The accuracy of relative spin-state energetics predicted by selected quantum chemistry methods: coupled cluster theory at the CCSD(T) level, multiconfigurational perturbation theory (CASPT2, NEVPT2), multireference configuration interaction at the MRCISD+Q level, and a number of DFT methods, is quantitatively evaluated by comparison with the experimental data of four octahedral iron complexes. The available experimental data, either spin-forbidden transition energies or spin crossover enthalpies, are corrected for relevant environmental effects in order to derive the quantitative benchmark set of iron spin-state energetics. Comparison of theory predictions with the resulting reference data: (1) validates the high accuracy of the CCSD(T) method, particularly when based on Kohn-Sham orbitals, giving the maximum error below 2 kcal mol-1 and the mean absolute error (MAE) below 1 kcal mol-1; (2) corroborates the tendency of CASPT2 to systematically overstabilize higher-spin states by up to 5.5 kcal mol-1; (3) confirms that the latter problem is partly remedied by the recently proposed CASPT2/CC approach [Phung et al., J. Chem. Theory Comput., 2018, 14, 2446-2455]; (4) demonstrates that NEVPT2 performs worse than CASPT2, by giving errors up to 7 kcal mol-1; (5) shows that the accuracy of MRCISD+Q spin-state energetics strongly depends on the size-consistency correction: the Davidson-Silver and Pople corrections perform best (MAE < 3 kcal mol-1), whereas the standard Davidson correction is not recommended (MAE of 7 kcal mol-1). Only a few DFT methods (including the best performing ones identified in this study: B2PLYP-D3 and OPBE) are able to provide a balanced description of the spin-state energetics for all four studied iron complexes simultaneously, corroborating the non-universality problem of approximate density functionals.


Objective: In Australia it has been estimated that mental health symptoms result in a loss of $ AU2.7 billion in employee productivity. To date, however, there has been only one study quantifying employee productivity decrements due to mental disorders when treatment-seeking behaviours are considered. The aim of the current paper was to estimate employee work productivity by mental health symptoms while considering different treatment-seeking behaviours. Method: A total of 60 556 full-time employees responded to the World Health Organization Health and Work Performance Questionnaire. This questionnaire is designed to monitor the work productivity of employees for chronic and acute physical and mental health conditions. Contained within the questionnaire is the Kessler 6, a scale measuring psychological distress along with an evaluation of employee treatment-seeking behaviours for depression, anxiety and any other emotional problems. A univariate analysis of variance was performed for employee productivity using the interaction between Kessler 6 severity categories and treatment-seeking behaviours. Results: A total of 9.6% of employees have moderate psychological distress and a further 4.5% have high psychological distress. Increasing psychological distress from low to moderate then to high levels is associated with increasing productivity decrements (6.4%, 9.4% and 20.9% decrements, respectively) for employees in current treatment. Combining the prevalence of Kessler 6 categories with treatment-seeking behaviours, mean 2009 salaries and number of Australian employees in 2009, it is estimated that psychological distress produces an $ AU5.9 billion reduction in Australian employee productivity per annum. Conclusions: The estimated loss of $ AU5.9 billion in employee productivity due to mental health problems is substantially higher than previous estimates. This finding is especially pertinent given the global economic crisis, when psychological distress among employees is likely to be increasing. Effective treatment for mental health problems yields substantial increases in employee productivity and would be a sound economic investment for employers.


This book discusses the use of AES and SAM for the characterization of a wide range of technological materials. These include metals and alloys, semiconductors, nanostructures, and insulators. Its value as a tool for high-resolution elemental imaging and compositional depth profiling is illustrated. The application of the technique for obtaining compositional information from the surfaces, interfaces, and thin film structures of technological and engineering materials is demonstrated.
 This volume also describes the basic physical principles of AES in simple, largely qualitative, terms understandable by any undergraduate science or engineering student. Major components of typical Auger spectrometers are also described because an understanding of the instrumentation is important to anyone wishing to become a skilled analyst. Mention is also made of other types of analysis for which an Auger electron spectrometer may be used, for example, secondary electron microscopy, backscattered electron imaging, X-ray spectroscopy. The relationship between AES and other analysis techniques is also discussed.


Managing the large amount of learning content involved in the development of an expandable learning management system (LMS) is a critical task for most educational organizations. In designing such a system, consideration must be given not only to the requirement of instructors and students, but also to the adaptive qualities of the system itself, because of the rapidly changing software environment. Unlike most enterprises, educational organization can't afford high system maintenance. Development of a flexible, expandable and reliable learning management system is, therefore, imperative. This paper proposes a Web service oriented framework in building a sharable content object reference model (SCORM) compatible LMS. We integrated the SCORM concept with distributed computing technologies to build the components of the LMS and demonstrate how these services can be configured to create a complete system. This framework increases reusability and reduces the maintenance requirements of the LMS. It provides a way for small educational organizations, with limited resources, to build a complete SCORM compatible LMS. In such an ideal situation, the content provider not only provides the content, but also the service for the consumers of that content.


A two-dimensional water quality management model, the unsteady/uncertainty water quality model (UUWQM), is developed for three kinds of analysis: hydrodynamic and advection–diffusion analyses by using the Petrov–Galerkin finite element method, and a reliability analysis by using uncertainty techniques. This model is then applied to a 35 km reach of the Nakdong River in Korea. Two-dimensional hydrodynamic and deterministic water quality analyses were performed in this reach. The Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method was used to decide and verify 14 key input parameters among 80 total input parameters. These key input parameters were incorporated to compute exceedance probabilities and frequency distributions using the mean first-order second-moment (MFOSM) and MCS methods at several locations along this reach of the Nakdong River. From the results of the probable risk for water quality standard, it shows that the outputs from the MFOSM method were similar to those from the MCS method. In practical usage, the MFOSM method is more attractive in terms of its computational simplicity and shorter execution time. Therefore, the UUWQM can be applied efficiently and accurately to estimate the water quality distribution and the risk assessment for the specified water quality in any river.


In this brief, we propose a two-level don't-care gating (DCG) scheme that aims to reduce the ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) power dissipated in the search-line switching activity. By exploiting the vertically continuous ldquodon't-carerdquo feature, the two-level DCG scheme can largely reduce the average search-line power consumption during a switch pattern. In addition, we also use the search enable technique to eliminate the unnecessary search-line switching activity in the quiet pattern. By reducing both the search-line switching activity and average switching power, the proposed design can minimize the TCAM search-line power consumption. For a 128 times 32 TCAM, the best configuration we examined shows that when the first-level and second-level gating granularities are 16 and 8, respectively, with a 9% search performance improvement, the two-level DCG scheme can achieve 70% search-line energy reduction.


Small (> 30 m diameter, ~ 9 m thick) reefs in the Gudman Formation of Queensland, Australia are the oldest known Mississippian reefs, occurring very near the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary following Late Devonian extinction events. They occur in high-energy, shallow, oolitic grainstones and consist of > 70% microbialite and bound detritus on the basis of point-count analysis. Skeletal organisms, including potential frame-building rugose and tabulate corals, ramose bryozoans, crinoids, and algae, occur in growth position but account for only 4.4% of sampled framework. The microbial framework was syndepositionally rigid on the basis of: (1) vertical and overhanging relief in a high-energy setting, (2) export of framework intraclasts, (3) hard-substrate-encrusting organisms, (4) abundant hard-rock borings, and (5) neptunian dikes. Unusually for Mississippian reefs, stromatolites make up a large part of the framework (~ 32%), but more typical thrombolites are equally abundant. Interfingering of skeletal organisms and microbialites suggests that they grew in welloxygenated, normal marine waters and that microbial biofilms competed effectively with skeletal organisms for available substrate. Abundant and diverse co-occurring skeletal flora and fauna are inconsistent with interpretations of Gudman stromatolites as post-extinction "disaster taxa." Hence, Gudman reefs are stromatolite-rich examples of a larger class of microbialite-dominated Phanerozoic reefs that occurred with abundant skeletal metazoans in normal marine settings.


Chlorophyll content, as the primary pigment driving photosynthesis, is directly affected by many natural and anthropogenic disturbances and stressors. Accurate and timely estimation of canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) is essential for effective ecosystem monitoring to allow for successful management interventions to occur. Hyperspectral remote sensing offers the possibility to accurately estimate and map canopy chlorophyll content. In the past, research has predominantly focused on the use of hyperspectral data on canopy chlorophyll content retrieval of crops and grassland ecosystems. Therefore, in this study, a temperate mixed forest, the Bavarian Forest National Park in Germany, was chosen as the study site. We compared different statistical models (narrowband vegetation indices (VIs), partial least squares regression (PLSR) and random forest (RF)) in their accuracy to predict CCC using airborne hyperspectral data. The airborne hyperspectral imagery was acquired by the AisaFenix sensor (623 bands; 3.5 nm spectral resolution in the visible near-infrared (VNIR) region, and 12 nm spectral resolution in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) region; 3 m spatial resolution) on July 6, 2017. In situ leaf chlorophyll content and leaf area index measurements were sampled from the upper canopy of coniferous, mixed, and deciduous forest stands in July and August 2017. The study yielded the highest retrieval accuracies with PLSR (root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.25 g/m2, R2 = 0.66). It further indicated specific spectral regions within the visible (390–400 nm and 470–540 nm), red edge (680–780 nm), near-infrared (1050–1100 nm) and shortwave infrared regions (2000–2270 nm) that were important for CCC retrieval. The results showed that forest CCC can be mapped with relatively high accuracies using image spectroscopy.


Egypt's fast population growth together with economic development is causing drastic pressures on infrastructure, quality of life and the environment. Effectively responding to this challenge requires a strategic approach based on solutions that rely on research and scientific evidence. This document introduces an EcoCity roadmap for the development of Egyptian cities into EcoCities. The EcoCity approach is a multidisciplinary approach for developing cities to sustainable, ecologically friendly communities, spanning topics such as urban planning, energy systems, water and waste management, transportation planning and awareness-raising. This roadmap was developed in a series of three multidisciplinary workshops held in Egypt in 2013 and 2014 and commenting rounds following those events. The development of the EcoCity roadmap has three major uses: it aids in producing a consensus about a set of needs and the technologies required to satisfy those needs, it provides a mechanism to help forecast technology developments and it functions as a framework to help plan and coordinate future technology developments. The roadmap is presented in three parts: a vision for EcoCities in Egypt, thematic outline roadmaps to guide long term development and a listing of concrete implementation actions for realizing the roadmap. Each implementation action is a concrete recommendation for a practical action. Egypt faces many challenges at the present related to fast growing cities, economic difficulties and sustainable development. EcoCities should be seen as a way to answer all three, rather than pushing to promote one over the others. The proposed implementation actions aim to reduce the reliance on imported energy, reduce pollution, reduce congestion, conserve resources and valuable nature while promoting local business and jobs, improving mobility, improving the urban environment, increasing the use of renewable resources and promoting the participation of citizens. ISBN, ISSN, URN ISBN 978-951-38-8241-9 (URL: http://www.vttresearch.com/impact/publications)


The addition of a dielectric layer on a slab configuration is frequently utilized in various electromagnetic devices in order to give them certain desired operational characteristics. In this work, we consider a grounded dielectric film-slab, which is externally excited by a normally-incident Gaussian beam. On top of the film-slab, we use an additional suitably selected single isotropic superstrate layer in order to increase the field concentration inside the slab and hence achieve optimal power transfer from the external source to the internal region. We define a quantity of interest, called "enhancement factor," expressing the increase of the field concentration in the film-slab when the superstrate is present compared to the case that it is absent. It is shown that large enhancement factor values may be achieved by choosing properly the permittivity, the permeability, and the thickness of the superstrate. In particular, it is demonstrated that the field in the film-slab is significantly enhanced when the slab is composed by an ϵ-near-zero (ENZ) or low-index metamaterial.


Abstract Objective: Acquisition costs of palivizumab have increased in Canada since 2007. This analysis aims to re-evaluate the cost effectiveness of palivizumab in Canada for premature infants born between 32 and 35 weeks' gestational age using updated 2010 healthcare costs compared to those used in a 2007 decision analytic model. Methods: New costs (CAN$) were acquired from the same Health Canada and Ontario Ministry of Health sources that were utilized in the previously published 2007 model. Palivizumab prices were acquired from Abbott Laboratories Ltd., current as of August 2010. Results: Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) rose by $742, going from $30,618/QALY to $31,360/QALY. ICER changes increased from a range of $801,297 to $820,701 for infants with zero risk factors to a decrease from $808 to $192 for infants with four or more risk factors. Conclusions: Palivizumab ICERs remained fairly stable from 2007 to 2010. The original recommendation stating that palivizumab is cost effective in infants born between 32 and 35 weeks' GA with two or more risk factors, or who are at moderate-to-high risk based on a risk assessment model, does not change. Analyses founded on evolving country-specific variables are needed in order to accurately reassess the cost effectiveness of interventions as costs change worldwide. Limitations: There are a limited number of publications reporting mortality in premature Canadian infants with RSV as a primary outcome. In addition, conclusions drawn from this analysis are country-specific and limited to premature infants dwelling in Canada.


The First-Year Academic Seminar is a foundational course for entering students. Topics will vary, each seminar introduces students to a variety of perspectives on a particular issue, context, or problem through university-level reading, writing, and discu


Why sex is so common remains unclear; what is certain is that the predominance of sex despite its profound costs means that it must confer major advantages. Here, we use elemental and nucleic acid assays to evaluate a key element of a novel, integrative hypothesis considering whether sex might be favoured because of differences in body composition between sexuals and asexuals. We found that asexual Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a New Zealand snail, have markedly higher bodily phosphorus and nucleic acid content per unit mass than sexual counterparts. These differences coincide with and are almost certainly linked to the higher ploidy of the asexuals. Our results are the first documented body composition differences between sexual and asexual organisms, and the first detected phenotypic difference between sexual and asexual P. antipodarum, an important natural model system for the study of the maintenance of sex. These findings also verify a central component of our hypothesis that competition between diploid sexuals and polyploid asexuals could be influenced by phosphorus availability.


A positron is the antimatter counterpart of the electron with which it can form a short lived
bound state called positronium (Ps). The interactions of both of these particles with matter is
the concern of the present work. These are of relevance in a variety of fields, for example,
galactic astronomy, condensed matter physics and positron emission tomography.
In the present work, the progress toward the realisation of a positron reaction microscope is
described which will hopefully lead to the measurement of fully differential cross sections for
ionizing collisions. To achieve this, a crossed beam system has been developed, in which a
positron beam is passed through a supersonic gas jet target. Ions produced in the resulting
collisions are guided onto a position sensitive detector for imaging using a spectrometer.
A complementary theoretical study of target ionization caused by positron collisions has also
been carried out. This has involved the development of a 3-body classical trajectory Monte
Carlo simulation which has been applied to the calculations of direct-ionization, Ps formation,
and excited state Ps formation cross sections. The development of the code also included a
study of numerical integrator techniques, as well as, by way of diagnostics, the calculation
of cross sections for collision systems which have been previously studied (e.g. proton -
hydrogen).
Finally, the mono-energetic Ps beam line at UCL has been used to measure the Ps total
scattering cross section (TCS) for collisions with CO2. This work has contributed towards
the observation that the Ps TCS is remarkably similar to that of an equivelocity electron. An
enhancement in the TCS has also been observed in the vicinity of the 2 \Pi u shape resonance in
the electron - CO2 TCS.


OBJECTIVE As the number of deep brain stimulation (DBS) procedures performed under general anesthesia ("asleep" DBS) increases, it is more important to assess the rates of adverse events, inpatient lengths of stay (LOS), and 30-day readmission rates in patients undergoing these procedures compared with those in patients undergoing traditional "awake" DBS without general anesthesia. METHODS All patients in an institutional database who had undergone awake or asleep DBS procedures performed by a single surgeon between August 2011 and August 2014 were reviewed. Adverse events, inpatient LOS, and 30-day readmissions were analyzed. RESULTS A total of 490 electrodes were placed in 284 patients, of whom 126 (44.4%) underwent awake surgery and 158 (55.6%) underwent asleep surgery. The most frequent overall complication for the cohort was postoperative mental status change (13 patients [4.6%]), followed by hemorrhage (4 patients [1.4%]), seizure (4 patients [1.4%]), and hardware-related infection (3 patients [1.1%]). Mean LOS for all 284 patients was 1.19 ± 1.29 days (awake: 1.06 ± 0.46 days; asleep: 1.30 ± 1.67 days; p = 0.08). Overall, the 30-day readmission rate was 1.4% (1 awake patient, 3 asleep patients). There were no significant differences in complications, LOS, and 30-day readmissions between awake and asleep groups. CONCLUSIONS Both awake and asleep DBS can be performed safely with low complication rates. The authors found no significant differences between the 2 procedure groups in adverse events, inpatient LOS, and 30-day readmission rates.


A receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) curve is a graphical plot of the "sensitivity" (or true positive, TP, rate) against "1-specificity" (or false positive, FP, rate) of test with regard to some true condition of interest. The area under a ROC curve can be interpreted as the probability that a given test correctly ranks a TP diagnostic condition higher than a true negative (TN) diagnostic condition, providing a metric for evaluating the diagnostic quality of a given test. Using ROC analysis, this paper evaluates the diagnostic value of six indicator tests with regard to two waterborne pathogens. Specifically, we compare the diagnostic value of culture-based assays for enterococci and E. coli, somatic coliphage, F+ coliphage, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-based assays for enterococci and E. coli with regard to the presence or absence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium. The results of this study indicate that qPCR based assays of enterococci and E. coli are superior to culture-based assays of the same organisms with regard to diagnosing the presence of Giardia.


Youngsters with type 1 diabetes feel anxious when transitioning from Pediatric to Adult Care. Loss of attendance and worsening of metabolic control are related to it. Some barriers reported are difficulty in getting appointment, unknown referral health-care provider and work issues. Objective: To evaluate loss of attendance, metabolic control and satisfaction in a cohort of youngsters with T1D transitioning to Adult Care. Methods: All Kids with T1D transitioning between 2015-2017 were included. Clinical/demographic data were collected. A1c levels prior and 1 year after Transition were compared. Loss of attendance was defined as "loss of 2 following visits." An anonymous survey was created ad hoc to evaluate satisfaction. It had 15 questions with a 1-5 scale, being 1 "never" and 5 "always." Results: 42 kids transitioned. 31% women, transition age 18(±1.8) years, diabetes duration 11(±4.4) years, 16.7%CSII, 83.9% were students. Delay between Pediatrics and Adults was 2.84(±1.9) months. A1c before and after 1 year were similar: 7.8(±1.5)% vs. 7.9(±1.5)%,p=ns). Loss of attendance occurred in the 2 nd year in 3 patients (7.1%). Only worsening of A1c the year before was associated with it. 80.9% of patients answered the survey. Satisfaction degree was "most of the times" or "always" in >80% in questions related to: moment of transition, welcome, time expend on each visit, confidentiality, referral contact name/phone, share decision making or understanding therapy instructions. However, 1 out of 3 patients disagreed in questions about emotional support, feeling comfortable to talk about sex/drugs or feeling free to express their thoughts. Work issues was the most common cause of not compliance to visits. Conclusion: Although rate of loss of visits is low and maintenance of metabolic control has been observed through Transition, an effort has to be made in our Team to improve satisfaction in terms of freedom to talk about sex or drugs, freedom to express their thoughts and to support their emotional needs. Disclosure N. Gonzalez Perez de Villar: None. M. Cos Igartua: None. N. Hillman: None. R. Gaspar: None. L. Saez De Ibarra: None. A. Cos Blanco: None. L. Herranz: None.


In this paper, we analyze the growth effects of historical and biological ancestry, diversity and financial development in transition economies. We show that the common indicators of ethnolinguistic fractionalization, state history and genetic distance yield significant results and to some extent transform the impact of finance on growth in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Deep ethnolinguistic cleavages produce insignificant results, whereas at intermediate and lower levels of aggregation diversity is likely to significantly improve the effect of finance on growth. Similarly to finer ethnolinguistic cleavages, genetic distance from the United States also favorably increases the relevance of financial development for growth. However, state history as a proxy for long-run ancestral exposure to institutions, political organization and centralization reinforces the negative growth effect of financial development. We argue that financial development is inclined to resolve problems arising from coordination failures and absence of trust in diverse societies by easing liquidity constraints and offering incentives for entrepreneurship to minority groups. In contrast, long state history is likely to generate extractive institutions that facilitate the provision of soft budget constraints. Genetic distance from the United States induces higher reliance on continental rather than Anglo-Saxon financing practices, and therefore increases dependence on banks rather than bonds or equity for external liquidity purposes.


We conducted a set of computer simulations to explore in details the way polyaniline (PANI) interacts with its dopant molecules like camphorsulfonic acid (CSA) and with solvent like chloroform, m-cresol or a mixture of m-cresol and water. The simulated system was built of a single layer of polyaniline chains in protonated state with attached camphorsulfonic acid ions as dopants. The system of the size above 50 A was subject to the periodic boundary conditions. All atoms in simulated molecules were assigned to atom types from OPLS-AA force field. However the inter-ring torsion profile for polyaniline in protonated emeraldine state was modified according to the density functional theory simulations. Prepared systems were simulated for 1 ns under the constant temperature (293 K) and constant pressure (1000 hPa) conditions. The results of molecular dynamics simulation exhibit a broad variety of hydrogen bond patterns between PANI-CSA as well as solvent molecules. We observed high probability (36 %) of configurations where single CSA molecule is attached to a PANI chain via a single hydrogen bond. However, the high probability (44 %) of a configuration where single CSA molecule bridges two or more PANI chains via hydrogen bonds was quite unexpected. Our simulations show also that in the presence of solvent, PANI-CSA interaction slightly weakens. Nevertheless, in the case of solvents being able to form hydrogen bonds in which CSA molecule is involved.


OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to describe the experience of Latino parents of hospitalized children during family-centered rounds (FCRs). BACKGROUND: Family-centered rounds provide a mechanism to exchange information and facilitate shared decision making. Latino parents may have a suboptimal experience during FCRs. Understanding this experience helps nurse leaders improve patient satisfaction. METHODS: Using a convenience sample, written surveys in Spanish were given to 20 parents who had attended at least 2 FCRs. The surveys were translated into English for data analysis. RESULTS: The narrative data were analyzed for common themes using content analysis. Four themes were identified: valued perception, inclusion and care, facilitated communication, and meeting expectations. CONCLUSIONS: Parents in this study felt that their participation and input were valued and that these positively impacted care. Family-centered rounds helped them understand the plan and facilitated communication when done in Spanish. Nurse leaders play a key role in improving satisfaction and increasing access to translation services or bilingual staff.


Although the discovery that follicles in bovine ovaries grow in a wave-like fashion has presented challenges for estrus synchronization and superovulation, recent protocols, designed to control follicular function have permitted fixed-time AI or fixed-time embryo transfer with high pregnancy rates, and the initiation of superstimulatory treatments at a self-appointed time, all without the necessity of estrus detection. The key is the synchronization of follicle wave emergence. More recent studies have revealed that it is not only possible to synchronize the timing of ovulation for fixed-time AI in single ovulating animals, but also in superstimulated donors. Ultrasound-guided follicle ablation is very efficacious in synchronizing follicle wave emergence but is difficult to apply in the field. Similarly, the induction of ovulation with GnRH or LH will effectively synchronize follicle wave emergence, but ovulation occurs in only 60 to 70% of cases. The administration of estradiol benzoate in progestin-treated cattle effectively synchronizes follicle wave emergence for both superovulation and estrus synchronization, but estradiol benzoate is not available in many countries. The challenge now is to use knowledge of follicle wave dynamics to design alternatives.


The Oliver and Pharr method for evaluating nanoindentation load–displacement data is based on the measurement of the contact stiffness, which is usually determined at the very beginning of the unloading sequence, or, using dynamic nanoindentation, continuously during the whole loading segment. A new experimental method has been developed to continuously monitor the contact stiffness throughout the unloading sequence. It provides supplementary information about the shape and area of the residual impression, as well as a direct measurement of the shape of the effective indenter previously introduced by Pharr and Bolshakov. The new method was applied to indentations on fused silica, sapphire, nanocrystalline nickel, and ultrafine-grained aluminum. Lastly, the new procedure was adapted to directly measure the epsilon factor used in the Oliver and Pharr method. A value of 0.76 was found from indentation into fused silica, in close agreement with literature values.


This study investigated T-cell surface antigenic changes in the spleen of Xenopus following in vivo and in vitro allergenic challenge, using novel mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAb's) against all T cells (CDS), the putative ɑβ-T cell receptor (TCR), the putative γδ-TCR, the CD8 receptor and against major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II proteins. Flow cytometric analyses of splenocytes from skin allografted intact, 5-day thymectomised (Tx) and skin allotolerant animals were examined. There was an increase in the number of cells expressing γδ TCR's in those froges which rejected test allografts. The Tx Xenopus laevis and allotolerant LG3 animals that tolerated grafts showed no increase in the 76 TCR. Twenty-four days post-grafting X. laevis, most of the γδ TCR positive cells surprisingly co-expressed the ɑβ TCR. Following mixed lymphocyte reactions (MLR) for 9-14 days, of previously grafted X. laevis and LG15 splenocytes, there was an increase in the number of T cells with a significant increase γδ-TCR positive cells. Stimulation indices of MLR's were increased by pre-culturing the stimulator cells with concanavalin A (ConA). This increase was apparently not due to changes in cytokine production or cell surface antigen expression, of the stimulated cells. Little increased MHC class II expression was seen, in flow cytometric analyses. The reasons for elevated MLR with ConA-activated stimulators therefore remain to be assessed. The in vitro response of Xenopus splenocytes to the superantigen, staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), was tested. The response was weakly significant but was significantly less than that seen in mice.


One important step when performing surveys of space debris objects is to correlate each actual detection of an object with one or several catalogues of known objects. Usually the output of optical surveys is a short series of astrometric positions for each detection, also called a tracklet, spanning an interval of a few minutes. Single tracklets do not allow to determine a six parameter orbit. This paper describes a new method to correlate observed space debris objects with internal and external catalogues by comparing the observed and the computed topocentric positions and velocities. Since official catalogues like DISCOS do not provide covariance information, the catalogue errors have been assessed by comparing observed and the computed positions and velocities of a set of known objects. The new correlation method is applied to typical GEO and GTO survey observations from the ESA Space Debris Telescope (ESASDT) on Tenerife. In addition first results of the application of the method to the surveys of the ZimSMART wide field telescope in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, are presented.


Abstract Working memory, a core function underlying many higher-level cognitive processes, requires cooperation of multiple brain regions. White matter refers to myelinated axons, which are critical to interregional brain communication. Past studies on the association between white-matter integrity and working memory have yielded mixed findings. Using voxelwise tract-based spatial statistics analysis, we investigated this relationship in a sample of 328 healthy adults from 25 to 80 years of age. Given the important role of dopamine (DA) in working-memory functioning and white matter, we also analyzed the effects of dopamine-related genes on them. There were associations between white-matter integrity and working memory in multiple tracts, indicating that working-memory functioning relies on global connections between different brain areas across the adult life span. Moreover, a mediation analysis suggested that white-matter integrity contributes to age-related differences in working memory. Finally, there was an effect of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism on white-matter integrity, such that Val/Val carriers had lower fractional anisotropy values than any Met carriers in the internal capsule, corona radiata, and posterior thalamic radiation. As this polymorphism has been associated with dopaminergic tone in the prefrontal cortex, this result provides evidence for a link between DA neurotransmission and white matter. Together, the results support a link between white-matter integrity and working memory, and provide evidence for its interplay with age- and DA-related genes.


Networked systems are essential to the function of modern society and the consequences of damage to networks can be severe. Assessing the performance of a network is an important step for recovering damaged networks and designing reliable networks. Some of the key general indicators of network performance are connectivity, distance between node pairs, and number of alternative routes. We focus on sensor networks with a topology modeled by a class of random geometric graphs (RGGs). In order to evaluate survivability and reliability, we consider two types of failure modes in a RGG: uniform and localized node failures. Since network performance is multi-faceted, and assessment can be time constrained, we introduce four measures, each of which can be computed in polynomial time, to estimate performance of a damaged RGG. Theoretical analysis of these four measures is challenging, especially when the underlying graph becomes disconnected. The focus of this paper is to conduct simulation experiments on several measures of network performance through the temporal process of node failures. Together with the empirical results the performance measures are analyzed and compared in order to provide understanding of the two different failure scenarios in a RGG.


Since late 2007, the ice-breaking research vessel FS Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute has been used as a voluntary observing ship (VOS) to collect measurements of the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in the Atlantic Ocean and both polar regions. Oceanic and atmospheric pCO2 data are continuously collected with a General Oceanics pCO2 instrument (model "8050"), which is permanently installed in the ship's wet lab. Ancillary data like air pressure, sea surface temperature and salinity are collected by the ship's own data acquisition system. Integrated, fully quality controlled datasets up to the end of 2013 have been submitted to SOCAT (Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas), in which Polarstern data constitute the sixth largest contribution. Our data moreover originate from polar regions which are generally infrequently sampled due to low accessibility and thus are of particularly high significance to the SOCAT data base [1]. We outline data distribution and quality, and present a first assessment of the rate of increase of the oceanic pCO2 in the regions that were regularly visited.


In a current globalized world, citizens are expected and encouraged to understand cultural diversity and respect individual differences. Furthermore, they are also expected to become responsible citizens for recognizing and actively participating in issues on social justice and human rights at local to global scales. That is, our diverse society demands "critical" citizens who are interested in public affairs, concerned about inequality and injustice, and motivated to change and improve our society. In response to an increased need for actively engaged and participating citizens in a today's world, critical citizenship education has been suggested as a new framework for the existing citizenship education. Among several related subjects, geography education can play an important role in critical citizenship education. This paper first introduces the background of critical citizenship and critical citizenship education, and then it presents how geography education can contribute to forming critical citizens. At the end, this paper discusses ways to promote geography education for critical citizenship in the future.


The topic of this work is an extension of our previous research on the development of a general data-driven procedure for creating a neutral "narrative-style" prosodic module for the Italian FESTIVAL Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesizer, and it is focused on investigating and implementing new strategies for building a new emotional FESTIVAL TTS. The new emotional prosodic modules, similarly to the neutral case, are still based on the "Classification And Regression Tree" (CART) theory. The extension to the emotional speech synthesis is obtained using a differential approach: the emotional prosodic modules learn the differences between the neutral (without emotions) and the emotional prosodic data. Moreover, due to the fact that Voice Quality (VQ) is known to play an important role in emotive speech, a rule-based FESTIVAL-MBROLA VQmodification module, for control of temporal and spectral characteristics of the synthesis, has also been implemented. Even if emotional synthesis still remains an attractive open issue, our preliminary evaluation results underline the effectiveness of the proposed solution.


Extracting the fixed point model for digital hardware implementation is an important step in the realization of digital signal processing systems. In such a model, limited word lengths for processing blocks should be selected with no harmful effects on the system performance. Viterbi decoder is one of the commonly used blocks in digital communication systems. Optimizing its word length causes a considerable reduction in the chip area and decoding delay. In this paper the Viterbi decoder parameters, i.e. the number of soft decision bits and trace-back depth, are optimized for a new wireless standard, IEEE 802.22. The optimization is performed with less than 0.5 dB degradation of BER of the fixed point model compared to the floating point model. The 64-QAM modulation with the code rate 5/6 is selected as a case study since it is the most sensitive mode in the standard to the channel noise. Simulation results show that the Viterbi decoder with 7 bit soft decision and trackback depth of 70 meets the system requirements.


Cells cryopreservation is crucial for the treatment of several diseases, but the survival rate of the cells is significantly affected by the cooling process. Currently, programmable freezers based on liquid nitrogen technology are usually adopted but these solutions may cause the death of the cells due to undesired crystallization, membrane damage or osmotic shock. In the recent years, pulse tube refrigerators have attracted a lot of interest in many applications because of their intrinsic characteristics. Despite more gradual, the cooling rate of a similar refrigerator needs to be carefully controlled to meet the desired requirements of cells cryopreservation. Therefore, at the premises of Sapienza University of Rome a pulse tube‐based prototype has been designed for cells cryopreservation and an experimental tests campaign has been conducted to assess the performance of the system for the scope. A new control logic, able to adjust the supplied voltage to electric heaters for the conditioning of the temperature inside the stand tubes, has been implemented and different configurations evaluated with cooling rate varying in the range 0.5°C/min to 1.5°C/min. The analysis has shown that the proposed control logic is able to cool down the stem cells in all the investigated range with a maximum temperature difference between the mean temperature of the tubes and the theoretical temperature of −7.65°C for the configuration with copper plate and −4.09°C for the configuration with aluminium plate which represents a safe condition. On the contrary, the copper plate allows approximating better the real cooling curve with the theoretical one and achieving a lower temperature variance at cooling rates higher than 1.25°C/min. Although some further efforts are needed to tune the system up, the present work has demonstrated that a pulse tube refrigerator can be technically and commercially adopted as a viable solution for stem cells cryopreservation.


Treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) is strongly focused on evidence-based medicine. However, large trials are often far away from the "real world" of geriatric patients and their messages are poorly transferable to the clinical management of CHF elderly patients. Precipitating factors and especially non-cardiac comorbility may decompensate CHF in the elderly. More importantly, drugs of first choice, such as Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitors and β-blockers, are still underused and effective drugs on diastolic dysfunction are not available. Poor adherence to therapy, especially due to cognitive disorders and depression, worsens the management. Electrical therapy is indicated, but attention to the older age groups with reduced life expectancy has to be paid. Physical exercise, stem cells, gene therapy and new devices are encouraging, but definitive results are not available yet. Palliative care plays a key role in the end-stage of the disease. Follow-up of CHF elderly patient is very important but tele-medicine is the future. Finally, self-care management, caregiver training and multidimensional team represent the critical point of the treatment of CHF elderly patients.


Objective: Conceptually, access to primary care (through insurance) should reduce emergency department (ED) visits for primary care sensitive (PCS) conditions. We sought to identify characteristics of insured Massachusetts residents associated with PCS ED use, and compare such use for public versus private insurees. Population and Setting: People under age 65 in the Massachusetts All-Payer Claims Data, 2011–2012. Study Design: Retrospective, observational analysis of PCS ED use with nonurgent, urgent/primary care treatable, and urgent/potentially avoidable visits being considered PCS. We predicted utilization in 2012 using multivariable regression models and data available in 2011 administrative records. Principal Findings: Among 2,269,475 nonelderly Massachusetts residents, 40% had public insurance. Among public insurees, PCS ED use was higher than for private (mean, 36.5 vs. 9.0 per 100 persons; adjusted risk ratio, 2.53; 95% confidence limits, 2.49–2.56), while having any primary care visit was less common (70% vs. 83%), as was having any visit to one's own (attributed) primary care provider (38% vs. 44%). Conclusions: Public insurance was associated with less access to primary care and more PCS ED use; statewide labor shortages and low reimbursement rates from public insurance may have provided inadequate access to care that might otherwise have helped reduce PCS ED use.


The computational design of soft underwater swimmers is challenging because of the high degrees of freedom in soft-body modeling. In this paper, we present a differentiable pipeline for co-designing a soft swimmer's geometry and controller. Our pipeline unlocks gradient-based algorithms for discovering novel swimmer designs more efficiently than traditional gradient-free solutions. We propose Wasserstein barycenters as a basis for the geometric design of soft underwater swimmers since it is differentiable and can naturally interpolate between bio-inspired base shapes via optimal transport. By combining this design space with differentiable simulation and control, we can efficiently optimize a soft underwater swimmer's performance with fewer simulations than baseline methods. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method on various design problems such as fast, stable, and energy-efficient swimming and demonstrate applicability to multi-objective design.


Species extinctions on islands are commonplace throughout history. Such extinctions can lead to dysfunctional ecosystems, especially when keystone species are lost. When the target species is extinct, an analogue species can be introduced to restore ecosystem function (known as ecological replacement).
In Mauritius, exotic giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) have been introduced to restore ecosystem function after the loss of their endemic counterparts, which were thought to be keystone grazers. Dietary analysis is essential to understand the impact that tortoises have on the ecological network. Metabarcoding of plant DNA from faecal samples is an invaluable tool to recover detailed dietary information. Such dietary analysis is often inhibited by the absence of comprehensive DNA barcode libraries.
The aim of this PhD research was to use DNA metabarcoding to assess the impacts and interactions of introduced Aldabra giant tortoises on Mauritian islands undergoing restoration. Here, the direct effect of tortoise dietary preferences on the plant community and the knock-on effects on two vertebrate species endemic to Mauritius, the Telfair's skink (Leiolopisma telfairii) and Pink Pigeon (Nesoenas mayeri), were investigated.
A comprehensive DNA barcode library of the plants present on Ile aux Aigrettes and Round Island was created using the second internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) in order to maximize taxonomic discrimination at the species level in the dietary analyses. Ninety-nine percent of the Islands' angiosperms were successfully sequenced. This is the first time island plant communities have been so comprehensively DNA barcoded in order to carry out dietary analyses and the library lays the foundations for the construction of more comprehensive food webs to further current understanding of ecological restoration.
Universal short-amplicon plant DNA metabarcoding primers for the ITS2 region, capable of amplifying the degraded plant DNA found in faecal samples were designed. To increase the breadth of the application of these primers, they were tested on both Mauritian and UK plant species to prove that they can be successfully applied in both tropical and temperate systems. In silico testing suggested that 88% of 1,111 UK and
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Mauritian plants were a good match with the novel primers. In practice, 99% of 202 UK and Mauritian plants amplified successfully.
The diets of introduced Aldabra giant tortoises, Telfair's skinks and Pink Pigeons were analysed by metabarcoding the plant DNA found in faecal samples, using novel primers. Giant tortoise grazing alters the plant community structure by cropping both exotic and native vegetation. This engineering of the vegetation structure indicates that tortoises create and maintain tortoise lawns in open areas, which together with the established forested areas constitutes a vegetation mosaic that may be beneficial for biodiversity. The giant tortoises also play a role in controlling the invasive weed species on Ile aux Aigrettes, by reducing plant biomass through grazing. However, Telfair's skinks and Pink Pigeons exhibit dietary preferences for some exotic plant species. Thus, it is important to increase the availability and variation of native plant species that these endemic vertebrates prefer to consume in order to buffer the effect of reducing the availability of preferred exotic plants.


Abstract Objective: To document the effects of sudden economic change on death rates for occupants of cars in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Design: Ecological time series study of East Germany in comparison with the formerFederal Republic of Germany (West Germany) before and after reunification in 1990. Setting: East and West Germany from 1985 to 1996 Subjects: Populations of East and West Germany between 1985 and 1996. Main outcome measures: Death rates for occupants of cars. Results:After the reunification of Germany, East Germany experienced a sudden, temporary affluence and a concomitant fourfold increase in death rates for car occupants between 1989and 1991.Although death rates increased in all age groups, young adults (aged 18-24) were most affected. The death rate per 100 000 population for those aged 18-20 years increased 11-fold between 1989 and 1991; for those aged 21-24 years the increase was eightfold. Conclusion: A tragic consequence of the reunification of Germany was a dramatic increase in the death rate for car occupants. Sudden economic change and availability of cars resulted in both a rise in vehicle ownership and an increase in the number of inexperienced drivers on roads that were ill prepared for the increased traffic. The lesson learnt from Germany is that during times of economic change and modernisation, measures to prevent the predictable injury deaths that will result need to be considered


Urban parks are currently enshrined within liveable forms of sustainable urban planning for high-density city living. This article draws on Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's idea of territory to critically explore the embodied geographies of liveability. The concept of territory draws attention to the emplacement of subjectivities constituted not only through the discursive but also the emotional and affectual forces or flows between and through bodies and proximate objects. We argue that the embodied geographies of liveability are both performed and folded through the emotional and affectual circulations flowing through the body. To investigate these performances, flows and connections, an affective mapping exercise of urban park visits was conducted with 18 apartment dwellers in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. We address the concerns about social exclusion raised by the agenda of liveable cities and how the concept of 'territory' offers policy-relevant conclusions.


Due to the increasing discovery and implementation of networks within all disciplines of life, the study of subgraph connectivity has become increasingly important. Motivated by the idea of community (or subgraph) detection within a network/graph, we focused on finding characterizations of k-dense communities. For each edge $uv\in E(G)$, the {\bf edge multiplicity} of $uv$ in $G$ is given by $m_G(uv)=|N_{G}(u)\cap N_{G}(v)|.$ For an integer $k$ with $k\ge 2$, a {\bf $\boldsymbol{k}$-dense community} of a graph $G$, denoted by $DC_k(G)$, is a maximal connected subgraph of $G$ induced by the vertex set $V_{DC_k(G)} = \{v\in V(G) : \exists u\in V(G)\ {\rm such\ that\ } uv\in E(G)\ {\rm and\ } m_{DC_{k(G)}}(uv)\ge k-2\}.$ In this research, we characterize which graphs are $k$-dense but not $(k+1)$-dense for some values of $k$ and study the minimum and maximum number of edges such graphs can have. A better understanding of $k$-dense sub-graphs (or communities) helps in the study of the connectivity of large complex graphs (or networks) in the real world.


Federated learning (FL) enables distributed optimization of machine learning models while protecting privacy by independently training local models on each client and then aggregating parameters on a central server, thereby producing an effective global model. Although a variety of FL algorithms have been proposed, their training efficiency remains low when the data are not independently and identically distributed (non-i.i.d.) across different clients. We observe that the slow convergence rates of the existing methods are (at least partially) caused by the catastrophic forgetting issue during the local training stage on each individual client, which leads to a large increase in the loss function concerning the previous training data at the other clients. Here, we propose FedReg, an algorithm to accelerate FL with alleviated knowledge forgetting in the local training stage by regularizing locally trained parameters with the loss on generated pseudo data, which encode the knowledge of previous training data learned by the global model. Our comprehensive experiments demonstrate that FedReg not only significantly improves the convergence rate of FL, especially when the neural network architecture is deep and the clients' data are extremely non-i.i.d., but is also able to protect privacy better in classification problems and more robust against gradient inversion attacks. The code is available at: https://github.com/Zoesgithub/FedReg.


Commerson's dolphin Cephalorhynchus commersonii and Peale's dolphin Lagenorhynchus australis live in sympatry along the southwestern South Atlantic Ocean, suggesting the existence of some degree of habitat partitioning to reduce their competition for resources. Both species are usually associated with coastal environments, but information on their trophic ecology is scarce. Here we explored the existence of trophic resource partitioning between these 2 sympatric species using δ13C and δ15N. From 2007 to 2013, we analyzed a total of 14 Commerson's dolphin and 34 Peale's dolphin skin samples from a marine protected area in Argentina. Significant differences in δ13C values indicated intra- and interspecific spatial partitioning. Three different Peale's dolphin feeding groups (FGs) were identified: FG1 exclusively exploited the pelagic habitat, FG2 occupied more pelagic/inshore habitats (similar to Commerson's dolphins), and FG3 occupied more benthic/inshore habitats. Isotopic niche breadth varied between species and feeding groups, exhibiting less variation in prey selection among Commerson's dolphins. According to Bayesian standard ellipse area analysis, isotopic niche overlap was found between FG2 and FG3 from 2007 to 2012, and between FG2 and Commerson's dolphins. Mixing models suggest that FG3 has a diet mainly based in benthic fish, while FG2 and Commerson's dolphins feed predominantly on pelagic fish. Overall, this study indicates segregation in the use of trophic resources between 2 sympatric dolphin species, showing different foraging strategies that promote coexistence and reduce intra- and interspecific competition. Furthermore, the presence of 3 Peale's dolphin feeding groups segregated at a small geographic scale suggests a previously unknown ecological complexity.


Ponto-geniculo-occipital (PGO) or pontine (P) waves have long been recognized as an electrophysiological signature of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. However, P-waves can be observed not just during REM sleep, but also during non-REM (NREM) sleep. Recent studies have uncovered that P-waves are functionally coupled with hippocampal sharp wave-ripples (SWRs) during NREM sleep. However, it remains unclear to what extent P-waves during NREM sleep share their characteristics with P-waves during REM sleep and how the functional coupling to P-waves modulates SWRs. Here, we address these issues by performing multiple types of electrophysiological recordings and fiber photometry in both sexes of mice. P-waves during NREM sleep share their waveform shapes and local neural ensemble dynamics at a short (∼100 ms) timescale with their REM sleep counterparts. However, the dynamics of mesopontine cholinergic neurons are distinct at a longer (∼10 s) timescale: although P-waves are accompanied by cholinergic transients, the cholinergic tone gradually reduces before P-wave genesis during NREM sleep. While P-waves are coupled to hippocampal theta rhythms during REM sleep, P-waves during NREM sleep are accompanied by a rapid reduction in hippocampal ripple power. SWRs coupled with P-waves are short-lived and hippocampal neural firing is also reduced after P-waves. These results demonstrate that P-waves are part of coordinated sleep-related activity by functionally coupling with hippocampal ensembles in a state-dependent manner.


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This truly international book brings together authors from different regions of the world including North America, South Africa, Europe, Iran and Russia all of whom are concerned with aspects of the challenges involved in the expansion of higher education, both in student numbers and areas of study. Some are concerned about the loss of guiding principles which steered university education for centuries. The traditional purposes of higher education have come under such pressure that we have achieved "conflicting models of the university" (Claes) and "ambiguity" in regard to teaching and research (Simons et al). For others, the problems are at a different stage. Contributions from South Africa look at three challenges: Can we provide enough places in higher education? How do we deal with institutional mergers? How do we make staff development effective in a situation in which English is the first language of less than five percent of the staff? Young scholars in Russian regions face formidable hurdles in achieving academic careers while the best law graduates in Canada are faced with the ethical dilemma of personal career advancement or social justice (Topsakal). The problem of integrating nursing into a traditional Irish university is reviewed by Grant while the role of a university in regional development is addressed from a Greek perspective by Papaelias et al. The comparative international approach features in research into teacher job satisfaction in India and Iran while McMahon reviews the impact of the Bologna Process.


In power generation industry, there is a huge demand regarding variation of Customer requirements/ feedback which needs of developing and modifying the software scripts. Adding Genset functions in software script causes Genset memory capacity on brink and it will be insufficient to add more smart functions to the Genset. Therefore in order to suffice the latest market needs, memory expansion is vital for the legitimate performance of the Genset. Further these causes heavy load on the framework of a Genset function and thus increases the execution time which may decline the performance of the Genset. This paper describes about the implementation of external memory and the intense approach reducing the execution time with the help of Throughput test setup. Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing approach in the design of power electronics i.e. throughput setup is used which gives the real time simulation environment. Moreover, the setup interprets the particular task in a framework having overload task affecting the performance.In addition, generate the Throughput log of Memory expanded Genset boards in the database system for comparison and use it to correlate with existing Genset boards to review the "unskipped frame" for achieving the goal of zero failure. Thus, obtaining the lower Throughput value eventually reduces the execution time for consistent behavior of Gensets. Finally, the canny way of Throughput testing for Memory Expansion of Genset is summarized here.


ABSTRACT Implicitly or explicitly, much innovation policy treats investments in research and development (R&D) as the main input to innovation. A large body of literature in innovation studies has challenged this, highlighting the role of external sources of innovation and of innovation based on learning by doing, using and interacting (DUI). Nonetheless, there has been limited empirical research on how firm-internal activities to promote DUI affect innovation, and on how important such activities are relative to internal R&D and to external sources of knowledge. We also know little about how internal DUI activities interact with internal R&D and with external knowledge sourcing. We address these gaps using Norwegian Community Innovation Survey data from 2010. We find that internal DUI is an important driver of new-to-market product innovation. Further, the results show partial substitution effects between internal DUI and internal R&D, as well as between internal DUI and external DUI.


Abstract:  Pediatric dermatology is a new topic and no epidemiologic data exist from Switzerland. Therefore we performed a survey of the pediatric population referred to the hospital of Aarau, Switzerland, between 1998 and 2001. All inpatients and outpatients less than 16 years old with a dermatologic diagnosis were included prospectively in our study. Demographic data (age, mean age, sex distribution), referral method, pattern and frequency of the different diagnoses in various age groups, diagnostic pattern, and therapy were analyzed. A total of 1105 children were included, with a slightly higher proportion of girls (53.8% versus 46.2%). The average age was 6.8 years and infants and school children represented 60% of the study population. Half of the patients (51%) were external referrals, almost one‐third (29%) presented spontaneously, and the remaining 20% were sent from other hospital departments. With a frequency of 25.9%, atopic dermatitis was the most frequent diagnosis, followed by pigmented nevi (9.1%) and warts (5.0%). Local therapy was prescribed in 66% of patients and systemic therapy in 18.6%. Other treatments such as curettage, surgery, cryotherapy, ultraviolet therapy, and electrotherapy were rarely performed (2%). We found that atopic dermatitis was the most frequent skin disorder seen in all age groups. As this was a dermatologic subspecialty clinic, higher frequencies of chronic and uncommon dermatoses such as genetic and autoimmune diseases were seen, whereas frequent diagnoses such as diaper rash and miliaria were rarely seen and the frequencies of other common skin disorders such as scabies, pediculosis, impetigo contagiosa, warts, and molluscum contagiosum were expected to be higher compared with the figures in the literature. In our study these dermatoses are underreported, as most patients are treated by general practitioners and pediatricians. Our survey documents the most common skin diseases in childhood primarily seen by pediatricians. We emphasize that dermatologic education of medical students, primary care physicians, and pediatricians should focus on allergic skin diseases, skin infections, pigmentary disorders, and vascular lesions.


Dr M. D. Brasier asked: Can the authors say what the the evidence is for a late Precambrian age and also whether they have seen any glauconite in the sequence? The Authors replied: The age is clearly indicated by general geology of the area (see Trompette et al. 1980, in references), and also by geochronological determinations (see Bozhko 1969; Clauer 1976). We did find any glauconite in these sequences; the iron is in pyrite in the non-oxidized part of the deposit, and in iron-oxides in the weathered part.


the 3rd PO day, which showed the highest hematoma prevalence, there was a statistically signi fi cant lower incidence of hematoma in Groups 3 and 2: (0.9% and 7%, respectively) versus Group 1: (11.4%, p [ 0.004). Hematoma rates followed the same order after the fi rst day of surgery for Groups 1-3: 8.8% (n [ 10), 5.3% (n [ 6), and 1.7% (n [ 2), respectively. (p [ 0.054). Five patients (4.4%) in Group 1 and four patients (3.5%) in Group 2 developed an IPP asso- ciated infection, opposed to only a single patient (0.85%) in Group 3. CONCLUSIONS: Prolonged scrotal drainage for 72 hours after virgin IPP implantation signi fi cantly reduces hematoma and infection rates. It is likely that hematoma formation per se, is a predisposing factor for IPP infection.


A cross-sectional study was carried out in Pindi located 115 kilometers from Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo to characterize a local school epidemic involving paralysis of the lower extremities, identify risk factors, and establish differential diagnosis with konzo and spastic paralysis related to human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). Data was obtained using a qualitative approach based on records, interviews, focus group technique, and neurological examination. Blood tests using the ELISA and western blot tests were performed to detect HTLV-1 and HIV 1 and 2. A total of 41 cases of paralysis were observed between 1994 and 1998. All patients were female and most (n = 28) were between the ages of 16 and 20 at the time of the study. The majority of cases were recorded in 1998 (31 prevalent cases and 16 incidents). Epidemiological data, clinical findings, and laboratory tests suggested that the etiology was mass hysteria with somatic conversion rather than toxic or viral causes in most cases. The psychosocial environment played an important role in the spread of the epidemic. These findings demonstrate the crucial role of the psychosocial environment in the occurrence of mass hysteria and support use of integrated health programs in developing countries.


Today, companies across all industries around the globe face the challenges of unprecedented disruption due to climate change and other social disruptions. It is the responsibility of standard setters and regulators of the financial sector to constantly encourage industries to adopt and respond instead of ignoring the disruption. Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) risk disclosure is one of the main emerging corporate disclosures of rising importance. Specifically with new Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listing rules companies listed in the ASX are expected to comply with new Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) risk discloser requirements from the year 2016 and if they do not comply, the 'if not, why not' rule applies. This study seeks to provide insight into the current ESG risk disclosure practices in the Australian context giving particular reference to the extractive sector companies for which ESG disclosure has become a crucial reporting requirement.


The impact on educational analysis of mainstream international relations (IR) theories is yet to realize its full potential. The problem of education in relation to the construction of world order is considered in relation to core developments in IR theory since the Second World War. In particular, the global architecture of education is seen as a complex web of ideas, networks of influence, policy frameworks and practices, financial arrangements and organizational structures—a system of global power relations that exerts a heavy, even determining, influence on how education is constructed around the world. The past decade has seen the rise of fresh understandings of global governance, an emerging theme in international relations that bears considerable potential for new forms of analysis in education, especially for clarifying the significance of the global architecture of education. Fresh understandings of education as a contributor to world order, viewed in the light of shifting global power relations and patterns of global governance, see education remaining relatively undeveloped as a builder of world order, despite decades of normatively‐inspired assertions to the contrary.


Abstract Centipedes are among the most ancient groups of venomous predatory arthropods. Extant species belong to five orders, but our understanding of the composition and evolution of centipede venoms is based almost exclusively on one order, Scolopendromorpha. To gain a broader and less biased understanding we performed a comparative proteotranscriptomic analysis of centipede venoms from all five orders, including the first venom profiles for the orders Lithobiomorpha, Craterostigmomorpha, and Geophilomorpha. Our results reveal an astonishing structural diversity of venom components, with 93 phylogenetically distinct protein and peptide families. Proteomically-annotated gene trees of these putative toxin families show that centipede venom composition is highly dynamic across macroevolutionary timescales, with numerous gene duplications as well as functional recruitments and losses of toxin gene families. Strikingly, not a single family is found in the venoms of representatives of all five orders, with 67 families being unique for single orders. Ancestral state reconstructions reveal that centipede venom originated as a simple cocktail comprising just four toxin families, with very little compositional evolution happening during the approximately 50 My before the living orders had diverged. Venom complexity then increased in parallel within the orders, with scolopendromorphs evolving particularly complex venoms. Our results show that even venoms composed of toxins evolving under the strong constraint of negative selection can have striking evolutionary plasticity on the compositional level. We show that the functional recruitments and losses of toxin families that shape centipede venom arsenals are not concentrated early in their evolutionary history, but happen frequently throughout.


This essay explores the paradox in Stevens's life and career that, notwithstanding his interest in France and especially Paris, he stood out from nearly all other American Modernist writers by the fact that he never visited Europe, even though more than some who did he endorsed the significance of what the French capital could offer. I shall suggest that the Paris Stevens denied himself strangely became the 'Paris' he achieved, and that his identification with the city was one that by its own logic not only did not require him to pay a visit, but in time rendered it essential that he should not do so; this uncovers something central to Stevens's poetry, and also to his Americanness. The quotation above offers terms helpful in discussing his attachment to 'virtual Paris': where and what 'there' is, and how the strangeness of being 'there' is connected with its truthfulness, for the 'I' engaged in finding itself.


very good (VAS 0–2), good (VAS 3–4); and not sufficient (VAS 5). Disability were evaluated by Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Index. Results and Discussions: Short term follow-up of one week demonstrated significant relief of pain in 100% of patients and Oswestry Index until 40% in 79% of patients. At medium term follow-up (12 months) showed 74% with significant relief of pain and 26% with no pain relief and Oswestry Index until 40% in 82% of patients. Longer term follow-up (24 months) demonstrated 67.5% with significant relief of pain and 32.6% with no relief and Oswestry Index until 40% in 77.5% of patients. Discussion and Conclusion(s): Epiduroscopy by mechanical adhesiolysis and administration on targeted areas of hylarunidase, ciprofloxacina and ozone seems to be, in this prospective study, an effective technique to provide a sensible and persisting pain relief and act of improving Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Index in chronic low back pain for degenerative spondylolisthesis with neurogenic claudication/radiculopathy.


Deformation of the alveolar epithelial basement membrane with lung inflation has been implicated in blood-gas barrier breakdown during the development of ventilator-induced lung injury. To determine the vulnerability of alveolar epithelial cells to deformation-induced injury, we developed a cell-stretching device that subjects cells to cyclic, equibiaxial strains. Alveolar epithelial type II cells from primary culture were tested 1 and 5 days after seeding, during which time the cells underwent major morphological and phenotypic changes. Cells were subjected to changes in surface area of 12, 24, 37, and 50%, which corresponded to lung inflation of ∼60, 80, 100, and >100% of total lung capacity. Deformation-induced injury of alveolar epithelial cells, assessed with a fluorescent cell viability assay, increased with deformation magnitude and decreased with time elapsed after seeding. In cells stretched after 1 day in culture, the percentage of dead cells after a single deformation ranged from 0.5 to 72% over the range of deformations used. In cells stretched at 5 days, the percentage of dead cells ranged from 0 to 9% when exposed to identical deformation protocols. These results suggest that morphological and phenotypic changes with time in culture fundamentally change the vulnerability of alveolar epithelial cells to deformation.


they suggested that human CatSper mutations with infertility phenotype are quite rare because the patient must have homozygous mutations (the identical mutation in both alleles) for CatSper-less phenotype. Therefore, they only have seen two patients like this. The patient from PNAS paper had homozygous microdeletion in chromosome 15 which also affected CatSper2 gene, two of his brothers had the same deletions and all three brothers were infertile. They only examined sperm cells from one of the brothers. The men with affected CatSper, just like CatSper knockout mice and they theoretically should have normal sperm count and normal motility. However, sperm hyperactivation will be affected. Their patients had severe oligo-therato-asthenozoospermia, but probably due to the removal of other genes, adjacent to CatSper 2 locus. They never ever seen fertile men with CatSper locuses affected on both alleles. If only one is affected, the other one will rescue the phenotype. Heterozygous mice are perfectly normal, hence they assumed that humans should have similar trend. Additionally, three brothers indeed have very similar genetics with identical microdeletion [2]. Turning to the role of progesterone in sperm, progesterone is definitely required for fertilization process. In general, progesterone, which is present throughout the female genital tract with peaks of levels in the cumulus matrix surrounding the oocyte, stimulates several sperm functions, including hyperactivation and acrosome reaction. However, from recent findings, there are the similar trends at progesterone concentration in insemination media of human IVF used was detected in both patients with or without fertilization failure, while the patient exhibiting fertilization failure shows the induction of hyperactivation. Therefore, this demonstrated that fertilization failure is not due to hyperactivation and progesterone concentration producing by cumulus cells in human [3]. After I told about that, they said that it is very interesting. This means that other factors are involved, such as an ability to undergo acrosome reaction and so on. In addition, I did not have a case when sperm did not respond to progesterone and did not hyperactivate, I am not sure that the sperm still can fertilize an egg. In conclusion, while lack of CatSper gene in patient could cause male infertility, semen quality of the patient might normal. Furthermore, progesterone can boost sperm motility at fertilization, however there was no clinical evidence that the lack of progesterone cause fertilization failure in human IVF.


Criminologists have long used the concept of social control to consider the ways in which societies respond to individuals or groups regarded as deviant or problematic. Although it is generally recognized that law and its enforcement is a cornerstone of social control, there is very little research on how human rights law might fulfil a social control function. Through an examination of a purposive sample of cases adjudicated by the European Court of Human Rights, we show how human rights law can facilitate forms of upward, inward and downward social control in contemporary societies. Our overall conclusion is that human rights law enables, produces and shapes contemporary practices of social control, often with significant and far-reaching consequences.


In the Pd/D co-deposition process, working and counter electrodes are immersed in a solution of palladium chloride and lithium chloride in deuterated water. Palladium is then electrochemically reduced onto the surface of the working electrode in the presence of evolving deuterium gas. Electrodes prepared by Pd/D co-deposition exhibit highly expanded surfaces consisting of small spherical nodules. Because of this high surface area and electroplating in the presence of deuterium gas, the incubation time to achieve high D/Pd loadings necessary to initiate LENR is orders of magnitude less than required for bulk electrodes. Besides heat, the following nuclear emanations have been detected using Pd/D co-deposition: X-ray emission, tritium production, transmutation, and particle emission. Experimental details and results obtained over a twenty year period of research are discussed. © 2011 ISCMNS. All rights reserved.


True ectopia of ovarian tissue is a clinical entity which is rarely encountered by the gynecologists. The present report describes a case of true ectopic ovary accompanied with ipsilateral renal agenesis with a review of related literature. A 34-year-old woman was admitted to the department of emergency with abdominal pain localized in the right lower quadrant. The routine tests showed no abnormalities except mild thrombocytosis. The requested abdominal ECHO examination discovered the agenesis of the right kidney joined by consecutive hypertrophy of the left one. And finally, the MRI examination of the abdomen and pelvis confirmed the abovementioned findings and showed another congenital anomaly - the retrocecal position of the right ovary that was consistent with true ovarian ectopic. Association with ipsilateral renal agenesis is indicative of common anomaly originating from urogenital ridge. Physiologic follicles in the right ovary were also noticed as well as two small cysts posterior to ascending colon (separate from ovary). The latest ones were considered as paraovarian cysts or cysts in small surrounding ovarian tissue. We present an extremely rare case of ipsilateral ovarian ectopia and renal agenesis concomitantly. The true ectopic ovary was mimicking some of the symptoms of acute appendicitis. And finally, we provide hints that will help in guiding the management of similar cases. J Med Cases. 2016;7(9):373-375 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jmc2494w


In this study (N = 110) factors influencing formation of attitudes toward COVID-19 related restrictions as well as factors influencing stability or change of these attitudes were tested. Specifically, the study concentrated on two possible determinants of formation and changing attitudes toward COVID-19 related restrictions – fear of coronavirus and presenting restriction in forbid vs. allow frames. A restriction presented in the forbid frame was rejected more strongly than a restriction presented in the allow frame. For changing attitudes, a mere thought paradigm was used. This activity was not able to change these negative attitudes toward a forbid framed restriction. A higher level of fear of coronavirus was related to a more positive (or rather – less negative) attitude toward an allow framed restriction and allows this attitude to be changed to be more supportive of restrictions than initially. Moreover, the effect of fear was partially mediated by the changes in the confidence of initial attitude inconsistent thoughts.


This article attempts to demonstrate different perspectives on investigating legal terminology by focusing on various types of textual recurrence. It discusses the results of a corpus-based and corpus-driven analysis of discovery, a term central to the US trial practice and criminal proceedings. The analysis starts from investigating traditional collocational patterns, both nominal and verbal. It describes meanings resulting from the emerging co-occurrence patterns between the term and various word forms identified in its co-text. Then the paper proceeds to explore computer-generated clusters formed around discovery. Finally, this article refers to the concepts of semantic preference and semantic sequence (Hunston 2008) to show how discovery tends to be found with a range of different word forms albeit all belonging to the meaning group of' limitation' or 'restriction'. The connotational value of the term is presented by providing some textual evidence of discovery found in co-texts where  writers express their unfavourable evaluation towards this legal concept. By drawing on Hunston's (2008)  concept of semantic sequence, the analysis illustrates how corpus linguistics can complement more traditional approaches to terminology description. It is argued that only by combining various approaches  to  the study of word combinations is it possible to gain important insights  into the phraseological behavior  of legal terms.


Utilizing a model in which individuals search among lotteries on likely success at different jobs, this paper analyzes both the search decision when unemployed and the implications of the sorting process. The model correctly predicts both the direction and convexity of the age-unemployment relationship and the impact of experience on turnover and wages. Actions taken when unemployed have an important impact on equilibrium turnover rates, unemployment rates, and the work history of the pool of unemployed. The sorting model is used to analyze racial differences in youth unemployment and major empirical features of low income labor markets.


Recent interest in tracking environmental benefits of conservation practices on agricultural watersheds throughout the United States has led to the development of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's USDA Conservation Effects Assessment Project CEAP. The purpose of CEAP is to assess environmental benefits derived from implementing various USDA conservation programs for cultivated, range, and irrigated lands. Watershed scale, hydrologic simulation models such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool SWAT will be used to relate principal source areas of contaminants to transport paths and processes under a range in climatic, soils, topographic, and land use conditions on agricultural watersheds. To better understand SWAT's strengths and weaknesses in simulating streamflow for anticipated applications related to CEAP, we conducted a study to evaluate the model's performance under a range of climatic, topo- graphic, soils, and land use conditions. Hydrologic responses were simulated on five USDAAgricultural Research Service watersheds that included Mahantango Creek Experimental Watershed in Pennsylvania and Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in Idaho in the northern part of the United States, and Little River Experimental Watershed in Georgia, Little Washita River Experimental Watershed in Oklahoma, and Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed in Arizona in the south. Model simulations were performed on a total of 30 calibration and validation data sets that were obtained from a long record of multigauge climatic and streamflow data on each of the watersheds. A newly developed autocalibration tool for the SWAT model was employed to calibrate eleven parameters that govern surface and subsurface response for the three southern watersheds, and an additional five parameters that govern the accumulation of snow and snowmelt runoff processes for the two northern watersheds. Based on a comparison of measured versus simulated average annual streamflow, SWAT exhibits an element of robustness in estimating hydrologic responses across a range in topographic, soils, and land use conditions. Differences in model performance, however, are noticeable on a climatic basis in that SWAT will generally perform better on watersheds in more humid climates than in desert or semidesert climates. The model may therefore be better suited for CEAP investiga- tions in wetter regions of the eastern part of the United States that are predominantly cultivated than the dryer regions of the West that are more characteristically rangeland.


In this religion and the media feature, academics and media professionals lift the lid on Australia's media industry to reveal the challenges faced when presenting religion to the public. ABC's Vaughan Hinton (Executive Producer - Religious TV) and Paul Collins (Specialist Editor - Religion for ABC Radio) present articles exploring the ABC's history and policies in regard to religious programming. From the aspect of the mainstream press, Muriel Porter discusses the complexities of the women's ordination debate in the print media while Deborah Selway exposes the dilemmas facing religion reporters in Australia's mainstream press. In David Busch's article, we learn of the function of the Christian press industry in Australia and its prospects for the future. Peter Bentley then introduces a case study on the print media's coverage of smaller religious groups. Finally, Robin Weston reports on the significance of CAAMA Radio in the lives of Aboriginal people and highlights the importance of that medium in fostering Aboriginal spirituality. Overall, this feature aims to dispel the mystique surrounding the media and thus allows a clearer view of Australia's religious media.


In this paper, a theoretical calculation of the miscibility gap taking modified interaction parameter and mismatch strain into account are performed for the MgxZn1-xO ternary compound system using the modified strictly regular solution model. The calculated results shows that the MgxZn1-xO alloys are metastable at the temperatures commonly used for crystal growth and the miscibility gap shifts remarkably into the areas of higher Mg concentration and higher temperature because of the interaction parameter modifiability and strain effect. The strain relaxation is discussed synchronously, with the increasing of the strain relaxation, the MgO segregation boundary expands to a bend band region.


10,15-Dihydro-5H-diindolo[3,2-a:3′,2′-c]carbazole (triazatruxene or triindole), which is an aromatic and C3 symmetric planar π-extended conjugated structure, has attracted a great deal of interest due to its exceptional solubility, high thermal stability, rich-electronic properties and easy modification. Over the past ten years, owing to the advances in the synthesis of triazatruxene derivatives, the scope of applications of this attractive building block has been extended to organic electronics, two-photon absorption, nonlinear optics, fluorescent sensors, etc. This review aims at summarizing investigations into triazatruxene-based organic electronic materials from synthesis and self-assembly to optoelectronic properties to achieve a better understanding on the structure–function relationships and to explore their extensive applications. The potential of these highly promising scaffolds in future research will also be put forth.


Since the successful demonstration of "brain reading" of fMRI BOLD signals using multivoxel pattern classification (MVPA) techniques, the neuroimaging community has made vigorous attempts to exploit the technique in order to identify the signature patterns of brain activities associated with different cognitive processes or mental states. In the current study, we tested whether the valence and arousal dimensions of the affective information could be used to successfully predict individual's active affective states. Using a whole-brain MVPA approach, together with feature elimination procedures, we are able to discriminate between brain activation patterns associated with the processing of positive or negative valence and cross validate the discriminant function with an independent data set. Arousal information, on the other hand, failed to provide such discriminating power. With an independent sample, we test further whether the MVPA identified brain network could be used for inter-individual classification. Although the inter-subject classification success was only marginal, we found correlations with individual differences in affective processing. We discuss the implications of our findings for future attempts to classify patients based on their responses to affective stimuli.


The condition of psychological stress experienced by the mother will affect the child's emotions and behaviour. Emotional and behavioral problems in children could continue to be serious disorders if they are not managed earlier. This study aims to analyze the correlation between the psychological stress of the mother and the emotional and behavioral problems of elementary school age children. This research used analytic observational research with a cross-sectional research design. The study population was students in grades I-VI at SD Negeri Surabaya and used total population sampling. The results of the study were tested with spearman's rho test, which showed that there was a relationship between the mother's psychological stress and the emotional and behavioral problems of elementary school-aged children p-value=0.022 (p<0.05) had a positive relationship. The higher the stress level experienced by the mother, the higher the level of emotional and behavioral problems experienced by the child.


The contemporary education process frequently emphasises the importance of teaching and learning by focusing teaching activities towards research and collaborative work, the encouragement of critical thinking, the creative  and productive application of knowledge, an active approach to the teaching content, and solving specific problems in project activities. A survey was conducted on a sample of 220 elementary school teachers from three counties in Croatia (Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Lika-Senj, and Istria) regarding the frequency of implementing project activities that encourage critical thinking in pupils. The objectives of the research were to determine the regularity of implementing project activities at the class level and at the level of the entire school, and to examine possible differences between teachers who estimated regular implementation of project activities in their schools and those who estimated the levels of irregular implementation of project activities, in the application of contemporary work strategies, as well as in the attitudes on the contemporary paradigm of childhood and the education process. The research results showed that the majority of teachers estimated that project activities were carried out regularly at their school (66.5% on a class level and65% on a school level). Teachers who reported the regular implementation of project activities at the class level and at the school level more frequently applied contemporary work strategies and techniques of critical thinking than their colleagues did. The research results also indicated that those teachers more frequently use established approaches to the educational process (teacher should explain, exhibit facts, and point out important conclusions) than their colleagues do. There were no statistically significant differences in contemporary attitudes between the two groups of teachers. Since the objective behind the implementation of project activities was to create the knowledge that, in the creative act, boundaries of the known or tried are transcended in the direction of new and expanded knowledge, importance should be given to the role of teachers in promoting the development of critical thinking and guiding pupils to explore and discover new knowledge.


The aim of this paper is to study the historical inertia of a political decision made in 1865 about the provision of water in Rome. In giving a one hundred year concession to a private operator linked to the sphere of Catholic finance, the Papacy aimed at protecting this asset from the consequences of the integration of the city into the Kingdom of Italy. The article follows the various attempts by opponents of this decision to challenge this de facto private monopoly by promoting an alternative development of a municipal company. It also reflects on possible mediations between the spheres behind this appearance of constant antagonism.


Twenty children, aged between six years and fourteen years were seen and treated for duodenal obstruction at the Department of Surgery, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Kaduna, Nigeria, between 1st January 1990 and 31st December, 1990. Both extrinsic and intrinsic factors caused the duodenal obstruction. All the patients were surgically treated and all survived. The main presenting clinical features, diagnosis and treatment are discussed. Follow up on some of the patients has been erratic because of patients defaulting on clinic appointments. In spite of successful surgical treatment and relief of symptoms, growth retardation, as shown by height and weight measurements, persisted relatively in patients in whom it was present at the time of diagnosis and treatment.


This article proposes a comparison between the postcolonial and decolonial perspectives in Frantz Fanon and Enrique Dussel and tries to apply the results to analyze the meaning of a performance on colonialism and neo-colonialism organized in Milan. Fanon and Dussel have been involved respectively in national liberation movements (and in the negritude debate) and in the "Philosophy of the Liberation". Their operas define a continuative arch between the colonial domain and nowadays. Fanon focuses on both the European supremacy and the brutal coloniality, Dussel assumes this reality as a starting point to define the de-structuring effects of globalization. The comparison faces three critical points: 1. The epistemological violence 2. The conception of identity 3. The relationship between race and gender liberation instances. The second part of this paper gives an insight about the public debate taking place in Italy on European colonialism and the young "Italians without citizenship" generations, particularly after the Pink Attack performance organized by a group of young Italian and non-Italian girls during the global women's strike on the 8th of March 2019. The performance consisted in pink painting the new Indro Montanelli's statue in Milan and tried to highlight contrasts in collective memories, identities and differences in the perceptions of social values. This performance and the echo it had been able to produce on media and social networks can work as a test for previous analysis, as useful tool to frame contemporary issues, such as the race-gender-class intersection, the mestizaje or the multiple modernity paradigm.


A significant issue for the historical investigation of the nature of the economy and society of the medieval English village has been the extent to which wealthier villagers were able and willing to respond to the needs of their less fortunate neighbours through informal charity, including the extension of credit and lowered costs for foodstuffs in periods of harvest failure. This article presents a case study of aspects of the local economy, principally viewed through land market activity and inter-personal litigation, in the early fourteenth century. It concludes that, in this context, there is little evidence for such non-aggressive activity during the subsistence crises of c.1300. Instead, a focus on the market and best economic opportunity persisted in ways that were likely to have been antithetical to contemporary views of charitable giving and which may have informed other aspects of social and economic dealing within the local community.