Though Walt Whitman created no Irish characters in his early works of fiction, he did include the Irish as part of the democratic portrait of America that he drew in ""Leaves of Grass"". He could hardly have done otherwise. In 1855, when the first edition of Leaves of Grass was published, the Irish made up one of the largest immigrant populations in New York City and, as such, maintained a cultural identity of their own. All of this ""Irishness"" swirled about Whitman as he trod the streets of his Mannahatta, ultimately becoming part of him and his poetry. As members of the working class, famous authors, or close friends, the Irish left their mark on Whitman the man and poet. In this book Joann Krieg argues their importance within the larger framework of Whitman studies. Focusing on geography rather than biography, Krieg traces Whitman's encounters with cities where the Irish formed a large portion of the population-New York City, Boston, Camden, and Dublin-or where, as in the case of Washington, D.C., he had exceptionally close Irish friends. She also provides a brief historical summary of Ireland and its relationship with America. This text does more than examine Whitman's Irish friends and acquaintances: it adds a valuable dimension to our understanding of his personal world and explores a number of vital questions in social and cultural history. Krieg places Whitman in relation to the emerging labour culture of ante-bellum New York, reveals the relationship between Whitman's cultural nationalism and the Irish nationalism of the late nineteenth century, and reflects upon Whitman's involvement with the Union cause and that of Irish American soldiers.


Optimizing the physical data storage and retrieval of data are two key database management problems. In this paper, we propose a language that can express both a relational query and the layout of its data. Our language can express a wide range of physical database layouts, going well beyond the row- and column-based methods that are widely used in database management systems. We use deductive program synthesis to turn a high-level relational representation of a database query into a highly optimized low-level implementation which operates on a specialized layout of the dataset. We build an optimizing compiler for this language and conduct experiments using a popular database benchmark, which shows that the performance of our specialized queries is better than a state-of-the-art in memory compiled database system while achieving an order-of-magnitude reduction in memory use.


I n Higher Education and the Student , Robert Troschitz offers a thorough study of the modern British higher education system.  Written from a historian's perspective, this is an invaluable and introductory survey for all educational researchers.  At 236 pages, Troschitz's first published monograph is digestible but also displays his broad research interests, including cultural theory.  Indeed, Troschitz attributes particular significance to language and meanings.  I ought to confess that I studied History and was in the first cohort of students to have the maximum £9,000 tuition fees applied as I enrolled.  This was back in 2010 and my experience was a far cry to my parents' generation who reflected nostalgically on 'grants' rather than 'loans'. Britain, and primarily England, is the focus; the book captures the social and political changes and exposure of the HE system to neoliberal market forces.  The timescale encompasses the 1940s to the 1990s, although post-2010 developments are considered.  This chronological approach accentuates the historical narrative, based upon secondary published sources that contemplate the nature and purpose of higher education, such as government documents, reviews, consultations and Acts of Parliament. Troschitz applies discourse analysis to investigate the role of students, interrogating terms associated with higher education to demonstrate their shifting nature.  As he observes, the term "student" or "students" has proved particularly elusive.  However, he is not concerned with the lived experience of students; his aim is to demonstrate "how the idea of higher education and the concept of the student have shifted over time."   This is framed within the contexts of 'eligibility' and 'power'.  Thus, the biggest impact of the marketisation of higher education, it is argued, has not just been the financial implications for students, but a shift within the debate around the essence of higher education is and shifting sense of 'the student'.  As we have recently observed by the Higher Education Research Act 2017 and formation of the Office for Students, the emphasis on value for money has more firmly cast the student as customer. [Review continues]


Automated hyper-parameter tuning for unsupervised learning, including inverse problems, remains a long-standing open problem due to the lack of validation data. In this work, we design an automatic tuning criterion for inverse problems and formulate it as a bilevel optimization task. We demonstrate the efficiency of our tuning scheme on various inverse problems and different test and out-of-distribution image samples at no expense of performance drops.


Plants communicate with their interacting microorganisms through the exchange of functional molecules. This communication is critical for plant immunity, for pathogen virulence, and for establishing and maintaining symbioses. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid bilayer‐enclosed spheres that are released by both the host and the microbe into the extracellular environment. Emerging evidence has shown that EVs play a prominent role in plant–microbe interactions by safely transporting functional molecules, such as proteins and RNAs to interacting organisms. Recent studies revealed that plant EVs deliver fungal gene‐targeting small RNAs into fungal pathogens to suppress infection via cross‐kingdom RNA interference (RNAi). In this review, we focus on the recent advances in our understanding of plant EVs and their role in plant–microbe interactions.


In this paper, we study some empirical issues in the estimation of a New-Keynesian Phillips curve for Tunisia. In this purpose, we compare the performance of the strict and hybrid forms in the validation of data. In addition, we try to establish the sensitivity of the Phillips curve estimation to some empirical speci�cations. It includes the measures to be used for the output gap variable, as well as the implementation of the generalized method of moments for the estimation of this curve.


The thesis tries and models a neural network in a way which, at essential points, is biologically realistic. In a biological context, the changes of the synapses of the neural network are most often described by what is called `Hebb's learning rule'. On careful analysis it is, in fact, nothing but a qualitative statement allowing for as many as 81 different interpretations, all of which differ with respect to the question of how the synapses change as a function of dendritic input and axonal output. In the second chapter of the thesis, a more detailed analysis of Hebb's postulate shows that of these 81 possible interpretations only two survive, if a simple, biologically plausible, argument is used. In the second part of chapter 2, a physical derivation is given of Hebb's rule. Starting point for this derivation is an expression for the biochemical energy needed to change a synapse. Then Hebb's rule is found by requiring that changes of the synapses take place in an economical way, so that a minimal amount of energy is spent. The derivation of the Hebb rule as performed is `better' than any other derivation that can be encountered in the literature, where the Hebb rule is derived from a `cost function', since such a cost function is construed in such a way that it yields the `right', i.e., 'guessed to be right' Hebb rule one is after. It is comparable to the way the Einstein equations can be found from an action principle: the action then is chosen in such a way that the Einstein equations follow from it. Therefore, any derivation based on a cost function or an action is nothing more than postulating the final result in a disguised form. This is in contrast to our derivation of the Hebb rule, which starts from a biologically plausible assumption of economic use of the available biochemical energy in the physically ever changing system called brain. All Hebb rules ever derived in the literature from a cost function did not ever lead to the Hebb rule derived from the principle of minimal use of energy used in the present thesis. Apparently, the Hebb rule which the author of the thesis considers to be the actual rule, was considered to be inprobable by all his predecessors. The particular Hebb rule used in the thesis will be referred to as the `energy saving Hebb rule', in order to distinguish it from other rules found and used in the existing literature. In the technical terms of the subject, the energy saving Hebb rule can be stated to be a local, mixed Hebbian--Anti-Hebbian learning rule, which is asymmetric with respect to pre- and post-synaptic activity. The mathematically derived energy saving learning rule, as a surprise, encompasses precisely the two rules which one was left with after the careful but naive inspection mentioned above of the 81 a priori possible interpretations of Hebb's original postulate, an inspection that was based on biological plausibility only. The energy saving learning rule as found in the thesis still is a quantitative prescription, albeit that there remain two unknown parameters, not easily accessible within the chosen theoretical framework. These parameters are: an overall factor $\eta$ (the so-called learning rate), and a constant $\kappa$ (the so-called margin parameter). Setting apart these two fparameters, the energy saving learning rule can be characterized as quantitative, whereas Hebb's original learning rule certainly is qualitative only. In the third and last part of chapter 2 an analytical formula for the strengths $w_{ij}$ of the synaptic connections is derived, supposing that the synaptic adaptation takes place according to the energy saving learning rule. The learning procedure used in this derivation is known to yield a result which happens to coincide with what essentially is the method that in the mathematical literature goes under the name of `pseudo-inverse solution'. However, for a biological neural net the original formulation of this well-known method of the pseudo-inverse could not be used directly. In the appendix of chapter 2 a modification of the method of the pseudo-inverse is be presented which overcomes all problems resulting from biologically induced particularities of the problem. In the following two chapters, chapters 3 and 4, the study of chapter 2 is deepened. Firstly, it is taken into account that not only ideal, unperturbed, patterns are learned by the neural net: realistic input data are noisy, i.e., the set of input patterns is enlarged. Secondly, one tries to get some grip and understanding of the margin parameter $\kappa$ and the learning rate $\eta$ occurring in the energy saving learning rule. In chapter 3, the following question is asked, and answered: what are the most suitable values to be assigned to the weights of a neural network. The result turns out to be a generalization of the expression for the weights after a learning process with the energy saving learning rule of chapter 2. This is unexpected, because it was found independently of any learning rule, but it certainly is an encouraging surprise. Apparently, the biological learning rule leads, after repeated application, to the result that one should find from a mathematical point of view. In chapter 4 learning in a neural network is considered again, just as in chapter 2, but now for noisy instead of fixed patterns. Via a Discrete Time Master Equation, the the process of adaptation of the synapses is described theoretically, using the energy saving learning rule. The final result is an expression for the weights $w_{ij}$, which, for unperturbed input, reduces to the expressions for $w_{ij}$ found in chapter 2, as it should. For noisy input there is a slight difference with the mathematical result of chapter 2. This is due to the fact that, in an actual neural network, the synapses will always change a little bit, so that fixed patterns have a non-fixed representation in the mind. The mathematical approach of chapter 2 was not yet devised to take into account this subtle, time-dependent effect. The research of the chapters 2-4 of the thesis, which treat biological neural networks, can be summarized by stating that Hebb's postulate has been derived ---for the first time, and half a century after its formulation--- from a physical principle involving only economy of consumption of energy. The resulting Hebb rule, which was called 'energy saving rule' is much more precise, and almost quantitative, in contrast to its 1949 predecessor. In the final chapter 5 there is a switch from neural networks to related problems, namely the theory of spin-glasses. Both neural networks and spin-glasses possess a highly complex phase-space, which can be studied in many different ways. One of them is the so-called method of damage spreading, in which two identical systems with a different initial spin-configuration, are followed in time. It is shown that in a specific model, the spherical p-spin model, there exists a critical temperature which separates two different dynamical regimes. Moreover, a theoretical explanation is presented for the observed behavior of this spin-system. Although this chapter is less, or perhaps even totally non-biological, the concept of damage spreading is a useful tool to gain more insight in complex systems, among which biological neural networks.


Monitoring of species abundance, composition and distribution is essential for management and conservation of regional marine fish and invertebrate populations. The Reef Environmental Education Foundation's Fish Survey Project promotes resource stewardship and helps support more rigorous scientific monitoring by enabling recreational SCUBA divers to survey for fish and invertebrate presence and abundance while diving. As volunteer survey effort increases, so does the value of these data. To solicit ideas for increasing voluntary survey efforts in the region we queried certified SCUBA divers to determine what motivated and prevented people from conducting Fish Survey Project surveys. We received 395 completed questionnaires. An interest in becoming more familiar with local species was cited as the number one reason for participation by people who had previously conducted fish and invertebrate surveys as well as for people who had never performed them but were interested. People who had never performed a SCUBA survey and were not interested in doing so indicated that their lack of confidence in identifying fish and invertebrates was the number one reason, but most indicated that free fish and invertebrate identification classes would change their mind. These data suggest that a focused advertising campaign and free fish and invertebrate identification classes are probably the best ways to solicit more recreational SCUBA divers to perform fish and invertebrate surveys in the Puget Sound Georgia Basin region.


Background The 8th regional health area of Thailand, have 7 province and 88 hospitals. Three phase triage, first at dispatch centre second on scene and third in emergency room (ER) were done by difference registered nurses (RN). One patient will be 3 times triage by 3 difference RN. Methods This Quasi-experimental study focus on agreement of triage result by RN from 88 hospitals, compared between before and after triage training. RN was practically trained, triage competency development for modified Emergency Severity Index (ESI), on June 2014. The data was collected on May and July 2014. Analysed by kappa statistics and 95% CI: of kappa. The percent agreement before and after training triage was compared by Chi-square test. Results 3,325 patients were triaged, almost triage level were yellow and red. There were 24 Clinical-based categories of Emergency service. Top three of the Categories were Motor Vehicle Accident (22.20%) Sick (17.75%) Unconscious (8.30%). Before training, the agreement between dispatch and scene was almost perfect with kappa 0.82 (95% CI: = 0.78–0.87) the agreement between scene and ER was moderate with kappa 0.47 (95% CI: = 0.42–0.52). After training, the agreement between dispatch and scene was almost perfect with kappa 0.85 (95% CI: = 0.80–0.89) the agreement between scene and ER was moderate with kappa 0.57 (95% CI: = 0.52–0.61). The percent agreement of dispatch and scene triage between before and after training were not different. But the percent agreement of scene and ER triage were significantly improved (P-value = 0.001),with 0.05 level of significance. Conclusions The agreement of scene and ER triage was moderate, since patients were received first aid and treatment in transit that did change for level of triage when they came to ER. But after training, this agreement was better than before. This study confirm that we can improve triage agreement for RN by triage training and we should improve the other first aid and treatment competency for RN.


Decisions made during conceptual design can have a major impact on the success of a design project. However, the inherently imprecise nature of design is a major source of uncertainty and risk in conceptual design decisions. A single concept relates to a large set of specific design implementations, each of which has a different level of desirability based on the tradeoffs designers are willing to make. It therefore is beneficial for designers to have an understanding of the various tradeoffs they can achieve by implementing a concept. In this paper, we describe an approach to modeling design concepts under uncertainty based on a tradeoff space representation. We use the principles of decision making to develop a useful interpretation of a tradeoff space for decisions under uncertainty and to identify criteria useful for eliminating undesirable tradeoffs from consideration. We illustrate our approach to modeling and decision making on an example for the conceptual design of a gearbox.


This article stresses the centrality of youth questions in Uganda, whereby HIV, religious and political issues are contributing to changes in the societal landscape. The 'youth question' has become a very important focus in developmental aids, but its conceptualization still remains ambiguous. It is this ambiguity in the conceptualization of young people, as victims and agents, which informs efforts to involve youth in the work towards preventing the spread of HIV and mitigating the negative impact of AIDS. The article demonstrates that young people largely consent to the lower social positioning of youth as they regard themselves as persons still in the making, and they find this positioning a comfortable zone from which to criticise the older generations for not maintaining family solidarity and providing sufficiently for the younger generation. Based on a drama developed by a Catholic youth group, it shows how youth combine cultural values, child rights and Christian morality to present the selfishness and low morals of the older generations, and themselves, as keepers of morality in the interest of the society as a whole. Drawing on the human rights framework, development agencies refer to young people's rights to partake in matters regarding their own lives and entitlement, to grow up in safe spaces of socialization and develop skill. The concept used in this article tends to define 'youth' as a category of social being and social becoming where sexuality is becoming part of political discourse.


ABSTRACT Do famous athletes have special obligations to act virtuously? A number of philosophers have investigated this question by examining whether famous athletes are subject to special role model obligations. In this paper, we will take a different approach and give a positive response to this question by arguing for the position that sport and gaming celebrities are 'ambassadors of the game': moral agents whose vocations as rule-followers have unique implications for their non-lusory lives. According to this idea, the actions of a game's players and other stakeholders – especially the actions of its stars – directly affect the value of the game itself, a fact which generates additional moral reasons to behave in a virtuous manner. We will begin by explaining the three main positions one may take with respect to the question: moral exceptionalism, moral generalism, and moral exemplarism. We will argue that no convincing case for moral exemplarism has thus far been made, which gives us reason to look for new ways to defend this position. We then provide our own 'ambassadors of the game' account and argue that it gives us good reason to think that sport and game celebrities are subject to special obligations to act virtuously.


OF THESIS RETAIL DATA ANALYTICS USING GRAPH DATABASE Big data is an area focused on storing, processing and visualizing huge amount of data. Today data is growing faster than ever before. We need to find the right tools and applications and build an environment that can help us to obtain valuable insights from the data. Retail is one of the domains that collects huge amount of transaction data everyday. Retailers need to understand their customer's purchasing pattern and behavior in order to take better business decisions. Market basket analysis is a field in data mining, that is focused on discovering patterns in retail's transaction data. Our goal is to find tools and applications that can be used by retailers to quickly understand their data and take better business decisions. Due to the amount and complexity of data, it is not possible to do such activities manually. We witness that trends change very quickly and retailers want to be quick in adapting the change and taking actions. This needs automation of processes and using algorithms that are efficient and fast. In our work, we mine transaction data by modeling the data as graphs. We use clustering algorithms to discover communities (clusters) in the data and then use the clusters for building a recommendation system that can recommend products to customers based on their buying behavior.


Using in situ surface electron microscopy, we show that the surface chemical potential of GaAs (001), and hence the surface phase, can be systematically controlled by varying temperature with liquid Ga droplets present as Ga reservoirs. With decreasing temperature, the surface approaches equilibrium with liquid Ga. This provides access to a previously unattained regime, where we find phases ultra-rich in Ga, extending the range of surface phases available in this technologically important system. The same behaviour is expected to occur for similar binary or multi-component semiconductors such as InGaAs.


The short characteristics ofthe transport economics and transport system. The assumed development of the demands and supllies of the transport. The transport services like the factor of the development of society and companies. The specification of thenecessary level of the transport services in society. The objective ofthis article is to create the decision methodology and perspektives of the transport utility based on the hamonising conditions in the firms to make possible rational transport services.


Objectives: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk estimator is a recently developed online calculator tool for primary prevention. Family physicians, as first-line soldiers, have close contact with local community patients making preventive care management an integral part of their routine work. Therefore, we would like to assess primary health care providers' knowledge, attitude and barriers for using ASCVD risk estimator in a family health care facility. Methods: This was a quantitative, cross-sectional, single-center study which took place at a tertiary health care facility between December 2018 and January 2019. An English-paper-based self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all primary health care physicians (n=172). Results: Most of the participants were using a different type of cardiovascular risk score calculator 128 (97.7%). Among these scores, ASCVD risk assessment calculator was the highest frequently used calculator 67 (51.1%) and Framingham risk score 43 (32.8%). Study participant preferred to use mobile application 102 (77.9%) as a technical method of risk score calculation. ASCVD knowledge was significantly related to participants' clinical attitude (r=0.3, p-value=0.003) however, they have moderate knowledge about ASCVD risk calculator (61.7%), and only 37.3% have a positive attitude towards it. Conclusion: Health promotion implementation needs using powerful primary prevention of cardiovascular risk calculators. Therefore, enhancing family physician knowledge and eliminate obstacles will gradually improve their attitude towards disease prediction and prevention.


Surfactant-laden liquid/liquid interfaces mediate numerous chemical processes, from commercial applications of microemulsions to chemical separations. Classical molecular dynamics simulation is a prevalent method for studying microscopic and thermodynamic properties of such interfaces. However, the extent to which these features can be reliably predicted, and the variations in predicted behavior, depend upon the force field parameters employed. At present, the impact of force fields upon simulated properties is relatively understudied. Yet recent advances to sampling and analysis algorithms are increasing the interpretation of simulation data and therefore understanding force field dependence is increasingly relevant. In this study, the impact of the force field of the surfactant tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP), as well as that of water, is investigated at a water/(n-hexane + surfactant) interface. Empirical charge scaling was employed to modulate the hydrophilicity of the surfactant. As anticipated, the relative hydrophilicity of TBP influences a number of properties, including the adsorbed concentrations of TBP at the interface, and macroscopic properties that result from hydrogen bonding interactions, such as interfacial tension and width. The dynamic properties of solvents at the interface are strongly modulated by the variation in hydrogen bond strength caused by different charge scaling of the TBP model. This includes the residence times of water at the interface, where stronger water-TBP hydrogen bonding causes long-lived residences. Interestingly, there are a number of features that are relatively insensitive to the TBP hydrophilicity. In one important case, the concentration of water-bridged TBP dimers was only impacted for the least hydrophilic model. As these dimeric species are the building block of surface protrusions that lead to water transport across the interface, this implies that collective organizational patterns and surface structures that derive from multiple driving forces (e.g. TBP hydrophilicity and organic solvent free energies of solvation) are less sensitive to individual force field parameters. Further, we note that competitive interactions can "cancel" the effects of changing TBP charge on interfacial properties. One example is the orientation and hydrogen bonding structure of interfacial water, where the direct TBP-water hydrogen bonding competes against the indirect TBP-induced interfacial roughness. In combination, these observations may assist future simulation studies in calibrating surfactant models to, or interpreting results of, a broad range of dynamic, structural and thermodynamic properties.


The discovery of postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptors with the drug specificities of presynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptors has contributed to a refinement of the classification of alpha-adrenoreceptors. postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptors have been identified by pharmacological means and with the aid of direct radioligand-receptor binding studies. The evidence for the existence of this class of alpha 2-adrenoreceptors in the brain and in vascular smooth muscle is particularly strong. Central postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptors play a major part in the hypotensive action of centrally acting antihypertensive drugs such as clonidine and alpha-methyl-DOPA. Vascular smooth muscle cells contain postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptors which mediate vasoconstriction, like the more classical alpha 1-adrenoreceptors. The simultaneous occurrence of contractile alpha 1- and alpha 2-adrenoreceptors in vascular smooth muscle offers a simple model for the characterization of alpha-adrenoreceptor agonists and antagonists. At present, highly selective agonists of alpha 2-adrenoreceptors have been found. These new compounds may be useful for the classification of other alpha-adrenoreceptor populations. It has been suggested that the vascular postsynaptic alpha 2-adrenoreceptor might be located at extrasynaptic sites. Accordingly, adrenaline released by the adrenal medulla would be the endogenous stimulant. Finally, observations have been made in vivo indicating that a transmembrane influx of calcium ions is necessary for linking the drug-induced activation of these alpha 2-adrenoreceptors to vasoconstriction.


Many approaches focus on detecting dense blocks in the tensor of multimodal data to prevent fraudulent entities (e.g., accounts, links) from retweet boosting, hashtag hijacking, link advertising, etc. However, no existing method is effective to find the dense block if it only possesses high density on a subset of all dimensions in tensors. In this paper, we novelly identify dense-block detection with dense-subgraph mining, by modeling a tensor into a weighted graph without any density information lost. Based on the weighted graph, which we call information sharing graph (ISG), we propose an algorithm for finding multiple densest subgraphs, D-Spot, that is faster (up to 11x faster than the state-of-the-art algorithm) and can be computed in parallel. In an N-dimensional tensor, the entity group found by the ISG+D-Spot is at least 1/2 of the optimum with respect to density, compared with the 1/N guarantee ensured by competing methods. We use nine datasets to demonstrate that ISG+D-Spot becomes new state-of-the-art dense-block detection method in terms of accuracy specifically for fraud detection.


During the reign of Louis XIV, few courtiers led careers as full and consequential as that of François Fénelon. Born in 1651 to a nobleman from an ancient line but with little wealth, Fénelon was well schooled through scholarships, rising as a young priest, scholar, teacher, and administrator through the Church hierarchy. The 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave Fénelon the opportunity to distinguish himself as an educator at a school for girls who had recently converted from Calvinism to Catholicism. A rising star in King Louis XIV's court, he was mentored by the Crown's leading theologian and political theorist, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, and rubbed shoulders with notables like the Duc de Saint-Simon. These associations led to his appointment as special tutor for Louis XIV's three grandsons, one of whom eventually became Philip V, king of Spain. Fénelon's own ambitions were rewarded in 1695, when he was appointed Archbishop of Cambrai. Over the course of his decorated career, Fénelon wrote theology, mysticism, and pedagogy, as well as more lighthearted fictional literature. He died in 1715, a few months before Louis XIV's own death.


The contraceptive practices of young women (aged 15-29) underwent two important evolutions during recent decades in France. First of all, beginning in the late 1960s, the use of the pill became general in this age group. However, its diffusion was not yet complete when the AIDS epidemic appeared suddenly in the late 1980s. As a result of HIV prevention campaigns, the young adopted the condom massively as their principal contraceptive method. This had two consequences: an expansion of contraceptive coverage (by the late 1990s, nearly all first relations were protected), and a postponement of the age at first use of the pill. Within this context, it may be suggested that the introduction of the condom turned some young people away from the pill. By simultaneously using period data from the last four national surveys on contraception (INED-INSERM), and complete contraceptive histories collected during the most recent of these surveys (COCON), we show that the proportion of users of the pill decreased ? in the mid-1980s ? only at the very onset of sexual life, and that the much more frequent use of the condom at these first relations finally led young women to turn rapidly to the pill.


Recent developments in Hungary's asylum law and policy demonstrate an extraordinary subversion of the refugee rights regime and serve as a case study of how a State can pervert its national laws to shirk its international and regional treaty obligations. This Article has two major goals. First, it traces the devolution of Hungarian asylum law from the height of the 2015 refugee crisis to July 2018 through a critical lens. Second, it argues that Hungary is in violation of its nonrefoulement obligations, which prohibits States from returning refugees to countries where they will likely face harm. This Article focuses its nonrefoulement analysis on Hungary's designation of Serbia as a safe third country. However, in showing that Serbia is not safe for refugees, this Article concludes that Hungary's entire "Chutes and Ladders" asylum system violates its nonrefoulement obligations, as Hungary expels or pushes back almost all asylum seekers to Serbia.

The international community must study how countries like Hungary evade the global norm of responsibility-sharing, and devise solutions to hold rogue States accountable—particularly if there is any hope for coordinated efforts to manage refugee crises and uphold the rights of asylum seekers enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and human rights treaties.


To investigate the feasibility of developing a new tenoxicam transdermal delivery system (TDS), the pharmacokinetics of tenoxicam from various formulated TDS were evaluated and compared with values following oral administration of tenoxicam and with application of a piroxicam plaster (Trast) marketed in Korea. Based on previous in‐vitro study results, a mixture of diethylene glycol monoethyl ether (DGME) and propylene glycol monolaurate (PGML) (40:60) was used as a vehicle, and caprylic acid, capric acid, lauric acid, oleic acid or linoleic acid (each at 3%) was added as an enhancer. Triethanolamine (5%) was used as a solubilizer, and Duro‐Tak 87–2510 as a pressure‐sensitive adhesive. Among these fatty acids used for the formulation of tenoxicam TDS, caprylic acid showed the greatest enhancing effect; the area under the plasma concentration—time profile (AUC) decreased in the order of caprylic acid > linoleic acid ≥ oleic acid > lauric acid > capric acid. Compared with oral administration, maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) was significantly lower, and time to reach Cmax (Tmax) delayed with all formulated tenoxicam TDS. All formulated TDS resulted in a lower AUC than with the oral formulation, except for TDS containing caprylic acid, although the difference was statistically significant only with capric acid. The AUC for all the formulated tenoxicam TDS was significantly higher than that of the piroxicam plaster; TDS with caprylic acid increased AUC 8.53‐fold compared with the piroxicam plaster. Even though the Tmax of tenoxicam TDS was not significantly different from that of the piroxicam plaster, Cmax was higher; formulations containing caprylic acid and linoleic acid increased Cmax by 7.39‐ and 8.76‐fold, respectively. In conclusion, a formulation containing 1.5 mL DGME‐PGML (40:60) with 3% caprylic acid and 5% triethanolamine mixed with 6 g Duro‐Tak 87–2510 could be a good candidate for developing a new tenoxicam TDS to maintain a comparable extent of absorption to oral delivery while attaining a prolonged effect with fewer toxic events.


States are using climate change adaptation plans to prepare for the impacts of climate change. As of October 2014, 14 states had finalized stateled adaptation plans. An additional eight states and the District of Columbia had some adaptation planning underway. The Georgetown Climate Center is tracking implementation of these plans and making these data available to scholars, practitioners, and the public through an interactive tool in the Climate Center's Adaptation Clearinghouse. This research provides, for the first time, an empirical assessment of the progress that states are making implementing their adaptation plans. Among states with plans, there is significant variation in the number of goals included in each plan, the sectors covered, and the degree of implementation that has occurred. The number of discrete goals in state plans ranges from 28 to 373, and the level of implementation progress ranges from 16 to 87%. Our research demonstrates that states are actively implementing the goals in their adaptation plans, but the process of plan development and the progress in implementation are highly state specific.


This paper introduces a method to simulate complex rod assemblies and stacked layers with implicit contact handling, through Eulerian-on-Lagrangian (EoL) discretizations. Previous EoL methods fail to handle such complex situations, due to ubiquitous and intrinsic degeneracies in the contact geometry, which prevent the use of remeshing and make simulations unstable. We propose a novel mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian discretization that supports accurate and efficient contact as in EoL methods, but is transparent to internal rod forces, and hence insensitive to degeneracies. By combining the standard and novel EoL discretizations as appropriate, we derive mixed statics-dynamics equations of motion that can be solved in a unified manner with standard solvers. Our solution is simple and elegant in practice, and produces robust simulations on large-scale scenarios with complex rod arrangements and pervasive degeneracies. We demonstrate our method on multi-layer yarn-level cloth simulations, with implicit handling of both intra-and inter-layer contacts.


SUMMARY. In serum, tracheal wash fluid, and bile from chickens that were inoculated with live or inactivated Newcastle disease virus (NDV), the kinetics and immunoglobulin (Ig) class distribution of an antibody response were demonstrated. The Ig classes (IgM, IgG, and IgA) were captured using monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (Ig-capture ELISA). The antibody specificity of the captured Ig was confirmed by binding of NDV. After inoculation with live virus, antibodies of the IgG and IgM classes were mainly found in serum. IgM was produced early from day 4 postexposure (PE) onward, IgG was detected later from day 7 PE onward, and in the tracheal wash fluid and bile, all three Ig classes were demonstrated. After inoculation of inactivated virus, a delayed response of all three classes was observed in serum, and only IgM and IgG were recognized in the tracheal fluid and bile. The type of vaccine and the route of antigen entrance may have determined the immunoglobulin class produced. The Ig-capture ELISA assay developed in this study can be useful for evaluating various strategies to improve the efficacy of Newcastle disease vaccines and to study the evoked immune mechanisms.


Knowledge distillation is a technique for improving a "student" model by replacing its one-hot training labels with a label distribution obtained from a "teacher" model. Despite its broad success, several basic questions — e.g., Why does distillation help? Why do more accurate teachers not necessarily distill better? — have received limited formal study. In this paper, we present a statistical perspective on distillation which sheds light on these questions. Our core observation is that a "Bayes teacher" providing the true classprobabilities can lower the variance of the student objective, and thus improve performance. We then establish a bias-variance tradeoff that quantifies the utility of teachers that approximate the Bayes class-probabilities. This provides a formal criterion as to what constitutes a "good" teacher, namely, the quality of its probability estimates. Finally, we illustrate how our statistical perspective facilitates novel applications of distillation to bipartite ranking and multiclass retrieval.


Holographic interconnection schemes for high-speed data transfer have been demonstrated by other researchers. Because holographic recording materials presently available are sensitive to the visible spectrum but not to the near infrared, these studies used bulky gas lasers. Visible laser diodes, as they become available, will likely become a preferred source in a practical system because of their small size and high beam powers. The two mutually coherent beams needed to write the hologram have previously been implemented by using bulk optics to split a beam. In anticipation of the use of coherently coupled visible laser diode arrays as sources, it is shown that the individual elements of laser diode arrays currently available have sufficient mutual coherence to create reasonable holographic elements. This application is demonstrated with an infrared array because of the unavailability of visible arrays in this emerging technology. It is extrapolated that for visible coherently coupled laser diode arrays and current holographic materials, a holographic interconnection system is potentially feasible by using the mutually coherent beams from individual facets. This makes recording holograms more straightforward because the recording process eliminates beam splitting requirements. Therefore the system is more desirable for in situ recording situations such as those required for dynamic interconnection.


Determining the species source of logs and planks suspected of being Araucaria araucana (Molina) K.Koch (CITES Appendix I) using traditional wood anatomy has been difficult, because its anatomical features are not diagnostic. Additionally, anatomical studies of Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze, Araucaria heterophylla (Salisb.) Franco, Agathis australis (D.Don) Lindl., and Wollemia nobilis W.G.Jones, K.D.Hill & J.M.Allen have reported that these taxa have similar and indistinguishable anatomical characters from A. araucana. Transnational shipments of illegal timber obscure their geographic provenance, and therefore identification using wood anatomy alone is insufficient in a criminal proceeding. In this study we examine the macroscopic appearance of selected members of the Araucariaceae and investigate whether analysis of heartwood chemotypes using Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (TOFMS) is useful for making species determinations. DART TOFMS data were collected from 5 species (n =75 spectra). The spectra were analyzsed statistically using supervised and unsupervised classification algorithms. Results indicate that A. araucana can be distinguished from the look-alike taxa. Another statistical inference of the data suggests that Wollemia nobilis is more similar and within the same clade as Agathis australis. We conclude that DART TOFMS spectra can help in making species determination of the Araucariaceae even when the geographic provenance is unknown.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the clinical effectiveness and safety of a compounded sustained-release formulation of buprenorphine, compared with effects of regular buprenorphine, for postoperative analgesia in rabbits.

DESIGN
Blinded randomized controlled clinical trial.

ANIMALS
24 purpose-bred adult male New Zealand White rabbits.

PROCEDURES
Rabbits received titanium implants in each tibia as part of another study. Immediately prior to surgery, each rabbit received regular buprenorphine hydrochloride (0.02 mg/kg [0.009 mg/lb], SC, q 12 h for 3 days) or 1 dose of a compounded sustained-release formulation of buprenorphine (0.12 mg/kg [0.055 mg/lb], SC) followed by an equal volume of saline (0.9% NaCl) solution (SC, q 12 h for 3 days) after surgery. For 7 days after surgery, rabbits were evaluated for signs of pain by means of rabbit grimace and activity scoring and for adverse effects.

RESULTS
No significant differences were identified between treatment groups in grimace and activity scores at any point. No major adverse effects were detected for either drug. However, 3 rabbits that received regular buprenorphine had pain scores suggestive of moderate to severe pain by the time dose administration was due (ie, within the 12-hour administration interval). No clinically important differences were detected in intraoperative anesthetic or postoperative recovery variables.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Sustained-release buprenorphine administered SC at 0.12 mg/kg was at least as effective as regular buprenorphine in providing analgesia for rabbits following orthopedic surgery without any major adverse effects. This sustained-release formulation represents an important alternative for rabbit analgesia with potential to improve rabbit welfare over existing analgesic standards.


The growth of nearly full coverage of multilayer graphene on the surface of a 99.8% purity copper foil has been experimentally studied. It has been shown that the film thickness can be controlled by a single parameter, the growth time, and growth can be extended until nearly full coverage of more than one layer graphene over the copper surface. The results are supported by scanning electron microscopy and Raman analysis together with optical transmittance and sheet resistance measurements. It has been verified that silicon oxide impurity particles within the copper act as catalysts and the seeds of multilayer graphene islands. The linear increase of the average thickness of graphene to the growth time has been attributed to the interplay between the mean distance between the impurities on the surface and the molecular mean free path in the process gas. A qualitative model is proposed to explain the microscopic mechanism of the multilayer growth on copper. These results contribute to the understanding of the chemical vapour deposition growth kinetics towards the objective of large area high quality graphene production with tuneable layer thickness.


High frequency ultrasound (>;15 MHz) is used in the fields of pre-clinical, intravascular, ophthalmology and superficial tissue imaging. Tissue-equivalent phantoms have previously been developed to enable relevant quality assurance measurements for frequencies lower than 15MHz but to date limited data is available on the acoustic properties of tissue equivalent material at frequencies higher than 15MHz. In this study, the acoustic attenuation of an International Electromechanical Commission (IEC) agar based tissue mimicking material (TMM) was measured over the frequency range of 12 - 47 MHz at 21 °C ± 1 °C using a broadband substitution technique. By applying a polynomial curve fitting function to the measured data the attenuation (dB·cm-1) was found to vary with frequency f(MHz) in the form of 0.39 f + 0.0069 f2. This result is comparable to the published result at lower frequencies.


Objectives: In order to facilitate and optimize learning process, there is need to evaluate preferred choice of teaching methods among dental students, especially in Indian scenario wherein lecturing remains the most commonly employed method of teaching. The aim of the present study was to assess and compare learning approaches among the male and female undergraduate dental students.
Methods: The study was conducted among undergraduate dental students of Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal University, Mangalore. Students belonging to the first four years of their professional dental education program were enrolled in the study. A structured, self-administered questionnaire comprising of 9 multiple choice questions apart from the demographic details was employed to assess the dental student's preferences towards learning.
Results: A total of 100 dental students participated in the study. Majority of the respondents preferred lecture classes in the morning hours for 30 minutes. Audiovisual method was the most preferred teaching aid whereas multiple choice questions and periodic tests were most preferred method for evaluation. Significant difference was observed between male and female study subjects in terms of average percentage of the lecture content they were able to understand (p<0.035).
Conclusions: The present study holds policy implications for changes in the teaching patterns practiced in current times. Differences among learning preferences of males and females must be considered while selecting teaching methods. There is need to introduce more of active learning programs in order to overcome the drawback of lack of interaction and also to facilitate the learning among all students.


Diarrheal disease is a leading cause of illness and death in children worldwide. Diarrhea is caused by a blend of bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens. Enteric protozoal infections such as giardiasis, amebiasis and cryptosporidiosis are among the most common and most prevalent forms of gastrointestinal parasitic infections worldwide. Both nitazoxanide and metronidazole are used in treatment of protozoal diarrhea. Nitazoxanide was found to have a very broad spectrum of activity against many forms of parasites. Metronidazole also produces good results when it is used for treatment of parasitic infections. The aim in this study was to evaluate and compare the effect of nitazoxanide and metronidazole in treatment of protozoal diarrhea in children. This study was carried out on 160 diarrheic patients (83 males and 77 females), aged from 1-11 years old collected from the-clinics of pediatric department at Beni suef University Hospital. Patients were divided into two groups. Group A received Nitazoxanide 100 mg in 1-4 years aged patients and 200 mg in 4-11 years aged patients twice daily for 3 days respectively, Group B received Metronidazole 50 mg/Kg/body weight daily for 7 days. Patients were represented to full history taking, physical examination, laboratory investigations in the form of stool analysis, culture and complete blood count (CBC). There was a significant increase in the number of cases resolved by Nitazoxanide compared to Metronidazole group in both amebiasis and giardiasis (p-value < 0.05) with similar clinical improvement when using Nitazoxanide for 3 days and Metronidazole for 7 days.
This study confirms the efficacy and safety of nitazoxanide as a 3-day treatment of diarrhea due to giardiasis & amebiasis in children. A 3-day course of nitazoxanide could replace much longer regimens of metronidazole


The hypothesis of this short-term study was that repeated episodes of clenching at submaximal bite force levels can induce a progressive increase in pain and tenderness in masticatory muscles. On each day for 5 consecutive days, 10 women clenched on a bite force transducer for 15 minutes at 25% of their maximal bite force. The development of pain, tenderness, and unpleasantness in the masticatory muscles was evaluated with use of 10-cm visual analog scales (VAS) and the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ). Pain detection thresholds (PDT) and pain tolerance thresholds (PTT) to percutaneous pressure stimuli were measured in the masseter and anterior temporalis muscles. Maximal voluntary bite force to brief clenches were assessed. The results showed moderate levels of pain (mean +/- SE; 5.3 +/- 1.0), tenderness (5.2 +/- 1.0), unpleasantness (5.8 +/- 0.8), and MPQ scores (16.4 +/- 4.9) immediately after the submaximal clenching task on the first day. The following days, the clenching tasks did not increase these scores; in contrast, there were significant decreases on day 5 in both pain intensity (-49.8% +/- 14.6%), tenderness (-46.1% +/- 14.2%), unpleasantness (-50.4% +/- 8.5%), and MPQ scores (-45.8% +/- 13.3%) (P < .05) when compared to day 1. The clenching procedure failed to induce a progressive increase in pain and tenderness in the masticatory muscles during 5 days. None of the evaluated parameters from this study suggested the start of a vicious cycle.


Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is an innovative technology that opens up new visions in any industrial field. This technology is growing rapidly, entering various industries every day. After over 30 years from the introduction of metal additive manufacturing into the industrial world, the today's demand is to make mechanical parts with high precision by metal additive manufacturing. Until now, methods like high precision grinding or micro-machining processes are used to make more precise dimensions in parts. Those methods have their own limits and deficiencies that could be eliminated with additive manufacturing. In this paper, attempts are made to compare conventional precise processes with metal additive manufacturing from different aspects. Surface finish in these two categories is discussed and some advice for improving the surface quality of metal additive manufacturing parts is proposed. Applicability and utilization of metal additive manufacturing as a precise metal fabrication method in various industries with examples are also discussed.


From the second half of the 20th century, a set of emerging economies have undergone a remarkable developing path. During the first years of the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) were only slightly affected by its negative impacts. However, after 2013, a considerable growth slowdown period has evolved in these countries with the exception of the Indian economy. In the current study, we examine whether the growth dynamics of the BRICS economies shows significant correlation with the fluctuation of commodity prices, especially in the case of raw materials. Besides applying a cross correlation model on the quarterly commodity price indices and real GDP growth data, the research also focuses on the export structure of the selected fast-growing countries. As a closing element of our paper, a brief analysis is carried out regarding the correlations of growth patterns within the BRICS economies.


Rice represents the main source of calorie intake in many world countries and about 60% of the world population include rice in their staple diet. Whole grain rice, also called brown rice, represent the unpolished version of the more common white rice including bran, germ, and endosperm. Many health-promoting properties have been associated to the consumption of whole grain rice and, for this reason, great attention has been paid by the scientific community towards the identification and the quantification of bioactive compounds in this food item. In this contribution, the last five years progresses in the quali-quantitative determination of phenolic compounds in rice have been highlighted. Special attention has been devoted to the most recent strategies for the extraction of the target compounds from rice along with the analytical approaches adopted for the separation, identification and quantification of phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, and proanthocyanidins. More specifically, the main features of the "traditional" extraction methods (i.e., maceration, ultrasound-assisted extraction) have been described, as well as the more innovative protocols involving advanced extraction techniques, such as MAE (microwave-assisted extraction). The predominant role of HPLC in the definition of the phenolic profile has been examined also presenting the most recent results obtained by using mass spectrometry-based detection systems. In addition, the most common procedures aimed to the quantification of the total amount of the cited classes of phenolic compounds have been described together with the spectrophotometric protocols aimed to the evaluation of the antioxidant properties of rice phenolic extracts (i.e., FRAP, DPPH, ABTS and ORAC).


The generational conflict hypothesis predicts that the elderly might use their political power to reduce public resources allocated to children. It is usually tested by exploiting the localized nature of school funding in the US. This paper takes a different approach using cross-country data on family benefits. The evidence points to a positive relation between the generosity of these benefits and the share of the elderly in the electorate of the country. The effects that other studies have found at the local level are thus not observed at the national one. The difference in approach and findings between this paper and previous ones can contribute to the debate on local school funding. The paper also suggests that the effect of the elderly may reflect the larger proportion of women in that age group.


Domestication and the subsequent selection of animals for either economic or morphological features can leave a variety of imprints on the genome of a population. Genomic regions subjected to high selective pressures often show reduced genetic diversity and frequent runs of homozygosity (ROH). Therefore, the objective of the present study was to use 42,182 autosomal SNPs to identify genomic regions in 3,191 sheep from six commercial breeds subjected to selection pressure and to quantify the genetic diversity within each breed using ROH. In addition, the historical effective population size of each breed was also estimated and, in conjunction with ROH, was used to elucidate the demographic history of the six breeds. ROH were common in the autosomes of animals in the present study, but the observed breed differences in patterns of ROH length and burden suggested differences in breed effective population size and recent management. ROH provided a sufficient predictor of the pedigree inbreeding coefficient, with an estimated correlation between both measures of 0.62. Genomic regions under putative selection were identified using two complementary algorithms; the fixation index and hapFLK. The identified regions under putative selection included candidate genes associated with skin pigmentation, body size and muscle formation; such characteristics are often sought after in modern-day breeding programs. These regions of selection frequently overlapped with high ROH regions both within and across breeds. Multiple yet uncharacterised genes also resided within putative regions of selection. This further substantiates the need for a more comprehensive annotation of the sheep genome as these uncharacterised genes may contribute to traits of interest in the animal sciences. Despite this, the regions identified as under putative selection in the current study provide an insight into the mechanisms leading to breed differentiation and genetic variation in meat production.


The effects of the antiarrhythmic drug propafenone at Kv2.1 channels were studied with wild-type and mutated channels expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes. Propafenone decreased the Kv2.1 currents in a time- and voltage-dependent manner (decrease of the time constants of current rise, increase of block with the duration of voltage steps starting from a block of less than 19%, increase of block with the amplitude of depolarization yielding a fractional electrical distance delta of 0.11 to 0.16). Block of Kv2.1 appeared with application to the intracellular, but not the extracellular, side of membrane patches. In mutagenesis experiments, all parts of the Kv2.1 channel were successively exchanged with those of the Kv1.2 channel, which is much more sensitive to propafenone. The intracellular amino and carboxyl terminus and the intracellular linker S4-S5 reduced the blocking effect of propafenone, whereas the linker S5-S6, as well as the segment S6 of the Kv1.2 channel, abolished it to the value of the Kv1.2 channel. In the linker S5-S6, this effect could be narrowed down to two groups of amino acids (groups 372 to 374 and 383 to 384), which also affected the sensitivity to tetraethylammonium. In segment S6, several amino acids in the intracellularly directed part of the helix significantly reduced propafenone sensitivity. The results suggest that propafenone blocks the Kv2.1 channel in the open state from the intracellular side by entering the inner vestibule of the channel. These results are consistent with a direct interaction of propafenone with the lower part of the pore helix and/or residues of segment S6.


The study of the petrochemistry of the Helmsdale granite intrusions, NE Scotland, reveals that the Helmsdale granite consists of two granitic intrusions; an outer, early, coarser-grained porphyritic pink granite (CGP) and the inner, finer-grained type (FG). Major and trace elements show dissimilarities between the FG and the CGP types, with the former having higher iron, MgO and TiO2, and lower silica contents. Plagioclase and biotite removal appear to be the minerals changing the magma composition towards the later differentiated CGP type. Both granites were subjected to weathering and hydrothermal alteration, although the latter is commonly confined to the zones of intense high K alteration within the FG type (inner intrusion). Ratios such as Na2O/K2O, Al2O3/(SiO2+Al2O3), (Na2O+K2O+CaO+MgO)/Al2O3, Fe2O3/FeO and microfracture index (FI) have been found to be particularly useful as indices of physical and chemical weathering of the granites. Various British standard tests are employed to assess the suitability of the Helmsdale granite aggregates for engineering purposes including roadstone and concrete making. The CGP samples generally have lower strength and slightly better AAV, PSV values than the FG samples type. Apart from badly weathered materials (such as in Eldrable Burn) the Helmsdale granites appear to have the same strength as the Peterhead granite and are slightly below the rest of the granites of Scotland. The AAV values of 3-6% obtained show an acceptable level for aggregate to be used for most highway and trunk road running surfaces whereas the PSV results, on the other hand, suggest that aggregate from the Helmsdale granites can be used for site C with satisfactory performances. Aggregates from the Helmsdale granites are also suitable for most concrete mixtures and satisfactory performances will be achieved except for the purposes of heavy duty concrete floors.


Existing research shows multiple articulations of national identity by Hong Kong's people since the handover in 1997. An issue of contention is whether the dichotomy of China as the "other" vis-a-vis Hong Kong's local identity still prevails in the context of top-down renationalisation and new developments in transborder spatiality. While the existing literature has illustrated Hong Kong people's steady growth of pride and affinity for national symbols, re-examination of three representative surveys (2006, 2008, and 2010) demonstrates that resistance to these cultural icons is also growing. Furthermore, while previous studies have revealed that a "cultural-economic China" is more welcome than a "political China," the three surveys mentioned above indicate that even the former is meeting growing local resistance. The otherness of China hence should be re-visited in light of the ambivalence of Hong Kong identity. The theoretical and social implications of this sense of the otherness of China are also significant. Specifically, this article argues that the ambivalence of Hong Kong people's articulation of national identity is closely connected to the uneasiness generated by encounters between China and Hong Kong in recent years: controversies and contentions arising from national education, the transborder flow of population, and the provision of goods and public services for non-locals. In this paper, I shall look at the development of local and national identities in some states of contested equilibrium.


In this article I reflect on the deployment of crass vandalism in contemporary decolonial and anti-racist struggles, as exemplified by the recent activist campaign against Belgium's colonialist patrimony. Through a consideration of two internal, "enlightened" critiques of such vandalist activism, I argue that an irresolvable, recurrent conflict between two fundamental performative politics, based on the performance of civility and barbarity respectively, plays itself out here. In recourse to arguments by Benjamin, Žižek, Jameson and Fanon, I offer a redemptive critique of the second type of politics and examine the "paradoxical efficacy" of "staging barbarity" for decolonial, anti-racist purposes.


Introduction Tuberculosis (TB) is a wasting disease. Weight variation has been proposed as a marker to predict TB therapy outcome. The goal of this study was to evaluate trends of patients' bodyweight over time depending upon TB treatment outcome. Methods A retrospective cohort study with TB cases diagnosed from 2000 to 2006 was performed. Information from five public treatment facilities at San Juan de Miraflores, Lima, Peru was collected. Poor outcome was defined as failure or death during therapy, and compared to good outcome defined as cured. Longitudinal analysis using a marginal model was fitted using Generalised Estimating Equations to compare weight trends for patients with good and poor outcome, adjusting for age, sex, tuberculosis type, treatment scheme, BCG scar presence, HIV status and sputum variation during follow-up. Results A total of 460 patients (55.4% males) were included: 42 (9.1%) had a poor outcome (17 failed and 25 died). Weight at baseline was not different between outcome groups. Interaction terms between outcome status and time were significant (p=0.002) indicating that trends of bodyweight of patients with poor outcome completely differed of those with good outcome during follow-up. This divergence was observed from the first month of therapy (coefficient −2.54, p<0.001) and was markedly different at fourth month of treatment (coefficient −4.08, p=0.003). Conclusion Weight variation during tuberculosis therapy follow-up can predict treatment outcome. Patients with weigh loss during therapy or without gaining appropriate weight during treatment should be more closely followed as they are at risk of failure or death.


Agricultural water management (AWM) has been identified as a mean for small-scale farmers to increase productivity and to overcome challenges posed by occurring climate changes, holding them in a poverty trap. Stakeholder participation has been included in national plans since the development of the Agenda 21, from the Rio Conference in 1992. In this context, the participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is recognised to play a key role in ensuring sustainability and reduction of poverty, for example through approaches of integrated water resources management (IWRM) and 'good governance'. This study focuses on the participation of NGOs in decision making around agricultural water development in Tanzania. The research takes a systematic approach to address both the 'perceived' and 'expected' engagement of NGOs in different policy processes.The findings of this study demonstrate that although NGOs are formally included in decision making, their participation has become narrowed down to service provision and implementation of policies, as opposed to NGOs having a more meaningful influence over the setting of policy priorities.The study further demonstrates that unequal power relations between different NGOs as well as between collectives of NGOs and other stakeholders in government and business may pose added challenges for their participation in policy development. However, the organisation of NGOs in networks may provide a fundamental (yet not formally articulated) support towards NGO efforts to overcome unequal power relations. It is therefore important to better understand how well-coordinated NGO networks with good connections to decision-makers can help individual NGOs to increase their influence in policy processes.


: Properties of cortical spreading depression (SD) were studied at different phases of cyclic excitation occurring in the rat neocortex under low-frequency electrostimulation. SD waves appeared in the cortex spontaneously or were elicited by KCL microinjection. It is shown that the state preventing penetration of SD waves into the stimulated area (blockade of SD) developed during each cycle of excitation. The spatial extent of the SD blockade depended on the degree of excitation generalization over cerebral cortex. After the end of excitation the ability of the stimulated cortical area to conduct SD waves restored. In the intervals between the excitation cycles the SD waves duration was on the average half as long as before stimulation. The development of SD blockade during active phase and restoration of SD waves in the intervals confirms a hypothesis that K+-Na+ pump activation prevents the propagation of SD.


For many decades, defamation law in England in Wales has predominantly only had to deal with material that has been published via printed publications, radio and television. As such, defamation law has been tailored to best suit these media. Since the introduction of the Internet, defamation law has been tested to its limits with a number of commentators arguing that it is not equipped to deal with the uniqueness of
the online publications. Consequently, Internet service providers, content hosts and Internet users are all at risk of being held as the publisher and being sued for defamation, potentially, anywhere in the world, even if they had no prior knowledge of the material in question. Previous research regarding the Internet and defamation has been scarce. This
research has set out to gain a greater understanding of the problems facing Internet
service providers and the threats to freedom of expression on the Internet caused by defamation law, procedures and practice. This has been achieved by conducting an indepth desk research of academic text, press commentary and case law followed by interviews with Internet service providers, content hosts and lawyers with an expertise of defamation. Initial assumptions were that defamation law, procedures and practice was threatening freedom of expression on the Internet. This proved to be correct and of great concern to the Internet publishing community. It was also found that defamation law procedure and practice was in many cases efficient in the removal of alleged defamatory (Internet based) material and in its attempt to restore a person s reputation. It has been concluded that parts of defamation law in England and Wales could be
revised to improve the preservation of freedom of expression on the Internet. Furthermore, current defamation law coupled with defamation procedures and practice are leaving Internet publishers vulnerable to vexatious claims of defamation.
There is also evidence to suggest that conditional fee agreements used within
defamation legal practice are becoming more popular for defamation cases and consequently, threatening freedom of expression on the Internet.
Finally, Internet defamation cases and disputes are becoming a greater part of a defamation lawyer's practice and in some practices becoming more popular than traditional printed libel cases. It is for this reason that the results, conclusions and recommendations of this research are of a timely nature and of significant importance to the field of Internet publishing.


Metaphoric thought is often viewed as a property of individual minds that is quite separate from people's social, communicative actions with metaphoric language and gesture. My goal in this article is to argue that metaphoric cognition is fundamentally linked to human social activities. I defend this idea by focusing not only on metaphor use in overt communicative situations, but by suggesting ways that individual metaphoric cognition is implicitly social. Many of the experimental tasks used in psychology to demonstrate the psychological reality of conceptual metaphors reflect intricate couplings between cognitive and social processes. This argument demands a reorientation in how metaphor scholars interpret empirical findings related to conceptual metaphor theory, and more broadly aims to dissolve the long-standing theoretical divide between metaphoric cognition and metaphoric communication.


The file including the papers for the four conferences that Lucien Febvre gave in 1920 on the history of French trade unionism long remained in the shadow of his later work, although he kept it and enriched it with new references. The subject matter has little to do with the historian of the 16th century's interests. It rather reflects his youthful commitments. As a fellow student of Albert Thomas in the rue d'Ulm, he closely followed the evolution of the socialist and trade unionist movement at the turn of the century. He represented the socialist committee at the popular university of Besançon and anonymously published some thirty articles in Le Socialiste comtois between 1907 and 1909. He then became removed from these because of his attachment to his own independence and because the preparation of his theses and his teaching career oriented him in different directions. After returning from the war and having been awarded the Légion d'honneur and the rank of Captain for his military merit, he started teaching at the University of Strasbourg on the 4th December 1914 where he remained for fourteen years. The preparation of the conferences took place during the key period of his return to a professional career. These constitute a precious testimony of the way in which Lucien Febvre attempted what we would today call an essay in "immediate history".


Purpose To report the distribution of peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness in healthy young adults, investigate factors associated with RNFL thickness, and report the percentage of outside normal limits (ONL) and borderline (BL) RNFL thickness classifications based on the optical coherence tomography (OCT) manufacturer reference database. Methods Participants of the Raine Study Generation 2 cohort (aged 18–22 years) underwent spectral domain OCT imaging with an RNFL circle scan. Eyes with inadequate scans or optic nerve pathology were excluded. Linear mixed models were used to analyze associations. Results Data were available for 1288 participants (mean age, 20.0 years). Mean RNFL thicknesses in right and left eyes, respectively, were global = 100.5 µm, 100.3 µm (P = 0.03); temporal = 73.1 µm, 68.9 µm (P < 0.001); superotemporal = 140.6 µm, 136.3 µm (P < 0.001); superonasal = 104.9 µm, 115.1 µm (P < 0.001); nasal = 79.7 µm, 79.1 µm (P = 0.09); inferonasal = 109.8 µm, 111.5 µm (P < 0.001); and inferotemporal = 143.2 µm, 143.6 µm (P = 0.51). Longer axial length was associated with thinner RNFL globally, nasally, inferotemporally, superotemporally, superonasally, and inferonasally, as well as thicker RNFL temporally. The prevalence of ONL and BL classifications was generally higher than the expected rates of 1% and 4%, respectively, in temporal sectors and lower than expected in nasal sectors. The prevalence of global BL classifications was lower than expected (right eye, 2.3%; left eye, 2.6%). Conclusions Measured RNFL thickness differs with axial length and between right and left eyes. More reference data are needed to better define the normal limits of RNFL variation in different populations. Translational Relevance This study provides an improved understanding of normal variation in RNFL thickness in young adults.


BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Prognosis of multiple injured patients is mainly limited by severe haemorrhage. Although mechanisms of altered immune response have been intensively investigated, little is known about the relevance of liver trauma as an independent predictive outcome factor in these patients.

METHODS
10,469 patients from the DGU Trauma Registry (1993-2005) were retrospectively analyzed. Primary admitted patients with an injury severity score > or = 16, without isolated head injury were included. Patients were analyzed according to the injury pattern as liver injury (Abbreviated Injury Scale--AIS abdomen < 3 and AIS liver 2-5; n = 321), non-liver abdominal trauma (AIS abdomen 2-5 or AIS liver < 3; n = 574) and control group without abdominal injuries (AIS abdomen or liver < 3; n = 9,574).

RESULTS
Severe liver injury was associated with excessive demands for volume resuscitation and induced a significantly increased risk for sepsis and multi-organ failure (MOF) compared to both other groups (sepsis 19.9% vs. 11.0%; MOF 32.7% vs. 16.6%). Furthermore, deleterious outcome was more frequently associated with severe liver trauma (mortality 34.9%) compared to severe abdominal trauma (12.0%).

CONCLUSION
Severe liver trauma is an independent predictor for severe haemorrhage with a substantially increased risk of sepsis, MOF and trauma-related death. While conservative treatment of patients with liver trauma but no haemorrhage is effective, patients with hemodynamic instability seem to be from a subgroup where contemporary treatment modalities are not yet sufficient.


Max Weber, by 1920, had a well-defined and elaborated notion of domination but did not complete a theory of domination. While the concept of power is amorphous, organised power relations that are structured by a relation of command and obedience may be theorised as a relation of domination. Yet, throughout the 20th century, sociologists have not completed the task. The following is a concise but systematic elaboration of a theory of domination. The text has the following headings: Preparing a theory of domination - Definition of the term domination and separation from the concept of power; Domination is a relation of command and obedience from which an organisation emerges; Domination requires recognition or, else, commands lack legitimacy; The legitimacy of domination confers authority on the commander: Continuing domination requires administration; Organisation facilitates mobilisation in collective action. The text has been written in German so as to engage Max Weber as fully as possible.


The development of model licenses for use in the procurement of electronic journals is part of a necessary streamlining of an unfamiliar and burdensome process. Copyright law is inadequate to deal with the scope and accessibility of online journals, the interests of journal owners, or the specific needs of the serials community. Licensing is taking its place. A suite of model licenses is now in the public domain for use as part of the process of negotiating the purchase of electronic journal content for individual libraries and for consortia. These model licenses can help reduce the negotiation and administration for both publishers and librarians. They do not predict the outcome of negotiation or specify best practice; but rather are tools in a new and rapidly changing, information environment.


The Dong rural settlement is an important carrier and manifestation of the national culture. Rapid urbanization has changed the basis for the existence and development of rural settlement in all aspects. This paper summarizes and analyzes the underlying causes of the common trends in space alienation, hollowization, and modernization in the evolution of the Dong rural settlement based on the analysis of several typical cases. From traditional micro-level focus on entity and space to expanded meso- and macro-level focus, this paper builds a three-in-one strategic framework and describes specific strategies for industrial restructuring, social transformation, and space reconstruction geared toward the protection and development of the rural settlement.


Despite the clear benefits that social connection offers to well-being, strangers in close physical proximity regularly ignore each other due to their tendency to underestimate the positive consequences of social connection. In a between-subjects study (N = 49 pairs, 98 participants), we investigated the effectiveness of a humanoid robot, a computer screen, and a poster at stimulating meaningful, face-to-face conversations between two strangers by posing progressively deeper questions. We found that the humanoid robot facilitator was able to elicit the greatest compliance with the deep conversation questions. Additionally, participants in conversations facilitated by either the humanoid robot or the computer screen reported greater happiness and connection to their conversation partner than those in conversations facilitated by a poster. These results suggest that technology-enabled conversation facilitators can be useful in breaking the ice between strangers, ultimately helping them develop closer connections through face-to-face conversations and thereby enhance their overall well-being.


Objectives The cancer risk of elongated mineral particles (EMPs) generated from non-asbestiform asbestos minerals is unclear. Nephrite is regarded as a non-asbestiform asbestos mineral. The objective of this study was to determine the cancer risk of nephrite. Methods We examined cancer mortality between 1979 and 2011 in Fengtian, where nephrite was mass-produced from 1970 to 1980 and calculated standardised mortality ratios (SMRs). Results: We observed a significantly elevated mortality risk of cancer of the hypopharynx (SMR 2.31; 95% CI: 1.37, 3.65), larynx (SMR 2.51; 95% CI: 1.55, 3.83), oesophagus (SMR 2.04; 95% CI: 1.62, 2.54), and stomach (SMR 1.38; 95% CI: 1.17, 1.63). This study analysed the lengths, widths, structures, chemical compositions, aerodynamic diameters, and distributions of EMPs in airways. The majority of the EMPs (68%) were short (< 5 μm) and thin (< 0.5 µm) and had asbestiform structures. The median aerodynamic diameter of the EMPs was 1.2 μm. The total deposition proportion in airways was 51.3%. The major deposition sites were the head airway (37.5%), followed by the alveolar region (10.6%) and the tracheobronchial region (3.2%). Conclusion This study provides evidence that short EMPs generated from processing nephrite are carcinogenic, and the fraction deposition of EMPs is associated with the mortality risk of cancer.


A 53-year-old man, who had initially presented with an upper respiratory tract infection, was found to have a stage IV follicular low-grade lymphoma with malignant cells that were positive for CD19, CD20, CD10, surface kappa, and CD45 and negative for CD5. A grade 1 tumor (follicular center cell lymphoma/follicular small cleaved) was suspected. Enlarged lymph nodes (2.5 to 4.0 cm) were found in the mediastinum, azygoesophageal recess, and periaortic region as well as in the porta hepatis, peripancreatic, mesenteric, and celiac regions.


BACKGROUND
Heat shock proteins (HSP) are essential mammalian and bacterial stress proteins. At the cellular level, they act as chaperones, have important regulatory functions, and are considered to be an essential factor for reproduction. Scarce information exists on the role of sensitization to HSP and the potential role in the aetiology of male infertility.

METHODS
The potential association of immunoglobulin (Ig)A antibodies (Ab) to the human 60 kDa heat shock protein (HSP 60) with several parameters of subclinical male genital tract infection/inflammation and with semen quality and sperm fertilizing capacity was analysed in a prospective study. IgA Ab to human HSP 60 were determined in seminal plasma of 202 randomly chosen male partners of subfertile couples with a median duration of infertility of 4 years (range 1-15 years), who were asymptomatic for genital tract infection. After medical history and clinical examination, a comprehensive evaluation of semen quality, in aliquots of the same ejaculates used for HSP Ab determination, included: sperm analysis; local antisperm antibody (ASA) screening; standardized sperm-cervical mucus (CM) penetration testing; immunocytochemical round cell differentiation to determine seminal leukocyte counts; evaluation of complement fraction C(3) and of some pro-inflammatory cytokines; and microbial screening. Subsequent fertility was recorded after 6 months.

RESULTS
The presence of HSP 60 IgA Ab in seminal fluid (total positive 6.9%) was significantly associated with leukocytospermia, the presence of C(3), and also with high interleukin (IL) levels in seminal plasma. HSP 60 Ab were not related to the bacterial colonization of ejaculates. There was no association of seminal IgA Ab to human HSP 60 with semen quality, determined with microscopical semen analysis, nor with local IgG- or IgA-class ASA. There was no relationship with sperm intrinsic motility and duration of motility in the sperm CM-penetration test, nor with sperm fertilizing capacity.

CONCLUSIONS
The combined presence of IgA Ab to human 60 kDa HSP, leukocytes and other established infection/inflammation markers in semen might suggest a potential role of the immune response to heat shock proteins (HSP) in cases of silent male genital tract infection, but the results do not indicate a marked relationship of HSP 60 Ab in seminal fluid with standard parameters of semen quality.


Infertility affects up to one in six couples and remains a major cause of distress in both men and women. Concerns about fertility continue to grow across the world along with economic and social pressures causing women to delay childbirth, and the impact of lifestyle factors such as obesity, smoking and alcohol intake. The last two decades have witnessed a shift towards evidence-based fertility treatment and greater awareness of the need to ensure the highest standards of safety. Management of infertility has moved away from an aetiological pathway where physicians identify and then treat an underlying pathology, to a prognostic approach where the decision to initiate treatment is driven by awareness of a couple's chances of spontaneous conception and what can be achieved with intervention. To address the changes in the way fertility problems are now diagnosed, investigated and managed, we have substantially redesigned the third edition of this book, enlisting a new cast of authors and expanding the scope of the text. While the evidence base underpinning the choice of tests and treatments is sometimes far from secure, clinical decisions should be made jointly with patients and should maximise health gains while minimising costs and risks. Infertility remains an integral part of core training for those taking the MRCOG examination. We hope that this book will provide a concise guide to fertility practice for trainees as well as for specialists.


This article presents a survey of model-driven techniquesfor data model synthesis. During an extensive research,we identified more than 70 research papers in the field andmore than 15 different graphical notations used for the sourcemodel representation.We have classified the proposed approachesinto four distinct groups: function-oriented, process-oriented,communication-oriented and goal-oriented. Their contributionsare presented in chronological order and evaluated based onseveral main criteria. Although the idea of model-driven designof the data model is more than 25 years old, the survey showsthe richness and diversity of ideas, but only a small number ofimplemented automatic generators.


We study dynamic phase transitions in the constant-volume and constant- pressure ensembles of two different systems: a one-dimensional system of diffusive hard particles and a three-dimensional glass-former of nearly-hard repulsive particles. The dynamic transitions are observed using ensembles of trajectories biased with respect to their dynamic activity, biasing to greater or lower activities than equilibrium allows us to sample different dynamic phases. We perform finite-size scaling of the transitions with respect to sys- tem size and observation time, and compare them to first-order phase tran- sitions. The two ensembles are not equivalent in the one-dimensional model. We compare our results to analytic predictions for diffusive systems in both the active and inactive phases, there are structural signatures for both dy- namic regimes. The active phases show hyperuniform ordering and the inac- tive regimes show jamming behaviour, local jamming in the constant-volume ensemble is achieved through phase separation. In the three-dimensional sys- tem we observe a dynamic transition to a glassy inactive phase, there is no obvious structural change and the structural relaxation time increases sig- nificantly. We take configurations from the active and inactive phases and subject them to a jamming protocol in order to compare the final density of the jammed packings. Previous work shows that the inactive phase of glass-forming systems have a different distribution of vibrational modes and a higher compressibility, this suggests that the jamming behaviour should differ between the two phases. We show that jammed packings generated from inactive configurations are denser than those generated from active configurations.


Global education is becoming increasingly important in higher education institutions in the United States. Concurrently, service-learning is another educational activity becoming more popular in higher education institutions. Very little research has been done on the impact on the community from a service-learning perspective, especially as a part of a study abroad. The purpose of this study was to explore the impacts of a short-term service-learning study abroad program on the community partners (organizations) where students completed service-learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with leaders of organizations in Ireland who hosted students from the University of Florida during a study abroad program. Data were interpreted using Enos and Morton's (2003) campus and community partnerships framework. Results revealed both transactional and transformational outcomes. Long-term impacts included cultural exchanges, the skill level of students, and moving partnerships forward. Recommendations for practice and research are provided


After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule was widely publicized in the United States as one of the humanitarian issues justifying intervention. Kabul Carnival explores the contradictions, ambiguities, and unintended effects of the emancipatory projects for Afghan women designed and imposed by external organizations. Building on embodiment and performance theory, this evocative ethnography describes Afghan women's responses to social anxieties about identity that have emerged as a result of the military occupation.

Offering one of the first long-term on-the-ground studies since the arrival of allied forces in 2001, Julie Billaud introduces readers to daily life in Afghanistan through portraits of women targeted by international aid policies. Examining encounters between international experts in gender and transitional justice, Afghan civil servants and NGO staff, and women unaffiliated with these organizations, Billaud unpacks some of the paradoxes that arise from competing understandings of democracy and rights practices. Kabul Carnival reveals the ways in which the international community's concern with the visibility of women in public has ultimately created tensions and constrained women's capacity to find a culturally legitimate voice.


When one observes a sequence of variables $(x_1, y_1), \ldots, (x_n, y_n)$, Conformal Prediction (CP) is a methodology that allows to estimate a confidence set for $y_{n+1}$ given $x_{n+1}$ by merely assuming that the distribution of the data is exchangeable. CP sets have guaranteed coverage for any finite population size $n$. While appealing, the computation of such a set turns out to be infeasible in general, e.g. when the unknown variable $y_{n+1}$ is continuous. The bottleneck is that it is based on a procedure that readjusts a prediction model on data where we replace the unknown target by all its possible values in order to select the most probable one. This requires computing an infinite number of models, which often makes it intractable. In this paper, we combine CP techniques with classical algorithmic stability bounds to derive a prediction set computable with a single model fit. We demonstrate that our proposed confidence set does not lose any coverage guarantees while avoiding the need for data splitting as currently done in the literature. We provide some numerical experiments to illustrate the tightness of our estimation when the sample size is sufficiently large, on both synthetic and real datasets.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have announced a set of provisional guidelines concerning male circumcision, in which they suggest that the benefits of the surgery outweigh the risks. I offer a critique of the CDC position. Among other concerns, I suggest that the CDC relies more heavily than is warranted on studies from Sub-Saharan Africa that neither translate well to North American populations nor to circumcisions performed before an age of sexual debut; that it employs an inadequate conception of risk in its benefit vs. risk analysis; that it fails to consider the anatomy and functions of the penile prepuce (i.e., the part of the penis that is removed by circumcision); that it underestimates the adverse consequences associated with circumcision by focusing on short-term surgical complications rather than long-term harms; that it portrays both the risks and benefits of circumcision in a misleading manner, thereby undermining the possibility of obtaining informed consent; that it evinces a superficial and selective analysis of the literature on sexual outcomes associated with circumcision; and that it gives less attention than is desirable to ethical issues surrounding autonomy and bodily integrity. I conclude that circumcision before an age of consent is not an appropriate health-promotion strategy.


This study investigated the antimicrobial effect of oyster lysozyme with or without nisin added to calcium alginate (CaAlg) coated on the surface of smoked salmon against Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella anatum. L. monocytogenes or S. anatum inoculated smoked salmon samples (1 g) were dipped into CaAlg with either oyster lysozyme (OysL) or hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL), with or without added nisin (N), then stored at 4 degrees C for 35 d. Our results indicated that the effectiveness of oyster lysozyme or hen egg white lysozyme was enhanced when added to calcium alginate coatings. After 35 d at 4 degrees C the growth of L. monocytogenes and S. anatum was suppressed in the range of 2.2 to 2.8 log CFU/g with CaAlgNOysL or CaAlgNHEWL coatings compared to the control nontreated samples. There was no significant difference between oyster lysozyme and hen egg white lysozyme treatments against L. monocytogenes or S. anatum inoculated on the surface of salmon. Calcium alginate coatings containing lysozyme with nisin or without could be used to reduce the growth of L. monocytogenes and S. anatum on the surface of ready-to-eat smoked salmon at refrigerated temperatures.


Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2-NPs) are widely used, and humans are exposed through food (E171), cosmetics (e.g., toothpaste), and pharmaceuticals. The oral and gastrointestinal (GIT) tract are the first contact sites, but it may be systemically distributed. However, a robust adverse outcome pathway (AOP) has not been developed upon GIT exposure to TiO2-NPs. The aim of this review was to provide an integrative analysis of the published data on cellular and molecular mechanisms triggered after the ingestion of TiO2-NPs, proposing plausible AOPs that may drive policy decisions. A systematic review according to Prisma Methodology was performed in three databases of peer-reviewed literature: Pubmed, Scopus, and Web of Science. A total of 787 records were identified, screened in title/abstract, being 185 used for data extraction. The main endpoints identified were oxidative stress, cytotoxicity/apoptosis/cell death, inflammation, cellular and systemic uptake, genotoxicity, and carcinogenicity. From the results, AOPs were proposed where colorectal cancer, liver injury, reproductive toxicity, cardiac and kidney damage, as well as hematological effects stand out as possible adverse outcomes. The recent transgenerational studies also point to concerns with regard to population effects. Overall, the findings further support a limitation of the use of TiO2-NPs in food, announced by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).


Violent, nonmentalizing individuals who act out aggression do not usually respond to verbal therapeutic approaches alone. We suggest the movement in physically oriented therapies, such as yoga and martial arts, combined with psychodynamic psychotherapy are critical in reaching these individuals. We also suggest embodiment as a direct link to the kinesthetic core of easily disturbed attachment experiences. This process embodying the mind requires a safe, containing context found in the therapist. Clinical vignettes show how this might be done in both individual and social contexts. These vignettes also show a way to think about such a combination of techniques and theories.


In this paper addresses Rayleigh fading networks, and in particular, wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks over Rayleigh fading channels. First, we will model Rayleigh fading networks and show how to map the wireless fading channel to the upper layer parameters for cross-layer design. Based on the developed fading network model, we will consider two scarce resources of wireless networks, namely energy and medium, and develop a cross-layer way to improve their efficiency. In particular, we will first study the energy-efficiency and introduce a new parameter, Energy Cost Factor, as the counterpart of Transport Capacity in wireless transmission. We investigate the issue of cooperative node selection in MIMO communications for wireless ad hoc/sensor networks, where a source node is surrounded by multiple neighbors and all of them are equipped with a single antenna. . In order to optimize system performance, we jointly consider the optimization of all these parameters, given the aforementioned system constraints. We assume that the source node either has channel state interference (CSI), or has no CSI. Heuristic algorithms, such as maximal channel gain (MCG) and least channel correlation (LCC) algorithms are proposed in order to exploit available system information and to solve the constrained optimization problem. Finally, we will give a general discussion on the cross-layer design and show how power control and route selection jointly contribute to improving the resource efficiency. A few particular routing algorithms will also be studied in detail.