Whooping crane (Grus americana) colts are raised at USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, Maryland for the first 40-60 days of a chick's life as part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) ultralight-led reintroduction. Numbers raised for WCEP are increasing each year. Up to 2005, we raised whooping crane chicks in the Propagation Building where there are 10 indoor/outdoor pens, 8 full pens, and 2 half-size pens. In 2005 WCEP proposed increasing the number of colts reared to 20-24, numbers beyond the capacity of the facility. To accommodate this greater number of chicks, we modified several outdoor pens nearby. Pens were made smaller, protective lower fencing was added, and heat lamps were installed in the feed sheds. The addition of 6 such pens allowed rearing and training of 22 chicks. Chicks were placed in these outdoor pens at 25-30 days of age. The purpose of this study is to measure the effects on chick development and training from the new rearing procedure. Our training program is as follows: for the first week colts need to master the arts of walking, eating, and drinking, and this is the time of the most intense contact with costumed caregivers. Late in week 1 (day 5.8 ± 1.4 days) the colts are taken for foraging trips with a costumed person. Colts are taken to forage near the ultralight trike to become conditioned to the machine and the long crane head puppet at a mean age of 7.5 days ± 2.0 days. The next step in conditioning the colt is to begin circle training with the ultralight. Also in week 2, swimming to increase exercise and prevent leg deformities begins, as well as socialization with other colts, initiated at a mean age of 10.9 days ± 2.8 days. Exposure to water, also referred to as pond training, begins in week 2 at a mean age of 8.9 days ± 2.6 days. During week 3 circle pen training continues up to an average age of 30.8 days ± 3.9 days. Colts receive an average of 3 hours, 13 minutes ± 44 minutes of circle pen training. In week 3 the colts graduate to open field training. In 2005, colts received an average of 112 minutes ± 64 minutes of open pen training. This training started at day 31.9 ± 3.4 days. Average age of shipping to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge has remained relatively consistent. Focal behavioral observations were collected for 2005 and 2006 with half the colts being raised in 1 facility and half in the other. We have compared the amount of time spent in each type of behavior and have related behavior to subsequent survival and wildness for the 2005 releases. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN CRANE WORKSHOP 11:211


We performed a case-control study to determine the association of BK plasma viremia with hemorrhagic cystitis (HC) in hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) recipients. Thirty cases of HC (14 of which occurred after platelet engraftment with documented BK viruria [BK-HC]) were compared with matched controls. Weekly plasma samples were tested for BK virus DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). BK viremia detected before or during the disease was independently associated with HC (adjusted odds ratio = 30, P < .001); BK viremia was even important before clinical symptoms of HC occurred (odds ratio = 11, P < .001). Cases of HC and BK-HC had a significantly higher peak of BK plasma viral load than controls. BK virus was detected by in situ hybridization in bladder biopsies of 2 cases with severe HC and long-lasting BK viremia. BK virus seems to play a role in the development of HC and quantitative detection of BK DNA in plasma appears to be a marker of BK virus disease in HCT recipients.


Use of soil survey information by non-soil-scientists is often limited by their inability to select the correct soil map unit component (COMP). Here, we developed two approaches that can be deployed to smartphones for non-soilscientists to identify COMP from the location alone or location together with easily observed field data (i.e., slope, depth to the restrictive layer, and soil texture by depth). In addition, we also compared the two newly developed approaches with a traditional approach identifying COMP based on the dominant COMP (DC-based approach). All three approaches were tested with the Rapid Assessment of US Soil Carbon database and the combined USDANRCS Soil Survey Geographic database and the USDA-NRCS State Soil Geographic Database. The results indicated that the observation-based approach performed significantly better than the other two approaches, suggesting that a small set of easy-to-measure site-specific observations could significantly improve COMP identification. The locationand DC-based approaches had similar low performance overall. However, the location-based approach slightly improved identifications over the DC-based approach for cases where (i) there were multiple possible components within the soil map unit and (ii) the components were located in close proximity to a boundary of a different soil map unit polygon. The benefit of using the location-based approach may be greater in specific soil survey areas where topography was the major factor leading to the creation of the map unit legend.


Sir, We read with interest the article by Stamp and Baker (Archives, 1976, 51, 360). While the conclusions of the authors with respect to genetics are of much importance, equally so are the therapeutics of this disorder, and here we should like to give our experience with phosphate supplements. Our results with Phosphate-Sandoz (Sandoz Products, London) compare very favourably with earlier results, both in our own and in other institutions. This phosphate preparation (one tablet contains sodium acid phosphate 68-1 %, sodium bicarbonate 9 50%, and potassium bicarbonate 8*5%; providing, in addition to phosphorus 500 mg, sodium 481 mg=20-9 mEq and potassium 123 mg=31 mEq) is given in a dose usually of 4-6 tablets per day. This basic medication, usually given for life, is supplemented by vitamin D. The dosage of vitamin D can be kept remarkably low (usually 20000-60000 IU/day) thus avoiding the hazards of intoxication. Indeed the sequelae of vitamin D intoxication could have been the cause of some of the clinical findings of the patients described by the authors. This therapeutic regimen for hereditary hypophosphataemic rickets has proved successful in both biochemical (serum phosphate, alkaline phosphatase, and calcium; urinary calcium) and clinical terms; side effects of the phosphate supplementation such as diarrhoea are only rarely observed. P. KOEPP Universitats-Krankenhaus Eppendorf, 2 Hamburg 20, Martinistr. 52, Germany.


Abstract Social infrastructure is largely related to various services for community, facilities and public spaces, relationships and networks among local community members. It is therefore obvious that social infrastructure could be viewed as an important factor for creating better opportunities for integration and participation in society, fostering functional capabilities of a community, acknowledging human rights, improving judgements related to overall life satisfaction. The links between social infrastructure services and focus on local community wellbeing in Lithuanian's social science discourse has not been substantiated sufficiently yet. Consequently, this article aims at disclosing the importance of social infrastructure services in promotion of local community wellbeing. The research question of this article is formulated as follows: how social infrastructure services contribute and could promote wellbeing of local community. The methodological background is based on both theoretical and empirical findings pertaining to the topic. The research results have suggested that the need of local community for social infrastructure services should be evaluated more carefully in the context of wellbeing. These services have been found to play significant role in reaching a certain level of wellbeing in view of the place where people live, how they feel and how to evaluate the future of their living.


Data mining has been used very frequently to extract hidden information from large databases. This paper suggests the use of decision trees for continuously extracting the clinical reasoning in the form of medical expert's actions that is inherent in large number of EMRs (Electronic Medical records). In this way the extracted data could be used to teach students of oral medicine a number of orderly processes for dealing with patients who represent with different problems within the practice context over time. Keywords—Data mining, Oral Medicine, Decision Trees, WEKA.


This article considers how UK governments use the Speech from the Throne (also known as the Gracious Speech and the King's or the Queen's Speech) to define and articulate their executive and legislative agenda. The analysis uses the policy content coding system of the Policy Agendas Project to measure total executive and legislative attention to particular issues. This generates the longest known data series of the political agenda in the UK, from the date of the first Parliament Act in 1911 right up to the end of 2008, nearly a century of government agenda setting. Using these data, the article identifies long-run institutional and policy stability in this agenda-setting instrument, and variation in its length and executive–legislative content due to the focusing events of world wars and party control of government. It assesses the degree to which the policy content of the speech is persistent (autoregressive) over time and identifies long-term trends in the total number of topics mentioned in each speech (scope), and the dispersion of government attention across topics (entropy). It also identifies important variation over time that indicates change in the agenda-setting function of the speech and evolution of the agenda in response to policy challenges faced by modern British governments in the period since 1911. Overall, the analysis demonstrates the robustness of the speech as a measure of the policy agenda and executive priorities in the UK.


The influence of the wet/dry tropical climate on the seasonal heat pattern for two Australian water bodies is examined. The heat content and volume-weighted mean temperature of the reservoirs (Darwin River Reservoir, DRR; Manton River Reservoir, MRR) were computed for an eight year period which included wet seasons of very high and low rainfall. Because of the large volume changes of the two water bodies and dependence of heat content on volume, volume-weighted mean temperature was a better parameter to assess the heat pattern of DRR and MRR. The surface energy budget for DRR, in common with other tropical water bodies, was primarily controlled by net radiation and evaporative energy fluxes. Both reservoirs experienced two annual temperature minima and maxima in most years. The water bodies reached minimum annual temperatures (22-25°C) in the cool, dry season (June-August), then gained heat rapidly during the dry-wet transition (August-October). In December, temperatures reached 31-32°C. During most wet seasons (January, February), monsoon weather caused significant heat loss, leading to a second temperature minimum of 27-30°C. Subsequent heat gain increased temperatures to 30-32°C in March. When monsoon weather was brief, however, neither reservoir experienced significant wet season cooling, resulting in a single annual minimum and maximum temperature. Between April and June reservoir heat loss was most rapid due to reduced shortwave radiation and increased evaporative energy fluxes. The seasonal heat pattern of DRR and MRR is compared to other water bodies exposed to a tropical climate comprising of distinct high and low rainfall seasons. Minimum annual temperatures and heat contents of DRR and MRR coincided with the hemispheric winter, as experienced by nearly all tropical lakes. No single seasonal heat pattern, however, is representative of these tropical climates, due to variable influences of advective and surface heat fluxes, though two annual temperature and heat content maxima and minima is most common.


BACKGROUND
Increasing geriatric trauma is producing disproportionate use of resources. In burn victims, age and burn extent correlate with mortality, yielding the establishment of criteria for futile resuscitation. Such criteria would be useful to trauma patients and their families in making withdrawal-of-care decisions while reducing resource use. Our objective, therefore, was to identify injury and physiologic parameters that would indicate a high probability of futile resuscitation among geriatric trauma patients.

METHODS
Data pertaining to patients greater than or equal to 65 years of age within the National Trauma Databank from 1994 to 2001 were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression-with mortality as the outcome variable and head, chest, and/or abdominal injury; base deficit; gender; comorbidities; and admission systolic blood pressure (SBP) as covariates-was performed to develop a stratification scheme providing criteria indicative of a high probability of futile resuscitation.

RESULTS
There were 76,304 patients with a mean age of 79.4 years. Head, thoracic, and abdominal injury; age; gender; comorbidities; admission SBP; and base deficit were associated with mortality. Patients with severe chest and/or abdominal injury, moderate to severe head injury, admission SBP less than 90 mm Hg, and significant base deficit had mortalities approaching 100%. Older patients with modest shock and mild to moderate head injury admitted with severe chest and/or abdominal injury had a less than 5% chance of survival.

CONCLUSION
Geriatric trauma patients with severe chest and/or abdominal trauma with moderate shock and mild to moderate head injury have an exceedingly low probability of survival. These data support early withdrawal of care in these individuals.


Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)-containing polymer membranes are attractive for CO2-related gas separations due to their high selectivity toward CO2. However, the development of PEO-rich membranes is frequently challenged by weak mechanical properties and a high crystallization tendency of PEO that hinders gas transport. Here we report a new series of highly CO2-selective, amorphous PEO-containing segmented copolymers prepared from commercial Jeffamine polyetheramines and pentiptycene-based polyimide. The copolymers are much more mechanically robust than the nonpentiptycene containing counterparts due to the molecular reinforcement mechanism of supramolecular chain threading and interlocking interactions induced by the pentiptycene structures, which also effectively suppresses PEO crystallization leading to a completely amorphous structure even at 60% PEO weight content. Membrane transport properties are sensitively affected by both PEO weight content and PEO chain length. A nonlinear correlation between CO2 permeability with PEO weight content was observed due to the competition between solubility and diffusivity contributions, whereby the copolymers change from being size-selective to solubility-selective when PEO content reaches 40%. CO2 selectivities over H2 and N2 increase monotonically with both PEO content and chain length, indicating strong CO2-philicity of the copolymers. The copolymer film with the longest PEO sequence (PEO2000) and highest PEO weight content (60%) showed a measured CO2 pure gas permeability of 39 Barrer, and ideal CO2/H2 and CO2/N2 selectivities of 4.1 and 46, respectively, at 35 °C and 3 atm, making them attractive for hydrogen purification and carbon capture.


A 32-year-old man with an atypical form of reversible leukoencephalopathy syndrome (RPLS) caused by thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is reported. In this particular case, a timely diagnosis of TTP was established primarily on the clinical findings, which led to the early initiation of plasmapheresis and resulted in excellent clinical recovery. The pathophysiological aspects of the relationship between TTP and RPLS are discussed in light of the clinical and radiological features (including diffusion- and perfusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging studies) of this case. The mechanism for TTP-associated, or TTP-induced, leukoencephalopathy is suggested to be independent of hypertension and vasoconstriction. TTP-associated endothelial injury can play a major role as the inciting mechanism for the development of RPLS.


Background Traffic accidents are the number one cause of bodily injuries to children and adolescents. The number of traffic accidents increases as children begin to walk and cycle independently. Expectations for traffic safety education given at school are great but according to many reports, the level and extent of traffic safety education varies greatly from school to school. Objective In the curriculum reform there was a strong need to secure the quality and extent of traffic safety education while training teachers in practical traffic safety education. Expertise in traffic safety education was offered to those preparing the core curriculum with concrete suggestions about content. Teacher training and updating education were used to increase teachers' knowledge of traffic safety education and to motivate them with practical exercises. The aim was to make traffic safety education in schools more systematic and consistent throughout basic education so that each grade would be given at least 4 hours of traffic safety education integrated into various subjects. Results Traffic safety education is specified in the content for all grades in the new basic education core curriculum. It is a solid foundation for county and school specific curricula. In the feedback of the 2010–2014 teachers' updating education projects the evaluation of the content and usefulness were excellent and all participants recommended the training to their colleagues. A feedback survey was carried out a year later: most of the respondents still considered the training beneficial. The teachers who attended the day long training belong to a network that is kept informed about current traffic safety related issues. Conclusions Traffic safety is highly valued but the need to focus on traffic safety education in schools is not always seen. Constant support for schools is paramount and it includes training and motivating teachers, developing new exercises and materials and lobbying at policy level.


Allostratigraphic mapping of the internal facies architecture of marine moraines reveals the development history of ice-contact sedimentary systems. The new method for a high-resolution analysis of the dynamic stratigraphy of moraines provides important information on the ice-front behavior, glacier dynamics, and regional climatic conditions. Based on a series of case studies of the moraines of temperate glaciers in Norway, an allostratigraphic model is suggested as a conceptual guide for the field analysis of ice-contact deposits based on outcrop sections as well as seismic or ground-penetrating radar profiles.


Analysing earning's predictive power on stock returns was in the heart of academic research since late 60's. First introduced to academic world in 1967 during seminar "Analysis of Security Prices" by Chicago University Professors Ray Ball and Philip Brown. In the next four decades was extensively analysed by many academics and is now a well-documented anomaly and is referred to as Post Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD). This phenomenon is still at the centre of academic research because it stands at odds with efficient market hypothesis which assumes that all information is instantaneously reflected in stock prices. Professional investors are also closely looking at PEAD as it implies that it is easy to beat the market average by simply ranking stocks based on their earnings surprise and investing in the top decile, quintile or quartile and shorting the bottom part. Academic evidence shows that this strategy produces an abnormal return of somewhere between 2.6% and 9.37% per quarter, according to various authors.

In this paper I will present existing evidence supporting and contradicting "PEAD", the history of academic research in that field and various techniques used to verify the phenomenon. The paper is organised as follows: first the history of the PEAD academic research is presented, in the second more recent evidence and research techniques used by authors are presented and finally conclusions and various critics of PEAD are shown.


Abstract Unprecedented opportunities exist for the generation of advanced nanotechnologies based on synthetic micro/nanomotors (MNMs), such as active transport of medical agents or the removal of pollutants. In this regard, great efforts have been dedicated toward controlling MNM motion (e.g., speed, directionality). This was generally performed by precise engineering and optimizing of the motors′ chassis, engine, powering mode (i.e., chemical or physical), and mechanism of motion. Recently, new insights have emerged to control motors mobility, mainly by the inclusion of different modes that drive propulsion. With high degree of synchronization, these modes work providing the required level of control. In this Minireview, we discuss the diverse factors that impact motion; these include MNM morphology, modes of mobility, and how control over motion was achieved. Moreover, we highlight the main limitations that need to be overcome so that such motion control can be translated into real applications.


In this study we gave supplemental tyrosine (40 mg/kg per day) to nine subjects with phenylketonuria (PKU) who by diet diary had a stable intake of phenylalanine. The tyrosine was given for 2 months using a double blind crossover technique and lactose as a placebo for the other 2 months, with weekly measurement of phenylalanine levels in blood. The supplements were given in soft gelatin capsules in divided doses with the three main meals of the day. In three patients the study was compromised: one because of poor compliance associated with a change in caretaker, one because of illness whilch interfered with phenylalanine intake, and one adult only tlook half the required dose for the first month of the study. Whether the six patients with adequate compliance were analysed alone, or all nine patients were included, no difference was detected between the periods on or off tyrosine. The group ratio of phenylalanine levels while on tyrosine to when on placebo was 1 .O. The patients ranged in weight from 37 to 87 kg. Older children and adults were chosen so that growth and changing phenylalanine requirements would not be confounding factors. Analysis of diet diary and intake of tyrosine in capsules showed that on average the capsules increased tyrosine intake by 39% (range 20-60%). While the intake of tyrosine could be increased, the patients complained of the number of capsules they were required to take. This, plus the total failure to change the blood phenylalanine levels, suggests that tyrosine supplementation will not allow PKU patients to increase their phenylalanine intake significantly.


The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) mandates that federal agencies evaluate the environmental impacts of their proposed actions. This requires agencies to make ex ante predictions about environmental consequences that often involve a significant degree of factual risk or uncertainty. Considerable controversy exists regarding how agencies should address such risks and uncertainties. Current NEPA law adopts a largely ad hoc approach that lacks coherence and analytical rigor. Some environmentalists and legal scholars have called for a greater emphasis on worst-case analysis in environmental planning, especially after the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan, both of which involved the eventuation of risks dismissed ex ante as improbable. This Article proposes a functional approach to environmental risks and uncertainties under NEPA as a preferable alternative to both a worst-case analysis requirement and the morass of existing approaches. A functional approach that is sensitive to context and analytically focused is better suited to the complexities of environmental planning. It is consonant with current NEPA law, but also can refine existing law to develop requirements that focus on effectuating NEPA's purposes by producing useful environmental information.


Visual Morse is a new approach to display and training Morse code. Forty subjects with ages ranging from 18 to 46 (mean age = 23.8) were recruited for this quasi-experimental study. The 33 female and 7 male subjects were assigned to learn either traditional two-switch Morse, or Morse using a new visual paradigm as a means of computer access. The results of this study do not support the use of Visual Morse for training two-switch Morse code. This finding agrees with the assertions of Koch and Farnsworth that codes for each letter should be learned as units or "tunes." The visual display of a cue sheet allows the learner to perceive the entire code at once, facilitating this "unit" learning. Visual Morse, on the other hand, breaks code into elements, and does not support "unit" learning of the code for letters. While Visual Morse does not appear viable for individuals who are able to execute sequences of motor actions, it may be useful for individuals with motor control issues that preclude timed patterns, and must rely on three-switch Morse or row-column scanning.


By using the density-functional theory and adopting the approach of Kohn and Sham, together with the cluster expansion method for Monte Carlo simulations, aluminum-magnesium alloys on a hcp lattice have been studied. The exchange-correlation energy functional mainly considered is the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof functional which belongs to the class of generalized gradient approximations. To perform calculations the open-source density-functional theory Python code named GPAW has been used. This in turn uses the projector-augmented wave method and the atomic simulation environment ASE. In conclusion, this thesis highlights the ability of the cluster expansion method combined with density-functional theory and Monte Carlo simulations to predict phases of an alloy on a given lattice. A cluster expansion model is developed for aluminum-magnesium alloys on a hcp lattice ranging in concentration from 25 % to 100 % magnesium. MC simulations reveal an Mg3Al phase emerging at temperatures below 300 K and its phase boundaries have been further studied in canonical and grand-canonical ensembles.


The coordinate modulation of cadherin and integrin functions plays an essential role in fundamental physiological and pathological processes, including morphogenesis and cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the functional crosstalk between cadherins and integrins are still elusive. Here, we demonstrate that the small GTPase Rap1, a crucial regulator of the inside-out activation of integrins, is a target for E-cadherin-mediated outside-in signaling. In particular, we show that a strong activation of Rap1 occurs upon adherens junction disassembly that is triggered by E-cadherin internalization and trafficking along the endocytic pathway. By contrast, Rap1 activity is not influenced by integrin outside-in signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the E-cadherin endocytosis-dependent activation of Rap1 is associated with and controlled by an increased Src kinase activity, and is paralleled by the colocalization of Rap1 and E-cadherin at the perinuclear Rab11-positive recycling endosome compartment, and the association of Rap1 with a subset of E-cadherin-catenin complexes that does not contain p120ctn. Conversely, Rap1 activity is suppressed by the formation of E-cadherin-dependent cell-cell junctions as well as by agents that inhibit either Src activity or E-cadherin internalization and intracellular trafficking. Finally, we demonstrate that the E-cadherin endocytosis-dependent activation of Rap1 is associated with and is required for the formation of integrin-based focal adhesions. Our findings provide the first evidence of an E-cadherin-modulated endosomal signaling pathway involving Rap1, and suggest that cadherins may have a novel modulatory role in integrin adhesive functions by fine-tuning Rap1 activation.


The use of social media platforms in political campaigns has widely been studied. Many scholars have provided evidence about the impact of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. So far; some of them have argued on the uselessness of these technologies about changing vote decisions, candidates' perception or political information efficacy. Most recently, the sentiment analysis has provided new paths to understand the link between the social media technology and voters. This paper analyzes data collected from Facebook's posts (4128 posts) and their emoticons - love, hate, anger, likes, etc. - that reveals some kind of sentiment from the users in a local government campaign in the central State of Mexico, which took place in June 2017. Findings show that political parties have a large impact with few posts, but in general, this paper reveals that voters' perception of candidates in Facebook is bad for the winner political party, since despite of this situation, the political party with the best sentiment impact, could not win the elections.


The presence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people of color in various spaces has had and continues to have a transformative impact. Our existence challenges beliefs and practices of religious institutions, and our participation in discovering hidden histories connected to spiritual practices contributes to a tremendous diversity of beliefs and values to guide our communities. This article is a reflection on religion and on Latina and Asian lesbians and on space. These reflections aim to begin an exploration of the rupture that queer presence often makes in LatCrit, Asian American and Critical Race Theory.


In this work we investigate the exploration of an environment with multiple vehicles using a strategy based on occupancy grids and a technique of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). The exploration strategy uses concepts of costs and utility from frontier cells. Besides, the used SLAM method is based on a FastSLAM algorithm with landmarks extracted from visual sensors and a common map of characteristics. Both activities are coordinated by a central agent. The results obtained by simulation show that when two vehicles can communicate with a central agent building a common map of characteristics, the exploration task becomes more efficient than that performed with only one vehicle. This occurs because the exploration time is reduced while the accuracy of vehicle position and orientation is maintained or even improved with the same number of particles.


Spider mites are important agricultural pests causing significant damage to commercial crops. In recent years, these pests have greatly hampered agricultural development in China. With support from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture's Special Fund for Agro-Scientific Research in the Public Interest,we conducted a series of studies of spider mites. Population fluctuations of spider mites were investigated in orchards in the northeastern and northern China,and in vegetable fields in the north. The population structures of the carmine spider mite,the two-spotted spider mite and the citrus red mite were investigated. Important progress has been made in research on the effects of Wolbachia and Cardinium infection on the fitness of populations of the two-spotted spider mite and the carmine spider mite. Significant advances have also been obtained in bio-control and chemical control of these pests and three integrated control systems established. The total area in which integrated control has been proven effective has now reached 2 000 hm2.


We studied energy transfer between tryptophan (donor, D) and dansyl (acceptor, A) separated by three different hexapeptides: hexaglycine, hexaalanine and hexaproline. In each case the donor tryptphanamide was located on the C-terminus, and the dansyl acceptor on the N-terminus amino group. In the absence of acceptor, in propylene glycol at 20°C, tryptophan donors show single exponential fluorescence intensity decays with mean lifetimes about 5.2 ns. In the presence of dansyl, the lifetimes become shorter and intensity decays heterogeneous. However, the extent of heterogeneity is different for each labeled oligopeptide. The strongest heterogeneity was observed for the hexaglycine donor-acceptor pair. Only small deviations from single exponential decay were found for the proline D-A pair. These results suggested a higher degree of conformational heterogeneity for the flexible glycine D-A pair, or composed to the more rigid proline D-A pair. We analyzed the data in terms of Gaussian donor-acceptor distance distributions. The recovered average distances Ray, are 10.7, 15.9 and 23.4 A and full widths at half maximum, hw, are 18.1, 11.0 and 3.9 A for hexaglycine, hexaalanine and hexaproline chain, respectively. The results indicate that flexibility of peptide chain has a strong influence on end-to-end distance distribution. The possible effects of the orientation factor κ2 are discussed, along with the limits on κ2 consistent with the time-dependent anisotropy decays. These distance distributions provide the basis for comparisions and/or refinement of the rotational potential functions of the amino acids.


In this paper, one thin microwave absorbing sheet employing carbonyl-iron powder (CIP) and chlorinated polyethylene (CPE) was prepared. The pattern and static magnetic properties of CIP were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), respectively. The electromagnetic parameters and loss mechanisms of CIP were measured and discussed. The microwave absorption properties of composite sheets with different thicknesses and CIP ratios in matrix were investigated by measuring reflection loss (RL) in 2-18GHz. The results showed that the microwave absorption properties could be optimized by controlling CIP content and thickness of sheet. For the sample with the weight ratio (CIP:CPE) of 10:1 and 1mm thickness, the absorption bandwidth (RL below -4dB) achieved 14GHz (4-18GHz).


Objective. The objective of the study was to investigate clinical effects of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in patients with acute neck pain with radiculopathy. Design. Double-blind, randomized, placebocontrolled study. Setting. The study was carried out between January 2005 and September 2007 at the Clinic for Rehabilitation at the Medical School, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Patients and Intervention. Sixty subjects received a course of 15 treatments over 3 weeks with active or an inactivated laser as a placebo procedure. LLLT was applied to the skin projection at the anatomical site of the spinal segment involved with the following parameters: wavelength 905 nm, frequency 5,000 Hz, power density of 12 mW/cm, and dose of 2 J/cm, treatment time 120 seconds, at whole doses 12 J/cm. Outcome measures. The primary outcome measure was pain intensity as measured by a visual analog scale. Secondary outcome measures were neck movement, neck disability index, and quality of life. Measurements were taken before treatment and at the end of the 3-week treatment period. Results. Statistically significant differences between groups were found for intensity of arm pain (P = 0.003, with high effect size d = 0.92) and for neck extension (P = 0.003 with high effect size d = 0.94). Conclusion. LLLT gave more effective short-term relief of arm pain and increased range of neck extension in patients with acute neck pain with radiculopathy in comparison to the placebo procedure.


I will describe here the way in which I was able to discover that yeast has prions (infectious proteins), proteins that are the carriers of genetic information, and thus are acting as genes (1). This startling finding involved inventing new genetic approaches, but was possible because of my particular background and interests. Our work has broadened the "prion" concept (originally thought to be restricted to a special mammalian disease), established that there are such things as genes made of protein, and led to an understanding of how proteins can encode and transmit heritable information.

My undergraduate degree was from Cornell University in mathematics. This early interest proved important in guiding me into genetics, which I have always viewed as the "logic of life" and, more recently, as I have become involved in solid-state NMR studies. I received an M.D. degree from Georgetown University, and, following a medical internship, I became a postdoctoral fellow with Herb Tabor at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This was my first real experience doing science, and Herb's critical, careful attitude toward research was my guide in establishing my own approach. I found that adenosylmethionine decarboxylase, the product of which is an intermediate in spermidine biosynthesis, has a pyruvoyl residue as a prosthetic group (2) and that histidine ammonia-lyase has a similar prosthetic group, dehydroalanine (3). As a postdoctoral fellow with Jerry Hurwitz at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, I learned about nucleic acid enzymology from "The Boss" and worked on Escherichia coli DNA polymerase II and in vitro DNA replication (4, 5). I was impressed that the dnats mutants, isolated by Jacob, Bonhoeffer, Carl, Wechsler, and others, were the key to the biochemistry of DNA replication, coupled with in vitro replication systems selected to require the dna gene products (6). In vitro complementation could be used to purify the proteins shown by in vivo studies to be responsible for the biochemical reaction. These experiences having provided me with a firm biochemical background, I then took the 3-week Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course on yeast genetics, taught by Fred Sherman and Gerry Fink.

I began my independent work in the laboratory of Jerry Hurwitz, who generously allowed me to start working on yeast genetics for a year until my job at the NIH began in 1973. I started out purifying DNA polymerases from yeast, similar to what I had been doing as a postdoctoral fellow with Jerry, but I decided that yeast genetics might be a better route to answering even many biochemical issues. I isolated mutants that could take up dTMP for labeling cellular DNA. These mutants were not widely used for this purpose, but proved quite interesting, particularly tup1 mutants, which had a mating-type α-specific mating defect and a sporulation defect (7) and proved to be a subunit of a transcriptional repressor (8, 9).

The key role that bacteriophage had played in the development of an understanding of bacterial genetics led me to focus on the non-chromosomal genetic element determining the killer trait of yeast (10–12), then newly discovered to involve a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in virus particles (13–15). We isolated mutants in host genes necessary for propagation of the killer toxin-encoding M dsRNA (a satellite of the L-A dsRNA virus), mutants that could propagate M dsRNA but could not express the killer phenotype (kex mutants), and superkillers (ski). In an era before yeast cloning, we genetically mapped them as a means of identification.


The internet has become in a place for the exchange and publication of data and nowadays whereby the web portals serve as an important means to access information. However, only a few of the websites reach the standard in satisfying their users' requirements and needs. Poor and unorganized information on the website can deteriorate the potential to find updated information that can lead to unsuccessful data obtained. Website evaluation is a very important tool because it can play a key role in identifying areas that require corrective action and improvement. The key objective of this study is to identify the factors influencing user satisfaction with the transport and logistics research centre of excellence's website. The specific objectives are to examine the relationship between the information quality, system quality and perceived usability towards website user satisfaction. A conceptual framework was developed based on the extent literature and this empirical research explored the relationship of website user satisfaction. The three proposed main variables being studied included some dimensions that were grounded in theory such as information quality, system quality, and perceived usability. Using structured questionnaire derived from the literature, data was collected from 201 respondents using stratified random sampling. Data were analyzed using Analysis of Moments Structure version 18.0, and Structured Equation Modelling. The results of the SEM indicated that all variables were positively related to website user satisfaction explaining a total of 57% variance that suggested that the model had a relatively good predictive power on website user satisfaction among the users. This study adds a body of knowledge towards evaluating a transport and logistics research centre of excellence's website in Malaysia. The key benefits for practitioners and academia were finally discussed under the theoretical and practical implications, while necessary suggestions on the new areas of research is to include some possible intervening and mediating variables like website preference and website loyalty.


This thesis is a comprehensive guide to the current interpretation of the principle of good faith in the lex mercatoria. It sets out the full background to this
interpretation, exploring the development of good faith in major legal cultures in the Western world and in arbitral practice.
Modern lex mercatoria is one of the most conspicuous manifestations of globalization in the field of law. Previous examples of global law are the Roman ius gentium and the medieval law merchant. The principle of good faith has been fundamental in all these manifestations. The thrust of this thesis represents an investigation of the reasons for the essential role of good faith in universal contexts, and in particular, its meaning in the lex mercatoria.
It is argued here that national laws have been influential on the meaning of good faith in the current lex mercatoria. Hence, four major legal systems in the civil and the common law areas are studied: German, French, US and English. Nonetheless, other national systems are also mentioned throughout the thesis. This analysis will reveal the fundamental dynamism of the concept of good faith.
This thesis challenges the traditional view of good faith as a moral and subjective concept, impractical and difficult to assess. It will show that an objective notion of good faith is vigorous in international commerce nowadays.
This thesis explains that good faith in the lex mercatoria is interpreted as cooperation of the parties to a commercial contract. This notion fits the experience of
global trade today. This theory will be verified through an analysis of: comparative legal history, sociological, philosophical and political theories, international instruments embracing the lex mercatoria and also through cases from national courts and international arbitration.
This comprehensive study will serve as a context for future investigations on ancillary duties that emanate from good faith and on the principle of good faith in specific stages of the contractual iter, such as re-negotiation of the agreement. It will contribute to the harmonization and unification of law in different regions of the world and also to global projects containing the language of good faith. Likewise, it will be useful for traders and practitioners, especially arbitrators dealing with good faith in international disputes between merchants.


The purpose of the four experiments described in this paper is to investigate the efficiency of oil recovery by CO2 and C1 in fractured carbonate rock having different wettability state after tertiary gravity drainage in reservoir condition. Samples with different type of wettability have been selected and gas injection experiments were performed on 20 cm long and low permeable outcrop core surrounded with a fracture established with a novel experimental set-up. A mixture of live oil (C1-C7) with a known composition has been selected and PVT properties of the sample such as density, bubble point pressure, interfacial tension between the phases were measured in reservoir condition prior to experiment. The matrix block was saturated using the live oil, while the fracture was filled with a sealing material to obtain a homogeneous saturation. The sealing material was then removed by increasing the temperature which in turn creates the fracture surrounding the core. Water was injected into the fracture at pressures above the bubble point to measure oil recovery by imbibition. Oil recovery as a function of time was monitored during the water injection. After reaching to final oil recovery equilibrium gas was injected to the fracture in two successive stages where interfacial tension was reduced from 0.5 mN/m to o.15 mN/m in order to measure oil recovery by gravity drainage. Non-equilibrium gas (CO2 and C1) were then injected in the last part of the experiment to study the effect of composition on final oil recovery. Results from tertiary gas injection experiments show that additional oil recovery could be obtained by injection of non-equilibrium gas, where diffusion and gravity drainage were the main elements of the displacement mechanism. Results also reveal that CO2 injection is a very efficient recovery method while injection of C1 can also improve the oil recovery.


The study was a descriptive type of cross-sectional study conducted at Dhaka to assess the level of knowledge on climate change of the people with a purposive sample size of 50. Nearly half of the respondents heard about the global warming. A major portion of the respondents agreed to include the climate change in school curriculum. Most of the respondents strongly decided that the world climate is changing, but it was due to human behavior and strongly believed that developed and industrialized countries are mainly responsible. Nearly, every respondent strongly settled for the need to take measure to reduce or prevent climatic change and approved on awareness creation to cope with climate change. TV and radio was the most important source of information about global warming. The association between educational level and knowledge on climate change was found to be significant. As the climate change has already put a devastating impact on survival on people and environment, so effective action plan needs to create awareness to control the impact on environment and creates awareness about the adverse effects of it on the globe Aus. & NewZe J. Soci Busi. Env. Sus. Vol  5(1),  April 2019, P 1-10


Virus diseases that have the potential to cause significant damage to banana and plantain production in the Caribbean fall into two categories: those that are not known to be present in the region and those that are present but have not been investigated in detail. The first group includes Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) and Banana bract mosaic virus (BBrMV), while Banana streak virus (BSV), Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), and Banana mild mosaic virus (BanMMV) and similar unidentified viruses comprise the second group. It is of the highest importance to prevent the introduction of BBTV and BBrMV, which can be spread rapidly by their aphid vector Pentalonia nigronervosa, which occurs throughout the region. Additional research on the incidence and impact of BSV, BanMMV, and other unidentified viruses would be of value.


Describes a new approach for designing analog cubic predistorters in view of minimizing nonlinear distortion introduced by the high power amplifier (HPA) in microwave radio links. The approach is based on a global mean squared error minimization between the input to the predistorter and the output of the power amplifier, rather than on the elimination of the cubic term. In this manner, two advantages are obtained. Firstly, the off-band distortion terms are reduced so that it is possible to eliminate the HF transmission filter. Secondly, the interference produced by the nonlinear distortion can be uniformly distributed over the entire constellation so that it is possible to reduce the back-off value of the HPA. Results of the application of the method proposed to some high spectrally efficient QAM systems, such as the 512-QAM system, are presented.


Abstract While the European Union is in the process of carefully navigating among the various forms of sub-federalism, Member States - including recent ones like Hungary, trying to find an equilibrium between their sovereignty and European supranationalism - have to cope with possible conflicts between their national legal systems and EU law. Since Hungary's accession to the European Union, the Hungarian Constitutional Court has faced questions regarding the constitutionality of EU legal rules and conflicts between European and national legal norms. This article examines these issues and analyzes criteria of constitutional review that the Court has gradually set out in dealing with some of these conflicts. So far, it has established two principles marking the boundaries of future constitutional practice. First, it will treat the founding and amending treaties of the European Union as part of domestic law for the purposes of constitutional review, thereby setting up a two-tier system of legal rules applicable within Hungarian legal practice instead of a possible three-tier construction that would distinguish between national, international and European law. Second, in the absence of jurisdiction to review substantive (un)constitutionality (as opposed to procedural constitutionality), the Constitutional Court does not regard a conflict between domestic law and EU law as a constitutionality issue and this mandates the ordinary courts to resolve such conflict of a sub-constitutional nature. Taking these conclusions as starting points, this article sets out the possible types of conflicts that may occur between EU rules and other legal rules applicable in Hungary, weighing the constitutional relevance of these conflicts; it also outlines the directions along which the practice of the Hungarian Constitutional Court may develop in this respect.


Abusive language is a growing phenomenon on social media platforms. Its effects can reach beyond the online context, contributing to mental or emotional stress on users. Automatic tools for detecting abuse can alleviate the issue. In practice, developing automated methods to detect abusive language relies on good quality data. However, there is currently a lack of standards for creating datasets in the field. These standards include definitions of what is considered abusive language, annotation guidelines and reporting on the process. This paper introduces an annotation framework inspired by legal concepts to define abusive language in the context of online harassment. The framework uses a 7-point Likert scale for labelling instead of class labels. We also present ALYT – a dataset of Abusive Language on YouTube. ALYT includes YouTube comments in English extracted from videos on different controversial topics and labelled by Law students. The comments were sampled from the actual collected data, without artificial methods for increasing the abusive content. The paper describes the annotation process thoroughly, including all its guidelines and training steps.


A 46-year-old man with remote anterolateral MI (complicated by VT storm requiring ICD) presented in bi-ventricular heart failure with peripheral eosinophilia and cardiogenic shock. Mechanical ventilation worsened hypoxemia, despite FiO2 of 1.0 and nitric oxide. TTE demonstrated LVEF of 20%, PFO (right-to-left-shunting) and sub-pulmonic RVOTO (Figure 1A, Videos 1 and 2) resulting in additional obstructive shock. The PFO functioned as a RV-vent; percutaneous closure was not performed. TEE showed echogenic material layering the RV, TV, RV lead and sub-pulmonic-valve napkin-ring-lesion causing RVOTO (Figure 1B
and Video 3). Cardiac-MRI demonstrated delayed enhancement (Figure 1C and 1D). Endomyocardial and subsequent surgical biopsies were non-diagnostic. Surgical PFO closure, TV repair, debulking of RV and sub-pulmonic-lesions, and ICD removal were performed. Steroids were discontinued as peripheral eosinophilia had improved prior to initiation. The patient recovered, was discharged home and remains stable. This case demonstrates a PFO functioning as a RV-vent. Closure of the PFO without relieving the RVOTO would have proven
deleterious.


People with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) exhibit neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) that may negatively impact specific areas of caregiving for care recipients. Additionally, Problem-Focused (PF) and Emotion-Focused (EF) coping strategies have been shown to be differently related to depression in AD caregivers. The present study explored relationships between care recipient NPS, caregiver quality of life (QOL) and caregiver coping strategies. Alzheimer's caregivers were recruited from support groups and aging and disabilities services offices in the Portland, OR, area. Twenty caregivers completed the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q), Caregiver Quality of Life questionnaire (CGQOL), and Ways of Coping-Revised (WOC-R). Pearson product moment correlations indicated a negative trend between Planful Problem Solving coping strategies and Assistance in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLS) r(18) = -.519. A positive trend was found between NPI-Q scores with Assistance in IADLS r(18) = .457 and Assistance in ADLS r(18) = .415. Exploratory analyses indicated a negative trend between Escape-Avoidance coping strategies and Role Limitations Due to Caregiving, r(18) = -.498, p =.025 as well as caregiver Personal Time, r(18) = -.520, p = .019, Assistance in IADLS, r(18) = -.440, p = .052 and Assistance in ADLS, r(18) = -.466, p = .038. Part correlations controlled for several care recipient and caregiver variables. Pearson product moment correlations revealed that relationship to the care recipient, caregiver age, and caregiver ethnicity, and caregiver attendance at support groups affected correlation strengths. Further studies should investigate how caregiver coping strategies mediate the relationship between NPS in people with AD and caregiver QOL.


We examine the effect of inhomogeneous broadening on the collective response of a planar metamaterial consisting of asymmetric split ring resonators. We show that such a response leads to a transmission resonance that can persist when the broadening of individual meta-atom resonance frequencies is roughly one half the frequency characterizing the split ring asymmetry. We also find that larger degrees of inhomogeneous broadening can drastically alter the cooperative response, destroying this resonance. The reduced effect of cooperative response due to inhomogeneous broadening may find applications in producing metamaterial samples that more closely mimic homogeneous magneto-dielectric medium with well-defined susceptibility and permittivity.


Abstract:This analysis arises out of the need to examine Caribbean homelands as spaces wherein the ghosts of slavery are the foundation for black ontologies and epistemologies. This note is specifically concerned with women's sense of self as spiritual leader, vested with the power to serve as a bridge between ancestral spirits and the living members of their communities. It takes a comparative perspective as it examines Simone Schwartz-Bart's Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle (Guadeloupe, 1972) and Anacristina Rossi's Limón Blues (Costa Rica, 2002). The texts present powerful healer-women against a lush landscape wherein the community's inhabitants still amble about as if in shackles. As I demonstrate, these Caribbean queens begin as motherless children and are transformed into women whose complicity with spirits and nature enable them to establish life-giving narratives for those they nourish with their hearts and hands. Spiritual narratives become the bedrock of an Afro-Caribbean philosophy, one that was wrested away from enslaved ancestors in the dark underbellies of ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to the Caribbean.


Remote sensing mechanisms through the use of technology like the Landsat 5-7 Land Manager satellites are commonly used in conjunction with multispectral methods such as unsupervised classification to record and analyze changes in snow and ice over time in areas such as the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). Unsupervised classification is a method of identifying, grouping, and labeling features in an image according to their spectral values and is therefore a good method of classifying snow and ice in areas such as Greenland. The goal of unsupervised classifications is to assign pixels into potentially meaningful subsurface classes based on similarities of geophysical responses, in order to create a final product that displays an accurate class map of the land cover of the area (Kvamme, 2019). Within the southwestern region of Greenland is the town Maniitsoq along the (GrIS) that is surrounded by natural canal-like channels and located in the Qeqqata municipality. The southwestern Maniitsoq Greenland territory lies within the northernmost area south of the Arctic Circle and contains big, long, and deep glaciers. Temperatures in southern Greenland do not exceed 20 °C within the summer months of June, July, or August. Greenland is warmest and driest on land closest to the ice sheet during these summer months (Topas Travel, 2019). The location of our study area, the southwestern region of Greenland near Maniitsoq, was captured with Landsat imagery. The ice land cover was classified into three different sectional groups: changed snow/ ice, unchanged snow/ice, and other. The research question of this project is as follows: how have the Greenland Ice Sheet glaciers along the eastern coast and inland Greenland changed from June through August of 1994-2004 and 2009-2019?


Derived brackets as introduced and studied by Kosmann-Schwarzbach and Voronov are a powerful tool for describing and understanding infinitesimal symmetry actions relevant in physics. Roytenberg and Weinstein showed that this continues to hold for the categorified symmetries arising in Hitchin's generalized geometry. After reviewing some well-established examples, we prove that derived brackets also underlie the symmetries of Double Field Theory and heterotic Double Field Theory. This leads to a common framework for large classes of symmetries, which suggests that derived bracket constructions can function as a guiding principle in the description of infinitesimal actions of symmetries in physics. As a new result, we present sufficient conditions on a bracket to give rise to a Lie 2-algebra of symmetries via antisymmetrized derived brackets.


In this paper, the identification of an electric resistance furnace is described. Physical modeling is applied to obtain a mathematical description that captures the static and dynamic behavior of the furnace. Experimental data are collected and used for estimating the parameters of the furnace, which is found to be a dominantly first-order system. First-order linear, bilinear, and direction-dependent models are employed to describe the characteristics of the furnace. A comparison between the quality of these models is made. It was found that the bilinear model provides the best fitting among the three models considered for this particular application.


The authors give the information about elemental composition (levels and concentration ranges of chemical elements) of human bone and dental tissue in the range from sodium to uranium, compare elemental composition of bones and teeth, make conclusion about applicability of bone and dental tissue for of human attribute diagnostics.


This paper addresses two of secondary education's most serious problems—peer abuse of weaker socially unskilled students and a peer culture that in most schools discourages many students from trying to be all that they can be academically. We have documented the two problems by reviewing ethnographies of secondary schools, by interviewing students in eight suburban high schools and by analyzing data from questionnaires completed by nearly 100,000 students at Educational Excellence Alliance schools. Grounded in these observations, we built a simple mathematical model of peer harassment and popularity and of the pressures for conformity that are created by the struggle for popularity and then tested it in data from the Educational Excellence Alliance. Students entering middle school learn its norms by trying to copy the traits and behaviors of students who are respected and by avoiding contact with those who are frequently harassed. Peer norms are enforced by encouraging 'wannabes,' aspirants for admission to popular crowds, to harass those who visibly violate them. Consequently, one can infer the norms by noting who gets harassed and who doesn't. Traits that in EEA data led to higher risks of being bullied and harassed were: being in a special education, being in gifted programs, taking accelerated courses in middle school, tutoring other students, enjoying school assignments, taking a theatre course, not liking rap-hip hop music and liking instead musicals, heavy metal, country, or classical music. The relationship between harassment and academic effort was curvilinear; both the nerds and the slackers were harassed. To some degree these norms are, as Kenneth Arrow suggests, trying to internalize externalities. But why are music preferences such good predictors of harassment? Why are the student tutors victimized? We propose that norms also have a "We're cool, Honor us" function of legitimating the high status that the leading crowds claim for themselves. As a result the traits and interests that members of leading crowds have in common tend to become normative for everyone. The norms that prevailed were: "Spend your time socializing, do not "study too hard." Value classmates for their athletic prowess and their attractiveness, not their interest in history or their accomplishments in science."


It is with great pleasure and excitement that we introduce this inaugural issue of Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning. The journal is a new venture of AESOP and aims to provide a platform for the planning community to share research, innovative practices, and provocative thoughts among peers. It expands the already rich opportunities for networking and scholarly dialogue that AESOP offers via annual congresses, Thematic Group activities, specialist meetings such as the Heads of Schools workshops, and summer schools.
Transactions seeks to incorporate the spirit that guided AESOP from its beginning – to be inclusive, openminded, and to embrace the diversity of national cultures and milieus of planning and planners represented in Europe and beyond.
The journal follows a genuine open access publishing model: it is free of charge to submit a paper for a doubleblind peer review, and accepted papers are accessible online, to everyone, for free. AESOP covers the relevant editorial and publishing costs.
This inaugural issue contains an essay from Rachelle Alterman, as well as five contributions on a wide range of topics. All the papers published in this issue had initially been nominated for the Best Congress Paper award by the AESOP Congress track chairs in 2014 and 2015. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to Professor Alterman for her introductory essay, to Professor Anna Geppert, the President of AESOP, for her Introduction, and the authors who contributed a paper to this issue for their willingness to participate in this endeavour and for their patience as the initiative has taken shape.


Abstract Reform concepts such as the »New Steering Model« (NSM) became prominent in the German administrative discourse of the 1990s. This article examines the examples of the Speyer Quality Contest and the Carl Bertelsmann Price. These intermunicipal performance contests awarded municipalities for the appropriation of NSM principles, thus popularizing the approach in administrative theory and practice. Simulated competition served as a tool for the relevant stakeholders to negotiate notions of quality and innovation. Actors such as the Joint Office for Administrative Simplification, the University for Administrative Sciences Speyer, and the Bertelsmann Foundation pushed frameworks that conceptualized the municipality as a non-commercial professional service firm. Cities, in turn, hoped to find ways to deliver public services with waning funds. While neither the NSM nor practices of simulated competition dominated the public administrative discourse beyond the early 2000s, they speak to a temporary belief in managerial practices in the public sphere.


Background The pathogenesis of spondyloarthritis (SpA) involves both inflammation and new bone formation in the spine. In line with this, the disease has been characterized as both inflammatory and fibrotic. Current treatment including inhibitors of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) seem to dampen inflammation while new bone formation can progress. Therefore, there is an unmet therapeutic need for the treatment of new bone formation in SpA. Fibrosis is mediated by myofibroblasts and new bone formation is the result of increased osteoblast mineralization and decreased osteoclast bone degradation. Here, we evaluate the potential effect of the newly approved anti-fibrotic agent pirfenidone (Esbriet, Pirespa) on fibrosis and new bone formation in cell culture models of SpA. Objectives We hypothesized that pirfenidone inhibits SpA myofibroblast formation and activity and osteoblast mineralization. Methods Synovial fluid mononuclear cells from patients with SpA (n=6) were included for culturing fibroblast-like synovial cells (FLSs) while osteoblasts were purchased. The cells were cultured with pirfenidone in increasing concentrations (0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 mg/ml) with or without stimulation with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα), transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ), or interferon gamma (INFγ). The proliferation of FLSs was analyzed with light microscopy and flow cytometry using the marker Ki67. The differentiation and activation of FLSs was assessed with flow cytometry, a proteome profiler assay and enzyme-linked immunosorbant assays. The mineralization capacity of the osteoblasts was measured as deposition of hydroxyapatite. Results Pirfenidone reduced the Ki67 expression 7.1-fold in untreated FLSs (p=0.001) and 11.0-fold in FLSs stimulated with TGFβ, TNFα, and INFγ (p=0.022). PFD further inhibited TGFβ induced upregulation of αSMA (Figure 2A) and INFγ induced upregulation of HLA-DR (Figure 2C) in all cultures. There was no difference between the percentage of ICAM-1 positive FLSs in cultures treated with or without pirfenidone. In supernatants from FLSs stimulated with TGFβ, TNFα, and INFγ a total of 12 cytokines or chemokines had values above the detection limit in the membrane-based antibody array. Pirfenidone decreased the secretion of 3 of these 12 cytokines or chemokines more than 2-fold. The changes in secretion of monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) and chitinase-3-like protein 1 (CHI3L1, also known as YKL-40) were validated with ELISA. Further, pirfenidone decreased the secretion of both DKK1 (p=0.006) and OPG (p=0.02) by SpA FLSs stimulated with TGFβ, TNFα, and INFγ, while the concentration of RANKL was below the detection limit of the ELISA assay in all cultures. Finally, pirfenidone inhibited the deposition of hydroxyapatite by osteoblasts in a dose-dependent manner (p=0.0001). This inhibition was partly reversible when removing pirfenidone after the first week of the mineralization assay. Conclusions Taken together, pirfenidone inhibited SpA myofibroblast formation and activity and osteoblast mineralization. This encourages further research in anti-fibrotics as treatment of new bone formation in SpA. Disclosure of Interest None declared


Volatile fatty acids found in effluents of the dark fermentation of biowastes can be used for mixotrophic growth of microalgae, improving productivity and reducing the cost of the feedstock. Microalgae can use the acetate in the effluents very well, but butyrate is poorly assimilated and can inhibit growth above 1 gC.L-1. The non-photosynthetic chlorophyte alga Polytomella sp. SAG 198.80 was found to be able to assimilate butyrate fast. To decipher the metabolic pathways implicated in butyrate assimilation, quantitative proteomics study was developed comparing Polytomella sp. cells grown on acetate and butyrate at 1 gC.L-1. After statistical analysis, a total of 1772 proteins were retained, of which 119 proteins were found to be overaccumulated on butyrate vs. only 46 on acetate, indicating that butyrate assimilation necessitates additional metabolic steps. The data show that butyrate assimilation occurs in the peroxisome via the β-oxidation pathway to produce acetyl-CoA and further tri/dicarboxylic acids in the glyoxylate cycle. Concomitantly, reactive oxygen species defense enzymes as well as the branched amino acid degradation pathway were strongly induced.Although no clear dedicated butyrate transport mechanism could be inferred, several membrane transporters induced on butyrate are identified as potential condidates. Metabolic responses correspond globally to the increased needs for central cofactors NAD, ATP and CoA, especially in the peroxisome and the cytosol.


Prostitution is strongly embedded in local cultural practices in Cambodia. Based on extensive original research, this book explores the nature of prostitution in Cambodia, providing explanations of why the phenomenon is so widely tolerated. It outlines the background of the French colonial period, with its filles malades, considers the contemporary legal framework, and analyses the motivations for sex work, examining in particular how women become locked into debt bondage. Overall the book provides significant contributions to wider debates about sex work, sex trafficking and the constrained nature of women's choices.


Objective Vascular complications (VCs) contribute to increased morbidity and mortality in patients who have undergone transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI); however, studies on their incidence and predictors show conflicting results. In this study, we sought to assess the incidence, impact, and predictors of VCs in transfemoral (TF) TAVI and also investigated the predictive role of manufacturer's size charts and a new predictor modified sheath-to-femoral artery ratio. Methods A total of 223 patients undergoing TF-TAVI were categorized into 2 groups. The patients were divided as eligible and ineligible according to the manufacturer's guidelines (MG), and the same patient cohort was dichotomized into eligible and ineligible on the basis of sheath-to-femoral artery ratio (SFAR) value of less than or greater than or equal to modified SFAR (md-SFAR). VCs (defined according to the Valve Academic Research Consortium II criteria) were retrospectively compared. Results According to the manufacturer's size charts, 65 patients were unsuitable; however, 35 patients were ineligible for TF-TAVI per the md-SFAR criteria. Although VCs occurred in 42 (18.8%) patients, 17 (27.7%) of those patients were classified as ineligible according to MG, whereas 14 (41.2%) were classified as ineligible in the md-SFAR group. In a multiple logistic regression analysis that included md-SFAR, MG, SFAR ≥1.05, peripheral artery disease, and minimum iliofemoral artery diameter, only md-SFAR was the independent predictor of VCs (odds ratio=3.71, 95% confidence interval=1.13–12.53, p=0.031). Conclusion According to our results, md-SFAR might provide better patient selection to prevent VCs and improve outcomes in TF-TAVI procedures.


| A single fault in a large communication network may result in a large number of fault indications (alarms) which makes the isolation of the primary source of failure a diicult task. The problem becomes worse in cases of multiple faults. In this paper we present an approach for modelling the problem of fault diagnosis. We propose a graph based network model which takes into account the dependencies between the diierent objects in the telecom-munication environment and a novel approach to estimate the domain of an alarm. Based on that model we design an algorithm for fault diagnosis and analyze its performance with respect to the accuracy of the fault hypotheses it provides. We also propose and analyze a fault diagnosis algorithm which is suitable for systems for which an independent failure assumption is valid. Finally, we examine the importance of the information of dependency between objects for the fault diagnosis process.


We present for the first time experimental measurements on the ultrafast population dynamics of the model surface-active dye methyl orange (MO) during its ion transfer across the water|1,2-dichloroethane interface by using time-resolved surface second harmonic generation (TR-SSHG). The interfacial dynamics reveals that the population of MO relaxes to the ground state within 160 fs without any significant contribution of the molecular reorientation. It is concluded that the MO transfer across the interface considerably affects the population of MO at the interface but has no effect on the dynamics of the molecule itself.


Abstract : The development of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs) could potentially revolutionize how military force is used in the future. While the early operational experiences with UAVs show great promise, their full range of capabilities is largely unknown. However, it is clear that these technologies will enable military forces to use aerospace power more efficiently, which means at lower cost and with less risk to the humans who pilot aircraft. The broader question is the wisdom of using unmanned aerial vehicles for employing lethal force, and in particular which air power missions are best accomplished by uninhabited, piloted, and autonomous vehicles. The corollary is to examine the essential roles of human pilots or operators in aerospace operations in the twenty-first century. Since it is common to draw distinctions between vehicles with an on-board pilot, vehicles with off-board operators, and autonomous vehicles, this study explores the essential role of pilots and contrasts it with the roles of remotely piloted and autonomous vehicles. The assumption is that piloted, remotely piloted, and autonomous vehicles have advantages and disadvantages in military operations, and that these vary in strategic significance for different levels of conflict. Since it is essential for the U.S. defense establishment to consider the strategic and technological implications of these types of aerial vehicles, this study is devoted to addressing the issues raised by the new generation of aerial vehicles.


The rheological properties of the dolphin skin were analysed with particular emphasis on its fouling release performance. Employing stress-controlled rheometry deformability and stress resistance of skin material was measured. Results obtained showed that the skin material behaved like a yield stress fluids, whereby the yield point varied between 3 8 x 10^3 Pa. It was concluded from this result obtained that the structural stability and integrity of the skin was dependent on the hydrodynamic stress load. During swimming (2 - 80 Pa) and jumping of the dolphin, the skin is able to withstand various stresses (< 3 8 x 10^3 Pa). Cohesive failure occurs, if the stress exceeds the limit 3 8 x 10^3 Pa. Since attached marcofoulers, for example, barnacles transfer tension and shear stress from their base to the skin of the swimming dolphin in the same amount, the yield point characteristics ensures that cohesive failure of the skin is limited to the fouling situation. However, the mechanial failure of the covalently cross-linked skin material is irreversible and its renewal is mainly a consequence of the perpetually ongoing cell shedding process. With respect to the technical application this pseudo-reversible cycle was simulated by applying materials known as Bingham fluids. Application notes are presented how to design non-toxic defouling fluids with dolphin-like deformability and flow point characteristics.


It was predicted that children learning to read inconsistent orthographies (e.g., English) should show considerable flexibility in making use of spelling–sound correspondences at different unit sizes whereas children learning to read consistent orthographies (e.g., German) should mainly employ small-size grapheme–phoneme strategies. This hypothesis was tested in a cross-language blocking experiment using nonwords that could only be read using small-size grapheme–phoneme correspondences (small-unit nonwords) and phonologically identical nonwords that could be decoded using larger correspondences (large-unit nonwords). These small-unit and large-unit nonwords were either presented mixed together in the same lists or blocked by unit size. It was found that English children, but not German children, showed blocking effects (better performance when items were blocked by nonword type than in mixed lists). This suggests that in mixed lists, English readers have to switch back and forth between small-unit and large-unit processing, resulting in switching costs. These results are interpreted in terms of differences concerning the grain size of the phonological recoding mechanisms developed by English and German children.


The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between islet autoantibodies of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GADA), islet antigen-2A (IA-2A), insulin autoantibody (IAA), and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ genotypes in type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients and their first-degree relatives (FDRs). Cross-sectional and case-control study. Four hundred and ninety-five T1D patients, 419 FDRs, and 376 control subjects in Han Chinese populations were recruited and tested for GADA and IA-2A, while 71 cases, all FDRs and 300 controls were tested for IAA. The 338 T1D patients (including 187 antibody-positive and 151 antibody-negative patients), 173 FDRs and 278 controls were genotyped for HLA-DQ with polymerase chain reaction sequencing-based method. Compared with the control, the frequency of DQA1*03-DQB1*0303, DQA1*05-DQB1*0201, and DQA1*03-DQB1*0401 haplotypes was higher (P < 0.05-0.01) but DQA1*0102-DQB1*0602 haplotype was lower (P < 0.01) in T1D patients. DQA1*03 allele was less in the FDRs than in their probands (P < 0.05). GADA was more prevalent in T1D patients carrying DQA1*05-DQB1*0201 or DQA1*03-DQB1*0401 haplotype (55.8% vs 41.0%, 65.5% vs 40.3%, P < 0.05-0.01), whereas IA-2A presented more in the patients carrying DQA1*03-DQB1*0303 haplotype (27.0% vs 7.9%, P < 0.05-0.01), both GADA and IA-2A showed frequently in the patients with DQA1*03-DQB1*0303/DQA1*05-DQB1*0201 haplotypes (34.5% vs 9.7%, P < 0.01). GADA positivity was lower in the patients with DQA1*0102-DQB1*0602 haplotype (16.7% vs 45.9%, P < 0.05). The frequency of IAA was not different between patients with and without susceptible DQ haplotypes (P > 0.05). GADA, IA-2A or IAA presented frequently in FDRs with DQA1*03-DQB1*0303 haplotype. The findings in the study indicate that some of specific HLA-DQA1/-DQB1 genotypes and haplotypes not only confer susceptibility to T1D but also are associated with the presence of the islet autoantibodies in the Han Chinese population.


Adaptive body biasing is a powerful technique that allows post-silicon tuning of individual manufactured dies such that each die optimally meets the delay and power constraints. Assigning individual bias control to each gate leads to severe overhead, rendering the method impractical. However, assigning a single bias control to all gates in the circuit prevents the method from compensating for intra-die variation and greatly reduces its effectiveness. In this paper, we propose a new variability-aware method that clusters gates at design time into a handful of carefully chosen independent body-bias groups, which are then individually tuned post-silicon for each die. We show that this allows us to obtain near-optimal performance and power characteristics with minimal overhead. For each gate, we generate the probability distribution of its post-silicon ideal body bias voltage using an efficient sampling method. We then use these distributions and their correlations to drive a statistically aware clustering technique. We study the physical design constraints and show how the area and wirelength overhead can be significantly limited using the proposed method. Compared with a fixed design-time based dual threshold voltage assignment method, we improve leakage power by 38%-68% while simultaneously reducing the standard deviation of delay by two to nine times.


This paper investigates how leniency programs can induce collusive offenders to self report in a dynamic setting, where the risk of independent detection evolves stochastically over time. We show how this uncertainty about the future can push firms into preemptive application, and that these preemptive incentives may unravel to the point where firms apply long before the risk of independent detection is in any way imminent. The analysis sheds light on factors and policy instruments which favor such an unraveling effect. These include: little discontinuity in time and state, firms' patience, and a relatively harsh treatment of firms which fail to preempt others. In contrast, the described effects do not necessarily require a very high absolute level of leniency reduction, or even rewards.


This brief looks in detail at what different groups of nonelderly adults think about the ACA. Public opinion across several polls has been unfavorable toward the ACA and grew increasingly so in the wake of the troubled roll out of the new Marketplaces. The analysis draws on data collected in September 2013 from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS), reflecting opinions prior to the first open enrollment period, which began on October 1. Because the sample includes almost 8,000 adults, we are able to probe more deeply than prior efforts, assessing (1) how opinions about the ACA vary with the person's demographic, health, and socioeconomic characteristics and (2) whether experience with the early provisions of the law has shaped their perceptions.


This guide was created to assist the professors and students focusing on special education within the Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education department.


We describe MIP-1 and MIP-2, novel paralogous C. elegans germ granule components that interact with the intrinsically disordered MEG-3 protein. These proteins promote P granule condensation, form granules independently of MEG-3 in the postembryonic germ line, and balance each other in regulating P granule growth and localization. MIP-1 and MIP-2 each contain two LOTUS domains and intrinsically disordered regions and form homo- and heterodimers. They bind and anchor the Vasa homolog GLH-1 within P granules and are jointly required for coalescence of MEG-3, GLH-1, and PGL proteins. Animals lacking MIP-1 and MIP-2 show temperature-sensitive embryonic lethality, sterility, and mortal germ lines. Germline phenotypes include defects in stem cell self-renewal, meiotic progression, and gamete differentiation. We propose that these proteins serve as scaffolds and organizing centers for ribonucleoprotein networks within P granules that help recruit and balance essential RNA processing machinery to regulate key developmental transitions in the germ line.


In an ongoing program using ultrashort laser pulses to provoke discharges in air over considerable distances at electric fields below breakdown threshold, we have studied the conditions for the onset of streamers in such laser-produced plasmas, both experimentally and through numerical simulations. The results demonstrate the importance of the electron density and of its gradient on the generation of streamers. Also, a significant reduction of the breakdown voltage for a 30 cm plane-plane gap in air was observed with a laser pulse energy of 15 mJ. Finally, a direct comparison of laser-induced breakdown in air and in nitrogen shows the influence of electron attachment to oxygen on the discharge process.


Response Surface Methodology (RSM) searches for the input combination that optimizes the simulation output. RSM treats the simulation model as a black box. Moreover, this paper assumes that simulation requires much computer time. In the first stages of its search, RSM locally fits first-order polynomials. Next, classic RSM uses steepest descent (SD); unfortunately, SD is scale dependent. Therefore, Part 1 of this paper derives scale independent 'adapted' SD (ASD) accounting for covariances between components of the local gradient. Monte Carlo experiments show that ASD indeed gives a better search direction than SD. Part 2 considers multiple outputs, optimizing a stochastic objective function under stochastic and deterministic constraints. This part uses interior point methods and binary search, to derive a scale independent search direction and several step sizes in that direction. Monte Carlo examples demonstrate that a neighborhood of the true optimum can indeed be reached, in a few simulation runs.


abstract Ridge Basin is in the territory of the current uplift in southern California. The basin is bounded by the San Gabriel and San Andreas faults. During a seismic experiment conducted there in 1972 to 1973, 42 small earthquakes were located in the region of the basin. Approximately one-third of the epicenters lie near the San Gabriel fault for a distance of more than 10 km. Their composite focal mechansim plot does not show uniquely defined nodes. However, the data permit a solution that agrees with known parameters of the San Gabriel fault. Namely, a vertical fault that strikes northwest, with a right-lateral strike-slip displacement. A composite fault-plane solution for most of the remaining events in the basin gives two well-constrained nodes; one dips southeast nearly parallel with the dip of the hypocenter zone and, therefore, was assumed to be the fault plane. It strikes northeast almost parallel to the basin hinge line of late Pliocene-early Pleistocene age, and the solution indicates reverse right-oblique displacement. The history of the basin suggests that reverse faulting should be expected to accompany subsidence, and subsidence is indeed suggested in the northwest part of the basin where the valleys appear inundated with sediments. Whereas the dip-slip component of faulting corresponds to basin formation, the strike-slip component of the right-oblique movement may relate to the tectonic process that is locking the San Andreas fault. Since the Pliocene was a time of formation of the basin, and the mid- and late Pleistocene mainly was a time of folding of lower Pleistocene and older rocks and erosion of them, the proposed model seems more analogous to the Pliocene tectonic cycle than to the Pleistocene one. Both Pyramid Dam and Castaic Dam are situated in the basin. Their location with respect to the faults of the earthquakes is not resolved.


The concept of a purinergic signalling system, using purine nucleotides and nucleosides as extracellular messengers, was first proposed over 30 years ago. After a brief historical review and update of purinoceptor subtypes, this article focuses on the diverse physiological roles of adenosine triphosphate, adenosine diphosphate, uridine triphosphate and adenosine. These molecules mediate short-term (acute) signalling functions in neurotransmission, secretion and vasodilation, and long-term (chronic) signalling functions in development, regeneration, proliferation and cell death. Plasticity of purinoceptor expression in pathological conditions is frequently observed, including an increase in the purinergic component of parasympathetic nervous control of the human bladder in interstitial cystitis and outflow obstruction, and in sympathetic cotransmitter control of blood vessels in hypertensive rats. The antithrombotic action of clopidogrel (Plavix), a P2Y12 receptor antagonist, has been shown to be particularly promising in the prevention of recurrent strokes and heart attacks in recent clinical trials (CAPRIE and CURE). The role of P2X3 receptors in nociception and a new hypothesis concerning purinergic mechanosensory transduction in visceral pain will be considered, as will the therapeutic potential of purinergic agonists or antagonists for the treatment of supraventricular tachycardia, cancer, dry eye, bladder hyperactivity, erectile dysfunction, osteoporosis, diabetes, gut motility and vascular disorders.


With the rapid development of hydrogen vehicle technology and large scale fuel cell vehicle (FCV) demonstration project worldwide, more hydrogen refueling stations need to be built. Safety distances of hydrogen refueling stations have always been a public concern and have become a critical issue to further implementation of hydrogen station. In this paper, safety distances for 35MPa and 70MPa gaseous hydrogen refueling station are evaluated on the basis of the maximum consequences likely to occur. Four typical consequences of hydrogen release are considered in modeling: physical explosion, jet fire, flash fire and confined vapor cloud explosion. Results show that physical explosion and the worst case of confined vapor cloud explosion produce the longest harm effect distances for instantaneous and continuous release, respectively, indicating that they may be considered as leading consequences for the determination of safety distances. For both 35MPa station and 70MPa station, safety measures must be implemented because the calculated safety distances of most hydrogen facilities can not meet the criteria in national code if without sufficient mitigation measures. In order to reduce the safety distances to meet the national code, some mitigation measures are investigated including elevation of hydrogen facilities, using smaller vessel and pipe work, and setting enclosure around compressors. Results show that these measures are effective to improve safety but each has different effectiveness on safety distance reduction. The combination of these safety measures may effectively eliminate the hazard of 35MPa station, however, may be not enough for 70MPa station. Further improvements need to be studied for compressors inside 70MPa station.


Part II Volume 5 Due Preparations for the Plague (1722) and Mere Nature Delineated (1726) Volume 6 Memoirs of the Church of Scotland (1717) Volume 7 A History of the Union of Great Britain, Part I (1710) Volume 8 A History of the Union of Great Britain, Part II (1710)


The global financial crisis that reached its peak in late 2008 has brought the importance of financial services regulation and supervision into the spotlight.

This book examines the governance of financial services in the EU, asking who governs financial services in the EU, how and why, and explaining where the power lies in the policy-making process. It covers the main financial services: banking, securities, payments systems, clearing and settlement. Addressing the politics and public policy aspects of financial market integration, regulation and supervision in the European Union, this book conducts a theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded analysis of financial services governance from the establishment of Economic and Monetary Union (1999) and the launch of the Financial Services Action Plan (1999), to date. It also assesses the EU responses to the global financial crisis.

Providing a reliable and unique insight into the politics of financial services regulation in the EU based on an extensive programme of interviews with policy makers and stakeholders across Europe, the book will be of great topical interest to students and scholars of European Union studies, political science and political economy.


We provide a comprehensive characterisation of the theoretical properties of the divide-and-conquer sequential Monte Carlo (DaC-SMC) algorithm. We firmly establish it as a well-founded method by showing that it possesses the same basic properties as conventional sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithms do. In particular, we derive pertinent laws of large numbers, $L^p$ inequalities, and central limit theorems; and we characterize the bias in the normalized estimates produced by the algorithm and argue the absence thereof in the unnormalized ones. We further consider its practical implementation and several interesting variants; obtain expressions for its globally and locally optimal intermediate targets, auxiliary measures, and proposal kernels; and show that, in comparable conditions, DaC-SMC proves more statistically efficient than its direct SMC analogue. We close the paper with a discussion of our results, open questions, and future research directions.


Aberrant histone methylation is a frequent event during tumor development and progression. KMT1E (also known as SETDB1) is a histone H3K9 methyltransferase that contributes to epigenetic silencing of both oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in cancer cells. In this report, we demonstrate that KMT1E acts as a metastasis suppressor that is strongly downregulated in highly metastatic lung cancer cells. Restoring KMT1E expression in this setting suppressed filopodia formation, migration, and invasive behavior. Conversely, loss of KMT1E in lung cancer cells with limitedmetastatic potential promotedmigration in vitro and restoredmetastatic prowess in vivo. Mechanistic investigations indicated that KMT1E cooperates with the TGFb-regulated complex SMAD2/3 to repress metastasis through ANXA2. Together, our findings defined an essential role for the KMT1E/ SMAD2/3 repressor complex inTGFb-mediated lung cancermetastasis.Cancer Res; 74(24); 7333–43. 2014AACR.


The aim of the paper is to show the potential of applying computational models of argument in the financial domain to the analysis of Earnings Conference Calls. We propose the formal description of ECC dialogue games: its locution rules and protocol. We also test its descriptive validity on an annotated corpus.


This document contains an analysis of the recreated Richard Luby Edition of two contrasting movements, the Adagio and Fuga, from J. S. Bach's Sonata in G Minor for Solo Violin. Dr. Richard Luby was a professor of violin and chamber music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1979 until his unexpected death in 2013. He mentored students who now play with orchestras and teach at universities around the world. He also maintained an international reputation as a teacher and performer, particularly in the area of Baroque performance practice. J. S. Bach's Sei Solo a violino senza Basso Accompagnatare are central to the violin repertoire and were among Luby's favorite pieces to teach and perform. These sonatas and partitas were a regular part of his students' study and he performed the entire cycle twice in Chapel Hill. After his passing, the score with his bowings and fingerings for these pieces was not found. Luby's technical markings for the Adagio and Fuga from the G-Minor Sonata have been reconstructed from a video of a 2012 public performance he gave and from markings from scores of students who studied with him. Analysis of these fingerings and bowings in comparison with Bach's 1720 manuscript and twenty-one published editions of the sonatas and partitas—the bulk of what is available today—shows that the Richard Luby Edition of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin is unique yet within the bounds of common practice violin playing. His edition emphasizes faithfulness to Bach's original score and long musical phrases.


The purpose of this paper is to revisit the relationship between E-government and corruption using global panel data from 176 countries covering the period from 2003 to 2014, considering other potential determinants, such as economic prosperity (gross domestic product per capita [GDPPC]), price stability (inflation), good governance (political stability and government effectiveness) and press freedom (civil liberties and political rights) indicators. Hence, the main rationale of this study is to reexamine the conventional wisdom as to the relationship between E-government and corruption using panel data independent of any preexisting notions.,The probability reduction approach of empirical modeling proposed by Spanos (2009) is used to test the relationship. Secondary data were collected from the United Nations, the World Bank, Transparency International and Freedom House.,No statistical evidence was found for the idea that E-government has a positive impact on corruption reduction following a rigorous test of the proposition. However, strong evidence was found for the positive impact of a country's government effectiveness, political stability and economic status. There also appears to be some evidence for the effect of GDPPC and civil liberties. There is no evidence to prove that inflation and political rights have any corruption reducing the effect.,Case studies suggest that E-government is helpful for curbing corruption. This study includes and examines some of the potential and important variables associated with corruption. Further research is encouraged and it should include more variables, such as national culture, poverty, religion and geography. Regarding methodology, a more parsimonious model must be sought to take into account adequately the entire probabilistic structure of the data.,The findings of the study demonstrate that E-government is less significant for reducing corruption compared to other factors. Hence, policymakers should further focus on other potential areas such as socio-economic factors, good governance, culture and transparency to combat corruption in addition to improving digital government.,This research applies a new methodological approach to the study of the relationship between E-government and corruption.