Twenty-five years ago, Eugene Volokh published his seminal article Cheap Speech and What It will Do, predicting many of the consequences of the then-brand-new Internet. On the whole, Volokh's tone was optimistic. While many of his predictions have indeed come true, many would argue that his optimism was overstated. To the contrary, in recent years Internet giants generally, social media firms specifically, and Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg more specifically, have come under sharp and extensive criticism. Among other things, Facebook has been accused of violating its users' privacy, of failing to remove content that constitutes stalking or personal harassment, of permitting domestic and foreign actors (notably Russia) to use fake accounts to manipulate American voters by disseminating false and misleading political speech, of failing to remove content that incites violence, and of excessive censorship of harmless content. Inevitably, critics of Facebook have proposed a number of regulatory solutions to Facebook's alleged problems, ranging from regulating the firm's use of personal data, imposing liability on Facebook for harm caused by content on its platform, treating Facebook as a utility, to even breaking up the company. Given the importance of Facebook, with over 2 billion users worldwide and a valuation of well over half a trillion dollars, these proposals raise serious questions.

This essay will argue that while Facebook is certainly not free of fault, many of the criticisms directed at it are overstated or confused. Furthermore, the criticisms contradict one another, because some of the solutions proposed to solve one set of problems—notably privacy—would undermine our ability to respond to other problems such as harassment, incitement and falsehood. And vice versa. More fundamentally, critics fail to confront the simple fact that Facebook and other Internet firms (notably Google) provide, without financial charge, services such as social media, searches, email, and mapping, which people want and value but whose provision entails costs. To propose regulatory "solutions" which would completely undermine the business model that permits these free services without proposing alternatives and without taking into account the preferences and interests of Facebook users, especially in poor and autocratic countries where, for all of its conceded problems, Facebook provides important and even essential services, is problematic at best. Finally, the failure of critics to seriously consider whether the First Amendment would even permit many of the regulatory approaches they propose, all in the name of preserving democracy and civil dialogue, raises questions about the seriousness of some of these critics.

Ultimately, this essay argues is that aside from some limited regulatory initiatives, we should probably embrace humility. This means, first, that unthinkingly importing old approaches such as a utility or publisher model to social media is wrong-headed, and will surely do harm without accomplishing their goals. Other proposals, on the other hand, might "solve" some problems, but at the cost of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. For now, the best path might well be the one we are on: supporting sensible, narrow reforms, but otherwise muddling along with a light regulatory touch, while encouraging/pressuring companies to adopt voluntary policies such as Twitter's recent ban on political advertising, Google's restrictions on micro-targeted political ads, and Facebook's prohibitions on electoral manipulation. Before we take potentially dangerous and unconstitutional legislative action, perhaps we should first see how these experiments evolve and work out. After all, social media is less than two decades old and there is still much we need to learn before thoughtful and effective regulation is plausible.


To improve the photocatalytic activity of graphene-based catalysts, silicon phthalocyanine (SiPc) covalently functionalized N-doped ultrasmall reduced graphene oxide (N-usRGO) has been synthesized through 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides. The obtained product (N-usRGO/SiPc) was characterized by transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectra, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, fluorescence, and UV-vis spectroscopy. The results demonstrate that SiPc has been successfully grafted on the surface of N-usRGO. The N-usRGO/SiPc nanocomposite exhibits high light-harvesting efficiency covering a range of wavelengths from the ultraviolet to visible light. The efficient fluorescence quenching and the enhanced photocurrent response confirm that the photoinduced electron transfers from the SiPc moiety to the N-usRGO sheet. Moreover, we chose Pt nanoparticles as cocatalyst to load on N-usRGO/SiPc sheets to obtain the optimal H2 production effect. The platinized N-usRGO/SiPc (N-usRGO/SiPc/Pt) demonstrates good hydrogen evolution performance under both UV-vis and visible light (λ>400 nm) irradiation. The apparent quantum yields are 1.3% and 0.56% at 365 and 420 nm, respectively. These results reveal that N-usRGO/SiPc/Pt nanocomposite, consolidating the advantages of SiPc, N-usRGO, and Pt NPs, can be a potential candidate for hydrogen evolution from water under UV-vis or visible light irradiation.


Adolescence is the developmental epoch during which children become adults – intellectually, physically, hormonally, and socially. Adolescence is a tumultuous time, full of changes and transformations. The pubertal transition to adulthood involves both gonadal and behavioral maturation. Magnetic resonance imaging studies have discovered that myelinogenesis, required for proper insulation and efficient neurocybernetics, continues from childhood and the brain's region-specific neurocircuitry remains structurally and functionally vulnerable to impulsive sex, food, and sleep habits. The maturation of the adolescent brain is also influenced by heredity, environment, and sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), which play a crucial role in myelination. Furthermore, glutamatergic neurotransmission predominates, whereas gamma-aminobutyric acid neurotransmission remains under construction, and this might be responsible for immature and impulsive behavior and neurobehavioral excitement during adolescent life. The adolescent population is highly vulnerable to driving under the influence of alcohol and social maladjustments due to an immature limbic system and prefrontal cortex. Synaptic plasticity and the release of neurotransmitters may also be influenced by environmental neurotoxins and drugs of abuse including cigarettes, caffeine, and alcohol during adolescence. Adolescents may become involved with offensive crimes, irresponsible behavior, unprotected sex, juvenile courts, or even prison. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the major cause of death among the teenage population is due to injury and violence related to sex and substance abuse. Prenatal neglect, cigarette smoking, and alcohol consumption may also significantly impact maturation of the adolescent brain. Pharmacological interventions to regulate adolescent behavior have been attempted with limited success. Since several factors, including age, sex, disease, nutritional status, and substance abuse have a significant impact on the maturation of the adolescent brain, we have highlighted the influence of these clinically significant and socially important aspects in this report.


We examine the origins, persistence, and economic consequences of institutional structures of agricultural production. We compare farms in the Argentine Pampas and US Midwest, regions of similar potential input and output mixes. The focus is on 1910-1914, during the international grain trade boom and when census data are available. The Midwest was characterized by small farms and family labor. Land was a commercial asset and traded routinely. The Pampas was characterized by large landholdings and use of external labor. Land was a source of status and held across generations. Status attributes could not be easily monetized for trade, reducing market exchange, limiting entry, and hindering farm restructuring. Differing land property rights followed from English and Spanish colonial and post-independence policies. Geo-climatic factors cannot explain dissimilarities in farm sizes, tenancy, and output mixes, suggesting institutional constraints. Midwest farmers also were more responsive to exogenous signals. There is evidence of moral hazard on Pampas farms. Conjectures on long-term development are provided.


The difficulties experienced by the European Union, and in particular the 17 members of the eurozone, highlight a major challenge faced by many nations that are not in the EU. These nations face a communitarian paradox: on the one hand, they need a significantly higher level of transnational governance, which, as I shall attempt to show, can be provided only if the expansion of such governance is paralleled by a considerable measure oftransnational community-building. On the other hand, this communal expansion encounters nationalism, which acts as an overpowering communitarian block by standing in the way of 229 building more encompassing communities, ones comprised of nations.


COVID-19 pandemic, a disaster for humankind in the twenty-first century, has posed a significant impact over the already established US-centred global order. This established order has been challenged by the rise of China, particularly due to some uneven trade war between the two global giants: the United States and China. This US-China dichotomy is further enhanced due to the outbreak of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The inward policy of the United States during the pandemic and the growing cooperation of China in preventing the pandemic is establishing China as a savior to the coronavirusaffected countries. Considering the rivalry between the United States and China amid the pandemic, the main objective of the paper is to find out their global responses to COVID19 and how they maximise their opportunities to lead the post-COVID-19 global order. This article argues that China's 'One Belt, One Road (OBOR)' policy could be one of the forefront issues for Chinese leaders to lead the post-COVID-19 global order due to Trump's inward 'America First' policy. Finally, the article examines the challenges of China to formulate its desire to changing global order having the US-China dichotomy and geopolitical barriers as well.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate during hemorrhagic hypotension and shock the effect of angiotensin II on renal blood flow, glomerular filtration rate, and sodium and potassium excretions, and to determine its role in the development of irreversible hemorrhagic shock. Anesthetized dogs were subjected to a hemorrhagic shock protocol. Angiotensin II was infused at 100 ng/kg/min i.v. from 50 mm Hg initial hemorrhage until the experiment was terminated. The survival time from 50 mm Hg initial hemorrhage to reinfusion was increased significantly from 2.7 +/- 0.5 h to 4.7 +/- 0.8 h by exogenous angiotensin II. However, once shock had developed, the survival time from reinfusion to 50 mm Hg normovolemic hemorrhagic shock was not affected by exogenous angiotensin II (4.4 +/- 1.4 to 3.6 +/- 0.7 h.) During hemorrhagic shock, exogenous angiotensin II significantly increased sodium excretion and total renal blood flow. Glomerular filtration rate, potassium excretion, and arterial sodium and potassium concentrations were not affected. These data indicate that angiotensin II prolonged the development of irreversible hemorrhagic shock and selectively increased sodium excretion and total renal blood flow.


In this work, we study the problem of clustering survival data $-$ a challenging and so far under-explored task. We introduce a novel semi-supervised probabilistic approach to cluster survival data by leveraging recent advances in stochastic gradient variational inference. In contrast to previous work, our proposed method employs a deep generative model to uncover the underlying distribution of both the explanatory variables and censored survival times. We compare our model to the related work on clustering and mixture models for survival data in comprehensive experiments on a wide range of synthetic, semi-synthetic, and real-world datasets, including medical imaging data. Our method performs better at identifying clusters and is competitive at predicting survival times. Relying on novel generative assumptions, the proposed model offers a holistic perspective on clustering survival data and holds a promise of discovering subpopulations whose survival is regulated by different generative mechanisms.


This work deals with the wire-grid representation of metallic surfaces in numerical electromagnetic modeling. We discuss in particular the adequacy of the well known and widely used equal area rule (EAR) to calculate the radii of wire-grid models. We show that the EAR is accurate as long as the wire grid consists of a simple rectangular mesh. For more complex body-fitted meshes, using other polygons such as triangles, the EAR appears to be less accurate in reproducing the electromagnetic field scattered by metallic bodies. The conclusions of the paper are supported by numerical simulations performed using a parallel version of the numerical electromagnetics code and experimental data obtained on a vehicle illuminated by an electromagnetic pulse simulator.


It is generally held that with rare exception Leishmania braziliensis braziliensis is the parasite responsible for the metastatic development of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis in the New World. Yet the infrequency of mucocutaneous disease compared with cutaneous manifestations, and the difficulty of isolating parasites from mucocutaneous lesions have restricted the study of the organisms involved. We here report the biologic, isoenzymatic, and monoclonal antibody specificity characteristic of eight Leishmania isolates obtained from the mucosal lesions of the same number of patients. Individually and collectively, the identifying criteria implicate at least two L. braziliensis subspecies as etiologic agents of mucocutaneous leishmaniasis in Colombia and suggest that a spectrum of intrinsically distinguishable organisms may be involved in this disease form.


In Malaysia, crime rate keep on increasing from time to time and has been a threat to the security and peaceful environment of the community. Department of Town and Country Planning had implemented Safe City concept as one of the ways to reduce crime. The concept of Safe City aims at creating a safe and peaceful environment of city and housing, so as to reduce crime rate through environmental design principles, security and community development. Therefore, the study is to identify some of the aspects of community development of the Safe City concept in the housing area in Bukit Jelutong, Section U8, Shah Alam. The total number of sample size are 100 houses with 90 percent confidence level. SPSS is used as a tool to analyze data. Questionnaires survey is conducted as to get information on community development in the study area such as resident profile, resident's opinion on the safety level of housing, community level, level of community association the confidence level among community and their opinion to reduce crime. The study showed that the community development has reached a respective level in terms of reducing crime rate. Through the establishment of private community security, which is supervised by Bukit Jelutong Resident Association [BJRA] as to ensure the safety level in the housing area. The community have also proposed a few associations but they no longer active due to lack of support, lack of programs and also time constraints among community because they are preoccupied with their office work. The study also showed that 100 percent of respondents agreed that the contribution of community plays an important role to control the crime problem because they are the 'eyes and ears' to the security group. Two strategies are recommended so as to improve the current situation in the study area. First; is to consolidate associations which concern the safety aspect and social programs. So as to achieve the first strategy, the community development strategy is recommended which include education, towards the importance of community, community awareness, community initiative and sacrifices


FEM cutting simulation predicts that the plastic shock waves are generated that develop the high levels of hydrostatic stress in the shear zone when cutting speed exceeds the plastic wave speeds of the workpiece material. The orthogonal impact cutting testing machine was developed to confirm this phenomenon experimentally. In the testing machine, two guide rails are set up in parallel. The cutting tool and the workpiece are installed on the blocks that slide on the rail. Each block connected with the piston in the air tube by the pushrod is launched by the expansion of compressed air, and is accelerated rapidly. When the two blocks passes each other, cutting is done. This paper describes the details of the developed impact cutting testing machine and experimental results of cutting a pure lead at cutting speed up to 65m/s.


Resistance to Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) in Coffea arabica cv. Ruiru 11 is known to be controlled by among others, the T (Ck-1) gene from Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora Pierre). The cultivar reportedly presents significant variability in resistance to CBD. Previous work identified a microsattelite marker Sat 235 which was linked to CBD resistance and mapped it onto the introgressed C. canephora fragment which carries the Ck-1 gene. This study was aimed at utilizing the Sat 235 marker to assess the occurrence of the Ck-1 gene in Ruiru 11 sibs and their parental genotypes. The test genotypes used were CBD resistant Robusta coffee, non introgressed C. arabica cv. caturra, 14 Ruiru 11 parental genotypes with varying reaction to CBD and 34 Ruiru 11 sibs. Evaluation of CBD resistance was conducted in the laboratory using hypocotyl inoculation method. Seeds of the test genotypes were sown in plastic boxes filled to half-depth with sterilized river sand and arranged in a completely randomized design with three replications. Six weeks after sowing, the seedling hypocotyls were inoculated with a conidial suspension of C. kahawae standardized to 2.0 × 10 6 spores/ml. Disease scoring was conducted 4 weeks after inoculation on a scale of 1 to 12. To confirm occurrence of the Ck-1 gene, genomic DNA was then extracted from the test genotypes and amplified with the microsatellite primer Sat 235 and electrophoresed on a 6% denaturing polyacrylamide gel. All the genotypes containing the Ck-1 gene were expected to show phenotypic resistance to CBD and to show similar banding pattern as Robusta and HDT while the ones lacking the gene were expected to show phenotypic susceptibility to CBD and to similar banding pattern as Caturra and SL28. The study observed that all Ruiru 11 sibs that were evaluated contained the Ck-1 gene. The study also provided further evidence that the fragment amplified by SSR primer Sat 235 is linked to CBD resistance.


A method using non-recursive context-free grammars is presented for the recognition of isolated words. Some form of 'training' is required to combat problems of variations in speech. In the training mode, one grammar for each word in the vocabulary is constructed directly from a set of sample strings of 'features' represented by symbols. In the recognition mode, an incoming string is analyzed to determine which grammar, if any, could have generated it. The word corresponding to such grammar is then said to have been recognized.


Introduction: India has the highest burden of tuberculosis in world, accounting for 20% of global incidence of TB (Tuberculosis). TB treatment is available both in private and public sector in India. Aim & objectives: The current study was carried out to study and compare the prescribing practices of anti-tuberculosis medications by private practitioners and healthcare providers in public sector (under RNTCP-Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme). Material and Methods: 105 anti TB prescriptions of private practitioners and 105 RNTCP (Revised National Tuberculosis Programme) treatment cards were analysed. Results: 9.52% prescriptions by private practitioners and 4.76 % RNTCP prescriptions were correct. Factors for drug resistance were present in 67.62 % of prescriptions by private practitioners and 28.57 % of RNTCP prescriptions whereas overdosing was present in 53.33 % of prescriptions by private practitioners and 68.57 % of RNTCP prescriptions. Conclusion: The anti TB treatment offered in private and public sector in India is not satisfactory at present and needs to be improved.[Mishra G et al NJIRM 2013; 4(2) : 71-78]


Previous studies have shown adolescents with T1D diagnosed prior to menarche have an older age of menarche compared with those diagnosed after menarche and to the general population, and menstrual irregularity in women with T1D is more common than in those without T1D, suggesting that T1D may be associated with reproductive abnormalities. In this study, multiple regression models were used to explore the relationship between clinical factors and markers of reproductive health in 3528 women >18 years (mean age 39±17 years) in the T1D Exchange Clinic Registry who had a 5-year follow-up. Average age of menarche was 13±2 years, and 13% reported irregular menstrual periods unrelated to pregnancy or menopause. Younger age at T1D diagnosis was significantly associated with older age at menarche (p=0.001) after adjustment for race/ethnicity, current BMI, and report of severe hypoglycemia (SH). Having an evaluation for infertility was reported by 6% of participants and was associated with lower mean hemoglobin A1c (A1c; OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.67-0.91 for a 1% increase in A1c) and current use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM, OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.16-2.16). Seeking an infertility evaluation was not significantly associated with age at T1D diagnosis, autoantibody status, or current menstrual regularity. Additionally, having an abnormal infertility evaluation was not associated with mean A1c (OR 0.85, 95% CI 0.62-1.17) or current use of CGM (OR 1.62, 95% CI 0.91-2.91). There were also no factors that were both clinically and statistically significantly associated with miscarriage or problems conceiving a child. These results suggest that women with T1D who are likely to seek infertility evaluations may be more determined to maintain optimal glycemic control with technology such as CGM, or that concern about fertility may drive the decision to use CGM and lower A1c. This study highlights the need for prospective studies to assess the impact of T1D on fertility in women. Disclosure A. Erkin-Cakmak: None. R. Bailey: None. P. Calhoun: Stock/Shareholder; Self; Dexcom, Inc. H. Cakmak: None. J.C. Wong: Consultant; Self; pH Pharma. Research Support; Self; Dexcom, Inc. Funding The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust (G-2016PG-T1D053)


Iterative Budgeted Exponential Search (IBEX) is a general search algorithm that can limit the number of re-expansions performed in common problems like iterative-deepening tree search and search with inconsistent heuristics. IBEX has been adapted into a specific tree algorithm, Budgeted Tree Search (BTS), which behaves like IDA* when the problem instance is well-behaved but keeps the worst-case guarantees when problems are not well-behaved. The analogous algorithms on graphs, Budgeted Graph Search (BGS), do not have these same properties. This paper reformulates BGS into Efficient Budgeted Graph Search (BGSe), showing how to implement the algorithm so that it behaves identically to A* when problems are well-behaved, and retains the best-case performance otherwise. Experimental results validate the performance of BGSe on a range of theoretical and practical problem instances.


The aim of present study was to learn about the common musculoskeletal disorders. Proper history taking and thorough examination of each limb and joint systematically is the key to management of musculoskeletal disorders. Musculoskeletal disorders generally present with pain, dysfunction and deformity. Onset of symptoms should be ascertained whether they are acute or chronic. The natural history of the problem also gives clue to diagnosis and the type of pain is important for diagnosis of origin of pain. History of comorbidities and past surgery is important and should be documented. Inspection of skin, soft tissue and bones should be carried out. A thorough general examination of skin should include a look out for scars, loss of sweating, redness, bruising and wounds. Soft tissues should be inspected for swelling and wasting and bones should be inspected for deformity. Palpation should be carried out in a systematic manner and the skin should be felt for temperature and sensation. Soft tissues should be palpated for lumps, tenderness and circulation whilst bones should be palpated for bone outlines and joint margins. Active and passive movements at various joints should be tested. Power of various muscles should be tested and graded as per the Medical Research Council (MRC) Muscle power scale. The gait of the patient should be observed to see if there is a limp. Keywords: Musculoskeletal disorders, limb, joint, pain, dysfunction


Subcutaneous panniculitis-like T cell lymphoma (SPTCL) is a rare cytotoxic T-cell lymphoma classified in the World Health Organization-European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (WHO-EORTC) classification as a unique extranodal lymphoma with characteristic by T cell receptor (TCR) gene rearrangement. We report here a case of SPTCL in a 22 year-old woman who had presented with variably sized multiple nodules on both her legs. Initial differential diagnoses considered were panniculitis and lupus panniculitis. The histopathology showed a predominantly subcutaneous lobular infiltrate with atypical lymphocytes, karyorrhexis and rimming of adipocytes by lymphoid cells. Immunohistochemistry showed CD4-, CD8+, CD56- T-cell phenotype. Although TCR rearrangement studies were not done, the above T-cell phenotype and sparing of epidermis and dermis suggested the possibility of an SPTCL alpha/beta type. The patient received five cycles of a cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) regimen which resulted in the regression in her skin lesions and constitutional symptoms.


The efficacy of intracavitary chemoimmunotoxin therapy for cancer treatment was evaluated using the human colon carcinoma (HT-29) which had been xenografted i.p. into nude mice. Mice bearing HT-29 were treated with an immunotoxin consisting of the monoclonal antibody OVB3 coupled to Pseudomonas exotoxin (OVB3-PE), with cyclophosphamide (Cy), or with both OVB3-PE plus Cy. Mice given injections i.p. of 3 x 10(6) HT-29 ascites cells developed a localized disease that presented as both malignant ascites and solid tumor confined to the peritoneal cavity. All mice died within 30 to 40 days. Mice that received either three or six injections of OVB3-PE at a dose of 0.5 micrograms every other day beginning 3 days post-tumor inoculation exhibited significantly increased median survival times (MSTs) (P = 0.002) of 62 and 68 days, respectively, as compared to a MST of 33 days for the controls. OVB3 alone or an irrelevant monoclonal antibody conjugated to PE exhibited no antitumor activity. The therapeutic effects of the immunotoxin could be blocked by giving a large amount of unconjugated OVB3 at the same time. Treatment of mice with Cy alone at the maximal tolerated dose (250 mg/kg) on Days 10 and 17 after tumor inoculation increased the MST from 33 days to 54 days. The maximum tolerated dose could be increased to 300 mg/kg per injection if the Cy treatment was preceded by 100 mg/kg of S-2-(3-aminopropylamino)ethyl phosphorothioic acid (WR-2721), a sulfhydryl compound that selectively protects normal tissue against the toxicity of radiation and alkylating agents. Cy plus WR-2721 treatment on Days 10 and 17 increased the MST from 35 to 61 days (P = 0.002). Interestingly, groups of mice that received either two, four, or seven treatments of OVB3-PE following Cy plus WR-2721 therapy exhibited a further increase (P less than 0.002) in MSTs to 81, 87, and 96 days, respectively. Thus, the combination of cytoreductive chemotherapy with the OVB3-PE was significantly more effective for the intracavitary treatment of established HT-29 colon cancer xenografts than either chemotherapy or immunotoxin therapy alone.


The mechanics of a filled carbon nanotube has been evaluated inside a transmission electron microscope employing different procedures. It is found that using a force sensor mounted on a dedicated sample holder is the most reliable method of those explored. In addition to mechanical response visualisation, properties such as elastic modulus may be directly extracted using this commercially available holder.


Density functional calculations at the B3LYP/6-31g* level of theory are used to predict gas-phase heat capacities as a function of temperature for the two-carbon hydrofluoroethers and dimethyl ether. We use equilibrium thermodynamic calculations to determine weighting factors for different rotameric forms to find an observable heat capacity estimate. Hindered rotor corrections were made to the partition functions for these weightings and for the heat capacity contributions for the modes where the harmonic oscillator approximation was inappropriate. We find close agreement with experimental values for the two hydrofluoroethers where heat capacities have been measured and good agreement over a wide temperature range for dimethyl ether. This agreement indicates that the heat capacities we report for the other seven species are accurate and would represent experimental data if it were available in the open literature. This work populates a needed database for the evaluation of these materials as heat transfer media in the temperature range from 100 to 3000 K.


MnCr2O4 that exhibits spin frustration and complex spiral spin order is of great interest from both fundamental as well as application-oriented perspectives. Unlike CoCr2O4 whose ground state presents the coexistence of commensurate spiral spin order (CSSO) and ferroelectric order, MnCr2O4 shows no multiferroicity. One reason is that the spiral spin order is highly sensitive to the oxygen concentration in MnCr2O4. Here, we have successfully grown high-quality single-crystalline MnCr2O4 by the chemical vapor transport method. We observe a new first-order magnetic transition from the incommensurate spiral spin order (ICSSO) at 19.4 K to the CSSO at 17.4 K. This magnetic transition is verified by magnetization, specific heat, and magnetoelectric measurements, which also confirm that the ground state exhibits the coexistence of the CSSO and magnetoelectricity below 17.4 K. Interestingly, the temperature evolution of Raman spectra between 5.4 and 300 K suggests that the structure remains the same. We also find that the phase-transition temperature of the CSSO decreases as applied magnetic field increases up to 45 kOe.


The development of accurate kinetic databases by parametrizing the composition and temperature dependence of elemental atomic mobilities, is essential for correct multicomponent calculations and simulations. In this work the automated assessment procedure for the establishment of CALPHAD-type kinetic databases is proposed, including the storage of raw data and assessment results, automatic weighting of data, parameter selection and automated reassessments. This allows the establishment of reproducible up-to-date databases. The proposed software, written in python, is applied to the assessment of a kinetic database for the fcc Co–Cr–Fe–Mn–Ni high entropy alloy using only tracer diffusion data for a sharp separation of thermodynamic and kinetic data. The established database is valid for the whole composition range of the five-component high entropy alloy.


This study investigated the perception of undergraduate newspaper readers at the Covenant University, Ota, Southwestern Nigeria, on how literacy and the media can interact to achieve enhanced language use. A questionnaire was administered to a purposively selected sample of two hundred and twelve subjects and the results were statistically analyzed using chi square and cross tabs. It was found, among other things, that although most newspaper readers read because they want to be informed and educated, some are discouraged from reading because of the level of language use in some of these papers. In spite of geolinguistic and socio-cultural differences, the study shows that the perception of literacy among Nigerian undergraduates remain basically the same; and readers are of the opinion that the media can promote both literacy and language use/development, particularly in a second language situation such as Nigeria. The implications of the findings are highlighted and conclusions are drawn. Keywords: perception, newspaper readers, literacy, media, language use/development


The study and use of high-order harmonic generation is the core of recent research conducted regarding Lamb wave-based identification of undersized damage. A numerical study was performed using a Local Interaction Simulation Approach (LISA) to explore the characteristics of high-order harmonic generation of Lamb waves propagating in a medium containing a "breathing" crack. In order to faithfully model the "breathing" pattern of the crack, a Spring Model (SM) was developed, as a spin-off of LISA. The SM substitutes the mechanism of local interaction between waves and the crack to an equivalent set of "tensorial springs". Using LISA in conjunction with SM, a quantitative insight into the high-order harmonic generation induced by a "breathing" crack of various depths was achieved. It has been demonstrated that the developed model is capable of simulating the non-contact and flawed interface behavior of the "breathing" crack under dynamic loads. In addition, a damage index was established based on the high-order harmonic generation, showing dependence on the depth of the "breathing" crack at different excitation frequencies. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/224


The nonoxidative decarboxylation of aromatic acids occurs in a range of microbes and is of interest for bioprocessing and metabolic engineering. Although phenolic acid decarboxylases provide useful tools for bioindustrial applications, the molecular bases for how these enzymes function are only beginning to be examined. Here we present the 2.35-Å-resolution X-ray crystal structure of the ferulic acid decarboxylase (FDC1; UbiD) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FDC1 shares structural similarity with the UbiD family of enzymes that are involved in ubiquinone biosynthesis. The position of 4-vinylphenol, the product of p-coumaric acid decarboxylation, in the structure identifies a large hydrophobic cavity as the active site. Differences in the 2e5 loop of chains in the crystal structure suggest that the conformational flexibility of this loop allows access to the active site. The structure also implicates Glu285 as the general base in the nonoxidative decarboxylation reaction catalyzed by FDC1. Biochemical analysis showed a loss of enzymatic activity in the E285A mutant. Modeling of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxy-5-decaprenylbenzoate, a partial structure of the physiological UbiD substrate, in the binding site suggests that an 30-Å-long pocket adjacent to the catalytic site may accommodate the isoprenoid tail of the substrate needed for ubiquinone biosynthesis in yeast. The three-dimensional structure of yeast FDC1 provides a template for guiding protein engineering studies aimed at optimizing the efficiency of aromatic acid decarboxylation reactions in bioindustrial applications.


Results of experimental (12) and clinical (26) observations of autotransplantation of spleen fragments into the greater omentum after splenectomy are described. Optimum sizes of the transplanted fragments of the spleen were determined. The influence of this operation on homeostasis was studied. Terms of the taking of spleen fragments were established by morphological and radionuclide methods.


Little cherry virus 2 (LChV-2) is considered an important pathogen of cherries and, as such, testing of plant material is required according to the EPPO certification scheme PM 4/29 for cherries. In Croatia sour cherry Marasca is a well-known native variety with total production of 1500-1800 tons of fresh fruit per year, used mainly for production of renowned liqueurs and juices. In June 2014, 19 trees were selected and total RNA was extracted from leaves with the RNeasy plant mini kit (Qiagen, Germany). RT-PCR for LChV-2 was performed using two sets of primers: LCHV2LO2/LCHV2UP2 (Rott and Jelkmann, 2001), amplifying a 438 bp fragment of the methyltransferase (MT) gene, and LC26L/LC26R (Eastwell and Bernardy, 2001), amplifying a 409 bp fragment of the RdRp gene. Six trees were positive, four with the first primer set and two with the second. However, none of the trees tested positive by both sets, suggesting the presence of significant sequence variability among LChV-2 isolates (Theilmann et al., 2004) and the presence of at least two virus variants in Croatia. One PCR product for each primer set was sequenced from both directions and sequences were compiled using MEGA6 software. BLAST searches indicated that the part of the MT gene of Croatian isolate M-79 (GenBank accession No. KT369315) shares 88% identity with the USA6b isolate of LChV-2 (AF531505), while isolate M-75 (KT369316) was closest to Canadian strain LC5 (AF416335), sharing 96% identity with part of the RdRp gene. During the 2015 harvest period, some of the LChV-2-infected trees displayed the characteristic symptoms of uneven ripening. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report of LChV-2 in Croatia.


The analysis of big-data at exa-scale (1018 bytes or flops) has called for an urgent need to re-examine the existing hardware platform that can support intensive data-oriented computing. A big-data-driven application requires huge bandwidth and yet able to ensure low-power density. For example, web-searching application involves crawling, comparing, ranking, and paging of billions of web-pages with extensive memory access. The existing memory technologies have critical challenges of scaling at nano-scale due to process variation, leakage current and I/O access limitations. Recently, the emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies such as resistive-RAM (ReRAM), spintransfer torque RAM (STT-RAM), domain-wall nanowire racetrack memory etc., have all shown significantly reduced standby power and increased integration density, not forgetting the close-to DRAM/SRAM access speed. Therefore, they are considered as promising candidates of universal memory for future big-data applications. The primary challenge to validate a hybrid design with both CMOS and nonvolatile devices is the lack of design platform that can validate the large-scale NVM circuit and system design accurately and efficiently. In addition, due to the use of non-electrical states of emerging NVM devices, new cells structures and their agreeing circuits for both read and write operations are needed to harness non-volatile memory with unique operations. For example, the transistor-free crossbar array that associates with NVM is different from conventional access transistor based memory structure. What is more, leveraging the NVM for computing, one also needs to examine the potential logic-inmemory computing architecture with significantly improved bandwidth and reduced power. In order to tackle above challenges ranging from device to system levels, this PhD thesis has explored the development of NVM design platform to support designs of non-volatile memories, readout and logic circuit designs, as well as the in-memory computing architecture. For the NVM design platform, the target is to perform accurate yet efficient circuit level simulation. The previous approaches either ignore dynamic effect without considering non-volatile states for dynamic behavior, or need equivalent circuits with high complexity to curve-fit non-linearity of those devices. We proposed a SPICE simulaiii tor named NVM-SPICE. This tool takes advantages of its new modified nodal analysis (MNA) framework, which can effectively support the non-electrical state variables of emerging non-volatile devices, such as ReRAM and spintronics devices. Due to the physics based modeling approach, NVM-SPICE is able to perform hybrid NVM/CMOS circuits efficiently and accurately. Compared to the equivalent circuit model based approach, the NVM-SPICE simulator exhibits more than 117x faster simulation speed for spintronics category devices and 40x faster speed for RRAM category devices. For NVM in-memory architecture, both memory elements and logic elements are implemented by emerging spintronics devices, which leads to a system purely composed of non-volatile devices. The detailed non-volatile memory and logic circuits are explored within the NVM-SPICE platform. In addition, logic is built inside the memory so that the I/O workload can be alleviated. Applications such as data retention, encryption, machine learning that play critical roles for big-data computing are explored within the non-volatile in-memory architecture. The evaluation results show that the purely non-volatile memory based platforms with in-memory architecture greatly contribute to power efficiency and throughput improvement for big-data oriented applications, and thus are potential candidates to be next generation information and communication technology.


The post–World War I treaties of Versailles, Sèvres, and Lausanne collectively created two related frames for ongoing Allied control over unreliable territory: a system of "minority protection" in the new and fragile states of eastern Europe, and a neocolonial regime of externally monitored "mandates" in the Mashriq and elsewhere, with both systems falling under the jurisdiction of the newly constructed League of Nations based in Geneva. This article explores how the architects of the peace agreements developed the concepts of minority rights and mandatory responsibilities in conjunction, as a way of codifying, formalizing, and legitimizing restrictions on sovereignty along immovable racial lines.


Early development of ionic models for cardiac myocytes, from the pioneering modification of the Hodgkin–Huxley giant squid axon model by Noble to the iconic DiFrancesco–Noble model integrating voltage-gated ionic currents, ion pumps and exchangers, Ca2+ sequestration and Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release, provided a general description for a mammalian Purkinje fibre (PF) and the framework for modern cardiac models. In the past two decades, development has focused on tissue-specific models with an emphasis on the sino-atrial (SA) node, atria and ventricles, while the PFs have largely been neglected. However, achieving the ultimate goal of creating a virtual human heart will require detailed models of all distinctive regions of the cardiac conduction system, including the PFs, which play an important role in conducting cardiac excitation and ensuring the synchronized timing and sequencing of ventricular contraction. In this paper, we present details of our newly developed model for the human PF cell including validation against experimental data. Ionic mechanisms underlying the heterogeneity between the PF and ventricular action potentials in humans and other species are analysed. The newly developed PF cell model adds a new member to the family of human cardiac cell models developed previously for the SA node, atrial and ventricular cells, which can be incorporated into an anatomical model of the human heart with details of its electrophysiological heterogeneity and anatomical complexity.


Abstract Background Management of spontaneous intra-abdominal abscess (IAA) in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) with radiologically guided percutaneous drainage (PD) was debated. Methods This is a secondary analysis from a multicenter, retrospective cohort study of all the patients with CD who underwent PD followed by surgery at 19 international tertiary centers. Results Seventeen patients (4.8%) who did not undergo surgery after PD were compared to those who had PD followed by surgical intervention 335/352 (95.2%). Patients who had PD without surgery were those with longer disease duration, more frequently had previous surgery for CD (laparotomies/laparoscopies), enteric fistula, on steroid treatment before and continue to have it after PD. Patients who had PD without subsequent surgical resection had a higher risk of stoma construction at later stages 8/17 (47.1%) versus 90/326 (27.6%) (P < .01). Patients with PD with no subsequent surgery had numerically higher rates of abscess recurrence 5/17 (29.4%) compared to those who had PD followed by surgery 45/335 (13.4%) the difference was not statistically significant (P = .07). Conclusions Even with the low number of patients enrolled in this study who had PD of IAA without subsequent surgery, the findings indicate a markedly worse prognosis in terms of recurrence, length of stay, readmission, and stoma construction. Watchful waiting after PD to treat patients with spontaneous IAA might be indicated in selected patients with poor health status or poor prognostic factors.


Recent reports on experimental observation of optical gain in silicon nanostructures in the visible region, performed at several laboratories all over the world, have triggered an extraordinary surge of interest in silicon lasing. However, attempts aimed at reproducing the red stimulated emission from "standard"silicon nanocrystals (sized 3-5 nm) at some other laboratories either failed, or. did not come to definite conclusions. Therefore, more detailed measurements of optical gain in a wider variety of samples containing Si nanocrystals are required in order to unravel whether or not the observation of optical gain is an intrinsic property of Si nanocrystals. We have performed a detailed study of optical gain in layers of densely packed Si nanocrystals in SiO2, prepared on the basis of porous Si, using the variable-stripe-length (VSL) method in combination with the shifted-excitation-spot (SES) method. In selected samples we have observed a distinct difference in behaviour between VSL and SES curves, indicating the occurrence of positive optical gain of ~ 24 cm-1. Preliminary reports on transport and electroluminescence measurements in thin films of SiO2 doped with porous silicon grains, prepared by spin-coating technique, are also discussed.


OBJECTIVE
To study the prevalence of secondary amyloidosis in Indian patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

METHODS
Seventy-two AS patients with disease duration of more than 5 years were included in this study over a period of one and a half years. Abdominal subcutaneous fat pad aspiration (ASFA) was performed with a fine needle, and smears were examined for apple-green birefringence under polarized light after Congo red staining. The amyloid deposits were graded from 1+ to 3+ by visual inspection. Clinical and laboratory features of the patients were correlated with the absence or presence of amyloid deposits.

RESULTS
Five patients (6.9%) with AS were positive for amyloid on ASFA. All the patients had 1+ deposit and were male. None of the patients had clinical amyloidosis. ASFA positive patients had a trend towards older age, longer disease duration, more limitation of the spinal mobility, and significantly lower hemoglobin levels.

CONCLUSION
We found in our population that subclinical amyloid deposits can be detected in 7% of AS patients with disease duration longer than 5 years. There is a need to follow up patients with positive ASFA tests to check for the development of clinical amyloid.


This study presented the application of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of warehouse management. Fixed RFID readers and antenna were installed at the receiving/shipping dock and passive tags were mounted on either storage box or pallet. RFID system can quickly and simultaneously read multiply tags, compared to the sequential reading of barcodes by handy barcode scanner in manual operations due to the inconsistency in box sizes and the locations of barcode for items of various types. Significant improvements were observed in preliminary experiments. The numbers of pallets and items processed by each operator per day were increased by 425% and 438%, respectively. The data processing time at receiving and shipping docks was reduced by more than 90%. With RFID technology, the number of operators can be reduced while maintaining current service capacity at the studied warehouse. The benefit using RFID in the warehouse management is analyzed and promoted.


Samples of wood sold as "angelim" in Brazil were studied. Disks from the trunks of Diplotropis purpurea, Hymenolobium petraeum, Parkia pendula, Vatairea guianensis and Vatairea paraensis were obtained from Mato Grosso state. Samples from pith to bark of each species were obtained, oriented in the three anatomical planes. Each sample was wrapped in aluminum foil and carbonized in a muffle furnace, with a final temperature of 450 °C and a heating rate of 1,66 °C min-1. The description of the anatomical elements of wood and charcoal samples followed the orientations of the International Association of Wood Anatomists, on the basis of 25 readings regarding frequency and tangential diameter of the vessels and height and width of the rays in micrometers. Infrared analyses were performed with a Bruker Tensor 37 spectrophotometer equipped with an integrating sphere and operating in reflectance mode, with resolution of 4 cm-1 and a spectral range of 10000-4000 cm-1. The wood and charcoal samples were placed on top of integrating sphere and one spectrum was obtained from each surface, resulting in six spectra for each physical sample. The results of anatomical analysis showed that the qualitative characteristics of wood remained in charcoal, so the method can be applied for species discrimination. When comparing cell dimensions, we observed different behavior between species in the same carbonization process in function of cell wall thickness and parenchyma distribution. In infrared analysis, pretreatment influenced adequate discrimination of "angelim" species in wood and charcoal. Linear discriminant analysis based on PCA scores and the region between 4000-6200 cm-1 was more efficient. Near infrared analysis can be used for differentiation of wood and charcoal of "angelim" species.


We describe a new species of Cyrtodactylus on the basis of two specimens collected from Ta Kou Nature Reserve, Binh Thuan Province, southern Vietnam. Cyrtodactylus chungi sp. nov. is distinguished from the remaining Indochinese bent-toed geckos by a combination of the following characters: relatively small body size (SVL up to 68.5 mm); a continuous neckband; 5 or 6 irregular transverse dorsal bands; 11 or 12 bands on original tail; keeled tubercles present on dorsum, posterior limbs and tail; 17 or 18 irregular dorsal tubercle rows; 30 or 31 ventral scale rows; ventrolateral skin folds indistinct; an angular series of seven precloacal pores in male and six pitted, enlarged precloacal scales in female, each series separated by a diastema of undifferentiated scales from 4–6 enlarged, poreless femoral scales; median subcaudals slightly enlarged; 17–20 subdigital lamellae under the fourth toe. Based on molecular analyses of the fragment of mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), the new species is recovered as the sister taxon to Cyrtodactylus cattienensis s. str. with a genetic divergence of more than 9%. In phylogenetic analyses, the new species is recovered as a member of the Cyrtodactylus irregularis species group.


Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural Flistory of Los Angeles. Vincent Brook. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2013. ISBN 978-0-8135-5456-3 Paper 311pp. $27.9"This book exhumes the many faces, facets, and feces of Los Angeles by viewing the Tongavillage-turned-world-city as a rhetorical text," declares Vincent Brook in Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural Flistory of Los Angeles (5). He explains that this involves delving into the "physical spaces and genealogical traces of Los Angeles (as city, county, and region)...via the myriad, often contradictory, images of Los Angeles that have been projected from within and without its geographical and psychological borders" (5). In the ten chapters that follow, he largely succeeds in his project, offering a well documented, good-humored account of how one of America's most culturally diverse metropolitan sprawls has been represented from pre-cinematic times to the present.Brook opens by excavating the city's archaeological substrata, noting that the first Angelinos were the Tongva Indians, who themselves displaced or absorbed even earlier Native American peoples sometime before 500 CE. The Tongva also bore the brunt of the Spanish policy of cultural obliteration and religious conversion several centuries later, a practice that moved an indignant Helen Hunt Jackson in 1879 to write Ramona. Jackson intended her enduring novel of forbidden love set in ranchero-era California to cast light on the unjust treatment of the Indians, to restore to them a dignified place in history. Through no fault of her own she failed. L.A. boosterism and the burgeoning film industry uncoiled their tentacles and co-opted the story for commercial exploitation. Four film versions, an annual pageant, and competing claims about the true site of Ramona's onetime residence ensued. As Brook argues, "Ramona, rather than serving as a vehicle for social reform, became a mother lode for L.A.'s fledgling tourist and real estate trades" (29).The author then investigates the two camps-"East Coast movie-industry interlopers, top heavy with European Jewish immigrants and other hyphenated Americans," and "staid Midwesterners" (67)- that fought for the soul of L.A. from the turn of the century. The era witnessed rampant anti-Semitism as Jewish directors, studio heads, and theater owners enjoyed increasing success purveying and exhibiting films the WASP establishment found offensive, if not downright pornographic. Brook provides a short, informative sketch of Will Hays, the Presbyterian deacon hired by Hollywood's moguls to head the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Hays's mission was to clean up an industry tainted by news stories of celebrity divorces, affairs, rape, murder, drug use, and bigamy. Despite the deacon's establishment of a production code to govern behavior onscreen and a morals clause in actors' contracts to govern it everywhere else, he failed as well, again due to forces larger than himself. In the end, Hollywood's reputation for depravity had "boosted box-office returns and tourist revenues" (74).No cultural history of Los Angeles would be complete without pausing for film noir, and Brook does not disappoint. "As a challenge to both classical Hollywood cinema and U.S. society," he argues, "and through its associations with Weimar cinema's artistic aspirations, film noir offered exiled filmmakers the nearest thing to dialectical exchange with the culture industry as was possible from within the belly of the beast" (107). He recounts the history of the genre, from H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan's Black Mask magazine of the 1920s to the crime fiction of Dashiell Hammett. He elucidates Raoul Whitfield's novel, Death In a Bowl (1931), whose title refers to the Hollywood Bowl (then less than a decade old) and whose plot features the obligatory private eye, along with a movie star, a director, and a variety of thinly veiled characters modeled after contemporary celebrities and film executives. …


Audience is the main purpose of any media effort which have to be encouraged and then persuaded that media sends messages in accordance with his interest and need. This study aims at studying the most important media needs of audience in watching Persian-speaking channels. 458 residents of Qaemshahr were chosen based on purposeful sampling technique. This study is a survey which incorporates a researcher-developed questionnaire. Non-parametric techniques were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study show that the participants watch entertaining and didactic programs. Moreover, there are significant differences between audiences in terms of their needs. The hierarchy of their needs is emotional, cognitive, social.

 Key words: Satellite channels, use and gratification, audiences, need, motivation.


In the light of new technology health care is now given the opportunity to form a more mobile way of working that would bring about potential gains in terms of efficiency and quality. On the other hand, a more mobile health care also requires a more generous handling of personal information, something that may raise issues in terms of privacy. This study shows that the privacy of the patient requires two things: (i) that the personal information of the patient is handled in a way that generates her an overall positive expected utility and that (ii) the negative expected utility that each risk of an information leakage causes is offset by the expected utility it also makes possible. The first requirement (i) is shown, in comparison with today's way of working, to be met due to the potential gains in efficiency and quality in combination with no increase in the probability of informational leakage or negative effects of such a leakage. The second requirement (ii) was also considered met since no separate risks of information leakage could be identified that was not offset by the gains it made possible in terms of expected utility.


Abstract Cephalometric analysis is an important method in orthodontics for the diagnosis and treatment of patients. It is performed manually in clinical practice, therefore automation of this time consuming task would be of great assistance. In order to provide dentists with such tools, a robust and accurate identification of the necessary landmarks is required. However, poor image quality of lateral cephalograms like low contrast or noise make this task difficult. In this paper, an approach for automatic landmark localization is presented and used to find 19 landmarks in lateral cephalometric images. An initial predicting of the individual landmark locations is done by using a 2-D coupled shape model to utilize the spatial relation between landmarks and other anatomical structures. These predictions are refined with a Hough Forest to determine the final landmark location. The approach achieves competitive performance with a successful detection rate of 70.24% on 250 images for the clinically relevant 2mm accuracy range.


Sensors are an essential component in the control systems of air handling units (AHUs). A biased sensor reading could result in inappropriate control and thereby increased energy consumption or unsatisfied indoor thermal comfort. This paper presents an unsupervised learning based strategy using cluster analysis for AHU sensor fault detection. The historical data recorded from sensors is first pre-processed to reduce the dimensions using principal component analysis (PCA). The clustering algorithmOrdering Points to Identify the Clustering Structure (OPTICS) is then employed to identify the spatial separated data groups (i.e. clusters),which possibly indicate the occurrence of sensor faults. The data points in different clusters are then checked for temporal separation in order to confirm the occurrence of sensor faults. The proposed sensor fault detection strategy is tested and evaluated with the data collected from a simulation system. The results showed that this strategy can detect single and non-simultaneously occurred multiple sensor faults in AHUs. The fault detection results were not strongly affected by the selection of the user defined input parameters required in OPTICS.


A near-IR-emitting sensitizer, boron-chelated tetraarylazadipyrromethane, has been utilized as an electron acceptor to synthesize a series of dyads and triads linked with a well-known electron donor, ferrocene. The structural integrity of the newly synthesized dyads and triads was established by spectroscopic, electrochemical, and computational methods. The DFT calculations revealed a 'molecular clip'-type structure for the triads wherein the donor and acceptor entities were separated by about 14 Å. Differential pulse voltammetry combined with spectroelectrochemical studies have revealed the redox states and estimated the energies of the charge-separated states. Free-energy calculations revealed the charge separation from the covalently linked ferrocene to the singlet excited ADP to yield Fc(+)-ADP(•-) to be energetically favorable. Consequently, the steady-state emission studies revealed quantitative quenching of the ADP fluorescence in all of the investigated dyads and triads. Femtosecond laser flash photolysis studies provided concrete evidence for the occurrence of photoinduced electron transfer in these donor-acceptor systems by providing spectral proof for formation of ADP radical anion (ADP(•-)) which exhibits a diagnostic absorption band in the near-IR region. The kinetics of charge separation and charge recombination measured by monitoring the rise and decay of the ADP(•-) band revealed ultrafast charge separation in these molecular systems. The charge-separation performance of the triads with two ferrocenes and a fluorophenyl-modified ADP macrocycle was found to be superior. Nanosecond transient absorption studies revealed the charge-recombination process to populate the triplet ADP as well as the ground state.


Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, the pine wood nematode (PWN) which causes pine wilt disease, is currently a serious problem in East Asia, including in Japan, Korea, and China. This paper investigates the hyperspectral analysis of pine wilt disease to determine the optimal detection indices for measuring changes in the spectral reflectance characteristics and leaf reflectance in the Pinus thunbergii (black pine) forest on Geoje Island, South Korea. In the present study, we collected the leaf reflectance spectra of pine trees infected with pine wilt disease using a hyperspectrometer. We used 10 existing vegetation indices (based on hyperspectral data) and introduced the green-red spectral area index (GRSAI). We made comparisons between non-infected and infected trees over time. A t-test was then performed to find the most appropriate index for detecting pine wilt disease-infected pine trees. Our main result is that, in most of the infected trees, the reflectance changed in the red and mid-infrared wavelengths within two months after pine wilt infection. The vegetation atmospherically resistant index (VARI), vegetation index green (VIgreen), normalized wilt index (NWI), and GRSAI indices detected pine wilt disease infection faster than the other indices used. Importantly, the GRSAI results showed less variability than the results of the other indices. This optimal index for detecting pine wilt disease is generated by combining red and green wavelength bands. These results are expected to be useful in the early detection of pine wilt disease-infected trees.


Background A dietary imbalance or a disregard for the nutritional needs of children during early childhood can affect their growth. From the age of six months, breast milk is no longer able to meet the energy and micronutrient needs of children; the consumption of adequate complementary foods is therefore essential. Various indicators have been used to assess the quality of children's diets, and the dietary diversity score is a good indicator of children's diets. The objective of this study was to describe the dietary practices of children in rural areas of Moramanga and Morondava, Madagascar, and to identify the determinants of low dietary diversity to prioritize nutritional interventions. Methods We collected dietary data in 2014 on children aged 6–59 months in a study on the determinants of chronic malnutrition using the 24-hour recall method. Data on the characteristics of households and mothers were also collected. We carried out bivariate and multivariate analyses to identify the determinants of low dietary diversity scores for children. Results We included 1824 children: 893 from Moramanga and 931 from Morondava. Approximately 42.1% [95% CI: 39.0–45.4] of the children from Moramanga and 47.6% [95% CI: 44.4–50.8] of those from Morondava had a poorly diversified diet, consisting mainly of foods rich in carbohydrates and poor in meat products. Poor maternal education was associated with a high likelihood of having a non-varied diet in both study areas; the adjusted odds ratios were 2.2 [95% CI: 1.3–3.8] and 4.0 [95% CI: 2.5–6.4] for children from mothers with lower education levels for Moramanga and Morondava, respectively. For children recruited in Morondava, having low household socioeconomic status (adjusted OR: 1.8, 95% CI: 1.2–2.8) and belonging to a household without livestock was associated with a low dietary diversity score (adjusted OR: 1.8, 95% CI 1.2–2.7). Conclusion Our results show the need to improve girls' education, adapt nutrition education programs for mothers based on their level of education, and strengthen poverty reduction programs.


Yield response to insect defoliation is primarily a function of light interception. A series of leaf removal experiments were conducted on an indeterminate chipping variety of Irish potato, Solanum tuberosum L., to simulate late-season insect defoliation injuries. Leaf removal was conducted following a computer simulation model for growing insect populations. Across 2 yr, 50 to 75% of the canopy leaf area was removed during a 10-d period. In 2001, 75% leaf removal resulted in a 14% yield loss (in total potato weight) while in 2002, 50% defoliation resulted in 15% yield loss and 75% leaf removal resulted in 22% yield loss. In addition to yield differences, high defoliation reduced number and weight of large (65-100 mm diam.) tubers and increased the number of small tubers (47-64 mm diam.). Yield loss was significant when defoliated canopies remained below a leaf area index (LAI) of 4.0. Percentage light interception was a better predictor of potato yield than was percentage defoliation. These data are consistent with the light interception hypothesis and show that remaining leaf area is a better predictor of yield potential than percentage defoliation. Thus, treatment decisions based on light interception and LAIs rather than estimates of percentage defoliation should be applicable to indeterminate varieties of potato.


Abstract The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO INNOTECH) developed a competency framework for school heads in Southeast Asia intended to serve as a basis for designing and implementing school head learning programs.  Although SEAMEO INNOTECH has developed one in 2003, a decade had passed and SEAMEO INNOTECH saw the need to update it or even develop a new one so that the framework would continue to be relevant in providing guidance to school heads and in complementing existing competency frameworks developed by the governments of the countries in SEA.   Towards this goal, SEAMEO INNOTECH conducted focus group discussions and consultative workshops using the Appreciative Inquiry approach in nine out of 11 SEAMEO member countries participated by a total of 225 school heads and stakeholders.  The goal was to capture school head competencies common among high-performing school leaders and managers in the region.  The use of AI as an approach brought the school heads and stakeholders back to a journey in time when they were at their best in leading the school towards high performance.  The same approach enabled them to determine what competencies they wish excellent school heads would continue to demonstrate to keep the schools moving forward successfully.  The output was a revised Competency Framework comprised of five competency domains, 16 general competencies, 42 enabling competencies, and 170 indicators.  The five general competencies were ranked by the participants in terms of their importance, frequency of performance, and amount of training school heads would need the most as follows: (1) Strategic Thinking and Innovation, (2) Managerial Leadership, (3) Instructional Leadership, (4) Personal Excellence, (5) Stakeholder Engagement. Keywords: competency framework, DACUM, appreciative inquiry, SEOMEO   INNOTECH


A newly developed pure rolling fatigue test rig with three contact points for bearing balls was used to perform rolling contact fatigue (RCF) tests and the fatigue properties of two kinds of zirconia ceramic balls produced with different materials composition and identical technologies were compared. Ball surfaces were examined after failure with optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. It was identified by tests that the failure mode of zirconia ceramic balls was surface spall. Life tests data, summarized in accordance with the Weibull theory, showed that the life of two kinds of zirconia balls was close, and no remarkable difference in the divergence between the tested two kinds of balls was found


T The paper deals with three major periods of scientific work of Nikolai Alexandrovich Bernstein, the outstanding Russian scientist, the founder the motor activity theory of human and animal. In 2016 is the 120th anniversary of Bernstein´s birth. The first period of his scientific activity, from 1922 when Bernstein started his research at the Central Institute of Labour Protection until the middle of the 30s of the 20th century. By this time, he formulated and published the basic principles and ideas of the annular motion control and sensor correction movements of varying complexity and various performance. The second period ends with the fundamental scientific work «On the Construction of Movements» awarded by the USSR State Prize in 1948. The book sums up Bernstein´s more than twenty years of research in the field of biomechanics and physiology of movement. The paper briefly describes the main assumptions of the three chapters of the book. The first chapter «Movements» reveals the evolutionary ideas about the origin of motor function and shaped the principle of the equation of building movements. The second chapter describes five levels with different functionality in varying degrees involved in the implementation of motor actions. The third chapter of the «Development and Decay» deals with the general laws of occurrence and levels of building movements being signs of confirming the level structure of motion in pathology and standards. In 1950-60-ies of the 20th century Bernstein greatly expanded representation of the functional content and neural substrate levels of building movements, detailed the stages and phases of shaping and improvement of motor skills. The author shows the importance of scientific achievements of N.A. Bernstein for modern research in the psychophysiology of movements.


Image registration is a widely-used technique in analysing large scale datasets that are captured through various imaging modalities and techniques in biomedical imaging such as MRI, X-Rays, etc. These datasets are typically collected from various sites and under different imaging protocols using a variety of scanners. Such heterogeneity in the data collection process causes inhomogeneity or variation in intensity (brightness) and noise distribution. These variations play a detrimental role in the performance of image registration, segmentation and detection algorithms. Classical image registration methods are computationally expensive but are able to handle these artifacts relatively better. However, deep learning-based techniques are shown to be computationally efficient for automated brain registration but are sensitive to the intensity variations. In this study, we investigate the effect of variation in intensity distribution among input image pairs for deep learning-based image registration methods. We find a performance degradation of these models when brain image pairs with different intensity distribution are presented even with similar structures. To overcome this limitation, we incorporate a structural similarity-based loss function in a deep neural network and test its performance on the validation split separated before training as well as on a completely unseen new dataset. We report that the deep learning models trained with structure similarity-based loss seems to perform better for both datasets. This investigation highlights a possible performance limiting factor in deep learning-based registration models and suggests a potential solution to incorporate the intensity distribution variation in the input image pairs. Our code and models are available at https://github.com/hassaanmahmood/DeepIntense.


: Pigbel has been recognised as a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the Papua New Guinea Highlands for over 20 years. The clinical features, epidemiology and pathogenesis of this disease have been elucidated, leading to the development of an effective vaccine (Clostridium perfringens type C beta toxoid) for the prevention of pigbel.


In recent decades critics in several countries have complained that education in agriculture, engineering and medicine has drifted away from an earlier practical orientation, becoming increasingly irrelevant to actual needs. Since existing histories have surprisingly little to say about the causes of such 'academic drift', this book develops a model of institutional dynamics which explains why different institutions have evolved closer to the worlds of 'science' or 'practice'.
 The model is based on a study of German agricultural colleges and the study surveys the evolution of the agricultural curriculum during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it swung back and forth between the poles of science and practice. It makes a comparative analysis of five colleges in the decades around 1900, some of them more science-oriented and others more practical, and follows the gradual transformation over half a century of two colleges in Bavaria which had to compete for recognition and funding. The wider relevance of these findings is also explored, not only for the history of agricultural education in the United States and Britain but also for engineering, medicine and management education, past and present.


Glutamate carboxypeptidase II (GCPII) is robustly overexpressed in both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and is a promising therapeutic target for IBD. We have previously published that systemically or enema administered small molecule GCPII inhibitors have efficacy in multiple mouse colitis models. While this is a highly encouraging activity profile for a candidate IBD drug, an oral dose route would be strongly preferred. Thus, here we develop and characterize a new class of GCPII inhibitors designed to be gut-restricted for oral administration, with the intention of selecting a lead inhibitor for further clinical development.

 Anti-inflammatory secondary bile acids lithocholic acid, deoxycholic acid and ursodeoxycholic acid were conjugated to GCPII inhibitor, 2-PMPA, yielding three novel constructs. These conjugates were screened for oral activity in murine dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) colitis, followed by detailed characterization of the most active inhibitor to: measure GCPII inhibition (IC50), confirm colon target engagement, evaluate plasma and colon pharmacokinetic profiles, compare efficacy versus standard-of-care agents, evaluate mechanisms of anti-inflammatory activity in vivo, confirm efficacy in a second colitis model (IL10-/-), and assess safety in standard preclinical assays.

 The deoxycholic acid 2-PMPA conjugate, IBD3540, was identified as the lead inhibitor (IC50 = 4nM). Oral IBD3540 was robustly efficacious in acute DSS colitis, where it dose-dependently inhibited colon GCPII, attenuated both gross disease activity index and blinded colon histopathology scores, and had improved efficacy relative to both sulfasalazine and tofacitinib when compared head-to-head. Mechanistically, we determined that IBD3540 attenuated pathogenic monocytic inflammation in the colon, as measured by flow cytometry, and also decreased colon pro-inflammatory cytokine content. We confirmed efficacy of IBD3540 in spontaneously occurring, chronic, IL10-/- colitis, where treatment initiated 4 weeks after the onset of colon inflammation improved multiple disease endpoints. Further, in preclinical safety screens, inclusive of CYP inhibition/induction assays, Eurofins SafetyScreen44TM, and AMES/hERG mutagenicity testing, no concerns were identified.

 IBD3540 is a novel, gut-restricted, GCPII inhibitor with potent oral anti-colitis efficacy in both acute (DSS) and chronic (IL10-/-) mouse colitis models and a promising preclinical safety profile. Further development of this mechanistically unique candidate IBD drug is warranted.


We administered the Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and the Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) to 59 university students in the United States and 61university students in India. Students from both countries who scored as dependent, needy lovers tended to also score high on all three subscales of the CAS, suggesting that some persons with failed personal relationships may become attracted to parasocial relationships with celebrities as a safe alternative.  Students from the U.S. who tended to view love as a game, as measured by the LAS game-playing subscale, also tended to strongly admire their favorite celebrity in an intense personal way. Differences and similarities between the Indian and American samples on the CAS and LAS were discussed. The study provides additional evidence that the two problematic levels of the CAS are associated with undesirable attitudes and behaviors.


Common variable immunodeficiency in children Background. Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a primary immunodeficiency that shows considerable heterogeneity. Despite increased knowledge of the genetics of primary immunodeficiencies, the etiology of CVID remains largely unknown. CVID is the second most common primary immunodeficiency disorder after selective IgA deficiency (sIgAD). The majority of the patients presents with symptoms in early adulthood, but a minority of the patients presents with symptoms during childhood. Objective. To study the literature about CVID in children, focusing on clinical and immunological features and known genetic causes. This subgroup is considerably less elucidated in the literature than the adult CVID population. Methods. The project is based on reviews in books and on original and review articles in medical journals. The primary search was performed in PubMed/Medline with the keyword "common variable immunodeficiency", with "pediatric", "children" etc. used as additional keywords. Also, MeSH terms were used to standardize the searches. Due to the limited amount of hits, the search could not be limited any further. The references were written into a Reference Manager database. The project is primarily depending on data obtained from six paediatric studies. Results. The limited number of relevant studies and the low number of paediatric patients in these studies make conclusions somewhat difficult. The children received the CVID diagnosis around the age of 10 years, and the reported median diagnostic delay was a little less than 6 years. The paediatric studies showed no great difference between the sexes (58% males, 42% females, N=71). Only one gene mutation was reported in the studies, i.e. a ring chromosome 18. Developing CVID probably requires a combination of predisposing gene mutation and a trigger factor of unknown nature. The immunoglobulins varied considerably within and between the studies, although one study concluded that 29 of 32 children with CVID (91%) had significantly reduced serum levels of all immunoglobulin classes (IgG, IgA and IgM), and all 32 children had reduced serum IgG. All children with CVID had suffered from recurrent infections. Three studies (N=54) showed that 42 children (78%) had had pneumonia, 41 (76%) sinusitis and 37 (69%) otitis media. The frequency of allergies varied considerably between the studies, suggesting that different criteria have been used. One study showed that autoimmune diseases were present in 10 of 32 children with CVID (31%). The frequency of growth retardation also varied considerably between the studies (6-80%). All studies taken together showed growth retardation in 20 of 71 children (28%). Cancer is particularily reviewed in two studies. Lymphomas were dominating, and 8 of 42 children (19%) had malignancies. Bronchiectasis was altogether found in 30 of 87 children with CVID (34%), but the frequency varied from 12 to 90% between the studies. Several other disease associations were reported, but mostly as single cases. Splenomegaly was found in 20 of 42 children (48%) in two studies. One study (N=32) found enlarged lymph nodes (i.e. diameter >1 cm) locally in 15 children (47%) and diffusely in 10 children (31%). The same study found hepatomegaly in 9 children (28%). The treatment consists of immunoglobulin substitution therapy and antibiotic prophylaxis. The immunoglobulin substitution can be administered intravenously (IVIG) or subcutanously (SCIG). One study (N=32) showed that 27 children (84%) received IVIG, while 3 children (9%) received SCIG. However, SCIG is gaining popularity. The long-term survival is considerably reduced for CVID patients at all ages, compared to the normal population. The prognosis depends upon the clinical phenotype. Conclusion. CVID has been considerably less studied in children than in adults. The relevant reports are few, the number of patients described are small, and much of the findings reported are difficult to compare. It would be of considerable interest to perform a retrospective study on Norwegian paediatric CVID patients. 4 Vanlig variabel immundefekt hos barn


This paper presents a new methodology to measure the electromagnetic (EM) field using RFID tags, overcoming the limitations in dynamic range arisen by the conventional excitation of RFID tags. The methodology consists in the use of two different signals when interrogating the RFID tag. The first signal is in charge of powering up and triggering the response of the RFID tag, while the second one, with lower power, performs the EM-field measurement. With this approach the dynamic range of the EM-field measurement is increased up to the sensitivity of the receiver, and additionally the non-linearities in the measured field distribution are completely removed.


This thesis presents color hand gesture segmentation for static images with complex background along with tracking and detection of hand gesture from video sequence. This thesis consists of two works: 1) Static. 2) Dynamic. In the first part, aim is to automatically segment the hand gesture from a given image under different luminance conditions and complex backgrounds. The luminance value affects the color component of an image which leads to increase the noise level in the segmented image. This paper proposes a combined model of two color spaces i.e., HSI, YCbCr and morphological operations with labeling to improve the segmentation performance of color hand gesture from complex backgrounds in terms of completeness and correctness. The proposed color model separates the chrominance and luminance components of the image. The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated through simulation and the experime ntal results reveal that proposed method provides better performance accuracy compared to the HSI and YCbCr methods individually in terms of correctness and completeness. In the second part, aim is to automatic detection and tracking of hand gesture from v ideo sequence under different backgrounds. It involves three steps: 1). Hand tracking 2). Hand detection 3). Hand identification.Here all the simulations are done in MATLAB 10 environment.


What is the distinctive contribution of political science to the study of legislative institutions? And what has the study of such entities brought to political research? This paper argues that the answer to these questions is twofold. First, students of legislatures have amply demonstrated that legislative institutions do matter for the daily lives of modern societies – a statement that, as established in a first section, was far from evident in classical studies of political regimes, systems or elites. Second, we argue that legislative studies have actively contributed to our understanding of institutional change and strategic behaviour, arguably two of the most crucial areas of inquiry in political science.


The Wuhan Pre/Post-Natal Twin Birth Registry (WPTBR) is one of the largest twin birth registries with comprehensive medical information in China. It recruits women from the first trimester of pregnancy and their twins from birth. From January 2006 to May 2016, the total number of twins enrolled in WPTBR is 13,869 twin pairs (27,553 individuals). The WPTBR initiated the Wuhan Twin Birth Cohort (WTBC). The WTBC is a prospective cohort study carried out through incorporation of three samples. The first one comprises 6,920 twin pairs, and the second one, 6,949 twin pairs. Both are population-based samples linked to the WPTBR and include pre- and post-natal information from WPTBR. The second sample includes neonatal blood spots as well. Using a hospital-based approach, we recently developed a third sample with a target enrolment of 1,000 twin pairs and their mothers. These twins are invited, via their parents, to participate in a periodic health examination from the first trimester of pregnancy to 18 years. Biological samples are collected initially from the mother, including blood, urine, cord blood, cord, amniotic fluid, placenta, breast milk and meconium, and vaginal secretions, and later from the twins, including meconium, stool, urine, and blood. This article describes the design, recruitment, follow-up, data collection, and measures, as well as ongoing and planned analyses at the WTBC. The WTBC offers a unique opportunity to follow women from prenatal to postnatal, as well as follow-up of their twins. This cohort study will expand the understanding of genetic and environmental influences on pregnancy and twins' development in China.


Over the past decades, Colombia has suffered complex social problems related to illicit crops, including forced displacement, violence, and environmental damage, among other consequences for vulnerable populations. Considerable effort has been made in the regulation of illicit crops, predominantly Cannabis sativa, leading to advances such as the legalization of medical cannabis and its derivatives, the improvement of crops, and leaving an open window to the development of scientific knowledge to explore alternative uses. It is estimated that C. sativa can produce approximately 750 specialized secondary metabolites. Some of the most relevant due to their anticancer properties, besides cannabinoids, are monoterpenes, sesquiterpenoids, triterpenoids, essential oils, flavonoids, and phenolic compounds. However, despite the increase in scientific research on the subject, it is necessary to study the primary and secondary metabolism of the plant and to identify key pathways that explore its great metabolic potential. For this purpose, a genome-scale metabolic reconstruction of C. sativa is described and contextualized using LC-QTOF-MS metabolic data obtained from the leaf extract from plants grown in the region of Pesca-Boyaca, Colombia under greenhouse conditions at the Clever Leaves facility. A compartmentalized model with 2101 reactions and 1314 metabolites highlights pathways associated with fatty acid biosynthesis, steroids, and amino acids, along with the metabolism of purine, pyrimidine, glucose, starch, and sucrose. Key metabolites were identified through metabolomic data, such as neurine, cannabisativine, cannflavin A, palmitoleic acid, cannabinoids, geranylhydroquinone, and steroids. They were analyzed and integrated into the reconstruction, and their potential applications are discussed. Cytotoxicity assays revealed high anticancer activity against gastric adenocarcinoma (AGS), melanoma cells (A375), and lung carcinoma cells (A549), combined with negligible impact against healthy human skin cells.


Diabetes mellitus (DM) is highly comorbid with severe dengue diseases; however, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Patients with DM have a 1.61-fold increased risk of developing dengue hemorrhagic fever. In search of host factors involved in dengue virus (DENV) infection, we used high-glucose (HG) treatment and showed that HG increased viral protein expression and virion release but had no effects on the early stages of viral infection. After HG stimulation, DENV–firefly luciferase–transfected assay and cellular replicon–based assay indicated increased viral translation, whereas using the glucose uptake inhibitor phloretin blocked this effect. HG treatment increased the translational factor poly(A)-binding protein (PABP) in a glucose transporter–associated, PI3K/AKT-regulated manner. Silencing PABP significantly decreased HG-prompted virion production. HG enhanced the formation of the PABP–eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4G complex, which is regulated by protein–disulfide isomerase. Hyperglycemia increased PABP expression, mortality rate, viral protein expression, and viral loads in streptozotocin-induced DM mice. Overall, hyperglycemic stress facilitates DENV infection by strengthening PABP-mediated viral translation.


Purpose: To introduce a small incision technique of fascia lata (FL) harvesting for frontalis suspension blepharoptosis procedure. Methods: A skin incision was made in a line between the lateral condyle of the tibia and the anterior superior iliac crest, starting 4-5 cm above the knee and extending upward 2-2.5 cm. Approximately 8 cm superior to the first incision, a second skin incision was made with the same length. The FL was dissected from subcutaneous tissue from 1 cm superior to superior border of upper incision to 1 cm inferior to inferior border of lower incision. A 15 mm x 5-10 mm strip of FL was excised. The fascial defect was left open. Subcutaneous and deep layers were closed with three 4-0 plain catgut sutures and the skin with subcuticular 5-0 prolene sutures. Results: The technique was used in 22 patients from 4 to 47 years of age (Mean: 18.29±14.20) for 34 frontalis sling procedures. Mean follow-up time was 6.17±3.21 (3-16) months. Wound hematoma ( 1 /22, 4.5%), wound discharge ( 2 /22, 9%), pain at rest (100%, up to 4 days), pain on walking ( 20 /22, 90%; up to 3 weeks), limping ( 13 /22, 59.1%; up to 7 days) were the main postoperative complications. No significant skin scar was observed and none of the patients needed scar revision. Conclusion: Small incision FL harvesting procedure is a good alternative method when the FL stripper is not available.


We use longitudinal individual wage and employment data in France and the United States to investigate the effect of changes in the real minimum wage rate on an individual's employment status. We focus on workers employed at wages close enough to the minimum in a reference year as to be illegal in an adjacent comparison year as a result of movements in the real minimum wage. We find that movements in the American real minimum wage are associated with no employment effects, whereas movements in the cost of French minimum wage workers are associated with very strong negative employment effects. Our analysis is based upon identifying the direct effect of the change in the real minimum wage rate on exits from (entry into) employment when the real minimum wage rate increases (respectively, decreases) and identifying the heterogeneity in the behavior of our treatment and control groups using a pseudoexperimental contrast. We relate the difference-in-difference estimator directly to demand and supply elasticities for the two groups.


Genomics![Figure][1]

Mites and humans have a long evolutionary history

PHOTO: ANDREW SYRED/SCIENCE SOURCE

Like it or not, skin mites can inhabit our skin. They live—mostly harmlessly—deep in our pores and sebaceous glands. To better understand their genetic diversity, Palopoli et al. took skin samples from 70 people living in the United States with a variety of ancestries. Genetic sequencing of their mitochondria allowed the scientists to calculate the rate of the mites' evolution. This revealed an evolutionary timeline for the mite variants and, therefore, of their human hosts. The results show that mites have been associates of humans since we evolved. Specifically, people of African descent have the greatest mite strain variance and those of European descent, the least, with a range of distinct geographically distributed variants in between.

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 , 15958 (2015).

 [1]: pending:yes


On 15 December 1958, the negotiations over an industrial free trade area (FTA) in Western Europe, which had been conducted in Paris in the Maudling Committee of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) since October 1957, finally broke down. One month previously, on 14 November, the French Information Minister Jacques Soustelle had declared publicly that the FTA was unacceptable to France without extensive tariff harmonisation and substantial compensatory concessions in agriculture – all of which, however, were unobtainable in the negotiations. At that time the British government was already aware of the final French decision against the FTA. During a meeting in London on 6 November with the British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd and the leader of the British delegation in the Paris negotiations Reginald Maudling, the French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville had rejected the FTA plan. The following day Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once more tried to persuade Charles de Gaulle in a private letter to continue the negotiations, but the French President merely replied in a very matter-of-fact tone one day after Soustelle's statement.


Departments of economics in Australia have not fared well recently. Many have been closed, merged or relocated, their staff made redundant while economics degrees and majors have been eliminated. This article tries to understand why academic economics appears to be withering in this country, or at least increasingly concentrated in Group of Eight (Go8) universities, and what if anything can still be done to preserve what is left.


Objectives To evaluate whether the quality of implementation of a water, sanitation, and hygiene program called SHEWA-B and delivered by UNICEF to 20 million people in rural Bangladesh was associated with health behaviors and sanitation infrastructure access. Methods We surveyed 33 027 households targeted by SHEWA-B and 1110 SHEWA-B hygiene promoters in 2011 and 2012. We developed an implementation quality index and compared the probability of health behaviors and sanitation infrastructure access in counterfactual scenarios over the range of implementation quality. Results Forty-seven percent of households (n = 14 622) had met a SHEWA-B hygiene promoter, and 47% of hygiene promoters (n = 527) could recall all key program messages. The frequency of hygiene promoter visits was not associated with improved outcomes. Higher implementation quality was not associated with better health behaviors or infrastructure access. Outcomes differed by only 1% to 3% in scenarios in which all clusters received low versus high implementation quality. Conclusions SHEWA-B did not meet UNICEF's ideal implementation quality in any area. Improved implementation quality would have resulted in marginal changes in health behaviors or infrastructure access. This suggests that SHEWA-B's design was suboptimal for improving these outcomes.


This course presents an overview of modern Bayesian strategies for solving imaging inverse problems. We will start by introducing the Bayesian statistical decision theory framework underpinning Bayesian analysis, and then explore efficient numerical methods for performing Bayesian computation in large-scale settings. We will pay special attention to high-dimensional imaging models that are log-concave w.r.t. the unknown image, related to so-called "convex imaging problems". This will provide an opportunity to establish connections with the convex optimisation and machine learning approaches to imaging, and to discuss some of their relative strengths and drawbacks. Examples of topics covered in the course include: efficient stochastic simulation and optimisation numerical methods that tightly combine proximal convex optimisation with Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques; strategies for estimating unknown model parameters and performing model selection, methods for calculating Bayesian confidence intervals for images and performing uncertainty quantification analyses; and new theory regarding the role of convexity in maximum-a-posteriori and minimum-mean-square-error estimation. The theory, methods, and algorithms are illustrated with a range of mathematical imaging experiments.