Purpose: Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is the most common knee ligament injury during exercise, with a frequency of 36.9 per 100000 individuals. The characteristics of this injury are proprioception dysfunction. The present study aimed to investigate the knee proprioception after the reconstruction of ACL in soccer players. Methods: The study sample of this study was 20 elite male soccer players with an ACL injury experiencing post-reconstruction. The knee joint position sense of the study subjects was measured by Isokinetic (Gymnex model) at 30°, 45°, and 60° between the operated and non-operated knee. An Independent Samples t-test was used to compare the mean scores of the measured variables at the significance level of P≤0.05. Results: The obtained results suggested that the mean value of the angle reproduction test at 30° on the operated knee was significantly more than that of the non-operated knee (P=0.003). Moreover, the mean value of a passive angle reproduction test was significantly more than that of the active angle test in the operated knee (P=0.001). There was no significant difference between the mean value of 45° angle repair results in the non-operated and operated knee (P=0.99). The difference between active and passive tests in the operated knee on 45° was significant; the study subjects demonstrated higher mean scores in the active test (P=0.02). Additionally, the half-value in angle reproduction in 60° in the operated knee was significantly less than that of the non-operated knee (P=0.01). Eventually, there was no significant difference between the results of the test at this angle in the passive and active angle reproduction in the affected knee (P=0.22). Conclusion: The obtained data revealed that the knee joint position sense of the operated knee joint, compared to the non-operated knee in elite soccer players, along with the reconstruction of the ACL, was weaker than those of the non-operated knee.


Denmark is often highlighted as a good example of organised decentralisation in which employee bargaining power remains comparatively strong. However, comparative analysis of the Danish case rarely reflects how the social contracts between management and workers' representatives contribute to the bargaining outcome at company level. Drawing on 10 case studies in the German and Danish metal industries carried out in 2005, this article argues that the social contracts at the Danish case companies allow a more efficient use of company-level agreements on flexible working hours than the social contracts at the German case companies


We model the static stress transfer for the May 2012 northern Italy earthquakes, assuming that failure of the crust occurs by shear. This allows the mechanics of the process to be approximated by the Okada (1992) expressions for displacement and strain fields due to a finite rectangular source in an elastic, homogeneous and isotropic half-space. The slip model of the May 20, 2012, earthquake was derived using empirical Green's functions and a least-squares inversion scheme of source time functions computed from regional broadband seismological data. The derived model is then incorporated into the computation of Coulomb stress change (ΔCFF) to investigate the possibility that the May 20, 2012, M 6.1 event triggered the second earthquake that occurred on May 29, 2012 (M 5.9). We calculate the Coulomb stress changes for both: (a) optimally oriented planes to regional compression; and (b) planes of fixed orientation assuming that E-W striking, south-dipping thrust faults of the May 29, 2012, type of rupture was a candidate for failure. In both cases, we find that the triggering is promoted as the ΔCFF values in the hypocentral area of the May 29, 2012, earthquake are positive (between 0.61-0.74 bar).


SUMMARY In the context of the changing needs of the professional forester market and the reforms in European higher education, this study examined the possible shortcomings in forestry university programmes. We compared the views of 18 employers and 25 universities regarding European Master education through a survey that examined 42 competencies. Generally, employers and universities provided similar assessments regarding the importance of competencies and the gap between their achievement in higher education and the market needs. Environmental services, carbon sequestration, and the ability to communicate with specialists and non-specialists were competencies where both employers and universities saw the greatest need for emphasis. Employers identified, as compared to universities, greater gaps in bioenergy, products trade and marketing, economics, and governance. Universities, in turn, placed a greater emphasis on the importance of generic competencies such as capacity to learn. These and other findings provide potential value for the development of forestry curricula.


Plasma lipid levels are important risk factors for vascular events. Although this has been thoroughly studied, many questions remain unanswered. Some of these questions are addressed in the present thesis. Plasma lipid levels are determined by genetic factors and secondary factors, of which adiposity is an important contributor. We review the literature regarding the effect of adiposity on plasma lipid levels and the consequences of this effect for the risk of vascular events. Furthermore, we study whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are associated with low density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol or plasma triglyceride level in the general population are still related with LDL-cholesterol or triglyceride level in patients with arterial disease, of whom a large part uses lipid-lowering medication. We show that these SNPs are still related with the respective lipid levels and that they are related with the probability to be at the lipid treatment target. Despite lipid-lowering medication, these SNPs still influence plasma lipid levels. Our results suggested that the LDL-cholesterol related SNPs were associated with vascular events in patients using lipid-lowering medication. In addition, we study the effect of plasma triglyceride (TG) and high density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol levels on vascular events in patients with established vascular disease. We show that plasma TG levels increase the risk of vascular events, after adjustment for confounding factors and even after adjustment for nonHDL-cholesterol. Furthermore, show that the inverse association between HDL-cholesterol and vascular events gradually weakens with increasing intensity of LDL-cholesterol reducing therapy. This finding seemed independent of the attained plasma LDL-cholesterol levels. Recent reports have indicated that statin treatment may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, but it is not fully clear which patients are in particular at risk to develop type 2 diabetes mellitus. We confirm the increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus with statin therapy in patients with established vascular disease. The increase in risk was independent of the number of metabolic syndrome criteria or insulin resistance, but the increase in risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus with statin therapy seems in particular present in patients with low baseline glucose. To estimate the risk of recurrent vascular events, a 10-year risk estimation could be used, but these risk estimates by definition provide low risk estimates in young patients. Therefore, a long-term or lifetime risk model may provide additional information in these patients. In this thesis we develop and validate a model to estimate the risk of vascular events up to an age of 85 year in patients with vascular disease. Although the average 10-year risk in patients aged 45 up to 54 year of age was only 14%, the lifetime risk up to 85 year was 45% in these patients. For patients up to 65 year of age, using the lifetime risk model resulted in classification of patients into higher risk categories. Our results show that the lifetime risk model could be used to provide additional information about the risk of vascular events for patients up to 65 year of age.


The formulation of scientifically justified guidelines for management of anthropogenic impacts on river health requires better understanding of the quantitative linkages among river-system parameters. The present study examines relationships between land use and biological metrics of river health in Tasmania, in the context of a variety of environmental drivers. An extensive dataset (103 sites) of macroinvertebrate assemblages was collected between 1999 and 2006. We hypothesised that grazing by domestic livestock would have the greatest impact on community structure of the land-use types investigated because grazing is a dominant land-use type in Tasmania (and can cover a large proportion of catchment area), because land clearance for grazing is rarely followed by regeneration and because historically riparian vegetation has not been protected. Multivariate and correlation analysis showed that community structure responded strongly to land use and confirmed that the strongest relationships were observed for grazing land use and environmental variables associated with grazing, such as e.g. water abstraction and/or regulation and riparian vegetation. Analyses accounting for hydrological region and location confirmed the generality of this relationship. We conclude that catchment-wide management actions would be required to mitigate these impacts of grazing because land use and riparian vegetation condition were generally stronger determinants of community structure at catchment rather than local scales.


Abstract Improved seismic imaging of the deep structures in the Faroe–Shetland Basin has revealed a complex Mesozoic rift system with shifting block polarity along the West Shetland Platform. Newly acquired seismic data has led to the focus of hydrocarbon exploration on structurally defined Mesozoic traps and has re-opened exploration in the deeper stratigraphic sections beyond the stratigraphic, Paleocene deep-water play. In the study area, rift geometry changes from symmetrical (south) to asymmetrical (north), the latter creating a large-scale seaward-dipping flexure. The polarity shift may link up with deep-seated basement structures (rift-oblique lineaments) segmenting the rift zone. The initial rifting along the West Shetland Platform strongly influenced the depositional setting and lateral distribution of the Lower Cretaceous sediments. During rift initiation in the Early Cretaceous faulting took place along numerous small faults, which eventually linked up, creating a set of basin master faults in the main rift phase. Sand derived from rivers and longshore currents on the West Shetland Platform was transported down the axis of relay ramps and filled the juvenile rift basins. These sediments formed thick onlapping wedges, reflecting the continuous creation of accommodation space and the overall transgressive nature of the syn-rift and early post-rift succession. In this period, rift basins were elongated, which to some extent hindered cross-rift transport of coarse material except at relay ramps and rift-oblique lineaments. As fault movements ceased, the rift topography was levelled out and allowed gravity-driven systems to reach further into the basin, overstepping former cross-rift barriers. Lower Cretaceous syn-rift sediments are well exposed at several localities along the margins of the northern North Atlantic including onshore NE Greenland. The close analogy to the syn-rift structural setting imaged in the west of Shetland seismic succession may provide valuable information on structurally controlled depositional systems, reservoir architecture and properties.


Islamophobia was originally developed as a concept in the late 1990s by political activists to draw attention to rhetoric and actions directed at Islam and Muslims in Western liberal democracies. In recent years, Islamophobia has evolved from a primarily political concept toward one increasingly deployed for analytical purposes. Researchers have begun using the term to identify the history, presence, dimensions, intensity, causes, and consequences of anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim sentiments. In short, Islamophobia is an emerging comparative concept in the social sciences. Yet, there is no widely-accepted definition of the term. As a result, it is extremely difficult to compare levels of Islamophobia across time, location, or social group, or to levels of analogous categories like racism, anti-Semitism, or xenophobia.


A nonlinearity model including distortion components for sigma-delta (ΣΔ) accelerometer that allows stability analysis is described. Based on this model, closed-loop stability and signal dependent stability are analyzed detailedly. To verify the conclusions, Matlab/Simulink model for a fourth-order ΣΔ accelerometer is designed. The simulation results indicate that high-order system needs a large compensation coefficient, and it will not affect the performance due to the very high low-frequency gain of the loop filter. High-order system is conditionally stable, and stability is affected by the input signal.


Nodal and its co-receptors of the EGF-CFC family are essential during chordate development, both to maintain pluripotent progenitor cells and to subsequently coordinate their allocation to the different germ layers. How these distinct Nodal activities are kept in balance is unknown. Previous work in our laboratory established that the Nodal proprotein must be cleaved by proprotein convertases (PC) to induce itself on time in the mouse epiblast. However, expression of a knock-in allele encoding a PC-resistant mutant Nodal precursor (Nr) is sufficient to induce a subset of Nodal target genes during gastrulation, including Fgf4 in the epiblast, and Bmp4 in extraembryonic ectoderm (ExE). Here, I extend these findings by showing that these NodalNr/Nr embryos also partially maintain a panel of trophoblast stem cell (TSC) markers. To better define how Nodal maintains pluripotency and how it might signal to TSCs in the ExE, and as a means to genetically uncouple Nodal production from processing, I treated cultured TSCs and NodallacZ/lacZ embryonic stem cells (ESCs) with recombinant Nodal or with cleavage-resistant mutant Nodal precursor. I show that recombinant mature Nodal stimulates Smad2 phosphorylation in both ESCs and TSCs, even though the latter do not express Nodal coreceptors of the EGF-CFC family. In contrast, recombinant Nr failed to activate the canonical Smad pathway in either cell type, and hence preferentially stimulated Jnk and p38 MAPK signaling. Yet, none of these activities were sufficient to promote self-renewal of mouse ESCs or TSCs under any of the culture conditions examined. Using lentiviral overexpression of constitutively active receptors with mutations in the Smad2,3 binding site, I observed that TSC stemness apparently can be maintained independently of Smad2,3 activation. These results suggest that mature Nodal or its unprocessed precursor likely promote the self-renewal of TSCs in vivo through a non-canonical, Smad-independent signaling pathway, but that available recombinant proteins for unknown reasons cannot fully mimic this activity in vitro, at least under the conditions examined.


Partisans on one side of the class action debates argue that the class device is a critical enforcement tool that increases much-needed access to justice. Combatants on the other side scoff that class actions are tools for shaking down corporations for settlement payments and attorneys' fees in unmeritorious cases. In his most recent book, Entrepreneurial Litigation: Its Rise, Fall and Future, John C. Coffee puts both sides in their place, providing an account that, he aptly tells us, "has long been missing in the literature, in large part because academics writing in this area either have been so ideologically committed to the private attorney general concept or so implacably opposed to it" that they've failed to fully examine its consequences. If it is a virtue of the class device that it can aggregate a large number of small interests – and that surely is a virtue for Coffee – then a corresponding detriment is that the named plaintiffs' interests are too small to warrant any substantial investment in monitoring the lawyers. And for Coffee, the predictable result is what he terms "abusive litigation" – the attempt by lawyers to leverage the scale of class cases to coerce unwarranted settlements. Reform, according to Coffee, "requires that the merits need to matter more." To ensure that plaintiffs' counsel make investment decisions based on case merit, rather than exploitable cost asymmetries, Coffee would have lawyers assume a measure of financial responsibility for the fees and expenses incurred in unmeritorious actions. This book review assumes that Professor Coffee's proposals would solve the "abusive litigation problem," and then examines, in this hypothetical post-reform world, how we really regard the private attorney general model that is at the core of class actions. The inquiry focuses on consequential class cases that seek structural institutional reform through injunctive relief, because it is mandatory non-opt-out class claims under Rule 23(b)(2) that bring into starkest relief concerns about the assumption of power by private actors. And the ongoing Payment Card class actions brought by merchants against Visa, MasterCard and American Express (the author's extraordinary personal connection to which is disclosed in the essay) form an almost perfect laboratory for examining these issues. This essay explores concerns with self-nominated class counsel assuming public functions including, for example, the negotiation of rules that bind entire industries and the prosecution of cases that public enforcers have affirmatively elected not to pursue. And centrally, this essay investigates the unease that the traditional bar and commentariat feel with the on-the-ground, actual practice of complex class litigation. We are afforded a rare backstage pass to observe these practices because of the extraordinary fact that a Willkie Farr partner was arrested for perpetrating an unrelated fraud upon her client, MasterCard, leading to the disclosure of thousands of emails, including many with plaintiffs' lead counsel in the Amex case. And the reactions of all concerned to those unvarnished communications illustrate a high impact collision of realism and formalism. The realist, emblemized by John Coffee, asks what the entrepreneurial lawyer actually does and why – and, in this case, would find a lawyer intent on achieving industrial reform for his clients, practicing all the politics and diplomacy necessary to get there. The formalist, embodied here by the district judge in the Amex case, relies on ex ante rules and precepts regarding proper lawyer comportment, in order to obviate nettlesome ex post inquiry into whether the attorney has indeed rendered loyal and able service to his principal. Professor Coffee may yet solve the abusive litigation problem. But even so, deep skepticism of the private attorney general model – born of long experience with abusive litigation – will surely persist, vestigial, like a phantom limb.


A theoretical framework for mapping the performance of dimensional measuring instruments has been developed that is used to interpret the results of measurements at the nanometric level, where it is particularly important to understand the geometrical and physical interactions between the measuring instrument and the object being measured. Nanometric topographic measuring instruments that have been developed at the NPL span measuring ranges of 0.01 nm to 3 mm in surface amplitude and 0.3 nm to 100 mm in surface wavelength.


How successful have nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) been in influencing international forest policy? Specifically, how effective have they been at altering the texts of international forest policy declarations and agreements? This paper studies NGO efforts to influence international forest policy from the mid-1980s, when deforestation first emerged as an international environmental challenge, to 2001 when the United Nations Forum on Forests was created. This paper demonstrates that, in the short term, NGOs are more effective when they: 1. involve themselves in the early stages of negotiations, 2. suggest substantive and procedural ideas that are already well-known in fora outside forest politics, and 3. align their suggestions with the prevailing neoliberal discourse of international politics. The paper suggests that such conditions can be rather limited and thus speculates about NGO efforts within a longer time frame.


The Agricultural Act of 2014 (2014 Farm Bill) significantly changed the Title I commodity programs, and shallow loss insurance programs were added to the federal crop insurance program (Title XI). Stacked Income Protection Plan and Supplemental Coverage Option were new insurance programs enacted in the 2014 Farm Bill. Participation in these programs is influenced by premium subsidies and the type of coverage provided. Relationships between insurance agents and producers also have the potential to influence program participation. These changes could impact the producer's insurance choice decision. The overall objective of this research is to understand the impact of the new insurance options on Texas cotton producers' risk management decisions and participation and understand the change in coverage level of primary crop insurance due to availably of other protection. A mail survey was conducted among cotton producers in Texas to collect insurance choices data for 2014 and anticipated choices for 2015. Responses from 42% of Texas counties were received. In 2015, the USDA Risk Management Agency reported 155 counties in Texas produced cotton. Regression analysis conducted on anticipated change in coverage level of crop insurance indicated Common Crop Insurance Policy coverage level choice for larger farm size and higher non-farm income had an increase in coverage level effect; whereas enterprise unit, revenue protection, price, yield, and insurance agents had a decrease in coverage level effect. Results suggest that greater insurance agent involvement in program design and implementation of an insurance program could contribute to program success.


1. Olivine-Dolerite from Kugoi. This is a light-greyish, moderately coarse-grained dolerite, containing much felspar. The rock is quite fresh, and consists of plagioclase-felspar, augite, olivine, magnetite, and apatite. Two generations of felspar are very distinct—the crystals belonging to lhe earlier showing good contours. It is probable that this is an intrusive rock. 2. Basalts from Tarasua Point, Mafiri Cave, and An Hufhuf. These are very vesicular basalts, black or grey in colour. The specimen from Tarasua Point was found by Dr. W. Pollard to contain 48·86 per cent. of silica; the rock is dark in colour and consists of minute, but long, plagioclase-felspars (with a few larger crystals of the same mineral), augite, and magnetite. The small felspars have a parallel arrangement. The specimen from Mafiri is a fine-grained rock, in which the felspars have no regular arrangement. 3. Olivine-Basalts from Savelei Point, base of Hoi, and base of Yavasse (opposite Sol Kopi). The specimen from Hoi is a greyish compact rock with light green crystals of olivine. Microscopic examination shows that it is fine-grained and not decomposed; it consists mainly of a mass of small, lath-shaped, plagioclase-felspars and augite, with larger crystals of augite and olivine. Magnetite is abundant. The felspars have a fairly well-marked parallel arrangement. The rock from Savelei Point is darker and somewhat vesicular, resembling in general appearance the specimen from Tarasua Point, but containing olivine. 4. Ashes from Sol Kopi, Afaga, Howa, Kugoi, Kiliga Point, and Sororoa. These are light-coloured rocks, varying in texture and


Prosody facilitates perceptual segmentation of the speech stream into a sequence of words and phrases. With regard to speech timing, vowel lengthening is well established as a cue to an upcoming boundary, but listeners' exploitation of consonant lengthening for segmentation has not been systematically tested in the absence of other boundary cues. In a series of artificial language learning experiments, the impact of durational variation in consonants and vowels on listeners' extraction of novel trisyllables was examined. Language streams with systematic lengthening of word-initial consonants were better recalled than both control streams without localized lengthening and streams where word-initial syllable lengthening was confined to the vocalic rhyme. Furthermore, where vowel-consonant sequences were lengthened word-medially, listeners failed to learn the languages effectively. Thus the structural interpretation of lengthening effects depends upon their localization, in this case, a distinction between lengthening of the onset consonant and the vocalic syllable rhyme. This functional division is considered in terms of speech-rate-sensitive predictive mechanisms and listeners' expectations regarding the occurrence of syllable perceptual centres.


Prior research documents that information transmitted via director networks affects firms' policies and real economic activities. Given a manager's potential monopoly over firm information, it is important to analyze whether information transmission through director social networks undermines the manager's control. Specifically, we explore whether information flow through director networks influences managers' ability to hoard bad news. We predict and find that the extent of external connections of the board of directors is negatively associated with future stock price crash risk. Additional analysis implies that this evidence is driven by firms with more powerful executives, with weaker auditor monitoring, or subject to strong investor protection, and by directors with greater monitoring incentives or responsibilities and directors with less firm-specific knowledge. Collectively, our research lends empirical support for the monitoring view under which better informed directors narrow the scope for bad news hoarding evident in stock price crash risk. In another series of tests, we fail to find evidence consistent with the information leakage view under which directors pass sensitive firm-specific information to connections who trade on the information before its public release. Other analysis helps dispel the concern that the endogenous match between directors and companies is spuriously responsible for our core results. Our empirical findings have important implications on how social networks affect the proper functioning of capital markets.


Mechanisms of drug action Advanced mass spectrometry methods enable monitoring of tens of thousands of phosphorylation sites in proteins. This technology can potentially distinguish cellular signaling pathways that produce beneficial effects from those that produce unwanted side effects. Liu et al. treated mice with various agonists of the kappa opioid receptor (a G protein–coupled receptor) and monitored changes in phosphorylation over time in different brain regions. The phosphorylation patterns revealed distinct patterns of signaling in various brain tissues, some of which were associated with unwanted side effects. Science, this issue p. eaao4927 High-throughput monitoring of phosphorylation helps define drug actions in the brain. INTRODUCTION The G protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily is a major drug target for neurological diseases. Functionally selective agonists activate GPCRs, such as the kappa opioid receptor (KOR), in a pathway-specific manner that may lead to drugs with fewer side effects. For example, KOR agonists that trigger beneficial antinociceptive, antipruritic, and anticonvulsant effects while causing minimal or no undesirable dysphoric, aversive, or psychotomimetic effects would be invaluable in light of the current opioid epidemic. However, functional selectivity observed in vitro frequently has little predictive value for behavioral outcomes. RATIONALE Obtaining a systems view of GPCR signaling in the brain may overcome the gap between in vitro pharmacology and in vivo testing. Recent breakthroughs in mass spectrometry–based proteomics have enabled us to quantify tens of thousands of phosphorylation events simultaneously in a high-throughput fashion. Using the KOR as a GPCR model, we applied this technology to achieve a global overview of the architecture of brain phosphoproteome in five mouse brain regions, in which we examined signaling induced by structurally and behaviorally diverse agonists. RESULTS Through the quantification of 50,000 different phosphosites, this approach yielded a brain region–specific systems view of the phosphoproteome, providing a context to understand KOR signaling in vivo. We observed strong regional specificity of KOR signaling attributable to differences in protein-protein interaction networks, neuronal contacts, and the different tissues in neuronal circuitries. Agonists with distinct signaling profiles elicited differential dynamic phosphorylation of synaptic proteins, thereby linking GPCR signaling to the modulation of brain functions. The most prominent changes occurred on synaptic proteins associated with dopaminergic, glutamatergic, and γ-aminobutyric acid–mediated (GABAergic) signaling and synaptic vesicle release. The large-scale dephosphorylation of synaptic proteins in the striatum after 5 min of agonist stimulation was partially blocked by protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) inhibitors, underscoring the involvement of PP2A in KOR-mediated synaptic functions. Pathway analysis revealed enrichment of mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) signaling by agonists associated with aversion. Strikingly, mTOR inhibition during KOR activation abolished aversion while preserving therapeutic antinociceptive and anticonvulsant effects. Parallel characterization of phosphoproteomic changes related to KOR-mediated mTOR activation in a cell line model provided additional mechanistic insights at the level of the signaling cascade. CONCLUSION We dissected the signaling pathways associated with desired and undesired outcomes of KOR activation in vivo and applied this knowledge to suppress the latter. Our work demonstrates the utility of combining phosphoproteomics with pharmacological tools and behavioral assessments as a general approach for studying GPCR signaling in vivo. Together with appropriate in vitro cellular systems, individual pathways can be characterized in depth, providing a rational basis for GPCR drug discovery. High-throughput phosphoproteomics to characterize in vivo brain GPCR signaling. Subsequent bioinformatic analysis enables prediction and modulation of downstream signaling pathways, which are correlated with unwanted effects but not the therapeutic outcome. A systems view of G protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling in its native environment is central to the development of GPCR therapeutics with fewer side effects. Using the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) as a model, we employed high-throughput phosphoproteomics to investigate signaling induced by structurally diverse agonists in five mouse brain regions. Quantification of 50,000 different phosphosites provided a systems view of KOR in vivo signaling, revealing novel mechanisms of drug action. Thus, we discovered enrichment of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway by U-50,488H, an agonist causing aversion, which is a typical KOR-mediated side effect. Consequently, mTOR inhibition during KOR activation abolished aversion while preserving beneficial antinociceptive and anticonvulsant effects. Our results establish high-throughput phosphoproteomics as a general strategy to investigate GPCR in vivo signaling, enabling prediction and modulation of behavioral outcomes.


Author(s): Banasik, Brent | Advisor(s): Bergdahl, Mikael; Molinski, Tadeusz | Abstract: Lagunamide A represents a class of novel cyclic depsipeptide obtained from the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula. With an array of biological activity and impressive IC50 values including anti-malarial properties (IC50 0.19-0.91 μM), significant cytotoxic properties against P388 murine leukemia cell lines (IC50 6.4-20.5 nM) and ileocecal colon cancer (1.6 nM), lagunamide A shows promise as an extremely powerful therapeutic agent. Unexpectedly, in a recent total synthesis of lagunamide A an incorrectly assigned configuration of stereochemistry was reported. Moreover, natural lagunamide A was isolated in 0.00012% yield from 15 L (~169 g isolated dry, powdered weight) of the cyanobacterium laden sea grass via arduous processes, reaffirming the need for an economically robust total synthesis to further encourage biological study. In light of this information an efficient alternative total synthesis was proposed. Through this optimized approach the target molecule was synthesized in significantly higher overall yield and greater selectivity. Specifically, remote stereocontrol via two iterative vinylogous Mukaiyama aldol reactions (VMAR) lead to a formal total synthesis of the C27-C45 fragment in record yield. Solution and solid phase peptide coupling methodology to construct the C5-C26 fragment of lagunamide A was explored. An optimized convergent strategy lead to the synthesis of lagunamide A and unveiled interesting chemical studies on Kobayashi's protocol for VMAR, specifically a detailed account of relative rate of reaction for (R) vs. (S)-α-substituted aldehyde additions, including an enantiomeric resolution of a small panel of α-substituted aldehydes and proposed transition states. Micromide is a cytotoxic alkaloid anti-tumor agent (IC50: 260 nM against KB cells) isolated from Symploca cyanobateria. The focus of this research was to develop an efficient and convergent strategy for the total synthesis of micromide. Key synthetic manipulation involved N-methylation protocol, solution phase peptide coupling and asymmetric acetate aldol reactions. The reported configuration of micromide was not equivalent to that of synthetic micromide, even though LC-MS data demonstrated the correct molecular weight. Epi-micromide was synthesized in ~1% overall yield (103 mg) via solution phase methodology and 7.5% overall yield (50 mg) via solid support methodology. Computational analysis of the 13C NMR data hypothesized that inversion of C35 would reveal the corrected structure for micromide. Preliminary chemical studies towards an expedient synthesis of azaspirene, an effective angiogenesis inhibitor isolated from the soil fungus Neosartorya sp., are proposed from (+)-tartaric acid. An efficient synthetic pathway for theses bioactive molecules could ultimately lead to structural analogs for structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies against various cancer cell lines.


As a new type of anticancer drug, the effect of histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) in cancer clinical therapy is disappointing owing to drug resistance. P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is clearly recognized as a multidrug resistance protein. However, the relationship between P-gp and sodium butyrate (SB), a kind of HDACIs, has not been investigated. In this study, we found that SB increased mRNA and protein expression of P-gp in lung cancer cells and the underlying mechanisms were elucidated. We found that SB treatment enhanced the mRNA and protein expression of STAT3 rather than that of &bgr;-catenin, Foxo3a, PXR, or CAR, which were reported to directly regulate the transcription of ABCB1, a P-gp-encoding gene. Interestingly, inhibition of STAT3 expression obviously attenuated SB-increased P-gp expression in lung cancer cells, indicating that STAT3 played an important role in SB-mediated P-gp upregulation. Furthermore, we found that SB increased the mRNA stability of ABCB1. In summary, this study showed that SB increased P-gp expression by facilitating transcriptional activation and improving ABCB1 mRNA stability. This study indicated that we should pay more attention to HDACIs during cancer clinical therapy.


Gastropathy nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) is a gastric mucosal lesions associated with NSAID used. The mechanisms of NSAID induced gastropathy due to topical damage caused by ion trapping of NSAID in gastric mucosa and systemic effect by inhibiting cyclooxygenase (COX) which causes inhibition of prostaglandins synthesis. Prevention and treatment of gastropathy NSAID consist of cessation of NSAID, selection of NSAID, and the use of gastroprotective drugs with gastrointestinal and cardiovascular risks consideration. J Indon Med Assoc. 2012;62:444-9. Keywords: gastropathy, NSAID, pathophysiology, treatment


Background: The effects of different definitions for metabolic syndrome (MetS) on its prevalence were examined, and the differences in the discriminatory power, as well as the optimal cutoff points of relevant risk factors, were analyzed in this study. Methods: 45,756 health checkup data sets from 2011 to 2014 of high school students aged between 15 to 17 years were sourced in Taipei city. The database included the students' gender, age, height, weight, waist circumference (WC), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as biochemical markers such as triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and fasting glucose (FG) levels. The ROC curve statistical approach was used to analyze the discriminatory power and optimal cutoff points of the relevant MetS risk factors. Results: The prevalence of MetS among adolescents in Taipei was 2.3% and 1.2%, according to the criteria of the modified National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) respectively. The prevalence increased to 4.3% when this study's criteria were used. Among the components of MetS analyzed, WC and TG had stronger discriminatory powers, while FG had the weakest. The optimal cutoff point for WC was approximately the 90 th percentile, while that for the TG was similar to the criteria of the modified NCEP ATP III. About 44.6% of adolescents had at least one MetS component. Body mass index also had good discriminatory power. Conclusions: The prevalence of MetS differs depending on the diagnostic criteria used. Redefining the cutoff points for the components of MetS in adolescents in different regions, as well as further screening and intervention, are crucial to prevent cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus in the future.


Baltimore--Psychological treatment, particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, can help ease chronic pain. That's why these therapies may be able to do the same for chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) patients, argued Judith Turner, PhD, at the NIDDK-sponsored Chronic Pelvic Pain/Chronic Prostatitis Scientific Workshop here.


This article reports a seed-mediated approach to polyhedral nanocrystals of Pd with controlled sizes, shapes, and different proportions of {100} to {111} facets on the surface. The success of this synthesis relies on the use of Pd nanocubes with different sizes as the seeds and the use of formaldehyde as a relatively mild reducing agent. By controlling the ratio of Pd precursor to the seed, we obtained uniform polyhedrons such as truncated cubes, cuboctahedrons, truncated octahedrons, and octahedrons in a purity approaching 100%. The sizes of these polyhedrons were determined by the edge length of the cubic seeds. Since these Pd polyhedrons were characterized by different proportions of {111} to {100} facets, they could serve as model catalysts to uncover the correlation between the surface structure and the catalytic performance for formic acid oxidation. Our measurements indicate that Pd nanocubes exhibited the highest maximum current density in the forward anodic scan, but the peak position was also located at a potential higher than those of the other polyhedrons. When both the current density and the operation potential are taken into consideration, Pd nanocubes with slight truncation at the corners become the best choice of catalyst for formic acid oxidation. Our study also revealed that the size of Pd polyhedrons had essentially no effect on the activity for formic acid oxidation.


In liberalized economy, the need for Business Development and Consultancy Service is
crucial to business members in carrying out their daily business transactions. The TCCIA
Coast Region revealed the necessity to have such Services Unit after needs assessment
sessions conducted by the Regional Officials, Business Community members as well as nonmembers.
Twelve assumptions deemed to be appropriate for directing this task and were set
according to the goals, purpose, activities and output needed in establishing a Business
Development and Consultancy Unit. A survey was conducted to ascertain the needs of a
Business Development and Consultancy Service Unit in the Regional Chamber. The survey
included 12 chamber officials from Kibaha and Bagamoyo branches, 30 business community
members of the Coast Region Chamber and lOnon-members. Four methods were used in
data collection; notably review of primary and secondary documents, questionnaires and
interviews.
Findings from the survey have revealed that most of the assumptions made were proved to be
positive. Effectively after endorsing the idea, the Regional Chamber handles a number of
customers; and Business Community members have started using this service since its
inception may 2002. They have agreed to pay for consultancy fees for the sustainability of
the service, although few pay lower than the professional fees. All the outcomes of the
Chamber have been possible due to sufficient professionals expertise available for running
the unit. The achievements are brought through organized meetings, seminars, brochure
promotions; and good cooperation with other related government and non-governmental
institutions operating within the region.
The TCCIA Coast Region should provide the service to customers with respect to their
priorities. The Chamber needs to look for ways of financial assistance to Business
Community members by establishing micro finance unit to synchronize with the need for
Business Development and Consultancy Services.


SUMMARY The family Flaviviridae contains three genera: Hepacivirus, Flavivirus, and Pestivirus. Worldwide, more than 170 million people are chronically infected with Hepatitis C virus and are at risk of developing cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. In addition, infections with arthropod-borne flaviviruses (such as dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, tick-borne encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis, Murray Valley encephalitis, West Nile, and yellow fever viruses) are emerging throughout the world. The pestiviruses have a serious impact on livestock. Unfortunately, no specific antiviral therapy is available for the treatment or the prevention of infections with members of the Flaviviridae. Ongoing research has identified possible targets for inhibition, including binding of the virus to the cell, uptake of the virus into the cell, the internal ribosome entry site of hepaciviruses and pestiviruses, the capping mechanism of flaviviruses, the viral proteases, the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, and the viral helicase. In light of recent developments, the prevalence of infections caused by these viruses, the disease spectrum, and the impact of infections, different strategies that could be pursued to specifically inhibit viral targets and animal models that are available to study the pathogenesis and antiviral strategies are reviewed.


The study aims to measure arguments' strength of the 2012 the United States' presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, in their latest presidential debate. The researcher selected 41 arguments from the debate transcription, based on the completeness requirement of the primary elements of Toulmin's Argumentation Model (1958), such as claim , ground and warrants . The data are analyzed through the three stages of analysis, namely cogency analysis , s oundness analysis , and strength level analysis . Based on the data analysis, three qualifications are found: strong argument, weak argument and very weak argument . The analysis shows that Barrack Obama is the winner of the latest U.S presidential debate. Obama won the debate because his strong arguments' frequency is higher than Romney's strong argument in the debate. Furthermore, most of Obama's arguments, either strong or weak, are constructed in the form of deductive arguments. As the nature of deductive argument, which guarantees the cogency and the validity of its conclusion, Obama's arguments in the latest presidential debate 2012 are mostly cogent and valid. Keywords : Argument Strength , Cogency Analysis, Soundness Analysis, Strength Level Analysis.


Passive network monitoring offers the possibility of gathering a wealth of data about the traffic traversing the network and the communicating processes generating that traffic. Significant advantages include the non-intrusive nature of data capture and the range and diversity of the traffic and driving applications which may be observed. Conversely there are also associated practical difficulties which have restricted the usefulness of the technique: increasing network bandwidths can challenge the capacity of monitors to keep pace with passing traffic without data loss, and the bulk of data recorded may become unmanageable. Much research based upon passive monitoring has in consequence been limited to that using a sub-set of the data potentially available, typically TCP/IP packet headers gathered using Tcpdump or similar monitoring tools. The bulk of data collected is thereby minimised, and with the possible exception of packet filtering, the monitor's available processing power is available for the task of collection and storage. As the data available for analysis is drawn from only a small section of the network protocol stack, detailed study is largely confined to the associated functionality and dynamics in isolation from activity at other levels. Such lack of context severely restricts examination of the interaction between protocols which may in turn lead to inaccurate or erroneous conclusions. The work described in this dissertation attempts to address some of these limitations. A new passive monitoring architecture — Nprobe — is presented, based upon 'off the shelf' components and which, by using clusters of probes, is scalable to keep pace with current high bandwidth networks without data loss. Monitored packets are fully captured, but are subject to the minimum processing in real time needed to identify and associate data of interest across the target set of protocols. Only this data is extracted and stored. The data reduction ratio thus achieved allows examination of a wider range of encapsulated protocols without straining the probe's storage capacity. Full analysis of the data harvested from the network is performed off-line. The activity of interest within each protocol is examined and is integrated across the range of protocols, allowing their interaction to be studied. The activity at higher levels informs study of the lower levels, and that at lower levels infers detail of the higher. A technique for dynamically modelling TCP connections is presented, which, by using data from both the transport and higher levels of the protocol stack, differentiates between the effects of network and endprocess activity. The balance of the dissertation presents a study of Web traffic using Nprobe. Data collected from the IP, TCP, HTTP and HTML levels of the stack is integrated to identify the patterns of network activity involved in downloading whole Web pages: by using the links contained in HTML documents observed by the monitor, together with data extracted from the HTML headers of downloaded contained objects, the set of TCP connections used, and the way in which browsers use them, are studied as a whole. An analysis of the degree and distribution of delay is presented and contributes to the understanding of performance as perceived by the user. The effects of packet loss on whole page download times are examined, particularly those losses occurring early in the lifetime of connections before reliable estimations of round trip times are established. The implications of such early packet losses for pages downloads using persistent connections are also examined by simulations using the detailed data available.


From local governance regimes to policies and markets, diverse institutions are crucial for ensuring effective natural resource management. Payments for Ecosystems Services (PES) are being adopted globally as a potential strategy for protecting and increasing forests by paying for environmental goods and services not captured in the market. Large-scale reforestation efforts have also increased globally, but are mostly aimed at increasing forest cover rather than ensuring resilient ecosystems. Many have argued that such incentivised reforestation schemes could lead to plantations of limited species diversity. Enhancing tree species diversity simultaneously with other forest ecosystem services (e.g. carbon sequestration) in reforestation therefore remains a challenge. Since many land managers are reluctant to voluntarily plant trees of little market or use value, PES may offer a strategy for enhancing tree diversity if stakeholders' perceptions were understood. I therefore explored how PES should be designed to deliver biodiversity-enhancing reforestation. Empirical research was carried out in mountainous villages within Lebanon's newly designated Important Plant Areas (IPAs). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with local authorities and key informants in 48 villages within nine IPAs exposing numerous socio-institutional and biophysical constraints to reforestation on municipal lands. I then set out to gauge landowners' perceptions of PES schemes with varying levels of conditionality. In this mixed-methods study, I found that private landowners are very diverse in their preferences and attitudes towards PES schemes expressed through their discussions about risks and reward. I later surveyed national stakeholders' preferences for native species to be used in reforestation. Similarly, these stakeholders (and potential PES buyers) also exhibit preference heterogeneity when prioritising native species for reforestation. Finally, I estimate a production possibility frontier from a choice experiment conducted with landowners in the Bcharre-Ehden IPA. My results indicated that real trade-offs do exist between the extent of forest cover and diversity of species used in reforestation. However, while limited in scope, it is possible for reforesting private lands with diverse native forest species cost-effectively through identifying and targeting willing suppliers (i.e. landowners). Increasing participation requires further research to investigate whether absentee residents, with landholdings not tied to commercial farming, would be willing to accept low-cost payments for biodiversity-enhancing reforestation. My thesis provides insights from empirical studies that will contribute to both research and policy in designing PES for achieving multiple objectives cost-effectively.


The automotive industry is confronted with increasing competition, leading to higher cost pressures and the demand to optimize production processes and value chains. Here the RFID technology promises to improve a range of processes in logistics and manufacturing. Despite its promising potential in the automotive industry, RFID has not yet made a decisive step from pilots to real-life implementations in the supply chain. Building on existing models of technology adoption, we analyze RFID adoption dynamics in the automotive industry. Building on existing IOS adoption models tailored to RFID specifics and based on ten semi-structured interviews with OEMs and suppliers, we evaluate main drivers of RFID adoption in the automotive industry. Our key findings are that the use of a coercive approach by the OEM could be redundant because of the market-driven RFID adoption among many suppliers. Furthermore, suppliers implementing RFID can now gain an early mover competitive advantage by developing higher trust in their relationship with the OEM as well as accumulating unique expertise in this area.


The post-translational modification of histones has significant effects on overall chromatin function. One such modification is citrullination, which is catalyzed by the protein arginine deiminases (PADs), a unique family of enzymes that catalyzes the hydrolysis of peptidyl-arginine to form peptidyl-citrulline on histones, fibrinogen, and other biologically relevant proteins. Overexpression and/or increased PAD activity is observed in several diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, lupus, Parkinson's disease, and cancer. This review discusses the important structural and mechanistic characteristics of the PADs, as well as recent investigations into the role of the PADs in increasing disease severity in RA and colitis and the importance of PAD activity in mediating neutrophil extracellular trap formation through chromatin decondensation. Lastly, efforts to develop PAD inhibitors with excellent potency, selectivity and in vivo efficacy are discussed, highlighting the most promising inhibitors.


Inverse kinematics (IK) equations are usually solved through approximated linearizations or heuristics. These methods lead to character animations that are unnatural looking or unstable because they do not consider both the motion coherence and limits of human joints. In this paper, we present a method based on the formulation of multi‐variate Gaussian distribution models (MGDMs), which precisely specify the soft joint constraints of a kinematic skeleton. Each distribution model is described by a covariance matrix and a mean vector representing both the joint limits and the coherence of motion of different limbs. The MGDMs are automatically learned from the motion capture data in a fast and unsupervised process. When the character is animated or posed, a Gaussian process synthesizes a new MGDM for each different vector of target positions, and the corresponding objective function is solved with Jacobian‐based IK. This makes our method practical to use and easy to insert into pre‐existing animation pipelines. Compared with previous works, our method is more stable and more precise, while also satisfying the anatomical constraints of human limbs. Our method leads to natural and realistic results without sacrificing real‐time performance.


The present American higher education setting includes the use of Student Evaluations of Instruction (SEIs). This practice has a history that spans a number of decades and is now firmly established as part of the American system of higher education. However, there is a continuing dispute over the use of the information gathered from SEIs, the legitimacy of the interpretations of the results, the assumptions behind the use of the instruments, and the assumptions foundational to the instruments themselves. This paper considers each of these topics and methods suggested by scholars to alter or augment SEIs.


Very deep convolutional neural networks offer excellent recognition results, yet their computational expense limits their impact for many real-world applications. We introduce BlockDrop, an approach that learns to dynamically choose which layers of a deep network to execute during inference so as to best reduce total computation without degrading prediction accuracy. Exploiting the robustness of Residual Networks (ResNets) to layer dropping, our framework selects on-the-fly which residual blocks to evaluate for a given novel image. In particular, given a pretrained ResNet, we train a policy network in an associative reinforcement learning setting for the dual reward of utilizing a minimal number of blocks while preserving recognition accuracy. We conduct extensive experiments on CIFAR and ImageNet. The results provide strong quantitative and qualitative evidence that these learned policies not only accelerate inference but also encode meaningful visual information. Built upon a ResNet-101 model, our method achieves a speedup of 20% on average, going as high as 36% for some images, while maintaining the same 76.4% top-1 accuracy on ImageNet.


ATM encryption allows users to select an appropriate algorithm to implement security services for a given transmission. This flexibility is especially helpful when the choices for encryption algorithms between transmission points are limited. Algorithm flexibility also helps reduce operational costs, since multiple algorithms-which are typically implemented in several encryptors-can all be implemented in one device.


We combine the advantages of multi-spacecraft and ground-based monitoring of the geospace environment in order to analyze and study magnetospheric ultra low frequency (ULF) waves. In line with this aim, we also develop and deliver relevant analysis tools based on wavelet transforms and tailored to the Swarm mission. In the preparation phase as well as the lifetime of the Swarm mission, the analysis of isolated ULF wave events— especially those detected in the Pc3 frequency range (20–100 mHz) that a topside ionosphere mission efficiently resolves—can help to elucidate the processes that play a crucial role in the generation of waves and their most defining propagation characteristics. Additionally, we offer a useful platform to monitor the wave evolution from the outer boundaries of Earth's magnetosphere through the topside ionosphere down to the surface. Data from a single Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite (CHAMP), a multi-satellite LEO mission (ST5) and the ongoing multi-satellite magnetospheric mission (Cluster) along with a ground-based magnetic network (CARISMA) are used to demonstrate the potential of our analysis technique in studying wave evolution in detail. A better understanding of the generation and propagation of waves will also allow to geophysically validate some of Swarm's data products, especially those related to the magnetic and electric fields in geospace. With a carefully selected case study focusing on the recovery phase of a moderate magnetic storm (9 April 2006 with a minimum Dst value of −82 nT) as a starting point, we clearly demonstrate the capabilities offered by our wavelet analysis tools and highlight the options opened to treat various categories of multipoint multi-instrument measurements (both spaceborne and ground-based) for signatures of ULF wave signals as well as the effects of various other sources.


The focus of this paper is copular clauses in Brazilian Portuguese like Mulher(es) e complicado, in which the predicate exhibits an unmarked form for gender and number (masculine singular), despite the presence of the feminine and/or plural form of the noun in subject position. We reject the analyses that propose that (i) there is a hidden infinitive clause in the subject position, (ii) the agreement is an instance of semantic agreement, and (iii) the DP subject is in A-bar position, and argue that the subject is a Small Nominal (they are not projected as full DPs) which lacks index features that trigger external agreement (Pereltsvaig 2006).


The thesis examines ion-assisted physical-vapour deposition (PVD) of thin coatings on non-flat three-dimensional samples, concentrating on the case of free-standing edges and comers. Changes in the electric field in the vicinity of sharp edges lead to local changes in the ion bombardment (ion flux and angle of incidence) which can significantly affect the ion-surface interaction and thus the properties and the performance of the coatings growing in the edge region. This work presents a detailed electron microscopy study of the edge-related changes in the coating properties and develops a physical model to explain and quantify the effects. The problem is studied on a system typical for industrial coating of cutting tools used in dry high speed cutting: TiAlN-type coatings (TiAlN/VN and TiAlCrYN) deposited on wedge-shaped samples by closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBM), using high-flux, low-energy Ar+ ion irradiation (J[i]/J[me]~4, E[i] = 75-150 eV). The morphology and composition of the coatings in the edge region, as a function of the edge geometry (angle and radius of curvature) and the deposition conditions (substrate bias), is studied using scanning electron microscopy combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM+EDX). The internal structure of the coatings growing on sharp edges is examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). A detailed theoretical analysis of the effects, based on the simulations of the plasma sheath around the samples and the resulting ion bombardment distribution, is presented. A direct relationship between the experimentally observed magnitude and spatial extent of the changes in the edge region and the simulated characteristics of the plasma sheath around the edges is shown.


Bacteroides microfusus sp. nov. is described on the basis of 16 strains isolated from a number of fecal or cecal specimens from calves, chickens, and Japanese quails. The isolates are obligately anaerobic, gram-negative, nonsporeforming, nonmotile, relatively small rods with pointed ends; the cells occur singly, in pairs, and sometimes in short chains. B. microfusus differs from other species in the genus Bacteroides principally in morphology; the small spindle-shaped cells, particularly on agar media, are rather distinctive. The guanine-plus-cytosine contents of the deoxyribonucleic acids of the new strains range from 59 to 61 mol%, the highest value so far detected in the genus Bacteroides. The new strains are similar to those of B. putredinis, B. furcosus, B. amylophilus, and B. succinogenes in fermenting a relatively small number of carbohydrates; however, B. microfusus can clearly be differentiated from these organisms by numerous biochemical properties and/or fermentation products. The type strain of B. microfusus is Q-1 (= ATCC 29728 = NCTC 11190).


We use a 27 year long time series of repeated transient tracer observations (CFCs, SF6) along the Prime Meridian and across the Weddell Sea to investigate changes in ventilation and anthropogenic carbon (Cant) storage in deep and bottom water in the Weddell Sea. Applying the Transit Time Distribution (TTD) method we find that all deep water masses in the Weddell Sea grew older and less ventilated. The decline of the ventilation rate of Weddell Sea Deep and Bottom Water seems to be mainly caused by mixing with Warm Deep Water, which aged even faster As a consequence of the aging, the Cant increase in the deep and bottom water formed in the Weddell Sea slowed down over the period of observations. Part of the observed deep and bottom water warming might also be caused by this process.


This study benchmarks marketing doctoral programs worldwide in five popular subareas by faculty and institutional scholarly impact. A multi-item approach identifies a collection of top-tier scholarly journals for each subarea, while citation data over the decade 2003 to 2012 identify high scholarly impact marketing faculty by subarea used to benchmark and compare faculty and programs globally. The major findings include top-tier journal collections in five popular doctoral program marketing subareas, the dominance of U.S.-based marketing scholars, and the scholarly inroads of northern European programs. The findings offer insight for a number of stakeholders, including potential doctoral students, faculty recruitment and retention, and institutional image building.


Abstract The treatment of older people with mental illness invariably needs an integrated approach, with the pharmacological, social and psychological aspects working together, but this review primarily focuses on pharmacological treatments. In general, the pharmacological evidence base is much better for younger patients. In particular, many clinical trials exclude older people and this makes it difficult to extrapolate the findings to older people with mental illness. Older people may be excluded because it is harder to control for confounding variables such as concurrent diseases and the medications needed to treat them. This must always be borne in mind when interpreting data from studies involving younger people. There is a need for more research into the use of psychotropic drugs in this vulnerable group of older people.


A primary goal of teacher preparation programs is to develop pre-service teachers? ability in applying the teaching knowledge and skills they learn in real classrooms in varying community, school, and classroom contexts. Upon developing these abilities, pre-service teachers can help their students successfully acquire knowledge. The present study aims to investigate the extent to which project-based instruction can enhance the ability to develop teaching materials among pre-service Social Studies teachers currently studying at an open-admission university in Thailand. The same subjective test was administered to a sample of 30 participants before and after the study and was scored using an analytic rubric. The pre-test and post-test data were analyzed via a paired sample t-test, which revealed that participation in project-based instruction resulted in the pre-service Social Studies teachers? improved ability to develop teaching materials, both overall and for each specific criterion, at a statistical significance level of .01.


Editor's note: the following text is an edited version of the keynote address delivered on May 13, 2015, at the 8th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) at Ryerson University, Toronto.

Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank the organisers, and in particular my colleague and friend Prof. Idil Atak, for inviting me to this exchange with you. It is a rare occasion and I'm very grateful for the opportunity.
I was asked to share with you a number of ideas coming from my experience as UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, especially on the relationship between criminalisation, precariousness, and human rights protection.
The thoughts I'm sharing with you are mostly based on my knowledge of international human rights and refugee law, my country visits – Albania, Tunisia, Turkey, Italy, Greece, the European Union (Brussels), Qatar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Malta – and my various thematic reports on the detention of migrants, climate change and migration, the management of the external borders of the European Union, Global Migration Governance, the labour exploitation of migrants, and the human rights of migrants in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda.
They are also inspired by the most recent policy announcements made by the European Union, including the European Migration Agenda announced today in Brussels.


Abstract A meeting on Contemporary Topics in Zebrafish Husbandry and Care was held in the United Kingdom in 2014, with the aim of providing a discussion forum for researchers, animal technologists, and veterinarians from academia and industry to share good practice and exchange ideas. Presentation topics included protocols for optimal larval rearing, implementing the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement) in large-scale colony management, and environmental enrichment. The audience also participated in a survey of current practice relating to practical husbandry, cryopreservation, and the provision of enrichment.


The article describes the high exposure and coverage of social and mass media in a village of Pariangan in Indonesia. In 2016, an online tourism publication reported the village as one of the most beautiful villages globally. This judgment, re-broadcast by local news websites and social media users, drew the attention of villagers and government officials. The government is making plans for large-scale tourism in Pariangan while many people came to visit the village only to get disappointed because the village had few tourist facilities. We used a qualitative approach to assess whether crowd attraction in news and social media resulted both from coverage of the village and differences in the imagination of tourist areas. While the media framed its beauty, villagers thought that not much had actually changed how the media described it. Likewise, tourists visiting the village find a lack of facilities and the tourist attraction they expect to be extraordinary. We conclude that differences in political and economic interests related to traditional claims and authenticity, regional development, cultural and natural conservation, and national interests produced a diverse imagination for tourism.


The toxic oil syndrome epidemic should be part of any basic course in epidemiology along with Snow's studies on cholera in London and Panums's investigations of measles on the Faroe Islands a' century ago. Like from the AIDS epidemic several lessons are to be learned. A preparedness of trained epidemiologists is needed. Politicians and researchers have to work closely together in respect of each others responsibility. Complete, detailed and fast registration of cases and exposed is of utmost importance for the identification of potential causal factors (one could speculate if the present concern with privacy and data protection may ruin the opportunities for rapid investigations during the early phase of an epidemic before the full scale of the disease calls for considerations related to the "Public Good Principle"). The toxic oil disaster started in 1981 in Madrid and its environment. Within months more than 20000 people were infected and by now the disease has caused more than 800 deaths. In spite of incomplete case ascertainment at the beginning and lack of detailed registration of potential causal factors, it is now reasonable well established that the disease was caused by toxic chemicals present in rapeseed oil denatured by 2% aniline. We still do not know which chemicals were the culprit. They may stem from chemical reactions in the oil or from contamination from the containers in which the oil was brought from France to Spain. In animal experiments, animals have not yet shown a similar disease when exposed to a large number of different fractions of the oil. The disease has an acute phase with eoxinophilia, pulmunary oedema, myalgias, fever and rash. Later developments are hepatopathy, weight loss and sicca, and the chronic phase is characterized by peripheral neuropathy, scleroderma and pulmonary hypertension. This toxic effect could well be species specific. The disease has no cure. Unfortunately, the early investigations were seldom published in international peer reviewed journals and the opportunities for using a more widely critical scientific debate to sharpen the research tool were therefore missed. However, the WHO regional office) for Europe engaged in the work from the beginning and the book is an update of scientific findings until 1992. The book gives a very useful state of the art description on the epidemiology of the toxic oil syndrome, the clinical findings, and results from experimental and toxicological studies. Still many scientific questions remain and we do not yet have the specific knowledge which could help preventing a similar disaster in the future. We also need a more detailed description of the health policy measures taken in the early phase of the epidemic and how scientists and decision makers coped with the problems, but this is probably a book which our Spanish colleagues have to write.


Landfast sea ice covers the inner parts of Kongsfjorden, Svalbard, for a limited time in winter and spring months, being an important feature for the physical and biological fjord systems. Systematic fast-ice monitoring for Kongsfjorden, as a part of a long-term project at the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) was started in 2003, with some more sporadic observations from 1997 to 2002. It includes the ice extent mapping and in situ measurements of ice and snow thickness, and freeboard at several sites in the fjord. The permanent presence of NPI personnel in Ny-Alesund Research Station enables regular in situ fast-ice thickness measurements as long as the fast ice is accessible. Further, daily visits to the observatory on the mountain Zeppelinfjellet close to Ny-Alesund, allow regular ice extent observations (weather, visibility, and daylight permitting). Data collected within this standardized monitoring programme have contributed to a number of studies. Monitoring of the sea-ice conditions in Kongsfjorden can be used to demonstrate and investigate phenomena related to climate change in the Arctic.


Agricultural activities in developing countries are critical for the future of the world's food security. These countries have the lowest agricultural productivity and dissemination of agricultural technologies are often insufficient. Extension has a vital role in improving agricultural productivity. The Caribbean country of Haiti is one such case. In Haiti, agricultural technicians perform much of the extension field work. Agricultural technicians often have a diploma earned at a Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVET) school. However, not much is known about Haitian TVET schools, as little research has been conducted. This study explored the context for Haitian agricultural TVET. Individual interviews with four school directors and three teachers per school (12 total), as well as a student focus group in each school allowed to identify the ambiguous cultural value of agricultural TVET in Haiti. Results identified the cultural disregard for TVET through its stakeholders' contempt for this sector as well as the government's failure to support it appropriately. However, it was also found that TVET added value to the agricultural system both for its inherent qualities, and because of the reputation, competitiveness it creates for the graduates through the schools' curricula, INFP recognition, and the networking experiences it facilitates notably with internships.

 Keywords: TVET, Haitian, agriculture


In our series of studies, the changes in the skin characteristics of mice caused by aging were investigated in correlation with the stem cells for keratinocytes and melanocytes in the natural hair cycle until middle age. The aim of the present review was to investigate these characteristics of hair follicles (HFs) at older age and complete the analysis of these changes as a study throughout the mouse lifetime. In addition, stem cells for keratinocytes and melanocytes were evaluated for changes in skin characteristics caused by aging. Postnatal day 200 (P200) appears to be the age of complete maturation of skin and the onset of aging with regard to HFs. Keratin 15-positive keratinocyte stem cells complete their localization as a quantitatively sufficient amount of progenitor in the hair bulge region and orchestrate the regeneration of hairs in every anagen phase thereafter. Although their frequency is low, an unusual structure of HFs, curved HFs, appear for the first time at P200. Thereafter, abnormal hair curvature continues to increase throughout life. In contrast, HF characteristics derived from melanocytes begin to show a high frequency of hypopigmented hair bulbs at P200 and appear to lead to a significant increase in the number of white hairs. Curved HFs and white hairs were considered biomarkers of aging in mice. The number of tyrosinase-related protein 2-positive melanocyte stem cells in the hair bulge is extremely low and may be one cause underlying not only the induction of melanocyte-derived characteristics by aging but possibly also that of keratinocyte-derived characteristics. These results provide insight into the mechanisms of the actions of stem cells on hair regeneration through the aging process.


BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE
Bupivacaine and lidocaine are often used concurrently, in theory, to combine the more rapid onset of lidocaine and the longer duration of bupivacaine. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this concept.

METHODS
Twenty-five subjects were enrolled in a double-blinded, randomized block design study to evaluate the onset and duration of four different mixtures of lidocaine and bupivacaine with epinephrine. The study was designed to achieve 80% power to detect an effect size of 0.37 at 5% overall significance. The four mixtures tested were: 0.25% bupivacaine with epinephrine (1:200,000); 1% lidocaine with epinephrine (1:100,000); 0.125% bupivacaine and 0.5% lidocaine with epinephrine (1:150,000); and 0.25% bupivacaine and 1% lidocaine with epinephrine (1:150,000). Four intradermal injections were made in the volar forearms of each participant. Time to effect and duration were measured by sensation of a sharp skin prick.

RESULTS
Mean time to onset ranged from 12 s to 29 s without statistical significance across all tested solutions (P=0.891). Mean duration of effect ranged from 6 h 38 min to 7 h 25 min with a statistically significant difference across the tested solutions (P=0.036).

CONCLUSIONS
No statistical benefit was measured when comparing lidocaine with epinephrine, bupivacaine with epinephrine, and mixtures of these local anesthetics with regard to onset of action. While a statistical difference was observed in duration of effect, the clinical benefit measured was narrow.


The concept of an organism's niche is central to ecological theory, but an operational definition is needed that allows both its experimental delineation and interpretation of field distributions of the species. Here we use population growth rate (hereafter, pgr) to define the niche as the set of points in niche space where pgr > 0. If there are just two axes to the niche space, their relationship to pgr can be pictured as a contour map in which pgr varies along the axes in the same way that the height of land above sea level varies with latitude and longitude. In laboratory experiments we measured the pgr of Daphnia magna over a grid of values of pH and Ca2+, and so defined its "laboratory niche" in pH-Ca2+ space. The position of the laboratory niche boundary suggests that population persistence is only possible above 0.5 mg Ca2+/L and between pH 5.75 and pH 9, though more Ca2+ is needed at lower pH values. To see how well the measured niche predicts the field distribution of D. magna, we examined relevant field data from 422 sites in England and Wales. Of the 58 colonized water bodies, 56 lay within the laboratory niche. Very few of the sites near the niche boundary were colonized, probably because pgr there is so low that populations are vulnerable to extinction by other factors. Our study shows how the niche can be quantified and used to predict field distributions successfully.


As a main part of the North China craton collage system, the tectonic origin of the Bainaimiao arc terrane is still hotly debated, especially its relationship with the North China craton. Thus, we report on a field-based petrological and zircon U-Pb-Hf isotopic study of (meta-)sedimentary and volcanic rocks from the Bainaimiao arc terrane and northern margin of the North China craton in the Damao region. The lower and middle successions of the Bayan Obo Group from the northern North China craton, including the Dulahala, Jianshan, Halahuogete, and Bilute Formations, were deposited ca. 1.81–1.35 Ga and show age peaks at 1.85, 1.90, 2.0, and 2.5 Ga. This age pattern is in accordance with the coeval and extensively outcropped metamorphosed basement rocks of the northern North China craton. The upper succession, including the Bayinbaolage and Hujiertu Formations, deposited ca. 1.19–0.92 Ga, shows age peaks at ca. 1.35, 1.57, and 1.69 Ga, and sediments were derived from coeval rift-related magmatism characterized by a significant increase in positive εHf(t) values in detrital zircons. Thus, the Bayan Obo Group can be subdivided into North China craton basement–derived sediments and Mesoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic rift-derived sediments, and the change of the provenance was probably caused by the ca. 1.35–1.30 Ga rifting event related to the breakup of the Nuna supercontinent. In the Bainaimiao arc terrane, zircon U-Pb geochronological results of (meta-)sedimentary rocks indicate they were formed in the Neoproterozoic and Paleozoic and have mainly late Paleoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic ages (ca. 0.6–0.9, 1.1–1.2, 1.4–1.7, and 1.8–2.0 Ga) with peaks at ca. 0.86, 0.96, 1.15, 1.47, 1.66, 1.75, 1.80–1.87, and 1.94 Ga. The abundant Neoproterozoic ages for the Bainaimiao arc terrane detrital zircons are distinct from the scarcity of these ages in the northern North China craton, southern Siberia (age peaks at ca. 1.87, 1.92, and 2.0 Ga), and Mongolia (age peak at ca. 0.62, 0.83, 0.93, 1.84, and 2.0 Ga), but they are similar to the features of the Tarim craton (age peaks at ca. 0.62, 0.85, 1.15, 1.47, 1.66, 1.75–1.80, 1.85, and 1.94 Ga). Together with the recognition of a possible preexisting Proterozoic basement (ca. 0.7–2.0 Ga) in the Bainaimiao arc terrane, as evidenced by the Hf model ages of continental arc magmatism in the Bainaimiao arc terrane, this late Paleoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic detritus probably resulted from local recycled sedimentation, and the preexisting Bainaimiao arc terrane basement rifted away from a continent with Tarim craton affinity. The rifting probably occurred between ca. 0.6 and 0.52 Ga, because the reworking of the Precambrian rocks in the North China collage system occurred between ca. 520 and 230 Ma.


Partial nephrectomy is the treatment of choice for small renal cell carcinoma (RCC) from the perspective of cancer management and renal function. However, when patients with RCC are of advanced age, exhibit severe comorbidities, including cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, or have hereditary RCC, ablative therapies, including radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and cryoablation are useful treatment options. In the present study, the clinical outcomes of percutaneous RFA for treating small RCC were evaluated. Between December 2005 and March 2015, 40 patients (41 renal tumors in total) underwent RFA and a total of 50 sessions of RFA were performed. The average tumor size was 2.5 cm. A total of 18 tumors were exophytic and 23 were parenchymal. Of the 41 tumors, 85.4% were completely ablated by initial RFA and the rate of complete ablation following reablation for residual viable lesions was 95.1%. Local recurrence-free survival following complete ablation was 84.2% at 3 years. A patient with a 4.7 cm RCC tumor rapidly progressed following four RFA treatments until complete ablation was achieved. The metastasis-free survival rate following initial RFA was 95.7% at 3 years. The RCC-specific survival was 100% (mean follow-up, 38 months). Adverse events occurred in five sessions (10%); however, only 1 patient with arteriovenous fistula required intervention (transarterial embolization). The mean hospital stay following RFA was 3.2 days. The mean decrease in estimated glomerular filtration rate following RFA was 2.7%. The results of the present study indicate that percutaneous RFA was an effective treatment for small RCCs with respect to management of cancer, minimal invasiveness and minimal loss of renal function, particularly in patients for whom surgery would be a high risk and those at increased risk of deterioration of renal function.


All the current frailty measures count deficits. They differ chiefly in which items, and how many, they consider. These differences are related: if a measure considers only a few items, to define broad risks those items need to integrate across several systems (e.g. mobility or function). If many items are included, the cumulative effect of small deficits can be considered. Even so, it is not clear just how small deficits can be. To better understand how the scale of deficit accumulation might impact frailty measurement, we consider how age-related, subcellular deficits might become macroscopically visible and so give rise to frailty. Cellular deficits occur when subcellular damage has neither been repaired nor cleared. With greater cellular deficit accumulation, detection becomes more likely. Deficit detection can be done by either subclinical (e.g. laboratory, imaging, electrodiagnostic) or clinical methods. Not all clinically evident deficits need cross a disease threshold. The extent to which cellular deficit accumulation compromises organ function can reflect not just what is happening in that organ system, but deficit accumulation in other organ systems too. In general, frailty arises in relation to the number of organ systems in which deficits accumulate. This understanding of how subcellular deficits might scale has implications for understanding frailty as a vulnerability state. Considering the cumulative effects of many small deficits appears to allow important aspects of the behaviour of systems close to failure to be observed. It also suggests the potential to detect frailty with less reliance on clinical observation than current methods employ.


Alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propio- nate (AMPA)-type glutamate receptors (GluR1–4) are one of the most important ionotropic glutamate receptors in the striatum, a key region of the basal ganglia. The present study investigated the trend of developmental expression of AMPA receptor subunits in the striatum of rats in different developmental stages, i.e., at postnatal day 7 (PND7), PND21 and adult. Perfuse-fixed striatal sections were used. The expression of AMPA subunits was studied by immunofluorescence and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RT-PCR revealed that the levels of expression of the GluR1 and GluR3 mRNAs were the same among the age groups. The level of GluR2 mRNA was highest in PND21 rats and lowest in adult. The highest level of GluR4 mRNA was detected in rats at PND7. Similar trends of GluR1, GluR2 and GluR2/3 immunoreactivity expression were observed using commercially available specific antibodies. In addition, a large proportion of parvalbumin-immunoreactive GABAergic interneurons in the striatum were found to display GluR1 immunoreactivity in PND21 and adult rats. In contrast, most of the choline acetyltransferase-immunoreactive cholinergic interneurons were found to display GluR2 immunoreactivity but less GluR1 and no GluR2/3 immunoreactivity in PND21 and adult rats. The present study suggests that there is a distinct pattern of expression of AMPA-type receptor mRNAs and proteins in the rat striatum at different stages of development.


Cloud computing focuses on delivery of reliable, fault-tolerant and scalable infrastructure for hosting Internet based application services. This paper presents the implementation of an efficient Quality of Service (QoS) based Meta-Scheduler and Backfill strategy based light weight Virtual Machine Scheduler for dispatching jobs. The user centric meta-scheduler deals with selection of proper resources to execute high level jobs. The system centric Virtual Machine (VM) scheduler optimally dispatches the jobs to processors for better resource utilization. We also present our thoughts on scheduling heuristics that can be incorporated at data center level for selecting ideal host for VM creation. The implementation can be further extended at the host level, using Inter VM scheduler for adaptive load balancing in cloud environment.


OBJECTIVE
Although total joint arthroplasty (TJA) is a common procedure and an important outcome in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), little is known about its prevalence, failure rate, or predictors over the course of the illness. The current study evaluated these factors in 1,600 consecutive RA patients seen during a period of observation that extended 23 years.

METHODS
Beginning in 1974, data from 34,040 RA patient visits were entered prospectively into a computer databank. Data consisted of laboratory, radiographic, physical examination, and self-report questionnaires. At each assessment, we also noted a complete surgical history. Patients were also followed up by questionnaires that were mailed at 6-month intervals.

RESULTS
Kaplan-Meier life-table estimates indicated that 25% of RA patients will undergo total joint arthroplasty (TJA) within 21.8 years of disease onset. For patients with 1 TJA, 25% had a TJA in a different joint within 0.92 years and 50% within 7.0 years. Ten years after TJA, approximately 6% of implanted knees and 4% of implanted hips had been replaced with a second TJA, and 12% and 13% of the joints had either a second TJA or a TJA-related operation, respectively. In Cox regressions, a large series of clinical and laboratory variables, which primarily reflected disease activity, predicted TJA. Smoking, either past or present, had a protective effect. Patients with highly abnormal values on the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Scale, global severity, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate had a 3-6 times increased risk of TJA.

CONCLUSION
TJA, a marker of joint failure and of RA outcome, is predicted by self-report assessments of severity and function, and by a series of laboratory, radiographic, and clinical variables. Prediction improves with the extent of observation, and 2-year observations approach full-study observations in their accuracy. Most TJAs survive for a long time in RA.


Abstract : The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of certain national economic indicators on enlisted aircraft maintenance personnel retention rates. To fulfill this purpose, this study builds a linear regression equation that can predict the retention rate using the civilian unemployment rate and the index of 11 leading economic indicators as the independent variables. Journal literature and economic texts were reviewed to identify the indicators as good predictors for changes in employee turnover. The method of linear regression was used to build the model needed to predict the changes in the retention rate. The equation developed with this technique in the present research may help the Air Force Personnel Center predict future enlisted retention rate changes. AFPC's task of keeping a steady force has a central need of knowing the number of personnel that will be staying and leaving the force. The results of this study show a strong relationship between the future retention rate of the enlisted aircraft maintenance force and the unemployment rate and the index of 11 leading indicators.


Systematic monitoring of raw leachates (RL) from the operating landfill "Khmet'yevo" during December, 2001--June, 2002 with regard to heavy metals (HM) revealed that these RL were moderately contaminated with Fe, Zn, Pb and Cd (Cu is present in non-dangerous concentrations). This contamination depends on season--the winter leachates are less polluted compared to the summer ones. For removal of HM together with removal of bulk COD, the UASB reactors were applied where, besides elimination of the major part of organic matter, concomitant precipitation of HM in the form of insoluble sulphides inside the sludge bed occurred due to development of the process of biological sulphate reduction. Both removal processes were quite efficient even during operation under submesophilic and psychrophilic conditions (20-10 degrees C). The subsequent submesophilic aerobic-anoxic treatment of submesophilic anaerobic effluents led to only 75% of total inorganic N removal due to COD deficiency for denitrification created by a too efficient anaerobic step. On the contrary, psychrophilic anaerobic effluents (richer in COD compared to the submesophilic ones) were more suitable for subsequent aerobic-anoxic treatment giving the total N removal of 95 and 92% at 20 and 10 degrees C, respectively. The final effluent is approaching the current national standards for direct discharge of treated wastewater.


William Latham is a pioneering figure in computer art. The exhibition presents the full range of his output from his early drawings to his later digital and interactive artworks.

William Latham was one of the first UK artists in the 80's to create computer art, and he rapidly gained an international reputation as a pioneer in the field. His work blends organic imagery and computer animation, using software modeled upon the processes of evolution. Starting with a simple shape, Latham introduces random 'mutations' of a form in order to generate increasingly complex three-dimensional creations that resemble fantastical, futuristic organisms. Mutator 1 + 2 is Latham's first major exhibition in the UK in over twenty years, and includes his early hand-drawn work, large computer generated Cibachrome prints, video art and his most recent interactive projected imagery that explores and embodies evolutionary processes, physical and virtual space.

Trained as an artist, Latham moved into the world of computing through his work at IBM, and during this time collaborated with mathematician Stephen Todd to develop a methodology for mutating and evolving forms. Their Mutator code allows designers to 'breed' designs in the same way as Latham generates art, pulling us into the virtual laboratories of artificial life. The manipulation of the natural world by humans is a theme which runs though much of Latham's work; in fact he likens himself to a gardener who breeds organic art by exploiting and amplifying mutations in order to create new, hybrid forms, a process he describes as "an evolution driven by aesthetics".

After working in the computer games industry for thirteen years, Latham returned to research and academia as Professor of Computer Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he works with Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie; he is currently collaborating with Lawrence Kelly on software to explore the world of protein folding and scientific visualization. His recent interactive video projections and web based programmes draw upon his most recent work undertaken at Goldsmiths, and they allow viewers to participate in and witness the process of evolution in a direct and intuitive way, whether this takes place within a gallery setting in Brighton or online from across the world.

Sue Gollifer (curator for ACM SIGGRAPH international computer graphics, ArCade 1-V11, and director of ISEA International Headquarters) brings Latham's creative work from over three decades to Phoenix Brighton as part of the Brighton Digital Festival in 2013. Situated in a large artist-led organization with over a hundred studios, the gallery is a suitable breeding ground for work which pushes the boundaries and makes connections between artforms and disciplines, and Latham's output perfectly fits with this setting. As part of Mutator 1 + 2, Gollifer has commissioned the artist to create a large scale Retro-Form Synth drawing directly on the gallery walls. This piece will link together the various aspects of Latham's unique career and serve as an entry point for an impressive body of work which reveals the scope and range of this groundbreaking artist.

Phoenix Brighton is the largest artist led organisation in the South East of England (outside London). It provides studios for over 100 artists, runs a major arts education programme across digital, fine art, photography, craft and performance, and is one of the leading art galleries in the city. Phoenix Brighton is a Registered Charity, number 1051551.

Coinciding with our exhibition of 'Mutator 1+2: Evolutionary Art by William Latham', Phoenix Brighton's programme for Brighton Digital Festival celebrates some of the most innovative and internationally renowned artists working with digital technology in the city today. During the exhibition there will be large scale screenings in the nearby park called The Level, times and date to be confirmed. See the Phoenix Brighton website for more information about our events and other work.


Inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed on the surface of porous support materials play a dominant role in heterogeneous catalysis. Especially in liquid-phase catalysis, support materials may lead to nanoconfinement of solvent molecules, and the solute and can thus influence their local concentration and structure. This further affects the surface coverage of nanoparticles with reactants and other species, but these influences remain poorly understood - in particular under experimental conditions. Nanoconfinement effects are of particular importance in reactions such as liquid-phase oxidation with oxygen, i.e., when one reactant is a gas that has to be dissolved before reaching the NP surface. The significant influence of the pore structure of carbon materials on the catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with nearly similar size (4.1-4.7 nm) is demonstrated in this study. Experimental results on the oxidation of d-glucose with molecular oxygen in aqueous solution show that the "apparent catalytic activity"of AuNPs is a function of the carbon pore size and geometry. The architecture of the carbon pore size is determining the local concentration of reactants. Nanoconfinement of water in carbon nanopores can lead to enhanced solubility of reactants and therefore to their higher local concentration in proximity to the catalytically active sites. In contrast to purely microporous carbon support with the less wettable internal surface without any detectable catalytic activity, AuNPs supported on mesoporous carbons show a much higher metal time yield between 3.8 and 60.6 molGlc min-1 molAu-1, depending on volume and geometry of the mesopores.


To the Editor.— Recently Tosti et al 1 have mentioned the possible relationship between vitiligo and hearing loss. The foundation of this hypothesis is that the probable protective role of melanocytes of the inner ear has been injured by an autoimmune mechanism. We searched the records in our dermatology department for possible auditory damage in patients with vitiligo. Written consent was obtained after the nature of the procedures had been fully explained. The group was arranged in 10-year age groups to see if there was a relationship between vitiligo with clinical evolution and localization of pathologic findings. All patients who were exposed to known factors responsible for sensorineural hypoacusis, ie, noise, drugs, metabolic and vascular pathologic conditions, recurrent otologic infections, head trauma, family history of deafness, and patients older than 50 years were excluded from the study. The control group consisted of 35 healthy subjects, all within the same age