We describe mathematics classroom teaching practice in an urban Canadian prairie Cree-bilingual school using the term Cree mathematizing, which, to us, means (re)considering Euro-Western school mathematics from the perspectives of the Cree people engaging with the content. Cree mathematizing takes the form of classroom lessons in which mathematical terms are translated between English and Cree, shared through stories situated in time, place, and relationships, and contextualized by the experiences of the students and teachers. In terms of the narrative conception of identity-making, Cree mathematizing is a process of engaging in school mathematics that necessitates Cree educators and students to understand themselves as producing mathematics through their unique experiences and stories, making Cree mathematizing a partial representation of identity. We argue that Cree mathematizing is a subversive practice that challenges the ways Euro-Western school mathematics is taught as a culture-free, apolitical, and decontextualized endeavour that is devoid of human narratives of experience.

Keywords: Indigenous mathematics education, Indigenization, narrative inquiry, Aboriginal education


Patients typically seek health care because they experience symptoms. Health care providers must elicit, measure, and interpret patient symptoms as part of their clinical evaluation. Patient-generated reports, also known as Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs), capture the patients' illness experience in a structured format and may help bridge the gap between patients and providers. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines a PRO as ''any report of the status of a patient's health condition that comes directly from the patient, without interpretation of the patient's response by a clinician or anyone else.'' PROs measure aspects of patient-reported health (e.g. physical, emotional, or social symptoms) and can help to direct care and improve clinical results. When clinicians systematically collect patient-reported data in the right place at the right time, PRO measurement can effectively aid in detection and management of conditions, improve satisfaction with care, and enhance the patient--provider relationship. In addition to their use in clinical practice, PROs also play an important role in clinical trials and other research endeavors. For example, health related quality of life (HRQOL), a sub-type of PRO that measures biopsychosocial health, has gained traction as an outcome in clinical research, including clinical trials. HRQOL measures can document patient improvement or decrement over time, and help to estimate the benefits of clinical interventions. In addition, the FDA now considers the patient report in drug approval, and has developed guidance for use of PROs in clinical trials. The National Institute of Health (NIH) has also supported a major PRO initiative, called the Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System


Granular carboxymethyl starch (CMS) with high degree of substitution (DS) was synthesized using a modified dry process. The carboxymethylation reaction was carried out with granular potato starch, solid NaOH and sodium monochloroacetate (SMCA). The effects of reaction temperature, reaction time, molar ratio of NaOH and SMCA to starch on the degree of substitution (DS) and the reaction efficiency (RE) of CMS were investigated. High DS up to 0.78 was obtained for reaction at 323 K for 6 h with molar ratio of NaOH and SMCA to starch being 2:2:1. CMS was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer and scanning electron microscopy.


The volume brings together contributions from experts from eastern and southern African countries. Papers cover a range of topics including the relevance of traditional practices, and of land, village and widlife laws and policies; case studies of different projects in Tanzania; and an overview of community-based conservation initiatives in five other African countries. Also includes recommendations from the workshop used to guide the preparation of new policy. A comprehensive guide to efforts to develop community-based conservation programmes in Africa.


The thickness and bulk composition of continental crust provide important constraints on the evolution and dynamics of continents. Crustal mineralogy and thickness both may influence gravity anomalies, topographic elevation, and lithospheric strength, but prior to the inception of EarthScope's USArray, seismic measurements of crustal thickness and properties useful for inferring lithology are sparse. Here we improve upon a previously published methodology for joint inversion of Bouguer gravity anomalies and seismic receiver functions by using parameter space stacking of cross correlations of modeled synthetic and observed receiver functions instead of standard H‐κ amplitude stacking. The new method is applied to estimation of thickness and bulk seismic velocity ratio, vP/vS, of continental crust in the conterminous United States using USArray and other broadband network data. Crustal thickness variations are reasonably consistent with those found in other studies and show interesting relationships to the history of North American continental formation. Seismic velocity ratios derived in this study are more robust than in other analyses and hint at large‐scale variations in composition of continental crust. To interpret the results, we model the pressure‐/temperature‐dependent thermodynamics of mineral formation for various crustal chemistries, with and without volatile constituents. Our results suggest that hydration lowers bulk crustal vP/vS and density and releases heat in the shallow crust but absorbs heat in the lowermost crust (where plagioclase breaks down to pyroxene and garnet resulting in higher seismic velocity). Hence, vP/vS variations may provide a useful proxy for hydration state in the crust.


Prochiral bicyclic diketones were transformed to a single diastereomer of 3-substituted cyclohexylamine derivatives via three consecutive biocatalytic steps. The two chiral centres were set up by a CC hydrolase (6-oxocamphor hydrolase) in the first step and by an ω-transaminase in the last step. The esterification of the intermediate keto acid was catalysed by a lipase in the second step if possible. For two substrates the CC hydrolytic step as well as the esterification could be run simultaneously in a one-pot cascade in an organic solvent. In one example, the reaction mixture of the first two steps could be directly subjected to bio-amination in an organic solvent without the need to change the reaction medium. Depending on the choice of the ω-transaminase employed and the substrate the cis- as well as the trans-diastereomers could be obtained in optically pure forms.


A novel actinomycete strain, designated HSW-1T, was isolated from seawater collected from Hwasun Beach on the coast of Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. The cells were aerobic, Gram-positive, oxidase-negative, catalase-positive, non-motile rods. The colonies were circular, smooth, convex and yellow in colour. The cell-wall peptidoglycan of this organism contained ll-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The polar lipids included phosphatidylinositol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and three unknown phospholipids. The predominant menaquinone was MK-9(H4). The major fatty acids were C18 : 1 omega 9c, C16 : 0, C16 : 0 2-OH and 10-methyl C18 : 0. The DNA G+C content was 74.0 mol%. A neighbour-joining tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that this organism falls within the radiation of the genus Aeromicrobium. The closest phylogenetic neighbours were the type strains of Aeromicrobium erythreum (98.2 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Aeromicrobium alkaliterrae (97.9 %), Aeromicrobium marinum (97.3 %) and Aeromicrobium fastidiosum (97.0 %). The DNA-DNA relatedness values between the novel isolate and its closest relative, A. erythreum DSM 8599T, ranged between 32 and 36 %. On the basis of the phenotypic and DNA-DNA hybridization data, strain HSW-1T represents a novel species of the genus Aeromicrobium, for which the name Aeromicrobium ponti sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HSW-1T (=DSM 19178T=KACC 20565T).


Quantum dots are at the cutting edge of nanotechnology development. Due to their unique optical and physical properties, they have potential applications in many avenues of medicine and biotechnology. With the advancements in nano-sciences, novel applica‐ tions of quantum dots are constantly being explored for drug delivery and bioimaging. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) are nanoparticles of graphene with properties of quan‐ tum dots as well as graphene. GQDs have ignited remarkable research interest in the field of medicine and biology and are considered as well-suited candidates for nanothera‐ nostic applications due to their excellent biocompatibility and tunable physicochemical properties. The promising emerging implications of GQD platforms for diagnostics and therapeutics advances are the basis of this chapter.


"Surgery Junkies is an innovative, fast-paced mix of theory and empirical research that advances our understanding of contemporary bodies, lifestyle medicine, and the making of the embodied, self-fashioned self. Scholars and teachers of cultural and media studies, sociology of the body, and health and society will value its contributions to both their research and their teaching."-Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics and The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live "Whether analyzing Extreme Makeover, 'Body Dismorphic Disorder,' or her own rhinoplasty, Pitts-Taylor makes difficult theoretical concepts clear-and clearly relevant to our lives."-Susan Bordo, author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body Despite the increasing prevalence of cosmetic surgery, there are still those who identify individuals who opt for bodily modifications as dupes of beauty culture, as being in conflict with feminist ideals, or as having some form of psychological weakness. In this ground-breaking book, Victoria Pitts-Taylor examines why we consider some cosmetic surgeries to be acceptable or even beneficial and others to be unacceptable and possibly harmful. Drawing on years of research, in-depth interviews with surgeons and psychiatrists, analysis of newspaper articles, legal documents, and television shows, and her own personal experience with cosmetic surgery, Pitts-Taylor brings new perspectives to the promotion of "extreme" makeovers on television, the medicalization of "surgery addiction," the moral and political interrogation that many patients face, and feminist debates on the topic. Pitts-Taylor makes a compelling argument that the experience, meanings, and motivations for cosmetic surgery are highly social and, in doing so, provides a much needed "makeover" of our cultural understanding of cosmetic surgery. Victoria Pitts-Taylor is associate professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification.


Seventeen edible vegetable oils were analyzed spectrometrically for their metal (Cu, Fe, Mn, Co, Cr, Pb, Cd, Ni, and Zn) contents. Toxic metals in edible vegetable oils were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES). The highest metal concentrations were measured as 0.0850, 0.0352, 0.0220, 0.0040, 0.0010, 0.0074, 0.0045, 0.0254 and 0.2870 mg/kg for copper in almond oil, for iron in corn oil-(c), for manganese in soybean oil, for cobalt in sunflower oil-(b) and almond oil, for chromium in almond oil, for lead in virgin olive oil, for cadmium in sunflower oil-(e), for nickel almond oil and for zinc in almond oil respectively. The method for determining toxic metals in edible vegetable oils by using ICP-AES is discussed. The metals were extracted from low quantities of oil (2-3 g) with a 10% nitric acid solution. The extracted metal in acid solution can be injected into the ICPAES. The proposed method is simple and allows the metals to be determined in edible vegetable oils with a precision estimated below 10% relative standard deviation (RSD) for Cu, 5% for Fe, 15% for Mn, 8% for Co, 10% for Cr, 20% for Pb, 5% for Cd, 16% for Ni and 11% for Zn.


We consider the problem of learning optimal binary classification trees. Literature on the topic has burgeoned in recent years, motivated both by the empirical suboptimality of heuristic approaches and the tremendous improvements in mixed-integer programming (MIP) technology. Yet, existing approaches from the literature do not leverage the power of MIP to its full extent. Indeed, they rely on weak formulations, resulting in slow convergence and large optimality gaps. To fill this gap in the literature, we propose a flow-based MIP formulation for optimal binary classification trees that has a stronger linear programming relaxation. Our formulation presents an attractive decomposable structure. We exploit this structure and max-flow/min-cut duality to derive a Benders' decomposition method, which scales to larger instances. We conduct extensive computational experiments on standard benchmark datasets on which we show that our proposed approaches are 50 times faster than state-of-the art MIP-based techniques and improve out of sample performance up to 13.8%.


When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on Christmas Day 1941, Macao was left as a tiny isolated enclave on the China Coast surrounded by Japanese-held territory. As a Portuguese colony, Macao was neutral, and John Reeves, the British Consul, could remain there and continue his work despite being surrounded in all directions by his country's enemy. His main task was to provide relief to the 9,000 or more people who crossed the Pearl River from Hong Kong to take refuge in Macao and who had a claim for support from the British Consul. The core of this book is John Reeves' memoir of those extraordinary years and of his tireless efforts to provide food, shelter and medical care for the refugees. He coped with these challenges as Macao's own people faced starvation. Despite Macao's neutrality, it was thoroughly infiltrated by Japanese agents. Marked for assassination, he had to have armed guards as he went about his business. He also had to navigate the complexities of multiple intelligence agencies-British, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese Nationalist-in a place that was described as the Casablanca of the Far East.


Events across a timeline are a common data representation, seen in different temporal modalities. Individual atomic events can occur in a certain temporal ordering to compose higher level composite events. Examples of a composite event are a patient's medical symptom or a baseball player hitting a home run, caused distinct temporal orderings of patient vitals and player movements respectively. Such salient composite events are provided as labels in temporal datasets and most works optimize models to predict these composite event labels directly. We focus on uncovering the underlying atomic events and their relations that lead to the composite events within a noisy temporal data setting. We propose Neural Temporal Logic Programming (Neural TLP) which first learns implicit temporal relations between atomic events and then lifts logic rules for composite events, given only the composite events labels for supervision. This is done through efficiently searching through the combinatorial space of all temporal logic rules in an end-to-end differentiable manner. We evaluate our method on video and healthcare datasets where it outperforms the baseline methods for rule discovery.


The Teredinidae are a major economic pest of wooden coastal structures, causing billions of Dollars worth of damage per annum. To fully understand the threat posed by teredinids it is necessary to examine their biology at a number of different levels. These include: the anatomical adaptations which facilitate their wood-boring and wood- feeding life-style; the mechanism of cellulose digestion, which is aided by cellulolytic symbionts retained in bacteriocytes on the teredinid gill; the early life history strategies, particularly larval development; improving the means of teredinid identification for this taxonomically challenging group; and monitoring the spread of teredinids and the impacts global warming may have on their distribution. This thesis set out to address a number of these questions.

The teredinid Lyrodus pedicellatus is able to complete a life-cycle feeding exclusively on wood and is one of the most destructive of the marine borers. In this study, X-ray micro-computed tomography (MicroCT) was used to produce a three-dimensional computer-rendered model of L. pedicellatus, to examine the anatomical adaptations for wood-digestion. This was complemented by a transcriptomic analysis of the major digestive organs, which set out to determine whether L. pedicellatus is capable of independently producing cellulolytic enzymes. Investigation of the early life history strategy aimed to provide new insights into the larval-parent interactions during brooding and development – the most crucial phase in the life-cycle of teredinids. Finally, integrative taxonomy was used to improve the taxonomic resolution of the Teredinidae and these methods helped to confirm the identity of an invasive Caribbean species of teredinid, Teredothyra dominicensis, which has recently invaded and established breeding populations in the Mediterranean Sea.

This research provides the first detailed evidence that brooded L. pedicellatus larvae derive extra-embryonic nutrition from their parent. This extended parental care allows larvae to settle and metamorphose immediately after release. Development to sexual maturity is then rapid and individuals become gravid with brooded larvae within six weeks.

The examination of the digestive system of L. pedicellatus using MicroCT revealed a number of adaptations towards xylotrophy. The elongated stomach, specialised digestive gland, large caecum with a well developed typhlosole and long intestine are all modifications enabling a more complete utilization of wood for nutrition. These results
corresponded with the transcriptomic analysis which suggests the specialised digestive gland produces a range of cellulolytic enzymes.

A phylogenetic survey of the Teredinidae using integrative taxonomy provides a robust model for future identification of species, including cryptic species, within this taxonomically challenging group. This formed the basis for the identification of T. dominicensis, a species thought to be confined to the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, which has recently invaded the Mediterranean. This species was found to have established a substantial breeding population in the region, which produce large quantities of larvae which could settle and metamorphose. Thus, T. dominicensis may be considered an established species in the Mediterranean.

Providing a more accurate means of identification and increasing knowledge on the larval development and early life histories will help efforts to monitor the spread of teredinids and identify areas under threat from the destruction they cause. Furthermore, understanding the anatomical and molecular mechanisms which allow teredinids to deconstruct lignocellulose into monomeric sugars may provide new means of protection for wooden structures and provide novel enzymes for use in the biofuel industry.


Fear of stigmatization and discrimination from colleagues, friends and family drives patients with various type of mental health problems away from a traditional face-to-face therapy and enforces them to look for an alternative treatment methods. Internet-based mental health therapy helps patients to get their needed therapies and support from healthcare professional and peers, or as a part of automated online form of therapy. Conducting Internet based therapy anonymously is vital for the patient privacy. However, lack of trust, access permission, ownership control and traceability undermines patient safety and security. Blockchain technology is an innovative technology initially designed for a cryptocurrency. However, with the introduction of programming blockchain and smart contracts, the technology has extended its importance to other areas for developing decentralized application (DApp), such as mental health related information management, which is the primary focus of this thesis. Privacy and security are very crucial for patient safety and to preserve patient's medical history from adversaries. Sharing of private medical information online between the patient and their respective provider contains sensitive information that can easily be compromised if a proper security measure is not put in place. Blockchain is consensus-based peer-to-peer distributed ledger technology that stores and maintains an updated copy of all transactions within the network. It makes trust more transparent and traceable by keeping auditable-logs of all transactions in the form of blocks. In this thesis, Blockchain and its underlying technology are studied, and a prototype has been developed to explore the potential of the blockchain technology. Furthermore, we explore alternative distributed ledger technologies and their respective security models such as consensus protocols, cryptographic techniques, privacy and scalability. The prototype was proposed based on Ethereum blockchain.


We present MINOS, a simulator designed to support the development of multisensory models for goal-directed navigation in complex indoor environments. The simulator leverages large datasets of complex 3D environments and supports flexible configuration of multimodal sensor suites. We use MINOS to benchmark deep-learning-based navigation methods, to analyze the influence of environmental complexity on navigation performance, and to carry out a controlled study of multimodality in sensorimotor learning. The experiments show that current deep reinforcement learning approaches fail in large realistic environments. The experiments also indicate that multimodality is beneficial in learning to navigate cluttered scenes. MINOS is released open-source to the research community at this http URL . A video that shows MINOS can be found at this https URL


The acoustic properties and perceptual significance of transients at the release of stop consonants and affricates was studied. The theory of transient production is based on a model in which pressure is built up in a closed tube and the radiated sound is calculated following an abrupt release of the pressure. Acoustic analysis of the amplitude and frequency content of transients in utterances from ten speakers was used as a guide in setting the parameters of the model. A speech synthesizer was modified to allow the generation of transients with frequency content similar to that observed in natural speech. Utterances consisting of a stop consonant or affricate followed by the vowel /a/, with various amplitudes of an initial transient, were synthesized, and listeners were asked to judge the naturalness of the stimuli. Listeners tended to prefer the presence of a transient with an amplitude approximating the measured amplitude in natural speech, although there was some variability in the responses. [Work su...


Abstract Background: Identifying the factors to improve the quality of life (QOL) is vital to decrease morbidity and mortality rates among older adults. Although unfavorable neighborhood features have a significant negative impact on QOL, few studies have investigated these relationships in a deprived community. The purpose of the study was to understand how neighborhood walkability is associated with QOL using the SF-36 among urban-dwelling older adults. Methods: This is a cross-sectional survey. Participants were recruited in 2018 and 2019 at regional health clinics in Flint, MI. To be eligible, participants had to be over 65 years old and Flint residents. Results: Of the 132 participants, the majority were female (66%), African American (77%), single, divorced, or widowed (75%), and educated below GED level (84%). After adjusting for gender, assistive device use, medication, and the Supplemental Security Income receipt, multiple regression analysis revealed that those with better perceptions of land-mixed use and accessibility within their neighborhood were more likely to have better physical health (β = .36, p<.05). However, the perceptions of greater pedestrian safety were associated with the poor physical and mental health (PCS; β = -0.19, p <.05; MCS; β = -0.25, p < .05). Perceptions of the presence of walking hazards and crime were not significantly associated with QOL. Discussion: Findings suggest that neighborhood walkability characteristics are associated with physical health. The development of walking programs with accessible neighborhoods will be urgent to improve the health-related QOL for older adults living in a targeted community.


The association of angiitis of central nervous system (ACNS) with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) suggests a physiopathological relationship between these two affections. Few cases are reported in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We describe here a clinicopathological case associating ACNS, CAA, and AD. We discuss the aetiology of ACNS and its relationship with cerebral deposition of beta A4 amyloid protein (βA4).


Present-day maximum horizontal stress (σ H ) is oriented northwest–southeast onshore North West Europe, reflecting the first-order control on intraplate stresses exerted by plate boundary forces. Stresses associated with deglaciation appear to influence the stress regime in the Northern North Sea, with σ H oriented E–W and a contemporary stress regime close to the transition between strike-slip and reverse faulting, i.e. σ H > σ v ~ σ h (where σ v and σ h are vertical and minimum horizontal stress respectively). Maximum horizontal stress orientations are highly variable in the Central North Sea and the stress regime within the sedimentary sequence appears to be detached from that in the basement. The stress regime in the sedimentary sequence of the Central North Sea is predominantly one of normal faulting with almost isotropic horizontal stresses (σ v > σ H ~ σ h ). Geomechanical risking of the likelihood of seal breach due to fracturing should incorporate the risk of reactivating sealing faults or fracturing intact cap seal rocks in shear or in tension. The risk of fracture-related seal breach is considered for stress regimes representative of the Northern and Central North Seas. Generally, reactivation of optimally oriented faults and/or shear fracturing of intact cap rock are the most likely mechanisms of fracture-related seal breach. However, in the Central North Sea overpressured scenario, tensile failure is the most likely mechanism of fracture-related seal breach. In situ stress data have value throughout the life cycle of a field. The implications of the stress regimes representative of the Northern and Central North Seas for naturally fractured reservoirs, wellbore stability, water flooding and fracture stimulation are analysed. These issues are stress-sensitive and the conclusions with respect to each issue differ significantly between the Northern and the Central North Sea because of their differing stress regimes.


An hedonic spatial equilibrium model of the European Union dairy sector is used to evaluate the interregional impacts of eliminating milk production quotas under a variety of domestic policy (intervention prices and domestic production/consumption subsidies) and trade policies (tariff rate quotas and export subsidies). The simulation results indicate that the removal of the EU milk production quotas is welfare improving both only with substantial liberalization of trade. Hence, production quota removal by itself is not a desirable policy alternative for either the EU or the world. Rather, policy reform should involve the joint consideration of domestic and trade policy instruments.


Abstract Current knowledge of the break-up of Gondwana during the Tertiary indicates that shallow water marine habitats may have been present continuously, and on occasions were considerably more extensive than at present. Although direct fossil evidence is sparse after the Eocene, geophysical evidence suggests that shallow waters have been present since the late Mesozoic, and possibly much longer. The break-up of Gondwana was accompanied by a more or less steady lowering of both surface and bottom temperatures in the Southern Ocean from about 15°C in the Late Cretaceous to the present range of roughly +2 to −1.8°C. Microfossils in deep-sea drilling cores indicate that temperature drops were particularly sharp in the early Oligocene (c. 38 Ma), mid-Miocene (10–14 Ma) and Pliocene (c. 4 Ma BP). Geological evidence suggests that the Drake Passage opened, and the present oceanographic regime established, about 25–30 Ma BP. This is now known to be about the time of full-scale development of the East Antarctic ice cap. Subsequently ice sheets extended across, and deeply eroded, the continental shelves but the effects of these glacial maxima on the marine biota are not fully understood. Late Cretaceous/early Tertiary marine fossils from the James Ross Island group indicate a diverse shallow water marine fauna, including two groups notably lacking in diversity in the living fauna: decapods and teleost fish. In several genera occurrences in this fauna predate first occurrences in lower latitudes by as much as 40 Ma, suggesting the possibility that a number of groups originated at high southern latitudes. The living fauna exhibits a high biomass in many areas, and within-site diversity can be as high as anywhere in the world. Some individual taxonomic groups, however, (notably bivalves and gastropods) have a lower diversity than in the tropics, supporting the concept of a latitudinal cline in diversity. Studies of physiological adaptation to temperature suggest that the decline in seawater temperature during the Cenozoic has not presented a particularly severe evolutionary problem. The reasons for the absence of large decapods and the low diversity of fish in the present fauna are unclear. Most of the biological features of the modern fauna are more likely a response to the seasonality of the ecosystem rather than low temperature per se. Overall the evidence suggests that the present Southern Ocean shallow water marine fauna largely evolved in situ, having been present since at least the Late Cretaceous, and possibly much longer. Some groups have invaded, for example along the Scotia arc, but the isolation of the Southern Ocean by the present oceanographic regime and the limited dispersal ability of many forms means that exchange with lower latitudes is very slow.


Aims To determine the incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis in Colombian newborns from 19 hospital or maternal child health services from seven different cities of five natural geographic regions (Caribbean, Central, Andean, Amazonia and Eastern). Materials and Methods We collected 15,333 samples from umbilical cord blood between the period of March 2009 to May 2010 in 19 different hospitals and maternal-child health services from seven different cities. We applied an IgM ELISA assay (Vircell, Spain) to determine the frequency of IgM anti Toxoplasma. The results in blood cord samples were confirmed either by western blot and repeated ELISA IgM assay. In a sub-sample of 1,613 children that were negative by the anti-Toxoplasma IgM assay, the frequency of specific anti-Toxoplasma IgA by the ISAGA assay was determined. All children with positive samples by IgM, IgA, clinical diagnosis or treatment during pregnancy were recalled for confirmatory tests after day 10 of life. Results 61 positive samples for specific IgM (0.39%) and 9 positives for IgA (0.5%) were found. 143 questionnaires were positive for a clinical diagnosis or treatment for toxoplasmosis during pregnancy. 109 out of the 218 children that had some of the criteria for postnatal confirmatory tests were followed. Congenital toxoplasmosis infection was confirmed in 15 children: 7 were symptomatic, and three of them died before the first month of life (20% of lethality). A significant correlation was found between a high incidence of markers for congenital toxoplasmosis and higher mean annual rainfall for the city. Conclusions Incidence for congenital toxoplasmosis is significantly different between hospitals or maternal child health services from different cities in Colombia. Mean annual rainfall was correlated with incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis.


For autonomous quadruped robot navigation in various complex environments, a typical SOTA system is composed of four main modules -- mapper, global planner, local planner, and command-tracking controller -- in a hierarchical manner. In this paper, we build a robust and safe local planner which is designed to generate a velocity plan to track a coarsely planned path from the global planner. Previous works used waypoint-based methods (e.g. Proportional-Differential control and pure pursuit) which simplify the path tracking problem to local point-goal navigation. However, they suffer from frequent collisions in geometrically complex and narrow environments because of two reasons; the global planner uses a coarse and inaccurate model and the local planner is unable to track the global plan sufficiently well. Currently, deep learning methods are an appealing alternative because they can learn safety and path feasibility from experience more accurately. However, existing deep learning methods are not capable of planning for a long horizon. In this work, we propose a learning-based fully autonomous navigation framework composed of three innovative elements: a learned forward dynamics model (FDM), an online sampling-based model-predictive controller, and an informed trajectory sampler (ITS). Using our framework, a quadruped robot can autonomously navigate in various complex environments without a collision and generate a smoother command plan compared to the baseline method. Furthermore, our method can reactively handle unexpected obstacles on the planned path and avoid them. Project page https://awesomericky.github.io/projects/FDM_ITS_navigation/.


Crises are uncertain and disorderly situations, which temporarily destabilize power relations and impede centralized control over operational crisis responders (e.g., firefighters, police officers, paramedics). Consequently, responders wield considerable autonomy and have room to act on their own initiative. They make crucial decisions in frontline crisis operations based on their situational understanding and professional expertise. As such, they are similar to other "frontline workers" (or street-level bureaucrats) in government service. Their important work has attracted increasing attention in crisis management literature, in which three tensions have emerged.
 The first tension revolves around the nature and extent of frontline discretion. In some studies, these frontline responders are presented as implementers who are considerably constrained by extensive rules, planned routines, and detailed protocols. Other studies, instead, emphasize the independent and proactive behaviors of frontline workers who use their discretionary space to shape crisis response efforts. The second tension centers on the reasons for discretionary actions. Typically, crisis scholars analyze social and rule-based pressures on frontline workers to explain their discretionary actions as they implement public policy. Critics, instead, build on responders' own stories to grasp their meaning-making attempts and use this as a basis for understanding why and how responders enact their discretionary practices. The final tension concerns the advantages and disadvantages of frontline worker discretion. There is a widespread belief that frontline discretion in crisis response enables much-needed improvisation, creativity, and flexibility, but increased discretion may also raise legitimacy questions and potentially burden frontline workers with complex ethical dilemmas.
 To move the understanding of frontline workers in crisis management forward, further research is required in several areas. Empirically, frontline workers are increasingly working in transboundary crisis networks, so that more research is necessary to understand how such crisis networks affect frontline discretion. Theoretically, literature on frontline work in crisis management has remained by and large isolated from other micro-level theories on crisis management, even though there are opportunities for fruitful cross-fertilization with adjacent literatures.


SUMMARY Strong attenuation anomalies can significantly lower the resolution of the seismic image in reduced amplitude, shifted phase, and frequency content loss. To overcome these attenuation effects thus improve the image resolution, in this study, I report a method to compensate for attenuation effects in reverse-time migration. Because attenuation effects include amplitude loss and velocity dispersion, to compensate for attenuation effects needs to take care of both. Unfortunately, conventional viscoacoustic/elastic modeling is difficult to be used for such the attenuation compensation. In contrast, I show that it is easy to implement attenuation compensation in a novel viscoacoustic wave equation by reversing the sign of the absorption operator and leaving the sign of the dispersion operator unchanged. By testing this method in several synthetic examples, I believe that the proposed attenuation compensated imaging approach is promisingly helpful to improve the resolution of seismic images.


Vehicle Routing Problem with Time windows (VRPTW) is an example of scheduling in constrained environment. It is a well known NP hard combinatorial scheduling optimization problem in which minimum number of routes have to be determined to serve all the customers within their specified time windows. So far different analytic and heuristic approaches have been tried to solve such problems. In this paper we proposed an algorithm which incorporates a new local search technique with genetic algorithm approach to solve VRPTW scheduling problems in various scenarios.


Accounting research finds that staff auditors, who increasingly interact with high-level client management, maintain positions of lower power in auditor-client interactions. We conduct semi-structured interviews with 22 practicing associate- and senior-level auditors to investigate staff auditor-client interactions and their outcomes. Our results shed light on a deep-rooted power dynamic between staff-level auditors and their clients, whereby clients maintain the upper hand during the evidence collection process. We also document auditors' concern for their clients' perception of them and the audit team. Finally, we observe that auditors often struggle to fulfill their professional responsibilities while also ingratiating themselves to the client. These forces often lead to audit quality threatening behaviors such as client avoidance and "ghost ticking." Our results suggest that ongoing power disparities between staff auditors and their clients may impair staff auditors' operational independence.


Two examples of multicomponent shear (S)-wave, shallow, seismic reflection profiling from urban en-vironments in eastern Canada are presented to examine the benefits of shear-wave reflection data and the latest developments in acquisition methodology, as well as our evolving understanding of the complex nature of seismic-wave propagation. In "soft" soils characterized by low shear-wave velocities, high-resolution shear-wave reflection sections can be obtained, with the highest-resolution data related to horizontal or vertical components of motion. Multicomponent recording provides the capacity to record valuable shear-wave velocity information for earthquake amplification and engi-neering investigations in urban environments.


Multisystemic Therapy® (MST) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) are two widely disseminated evidence-based family-based treatments for substance abusing and delinquent adolescents. This mixed-method study examined common implementation problems in midtreatment in MST and FFT. A convenience sample of experienced therapists (20 MST, 20 FFT) and supervisors (10 MST, 10 FFT) from dissemination sites across the United States participated in semistructured telephone interviews. Participants identified retrospectively serious midtreatment process problems they perceived as threats to treatment success. Coders extracted descriptions of problems from interview transcripts and coded them into 12 categories that fell into five major themes: engaging families in treatment; difficulties implementing strategies; family relational and communication problems; complications external to therapy; and youth problem behavior. Analyses examined caregiver, therapist, and youth variables as predictors of these common midtreatment problems and whether treatment outcomes varied depending on the type of problem, therapy model, and race/ethnic match of therapist and family. MST and FFT therapists and supervisors identified many similar problems. There were, however, model-specific differences consistent with differing features of the models (e.g., FFT participants identified more family relational problems and fewer follow-through problems than their MST counterparts). Results underscore the need to consider both common and specific factors in treatment process.


The reversibility of current Li-O2 batteries suffers from high charging overpotentials. To address this problem, the use of redox mediators has been proposed, which are supposed to improve the sluggish reaction kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction via a solution mediated oxidation of lithium peroxide. In this study, we present a new thin layer cell for battery related differential electrochemical mass spectrometry (DEMS) experiments, which exhibits a high electrode surface area to electrolyte volume ratio which is closer to the situation in batteries other approaches/cells with their usually large electrolyte excess. The confined volume also allows a better distinction between the mediating activity of a redox system and a near continuous electrochemical reaction of this species. One further benefit of the new thin layer cell is that experiments can easily be performed under different O2-partial pressures. This new set-up allows the highly sensitive detection of volatile species formed during the OER. Therefore, small changes in the number of electrons transferred per oxygen molecule are observable. These changes help to identify side reactions and possible decomposition of the reaction products. During our experiments, we investigated the impact of TTF, TMPD, Fc and TEMPO on the oxidation of Li2O2. Within our experiments, we are able to precisely determine the potential at which the catalytic activity of the redox mediation starts. A comparison between the potential at which we observe the activity of the redox mediator to the half wave potential of the redox system could be explained with an outer sphere electron transfer for the oxidation of Li2O2 by a redox mediator. This observation is confirmed by a theoretical treatment of the redox mediation mechanism. Moreover, insights into the number of transferred electrons per oxygen molecule during the activity of the different redox mediators reveal the presence of side reactions. This finding is also underlined by an unexpected shift of the CO2 evolution onset for the redox mediator containing electrolytes. Our experiments also reveal that a Li-O2 cell, which contains a redox mediator, undergoes less fluctuation in its reversibility compared to a cell without a redox mediator.


Book Review: This essay reviews Richard Posner's A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression (Harvard University Press, 2009). Posner is a leading conservative legal theorists, a founder of the contemporary law and economics movement, and now a self-proclaimed pragmatist. The essay focuses on Posner's ideas with regard to regulation of the financial industry in light of what he describes as an economic depression in its wake.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important bacterial cause of a variety of infections and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Infections caused by this bacterium are becoming more difficult to treat due to increasing resistance to many of the available antibiotics. Ceftolozane–tazobactam and ceftazidime–avibactam are two new cephalosporin/β-lactamase inhibitor combination antimicrobials that have demonstrated excellent in vitro activity against several multi-drug-resistant pathogens, including multi-drug-resistant P. aeruginosa. Cases of infections with isolates of multi-drug-resistant P. aeruginosa that are resistant to both of these antimicrobials have rarely been reported. We report a case of mastoiditis caused by P. aeruginosa that was resistant to both ceftolozane–tazobactam and ceftazidime–avibactam.


Studies of undergraduate curricula in the field of Information Systems (IS) over the past two decades demonstrate a continual process of development and change. Many factors influence curriculum design, including new technologies and methodologies, and emerging subfields and subject areas. However, one deficit in the literature about IS curriculum issues is the investigation of IS specializations, also referred to as career tracks. These career tracks allow graduates to present themselves to employers as proficient in a career area that is in demand. This study finds that 110 baccalaureate (or approximately 24.4%) of the IS programs in the 450 business schools in the United States offer a total of 304 career tracks. Of these programs, 80.9 percent offer between one and three tracks. The paper classifies career tracks into 11 categories. Analysis shows that although educators within the IS field have structured their career tracks in large part after recognizable IS subfields and areas of studies, track names within categories are not standardized, but instead contain various combinations of keywords. The naming variations that differentiate career tracks suggest that faculty members fashion track names to convey special meanings for their constituencies. The goal of this paper is to present a snapshot of IS career tracks to help IS programs review and revise their own curricula.


This paper presents the ocular complications occurring in a series of 123 patients with hemophilia. In one of these patients a severe spontaneous retrobulbar hemorrhage resulted in loss of vision in the affected eye. Prolonged bleeding followed extraocular muscle surgery, enucleation, chalazion surgery, and cataract extraction in other patients. In addition, 20 patients with hemophilia were noted to have subconjunctival hemorrhage or other hemorrhages about the eye. Hemophilia is a hereditary disorder transmitted by the female and affecting males almost exclusively. The disease is due to a reduction or absence of a component in the blood essential for the formation of plasma thromboplastin. Common signs of hemophilia include subcutaneous and intramuscular hemorrhage, bleeding from the mouth or gums, gastrointestinal and genitourinary tract bleeding and hemorrhage into joints. Trivial injury can result in serious and prolonged bleeding. Ocular involvement has only rarely been reported. 1-4 Report of Cases Patient 1. —A


A near-UV triplet emission from [Au(2)(dcpm)(2)](ClO(4))(2) has been discovered. Studies on the spectroscopic properties of the complexes [Au(2)(dcpm)(2)]Y(2) (Y=ClO(4)(-), PF(6)(-), CF(3)SO(3)(-), [Au(CN)(2)](-), Cl(-), and I(-); dcpm=bis(dicyclohexylphosphanyl)methane) support the assignment of the high-energy emissions at 360-368 nm to the (3)[dsigma*psigma] excited state, adducts of which exhibit exciplex emissions in the visible region with solvent or counterions (see schematic diagram).


The influence of light intensity and daylength on four short-day species of Chenopodium was analysed. The following species were tested: Ch. ficifolium, Ch. glaucum, Ch. rubrum and Ch. hybridum . Under short day, generative initiation was accelerated, the abundance of flowering, and growth and leaf differentiation processes were reduced. Under light of low intensity, the rhythm of development of the plants growing under long day is similar to that under short day. The development of axillary buds indicates a decrease in the intensity of vegetative differentiation and elongation growth, with an enhancement of the generative tonus; the buds in the axils of the highest growing leaves form directly inflorescences without preceding leaf differentiation. Inversion of the shape of leaves on lateral shoots was noted.


This Policy Note describes the methodology, data requirements and next steps for implementation of an asset management system that could identify necessary maintenance and renewal budgets to guarantee a sustainable railway infrastructure, measure the backlogs, identify optimum track technologies for individual parts of the network and assist decision-making in individual investment projects. The Ukrainian network covers some 27,000 track-km, (excluding stations, sidings etc). In the absence of detailed data yet available to the consultant, the number of rehabilitated tracks of 2296.8 km in the last 5 years implies an average yearly renewal rate of some 450 km. This is little more than 1.5 percent of the network, implying that average service life will need to be around 60 years. Service life depends on the loading, on the many technical boundary conditions already addressed in this report, and on the maintenance regime applied. However, an average of 60 years' service life is most unlikely to be attainable with today's track components and the amount of rail traffic in the Ukraine. Implementation of a life cycle based asset management system is a challenging task for the infrastructure managers. Based on international experiences, it takes at least 1 and half years, to reach the level necessary for strategic decision making based on an asset management system. This time schedule needs an active working group inside UZ meeting at least every six weeks. Starting the work requires an initial two-day seminar on the main principles for describing track behavior using the Standard Element approach to ensure commitment of all working-group participants. The first milestone of the working group is a set of Standard Elements describing the present situation and its history of maintenance and service lives of track in the Ukrainian railway network. The second milestone is a set of alternative technical scenarios enabling the definition of a sustainable solution. Reaching this second milestone, the renewal demand as well as the maintenance demand for a sustainable network can be calculated.


Tests were conducted in the Langley 24-inch highspeed tunnel to ascertain the static-pressure and total-pressure losses through screens ranging in mesh from 3 to 12 wires per inch and in wire diameter from 0.023 to 0.041 inch. Data were obtained from a Mach number of approximately 0.20 up to the maximum (choking) Mach number obtainable for each screen. The results of this investigation indicate that the pressure losses increase with increasing Mach number until the choking Mach number, which can be computed, is reached. Since choking imposes a restriction on the mass rate of flow and maximum losses are incurred at this condition, great care must be taken in selecting the screen mesh and wire dimmeter for an installation so that the choking Mach number is.


Introduction The finding of elevated concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and –furans (PCDD/F) and dioxinlike PCB (dl-PCB, "WHO-PCB") in milk, especially buffalo milk of the district of Caserta in the northern part of the rural region of Campania, Italy lead to a broad discussion in the last years with regard to concerns about human health in connection with the consumption of Mozzarella, a regional cheese specialty produced from buffalo milk. Extensive monitoring programmes have been set up in order to control the situation and examine the contamination extent and sources. The programmes have been especially intensified in 2008, when over 1200 samples have been drawn and analysed, mainly from buffalo milk and other milk. Also related samples, such as feeding stuff from the farms concerned and local soil samples were analysed in order to trace back the contamination to its sources. A long history of illegal local waste burning throughout the whole region is supposed to be responsible for the dioxin contamination. This assumption can be supported by the present data which were generated by High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) analyses of PCDD/F and dl-PCB. This technique with its richness in additional information together with the high number of data sets gave a reasonably sound discussion base and allowed for considerations such as source identification for finding the contamination source as well as to link findings in milk, feeding stuff and soil.


Palladium-catalyzed Heck coupling reactions of styrene with bromoarene derivatives are carried out under aerobic conditions in water using water-soluble N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-hydroxyethyl)ethylenediamine (EdteH4) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid disodium salt (Na2EDTA) as ligands. The effect of different bases, catalyst loading, and additives is also monitored. The olefination of bromoarenes with styrene affords the desired products in high yields. The Na2PdCl4-Na2EDTA precatalyst system is also used for the preparative scale (50.0 mmol) synthesis of 4-acetyl-trans-stilbene and 4-styrylbenzaldehyde without a noticeable decrease in the activity. Recycling studies on the Na2PdCl4 - Na2EDTA precatalyst system are also tested in the coupling of 4-bromoacetophenone with styrene.


Traditionally legal discourse has been perceived as an area of human activity where every attempt is made to speak or write precisely, clearly and unambiguously—i.e. no room is left for figurative language. In this context the use of metaphor is naturally unacceptable. With the change in the approach to metaphor as a mental phenomenon, rather than a language phenomenon or a means of embellishing the text, the study of metaphor in various types of discourse has received a new impetus. This article addresses the issue of conceptual metaphor translation in the legal discourse of EU White Papers. Metaphorical expressions are categorized into cognitive domains such as dealing with a problem is war, a problem is an enemy, responsibility is a burden, progress is a motion forward, etc. The analysis confirms the hypothesis that if metaphorical expressions exploit the same cognitive domain both in English and Lithuanian, metaphoricity is fully preserved in translation. Where cognitive domains differ, metaphoricity manifests itself in a different domain or is lost altogether.


When Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are shifted from medium which contains serum into serum-free medium, they complete one cell doubling and arrest in the G1 phase of the cell cycle. During the first 72 hr of arrest, there is little change in intracellular adenosine 3':5'-phosphate (cAMP) level, and the cells retain their usual epithelial-like morphology. After 96 hr, the cAMP level doubles, the magnitude of the prostaglandin E1-induced changes in cAMP increases threefold, and the cells convert from a rounded, epithelial-like shape to an elongated, fibroblast-like form. The fact that these biochemical and cellular transitions are subsequent to the growth arrest shows that the cAMP increase is not the cause of the growth arrest but is consistent with a role for cAMP in the control of cell morphology. In addition, these changes point to the importance of the G1 phase for initiating cAMP-related events.


This paper presents concepts from economic analysis that shed light on the formation and breakup of sovereign states. First, we discuss the key trade-off between economies of scale in the provision of public goods and political costs from heterogeneity of preferences. Second, we present four economic perspectives on the formation of borders: efficient borders, borders as democratic outcomes, borders in a world of rent-seeking Leviathans, and borders as outcomes of conflict and wars. Finally, we provide an analytical illustration of the basic ideas within a simple framework.


In the twentieth century prior to the Depression, Harlem was defined by turns as the incubator for cultural uplift and the launching pad for black nationalism, a separate sphere for African Americans and the playground of both white and black leisure classes. At the end of the 1930s, however, a new set of contradictory terms emerged reflecting the uncertain future of Harlem. New Deal cultural programs portrayed the neighborhood as a slum, shaping a growing narrative of ghettoization that would be advanced in texts like Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) and St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton's Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945). This portrayal somewhat ironically paved the way for New Deal texts to invoke Harlem's reform as the keystone for an emergent progressive national community. The New Deal's Federal Writers' Project (FWP) guidebooks to New York City offered a powerful image of African American inclusion in the national community through New Deal-initiated urban reform. In so doing, they promoted Harlem as a showcase for their efforts. Although the overall framing of the guidebooks worked to ensure that the reader would see New Deal housing and social initiatives as markers of an inclusive community, the materials on Harlem, written primarily by black authors, suggested no small degree of worry. In the final words of one FWP essay on Harlem, "shadows of tragic premonition" hovered over the African American experience, intimating the skepticism many African Americans felt about the actual likelihood of social and economic inclusion in this modernized national community (FWP, Panorama 151). These shadows would emerge more clearly still in the 1940s legacy of the FWP, as documentary texts by black writers who had formerly worked for the Writers' Project questioned both its hopeful vision and the national government's resolve to address racial injustice. Several African American documentary texts written for a public audience in the 1940s, including Richard Wright's 12 Million Black Voices and Roi Ottley's New World-A-Coming, explored national welfare through a consideration of Harlem as the New Deal made way for wartime priorities. These texts lay at the intersection of several discussions of New Deal culture: the relationship between federal arts patronage and other cultural projects of the era, the growth of the documentary aesthetic, the politics of spatial and racial representation, and African American views of New Deal nationalism. However, critics have not given them enough attention to draw out the relationships among these discussions. Ottley and Wright drew on narrative strategies and textual elements of New Deal documentary projects to discuss Harlem's problems. However, they advanced competing understandings of urban culture and community, drawing on the growing discourse of racial nationalism to clarify the stakes of lingering injustice. (1) Wright rejected Harlem's status as a unique enclave and contested the New Deal's futurological discourse of state-sponsored spatial and community reform with an imagined cross-class community, foregrounding racial nationalism as an important marker of blacks' claim to justice. (2) Ottley, on the other hand, presciently mapped the undercurrents of racial nationalism within Harlem politics and social life as a coherent force that threatened national stability. As intertexts of the FWP guides, these documentary texts offer modern readers concrete examples of the politics of New Deal spatial representation, showing us how rhetorical battles over particular spaces contributed to national debates over community and social justice. Critics have suggested that the FWP influenced African American literature, particularly in fostering a generation of young black writers, but few have explored this legacy in depth. (3) One approach to this issue is through a consideration of African American documentary texts. …


Introduction Within England the removal of prescribed gluten-free (GF) foods from many Clinical Commissioning Groups has resulted in a greater reliance on commercially available GF food by adults and children with coeliac disease (CD). High cost and limited availability of GF foods are associated with poorer dietary adherence in people with CD. Aim To assess if the rise in popularity of GF diets globally has improved the cost or availability of cereal-based GF foods over the past 6 years. Design Observational study where data were collected on cereal-based GF foods from 50 stores and 10 internet retailers. The number of GF foods within each food category and the cost per 100 g of GF and gluten-containing (GC) foods were compared by store type. Results GF food availability has increased in premium stores and online. The majority (82%) of GF food categories were significantly more expensive online compared with regular supermarkets. On average, GF breads were 400% more expensive compared with GC breads (p<0.001); no narrowing in cost difference over time observed. Convenience stores did not stock any GF bread nor GF pasta and only one of the budget supermarkets stocked them, similar to data reported 6 years ago. Conclusions GF food availability has increased, predominately in premium markets. The GF food desert within convenience and budget stores will continue to disproportionately impact poor socioeconomic cohorts, the elderly and physically disabled. A lack of accessibility to GF foods impacts GF dietary adherence, increasing related comorbidities and healthcare costs.


This study assessed support for commercial tobacco retail policies among adults. Data came from SpringStyles 2021, a web panel survey of adults in the US aged 18 years or older (N = 6,455). Overall, 62.3% of adults supported a policy prohibiting the sale of menthol cigarettes, and 57.3% supported a policy prohibiting the sale of all tobacco products. A majority of adults supported tobacco retail policies aimed at preventing initiation, promoting quitting, and reducing tobacco-related disparities. These findings can help inform federal, state, and local efforts to prohibit the sale of tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes.


Past studies on gender wage inequality in Africa typically attribute the gender pay gap either to gender differences in characteristics or in the return to characteristics. The authors suggest, however, that this understanding of the two sources may be far too general and possibly overlook the underlying covariates that drive the gender wage gap. Moreover, past studies focus on the gender wage gap exclusively at the conditional mean. The authors go further to evaluate the partial contribution of each wage-determining covariate to the magnitude of the gender pay gap along the unconditional earnings distribution. The authors' data are from Kenya, and their empirical technique mirrors re-centered influence function regressions. The authors' results are novel and suggest that while gender differences in characteristics and the return to characteristics widen the gender pay gap at the lower end of the wage distributions, gender differences in characteristics widen the gender wage gap at the upper end of the wage distributions. Importantly, the authors find that the underlying covariates driving gender differences in characteristics and the return to characteristics are the industry, occupation, higher education and region covariates. In the middle of the distributions, however, the authors find that gender differences in the return to characteristics, fueled by education and experience covariates, exert the strongest influence on the magnitude of the gender pay gap.


Second-generation intramedullary nails, which allow the fixation screw that is placed in the femoral head to slide distally and thus allow compression of the fracture of the femoral neck, have become a popular option for the treatment of ipsilateral fractures of the femoral neck and shaft. However, the sliding characteristics of the screw within the barrel of the nail or the side-plate have not been assessed biomechanically, to our knowledge. The goal of the current study was to investigate the forces required to initiate sliding of the proximal screw in intramedullary devices and to compare these forces with those required to initiate sliding of hip screws. The loading configuration simulated the typical angle of 135 degrees between the intramedullary nail and the proximal screw. The forces required to initiate sliding of the proximal screw, with the screw extended fifty-one, seventy-six, eighty-six, and 102 millimeters beyond the proximal end of the barrel, were measured for three different types of second-generation intramedullary nails (Recon, ZMS, and Gamma), a sliding compression hip screw, and an intramedullary hip screw, and these forces were then compared. With each amount of extension of the screw, the hip screws required lower forces to initiate sliding than did the second-generation intramedullary devices. Of the second-generation devices, the Gamma nail required the highest forces to initiate sliding; the Recon and ZMS nails required 20 to 40 percent lower forces compared with the Gamma nail. None of the devices jammed in any of the loading configurations that were tested. When the extension of the screw was increased, higher forces were required to initiate sliding. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Since sliding allows continued compression of the fracture, surgeons should be aware that, compared with hip screws, the second-generation nails that we tested required higher loads to initiate sliding and to generate subsequent compression of the fracture.


This paper reports design, analysis and optimization of a new low-parasitic, very-low-triggering-voltage dual-directional silicon-controlled rectifier (VLTdSCR) type electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structure and its cross-coupling ultra-low-triggering ESD protection circuitry (CULTdSCR) implemented in a commercial 0.18 μm CMOS. Mixed-mode ESD simulation-design technique is used to verify the new embedded punch-through and gate cross-coupling ESD trigger-assisting techniques devised to achieve ultra-low ESD triggering for SCR-type ESD protection in CMOS. Experiment shows a record low ESD triggering voltage (Vt1) of 3.83 V, noise figure (NF) of 0.2 dB, parasitic ESD capacitance (CESD) of 150 fF and prompt response to very fast ESD pulses with rising time (tr) down to 100 pS. The new ESD design achieves a very high dual-directional charged device model (CDM) ESD protection capability of ~7 V/μ m2.


Mobility and multi-homing protocols enable multi-addressed nodes to redirect ongoing communication sessions from one IP address to another. Most of these protocols verify a multi-addressed node's reachability at a claimed new IP address in order to prevent redirection-based flooding attacks. In view of reduced protocol latencies, such verification is preferably performed concurrently, i.e., while packets are already being sent to the new IP address. This document defines Credit-Based Authorization, a technique that facilitates concurrent reachability verification without compromise of security.


Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95. Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II Russian and Soviet Studies, written by intellectual historian David C. Engerman. While it is not a work of political science, it offers an important historical analysis of a foundational episode in the history of the political science discipline. It is an account of the evolution of a specific field—Soviet Studies—but it is more than this, because this particular field was at the heart of the development of post–World War II area studies in general, and the intellectual and political engagements linked to the evolution of area studies were crucial to the development of modern political and social science. This symposium thus brings together scholars of Soviet Studies, contemporary post-Soviet Russian politics, comparative politics and international relations more generally, and the history of the discipline, to reflect on this book. While participants were asked to critically evaluate the book's analysis, they were also asked to comment more generally on the rise (and fall?) of area studies, and the history of political science more broadly. The issues raised by the book relate to the history and evolution of the current discipline, but also bear upon its future. For in response to post–Cold War crises (many connected to the discourse of the "war on terror"), there have been new calls for security-related area research made by such institutions as the Department of Defense (the Minerva Program, administered by the National Science Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Education (in connection with Title VI funding of area studies). What does the history of Soviet Studies tell us about these recent developments, and about how individual political scientists and indeed the institutions of professional political science should respond to them?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor


A 34-year-old woman was admitted to our emergency room with a high fever, abdominal pain, dyspnea and confusion. High fever and abdominal pain had first occured after a cystocele operation 5 months earlier. Later, congestive heart failure with mural thrombus formation, peripheral polyneuropathy and ischemic cerebrovascular accident were identified in clinical follow-ups, and multiple arterial and venous thromboses were seen on cranial and abdominal magnetic resonance imaging angiography. The patient's symptoms improved with anticoagulant treatment. Antiphospholipid syndrome with elevated serum anticardiolipin IgG levels was diagnosed, and ischemic peripheral polyneuropathy with axonal degeneration was determined by sural nerve biopsy. In antiphospholipid syndrome, elevated anticardiolipin antibodies appear to be the most common acquired blood protein defect causing thrombosis. Disseminated vascular thrombosis in catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome can result in multiorgan failure with increased morbidity and mortality. It rarely occurs secondary to various infections as in the case of our patient, who suffered postoperative intraabdominal infection. It is important to note that peripheral nervous system involvement is rare in antiphospholipid syndrome.


Background: Polytrauma patients are expected to have a higher risk of mortality than that obtained by the summation of expected mortality owing to their individual injuries. This study was designed to investigate the outcome of patients with polytrauma, which was defined using the new Berlin definition, as cases with an Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) ≥ 3 for two or more different body regions and one or more additional variables from five physiologic parameters (hypotension [systolic blood pressure ≤ 90 mmHg], unconsciousness [Glasgow Coma Scale score ≤ 8], acidosis [base excess ≤ −6.0], coagulopathy [partial thromboplastin time ≥ 40 s or international normalized ratio ≥ 1.4], and age [≥70 years]). Methods: We retrieved detailed data on 369 polytrauma patients and 1260 non-polytrauma patients with an overall Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥ 18 who were hospitalized between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2015 for the treatment of all traumatic injuries, from the Trauma Registry System at a level I trauma center. Patients with burn injury or incomplete registered data were excluded. Categorical data were compared with two-sided Fisher exact or Pearson chi-square tests. The unpaired Student t-test and the Mann–Whitney U-test was used to analyze normally distributed continuous data and non-normally distributed data, respectively. Propensity-score matched cohort in a 1:1 ratio was allocated using the NCSS software with logistic regression to evaluate the effect of polytrauma on patient outcomes. Results: The polytrauma patients had a significantly higher ISS than non-polytrauma patients (median (interquartile range Q1–Q3), 29 (22–36) vs. 24 (20–25), respectively; p < 0.001). Polytrauma patients had a 1.9-fold higher odds of mortality than non-polytrauma patients (95% CI 1.38–2.49; p < 0.001). Compared to non-polytrauma patients, polytrauma patients had a substantially longer hospital length of stay (LOS). In addition, a higher proportion of polytrauma patients were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), spent longer LOS in the ICU, and had significantly higher total medical expenses. Among 201 selected propensity score-matched pairs of polytrauma and non-polytrauma patients who showed no significant difference in sex, age, co-morbidity, AIS ≥ 3, and Injury Severity Score (ISS), the polytrauma patients had a significantly higher mortality rate (OR 17.5, 95% CI 4.21–72.76; p < 0.001), and a higher proportion of patients admitted to the ICU (84.1% vs. 74.1%, respectively; p = 0.013) with longer stays in the ICU (10.3 days vs. 7.5 days, respectively; p = 0.003). The total medical expenses for polytrauma patients were 35.1% higher than those of non-polytrauma patients. However, there was no significant difference in the LOS between polytrauma and non-polytrauma patients (21.1 days vs. 19.8 days, respectively; p = 0.399). Conclusions: The findings of this propensity-score matching study suggest that the new Berlin definition of polytrauma is feasible and applicable for trauma patients.


The Non-Clinical Evaluation of the Potential for Delayed Ventricular Repolarization (QT Interval Prolongation) by Human Pharmaceuticals; I Kr , rapid component of the cardiac delayed rectifier current; KCNH2, alternative nomenclature for the gene encoding the hERG K + channel; LQTS, long QT syndrome; TdP, torsades de pointes ; WT, wild type Abstract hERG ( human ether-à-go-go-related gene ) potassium (K + ) channels play a crucial role in electrophysiological activity in the heart, exerting a profound influence on ventricular action potential repolarization and on the duration of the QT interval of the electrocardiogram. hERG channels are strongly implicated in the acquired form of long QT syndrome (LQTS) as they exhibit a unique susceptibility to pharmacological inhibition by therapeutically and chemically diverse drugs. Investigations over a number of years provide compelling evidence that a comparatively large inner cavity and the presence of particular aromatic amino-acid residues (Y652 and F656) on the inner (S6) helices of the channel are important features that allow hERG to accommodate and bind disparate drugs. However, whereas functional hERG channels are comprised of four identical subunits, blocking molecules may not interact equally with aromatic residues from each of the four subunits. In this issue of Molecular Pharmacology , Myokai et al (pgs XXX-XXX) report for the first time the use of tandem dimers incorporating mutations to Y652 and F656 to elucidate asymmetric binding of the high affinity hERG inhibitor cisapride. Not only has this approach provided increased information on spatial arrangements involved in cisapride binding to the channel, but it offers a powerful means of refining the wider understanding of hERG channel structure-function in relation to drug binding.


ABSTRACT This article investigates how the Norwegian Engineering Association responded to challenges from Americanization and industrial democracy in the period from 1945 to 1980. This period was the heydays of the engineering way to top management positions in Norway. The engineering way was justified with reference to the engineers technical 'Fachkompetenz'. As in many countries, Norway became subject for an institutional push toward Americanization of management the first decades after WW2. This process challenged the engineering way to management by propagating the need for management education. In Norway, there was not a smooth and swift process of Americanization of management and business. Rather, the Norwegian trajectory is a complex set of international and national influences and agendas. Primarily, Norwegian management practice was from the 1970s shaped by a political push for industrial democracy that was initiated by the Labor party and the labor movement in the 1960s. The process of introducing industrial democracy challenged both the traditional engineering way and the American way of making managers in Norway. This article unpacks how the Engineering Association responded to the challenges from Americanization and industrial democracy.


The surface structures of diatom valves have been primarily studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), while the frustule shape and internal cellular structures have been elucidated in cross-sections by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). However, ultrathin sections can show neither the part of the whole frustule that is cut nor reflect the relationship between the sectioned portion and the surrounding structure. Therefore, we developed a simple method for obtaining a clean cleavage surface of the frustule. In this method, a drop of diatom suspension was frozen on a custom-made bundle of metal joints pre-soaked in liquid nitrogen, followed by sample preparation for SEM. The three-dimensional (3D) structure of the entire frustule and cross-sectional features, such as the thickness of the valve and bands, the angle of projection, and the internal structures of the areolae, raphe systems, and isolated pores, were visible within each half of the cleaved frustule. Applying this method shortly after cell division revealed differences in the silica deposition profiles between parental and newly forming valves at the corresponding sites. The utility of the information obtained from the cleaved frustule is discussed.


Background and aims: For individuals with diabetes detection of hypoglycemia is crucial, and blood glucose monitoring systems (BGMSs) must therefore be accurate in hypoglycemic ranges. Collecting sufficient data at low blood glucose (BG) levels is difficult; which may explain why evidence of BGMS performance during hypoglycemia is lacking. This analysis evaluated the accuracy of 5 performance-equivalent BGMSs using OneTouch® Verio® test strips at BG levels of < 3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/dL) in 7 separate clinical studies. Materials and methods: The studies were conducted between June 2009 and June 2011. BG testing was performed by trained staff in 2 clinical centers in the UK. All studies were conducted in accordance with standard ISO 15197:2003 testing guidelines. Each study included 100 participants with diabetes. For each participant, duplicate BGMS tests were performed using 3-4 test strip lots per study. BG reference values were obtained using a YSI 2300 STAT Glucose Analyzer before and after BGMS testing. Results: Of a total of 5,400 measurements, 674 (12.5%) were at a BG level of < 3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/dL). The number and percentage of results within ± 0.83 mmol/L (15 mg/dL) and ± 0.56 mmol/L (10 mg/dL) were calculated at BG levels < 3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/dL), < 3.3 mmol/L (60 mg/dL), and < 2.8 mmol/L (50 mg/dL). Accuracy of the OneTouch Verio test strips at hypoglycemic blood glucose levels are shown in the Table. Conclusion: Compared with analysis based on a single study, using data from 7 studies, 5 BGMSs, and 15 different test strip lots provides a robust depiction of test strip accuracy at BG levels < 3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/dL). The results indicate that OneTouch Verio test strips are highly accurate in the hypoglycemic range. Table. OneTouch Verio accuracy at BG levels < 3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/ dL).


Background Research interest in exploring the quality of relationships 'rapport' between people with an intellectual disability (ID) and those that support them is slowly expanding. People with ID, particularly those that present a challenge to others, are more likely to experience abuse; consequently they have been the subject of many service scandals. People with little or no verbal language are likely to struggle to tell others that relationships with staff or family carers have deteriorated to the point of becoming abusive.
The limited research available indicates that rapport with staff is associated with reductions in behaviour described as challenging, particularly when the behaviour serves a demand avoidance function.
Despite some suggestions of how people with ID and limited language, may show that the relationship with carers is of a good quality there was no observational method of obtaining this information.

Method A systematic review was conducted and literature used to design an observational method of rapport measurement, the IRM. Participants with ID were filmed in the presence of SP. Alongside the filmed observations staff completed the Staff Rating of Other Staff, Staff Self- Rating of Rapport and took part in Preference Testing Sessions (McLaughlin and Carr, 2005). Filmed material was analysed using the IRM. The IRM was subsequently developed into the easier to use Rapport Rating Scale (RRS). The RRS and measures used in the original IRM study were piloted by clinicians and reviewed in focus groups over an 8 month period.

Results Literature searches found that there is very little research that has directly examined rapport between people with intellectual disabilities and staff or unpaid carers. Consequently concepts similar to rapport were examined and identified some material useful to the development of the IRM. Most concepts asserted that it is possible to see observable changes in participants with ID when rapport with staff or unpaid carers is developed.
The IRM study showed, higher average IRM scores for the SP in the good rapport groups when compared to each of the McLaughlin and Carr (2005) measures. Analysis of the easier to use RRS indicated that professionals and trainees, were able to use the RRS to discriminate between good, neutral or poor rapport towards carers

Conclusions Using rapport measures in clinical practice, suggests that clinicians supporting people with ID were able to use rapport measurement tools successfully. For a number of clinicians the content of the Positive Behaviour Support plan was altered or enhanced through the rapport information collected during assessment. There are implications of understanding and the ability to measure rapport between people with ID and staff, on, clinical practice, staff training, service development and the wider policy agenda.


We showed previously that 3 distal inhibitors of cholesterol synthesis are highly teratogenic in rats. AY 9944 and BM 15766 inhibit 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase, which catalyzes the last step of cholesterol synthesis, and triparanol inhibits Delta(24)-dehydrocholesterol reductase, which catalyzes the last step in another pathway. These molecules cause holoprosencephalic brain anomalies. Under certain experimental conditions, other anomalies (of the limbs and male genitalia) are also observed. Assays performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) show hypocholesterolemia and an accumulation of precursors. These data indicate that this animal model can be considered a model of Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome is a recessive autosomal genetic disease characterized by malformations (microcephaly, corpus callosum agenesis, holoprosencephaly, and mental retardation), male pseudohermaphroditism, finger anomalies, and failure to thrive. The syndrome has been attributed to a deficit in 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase. As assayed by GC-MS, the sterol status of these patients indicates severe hypocholesterolemia and an accumulation of precursors: 7-dehydrocholesterol, 8-dehydrocholesterol, and oxidized derivatives. The presence of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the serum of patients is pathognomonic of the disease. The developmental gene Shh (sonic hedgehog) plays a key role in brain, limb, and genital development; it was shown recently that the Shh protein has to be covalently linked to cholesterol to be active. This is the first time that a posttranslational function has been attributed to cholesterol. There is an obvious relation between Shh dysfunction and the malformations observed in our experiments and in patients with Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome. However, the exact relation remains to be clarified. It is clear, however, that the role of cholesterol in embryonic development must be taken into account.


Brazing of Al to Cu using Al-Si-Mg-Bi brazing alloy has been carried out in a vacuum furnace. In the brazed interlayer, there were two kinds of intermetallic compounds. One of these intermetallic compounds was θ phase and the other was δ(Cu3Al2). Tensile strength of the joint was only about 15MPa. Deformation behavior of Al/Cu brazing joint was brittle without deformation of the base metal. The specimen was fractured in the intermetallic compound which was mainly θ phase. In order to improve the tensile strength of Al/Cu dissimilar joint, Cu cladding Ag (thickness: 0.1mm) substituted for Cu. As the result, tensile strength of the joint was about 70MPa and the specimen was fractured in an Al base metal. In this joint, plate-like intermetallic compound, δ (Ag2Al) was formed in the brazed interlayer. The shape of δ(Ag2Al) was quite different from θ phase found in Al/Cu joint. It was considered that the shape of reaction layer remarkably affected to the strength of the Al/Ag-Cu clad dissimilar joint.


The novel surface mode of the Birmingham Cluster Genetic Algorithm (S-BCGA) is employed for the global optimisation of noble metal tetramers upon an MgO (100) substrate at the GGA-DFT level of theory. The effect of element identity and alloying in surface-bound neutral subnanometre clusters is determined by energetic comparison between all compositions of PdnAg(4-n) and PdnPt(4-n). While the binding strengths to the surface increase in the order Pt > Pd > Ag, the excess energy profiles suggest a preference for mixed clusters for both cases. The binding of CO is also modelled, showing that the adsorption site can be predicted solely by electrophilicity. Comparison to CO binding on a single metal atom shows a reversal of the 5σ-d activation process for clusters, weakening the cluster-surface interaction on CO adsorption. Charge localisation determines homotop, CO binding and surface site preferences. The electronic behaviour, which is intermediate between molecular and metallic particles allows for tunable features in the subnanometre size range.


PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND
Precursor B-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (PBLL) is a rare subtype of NHL seen primarily in children or young adults. There are approximately 100 immunophenotyped cases of PBLL; reported in the literature; most as single case reports or very small series. In this report, we describe patterns of presentation, and results of a retrospective study looking at patients with PBLL treated at KFSH and RC between 1993 and 2000.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
We present results of a retrospective study looking at patients with PBLL treated at KFSHRC between 1993 and 2000, younger than 14 years of age (cut-off age for pediatric department). Six cases of PBLL were lacking evidence of blood and bone marrow involvement. Histologic sections were available for review in all cases.

RESULTS
Twenty one patients were treated for lymphoblastic lymphoma, of which six had a precursor Bcell phenotype. There were three boys and the median age at diagnosis was 6 years (range 3-13). In four of the patients the primary involved were oro-nasopharynx or the paranasal sinuses. One patient had a soft tissue mass in the upper thigh while one patient had a solitary bone lesion in the distal tibia. Four of the patients had limited stage disease (2 stage I and stage II), while 2 were stage IV. Both patients with stage IV disease had CNS involvement with blasts in the CSF. Both had paranasal primaries and had bone infiltration involving the base of the skull, with radiological documentation of intracranial extension in one patient. Median LDH level was 542 IU/L (range 463-5000). Five patients were treated according to B-cell NHL type protocols. Because of the specific diagnosis of PBLL, two of these patients were switched to an ALL-type protocol following post induction intensification; one died in remission due to encephalitis, while the other remained in CR almost 2 years after diagnosis. A third patient suffered a loco-regional relapse 17 months after completing first line therapy, and was re-treated on an ALL-type protocol, and currently is in remission 25 months following relapse. The fourth patient, who received 9 months of post induction therapy, remains free of disease 7 years following diagnosis. The fifth patient had local and CNS progression on therapy, and died of his disease. The last patient with a solitary bone lesion was misdiagnosed as Ewings' Sarcoma and received treatment for that disease. He suffered an isolated CNS relapse, and is in CR 12 months following the relapse, on an ALL treatment protocol.

CONCLUSION
PBLL is a distinct B-cell NHL which involves extralymphatic sites, with particular predisposition for the upper aerodigestive tract. Patients should not be treated on short intensive protocols used for other B-cell NHL but should receive treatment based on ALL protocols like those for treating T-cell LL.


In general, there are two types of weight loss that are common to boys who participate in scholastic wrestling: loss of body water, and loss of body tissue, particularly of lipid stored in adipose tissue. Loss of body water is achieved by withholding drinking fluids, promotion of extensive sweating, and use of diuretics or laxatives. Loss of body fat is produced by semistarvation or complete starvation and participation in training programs that involve heavy exercise. A complicating factor is that the dehydration and semistarvation regimens are being used by boys who are growing, and the goals of achieving substantial weight loss while retaining optimal growth may be partially incompatible. The goal of retaining a normal growth pattern 1 is assumed to be desirable and one that should not be compromised no matter how severe the pressures are from the athletic milieu. The problems that arise result from the desire to "make"


This paper examines urbanization trends, the growth of Colombo and its present state of development. It looks at the approaches to the planned interventions in the city and demonstrates how a uni-directional urban development has had a detrimental impact upon healthy growth and quality of life in a city where half of the population still live in slums and shanties. It shows that the city has been promoting high impact 'vertical growth' and argues that in the absence of healthy 'lateral growth', Colombo is unlikely to achieve its vision of creating a gracious city. It is based on the premise that growth and development of a city need to be managed in such a way that the quality of spaces and places are retained, accentuating their intrinsic characteristics, promoting social cohesion and enhancing liveability. The paper argues that urban development in Colombo must balance vertical and lateral growth and proposes possible directions of change in managing urbanization and development.


Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems are rapidly gaining momentum in the scenario of modern wireless communications. Within these environments, messages are exchanged continuously. The latter should be secure and ensure users' privacy. Public Key Infrastructures (PKIs) represent the major solution to meet security needs. On the other hand, communications between the PKI and the vehicle stations or the Road Side Unit stations should also be secure. Main current security standards do not address and define a complete detailed secure end-to-end mechanism to send requests to the PKI and receive the associated responses. In this paper, we propose a detailed security protocol, based on ETSI security standards, that ensures confidentiality, integrity and authentication. The evaluation of the latter shows its ability in meeting security needs.


Introduction: Recent molecular studies of the original cases of normokalemic periodic paralysis (normoKPP) have raised suspicions that these families actually had hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (hyperKPP) due to mutations in the skeletal muscle sodium channel gene SCN4A. However, there is still a debate about the existence of normoKPP. Methods: We screened 230 individuals with primary periodic paralysis for mutations in the SCN4A, CACNA1S, and KCNJ2 genes. All patients had either a hyperKPP or a hypoKPP phenotype, and none had a normoKPP phenotype. Results: In 4 hyperKPP patients from 2 families, molecular analyses revealed Arg675Gly and Arg675Gln mutations of SCN4A, which were previously reported to cause normoKPP. Each patient exhibited the characteristic clinical and laboratory features (including hyperkalemia during spontaneous attacks) of hyperKPP. Conclusion: Our findings support the notion that normoKPP is not a distinct disease. Muscle Nerve, 2012


In modern text annotation projects, crowdsourced annotations are often aggregated using item response models or by majority vote. Recently, item response models enhanced with generative data models have been shown to yield substantial benefits over those with conditional or no data models. However, suitable generative data models do not exist for many tasks, such as semantic labeling tasks. When no generative data model exists, we demonstrate that similar benefits may be derived by conditionally modeling documents that have been previously embedded in a semantic space using recent work in vector space models. We use this approach to show state-of-the-art results on a variety of semantic annotation aggregation tasks.


In her final novel, The Test of Filial Duty (1769), Sarah Scott (1721-95) uses the language of sentiment and sensibility to dramatize the emotional toll that parentally arranged courtships could take on young upper-class women. The novel's two heroines, Emilia Leonard and Charlotte Arlington, struggle to marry the men they've chosen without violating the tenets of obedience to which both women adhere. Like Scott's other novels, The Test of Filial Duty suggests a need for social reform, but its emphasis differs from that of A Description of Millenium Hall (1762) and The History of Sir George Ellison (1766). Those novels depict what Gary Kelly calls a "feminized economy," in which women largely freed from social constraints become positive moral forces. The Test of Filial Duty instead uses the formulas of sentimental fiction to criticize parental suppression of young women's individuality (Millenium 24). Scott demonstrates that filial duty requires women to replace honest emotional expression with cheerful malleability and emotional fulfillment with satisfaction at having made a sacrifice. Although the dutiful ultimately are rewarded and the rebellious punished, that outcome is not assured: the characters suffer isolation, confusion, and heartbreak as they try--and fail--to reconcile themselves to their duty. The novel's epistolary form allows Emilia and Charlotte to express the emotions that they must otherwise hide, assured of a sympathetic audience in each other and in a readership gently beguiled by the novel's romantic and fairy-tale elements. The Test of Filial Duty acknowledges that emotions must be regulated, but it criticizes devotion to duty as synonymous with repression and painful self-denial, two states Scott consistently rejected during her life as a professional writer and female intellectual. Scott was known in her own time as a well-regarded but minor author and an energetic, virtuous reformer who carried out versions of the humanitarian projects that she describes in Millenium Hall. Betty Rizzo explains that she "lived the life that validated the work and pruned the work to validate the piety" (xxx). This description might suggest a conventional thinker who lived a conventional life free of controversy. Rather, Scott was a sharp social observer and critic. Her circumstances made her both a careful steward of her own image and an ideal commentator on women's issues. As a younger sister in a family of twelve, Scott (born Sarah Robinson) saw her marriage prospects curtailed by the need to provide for her brothers and her older sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth Robinson would marry Edward Montagu, grandson to the first Earl of Sandwich, and become the "Queen of the Bluestockings." Through her, Scott was connected to the Bluestocking circle, but she never followed her sister into high society. Elizabeth Montagu recognized the social and economic necessity of marriage for a genteel woman, writing to the Duchess of Portland that "Gold is the chief ingredient in the composition of earthly happiness; living in a cottage on love is certainly the worst diet and the worst habitation one can find out" (qtd. in Hill 4). Montagu was far from alone in her view. Her friend Anne Donnellan said in a letter to Montagu that marriage was "the settlement in the world we should aim at, and the only way we females have of making ourselves of use to Society and raising ourselves in this world" (qtd. in Hill 6). Elizabeth's marriage to a well-off and indulgent older man seems to confirm Donnellan's assertion: his money, social position, and willingness to keep his distance allowed her to become prominent as a Bluestocking. Sarah Robinson, who like her sister received a marriage portion of only [pounds sterling]1000 or [pounds sterling]1500 (Hill 5), married George Lewis Scott, a family friend, in 1751 (Kelly, "Sarah Scott" 5: xiii). However, the couple became estranged for reasons that remain unclear, and nine months after her marriage, Sarah Scott's father and brothers removed her from her husband's home. …