It has been recognized for the past century that copper deposits, in common with those of many other metals, are heterogeneously concentrated in Earth's upper crust, resulting in areally restricted copper provinces that were generated during several discrete metallogenic epochs over time intervals of up to several hundred million years. Various segments of circum-Pacific magmatic arcs, for example, have total contained copper contents that differ by two orders of magnitude. Each metallogenic epoch introduced its own deposit type(s), of which porphyry copper (and related skarn), followed by sediment-hosted stratiform copper and then iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG), are globally preeminent. Nonetheless, genesis of the copper provinces remains somewhat enigmatic and a topic of ongoing debate.

A variety of deposit-scale geometric and geologic features and factors strongly influence the size and/or grade of porphyry copper, sediment-hosted stratiform copper, and/or IOCG deposits. For example, development of major porphyry copper deposits/districts is favored by the presence of clustered alteration-mineralization centers, mafic or massive carbonate host rocks, voluminous magmatic-hydrothermal breccias, low sulfidation-state core zones conducive to copper deposition as bornite ± digenite, hypogene and supergene sulfide enrichment, and mineralized skarn formation, coupled with lack of serious dilution by late, low-grade porphyry intrusions and breccias. Furthermore, the copper endowment of all deposit types undoubtedly benefits from optimization of the ore-forming processes involved.

Tectonic setting also plays a fundamental role in copper metallogeny. Contractional tectonomagmatic belts, created by flat-slab subduction or, less commonly, arc-continent collision and characterized by crustal thickening and high rates of uplift and exhumation, appear to host most large, high-grade hypogene porphyry copper deposits. Such mature arc crust also undergoes mafic magma input during porphyry copper formation. The premier sediment-hosted stratiform copper provinces were formed in cratonic or hinterland extensional sedimentary basins that subsequently underwent tectonic inversion. The IOCG deposits were generated in association with extension/transtension and felsic intrusions, the latter apparently triggered by deep-seated mafic magmas in either intracratonic or subduction settings. The radically different exhumation rates characteristic of these various tectonic settings account well for the secular distribution of copper deposit types, in particular the youthfulness of most porphyry relative to sediment-hosted stratiform and IOCG deposits. Notwithstanding the importance of these deposit-scale geologic, regional tectonic, and erosion-rate criteria for effective copper deposit formation and preservation, they seem inadequate to explain the localization of premier copper provinces, such as the central Andes, southwestern North America, and Central African Copperbelt, in which different deposit types were generated during several discrete epochs. By the same token, the paucity of copper mineralization in some apparently similar geologic settings elsewhere also remains unexplained.

It is proposed here that major copper provinces occur where restricted segments of the lithosphere were predisposed to upper-crustal copper concentration throughout long intervals of Earth history. This predisposition was most likely gained during oxidation and copper introduction by subduction-derived fluids, containing metals and volatiles extracted from hydrated basalts and sediments in downgoing slabs. As a result, superjacent lithospheric mantle and lowermost crust were metasomatized as well as gaining cupriferous sulfide-bearing cumulates during magmatic differentiation—processes that rendered them fertile for tapping during subsequent subduction-or, uncommonly, intraplate extension-related magmatic events to generate porphyry copper and IOCG districts or belts. The fertile lithosphere beneath some accretionary orogens became incorporated during earlier collisional events, commonly during Precambrian times. Relatively oxidized crustal profiles—as opposed to those dominated by reduced, sedimentary material—are also required for effective formation of all major copper deposits. Large sedimentary basins underlain by or adjoining oxidized and potentially copper-anomalous crust and filled initially by immature redbed strata containing magmatic arc-derived detritus provide optimal sites for large-scale, sediment-hosted stratiform copper mineralization. Translithospheric fault zones, acting as giant plumbing systems, commonly played a key role in localizing all types of major copper deposits, districts, and belts. These proposals address the long-debated concept of metal inheritance in terms of the fundamental role played by subduction-metasomatized mantle lithosphere and lowermost crust in global copper metallogeny.


Spontaneous, unforeseen and contagious, the uprisings of the Arab Spring took everyone - participants included - by surprise. Like revolutions in other times and places, they seemed impossible beforehand and inevitable afterwards. In mid-December 2010 the desperate act of a young Tunisian barely featured on the global news agenda. But it set off a chain reaction of extraordinary events that would unseat dictators, reshape the political landscape of North Africa and the Middle East and affect the lives of millions of people. "The Guardian" has been running, often breathlessly, to follow the story and to explain it ever since. This is a tale of many chapters, told by the journalists, bloggers and citizens who have lived through this incredible time.


NSAIDs act by inhibiting the enzyme cyclooxygenase (COX), which controls the synthesis of mediators called prostaglandins. The inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis results in the suppression of inflammation and effective analgesia. Most NSAIDs, however, not only inhibit prostaglandins at sites of inflammation, but also inhibit the prostaglandins, which serve important functions, in other parts of the body. The suppression of prostaglandins at these sites can produce GI and renal toxicity and impair normal platelet function.


A new gravity survey combined with ground-based magnetic surveys have enabled detailed modelling of basement structures in the Longford Basin of northern Tasmania. This basin began to form in the mid-Jurassic, but contains only Cainozoic sediments. The models suggest that the basin has been formed by a series of predominantly northwest-trending Jurassic normal faults which have produced a series of half-grabens in which blocks were downthrown to both east and west with dips of up to 10° W. The basin blocks incorporate Palaeozoic to Mesozoic Parmeener Supergroup sedimentary rocks intruded by pre te syn-fault Jurassic dolentes. These units overlie an older, geophysically distinct, Devonian fold-thrust terrane. Much of the tectonic activity from the Palaeozoic to the Cainozoic appears to have been controlled by the Tiers Fault system, a major gravity and magnetic lineament within the Tasmanian crust. In contrast to many other Tasmanian Mesozoic-Cainozoic basins, the Longford Basin is exclusively continental, with up to 800 m of Paleocene to Quaternary fluvial sediments having been drilled in two wildcat oil wells. The basin also contains intercalated Late Eocene to Pliocene basaltic volcanic rocks. Magnetic data indicate three eruptive centres localised in reactivated Jurassic faults. Massive flows, now lateritised, have infilled an Early Eocene to Pliocene drainage system.


Winter maintenance is not the same anymore. New weather forecasting technologies are permitting snow and ice fighters to better predict when unsafe winter weather conditions will occur. This provides the opportunity to prevent the loss of friction more than ever before believed possible. Snow fence can be used to prevent snow from accumulating. Improved cutting edges can remove compacted snow and ice, thus reducing the amount of chemical necessary. A variety of chemicals besides sodium chloride have now been tested. Liquid forms of chemicals can be used to get salts to stick better and act faster and liquids can reduce wasted material. This protecting the environment and could reduce corrosion. Treating the roadway `before' ice and snow accumulation can reduce the duration of unsafe conditions, thus greatly reducing potential for accident. This presentation, with the aid of slide pictures, is intended to generate awareness and promote the use of new technologies, much of which is an outgrowth of SHRP, so that public works professional will be motivated to capitalize on these new opportunities.


The concepts of entrepreneurial narrative and biography are an emerging field of entrepreneurship research, but there is more to entrepreneurial narrative and biography than written words. Consequentially, this research paper considers the use of scrapbooks and storyboards as active narrative tools for propagating value in family business narratives by conducting a semiotic analysis of a storyboard displayed within a family business in rural Scotland. The use of scrapbooks and storyboards are purposeful activities which form part of a biographical process imparting a sense of continuity linking history, possible futures and tradition. This study extends the analysis of entrepreneurial narrative by considering a different narrative dimension, namely that of scrapbooks and storyboards and makes a contribution to the extant literature of entrepreneurship and small business by highlighting the necessity of conducting empirical research into narrative forms such as storyboards and scrapbooks and their impact upon the biographical process in business.


ABSTRACT Transcriptional activation of histone subtypes is coordinately regulated and tightly coupled with the onset of DNA replication during S-phase entry. The underlying molecular mechanisms for such coordination and coupling are not well understood. The cyclin E-Cdk2 substrate NPAT has been shown to play an essential role in the transcriptional activation of histone genes at the G1/S-phase transition. Here, we show that NPAT interacts with components of the Tip60 histone acetyltransferase complex through a novel amino acid motif, which is functionally conserved in E2F and adenovirus E1A proteins. In addition, we demonstrate that transformation/transactivation domain-associated protein (TRRAP) and Tip60, two components of the Tip60 complex, associate with histone gene promoters at the G1/S-phase boundary in an NPAT-dependent manner. In correlation with the association of the TRRAP-Tip60 complex, histone H4 acetylation at histone gene promoters increases at the G1/S-phase transition, and this increase involves NPAT function. Suppression of TRRAP or Tip60 expression by RNA interference inhibits histone gene activation. Thus, our data support a model in which NPAT recruits the TRRAP-Tip60 complex to histone gene promoters to coordinate the transcriptional activation of multiple histone genes during the G1/S-phase transition.


This research paper identifies the supply chain performance attributes that are relevant to the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry. The FMCG supply chains are analysed from the perspective of processes, components and typology. The typical issues faced by the FMCG supply chains are also explored. Three supply chain operational models are compared and identify SCOR as the one best suited for the FMCG industry. The survey, conducted with the respondents from four research cases across two product categories, demonstrates the acceptance and the usage of the performance attributes for the FMCG supply chains. The results also include the analysis of the typology of the research cases across two product categories.


Scholars who have analyzed performances of Schubert's Lieder have generally focused on the voices of masterful professionals, whether looking at performances before or during the age of sound recordings. This tendency overlooks one historically important group of performers: the amateurs who made up the broad marketplace for the genre during Schubert's lifetime and throughout the nineteenth century. Studying this group of performers with any level of aesthetic particularity is, however, difficult: documentary evidence of particular singers in this group in the nineteenth century and even the early twentieth is scarce. Yet as the real-life practice of the amateur singing of Schubert's Lieder in the home gradually dwindled after the nineteenth century, fictional representations of this nineteenth-century practice began to appear in period sound films across the twentieth. While not a substitute for documentary evidence of real practices, this film phenomenon meaningfully engages with nineteenth-century cultural history, literary sources, and musical practices through presentist conventions and concerns. Such films thus offer a vehicle through which to think about continuity and change in the relationship between Schubert's song and the figure of the amateur in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century, and today.
 This article analyzes three period film scenes involving nineteenth-century "amateur" performances of Schubert's "Ständchen" (Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 4). It does so in order to think about the combined aesthetic and social ramifications of the figure of the amateur in relationship to Schubert's Lieder. I look at scenes in the following three films: the operetta-influenced Schubert picture Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933), in which operetta star Mártha Eggerth sings as the Countess Esterházy, the classic novel adaptation Jane Eyre (1934), in which Virginia Bruce sings as the titular character, and a newly written piece of "governess fiction," The Governess (1998), in which Minnie Driver performs the song as said governess. None of these scenes offers unmediated or simple access to amateurism. Instead, in each scene, a professional, twentieth-century celebrity woman movie star both sings and otherwise portrays the nineteenth-century amateur musician and character onscreen. Keeping this tension in mind, I explore how this contradiction and other elements in each scene would have and can still provide audiences opportunities to think about the relationship between amateurism and Schubert's most popular songs. In so doing, I explore the term "amateur" in a number of overlapping senses that embrace positive and, to a lesser extent, pejorative meanings. My analysis ultimately shows how these three diverse film stagings valorize the figure and, indeed, the voice of the amateur in relationship to Schubert's music. These conclusions have implications regarding Schubert's songs and successful modes of performance that might attend them.


Glucose is the major substrate that sustains normal brain function. When the brain glucose concentration approaches zero, glucose transport across the blood–brain barrier becomes rate limiting for metabolism during, for example, increased metabolic activity and hypoglycemia. Steady-state brain glucose concentrations in α-chloralose anesthetized rats were measured noninvasively as a function of plasma glucose. The relation between brain and plasma glucose was linear at 4.5 to 30 mmol/L plasma glucose, which is consistent with the reversible Michaelis–Menten model. When the model was fitted to the brain glucose measurements, the apparent Michaelis-Menten constant, Kt, was 3.3 ± 1.0 mmol/L, and the ratio of the maximal transport rate relative to CMRglc, Tmax/CMRglc, was 2.7 ± 0.1. This Kt is comparable to the authors' previous human data, suggesting that glucose transport kinetics in humans and rats are similar. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) was simultaneously assessed and constant above 2 mmol/L plasma glucose at 73 ± 6 mL 100 g−1 min−1. Extrapolation of the reversible Michaelis–Menten model to hypoglycemia correctly predicted the plasma glucose concentration (2.1 ± 0.6 mmol/L) at which brain glucose concentrations approached zero. At this point, CBF increased sharply by 57% ± 22%, suggesting that brain glucose concentration is the signal that triggers defense mechanisms aimed at improving glucose delivery to the brain during hypoglycemia.


Schools around the world routinely collect high frequency data on student outcomes like absenteeism, grades, and student conduct, all strong predictors of grade repetition and school dropout. Yet parents rarely have access to these data in real time. We test whether a program of sending these data to parents using high frequency text messaging improves education outcomes in a sample of 1,500 students in eight elementary schools in a low-income region of Chile. After four months, treated students had significantly higher math grades, improved attendance, a lower prevalence of bad behaviors, and were less likely to fail the grade at the end of the year. We find some evidence of positive spillovers from having more students (randomly) treated in the same classroom. Treatment narrowed parent-school information gaps and treated parents reported a higher willingness to pay for continuing the messaging program at follow up. Our results suggest that poor communication between parents and schools may be an important barrier to improving educational attainment. Using low-cost technology to deliver existing data on student grades, attendance and behavior at higher frequency could significantly raise human capital attainment down the line.


The simulation of gait, impairments and the outcomes of rehabilitation strategies is an important area of research. The ability to study the efficacy of treatment options before applying them to patients has the potential to improve the efficiency of the rehabilitation process. Any such simulations must incorporate some model of the motor learning process to properly anticipate the responses of patients. This dissertation presents initial work on the modeling of gait and the study of motor adaptation with a view towards simulating the motor adaptation process during gait. Specifically, an inverse dynamic model of gait incorporating sagittal plane limb and torso dynamics and three degree of freedom pelvis rotation is developed and applied to determine joint moments for motor adaptation experiments. The specific experimental conditions involve studying gait changes resulting from changes in treadmill walking speed, from walking on two treads moving at different speeds and various forms of ankle contractures simulated using an ankle-foot-orthosis. The experimental results show after-effects that suggest the formation of an internal model of the altered gait dynamics to compensate for gait errors. Kinematic performance metrics show the expected adaptations to the simulated gait impairments. In particular evidence is found to demonstrate vaulting and steppage gait adaptations in response to ankle impairments. The inverse dynamics analysis shows clear stance phase adaptations to ankle contractures while showing a limited response during swing phase. The primary adaptations evidenced by the inverse dynamics analysis are changes in pelvis joint moments leading to vaulting gait compensation when an ankle locked in an a plantarflexed position. The results of the adaptation experiments are compared to an inverse dynamics analysis of a patient exhibiting drop foot resulting from a mid-brain stroke. The patient also exhibits pelvis moments resulting a vaulting gait pattern as was seen in the plantarflexion experiment.


The recent advances in sequencing technologies have enabled the whole human genome to be sequenced within weeks. To date, several human diploid genomes have been sequenced and the number of genomes being sequenced is expected to increase in the years to come. In fact, a 3-year international collaborative project, the 1000 Genomes Project, was initiated in 2008 to sequence at least 1000 individual genomes from different populations around the world. The aim is to create the most detailed and comprehensive map of genetic variations in the human genome for future disease-association studies and biomedical research. While waiting for this ambitious project to be completed, several whole genome sequencing studies have already provided some exciting results, where hundreds of thousands of new SNPs and short indels have been identified. In addition, these studies also address many important questions and issues in the experimental design and data analysis of whole genome sequencing.

Key concepts:

The arrival of next generation sequencing (NGS) and third generation sequencing technologies has empowered the sequencing of the whole human genome to be completed within weeks.

The first human whole genome sequencing (WGS) study using a next generation sequencer was completed in 2008, which marked the beginning of a new era in personalized genome sequencing.

To date, several WGS studies have been done using NGS technologies.

The NGS technologies are Roche® 454 Life Science Genome Sequencer FLX (GS FLX), Illumina® Genome Analyzer (GA) and Applied Biosystems® (ABI) Supported Oligonucleotide Ligation Detection System (SOLiD).

The WGS studies have clearly demonstrated the feasibility of using all the NGS and third generation sequencing technologies to decode the DNA sequence of human genome efficiently and at an affordable price per genome.

In addition, these studies have also addressed many important questions and issues surrounding the experimental design and data analysis in whole genome sequencing.

The more significant finding from the WGS studies is that they have conclusively revealed the richness of genetic variations in the human genome. The genetic variations in the human genome are more abundant than previously expected.

Several thousands of structural variations are found in all the WGS studies, and the studies also identified hundreds of thousands of indels.

Personalized genome sequencing is able to provide full DNA sequences and identify the enormous number of genetic variations in the genome. However, personalized medicine aims to predict individual susceptibility risks to various diseases and responses to drug therapies using the genetic variation information.

To achieve personalized medicine, the first steps are to detect and validate all the genetic variations in the human genome in population-based studies, and catalogue them properly in databases, so they can be used as the genetic markers for future disease association studies.

Keywords:

next generation sequencing technologies;
whole genome sequencing;
1000 Genomes Project;
SNPs;
indels;
structural variations


The Australian JobKeeper wage subsidy is an unprecedented public policy response to a once in a century health and economic crisis induced by the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of this paper is on the efficacy of the Australian JobKeeper program design, including how well it meets its overall objective of retaining employer-employee matches; how well it is targeted relative to the needs of both businesses and workers; and the adequacy of JobKeeper as a wage replacement scheme. We consider both the original JobKeeper design, JobKeeper 2.0 and a series of alternative wage subsidy designs that we believe would more effectively target both employers and workers, incentivise a reallocation of labour and support a faster economic recovery.


Given an inverse problem with a normalizing flow prior, we wish to estimate the distribution of the underlying signal conditioned on the observations. We approach this problem as a task of conditional inference on the pre-trained unconditional flow model. We first establish that this is computationally hard for a large class of flow models. Motivated by this, we propose a framework for approximate inference that estimates the target conditional as a composition of two flow models. This formulation leads to a stable variational inference training procedure that avoids adversarial training. Our method is evaluated on a variety of inverse problems and is shown to produce highquality samples with uncertainty quantification. We further demonstrate that our approach can be amortized for zero-shot inference.


Research on statistical machine translation and corpus-based approaches for cross-language information retrieval depend on the availability of multilingual data, particularly in the form of parallel corpora (collections of equivalent texts in two or more languages). However, the scarcity of parallel corpora limits the development of these applications. The Web is a vast repository of multilingual information, which has motivated research aimed at mining corpora from it. In this article, we present PPLocator an approach for locating parallel Web pages. PPLocator was designed to be effective while keeping a low processing cost, thus it avoids making exhaustive pairwise comparisons in order to identify the candidate pairs. In addition, it tries to minimize the number of pages that need to be downloaded during the intra-site crawl. An important characteristic of our approach is that it does not rely on resources such as dictionaries, translators, or language identifiers. PPLocator demands little effort from the human expert. Experiments using real Web data from over 284K pages attest for the viability of PPLocator. The results show superiority in relation to a baseline system in terms of both recall and precision, despite the fact that the baseline uses more resources.


We document magnetic mineral diagenesis with high‐resolution magnetic susceptibility, hysteresis, isothermal remanent magnetization, and other rock magnetic measurements through a shallow sulfate‐methane transition (SMT) at Perseverance Drift—a high‐accumulation rate Holocene biosiliceous Antarctic marine sediment deposit. The structure of the SMT is defined with porewater measurements from the same core, allowing direct comparison. Dissolution of the detrital (titano)magnetite assemblage, with preferential dissolution of stochiometric magnetite, occurs in the upper SMT. Higher coercivity magnetic minerals dissolve more slowly, continuing to dissolve through the entire SMT and could be a source of ferric iron for microbial respiration following exhaustion of porewater sulfate, as suggested by accumulation of porewater ferrous iron below the SMT. Superparamagnetic ferrimagnetic mineral enrichment/depletion occurs in three phases through the SMT and is coupled tightly to the availability of dissolved ferrous iron relative to dissolved sulfide. High concentrations of authigenic remanence‐bearing iron sulfides, including greigite and hexagonal 3C pyrrhotite, which can be detected using remanence parameters but not in‐field concentration dependent parameters, accumulate in a transient horizon at the base of the SMT during this early diagenesis, where sulfide is present but limited relative to dissolved ferrous iron. Formation of this remanence‐bearing iron sulfide horizon is likely facilitated by continued iron reduction through the SMT. Nonsteady state perturbations that shift the porewater profile, such as changes in carbon flux or sedimentation rate, can lead to preservation of these transient horizons, much like well documented preservation of manganese oxide layers in marine sediments following similar shifts to porewater profiles.


The purpose of this current study is to identify the regional factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises, establish the reasons why existing high-tech companies set up their enterprises where they do and to determine what factors would influence an entrepreneur/owner manager to move from their original set-up location. For the purposes of this research, the methodology employed used a quantitative method, underpinned by a positivist research philosophy. Quantitative research was used to gather data and information relating to the factors that influence the location choice of high technology businesses. This method was employed using an online survey. From a sample of 300 enterprises, 134 were selected for this research. These 134 enterprises were selected as they met all aspects of the research criteria. They all operated in the high-tech industry, were wholly-owned Irish enterprises based in Ireland, non-subsidiary and were founded between 2002 and 2005. The result was 86 replies yielding a response rate of 64%. The information gathered included general information about the respondents' businesses, the factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises and the factors that prevent them from locating in a region. In addition, the perceptions of high-tech enterprises regarding Ireland's South East region as a location choice were also obtained.
A number of key findings materialised from this study. Firstly, it was found that the largest sector in Ireland is the software development industry (54%) and that the majority of respondents are located in the Dublin region (47%). It was also discovered that aspects of the founder's background influenced the choice of location for the businesses.

Furthermore, the current research findings showed that most founders set up in a location well-known to them and they had either set up where they lived in their youth (23%) or in a locality where they worked prior to starting their own business (23%). In relation to this finding, many founders had deep-seated attachments to family and friends or owned a house in the vicinity (32%) and these acted as factors influencing the businesses to remain in their current location.

Additional findings show that the availability of skilled labour, transport infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure, airport access and the costs of running the business are very important factors to the founders when deciding where to locate their businesses.
Interestingly, the findings show that factors discussed in the literature review such as proximity to educational facilities were deemed to be insignificant by the respondents (41%). This is contrary to researchers such as Saxenian (1985), Scott (1988) and Holstein (1992), who highlighted the importance of educational institutions.
With regard to locating the businesses in the South-East region of Ireland, the majority of the respondents said they would not choose to locate in the region (77%). The main reason stated for this is the lack of available skilled labour (50%). The transport infrastructure in the region was considered inadequate, as was the lack of an international airport. Moreover, the respondents rated the region as bad in relation to customer proximity. On the other hand, the majority of the respondents rated the South-East region as excellent as regards its attractiveness (23%).
From the beginning, this current study's aim was to identify the regional factors that influence the location choice of high-tech enterprises, establish the reasons why existing high-tech companies set up their enterprises where they are and to determine what factors would influence an entrepreneur/owner manager to move from their original set-up location. Therefore, this current research contributes to the expanding literature on high technology enterprises and their location choice and, in particular, to regional development, entrepreneurial regions and enterprise development.
The research findings from this current study indicate that there are a number of specific factors which determine why high-technology firms choose to locate where they do and also that there are recurring factors, which prevent them from choosing specific locations.

Additionally, this research also has implications for policy makers, entrepreneurs and academics.


Objective To evaluate the prevalence of physical and sexual abuse, and their relation to mental health problems among the illiterate/semiliterate runaway adolescents in New Delhi, India. Design Cross sectional. Setting New Delhi, India. Patients Runaway adolescent boys (n=119) aged 11 to 18 years at an observation home. Methods Study subjects were screened for physical and sexual abuse using the Child Maltreatment History Self Report and Finkelhor's sexual abuse scale. Mental health problems were identified using the Achenbach's Youth Self-Report scale. As the participants were illiterate or semiliterate with Hindi being their primary language, the screening tools were appropriately translated, read out to them and their responses recorded. Results A total of 72 (62%) boys experienced domestic violence, 70 (59%) had engaged in substance abuse and 103 (87%) boys had been employed as child labourers. Physical abuse was reported by 86 (72%) and sexual abuse by 42 (35%). Mental health problems were recognised in 83 (70%) boys, which included internalising syndromes (59%) and externalising syndromes (34%). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that physical abuse was an independent predictor of internalising syndromes (OR: 3.3; 95% CI 1.2 to 9.1; p<0.01), while substance abuse and sexual abuse were independent predictors of externalising syndromes. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that childhood abuse and mental health disorders are widely prevalent among the runaway adolescents evaluated at an observation home in New Delhi. Appropriate modification of the standardised self-report screening tools may allow the identification of mental health disorders in this vulnerable illiterate/semiliterate population.


The Soviet Union's post-war takeover of Eastern Europe has been the subject of articles and books sufficient in number to fill a small library. Thus, it is puzzling that the role of Moscow's advisers in the USSR's newly acquired "sphere of influence" has been a neglected topic. Virtually no pertinent information has been published on this question in either the Soviet Union or in the East European states. What is accessible -- a few paragraphs and scattered references at best -- has been published almost exclusively by emigres, diplomats, and scholars in the West.(1) This essay attempts to start filling this gap. Soviet advisers in Eastern Europe fulfilled an important mission within the context of Moscow's subjugation of these societies. As able executors of Soviet policy they came into direct contact with thousands of East Europeans to whom they symbolized not only "ruthless oppression" but also the Russian people about whom the people of the region had so little firsthand knowledge. Their activities can teach us a great deal about the dynamics of Soviet takeovers in the region and illuminate the reasons for the deepening aversion of East Europeans to communism. Studying the region's history of the immediate post-war period one cannot but learn to appreciate the eerie accuracy of Orwell's 1984 and Koestler's Darkness at Noon even more. The main objective of this paper is to compare the role of Soviet advisors in the Mongolia of the 1920s and in the Eastern Europe of the 1940s. More specifically, my contention is that the Soviet subjugation of Mongolia was in many respects similar to that of Eastern Europe. I also argue that while there were analogies between the sovietization of East European states, the Kremlin learned from the lessons of the Mongolian "expedition" and dealt with individual countries in different manner. To support this reasoning, I offer a brief analysis of two cases, Hungary and Poland. This approach, I think, may teach us about the mechanisms of Soviet takeovers in general, and about the roles of Moscow's advisers in particular. The first section of this paper will briefly discuss the tools of the sovietization process, as evinced in Eastern Europe from the end of the war until 1953, the year of Stalin's death. Part II argues that Moscow's subjugation of Outer Mongolia in the early 1920s served as a useful source of experience to draw on in Eastern Europe a quarter of a century later. The balance of this study examines and contrasts the role of Soviet advisers in Hungary and Poland in 1945-1953. The choice of these two states seems justified by the Kremlin's extensive -- albeit different --utilization of advisers and the relative availability of sources. I use the term "adviser" rather liberally throughout, to denote not only individuals assigned to East European states in a strictly advisory capacity but Soviet ambassadors, embassy staffs, as well as military and secret police personnel. I. The "Adviser" As a Tool of Soviet Influence In the aftermath of World War II, the Kremlin leaders sought to establish a politically obedient, economically dependent, and militarily weak Eastern Europe. What Moscow wanted most of all was control over the polities, economies, and military establishments of these states that were in many ways more advanced than the USSR itself. The firmness of Stalin's resolve, furthered by the onerous military and secret police presence, did not fail to yield the desired results. By 1948 all of the East European states were under Moscow's relentless domination. To be sure, the countries of the region narrowly escaped the fate of the three Baltic states and were not formally incorporated into the Soviet Union proper and retained the symbolic accoutrements of national sovereignty.(2) For all practical purposes, however, they were treated as Soviet republics until 1953. Moscow needed all the resources it could marshal for the submission of Eastern Europe since support for Soviet-type communism was only marginal in Hungary, Poland, and Romania, although the "liberators" were genuinely welcomed by a significant portion of the population in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. …


Abstract: In the assessment of community-acquired pneumonia, an effort should be made to identify the causal pathogen, since this may permit more focused treatment. However, diagnostic testing should not delay appropriate empiric therapy. The selection of empiric therapy can be guided by a patient stratification system that is based on the severity of illness and underlying risk factors for specific pathogens. For example, outpatients who do not have underlying cardiopulmonary disease or other risk factors can be given azithromycin, clarithromycin, or doxycycline. Higher-risk outpatients should be given a s-lactam antibiotic plus azithromycin, clarithromycin, or doxycycline, or monotherapy with a fluoroquinolone. If the patient fails to respond to therapy, it may be necessary to do bronchoscopy; CT of the chest; or serologic testing for Legionella species, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, viruses, or other pathogens. (J Respir Dis. 2006;27(2):54-67)


Objective: The study aimed to assess the relationship between Body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage(BFP) and waist hip(WH) ratio in predicting Pre-Diabetes and Pre- Hypertension. Methods: A total of 389 adolescents aged 11–17 years were recruited from Doddaballapura government school. Body Mass Index and Waist Hip Ratio were determined using standard equipment's. Body fat percentage was derived from a body fat analyser. Fasting blood glucose was determined by glucometer method, Blood pressure was recorded using sphygmomanometer. Results: Compare to students with normal BMI, those who are overweight had 7.19 times [95% CI: (2.25-22.96)] high odds to have pre hypertension or hypertension. Similarly compare to normal BMI students, obese students were 28.76 times high odds [95% CI: (2.5-330.27)] to have pre hypertension or hypertension. There was no significant difference between normal BMI students and underweight students in terms of Pre hypertension/ Hypertension. Compare to students with normal WH ratio, low WHR students didn't have any significant correlation in developing Pre hypertension or hypertension. Compared to students with normal Body fat percentage, those who had a high BFP were 6.02 times high odds to have pre hypertension or hypertension similarly those who had very high BFP were 21.25 times high odds to have pre hypertension or hypertension in respect to predicting pre diabetes, BMI and waist to hip ratio were not significantly correlated, whereas high Body fat percentage had 1.46 high odds as compared to normal BFP. Conclusion: These data suggest the importance of the BMI, Body fat percentage and waist to hip ratio in adolescents, in prevention and early intervention of Obesity, Hypertension and Pre-diabetes since it may be the most cost-effective way of reducing the complications related with them.


Communication design practice involves transforming given situations into preferred courses of action. This ubiquitous feature of organizational and professional life presents an opportunity for advancing theory about the constitutive role of communication in organizing (CCO). Extant CCO argues that collective courses of action happen through a process of social reasoning involving the mediation of speech acts but this account misses some important features of activity, materiality, and creative struggle evident in communication design practice. Examination of two cases of communication design practice reveal that activity — its materiality and the creative struggle over it — is central to the social reasoning involved in constructing preferred courses of action. The alternative identified here has implications for developing a design stance that integrates design theory and research on language and social interaction to advance understanding of communication design practice in the constitution of organizing.


An efficient screening procedure is essential for breeding for salinity-tolerant crops, but there is no consensus regarding the best approach. While some authors argue that the selection of tolerant genotypes should be undertaken under field conditions, others believe that field-based trials for salinity tolerance is problematic due to confounding environmental factors. Also, the choice of specific physiological trait(s) used is often subjective, frequently depending on the 'personal philosophy' of the researcher. In this work, we undertook an unbiased assessment of a multitude of physiological and agronomical parameters in an attempt to find a combination that would satisfy two main criteria: (1) be relatively easy and quick to measure; and (2) possess a high predictive power. Fourteen physiological and agronomical traits were measured and analysed using various statistical methods (multiple regression, cluster analysis, principal component analysis). Our results indicate that measuring just two parameters; changes in the chlorophyll content in the 5th leaf after 6 weeks of NaCl treatment, and shoot sap K+ content in control plants, measured at the same time, satisfied these requirements and could be used as efficient screening tools in wheat breeding programs. Interestingly, salt tolerance was associated with lower but not higher K+ content in control plants. The physiological mechanisms involved are discussed.


The context of the work of universities, in Cameroon is one of high levels of poverty, scarcities and uncertain and fragile economies. Yet, the actual and potential role of universities in such a context, in relation to its civic responsibilities, remains unclear. The research offers a case study of one particular university, in a predominantly rural area of the country; and using qualitative enquiry methods, it engaged, dialogically, with diverse samples of people living in the area, and those working in the university. The aim was to build a systematic understanding of how people construct the existing and potential role of the university, and what might be required to meet their aspirations and desires in more developed and dialogical ways. Based on interviews, focus groups, observations and documents reviewed, specific methodologies by which the university's contribution to community development can be enhanced, with particular emphasis on community-based service learning, but also community-based research and community-based adult education was to be articulated.

This research found that although the community has priority needs, and the university's engagement can fundamentally be a force for community transformation, it seldom consist of objectives and processes aimed at addressing these needs due to lack of interconnections within the university and between the university and the local community. This thesis therefore argues that by complementing the university's engagement activities in the community with interconnections with the community but also within the university, uneven power relations and communication gaps existing within the university and between the university and different segments of the local community which had hitherto limited the university's engagement from addressing local needs can be mitigated. It also maintains that through commitment to engagement and embracing a collaborative form; broadening participation; adopting relevant channels to ascertain community ideas and needs; operating accessible community centres; researching local concerns such as water supply, agricultural systems and electricity generation and customising educational programmes to demonstrate local and global relevance, the interconnected university can be epitomised. Furthermore, through interconnections within its community, as well as with the wider community and its concerns, the university can be seen not only as an agent of community development but also fostering mutually beneficial engagement.


At present, our society is near a tipping point where fundamental change must occur to ensure continued growth and prosperity for future generations. Can this change be managed for future benefit? This paper investigates how knowledge management (KM) principles and practice, exemplified by Holsapple and Joshi's (2004) "KM episode," may yield a set of fundamental strategies for global change. To this end, the notion of a KM episode is extended and supplemented with insights from Thomas Kuhn's theory on the "Structure of scientific revolutions." The resultant model describes and explains the interrelationships between knowledge triggers, resources, activities, influences, and potential outcomes associated with knowledge-based communal change. Moreover, an initial finding of this paper is that knowledge management practices and processes may provide the driving mechanism for required global change.


This thesis examines the relationship between planning programmes in three industrial areas in the North East of England since 1945, and the socio-spatial structure of these places as it has changed over time with a focus on the period since 1975 during which all three areas have undergone a process of major de-industrialization. The study employs secondary data analyses of successive censuses of employment and population to chart the nature of industrial and socio- spatial change, with particular reference to the possible emergence of a spatially segregated and socially residualized 'underclass'. This spatial data is complemented by household level material drawn from the Cleveland Social Survey. The study concludes that there is a spatial segregation between the 'prosperous', defined in terms of housing tenure and location in the labour market, and the 'dispossessed poor' defined in terms of tenure and absence of work relation, but that the benefit dependent 'dispossessed poor' live in close relation to the low waged 'working poor' and more closely resemble a traditional 'industrial reserve army' than a surplus population. The planning history of the areas is reviewed in both its modern and post-modern phases. The study concludes that the socio-spatial structure of the early 1990s is a product of the interaction between global processes of industrial transformation and the local processes of land-use and housing planning in the places studied. Thus, planning programmes are identified as constitutive of social structure as opposed to merely responsive to economic changes.


A visual investigation involves both the examination of existing information and the synthesis of new analytic knowledge. This is a progressive process in which newly synthesized knowledge becomes the foundation for future discovery. In this paper, we present a novel system supporting interactive, progressive synthesis of analytic knowledge. Here we use the term "analytic knowledge" to refer to concepts that a user derives from existing data along with the evidence supporting such concepts. Unlike existing visual analytic-tools, which typically support only exploration of existing information, our system offers two unique features. First, we support user-system cooperative visual synthesis of analytic knowledge from existing data. Specifically, users can visually define new concepts by annotating existing information, and refine partially formed concepts by linking additional evidence or manipulating related concepts. In response to user actions, our system can automatically manage the evolving corpus of synthesized knowledge and its corresponding evidence. Second, we support progressive visual analysis of synthesized knowledge. This feature allows analysts to visually explore both existing knowledge and synthesized knowledge, dynamically incorporating earlier analytic conclusions into the ensuing discovery process. We have applied our system to two complex but very different analytic applications. Our preliminary evaluation shows the promise of our work


This is anOp Abstract – An experimental investigation performed to study changes to the olive oil quality as a function of sunlight and air. The chemical property changes of Nabali Baladi olive oil were monitored as a function of sun/air exposure and recorded in terms of free acidity, peroxide value, DK, chlorophyll and carotenoids. Three batches of samples (run in triplicates) that were classified extra virgin olive oil from previous years 2014, 2015, and 2016 were studied. The results showed that as sun/air-exposure time interval increases, the acidity, the peroxide value andDK increase rapidly, and the concentration of the carotenoids and chlorophyll decreased. Exposing extra virgin olive to sunlight/air for long periods of time results in rapid deterioration of its quality. The statistical calculations aided in confirmation and support of the experimental results.


This paper presents the preliminary findings of an empirical analysis of sanctions imposed in proceedings brought by Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) for contraventions of the directors' duties provisions of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and its predecessor, the Corporations Act 1989 (Cth), from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2014. The preliminary findings presented in this paper indicate that criminal enforcement was more prevalent than civil enforcement and there was a significant emphasis on incapacitative sanctions such as prison sentences and management disqualification orders. Monetary sanctions were less frequently imposed and tended to be of a low magnitude relative to the statutory maximum sanctions. Criminal and civil enforcement had similarly high success rates and the civil enforcement process was only slightly faster than the criminal process, suggesting that criminal enforcement is as effective as civil enforcement from a procedural perspective. In sum, both ASIC and the CDPP play a significant role in enforcement of directors' duties and there is a strong focus on enforcement via incapacitation.


The Internet certainly disrupted our understanding of what communication can be, who does it, how, and to what effect. What constitutes the Internet has always been an evolving suite of technologies and a dynamic set of social norms, rules, and patterns of use. But the shape and character of digital communications are shifting again—the browser is no longer the primary means by which most people encounter information infrastructure. The bulk of digital communications are no longer between people but between devices, about people, over the Internet of things. Political actors make use of technological proxies in the form of proprietary algorithms and semiautomated social actors—political bots—in subtle attempts to manipulate public opinion. These tools are scaffolding for human control, but the way they work to afford such control over interaction and organization can be unpredictable, even to those who build them. So to understand contemporary political communication—and modern communication broadly—we must now investigate the politics of algorithms and automation.


Employing the recently developed self-consistent variational basis generation scheme, we have investigated the bipolaron-bipolaron interaction within the purview of Holstein-Hubbard and the Froehlich-Hubbard model on a discrete one-dimensional lattice. The density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method has also been used for the Holstein-Hubbard model. We have shown that there exists no bipolaron-bipolaron attraction in the Holstein-Hubbard model. In contrast, we have obtained clear-cut bipolaron-bipolaron attraction in the Froehlich-Hubbard model. Composite bipolarons are formed above a critical electron-phonon coupling strength, which can survive the finite Hubbard U effect. We have constructed the phase diagram of Froehlich-Hubbard polarons and bipolarons, and discussed the phase separation in terms of the formation of composite bipolarons.


Germany's educational system has undergone a series of transformations during the last 40 years. In recent years, marked increases in enrolment have occurred. In response, admission requirements have been relaxed and new universities have been established.

Academic distance education in the former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was ushered in by the educational radio broadcasts around the end of the 1960s. Aside from the formation of the FernUniversitat (Open University) in West Germany in 1975, there were significant developments in distance education occurring at the major universities in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). After German reunification in 1990, the new unitary state launched programs to advance the development of distance education programs at conventional universities.

Germany's campus-based universities (Prasenzuniversitaten) created various entities, including central units and consortia of universities to design and market distance education programs. Hybridisation provides the necessary prerequisites for dual mode delivery, such as basic and continuing education programs, as well as for the combination of distance and campus-based education (Prasenzstudium). Hybridisation also has also opened the door for the creation of new programs.

Following an initial phase in which distance education research is expected to centralize a trend towards decentralisation is likely to follow. The German Association for Distance Education (AG-F) offers a viable research network in distance education. Two dual mode case studies are also be surveyed: The Master of Arts degree, offered by the University of Koblenz-Landau, with Library Science as the second major, and the University of Kaiserslautern, where basic education will continue to be captured within the domain of the Prasenzstudium or campus-based education.

The area in which distance education is flourishing most is within the field of academic continuing education, where external experts and authors are broadening the horizon of the campus. Multimedia networks will comprise the third generation of distance education.


Double machine learning provides $\sqrt{n}$-consistent estimates of parameters of interest even when high-dimensional or nonparametric nuisance parameters are estimated at an $n^{-1/4}$ rate. The key is to employ Neyman-orthogonal moment equations which are first-order insensitive to perturbations in the nuisance parameters. We show that the $n^{-1/4}$ requirement can be improved to $n^{-1/(2k+2)}$ by employing a $k$-th order notion of orthogonality that grants robustness to more complex or higher-dimensional nuisance parameters. In the partially linear regression setting popular in causal inference, we show that we can construct second-order orthogonal moments if and only if the treatment residual is not normally distributed. Our proof relies on Stein's lemma and may be of independent interest. We conclude by demonstrating the robustness benefits of an explicit doubly-orthogonal estimation procedure for treatment effect.


FWER CONTROLLING PROCEDURES FOR TESTING MULTIPLE HYPOTHESES WITH HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE AND APPLICATIONS IN CLINICAL TRIALS by Zhiying Qiu In applications of clinical trials, the hypotheses to be tested often exhibit a hierarchical structure, and are usually hierarchically ordered based on their importance, clinical relevance, or dose concentration, etc. Thus, they are tested in a pre-defined fixed sequence. In some more complex cases, the hypotheses to be tested are hierarchically grouped into several families, and thus the families are tested in a sequential order. Although such problems of structured multiple testing have received much attention and several popular FWER controlling procedures, such as conventional fixed sequence procedure, fallback procedure and gatekeeping procedure have been introduced, not much progress has been made yet advancing their theory and methods. This research contributes to the development of theory and methods of multiple testing problems under structured hypotheses in the following aspects. First, a class of generalized fixed sequence procedures is introduced for testing a single family of hypotheses, which allow each hypothesis to be tested even though some early hypotheses in the sequence are not rejected. A condition of a given generalized fixed sequence procedure can strongly control the FWER under arbitrary dependence is proposed. Based on the condition, three special generalized fixed sequence procedures controlling the FWER are developed. Through extensive simulation studies, the advantages of proposed procedures are shown over the existing FWER controlling procedures in terms of the FWER control and power. When the pairwise joint distributions of the true null p-values are known, these procedures can be improved further by incorporating such pairwise correlation information while maintaining the control of the FWER. Secondly, a family-based graphical approach is proposed to construct general stepwise multilevel family-based procedures for testing multiple hierarchically ordered families of hypotheses. The resulting procedures can be elegantly represented by directed acyclic graphs. Though some examples, it is shown that the proposed familybased graphical approach can present the testing strategy simpler and more efficiently than the existing hypothesis based graphical approach. Thirdly, a Bonferroni-based gatekeeping procedure with retesting option for testing hierarchically ordered families of hypotheses is proposed. By this procedure, each family of hypotheses is repeatedly tested using Bonferroni procedure with updated local critical values. It is proved that the proposed procedure can strongly control the global FWER under arbitrary dependence. Lastly, a multilevel partial hierarchical procedure in dealing with the problem of testing multiple families of hypotheses with partially ordered hierarchical structure is introduced. One hypothesis in current family is of interest only if some hypotheses in the previous families satisfy certain conditions. It is shown that the proposed procedure can control the FWER strongly at level α under the assumption that p-values of hypotheses from different families are independent. FWER CONTROLLING PROCEDURES FOR TESTING MULTIPLE HYPOTHESES WITH HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE AND APPLICATIONS IN CLINICAL TRIALS


Molecule-surface interactions depend on many degrees of freedom. In this report one degree of freedom is discussed in particular: the dependence of the interaction on the molecular orientation. Using electrostatic fields a thermal beam of oriented NO molecules is produced. By scattering this beam from a crystal, steric effects are measured for the direct scattering and adsorption of NO on Ag(111) and Pt(111). The interaction is quite different for both systems. Nevertheless, rotational rainbow scattering when the O-end of the molecule is facing the surface is observed in both cases. For NO–Pt(111) rotational rainbows are only observed at energies around 0.5 eV. Very strong randomisation is observed for NO scattering from Pt(111) at higher energies. The results are discussed in terms of the possible elementary topology of the potential energy surfaces.


This paper discusses a new family of non-Keplerian orbits for solar sail spacecraft displaced above or below the Earth's equatorial plane. The work aims to prove the assertion in the literature that displaced geostationary orbits exist, possibly to increase the number of available slots for geostationary communications satellites. The existence of displaced non-Keplerian periodic orbits is ¯rst shown analytically by linearization of the solar sail dynamics around a geostationary point. The full displaced periodic solution of the non-linear equations of motion is then obtained using a Hermite-Simpson collocation method with inequality path constraints. The initial guess to the collocation method is given by the linearized solution and the inequality path constraints are enforced as a box around the linearized solution. The linear and nonlinear displaced periodic orbits are also obtained for the worst-case Sun-sail orientation at the solstices. Near-term and high-performance sails can be displaced between 10 km and 25 km above the Earth's equatorial plane during the summer solstice, while a perforated sail can be displaced above the usual station-keeping box (75 £ 75 km) of nominal geostationary satellites. Light-levitated orbit applications to Space Solar Power are also considered.


Discovering and exploiting the causal structure in the environment is a crucial challenge for intelligent agents. Here we explore whether causal reasoning can emerge via meta-reinforcement learning. We train a recurrent network with model-free reinforcement learning to solve a range of problems that each contain causal structure. We find that the trained agent can perform causal reasoning in novel situations in order to obtain rewards. The agent can select informative interventions, draw causal inferences from observational data, and make counterfactual predictions. Although established formal causal reasoning algorithms also exist, in this paper we show that such reasoning can arise from model-free reinforcement learning, and suggest that causal reasoning in complex settings may benefit from the more end-to-end learning-based approaches presented here. This work also offers new strategies for structured exploration in reinforcement learning, by providing agents with the ability to perform -- and interpret -- experiments.


Issues of integration, assimilation and the place of 'strangers' within metropolitan contexts have been overwhelmingly conceptualised within the larger structural frames of ethnicity, nationality, immigration status and socio-economic class. This raises and reflects important issues around strategies of differentiation, urban exclusion and the hierarchies inherent in everyday life within contemporary cities. However, in privileging such modes of analysis, other more dynamic, elastic, latent and surreptitious forms of affinity, relatedness and connection within the urban environment are often left unexamined. Friendship is one of these. The articles in this special issue initiate a deeper and more sustained focus on friendship as a relational modality that characterises many urban interactions, and that also takes on particular forms within demographically diverse city spaces. The particular contribution of this special issue is in bringing together the literature from urban studies, research on diversity, understandings of social capital and networks and contemporary discussions of friendship. This introduction to the special issue argues that adopting alternative frameworks of enquiry such as friendship can serve to unsettle a priori assumptions about co-ethnic solidarity, and provide alternative epistemological starting points in understanding social networks. In doing so, this research not only contributes to contemporary readings of diverse cities but extends understandings of the routine affective and material labour that urban dwellers regularly undertake. Calling for a focus on informal bonds like friendship, this article suggests that it is within such unexplored spheres that possibilities of care and convivial city living exist.


Background: Idiopathic chondrolysis (IC) of the hip is a rare, disabling condition affecting mainly adolescent females. Cartilage necrosis results in a stiff, painful hip which in the majority of cases have a poor outcome. The aetiology still remains unknown and the treatment is controversial and relatively unsuccessful. Subtotal capsulectomy with soft tissue releases has been reported to give good results. Methods: Five female adolescents with IC of the hip were reviewed in order to shed light on the aetiology, delineate the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) preand post-operatively and assess the outcome of a subtotal capsulectomy. The surgical technique was performed as originally described with concomitant releases of the deformities. Samples of synovium and cartilage were sent for histology and culture (including tuberculosis culture). Preand post-operatively the patients were evaluated regarding pain, deformity and range of motion (ROM). Follow-up radiographs and MRI scans were performed and compared to pre-operative imaging. Results: Blood tests for auto-immune markers were negative in all cases. MRI pre-operatively showed erosions and mainly destruction of the superomedial acetabular cartilage. Histology of the synovium showed chronic, non-specific inflammation with a plasma cell infiltrate, suggesting an auto-immune cause. Histology of the cartilage confirmed cartilage necrosis. At follow-up (mean 11 months) four of the five patients were pain free and one patient reported an improvement in pain. There was an improvement in deformity and range of motion in four cases. Post-operative imaging (radiographs and MRI) at a mean of eight months, however, showed deterioration of the pathology with increase of the erosions, joint space narrowing and cartilage destruction. Conclusions: We conclude that the aetiology is most likely an auto-immune process. MRI was helpful in delineating the cartilage pathology. A subtotal capsulectomy offers early post-operative clinical relief. Radiological deterioration however suggests that the surgery does not prevent deterioration of pathology. Level of evidence: Level IV: Case series


Mutations in PRPF31 (RP11 locus) cause autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP), an inherited disorder of the retina characterised by degeneration of rod photoreceptors. PRPF31 is ubiquitously expressed and encodes a splicing factor involved in the spliceosome assembly. Interestingly, the phenotype caused by mutations in PRPF31 is restricted to the retina. This study aims to identify protein interactants of PRPF31, to contribute to a better understanding of the disease mechanism of RP11. Three potential interacting candidates were isolated through the yeast two-hybrid technique. Two of them (MAGI3, TRAK2) were confirmed to interact with PRPF31 using co-immunoprecipitation experiments after overexpression of the proteins; co-immunoprecipitation of the endogenous proteins was not carried out. MAGI3 and TRAK2 expression in human retina was proven by RT-PCR, however they are not retina-specific. MAGI3 and TRAK2 human retina transcripts did not appear to present major differences to the transcripts deposited in the Ensembl database. Tagged proteins were overexpressed in epithelial cells, and co-localisation between PRPF31 and each partner was mainly nuclear. In epithelial cells, both endogenous PRPF31 and MAGI3 localised to intercellular junctions but did not co-localise; however, after stress treatments, the proteins appeared to co-localise to the nucleus. In neuroblastoma cells, endogenous PRPF31 and TRAK2 did not co-localise. Immunohistochemistry experiments identified PRPF31 to be present largely in the inner segment and in the outer plexiform layer of murine retina. AdRP patients' DNA was screened to detect mutations in MAGI3 that could be linked to retinal degeneration, but none was identified. The results are not conclusive of the molecular mechanism of RP11, but instead provide new grounds for research on PRPF31. These insights into the type of interacting partners and the localisations observed within the cell and the retina may cast new light into the function(s) of PRPF31, which may (or may not) link to retinal degeneration.


This article surveys the current state of agroecology in Canada, giving particular attention to agroecological practices, the related social movements, and the achievements of agroecological science. In each of these realms, we find that agroecology emerges as a response to the various social and ecological problems associated with the prevailing industrial model of agricultural production that has long been promoted in the country under settler colonialism. Although the prevalence and prominence of agroecology is growing in Canada, its presence is still small and the support for its development is limited. We provide recommendations to achieve a more meaningful integration of agroecology in Canadian food policy and practice.


Credit is an instrument that supplies the entrepreneurs ways to play an active role in the economy. The objective of this paper is to analyze the economic impacts of the rural credit in the microregion of Pirapora, one of the seven microregions in the north of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The impacts of rural credit regarding the total and by sector GDP per capita are measured and analyzed. In addition, the possible effects of rural credit on the Indice Mineiro de Responsabilidade Social (IMRS – Minas Gerais State Social Responsibility Index) are identified. The panel data model is used, considering the period from 2000 to 2004. Results indicate that the agricultural sector is the main beneficiary of rural credit. Since the rural credit provides liquidity in the local economy, the effects of rural credit on other sectors are observed. A possible restriction on credit access is observed, when the direct effects of rural credit on the IMRS are measured.


I get a lot of junk email and quickly delete messages that have odd titles and are from unknown recipients. That's how I almost lost a great message with the heading: Invasive Species Tiara. This was definitely odd, and I didn't know the sender, but something made me not hit the "delete" button, and I'm very glad I didn't. The message was from Jan Yager, the creator of Invasive Species: An American Mourning Tiara--a real piece of jewelry crafted of gold and silver (http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion object stories/tiara/index.html). I had mentioned this work in a presentation I gave at a conference. Jan read about it on the Web (http://media.schoolofvisualarts.edu/ sva/media/1403/large/Proceedings2005.pdf) and contacted me--one of the advantages of electronic communication, enough to balance out the annoyance of junk email. I cited Yager's Tiara as an example of the relationship I see between jewelry and biology. Wearing ornaments representing plants and animals strikes me as a manifestation of biophilia. The biologist Edward O. Wilson (1984) defines biophilia as an innate human urge to have contact with other species. Wilson describes it in relation to a need to spend time in natural environments, surrounded by animals and plants. We also attempt to satisfy our biophilic desire by surrounding ourselves with plants, pets, and representations of plants and animals. In an earlier ABT article, I described the depth and breadth of this penchant in terms of TV shows and art works (Flannery, 2001). I've also written about the relationship between biophilia and interior decoration (Flannery, 2005). However, such representations are found not only in our homes but on our persons, in the form of jewelry. Since biophilia seems to be a genetically influenced trait, it's not surprising that personal adornments with representations of plants and animals are found in cultures throughout the world. This is true both now and in the past. I want to lay out evidence for this claim here and also present the argument that making students aware of biophilia and its manifestations is a way to heighten their sensitivity to environmental issues and to illustrate how biology relates to other parts of our culture. Jewelry of the Past I'll begin with some examples of ancient jewelry from a number of different cultures to illustrate both the long history of nature representations in body ornaments and also the geographical breadth of this custom. I'm presenting this survey because one of the lines of evidence used by Wilson and others to support the idea of a genetic basis for human behaviors is to claim their ubiquity. A Minoan goat pendant from 1500 BC, an ancient Egyptian necklace with hawks, and a Roman clasp with an eagle and its prey all illustrate my point. Every continent yields ornaments: a Chinese bat pendant, an Aztec serpent brooch, a Baule bird pendant from the Ivory Coast, and earrings with enameled birds from medieval Ukraine. This list could go on and on, but even these few examples make the point that jewelry in the form of organisms, particularly animals, is ubiquitous among human cultures over time and space. I'm going to now zero in on Western culture because this is where we live, geographically, culturally, and for the most part, mentally and emotionally. Here the tradition of animal and plant images in personal adornment is particularly strong. I want to begin by mentioning not an example of jewelry directly, but rather, a page from a Renaissance book of hours. It has images of jewelry in its border, including a flower pendant. Many of the other pendants pictured have religious significance. This page shows the movement toward looking at nature to find God, that is, the development of a natural theology. This was to become a particularly strong thread in Britain in the 19th century and was important to the expansion of evidence for evolution. In addition, as a number of historians have noted, religious thought was important to the growth of modern science in the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond (White, 1979). …


Dynamics in locomotion is highly useful, as can be seen in animals and is becoming apparent in robots. For instance, chimpanzees are dynamic climbers that can reach virtually any part of a tree and even move to neighboring trees, while sloths are quasistatic climbers confined only to a few branches. Although dynamic maneuvers are undoubtedly beneficial, only a few engineered systems use them, most of which locomote horizontally. This is because the design and control are often extremely complicated. This thesis explores a family of dynamic climbing robots which extend robotic dynamic legged locomotion from horizontal motions such as walking, hopping, and running, to vertical motions such as leaping maneuvers. The motion of these dynamic robots resembles the motion of an athlete jumping and climbing inside a chute. Whereas this environment might be an unnavigable obstacle for a slow, quasistatic climber, it is an invaluable source of reaction forces for a dynamic climber. The mechanisms described here achieve dynamic, vertical motions while retaining simplicity in design and control. The first mechanism called DSAC, for Dynamic Single Actuated Climber, comprises only two links connected by a single oscillating actuator. This simple, openloop oscillation, propels the robot stably between two vertical walls. By rotating the axis of revolution of the single actuator by 90 degrees, we also developed a simpler robot that can be easily miniaturized and can be used to climb inside tubes. The DTAR, for Dynamic Tube Ascending Robot, uses a single continuously rotating motor, unlike the oscillating DSAC motor. This continuous rotation even further simplifies and enables the miniaturization of the robot to enable robust climbing inside small tubes. The last mechanism explored in this thesis is the ParkourBot, which sacrifices some of the simplicity shown in the first two mechanism in favor of efficiency and more versatile climbing. This mechanism comprises two efficient springy legs connected to a body. We use this family of dynamic climbers to explore a minimalist approach to locomotion. We first analyze the open-loop stability characteristics of all three mechanisms. We show how an open-loop, sensorless control, such as the fixed oscillation of the DSAC's leg can converge to a stable orbit. We also show that a change in the mechanism's parameters not only changes the stability of the system but also changes the climbing pattern from a symmetric climb to a limping, non-symmetric climb. Corresponding analyses are presented for the DTAR and ParkourBot mechanisms. We finally show how the open-loop behavior can be used to traverse more complex terrains by incrementally adding feedback. We are able to achieve climbing inside a chute with wall width changes without the need for precise and fast sensing and control.


In eukaryotes, RNA-binding proteins that contain multiple K homology (KH) domains play a key role in coordinating the different steps of RNA synthesis, metabolism and localization. Understanding how the different KH modules participate in the recognition of the RNA targets is necessary to dissect the way these proteins operate. We have designed a KH mutant with impaired RNA-binding capability for general use in exploring the role of individual KH domains in the combinatorial functional recognition of RNA targets. A double mutation in the hallmark GxxG loop (GxxG-to-GDDG) impairs nucleic acid binding without compromising the stability of the domain. We analysed the impact of the GDDG mutations in individual KH domains on the functional properties of KSRP as a prototype of multiple KH domain-containing proteins. We show how the GDDG mutant can be used to directly link biophysical information on the sequence specificity of the different KH domains of KSRP and their role in mRNA recognition and decay. This work defines a general molecular biology tool for the investigation of the function of individual KH domains in nucleic acid binding proteins.


This essay reviews David A. Skeel, Jr., Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America. Although nominally a book about the history of bankruptcy law in America, Skeel's book is a comprehensive analysis of the past, present, and future of bankruptcy law in America. Skeel divides the history of bankruptcy law in America into three historical stages: the Nineteenth Century, the era of the 1898 Bankruptcy Act and the Great Depression, and the modern era of the 1978 Bankruptcy Code. As Skeel notes, the shape of bankruptcy law and practice throughout American history is at least as much a factor of political considerations and influence as economic considerations. To develop his point, Skeel draws on the fields of public choice and social choice, both of which apply the assumptions and tools of economics to the study of political science. Skeel uses these tools to shape his narrative, giving his argument an analytical edge that prior historical studies of American bankruptcy law have lacked. In particular, American bankruptcy law can be understood as resulting from the clash of three sets of interests: pro-debtor ideological interests (often spearheaded by law professors), creditors, and bankruptcy professionals (including bankruptcy judges). Although the outcome of this three-way struggle is unclear at any given moment, the dominant course of evolution of American bankruptcy law has been towards increasingly-generous bankruptcy laws that provide strong incentives for both individual and corporate debtors to file bankruptcy. Building on Skeel's insights, I then offer my own impressions of the current debate over the bankruptcy reform act as well as the future of bankruptcy law in America. Although largely explained by the factors identified by Skeel, the current debate over the bankruptcy reform act has introduced a new element to the traditional debate - an ideology of personal responsibility ushered in by the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 that has offset the traditional dominance of prodebtor ideology. At the same time, the bankruptcy system has become sufficiently unbalanced in a prodebtor direction that creditors have been able to overcome the collective action problems that have undermined prior reform efforts. These historical developments have made bankruptcy reform possible, unlike reform efforts in the past. With respect to the future of bankruptcy law, this essay argues that the likely result will be global convergence on efficient bankruptcy laws. Building on prior work demonstrating convergence on efficient corporate law rules in the American federal system, this essay argues that globalization will drive a similar convergence on efficient bankruptcy laws. This will encourage countries with excessively prodebtor laws, such as the United States, to adopt less-generous laws; it should also induce European countries to loosen their laws so as to encourage greater entrepreneurship and risk-taking.


In Ghana, the agricultural sector in general and the tomato sector in particular have not met their potential. In the tomato sector, production seasonality, the dominance of rainfed agriculture, high perishability of the fruits combined with no storage facilities, and poor market access, have resulted in low average yields but seasonal gluts with some farmers unable to sell their tomatoes which are consequently left to rot in their fields. The tomato value chain in Ghana is characterised by a "two level†system in which itinerant traders—the market queens —are the direct link between rural farm producers and urban consumption, rather than by a set of assembly markets which bulk the produce before being sold to urban wholesalers at relay markets. Assembly markets enable inspection, grading, and better price transmission, but the time taken to get the crop from farmgate to consumer is relatively long. The two-level trader system reduces delays of passing through assembly markets, allowing rapid movement of the produce from producer to consumer, important for highly perishable agricultural products such as tomato, but fragments price signals resulting in poor spatial price adjustments (Bell et al.1999; Orchard and Suglo 1999). In a two level system, farmers are distanced from market signals: most wait for the market queens to come to their fields and if these traders do not come, farmers leave the tomatoes to rot in the field in the absence of a local market. Traders allocate a certain number of crates, which determines how much farmers can sell on that particular day and there is little if any room for price-quantity or price-quality negotiations. Signals from consumers with respect to quality, price, and quantities demanded, are not transmitted back along the value chain to the farmers. Though packers may remove the poorest quality fruits, tomatoes of different qualities and even different varieties are not graded but rather simply piled them into over-sized crates.


Past studies have reported that language-specific color focality has substantial influence on short-term memory (STM) performance of colors of the speakers of the language, which we call the "focality effect." This study attempts to clarify the continuous patterns of this effect, that is, the manner in which correct recognition possibilities and misrecognition error distances of colors, which are two aspects of the STM performance of colors, change in a gradual fashion along the continuum of color focality. Our experiment, which tests the Japanese language, finds that a U-shaped relationship exists between the focality and the possibility of correct recognition, and that the misrecognition error distance increases as the focality decreases. We speculate that the subjects' frequent and conscious employment of the memorization strategy of coding colors using linguistic color categories is one important cause of the detected effect patterns.


Background/Aims: Organic nitrates represent a group of nitrovasodilators that are clinically used for the treatment of ischemic heart disease. The new compound CLC-3000 is an aminoethyl nitrate (AEN) derivative of pioglitazone, a thiazolidinedione antidiabetic agent combining the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ agonist activity of pioglitazone with the NO-donating activity of the nitrate moiety. Methods: In vitro and in vivo characterization was performed by isometric tension recording, platelet function, bleeding time and detection of oxidative stress. Results: In vitro, CLC-3000 displayed more potent vasodilation than pioglitazone alone or classical nitrates. In vitro, some effects on oxidative stress parameters were observed. Authentic AEN or the AEN-containing linker CLC-1275 displayed antiaggregatory effects. In vivo treatment with CLC-3000 for 7 days did neither induce endothelial dysfunction nor nitrate tolerance nor oxidative stress. Acute or chronic administration of AEN increased the tail vein bleeding time in mice. Conclusion: In summary, the results of these studies demonstrate that CLC-3000 contains a vasodilative and antithrombotic activity that is not evident with pioglitazone alone, and that 7 days of exposure in vivo showed no typical signs of nitrate tolerance, endothelial dysfunction or other safety concerns in Wistar rats.


This article discusses the often difficult and challenging process of setting up a new academic department, especially during a time of budget crisis. Furthermore it examines the role and purpose of the university, the place of so-called applied programs within the university, curriculum development of a new program, racial and cultural diversity at the university, and the overall relevance of the university as a vehicle for addressing community needs. The paper concludes with a discussion on how a Social Work faculty was able to use the university's mission to persuade its leadership into setting up a Social Work Department. Keywords: MSW program development; mission; values & ethics, fiscal crisis Introduction The development of a new academic program in higher education is both an exciting and a challenging experience. When such a program is introduced in a time of budgetary crisis and political unrest in the academy, the excitement and challenge escalates. While this is especially the case in California with its energy crisis, layoffs and cutbacks in the computer industry, similar circumstances impact the nation as well. What we do in this article is to examine how a university responds to an acute community need while at the same time trying to maintain fiscal integrity during a time of budgetary crisis. We believe this article has relevance in that it addresses such issues as the role and purpose of the university, the place of so-called applied programs in the university, university politics, university/community relations, curriculum development, racial and cultural diversity, political influence, accrediting agencies and, ultimately, the overall relevance of the university as a vehicle for addressing community needs. More specifically, we use the creation of a Master of Social Work degree program (MSW) at California State University East Bay (Formerly California State University Hayward) (CSUEB) and the multiple interactions with public social welfare agencies in its service area as the focus of this paper. As a regional university, CSU East Bay has a mission of serving the needs of its diverse multicultural and multicultural service area populations. On the other hand, within the university there is a tension between so-called "academic purists" and those interested in "applied or professional" programs. This tension is further exacerbated by the continuing demands from service area constituents that the university exists to serve the community. This analysis reflects the experience of three faculty members assigned the task of delivering an accredited Master of Social Work (MSW) program to a medium-sized state university in northern California. The team consists of one senior faculty member with more than thirty years experience in the system and two junior level faculty members with less experience in academia, but strong backgrounds as social work practitioners. In the pages that follow it will become evident that the delivery of a masters level professional program that effectively serves community needs requires a unique blend of experience that transcends academic and community interests, culture, history, practices, stereotypes, prejudices and customs. The Need For MSW Level Social Workers For more than thirty years members of the faculty in the department of Sociology and Social Services had intermittently proposed the establishment of an MSW program but were always rebuffed for the same reason--costs. The administrative response always revolved around the issue of cost with little discussion of need or service to the community. In 2001 and 2002, the winds of change began to blow. These winds of change emanated, not from the campus, but from the community, various public social service providers and even the state legislature. Changes in state and federal law and a proliferation of children in foster care helped to produce a tremendous shortage of MSW trained social workers to manage the growth. …


Abstract Coyne, JOC, Tran, TT, Secomb, JL, Lundgren, LE, Farley, ORL, Newton, RU, and Sheppard, JM. Maximal strength training improves surfboard sprint and endurance paddling performance in competitive and recreational surfers. J Strength Cond Res 31(1): 244–253, 2017—Upper-body (UB) strength has very high correlations with faster surfboard paddling speeds. However, there is no research examining the effects of improving UB strength has on surfboard paddling ability. This study aimed to determine the influence that improvements in UB closed–kinetic chain maximal strength have on surfboard paddling in both competitive and recreational surfers. Seventeen competitive and recreational male surfers (29.7 ± 7.7 years, 177.4 ± 7.4 cm, 76.7 ± 9.9 kg) participated in a repeated-measures, parallel control study design. Anthropometry; 5-, 10-, and 15-m sprint; and 400-m endurance surfboard paddling tests along with pull-up and dip 1 repetition maximum strength tests were assessed pre- and postintervention. Subjects in the training group performed 5 weeks of maximal strength training in the pull-up and dip. Differences between the training and control groups were examined postintervention. The training group increased their speed over the 5-, 10-, and 15-m sprint, whereas the control group became slower (d = 0.71, 0.51, and 0.4, respectively). The training group also displayed faster endurance paddling performance compared with the control group (d = 0.72). Short-term exposure to maximal strength training elicits improvements in paddling performance measures. However, the magnitude of performance increases seems to be dependent on initial strength levels with differential responses between strong and weaker athletes. Although a longer maximal strength training period may have produced more significant paddling improvements in stronger subjects, practitioners are unlikely to have any more than 5 weeks in an uninterrupted block with competitive surfing athletes. This study reveals that a "threshold" level of maximal strength that if possessed, short-term maximal strength training may only provide little improvement in paddling performance.


Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus) was first isolated by Pasteur and Sternberg in 1880 and shortly thereafter was recognized as the most common cause of bacterial pneumonia. Between then and now, the implication of a diagnosis of pneumococcal pneumonia has undergone a monumental change in the minds of physicians. In the early 20th century, when William Osler gave pneumonia its oft-cited appellation "captain of the men of death," its case fatality rate was estimated to be between 30% and 40%. The subsequent decades saw a gathering storm of interest in the biology and treatment of pneumococcal infection. Neufeld and Haendel demonstrated that pneumococci could be divided into immunologic types, later distinguishable in a matter of hours in a clinical specimen. In the 1930s, sulfonamide therapy for pneumonia reduced the case fatality rate substantially, and with the introduction of penicillin, the respect and fear accorded to pneumonia among physicians was diminished (perhaps to the point of excess), the focus shifting to strategies for prevention of pneumococcal disease by vaccination.

Scott Podolsky, an internist and lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, focuses on a sometimes untold story in the evolution of therapy for pneumococcal pneumonia, the development and implementation of type-specific serum therapy. Serum therapy, when it is discussed, is often presented as a footnote in this historical parade, a brief stop between the hopelessness of Osler's time and the triumph of the antibiotic era. Podolsky tells a story that is much richer, full of scientific and medical giants, such as Oswald Avery, Rufus Cole, and Maxwell Finland. Before the coming of the antibiotic era, which marks the end of the narrative, a massive public health system will have been mobilized and subsequently dismantled, pharmaceutical companies will have devoted massive resources to serum production, and debates will have simmered throughout the medical community as to how and when serum might best be used.

The three parts of the book trace the development, wide implementation, and subsequent decline of serotherapy over a period of more than 40 years. Podolsky is at his best when he illustrates the many instances in which debates over serotherapy foreshadowed questions that the medical community continues to face today. The role of the public health system vis-a-vis local practitioners was hotly debated, with individual doctors resentful of intrusions into their practices. Serious concerns were raised about the role of pharmaceutical companies in the investigation, marketing, and distribution of a product (serum) from which they profited. Finally, students of clinical investigation will recognize the seeds of controlled trials in this book, with disagreements over the proper handling of control groups, the need to convince practitioners of the value of statistical analysis, and the generalizability of studies performed at academic centers to the "real world."

As an additional parallel to today, it is striking in the telling of this story how consistently medicine has underestimated the diversity and adaptability of the pneumococcus. As the number of known serotypes expanded from 2 to 4 to more than 30 (of the 90 that are currently recognized), there was the gradual realization that type-specific therapy would become logistically challenging. Likewise, antibiotics such as penicillin, hailed as the final blow against the pneumococcus, would prove ultimately to select antibiotic-resistant mutants. Today, we face similar issues as we use polysaccharide vaccines against a limited number of serotypes, a strategy that ultimately may require revision or addition of serotypes currently not represented in the vaccine.

It is somewhat unfortunate that, despite the timeliness of this book, it is written in large part in a manner not easily accessible to the general reader. A great deal of the text is devoted to specific local reactions to larger scale policies. The writing is turgid, and much of the story resides in the voluminous footnotes, which constitute roughly 40% of the book's length. The result is a volume that is likely to be of greater interest to medical historians and sociologists than to clinicians or basic scientists.


To estimate the weight percents of certain nonmetal elements in organic compounds found in petroleum reservoirs, the Bureau of Mines designed and constructed a controlled-atmosphere plasma arc which effectively excludes air from the plasma. Selected organic compounds that contained nonmetal elements were mixed with a solvent essentially free of those elements. The weight percents of the nonmetal elements were estimated from the produced diatomic spectral bands; results were reasonably accurate. Analytical working curves were prepared for nitrogen in the range from 15 to 450 µg for 100 mg samples using the analytical carbon-nitrogen band at 3883 Å and the internal standard carbon-carbon band at 3607 Å. Curves also were prepared for hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen that had limited sensitivity to detection. Another indicated application of this plasma arc is for characterization of high-boiling petroleum fractions in liquid chromatographic effluents. The rates at which diatomic species are produced and destroyed directly influence the intensity of each corresponding band spectrum.


This study aims to provide a reference for the pipeline construction cost, by analysing individual pipeline cost components with historical pipeline cost data. Cost data of 412 pipelines recorded between 1992 and 2008 in the Oil and Gas Journal are collected and adjusted to 2008 dollars with the chemical engineering plant cost index (CEPCI). The distribution and share of these 412 pipeline cost components are assessed based on pipeline diameter, pipeline length, pipeline capacity, the year of completion, locations of pipelines. The share of material and labour cost dominates the pipeline construction cost, which is about 71% of the total cost. In addition, the learning curve analysis is conducted to attain learning rate with respect to pipeline material and labour costs for different groups. Results show that learning rate and construction cost are varied by pipeline diameters, pipeline lengths, locations of pipelines and other factors. This study also investigates the causes of pipeline construction cost differences among different groups.