Since 1970, and in a virtually continuous manner, extensions to the Paris underground system have been weaving their way into the suburbs. Given that, for the past forty years, the idea of preferential densification around transport infrastructures has been a recurring theme in successive Regional Master Plans, and that this principle was adopted again in the 2007 version of the SDRIF, it seems reasonable to wonder whether these documents had any effect.By using the Mode Occupation of Sol (MOS, IAURIF) database, this article questions the evolution of land-use around twenty-eight stations built since the 1970s. By observing the occupation gradient for different types of uses (residential, economic and vacant areas) and the changes over twenty years (1982-2003), it shows both the sustainability of built structures and the trend, albeit weak, towards differential land-use intensification around the underground stations. In view of the relative weakness of these developments, and the bona fide potential for renewal of land-use, we are led to ask whether the enforceability of urban transport infrastructure acts as a catalyst for urbanization.


Artificial enzymes hold a great potential in the field of biotechnology. The currently available design strategies are limited to recruit and organise secondary and tertiary structural elements, and functional motifs of native enzymes. Here, we demonstrate an approach towards the bottom-up development of an artificial enzyme based on DNA nanotechnology. Structural analyses of the FlaI ATPase were used to identify a set of amino acids essential for the catalytic reaction. The selected amino acids were used to design four peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates (POCs). The POCs were integrated into a DNA nanostructure and reconstituted the catalytic site of FlaI. DNA origami technology was employed to maintain the relative orientations of the amino acids and their positions analogous to those in the protein catalytic site. The substrate turnover rates were found to be comparable in our artificial nanozyme (kcat = 0.3622 s-1) and the native enzyme (kcat ≈ 0.016 s-1). The nanozymes could be recycled using an ultrafiltration protocol and reused in multiple experiments allowing a reliable reproduction of the measurements. The emulation of enzymatic activity, by this novel and computable technological framework, can be of high relevance in many different areas.


Distilling knowledge from a large teacher model to a lightweight one is a widely successful approach for generating compact, powerful models in the semi-supervised learning setting where a limited amount of labeled data is available. In large-scale applications, however, the teacher tends to provide a large number of incorrect soft-labels that impairs student performance. The sheer size of the teacher additionally constrains the number of soft-labels that can be queried due to prohibitive computational and/or financial costs. The difficulty in achieving simultaneous \emph{efficiency} (i.e., minimizing soft-label queries) and \emph{robustness} (i.e., avoiding student inaccuracies due to incorrect labels) hurts the widespread application of knowledge distillation to many modern tasks. In this paper, we present a parameter-free approach with provable guarantees to query the soft-labels of points that are simultaneously informative and correctly labeled by the teacher. At the core of our work lies a game-theoretic formulation that explicitly considers the inherent trade-off between the informativeness and correctness of input instances. We establish bounds on the expected performance of our approach that hold even in worst-case distillation instances. We present empirical evaluations on popular benchmarks that demonstrate the improved distillation performance enabled by our work relative to that of state-of-the-art active learning and active distillation methods.


Abstract Background and purpose: Mainstream economic models do not take ownership into consideration. Only after the findings of behavioural economists was endowment effect widely observed. Endowment effect means that goods that one owns are valued higher than other goods not held in endowment. At the same time the principal-agent literature is concerned with how the principal (such as employer) can motivate his agent (say the employee), to act in the principal's interests and also for their holdings. The main problem is that acting in somebody's else's interests can influence our values as well. Moreover, the principal as owner suffers from endowment effect. Both situations can be treated as a risky decision. Risk confuses our rationality in a predictable way. Design/Methodology/Approach: Due to this it was observed how foreign students from various cultural backgrounds decided (n=186 answers) in a risky financial situation by focusing on Allais' classic gambles. I also presented their preferences over certain and uncertain outcomes regarding the owner of the final win; i.e. how they choose for themselves or on behalf of one of their best friends. One famous experiment - which tested the descriptive validity of the axioms' expected utility theory - was Allais. Allais handled probabilities and outcomes in high hypothetical payoff financial gamble situations; he found that when offering two similar options, the common consequences will not be removed by the actors. I was interested in what happens when the actors take risks on behalf of others. It was used between-subjects technique on an extended multicultural sample. Regarding the two different topics, three hypotheses were tested (1); based on Allais paradox (2); observed ownerships (3); the comparison of two phenomena. Results: The results show that the subjects responded differently when they needed to decide about their own properties rather when their friends' properties were concerned. When a sure safe outcome was offered to the subjects, they took more risk on behalf of their friends rather than own. Moreover, the subjects do not take into consideration that the same attributes must be ignored, so Allais paradox was verified. Conclusion: The goal of this paper is then twofold. First, it was established a conceptual link between Allais-type behaviour and ownership problem. Second, Allais axiom was used to characterize different roles. Knowing predictable patterns of seemingly irrational heuristics in human behaviour can improve economic theory. At the same time, this knowledge helps us to avoid irrational decisions.


![Figure][1]

CREDIT: ALEXEY CHUVARKOV/GETTY IMAGES

How often have you had your eyes pass over a text, only to realize some time later that you absorbed nothing of it? Or spent an hour listening at a seminar, only to walk away unclear about what the most important advance was? Is this entirely your fault, or is the design of the text or the seminar partly to blame?

In this special issue, we have collected a variety of articles that focus on literacy in science. The term represents two angles of the problem: knowing what science has discovered and being able to communicate in the language of science. And the value is twofold, as well: Good literacy skills make it easier to learn science, but science topics can also be used to teach literacy skills that will translate well to other subjects.

As Snow points out (p. [450][2]), the language used in science is different from the language used in everyday conversation. The focus on details, the exclusion of ambiguous interpretations, and the complexity of the vocabulary all present the reader with challenges different from those found in fictional texts. But as van den Broek discusses (p. [453][3]), strategies taken by the writer or speaker can help the novice through the language barrier. Webb (p. [448][4]) discusses the kinds of supports that are helpful when the language of school is not the native language of the students. Krajcik and Sutherland (p. [456][5]) analyze how scientific texts are best used in a classroom setting and how to design curricula that support life-long science literacy skills. Taking the view that not all literacy is about writing, Osborne (p. [463][6]) discusses how argumentation skills are critical for understanding why some ideas are wrong and others right. Pearson and colleagues (p. [459][7]) describe the integration of literacy and science training through professional development for teachers, innovative curricula, and enhanced classroom materials. And research reported by Taylor et al. (p. [512][8]) analyzes how both genetics and the teachers available affect a child's literacy skills.

In the Education Forum, Schleicher (p. [433][9]) discusses how literacy skills required for participation in increasingly sophisticated societies have evolved and how meaningful international assessments can be conducted. In the 20 and 27 April issues, Science Signaling presents a set of Teaching Resources by Thatcher, each of which is a pair of short animations of a canonical signaling pathway; student-authored Journal Clubs cover topics ranging from signaling in cells of the immune system to signaling in plants.

Science is about generating and interpreting data. But it is also about communicating facts, ideas, and hypotheses. Scientists write, speak, debate, visualize, listen, and read about their specialties daily. For students unfamiliar with the language or style of science, the deceptively simple act of communication can be a barrier to understanding or becoming involved with the science.

 [1]: pending:yes
 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1182597
 [3]: /lookup/volpage/328/453?iss=5977
 [4]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1182596
 [5]: /lookup/volpage/328/456?iss=5977
 [6]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1183944
 [7]: /lookup/volpage/328/459?iss=5977
 [8]: /lookup/volpage/328/512?iss=5977
 [9]: /lookup/volpage/328/433?iss=5977


Lack of suitable machinery is a major constraint to direct drilling into combine-harvested rice residues due to the heavy straw load, and the presence of loose tough straw deposited by the harvester. Therefore, most rice stubbles are burnt in the mechanised rice–wheat systems of south Asia and Australia, as this is a rapid and cheap option, and allows for quick turn around between crops. As well as loss of organic matter and nutrients, rice stubble burning causes very serious and widespread air pollution in the north-west Indo-Gangetic Plains, where rice–wheat systems predominate. A novel approach with much promise is the Happy Seeder, which combines the stubble mulching and seed drilling functions in the one machine. The stubble is cut and picked up in front of the sowing tynes, which engage bare soil, and deposited behind the seed drill as mulch. Evaluation of the technology over 3 years in replicated experiments and farmers' fields in Punjab, India, showed that establishment of wheat sown into rice residues with the Happy Seeder was comparable with establishment using conventional methods (straw burnt followed by direct drilling or cultivation before sowing) for sowings around the optimum time into stubbles up to 7.5 t/ha. For late sowings, plant density declined significantly at straw loads above 5 t/ha. The mulch also reduced weed biomass by ~60%, and reduced soil evaporation. Yield of wheat sown around the optimum time into rice residues, using the Happy Seeder, was comparable with or higher than yield after straw removal or burning, in replicated experiments and farmers' fields, for straw loads up to 9 t/ha. In farmers' fields there was an average yield increase of 9 and 11% in 2004–05 and 2005–06, respectively, compared with farmer practice. For sowings after the optimum time, yield declined significantly at straw loads greater than 7.5 t/ha. The Happy Seeder offers the means of drilling wheat into rice stubble without burning, eliminating air pollution and loss of nutrients and organic carbon due to burning, at the same time as maintaining or increasing yield.


Radiation-induced lung injury can be categorized into radiation pneumonitis (RP) and organizing pneumonia (OP). Differences between RP and OP have been reported in terms of the time to appearance, predictive factors, expression mechanism, and migration of lung infiltration. However, no author has demonstrated the time to OP appearance after sequential radiotherapy for lung tumors in the same patient. We describe woman in her 70s with lung metastases developed OP synchronously after sequential three-dimensional radiotherapy (3D-CRT). A woman in her 70s who had received 3D-CRT sequentially for three metastases in the left lung from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We administer 3D-CRT for metastases in the left upper lobe. Three months after the end of 3D-CRT, there were no changes outside or inside the radiation field on chest radiographs and computed tomography (CT). We decided to administer 3D-CRT for a second time due to metastasis to the lower lobe. At 1.5 months after the end of the second 3D-CRT course, the patient presented with dry cough, at 2 months from the second radiotherapy cycle, dense pneumonic infiltrates with air bronchograms within the first and second radiation fields and outside the field was synchronously detected. A diagnosis of lung injury, most probably OP, due to radiotherapy was made. This case report draws attention to the development of synchronous OP after sequential radiotherapy and advises careful follow-up with the initiation of a second radiotherapy cycle even if OP does not appear for several months after the first radiotherapy cycle.


Brazil currently has one of the fastest growing SARS-CoV-2 epidemics in the world. Owing to limited available data, assessments of the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on virus spread remain challenging. Using a mobility-driven transmission model, we show that NPIs reduced the reproduction number from >3 to 1–1.6 in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Sequencing of 427 new genomes and analysis of a geographically representative genomic dataset identified >100 international virus introductions in Brazil. We estimate that most (76%) of the Brazilian strains fell in three clades that were introduced from Europe between 22 February11 March 2020. During the early epidemic phase, we found that SARS-CoV-2 spread mostly locally and within-state borders. After this period, despite sharp decreases in air travel, we estimated multiple exportations from large urban centers that coincided with a 25% increase in average travelled distances in national flights. This study sheds new light on the epidemic transmission and evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2 lineages in Brazil, and provide evidence that current interventions remain insufficient to keep virus transmission under control in the country.


Community Health Workers or CHWs (also known by a variety of alternative titles) are health workers drawn from communities to provide access to care for members of their communities. CHWs have been documented as effective in delivering a variety of services in a culturally-sensitive manner, and in providing a bridge between health professionals and underserved or minority communities. Yet, CHWs have not been well incorporated into interdisciplinary health care teams. The majority of health professionals are not even aware of the possible role and skills of CHWs. Believing that the best time to educate professionals about this valuable health worker and ensure that CHWs become part of interdisciplinary health care teams is during the student years, the Hunter College Schools of the Health Professions, and the Community Health Worker Network of New York City developed a pilot project, the Community Health Worker Cultural Mentoring Project. Community Health Workers, who were members of the Network, served as "community mentors" for health professions students drawn from the programs of community health education, nursing, and nutrition. CHWs worked with faculty of selected courses in each of the professional programs, and served as panelists in these courses, presenting information about health beliefs and alternative health practices of diverse cultural groups in communities of New York City. Class sessions were first held in the fall of 2004; subsequent sessions were held in following semesters. Approximately 40 students participated in 7 classes, with 6 CHWs serving as mentors - two per class. At the end of the classroom presentations, students wrote reflections relating to their understanding of the CHW role and relevance for their future interdisciplinary practice. The majority of reflections met the goal of increasing professional students' understanding of the CHW role and skills. At this point, quantitative and qualitative data will need to be collected to verify the benefits of CHWs serving as cultural mentors, in order to determine the value of such panels being incorporated into health professions' education programs.


Technical debt (TD) has been recognized as an important quality problem for both software architecture and code. The evolution of TD techniques over the past years has led to a number of research and commercial tools. In addition, the increasing trend of opportunistic reuse (as opposed to systematic reuse), where developers reuse code assets in popular repositories, is changing the way components are selected and integrated into existing systems. However, reusing software opportunistically can lead to a loss of quality and induce TD, especially when the architecture is changed in the process. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated the impact of opportunistic reuse in TD. In this paper, we carry out an exploratory study to investigate to what extent reusing components opportunistically negatively affects the quality of systems. We use one commercial and one research tool to analyze the TD ratios of three case systems, before and after opportunistically extending them with open-source software.


As climate change increases the intensity of natural disasters, society needs better tools for adaptation. Floods, for example, are the most frequent natural disaster, but during hurricanes the area is largely covered by clouds and emergency managers must rely on nonintuitive flood visualizations for mission planning. To assist these emergency managers, we have created a deep learning pipeline that generates visual satellite images of current and future coastal flooding. We advanced a state-of-the-art GAN called pix2pixHD, such that it produces imagery that is physically-consistent with the output of an expert-validated storm surge model (NOAA SLOSH). By evaluating the imagery relative to physics-based flood maps, we find that our proposed framework outperforms baseline models in both physical-consistency and photorealism. While this work focused on the visualization of coastal floods, we envision the creation of a global visualization of how climate change will shape our earth.


Seed availability is a major factor limiting the recruitment of rain forest to cleared land, but little is known about the composition of the soil seed bank under different reforestation pathways. We quantified changes in the viable soil seed bank following rain forest clearing and pasture establishment and subsequent reforestation in subtropical eastern Australia. Major reforestation pathways in the region include planting of a diverse suite of native trees for ecological restoration purposes, autogenic regrowth dominated by the non-native tree Camphor Laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) and management of this regrowth to accelerate the development of a native tree community. These pathways differ considerably in cost: restoration plantings are expensive, autogenic regrowth is free, whilst managing regrowth generally costs much less than restoration plantings. We surveyed five sites within each of three reforestation pathways as well as reference sites in remnant rain forest and pasture. The composition of the seed bank was determined by germinating plants from soil samples collected from each site. Germinants were classified into several functional groups according to life form, origin, dispersal mode and successional stage. The majority of functional groups varied significantly in abundance or richness between rain forest and pasture sites. Most of the functional groups that varied between rain forest and pasture were restored to values similar to rain forest by at least one of the three reforestation pathways examined. The species richness of native woody plants in the soil seed bank was slightly higher in restoration plantings than in autogenic or managed regrowth; nevertheless, the species richness and abundance of native woody plants and vines were higher in the seed bank of autogenic regrowth than pasture, and both attributes were enhanced by the management of regrowth sites. The results of this study show that autogenic regrowth can make an important contribution to rain forest restoration at a landscape scale. The optimal reforestation approach or mix of approaches will depend on the desired rate of recovery and the resources available for restoration.


In order to resolve automatic measurement, automatic monitoring and control of heat energy, a new type IC Card heat energy meter with automatic monitoring and control is designed. Software and hardware design of the heat instrument is introduced. Solutions of these problems are proposed throng analysis of engineering design problems. Lower power consumption and high precision requirements of heat measurement are met by collecting lower consumption components and intelligence design manners. Automatic measurement, monitoring and control functions are realized through gathering heat parameters of end-users on time, and analysis, comparing on the gathered data and data from standard meter by microcomputer. Preliminary tests show that the heat energy meter has functions of high precision, lower power consumption, strong intelligence and can achieve automatic Measurement, automatic monitoring and automatic control.


From the Publisher:
This is the first study guide designed specifically for AS/400 professionals who are preparing for IBM's new Associate System Operator Certification exam. It takes you through the basics of AS/400 operation from concepts to work management. The material covered in the book is designed to assist in successful completion of IBM Associate System Operator certification exam 000-052, as well as to provide excellent operator training. Hands-on lab exercises reinforce the chapter topics and prepare the reader to operate an AS/400 system. Work with the associate system operator certification book and you will be able to: understand basic AS/400 concepts and functions, work with AS/400 commands, libraries, and menus, manage OS/400 objects, control jobs running on the AS/400, understand basic work management function, manage messages, control printer output, manage devices attached to the AS/400, and perform backups, including various save and restore tasks. Whether you need individual or group operator training, or you need to prepare for certification testing yourself, you will find this book to be an excellent resource.


This round table was developed with a view to examining the legislative process as it functions in practice rather than as it is charted in constitutional and political science treatises. For illustrative purposes, the McNary-Haugen bill was chosen. That measure, by reason of its political and economic importance, its popular interest, and the fact that its passage has been bitterly contested both within and without the Congress, was well adapted for exemplifying those phases of the legislative process that are of peculiar interest to the student of political science. Furthermore, speakers before the round table were chosen for their knowledge of the facts concerning that piece of legislation. At the first meeting, Dr. Charles J. Brand, executive secretary of the National Fertilizer Association, presented the origin of the McNary-Haugen idea, the early consideration of it by the Department of Agriculture, and its first introduction to the Congress. Dr. Brand's experience as former head of the bureau of markets of the Department of Agriculture, and later as economic adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture, led him to the conclusion that the great measures affecting agricultural economics, such as the Meat Inspection Act, the Grain Futures Act, the Grain Standards Act, the Cotton Futures Act, and the Packers and Stockyards Act, resulted from the consideration given by various groups of agricultural and marketing interests to their own economic difficulties.


alpha-Galactosidase (EC 220.127.116.11) activity was observed in cell-free extracts of Lactobacillus fermenti, L. brevis, L. buchneri, L. cellobiosis, and L. salivarius subsp. salivarius. The cultural conditions under which the enzyme activity was detected suggest that the enzyme is constitutive and present in the soluble fraction in the cell. The enzyme preparations readily hydrolyzed melibiose and other oligosaccharides containing alpha(1 --> 6) linked galactose. Although the cell-free extracts of L. fermenti and L. brevis are negative for beta-fructofuranosidase (EC 220.127.116.11), they hydrolyzed melibiose, stachyose, and raffinose in decreasing order of activity. The beta-fructofuranosidase-positive L. buchneri, L. cellobiosis, and L. salivarius preparations hydrolyzed melibiose, raffinose, and stachyose in decreasing rates of activity. The alpha-galactosidases from different lactobacilli showed optimum activity in pH range 5.2 to 5.9. L. fermenti and L. salivarius preparations exhibited maximum activity between 40 to 44 C and 48 to 51 C, respectively, whereas a 38 to 42 C range was observed for other lactobacilli. Cell-free extract of L. cellobiosis was studied for transgalactosylase activity. When incubated with melibiose, a new compound was detected and tentatively identified as manninotriose.


Medical doctors are very frequently confronted with gastrointestinal complaints in daily clinical practice. Most of them are ascribed to gastrointestinal disease in general. There exist, however, cases who complain with abdominal signs and symptoms whose causes are unable to be found, in spite of various examinations related to the abdomen. Epilepsy is a chronic disorder of the central nervous system manifesting with recurrent unprovoked seizures. Abnormal abdominal sensation often heralds the onset of epileptic seizures. Among them, there is a rare syndrome called abdominal epilepsy in which episodic gastrointestinal complaints like abdominal pain, abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomit, and diarrhea are the primary or the sole manifestation of epileptic seizures. It is important for clinicians to know that abdominal epilepsy is one of the differential diagnoses of acute gastrointestinal signs and that these symptoms can be treated with antiepileptic medications. Here we review abdominal epilepsy as one of the causes in acute diarrhea.


This study investigated socio-economic factors that inhibit children access to secondary education particularly in Monduli District. In this study, there were three objectives namely: to explore the existing socio-economic activities in Monduli District, to examine the influence of the existing socio-economic factors on children access to education and to establish management model that can promote children access to education in pastoralist's societies. To attain these objectives, mixed methods research design was employed whereby qualitative and quantitative research approaches were the major means of data collection and analyses. The data for this study was collected through documentary review, questionnaires and interviews. The sample of this study comprised of 50 respondents that specifically comprised: students (N=30), parents (N=14), teachers (N= 5), and District Educational Officers (N= 1). It was learned that pastoralists prohibit children from schooling as they depend them in grazing their cattle. It was also found out that the Maasai culture and traditions devaluate education because they don't see the value of sending their children to school. It can be concluded that, the findings establish the effective management model to children access to education that emphasizes on the need of educating parents on the importance of socio - economic returns of education to households and society in general. It is recommended that the government should enact laws against those parents who fail to send their children to school for any reason. Also, there should be in place supportive policies for those who fail to send their children to school because of lacking of school fees and other contributions especially in the pastoralists' society.


Introduction: The spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has been described as a valuable neuromodulating procedure in the management of chronic and medically untreated neuropathic pain. Although, many studies have discussed the use of this technique, a question still remains regarding its efficacy in different medical conditions with different etiology in the long term. The aim of this paper is to discuss the risks, complications, cost-effectiveness and results of SCS in patients affected by chronic neuropathic pain based on the comprehensive literature review.
Methods: Bibliographic search of references from 1950 to 2016 using the databases MEDLINE, LILACS, SciELO, PubMed, and applied language as selection criteria, choosing preferably recent articles written in Portuguese, Spanish or English.
Results: Based on literature review, SCS is a safe, reversible, adjustable and nondestructive surgical procedure demonstrating a significant effect in the reduction of pain intensity and improvement in quality of life in these patients. Furthermore, in spite of the initial high cost to its application, SCS has been associated with lower rates of complications and high rates of cost-effectiveness when compared to standard therapies.
Conclusion: Although used in medical conditions with different etiology, the procedure is still an effective and a cost-effective approach to neuropathic pain, mainly in patients affected by failed back pain syndrome (FBSS) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).


Human drivers can have diverse car-following behaviors when interacting with connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) and other human-driven vehicles in mixed traffic where many human-driven vehicles and a limited number of CAVs frequently interact and share the road. In this study, Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) is used to model unique car-following behaviors of different human drivers when interacting with the CAV and another human-driven vehicle by using their driving demonstrations collected from in-field driving tests. The learned driver behavior model is shown that the personalized driving behaviors accurately and consistently can be characterized when following the different types of preceding vehicles in a variety of traffic situations. Furthermore, the energy efficiency of different human-driven vehicles when interacting with the CAV and the human-driven vehicle is investigated with the heterogeneous characteristics of drivers' behaviors, considering driving behaviors have significant influences on vehicle fuel economy. A detailed analysis reveals the significant fuel-saving benefits of the CAV to the following human-driven vehicles during the car-following scenario and the extent of such benefits varies among tested human drivers owing to their intrinsic preferences and perception of CAV. These findings suggest that human-CAV interactions can be effectively leveraged to improve the energy efficiency of mixed traffic.


Brachylaena discolor (Asteraceae) is a medicinal plant used in Mozambique to treat stomachache, tuberculosis, and diabetes. To discover new lead compounds with leishmanicidal activity, a methanolic extract of the leaves of this plant was investigated. Through fractionation, employing several chromatographic methods, two sesquiterpene lactones onopordopicrin (1) and its germacronolide epoxide derivative (2), together with other ten know phenolic compounds derivatives (3-12) were isolated. The structures of the isolated compounds were determined by spectroscopic methods, mainly 1D and 2D NMR experiments, as well as by comparing their spectroscopic data as reported in the literature. Compounds 1 and 2 were evaluated for their leishmanicidal activity using the Colorimetric method-XXT. Compound 1 showed a significant leishmanicidal activity against Leishmania amazonensis and L. braziliensis (IC50 values 39.6 and 27.9 μM, respectively) as compared to miltefosine (12.5 and 12.0 μM, respectively), a currently used agent to treat leishmaniosis. While compound 2 was inactive against both stains tested with IC50 values >50μM compared with the same agent. Compounds 3-12 were not assayed for leishmanicidal activity. This is the first study reporting the above-mentioned activity of onopordopicrin (1). The results could suggest that compound 1 is a promising lead structure to treat leishmaniosis. (Less)


Creating one's own games has been the main motivation for many people to learn programming. But the barrier to learn a general purpose programming language is very high, especially if some positive results can only be expected after having manually written more than 100 lines of code. With this paper we first motivate potential users by showing that one can create classic board- and arcade games like Lights Out, TicTacToe, or Pacman within the playful and constructivist visual learning environment EToys dragging together only a few lines of code. Then we present recurring idioms which helped to develop these games


Water is a vital resource for irrigated agricultural production. Its availability and accessibility are critical for alleviating poverty and achieving food security in rural households. However, smallholder irrigated agriculture in South Africa faces limited water supply emanating from scheme governance problems, with weak institutional arrangements that fail to equitably and effectively govern water resources. South African water policy has been transforming over the years. However, statutory laws remain unknown in smallholder irrigation schemes. This study sought to assess farmer awareness of water governance and identify the determinants of farmer awareness of water governance dimensions across gender dimensions in Mooi River, Tugela Ferry, and Ndumo irrigation schemes. The study employed principal component analysis to generate water governance indices, that is, formal institutions, the existence and effectiveness of scheme constitutions, scheme committees and enforcement of informal rules in the scheme. The ordinary least square regression technique was then used to identify factors determining farmer awareness of formal and informal water institutions in the three irrigation schemes. The findings suggest that formal water institutions are unknown and factors such as household characteristics, scheme location, stakeholder participation and involvement in scheme decision-making processes significantly influence awareness of governance. Therefore, there is a need to raise farmer awareness of formal water institutions and to strengthen the informal institutions which are functional, recognised and in line with irrigation management transfer.


LEDGF/p75 interacts with DNA/protein to regulate gene expression and function. Despite the recognized diversity of function of LEDGF/p75, knowledge of its transregulation is in its infancy. Here we report that LEDGF/p75 gene is TATA-less, contains GC-rich cis elements and is transcriptionally regulated by Sp1 involving small ubiquitin-like modifier (Sumo1). Using different cell lines, we showed that Sp1 overexpression increased the level of LEDGF/p75 protein and mRNA expression in a concentration-dependent fashion. In contrast, RNA interference depletion of intrinsic Sp1 or treatment with artemisinin, a Sp1 inhibitor, reduced expression of LEDGF/p75, suggesting Sp1-mediated regulation of LEDGF/p75. In silico analysis disclosed three evolutionarily conserved, putative Sp1 sites within LEDGF/p75 proximal promoter (−170/+1 nt). DNA-binding and transactivation assays using deletion and point mutation constructs of LEDGF/p75 promoter-CAT revealed that all Sp1 sites (−50/−43, −109/−102 and −146/−139) differentially regulate LEDGF/p75. Cotransfection studies with Sp1 in Drosophila cells that were Sp1-deficient, showed increased LEDGF/p75 transcription, while in lens epithelial cells (LECs) promoter activity was inhibited by artemisinin. These events were correlated with levels of endogenous Sp1-dependent LEDGF/p75 expression, and higher resistance to UVB-induced cell death. ChIP and transactivation assays showed that Sumoylation of Sp1 repressed its transcriptional activity as evidenced through its reduced binding to GC-box and reduced ability to activate LEDGF/p75 transcription. As whole, results revealed the importance of Sp1 in regulating expression of LEDGF/p75 gene and add to our knowledge of the factors that control LEDGF/p75 within cellular microenvironments, potentially providing a foundation for LEDGF/p75 expression-based transcription therapy.


Code-based cryptography is an area of classical cryptography in which cryptographic primitives rely on hard problems and trapdoor functions related to linear error-correcting codes. Since its inception in 1978, the area has produced the McEliece and the Niederreiter cryptosystems, multiple digital signature schemes, identification schemes and code-based hash functions. All of these are believed to be resistant to attacks by quantum computers. Hence, code-based cryptography represents a post-quantum alternative to the widespread number-theoretic systems. This thesis summarises recent developments in the field of code-based cryptography, with a particular emphasis on code-based signature schemes. After a brief introduction and analysis of the McEliece and the Niederreiter cryptosystems, we discuss the currently unresolved issue of constructing a practical, yet provably secure signature scheme. A detailed analysis is provided for the Courtois, Finiasz and Sendrier signature scheme, along with the mCFS and parallel CFS variations. Finally, we discuss a recent proposal by Preetha et al. that attempts to solve the issue of provable security, currently failing in the CFS scheme case, by randomizing the public key construct. We conclude that, while the proposal is not yet practical, it represents an important advancement in the search for an ideal code-based signature scheme.


OBJECTIVES
We investigated trends in national childhood mortality, racial disparities in child mortality, and the effect of Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) eligibility expansions on child mortality.

METHODS
We analyzed child mortality by state, race, and age using the National Center for Health Statistics' multiple cause of death files over 20 years, from 1985 to 2004.

RESULTS
Child mortality continued to decline in the United States, but racial disparities in mortality remained. Declines in child mortality (ages 1-17 years) were substantial for both natural (disease-related) and external (injuries, homicide, and suicide) causes for children of all races/ethnicities, although Black-White mortality ratios remained unchanged during the study period. Expanded Medicaid and SCHIP eligibility was significantly related to the decline in external-cause mortality; the relationship between natural-cause mortality and Medicaid or SCHIP eligibility remains unclear. Eligibility expansions did not affect relative racial disparities in child mortality.

CONCLUSIONS
Although the study provides some evidence that public insurance expansions reduce child mortality, future research is needed on the effect of new health insurance on child health and on factors causing relative racial disparities.


The clinical course of a patient with bilateral carotid-cavernous fistulae is described. The aetiology and pathophysiology of bilateral fistulae are considered. A review of the literature on this rare lesion is followed by an appraisal of the problems confronting successful surgical management.


OITA's summary of the engagement effort to solicit input on priorities to consider in developing their FY 2018-2019 NPM Guidance.


Following amputation of the eye of Strombus luhuanus , a morphologically equivalent one is regenerated. Early regenerates exhibited a relatively simple, single-peaked electroretinogram (ERG) that progressively matured to display two 'on' peaks, a 'steady state' during sustained illumination, and repetitive 'off' potentials. ERGs of regenerates were dependent on stimulus intensity, wavelength, light adaptation and temperature, as are those of mature eyes. Intracellularly recorded light-evoked depolarizations from retinas of early stages of regeneration tended to be simpler in waveform than those of more mature stages. In addition, certain cells exhibited light-evoked and electrically evoked action potentials, while others were hyperpolarized by light. Optic nerves of eyes in early stages of regeneration showed only 'on' activity, while those of later stages also exhibited 'off' responses.


We present an approach of using methods of database reverse engineering and data transformation in determining the multiplicities of associations in object-oriented analysis and modeling (OOAM). OOAM methodology is being used more and more in the development for IT applications of larger sizes. Creating correct object models is becoming important for ensuring that the design for the application is sound. Determining multiplicities of associations among object classes is a key part of creating the object model. The proposed approach is useful for information technology (IT) projects that migrate or integrate old database applications to new database applications. Many IT projects of large scale nowadays are of this type, because companies want to preserve as much as possible the capitals that they invested for old database applications. Many IT projects of large scale more or less involve with migrating or integrating some old database applications.


This paper proposes a locally implicit latency insertion method (LILIM), which is a suitable method for the fast simulation of an arbitrary shaped power distribution network (PDN) modeled by triangular meshes. First, an efficient modeling method based on triangular mesh is reviewed and we refer to the limitation of the LIM for the meshed PDN analysis. Next, in order to overcome the problem, we formulate the LILIM by combining the efficient modeling and the locally implicit schemes. Finally, the numerical results show that the LILIM is applicable and efficient for the simulation of the PDN analysis.


textabstractNature-based solutions promoting green and blue urban areas have significant potential to decrease the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of cities in light of climatic change. They can thereby help to mitigate climate change-induced impacts and serve as proactive adaptation options for municipalities. We explore the various contexts in which nature-based solutions are relevant for climate mitigation and adaptation in urban areas, identify indicators for assessing the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and related knowledge gaps. In addition, we explore existing barriers and potential opportunities for increasing the scale and effectiveness of nature-based solution implementation. The results were derived from an inter- and transdisciplinary workshop with experts from research, municipalities, policy, and society. As an outcome of the workshop discussions and building on existing evidence, we highlight three main needs for future science and policy agendas when dealing with nature-based solutions: (i) produce stronger evidence on nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation and raise awareness by increasing implementation; (ii) adapt for governance challenges in implementing nature-based solutions by using reflexive approaches, which implies bringing together new networks of society, nature-based solution ambassadors, and practitioners; (iii) consider socio-environmental justice and social cohesion when implementing nature-based solutions by using integrated governance approaches that take into account an integrative and transdisciplinary participation of diverse actors. Taking these needs into account, nature-based solutions can serve as climate mitigation and adaptation tools that produce additional cobenefits for societal well-being, thereby serving as strong investment options for sustainable urban planning.


Social workers working to protect children face the prospect of making very finely balanced judgements, often on the basis of incomplete information. Based on doctoral research into sense-making by social workers, this paper explores aspects of the tipping point, i.e. where the categorization of a child's situation changes, potentially leading to a very different response to their needs. Those aspects include identifying the triggers for, and consequences of, the tipping point, and being aware that the tipping point being reached may have to do with changes in the internal world of the worker as well as changes in the circumstances of the family.

This paper stresses the need for a more nuanced understanding of the tipping point, and emphasizes the need to take account of the processes of decision-making, and of looking at both inter- and intra-personal components of those processes. Further, it is argued that a cautious attitude requires to be taken towards technical–rational solutions and that there is a real need to place professional judgement and consideration of the tacit dimension at the heart of the child protection process.


Electroless Nickel/Electroless Palladium/Immersion Gold (ENEPIG), which has been used in component packaging, has been gaining attention as a surface finish for printed wiring boards. The primary role of a printed wiring board surface finish is to provide a solderable surface for assembly, creating a reliable solder interconnect. With regards to reliability, the increased use of mobile electronics has resulted in the need to consider the ability of interconnects to withstand repeated mechanical shocks. This paper examines the drop reliability of both SnPb and SAC305 interconnects formed on ENEPIG finished printed wiring boards. For comparison, the drop reliability test results for similar boards with Immersion Silver (ImAg) board finish are included. Test boards include BGA and resistor packages. The boards are dropped 500 times to achieve failure across the components. Failure analysis revealed that the dominant failure mode for BGA packages on the ENEPIG finish was cracking in the solder balls at the component interface, while for the ImAg finish the dominant failure mode was cratering in the board laminate below the solder pad. For the resistor packages, cracking through the solder joint at the component interface was the dominant failure mode for both the ENEPIG and ImAg finishes. The drop results indicate that both finishes are suitable for systems that could experience mechanical shock due to drop, with components soldered onto ENEPIG with a SAC 305 solder having the highest survivability. The combination of SnPb and ImAg was found to be superior to SAC 305 and ImAg.© 2013 ASME


The increase in red cell 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) concentration during mouse postnatal development is highly correlated with the decrease in red cell pyruvate kinase (PK) activity. Immunoneutralization curves for newborn and adult red cell PK are parallel, which suggests that the higher PK activity in newborn mouse red cells is due primarily to a greater quantity of PK protein. Mouse newborn and adult red cell PK also differ in mobility on cellulose acetate electrophoresis (pH 7.5). This is true for two strains of mice (C57BL/6 and IS/Cam) whose adult red cell PK electrophoretic patterns differ (single vs. double bands, respectively). Trypsinization does not alter the electrophoretic mobilities of C57BL/6 newborn and adult red cell PK, but it does convert the IS/Cam adult PK to a single band of greater mobility than the single band of C57BL/6 adult PK. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that mice have structurally different forms of PK for newborn and adult red cells, analogous to the fetal gamma- and adult beta-globins of humans.


Background: With respect to the heat stress-induced complications in environment with high temperature such as bakeries, we designed a study to detect heat stress on bakeries in Kashan city. Material and methods: For this descriptive study, 175 randomly selected bakers in 100 bakeries in Kashan were enrolled. To determine environment heat stress, we used WBGT instrument and WBGT indices. The measures were taken by standard ISO 7234 method in the hottest hours of summer. Variants such as baking technique, type of bakery, type of ventilation and bakery space were evaluated. Results: Of 100 bakeries, 51 used machinery technique and 49 had traditional technique bakeries. Of 175 bakers, 107 (61.1%) worked in heat stress situation. The rate of this stress was 54.2% and 45.8% in machinery and traditional bakeries, respectively. Exposed to heat in traditional bakeries were 3.3 fold more than machinery bakeries. Conclusions: We are worried about heat stress in bakeries of Kashan. This situation was more pronounced in traditional bakeries. We suggest changing traditional technique to modern bakeries.


Mobile trading system is financial software for Smartphones that enables investors to make their buy or sell from a mobile phone that has internet connectivity. The application helps the investors to do their financial tasks from anywhere and anytime. The penetration of Smartphones and internet usage has made more and more people use this application. Performance of the application depends on the quality of the app. Similar to earlier studies of website quality (WebQual) and Smartphone application quality (AppQual), this paper looks at developing a scale for measuring the design quality of the mobile trading application software for the Smartphones.


Injury is one of the common occurrence one can observe in most of the sports and games, which can occur either by accident or intentionally. There are many reasons for the factors occurrence of injuries and that psychological aspect can be considered as one of the factors. Therefore, the objective of the study is to determine whether mental toughness can be used as psychological predictors of athletic injuries in Malaysian football players involved in the 2001 Malaysian Professional Football League. A descriptive method of research was used to determine the psychological predictors of injury among the selected state team players. A pilot study was carried out to test the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Cluster sampling was used to get the actual number of subjects. Based on this sampling method, all teams were clustered into five groups (North, South, East, West and East Malaysia). From these five groups, two teams from each cluster were randomly picked. All players in each team were recruited (25 players each team x 10 teams = 250 players). Questionnaires, observation, and interview were the instruments used in determining psychological predictors of injuries. Chi-square test was used to know the association between injured and non-injured players and injuries. Then, univariate and Multivariate Logistic Regression was also used to identify the psychological predictors of injuries by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 11.0 for windows. This study indicated that majority of the Malaysian professional football players involved in Malaysia Football League have problems with mental toughness. Most of them have poor emotional stability with poor impulse control. Analysis also showed that these players had the highest incidence of injuries. In conclusion, the results indicated that mental toughness can be used as one of the psychological predictor of injuries in Malaysian Professional Football Players. It is recommended that these players attend awareness programme and also educate them with stress and mental toughness.


Recurrent severe macroeconomic crises have not allowed the Turkish economy to realise its growth potential over the last two decades. The stabilisation programme launched after the latest crisis in the spring of 2001 has so far been successful in the sense that inflation has fallen from over 70% to less than 10% and public debt is declining slowly as a % of GDP. The key task now is to transform this hard won stability into a normal state of affairs, i.e. to stabilise stabilisation. This paper addresses several aspects of this overall task. Section 1 gives a brief overview of what has been achieved so far. It then turns to the key variable that determines Turkey's vulnerability to shocks, namely the debt-to-GDP ratio and its dynamics. Section 3 then deals with external vulnerability: How can Turkey import capital to accelerate its convergence with the EU without accumulating a crippling foreign debt burden? FDI might play a crucial role here (as it did, and still does, for the new member countries). Section 4 then deals with the quality of the institutions that determine the performance of the Turkish economy in a European context. Section 5 concludes.


Protest bids are often excluded during analysis of contingent valuation method data. It is suggested that this procedure might introduce significant bias. Protest bids are often registered by respondents who may actually place a higher- or lower-than-average value on the commodity in question but refuse to pay on the basis of ethical or other reasons. Exclusion of protest bids may therefore bias willingness to pay (WTP) results, but the direction of bias is indeterminate a priori.


Data mining has been defined as "The nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data". Clustering is the automated search for group of related observations in a data set. The K-Means method is one of the most commonly used clustering techniques for a variety of applications. This paper proposes a method for making the K-Means algorithm more effective and efficient; so as to get better clustering with reduced complexity. In this paper, the most delegate algorithms K-Means and proposed K-Means were examined and analyzed based on their basic approach. The best algorithm in each category was found out based on their performance using uniform distribution data points. The accuracy of the algorithm was investigated during different execution of the program on the input data points. The elapsed time taken by proposed efficient K-Means is less than K-Means algorithm


Results and models of this paper are based on a strikingly new empirical observation: long maturity forward rates between bilateral currency pairs of the US, Germany, UK, and Switzerland are stationary. Based on this result, we suggest a new explanation for the UIP-puzzle maintaining rational expectations and risk neutrality. The model builds on the interaction of foreign exchange and fixed income markets. Ex ante short run and long run UIP and the EHTS is assumed. We show that ex post shocks to the term structure could explain the behavior of the nominal exchange rate including its volatility and the failure of ex post short UIP regressions. We present evidence on ex post validity of long run UIP and strikingly new evidence on the stationarity of the long forward exchange rates of major currencies. We set up, calibrate and simulate a stylized model that well captures the observed properties of spot exchange rates and UIP regressions of major currencies. We define the notion of yield parity and test its empirical performance for monthly series of major currencies with favorable results.


Up to now, the activity of D.A.O. and M.A.O. in the gastric mucosa of rat stomach has not been yet detected. Employing a radioisotopic method, modified by us, it was possible to detect the activity of both enzymes in sufficient amount to study their topographic and intracellular localization. Topographically, the antral region showed the highest activity for the two enzymes, being the D.A.O. 20 times stronger than the M.A.O. The intracellular localization of M.A.O. seems to be in the lysosomes but the D.A.O. looks like to be homogeneously distributed, except in the mitochondrial fraction. The simple demonstration of gastric intracellular distribution of these enzymes in the rat stomach should stimulate further investigations to elucidate the metabolism of histamine and its enzymatic regulations.


Particle formation processes are important in many industries, for example, the manufacture of pigments, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and foods. Most would benefit from improved control achievable with on-line measurement in real time of particle size, shape and composition. In spectral extinction, an electromagnetic beam is attenuated as it passes through a particulate suspension. The degree of extinction depends on the wavelength of the radiation and on the particles' size, shape and refractive index. At low concentrations, extinction is directly proportional to concentration and generally it continues to increase monotonically with concentration at concentrations up to ∼25% by volume. Spectral extinction has been shown to be a feasible method of obtaining the particle size distribution for spheres of known refractive index over a range of particle sizes. However, the calculations required to invert the extinction spectrum into a particle size distribution are time-consuming and are not always successful. A neural network has been trained to identify mean and standard deviation of log normal particle size distributions from extinction measurements over a range of wavelengths. Tests have shown the method to be effective over particle mean sizes from 90 nm to 1000 nm using wavelengths from 350 nm to 900 nm. Narrow particle size distributions can be measured over a wider range of sizes. It has been established that surprisingly few extinction measurement inputs are sufficient to obtain reasonably accurate determinations of log normal distribution parameters. Improved accuracy was achieved by including the wavelength for maximum extinction as an input to the neural network.


This case comprises several primitive tasks that can be solved straight away with most transformation tools. The aim is to cover the most important kinds of primitive operations on models, i.e. create, read, update and delete (CRUD). To this end, tasks such as a constant transformation, a model-to-text transformation, a very basic migration transformation or diverse simple queries or in-place operations on graphs have to be solved. The motivation for this case is that the results expectedly will be very instructive for beginners. Also, it is really hard to compare transformation languages along complex cases, because the complexity of the respective case might hide the basic language concepts and constructs.


The purpose of this article is to show case the corporate life style with the living ambience in society with the perspectives of social, economical, legal, and political and so on and so forth. The story was about six people working in a call center. The present paper focuses on the living style of people especially in a corporate world with the characters such as Vroom, Isha, Radhika, Syam, Bakshi and Priyanka. The setting of the novel One Night @ Call Centre is a resemblance of the posh culture of the 21st century. All these characters make the readers to be in a comfort zone by showing the contemporary issues such as work stress, love, night shifts, friendship, In-laws restrictions, Luxurious life style, Craze for fanciful life. In a nutshell it is a story of almost lost love, thwarted ambitions, negligence of family affection, stress of a patriarchal set up, an insight on the lifestyle of youth of this country and the work ambience of a globalized office. Chetan Bhagat succeeds in representing such an advanced as well as corporate style of life through all these characters by narrating the real life situations among this group of people practically. The novel also stresses on the love affairs as well as increasing rate of the divorce as well as break ups in love which are become a common issues now a days. There are certain other aspects where the writer showcases the elements of exploitation of the educated employees in call centers in this novel of One Night @ Call Centre, which are mainly highlighted in this article with few relevant examples.


2-Azahypoxanthine (AHX) and imidazole-4-carboxamide (ICA) are fairy-ring causing compounds from a mushroom-forming fungus, Lepista sordida, and 2-aza-8-oxohypoxanthine (AOH) is a metabolite of AHX in plants. However, the safety of AOH had not yet been elucidated. In this study, we focused on AOH and performed safety evaluations of the compound using in vitro and human patch tests for cosmetic applications. In the Ames test, AOH was not mutagenic to any of the test bacterial strains (> 5000 μg/plate). In vitro skin irritation and skin sensitization studies using reconstructed human epidermis and peptides that contained lysine and cysteine showed that AOH was not a skin irritant (cell viability > 50%) and did not exhibit skin sensitization. This compound also did not exhibit cytotoxicity under ultravioletor sham-irradiation in the alternative phototoxicity test using BALB/c 3T3 cells (mean photo effect < 0.1) and no skin reaction was observed in the patch test on human skin. Thus, we concluded that AOH is safe as a cosmetic ingredient. This is the first study in which safety evaluation tests were per-


The Subtropical Convergence Agulhas Retroflection Cruise, from February 12 to March 4, 1987, provided an opportunity for studying variability of surface heat fluxes and marine boundary layer modification within an ocean area where few atmospheric measurements have been made. From 3-hourly surface observations it has been ascertained that surface heat flux processes are enhanced under cold air outbreak, postfrontal synoptic conditions and over warmer ocean areas. A maximum turbulent heat loss of 828 W/m2, 4 times the climatological value, was found. Over the cooler Subtropical Convergence waters and over the Agulhas Bank, heat fluxes were comparatively low. Two transect lines were performed across the Subtropical Convergence-Agulhas SST front. In both cases, air temperatures, dew point temperatures, and particularly wind speeds increased over the warmer water owing to enhanced vertical mixing resulting from oceanic heat losses. The second transect revealed marked vertical shear of the zonal wind. The essential elements for cyclogenesis, namely, low static stability and strong low level baroclinicity, were found to be characteristic of the region.


Currently, digital technology makes people can do online shopping using e-commerce. Sales of FMCG products through e-commerce websites are currently growing rapidly and will continue to improve in the following years. When using a website, user experience becomes more important than any other products or services. However, from previous research, there is still usability problem when a user using the official store for FMCG product in an e-commerce website. This study aims to evaluate the official store's user interface using the user experience approach with performance metrics, self-reported metrics, behavioral metrics, and issue-based metrics that assess performance, perception, behavior, and issue that the user perceives when interacting with the website. Based on the evaluation results, the dimensions of ease of use, interface quality, and satisfaction was not good enough, so that strategy and interface design recommendation are done.


The waste and recycling sector is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic global sectors, and the professional recognition of the industry and those who work within it is an essential part of this development. This paper compares the relative professionalisation of the waste management sector in the UK against that of Queensland (Australia). Whilst the literature on professionalisation is extensive, there is a growing body of work which questions the parameters required for professionalisation to occur. The size and perceived levels of development of the industry, the supporting measures such as the provision of industry associations, training and academia (including research) are clearly differentiated between these two countries, and whilst existing literature provides the corresponding link to the differences in professionalisation between countries, several factors remain unaccounted for. Whilst this paper identifies the critical elements under which the UK's waste management sector achieved professionalisation. It is concluded that the waste management sector in Queensland will not progress to professionalisation under the same characteristics as those in the UK; rather professionalisation will be achieved under a new model.


This paper discusses the general control problems of dc/dc converters connected in series at the input. As the input voltage is shared by a number of dc/dc converters, the resulting converter relieves the voltage stresses of individual devices and hence is suitable for high input-voltage applications. At the output side, parallel connection provides current sharing and is suitable for high output-current applications. Moreover, series connection at the output side is also possible, resulting in output voltage sharing. Theoretically, from a power balance consideration, one can show that fulfillment of input-voltage sharing implies fulfillment of output-current or of output-voltage sharing, and vice versa. However, the presence of right-half-plane poles can cause instability when the sharing is implemented at the output side. As a consequence, control should be directed to input-voltage sharing in order to ensure a stable sharing of the input voltage and of the output current (parallel connection at output) or output voltage (series connection at output). In this paper, general problems in input-series connected converter systems are addressed. Minimal control structures are then derived and some practical design considerations are discussed in detail. Illustrative examples are given for addressing these general control considerations. Finally, experimental prototypes are built to validate these considerations.


High resolution, optical satellite sensors are boosted to a new era in the last few years, because satellite stereo images at half meter or even 30cm resolution are available. Nowadays, high resolution satellite image data have been commonly used for Digital Surface Model (DSM) generation and 3D reconstruction. It is common that the Rational Polynomial Coefficients (RPCs) provided by the vendors have rough precision and there is no ground control information available to refine the RPCs. Therefore, we present two relative orientation methods by using corresponding image points only: the first method will use quasi ground control information, which is generated from the corresponding points and rough RPCs, for the bias-compensation model; the second method will estimate the relative pointing errors on the matching image and remove this error by an affine model. Both methods do not need ground control information and are applied for the entire image. To get very dense point clouds, the Semi-Global Matching (SGM) method is an efficient tool. However, before accomplishing the matching process the epipolar constraints are required. In most conditions, satellite images have very large dimensions, contrary to the epipolar geometry generation and image resampling, which is usually carried out in small tiles. This paper also presents a modified piecewise epipolar resampling method for the entire image without tiling. The quality of the proposed relative orientation and epipolar resampling method are evaluated, and finally sub-pixel accuracy has been achieved in our work.


Abstract 1166 [][1]

Background: 70–80% of patients with ITP respond to initial corticosteroid-based treatment, but almost all experience recurrent thrombocytopenia requiring further therapy. Rituximab is effective in inducing responses in about 50% of patients with ITP, but most do not experience sustained remission. Strategies to improve the efficacy of rituximab would be of value. Cheng and colleagues have shown that a single 4 day course of dexamethasone is effective in newly diagnosed ITP, and GIMEMA demonstrated that multiple courses are even more efficacious. Zaja and colleagues reported that the combination of rituximab with a single course of dexamethasone is superior to dexamethasone alone in previously untreated patients. Given the activity of these two drugs, patients at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) with ITP have been treated with a combination of standard rituximab and 2–4 cycles of pulse dexamethasone (R+Dex) given at 2 week intervals. We preliminarily reported results of 14 patients treated with this combination; we have expanded this cohort to 34 patients to obtain a broader evaluation of efficacy and safety of this therapeutic approach in ITP.

Methods: Patients who had received rituximab concurrently with multiple courses of pulse dexamethasone were retrospectively identified. Response was initially assessed at 8 weeks after initiation of therapy. Complete remission (CR) was defined as platelet count greater than or equal to 100×109/L, and partial remission (PR) as platelet count of 50–100×109/L. Variables were compared either by chi-square or fisher exact test including duration of ITP at greater or less than one year, age of patients, prior therapy, and lymphocyte subsets. The study was approved by the WCMC Institutional Review Board.

Results: Thirty-four ITP patients received concurrent rituximab and pulse dexamethasone. All patients were treated for platelet count less than 30 or inability to discontinue chronic therapy such as corticosteroids or thrombopoietin receptor agonist. Median age was 21 years (range 2–63 years), and median time since diagnosis of ITP was 12 months (range 1–180 months). All patients but one had previously been treated, with median of 2 prior therapies (range 0–7). Thirty-two of 34 patients received 4 infusions of standard dose rituximab (the other 2 received 2 and 3 infusions). All patients received between one and 4 cycles of dexamethasone, with most (22/34) receiving 3 cycles. Twenty-four patients responded at 8 weeks from start of therapy or later (71% ORR). Best response was CR in 20 patients (59%) and PR in 4 (12%). Two responding patients relapsed to no response at 3 and 6 months, and 3 additional patients relapsed from CR but maintained PR at last follow up. At median follow up of 8 months, 22 patients (65%) remain in response: CR in 47% and PR in 18%. None of the variables tested was predictive of response; there was a trend toward increased response rate in adults (p=0.13). Adverse events related to R+Dex were mostly mild, with most common toxicities including fatigue, headache, infusion-related events, and gastrointestinal upset. Dexamethasone was often poorly tolerated. One patient experienced colitis requiring hospitalization. That patient and one other interrupted therapy for AE's.

Conclusion: Rituximab plus multiple courses of dexamethasone is active with manageable toxicity in patients with ITP. This regimen merits further exploration in a prospective trial.

Disclosures: Elstrom: Genentech: Speakers Bureau. Off Label Use: Rituximab is approved for use in NHL, CLL and RA. Bussel: Portola: Consultancy; Eisai: Consultancy, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding; GlaxoSmithKline: Consultancy, Equity Ownership, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Amgen: Equity Ownership, Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Cangene: Research Funding; Genzyme: Research Funding; Immunomedics: Research Funding; Ligand: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Shionogi: Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; Sysmex: Research Funding.

 [1]: #fn-2


Behavioral flexibility is important for animals to adapt to novel situations in their environment. It has been suggested that birds living in complex environments (e.g., urban areas) should be more flexible than conspecifics in less complex environments. Birds are a particularly well studied group, where novel foraging problems are used to assess flexibility and problem-solving performance of urban and rural animals of the same species; however, this is most frequently done in a lab setting with wild-caught birds originating from different habitats. Using a field-based method to test problem-solving performance should give additional insight into other factors influencing bird s' flexibility . For my thesis research, to test birds' neophobia of a novel feeder and to assess problem-solving performance of songbirds in the wild, I conducted a four-phase field-based study in urban and rural areas, including both backyard and forest habitats. The phases included i) habituation, ii) initial problem-solving task, iii) color association task, and iv) reversal task. Birds' u se of the feeder largely varied across time and habitats. Backyard birds used the feeder during the habituation phase in most sites (urban and rural) but stopped visiting the feeder once problem-solving was required to access food, suggesting that motivation plays a role in problem-solving and that birds' motivation differs across sites . Use of feeders by urban birds was low and may be due to the high presence of mammalian competitors (e.g., squirrels and raccoons). Only birds in rural forests used the feeder throughout the study, and generally solved the puzzle more quickly over time. Factors influencing feeder use, such as neophobia or competition, creates challenges for testing cognition in the wild, and opens opportunities to study other factors influencing urbanizations' effects on problem-solving.


In this study we demonstrate how we interconnect three different ontologies, the BioAssay Ontology (BAO), LINCS Information FramEwork ontology (LIFEo), and the Drug Target Ontology (DTO). The three ontologies are built and maintained for three different projects: BAO for the BioAssay Ontology Project, LIFEo for the Library of Integrated Network-Based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) project, and DTO for the Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG) project. DTO is a new ontology that aims to formally describe drug target knowledge relevant to drug discovery. LIFEo is an application ontology to describe information in the LIFE software system. BAO is a highly accessed NCBO ontology; it has been extended formally to describe several LINCS assays. The three ontologies use the same principle architecture that allows for re-use and easy integration of ontology modules and instance data. Using the formal definitions in DTO, LIFEo, and BAO and data from various resources one can quickly identify disease-relevant and tissuespecific genes, proteins, and prospective small molecules. We show a simple use case example demonstrating knowledge-based linking of life science data with the potential to empower drug discovery. Keywords— drug discovery; bioinformatics; cheminformatics


The toxicity of cancer chemotherapy is among the most important factors limiting its use. Clear delineation and communication of benefits and risks is an essential component of treatment decisions. Gastrointestinal toxicity during chemotherapy is frequent and contributes to dose reductions, delays and cessation of cancer treatment. The development of intervention strategies that could eliminate an expected side effect of chemotherapy is vital. Physiologic changes that can increase the toxicity of chemotherapy are decreased stem cell reserves, decreased ability to repair cell damage, progressive loss of body protein, and accumulation of body fat. Symptoms only arise when physiological functions are altered. The gastrointestinal symptoms arising during cancer chemotherapy can often be cured if newly acquired, and if gastrointestinal physiological deficits are identified. Developing new chemotherapy regimens with similar efficacy but less toxicity should be a priority for future research.


A recent significant advance in our understanding of cavitating flows is the importance of the interactions between bubbles in determining the coherent motions, dynamic and acoustic, of the bubbles in a cavitating flow. This lecture will review recent experimental and computational findings which confirm that, under certain conditions, the collapse of clouds of cavitating bubbles involves the formation of bubbly shock waves and that the focussing of these shock waves is responsible for enhanced noise and potential damage in cloud cavitation. The recent experiments of Reisman et al. (1998) complements the work begun by Morch and Kedrinskii and their co-workers and demonstrates that the very large impulsive pressures generated in bubbly cloud cavitation are caused by shock waves generated by the collapse mechanics of the bubbly cavitatting mixture. Two particular types of shocks were observed: large ubiquitous global pressure pulses caused by the separation and collapse of indiviual clouds from the downstream
end of the cavitation and much more localized local pressure pulses which occur much more randomly within the bubbly cloud.

One of the first efforts to model cloud cavitation was due to vanWijngaarden (1964) who linked basic continuity and momentum equations for the mixture with a Rayleigh-Plesset equation for the bubble size in order to study the behavior of a bubbly fluid layer next to a solid wall. In the 1980s there followed a series of papers on the linearized dynamics of clouds of bubbles (for example, d'Agostino et al. 1983, 1988, 1989). But highly non-linear processes such as the formation of shock waves require computational efforts which are capable of resolving these phenomena in both time and space. A valuable first effort to do this was put forward by Kubota et al. (1992) but by limiting the collapse of individual bubbles they prevented the formation of the large pressure pulses associated with bubble collapse. Wang et al. (1994, 1995) and Reisman et al. (1998) present accurate calculations of a simple spherical cloud subject to a low pressure episode and show that, for a large enough initial void fraction, the
collapse occurs as a result of the formation of a shock wave on the surface of the cloud and the strengthening of this shock by geometric focussing as the shock propagates inward.

This review will discuss other efforts to investigate these phenomena computationally. Wang and Brennen (1997, 1998) have extended the one-dimensional methodology used for the spherical cloud to investigate the steady flow of a bubbly, cavitating mixture through a onvergent/divergent nozzle. Under certain parametric conditions, the results are seen to model the dynamics of flashing within the nozzle. Moreover, it is clear from these steady flow studies that there are certain conditions in which no steady state solution exists and it is speculated that the flow under those conditions may be inherently unstable. Of course, it has frequently been experimentally observed that cavitating nozzle flows can become unstable and oscillate violently.

Finally, we will also describe recent efforts (Colonius et al. 1998) to extend the code to two and three space dimensions. A simple example of such a calculation is the collision of a plane pressure pulse with a cylindrical or spherical cloud of bubbles. When the pressure pulse is negative, the growth and subsequent collapse of the cloud is particularly interesting and is seen to involve the formation and propagation of a shock waves within the cloud. Moreover, the non-linear scatterring of the pressure waves into the far field provides valuable
information.

The long term objective is to develop computational techniques and experience which would allow practical calculation of much more complex bubbly flows such as occur on hydrofoils, on propellers and in pumps where there is a real need for CFD methodologies which allow calculation of the noise and damage potential of these flows.


Tuberculosis as one of the most important infectious diseases in the world is considered lethal. About a third of the world is infected by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. 95 percent of cases and 98 percent risks of death from tuberculosis occur in developing countries. This study investigated the prevalence of Tuberculosis infection among health workers and office workers in Urmia University of Medical Sciences.

Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional analytical study with analytical aims was conducted in 2008. 299 health workers from the educational hospitals of Urmia (Imam Khomeini, Motahari, and Taleghani) and 110 office staff were selected through menu sampling step into a class were studied. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Pearson Chi-square test.

Results: The prevalence of tuberculosis infection in health workers was 37.5% and office staff 18%. Statistically compared in terms of infection was different in two groups. There was no significant association in TB infection prevalence between medical staff with high and low exposure. Between the hours of practice per week, history of BCG vaccination, BCG Oscar size, sex and size of PPD diameter there was no significant association. There was statistically significant correlation between increasing experience of practice in the health care system and PPD adoration size.

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of tuberculosis infection in health workers compared with general staff was high, this difference was statistically significant.


Abstract The Wessex basins were formed during Mesozoic extension and were subsequently modified by Cretaceous uplift and Alpine inversion events. The basin geometry and evolution of the area is strongly controlled by the long-lived fault systems which cross the area. Two primary plays are recognized within the Wessex basins; the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone and the Jurassic Bridport Sandstone. These plays contribute the vast majority of the recoverable reserves in the area. The Triassic play consists of a Sherwood Sandstone Group reservoir, a Liassic mudstone source rock and a Mercia Mudstone Group regional seal. Hydrocarbons were generated from the Late Jurassic to Tertiary in the main kitchen area and migrated into a range of fault-related traps. The main risks on the play are reservoir quality together with the timing and the route of hydrocarbon migration into valid traps. The Jurassic play consists of the Bridport Sandstone Formation which is also sourced from the Liassic mudstones and the top seal is provided by the Fuller's Earth Formation. The dominant risk on this play is the extent and quality of reservoir facies. In the onshore domain trap definition, using two-dimensional seismic data, is an additional risk on both plays. The basins of southern England have been explored for hydrocarbons for over 50 years. The initial phase of exploration focused on the onshore and tested anticlinal structures which had been mapped at surface. Onshore activity reached a peak in the successful drilling by British Gas of the Jurassic and Triassic reservoirs in the Wytch Farm Field in 1973 and 1977, respectively. The first offshore well in the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) was drilled off Lulworth Cove by BP in 1963. More recently, offshore exploration concentrated on fault-related traps within or on the edges of the Portland-Wight Basin. Although offshore activity has been reduced in the last 5 years, the 14th UKCS Licensing Round rekindled interest in the area as companies were awarded previously unlicensed acreage for exploration. Successful future exploration in the Wessex basins will require a more complete understanding of reservoir development and three-dimensional basin evolution. Future drilling will focus on untested fault bounded prospects and stratigraphic traps with suitable reservoir quality.


2012 was the 30th anniversary of Touch, an innovative independent music-publishing project founded by Wozencroft to transform the idea of a record label by positioning equal focus on art direction, artist management and curation. Produced for this anniversary, the double LP and CD Touch 30 Years and Counting showcased each artist/musician working with Touch, alongside design and art direction curated and produced by Wozencroft. The edition of 2000 sold out in 10 days and was reviewed in The Wire in January 2013.

Accompanying the LP, the 'Touch 30' festival, curated by Wozencroft, was held in December 2012 with artists Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, Ryoji Ikeda, Tony Myatt, Peter Saville, Thomas Koner, Biosphere and Hildur Gudnadottir amongst others. In 2012 Wozencroft was commissioned to present a showcase of Touch's live performances and films at the 'Decibel Festival' in Seattle, the world's largest electronic music festival. Wozencroft screened Liquid Music (Wozencroft/Fennesz) in a sold-out Q&A event and hosted a seminar/lecture titled 'The future of the record label' with Jonathan Poneman, head of A&R at the SubPop label, first home to Nirvana. In March 2012 a Touch app was launched for the iPhone, which received coverage in The Guardian, The Wire and numerous online sites.

The 30th anniversary releases, events and activities were developed through research undertaken by Wozencroft to explore and test new business models and music publishing formats in an economic climate characterised by the evaporation of conventional modes of distribution. In the face of 'download culture' and the diminishing role of music business hierarchies, the research foregrounded the sustainability of individual commercial music practices and the hybridisation of publishing identities. The project is catalogued at http://30.touchmusic.org.uk, which also contains documentation of the widespread impact the project has generated on the alternative music scene.


Background: Health behavior theories predominantly focus on conscious, reflective precursors of health behaviors and eschew the possibility of implicit influence. Four studies examined whether behavior priming influences decisions and actions related to diet, exercise, alcohol consumption, and condom use. A fifth study explored whether self-control training moderates the impact of priming on eating behavior. Method: Participants were university staff and students (Ns = 50, 151, 31, 24, and 173 in Studies 1-5, respectively) who were randomly assigned to conditions. Decisions were measured using questionnaires and behavior was measured objectively. Findings: Priming stereotypes, exemplars, or goals had reliable effects on exercise and condom use decisions, mental readiness to drink alcohol, and food intake. Self-control training did not moderate the impact of priming on food intake. Discussion: This research obtained evidence of priming effects on health cognitions and behaviors, but found that self-control training not attenuate priming effects. Implications for dual-process theories of health behavior and for interventions to promote behavior change will be discussed.


Generally, the galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM) of developing countries use two different information representation and retrieval systems to manage bibliographic datasets and cultural-heritage objects. These software-centric systems create different retrieval silos, and end users need to hop from one retrieval interface to another with diverse search techniques for an all-encompassing search. A centrally indexed biblio-cultural information system in place of multiple retrieval silos, as a single-window search mechanism for bibliographic and cultural resources, may help users of GLAM find the required information with ease. This study is an attempt to design a technical framework towards this goal of a unified system of retrieval by applying different domain-specific open-source applications related to a library software ecosystem, and open standards. The methodology, based on open-source software and open standards, may well be adopted by libraries with complex information management needs.


Many aspects of automobile markets have changed significantly over the past decade, from vehicle weigh and power to technology for improvements in fuel economy, fundamentally altering tradeoffs among vehicle characteristics. Further, several significant laws were passed mandating increases in vehicle fuel economy. To understand the impact of such legislation, it is critical to know how consumers value fuel economy and other vehicle characteristics. While previous research has estimated the value of automobile fuel economy using hedonic analysis, this research adds to this literature by examining how this value changes over time, in particular in light of changing fuel prices over time, and highlights the significance of uncertainty in fuel economy measures in making such as estimation.


It is noted that the developers of large software systems must decide how much software should be tested before releasing it. An explicit tradeoff between the costs of testing and releasing is considered. The former may include the opportunity cost of continued testing, and the latter may include the cost of customer dissatisfaction and of fixing faults found in the field. Exact stopping rules were obtained by Dalal and Mallows (J. Amer., Statist. Assoc., vol.83, p.872, 1988), under the assumption that the distribution of the fault finding rate is known. Here, two important variants where the fault finding distribution is not completely known are considered. They are (i) the distribution is exponential with unknown mean and (ii) the distribution is locally exponential with the rate changing smoothly over time. New procedures for both cases are presented. In case (i) it is shown how to incorporate information from related projects and subjective inputs. Several novel graphical procedures which are easy to implement are proposed, and these are illustrated for data from a large telecommunications software system. >


This paper reviews sources of distortion in memory for sexual encounters, particularly those between intoxicated participants. We review factors leading to initial misinterpretations of sexual consent including the indirect nature of sexual consent communications, misleading cultural sexual scripts, misinterpretation of passivity, and others. In this context, we consider the way in which alcohol can both contribute to initial misunderstanding and promote specific distortions in memory over time. Finally, we discuss additional influences on memory, including motivations related to self-esteem, self-concept maintenance, or litigation, and the effects of social influence from sources such as friends, forensic interviewers or therapists.


Studies in diachronic linguistics increasingly acknowledge that linguistic change is highly context-dependent and somehow tied to constructions as linguistic units. This is the first volume to investigate the role of constructions and the potential of constructional approaches in linguistic change. The contributions in this volume comprise both theoretical and empirical studies, all of which are accessible for a general audience. While some contributions explicitly aim at comparing and unifying concepts from both traditional grammatical theories and recent construction grammar approaches, others offer detailed case studies of exemplary problems from a constructional point of view. The papers offer a cross-linguistic perspective and deal with a number of different language families, ranging from Germanic to Austronesian.


A simple asymmetric random walk on the integers is stopped when its range is of a given length. When and where is it stopped? Analogous questions can be stated for a Brownian motion. Such problems are studied using results for the classical ruin problem, yielding results for the cover time and the range, both for asymmetric random walks and Brownian motion with drift.


Depth perception is a common problem for x-ray vision in augmented reality applications since the goal is to visualize occluded and embedded objects. In this paper we present an x-ray vision blending method for neurosurgical applications that intensifies the interposition depth cue in order to achieve enhanced depth perception. The proposed technique emphasizes important structures, which provides the user with an improved depth context.


This paper deals with the determination of the stress propagation in the HH10 type of steel
railroad ties under dynamic loads.
The HH10 type of steel ties were tested for fatigue at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. Simultaneously with the laboratory fatigue tests, I was modelling the stress
distribution in the tie due to the dynamic loads with using finite-element
software `ABAQUS´.
After the introduction, the laboratory arrangement of the tie fatigue test
will described in Chapter 2.
Chapter 3 details the steps in building up the finite-element model of the `HH´
railroad ties. In
Chapter 4, the stress pattern and numerical values
for the stresses and displacements of
the tie due to dynamic loads as results of the finite-element program will be
presented. The most important results will be summarized in Chapter 5.


The catalytic (C) subunit of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)–dependent protein kinase (PKA) is inhibited by two classes of regulatory subunits, RI and RII. The RII subunits are substrates as well as inhibitors and do not require adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to form holoenzyme, which distinguishes them from RI subunits. To understand the molecular basis for isoform diversity, we solved the crystal structure of an RIIα holoenzyme and compared it to the RIα holoenzyme. Unphosphorylated RIIα(90-400), a deletion mutant, undergoes major conformational changes as both of the cAMP-binding domains wrap around the C subunit's large lobe. The hallmark of this conformational reorganization is the helix switch in domain A. The C subunit is in an open conformation, and its carboxyl-terminal tail is disordered. This structure demonstrates the conserved and isoform-specific features of RI and RII and the importance of ATP, and also provides a new paradigm for designing isoform-specific activators or antagonists for PKA.


Embedded systems are constrained by the available memory. Code-compression techniques address this issue by reducing the code size of application programs. It is a major challenge to develop an efficient code-compression technique that can generate substantial reduction in code size without affecting the overall system performance. We present a novel code-compression technique using bitmasks, which significantly improves the compression efficiency without introducing any decompression penalty. This paper makes three important contributions. 1) It develops an efficient bitmask-selection technique that can create a large set of matching patterns. 2) It develops an efficient dictionary-selection technique based on bitmasks. 3) It proposes a dictionary-based code-compression algorithm using the bitmask- and dictionary-selection techniques that can significantly reduce the memory requirement. To demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, we have performed code compression using applications from various domains and compiled for a wide variety of architectures. Our approach outperforms the existing dictionary-based techniques by an average of 20%, giving a compression ratio of 55%-65%.


The technique of spin trapping has been applied to the gas phase of cigarette smoke to identify and quantify the radicals present. It was found that radicals could be trapped only if the smoke was filtered. Three spin traps were used: N-tert-butyl-alpha-phenyl nitrone (PBN). 5,5-dimethyl-delta1-pyrroline-1-oxide (DMPO) and alpha-[3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)-N-tert-butyl nitrone (OHPBN). From the electron spin resonance (ESR) splitting constants of the radicals produced by the reaction of smoke radicals with the spin traps and also from the effec of varying the path length between the cigarette and the spin trap solution, it is concluded that three types of signals are observed. Type I signals indicate the presence of oxygenated radicals which appear to be a mixture of alkoxy radicals (RO) and aroyloxy (ArCO2-) radicals. Our data do not allow conclusions about the nature of the R or Ar groups in these two oxy radicals; however, considerations based on lifetimes suggest that the R group probably is tertiary. Type II and III signals are not typical spectra of spin adducts. Instead, we believe they result from reaction of smoke (and probably radicals in smoke) with the PBN spin trap and indicate that smoke has the ability to effect one-electron oxidations. Only type I signals are observed with DMPO and OHPBN. A quantitative study shows that 4 x 10(14) spins/puff are present in the smoke, in contrast with the result of a recent study which used a very different method for determining the radical content of smoke. A discussion of the nature of the radicals in smoke and some tentative conclusions are presented.


We posit and empirically test the hypothesis that airlines are able to charge a fare premium in markets that originate in their domestic country relative to similar markets that originate in foreign countries. To this end, we focus on intercontinental one-stop air travel trips for which the main, intercontinental, flight legs are identical, while the feeder legs depart from a mixture of domestic- and foreign origins. We collect a unique database of published fares for such trips and estimate reduced form fare regressions with main flight leg fixed effects. We find that trips from and to domestic airports (compared with foreign airports) are characterized by about 9.5 per cent higher fares, even after adding controls for airport dominance, trip operating costs, the competitive environment and origin catchment area characteristics. These findings demonstrate that airlines have substantial domestic market power, enabling them to raise fares at their domestic airports irrespective of aforementioned market conditions. The magnitude of this domestic country effect is large relative to the traditional airport dominance effect, suggesting that the distinction between domestic- and foreign origins is a crucial determinant of the degree of market power that airlines can exert in the international airline industry.