The purpose of this paper is to explore the difficulty many critically prepared educators and leaders experience when wanting to translate their social justice knowledge into everyday social justice practices. Even though these individuals are critically conscious and want to critically act, many become overwhelmed with the enormity of the neoliberal crisis, tend to fear actually acting against or speaking up in the face of injustice, and may become cynical in terms of even believing in the possibility of any type of educational and social transformation. To address this reticence, the postmodern and posthuman concepts of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2006, 2007) material feminisms (Barad, 2007,2008), care of the self and parrhesia (Foucault, 2001, 2005, 2011) were presented to educational leadership doctoral students as ideas to explicitly challenge their issues of fear and cynicism. Findings suggest these are important concepts that may assist critical educators in extending their critical knowledge into everyday social justice action.


This article shows a Training Program on Processing Strategies, following Beltran«s work on learning processes, strategies and techniques (1993,1996, 1997,1998). In this investigation the learning strategies (SO, SE, OE, SOE) were simultaneously applied to first-year secondary school students of social and natural sciences.
The evaluation model was almost experimental, with a non-equivalent group control. The results were evaluated before and after the treatment. The data analysis was based on an ANCOVA, with the following variables: the treatment (experimental -learning strategies- and control) as inter-subject variable; the postest results as dependant variables and the pretest test variables, as covariant.
The results of this research show that the treatments that included the three processing strategies (SOE) were more effective than those with only two simultaneous strategies (SE, SO, OE), both with regard to the control group of the several investigation variables and the two mentioned areas.


Xanthorrhizol is a natural sesquiterpenoid compound isolated from the rhizome of Curcuma xanthorrhizza Roxb (Zingerberaceae). Recent studies of xanthorrhizol in cell cultures strongly support the role of xanthorrhizol as an antiproliferative agent. In our study, we tested the antiproliferative effect of xanthorrhizol using different breast cancer cell lines. The invasive breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB-231, was then selected for further investigations. Treatment with xanthorrhizol caused 50% growth inhibition on MDA-MB-231 cells at 8.67 +/- 0.79 microg/ml as determined by sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay. Hoechst 33258 nuclear staining assay showed the rate of apoptosis of MDA-MB-231 cells to increase in response to xanthorrhizol treatment. Immunofluorescence staining using antibody MitoCapture and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labeled cytochrome c revealed the possibility of altered mitochondrial transmembrane potential and the release of cytochrome c respectively. This was further confirmed by Western-blotting, where cytochrome c was showed to migrate from mitochondrial fraction to the cytosol fraction of treated MDA-MB-231 cells. Caspase activity assay showed the involvement of caspase-3 and caspase-9, but not caspase-6 or caspase-8 in MDA-MB-231 apoptotic cell death. Subsequently, cleavage of PARP-1 protein is suggested. These data suggest treatment with xanthorrhizol modulates MDA-MB-231 cell apoptosis through the mitochondria-mediated pathway subsequent to the disruption of mitochondrial transmembrane potential, release of cytochrome c, activation of caspase-3 and caspase-9, and the modulation of PARP-1 protein.


This richly illustrated volume explores the eroticization of death in the literature, art, and music of the nineteenth century, and in the popular culture of our time. Death was the natural enemy of love in the arts of the West until the late eighteenth century, when the two mated in artistic fancy to celebrate death as a font of sensual bliss. Through the nineteenth century, voluptuous visions of death pervaded high culture. Keats fell half in love with easeful death, and, as Heine told it, Life only warms in death's cold arms. For Whitman, death was the word of the sweetest song. Flaubert tempted his Saint Anthony with Lust and Death fused into a single figure. Zola saw love and death intermixed in the somber pit of the human soul. At mid- century, painters and poets alike competed in depicting Ophelia drowning in ecstasy. At the century's end the figure of the femme fatale haunted the cultural elite. After 1914, the entire morbid complex sank into popular culture. What was the source of this eroticization of death in the arts? To answer this question, Rudolph Binion explores a rich variety of prose and poetry, painting and sculpture, and lyrical and instrumental music, interlacing love and death. He compares modern and premodern treatments of key subjects such as Salome and Mary Magdalene, supporting his text with an array of arresting illustrations. In conclusion, he traces this fantasy of carnal love beyond death to the Christian message of spiritual love beyond death, which modern, post- Christian culture has both discarded and salvaged. In Love Beyond Death: The Anatomy of a Myth in the Arts, Rudolph Binion investigates the various art forms where the conjunction of love and death is found and provides an explanation for this bizarre match. Supporting his text with some of the most sinister, alluring, and provocative images from the nineteenth century, Binion provides the reader with a dizzying account of the development of this artistic obsession, and of its passage into the popular culture of the twentieth century.


© 2016 Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine | Published by Wolters Kluwer Medknow Advancement in life science is happening at a rapid scale, with occasional reports of blockbuster discoveries. One such discovery, which is currently trending, is the report on CRISPR-Cas9 technology, which is a powerful and precise gene-editing tool. While the medical benefi ts of such a technology are obvious, the risks and, most importantly, the ethical concerns collaterally associated with such risks need in-depth analysis, so as to place appropriate preventive measures to avoid abuse of such technology. Although only a few studies are published on CRISPR technology so far, the products of such gene editing approach are already appearing commercially. One such example is the micro-pig created by BGI, Shenzen, China, which is evolving the era of designer pets amid ethical concerns. While the legality and ethical perception on such products developed may vary across the geographical domains; nevertheless, there is a need for universal consensus on socially responsible use of such a powerful technology, specifi cally considering equipotential risks and benefits of such technology. Nevertheless, progression in this technology will add considerably to the next domain of therapeutics, which over the years has evolved from crude extracts, receptor targeting, and specifi c small molecule therapeutics to the ultimate holy grail of precision engineering (repair/ replacement) of biomolecules. This advancement brings considerable refi nement to the fi eld of pharmacology by incorporating the biomolecular-engineering which can be broadly be classifi ed as genopharmacology/therapeutics (a therapeutic approach involving precise editing/ engineering of genes/biomolecules). Such a paradigm shift in the fi eld will necessarily involve successful replication of studies reported using this technology by multiple independent research groups globally. Such replications are necessary in addressing a very important issue on reliability of scientifi c reports, which has been intensively discussed recently as currently a signifi cant amount of data reported in scientifi c literature cannot be replicated. The reasons for lack of study replications may be multi-factorial, including poor study designs, inappropriate use of experimental models, and in some instances gross neglect or oversights. Hence, as highlighted in our previous editorials, it is necessary to have transparency and avoid biasness in all aspects of scientifi c research to improve its validity. Unless these two important parameters can be fully achieved, the reliability of any scientifi c research will continue to be questioned. Surprisingly, such lack in replicability of scientifi c results has also led some sceptics to question the utility of experimental animals as reliable models to understand human diseases, which has disappointingly led to unnecessary restrictions in the use of animals in scientifi c research. This is despite the enormous wealth of information available in the public domain supporting the benefi ts animal models has contributed in development of almost all the available medicines used for therapeutics currently. Such scepticism can only delay but not deny scientifi c advancement and probably, this will hold good for CRISPR-Cas9 technology as well.


It is reasonable that some molecular responses to aluminium toxicity and phosphate starvation stresses may be co-opted, as these stresses co-exist in the same environment and the most directly affected organ is the root in both cases .Some findings pointing to co-opted responses have already been reported, like the exudation of organic acids by root tips, that chelates Al 3+ ions and at the same time increase phosphate availability, activation of the same transcriptional regulator triggered by both stresses and possibilities of hormone signalling crosstalk. There are already reports in the literature of applications of molecular knowledge about adaptation to acid soils in commercially relevant crops. Here we focus on studyng the broad transcriptomic response to aluminium and phosphate starvation stresses in Populus ssp. as a model plant for woody crops, due to its genetic, genomic and transcriptomic data availability. In view of the above, this work highlights the transcriptional responses to aluminum toxicity and phosphate starvation in Populusspp. by the use of public microarray data and points to connections between the responses to the two stresses through gene co-expression networks. This approach is justified by the importance of understanding the relationship between the responses of these two major coexisting stresses in acidic soils and the lack of studies that address this relationship, as well as the responses to each stress in a specific way, in broad transcriptomic data.


AIMS/BACKGROUND The syndrome of ocular histoplasmosis is usually prefaced by 'presumed' as the aetiology is not yet clear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical features of a similar ocular syndrome in the Netherlands where the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum is not endemic. METHODS A retrospective multicentre study in which all patients were included who were diagnosed with a syndrome similar to presumed ocular histoplasmosis and in whom both fluorescein angiogram and all complete patient data were available. Fluorescein angiograms were examined by three authors in a masked fashion. Eighty one patients were selected who fulfilled the ophthalmic criteria for presumed ocular histoplasmosis. Fifty one patients showed the classic clinical picture, while 30 patients had an incomplete form as they did not show numerous histospots. RESULTS No major difference in clinical characteristics could be identified when comparing the group of patients with the classic syndrome with the one with the incomplete syndrome. Final visual outcome of patients with macular subretinal neovascularisation after laser treatment was better when compared with untreated patients (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS Since the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum is absent in the Netherlands, other aetiological agents must have led to this clinical entity similar to the presumed ocular histoplasmosis syndrome seen in the USA.


The role of entrepreneurial competencies in enhancing the performance of SMEs, especially in the agro-based industry of developing economies such as Nigeria has not been discussed extensively in extant literature. Therefore, this research is focused on examining the role of entrepreneurial competencies in enhancing the performance of agro-based SMEs. The study used 232 copies of questionnaires that were administered to agro-based business owners and managers in Lagos State as the data gathered instrument. Data analysis was carried out using regression analysis to show relationships between the variables. At different levels, the findings revealed that entrepreneurial competencies relates with the firms' profitability, customer base, organisational effectiveness, and sales growth. Therefore, the study recommended that entrepreneurial firms should consciously develop the ability of being sensitive to the environment and the ability to recognize opportunities in the market place.


The objective of this paper is to identify trends and new technological developments that appear due to an ageing society and to relate them to current research in the field of medical informatics. A survey of the current literature reveals that recent technological advances have been made in the fields of "telecare and home-monitoring", "smart homes and robotics" and "health information systems and knowledge management". Innovative technologies such as wearable devices, bio- and environmental sensors and mobile, humanoid robots do already exist and ambient assistant living environments are being created for an ageing society. However, those technologies have to be adapted to older people's self-care processes and coping strategies, and to support new ways of healthcare delivery. Medical informatics can support this process by providing the necessary information infrastructure, contribute to standardisation, interoperability and security issues and provide modelling and simulation techniques for educational purposes. Research fields of increasing importance with regard to an ageing society are, moreover, the fields of knowledge management, ubiquitous computing and human-computer interaction.


Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is the first line treatment in couples with unexplained subfertility, cervical factor subfertility and male subfertility. To appraise the effectiveness of IUI for these three indications, we performed a systematic review and a comprehensive series of meta-analyses. We included Cochrane reviews and searched the literature for additional studies. Outcomes were live birth, ongoing pregnancy, clinical pregnancy and multiple pregnancy . We were able to include 14 studies reporting on IUI for unexplained subfertility, two studies reporting on IUI for cervical factor subfertility and nine studies reporting on IUI in male subfertility. In couples with unexplained subfertility, IUI without controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) was associated with higher ongoing pregnancy rates than expectant management (relative risk (RR) 1.3, [95% CI 0.84 to 1.9]), whereas IUI with COH was more effective than IUI without COH (RR 1.8, [95% CI 1.2 to 2.7]). However, in couples with relatively good prospects for spontaneous pregnancy, there was no benefit from IUI with COH over expectant management . In couples with a cervical factor, IUI without COH was associated with higher pregnancy rates compared to expectant management (RR 1.6, [95% CI 0.87 to 3.1]), but addition of COH did not further improve the pregnancy rates (RR 1.0, [95% CI 0.59 to 1.8]). In couples with male subfertility, IUI was more effective than expectant manage ment, although the limited power of the included studies hampers strong conclusions. In these couples, addition of COH also had no extra benefit (RR 0.92, [95% CI 0.46 to 1.8]). Studies comparing IUI and IVF were rare, limiting assess ment of the strategy of IVF as first line treatment. Despite the fact that IUI is one of the most frequently used treatments in reproductive medicine, our review shows that the number of studies assessing it's effectiveness is limited and that most of these studies had small sample sizes. This results in imprecise effect estimates, as demonstrated by the non significant effects and large confidence intervals. Also, many studies did not adhere to present quality standards for design, conduct and report of clinical trials. Therefore, there is an urgent need for more RCTs in which IUI is compared to expectant management or IVF.


Many different quantum-information communication protocols such as teleportation, dense coding, and entanglement-based quantum key distribution are based on the faithful transmission of entanglement between distant location in an optical network. The distribution of entanglement in such a network is, however, hampered by loss and noise that is inherent in all practical quantum channels. Thus, to enable faithful transmission one must resort to the protocol of entanglement distillation. In this paper we present a detailed theoretical analysis and an experimental realization of continuous variable entanglement distillation in a channel that is inflicted by different kinds of non-Gaussian noise. The continuous variable entangled states are generated by exploiting the third order nonlinearity in optical fibers, and the states are sent through a free-space laboratory channel in which the losses are altered to simulate a free-space atmospheric channel with varying losses. We use linear optical components, homodyne measurements, and classical communication to distill the entanglement, and we find that by using this method the entanglement can be probabilistically increased for some specific non-Gaussian noise channels.


Deformed Special Relativity (DSR) is a generalization of Special Relativity based on a deformed Minkowski space, i.e. a fourdimensional space-time with metric coefficients depending on the energy. We show that, in the DSR framework, it is possible to derive the value of the electron mass from the space-time geometry via the experimental knowledge of the parameter of local Lorentz invariance breakdown, and of the Minkowskian threshold energy E0,em for the electromagnetic interaction.


With the growth of cloud computing, resiliency of cloud is critical for enterprises' business. However, the continuous-changing of cloud makes evaluation of cloud resiliency more difficult. In this study, we design a methodology for automatic and continuous evaluation of cloud resiliency and implement it in a tool called CRGauge. The Continuous Evaluation Model methodology leverages fault injection techniques to inject faults and an open-source library to set up synthetic workloads for the test campaign. Our experiment results on OpenStack cloud platform show that resiliency of OpenStack is needed to be improved especially in heavy workloads.


Blue (Balaenoptera musculus) and fin whales (B. physalus) in the Southern Ocean were subjects of extensive whaling industry during the twentieth century. Their current population numbers remain low, making population monitoring using traditional visual surveys difficult. Both blue and fin whales produce low frequency, regularly repeated calls and are suitable for acoustic monitoring. Eight, continuously recording acoustic recorders were deployed off the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) between March 2001 and February 2003. Ranges to calling blue and fin whales were calculated using hyperbolic localization and multipath arrivals up to the distances of 200 and 56km, respectively. Calls of both species had high intensity, blue whales calls had the average source level 189±3dB re: 1[mu]Pa at 1m and the average fin whale call source level was 189±4dB re: 1[mu]Pa at 1m. Automatic call detection methods were used for analysis of calling blue and fin whale seasonal presence and habitat preferences. Blue whale calls were detected year round, on average 177 days/ year, with peak calling in March and April, and a secondary peak in October and November. Fin whale calling rates were seasonal with calls detected between February and June (on average 51 days/year), and a peak in May. During the entire deployment period, detected calls from both species showed negative correlation with sea ice concentrations. Also, baleen whale sounds were recorded during multiple cruises off the Antarctic Peninsula using sonobuoys. Recordings from two fall cruises off the WAP were used for analyses of habitat preferences of calling blue and fin whales. The presence of calling blue whales was positively correlated with bottom depth and sea surface temperature, and negatively correlated with krill biomass in the top 100m and abundance of the rest of the zooplankton at depth (101-300m). Locations of fin whale calls were associated with a deep trough area and high Chl -a concentrations. Distribution of baleen whale calls recorded in the Scotia Sea (east of the Antarctic Peninsula) indicated that fin whales occur in open water, and blue, southern right (Eubalaena australis), minke (B. bonaerensis), and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) occur near islands or close to the ice edge


— We investigate sensing capabilities of a planar plasmonic THz waveguide. The waveguide is comprised of one dimensional array of periodically arranged sub wavelength scale corrugations in the form of rectangular dimples in order to ensure the plasmonic response. The THz waveguide transmission is observed for polyimide (as thin film) substance filling the dimples. The refractive index of the polyimide film is varied to examine various sensing parameters such as frequency shift, sensitivity and Figure of Merit (FoM) of the fundamental plasmonic resonance supported by the waveguide. In efforts to improve sensing characteristics, we also examine sensing capabilities of a plasmonic waveguide having V shaped corrugations and compare results with that of rectangular dimples. The proposed study could be significant in developing new terahertz sensors with improved sensitivity utilizing the plasmonic waveguides.


New Zealand's electricity sector has undergone considerable change in the three decades to 2015. Those changes are part of a broader shift within the political landscape, from state intervention to market dominance and the view of individuals as consumers. An ill-fated policy proposal in 2013 called NZ Power sought to reduce electricity prices, and implement structural reform that would reverse decades of change within the sector.  This thesis examines the context in which the reforms to the sector occurred so as to understand better why some policies are successfully implemented and other proposals fail. Specifically, this thesis examines the triumvirate of principal goals the sector has sought to achieve, and the political discourse around them: security of supply, economically efficient prices, and minimising environmental damage. From these insights, a framework is constructed against which future policies can be assessed as to the likelihood of their successful implementation.


Block methods for the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are quite prominent in recent literature and second order initial value problems (IVPs) which falls in the family of ODEs is also a well explored area for the application of block methods. The introduction of hybrid block method methods for the solution of second order IVPs has gained good grounds in literature as the presence of off-grid points in the block method has increased the accuracy of the hybrid block methods. However, recent studies still continue to introduce new block methods that will perform more favourably than previously existing when compared in terms of error. Hence, a hybrid block method of order six is presented in this article to compete with previously existing methods of the same order and higher order. The methodology adopted in this article presents a new approach for developing the hybrid block method which is simple to implement and less computationally tiresome. The numerical results show this new 4-step 5-point hybrid block method performing better than previously existing methods. c ©2017 All rights reserved.


Background: Vitamin D-binding protein (VDBP) has been implicated in several adverse pregnancy outcomes either directly or indirectly via influencing the concentrations of biologically active vitamin D metabolites. However, human studies exploring these metabolites in pregnancy remain sparse. Here, we examine whether VDBP and total, free, and bioavailable 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) metabolites in early pregnancy are associated with subsequent adverse pregnancy outcomes. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 304 pregnant women in early pregnancy (<20 weeks gestation). The demographic characteristics, anthropometric data, and total 25(OH)D were measured and plasma or serum samples were collected and bio-banked. Using these samples, we measured VDBP (polyclonal ELISA) and albumin (automated colorimetry), and calculated free and bioavailable 25(OH)D using validated formulae. Pregnancy outcomes were derived from scanned medical records. Regression models were used to analyse the relationships between vitamin D metabolites in early pregnancy and subsequent pregnancy outcomes (gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), pre-eclampsia, preterm birth), with adjustment for predetermined clinically relevant maternal factors including age, body mass index (BMI), and ethnicity. Results: Lower VDBP concentrations were associated with higher glucose levels and a greater likelihood of developing GDM at 26–28 weeks gestation (odds ratio [OR] (95% CI) = 0.98 (0.97,0.99), p = 0.015). This finding remained significant after adjustment for maternal covariates including age, BMI, and ethnicity (β = −0.003, p = 0.03). Lower total, free and bioavailable 25(OH)D, but not VDBP, were associated with a shorter length of gestation, but only the relationship with total 25(OH)D remained significant after adjustment for the above maternal covariates (β = 0.02, p = 0.006). Conclusions: This is the first study to examine VDBP, and total, free and bioavailable 25(OH)D in relation to pregnancy outcomes in a well characterised multi-ethnic cohort of pregnant women. Our findings show that VDBP and total 25(OH)D are associated with GDM and length of gestation, respectively; however, further investigations using large-scale prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings.


A comprehensive performance evaluation of a cross- layer solution to increase users' downlink data rates over HSDPA is provided. The solution consists of a proxy entity between a server and the radio network controller, and cross-layer signalling from the base station to the proxy. The performance of the solution is evaluated though a detailed ns-2 simulator environment, which includes all HSDPA features, as well as some existing TCP enhancing protocols widely adopted for internet traffic over wireless links. Numerical results show that the proxy significantly increases the users' throughput, while also improving the utilization of the radio resources.


The millimeter-wave (mm-wave) single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch designed in bulk CMOS technology has limited power-handling capability in terms of 1-dB compression point (P1dB) inherently. This is mainly due to the low threshold voltage of the switching transistors used for shunt-connected configuration. To solve this issue, an innovative approach is presented in this work, which utilizes a unique passive ring structure. It allows a relatively strong RF signal passing through the TX branch, while the switching transistors are turned on. Thus, the fundamental limitation for P1dB due to reduced threshold voltage is overcome. To prove the presented approach is feasible in practice, a 90-GHz asymmetrical SPDT switch is designed in a standard 55-nm bulk CMOS technology. The design has achieved an insertion loss of 3.2 dB and 3.6 dB in TX and RX mode, respectively. Moreover, more than 20 dB isolation is obtained in both modes. Because of using the proposed passive ring structure, a remarkable P1dB is achieved. No gain compression is observed at all, while a 19.5 dBm input power is injected into the TX branch of the designed SPDT switch. The die area of this design is only 0.26 mm2.


We have developed a set of cloning vectors possessing a modified Tn903 kanamycin resistance gene that enables the selection of both kanamycin‐resistant transformants in Escherichia coli and G418‐resistant transformants in the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Hansenula polymorpha and Pichia pastoris. Expression of this gene in yeast is controlled by the H. polymorpha glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase promoter, while expression in E. coli is governed by an upstream E. coli lacZ promoter. Applicability of the vectors for gene disruption in H. polymorpha and S. cerevisiae was demonstrated by inactivation of the HpMAL1 and URA3 genes, respectively. One of the vectors possesses a H. polymorpha ARS allowing plasmid maintenance in an episomal state. The small size of the vectors (2–2.5 kb) makes them convenient for routine DNA cloning. In addition, we report a novel approach for construction of gene disruption cassettes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The focus of this article is on the influence of heathenism on popular music, specifically on Black Metal and Neofolk. These two genres, or more correctly scenes, are converging — something which is interesting in itself as purely musical similarities are nonexistent. Both scenes are permeated by heathen notions, and have the ability to function as "cultural systems" providing sets of ideology, meanings, and practices for their adherents. Thus, they comprise more than simply "musical styles." The appeal of heathenism in these scenes can be explained by its status as non-mainstream exotic rejected knowledge, which makes it attractive in the quest for authenticity and rebellion inherent in rock music. At the same time it is precisely the inclusion of heathen elements which provides the possibility to construct meaning systems that can sustain a coherent cultural complex.


As the economy and society develop continuously, the relationship between higher education and economic society is becoming closer and closer. Colleges and universities shall meet requirements of economic and social development as much as possible. It is the key paths to cultivate "innovation and entrepreneurship" talents to lead to economic and social development. In view of characteristics of "innovation and entrepreneurship" talents, this paper constructs "innovation and entrepreneurship" talents cultivation system in economic management discipline from training objects, cultivation mechanism and teaching mode. Finally, sound organizations and management systems shall be equipped to ensure cultivation system accordingly. It is significant to cultivate innovative talents of high level in order to promote social progress.


Based on the nonlinear approximation of Huygens-Fresnel diffraction patterns, the SAR images of a target can be made up from a knowledge of a hologram for all frequencies and all aspects angles to provide a complete description of the target. In this paper we reconstruct the image of hologram employing the multiresolution Fresnelet transform to approximate the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction patterns in an off-axis geometry from the simulated test pattern (3bar). Fresnel transform is a wavelet-like transform, very close to Gabor functions (M. Unser et al., 1992) and well localized with respect to the holographic process. This method allows us to generate and reconstruct hologram on a digital computer, and apply multiresolution wavelet base analysis and special filtering on it. Since images are nonstationary process, we use fractional Brownian motion (fBm) method to describe texture in SAR images. It is known as a suitable model to classify a vast number of natural phenomena and shapes, such as the range of rivers, terrain surfaces, mountains ripples of water, coastlines and etc. The novelty of this technique lies in the use of Fresnel transform in reconstruction of holographic SAR images and fBm model for classifying them


Abstract Purpose This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of everolimus (EVE) plus exemestane (EXE) in hormone-receptor positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-negative (HER2−) metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients in real-life settings. Methods Overall, 204 HR+, HER2− MBC patients treated with EVE + EXE after progressing following prior endocrine treatment were included. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) and safety data were analyzed. Results The objective response rate, median PFS, and median OS were 33.4%, 8.9 months, and 23.4 months, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that negative progesterone receptor status was a significant determinant of poor treatment response (p = 0.035) and PFS (p = 0.024). The presence of bone-only metastasis was associated with better treatment response (p = 0.002), PFS (p < 0.001), and OS (p = 0.001). Conclusion We confirmed the favorable efficacy and safety profile of EVE + EXE for HR+, HER − MBC patients.


In quantum optimal control theory the success of an optimization algorithm is highly influenced by how the figure of merit to be optimized behaves as a function of the control field, i.e. by the control landscape. Constraints on the control field introduce local minima in the landscape --false traps-- which might prevent an efficient solution of the optimal control problem. Rabitz et al. [Science 303, 1998 (2004)] showed that local minima occur only rarely for unconstrained optimization. Here, we extend this result to the case of bandwidth-limited control pulses showing that in this case one can eliminate the false traps arising from the constraint. Based on this theoretical understanding, we modify the Chopped Random Basis (CRAB) optimal control algorithm and show that this development exploits the advantages of both (unconstrained) gradient algorithms and of truncated basis methods, allowing to always follow the gradient of the unconstrained landscape by bandwidth-limited control functions. We study the effects of additional constraints and show that for reasonable constraints the convergence properties are still maintained. Finally, we numerically show that this approach saturates the theoretical bound on the minimal bandwidth of the control needed to optimally drive the system.


Text-to-motion generation is an emerging and challenging problem, which aims to synthesize motion with the same semantics as the input text. However, due to the lack of diverse labeled training data, most approaches either limit to specific types of text annotations or require online optimizations to cater to the texts during inference at the cost of efficiency and stability. In this paper, we investigate offline open-vocabulary text-to-motion generation in a zero-shot learning manner that neither requires paired training data nor extra online optimization to adapt for unseen texts. Inspired by the prompt learning in NLP, we pretrain a motion generator that learns to reconstruct the full motion from the masked motion. During inference, instead of changing the motion generator, our method reformulates the input text into a masked motion as the prompt for the motion generator to "reconstruct" the motion. In constructing the prompt, the unmasked poses of the prompt are synthesized by a text-to-pose generator. To supervise the optimization of the text-to-pose generator, we propose the first text-pose alignment model for measuring the alignment between texts and 3D poses. And to prevent the pose generator from over-fitting to limited training texts, we further propose a novel wordless training mechanism that optimizes the text-to-pose generator without any training texts. The comprehensive experimental results show that our method obtains a significant improvement against the baseline methods. The code is available at https://github.com/junfanlin/oohmg.


Aspartame was administered intragastrically to rodents at doses between 10 and 550 times the expected daily human intake to evaluate the effects on central nervous system function. No biologically meaningful effects were observed in either rats or mice following acute administration by the intragastric route. Aspartame administered as 9% of the diet (about 11 g/kg/day) for thirteen weeks to weanling rats altered the learning behavior of male rats. This effect of impaired learning behavior was nearly identical to that observed for an approximately equimolar amount of L-phenylalanine. The learning behavior of the female rats was not altered by either L-phenylalanine or aspartame at these extremely large doses. It was concluded that prolonged dietary ingestion of aspartame at levels approximately 550 times that expected for normal human daily ingestion was necessary to elicit a behavioral deficit.


In crop rotations the harvest date of the first crop affects the sowing date of the succeeding crop which then influences the potential annual yield of the rotation. This study measured the dry matter accumulation and growth rate of oats, cv Milton, sown on five different dates 4 March (S1), 28 March (S2), 21 April (S3), 12 May (S4) and 3 June (S5) in 2008. Each sowing was sequentially harvested until October. More than 15 t DM ha -1 was obtained from oats sown in March but the yield declined to 7.7 t DM ha -1 in the June sowing. Using a base soil temperature of 0 °C Milton accumulated yield at between 8 and 13 kg DM Cd -1 . The earlier autumn sowings accumulated more heat units and therefore had higher dry matter production. Winter growth of S4 and S5 was < 19 kg DM ha -1 d -1 . Low growth rates in these treatments occurred because they failed to reach a critical leaf area index before cool temperatures restricted canopy development. However, these later sown crops responded rapidly to warm spring temperatures. The final yield from the October harvest reflects the yield potential prior to sowing a maize or kale crop for summer.


Background: The use of one-lung high-frequency jet ventilation (OHFJV) during minimally invasive surgery for limited forms of pulmonary tuberculosis has advantages over one-lung convective ventilation (OCMV): elimination of transmission of respiratory movements of the ventilated lung through the mediastinum to the operated lung and creating comfortable conditions for the surgeon in a limited rib cage space pleural cavity, absenceof depression of hemodynamics and adequate oxygenation. Nevertheless, several authors noted an increasing of PaCO 2 during application of OHFJV. Objective: Carry out a comparative study the influence of two OHFJV modes (with expiratory pause and without it) on gas exchange and central hemodynamic in patients with minimally invasive operations on the lungs. Methods: In two groups of 23 patients, conducted a study of gas exchange and central hemodynamic during a minimally invasive lung surgery at the limited forms of tuberculosis using two ventilation modes: I. OHFJV with expiratory pause; II OHFJV without expiratory pause. Results: During the II ventilation mode PaCO 2 marks an increasing of 22% in 30-35 minutes from the beginning of the application OHFJV with a tendency to develop respiratory acidosis. In parallel with this increase in cardiac index recorded by the rise in heart rate at 10%. Conclusions: Application of OHFJV with expiratory pause prevents hypercapnia and ensures adequate gas exchange, optimizing on this background the regulation of central hemodynamic. These results allow us to recommend this mode of OHFJV during minimally invasive surgery of the lung.


Patrick Bond and Jackie Dugard consider South Africa's retail water policy and delivery system through the dual lens of the proceedings in Mazibuko & Others v City of Johannesburg & Others , heard in the Johannesburg High Court from 3-5 December 2007, and a recent hydropolitical analysis by the country's leading water authority, Mike Muller.

Together they raise crucial debates around the first democratic government's success in delivering water to people on low incomes. Several policy and practical issues are highlighted as deserving special scrutiny: the constitutional implications of pre-paid water meters and shallow sanitation, especially in cases of water emergency and chronic poverty; the origins and sufficiency of Free Basic Water (FBW) as well as the unaffordability for poor households of water beyond the current FBW allocation; and the politics of local and national state-society relations in a context of transnational corporations, multilateral financial institutions and market-oriented state policies. The authors' bias is towards unveiling power relations that maintain poor people in water poverty, notwithstanding 'developmental' rhetoric


ABSTRACT The formation of large, economic borate deposits requires a boron-rich source, the means of transporting and concentrating the boron in a restricted environment, and mechanisms for the preservation of the deposit. There are several Miocene basins in western Turkey containing world-class borate reserves, with mineralization present as stratabound deposits in volcano-sedimentary successions. Although it is well-documented that the conditions required to form and preserve large borate deposits are most common in post-collisional tectonic settings (of which western Anatolia is a prime example), recent advances in the understanding of extensional tectonics and volcanism in this region, make it possible to gain fresh insights into their formation. Here, we suggest that formation of one of the largest borate deposits in the world was intimately related to the recently recognized Kırka-Phrigian caldera that lies in the northernmost part of the Miocene Eskişehir–Afyon volcanic field. Following caldera collapse, the basin filled with lacustrine sediments and volcaniclastic deposits with the boron mineralization concentrated in two main sub-basins: Sarıkaya and Göcenoluk. The close spatial and temporal relationship between borate deposition and the vast Early Miocene ignimbrite deposits that surround the caldera (and contain high levels of elements associated with mineralization) strongly suggest that the ignimbrites were the major source of boron. The boron was transported by geothermal fluids and post-volcanic gases that vented into warm water at the base of the caldera-paleolake system and was then concentrated during cycles of sedimentation and evaporation, with most of the mineralization concentrated along a N-S striking fault system.


The article offers an historical anthropological study of a little-known, mostly Turkish-Sephardi population that settled in Barcelona at the beginning of the twentieth century, attracted by the commercial dynamism of the area around the San Antonio Market. The complete disappearance of the community in the early 1940s has made it more difficult to reconstruct its history than is the case with some other Jewish communities in Spain. Through oral history testimonies and the location of several dispersed sources, this article provides new ethnographic and historical information that contributes to recovering the memory of this Jewish community. The study is also an attempt to explain the reasons behind the departure of most of the community's members in the early 1940s, after more than 20 years of settlement and integration in the city of Barcelona. It shows how the new conditions introduced by the Francoist authorities had a direct impact on the ability of community members to make a living. The restrictions forced them first to ask for help from the international organizations which were helping European refugees and ultimately to leave the country.


More electrically powered aircraft reveals some significant advantages such as weight decrease, reduced maintenance requirements and increased reliability and passenger comfort. However, the development of the future more-electric aircraft (MEA) systems is a very challenging task. Model based approach provides significant improvement for total aircraft design process. A key factor of applying model based design approach is dedicated modeling and simulation techniques. Among various available modeling languages and tools in this regard, Modelica - an object-oriented, equation based modeling language is gaining more attention and acceptance in the aircraft society thanks to its strong capability to conveniently model complex physical systems. With the simulation results of component stand-alone tests as well as the tests of an integrated aircraft power network, Modelica has been proved to be suitable for the virtual testing of complex energy systems in the future MEA design process.


PI3Kgamma is a phosphoinositide3-kinase predominantly expressed in leucocytes and activated by G-protein-coupled receptors. Cholera toxin (CT) is an AB5 enterotoxin that binds to GM1 ganglioside and catalyzes ADP-ribosylation of Gsalpha. CT is also an effective adjuvant that induces systemic and mucosal immunity. We examined the role played by PI3Kgamma in the mucosal adjuvant activity of CT for epicutaneous vaccines. PI3Kgamma KO and control C57BL/6 mice were immunized three times by transcutaneous application of 50 micrograms of CT with 1 mg ovalbumin (OVA). Control mice developed significant levels of OVA-specific IgA Abs in the serum and in fecal extracts. The adjuvant activity of CT in control mice also resulted in high OVA-specific IgG responses in the serum with IgG1>IgG2b>>IgG2a. Interestingly, the magnitude of OVA-specific serum IgG responses and fecal IgA Abs, were significantly enhanced in PI3Kgamma KO mice. The lack of PI3Kgamma signaling also enhanced Ab responses to CT itself, but did not affect the Th1/Th2 profile of responses. These results suggest that PI3Kgamma plays a regulatory role on immune responses to epicutaneous vaccines with ADP ribosyl-transferase adjuvants.


In the 1970s and the 1980s, the role of the prison in modern society was seared into the imagination of the humanities by Michel Foucault's treatment of the prison in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison; his genealogy of the modern "soul." At a time when the social sciences had little to say about the nature of imprisonment as a specific historical practice (rather than a problem of social organization), the humanities helped define the prison as a contemporary problem. During this era, ironically, a new model of imprisonment was arising, one based on the mass imprisonment of whole demographic categories of the population rather than the disciplinary investment of the deviant individual. The scale of imprisonment has arisen by more than five fold. Unfortunately the humanities and cultural studies have been slow to reckon with the nature of mass imprisonment. While a new wave of social science scholarship, partially inspired by the earlier work of the humanities, is engaging the topic, the absence of the humanities, especially their critical and normative edge, is significant.


Although electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a powerful technique for investigating optoelectronic devices, realistic equivalent circuit (EC) models suitable for multi‐layered water splitting electrodes have rarely been reported due to their complex nature. In the present study, the utility of the EIS method for investigating multi‐layered photocathodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting is demonstrated. By analyzing the EIS data of TiO2‐coated Sb2Se3 photocathodes, one is able to obtain information about the constituent semiconductors and interfaces such as recombination processes, carrier lifetimes, doping densities, and flat band potentials under operando conditions. The charge transfer time to the electrolyte is also extracted from the EIS data and confirmed by transient photocurrent decay measurements. In addition, the method is successfully applied to other photocathodes with different classes of light absorber, such as metal oxides (Cu2O) and crystalline Si, to compare the device characteristics under real operational conditions. It is shown that the lifetime of photo‐generated carriers in the Si photocathode is much higher than those of the Sb2Se3 and Cu2O photocathodes. It is believed that the EIS analysis method presented in this study will become a powerful routine characterization technique for discovering the limiting factors in a wide range of photo‐electrosynthetic as well as photovoltaic devices.


We derive a novel approximation error bound with an explicit prefactor for Sobolev-regular functions using deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The bound is non-asymptotic in terms of the network depth and filter lengths, in a rather flexible way. For Sobolev-regular functions which can be embedded into the Hölder space, the prefactor of our error bound depends on the ambient dimension polynomially instead of exponentially as in most existing results, which is of independent interest. We also establish a new approximation result when the target function is supported on an approximate lower-dimensional manifold. We apply our results to establish non-asymptotic excess risk bounds for classification using CNNs with convex surrogate losses, including the cross-entropy loss, the hinge loss, the logistic loss, the exponential loss and the least squares loss. We show that the classification methods with CNNs can circumvent the curse of dimensionality if input data is supported on a neighborhood of a low-dimensional manifold.


In this paper, we report ongoing investigations concerning the increased number of high-grade (Gleason grade > or = 7) prostate cancer, despite a reduction in all prostate cancer, found on the finasteride arm of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT). There was a statistically significant 24.8% reduction in prostate cancer found on biopsy on the finasteride arm compared to placebo, and the reduction was also observed in both groups of end-of-study and for-cause biopsies. However, when the prostate cancers were examined by Gleason score, there was an increased number of high-grade prostate cancers found on the finasteride arm than on the placebo arm. This observation was emphasized in the editorial to the first publication of PCPT results and has dampened enthusiasm for recommendation of finasteride for chemoprevention. So, what are the potential reasons for increased grade on the finasteride arm? The number of high-grade cancers that are detected following a PSA prompt is directly proportional to the sensitivity of PSA for high-grade disease times the actual but unknown number of high-grade disease cases. So the higher the sensitivity the more likely one is to detect more of the existing high-grade cases irrespective of the true number of cases, i.e., there is an ascertainment bias. We are currently performing a quantitative investigation of whether or not this ascertainment bias could explain the higher number of high-grade disease cases observed on the finasteride arm.


Kidney Donation and Risk of ESRD To the Editor Dr Muzaale and colleagues1 matched all US kidney donors from 1994 to 2011 with a cohort of selected participants from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) and found an increased cumulative incidence and lifetime risk of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) among the donors. The Editorial by Drs Gill and Tonelli2 highlighted several methodological factors that may have biased the findings in the direction of finding increased risk to donors, and we identify an additional factor. A review of eAppendix 1, which lists the exclusion criteria used for selecting healthy controls from the NHANES population, suggests that many individuals who might have been accepted as donors were excluded from the control group. These exclusions included any history of asthma, any cancer besides skin cancer, hypertension, and kidney stones. Selected patients with hypertension and kidney stones are not infrequently accepted as donors.3,4 We argue that a history of mild asthma or a remotely treated thyroid malignancy would not preclude donation. Similarly, functional limitations such as difficulty managing money or requiring special eating utensils were listed as exclusion criteria for NHANES controls, even though such limitations in isolation may not preclude live donation. These exclusions made the control group healthier and less likely to develop ESRD, thus biasing the findings in the direction of greater ESRD risk for donors. We appreciate the difficulty in finding ideal controls in determining outcomes of live kidney donation, especially from retrospective data. Prior studies of kidney donors5 have been criticized as providing excessive reassurance about donor outcomes because the control populations did not exclude persons with diabetes and other individuals who would have been excluded from donation. The study by Muzaale et al1 appears biased in the opposite direction, by excluding many individuals from the control group who might have been allowed to donate. As the authors pointed out, the magnitude of increased ESRD risk among donors was small—we suspect this risk is even smaller than reported and believe these findings should not discourage the many potential kidney donors for whom donation is safe.


Dent is one of the important factors affecting pipeline fatigue life, and it will greatly reduce the fatigue life of the pipeline in service. Based on a large number of foreign dented pipeline fatigue test results and fatigue life model, for the typical dent defect, using finite element method, various parameters are changed and finite element models are obtained under different conditions. According to many calculation results, a key ratio of peak period stress and pipeline pressure variation are obtained, which are substituted to the fatigue life model and the example are calculated.


introduction It has long been a commonplace that ancient ethical thought is characterized by its eudaimonism. The great nineteenth-century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick, for example, remarks that "in the whole ethical controversy of ancient Greece … it was assumed on all sides that a rational individual would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim." Sidgwick also thinks that its commitment to eudaimonism is one of the most important features that distinguishes ancient ethical reflection from that of the moderns from the time of Bishop Butler on. 1 Whether or not we accept Sidgwick's claims, eudaimonia (typically translated as "happiness") is a central concept in ancient Greek ethical and political philosophy. In this chapter, I shall examine the idea of eudaimonia or happiness in Socrates' thought and consider what place it has in his views about how to live and how to act, what content he gives it, and its relation to other important notions, such as virtue and knowledge. But before turning to these substantive issues, I begin by marking out the territory that I shall be exploring. Many scholarly controversies surround any discussion of Socrates. For example, what evidence do we have for the views of the historical Socrates? How reliable are the depictions of Socrates by Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes, and other "Socratic" writers? Can we reliably date Plato's dialogues so as to isolate those that are closest in time to his association with Socrates? Since other essays in this volume consider these disputes in greater detail, I shall simply state the limitations of my discussion without examining the arguments justifying them. My way of carving up this territory, although certainly not the only plausible one, is fairly common.


The effects of the mean and turbulence characteristics of the upstream (initial) boundary layer on the evolution of the flow in the near field of a plane jet have been experimentally investigated for four initial conditions. Rates of jet widening and centerline mean velocity decay as well as the kinematic and geometric virtual origins show evidence of systematic dependence on initial conditions. The growth rate of longitudinal turbulence intensity, and the mass flux are higher when the initial boundary layer is laminar than when turbulent. Immediately downstream of the exit, the nondimensional entrainment rates for the laminar initial boundary layer cases reach peak values which are about twice the delayed peak values for the fully turbulent initial boundary layer cases. Within the first 40 slit widths, increases in total average streamwise momentum flux range from 20% to 56%, the larger increases occurring for the laminar initial boundary layers; about 10% of each increase is due to the turbulence field. While such increases violate the traditionally accepted momentum flux invariance, they are consistent with the negative mean static pressure data.


We report a 43-year-old woman with bilateral partial ptosis, complete external ophthalmoplegia, and proximal limb weakness. She was found to have generalized myasthenia gravis and membranous nephropathy with normal renal functions. Her myasthenic symptoms and signs improved within 2 months on treatment with pyridostigmine.The occurrence of glomerulonephritis is usually not considered to possibly accompany the course of MG and therefore, myasthenia gravis with membranous nephropathy was considered a rare association Twenty-four other cases of nephrotic syndrome associated with thymoma and myasthenia gravis have been reported in the literature, many of them were having membranous nephropathy and thus we support the notion that this form of glomerulonephritis is among the most frequently associated with MG. Most reported cases were related to thymic abnormality or thymectomy. However, our patient was neither thymectomized nor having thymoma. It is postulated that either thymic hyperplasia- with normal sized thymus- or subclinical stage of a thymoma may be the underlying aetiological factor in this patient.


Consumers frequently read online consumer reviews before purchasing products both online and offline (at stores). Yet, reviews are known to have certain biases. This paper surveys 17 types of biases that previous studies identified. The effects of these biases are intertwined and hard to isolate from one another. It is then difficult to assess the impact of each bias on how consumers rate the helpfulness of reviews. Although extant studies use different terminologies, review biases can be summarized into three basic categories: selection biases, system biases, and attribution biases. Focusing on major categories of goods, the paper then considers the overestimation of review helpfulness due to system and non-system (selection and attribution) biases. Using Amazon.com reviews on six bestselling products and the data from a survey questionnaire to 294 consumers, the paper shows the following: (1) the overestimation of review helpfulness due to non-system biases is smaller in the order of search, experience and credence goods and (2) the overestimation of review helpfulness due to system biases is more pronounced with hedonic goods than non-hedonic goods.


ABS TRACT Objective: In this study, we aimed to evaluate how university students can cope with stress and their general health questionnaire scores using regression. Material and Methods: The survey including socio-demographic characteristics, the ways of coping with stress inventory, and the general health questionnaire was applied to 6386 students who volunteered to participate. All participants were enrolled in university in Eskisehir during the 2004-2005 academic years. Results: The mean score of students in the general health survey was 1.93 ± 0.03 (mean ± standard error of mean). According to the General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), 3800 (59.5%) students were healthy, 1282 (20.1%) had probable psychological disorder and 1304 (20.4%) had physiological and psychological disorders. The mean scores of students in the subscales of coping with the stress inventory were 2.07 ± 0.01 for self-confident approach, 1.77 ± 0.01 for optimistic approach, 1.17 ± 0.01 for unconfident self approach, 0.89± 0.01 for submissive approach and 1.90 ± 0.01 for social support seeking approach. There was a negative correlation between the GHQ-12 score and self confident approach (r= -0.28, p< 0.001), optimistic approach (r= -0.25, p< 0.001) and social support seeking approach (r= 0.14, p< 0.001). Similarly, there was a considerable positive correlation between submissive approach (r= 0.17, p< 0.001) and unconfident self approach (r= 0.39, p< 0.001). Conclusion: University students seem to require psychological support and lose their ability to cope with problems effectively when their GHQ-12 scores are higher.


A compound that inhibits prostaglandin degradation enhances tissue regeneration in multiple organs in mice. Tissue damage can be caused by injury, disease, and even certain medical treatments. There is great interest in identifying drugs that accelerate tissue regeneration and recovery, especially drugs that might benefit multiple organ systems. Zhang et al. describe a compound with this desired activity, at least in mice (see the Perspective by FitzGerald). SW033291 promotes recovery of the hematopoietic system after bone marrow transplantation, prevents the development of ulcerative colitis in the intestine, and accelerates liver regeneration after hepatic surgery. It acts by inhibiting an enzyme that degrades prostaglandins, lipid signaling molecules that have been implicated in tissue stem cell maintenance. Y. Zhang, A. Desai, S. Y. Yang, K. B. Bae, M. I. Antczak, S. P. Fink, S. Tiwari, J. E. Willis, N. S. Williams, D. M. Dawson, D. Wald, W.-D. Chen, Z. Wang, L. Kasturi, G. A. Larusch, L. He, F. Cominelli, L. Di Martino, Z. Djuric, G. L. Milne, M. Chance, J. Sanabria, C. Dealwis, D. Mikkola, J. Naidoo, S. Wei, H.-H. Tai, S. L. Gerson, J. M. Ready, B. Posner, J. K. V. Willson, S. D. Markowitz, Inhibition of the prostaglandin-degrading enzyme 15-PGDH potentiates tissue regeneration. Science 348, aaa2340 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text] G. A. FitzGerald, Bringing PGE2 in from the cold. Science 348, 1208–1209 (2015). [Abstract] [Full Text]


To explore possible sources of the underrepresentation of minority groups in law school, this paper brings together existing data that describe the participation of members of different racial/ethnic groups, especially African Americans and Hispanics, at successive points along the way to employment in the law. It focuses on the process by which prospective lawyers are educated through the steps that lead to a career in the law, comparing the experiences of minorities with those of their nonminority cohorts. The objective is to identify places along the path to the legal profession at which minority members are most likely to fall by the wayside. Data suggest that African Americans are completing high school later than Whites, but Hispanics are completing high school at lower rates. College enrollment rates have been increasing steadily among high school graduates from all racial/ethnic groups, but only about 16% of African Americans and 10% of Hispanics held baccalaureate degrees. Among the first professional degrees recorded by the National Center for Education Statistics, a law degree appears to be a popular choice for members of minority groups. College graduates who are members of minority groups are proportionately more likely than their white counterparts to.consider attending law school. There is no disproportionate loss of any single group at the stage of application to law school. At the level of admission, the racial-ethnic profile of the group of applicants admitted to law school is different than that of the applicant pool. The overall rates of admission of minority groups are generally lower than those of white applicants. These differences may be attributed, at least in part, to the majority-minority gap in Law School Admission Test and undergraduate grade point average measures. Minorities enter legal education at rates that are lower than those of their white counterparts, and law school persistence and completion are lower for Black, Hispanic, and Native American students. The article concludes by identifying possible targets for action to increase minority representation in legal education and the professions. (Contains 11 figures, 24 tables, and 24 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educahonal Research and Improvement ED CATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. * Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY J. Vaseleck RESOURCES TO THE EDUCATIONAL INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) LSAC RESEARCH REPORT SERIES The Road to Law School and Beyond: Examining Challenges to Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession


This paper addresses the problem of increasing penetration of Anglicisms in electrical engineering terminology, with particular emphasis on computer terminology. This widespread phenomenon is part of a larger language process influenced by globalization, in which the boundaries between languages have become less rigid. Furthermore, the problem of their integration into the Croatian language system is analyzed. Examples excerpted from Croatian popular magazines and scientific journals in the field of power engineering and computer science are analyzed in accordance with the work of Rudolf Filipovic. Consequently, the analysis is carried out on the level of orthography, phonology, morphology, and semantics, but also on the level of word formation. In the end, standardization issues of Anglicisms are tackled.


A critique of the state of current quantum theory in physics is presented, based on a perspective outside the normal physics training. From this perspective, the acceptance of quantum nonlocality seems unwarranted, and the fundamental assumptions that give rise to it in the first place seem questionable, based on the current status of the quantum theory of light. The relevant data can instead be accounted for using physically motivated local models, based on detailed properties of the experimental setups. The semiclassical approach, particularly in the form of the fully coupled MaxwellDirac equations with a pure wave ontology, seems to provide a satisfying, local, paradox-free physical model of the quantum world, that appears consistent with known phenomena. It is unclear why this approach is not pursued more vigorously in the field, given its clear potential to resolve all the conundrums that have perplexed generations of physicists.


Despite the seeming ubiquity of young people's Internet use, there are still many for whom access to the Internet and online social networking remains inequitable and patterned by disadvantage. The connection between information technology and young people with disabilities is particularly under‐researched. This article contributes to the field of critical information systems research by exposing significant barriers and facilitators to Internet accessibility for young people with disabilities. It uses Bourdieu's critical theory to explore how the unequal distribution of resources shapes processes of digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. It highlights access needs and experiences that are both disability and non‐disability related. The article draws on interviews in South Australia with 18 young people aged 10–18 years with a physical disability (such as cerebral palsy) or acquired brain injury and with 17 of their family members. Interviews evaluated participants' and parents' reflections on the benefits of a home‐based, goal‐oriented intervention to increase the young person's Internet use for social participation purposes. The Bourdieuian analysis demonstrated how varying levels of accrued individual and family offline capital resources are related to digital/online resources and disability‐specific online resources. This revealed how unequal resources of capital can influence technology use and hence digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. Our study demonstrates that young people with particular types of disabilities require intensive, personalised and long‐term support from within and beyond the family to 'get online'. We conclude that Internet studies need to more frequently adopt critical approaches to investigate the needs of users and barriers to information technology use within sub‐groups, such as young people with disabilities. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd


Everyone is talking about foreign law. No surprise here, because it is the topic of this symposium. But the Justices of the Supreme Court are addressing it in and out of court-Justice Scalia has debated Justice Breyer in a road-show tour and just delivered an endowed lecture on this subject at the American Enterprise Institute; (1) and there is a competing program on the same topic at another law school this weekend. What's all the fuss about? Just because of citation practice in a handful of recent opinions? Come, now. Next, the Justices will start citing law reviews, which have no legal authority in any jurisdiction. Oh--they do cite law reviews! Never mind. Maybe they'll start citing articles in the New York Times. But since when have these citations caused a string of symposia? Courts have been citing foreign authority since the nation's founding (2)--though citations are rare, and effect on the outcome rarer still. (3) The portion of opinions that cite foreign decisions has been stable for a long time; any suggestion that the practice has skyrocketed recently is unfounded. (4) Objections to this practice date from its inception more than two centuries ago; statutes enacted during the founding era in some states forbade such citations because citizens of a new nation wanted to sever ties to the colonial power. (5) Contemporary reliance on foreign law, by contrast, does not suggest that judges are paying obeisance to King George III. The problem is that Justices have taken a kingly role for themselves. In Atkins v. Virginia, (6) which posed the question whether the Eighth Amendment permits capital punishment of retarded murderers, the majority opinion related that "the world community" (the Court's phrase, not mine) has "overwhelmingly disapproved" of such executions. (7) It did not explain why a poll of United Nations members today has any bearing on the meaning of a constitutional text that James Madison drafted in 1791 or the power of each state to stake out its own position on the subject. The performance was repeated, with nearly identical language (and omissions), in Roper v. Simmons, (8) which concerned capital punishment of youthful murderers. And in Lawrence v. Texas, (9) which dealt with a challenge to the prohibition of consensual homosexual conduct, the Court cited decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and the report of a British parliamentary committee, among other sources. (10) I am inclined to think that these references are just window dressing. They play no more causal a role than did Kenneth Clark's famous research on dolls, which following its citation in Brown v. Board of Education (11) led to many conferences and articles about the use of social-science research in constitutional adjudication. Most citations are just filler, added by law clerks or by the Justices themselves when engaged in belt-and-suspenders reasoning. They do not imply that the cited sources have any legal effect. Ask yourself this: if some countries prosecute newspapers that publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, or imprison historians who deny that the Holocaust occurred (as Austria has done), what is the chance that any Justice of the Supreme Court will cite these steps as precedent in any case under the First Amendment of our Constitution? There is no chance. Back to Lawrence. The Justices would have reached the same decision in Lawrence if the Wolfenden Report in the United Kingdom had come to a different conclusion. In Lawrence, the reference to international custom was designed to refute the contention of former Chief Justice Burger that homosexuality has always and everywhere been condemned. (12) It is hard to fault Justice Kennedy for giving an accurate internationalist response to an absurd internationalist ukase offered in support of criminal prohibition. What really swayed the Justices in Lawrence was John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859): Government should not interfere with acts that do not harm third parties. …


Clostridioides difficile is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, toxin-producing anaerobe, and an important nosocomial pathogen. Due to the strictly anaerobic nature of the vegetative form, spores are the main morphotype of infection and transmission of the disease. Spore formation and their subsequent germination play critical roles in C. difficile infection (CDI) progress. Under suitable conditions, C. difficile spores will germinate and outgrow to produce the pathogenic vegetative form. During CDI, C. difficile produces toxins (TcdA and TcdB) that are required to initiate the disease. Meanwhile, it also produces spores that are responsible for the persistence and recurrence of C. difficile in patients. Recent studies have shed light on the regulatory mechanisms of C. difficile sporulation and germination. This review is to summarize recent advances on the regulation of sporulation/germination in C. difficile and the corresponding therapeutic strategies that are aimed at these important processes.


A new composite, wood-polymer composite, was fabricated by formation of poly (methyl methacrylate) in wood cellular structure. Methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer and a few of 2,2'- azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator, as well as several drops of pyrimidine as catalyst were first impregnated into wood porous structure under a pressure condition, and then initiated for thermal polymerization through a catalyst-thermal treatment. The mechanical properties of the composite were tested, and the composite was also analyzed by SEM and DSC to further correlate its performance. The results indicated that the modulus of rupture, modulus of elasticity, compression strength and hardness of Wood-PMMA Composite were improved by 68.28%, 110.27%, 62.43%, 357% over those of Untreated Wood, respectively. The SEM observations showed that PMMA generated and filled up wood pores under the employed conditions, and thus reinforced the mechanical properties of wood. DSC analysis suggested that Wood-PMMA Composite was more thermal stability than Untreated Wood as the formation of PMMA within wood pores.


Participatory sensing (PS) platforms enable stakeholders to collect, analyse and visualise data for a particular interest. Despite high societal demand, developing a new PS platform remains a labour-intensive, nonreusable process that requires high technical expertise. We present DISCOPAR, a visual reactive flow-based domain-specific language geared towards the construction of reusable citizen observatories. With DISCOPAR, users interact with visual components to implement the various elements of a PS platforms without having to worry about its underlying technological complexities. We validate our approach through experiments using real-world empirical usability studies of ICT-agnostic users. The results show that DISCOPAR allows users with limited technological knowledge to create their own PS platform.


Quantifying the effects of pore‐filling materials on elastic properties of porous rocks is of considerable interest in geophysical practice. For rocks saturated with fluids, the Gassmann equation is proved effective in estimating the exact change in seismic velocity or rock moduli upon the changes in properties of pore infill. For solid substance or viscoelastic materials, however, the Gassmann theory is not applicable as the rigidity of the pore fill (either elastic or viscoelastic) prevents pressure communication in the pore space, which is a key assumption of the Gassmann equation. In this paper, we explored the elastic properties of a sandstone sample saturated with fluid and solid substance under different confining pressures. This sandstone sample is saturated with octadecane, which is a hydrocarbon with a melting point of 28°C, making it convenient to use in the lab in both solid and fluid forms. Ultrasonically measured velocities of the dry rock exhibit strong pressure dependency, which is largely reduced for the filling of solid octadecane. Predictions by the Gassmann theory for the elastic moduli of the sandstone saturated with liquid octadecane are consistent with ultrasonic measurements, but underestimate the elastic moduli of the sandstone saturated with solid octadecane. Our analysis shows that the difference between the elastic moduli of the dry and solid‐octadecane‐saturated sandstone is controlled by the squirt flow between stiff, compliant, and the so‐called intermediate pores (with an aspect ratio larger than that of compliant pore but much less than that of stiff pores). Therefore, we developed a triple porosity model to quantify the combined squirt flow effects of compliant and intermediate pores saturated with solid or viscoelastic infill. Full saturation of remaining stiff pores with solid or viscoelastic materials is then considered by the lower embedded bound theory. The proposed model gave a reasonable fit to the ultrasonic measurements of the elastic moduli of the sandstone saturated with liquid or solid octadecane. Comparison of the predictions by the new model to other solid substitution schemes implied that accounting for the combined effects of compliant and intermediate pores is necessary to explain the solid squirt effects.


The purpose of this study is to examine paternalistic leadership behaviours' impact on job performance and on intention to leave the job of the employees. Study sample consists of 267 medical and administrative personnel working at a university hospital in Ankara, Turkey. In order to collect data, Paternalistic Leadership Questionnaire developed by Cheng, Chou, Wu, Huang and Farh (2004), Job Performance Questionnaire developed by Kirkman and Rossen (1999) and Intention to Leave the Job Questionnaire adapted from Walsh, Ashford and Hill (1985) were used. SPSS 21.0 was used for all statistical analysis. It has been found that paternalistic leadership dimensions have direct impact on job performance and intention to leave the job of the employees. It can be suggested that leaders at healthcare organizations can emphasize benevolence if they wish to positively influence their subordinates' job performance and that leaders at hospitals can emphasize benevolence and morality over behaviours if they wish to minimize the intention to leave the job. Since there is limited research on the relationship between paternalistic leadership and job performance and intention to leave the job, it is thought this study will contribute to the literature.


Objective. Childhood obesity experts have identified licensed child care providers as a focus for prevention efforts. Since 2011, local public health agencies in Minnesota have provided training and support to child care providers to assist in implementation of weight-related policies and practices as part of Minnesota's Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP). Method. A representative sample of licensed child care centers and family home providers in Minnesota participated in a 2016 survey of policies and practices on child nutrition, infant feeding, and physical activity (n = 618, response rate = 38.5%). Results. In adjusted analyses, SHIP-participating providers were significantly more likely to implement child nutrition (prevalence ratio = 1.46, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14, 1.88]) and physical activity (PR = 1.64, 95% CI [1.26, 2.14]) policies and implemented approximately one additional best practice in child nutrition and infant feeding, respectively. SHIP participation was associated with best practices and policies among home-based providers and policies among centers. Conclusions. Child care providers who participated in SHIP implemented more best practices and policies on weight-related topics than providers who did not participate. Findings suggest that efforts by local public health agencies to support child care providers can be effective at increasing adherence to practices and policies that are likely to influence child behavior and weight.


While virulence properties of Candida albicans, the most commonly isolated human fungal pathogen, are controlled by transcriptional and post‐translational mechanisms, considerably little is known about the role of post‐transcriptional, and particularly translational, mechanisms. We demonstrate that UME6, a key filament‐specific transcriptional regulator whose expression level is sufficient to determine C. albicans morphology and promote virulence, has one of the longest 5′ untranslated regions (UTRs) identified in fungi to date, which is predicted to form a complex and extremely stable secondary structure. The 5′ UTR inhibits the ability of UME6, when expressed at constitutive high levels, to drive complete hyphal growth, but does not cause a reduction in UME6 transcript. Deletion of the 5′ UTR increases C. albicans filamentation under a variety of conditions but does not affect UME6 transcript level or induction kinetics. We show that the 5′ UTR functions to inhibit Ume6 protein expression under several filament‐inducing conditions and specifically reduces association of the UME6 transcript with polysomes. Overall, our findings suggest that translational efficiency mechanisms, known to regulate diverse biological processes in bacterial and viral pathogens as well as higher eukaryotes, have evolved to inhibit and fine‐tune morphogenesis, a key virulence trait of many human fungal pathogens.


The RTA (Required Time Arrival) capabilities of aircraft FMS (Flight Management Systems) offer new opportunities to solve mid-term horizon conflicts (20 minutes in advance) with small speed adjustments. The ERASMUS project has shown promising results of up to $80\%$ conflict resolution using small speed adjustments in the $[-6\%;+3\%]$ range with 20 minutes advance notice. The hypotheses were based on very accurate trajectory predictions (TPs). In this article we show how the quality of these results decreases as the uncertainties on the trajectory prediction increase. Therefore we used the CATS (Complete Air Traffic Simulator) developed in the late 90s at CENA (Centre d'Etudes de la Navigation A\'erienne) and constrained the solver to use only speed maneuvers for leveled or descending aircraft with different hypotheses on speed ranges and speed uncertainties. Results show that Traffic Control using Speed Adjustments (TCSA) can solve most of the conflicts even when we consider uncertainty on the TP. However, the number of maneuvers that need to be given to aircraft is highly influenced by the uncertainties used in the TP.


It is well-known that the performance of Web-browsing as well as mobile applications (or apps) suffers on today's cellular networks. In this work, we perform a systematic measurement study of more than 50 popular apps and 2 cellular networks, and discover that while cellular networks have predictable latency, it is the path between exit points of cellular networks (e.g., GGSN) and cloud-servers that degrades apps performance. High latency and unpredictability over this path affects browsing and activity completion times of apps, worsening the performance by several magnitudes. Furthermore, we find that as the number of apps on mobile devices increases, cellular networks in turn suffer due to large number of active connections, primarily used for push notifications, experiencing heavy signaling overhead in the network. Towards accelerating the performance of apps and improving their operational efficiency, we envision an easy to deploy operator-managed platform, and study two architectural optimizations that sit at vantage points inside cellular networks: virtual app-server (vApp) and network-assisted, virtual push-notification server (vPNS). vApps improve apps' browsing experience while vPNSs take the burden of carrying periodic message off cellular networks. Using trace-driven simulations, we find that vApps can improve activity completion times by more than 3-fold, whereas vPNS can reduce the signaling load by a factor of 6 in cellular networks and reduce energy consumption by a factor of 2 on mobile devices.


In this paper, two factors typical of large photovoltaic (PV) arrays are investigated: one is the current-voltage (I-V) mismatch consequent to the production tolerance; the other is the impact of reverse currents in different operating conditions. Concerning the manufacturing I-V mismatch, the parameters of the equivalent circuit of the solar cell are computed for several PV modules from flash reports provided by the manufacturers. The corresponding I-V characteristic of every module is used to evaluate the behavior of different strings and the interaction among the strings connected for composing PV arrays. Two real crystalline silicon PV systems of 8 times 250 kW and 20 kW are studied, respectively. The simulation results reveal that the impact of the I-V mismatch is negligible with the usual tolerance, and the insertion of the blocking diodes against reverse currents can be avoided with crystalline silicon technology. On the other hand, the experimental results on I-V characteristics of the aforementioned arrays put into evidence the existence of a remarkable power deviation (3%-4%) with respect to the rated power, linkable to the lack of measurement uncertainty in the manufacturer flash reports.


Since the 60s, the Brazilian poultry sector has become a real agroindustrial complex. The Brazilian poultry sector is the world biggest exporter of chicken meat. This paper aims to rise factors which have developed the Brazilian SAG and discuss future perspectives for the sector. Scientific bibliographic research and the specialized institutions database consultation were used as methodology in this article. It was observed that the main aspects which have stimulated the development of the industrial poultry were: use of technology in genetic improvement; government tax incentivation; increase of grain production, especially in the cerrado; installation of great foods agrorindustries and mainly the elaboration of a production model based on the integration agroindustry/producer. Nowadays the sector faces the impacts of SARS (The Bird Flu), which has caused a decline in the poultry meat consumption worldwide. A SWOT analysis was used as a tool in order to organize some information and to define strategies to the sector. Brazil, being the greater global exporter still free from this illness has a great potential to broaden its exports, if it keeps its sanitary quality in the chicken meat production. Finally, it is considered that the moment is of caution in the production, once the market still faces reflexes of the fall in consumption, and that the control and prevention of SARS must be intensified.


The role of acquisitions has been widely discussed in management literature. There is considerable evidence that many acquisitions fail, often because of post-acquisition problems. More recently business historians have examined their role in the restructuring of the British, American and other economies after World War Two. Yet the historical and management literatures have been poorly integrated. This article seeks to address some of the issues raised in the management literature by contributing a longitudinal case study of the use of acquisitions by Unilever to build the world's largest ice cream and tea businesses. The study supports recent resource-based theory which argues that complementary rather than related acquisitions add value. It identifies the importance of local knowledge as a key complementary asset. It also identifies reasons why Unilever was able to integrate acquisitions quite successfully, including clear strategic intent and the fact that employee resistance was reduced because most acquisitions were agreed. Finally Unilever could take a long-term view because of its size, and relative unconcern for shareholder interests before the 1980s.


Some investigations on physico-chemical properties of hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) thin films deposited from C2H4 precursor have been carried out. The films were elaborated in a Microwave Multipolar Plasma reactor excited at Distributed Electron Cyclotron Resonance (MMP-DECR). The effects of the plasma power on the electrical and structural characteristics of the deposited films have been evaluated. It appeared that for low plasma power ( 400 W), the deposition rate and the hydrogen concentration increases, whereas the Csp2 concentration remains constant. Beyond 400 W, the deposition rate and the hydrogen concentration reach saturation levels and the Csp2 concentration decreases. In contrast, the film density decreased with the increase of the plasma power. Below 400 W, the dielectric constant decreased with the increase of the plasma power, however, beyond 400 W its value remained almost constant. The correlation between film characterization and properties shows that the permittivity is driven by the film density and the film structure.


: In addition to Flexibacter columnaris, Corynebacterium sp was recovered from lesions associated with columnaris disease in catfish. Catfish exposed to pure cultures of the Corynebacterium sp developed circumscribed lesions, which regressed without further adverse effects. Disease signs were not demonstrable in catfish exposed to pure cultures of F columnaris; however, when catfish were exposed to mixed cultures of th Corynebacterium sp and F columnaris, signs of columnaris appeared and the fish died.


Introduction Emerging evidence links the gut microbiota to colonic inflammation and colorectal cancer (CRC). Studies have shown over-representation of oral bacterial species including Campylobacter spp. in CRC tissue and also njc-Campylobacter are over-represented in IBD wherein normal homeostasis has been lost. Understanding the role of njc-Campylobacter as an aetiological agent in CRC and elucidating their pathogenicity characteristics is of immense clinical importance. Aim To perform whole genome sequencing (WGS) of clinically derived njc-Campylobacter to compare/identify virulence traits potentially linked to disease presentation. Methods WGS of 21 unique clinically derived Campylobacter isolates was performed (7 Campylobacter showae, 3 Campylobacter ureolyticus and 11 Campylobacter concisus) from biopsy/faecal samples of subjects with malignancy, acute enteritis and IBD. DNA was extracted using the QIAamp DNA Mini Kit. Libraries were prepared using Illumina Nextera XT DNA Library Prep Kit and Nextera XT Index Kit v2, multiplexed, and paired-end sequenced on the Illumina MiSeq. De novo read assembly used the A5-miseq pipeline with QUAST. Genome annotation was performed using the rapid prokaryotic genome annotation tool Prokka. Results Genome assembly of C. showae strains resulted in 8 to 59 contigs per strain (mean number = 21; average genome size 2,199,446 nucleotides); C. concisus isolates had an average contig number of 72 and average genome size of 1,982,586 nucleotides. C. ureolyticus strains average contig number was 134 and average genome size of 1,608,008 nucleotides. Through Prokka annotation, the average number of coding sequences was 2215 for C. showae isolates (range 2050–2368) with function predicted for ~71.3%. For C. concisus the average number of coding sequences was 1985 (range 1833–2087) with function predicted for ~ 71.9%. C. ureolyticus had a lower number of coding sequences (average 1613) with function predicted for ~72.6%. We focused on the VirB4/D10 operon homologs, which are components of the Type IV secretion system. Contrary to previously published sequence data from oral strains, the majority of colonic C. showae isolated and 2 C . concisus strains possessed almost complete T4SS systems and additional virulence traits, including the exotoxin 9 gene. Conclusion The findings clearly demonstrate genetic differences among colonic Campylobacter isolates as compared to oral strains and sheds light on the pathogenic potential of these emerging colonic pathogens. The findings also further highlight the need for further sequencing studies to be undertaken. Disclosure of Interest None Declared


Localized information referencing is a long-known and much-exploited facet of program behavior. The existence of such behavior in the data accessing patterns produced by database management systems is not currently supported by empirical results. We present experimental results which demonstrate that in certain environments and under certain important applications, locality of reference is an undeniable characteristic of the information accessing behavior of a hierarchical database management system. Furthermore, database locality of reference is in a sense more regular, predictable, and hence, more exploitable than the localized reference activity found in programs in general. The implications of these results for the performance enhancement and workload characterization of database management systems are discussed.


In the introduction of his »Uebersicht der Cetoniden der Sunda-Inselu und Molukken" (Troschel's Archiv fur Naturgesckickte. 1871. I. p. 224) Dr. Moknike puts in question the correctness of the statement about the habitat of three Rhomborrhina-specimens (two from Java: Muller, and one from Sumatra: Ludeking) at that time present in the collection of the Leyden Museum, and says to be convinced of the absence of representatives of the above genus from all the Asiatic Archipelagos with the only exception of Japan. As to the habitat »Sumatra" the late Dr. Snellen van Vollenhoven has already recorded (Tijdschrift voor Entomologie. XV. 1872. p. 125) that this was not at all doubtful, having, as lie said, taken himself the specimen out of Ludeking's box and placed it in the collection. Afterwards I myself could ascertain the same about the habitat »Java" having received a specimen captured by Mr. Bernelot Moens in the Preanger Districts at a height of 4 a 5000 feet above the level of the sea (Tijdschr. v. Entom. XXIII. 1880. p. XCIV). Thus the presence of the genus Rhomborrhina in both these islands was sufficiently stated, the identification of the species, however, was erroneous. Snellen van Vollenhoven (1. c. p. 127) pertained in regarding the specimens above referred to as belonging to resplendens Sw., notwithstanding Mohnike (1. c.) had already expressed some doubts as to the correctness of this identification; I myself at first (1. c.) adopted Snellen van Vollenhoven's determination, but after having received a specimen of the true resplendens, I considered the Javan and Sumatran specimens as belonging to heros G. & P. (see Tijdschr. v. Entom. XXVI. 1883. p. CXLII), an identification which I now feel sure is likewise incorrect. On page 380 of vol. XXVII (1883) of the Deutsche Entomologiscbe Zeitscbrift Dr. Kraatz describes a species of Rhomborrhina under the name of gigantea without making mention of its habitat. This species is considered by Mr. Neervoort van de Poll (Notes Leyden Museum. 1889. p. 64) to be a mere synonym of resplendens Sw., an assertion which is, and with reason, disapproved by Dr. Kraatz (Deuts. Entom. Zeits. 1889. p. 421) who mentions at the same time the island of Nias as the probable habitat of his species ¹). Moreover Dr. Kraatz maintains Dr. Burmeister's view concerning the identity of resplendens Sw. and heros G. & P., and after a careful reexamination of the matter I fully agree with him, and have come to the conclusion that Kraatz's Rhomborrhina gigantea is a distinct species which occurs in Nias, West Sumatra and West Java, specimens from these three islands being present in the Leyden Museum. The specimens from Java, however, are of a more golden green colour with a more or less distinct orange yellow hue on the disc of the elytra according to the light.


The prevalence of sequencing experiments in genomics has led to an increased use of methods for count data in analyzing high-throughput genomic data to perform analyses. The importance of shrinkage methods in improving the performance of statistical methods remains. A common example is that of gene expression data, where the counts per gene are often modeled as some form of an over-dispersed Poisson. In this case, shrinkage estimates of the per-gene dispersion parameter have led to improved estimation of dispersion in the case of a small number of samples. We address a different count setting introduced by the use of sequencing data: comparing differential proportional usage via an over-dispersed binomial model. This is motivated by our interest in testing for differential exon skipping in mRNA-Seq experiments. We introduce a novel method that is developed by modeling the dispersion based on the double binomial distribution proposed by Efron (1986). Our method (WEB-Seq) is an empirical bayes strategy for producing a shrunken estimate of dispersion and effectively detects differential proportional usage, and has close ties to the weighted-likelihood strategy of edgeR developed for gene expression data (Robinson and Smyth, 2007; Robinson et al., 2010). We analyze its behavior on simulated data sets as well as real data and show that our method is fast, powerful and gives accurate control of the FDR compared to alternative approaches. We provide implementation of our methods in the R package DoubleExpSeq available on CRAN.


In order to increase agricultural production, Brazil opted for the expansion of farming areas and the intensive use of mechanization, causing serious damage to soils. At the same time, conservation practices such as no-tillage farming are also in use. Nevertheless, soil density assessments are necessary in both situations. Practical and controversial, the methodology of penetrometry is the most utilized in such assessments. The objective of this study was to identify the vertical stratification of soil resistance to penetration. Data was collected in a Typic Hapludox under no-tillage. Samples were collected in forty points of a 50 x 50m grid. Soil resistance was evaluated in three different positions in each point: plant rows, between the plant rows, and in the rows of the tractor path. Measurements were taken using a hydraulic-electronic penetrometer. Factorial analysis with orthogonal rotation, a Multivariate Analysis technique, was used to analyze soil resistance of soil layers. Four layers were identified in the plant rows, when more superficial layers had higher relative variance. Three layers were identified in the plant rows and in rows of the tractor path, points of anthropic action; in this case, deeper layers had higher relative variance.