Recent research and practice from the fields of climate change adaptation and disaster management has created a shift from emphasis of children's vulnerability and need for protection towards their potential as agents of change before, during and after disaster events. This article examines lessons from action research into children's agency in disaster‐prone communities of El Salvador and the Philippines. We describe some of the participatory risk management methods that were adapted for use with children, the centrality of ethics to our approach and the importance of working with a non‐governmental organisation (NGO) partner that provides ongoing support in the study communities. The research design was led by external agents in order to cross‐compare findings across locations and countries. However, we argue that by engaging children in a process of knowledge generation and analysis, the research broke down some of the assumed hierarchies between researcher and researched common to orthodox approaches.


We examine the hypothesis that flexible work organization involves greater skill requirements and, hence, an increased likelihood of receiving employer provided training. Using unique linked employer-employee data from Germany, we confirm that employees are more likely to receive training when their jobs are characterized by greater decision-making autonomy and task variety, two essential elements of flexibility. Critically, the training associated with workplace flexibility does not simply reflect technology. Skill-biased organizational change plays its own role. Moreover, we show that the training associated with workplace flexibility is disproportionately oriented toward employees with a greater formal education. Our results also provide modest evidence of an age bias of workplace flexibility. However, the link between workplace flexibility and training does not appear to differ by gender.


Genocide scholars have not engaged with the killing of the Moriori people of New Zealand's Chatham Islands by two Māori iwi (tribes). New Zealand historians who have discussed Moriori have not used the paradigms and language of genocide studies. This article argues that Moriori were victims of genocide, and that their experience both challenges and deepens how colonial genocide is understood. Narratives of colonial genocides that assume the destruction of an indigenous people by a colonizing power are inadequate for understanding events on the Chathams, as are genocidal frameworks that assume perpetrators must be state actors. The colonial role was important but indirect: the encounter of Māori with Britain and Australia provided the physical and ideological tools that made the Moriori genocide possible. Māori behaviour on the Chathams diverged from tradition, with the racial tropes, destructive behaviours and justification for invading the Chathams all acquired through the colonial spread of British people into Polynesia. More recently, the use of imported imagery and politicization of the Moriori experience has revealed the consequences of successive generations' failure to properly remember or even identify the genocide.


Although intrapulmonary fibrin deposition is a pathognomonic feature of acute lung injury, it remains uncertain whether thrombin inhibitors affect clinically important outcomes. We hypothesized that both heparin and antithrombin (AT) concentrate improve gas exchange during experimental respiratory distress syndrome. We also tested whether combination therapy is more beneficial than monotherapy. Forty-eight newborn piglets were randomized within 12 litters to one of four groups in a factorial design: (1) AT; (2) heparin; (3) AT plus heparin; (4) untreated control animals. After lung lavage and 4 h of barovolutrauma, mechanical ventilation was continued for 24 h during which ventilator pressures and inspired oxygen were adjusted to maintain normal blood gases. The arterial/ alveolar oxygen tension ratio (a/A ratio) and the ventilator efficiency index (VEI) at 18 and 24 h were compared by repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). In contrast to our hypothesis, only heparin improved gas exchange, and we found little evidence of an interaction with AT. The a/A ratio was 0.48 +/- 0.27 (mean +/- SD) in the presence of heparin versus 0.33 +/- 0.26 in its absence; p = 0.01. Corresponding VEI was 0.30 +/- 0.12 versus 0.25 +/- 0.14; p = 0.04. Hyaline membrane formation was also decreased in heparin-treated animals (p = 0.02).


Bioactive three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds play a key role in the repair or regeneration of large bone defects. There are many methods to prepare 3D scaffolds, among which the 3D-plotting technique is a promising strategy as the scaffolds prepared by this method possess not only improved mechanical properties and interconnectivity, but also ordered large-pore structure. However, the low cell attachment rate in the interior of the 3D-plotted scaffolds, especially for 3D-plotted bioceramic scaffolds, inhibits the osteogenesis of stem cells in the scaffolds both in vitro and in vivo. The aim of this study is to prepare hierarchically porous composite scaffolds in order to improve the cell attachment, and further stimulate the in vitro and in vivo osteogenesis. We successfully fabricated hierarchically porous bioceramic-silk (BC-silk) composite scaffolds by a combination of the 3D-plotting technique with the freeze-drying method, and further investigated the attachment, proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) in the scaffolds as well as the in vivo osteogenesis of the prepared porous scaffolds. The results showed that the hierarchical structure in the composite scaffolds was composed of first-level pores (∼1 mm) of the bioceramic scaffold and second-level pores (∼50-100 μm) of the silk matrix. The prepared BC-silk composite scaffolds possessed excellent apatite-mineralization ability and mechanical properties with compressive strength up to 25 MPa. In addition, hierarchically porous BC-silk scaffolds presented significantly enhanced attachment rate of BMSCs, around 4 times that of pure BC scaffolds without hierarchical pore structures. BC-silk scaffolds with hierarchical pore structures showed distinctively improved cell proliferation, ALP activity and bone-related gene expression as compared to BC scaffolds without hierarchical pore structure. Furthermore, hierarchically porous BC-silk scaffolds significantly enhanced the formation of new bone in vivo as compared to BC scaffolds. Our results suggest that the combination of 3D-plotting with the freeze-drying method is a viable strategy to construct hierarchical pore structures in 3D-plotted scaffolds, and the hierarchical pore structure plays an important role in improving the in vitro and in vivo osteogenesis of 3D-plotted bioceramic scaffolds for bone regeneration application.


Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) produce impressive results on unconditional image generation when powered with large-scale image datasets. Yet generated images are still easy to spot especially on datasets with high variance (e.g. bedroom, church). In this paper, we propose various improvements to further push the boundaries in image generation. Specifically, we propose a novel dual contrastive loss and show that, with this loss, discriminator learns more generalized and distinguishable representations to incentivize generation. In addition, we revisit attention and extensively experiment with different attention blocks in the generator. We find attention to be still an important module for successful image generation even though it was not used in the recent state-of-the-art models. Lastly, we study different attention architectures in the discriminator, and propose a reference attention mechanism. By combining the strengths of these remedies, we improve the compelling state-of-the-art Fréchet Inception Distance (FID) by at least 17.5% on several benchmark datasets. We obtain even more significant improvements on compositional synthetic scenes (up to 47.5% in FID).


A likelihood order is defined over linear subspaces of a finite dimensional Hilbert space. The question arises as to when such an order can be represented by a quantum probability. We introduce a few behaviorally plausible axioms that provide the answer in two cases: pure state and uniform measure. The general problem is answered by using duality-like conditions. The general problem of characterizing the partial orders that admit a quantum representation by behaviorally justified axioms remains open.


OBJECTIVES
To determine the epidemiology and describe the clinical and radiographic characteristics, the type of treatment, and the possible delayed appearance of new supernumerary teeth in patients with non-syndromic multiple hyperdontia.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We conducted a small retrospective observational study of 8 patients diagnosed with non-syndromic multiple hyperodontia. Multiple hyperdontia not associated to complex syndromes was defined as apparently generally healthy patients with one or more supernumerary teeth in two or more areas.

RESULTS
The average patient age was 16.23 years; males predominated (3:1). Multiple hyperodontia with a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 9 supernumerary teeth was found (total: 34 mean: 4.25). The most frequent location was the upper jaw (76.47%). Eumorphic teeth were seen at lower premolar level, while the rest were all heteromorphic. There was altered eruption of the contiguous teeth of 4 of the impacted supernumerary teeth all the rest being asymptomatic. Extraction was the treatment in all patients, and in one of them the delayed appearance of 4 supernumerary teeth was detected.

CONCLUSIONS
Multiple hyperodontia rarely occurs without being associated with complex syndromes. Prophylactic surgical removal of the supernumerary teeth is generally the treatment of choice.


Rice and fish are preferred foods, critical for healthy and nutritious diets, and provide the foundations of local and national economies across Asia. Although transformations, or "revolutions," in agriculture and aquaculture over the past half-century have primarily relied upon intensified monoculture to increase rice and fish production, agroecological approaches that support biodiversity and utilize natural processes are particularly relevant for achieving a transformation toward food systems with more inclusive, nutrition-sensitive, and ecologically sound outcomes. Rice and fish production are frequently integrated within the same physical, temporal, and social spaces, with substantial variation amongst the types of production practice and their extent. In Cambodia, rice field fisheries that strongly rely upon natural processes persist in up to 80% of rice farmland, whereas more input and infrastructure dependent rice-shrimp culture is expanding within the rice farmland of Vietnam. We demonstrate how a diverse suite of integrated production practices contribute to sustainable and nutrition-sensitive food systems policy, research, and practice. We first develop a typology of integrated production practices illustrating the nature and degree of: (a) fish stocking, (b) water management, (c) use of synthetic inputs, and (d) institutions that control access to fish. Second, we summarize recent research and innovations that have improved the performance of each type of practice. Third, we synthesize data on the prevalence, outcomes, and trajectories of these practices in four South and Southeast Asian countries that rely heavily on fish and rice for food and nutrition security. Focusing on changes since the food systems transformation brought about by the Green Revolution, we illustrate how integrated production practices continue to serve a variety of objectives to varying degrees: food and nutrition security, rural livelihood diversification and income improvement, and biodiversity conservation. Five shifts to support contemporary food system transformations [i.e., disaggregating (1) production practices and (2) objectives, (3) utilizing diverse metrics, (4) valuing emergent, place-based innovation, (5) building adaptive capacity] would accelerate progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 2, specifically through ensuring ecosystem maintenance, sustainable food production, and resilient agricultural practices with the capacity to adapt to global change.


Peter Nowell and David Hungerford's discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome facilitated many critical studies that have led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of cancer as a disease of stem cells. This Review focuses on the application of these concepts to investigation of the role of stem cells in prostate cancer initiation and progression. Major strides in the development of in vitro and in vivo assays have enabled identification and characterization of prostate stem cells as well as functional evaluation of the tumorigenic effects of prostate cancer-related genetic alterations.


Normalizing for atmospheric and land surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) effects is essential in satellite data processing. It is important both for a single scene when the combination of land covers, sun, and view angles create anisotropy and for multiple scenes in which the sun angle changes. As a consequence, it is important for inter-sensor calibration and comparison. Procedures based on physics-based models have been applied successfully with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. For Landsat and other higher resolution data, similar options exist. However, the estimation of BRDF models using internal fitting is not available due to the smaller variation of view and solar angles and infrequent revisits. In this paper, we explore the potential for developing operational procedures to correct Landsat data using coupled physics-based atmospheric and BRDF models. The process was realized using BRDF shape functions derived from MODIS with the MODTRAN 4 radiative transfer model. The atmospheric and BRDF correction algorithm was tested for reflectance factor estimation using Landsat data for two sites with different land covers in Australia. The Landsat reflectance values had a good agreement with ground based spectroradiometer measurements. In addition, overlapping images from adjacent paths in Queensland, Australia, were also used to validate the BRDF correction. The results clearly show that the algorithm can remove most of the BRDF effect without empirical adjustment. The comparison between normalized Landsat and MODIS reflectance factor also shows a good relationship, indicating that cross calibration between the two sensors is achievable.


A study involving ninety-eighty traditional cattle keepers was conducted in Namwala District areas with the objective of assessing changes in the value of cattle. The hypotheses were that different categories of cattle keepers within rural agro-pastoral communities are likely to respond differently to opportunities and constraints from cattle markets and that successful cattle keepers are likely to expand their production opportunities by ploughing capital obtained from proceeds of cattle sales while less successful ones withhold animals from the market unless there is an urgent need in order to realise a longer goal of stock accumulation. The results showed that financial security was ranked the first by 35.7 percent of the sample as the most important primary objective for keeping cattle. This is due to the changing economic environment resulting in an increase in the demand of money in the rural economy with available markets. In addition, following the establishment of commercial cattle buyers such as Zambeef and Starbeef, the socio-economic situation among the traditional cattle keepers has changed from mere accumulation of cattle for prestige and social standing in society to entering into the market economy. Increased cattle marketing has encouraged transformation in production goals for keeping cattle to acquiring universally accepted and prestigious items such as solar panels, television sets, vehicles, dip tanks, houses, fencing, retail shops etc. However, livestock production remains below its potential due to the effect of recurrent cattle diseases and climatic variability in which government and other stakeholders have come on board to help sustain livestock production.


In Venture Labor , we encounter resourceful and skilled groups of professionals dealing with a complex mixture of economic and noneconomic opportunity, risk, insecurity, and creative fulfillment. To navigate this shifting and fluid landscape, these professionals choose from among a set of contrasting strategies. Some of these strategies entail insecurity and risk, while others maximize opportunities for desired creative work or the chance to acquire economic wealth. In examining these strategies, Venture Labor unravels the mysteries of work under a form of individualizing capitalism still in its infancy.


This paper is a component of ongoing research by a team comprising an art school lecturer, a coordinator of dyslexic students' support, and psychologists interested in exploring correlations between drawing ability and factors such as mathematical ability, personality traits and dyslexia. It extends research by gathering and analysing data collected from art students at Swansea Metropolitan University and the Royal College of Art. The paper introduces a research strategy to explore the hypothesis that drawing ability correlates with mathematical ability, with the ultimate objective of developing inclusive strategies for the teaching of drawing.
Previously we have explored how difficulties with drawing relate to dyslexia (1). Although no direct relationship with dyslexia was found, other interesting results were: poor drawing related to poor visual memory and a reduced ability at copying angles and proportions, suggesting problems in spatial perception and memory. Other researchers (2) have reported that dyslexic children who are poor at maths tend to be less good at remembering the Rey-Osterrieth figure. We also noted that students with lower GCSE maths grades tended to be less good at drawing the Rey-Osterrieth figure. In the present, exploratory study we therefore looked at how ability at maths related to drawing ability.


Texture and composition of beach (154 samples) and fluvial (26 samples) sands collected between the Amsa and Amter villages (Rif Thrust-Belt, Morocco) are used to characterize the hinterland petrological provinces, their drainage patterns and dispersal pathways. Multivariate analytical techniques were carried out on the textural and compositional data. The analyzed sediments are usually coarse-grained, and locally medium to fine-grained sands, varying from well sorted and graded samples (Amsa river samples) to poorly sorted and graded samples (Oued Laou, Sidi Yahia Aarab and Kanar river samples). The relationships of the coarser one percentile (C) and the median value (M) on the C-M diagram suggest that transport processes are saltation and suspension for medium to fine grained sands, and bedload-traction and rolling for coarser sand and gravels. The morphology of quartz grains, mainly characterized by angular to sub-angular shapes with V-shaped cracks and conchoidal fractures, is the result of those transport processes. Two sand petrofacies were identified and reflect the main clastic contribution of source rocks belonging to the Internal Domain Units of the Rif Belt. Sands from beaches and related fluvial systems draining Ras Akaili, Tissouka, Dhar Nesk, and Beni Mezala Mountains, have a metamorphic-sedimenticlastic petrofacies (between the Amsa and Bouhmed area) and a metamorphic-ultramafic petrofacies (between the Bouhmed and Amter area), mainly derived from the Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks of the Ghomaride and Sebtide complexes.


While bitter manioc has been one of the most important staple crops in the central Amazon for thousands of years, there have been few studies of its cultivation in the fertile whitewater landscapes of this region. Anthropological research on bitter manioc cultivation in the Amazon has focused almost exclusively on long-fallow shifting cultivation in marginal upland areas of low soil fertility. This has contributed to the persistence of the oversimplified notion that because bitter manioc is well adapted to infertile upland soils; it cannot yield well in alluvial and/or fertile soils. I hypothesized that bitter manioc cultivation would be well adapted to the fertile soils of the whitewater landscapes of the central Amazon because of the centrality of this crop to subsistence in this region. In this article, I examine one such whitewater landscape, the middle Madeira River, Amazonas, Brazil, where smallholders cultivate bitter manioc on fertile Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) and floodplain soils, and on infertile Oxisols and Ultisols. In this region, cultivation on fertile soils tends to be short-cycled, characterised by short fallowing (0–6 years) and shorter cropping periods (5–12 months) with a predominance of low starch fast maturing "weak" landraces. By contrast, cultivation on infertile soils is normally long-cycled, characterised by longer fallows (>10 years) and longer cropping periods (1–3 years) with a predominance of high starch slow maturing "strong" landraces. This diversity in bitter manioc cultivation systems (landraces, fallow periods, soils) demonstrates that Amazonian farmers have adapted bitter manioc cultivation to the specific characteristics of the landscapes that they inhabit. I conclude that contrary to earlier claims, there are no ecological limitations on growing bitter manioc in fertile soils, and therefore the cultivation of this crop in floodplain and ADE soils would have been possible in the pre-Columbian period.


In this study, a crude ethanolic extract made of silver maple (Acer saccharinum L.) leaves (SML) was evaluated for antibacterial activity against the phytopathogenic bacteria Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, and Xanthomonas fragariae. The extract was shown to cause important inhibition zones against the three bacteria in the disc diffusion assays, revealing its antibacterial activity. The minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the extract was determined thereafter for each bacterium. The extract showed the same MIC value (1.56 mg·mL−1) for the three bacteria. Using a semipreparative high-performance liquid chromatography system, crude ethanolic SML extract was divided in 15 fractions and each fraction was tested for antibacterial activity against X. fragariae with the disc diffusion assay. Among the six fractions causing an inhibition zone, fraction 10 caused the largest inhibition. Fraction 10 was further analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. According to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, the main peak of fraction 10 was identified as a galloyl-bis-HHDP-glucose (C41H28O26, 936.6454 g·mol−1) isomer, an ellagitannin known for antibacterial activity and for stimulating plant natural defenses. The study opens new avenues of research on the valorization of SML and on the control of plant diseases caused by bacteria in organic and conventional production of horticultural crops.


President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Repealing it is relatively easy. Replacing it with something great is much trickier. The president has promised universal coverage and reduced deductibles and copayments, all within tight budgetary constraints. That is a tall order and unlikely to be filled by proposals that Republicans have offered thus far. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's blueprint (1) would rebrand the ACA's premium subsidies as tax credits (technically, the subsidies are already tax credits) and offer them to anyone lacking job-based coverageeven the wealthyreducing the funds available to subsidize premiums for lower-income persons in the United States. He would allow mini-med plans offering miniscule coverage and interstate sales of insurance, circumventing state-based consumer protections. And he would augment tax breaks for health savings accounts, a boon for persons in high tax brackets. Speaker Ryan would also end the long-standing federal commitment to match states' Medicaid spending, substituting block grants that state governments could divert to nonmedical purposes. Moreover, decoupling federal contributions from actual medical expenditures amounts to a sotto voce cut. For Medicare, he would trim federal spending by delaying eligibility until age 67 years; replace seniors' guaranteed benefits with vouchers to purchase coverage; and tie the vouchers' value to overall inflation, which lags behind health care inflation. In sum, Speaker Ryan's proposal, and a similar one from Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, would shrink the coverage of poor and low-income persons in the United States while maintaining (or expanding) outlays for some higher-income groups. That approach might save federal dollars by shifting costs onto patients and state budgets. But containing overall health care costs requires denting the revenues (and profits) of corporate giants that increasingly dominate carean unlikely outcome of policies that expand the role of private insurers and weaken public oversight. Although Republicans' proposals seem unlikely to achieve President Trump's triple aim (more coverage, better benefits, and lower costs), single-payer reform could. Such reform would replace the current welter of insurance plans with a single, public plan covering everyone for all medically necessary carein essence, an expanded and upgraded version of the traditional Medicare program (that is, not Medicare Advantage). The economic case for single-payer reform is compelling. Private insurers' overhead currently averages 12.4% versus 2.2% in traditional Medicare (2). Reducing overhead to Medicare's level would save approximately $220 billion this year (Table) (3). Single-payer reform could also sharply reduce billing and paperwork costs for physicians, hospitals, and other providers. For example, by paying hospitals lump-sum operating budgets rather than forcing them to bill per patient, Scotland and Canada have held hospital administrative costs to approximately 12% of their revenue versus 25.3% in the United States (4). Simplified, uniform billing procedures could reduce the money and time that physicians spend on billing-related documentation. Table. Estimated Administrative and Prescription Drug Savings Under Single-Payer Reform, 2017 All told, we estimate that single-payer reform could save approximately $504 billion annually on bureaucracy (Table). Any such estimate is imprecise; however, this figure is in line with Pozen and Cutler's estimate ($383 billion, updated to reflect health care inflation) (5), which excludes potential savings for providers other than physicians and hospitals. Additional savings could come from adopting the negotiating strategies that most nations with national health insurance use, which pay approximately one half what we do for prescription drugs. Of course, single-payer reform would bring added costs as well as savings. Full coverage would (and should) boost use for the 26 million persons in the United States who remain uninsured despite the ACA. And plugging the gaps in existing coverage (abolishing copayments and deductibles, covering such services as dental and long-term care that many policies exclude, and bringing Medicaid fees up to par) would further increase clinical expenditures. Studies provide imperfect guidance on the probable magnitude of changes in use under single-payer reform. Microlevel experiments indicate that when a few persons in a community gain full coverage, their use surges (6). But when many persons gain coverage, the fixed supply of physicians and hospitals constrains community-wide increases in use. For example, when Canada rolled out its single-payer program, the total number of physician visits changed little; increased visits for poorer, sicker patients were offset by small declines in visits for healthier, more affluent persons (7). Despite dire predictions of patient pileups, Medicare and Medicaid's start-up in 1966 similarly shifted care toward the poor but caused no net increase in use (8). Despite some uncertainties, analysts from government agencies and prominent consulting firms have concluded that administrative and drug savings would fully offset increased use, allowing universal, comprehensive coverage within the current health care budgetary envelope (9). International experience with single-payer reform provides further reassurance. It has been thoroughly vetted in Canada and other nations where access is better, costs are lower, and quality is similar to that in the United States. The potential health benefits from single-payer reform are more important than the economic ones. Being uninsured has mortal consequences. Covering the 26 million persons in the United States who are currently uninsured would probably save tens of thousands of lives annually. And underinsurance now endangers many more by, for example, delaying persons from seeking care for myocardial infarction or causing patients to skimp on cardiac or asthma medications. Single-payer reform would also free patients from the confines of narrow provider networks and lift the financial threat of illness, a frequent contributor to bankruptcy and the most common cause of serious credit problems. The ACA has helped millions. However, our health care system remains deeply flawed. Nine percent of persons in the United States are uninsured, deductibles are rising and networks narrowing, costs are again on the upswing, the pursuit of profit too often displaces medical goals, and physicians are increasingly demoralized. Reforms that move forward from the ACA are urgently needed and widely supported. Even two fifths of Republicans (and 53% of those favoring repeal of the ACA) would opt for single-payer reform (10). Yet, the current Washington regime seems intent on moving backward, threatening to replace the ACA with something far worse.


Nosocomial bacteremia is a major cause of hospital infection, associated with high rate of morbidity and mortality, prolonged hospital stay and higher costs. However, few prospective studies analyse the prognostic factors associated with mortality of gramnegative rods bloodstream infections in hospital wards outside of intensive care units. A prospective/descriptive study was conducted from March to December 2006. All patients with nosocomial-acquired bloodstream infection due to gramnegative rods were included. Epidemiology and clinical features were analysed as potential prognostic factors for mortality. During the study period, 84 cases were detected, being A. baumannii, Burkholderia sp and E. coli the most frequent isolates, with a mortality of 48%>. Bacteremia derived from a high-mortality associated septic focus (RR 4.9, IC95%> 1.3 - 18.8) and admission to intensive care unit (RR 4.78, IC95%> 1.7- 13.1) were independent variables associated with mortality. Inappropriate empirical antibiotic treatment was not associated with greater risk of mortality. Nosocomial gramnegative bloodstream infections in our series were mainly due to non-fermentative bacilli and were associated with high mortality rates when their origin was a high risk septic focus or the patient was admitted to intensive care unit.


Based on analysis of a bordering encounter that took place in the offices of the Latvian State Border Guard, I trace how bordering produces connections at the same time as it effects separations. Despite being separated by state-based lines of power, participants of the bordering encounter – all former Soviet citizens – recognised each other as 'normal people' striving to obtain a 'normal life'. This connection was enabled by historically formed understanding of shared conditions of life and critical awareness of global power hierarchies. The sociality formed during the bordering encounter invites a rethinking of how distribution of life is negotiated through bordering, and how politics is imagined in relation to borders.


ABSTRACT Syrinx is a newly developed PC-based software package designed for interactive playback of animal vocalizations and for digital sound recording and analysis in the lab or in the field. Syrinx permits flexible modeling of complex vocal interactions in an interactive playback setting. Large numbers of sounds can be stored on disk as digital wave files for instant recall in the field. The playback trial timer and real-time scrolling spectrographs display of microphone input facilitate the tailoring of playback responses to subtle changes in the vocalizations of playback subjects. Based on our field test of this software in an interactive playback experiment with Black-capped Chickadees Poecile atricapillus, we conclude that Syrinx is a versatile and user-friendly tool for performing interactive playback with a minimum of equipment.


The sources of visual information that must be present to correctly interpret spatial relations in images, the relative importance of different visual information sources with regard to metric judgments of spatial relations in images, and the ways that the task in which the images are used affect the visual information's usefulness are discussed. Cue theory, which states that the visual system computes the distances of objects in the environment based on information from the posture of the eyes and from the patterns of light projected onto the retinas by the environment, is presented. Three experiments in which the influence of pictorial cues on perceived spatial relations in computer-generated images was assessed are discussed. Each experiment examined the accuracy with which subjects matched the position, orientation, and size of a test object with a standard by interactively translating, rotating, and scaling the test object.<<ETX>>


A goal in precision medicine is to use patient-derived material to predict disease course and intervention outcomes. Here, we use mechanistic observations in a preclinical animal model to design an ex vivo platform that recreates genetic susceptibility to T cell-mediated damage. Intestinal graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a life-threatening complication of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). We found that intestinal GVHD in mice deficient in Atg16L1, an autophagy gene that is polymorphic in humans, is reversed by inhibiting necroptosis. We further show that co-cultured allogeneic T cells kill Atg16L1 mutant intestinal organoids from mice, which was associated with an aberrant epithelial interferon signature. Using this information, we demonstrate that pharmacologically inhibiting necroptosis or interferon signaling protects human organoids derived from individuals harboring a common ATG16L1 variant from allogeneic T cell attack. Our study provides a roadmap for applying findings in animal models to individualized therapy that targets affected tissues.


Create amazing Java GUI applications with this hands-on, fast-paced guide About This BookDevelop amazing gestures based applications and an interactive JavaFX application powered by leap motion devicesGet in touch with the right tools to rapidly develop your JavaFX application and give you essential hands-on experience with JavaFX 8A step-by-step guide with examples to help you develop applicationsWho This Book Is ForIf you are a Java developer, an experienced Java Swing, Flash/Flex, SWT, or web developer looking to take your client-side applications to the next level, this book is for you.What You Will Learn Deliver complex, compelling, and high performance JavaFX 8 applications with new impressive Java SE 8 core features and enhancements Run JavaFX applications on embedded devices such as Raspberry Pi Use Scene Builder to create and define UI screens graphically and save them as JavaFX FXML-formatted files Develop amazing gesture-based applications and an interactive touchless JavaFX application with Leap motion devices Get hands-on knowledge about mobile development and create native JavaFX applications for Apple iOS and Android platforms Use JavaFX with an Arduino board to develop desktop applications to monitor data coming from the real world or control real devices In DetailJavaFX is a software platform to create and deliver rich Internet applications (RIAs) that can run across a wide variety of devices.JavaFX Essentials will help you to design and build high performance JavaFX 8-based applications that run on a variety of devices.Starting with the basics of the framework, it will take you all the way through creating your first working application to discovering the core and main JavaFX 8 features, then controlling and monitoring your outside world. The examples provided illustrate different JavaFX and Java SE 8 features.This guide is an invaluable tutorial if you are planning to develop and create JavaFX 8 applications to run on a variety of devices and platforms.


Grinding wheels are usually manufactured by powder metallurgical processes, i.e. by moulding and sintering. Since this requires the production of special moulds and the sintering is typically carried out in a continuous furnace, this process is time-consuming and cost-intensive. Therefore, it is only worthwhile for medium and large batches. Another influencing factor of the powder metallurgical process route is the high thermal load during the sintering process. Due to their high thermal sensitivity, superabrasives such as diamond or cubic boron nitride are very difficult to process in this way. In this study, a novel and innovative approach is presented, in which superabrasive grinding wheels are manufactured by thermal spraying. For this purpose, flat samples as well as a grinding wheel body were coated by low-pressure (LP) cold gas spraying with a blend of a commercial Cu-Al2O3 cold gas spraying powder and nickel-coated diamonds (8-12 μm). The coatings were examined metallographically in terms of their composition. Afterwards, the grinding wheel was conditioned for the grinding application and the topography was evaluated. This novel process route offers great flexibility in the combination of binder and hard material as well as a costeffective single-part and small-batch production.


On December 7, 2018, the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the Delaware Court of Chancery's October 1, 2018 decision which held that Fresenius Kabi AG, a German pharmaceuticals company, had properly terminated its merger agreement with Akorn, Inc., a U.S. generic pharmaceuticals company. Akorn is the first time that a Delaware court has permitted the termination of a merger agreement on the basis of a material adverse effect, commonly known as a "MAC" or "MAE". While the Delaware courts have previously opined on the scope and effect of MAC provisions in public merger agreements, no buyer had previously been able to successfully terminate a merger agreement on such grounds. Akorn upends a longstanding view among practitioners that the Delaware courts will generally decline to recognise a MAC and demonstrates, that given sufficiently egregious facts and relevant merger agreement provisions, the Delaware courts will allow a buyer to walk away from a merger agreement based on changed circumstances or contractual breaches. Akorn also provides new insights and guidance on how Delaware courts may interpret MAC provisions as well as practical considerations relevant to M&A negotiations, merger agreement drafting, and how to handle unexpected negative developments going forward. The Delaware Supreme Court's twopage affirmation was as terse as the 246-page Court of Chancery opinion was exhaustive, so the discussion below is largely drawn from the latter opinion by Vice Chancellor Laster.


The 32 chapters of this book were prepared by participants in a "Tropical Pediatrics Update Course workshop" held during March and April of 1979 at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The primary intent of the course and publication of the lectures was to assist pediatricians working in tropical countries to "keep in touch with international opinion and advances in recent knowledge relevant to their sphere of interest and activity …." The editor and several of the authors have considerable experience in the field of pediatric problems in developing countries.
Dr. Hendrickse and colleagues have undertaken to fill a void in the information available to physicians practicing pediatrics in developing countries. The major textbooks of tropical medicine have addressed common pediatric problems in a cursory fashion. The major pediatrics textbooks usually have not provided in depth reviews of common problems and practical approaches to problem solving in developing countries.


Stirred tanks are typically used in many reactions. The quality of mixing generated by the impellers can be determined using either experimental and simulation methods, or both methods. The experimental techniques have evolved from traditional approaches, such as the application of hot-wire anemometry, to more modern ones like laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV). Similarly, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation techniques have attracted a lot of attention in recent years in the study of the hydrodynamics in stirred tanks, compared to the empirical modelling approach. Studies have shown that the LDV technique can provide very detailed information on the spatio-temporal variations in a tank, but the method is costly. For this reason, CFD simulation techniques may be employed to provide such data at a lower cost. In recent years, both integrated experimental and CFD approaches have been used to determine flow field and to design various systems. Both CFD and LDV data reveal the existence of flow maldistribution caused by system design features, and these in turn show that the configurations that have, over the years, been regarded as standard may not provide the optimal operating conditions with regards to the system homogeneity and power consumption. The current trends in CFD studies point towards an increasing application of more refined grids, such as in large eddy simulation, to capture turbulent structures at microscales. This trend will further improve the quality of the simulation results for processes such as precipitation, in which micromixing and reaction kinetics are important.


Abstract
 Services trade is an important source of growth in Malaysia and Singapore. Both economies are export-oriented and actively court foreign direct investment (FDI) to advance their economic objectives of industrialization and economic development. This paper examines the causal linkages between inward FDI and the country's engagement in services trade in bi-variate and tri-variate VAR frameworks. The empirical findings for Singapore show evidence of bi-directional causality between inward FDI and the total trade volume in services (i.e. the absolute sum of payments and receipts) as well as between FDI and services imports (in the tri-variate specification). This may reflect her relative open foreign investment policy and free trade regime in services. For Malaysia, the evidence of causality is weaker and uni-directional, from inward FDI to services imports. These findings are consistent with the different stages of economic development and openness attained by the two sample countries, and they provide useful background for trade and foreign investment policies and development strategies.


SUMMARY

Seismo-volcano source localization is essential to improve our understanding of eruptive dynamics and of magmatic systems. The lack of clear seismic wave phases prohibits the use of classical location methods. Seismic antennas composed of one-component (1C) seismometers provide a good estimate of the backazimuth of the wavefield. The depth estimation, on the other hand, is difficult or impossible to determine. As in classical seismology, the use of three-component (3C) seismometers is now common in volcano studies. To determine the source location parameters (backazimuth and depth), we extend the 1C seismic antenna approach to 3Cs. This paper discusses a high-resolution location method using a 3C array survey (3C-MUSIC algorithm) with data from two seismic antennas installed on an andesitic volcano in Peru (Ubinas volcano). One of the main scientific questions related to the eruptive process of Ubinas volcano is the relationship between the magmatic explosions and long-period (LP) swarms. After introducing the 3C array theory, we evaluate the robustness of the location method on a full wavefield 3-D synthetic data set generated using a digital elevation model of Ubinas volcano and an homogeneous velocity model. Results show that the backazimuth determined using the 3C array has a smaller error than a 1C array. Only the 3C method allows the recovery of the source depths. Finally, we applied the 3C approach to two seismic events recorded in 2009. Crossing the estimated backazimuth and incidence angles, we find sources located 1000 ± 660 m and 3000 ± 730 m below the bottom of the active crater for the explosion and the LP event, respectively. Therefore, extending 1C arrays to 3C arrays in volcano monitoring allows a more accurate determination of the source epicentre and now an estimate for the depth.


3-D computational modelling of the human spine provides a sophisticated and
cost-effective medium for bioengineers, researchers, and ergonomics designers
in order to study the biomechanical behaviour of the human spine under different
loading conditions. Developing a generic parametric computational human spine
model to be employed in biomechanical modelling introduces a considerable
potential to reduce the complexity of implementing and amending the intricate
spinal geometry. The main objective of this research is to develop a 3-D
parametric human spine model generation framework based on a command file
system, by which the parameters of each vertebra are read from the database
system, and then modelled within commercial 3-D CAD software. A novel data
acquisition and generation system was developed as a part of the framework for
determining the unknown vertebral dimensions, depending on the correlations
between the parameters estimated from existing anthropometrical studies in the
literature. The data acquisition system embodies a predictive methodology that
comprehends the relations between the features of the vertebrae by employing
statistical and geometrical techniques. Relations amongst vertebral parameters
such as golden ratio were investigated and successfully implemented into the
algorithms. The validation of the framework was carried out by comparing the
developed 3-D computational human spine models against various real life
human spine data, where good agreements were achieved. The constructed
versatile framework possesses the capability to be utilised as a basis for quickly
and effectively developing biomechanical models of the human spine such as
finite element models.


Background: Hepatocyte Paraffin 1 (Hep Par 1) was being extensively used to recognize the hepatocellular carcinomas, until recognition of its expression in tumors without hepatocellular differentiation. Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze if Hep Par 1 stain can serve as a specific marker of the small intestinal (SI) adenocarcinomas, versus other gastrointestinal tract (GIT) primary tumors. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective cross-sectional study, normal GIT mucosa (n - 60), corresponding adenocarcinomas (n - 60) and nodal metastatic foci (n - 60) from the same patients, including 10 cases each from the esophagus, stomach, SI periampullary region, colon, rectum, and gall bladder were included. H-score was calculated by multiplying the stain distribution and intensity scores. The H-scores were compared with other clinical and histological parameters. Results: While normal SI mucosa showed diffuse strong Hep Par 1 staining, normal esophageal and gastric epitheliums were negative and normal colon, rectal, and biliary epithelium showed weak focal positivity. Adenocarcinomas from all these sites, however, showed Hep Par 1 expression, irrespective of the tumor type, site or origin, and tumor stage. The corresponding metastatic sites also showed variable Hep Par 1 positivity, without any site specificity. Conclusion: Hep Par 1 stain cannot help to determine the exact site of origin of primary GIT tumors. Its expression in adenocarcinomas across the GIT and their metastatic foci proves that it cannot be regarded as a marker of SI differentiation, especially in malignancy.


Scientific papers generally include citations to external sources such as journal articles, books, or Web links to refer to works that are related in an important way to the research. The reason for the citation appears within the sentences surrounding the citation tag in the body text, and represents the relationship between the citation and cited works as supportive, contrastive, corrective, etc. This could be an important clue for researchers seeking relevant previous work or approaches for a certain research purpose. We propose to develop an automated method to identify the citing author's sentiments toward the cited external sources expressed in citation sentences using machine-learning techniques and linguistic cues. As a preliminary study, this paper presents a support vector machine (SVM)-based text categorization technique to classify the author's sentiments specifically toward Comment-on (CON) articles. CON, a MEDLINE citation field, indicates previously published articles commented on by authors of a given article expressing possibly complimentary or contradictory opinions. An SVM with a radial basis kernel function (RBF) is implemented, and Input feature vectors for the SVM are created based on n-grams word statistics representing the distribution of words in CON sentences. Experiments conducted on a set of CON sentences collected from 414 different online biomedical journal titles show that the SVM with a RBF yields the best result for an input feature vector combining uni-gram and bi-gram word statistics.


Carbon-rich grains are observed to condense in the ejecta of recent core-collapse supernovae (SNe) within a year after the explosion. Silicon carbide grains of type X are C-rich grains with isotopic signatures of explosive SN nucleosynthesis have been found in primitive meteorites. Much rarer silicon carbide grains of type C are a special sub-group of SiC grains from SNe. They show peculiar abundance signatures for Si and S, isotopically heavy Si, and isotopically light S, which appear to be in disagreement with model predictions. We propose that C grains are formed mostly from C-rich stellar material exposed to lower SN shock temperatures than the more common type X grains. In this scenario, extreme 32S enrichments observed in C grains may be explained by the presence of short-lived 32Si (τ1/2 = 153 yr) in the ejecta, produced by neutron capture processes starting from the stable Si isotopes. No mixing from deeper Si-rich material and/or fractionation of Si from S due to molecular chemistry is needed to explain the 32S enrichments. The abundance of 32Si in the grains can provide constraints on the neutron density reached during the SN explosion in the C-rich He shell material. The impact of the large uncertainty of the neutron capture cross sections in the 32Si region is discussed.


Water cluster formation and methane adsorption within a hydrophobic porous metal organic framework is studied by in situ vibrational spectroscopy, adsorption isotherms, and first-principle DFT calculations (using vdW-DF). Specifically, the formation and stability of H2O clusters in the hydrophobic cavities of a fluorinated metal-organic framework (FMOF-1) is examined. Although the isotherms of water show no measurable uptake (see Yang et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011 , 133 , 18094 ), the large dipole of the water internal modes makes it possible to detect low water concentrations using IR spectroscopy in pores in the vicinity of the surface of the solid framework. The results indicate that, even in the low pressure regime (100 mTorr to 3 Torr), water molecules preferentially occupy the large cavities, in which hydrogen bonding and wall hydrophobicity foster water cluster formation. We identify the formation of pentameric water clusters at pressures lower than 3 Torr and larger clusters beyond that pressure. The binding energy of the water species to the walls is negligible, as suggested by DFT computational findings and corroborated by IR absorption data. Consequently, intermolecular hydrogen bonding dominates, enhancing water cluster stability as the size of the cluster increases. The formation of water clusters with negligible perturbation from the host may allow a quantitative comparison with experimental environmental studies on larger clusters that are in low concentrations in the atmosphere. The stability of the water clusters was studied as a function of pressure reduction and in the presence of methane gas. Methane adsorption isotherms for activated FMOF-1 attained volumetric adsorption capacities ranging from 67 V(STP)/V at 288 K and 31 bar to 133 V(STP)/V at 173 K and 5 bar, with an isosteric heat of adsorption of ca. 14 kJ/mol in the high temperature range (288-318 K). Overall, the experimental and computational data suggest high preferential uptake for methane gas relative to water vapor within FMOF-1 pores with ease of desorption and high framework stability under operative temperature and moisture conditions.


Like many other G protein-coupled receptors that induce diverse cellular responses, the metabotropic glutamate receptor α (mGluR1α) can simultaneously activate multiple signaling cascades in neuronal and glial cells where the receptors are expressed. This is based on the receptor's ability to couple to the Gq/11 subunit, thereby activating the IP3/Ca2+ pathway, and to the Gs subunit, which stimulates the cAMP pathway. Francesconi and Duvoisin show that desensitization of the IP3/Ca2+ pathway is a selective process mediated by protein kinase C (PKC). In contrast, PKC had no effect on receptor signaling through cAMP. However, activation of protein kinase A (PKA) enhanced IP3 signaling, even in the absence of agonist. The selectivity of PKC's effects arises from the phosphorylation of a threonine residue on the receptor that disrupts Gq/11 interaction with mGluR1α without altering signaling through Gs. Hence, activation of PKC consequent to signaling through IP3 induces feedback inhibition that is specific only to this activation pathway. Francesconi, A., and Duvoisin, R.M. (2000) Opposing effects of protein kinase C and protein kinase A on metabotropic glutamate receptor signaling: Selective desensitization of the inositol trisphosphate/Ca2+ pathway by phosphorylation of the receptor-G protein-coupling domain. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97: 6185-6190. [Abstract] [Full Text]


Global climate change is here. According to recent scientific reports, the earth has warmed by nearly half a degree centigrade over the last twenty five years. Even with robust mitigation efforts, the global climate could warm by up to 4 degrees centigrade due to past emissions. Under a business-as-usual, high consumption fossil fuel-based development path, it could warm even more, resulting in catastrophic and life-threatening destruction of earth's eco-systems. The "climate imperative"—the urgent need to both mitigate and adapt to global climate change—has important implications for economic development paths in general and industry and energy policies in particular. Development models and practice historically have treated climate—and indeed, the natural environment in general—as exogenous. Future development models will need to incorporate both climactic uncertainty and the economic threats and opportunities arising from an evolving global climate regime. Developing countries, which are especially vulnerable to climate instability, will need to design energy and industry policies which aim to achieve not only economic and social objectives but which also enhance climate resilience. This paper explores the broad contours of climate resilient industrial development paths. It defines development as an increase in local capacities for production and innovation and argues that the overarching goal of development is the generation of sustainable livelihoods. It suggests that. to be climate resilient, industry policies should have four key design features: 1) they are pro-active; 2) they promote industrial diversification; 3) they focus on mobilizing investment in environmentally sustainable industries and infrastructure, including low-carbon and renewable energy; 4) they are highly responsive to local geo-physical conditions and are based on principles of adaptive management; and 5) they are designed, implemented and governed via accountable partnerships involving government, business, and community actors. The paper evaluates three development macro-models—neo-liberal, sustainable globalization, and new developmental—against the five design principles and finds that aspects of both climate vulnerability and climate-resilience are embodied in each. The paper concludes that responding to the climate imperative will require not a new synthesized one-size-fits-all model but a multiplicity of economic development paths. The effort to articulate the theory and praxis of such paths has barely begun.


We present a novel class of projected methods, to perform statistical analysis on a data set of probability distributions on the real line, with the 2-Wasserstein metric. We focus in particular on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and regression. To define these models, we exploit a representation of the Wasserstein space closely related to its weak Riemannian structure, by mapping the data to a suitable linear space and using a metric projection operator to constrain the results in the Wasserstein space. By carefully choosing the tangent point, we are able to derive fast empirical methods, exploiting a constrained B-spline approximation. As a byproduct of our approach, we are also able to derive faster routines for previous work on PCA for distributions. By means of simulation studies, we compare our approaches to previously proposed methods, showing that our projected PCA has similar performance for a fraction of the computational cost and that the projected regression is extremely flexible even under misspecification. Several theoretical properties of the models are investigated and asymptotic consistency is proven. Two real world applications to Covid-19 mortality in the US and wind speed forecasting are discussed.


Introduction: This article presents a case of Angle Class II division 1 with completed treatment. We used improved super-elastic Ti–Ni alloy wire (ISW) and the modified multiloop edgewise arch wire (MEAW) technique to create space and to relieve anterior and posterior crowding in an adult female patient with poor dental alignment and facial asymmetry. Intermaxillary elastics were also used to improve the mandibular position and intercuspal interdigitation. The patient was treated by crowding relief, facial asymmetry correction, the MEAW technique, and overjet reduction.

Findings: The patient was treated successfully using ISW.

Conclusion: In this case, we rapidly corrected poor dental alignment by using ISW and the MEAW technique. Compared with conventional stainless steel wire treatment, ISW provides an efficient and easy approach to correct such malocclusion. Successful treatment outcomes were attained, and the patient was pleased with the treatment results.


The Eskisehir magnesite deposits (Suleymaniye, Margi, and Tutluca) are located in the western part of the Izmir-Ankara Suture Zone, northwestern Turkey. These vein and stockwork type magnesite deposits, which occur along major and minor fault systems, are hosted by Alpine-type ultramafic rocks. The purpose of this study was to understand the origin of the hydrothermal waters responsible and the source of carbon dioxide, and to compare these deposits with similar magnesite occurrences in Turkey and elsewhere. Petrographic and XRD analyses indicate that magnesite was the major carbonate mineral formed. Deposits are predominantly micritic and locally microsparitic, but some also contain secondary calcite and dolomite. The delta13C (V-PDB) values of the Suleymaniye magnesites (-2.7%o to -7.7%o), the Margi magnesites (-7.6%o to -11.2%o), and the Tutluca magnesites (-8.7%o to -10.4%o) indicate that sources of carbon may include atmospheric carbon, dissolved inorganic carbon, freshwater carbonate, and mantle derived CO2. The delta18O (SMOW) compositions of the magnesite range from 27.4%o to 30.8%o and show that the oxygen was derived from marine limestone and metamorphic rocks. The Suleymaniye magnesites have heavier carbon isotopic values than the others because of the greater contribution of mantle sourced CO2, while oxygen isotopic values were similar to those of other altered ultramafic related magnesites in Europe (Former Yugoslavia, Greece). The Margi and the Tutluca magnesite deposits have carbon and oxygen isotopic values similar to those of other ultramafic-related magnesite deposits. Based on isotopic data, we argue that the magnesite deposits in the Eskisehir area formed in a near surface environment at low pressure and temperature. The estimated temperature, using average delta18O values, suggests that magnesite was precipitated from water at 37 °C.


This paper considers the development of closed loop regulation algorithm for membranes, based on the traveling wave approach. The membrane is modeled by a combination of modal decomposition in one spatial axis and transfer functions in the other. The transfer functions are irrational and are shown to represent the wave motion in the system. A dedicated closed loop control algorithm is designed to eliminate the wave reflections in the control axis, achieving by this attenuation of external disturbances. The resulting controllers are irrational as well, and approximations are used to implement them.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Introduction New-onset hypertension affects approximately 10% of pregnancies and is associated with a significant increase in risk of cardiovascular disease in later life, with blood pressure measured 6 weeks postpartum predictive of blood pressure 5–10 years later. A pilot trial has demonstrated that improved blood pressure control, achevied via self-management during the puerperium, was associated with lower blood pressure 3-4 years postpartum. Physician Optimised Post-partum Hypertension Treatment (POP-HT) will formally evaluate whether improved blood pressure control in the puerperium results in lower blood pressure at 6 months post partum, and improvements in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular phenotypes. Methods and analysis POP-HT is an open-label, parallel arm, randomised controlled trial involving 200 women aged 18 years or over, with a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia or gestational hypertension, and requiring antihypertensive medication at discharge. Women are recruited by open recruitment and direct invitation around time of delivery and randomised 1:1 to, either an intervention comprising physician-optimised self-management of postpartum blood pressure or, usual care. Women in the intervention group upload blood pressure readings to a 'smartphone' app that provides algorithm-driven individualised medication-titration. Medication changes are approved by physicians, who review blood pressure readings remotely. Women in the control arm follow assessment and medication adjustment by their usual healthcare team. The primary outcome is 24-hour average ambulatory diastolic blood pressure at 6–9 months post partum. Secondary outcomes include: additional blood pressure parameters at baseline, week 1 and week 6; multimodal cardiovascular assessments (CMR and echocardiography); parameters derived from multiorgan MRI including brain and kidneys; peripheral macrovascular and microvascular measures; angiogenic profile measures taken from blood samples and levels of endothelial circulating and cellular biomarkers; and objective physical activity monitoring and exercise assessment. An additional 20 women will be recruited after a normotensive pregnancy as a comparator group for endothelial cellular biomarkers. Ethics and dissemination IRAS PROJECT ID 273353. This trial has received a favourable opinion from the London—Surrey Research Ethics Committee and HRA (REC Reference 19/LO/1901). The investigator will ensure that this trial is conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and follow good clinical practice guidelines. The investigators will be involved in reviewing drafts of the manuscripts, abstracts, press releases and any other publications arising from the study. Authors will acknowledge that the study was funded by the British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Training Fellowship (BHF Grant number FS/19/7/34148). Authorship will be determined in accordance with the ICMJE guidelines and other contributors will be acknowledged. Trial registration number NCT04273854.


Introduction: Previous studies of bone stresses in the human lumbar spine have relied on simplified models when modeling the spinal musculature, even though muscle forces are likely major contributors to the stresses in the vertebral bones. Detailed musculoskeletal spine models have recently become available and show good correlation with experimental findings. A combined inverse dynamics and finite element analysis study was conducted in the lumbar spine to investigate the effects of muscle forces on a detailed musculoskeletal finite element model of the 4 th lumbar vertebral body. Materials and Methodology: The muscle forces were computed with a detailed and validated inverse dynamics musculoskeletal spine model in a lifting situation, and were then applied to an orthotropic finite element model of the 4 th lumbar vertebra. The results were compared with those from a simplified load case without muscles. Results: In general the von Mises stress was larger by 30 %, and even higher when looking at the von Mises stress distribution in the superio-anterior and central part of the vertebral body and in the pedicles. Conclusion: The application of spine muscles to a finite element model showed markedly larger von Mises stress responses in the central and anterior part of the vertebral body, which can be tolerated in the young and healthy spine, but it would increase the risk of compression fractures in the elderly, osteoporotic spine.


The purpose of the current article is to present to the scientific and educational community the procedure of an investigation, its later adaptation and its implementation from the area of physical education in pre-school, primary education and secondary education. This article shows the procedure followed in order to approach from the P.E. classroom the universal novel entitled, The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote from La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes, through the traditional games that appear in this novel.In order to achieve our goals, we first of all had to identify the traditional games within the novel. Once those popular games were located in the novel and we learned how to play them, we adapted them to the different characteristics of various educational contexts and designed a proposal of educational intervention, so that we could put the games into practice for the aforementioned educational stages. From our discipline, physical education, we are going to work out the motor-function contents within the curriculum by means of the popular and traditional games that appear in the novel. By doing this, we will introduce our students to the study and knowledge of their own history and tradition. In addition to this, we will also contribute to the diffusion of the culture and the region of La Mancha in Spain to other students worldwide.


The European Commission's rejection of the GE/Honeywell merger in July 2001, a deal that the United States Department of Justice had already approved, highlights the dangers that multinational companies face as antitrust laws proliferate around the globe. Although American and European regulators generally agree on enforcement actions, the GE/Honeywell case revealed some important differences in substantive and procedural approaches to antitrust enforcement. U.S. antitrust laws are enforced in the courts, where the burden generally falls to the enforcement agencies (or other plaintiffs) to demonstrate anti-competitive harm. U.S. courts have espoused several core principles that guide antitrust enforcement in the United States. First, the sole purpose of antitrust laws is to protect consumers. Second, antitrust laws should not be used to protect businesses from competition. Third, unfettered competition generally benefits consumers even when a single firm captures most or all of the market. In Europe, by contrast, the Commission acts as prosecutor, judge, and jury. The process gives greater voice to competitors and limits the ability of companies to respond to allegations presented by their rivals. In addition, the Commission, which employs fewer economists than its counterparts in the U.S., has embraced economic theories such as "conglomerate effects" that protect competitors at the expense of consumers. As multilateral discussions about international competition policy commence, the United States should bare in mind two points. First, the conflicts between the United States and Europe over antitrust enforcement are not about the protection of national interests. Second, the European Commission has generally been a progressive force in the EU. However, as the Commission becomes a more aggressive regulator, more disputes along the lines of GE/Honeywell are likely to occur, and the United States must continue to emphasize the core principles of antitrust policy.


The adoption of Domain-Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) for generating framework-based applications has proved to be an effective way of enforcing the correct use of frameworks and improve the productivity of application developers. However, the development of the code generator of a DSML is typically a laborious task with difficulties in what concerns complexity, understandability, and maintainability. In this paper, we address this problem with a new approach for developing DSMLs for frameworks that allows to eliminate the need of implementing code generators. The approach relies on the extension of frameworks with an additional layer based on aspect-oriented programming that encodes a DSML. By means of a generic language workbench, framework-based applications can be generated from application models described in that DSML. The proposed language workbench was implemented in a prototype tool and a case study on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform was performed.


Islamic banks have performed remarkably well despite the limitations of their ethical parameters have developed significantly during their relatively short existence. The Western world's attention was particularly drawn to Islamic finance during the 2007 financial crisis when Islamic banks outperformed conventional banks in terms of profitability, asset growth, liquidity and solvency. The comparative performance between Islamic and conventional banks in the face of the financial crisis deserves special attention for two main reasons. It is the first time that an investment universe, restricted by the Islamic Law, has outperformed the conventional system. Secondly, the predominance within the Gulf states of the Islamic banking sector, has made the GCC region more resilient to the recent financial crisis. The 2007 financial crisis has been the first time that the region maintains a positive economic growth amidst falling oil prices. Economic policy measures such as the revenue diversification programme and the subsequent development of a strong financial sector have paid off. The Islamic banking sector and its contributions to the GCC's economic endurance through the recent crisis warrants interest. The thesis starts by investigating two specific topics; the technical efficiency and failure risk of Islamic banks. Building from a somewhat rudimentary basic of a few years ago, in terms of know-how, restrictions, managerial competencies, Islamic banks have managed to close the gap with conventional banks. Their significant rise in techni- cal efficiency is attributable to higher revenue and profit efficiency scores, achieved by improvements in human resources, compared to conventional banks. To the best of our knowledge this research is distinct in that it encompasses bootstrap tests for the equality of means testing in the context of financial ratio analysis and a metafrontier decomposition of the DEA efficiency scores into; a managerial component and to the modus operandi of the bank. The efficiency of the Islamic banking system together with its investment restrictions not only shows in lower failure risk but also in the composition of a unique financial product whose characteristics are radically different to products of conventional banking. In particular, different sensitivities exist between the two banking systems in regard to failure risk. In addition, Islamic banks are less likely to be affected by contagion effects found with conventional banking. The study offers the first application of survival analysis in comparing the failure risk of Islamic and conventional banks. From comparisons between the financial sector (stock markets) of the GCC against developed and developing countries, we show that the GCC were among the last countries to be affected by the 2007 financial crisis. Furthermore, they recovered much faster than financial systems of many other countries. The predominance of Islamic banking in the region with its principles on risk-sharing, investments in real assets and the shunning of conventional debt instruments, has helped the GCC to weather the crisis. The chapter contributes to the literature in a number of ways. First it allows for every country an endogenous way of detecting the timing of the crisis. Other studies have taken the route of exogenously imposing a crisis date. Secondly it introduces measures of crisis duration and intensity of the crisis on every country while it distinguishes between global and regional contagion effects.


Lenny and Lola journey deep into the earth, encountering rabbits snuggled in their burrows, underground trains and dinosaur bones. They keep digging, and digging until they pop out on the other side of the world! With delightful illustrations, easy-to-read text and fun puzzles at the end of the book. Part of the First Reading series for beginner readers.


With the technological advancements, organizations are adopting advanced technologies to compete well in the global environment. For this, Business Intelligence (BI) has changed the mindset of organizations to think about technological adoption. But research shows that due to various reasons, BI usage all around the world is not the same and there is not enough research has been conducted in this area. Specifically, there is need to perform indepth analysis of root causes of such difference of BI usage in developing countries like Pakistan. This research investigates a case of BI adoption at a Pakistan based multinational company in the prospect of BI adoption drivers, benefits, challenges and current BI adoption scenario in Pakistan. Furthermore, different BI adoption aspects have been highlighted by comparing collected results with BI adoption maturity framework. Research results shows that selected organization is in "Experienced" phase of BI adoption maturity and transiting towards transformed phase. Also, research highlights many important aspects in each BI adoption prospective and gives further pathway towards future research.


The First Amendment's prohibition on prior restraints on speech is generally understood to be near-absolute. The doctrine permits prior restraints in only a handful of circumstances, and tends to require compelling evidence of their necessity. The focus of this Article is the source of an unexpected but important challenge to this doctrine: government surveillance in the digital age. Recent litigation about the constitutionality of the Stored Communications Act (SCA) highlights that challenge. The SCA authorizes the government both to obtain a person's stored internet communications from a service provider and to seek a gag order preventing the provider from even notifying the person of that fact. Though the government did not ultimately prevail in the litigation, the case provides a renewed opportunity to consider the tension between prior restraint doctrine and the government's digital surveillance efforts.
This Article does that, offering three arguments. First, gag orders issued under the SCA ought to be treated like classic prior restraints that are valid in all but the rarest of cases. Second, the SCA cannot pass constitutional muster even under a more traditional strict scrutiny standard. Third, and independently, the procedure that the statute creates for obtaining a gag order is constitutionally deficient. In a concluding section, the Article considers the government's revised stance on SCA gag orders, and suggests an alternative construction of the statute that may avoid constitutional problems.


The French fast reactor prototype Phénix was put into commercial operation in 1974. The total time of power operation of the plant is [approximately]100000 h representing 3860 equivalent fuel power days (EFPD). With the initial objective of the demonstration of fast breeder reactors achieved, since the early 1990s, the role of the reactor as an irradiation facility has been emphasized, particularly in support of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique research and development program on long-lived radioactive waste transmutation. This new objective required an extension of the planned reactor lifetime. A major renovation program was carried out in the plant from 1994 to 2003, involving safety upgrading, component inspections and repairs, and the 10-yr statutory maintenance. The main work consisted of the addition of a backup control rod to the reactor; improvement of earthquake protection by reinforcement of buildings and components and replacement of the emergency water cooling circuit; improvement of protection against sodium fire by partitioning the secondary sodium circuit in the steam generator building, reinforcement of steam generator casing, and installation of an antiwhip system on the high-pressure steam pipes; replacement of hot parts of the 321 stainless steel secondary loops and steam generator modules, affected by delayed reheat cracking; special inspections of the reactor internal structures to demonstrate their good condition. An extensive plant requalification program was carried out following the renovation work, and the plant resumed power operation in June 2003. Six operating cycles are planned, representing a total irradiation time of 720 EFPD equivalent to [approximately]5.5 yr of operation.


This paper introduces a new embedded nonintrusive fiber-monitoring technique for time-division-multiplexing optical networks. It allows an optical transmitter to characterize the fiber plant from reflections caused by data bursts transmitted across the network instead of dedicated test signals. The probing is performed with minimal burden on data traffic so that many measurements can be averaged to improve accuracy. The method is very suitable for embedded optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDR), which reuse a network node's optical data transmitter for OTDR excitations and embed a reflectometer inside the fiber endpoint. This paper models the OTDR with Laplace transforms, an approach previously unpursued, after which it is explained how reflections from multiple data bursts with arbitrary width can be converted into one normalized format. This new class of OTDR excites the fiber with a negative step of light instead of the conventional short pulse. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for backscatter and Fresnel reflections caused by the negative step and pulse are compared theoretically. It is shown that negative-step OTDR breaks the tradeoff between excitation pulsewidth and distance resolution, has a natural separation between fiber backscatter and Fresnel reflectors, and improves the SNR of nonreflective events


This article illuminates one key finding of an interpretive phenomenological study that brought an occupational lens to exploring how elders experience being aged in their everyday lives. Fifteen community-dwelling, New Zealand elders aged 71 to 97, 4 Māori and 11 non-Māori, were purposively recruited. Data were gathered through individual interviews focused on stories of everyday moments and photographs of the participant's hands while engaged in a chosen occupation. Discrete stories were drawn from the narrative data and interpreted, guided by Gadamerian hermeneutics and Heideggerian phenomenology. The notion of 'doing what matters' emerged as participants spoke of having one occupation that was of primary importance to them. This one compelling pursuit showed as an enduring interest over time, illuminating the temporal unity of past, present and future in advanced age. Accordingly, the boundaries of researching occupational engagement in advanced age ought to be redefined. Instead of a current emphasis on understanding elders' participation in daily activities, activity categories and patterns, occupational science research might deepen the focus to understand how engagement in subjectively compelling occupations is associated with ageing well and longevity.


A comprehensive and insightful guide to the art of fly fishing, The New American Trout Fishing provides a mix of advice and distilled science born of decades of experience and research by one of America's top fly fishermen. A short history of fly fishing in America is followed by a detailed, modern look at the ecology of American trout streams - essential information for anyone wishing to catch more and larger trout more often. The next six chapters provide extensive profiles of brook, brown, cutthroat, and rainbow trout, as well as a revealing and helpful look at the behavioral basis for the trouts' well-known tendency to feed selectively while often ignoring an angler's best efforts at catching them. There are detailed discussions on what's new in fly rods, lines, and leaders, along with instruction on specialized casting techniques tailored to what's newest in tackle. The fundamentals of aquatic entomology get a refreshing, new look, together with a review of fly tying in theory and practice. Additional and separate chapters provide detailed, on-the-stream directions for fishing major artificial-fly types - dry, wets, nymphs, emergers, streamers, and terrestrials. Advice on fishing special situations - small streams, high and low water - is followed by appendixes with instructions for tying the trout fisherman's essential knots, and the dressing for tying ninety-four of the most important trout flies - all shown in full color. Already acclaimed as the "ultimate answer book, " this remarkably engaging work is richly illustrated with angling anecdotes from California to Maine. Whether you've just bought your first rod or have been on the stream for years, The New American Trout Fishingis a necessary read and singular reference.


An increasing amount of evidence suggests that in mouse there are two signalling centres required for the formation of a complete neural axis: the anterior visceral endoderm (AVE), and the node and its derivatives. Embryological and genetic studies suggest that the AVE has a head-inducing activity. In contrast, the node appears to act first as a head inducer in synergy with the AVE initiating anterior neural patterning at early stages of mouse development, and later, node derivatives are necessary for maintenance and embellishment of anterior neural character. Hex and Hesx1 are homeobox genes that are expressed in relevant tissues involved in anterior patterning. The analysis of the Hex and Hesx1 mutant mice has revealed that the lack of these genes has little or no effect on the early steps of anterior neural induction. However, both genes are required subsequently for the proper expansion of the forebrain region. We suggest that disturbance in the specification of an Fgf8 signalling centre in the anterior neural ridge may account for the anterior defects observed in these mutants.


A blockchain is an institutional technology—a protocol—that allows for economic coordination between agents separated by boundaries of possible mistrust. Blockchains are not the only technology in history to have these characteristics. The paper looks at the role of the diplomatic protocol at the very beginning of human civilisation in the ancient near east. These two protocols—diplomatic and blockchain—have significant similarities. They were created to address to similar economic problems using similar mechanisms: a permanent record of past dealings, public and ritualistic verification of transactions, and game-theoretic mechanisms of reciprocity. The development of the diplomatic protocol allowed for the creation of the first international community and facilitated patterns of peaceful trade and exchange. Some questions about a generalised 'protocol economics' are drawn.


Title: PRE-VERBAL STRUCTURE BUILDING IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND BASQUE Leticia Pablos, PhD in Linguistics, 2006 Directed By: Professor Colin Phillips Professor Juan Uriagereka Department of Linguistics. The main goal of the work in this dissertation is to investigate pre-verbal structure building effects in languages with different configurations such as Spanish, Galician and Basque, by means of using different pre-verbal cues in order to show that syntactic structure can be both interpreted and anticipated before the verbal head. I examine the syntax of Clitic-Left Dislocations (CLLDs) and other kinds of left-dislocations in Spanish and then analyze their processing. I concentrate on the use of clitic pronouns in Spanish and Galician in CLLD constructions that require the presence of the clitic pronoun to interpret the left-dislocated phrase and where I examine if this left-dislocation is interpreted at the clitic pronoun. Experimental results from three self-paced reading experiments provide evidence that the clitic in these constructions is required and used to interpret the thematic features of the topicalized NP before the verb. Thus, I demonstrate that clitic pronouns are used as pre-verbal cues in parsing and that the active search mechanism is also triggered in long-distance dependencies involving clitic pronouns. I conclude that the active search mechanism is a more general architectural mechanism of the parser that is triggered in all kinds of long-distance dependencies, regardless of whether the search is triggered by gaps or pronouns. In Basque, verbal auxiliaries overtly encode agreement information that reflects the number of arguments of the verbal head. In negatives, auxiliaries are obligatorily fronted and split from the verbal head with which they otherwise form a cluster. Thus, verbal auxiliaries in Basque are a pre-verbal morphological cue that can assist the parser in predicting structure. Specifically, I examine how predictions for the upcoming structure of the sentence are determined by agreement information on the number of arguments specified in the auxiliary and by the mismatch of this auxiliary with the case features of the NP that follows it. I provide results from a selfpaced reading experiment to argue that the parser uses the information encoded in the auxiliaries and demonstrate that the mismatch of the auxiliary with the following NP can prevent the reader from following a garden-path analysis of the sentence. PRE-VERBAL STRUCTURE BUILDING IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES AND BASQUE


There are few things Jeremy Marsh was sure he'd never do: he'd never leave New York City; never give his heart away again after barely surviving one failed marriage; and most of all, never become a parent. Now, Jeremy is living in the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, married to Lexie Darnell, the love of his life, and anticipating the birth of their daughter. But just as his life seems to be settling into a blissful pattern, an unsettling and mysterious message re-opens old wounds and sets off a chain of events that will forever change the course of this young couple's marriage ...


Relay ramps can act as conduits for fluid flow in producing hydrocarbon reservoirs, but the two bounding faults are often at the limit of seismic resolution. To study the impact of relay ramps and their fluid composition on seismic data, we present an integrated workflow combining flow simulation in a geomodel of an outcrop relay ramp, forward seismic modelling and seismic-attribute-based volume extraction. In the chosen outcrop of the Arches National Park (Utah, USA), the petrophysical properties are conditioned by deformation bands present in the sandstone, and are used to run a simple water injector–oil producer fluid-flow simulation. Pre-stack depth-migration seismic images are obtained at t = 0, t1 = 10 and t2 = 20 years of the flow simulation. The seismic image porosity changes at t = 0 when the model is oil-saturated, whereas the water–oil contacts have stronger amplitude contrasts at later stages. With an adapted attribute-based workflow, we are able to extract geobodies corresponding to the faults and the relay ramp from the three seismic cubes. By varying workflow parameters, we also show reservoir and acquisition conditions that can affect the resolution of the relay ramp on the seismic image either positively or negatively.


Drought‐ and insect‐associated tree mortality at low‐elevation ecotones is a widespread phenomenon but the underlying mechanisms are uncertain. Enhanced growth sensitivity to climate is widely observed among trees that die, indicating that a predisposing physiological mechanism(s) underlies tree mortality. We tested three, linked hypotheses regarding mortality using a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) elevation transect that experienced low‐elevation mortality following prolonged drought. The hypotheses were: (1) mortality was associated with greater growth sensitivity to climate, (2) mortality was associated with greater sensitivity of gas exchange to climate, and (3) growth and gas exchange were correlated. Support for all three hypotheses would indicate that mortality results at least in part from gas exchange constraints. We assessed growth using basal area increment normalized by tree basal area [basal area increment (BAI)/basal area (BA)] to account for differences in tree size. Whole‐crown gas exchange was indexed via estimates of the CO2 partial pressure difference between leaf and atmosphere (pa−pc) derived from tree ring carbon isotope ratios (δ13C), corrected for temporal trends in atmospheric CO2 and δ13C and elevation trends in pressure. Trees that survived the drought exhibited strong correlations among and between BAI, BAI/BA, pa−pc, and climate. In contrast, trees that died exhibited greater growth sensitivity to climate than trees that survived, no sensitivity of pa−pc to climate, and a steep relationship between pa−pc and BAI/BA. The pa−pc results are consistent with predictions from a theoretical hydraulic model, suggesting trees that died had a limited buffer between mean water availability during their lifespan and water availability during drought – i.e., chronic water stress. It appears that chronic water stress predisposed low‐elevation trees to mortality during drought via constrained gas exchange. Continued intensification of drought in mid‐latitude regions may drive increased mortality and ecotone shifts in temperate forests and woodlands.


There is a nearly continuous record of magmatism through the Late Cretaceous–early Paleogene in Idaho and adjacent areas of Oregon and Montana, including the various phases of the Idaho batholith. We suggest that much of this magmatic record, however, has been obscured by subsequent tectonic deformation, erosion, and magmatic disruption and cannibalization, the latter of which can be tracked by zircon inheritance. Specifically, a mid-Cretaceous magmatic arc was significantly deformed by the western Idaho shear zone and intruded by the 83–67 Ma Atlanta peraluminous suite of the Idaho batholith. The northern part of the Atlanta peraluminous suite was, in turn, intruded by the 65–55 Ma Bitterroot lobe of the Idaho batholith. Consequently, the present age distribution of magmatism is strongly biased toward the youngest phases of plutonism; much of the older phases were destroyed by tectonic, magmatic, and erosional processes. The destruction of granitic batholiths may characterize Cordilleran-style orogens worldwide, which can lead to significant underestimates of magmatic fluxes.


Succession Planning Strategies in the Air National Guard to Retain Skilled Workers by Daniel Rodarte MS.HR, Chapman University, 2004 BA, St. Martins University, 2001 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration Walden University April 2017 Abstract The military faces unprecedented limitation of resources due to fiscal cuts through all branches of service. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore succession planning (SP) strategies used by Air National Guard leaders to retain skilled workers. The target population consisted of 5 leaders of the Washington Air National Guard (ANG) with a minimum of 5 years of experience in the ANG. The five tenured candidates were selected given proven leadership performance, ability to influence the organization, and they provided institutional knowledge and corporate insight of SP efforts spanning nearly a century. Additionally, these leaders had direct first-hand experience with local selective retention process and successful force management practices. The conceptual framework included organizational leadership theory, succession theory, and employee retention. Semistructured interviews were conducted and relevant documents collected. All interpretations from the data were subjected to member checking to ensure trustworthiness of findings. Coding, clustering, and thematic analysis were methods used for data analysis. Prominent ideas and actions taken were coded, common codes were clustered and themes evolved. Based on the methodological triangulation of data, 5The military faces unprecedented limitation of resources due to fiscal cuts through all branches of service. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore succession planning (SP) strategies used by Air National Guard leaders to retain skilled workers. The target population consisted of 5 leaders of the Washington Air National Guard (ANG) with a minimum of 5 years of experience in the ANG. The five tenured candidates were selected given proven leadership performance, ability to influence the organization, and they provided institutional knowledge and corporate insight of SP efforts spanning nearly a century. Additionally, these leaders had direct first-hand experience with local selective retention process and successful force management practices. The conceptual framework included organizational leadership theory, succession theory, and employee retention. Semistructured interviews were conducted and relevant documents collected. All interpretations from the data were subjected to member checking to ensure trustworthiness of findings. Coding, clustering, and thematic analysis were methods used for data analysis. Prominent ideas and actions taken were coded, common codes were clustered and themes evolved. Based on the methodological triangulation of data, 5 themes surfaced: (a) skills focus verses strategic, (b) informal verses formal SP, (c) individual verses organizational, (d) priority for retention verses recruitment, and (e) limited skill leads to mission gaps. The application of the findings from the study may contribute to social change by inspiring military leadership to adopt more strategic succession planning and ensure business sustainability by changing existing SP from a recruitment-based technique to culture of retention. Succession Planning Strategies in the Air National Guard to Retain Skilled Workers by Daniel Rodarte MS.HR, Chapman University, 2004 BA, St. Martins University, 2001 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration


Can a treaty override an individual right protected under the Constitution? There is perhaps no element of the foreign relations law canon more universally held than the proposition that constitutional rights prevail as against inconsistent international agreements; a consensus of commentators, courts, and other constitutional actors has long held that, in this respect, the Constitution stands supreme. This essay questions the hegemony of domestic constitutional rights, in both historical and contemporary contexts. In at least three nineteenth-century contexts - extradition, the settlement of foreign claims, and the operation of consular courts - treaty regimes resulted in the override of otherwise tenable constitutional entitlements. In the modern era, international human rights norms played an important part in the expanded conception of domestic civil rights, while other individual rights were constrained in the face of foreign relations concerns; no account of twentieth-century constitutional rights is complete without international geopolitical referents. The transforming global architecture may now allow for an open assault on constitutional hegemony. Although constitutional subordination is unlikely to be adopted as a matter of doctrine, the analysis supplies an additional platform for considering other deployments of international norms in the realm of U.S. constitutional law. If one can establish a basis for privileging international rights determinations over domestic ones, then international law can be put to lesser tasks as an interpretive tool.