Informative and intriguing, this science book teaches children to think about the complex and interdependent web of life on Earth. Every link in a food chain is important because each living thing depends on others for survival, no matter how big or how small. Lively drawings from Holly Keller illustrate the clear, simple text by Patricia Lauber. This is a Stage 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. Let's-Read-And-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series. Supports the Common Core Learning Standards and Next Generation Science Standards


Polymeric cellular materials were primarily developed as means to reduce density of solid polymers and thus saving cost for applications where mechanical strength is not required like the packaging industry. Nevertheless, functionally graded cellular materials showed an attractive mechanical behavior in experimental studies. The fatigue life of porous polycarbonate (PC) with above 90% relative density is reported to be as much as four times that of a solid PC, and greater impact strength with relative density over 60%. The focus of this paper is on fabricating bio-polymeric-based functionally graded porous material with polylactic acid (PLA) and analyze the buckling behavior of their plate-like structures. The analysis includes numerical modeling supported with experimental findings. The modeling is carried out with a higher order shear deformation plate theory (HSDT) accounting for extension in the transverse direction. The proposed HSDT satisfies the constraint on the consistency of transverse shear strain energy a priori in addition to the traction conditions on plate surfaces. Few theories in the area satisfy both conditions. Finite element is used to implement the HSDT with C1 continuity using conforming elements. The through-thickness varying properties are homogenized at planar-level with the generalized self-consistent scheme. The graded cellular structure is manufactured to vary through the plate thickness while being uniform on-average for the other two planar dimensions. Constrained foaming process is adopted to control the pores' size and structure through the plate thickness.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Professor Lipartito's areas of specialization are economic and business history and the history of technology. Most of his research has been on the United States over the past century, although he also engages in comparative work on Europe and maintains a strong interest in the Atlantic world. By combining an understanding of the material dimensions of history—markets, businesses, technological systems—with an appreciation of their cultural and political ramifications, he challenges students to develop their own understanding of the evolution of modern society. He brings this multifaceted approach to his publications as well as to the classroom, where he regularly covers business history, the history of the global economy, political economy, the history of technology, as well as Atlantic civilization and twentieth century America.


The diabetic complication macular oedema (DME) is a growing problem worldwide because of the increasing number of patients suffering from diabetes mellitus (DM). DME is treated with injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) in the eye. This real-world study aimed to describe patients' experiences before they received their first injection in the eye. Twenty-one men and women aged 49 to 86 years were interviewed. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Two categories and an overall theme 'to be at a crossroads and a crucial phase in life with an uncertain outcome' were found. The participants expressed thoughts and concerns at different levels, practical concerns about the treatment procedure, and other existential thoughts regarding hope for improved visual acuity or fear of deterioration. Cooperation between eye clinics and diabetes clinics should be strengthened to clarify who is responsible for providing the information and support required by patients.


Background and purpose Over 1 million metal-on-metal hip replacements were implanted. Even well-functioning implants produce wear debris that can cause tissue damage, disseminate and cause DNA damage. We aimed to establish if there was an association between metal-on-metal hip replacement and the risk of subsequently developing cancer compared with alternative hip replacements. Methods We performed a population based prospective longitudinal cohort study using data from the National Joint Registry linked to Hospital Episode Statistics (n = 403,881 patients). We examined the incidence of a new diagnosis of cancer in patients who received a metal-on-metal bearing in comparison with those who received a non metal-on-metal bearing. Kaplan-Meier estimates of time to first cancer diagnosis were used with Cox proportional hazards regression models to assess the effect on the time to cancer diagnosis for all cancer types, haematological, malignant melanoma, urinary tract cancers or prostate cancer in men. Results The maximum follow up available was 11.8 years with 25% of patients followed up for more than 6.8 years (mean follow up 4.6 years; median 4.3; IQR 2.1–6.8; range 0.01–11.8). Analyses by gender that adjusted for age at primary and presence or absence of linked Welsh (PEDW) records showed no increase in the risk of developing cancer according to the bearing surface implanted for all cancers, haematological cancers, malignant melanoma, urinary tract cancers or prostate cancer in men. For patients receiving a second hip replacement, there was also no difference. Conclusion We have demonstrated that there is currently no evidence of an increase in the risk of cancer following primary hip replacement according to the type of bearing material used. Although the risk of revision in metal-on-metal bearing hip replacements is higher, it is reassuring that the risk of a new diagnosis of cancer is not currently increased. Despite the long term follow up available in this study, the latency period for some cancers is very long and therefore continued monitoring is required to ensure no new patterns emerge that may indicate need for universal screening.


This paper provides an exact Bayesian framework for analyzing the arbitrage pricing theory (APT). Based on the Gibbs sampler, we show how to obtain the exact posterior distributions for functions of interest in the factor model. In particular, we propose a measure of the APT pricing deviations and obtain its exact posterior distribution. Using monthly portfolio returns grouped by industry and market capitalization, we find that there is little improvement in reducing the pricing errors by including more factors beyond the first one.


This study compares pronominal possessive constructions in Dutch first language (L1) acquisition, second language (L2) acquisition by young children, and untutored L2 acquisition by adults. The L2 learners all have Turkish as L1. In longitudinal spontaneous speech data for four L1 learners, seven child L2 learners, and two adult learners, remarkable differences and similarities between the three learner groups were found. In some respects, the child L2 learners develop in a way that is similar to child L1 learners, for instance in the kind of overgeneralisations that they make. However, the child L2 learners also behave like adult L2 learners; i.e., in the pace of the acquisition process, the frequency and persistence of non-target constructions, and the difficulty in acquiring reduced pronouns. The similarities between the child and adult L2 learners are remarkable, because the child L2 learners were only two years old when they started learning Dutch. L2 acquisition before the age of three is often considered to be similar to L1 acquisition. The findings might be attributable to the relatively small amount of Dutch language input the L2 children received.


We introduce geomstats, a python package that performs computations on manifolds such as hyperspheres, hyperbolic spaces, spaces of symmetric positive definite matrices and Lie groups of transformations. We provide efficient and extensively unit-tested implementations of these manifolds, together with useful Riemannian metrics and associated Exponential and Logarithm maps. The corresponding geodesic distances provide a range of intuitive choices of Machine Learning loss functions. We also give the corresponding Riemannian gradients. The operations implemented in geomstats are available with different computing backends such as numpy, tensorflow and keras. We have enabled GPU implementation and integrated geomstats manifold computations into keras deep learning framework. This paper also presents a review of manifolds in machine learning and an overview of the geomstats package with examples demonstrating its use for efficient and user-friendly Riemannian geometry.


Quasars emit more energy than any other object in the universe, yet are not much bigger than our solar system. Quasars are powered by giant black holes of up to ten billion (1010) times the mass of the sun. Their enormous luminosities are the result of frictional forces acting upon matter as it spirals toward the black hole, heating the gas until it glows. We also believe that black holes of one million to ten billion solar masses – dead quasars – are present at the centers of most galaxies, including our own. The mass of the central black hole appears to be closely related to other properties of its host galaxy, such as the total mass in stars, but the origin of this relation and the role that black holes play in the formation of galaxies are still mysteries.


In uncertain and partially observable environments control policies must be a function of the complete history of actions and observations. Rather than present an ever growing history to a learner, we instead track sufficient statistics of the history and map those to a control policy. The mapping has typically been done using dynamic programming, requiring large amounts of memory. We present a general approach to mapping sufficient statistics directly to control policies by combining the tracking of sufficient statistics with the use of policy-gradient reinforcement learning. The best known sufficient statistic is the belief state, computed from a known or estimated partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) model. More recently, predictive state representations (PSRs) have emerged as a potentially compact model of partially observable systems. Our experiments explore the usefulness of both of these sufficient statistics, exact and estimated, in direct policy-search.


Abstract This essay explores the features in virtue of which games are valuable or worthwhile to play. The difficulty view of games holds that the goodness of games lies in their difficulty: by making activities more complex or making them require greater effort, they structure easier activities into more difficult, therefore more worthwhile, activities. I argue that a further source of the value of games is that they provide players with an experience of freedom, which they provide both as paradigmatically unnecessary activities and by offering opportunities for relatively unconstrained choice inside the 'lusory' world that players inhabit.


Published to coincide with start of the hotly-anticipated 2008 season, this book is a widely acclaimed and hugely successful hardback published at the climax of the 2007 World Championship. It has considerable brand new material added to the paperback edition. Veteran F1 journalist Mark Hughes unearths the true foundations that have enabled a personable and down-to-earth 22-year-old from a sleepy village in Hertfordshire to achieve the most successful start to a career the sport has ever seen.This book helps you discover how it all began, from the day Hamilton's father bought a hyperactive six-year-old a go-kart, to the British, European and World karting titles that followed. You can learn how at a motorsport awards ceremony in 1995, a plucky 10-year-old Hamilton asked Ron Dennis (the principal of McLaren F1 Racing) of the opportunity to race for his team in the future and how in 1998, at 13-years-old, McLaren duly signed him in a long-term agreement that made him the youngest driver in history with an F1 contract.Hughes takes us through the intervening years, right up to the explosive 2007 Formula one season when he became not only the first black driver ever to race an F1 car, but the first driver of any colour to stand on the podium at the end of their first nine races. As Sir Jackie Stewart said, 'Lewis is a man of the people and the people will love him for it.' Brand new material in this paperback edition includes: interviews with former F1 drivers who proffer their opinion on his qualities, where he needs to make improvements, where he stacks-up against the greats, and what his ultimate potential is; an insider view of testing during close season; and, a preview of the 2008 season and a detailed run-down of his prospects against the new team line-ups, including his new team-mate at McLaren.


This longitudinal study explores the place of the civilian populations in the wars of what is now South Sudan. Using a broad range of empirical evidence, we trace the evolution of conflict practices and norms from the 1800s to today. Two main insights stand out: First, since the initial colonial incursions, local residents have been strategic assets to be managed and exploited, and thus populations are not just legitimate targets in conflicts but also key resources to capture and control. Second, violent governance structures and practices have been created and reformed through these generations of coercive rule and civil wars. These two issues have undermined, and redefined, the distinction between military and civilian actors. This analysis does not excuse the massive and systematic violence against the general population of these countries. However, without due consideration of these deeply engraved historical systems and logics of violent governance, today's brutal conflicts become incomprehensible, and there is a significant risk that international approaches to mitigating this violence – such as Protection of Civilians camps – become incorporated into these systems rather than challenging them.


Critical to the investigation of consciousness is that it is existentially completely different from the objective physical world description, being experienced directly only by the subject, and not being subject to the same criteria of replicability a physical world experiment has. Also the observer cannot control their consciousness objectively in the same manner a physical experimentalist can their equipment, because any attempt to change consciousness carries the observer into a new conscious situation as well. In this respect the exploration of consciousness has similarities to quantum measurement. This renders all forms of introspection made as if we are looking at consciousness objectively, completely, or partially invalid.


Global integration of economies over the past two decades has interconnected many of the countries and industries in the world. The World Input Output Database (WIOD) provides domestic output production and use information on 59 industries, in 40 countries that cover 85% of the global output. Using 2010 U.S. Air Transportation Services (ATS) industry growth as a proxy for change in the final demand variable, the additional output from each other industry necessary to supply the additional U.S. ATS growth was calculated using IO analysis. No real eye-opening trends in industries resulted from this limited analysis, perhaps because ATS is less than 1% of U.S. GDP. The aggregate GDP sectors receiving a positive boost from growth in the U.S. ATS industry were agriculture; mining; transportation & warehousing; and some manufacturing and service industries. The aggregate GDP sectors receiving a negative boost from growth in the U.S. ATS industry were construction; finance, insurance and real estate; wholesale and retail trade; and other service sectors.


Teleseismic receiver functions (RFs) provide a simple means to image structure in the Earth's subsurface. Despite its ease of use, the method has traditionally required considerable user input to ensure that key processing operations run in a stable manner and yield robust results. As a consequence, large‐scale applications to global datasets have been limited. Here, we present preliminary results from a global database of RF data products dedicated to imaging structure in the crust and upper mantle. Earthquake signals recorded at seismic stations worldwide are downloaded, quality controlled, and processed using a range of deconvolution approaches to generate robust RFs. We describe our automated workflow and apply it to the entire data holding of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, producing 1,300,424 individual radial and transverse Ps RFs computed at 8258 stations. A series of tools designed to visualize the results will be made publicly available on a website. These include a map‐based interface that allows users to inspect RFs at individual stations, and interactive programs that can generate cross sections through 3D volumes of RFs.


Two studies by Walkley et al. investigated the role of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in regulating cell cycle and fate of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which reside in specialized niches in the bone marrow and give rise to the cells of the hematopoietic system (see Perry and Li). Although most HSCs maintain a relatively quiescent state, they can be stimulated to enter the cell cycle when hematopoiesis is required. The retinoblastoma (RB) tumor suppressor plays a critical role in cell cycle regulation and, in the first study, Walkley et al. examined the effects of Rb deletion on hematopoiesis. Widespread loss of RB throughout the mouse hematopoietic system led to profound myeloproliferation, characterized by an increase in the numbers of circulating progenitor cells and extramedullary hematopoiesis. There was a loss of trabecular bone (a HSC niche) and HSCs from the bone marrow, and eventual hematopoietic failure. When RB loss was restricted to cells of the myeloid lineage (granulocytes, macrophages, and osteoclasts), however, myeloproliferation did not occur. Transplantation indicated that loss of RB from hematopoietic niche alone was also not sufficient to elicit myeloproliferation. Rather, it depended on RB loss from both the bone marrow microenvironment and cells of myeloid lineage. In the second study, Walkley et al. showed that mice lacking the retinoic acid receptor γ (RARγ) also developed a myeloproliferative condition, with increased numbers of granulocytes in the bone marrow, peripheral blood, and spleen. Again, there was a loss of trabecular bone and excessive extramedullary hematopoiesis. In mice lacking RARγ, however, transplantation analysis indicated that myeloproliferation depended only on an abnormal bone marrow microenvironment. Loss of the RARγ was associated with an increase in tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) in bone marrow, thymus, and spleen; moreover, the hematological abnormalities were partially rescued in mice transplanted with hematopoietic cells lacking TNF-α. Both studies underline the importance of the bone marrow microenvironment to normal hematopoiesis and the contribution of an aberrant niche to myeloproliferative disease. C. R. Walkley, J. M. Shea, N. A. Sims, L. E. Purton, S. H. Orkin, Rb regulates interactions between hematopoietic stem cells and their bone marrow microenvironment. Cell 129, 1081-1095 (2007). [PubMed] C. R. Walkley, G. Haines Olsen, S. Dworkin, S. A. Fabb, J. Swann, G. A. McArthur, S. V. Westmoreland, P. Chambon, D. T. Scadden, L. E. Purton, A microenvironment-induced myeloproliferative syndrome caused by retinoic acid receptor γ deficiency. Cell 129, 1097-1110 (2007). [PubMed] J. M. Perry, L. Li, Disrupting the stem cell niche: Good seeds in bad soil. Cell 129,1045-1047 (2007). [PubMed]


The host microbiome plays an essential role in health and disease. Microbiome modification by pathogens or probiotics has been poorly explored especially in the case of probiotic yeasts. Next-generation sequencing currently provides the best tools for their characterization. Debaryomyces hansenii 97 (D. hansenii 97) and Yarrowia lipolytica 242 (Y. lipolytica 242) are yeasts that protect wildtype zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae against a Vibrio anguillarum (V. anguillarum) infection, increasing their survival rate. We investigate the effect of these microorganisms on the microbiome and neutrophil response (inflammation) in zebrafish larvae line Tg(Bacmpx:GFP)i114. We postulated that preinoculation of larvae with yeasts would attenuate the intestinal neutrophil response and prevent modification of the larval microbiome induced by the pathogen. Microbiome study was performed by sequencing the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene and prediction of metabolic pathways by Piphillin in conventionally raised larvae. Survival and the neutrophil response were both evaluated in conventional and germ-free conditions. V. anguillarum infection resulted in higher neutrophil number in the intestinal area compared to non-infected larvae in both conditions. In germ-free conditions, infected larvae pre-inoculated with yeasts showed fewer neutrophil numbers than infected larvae. In both conditions, only D. hansenii 97 increased the survival of infected larvae. Beta diversity of the microbiota was modified by V. anguillarum and both yeasts, compared to non-inoculated larvae. At 3 days post-infection, V. anguillarum modified the relative abundance of 10 genera, and pre-inoculation with D. hansenii 97 and Y. lipolytica 242 prevented the modification of 5 and 6 of these genera, respectively. Both yeasts prevent the increase of Ensifer and Vogesella identified as negative predictors for larval survival (accounting for 40 and 27 of the variance, respectively). In addition, yeast pre-inoculation prevents changes in some metabolic pathways altered by V. anguillarum's infection. These results suggest that both yeasts and V. anguillarum can shape the larval microbiota configuration in the early developmental stage of D. rerio. Moreover, modulation of key taxa or metabolic pathways of the larval microbiome by yeasts can be associated with the survival of infected larvae. This study contributes to the understanding of yeast–pathogen–microbiome interactions, although further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms involved.


ABSTRACT Concerns regarding lead (Pb) poisoning in French Guiana first arose in 2011 following the discovery of excessively high levels of the metal amongst children in a small neighborhood without any apparent source of Pb. Since 2012, blood lead level (BLL) measurement has been proposed for all pregnant women in western French Guiana. The aim of this study was to determine BLL in pregnant women in this region and identify factors associated with elevated BLL. An observational study of a consecutive sample of women who delivered in the maternity ward of the hospital was conducted. Risk factors were investigated using a questionnaire administered postdelivery by midwives (N = 531). Approximately 25 and 5% of women displayed BLL of ≥50 μg/L and ≥100 µg/L, respectively. The geometric mean was 32.6 μg/L. Factors that were significantly associated with an elevated BLL after modeling (multivariate linear regression) included place of residence along the Maroni river, low level of education, daily consumption of manioc derivatives, weekly and daily consumption or personal preparation of manioc flour during pregnancy, and weekly consumption of wild game. This study provides insight into the regional and social disparities in BLL in French Guiana and potential sources of exposure. Evidence indicates that foods that are primarily produced and consumed in the Guiana Shield significantly affect BLL levels. Taken together with existing data, our results demonstrate that specific actions in terms of prevention, screening, and care are required to be adapted and put into place in order to reduce exposure.


This paper presents the results of: (a) On-farm trials (eight) over a two-year period designed to test the effectiveness of leguminous cover crops in terms of increasing maize yields in Igalaland, Nigeria. (b) A survey designed to monitor the extent of, and reasons behind, adoption of the leguminous cover crop technology in subsequent years by farmers involved, to varying degrees, in the trial programme. Particular emphasis was placed on comparing adoption of leguminous cover crops with that of new crop varieties released by a non-governmental organization in the same area since the mid 1980s. While the leguminous cover crop technology boosted maize grain yields by 127 to 136% above an untreated control yield of between 141 and 171 kg ha−1, the adoption rate (number of farmers adopting) was only 18%. By way of contrast, new crop varieties had a highly variable benefit in terms of yield advantage over local varieties, with the best average increase of around 20%. Adoption rates for new crop varieties, assessed as both the number of farmers growing the varieties and the number of plots planted to the varieties, were 40% on average. The paper discusses some key factors influencing adoption of the leguminous cover crop technology, including seed availability. Implications of these results for a local non-governmental organization, the Diocesan Development Services, concerned with promoting the leguminous cover crop technology are also discussed.


The benefits of virtualized IT environments, such as compute clouds, have drawn interested enterprises to migrate their applications onto new platforms to gain the advantages of reduced hardware and energy costs, increased flexibility and deployment speed, and reduced management complexity. However, the process of migrating a complex application takes a considerable amount of effort, particularly when performing post-migration testing to verify that the application still functions correctly in the target environment. The traditional approach of test case generation and execution can take weeks and synthetic test cases may not adequately reflect actual application usage.
 In this paper, we propose and evaluate a black-box approach for post-migration testing of Web applications without manually creating test cases. A Web proxy is put in front of the production application to intercept all requests from real users, and these requests are simultaneously sent to the production and migrated applications. Results generated by both applications are then compared, and mismatches due to migration problems can be easily detected and presented to testing teams for resolution. We implement this approach in Splitter, a software module that is deployed as a reverse Web proxy. Through our evaluation using a number of real applications, we show that it Splitter can effectively automate post-migration testing while also reduce the number of mismatches that must be manually inspected. Equally important, it imposes a relatively small performance overhead on the production environment.


A new approach on decreasing the optical shadowing of the solar cell grid fingers is presented. The approach relies on a local change of the optical properties in the bulk of the photovoltaic module encapsulation material ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA). In particular, scattering and diffractive optical elements are locally generated within the volume of cross‐linked EVA encapsulation material by applying a femtosecond‐laser‐writing process. When these optical elements are located above the metal grid fingers, the optical shadowing of these grid fingers can be decreased. In an experimental proof of concept, the optical performance of this approach is demonstrated. The best results obtained so far indicate a decrease in optical shadowing by 17%. The material characteristics of the volume optics were investigated by applying confocal Raman microscopic characterisation, which indicates that the EVA material partially degraded upon the impact of the laser beam and is partly carbonised. Supplementary optical simulations show that the light deflection is caused by diffraction. However, parasitic absorption substantially deteriorates the optical performance of the deflective volume optics. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The geology of the Paleoproterozoic Karrat Group in West Greenland (71°–74°50´N) was investigated during the field seasons 2015–2017, using a combination of digital photogrammetry and traditional field work in a collaboration between the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and the Ministry of Minerals Resources of Greenland. The area is characterised by steep alpine terrain with more than 2000 m of relief that in many places is completely inaccessible, which makes field work extremely difficult. Therefore 3D mapping using digital photogrammetry is an invaluable tool in the investigation of the region. Early geological investigations of the area involved the first use of photogrammetry in Greenland (Henderson & Pulvertaft 1987). This contribution serves as an example of the present-day use of photogrammetry in geological interpretation, following the workflow outlined in Sørensen & Dueholm (2018). During the last three years, more than 50 000 stereo images have been collected using handheld, calibrated digital cameras while conducting field work in the area (Rosa et al. 2016, 2017, 2018). The images, which cover large parts of the steep cliff sections in which the geology is superbly exposed, are essential to the ongoing revision of the geological map sheets covering the area. Here we present a small subset of the data from the island of Karrat (Fig. 1), showcasing the potential of 3D geological mapping in Greenland as well as presenting new insights into the geology of the Karrat Group.


Abstract The Human Proteoform Atlas (HPfA) is a web-based repository of experimentally verified human proteoforms on-line at http://human-proteoform-atlas.org and is a direct descendant of the Consortium of Top-Down Proteomics' (CTDP) Proteoform Atlas. Proteoforms are the specific forms of protein molecules expressed by our cells and include the unique combination of post-translational modifications (PTMs), alternative splicing and other sources of variation deriving from a specific gene. The HPfA uses a FAIR system to assign persistent identifiers to proteoforms which allows for redundancy calling and tracking from prior and future studies in the growing community of proteoform biology and measurement. The HPfA is organized around open ontologies and enables flexible classification of proteoforms. To achieve this, a public registry of experimentally verified proteoforms was also created. Submission of new proteoforms can be processed through email email@example.com, and future iterations of these proteoform atlases will help to organize and assign function to proteoforms, their PTMs and their complexes in the years ahead.


Abstract. Fluid parcels can exchange water properties when coming into contact with each other, leading to mixing. The trajectory encounter mass and a related simplified quantity, the encounter volume, are introduced as a measure of the mixing potential of a flow. The encounter volume quantifies the volume of fluid that passes close to a reference trajectory over a finite time interval. Regions characterized by a low encounter volume, such as the cores of coherent eddies, have a low mixing potential, whereas turbulent or chaotic regions characterized by a large encounter volume have a high mixing potential. The encounter volume diagnostic is used to characterize the mixing potential in three flows of increasing complexity: the Duffing oscillator, the Bickley jet and the altimetry-based velocity in the Gulf Stream extension region. An additional example is presented in which the encounter volume is combined with the u∗ approach of Pratt et al. (2016) to characterize the mixing potential for a specific tracer distribution in the Bickley jet flow. Analytical relationships are derived that connect the encounter volume to the shear and strain rates for linear shear and linear strain flows, respectively. It is shown that in both flows the encounter volume is proportional to time.


[Purpose] Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a leading cause of community-acquired pneumonia. For a rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infection, we often use ImmunoCard Mycoplasma kit (IC), a 10-min-card-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of IgM antibodies to M. pneumonia . However, widespread clinical application of this test is hampered by an inability to identify pathogen directly with adequate sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, we examined the clinical usefulness of IC test retrospectively. [Method]We evaluated 316 samples which are measured by IC from October,2008 to March,2009. We also compared IC with the complement fixation (CF) test, and estimated false positive and negative rate based on the clinical course and other laboratory findings. [Results]Among 316 samples, 69 (21.8%) were positive of IC and 247 (78.2%) negative. Sixteen cases were also measured by CF test with the paired serum, and in 5 (31.3%) cases of these, there was a discrepancy between the result of IC and that of CF test. On the basis of a clinical diagnosis, IC gave the false positive rate of 80.0%, false negative rate of 31.3%. [Conclusion]IC has so far been attributed to the rapid diagnosis of M. pneumoniae infection because it is unnecessary to use paired serum and possible to judge the infection rapidly. But a positive result of IC does not always indicate acute infection because the result of IC were not always concordant with that of CF test. According to our results, it seems that the interpretation of the result of IC is very difficult in order to use it clinically.


According to the influential amyloid cascade hypothesis cerebral accumulation of Aβ is the key event in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer´s disease. Aβ deposits occur as soluble forms, as well as insoluble forms. It is assumed that soluble and intraneuronal Aβ predominantly pro-motes development and progression of the disease. There is a large variety of Aβ species that differ in lengths and the presence of posttranscriptional modifications. The pyroglutamated and truncated isoform AβpE3-42 is an especially toxic variant of the peptide. It was the aim of the present work to extent the knowledge on the role of Aβ in the development of the disease. For this purpose, two transgenic mouse models that address different aspects of the disorder, were characterized by analyzing age neuropathological and behavioral features.
In the first part of the thesis, an AD-like phenotype is demonstrated in the murine transgenic TBA42 model, which does not harbor mutated transgenes that are involved in Aβ generation by processing of its precursor protein. It is shown that direct expression of AβpE3-42 in TBA42 mice leads to an age-dependent neurodegeneration in the hippocampal CA1 region of the hippocampus, which is intimately involved in cognition. This leads to a decline in memory function and altered anxiety levels. Moreover, accumulation of AβpE3-42 induces a severe motor deficit, which even precedes the cognitive decline. Thus the toxicity of AβpE3-42 is demonstrated in vivo. Taken together, these findings underline the importance of AβpE3-42 in the etiology and progression of AD and make TBA42 a valid model to study mechanisms of AD progression and potential therapeutic strategies in mice.
The majority of AD cases occur sporadically and no overproduction of Aβ is found in these cases. In contrast, sporadic AD is characterized by the impairment of various mechanisms of Aβ clearance. Transport of Aβ across the blood brain is one important mechanism. According to the neurovascular hypothesis of AD an impaired blood brain barrier clearance by LRP1 leads to the retention of Aβ in the brain, resulting in a higher rate of Aβ deposition. In the second part, using the 5xFAD/Lrp1BE-/- model, in which soluble Aβ species are retained in the brain, the effect of a brain endothelial knockout of LRP1 on cognition in an established AD mouse model is demonstrated. While the plaque load and gliosis is unaltered by the knockout, the onset of cognitive impairments is shifted to a younger age in 5xFAD/Lrp1BE-/- mice. Taken together these findings confirm the neurovascular hypothesis of AD, by highlighting the importance of LRP1-mediated blood brain barrier clearance of Aβ. 5xFAD/Lrp1BE-/- mice could be used to test therapeutic approaches, which try to restore the impaired clearance of Aβ across the blood brain barrier.
In summary, both the TBA42 and the 5xFAD/Lrp1BE-/- mouse model are valid AD models addressing features of sporadic AD.


Objective. This study sought to determine if relative neutropenia (RN) following six cycles of paclitaxel/carboplatin could serve as a prognostic factor in patients with ovarian cancer. Design. A single institution, retrospective study. Setting. Tertiary academic referral center, Seoul, Korea Population. A total of 179 patients who underwent primary cytoreductive surgery, followed by six cycles of paclitaxel/carboplatin chemotherapy to treat epithelial ovarian cancer. Methods. Relative neutropenia was defined by an absolute neutrophil count < 1000 neutrophils/mm3 at chemotherapy cycle nadir. To eliminate the effects of dose reduction (DR) and schedule delay (SD) on the outcome of analysis, 49 patients who had this were excluded, and a subset analysis of 130 patients who received standard doses and schedules of chemotherapy was performed. Main outcome measures. Progression free and overall survival. Results. The median progression free survival (PFSs) of neutropenic and non‐neutropenic patients was 34 and 22 months, respectively; the median overall survival (OS) times were 67 and 56 months, respectively, with no significant differences in PFS and OS (p = 0.26, 0.59). Multivariate analysis revealed that stage, clear cell histology, and ≥1 cm residual tumor mass were independent prognostic predictors, while RN was not. In the subset analysis confined to the patients without DR and SD, the results were not changed. Conclusion. Chemotherapy‐induced neutropenia was not a significant prognostic indicator in ovarian cancer patients treated with paclitaxel/carboplatin as first‐line chemotherapy.


The singular fish I have the honor to lay before this monthly
meeting of the Society, was transmitted to me by the Rev. E.
C. Marum, of Jerusalem, with the request that I would
present it to the Museum, if worthy of acceptance. It was
caught by Mr. John Ibbott, near Stockdale, six miles south of
Jerusalem, whilst netting for rock-roach, in the Coal River.
This part of the river is entirely fresh water, and far above
tidal influence. When removed from the net it was living,
and firmly adhering by its sucker-like mouth to a rock-roach
fish. "When placed in a dish of water," says the Rev. Mr.
Marum, "he at once adjusted his pouch charmingly, reminding
me of the days when I used a set of bladders in learning
to swim; he seemed to sink and rise then as a boat or ship
does when at anchor as the waves or ripples move them."


We have investigated the possible roles of NGF, and of impulse activity, in the regeneration of sensory nerves. Unexpectedly, the ability of crushed axons to regrow and to restore functional recovery of three sensory modalities in adult rat skin (A alpha-mediated touch, A delta-mediated mechanonociception, and C-fiber-mediated heat nociception) was totally unaffected by anti-NGF treatment. This finding applied even when the anti-NGF dosage was almost eight times that which entirely blocked collateral sprouting of the undamaged axons of both classes of nociceptive nerves (the A alpha-axons do not sprout in adult animals). In the same anti-NGF-treated animal, regeneration would proceed normally on the one side, while collateral sprouting was prevented on the other. Light microscopic and EM examination revealed that in the denervated skin the regenerating axons utilized the same dermal perineurial pathways followed by collaterally sprouting axons. Regeneration within these antibody-accessible pathways progressed normally during anti-NGF treatment, extending 1–2 cm beyond the former field borders, that is, into territory whose invasion by collaterally sprouting axons was totally blocked. The blood-nerve barrier is absent within the degenerating peripheral nerve trunk, a putative NGF source for regenerating fibers but not for sprouting ones. The NGF-independent regeneration was also found to be unaffected when putative spinal cord sources of NGF were eliminated by dorsal root excision. Anti-NGF treatment also failed to block regeneration across 4 mm excision gaps in the nerve trunk. The daily anti-NGF regime continued to be effective for at least 8 weeks, at which time newly evoked collateral sprouting could still be blocked. Exogenous NGF, in doses that evoke collateral sprouting de novo in normal skin, failed to influence regeneration. Finally, an electrical stimulus regime, which markedly reduces the latency of collateral sprouting, failed to affect the time to arrival of regenerating axons at the skin, or the rate of their arborization in it. We conclude that, in striking contrast to their collateral sprouting, the regeneration of nociceptive axons occurs independently of endogenous NGF and is unaffected by impulse activity. These findings further support the proposal that these two growth behaviors have basically different biological functions in the organism.


Many studies suggest that the key determinants of economic development are the accumulation of physical and human capital and technological improvements. Traditional neoclassical growth theory (e.g., Solow 1956) emphasizes physical capital accumulation whereas endogenous growth theory (e.g., Romer 1986) presumes that investment in human capital and technological progress are the main sources of economic growth. In augmented neoclassical models, Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) have shown that physical and human capital are important determinants of growth. Nevertheless, it still remains an open question whether these factors are the real sources of economic development. There is reason to believe that if physical or human capital enlargements or technological improvements are taking place, the real growth factors must already have been unbound. (1) Accordingly, physical and human capital and technology should be seen as proximate causes of growth. (2) The still open questions are: What speeds up capital accumulation and what conditions are necessary for technological improvements? What are the ultimate causes of economic growth? The present study hypothesizes that the missing ingredient in the theory of economic growth is incentives, which strongly depend on private property rights. Indeed, property rights are at the heart of any economic activity--nobody will become economically active if he can be cheated out of the fruits of his efforts. In addition, meaningful prices and efficient use of resources require secure property rights. Traditional growth theory makes no mention of incentives and private property rights; they are simply taken as given. In reality this is not the case. Obviously, many countries of the Third World lack secure and well-established private property rights and there are many graduations between secure and insecure property rights, so that in fact there are diverging incentives to work, invest, and innovate. Even developed countries show distinct variations with respect to property rights. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of private property rights in the framework of an investigation into the causes of economic growth in an international context. The analysis is based on a modified neoclassical growth model. It is assumed that private property rights have a strong impact on economic efficiency. In addition, it is hypothesized that there may be positive feedbacks from increased efficiency to further improvements of the property rights system. The reason is that gains in economic efficiency may improve the prospects for institutional reforms. It therefore seems reasonable to investigate whether the assumed influence of private property rights on prosperity is only in one direction (i.e., purely exogenous) or whether there is also a positive feedback from improved economic development to the establishment of more efficient private property rights (i.e., simultaneous determination). In addition, the impact of property rights on the traditional determinants of economic growth will be considered to see whether private property should be treated as an ultimate source of economic growth. Thoughts on Private Property At first glance, it appears that classical economists, especially the English, neglected the importance of private property rights as a prerequisite for economic development. Although classical writers were not indifferent to private property, they appear to have taken it for granted. The reason may be that the legal situation in England in the 18th and 19th centuries--when even the tenant enjoyed legal security--was completely different from that on the European continent. Adam Smith said relatively little about the importance of private property for economic development in The Wealth of Nations because he took it for granted. (3) Only at the end of his comprehensive work (Book V, Chapter III) did he state, "Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which the people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law" (Smith [1776] 1976: 445). …


The research presented in this dissertation investigates the use of all-at-once methods applied to aerodynamic design. All-at-once schemes are usually based on the assumption of sufficient continuity in the constraints and objectives, and this assumption can be troublesome in the presence of shock discontinuities. Special treatment has to be considered for such problems and we study several approaches. Our all-at-once methods are based on the Sequential Quadratic Programming method, and are designed to exploit the structure inherent in a given problem. The first method is a Reduced Hessian formulation which projects the optimization problem to a lower dimension design space. The second method exploits the sparse structure in a given problem which can yield significant savings in terms of computational effort as well as storage requirements. An underlying theme in all our applications is that careful analysis of the given problem can often lead to an efficient implementation of these all-at-once methods. Chapter 2 describes a nozzle design problem involving one-dimensional transonic flow. An initial formulation as an optimal control problem allows us to solve the problem as as two-point boundary problem which provides useful insight into the nature of the problem. Using the Reduced Hessian formulation for this problem, we find that a conventional CFD method based on shock capturing produces poor performance. The numerical difficulties caused by the presence of the shock can be alleviated by reformulating the constraints so that the shock can be treated explicitly. This amount to using a shock fitting technique. In Chapter 3, we study variants of a simplified temperature control problem. The control problem is solved using a sparse SQP scheme. We show that for problems where the underlying infinite-dimensional problem is well-posed, the optimizer performs well, whereas it fails to produce good results for problems where the underlying infinite-dimensional problem is ill-posed. A transonic airfoil design problem is studied in Chapter 4, using the Reduced SQP formulation. We propose a scheme for performing the optimization subtasks that is based on an Euler Implicit time integration scheme. The motivation is to preserve the solution-finding structure used in the analysis algorithm. Preliminary results obtained using this method are promising. Numerical results have been presented for all the problems described. Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Eugene M. Cliff for his guidance. It has been my good fortune to be associated with him, both as a person and …


Chapter 1: Overview of Electronic Commerce Chapter 2: E-Commerce: Mechanisms, Infrastructure, and Tools Chapter 3: Retailing in Electronic Commerce: Products and Services Chapter 4: B2B E-Commerce Chapter 5: Innovative EC Systems: From E-Government to E-Learning, Collaborative Commerce, and C2C Commerce Chapter 6: Mobile Commerce and Ubiquitous Computing Chapter 7: Social Commerce Chapter 8: Marketing and Advertising in E-Commerce Chapter 9: E-Commerce Security and Fraud Protection Chapter 10: Electronic Commerce Payment Systems Chapter 11: Order Fulfillment along the Supply Chain Chapter 12: EC Strategy, Globalization, and SMEs Chapter 13: Implementing EC Systems: From Justification to Successful Performance Chapter 14: E-commerce: Regulatory, Ethical, and Social Environments Chapter 15: Launching a Successful Online Business and EC Projects


Residential electricity consumption continues to rise and accounts for 16-50% of the total energy use across different countries in the world. In many developing countries, people are deploying more and more household appliances for comfort and utility for which refrigerators are indispensable. Globally, refrigerator use constitutes a significant proportion of household demand ranging from 3-19%, because it operates steadily over time irrespective of seasons or place and thereby has a considerable impact on energy use and the environment. Ghana has commenced the implementation of the established mandatory minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for refrigerators but no study has been done to understand its impact in time (2020-2050) and its regional variation based on the different socio-economic dynamics of each location. This study, therefore, aims to analyse temporally and spatially the impact of different scenarios of MEPS and labelling transitions in relation to energy savings and emissions for refrigerator use in households at the regional and district level, using the Greater Accra Region in Ghana as a case study. For the temporal analysis, a bottom-up approach is used to estimate energy consumption and savings based on top-down data such as population, income levels and appliance ownership. Then, for the spatial analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are used to map the spatial distribution of the results by disaggregating the overall energy consumption according to the population density of each district. Results showed that the considered efficiency standards and labels will potentially save at regional level, a cumulative total of 4.9-8.1TWh electricity, and reduce emission of 1.04-1.71 million tons of CO2, for the period of 30 years (2020-2050), depending on the efficiency transition period scenario. In a more environmentally conscious case, a certified emission market value of 10-17 million USD could be fetched. These findings will apprise policy decisions in energy development planning.


The phenomenon of sunglint, well known in satellite remote sensing, lacks a fundamental characterization under controlled laboratory conditions. Exploiting an apparatus specifically assembled for the purpose, we examine the signal collected by a photopolarimeter, pointed at a wavy water surface with measurable statistics and illuminated by a laser source. We also analyze the wave slope distributions, retrieved with an imaging system, and correlate them with the time series of glints. More particularly, we investigate the link between the occurrence of glints and that of the slopes from which they originate. In this context, the results obtained by applying the Hilbert-Huang transform technique to the slope time series are compared with those obtained through a traditional Fourier transform. This novel study first identifies the individual atomic glints as Fresnel reflection originating from a single wave facet. It then discusses the periodic character of a sequence of glints generated by a gravity wave state, as opposed to the erratic behavior of glints typical of capillary wave states. In mixed gravity-capillary conditions, it is shown that the glint properties are governed mainly by the capillary regime.


As a specific niche
tourism product, dark tourism and its production and consumption have seen an
increase over the past number of years. This has resulted in a significant
volume of research related specifically to dark tourism sites (Podoshen, 2013).
Yet there has been limited number of studies on its potential in Ireland.


The scope and enforcement of copyright in the digital environment have been among the most complex and controversial subjects tackled by lawmakers all over the world for the last decade. Due to the ubiquitous use of digital technology, modern regulation of copyright inherently touches on numerous areas of law and social and economic policy, including communications privacy and Internet governance. Modernising the EU's copyright framework is considered a key step towards achieving the goal of an EU Digital Single Market in the context of the 'Digital Agenda for Europe', an initiative launched by the European Commission in May 2010.

How can the EU make copyright fit for purpose in the Internet age? What are the most suitable and realistic policy options to achieve the objective of a Digital Single Market in the creative content sectors? To give comprehensive answers to these questions, the CEPS Digital Forum formed a Task Force on Copyright in the EU Digital Single Market to foster a multi-stakeholder dialogue on the major challenges for copyright law in the online content sector today. Drawing on the discussions and input gathered by the Task Force, this report contains the conclusions and policy recommendations organised around three main themes: licensing rules and practices in the online music and film sectors, the definition and implementation of copyright exceptions in the digital environment and the present and future of online copyright enforcement in Europe.


Some qualitative properties and bifurcations of periodic responses in a resonant circuit described by a Duffing's equation with a sinusoidal forcing term are investigated. According to the variation of one parameter related to the input signal we confirm the correlation between the bifurcation curves and the higher harmonics oscillations such a result has been obtained in former studies for a different circuit and in different parameter plane. The most characteristic phenomenon observed in resonant circuit is the occurrence of tangent bifurcation within a doubling period process. We also identify the Pitchfork bifurcation of 2n/spl pi/-periodic solutions for n>1.


In this paper, we study a class of risk-sensitive mean-field stochastic differential games. We show that under appropriate regularity conditions, the mean-field value of the stochastic differential game with exponentiated integral cost functional coincides with the value function satisfying a Hamilton -Jacobi- Bellman (HJB) equation with an additional quadratic term. We provide an explicit solution of the mean-field best response when the instantaneous cost functions are log-quadratic and the state dynamics are affine in the control. An equivalent mean-field risk-neutral problem is formulated and the corresponding mean-field equilibria are characterized in terms of backward-forward macroscopic McKean-Vlasov equations, Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equations, and HJB equations. We provide numerical examples on the mean field behavior to illustrate both linear and McKean-Vlasov dynamics.


BACKGROUND
The aim of the present study was to assess the clinical significance of spectral analysis of plethysmographic waveform in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.

METHODS AND RESULTS
The study group comprised 26 healthy subjects, 15 CAD patients, and 24 CAD patients after CABG. Finger plethysmographic waveforms from both right and left index fingers were recorded and analyzed using power spectral analysis. The total power of the right pulse was found to be higher than that of left pulse in the 3 groups of subjects. In CABG patients, the total power of both pulses was increased, the right-to-left ratio of bilateral total power was decreased, and the power of the harmonics of the right pulse shifted from high-frequency to low-frequency. The normalized power of the 4th harmonic of the left pulse and of the 3rd and 4th harmonics of right pulse decreased, whereas that of the 1st harmonic of right pulse increased in CABG patients. Several harmonics correlated significantly to some heart rate variability measures in both controls and CAD patients, but not in CABG patients.

CONCLUSIONS
The increase in the total power of both pulses, the shift of the normalized power of harmonics of the right pulse from high- to low-frequency, and the decrease in the right-to-left ratio of the total power of both pulses are the 3 significant changes in the power spectra of the pulses in CAD patients after CABG. The plethysmographic waveform of normal controls and CAD patients may be modulated by the autonomic nervous system, and in CAD patients the CABG surgery may have diminished the effect of autonomic nervous modulation on the pulse waveforms.


At the turn of the last century, the Arts and Crafts movement transformed not only how objects looked but also how people looked at objects. It provided a framework for essential issues that are still debated today, such as the conflict between standardization and individuality, or the problem of defining what kind of design most benefits society. As the most industrialized country, Britain was also the first to generate a movement to counter what was seen as the malevolent effects of mass production. Protagonists such as John Ruskin and William Morris championed 'joy in labour' - the moral and spiritual uplift that would come with the revival of making objects by hand. The improvement of working conditions, integration of art into everyday life, and an 'honest' aesthetic resulting from the use of indigenous materials and native traditions were also central to the movement's philosophy. At the end of the 19th century, these Arts and Crafts ideals were appropriated and adapted by the young avant-garde throughout Europe and the United States. With 260 objects - furniture, ceramics, metalwork, textiles and work on paper - from Britain, Ireland, the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Scandinavia and Finland, this is a visually stunning, definitive survey. The book features masterworks by the best-known designers of the period, such as William Morris, M. H. Baillie Scott, Henry Van de Velde, Peter Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, Eliel Saarinen, Gustav Stickley, Greene and Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as lesser-known examples that have never been displayed before.


Context. It is debated whether the Milky Way bulge has characteristics more similar to those of a classical bulge than those of a pseudobulge. Detailed abundance studies of bulge stars are important when investigating the origin, history, and classification of the bulge. These studies provide constraints on the star-formation history, initial mass function, and differences between stellar populations. Not many similar studies have been completed because of the large distance and high variable visual extinction along the line-of-sight towards the bulge. Therefore, near-IR investigations can provide superior results. Aims. To investigate the origin of the bulge and study its chemical abundances determined from near-IR spectra for bulge giants that have already been investigated with optical spectra. The optical spectra also provide the stellar parameters that are very important to the present study. In particular, the important CNO elements are determined more accurately in the near-IR. Oxygen and other alpha elements are important for investigating the star-formation history. The C and N abundances are important for determining the evolutionary stage of the giants and the origin of C in the bulge. Methods. High-resolution, near-infrared spectra in the H band were recorded using the CRIRES spectrometer mounted on the Very Large Telescope. The CNO abundances are determined from the numerous molecular lines in the wavelength range observed. Abundances of the alpha elements Si, S, and Ti are also determined from the near-IR spectra. Results. The abundance ratios [O/Fe], [Si/Fe], and [S/Fe] are enhanced to metallicities of at least [Fe/H] = -0.3, after which they decline. This suggests that the Milky Way bulge experienced a rapid and early burst of star formation similar to that of a classical bulge. However, a similarity between the bulge trend and the trend of the local thick disk seems to be present. This similarity suggests that the bulge could have had a pseudobulge origin. The C and N abundances suggest that our giants are first-ascent red-giants or clump stars, and that the measured oxygen abundances are those with which the stars were born. Our [C/Fe] trend does not show any increase with [Fe/H], which is expected if W-R stars contributed substantially to the C abundances. No "cosmic scatter" can be traced around our observed abundance trends: the measured scatter is expected, given the observational uncertainties.


This frontier review covers recent advances in the field of nanomaterial-based micromotors for the development of novel labs-on-a-chip (LOCs). In this review, we will discuss how carbon nanomaterials "on-board" of micromotors offer particular promise for diverse LOC applications. New trends in the field, directed towards the use of quantum dots and nanoparticles as functional materials for sophisticated micromotors, will be reviewed. Micromotor strategies using functionalized catalytic microengines to capture and transport (bio)molecules between the different reservoirs of LOC devices will also be covered. These recent advances are bringing closer our hopes for personalized medicine and food safety assurance, among others.


In the classical quickest detection problem, one must detect as quickly as possible when a Brownian motion without drift "changes" into a Brownian motion with positive drift. The change occurs at an unknown "disorder" time with exponential distribution. There is a penalty for declaring too early that the change has occurred, and a cost for late detection proportional to the time between occurrence of the change and the time when the change is declared. Here, we consider the case where there is also a cost for observing the process. This stochastic control problem can be formulated using either the notion of strong solution or of weak solution of the s.d.e. that defines the observation process. We show that the value function is the same in both cases, even though no optimal strategy exists in the strong formulation. We determine the optimal strategy in the weak formulation and show, using a form of the "principle of smooth fit" and under natural hypotheses on the parameters of the problem, that the optimal strategy takes the form of a two-threshold policy: observe only when the posterior probability that the change has already occurred, given the observations, is larger than a threshold A >= 0, and declare that the disorder time has occurred when this posterior probability exceeds a threshold B >= A. The constants A and B are determined explicitly from the parameters of the problem.


Ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) is an important signaling molecule in the DNA damage response (DDR). ATM loss of function can produce a synthetic lethal phenotype in combination with tumor-associated mutations in FA/BRCA pathway components. In this study, we took an siRNA screening strategy to identify other tumor suppressors that, when inhibited, similarly sensitized cells to ATM inhibition. In this manner, we determined that PTEN and ATM were synthetically lethal when jointly inhibited. PTEN-deficient cells exhibited elevated levels of reactive oxygen species, increased endogenous DNA damage, and constitutive ATM activation. ATM inhibition caused catastrophic DNA damage, mitotic cell cycle arrest, and apoptosis specifically in PTEN-deficient cells in comparison with wild-type cells. Antioxidants abrogated the increase in DNA damage and ATM activation in PTEN-deficient cells, suggesting a requirement for oxidative DNA damage in the mechanism of cell death. Lastly, the ATM inhibitor KU-60019 was specifically toxic to PTEN mutant cancer cells in tumor xenografts and reversible by reintroduction of wild-type PTEN. Together, our results offer a mechanistic rationale for clinical evaluation of ATM inhibitors in PTEN-deficient tumors.


In fashion business, forecasting is very crucial given the uncertainty associated with demand and supply. Footwear industry being an integral part of fashion has evolved and become a multi-billion dollar industry. This paper focuses on athletic/sports shoes, its present and future market. This paper also talks about the reasons, which influences the athletic shoes sales globally, though it may vary slightly with different culture, economy and taste. Past sales figure of Shoe store sales in the United States from 1992 to 2013 (in billion U.S. dollars) is used to estimate the future sales. Trend analysis forecasting is used to predict the future sales and growth of athletic shoes market.


The paper outlines and illustrates the design of the Hamburg Corpus of Argentinean Spanish (HaCASpa, compiled 2008−2009), which comprises oral data from two varieties of Argentinean Spanish (Buenos Aires and Neuquen, Northern Patagonia). Both varieties are characterized by prosodic features that can plausibly be traced back to the contact with Italian during the period of large streams of immigration between 1830 and 1950. After providing the reader with general information on the historical situation of Spanish-Italian bilingualism in Buenos Aires, the contribution focuses on the data types contained in the corpus and the speakers recorded. In addition, the main findings stemming from the analyses performed thus far based on the corpus are summarized.


In this volume, editor Cynthia B. Roy presents a stellar cast of cognitive linguists, sociolinguists, and discourse analysts to discover and demonstrate how sign language users make sense of what is going on within their social and cultural contexts in face-to-face interactions. In the first chapter, Paul Dudis presents an innovative perspective on depiction in discourse. Mary Thumann follows with her observations on constructed dialogue and constructed action. Jack Hoza delineates the discourse and politeness functions of hey and well in ASL as examples of discourse markers in the third chapter.Laurie Swabey investigates reference in ASL discourse in the fourth chapter. In Chapter 5, Christopher Stone offers insights on register related to genre in British Sign Language discourse, and Daniel Roush addresses in Chapter 6 the conduit metaphor in English and ASL. Jeffrey Davis completes this collection by mapping out the nature of discourse in Plains Indian Sign Language, a previously unstudied language. The major thread that ties together the work of these varying linguists is their common focus on the forms and functions of sign languages used by people in actual situations. They each provide new keys to answering how thoughts expressed in one setting with one term or one utterance may mean something totally different when expressed in a different setting with different participants and different purposes."


In Lord Sumption and the Limits of the Law, leading public law scholars reflect on the nature and limits of the judicial role and its implications for human rights protection and democracy. The starting point for this reflection is Lord Sumption's lecture, 'The Limits of the Law', which grounds a wide-ranging discussion of questions including the scope and legitimacy of judicial law-making, the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the continuing significance and legitimacy, or otherwise, of the European Court of Human Rights. Lord Sumption ends the volume with a substantial commentary on the responses to his lecture.


Purpose Fluoroscopic systems in modern interventional suites have the ability to perform flat panel detector CT (FDCT) with navigational guidance. Fusion with MR allows navigational guidance towards FDCT occult targets. We aim to evaluate the accuracy of this system using single-pass needle placement in a deep brain stimulation (DBS) phantom. Materials and methods MR was performed on a head phantom with DBS lead targets. The head phantom was placed into fixation and FDCT was performed. FDCT and MR datasets were automatically fused using the integrated guidance system (iGuide, Siemens). A DBS target was selected on the MR dataset. A 10 cm, 19 G needle was advanced by hand in a single pass using laser crosshair guidance. Radial error was visually assessed against measurement markers on the target and by a second FDCT. Ten needles were placed using CT-MR fusion and 10 needles were placed without MR fusion, with targeting based solely on FDCT and fusion steps repeated for every pass. Results Mean radial error was 2.75±1.39 mm as defined by visual assessment to the centre of the DBS target and 2.80±1.43 mm as defined by FDCT to the centre of the selected target point. There were no statistically significant differences in error between MR fusion and non-MR guided series. Conclusions Single pass needle placement in a DBS phantom using FDCT guidance is associated with a radial error of approximately 2.5–3.0 mm at a depth of approximately 80 mm. This system could accurately target sub-centimetre intracranial lesions defined on MR.


OBJECTIVE
To provide recommendations to family physicians for screening elderly patients (over 65 years of age) for visual impairment and its common clinical causes.

OPTIONS
Visual acuity screening with Snellen sight chart, funduscopy, retinal photography, tonometry and perimetry.

OUTCOMES
Delay or prevention of visual deterioration or blindness.

EVIDENCE
A MEDLINE search for relevant articles published between January 1986 and December 1993 was undertaken, the bibliographies of the articles were scrutinized for additional articles, and experts were consulted. The highest available level of evidence was used in making recommendations.

VALUES
The evidence-based methods and values of the Canadian Task Force on the Periodic Health Examination were used. Preservation of vision was given the highest value in accordance with other guidelines regarding eyesight.

BENEFITS, HARMS AND COSTS
Potential benefits are to maintain or improve visual acuity. Potential for harm to patients is minimal. Limited data are available on costs.

RECOMMENDATIONS
There is fair evidence to include in the periodic health examination visual acuity testing with a Snellen sight chart and funduscopy or retinal photography in elderly patients with diabetes of at least 5 years' duration (grade B recommendation). The place of funduscopy in the detection of age-related macular degeneration and glaucomatous changes is controversial. For patients at high risk for glaucoma (positive family history, black race, severe myopia or diabetes) it would be prudent to have a periodic assessment by an ophthalmologist.

VALIDATION
Recommendations differ from those of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Optometric Association. Recommendations for glaucoma screening are similar to those of the US Preventive Services Task Force. Present recommendations have been reviewed by experts in ophthalmology and optometry.

SPONSOR
These guidelines were developed and endorsed by the task force, which is funded by Health Canada and the National Health Research and Development Program. The principal author (C.P.) was supported in part by the Educational Centre for Aging and Health, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.


Sarahsaurus aurifontanalis is the most recent sauropodomorph dinosaur to be discovered and named from the Early Jurassic of North America. The dinosaur is represented by a mostly complete and articulated holotype specimen that preserves a unique manual phalangeal count of 2-3-4-2-2 and accessory pubic foramen adjacent to the obturator foramen. The holotype of Sarahsaurus comprises a braincase and isolated cranial elements, but the skull previously referred to this taxon, MCZ 8893, can only be provisionally referred to Sarahsaurus until additional crania are found associated with postcranial material. Sarahsaurus comes from the middle third of the Kayenta Formation, which is considered to be Early Jurassic in age despite the absence of a radiometric date from that unit. A new technique used to obtain a U-Pb radiometric date from the type quarry of Sarahsaurus in the Kayenta Formation was influenced by secondary uranium enrichment in the open system of the fossil bone. That suggests that uranium within the Kayenta Formation may be the result of the movement of groundwater during the Laramide orogeny in the Late Cretaceous and Early Eocene, and lends support to the hypothesis that the uplift of the Colorado Plateau began relatively early in Late Cretaceous to the Eocene.


Abstract In the problem of (simultaneous) Diophantine approximation in ℝ3 (in the spirit of Hurwitz's theorem), lower bounds for the critical determinant of the special three-dimensional body K2 : (y2 + z2)(x2 + y2 + z2) ≤ 1 play an important role; see [1], [6]. This article deals with estimates from below for the critical determinant ∆ (Kc) of more general star bodies Kc : (y2 + z2)c/2(x2 + y2 + z2) ≤ 1 ; where c is any positive constant. These are obtained by inscribing into Kc either a double cone, or an ellipsoid, or a double paraboloid, depending on the size of c.


This contribution examines at both a textual superstructure and semantic macrostructural level (van Dijk 1985; 1988) two sets of diplomatic newsletters that envoys sent back to their respective Secretary of State at the turn of the eighteenth century. The first set of original manuscripts consists of letters sent in 1703 by Sir Lambert Blackwell, England's envoy to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to England's Secretary of State, the earl of Nottingham. The other collection comprises the similarly weekly newsletters Francesco Terriesi, Tuscan envoy to England, wrote in 1690 to the Grand Duchy's Secretary of State. The analysis shows that whilst the discursive context and aims of such correspondence results in a similar superstructure and macrostructure in the two sets of newsletters there are nevertheless significant stylistic differences in the reporting of the weekly news. Although this is the first cross-linguistic research of its kind, it draws on previous work by Fitzmaurice (2006; 2008) and Okulska (2006) regarding other aspects of English diplomatic correspondence.


The marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) method for finding hydrocarbons was introduced in the 1980s but only found commercial acceptance about five years ago. However, this brief time has been long enough for this method to earn the label of being possibly the most significant technology in oil exploration since 3D seismic. Indeed, the field has grown so rapidly that it will be the subject of simultaneously published special sections in both SEG journals—perhaps an unprecedented occurrence. The March-April issue of GEOPHYSICS will have 10 peer-reviewed papers on CSEM. TLE's special section presents several case studies that show the value of the technology in reducing risk for exploration and development projects. Most CSEM surveys are marine but CSEM is also done on land, mainly in Russia and China. Marine CSEM is mostly done in the frequency domain; land activities are split between frequency domain and time domain.


The effect of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) on very-low-density lipoprotein triglyceride (VLDL-TG) metabolism was studied in seven normolipidemic type I diabetic patients. VLDL-TG transport was determined using 3H-glycerol as an endogenous precursor of VLDL-TG, and the resultant turnover curves were evaluated by multicompartmental analysis. Kinetic studies were performed in the diabetic patients during conventional insulin therapy and again after 3 wk of euglycemia achieved with CSII, and the results were compared with those obtained in 5 age-, weight-, and sex-matched normolipidemic nondiabetic subjects. After 3 wk of CSII, the mean (± SEM) 24-h plasma glucose levels in the diabetic patients decreased from 238 ±15 mg/dl on conventional therapy to 99 ± 11 mg/dl (P < 0.05) on CSII therapy. The total glycosylated hemoglobin levels decreased from 10.2 ± 0.5 to 6.5 ± 0.4%. There was a significant decrease in fasting plasma cholesterol (172 ± 13 mg/dl to 136 ± 4 mg/dl), LDL cholesterol (104 ± 9 mg/dl to 82 ± 4 mg/dl), plasma triglyceride (114 ± 24 mg/dl to 71 ± 9 mg/dl), and VLDL-TG (68 ± 18 mg/dl to 37 ± 5 mg/dl) levels. There was no change in the HDL cholesterol concentration. Results of the kinetic studies in the conventionally treated diabetic patients revealed normal VLDL-TG transport rates and fractional catabolic rates (FCR). CSII caused a marked and significant fall in mean VLDL-TG transport rates (12.2 ± 3.5 to 4.1 ± 0.8 mg/h/kg IW, P < 0.05) to levels below those observed in the nondiabetic subjects (10.2 ± 2.1 mg/h/kg IW, P < 0.05). There was no change in the mean FCR with CSII. These data thus suggest that the mechanism responsible for the observed change in plasma triglyceride levels in normolipidemic type I diabetic patients that occurs with 3 wk of CSII treatment is due to suppression of hepatic VLDL-TG synthesis rather than the result of increased lipoprotein clearance.


Title of Document: PHARMACY-ON-A-CHIP: MICROFLUIDIC SYNTHESIS AND PREPARATION OF TUMOR-TARGETED LIPOSOMES Renee Robin Hood, Ph.D., 2014 Directed By: Professor Don L. DeVoe, Department of Mechanical Engineering This dissertation describes a microfluidic technique for the synthesis and preparation of tumor-targeted liposomes for drug delivery applications plus the utilization of these liposomes for innovative pharmaceutical and preclinical research applications. Microfluidic hydrodynamic flow focusing enables the production of nearly monodisperse populations of nanoscale liposomes while providing exquisite control over size in comparison to traditional bulk-fluid liposome synthesis methods. Here, the microfluidic process was first implemented using lipids functionalized with high molecular weight polymers and other molecules to determine the ability to prepare long-circulating, tumor-targeted liposomes. Additionally, the process was realized in thermoplastic microchannels which require simpler, less expensive fabrication methods than the silicon-based devices in which this technique was originally demonstrated. Second, additional functionalities were integrated into the microfluidic platform, including buffer exchange and remote drug loading in-line with liposome synthesis, to yield a continuous process for microfluidic preparation of liposomes containing high concentrations of amphipathic drugs which are commonly used for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Next, the microfluidic technique, which is typically performed in two-dimensional rectangular microchannels, was implemented within a three-dimensional concentric capillary structure to assess the impact of edge effects during flow focusing on liposome synthesis in the two-dimensional system and to demonstrate a higher-throughput method for microfluidic liposome preparation. Along with exploring these additions to and variations upon the established microfluidic platform, microfluidic-enabled populations of liposomes were used for innovative pharmaceutical and preclinical research to demonstrate their utility in practical applications. First, nanoscale liposomes with discrete diameters were produced in order to investigate the effect of liposome size on cellular uptake mechanisms in vitro for a human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco-2) cell line. Next, liposomes with diameters below a proposed size cutoff for transdermal delivery (~40 nm) were produced to examine their ability to passively traverse layers of ex vivo porcine skin. The original research presented in this dissertation demonstrates the capacity to incorporate additional on-line liposome preparation functionalities into an established microfluidic technique, advances the platform to render it more amendable for widespread use, and highlights the advantages of microfluidic-prepared liposomes for practical applications through pharmaceutical and preclinical research. PHARMACY-ON-A-CHIP: MICROFLUIDIC SYNTHESIS AND PREPARATION OF TUMOR-TARGETED LIPOSOMES


1. Biopsy specimens of muscle obtained after an overnight rest from 14 men and eight women, apparently healthy subjects (age range 52-79 years), were analysed for pyruvate, lactate and energy-rich phosphagens. 2. Values for metabolites showed no sex differences. Compared with previous findings in men and women about 40 years younger, the intramuscular concentrations of both total adenine nucleotides and phosphocreatine were approximately 5% lower in the elderly. Creatine was correspondingly increased, but total creatine was unchanged, as were the ATP and the ATP/ADP ratio. 3. It was concluded that energy-rich compounds showed significant but small age-related variations.


Caspase-mediated cleavage of gasdermin D triggers death by pyroptosis. Cell death can occur through several distinct mechanisms that are distinguished by the proteins involved and the morphological features of the dying cells. Pyroptosis is a form of cell death that occurs in response to some types of inflammatory signals and involves caspases-1, -11, or -12 in mice or caspases-1, -4, -5, and -12 in humans; cell swelling and lysis; and the release of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β). When present intracellularly, the bacterial product lipopolysaccharide (LPS) triggers oligomerization and activation of caspase-11 in mice and caspase-4 in humans. Other inflammatory molecules stimulate the inflammasome, which activates caspase-1. Shi et al. and Kayagaki et al. used a gene knockout screen or a mutagenesis screen, respectively, and identified the gene encoding gasdermin D (GSDMD) as necessary for pyroptotic cell death. Both groups found that bone marrow–derived macrophages (BMDMs) lacking functional GSDMD were resistant to death in response to intracellular LPS. However, Shi et al. found that pyroptosis and IL-1β release in response to activators of the inflammasome and caspase-1–mediated death also required GSDMD, whereas the results of Kayagaki et al. indicated that inflammasome-triggered cell death was delayed rather than blocked. As noted by Broz, this may reflect differences in experimental procedures because Shi et al. examined earlier events than those examined by Kayagaki et al. Shi et al. established that GSDMD-deficient cells underwent apoptosis or necroptosis, indicating that GSDMD was specific for pyroptotic death. Both groups determined that caspase-11 cleaved GSDMD, that reintroduction of an Asp275-to-Ala mutant in cells lacking GSDMD failed to restore pyroptosis and IL-1β release, and that expression of the N-terminal fragment resulted in cell death. Shi et al. also reported that caspase-1 and caspase-4 cleaved GSDMD when overexpressed in 293T cells or when used for in vitro assays. By engineering the cleavage site to one recognized by caspase-3 or -7 and expressing this mutated GSDMD in GSDMD–/– Hela cells, Shi et al. showed that the cells underwent cell death in response to stimuli that activate the extrinsic cell death pathway, but that instead of having morphological characteristics of apoptosis, the death response appeared to be mediated by pyroptosis. Kayagaki et al. found that BMDMs lacking components of the inflammasome or caspase-1 exhibited GSDMD cleavage, indicating that cleavage by caspase-11 occurred upstream of formation of the caspase-1–activating inflammasome complex. In addition to finding a key mediator of pyroptotic death, these studies suggest that release of IL-1β, which lacks any known secretory signal, may occur during the cell lysis that occurs during pyroptosis. As noted by Broz, future studies will determine the molecular role of GSDMD in pyroptosis. J. Shi, Y. Zhao, K. Wang, X. Shi, Y. Wang, H. Huang, Y. Zhuang, T. Cai, F. Wang, F. Shao, Cleavage of GSDMD by inflammatory caspases determines pyroptotic cell death. Nature 526, 660–665 (2015). [PubMed] N. Kayagaki, I. B. Stowe, B. L. Lee, K. O'Rourke, K. Anderson, Søren Warming, Trinna Cuellar, Benjamin Haley, Merone Roose-Girma, Qui T. Phung, Peter S. Liu, Jennie R. Lill, Hong Li, Jiansheng Wu, Sarah Kummerfeld, Juan Zhang, Wyne P. Lee, Scott J. Snipas, Guy S. Salvesen, Lucy X. Morris, Linda Fitzgerald, Yafei Zhang, Edward M. Bertram, Christopher C. Goodnow, Vishva M. Dixit, Caspase-11 cleaves gasdermin D for non-canonical inflammasome signalling. Nature 526, 666–671 (2015). [PubMed] P. Broz, Caspase target drives pyroptosis. Nature 526, 642–643 (2015). [PubMed]


Bedded gypsum deposits, irregularly shaped and covering about one-quarter sq mi, occur in an intrusive complex in the Absaroka Mountains. Beds lie flat and range in thickness from a few to about 15 feet. The gypsum is a grayish white to buff yellow, massive, poorly indurated rock in hand specimen, but chemical analyses show it to be 93.3 percent pure with X-ray analyses indicating only Sr and small amounts of Fe. A possible origin is deposition in a small pond or lake formed by local disruption of drainage by landslides from Crater Mountain. Pond waters may have been enriched with calcium sulfate from surface water or hydrothermal leaching of mineralized and altered zones, by upward percolating ground water or enriched hydrothermal solutions, or by primary hydrothermal solutions.


This article sets out to understand the relationship between the complex process of structural change and the proliferating political strategies and programs implemented to manage the process of political and social change. More particularly the authors examine how in the wake of the Asian economic crisis international financial institutions advocated a new global policy through programs such as Social Investment Funds. The thread that runs through the global social policy is a distinctly political project that uses the liberal language of participation and empowerment as a strategy of "antipolitics" that marginalizes political contestation. The authors argue, however, that the antipolitics of technocratic social policy gave way to a more populist form of antipolitics of a new government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. This article examines the nature of governance projects and seeks to explain the shift between them. This new populism may be a precursor to a new "authoritarian statist" mode of political regulation that could come to dominate Southeast Asia, buttressed by the requirements imposed by the "war on terrorism."


Predictability in civil and criminal sanctions is generally understood as desirable. Conversely, unpredictability is condemned as a violation of the rule of law. This paper explores predictability in sanctioning from the point of view of efficiency. It is argued that, given a constant expected sanction, deterrence is increased when either the size of the sanction or the probability that it will be imposed is uncertain. This conclusion follows from earlier findings in behavioral decision research and the results of an experiment conducted specifically to examine this hypothesis. The findings suggest that, within an efficiency framework, there are virtues to uncertainty that may cast doubt on the premise that law should always strive to be as predictable as possible.


The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and the Editors of Biotropica proudly announce the winner of the 2010 Biotropica Award for Excellence in Tropical Biology and Conservation, presented to the author of a paper published in Biotropica during 2009. We recognize an outstanding contribution based on original research conducted in tropical regions. Criteria includes clarity of presentation, strong basis in natural history, well-planned experimental and/or sampling design, and novel insights gained into critical processes that influence the structure and functioning of tropical biological systems. The 2010 Award is presented to Ezekiel Edward, Pantaleo K. T. Munishi, and Philip E. Hulme for their paper entitled ''Relative roles of disturbance and propagule pressure on the invasion of humid tropical forest by Cordia alliodora (Boraginaceae) in Tanzania'' published in Biotropica 41(2): 171–178. Invasive exotic species are widely regarded as one of the most serious threats to biodiversity worldwide and have been the subject of research for decades. While invasive species have wreaked havoc on many tropical dry forests and grasslands, few exotic species appear to have become naturalized in tropical wet forests. Indeed, many studies have concluded that these forests appear more resistant to invasion than other biomes, perhaps due to some combination of structural complexity and high biodiversity. However, the conventional wisdom is that this resistance to invasion will be weakened by natural or anthropogenic disturbance, which is a key factor facilitating the establishment and spread of invasive species in other regions. If so, the key to invasion in tropical wet forests is the synergistic effects of disturbance and the arrival of propagules. And that is the crux of the problem: rarely do we know when or how many individuals arrive in a site, making it difficult to account for propagule pressure when assessing the relative importance of the multiple factors promoting invasion and establishment. Edward, Munishi, and Hulme have circumvented this problem in a most creative way, by studying a deliberate introduction. In the early 1900s, a 50-hectare plantation of 210 Cordia alliodora trees was established in the Amani Botanical Garden in Tanzania. Cordia alliodora is a fast-growing hardwood tree native to the Americas and valued for its timber; it produces prodigious numbers of wind-dispersed seeds and is now the dominant species in the forest mosaic surrounding the Amani Garden. Using transects that radiated from the plantation into the surrounding landscape, Edward et al. were able to disentangle the effects of propagule pressure (measured as distance from the invasion), local diversity, forest structure, and disturbance on C. alliodora density and population structure. The results were clear. Distance from source populations were the most important variable correlated with density, suggesting propagule pressure plays the fundamental role in promoting the invasion of Cordia. Disturbance undoubtedly plays a role as well, as Cordia abundance, especially that of seedlings, was positively associated with disturbance. However, they correctly point out that disturbance and other habitat attributes are often confounded with propagule pressure, since degraded areas tend to be close to the site of invasion. By creatively taking advantage of a unique natural experiment, and with careful and detailed fieldwork coupled with robust statistical analyses, the authors were able to disentangle these confounded factors and reveal the clear and dominant signal of propagule pressure. Though it remains to be seen to what extent their conclusions can be generalized to other species and locations, their excellent study is a template other researchers can use to evaluate their conclusions. Congratulations to Edward et al. for simultaneously advancing the field of invasion biology and refocusing our attention on an emerging and overlooked issue in tropical biology and conservation. Emilio Bruna


Competition among corn (Zea mays L.) plants for interception of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) at high plant density can result in a reduction in kernel number per ear and complete ear barrenness. The response of field corn to long-term shading as density increased was investigated. A single-ear hybrid was grown at the Agricultural Experiment Station Farm, Univ. of Massachusetts, at three densities of 3,7.5, and 12 plants m⁻². Shading was provided by using black polypropylene fabric with 50% light penetration installed 44 d after emergence. The rate of apparent photosynthesis in ear leaves was reduced significantly by both increased plant density and shading. The reduction was attributed to reduced PAR in higher densities and shaded plots and to the decreased chlorophyll concentration measured in leaves of plants at high density in both ambient light and shaded plots. Tassel emeqence was slightly delayed in high density and shaded plots. However, the time of silking was delayed significantly because of both high density and shading. Seven days after anthesis, 10% of plants in high densities and 50% of plants in shaded plots had no silk. The response of grain yield per unit area in ambient light to increasing density was parabolic. No increase in yield was obtained with density increase in the shaded plots. Shade reduced the number of productive ears per plant, and the number of kernels per row resulting in a 23 and 66% yield reduction in low and high plant densities respectively, when compared to ambient light. Weight per kernel was reduced 28% with increased plant density. Shading did not further decrease kernel weight. The number of kernel rows per ear was least sensitive to both high plant density and shading. Paper no. 3017 from the Massachusetts Agric. Exp. Stn.


Abstract Hloušekite, (Ni,Co)Cu4(AsO4)2(AsO3OH)2(H2O)9, is a new supergene arsenate mineral from the Geister vein (Rovnost mine), Jáchymov (St Joachimsthal), Western Bohemia, Czech Republic. It was found along with veselovskýite, pradetite, lavendulan, arsenolite, babánekite and gypsum on the surface of strongly altered ore fragments containing dominant tennantite and chalcopyrite. Hloušekite forms thin, lath-like crystals, locally elongated reaching up to 3 mm across. It is transparent, has a pale green colour with vitreous lustre, has a greyish-white streak and it is very brittle with an uneven fracture. It does not fluoresce under shortwave or longwave ultraviolet radiation. Cleavage on {010} is perfect; the Mohs hardness is 2-3. The calculated density is 3.295 g cm-3. Hloušekite is optically biaxial with α′ = 1.653(2) and γ′ = 1.73. The estimated optical orientation is γ′ vs. elongation (c) = 14(1)°. In larger grains it is weakly to moderately pleochroic (α = colourless, β = pale green to green). Hloušekite is triclinic, space group P1̅, a = 6.4010(6), b = 8.0041(6), c = 10.3969(14) Å, α = 85.824(8), β = 79.873(9), γ = 84.655(7)° and V = 521.23(10) Å3, with Z = 1, a:b:c = 0.800:1:1.299. The eight strongest lines in the powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern [d in Å (I)(hkl)] are 10.211(100)(001), 7.974(9)(010), 3.984(6)(020), 3.656(5)(11̅2), 3.631(5)(02̅1), 3.241(5)(022), 3.145(5)(200) and 3.006(5)(210). Chemical analysis by electron microprobe yielded MgO 0.20, FeO 0.10, NiO 5.79, CoO 1.80, CuO 29.53, ZnO 0.66, Al2O3 0.14, P2O5 0.11, As2O5 45.01, H2O 17.71 (calc.), for a total of 101.05 wt.%. The resulting empirical formula, calculated by stoichiometry (9H2O + 2OH), obtained from the crystal structure, is (Ni0.79Co0.25)Σ1.04(Cu3.78Zn0.08Mg0.05Al0.03Fe0.01)S3.95 (AsO4)1.98(PO4)0.02(AsO3OH)2.00(H2O)9.00. The ideal endmember formula , NiCu4(AsO4)2(AsO3OH)2(H2O)9.00, requires NiO 7.23, CuO 30.81, As2O5 44.51, H2O 17.45, total 100.00 wt.%. The crystal structure of hloušekite was solved by charge flipping from single-crystal XRD data and refined to R1 = 0.0599 for 1441 reflections with [Iobs > 3σ(I)]. Hloušekite is a new member of the lindackerite group (also including lindackerite, pradetite and veselovský ite) of the lindackerite supergroup. The ondrušite group of the lindackerite supergroup includes ondrušite, chudobaite, geigerite and klajite. The establishment of these two groups reflects the difference between the crystal structures of their members, mainly in the coordination environment of the Me cations.


Animators work within a strictly defined, limited space that requires difficult artistic decisions. The blank frame presents a dilemma for all animators, and the decision of what to include and leave out raises important questions about artistry, authorship, and cultural influence. In Animating Space: From Mickey to WALL-E, renowned scholar J. P. Telotte explores how animation has confronted the blank template, and how responses to that confrontation have changed. Focusing on American animation, Telotte tracks the development of animation in line with changing cultural attitudes toward space and examines innovations that elevated the medium from a novelty to a fully realized art form. From Winsor McCay and the Fleischer brothers to the Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros., and Pixar Studios, Animating Space explores the contributions of those who invented animation, those who refined it, and those who, in the current digital age, are using it to redefine the very possibilities of cinema.