This thesis is a theoretical discussion of ethnicity and social class in Mesoamerica, which seemed both necessary and desirable because of the uncertainty prevailing on the subject. Its overall aim is to clarify the present state of theory on ethnicity, class and their articulation. In order to accomplish this I analyse and compare contrasting social anthropological tendencies. First, those which interpret the social characteristics of the region by emphasising ethnicity (culturally interpreted) at the local level and while disregarding the structural framework of the class at the wider level; second, those which in contrast, stress the role of the wider class structure while neglecting ethnic relationships at the local level; and third, those which combine both dimensions, interpreting local, ethnic phenomena within the framework of class. The main advantages and disadvantages of these approaches are discussed in order to determine which of them offers the most satisfactory view of the importance and articulation of ethnicity and class in Mesoamerica, a subject which is fundamental to a proper understanding of the current social and political instability of the region. The thesis is in three parts. The first provides the historical antecedents of the central theme. Here I describe the concept of Mesoamerica and give an account of prehispanic social development, criticising some of the theories which try to explain the basic social features of ancient Mesoamerican societies. The analysis then focuses on the changes brought about by Spanish rule, on the emergence of ethnic groups and on the ethnic and class characteristics of popular reaction against Spanish domination. The subsequent Independence period is discussed and the principal socioeconomic and political changes accompanying capitalist expansion are documented. Special attention is paid to the class and ethnic character of popular responses to the new social order in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Following the historical background, the other two parts analyse theories dealing with the relationship between ethnicity and class. Part Two examines two 'simple' and antagonistic interpretations, the "ethnic/cultural/local-level" and the "class/structural/wider-level" approaches. Part Three is devoted to more complex perspectives which attempt to combine both approaches. This has resulted in two different models: that which postulates, and that which opposes, the correspondence of ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries. Through the critical analysis developed in Parts Two and Three and synthesised in the general conclusions, I suggest how a more adequate theoretical approach to this complex subject might be formulated.


Meadow-Kendall Social-Emotional Assessment Inventory for Deaf Students, Kathryn P. Meadow, Ph.D. (& Colleagues at Kendall School), $11.00 for the Manual and scoring overlays (Manual alone, $3.00; inventories are distributed in packets of 10 for $1.50 per packet), OUTREACH, Pre-College Programs, Box 114, Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C. 20002. Dr. Meadow and her colleagues at the Kendall Demonstration School have made a major contribution to the psychological evaluation of deaf children with the development of this behavioral rating scale. It will be of particular value in programs where there are no psychologists skilled in working with deaf youth. It is usable with hearing-impaired children ages 7-20, and it can be administered and scored by teacher, psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or other professional. Norms and validation are satisfactory.


You've probably heard of William Shakespeare...He is dead famous for: - writing a few plays - having a bit of a way with words - creating characters like romantic Romeo and murderous Macbeth. But have you heard that William: - did a seven-year vanishing act - nearly had his head chopped off by the Queen - nicked an entire theatre? Yes, even though he's dead, William's still full of surprises. Now you can get the inside story with William's secret diary, find out the news of the day in the Shakespearean Sun and prepare to be amazed as the curtain is raised on Shakespeare's most dramatic acts. Dead Funny - Dead Gripping - Dead Famous


ABSTRACT Catalyzed reporter deposition fluorescence in situ hybridization combined with microautoradiography (MICRO-CARD-FISH) is increasingly being used to obtain qualitative information on substrate uptake by individual members of specific prokaryotic communities. Here we evaluated the potential for using this approach quantitatively by relating the measured silver grain area around cells taking up 3H-labeled leucine to bulk leucine uptake measurements. The increase in the silver grain area over time around leucine-assimilating cells of coastal bacterial assemblages was linear during 4 to 6 h of incubation. By establishing standardized conditions for specific activity levels and concomitantly performing uptake measurements with the bulk community, MICRO-CARD-FISH can be used quantitatively to determine uptake rates on a single-cell level. Therefore, this approach allows comparisons of single-cell activities for bacterial communities obtained from different sites or growing under different ecological conditions.


In the past, failure of trade–climate talks might have created negative signs, but international trade actually induces more participation and helps to attain joint agreement. Carbon permit trading has a key role to play in the abatement process. Participation in global multilateral negotiations and a country9s self-interest with respect to entering an abatement process depends upon either the scale of climate change damage or the punishment level that affects its economy. Thus, this study assumes N good cases for countries that have substantial emission levels. We analyse the change in utility function through a business-as-usual scenario for both group and individual country levels. The model designed in this study examines the data on emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) for selected developing and developed countries and the rest of the world. The data calibrations are similar to the previous studies. However, this study extends the model to a strategic level at which countries can choose coalition partners to undertake abatement for mutual benefits, considering the terms of trade. The results possess strong trade–environment policy options and help them to reach certain multilateral agreement.


Thermal residual stresses often arise due to a manufacturing process, involving localised thermal induction, or to the existence of structural components with different thermal expansion coefficients. The existence of thermal residual stresses within a structural member is usually undesired, as it decreases the mechanical resistance of structures. Hence, it is desirable to obtain both a minimum level of residual stresses and smoother stresses transitions in the materials interfaces. Regarding the mitigation of thermal residual stress concentration, the use of materials which properties can vary along the component directions has great interest. This work addresses the use of dual-phase functionally graded materials, which microstructure varies gradually from a material to another according to a given gradation function. On the order hand, it is also addressed the use of a population based optimization algorithm in order to attain the referred minimum stress level. Summarizing, the current work presents an educational platform directed to structural mechanics students, which aims to give the tools to understand both the influence of design parameters in the thermal residual stress level and distribution along the material and the advantages of using a structural optimization technique in order to minimize the drawback thermal residual stresses effects.


This study identified challenges faced by women small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs in different stages of their business life cycle (BLC). Bangladesh is one of the signatories of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and women entrepreneurship development is one of the key goals. To achieve SDG 4.4, Bangladesh needs to ensure the growth of women entrepreneurship in SMEs sector through amiable investment-friendly policy. A focused group discussions with prominent and start-up women entrepreneurs had identified outstanding concerns in four generic areas: Marketing, quality, finance, and production. A total of 133 women entrepreneurs were selected randomly for the quantitative survey. The research found that challenges related to marketing and quality are consistently positively related in different stages of BLC. Women SMEs are struggling more in their growth and maturity stage to ensure marketing and quality. Considering optimal production level and decision-making process, they do not invest in new machineries and marketing campaigns as it is not economically viable despite the fact that they have better access to finance at this stage. Finally, the paper covered a set of actions that can be taken for further research to carry out the actual problems of women SMEs in Bangladesh. Aus. J. Bus. Sco S. & IT. Vol  5(1),  April 2019, P 36-43


In our project, we propose a distributive heuristic algorithm for maximizing the network throughput in adaptive power and adaptive rate spatial-TDMA wireless mesh networks. At each step of our algorithm, the link with highest receive Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio in its neighborhood is included in the schedule that is set for the underlying time slot, configuring its Modulation/Coding Scheme so that it transmits at the highest feasible power and rate levels. The transmitting node of the winning link announces the current receive power margin of its link's receiver to its neighbors. The transmitters of unscheduled links subsequently calculate the maximum potential Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio level at which their links could operate if scheduled next. The process repeats until the announced power margins of scheduled links do not allow more additions to the schedule at the underlying time slot. We demonstrate the robustness and energy efficiency of our distributive algorithm by applying it to schedule a new set of links on top of an existing schedule. For the examined scenarios, we show that the throughput rate achieved by using such an incremental scheduling scheme is within 25% of the throughput rate attained when a complete scheduling of all the links is carried out, while reducing the control traffic overhead rate and achieving a more energy efficient operation.


This guide includes resources for women faculty at the University of North Texas. It was compiled in collaboration with the Women's Faculty Network.


Morality is the spiritual dynamic that is necessary for the continuity of the societies' existence, The source that feeds the morality is the truth of religion. The form of belief and lifestyle of the society constitute its cultural structure. Although the socio-cultural structure differs, the continuation of the community is possible on the basic moral rules. Each deviation in the moral structure do not give serenity to individuals and community. Regardless of the developing and changing face of time, the society must be built on accepted basic moral rules so that social peace and happiness can continue.Durkheim's research has focused on the concept of social phenomena. He emphasized that the rules and bases are a tool for the social peace. He said that this phenomenon develops with time and changes, which is also ordinary. He inspected that the purpose of fundamental dynamics such as equality, justice and law is inevitable facts in order to provide social peace and collective consciousness of the society, as well. In this article, Durkheim's religious and ethical conclusions and social reflections, which have carried out in their works in a broad perspective, will be tried to be analyzed.


are becoming involved, particularly in North American cardiac surgical units. This book is written by two such anaesthetists from Duke University School of Medicine in the USA. The authors are to be congratulated for producing a very clear, comprehensive, and very readable textbook. The chapters which deal with the principles of two-dimensional echocardiography are particularly well done. The book includes discussion of ventricular dimension


Young people on the autistic spectrum (AS) may be at an increased risk of developing mental health difficulties, but to date research evidence has been equivocal and/or inadequate. The aim of the current study was to document the mental health profiles of adolescents on the AS, and to identify factors that contribute to difficulties in this area. Mental health profiles of a group of adolescents on the AS (N = 22) were compared with age, gender and special educational needs (SEN)-provision-matched control groups of adolescents with dyslexia (N = 21) and with no SEN (N = 23) using the Beck Youth Inventories. Additionally, five participants on the AS participated in semi-structured interviews about their experience of school. Quantitative analysis demonstrated that adolescents on the AS experienced significantly greater anxiety, depression, anger and lower self-concept than those with no SEN. They also experienced significantly greater anxiety and anger than those with dyslexia. Qualitative analysis revealed that problems in social relationships, understanding the nature of the AS and disruptions to routine were common contributory factors to the mental health difficulties of participants. However, interview data also revealed key coping strategies implemented by participants to help them overcome their difficulties. The implications of these findings are discussed, and methodological limitations are noted.


Pregnancy is associated with an increased requirement of hormone secretion by the thyroid, within the first weeks after conception. To this greater demand to occurs, pregnancy induces a series of physiological changes that affect thyroid function and, consequently, the tests of glandular function. For normal pregnant women living in areas with a sufficient supply of iodine, this challenge regarding the adjustment of thyroid hormone releases to this new state of equilibrium and its maintenance until the end of pregnancy it meets no difficulties. However, among women with impaired thyroid function due to some thyroid disease or among women residing in areas with an insufficient iodine supply, this does not occur. The management of thyroid dysfunction during gestation requires special considerations, since both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism can lead to maternal and fetal complications. In addition, thyroid nodules are detected at reasonable frequency among pregnant women, a fact that requires a differential diagnosis between benign and malignant growths during the pregnancy itself.


The dominant late twentieth century model of land use segregated agricultural production from areas managed for biodiversity conservation. This module is no longer adequate in much of the world. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment confirmed that agriculture has dramatically increased its ecological footprint. Rural communities depend on key components of biodiversity and ecosystem services that are found in non-domestic habitats. Fortunately, agricultural landscapes can be designed and managed to host wild biodiversity of many types, with neutral or even positive effects on agricultural production and livelihoods. Innovative practitioners, scientists and indigenous land managers are adapting, designing and managing diverse types of 'ecoagriculture' landscapes to generate positive co-benefits for production, biodiversity and local people. We assess the potentials and limitations for successful conservation of biodiversity in productive agricultural landscapes, the feasibility of making such approaches financially viable, and the organizational, governance and policy frameworks needed to enable ecoagriculture planning and implementation at a globally significant scale. We conclude that effectively conserving wild biodiversity in agricultural landscapes will require increased research, policy coordination and strategic support to agricultural communities and conservationists.


Histamine (Biogenic amines) is one of the most important nitrogen containing compounds present in many vegetables, fruits and poultry food products and has biological importance in creating allergic reaction most of the times. Some toxicological descriptions of food poisoning are often associated with histamine -the most prominent biogenic amines in the category. The secondary amines involved in nitrosation and form nitrosamines which are toxic initiates illnesses to our organs. Their concentration in high level is detected in processed foods especially. In considering the food safety they have been related to food spoilage and fermentation processes. The aim of our study is to correlate the histamine in canned foods safety and analyse the presence of biogenic amines especially histamine in processed fruit syrups and pickles under different storing temperatures over time. The 5 different chosen varieties of canned fruits (mango pickle, fermented durian, canned pineapple syrup, canned rambutan syrup and canned lychee syrup) were brought into the laboratory unopened and on the day of purchase, they were opened and analysed for histamine for the first time. Further they have portioned into five, and each of the portion was stored in six different temperatures (0°C, 10°C, 20°C, 30°C , 40°C and 50°C) for 14 days and 28 days period and at the end of 14 days and 28 days they were analysed. The second part of the experiment was to fix the room temperature as the storage temperature for these canned foods (25±2°C) and analysed on 7, 14, 21 and 28 days period. It was revealed that fermented food item (canned fermented durian) significantly has higher level of histamine over other preserved food items regardless of storage temperature and period. In general, it was found that the storing time along with the increased temperature increase the level of histamine in food items. In this study, we found that the stable room temperature (25±2°C) under the dried conditions favours the most suitable for maintaining the histamine level in food. Temperature variation revealed that has an impact over the increased concentration of histamine in food items.


The islands of Hawaiʻi are the most geographically remote locations on earth and connect to the global Internet via expensive submarine fiber. While citizens in densely populated areas such as Honolulu have several options for broadband coverage, there are gaps throughout the state. Many of those living in rural areas, including indigenous Hawaiian communities, suffer from a lack of critical infrastructures. For indigenous Hawaiians trying to gain equal access to educational and economic opportunities, health care, and linguistic and cultural preservation, this disparity is particularly troubling. We describe challenges faced by Native Hawaiian communities in developing affordable, high-quality broadband access and describe initiatives, to date, that seek to address them. We suspect that the conventional planning approach to broadband development is incongruent to the unique economic, social and cultural contexts present in Hawaiian rural communities. Our investigation explores the potential for community-initiated broadband projects that will enable indigenous Hawaiians more self-determination in the planning and management of broadband networks and services.


LOD (detail of level) technology is crucial technologies in virtual reality system, it's more important especially in web based 3D model rendering. For the LOD technology reduces the complexity of computation which makes the possibility of real time rendering. This paper will discuss the minimum optimal mesh numbers which a model should be under different distance of viewpoint.


Over the years, airlines have consistently attempted to lower their operational costs and improve aircraft availability by applying various technologies. Engine maintenance expenses are one of the most substantial costs for aircraft operations, accounting for around 30% of overall aircraft operational costs. So, maximizing aircraft time between overhaul is crucial to lowering the costs. The engine time on-wing is often limited by the expiration of Life Limiting Parts, performance deterioration, maintenance schedule, etc.
 This paper presents a novel method of rebalancing the thrust of engines of an aircraft to maximize the time between overhauls of the aircraft considering the performance degradation and creep life consumption of the engines. The method is applied to a model aircraft fitted with two model engines similar to GT90 115B to test the feasibility of the method with one engine degraded and the other engine undegraded. The obtained results demonstrate that for the aircraft flying between London and Toronto with 5,000 nominal flight cycles given to the engines, the time on-wing of the degraded engine could drop from 5,000 to 2,460 flight days due to its HP turbine degradation (1% efficiency degradation 3% flow capacity degradation), causing the same level of drop of time between overhauls of the aircraft. The time on-wing of the degraded engine could increase from 2,460 flight days without thrust rebalance to 3,410 flight days with thrust rebalance, i. e. around 38.6% potential improvement for the time between overhauls of the aircraft at the expenses of increased creep life consumption rate of the clean engine. The proposed method could be applied to other aircraft and engines.


Abstract Studies of VCs' investment criteria describe the quality of management team as key determinant of venture financing. We contend, however, that some VCs may be willing to fund ventures headed by poor administrators with the expectation to replace them in the future. We conjecture that VCs with higher risk tolerance, greater involvement in venture governance, and proclivity for trust-based collaboration with coinvestors will be prone to take on financing of robust ventures headed by weak leaders. A survey and interviews with 50 U.S. VCs supported these hypotheses.


Road freight transport is a growing business and serves as a centerpiece of modern economics. Traffic congestions due to the increasing amount of vehicles, growing environmental problems due to CO2 emissions and rising fuel prizes create a vast demand for solutions to these global issues.Look ahead cruise control and vehicle platooning can be part of a future transport concept. By using GPS localization and considering road topography data (map data), a Look Ahead Cruise Controller LAC optimizes the velocity profile of a single vehicle when facing steep up- or downhills in order to save fuel. Platooning describes the concept of driving vehicles in a convoy with short intermediate distance to reduce the aerodynamic drag and achieve considerable fuel consumption reductions for all vehicles in the platoon. However, research on platooning with road topography preview information is a novel topic. In this thesis, look ahead cruise control and platooning are analyzed and results are combined in order to develop a platoon look ahead controller (PLAC). The PLAC features low computational complexity due to a simple parametric optimization method and reaches simulated energy consumption reductions of up to 20% for a vehicle in the platoon compared to its single drive on the same road. When velocity limits are considered, the fuel saving potential is even higher. It can be shown that the reached energy consumption with a PLAC lies slightly (1.3%-1.9%) over a minimum energy consumption needed to traverse the road section. Results reveal that in practical situations, a platoon should be maintained whenever possible. Errors in parameters of the vehicle, road parameters and localization errors are analyzed in terms of their influence on the energy consumption. Strategies are presented to reduce the influence of parameter errors on the fuel consumption and especially reduce the chance of a separate of the platoon.


An indoor tracking system based on primary and assistant infrared markers is presented in this paper. The system can track the user's head in a large area with high stability and accuracy. And the price of the system is very low. The novel assistant infrared markers with particular spatial characteristic and the primary infrared markers with particular spatio-temporal characteristic are proposed, which can avoid the synchronization between infrared markers and user system. Various numbers of users can be supported by the proposed system and experimental result shows the effectiveness and robustness of the system.


Suboptimum reproductive performance affects the overall profitability of dairy herds. In order to manage this condition, there is need to clearly understand the different forms in which it presents, as well as its possible risk factors under the Ugandan context. This review study was conducted to highlight the different forms of suboptimum reproductive performances among Ugandan dairy herds through literatures from previous studies. At the same time, underscores the coexistence of risk factors of suboptimum reproductive performance among the same dairy herds in Uganda. In Uganda, dairy cattle experienced pathological postpartum cycling patterns, delayed calving to first service intervals, long calving intervals, low pregnancy rates and high abortion rates. Inadequate nutrition, management errors and infectious genital diseases such brucellosis and bovine viral diarrhea were common in these herds. There is need to undertake studies that link the different forms of suboptimum reproductive performance and their possible risk factors.

 Key words: Suboptimum reproductive performance, postpartum pathological anestrous, infectious genital diseases.


Fatty acid variation in beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) blubber: implications for estimating diet using fatty acids Heather R. Smith Chair of Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Glenn R. VanBlaricom School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Diet is one of the most important aspects of the ecology of any species, yet remains difficult to estimate for many marine mammals. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA), a recently developed technique to estimate predator diets by comparing the fatty acid (FA) composition of predator tissues with that of potential prey items, is well-suited to estimating marine mammal diet as most possess a large and relatively easily-accessed blubber layer. However, prior to making diet inferences using FA, it is imperative to examine FA variability within the blubber layer and potential impacts of this variability on QFASA diet estimates. Fatty acid composition of beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) blubber from eastern Chukchi Sea belugas was examined. Composition did not vary across the dorsal portion of the thorax, but FA were stratified with depth in the blubber, and the degree of stratification increased with age. Isovaleric acid, a short-chain FA that is not derived from diet, was investigated separately. Isovaleric acid was found in minute amounts in the liver and much larger amounts in the blubber and melon, supporting a hypothesis of local biosynthesis in the blubber and melon. Isovaleric acid was also stratified with depth in the blubber, and the degree of stratification increased with age. Finally, the impact of several sources of FA variation was explored on QFASA diet estimates. Diet estimates were insensitive to laboratory technique used to process fat samples (methyl esters vs. butyl esters) and the sample collection site on beluga thorax. However, blubber sampling depth affected diet estimates in terms of both prey species identified and proportions of the diet they represented. This study illustrates the great promise in using QFASA to estimate diet in belugas and other cetacean species, and can be used to guide sample collection protocols. While the production of accurate diet estimates remains contingent upon satisfying QFASA model requirements, this study clearly shows that collecting cetacean blubber and potential prey samples is already a worthwhile endeavor, and that baseline datasets can now be developed for detection of future changes.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficacy and adverse effects of the type B monoamine oxidase inhibitor selegiline (also known as I-deprenyl) in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

DESIGN
Long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

SETTING
Seven cities (1 or 2 nursing homes in each city) in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

PATIENTS
A total of 173 nursing-home residents fulfilling the DSM-III criteria for mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

INTERVENTIONS
Selegiline (10 mg per day) or placebo (both including 50 mg ascorbic acid) administered for 24 weeks.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Clinical Global Impressions scale and Nurses Observation Scale for Inpatient Evaluation at baseline and at weeks 6, 12 and 24; Clock Drawing Test at baseline and 24 weeks, results of which were evaluated as normal or pathologic, and quantitatively on a modified 6-point scale; Sternberg's Memory Scanning test at baseline and at weeks 6, 12 and 24; Mini Mental State Examination, and electroencephalogram at baseline and 24 weeks; Structured Adverse Effects Rating Scale; physical, laboratory, hematological and electrocardiographic examinations at baseline and weeks 12 and 24.

RESULTS
A total of 143 subjects completed enough of the trial to be entered in the analysis. Subjects were analyzed by 2 subgroups depending on whether they had a normal or pathologic result of the Clock Drawing Test. Analysis of variance showed significant improvement with selegiline versus placebo among those with a normal result of the Clock Drawing Test on the Mini Mental Status Examination (total score and orientation-place subscale) and among those with a pathologic result of the Clock Drawing Test of Sternberg's Memory Scanning test (for both speed and accuracy), on the Clinical Global Impressions scale as well as in terms of the dominant frequency on electroencephalograms.

CONCLUSION
Selegiline has a long-term beneficial effect in Alzheimer's disease on memory modalities that reflect the function of the prefrontal areas of the brain, which are rich in dopamine receptors. The delayed appearance of differences between selegiline and placebo supports the notion that the mechanism of action is through neuronal rescue or neuroprotection. The differential response of patients with normal and pathologic results of the Clock Drawing Test may reflect the fact that the evaluation methods' sensitivity to change depends on the severity of dementia.


In the present review, associations between traditional vascular risk factors (VRFs) and carotid intima-medial thickness progression (C-IMTp) as well as the effects of therapies for VRFs control on C-IMTp were appraised to infer causality between each VRF and C-IMTp. Cohort studies indicate that smoking, binge drinking, fatness, diabetes, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia are associated with accelerated C-IMTp. An exception is physical activity, with mixed data. Interventions for the control of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia decelerate C-IMTp. Conversely, scarce information is available regarding the effect of smoking cessation, stop of excessive alcohol intake and management of the metabolic syndrome. Altogether, these data support a causative role of several traditional VRFs on C-IMTp. Shortcomings in study design and/or ultrasonographic protocols may account for most negative studies, which underlines the importance of a careful consideration of methodological aspects in investigations using CIMTp as the outcome.


International law's rich existence in the world can be illuminated by its objects. International law is often developed, conveyed, and authorized through its objects and/or their representation. From the symbolic (the regalia of the head of state and the symbols of sovereignty), to the mundane (a can of dolphin-safe tuna certified as complying with international trade standards), international legal authority can be found in the objects around us. Similarly, the practice of international law often relies on material objects or their image, both as evidence (satellite images, bones of the victims of mass atrocities) and to found authority (for instance, maps and charts).
This volume considers these questions: firstly what might the study of international law through objects reveal? What might objects, rather than texts, tell us about sources, recognition of states, construction of territory, law of the sea, or international human rights law? Secondly, what might this scholarly undertaking reveal about the objects - as aims or projects - of international law? How do objects reveal, or perhaps mask, these aims, and what does this tell us about the reasons some (physical or material) objects are foregrounded, and others hidden or ignored. Thirdly what objects, icons, and symbols preoccupy the profession and academy? The personal selection of these objects by leading and emerging scholars worldwide will illuminate the contemporary and historical fascinations of international lawyers.
By considering international law in the context of its material culture the authors offer a new and exciting theoretical perspective on the subject.


: The neutral oil at 2.5 and 5.0g/kg P.O. can significantly decrease the oxygen consumption and prolong survival time for mice, increase the ability of tissues to tolerate anoxia and extend survival time under cerebral ischemic anoxia in mice. It can also inhibit the pituitrin-induced depression of S point in rats.


Background: Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is characterized by extreme invasiveness and lethality. There have been very few developments in its diagnosis and treatment over the past decades. It is urgently needed to explore potential novel biomarkers and drug targets for SCLC. Methods: Two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) was performed to investigate causal associations between SCLC and plasma proteins using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) summary statistics of SCLC from Transdisciplinary Research Into Cancer of the Lung Consortium (nCase = 2,791 vs. nControl = 20,580), and was validated in another cohort (nCase = 2,664 vs. nControl = 21,444). 734 plasma proteins and their genetic instruments of cis-acting protein quantitative trait loci (pQTL) were used, whereas external plasma proteome data was retrieved from deCODE database. Bidirectional MR, Steiger filtering and phenotype scanning were applied to further verify the associations. Results: Seven significant (p < 6.81 × 10−5) plasma protein-SCLC pairs were identified by MR analysis, including ACP5 (OR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.67–0.86), CPB2 (OR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.86–0.95), GSTM3 (OR = 0.45, 95% CI: 0.33–0.63), SHMT1 (OR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.64–0.86), CTSB (OR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.71–0.88), NTNG1 (OR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.74–0.90) and FAM171B (OR = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.21–1.62). The external validation confirmed that CPB2, GSTM3 and NTNG1 had protective effects against SCLC, while FAM171B increased SCLC risk. However, the reverse causality analysis revealed that SCLC caused significant changes in plasma levels of most of these proteins, including decreases of ACP5, CPB2, GSTM3 and NTNG1, and the increase of FAM171B. Conclusion: This integrative analysis firstly suggested the causal associations between SCLC and plasma proteins, and the identified several proteins may be promising novel drug targets or biomarkers for SCLC.


Using instrumental variable method and Viet Nam Access to Resources Household Surveys of 2008–16, I examine the effect of land fragmentation on child outcomes.The study shows that higher land fragmentation decreases child school dropout. Land fragmentation has significant impacts on school dropout of children aged 10–15, however, it does not have any impact on school dropout of children aged 6–10. I explain these findings through one particular mechanism—that is women empowerment.A higher level of land fragmentation increases women's empowerment to decide on visits to family, friends or relatives, on the purchase of daily goods, on large purchases, on her own health, and on her children's health.


Background: The ABO is a blood group system that is responsible for most blood transfusion reactions, transplant rejections and determining some forensic cases. The ABO and Rhesus blood group systems have been shown to show variations in different part of the world and race. Aim: The study is to show the frequency of ABO and Rhesus blood groups amongst blood donors in Lagos, Nigeria and confirm Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.Methods: This is a two-year retrospective study of all blood donors from the two major tertiary health institutions in Lagos State between July 2004 and June 2006. Data from the blood bank records were extracted and analysed using SPSS version 20. Hardy-Weinberg equation was used to confirm if the population is in equilibrium. Results: In all, 11,911 donors were analysed and showed A+ 20.4%, A- 0.97%, B+ 16.7%, B- 0.87%, AB+ 2.2%, AB- 0.17%, O+ 55.6%, O- 3.1% and RhD positive frequency is 95.6%. The allelic frequency in this study is O – 0.7631, A - 0.1303, B – 0.1066 and Rh – 0.7786. There is no significant difference between the blood group distributions from the two institutions. Conclusion: Blood group O was the commonest blood group seen followed by group A. This is at variance with other studies in Nigeria where blood group B was the second commonest. The population was also found to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The study provides important and reliable genogeographical information that can advance the fields of blood transfusion, organ transplantation and forensic medicine in Nigeria.Key words: Blood group, ABO, Rhesus, allelic frequency, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, transfusion reactions


The single European sky (SES) initiative was launched in 1999 to improve the performance of air traffic management (ATM[1]) and air navigation services (ANS[2]) through better integration of European airspace. The stated benefits of the SES could potentially be huge: compared with 2004, the SES (upon completion around 2030-2035) could triple airspace capacity, halve the costs of ATM, improve safety tenfold and reduce the environmental impact of aviation by 10%[3].


Texture is an important spatial feature useful for identifying objects or regions of interest in an image. While textural features have been widely used in the analysis of a variety of photographic images, they have not been used for processing radar images. In this paper, we present a procedure for extracting a set of textural features for characterizing small areas in radar images and show that these features can be used for classifying segments of radar images corresponding to different geological formations.


A new species of Bathynellidae is described from Colorado (USA). Hobbsinella gunnisonensis Camacho & Taylor sp. nov. displays a unique combination of morphological characters including seven-segmented antenna lacking medial seta on exopod, antennule slightly longer than antenna, three-segmented mandibular palp, four articles on endopod of thoracopods I to VII and five spines on sympod and three spines on endopod of the uropods. Partial sequences of cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and 18S have been obtained from several specimens of the new species. The mitocondrial and nuclear DNA data complement the traditional morphological taxonomic description support the validity of the new species. Molecular data for the Bathynellidae demonstrate the presence of two highly divergent genetic units, with the new species placed in the genus Hobbsinella. With the description of Hobbsinella gunnisonensis Camacho & Taylor sp. nov. and its molecular characterization, we discovered an interesting distribution of the genus, which occurs in both sides of the Continental Divide (Texas and Colorado) and different habitats.


There are at present few tools available to assist with the determination and analysis of B-cell lineage trees from next-generation sequencing data. Here we present two utilities that support automated large-scale analysis and the creation of publication-quality results. The tools are available on the web and are also available for download so that they can be integrated into an automated pipeline. Critically, and in contrast to previously published tools, these utilities can be used with any suitable phylogenetic inference method and with any antibody germline library and hence are species-independent.


Nontyphoidal Salmonella (NTS) are a major cause of fatal bacteremia in Africa. We investigated the role of bactericidal antibody in complement-mediated killing of NTS. Immunised mice serum lacked such activity due to weak complement activity. Mouse anti-Salmonella antibodies were able to effect killing when given a source of human complement. Human serum bactericidal assays showed that the serum-susceptibility of an African clinical isolate varied based on growth conditions. In vitro kinetics of serum-killing, phagocytosis and antibody and complement deposition indicated that a proportion of Salmonellae are phagocytised before serum-killing occurs and this may explain how the protective effects of anti-Salmonella antibodies are undermined in IFN\(\gamma\) deficiency. We studied targets of bactericidal antibodies using an optimised serum-adsorption procedure and a range of different NTS strains and serovars as well as LPS mutants. Antibodies against the immuno-dominant O-antigen (OAg) were a major target of bactericidal antibodies against NTS in human serum. These data support development of an OAg based vaccine against NTS. Finally, using electron microscopy, we showed the physical effects of serum-killing on Salmonellae and also demonstrated that a major difference between inhibitory and bactericidal serum was the quantity of complement deposited on Salmonellae.


A second wave of memory, truth, and justice mobilizations has been spreading in Latin America since the turn of the century (Villalón, 2015). The push to address unresolved human rights violations perpetrated in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in the (re)opening of trials of perpetrators and a more complex understanding of past and present violence and inequalities. The resilient collective efforts that have fed these processes have also gained depth. Richer collective memories and the achievement of (at least partially) successful outcomes have provided movements a clear sense that not all their efforts have been in vain. Justice, reconciliation, and social equality may not be at all possible, but they are utopic ideals worth pursuing (Villalón, 2016). This third issue on the politics of collective memory expands on the contents of the first two (March 2015 and September 2016). Theoretically, it contributes to the body of literature in the field by uncovering the politics of framing memory and is developed in terms of a critical epistemology from the bottom up. The research is intended to challenge systems and practices of inequality and contribute to community efforts to generate social change for justice. The contributors dismantle inequalities of knowledge and power by critically pointing to controversies, inconsistencies, and complexities of memory, truth, and justice processes. Their studies allow for a more nuanced comprehension of past violence, breaking up simplistic interpretations that pair victims and victimizers, left and right, preand postconflict, truth and injustice to explore the grey areas in between and reveal the misleading effects of dichotomous rationalizations. Empirically, half of the articles in this issue complement those of the second by focusing on the way artistic and cultural expressions contribute to collective memory making and justice seeking. The artistic and cultural sphere has been central in furthering the individual and social elaboration of trauma while promoting remembrance and mobilization for justice. Studies in El Salvador, Peru, and Chile look into the various functions of memory museums and monuments and the power of dance and other artistic performances in bearing witness, building collective identity, and fueling mobilization. The rest of the articles add to the contents of the first issue by exploring the politics of framing memory and the convoluted textures of truth, reconciliation, and justice processes in Chile,


Since a mineral-mediated origin of life was first hypothesized over 60 years ago, clays have played a significant role in origins of life studies. Such studies have hitherto rarely used computer simulation to understand the possible chemical pathways to the formation of biomolecules. We use molecular dynamics techniques, performed on supercomputing grids, to carry out large-scale simulations of various 25-mer sequences of ribonucleic acid (RNA), in bulk water and with aqueous montmorillonite clay over many tens of nanoseconds. Hitherto, there has only been limited experimental data reported for these systems. Our simulations are found to be in agreement with various experimental observations pertaining to the relative adsorption of RNA on montmorillonite in the presence of charge balancing cations. Over time scales of only a few nanoseconds, specific RNA sequences fold to characteristic secondary structural motifs, which do not form in the corresponding bulk water simulations. Our simulations also show that, in aqueous Ca(2+) environments, RNA can tether to the clay surface through a nucleotide base, leaving the 3'-end of the strand exposed, providing a mechanism for the regiospecific adsorption and elongation of RNA oligomers on clay surfaces.


Chairperson: Christine Fiore Sexualized violence on college campuses has recently entered the media spotlight. One in five women are sexually assaulted during college and over 90% of these women know their attackers (Black et al., 2011; Cleere & Lynn, 2013). Students face the highest risk of sexualized violence within their first six weeks on campus (Graves, Sechrist, White, & Paradise, 2005). The acute and delayed psychological distress caused by sexualized violence is a significant public health concern and there have been relatively few studies that have taken a longitudinal approach (Edwards, Dardis, Sylaska, & Gidycz, 2014). Historically, psychology has focused on factors within an individual to explain behavior, without fully acknowledging external factors such as organizational culture and institutional norms (Keller, 2005). These external factors play an important role in stereotype maintenance and must be addressed to solve the problem of sexualized violence (David, 2013). This proposal uses the theoretical framework of Internalized Oppression (IO) to further our understanding of sexualized violence on campus. IO refers to the idea that individuals are negatively influenced by stereotypes about the groups they belong to (David, 2014). Through internalization of a set of stereotypical beliefs, attention is diverted from the oppressive system towards the oppressed group. Past research considering IO in ethnic minorities has found relationships between IO and vulnerability to interpersonal violence, academic retention, physical wellbeing and mental health (Itzen, 1985). Although IO has a wide range of manifestations, it had not yet been considered for understanding sexualized violence. Phase I of this study used PCA to create the Women's Impressions on Gender and Self Scale (WIGSS) which includes five factors: (1) Stereotypical Gender Role Attitudes, (2) Devaluing/Dismissing Women, (3) Objectification, Social Comparison, and Low Self-Worth, (4) Gender Equality, and (5) Degrading of Women. Phase II of the study administered the WIGSS, OQ 45.2, IRMA, along with a survey of sexual experiences to college women. Findings suggest that IO in women activates more mental health distress, largely relates to more negative gender stereotypes (such as detrimental rape myths), influences support seeking after an event of sexualized violence, and operates differently than broader views on sexism. The study establishes IO as an important mechanism to consider in future treatments, prevention programs, advocacy campaigns, and educational trainings. It is critical for both researchers and the public to gain a better understanding of IO in women and sexualized violence. Sexualized violence has long oppressed women, and the acknowledgment of IO can allow oppression to be fought openly, clearly, and vocally, rather than internally. Through a better understanding of the implicit attitudes women hold about themselves, collaborative efforts can be made to address and counteract beliefs that facilitate sexual violence.


Although low-income parents' dependence on low-fee private schools has been actively documented in the past decade, existing research and policy discussions have failed to recognise their heavy reliance on low-fee tuition providers in order to ensure that their children complete the primary cycle. By mapping a vibrant supply of low-fee tuition providers in two neighbourhoods in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in Pakistan, this paper argues for understanding the supply-side dynamics of this segment of the education market with the aim of designing better-informed policies, making better use of public spending on supporting private-sector players to reach the poor. Contrary to what is assumed in studies of the private tuition market, the low-fee tuition providers offering services in the Pakistani urban neighbourhoods are not teachers in government schools trying to make extra money by offering afternoon tutorial to children from their schools. Working from their homes, the tutors featured in this paper are mostly women who often have no formal teacher training but are imaginative in their use of a diverse set of teaching techniques to ensure that children from low-income households who cannot get support for education at home cope with their daily homework assignments and pass the annual exams to transition to the next grade. These tutors were motivated to offer tuition by a combination of factors ranging from the need to earn a living, a desire to stay productively engaged, and for some a commitment to help poor children. Arguing that parents expect them to take full responsibility for their children's educational attainment, these providers view the poor quality of education in schools, the weak maternal involvement in children's education, and changing cultural norms, whereby children no longer respect authority, as being key to explaining the prevailing low educational levels. The paper presents evidence that the private tuition providers, who may be viewed as education entrepreneurs, have the potential to be used by the state and development agencies to provide better quality education to children from low-income families.


Due to limited materials and energy, more attention has been paid to the adverse impacts of the global economy's rapid development on the environment and society. The sustainable and long-term development strategy becomes extremely urgent and important for the enterprises. Manufactures and their supply chain should take measures to implement sustainable development strategy in future production. The concept of sustainability is introduced into the field of supply chain and the structure of sustainable chain is constructed in this paper. And a method of sustainable supply chain performance evaluation is proposed. It evaluates the supply chain performance in four dimensions, namely, operational, financial, social and environmental dimensions. Then a performance evaluation model of sustainable supply chain based on AHP and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is established. This paper gives a case to evaluate the sustainable supply chain performance with the model and implications are given finally.


This paper outlines the evolution of the concept of global environmental governance, and its expression within climate-change related problem-solving institutions. A number of institutions address climate change on a global level, with a variety of institutional structures and processes. This leads to difficulties for comparative analysis, particularly when it comes to assessing quality of governance. Governance performance is important, since it helps stakeholders determine whether a given institution is sufficiently legitimate to merit participation, or whether their efforts are better served in other forums. Using a set of principles, criteria and indicators of governance quality, the paper provides an analysis of the 'REDD-plus' process (United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries). It highlights REDD- plus' strengths and weaknesses and provides a rating of institutional legitimacy. It concludes with some observations on the challenges facing REDD-plus, and calls for the development of standards to ensure institutional quality-of-governance.


The first example of an additive cyclocarbonylation process leading to 1-thia-4a,9-diazafluoren-4-ones is reported. This process is based on the reaction of readily available 2-(propynylthio)benzimidazoles with carbon monoxide carried out in EtOH at 100 °C under a 5/2 mixture of CO-CO2 at 70 atm in the presence of the PdI2/KI catalytic system. Experimental evidence suggests a mechanistic pathway involving N-palladation of the substrate followed by CO insertion, triple bond insertion, protonolysis, and isomerization.


The social environment is known to modulate adult neurogenesis. Studies in mammals and birds have shown a strong correlation between social isolation and decreases in neurogenesis, whereas time spent in an enriched environment has been shown to restore these deficits and enhance neurogenesis. These data suggest that there exists a common adaptive response among neurogenic niches to each extreme of the social environment. We sought to further test this hypothesis in zebrafish, a social species with distinct neurogenic niches within primary sensory structures and telencephalic nuclei of the brain. By examining stages of adult neurogenesis, including the proliferating stem/progenitor population, their surviving cohort, and the resulting newly differentiated neuronal population, we show that niches residing in sensory structures are most sensitive to changes in the social context, and that social isolation or novelty are both capable of decreasing the number of proliferating cells while increasing the number of newborn neurons within a single niche. Contrary to observations in rodents, we demonstrate that social novelty, a form of enrichment, does not consistently rescue deficits in cell proliferation following social isolation, and that cortisol levels do not negatively regulate changes in adult neurogenesis, but are correlated with the social context. We propose that enhancement or suppression of adult neurogenesis in the zebrafish brain under different social contexts depends largely on the type of niche (sensory or telencephalic), experience from the preceding social environment, and occurs independently of changes in cortisol levels. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 74: 1053–1077, 2014


Peatlands are a large natural source of atmospheric methane (CH4). Carex rostrata, a sedge species, has a critical role in the production, oxidation, and emission of CH4 from these systems. This study examined the changes in CH4 emissions from a temperate peatland after removing all aboveground C. rostrata biomass. Methane flux, dissolved CH4 concentration at various depths, C. rostrata green leaf area, temperature, and water table depth were measured from June 2008 to November 2010. There is a strong positive correlation between C. rostrata green area and CH4 flux and the mean summer CH4 flux from the control plots was always higher than from the plots without C. rostrata. Model results indicate that 35--74% of total summer CH4 emissions may come from transport through C. rostrata , though C. rostrata green area, water-table depth, and temperature only explain around 35% of the observed CH4 flux variability, perhaps because of inter-annual variability.


In lipid monolayers with phase coexistence, domains of the liquid-condensed phase always present size polydispersity. However, very few theoretical works consider size distribution effects on the monolayer properties. Because of the difference in surface densities, domains have excess dipolar density with respect to the surrounding liquid expanded phase, originating a dipolar inter-domain interaction. This interaction depends on the domain area, and hence the presence of a domain size distribution is associated with interaction polydispersity. Inter-domain interactions are fundamental to understanding the structure and dynamics of the monolayer. For this reason, it is expected that polydispersity significantly alters monolayer properties. By means of Brownian dynamics simulations, we study the radial distribution function (RDF), the average mean square displacement and the average time-dependent self-diffusion coefficient, D(t), of lipid monolayers with normally distributed size domains. For this purpose, we vary the relevant system parameters, polydispersity and interaction strength, within a range of experimental interest. We also analyze the consequences of using a monodisperse model to determine the interaction strength from an experimental RDF. We find that polydispersity strongly affects the value of the interaction strength, which is greatly underestimated if polydispersity is not considered. However, within a certain range of parameters, the RDF obtained from a polydisperse model can be well approximated by that of a monodisperse model, by suitably fitting the interaction strength, even for 40% polydispersities. For small interaction strengths or small polydispersities, the polydisperse systems obtained from fitting the experimental RDF have an average mean square displacement and D(t) in good agreement with that of the monodisperse system.


One of the lessons to be drawn from Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents is undoubtedly that jouissance – because it implies pain and suffering – is something harmful to the subject. However, this inherent cruelty of jouissance becomes a problem for modern moral and political philosophy with Sade, for whom the right to jouissance is a fundamental human rights and as such universal. While Sade's universal right to jouissance is inconceivable outside the horizon of human rights discourse, the only space in which universal rights can arise, it represents the ultimate limit of this discourse precisely to the extent that the despotism of the passions, which Sade advocates, promotes the rights, not of man, but of jouissance. But can there be something like an ethics of jouissance and, consequently, a politics of jouissance at all if ethics and politics are founded on a relationship with the Other, whereas jouissance, being solipsistic, autistic in nature, problematises the very status of the Other? And conversely, if Sade's project of emancipation aims at the realisation of the tyranny of jouissance precisely at the level of the socius , then one might ask: What is the social bond that is founded on something which appears to be incompatible with it? To answer these questions, this article examines the radical nature of Sade's despotism of passions as a reinvention of the social bond that consists in bringing together two incompatible instances: freedom and jouissance.


Abstract : The shoaling enhancement of small-amplitude, dispersive wave trains traveling over uniform, impermeable slopes was observed in a specially-constructed wave channel, where the reproducible wave elevation measurement accuracy was about .0005-in. These observations substantially support the enhancement predicted from linear theory (conservation of energy flux) except in very shallow water and on very steep slopes, where accelerative effects become important. On the hypothesis that small-amplitude runup theory might be similarly valid for periodic waves of finite height, provided that the positive incident wave amplitude is replaced by the local crest height above still water, this theory was modified to include the effect of the superelevation under a wave crest due to profile asymmetry. The modified theory is shown to agree acceptably with runup observations of larger waves previously reported-both for breaking and non-breaking waves. Because solutions to the modified theory cannot conveniently be obtained by manual calculation, a nomograph chart is included, from which runup predictions can be easily made, given only the wave height, period, and water depth a wave-length or so from shore, and the beach slope. Use of this nomograph for non-uniform slopes, oblique incidence, and non-periodic waves is also discussed. (Author)


Abstract An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of feeding ornithine in combination with α-aminoisobutyric acid (AIB), an inhibitor of arginase, on the regulation of polyamine synthesis in chicks. A total of 48 chicks with genetically elevated renal arginase activity was fed diets containing crystalline amino acids and 1% AIB with or without 2% ornithine. Feeding AIB reduced renal arginase activity, while renal and hepatic ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity increased. Feeding AIB plus ornithine caused no further reduction in renal arginase activity compared with that in chicks fed the AIB-supplemented diet. Renal and hepatic ODC activities, however, fell to below control levels. Renal, hepatic, and breast muscle ornithine concentrations increased substantially when ornithine was fed. AIB plus ornithine increased renal putrescine and spermidine concentrations. It was concluded that AIB could partially overcome the ornithine-induced inhibition of ODC activity. These findings support the hypothesis that dietary manipulation of precursor amino acids of polyamines in the presence of metabolites that induce ODC activity can influence tissue polyamine concentrations.


By using a new N-donor ligand, a 3D stable pillared-layer metal–organic framework, namely [Cu4(1,4-ndc)4(L)2]·H2O·2DMF (1), has been synthesized under solvothermal conditions (1,4-H2ndc = 1,4-naphthalenedicarboxylate; L = 1-(1-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)naphthalen-4-yl)-1H-imidazole). X-ray single crystal diffraction analysis was utilized to obtain the crystal structure of 1 and 1 was further characterized by elemental analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and infrared spectroscopy (IR). Based on dinuclear Cu(II) clusters as nodes, compound 1 is a 6-connected two-fold interpenetrating pcu network. Moreover, using rhodamine B (RB) and methylene blue (MB) as examples, 1 has the ability to separate dye molecules. Finally, the magnetic properties of 1 have been investigated.


This paper addresses the problem of sparsity penalized least squares for applications in sparse signal processing, e.g., sparse deconvolution. This paper aims to induce sparsity more strongly than L1 norm regularization, while avoiding non-convex optimization. For this purpose, this paper describes the design and use of non-convex penalty functions (regularizers) constrained so as to ensure the convexity of the total cost function F to be minimized. The method is based on parametric penalty functions, the parameters of which are constrained to ensure convexity of F. It is shown that optimal parameters can be obtained by semidefinite programming (SDP). This maximally sparse convex (MSC) approach yields maximally non-convex sparsity-inducing penalty functions constrained such that the total cost function F is convex. It is demonstrated that iterative MSC (IMSC) can yield solutions substantially more sparse than the standard convex sparsity-inducing approach, i.e., L1 norm minimization.


Pedogenic siderite is a carbonate mineral that forms in the reducing groundwaters of poorly drained soils and paleosols in zonal climatic belts with strongly positive precipitation–evaporation balances. Microcrystalline and spherulitic forms of siderite are commonly recognized in micromorphologic studies of hydromorphic paleosols. Ancient paleosol sphaerosiderites commonly occur with diameters in excess of 1 mm, while modern pedogenic siderite crystal dimensions in excess of 100 lm are rare. Pedogenic siderites have been widely reported from Late Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic paleosols. The carbon and oxygen isotopic compositions of pedogenic siderites have been widely used as proxies for the oxygen isotopic composition of paleoprecipitation for their respective paleosols. Modern process studies of historic pedogenic siderites are yielding a more refined understanding of the stable isotopic systematics of low-temperature siderite. These works will lead to a future change in usage of published siderite–water O fractionation equations.


Understanding realistic visual scene images together with language descriptions is a fundamental task towards generic visual understanding. Previous works have shown compelling comprehensive results by building hierarchical structures for visual scenes (e.g., scene graphs) and natural languages (e.g., dependency trees), individually. However, how to construct a joint vision-language (VL) structure has barely been investigated. More challenging but worthwhile, we introduce a new task that targets on inducing such a joint VL structure in an unsupervised manner. Our goal is to bridge the visual scene graphs and linguistic dependency trees seamlessly. Due to the lack of VL structural data, we start by building a new dataset VLParse. Rather than using labor-intensive labeling from scratch, we propose an automatic alignment procedure to produce coarse structures followed by human refinement to produce high-quality ones. Moreover, we benchmark our dataset by proposing a contrastive learning (CL)-based framework VLGAE, short for Vision-Language Graph Autoencoder. Our model obtains superior performance on two derived tasks, i.e., language grammar induction and VL phrase grounding. Ablations show the effectiveness of both visual cues and dependency relationships on fine-grained VL structure construction.


Many countries are restructuring their electric power industries (EPIs) from regulated monopolies to a competitive market. Competition is expected to increase productivity and decrease production costs and the price of electricity. Countries are at different stages of the restructuring process, and the process is not finished. In spite of a wide variety of possible structures, four main electricity market models can be distinguished. The variations of electricity market are not perfect and differ from other markets. This is as a result of the fact that EPI is a complicated technologically unified electric power system (EPS). The main properties of an EPS and its influence on electricity markets are considered in this article.


Dig deep and master the intricacies of the common language runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework 4.0. Written by a highly regarded programming expert and consultant to the Microsoft .NET team, this guide is ideal for developers building any kind of application-including Microsoft ASP.NET, Windows Forms, Microsoft SQL Server, Web services, and console applications. You'll get hands-on instruction and extensive C# code samples to help you tackle the tough topics and develop high-performance applications.


This Article outlines six distinct visions of just world order reoected in recent academic and political discourse in India. These perspectives may be designated as establishment, left, Dalit, subaltern, anti-modernist, and spiritual. Each of these perspectives offers a certain understanding of the state, society, globalization, and international institutions. These different perspectives, in the absence of any systematic and concerted "new thinking" in the literature on international law and institutions, are germane to understanding the response of the Indian state and people to issues relating to globalization, international law, and international institutions.1 It is also important to turn to these perspectives because both the globalization process and the growing role of international law and institutions have compelled political forces and social thinkers to engage in discussion on issues such as sovereignty, trade, use of force, human rights, and the meaning of a just world order in general. Since these perspectives now address themes central to international law and institutions, they provide rich critical resources not only to think through alternative strategies to establish a just world order, but also to conceptualize its contours and content. While ave of the six perspectives are contemporary, the spiritual perspective of Sri Aurobindo was articulated primarily in the colonial period but has been included because it was among the arst to deal with world-order issues and the creation of a world state. It has also been discussed to emphasize the need for ethical practices in any strategy of "complex internationalism" to create a just world order.


BACKGROUND
Mental health disorders represent one of the most common problems facing adults in the labor force. It is estimated that within a 12-month period nearly 30% of the US population experiences some diagnosable mental health or addictive disorder. This study examines the impact that corporate benefit policies can have on mental health treatment costs.

AIMS
To measure the effects of a change in mental health benefit design on treatment expenditures for employees of a large US-based company.

METHODS
Data came from mental health treatment administrative claims and eligibility information provided by the company and a comparable set of claims for a randomly selected control group for the years 1995-1998. We measure the effect of a change in mental health benefits consisting of three major elements: a company-wide effort to destigmatize mental illness; reduced cost-sharing for mental health treatment; and the implementation of a provider network that emphasized access to non-physician mental health specialists. We use a two-part regression model within a difference in differences framework to examine outpatient, pharmaceutical, and combined outpatient and pharmaceutical expenditures between the treatment company and the control group.

RESULTS
We find that the program led to a statistically significant dollar 17 increase in outpatient costs (excluding pharmaceutical costs) per employee. Similar to outpatient care we find that the benefit change was associated with a statistically significant increase in pharmaceutical costs of about dollar 15.

DISCUSSION
The results reveal that the mental health benefit expansion at the company led to a significant increase in aggregate mental health expenditures among employees. However, the aggregate increase in cost masks a number of interesting underlying trends in mental health utilization. First, conditional upon any mental health treatment, mental health costs were virtually unchanged before and after the benefit change. Conditional on any use, outpatient and pharmaceutical expenditures went in opposite directions, with outpatient expenditures falling and pharmaceutical expenditures increasing.

IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVISION AND USE
Private sector initiatives can increase use of mental health care treatment through decreased cost-sharing, improved access to specialty providers, and destigmatization of mental disorders. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE POLICY FORMULATION: Given that the vast majority of people in the US get their health insurance through employer-sponsored health insurance, efforts on the part of the private sector to recognize and treat serious chronic illnesses such as mental disorder in a proactive manner should be encouraged.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
While the aggregate cost of corporate initiatives to improve access to quality mental health care is frequently examined, it is also important to decompose the aggregate cost changes into effects from a change in the rate of initiation and changes in utilization conditional upon initiation.


Abstract Seed dispersal capabilities by red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans) and common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) in southwestern Missouri were investigated for mulberry (Morus spp.), barnyardgrass (Echinochloa crus-galli), and curly dock (Rumex crispus). Feeding trials conducted on these seeds demonstrated that seed damage was low and percentage of germination of turtle-passed seeds did not exceed controls for any seed species tested. These turtle species are capable of dispersing mulberry, barnyardgrass, and curly dock seeds to areas near pond margins and to more distant locations during overland movements.


Abstract Chile's 1980 Constitution embodied the political aspirations of the nation's military regime. Before democratization, the constitution underwent a process of reform that did away with some of its most blatantly authoritarian provisions but preserved a set of institutions that would characterize and constrain the regained Chilean democracy. This article presents an account of that process. It juxtaposes two theoretical perspectives: one that sees the results as determined primarily by the power relationship of the participants, and one that stresses contextual factors, such as institutional traditions. This study argues that while the Chilean case largely confirms the importance of the existing constitution for the outcome, the final outcome depended nonetheless on the participants' assessment of the relations of power, and therefore might have been open to different results.


Mashhad city has a substantial risk of earthquakes due to the potential of the underlying soft soils to amplify ground motions. It is therefore imperative to conduct detailed seismic hazard assessment of the area (seismic microzonation). Seismic microzonation of big cities, like Mashhad, provides a basis for site-specific hazard analysis. In the present study, microtremor observations were carried out at 90 sites in the east part of Mashhad city. The predominant frequency and spectral ratio amplitude of the ground were determined by the Nakamura technique, and a microzonation map was developed for Mashhad on the basis of the variations of the predominant frequency and spectral ratio amplitude of the ground. Soil texture and N-value standard-penetration-test (N-SPT) maps and sections were prepared for different depths below the city, by analysis and interpolation of data collected in the study area from 169 boreholes. Then the predominant frequency variations were compared with soil texture and N-SPT variations for four sections in different directions in the study area. This comparison shows that with decreasing soil softening and N-SPT values, the soil predominant frequency also decreases.


Excellent buildings in different period recording city memory in different phases, they are connected up and irreplaceable respectively. As the important part of cultural heritage, modern relics and representative buildings pass historical information authentically and play a crucial role in providing historic witnesses. They are carrying a large number of Chinese history and culture sequentially ranging from the Ming, Qing Dynasty, Republic of China, the early days of New China, the Cultural Revolution period, the Opening-up Reform to contemporary times. They are either relevant to the major historical events and people, or occupy a certain position in the history of urban development. They are the sections of complete chain of history and culture. Nevertheless, they're hardly shown on the list of "preserved heritage". Concurrent with the construction of city, a large number of excellent modern buildings are suffering from demolition and destruction for they were young. Because of our lack of conservation consciousness and actions, many of them are in a devil of hole fragmented. The partially neglect of the conservation of modern cultural heritage is bound to cause the rupture of our tradition and blankness in memory. It is an increasingly urgent trend to save and protect these building heritages without any delay. This paper attempts to discuss the problems of modern relics and representative buildings conservation and improvement of conservation system.


During the power transmission of doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG), due to the influence of series compensating capacitance and long-distance transmission, DFIG is prone to sub-synchronous oscillation, which damages the stability of the system. By establishing the mathematical model of DFIG system, the cause of sub-synchronous oscillation and its influence on the control strategy of DFIG system are discussed. In order to solve the problem of performance degradation of traditional phase-locked loop (PLL) under sub-synchronous oscillation, an improved PLL is proposed to replace the traditional PLL. Aiming at the problem that the control of rotor side converter(RSC) and grid side converter(GSC) in doubly-fed wind power generation system under sub-synchronous oscillation is disturbed by harmonic signals, a control method of adding a quasi resonant controller in the control link of RSC and GSC to suppress sub-synchronous oscillation is proposed, and the feasibility of the method is verified by simulation and experiment. Finally, based on the research process of RSC direct resonance control, the sub-synchronous oscillation suppression strategy based on harmonic current extraction is proposed for the frequency adaptability of the quasi resonant controller. The actual performance of the sub-synchronous oscillation suppression strategy is verified through simulation and experiment. The experimental results show that the strategy is effective.


Fever is a complex physiologic response triggered by infectious or aseptic stimuli. Elevations in body temperature occur when concentrations of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) increase within certain areas of the brain. These elevations alter the firing rate of neurons that control thermoregulation in the hypothalamus. Although fever benefits the nonspecific immune response to invading microorganisms, it is also viewed as a source of discomfort and is commonly suppressed with antipyretic medication. Antipyretics such as aspirin have been widely used since the late 19th century, but the mechanisms by which they relieve fever have only been characterized in the last few decades. It is now clear that most antipyretics work by inhibiting the enzyme cyclooxygenase and reducing the levels of PGE2 within the hypothalamus. Various medicinal plants are used as an antipyretic agent from the ancient time. In this review we have enlisted around 50 medicinal plants which are used as an antipyretic agent which can be one of the good alternatives for the traditional allopathic antipyretic agents.


DOI:10.22044/jme.2020.10114.1949 Over the past two decades, the frequency domain (FD) of the geochemical data has been studied by some researchers. Metal zoning is one of the challenging subjects in the mining exploration, where a new scenario has been proposed for solving this problem in FD. Three mineralization areas including the Dalli (Cu-Au), Zafarghand (Cu-Mo), and Tanurcheh (Au-Cu) mineralization areas are selected for this investigation. After transferring the surface geochemical data to FD, the geochemical signals obtained are filtered using the wavenumber-based filters. The high and moderate frequency signals are removed, and the residual signals are interpreted by the statistical method of principal component analysis (PCA). In order to discriminate the deep metal ore deposits, the principal factors of elemental power spectrum extracted by PCA are depicted in a novel diagram (PC1 vs. PC2). This approach indicates that the geochemical data in the Dalli and Zafarghand deep ore deposits have similar frequency behaviors. The Au, Mo, and Cu elements in these two areas are discriminated from the Au, Mo, and Cu mineralization elements of the Tanurcheh area as a deep non-mineralization zone in this diagram. This new criterion used for distinguishing the buried ore deposits and deep non-mineralization zones is properly confirmed by the exploratory deep drilled boreholes. The geochemical anomaly filtering demonstrates that the strong signatures of deep mineralization are associated with the low frequency geochemical signals at the surface, and the buried mineralization areas with weak surface anomaly can be identified using the geochemical FD data. Keywords


Abstract 4401 Proinflammatory cytokines, TNF-α and IFN-γ, are potent inhibitors of hematopoiesis, and may be relevant in the pathogenesis of bone marrow failure in inherited bone marrow failure syndromes (IBMFS). Increased levels of these cytokines in sera and in bone marrow CD3 + cells have been reported in Fanconi anemia (FA) patients. However, our study did not find increased TNF-α or IFN-γ in sera, or supernatants from phytohemagglutinin-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells from IBMFS patients. To assess whether production of these cytokines is dysregulated in BM of these patients, we examined intracellular expression of TNF-α and IFN-γ in BM mononuclear cells from 16 FA, 20 dyskeratosis congenita (DC), 21 Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) and 7 Shwachman-Diamond syndrome (SDS) patients by flow cytometry; 14 healthy adults were studied as controls. To detect intracellular TNF-α and IFN-γ, BM lymphocytes and monocytes were stimulated with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate plus ionomycin (P+I), or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), respectively. Separately, unstimulated cells were stained with antibodies to CD45, CD3, CD19, CD14, and CD34 to determine the proportion of cellular subsets. Percentages of T cells in patients with IBMFS were comparable to the controls, while DC patients had lower proportion of B cells ( p =0.02). The percentages of monocytes were lower in FA ( p =0.04), DC ( p =0.009), and DBA ( p + cells were also lower in IBMFS patients (≤0.02 for all) except for those with DBA, who had similar proportions as the controls. When we compared the effect of cytopenia (counts below normal for age), only the proportion of CD34 + cells in DC patients was significantly affected. DC patients with cytopenia ( n =15) had lower numbers of CD34 + cells ( p =0.007) compared with those without ( n =5). We also analyzed the effect of somatic mosaicism in FA because it may correct the hematopoietic defect in these patients. FA patients without mosaicism ( n =11) had lower proportions of CD19 + , CD14 + , and CD34 + cells than those with mosaicism ( n =5), while the CD3 + cell numbers were unaffected. We detected both intracellular TNF-α and IFN-γ in T cells, but only TNF-α in B cells in response to P+I, while LPS stimulation led to TNF-α production only in monocytes. Percentages of cytokine-producing T and B cells were significantly lower for patients with DBA when compared with healthy adult controls ( p p =0.001 for B cells). There were no significant differences in the other syndromes. Comparison of intracellular cytokines between cytopenic and non-cytopenic patients showed that TNF-α-producing T cells were affected in FA ( p =0.03), where the cytopenic patients had a higher proportion of TNF-α-positive T cells. For the LPS-stimulated monocytes, FA ( p =0.01) and DBA ( p =0.05) patients had significantly lower proportions of TNF-α-producing cells than the controls, and this was independent of cytopenia. There was no effect of mosaicism on cytokine production. Contrary to previous reports, we did not find an increase in intracellular TNF-α or IFN-γ in T cells from FA patients. However, the number of TNF-α-producing monocytes in FA was lower than that in healthy adult controls. This is consistent with reported dysregulation of monocytes in FA patients. We also identified reduced cytokine expression in lymphocytes and monocytes from DBA patients, but not from DC or SDS. As expected, we found reduced proportions of CD34 + cells in FA, DC and SDS, syndromes associated with multilineage cytopenia, and not in DBA which is associated with pure red cell aplasia. And, we ascertained that FA patients with somatic mosaicism had significantly higher percentages of cells including CD34 + , suggesting that the corrected stem cell pool in FA mosaics is able to maintain hematopoiesis in contrast to non-mosaic FA patients who develop progressive cytopenia over time. Overall, the effect of cytopenia on cytokine production was mild; however, this may be related to the small sample size. In conclusion, our results suggest that mechanisms other than an excess of inflammatory cytokines may be responsible for bone marrow failure in IBMFS, and this area of research deserves a further attention in larger studies. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Comparative genomic hybridization by means of BAC microarrays (array CGH) allows high-resolution profiling of copy-number aberrations in tumor DNA. However, specific genetic lesions associated with small but clinically relevant tumor areas may pass undetected due to intra-tumor heterogeneity and/or the presence of contaminating normal cells. Here, we show that the combination of laser capture microdissection, phi29 DNA polymerase-mediated isothermal genomic DNA amplification, and array CGH allows genomic profiling of very limited numbers of cells. Moreover, by means of simple statistical models, we were able to bypass the exclusion of amplification distortions and variability prone areas, and to detect tumor-specific chromosomal gains and losses. We applied this new combined experimental and analytical approach to the genomic profiling of colorectal adenomatous polyps and demonstrated our ability to accurately detect single copy gains and losses affecting either whole chromosomes or small genomic regions from as little as 2 ng of DNA or 1000 microdissected cells.


This project has been carried out in cooperation with Volvo Construction Equipment. A new control intended to give an intuitive understanding for the new generation of operators of how to handle the motor grader has been developed. The project includes parts of the development process, idea to finished concept.The project started with a thorough study of the functions of motor graders not only those built by Volvo but also those from the biggest competitors. Interviews were made with operators about today's and future controls of graders. In comparison the competitors seem to offer better controls both from ergonomic and cognitive points of view.Hitherto too little interest has been focused by design engineers in problems of the operators. Operators are exposed to wear and tear when driving the graders and they also have difficulties driving the machines all because of the design of the manoeuvring device.From the start to the final concept a great variety of people has been involved in this project e.g. young and old operators, scientists and constructors resulting in a large spread of ideas.The final concept is a new thinking control with respect to the combination of functionality, ergonomics and intuitivety.


Pelvic venous congestion syndrome (PVCS) is a challenging and complex cause of chronic pelvic pain in female patients. PVCS due to incompetent vein valves is the combination of gonadal vein reflux and pelvic venous engorgement in patients with chronic pelvic pain without other causes. However, pelvic venous engorgement and gonadal vein reflux can be seen in patients without pelvic pain, which makes obtaining a detailed history and physical examination important for workup and diagnosis. The underlying cause of PVCS may be incompetent gonadal vein valves or structural causes such as left renal vein compression with an incompetent gonadal vein valve (nutcracker syndrome) or iliac vein compression (May-Thurner configuration) with reflux into the ipsilateral internal iliac vein. Venography is considered the criterion standard for imaging diagnosis; however, more recently, US and MRI have been shown to provide adequate accuracy for diagnosis. Noninvasive imaging studies aid in the diagnosis of PVCS and also aid in pretreatment planning. When PVCS is caused by incompetent gonadal vein valves, treatment typically is performed by means of embolization via a minimally invasive catheter with excellent technical and clinical success rates. When PVCS is caused by venous obstruction, the obstruction must be treated first before gonadal vein embolization and sclerotherapy are considered. ©RSNA, 2019 Online supplemental material is available for this article.


Attention is a key component of Transformers, which have recently achieved considerable success in natural language processing. Hence, attention is being extensively studied to investigate various linguistic capabilities of Transformers, focusing on analyzing the parallels between attention weights and specific linguistic phenomena. This paper shows that attention weights alone are only one of the two factors that determine the output of attention and proposes a norm-based analysis that incorporates the second factor, the norm of the transformed input vectors. The findings of our norm-based analyses of BERT and a Transformer-based neural machine translation system include the following: (i) contrary to previous studies, BERT pays poor attention to special tokens, and (ii) reasonable word alignment can be extracted from attention mechanisms of Transformer. These findings provide insights into the inner workings of Transformers.


The internationalization of firms is an important part of globalization. Firms are looking for their opportunities in foreign markets. For this reason, they need to have specific market knowledge. They can create it themselves by primary market research and/or gain it from available secondary sources. Companies need to be aware that market knowledge is crucial for the internationalization process.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the most valuable part of both European and Slovenian economy. SMEs substantially contribute to economic growth and job creation and are considered the present and future backbone of the European and Slovenian economy.
Because of the importance of SMEs, various programs and mechanisms for SMEs support were developed at the level of the European Union (EU) and Slovenia. These constitute Institutional Support and contain, among other things, financial and non-financial mechanisms to support the internationalization of SMEs.


Since 1722, when detachment of the retina was first described by St. Yves, it has been of increasing interest to ophthalmologists. Much work, both speculative and experimental, has been done since that time In view of the recent impetus given to the study of detachment, due chiefly to the results obtained with the new operative procedure of Gonin, this monograph is timely. Dr. Anderson not only has undertaken the tedious and onerous task of investigating more than eight hundred original papers on the subject of detachment, but has also made his findings available for all in the present volume. After a general discussion of detachment of the retina, the history, age distribution and incidence of association with myopia of varying degrees, the author summarizes the pertinent anatomy and physiology of the retina. Krogh's work on capillaries is cited as evidence that it is probably the capillaries rather than the ciliary epithelium that regulate the ocular tension. Ordinarily these are impermeable to colloids, but under the effect of inflammation, toxins or poisons or as a reaction to heat, light, drugs or any irritant or stimulus, the capillaries can dilate, their walls can be so damaged that edema or hemorrhage may occur, or there may be profound changes in the tension. The fact that light causes the pigment epithelium tosend cilia-like processes between the rods and cones was the basis for Stargardt's recommendation that, after operation, the eye should be illuminated. Dr. Anderson recalls the fact, also, that the vitreous is adherent to the retina in the region of the ora serrata. On this fact, Leber based his theory that detachment was due to the formation of fibrous bands following a low grade cyclitis. According to Leber, epithelial cells proliferated from the ciliary body as a result of a slight inflammation of the pars plana. After spreading over the retina and into the vitreous, they became degenerate, and formed fibrous bands that, shrinking, aided in the destruction of the solid vitreous \p=m-\"fibrillary degeneration of the vitreous." Contraction of these bands


We develop a model of charitable contributions in the presence of "cheating" contributions and present formulas for the optimality of tax subsidies for contributions. In addition to the standard price elasticity of reported charitable contributions, two new parameters appear in the formulas: the share of "cheating" contributions in total reported contributions and the price elasticity of "cheating" contributions. Then, we provide substantial evidence that ignoring cheating parameters is likely to lead to large deviations from the optimal subsidy. We use two tax enforcement reforms: the 1969 tightening of rules for contributions to private foundations in the United States and a 1983 French reform requiring taxpayers to document their contributions. In both cases, we find sizeable responses to the tax enforcement regime, implying that the share of "cheating" contributions that we estimate is significant. We also find that the price elasticity of reported contributions falls significantly after the 1983 French reform, allowing us to back out the price elasticity of "cheating" contributions. A simple calibration based on our estimates shows that the issue of tax evasion through charitable contributions is a first-order consideration for the design of optimal subsidies in the U.S. system.


There are two competing tendencies in spacecraft (SC) design and manufacturing. On the one hand, it is a never-ceasing upgrading of the SC electronics to lower energy consumption and increase its functionality, which in turn makes it more susceptible to electrostatic discharges (ESDs). On the other hand, designers constantly seek to improve electronics protection against ESDs. Spectr-R SC features on-board equipment, which is highly sensitive to possible ESDs. To exclude ESD-related failures, the following protection measures have been taken. Based on the Satellite-MIEM computer code, we developed the lumped-element model of the Spectr-R body currents and cable-affected electronic response. This model made it possible to compute SC body currents initiated by ESDs originating at various structural sites. For various cable harnesses, we measured transformation coefficients converting body currents into the amplitude of the noise voltages appearing in a cable (a patented methodology was used for this purpose). Afterward, these transformation coefficients together with the ESD-induced currents have been fed into the Satellite-MIEM software to compute noise voltages appearing in electronic input circuits, connected via these cables to the satellite exterior surface. Comparing protection efficiency of cables and electronic equipment allowed us to select suitable cable harnesses and the appropriate equipment protection to insure reliable in-flight performance of the space vehicle. From the launch in July 2011 and up to the present time, there were no failures of the Spectr-R electronics, which could be traced to ESDs.


In this paper we introduce two distributed model predictive control (DMPC) methods for the rescheduling of railway traffic. In each step of the DMPC approach dispatching actions are determined that reduce the amount of delay in the network as much as possible by solving a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. The constraints of the MILP are based on a model of the railway traffic and network and the possible dispatching actions. In the first method each subproblem consists of the complete constraint matrix and the solver tries to minimize the centralized cost function, but can only change a limited number of binary variables (which correspond to the dispatching actions). By limiting the number of binary variables each subproblem is easier to solve than the centralized problem. For the second method each subproblem consists of only a part of the problem and the solver minimizes a local cost function, and it can only change the binary variables for that part of the problem. This reduces the complexity of the subproblems even further, but the solver can not determine the effects of the binary variables on the solution quality of the other subproblems. Both methods significantly reduce the time needed to determine the dispatching actions. The average time needed to compute the solution is 11.56 times shorter when using method 1 and 39.11 times shorter when using method 2. The solution found is on average only 0.63% less optimal for method 1 and 1.27% less optimal for method 2.


Summary Sleep is essential component of life. Even though the research in this field develops constantly, there are still many aspects of this rather complex process that remains to be fully clarified. One of these aspects, reason why we actually sleep, is perhaps the most crucial. In this mini review we aim to address this question and discuss potential functions of sleep. Many recent scientific papers are currently available that covers similar topic. We tried to summarize these recent findings. There are certainly many ways how to approach this rather complex issue. Our article will specifically focus on role of sleep in neuronal development, synaptic plasticity, memory consolidation or mental health in general. Its role in immune system functioning will also be mentioned. Moreover, we will also consider more general functions of sleep, such as well-being of the organisms or securing survival of the individual. In conclusion, we will highlight possible main function of sleep.


Organisations from various productive sectors are increasingly involving their audiences in their co-creation processes, both for production and for the ideation and marketing of the products they offer. This research analyses this issue in native digital newspapers, offering a comparative perspective between Europe and the United States. The co-creation options that these newspapers, developed on and for the internet, provided to their readers, are investigated in the three scenarios in which it is possible to co-create: via web, social networks and offline spaces. The findings indicate that the spaces enabled for co-creation are still residual and that the media should continue to value citizen's contributions, and carrying on incorporating those contributions within their agendas, thus protecting freedom of expression, as well as the right to receive truthful information.