1997) that contribute to differently situated universities pursuing new paths in seeking to build external legitimacy.


The creator, Kenja McCray, is an Associate Professor of History at Atlanta Metropolitan State College (AMSC), where she teaches United States and African American history. AMSC is an institution within the University System of Georgia offering an affordable liberal arts education and committed to serving a diverse, urban student population. McCray has a B.A. from Spelman College, an M.A. from Clark Atlanta University, and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University. Her areas of interest are the 19th and 20th century U. S., African Americans, Africa and the diaspora, transnational histories, women, class and social history.
The creator of this essay believes education should be a life-altering process, not only in the intellectual or the economic sense, but also cognitively uplifting. She experienced personal change in college through interacting with professors. She strives to give students a similarly inspirational experience. The encounter should be empowering and should change the way they see themselves and their relationships to the world. The intent of this creative piece is to share the creator's contemplations on a rites of passage program in which she participated during her college years. She asserts that, given current cultural trends signaling a renewed interest in African-centered ideals and black pride, many aspects of the program could interest current students looking for safe spaces in increasingly intolerant times. This essay will interest researchers, student leaders, student activities advisors, and other administrators seeking to create and develop inclusive campus programs.


Naruto accelerates his training while the Akatsuki systematically continue their assault on those with the Tailed Beasts inside them. First on the list is Yukito, a ninja from the Land of Clouds believed to harbor the Two-Tailed Beast. Will yet another ninja fall to the evils of the Akatsuki?


This paper investigates a novel way of improving the labour market attachment of older Australian workers. The paper employs a transitional labour market approach to investigate the best method governments may use to support people to actively engage in skill development. The paper looks to the U.K. Sweden and the U.S to examine individual learning accounts in addressing skill gaps and supporting older workers to acquire new skills. The paper argues that additional funding for training needs to come from industry, individuals and government. The paper proposes that a learning account pilot be run in the Victorian public service to establish learning accounts as a best practice model.


The interplay between ferromagnetic and superconducting order in hybrid structures has in recent years attracted considerable interest due to the rich quantum physics that emerges in such systems in addition to their potential application value in low-temperature spintronics. In this thesis, we aim to investigate how spin-supercurrents and the magnetization configuration in ferromagnetic Josephson junctions interact with each other. This is done in the ballistic limit where one may construct wavefunctions that represent quasiparticle excitations and boundstates that may carry a supercurrent. Combining this with the Landau-LifshitzGilbert equation, we find the contribution from the superconducting correlations to the effective field that determines the time-dependence of the magnetization. We first consider the scattering states for a domain wall ferromagnet in a Josephson junction. Then we consider a simpler model consisting of a ferromagnetic bilayer sandwiched by two superconductors. In the latter case, we show that the superconducting phase difference can be used to switch the magnetization orientation of the free layer. Our results suggest that it is possible to use superconductors to control the ground-state configuration of magnetic spin-valves, which in turn could lead to interesting magnetoresistance-like effects.


Breast cancer occurring during pregnancy is a relatively rare clinical situation that may present many difficult medical and psychosocial problems. Its diagnosis is commonly delayed, largely related to breast changes which normally occur during pregnancy. When matched for age and stage of disease, patients with breast cancer during pregnancy have the same prognosis as nonpregnant patients; the disease stage at diagnosis is the most important predictor of survival. Breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy should be treated according to the same principles applied in nonpregnant patients. Termination of pregnancy does not appear to improve survival and thus, decisions regarding termination of pregnancy should be based on the desires of the patient, along with the urgency for radiation or chemotherapy that could potentially be harmful to the fetus. Subsequent pregnancy following the diagnosis of breast cancer does not have a known detrimental effect on survival, although it is usually wise to discourage pregnancy for the first few years following the diagnosis of breast cancer.


Aim Vitreoretinal lymphoma is a diffuse large B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Targeting malignant cells with rituximab is being used increasingly as local chemotherapy, but information on this treatment is scant. We aimed to describe current therapeutic approaches, as well as responses to and complications of, intravitreal rituximab in patients with vitreoretinal lymphoma. Methods Clinical data were collected in a standardised manner retrospectively on patients with vitreoretinal lymphoma treated with intravitreal rituximab. Results 48 eyes (34 patients) with vitreoretinal lymphoma were treated with a median of 3.5 intravitreal injections of rituximab (1 mg/0.1 mL) for new diagnosis (68.8%), progressive disease (29.9%) and maintenance therapy (2.1%). Intravitreal rituximab±methotrexate was the sole treatment in 19 eyes (39.6%). 31 eyes (64.6%) eyes achieved complete remission, after a median of 3 injections; 7 of these eyes developed recurrent disease. 11 eyes (22.9%) achieved partial remission. Although rituximab may have contributed to complications reported in 12 eyes (25.0%), a 2-line loss of Snellen visual acuity occurred in only 2 of those eyes (4.2%). Conclusions Approaches in rituximab-based intravitreal chemotherapy vary widely, but our findings suggest that this treatment may be safe and effective in inducing remission in a majority of eyes with vitreoretinal lymphoma.


Abstract Introduction and aims The Palliative Care Directed Enhanced Service (DES) was introduced in Scotland in 2008/2009 to stimulate anticipatory care by GP practice teams. We aimed to evaluate how practices were implementing this by assessing how they were identifying patients for their palliative care register (PCR), assessing/reviewing needs, sharing information with out of hours (OOH) providers, using the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP). Methods Six practices were recruited from three Scottish Health Boards. Data were collected on current palliative care patients and on patients dying in the previous 6 months; semi-structured interviews were conducted with GPs, district nurses (DN) and administrative staff (total 20) and with patients and bereaved relatives (total 11); the researcher observed multidisciplinary practice meetings. Results Only 29% of patients were on the PCR prior to death (range 10–38% between practices). Of these, 69% had cancer, 17% organ failure and 14% dementia or physical frailty and 25% died in hospital (cf. 44% of all deaths). 52% on the current PCR had a record of preferred place of care and 35% of resuscitation status. Practices valued better focused and structured palliative care, improved communication with OOH providers and introduction of the LCP but raised some difficulties in including non-cancer patients on the PCR. Patients and relatives appreciated pro-active care. Conclusion Despite this initiative few patients were identified for palliative care. However when identified, their multidisciplinary and OOH care improved and hospital admissions to die decreased. Practices must identify more patients earlier for palliative care.


There has been little study on the effect of composition or molecular weight on the biodegradation rate of photo-cross-linked biodegradable aliphatic polyesters though such information is important for tissue engineering scaffolds. We have synthesized a new series of photopolymerizable linear poly(epsilon-caprolactone-co-lactide-co-glycolide) diacrylates with different molecular weights (Mn = 1800, 4800, and 9300 Da) and compositions (20%, 40%, and 60% epsilon-CL) and studied their biodegradation rates. The resultant oligomers were amorphous and appeared as viscous liquids at room temperature. Liquid-to-solid polymerization was carried out by UV irradiation in the presence of a photoinitiator. The photocuring yield was high (greater than 95%), and the photo-cross-linked polymers were amorphous and rubbery. Mechanical measurements showed that the polymers can be stretchable or rigid; the high molecular weight/low epsilon-CL network has a strain of 176% and a modulus of 1.66 MPa while the low molecular weight/high epsilon-CL network has a strain of 21% and a modulus of 12.3 MPa. In a 10 week in vitro biodegradation study, the polymers exhibited a two-stage degradation behavior. In the first stage, the polymer weight and strain remained almost constant, but a linear decrease in the Young's modulus (E) and ultimate stress (sigma) were observed. Lower oligomer molecular weight or epsilon-CL content correlated with a faster decrease in Young's modulus. In the second stage, which began when the Young's modulus dropped below 1 MPa, there was rapid weight loss and strain increase. The lower the epsilon-CL content, the earlier the second stage happened. Low molecular weight and high epsilon-CL content correlated with a longer modulus half-life (time for the modulus to degrade to 50% of its initial value). The degradation results suggest principles that may be helpful in predicting the biodegradation behavior of similar polymeric cross-linked networks. Films formed from these new polymers have excellent biocompatibility with smooth muscle cells.


Irrigated agriculture management is still not effective in Ghana. The growing recognition of irrigation problems and its impact on the economy and environment have prompted the government of Ghana to implement plans and strategies to encourage new developments and technologies to promote sustainable irrigated agriculture. The study aims at identifying sustainable ways in promoting irrigated agriculture in Ghana. literature search and thematic analysis of the literature were used and the themes identified provide the basis for the study. The results were that sustainability can be achieved if there is effective WUA management, strong irrigation facility, effective farmers training, improving extension capacity to deliver, sustainable irrigation techniques and effective collaboration. In conclusion, irrigation sectors should take full advantage of abundant water resource in Ghana and ensure that irrigation is handled in a way that protects the environment for the present generation without compromising the benefits of the future generations.


Interventional cardiology is a branch of cardiology that manages the catheter based treatment of structural heart illnesses. These minimally invasive procedures involve inserting catheters and other devices through superficial arterial and venous access sites. Due to increased reliability and advancing technology, the number and complexity of interventional cardiology procedures haves increased in recent years. The increasing complexity of the procedures, however, require longer fluoroscopic duration, leading to increased exposure time to ionizing radiation for the patient and also for the medical staff since they need to remain close to the patient throughout the procedure. This study attempts to investigate the occupational and patient doses during the course of several interventional cardiology procedures in Indonesia, i.e. CA, PCI, cathscan, PA, PTCA, TACE, PAC and peripheral vascular. Occupational doses were measured by using individually packed three chips of TLD-100 placed in over- and under-thyroid shield used by medical staff, over- and under-apron in waist position, inside a special 'eye-D' holder, and inside a ring holder, while patient doses were estimated by using individually packed three TLD-100 chips attached in the x-ray tube. All TLDs were calibrated in the Secondary Standard Dosimetry Laboratory (SSDL) Jakarta. The study was performed in three big hospitals in the cities of Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Semarang. The results show that PCI procedure was the most performed one during the course of this study and gave the highest radiation doses to the staff for all type of doses calculated and measured. The maximum effective doses, eye lens doses, extremity doses, thyroid doses and gonad/ovary doses were 0.098 mSv, 0.1967 mSv, 0.7604 mSv, 0.1760 mSv and 0.0990 mSv, respectively. In the case of patient doses, the mean value of DAP for PTCA procedure of 776.76 Gy cm 2 was the highest compared with those for other procedures. The results of measurement for occupational doses were in general similar to those reported by other authors, but not for patient doses that was found to be 4-5 times higher. Due to the involving of various parameters during the course of interventional cardiology procedures, it was difficult to establish a correlation between the doses received by medical staff and by the patients. 800x600 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */
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This article assesses the applicability of subcultural theories to individual cases of jihadi and Right-wing radicalization in Germany, with a focus on the individual initial situation and motivation for involvement. Within an overall qualitative research design, the article tests deviance/strain and Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) subcultural theories against four jihadi and three Right-wing extremist cases. The findings show little support for the strain-based status frustration hypothesis, but confirm the illegitimate opportunity structure thesis; modified versions of the CCCS' resistance, bricolage, and homology concepts; as well as some of the postmodern approaches to agency and cultural cross-fertilization. The jihadi and Right-wing radicals examined here are assertive and purposive agents, strategically using the rich cultural arsenal available in the mainstream and/or other subcultures, while at the same time being themselves influenced by contemporary mainstream preferences of style. The article discusses the implications of these findings for radicalization research and specific subcultural approaches. It argues for a greater focus on both individual agency and the (sub-)cultural context for an improved understanding of individual involvement in political violence.


We evaluated a cysteine cathepsin-activatable optical imaging probe (LUM015) with improved kinetics relative to larger macromolecules for detection and characterization of colorectal cancer (CRC), and thereby assessed its potential use in fluorescence-guided colonoscopy. We showed that LUM015 is stable in plasma. In-vitro studies demonstrated selectivity of LUM015 for targeting cathepsins; there was robust increase in emitted fluorescence signal from the cathepsin overexpressing HT-29 CRC cells within 1-5 minutes after incubation with LUM015 compared to the cells incubated with combination of LUM015 and a pan-protease inhibitor (as negative control). Biodistribution, differential accumulation of the probe in the tumor and tumor-to-background fluorescence signal ratio of LUM015 were compared to ProSense680, a commercially available protease-activatable optical imaging probe, over 24 hours after intravenous injection of the probes in nude mice with subcutaneously implanted HT-29 tumors. LUM015 showed distinct kinetics compared to ProSense680 with time to peak signal for subcutaneous tumor-to-colon ratio of 3.3±0.3 (mean ± SD) at 4-8 hours compared to 2.9±0.2 at 24 hours, respectively (n=8 for each group). Near-infrared fluorescence imaging and dual channel colonoscopy of the mice with orthotopic colon tumors showed tumor-to-colon ratio of 3.7±0.2 in HT-29 tumors (n=4), 2.8±0.1 in genetically engineered mice with APCKOKrasLSL-G12Dp53flox/flox mutation (n=4), and 4.1±0.1 in mice with APCLoxP/LoxPMsh2LoxP/LoxP mutation (n=4) at 6 hours after LUM015 administration. Immunohistochemistry and laser confocal microscopy of the extracted tumors confirmed high expression of cysteine cathepsins in all colon tumor types tested. Optical imaging with cathepsin-activatable LUM015 in multiple models of CRC highlights its potential for increasing the efficacy of CRC screening and therapeutic procedures.


The purpose of this paper is to explain how auditors' professional and organizational identities are associated with commercialization in audit firms. Unlike previous studies exploring the consequences of commercialization in the firms, the study directs its attention toward the potential driver of commercialization, which the authors argue to be the identities of the auditors.,The paper is based on 374 responses to a survey distributed to 3,588 members of FAR, the professional association of accountants, auditors and advisors in Sweden. The study used established measures of organizational and professional identity and introduced market, customer and firm process orientation as aspects of commercialization. The study explored the data through descriptive statistics, principle component analysis and correlation analysis and tested the hypotheses with multiple linear regression analysis.,The findings indicated that the organizational identity of auditors has a positive association with three aspects of commercialization: market orientation, customer orientation and firm process orientation. Contrary to the arguments based on prior literature, the study has found that the professional identity of auditors is also a positively associated with commercialization. This indicates a change of the role of professional identity vis-a-vis commercialization of audit firms. The positive association between professional identity and commercial orientation could indicate the development of "organizational professionalism." The study also found differences between the association between professional identity and commercialization in Big 4 and non-Big 4 firms. While in Big 4 firms, professional identity is positively associated only with the firm's process orientation, in non-Big 4 firms, professional identity has a positive association with all three aspects of commercialization.,The paper provides insight into how auditors' identities have influenced commercialization of audit firms and into the normalizing of commercialization within auditing. The study also developed a new instrument for measuring commercialization, one based on market, customer and firm process orientation concepts. This paper suggests that this instrument is an alternative to the observation through proxies.


To more adequately describe human decision making, V.-N. Huynh, Y. Nakamori, and others proposed a special semi-heuristic target-based fuzzy decision procedure. A usual justification for this procedure is based on the selection of the simplest possible membership functions and "and"- and "or"-operations; if we use more complex membership functions and "and"- and "or"-operations, we get different results. Interestingly, in practical applications, the procedure based on the simplest choices most adequately describes human preferences. It is therefore desirable to come up with a justification that explains this empirical fact. Such a justification is proposed in this paper.


ABSTRACT Teaching is a complex practice that requires teachers to draw upon their content knowledge, pedagogical approaches and strategies, and knowledge about learners in order to support learning. Integrating technology into the teaching and learning practice of a classroom is a strategy that many teachers are drawing upon. This article reports on the initial findings on information communication technology (ICT) implementation in Kenyan secondary schools and discusses factors affecting effective technology integration. The study used questionnaire and classroom observation data to examine what types of ICTs for education are available in secondary schools in Kenya and what training teachers have had in using ICTs for education; teachers' perspectives regarding the role of ICT in teaching and learning; and what factors might influence ICT integration in teaching and learning in public secondary schools in Kenya. The study found that while few teachers are integrating ICT into their teaching and learning, many teachers are implementing ICT in their teaching.


The Campeche Bank, Gulf of Mexico, is a region with abundant coral reef ecosystems that haven't been studied despite providing goods and services to some human communities. This work presents the topography, coral community and conspicuous reef associated fauna of three reefs of this region: Sisal, Madagascar and Serpiente. Three-D models of reef topography were derived using a GPS-echo-sounder coupled with geostatistical methods. The coral community was assessed through composition, richness, density and size of the colonies. The size of the Sisal Reefs was bigger than other Gulf of Mexico reefs. Hard coral colonies presented an average diameter of 9 cm and an average density of 9 colonies/m2 , whereas octocoral colonies averaged 11 cm in height and presented an average density of 24 colonies/m2 . We found 18 hard coral and 14 octocoral species, all of them distributed in the Atlantic Ocean; however, this work is the first to report Carijoa riseii and Phyllangia americana for the Mexican reefs of the Gulf of Mexico. The conspicuous fauna consisted in species with aquaculture potential (e.g. Octopus maya, Panulirus argus, Periclimenes pedersoni) and conservation priority (i.e. Eretmochelys imbricata). This study shows that these reefs are important centers of marine life and provides a baseline for future research.


Scientists in many disciplines use spatial mesh models to study physical phenomena. Simulating natural phenomena by changing meshes over time helps to better understand the phenomena. The higher the precision of the mesh models, the more insight do the scientists gain and they thus continuously increase the detail of the meshes and build them as detailed as their instruments and the simulation hardware allow. In the process, the data volume also increases, slowing down the execution of spatial range queries needed to monitor the simulation considerably. Indexing speeds up range query execution, but the overhead to maintain the indexes is considerable because almost the entire mesh changes unpredictably at every simulation step. Using a simple linear scan, on the other hand, requires accessing the entire mesh and the performance deteriorates as the size of the dataset grows. In this paper we propose OCTOPUS, a strategy for executing range queries on mesh datasets that change unpredictably during simulations. In OCTOPUS we use the key insight that the mesh surface along with the mesh connectivity is sufficient to retrieve accurate query results efficiently. With this novel query execution strategy, OCTOPUS minimizes index maintenance cost and reduces query execution time considerably. Our experiments show that OCTOPUS achieves a speedup between 7.3 and 9.2× compared to the state of the art and that it scales better with increasing mesh dataset size and detail.


Abstract Trans-resveratrol (RSV) was microencapsulated in Eudragit® RS100 and RL100 resin blends. Lyophilized microspheres were characterized in the solid state for their micromeritic properties and drug loading. FT-IR, PXRD, and DSC analyzes suggested that RSV formed an intimate microcrystalline dispersion within the polymer network, also confirmed by SEM analysis. This produced a reduced degradation of RSV after storage at 40 °C, compared to the neat drug, and a protection of the drug from UV light-induced trans-cis isomerization (60% intact drug was found after 60 s irradiation at 350 nm, compared to 37% for the pure drug). Solubility and in vitro dissolution studies indicated that microencapsulation did not improve the dissolution pattern of RSV in simulated gastric and intestinal aqueous fluids. Evaluation of the in vitro antioxidant activity showed that, compared to the neat drug in aqueous solution, RSV loaded in the microspheres retained for a longer time, up to 22 days of incubation, the initial ORAC capacity. The present study thus demonstrated that Eudragit® Retard resins can be used to easily produce micro-sized solid dispersions with RSV, for potential oral administration, contributing to ameliorate the physico-chemical stability and antioxidant activity of this compound.


High rates of incarceration in the United States have motivated a broad examination of the effects of parental incarceration on child well-being. Although a growing literature documents challenges facing the children of incarcerated men, most incarcerated fathers lived apart from their children before their arrest, raising questions of whether they were sufficiently involved with their families for their incarceration to affect their children. The author used the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,071) to examine father-child contact among incarcerated fathers and found that most incarcerated fathers maintained a degree of contact with their children, through either coresidence or visitation. Moreover, the results revealed robust reductions in both father-child coresidence and visitation when fathers are incarcerated-between 18% and 20% for coresidence, and 30% to 50% for the probability of visitation. The findings suggest that these reductions are driven by both incapacitation while incarcerated and union dissolution upon release.


Spores of Clostridium botulinum type 62A were germinated in a chemically defined medium (8 mm l-cysteine, 11.9 mm sodium bicarbonate, 4.4 mm sodium thioglycolate; buffered with 100 mm TES, pH 7.0). The rate and extent of germination were increased when an aqueous spore suspension was heated sublethally (80 C, 60 min) before addition to the germination medium. Neither sublethal nor lethal doses of gamma radiation had any marked effect on subsequent germination. Maximum germination (>90% in 2 hr) in the defined medium occurred in the pH range of 6.5 to 7.5, at 30 to 37 C, with an l-cysteine level of 8 mm. Increasing l-cysteine to 32 mm increased the rate (over that with 8 mm l-cysteine) but not the extent of germination. The rate and extent of germination increased with NaHCO3 addition to 8.3 mm, but increasing levels to 11.9 mm had no further effect. For maximum germination, 2.2 mm sodium thioglycolate was required and higher levels (to 8.8 mm) had no further enhancing or inhibitory effect. Under optimal conditions for germination, 97% of the spores had become heat sensitive; 98% had become sensitive to radiation; 88 and 91% had become phase dark and stainable, respectively, and the spore suspension had lost 46% of its initial optical density by 2 hr. Loss of heat resistance preceded loss of radiation resistance, acquisition of stainability, and phase darkening by about 12 min.


Purpose This project/development paper outlines the development of an algorithm-based predictive model in England (the King's Fund's PARR tool) that uses routine data to identify people at risk of re-admission to hospital. It examines how the model, when linked with data collected from general practices, can and has been used as a method for organizing integrated care services in the home environment to vulnerable at-risk individuals. Context The use of a 'combined predictive model' in the development of a community matrons intervention in Croydon PCT (a local health economy in South London, UK) to show how integrated health and social care services may respond quickly to meet the needs of at-risk patients. Data sources Systematic literature review using international studies to summarise and assess the principal approaches to predicting risk within the health arena. Development of risk algorithm using routine data and assessment of the accuracy of the PARR software tool and Combined Predictive Model to identify patients most at risk of future emergency re-admission to hospital. Case description Croydon PCT has been using the Combined Predictive Model in its virtual wards project whereby people identified by the model as having a very high risk of future hospitalisation are put on a 'virtual ward'. These people are provided with preventive care in their own homes by a multi-disciplinary team who use the systems, timetable and staffing of a hospital ward but without the physical building. Admission to the virtual ward is determined solely by the output of the Combined Predictive Model. Patients' risk scores are monitored over time and can be used to prompt the virtual ward staff to discharge patients when appropriate—and offer admission to a patient at higher risk. Conclusions The improving accuracy of predictive risk modeling enables 'at-risk' individuals and populations to be identified prior to an emergency admission or acute episode. Health care systems, through integrated and multi-professional interventions, can potentially reduce hospitalisation rates and improve dependency. Discussion Predictive risk modeling has great potential as a tool to enable the development of pro-active integrated care to vulnerable patients. However, the tool requires accurate and up-to-date public health and service utilisation data whilst the system needs to overcome professional and institutional boundaries to enable the necessary integrated care response.


Although the direct effect of lender-of-last-resort (LOLR) facilities is to forestall the default of financial firms that lose funding liquidity, an indirect effect is to allow these firms to minimize deleveraging sales of illiquid assets. This unintended consequence of LOLR facilities manifests itself as excess illiquid leverage in the financial sector, can make future liquidity shortfalls more likely, and can lead to an increase in default risks. Furthermore, this increase in default risk can occur despite the fact that the combination of LOLR facilities and reduced asset sales raises the prices of illiquid assets. The behavior of U.S. broker-dealers during the crisis of 2007–09 is consistent with this unintended consequence. In particular, given the Federal Reserve's LOLR facilities, broker-dealers could afford to try to wait out the crisis. Although they did reduce traditional measures of leverage to varying degrees, they failed to reduce sufficiently their illiquid leverage, which contributed to their failures or near failures. Several mechanisms to address this unintended consequence of LOLR facilities are proposed.


The 'problem of other minds' is central to sociological theory and of immediate importance to contemporary research on subjectivity and interiority. How do we cultivate and maintain an intersubjective space during silent, private, experiences? Drawing on Alfred Schutz's phenomenology, this study challenges the common view which regards silence as an obstacle to social relations. The data consist of two years of participant observation of vipassana meditation practices in Israel and the United States. Vipassana meditation is conducted in complete silence, discouraging group sharing of meditation experiences, thus offering an extreme case of silence and privacy. The findings illustrate how, despite the absence of direct verbal communication, the practice of meditation still holds important intersubjective dimensions. I suggest that covert mechanisms of silent intersubjectivity play an important role in everyday social life and require further ethnographic attention.


Abstract Objectives To determine the prevalence and frequency of using any tobacco product and each of a detailed set of tobacco products, how tobacco use and frequency of use vary across countries, world regions, and World Bank country income groups, and the socioeconomic and demographic gradients of tobacco use and frequency of use within countries. Design Secondary analysis of nationally representative, cross-sectional, household survey data from 82 low and middle income countries collected between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2020. Setting Population based survey data. Participants 1 231 068 individuals aged 15 years and older. Main outcome measures Self-reported current smoking, current daily smoking, current smokeless tobacco use, current daily smokeless tobacco use, pack years, and current use and use frequencies of each tobacco product. Products were any type of cigarette, manufactured cigarette, hand rolled cigarette, water pipe, cigar, oral snuff, nasal snuff, chewing tobacco, and betel nut (with and without tobacco). Results The smoking prevalence in the study sample was 16.5% (95% confidence interval 16.1% to 16.9%) and ranged from 1.1% (0.9% to 1.3%) in Ghana to 50.6% (45.2% to 56.1%) in Kiribati. The user prevalence of smokeless tobacco was 7.7% (7.5% to 8.0%) and prevalence was highest in Papua New Guinea (daily user prevalence of 65.4% (63.3% to 67.5%)). Although variation was wide between countries and by tobacco product, for many low and middle income countries, the highest prevalence and cigarette smoking frequency was reported in men, those with lower education, less household wealth, living in rural areas, and higher age. Conclusions Both smoked and smokeless tobacco use and frequency of use vary widely across tobacco products in low and middle income countries. This study can inform the design and targeting of efforts to reduce tobacco use in low and middle income countries and serve as a benchmark for monitoring progress towards national and international goals.


Introduction: Undiagnosed thyroid dysfunction may impair metabolic control in patients with diabetes. Due to the lack of adequate studies on the incidence of thyroid dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus there is no consensus regarding optimal thyroid screening strategies in routine diabetes care. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of thyroid dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes. Materials and Methods: In this study, patients aged≥30 years, participants of in the prospective Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study, who had complete thyroid assessments were divided into two groups of 428 diabetic and 2847 nondiabetic controls and followed for 12 years. The incidence of thyroid dysfunction in these two groups was compared and the relative risk of type 2 diabetes for thyroid dysfunction was calculated. Results: Compared to those without diabetes the disorders patients with diabetes were less likely to develop thyroid dysfunction (incidence rate 12.56 vs. 16.50 cases per 1000 person-years, Relative risk 0.74, 95% CI, 0.534-1.026, P=0.071). Conclusion: The incidence of thyroid dysfunction in type 2 diabetic patients is not higher than in non-diabetic individuals, indicating that routine screening of thyroid dysfunctions is not recommended in type 2 diabetic subjects.


The Conference Proceedings are the product of the 2018 Adaptation Futures conference that was held in Cape Town from 18 – 21 June, co-hosted by UCT's African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and UN Environment's World Adaptation Science Programme (PROVIA). Adaptation Futures is the world's premier international adaptation conference series and is held every two years. 2018 was the first time that this conference was held in Africa, and consequently, it aimed to focus on African and developing world linkages with adaptation.
The extended abstracts were submitted after the conference to allow the authors to absorb the conference insights into their work.


We find that firms located in areas with higher intergenerational mobility are more profitable. Building off the work of Chetty and Hendren (2018a and 2018b)?who provide measures of intergenerational mobility for all commuting zones (essentially, metropolitan areas) within the U.S.?we are the first to show the positive association between intergenerational mobility and corporate profitability. Our regressions compare firms in the same industry at the same point in time and fully control for time-varying state-level shocks. As such, our findings cannot be explained by either differences in industry composition across localities or by variation in state-level economic conditions; nor can our results be explained by differences in firm characteristics or by local economic conditions. Rather, we argue that our findings are best explained by intergenerational mobility influencing human capital formation. Areas with higher mobility do a better job in unlocking their residents? innate talents, which in turn is associated with improved performance by locally headquartered firms. In essence, our results uncover a positive link between greater equality of opportunity and increased corporate profitability.